Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Mayo; thank you for your contributions, Member for Nicholls and Member for Makin. I'm going to strike a partisan note and say that I think I'm the only speaker on this motion who is opposed to it. The reason I'm opposed to it is because the government is already doing all the things that this motion speaks to. But also, I am opposed to it because we play a very dangerous game when we start pointing fingers at foreign investors for problems that we have with schemes that we have established. It is, in manner and form, exactly why we end up with some of the things we end up with in a democracy, where it is more convenient to blame those who are not here, who cannot answer back, who do not have a voice in this debate, for problems that we have largely created ourselves.

The member for Mayo rightly speaks to Australia being one of the driest continents in the world and how we have experienced one of the worst droughts in our history. The government has responded to that. It provided $8 billion in assistance and concessional loans to primary producers. No-one in this country bemoans the fact that we did this at a very important time for primary producers. The nature of that assistance was the Farm Household Allowance and the Rural Financial Counselling Service, which cost Australian taxpayers $65½ million. That was done through the Drought Community Support Initiative. We provided $3,000 payments to farmers, to farm workers, to suppliers, to contractors who were facing hardship due to the drought. We provided $29.9 million for mental health and wellbeing support, two-year interest-free drought loans for farmers, tax relief, the provision of 100 gigalitres of water for fodder production. We released $300 million for the Drought Communities Program extension, redirecting $200 million from round 4 of the Building Better Regions Fund to drought affected communities and, in addition to that, $138.9 million from the Roads to Recovery Program for drought affected communities. In addition, we piloted $7 million for small business support programs, providing two-year interest-free loans for agriculture dependent small businesses. We provided $15 million support for schools and early childcare centres and we funded $15 million for Tackling Tough Times Together grants.

It was right and appropriate that we do this, but how many other businesses in Australia get that sort of support? How many times have Australian taxpayers stood up for people like that? The people in my electorate, in my part of Sydney, when the dollar drops by 50 cents and their cost of production goes up 100 per cent, don't get that sort of support. When they find they can't get raw materials because some foreign government has decided to close their ports, the Australian taxpayer and the Australian government doesn't step in to assist them in the same way that this parliament time and time again steps in to help Australian farmers. We included a $5 billion Future Drought Fund so this doesn't have to go on again and again and again.

These water rights are incredibly important. They were started by the Howard government, they were supported by the then Labor government, but no-one in this debate has yet spoken about the waste and mismanagement of our water resources in Australia by local councils. No-one stands here in this parliament and holds them to account. How many times have we seen, in particular in regional and rural New South Wales, that the person who throws the chlorine tablets into the Olympic pool is also the same person in charge of managing the water resources for a local town? Australians, especially those in rural and regional areas, deserve better. We must demand better for them. We talk about waste of water, but no-one wants to talk about the environmental flows that have led to the Lower Lakes that have seen 800 gigalitres evaporate, as the member for Nicholls pointed out. That sort of waste and mismanage is okay, apparently, because we put 'environment' in the front of it. But, no, no, it is far easier to blame foreign investors.

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