Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My electorate is a big piece of western New South Wales. When I talk about rural and regional Australia, I often make the point—as I know you do, because you're my neighbour and friend—that 85 per cent of Australians live within 50 kilometre of the coast. That's exactly where the member for Hunter, the member for Whitlam, the member for Wakefield and, no doubt, the other members speaking in this debate live—less than 50 kilometres from the coast.

Mr Champion interjecting—

It may be a few kilometres either way, member for Wakefield. But the point I make, Deputy Speaker—

Mr Rob Mitchell interjecting—

Please don't interject. The point I make is that, to represent rural and regional Australians, you have to have lived a life in rural and regional Australia. The way the Labor Party talks about agriculture and regional and rural issues, as something separate from the rest of Australia, always amuses me. I'm a rural Liberal and I believe in uniting Australia, because when we get the city to take on the country's views as their own, as they do, then we really will achieve the best for our nation. But Labor tiptoes nervously around this space because they don't really understand it. Their members have not lived their lives in rural and regional Australia.

The important thing I really want to get across in the MPI is: why on earth would Labor bring it on on a day like today? Today is very important for my constituents. It's vital, because today there is a disallowance motion sitting in the Senate about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. You would understand that, Mr Deputy Speaker Coulton; you represent part of the basin. If that motion lapses, then the New South Wales and Victorian governments have said that the plan will, in effect, fall over. What's Labor doing about this plan that they signed on to in a bipartisan sense, the plan that was half theirs and half ours, the plan that, between us, we negotiated with our rural communities who suffered such great pain, and still do?

The people listening to this broadcast will listen to the to and fro. But now they can actually be certain that Labor is prepared to trade off rural and regional Australia for its own base political advantage. That's happening right here today, because, if by six o'clock tonight this motion lapses, that effectively cruels what we call the northern basin review. That was a scientific review undertaken under the auspices of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, not government, which actually made a very commonsense recommendation. It was signed on to by Labor, but now they're walking away from it. Why are they? It's very simple: because they're appealing to just one seat—the seat of Batman in Melbourne.

I know that, privately, the member for Watson, the opposition spokesperson, has indicated—because he's actually a decent fellow and he's honest about this—that it is a political exercise. What else could it be for an entire party to reject its own policy on something as important to every Australian as the Murray-Darling Basin Plan? That's exactly what they're doing with the one small seat of Batman, with people whom we love, but they don't really visit our areas and they don't understand what's happening in the Murray and Murrumbidgee valleys. I do. I live there. I represent them, and I know that right now they cannot believe what politicians in Canberra, in the Labor Party, are going to do to them. They expect it from the Greens. It's the Greens' philosophical base and they understand that, but to see the Labor Party doing this to them is particularly extraordinary. Remember this, everyone listening to this debate: if you want to trust the outcomes policy-wise for people in rural and regional Australia, there isn't an alternative to the Liberal and National parties. We meet as rural and regional Liberals, and there are about 30 of us. I know that, with the Nationals, there are another 20. That's a substantial proportion of all of our members. All of us are kicking goals for our people. All of us are conscious that roads, bridges, child care, education, access to university, access to TAFE, access to skills and everything that makes life in our part of the world so special is understood intrinsically and delivered by people who, as I say, have lived their lives in this environment.

I must focus on the NBN because the member for Whitlam has raised that, and he and I are both on the committee. Remember, this was a government that prioritised access to the NBN for people who weren't disadvantaged, and they are people in rural and regional Australia. So we're getting the NBN in rural and regional Australia before many people are in the cities. The entire rollout will be completed by 2020, but we're getting it first because this is a government that understands where the needs are. (Time expired)

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