Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

Typical Labor speech: laced with sarcasm, dripping in sanctimony. The member for Spence can do so much better than that. This morning he and I were at the CropLife agriculture industry business breakfast after the budget, and he introduced me to Angelo Demasi, from his electorate. Angelo is the chief executive officer of the South Australian Produce Market and somebody who is committed to making sure that there are jobs and skills in the electorate of Spence. I commend Angelo for his efforts and what he's doing for the horticulture industry.

I would urge and encourage the member for Spence to be a little bit more positive. He'll clip and paste that onto his social media platforms, and the unions will just love it. That's what the Labor members do: they come in here and they talk up the unions because those are their big donors. This comes from somebody who was a member of a union for 21 years, so I understand, recognise and appreciate the roles that unions do play, but it's all about balance.

This bill, the Jobs and Skills Australia Amendment Bill 2023, is about Labor yet again appeasing their union mates. In this, we're going to have three members representing employee organisations—that is union officials; that is union mates. That's what Labor is all about. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and the unions are calling the tune. We know that. Everything about Labor is about appeasing their union mates, and so much the pity, I say as the member for Spence leaves the chamber.

Jobs and skills are important. The member for New England sits beside me. He and I were very disappointed at the budget announcement last night about the withdrawal of funds for dams, for water infrastructure. If there's one thing that can improve jobs and skills in this nation, boost agriculture and floodproof the nation, particularly inland Australia, it is water infrastructure. Funding for dams at Dungowan, Peel River and Tamworth was withdrawn—totally taken away. Why? Because Labor doesn't believe in building dams.

At Wyangala Dam, we're trying to raise that wall by 10 metres to provide an additional 650 gigalitres of capacity. What will 650 gigalitres do? It will floodproof Forbes. It will floodproof the Newell Highway, which was cut off, in the last major flood before this one, for weeks and weeks and weeks. It's one of the most important, busiest and most productive arterial highways in inland Australia, yet these days every time the Lachlan floods, it seems, the Newell Highway is cut off.

The state of that road is abysmal. I appreciate that the minister for infrastructure, Catherine King, went out with the then New South Wales minister for regional roads, Sam Farraway, and provided some funding for Newell upgrades. That's good—not nearly enough, but it was welcomed. But Rose Jackson, the then shadow, now Minister for Water in New South Wales—

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