Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's quite staggering to stand here in this House and listen to the Labor Party preach about what it would like to do for our drought-affected farmers. We have to be very careful, when it comes to the Labor Party, not to listen to what they say but to look at what they do and look at what they did in the lead-up to the election when they thought they were going to be the incoming government post 18 May. They were the ones who then were shaping water policy—you would not believe this—to actually make it worse than it was for our drought-affected farmers. This is the most incredibly heartless series of policies that were put out there in the months leading up to the election. As if our dairy farmers and our croppers and our horticulturists were already without enough water to run their businesses, here was the Labor Party putting out this policy.

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It is totally disingenuous of the Labor Party to say that talk about the bill we're passing is offensive. What we really have to look at is what really matters: the actions of a political party. The Labor Party, in the lead-up to the last election, brought out some of the most horrendous actions. What they showed the Australian farmers, what they showed the people who were needing more, cheaper water, was that all of their policies were directed towards making the cost of water more expensive, more unaffordable than what it already was.

As farmers were walking off their farms, as suspected farmers were committing suicide, here was the Labor Party putting out its water policies to take to the elections, which were all about taking more water out of agriculture for the environment. They were making the problem worse. They were making the heartfelt pain, agony and sorrow of our farmers worse, and deliberately making it worse. They were not making it worse for something inconsequential: 'We're trying to help the dairy farmers so we're going to make it harder on the horticulturists.' No, they're just making it harder on all of the farmers up and down the Murray-Darling Basin network.

This is what the Labor Party did. This is what they set their sights on achieving—making all the agony associated with having to walk off your farm, walk into a situation where you're going to be bankrupt for five years, where you can't pay your bills and you can't afford to buy a house. You can't do anything. You're on the verge of a total mental breakdown. The Labor Party thought this was a good group of Australians to go after. This was a good group of Australians to make it harder for them to get ahead, to live their lives. This is a good group they can inflict some more pain on by water policies that are all in favour of the fish populations, up and down the Murray-Darling Basin, but they're not too happy to associate and assist with any of the 2.3 million people living up and down the Murray-Darling Basin.

The member for Hunter stood up here in the House three months ago and came up with the idea that he'd like to introduce a floor price for the dairy industry, knowing full well it was an absolute and total hoax.

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