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

We've just had five minutes from the member for Moreton, who once famously said, 'If a country road hasn't had a lick of bitumen on it for 70 years, why would you bitumen it now?' That's what he thought about a country dirt road that was getting an upgrade under the Nationals in government. The other thing I'll take him up on is colour-coded spreadsheets. The only trouble with the colour-coded spreadsheets under this mob is that they're all red; they're all the same colour, and they're all Labor. I commend the member for Gippsland for bringing forward this motion on the Stronger Communities program. When it comes to accountability, what could be more accountable than $150,000 per electorate, with community members having a say in where their federal funds go? Well, that's what I did. I called together a wonderful team—believe it or not, I had some Labor members on that team—to help me decide where the funding was going to go in some of the grants programs that we were rolling out across the Riverina and central west.

I doubt whether those opposite could run a chook raffle. The member for Gippsland and the member for Mallee have probably been in a pub on a Friday night and seen chook raffles happening. You have to have a lot of chook raffles, which many of our volunteer organisations put on, to raise the sorts of funds they need for the sort of spending they're going to do: just to buy a photocopier, just to put a coat of paint on a set of goalposts, just to put a disabled parking sign in a car park—all of those things. Indeed, that's how, in the past, they had to do it—until the coalition came along and thought up this program, which is very responsible, very accountable and very appropriate. What is has done is provide those community organisations with funds so they didn't have to go out every Friday night and run chook raffles in the pub to raise funds for their valuable organisations. Let me tell you, the Stronger Communities Program has both changed lives and saved lives. We heard earlier about providing defibrillator machines to sporting clubs and for other volunteer organisations. I know that even in my own electorate the Ganmain Grong Grong Matong Lions Football and Netball Club—and it's important that I get that name right, because I think it was the Sydney Morning Herald that once called it the 'Ganmain Grong Grong mating lions'; it is Matong not 'mating', important distinction there!—had a barbecue area provided under this program that cost $7,500. It's pretty tough for those three wonderful little towns in the Riverina and Farrer electorates—Grong Grong is actually in Farrer, just across the electorate border—to come up with the sorts of funds that are going to provide for that necessary amenity which provides not only a barbecue for the footballers and netballers but also, during bushfires and during those other moments of community distress, a central point in the town to talk about their mental health, to talk about their struggles, and to talk about being and living in a rural community.

I'll go through some: Trundle has its War Memorial School of Arts' hall upgrade; Illabo Sporting Bodies Incorporated upgraded their clubhouse; West Wyalong has renewed the commemorative walkway honouring our wonderful veterans—those who have served and those who have sacrificed in wars past and conflicts present; in Coolamon Shire, Beckom has a mobile skate park and pump track; at Parkes, the Currajong Disability Services has had building modifications for disability access, making sure that everybody is included when they hold community events; Woodstock, which is just a little community has had improvements to Lions Park; and at Cootamundra Men's Shed—and we all love our men's sheds—there was the building of disabled parking. That was a $10,000 grant. You can imagine the men's shed trying to raise funds out of fixing chairs and fixing stools to get enough funding to put disabled parking access into the important men's shed at Cootamundra. I commend this motion. I thank the member for Gippsland for bringing it to the House, because it is important. Why the program has been stopped is anyone's guess. No doubt, somebody in the Labor dirt unit knows. They probably thought it was getting votes for the National Party—how wrong they were! It's stopping good people in regional areas from getting the funding they deserve.

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