Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, you would be familiar with an old story about a dog that waits every morning to chase a car, and every day that car goes by, the dog chases it and races out, barking furiously, as it goes past. This goes on for weeks, months. It maybe even goes on for nine years. Then one day the dog actually catches the car, and he looks around. He has the car in his mouth, but he doesn't know what to do with it now. That old story is a metaphor for this government. This Prime Minister and this cabinet are the dog that caught the car. They barked, they yapped and they carried on for years about everything they would do one day, and then they won government and had no idea what to do next.

Every day in government is an opportunity to improve the lives of all Australians, which is why Australians are so appalled by this government's divided and distracted approach—a government that completely wasted its first 18 months pursuing a deeply flawed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice proposal that was never a priority for the majority of Australians. Even today, when the Prime Minister stood at the dispatch box and ran through his supposed achievements, there was not one mention of the word 'Voice'. There was not one mention of the very issue he spent 18 months and hundreds of millions of dollars pursuing. But now they have a new No. 1 priority, and judging by the talking points being regurgitated every day by those opposite they have finally discovered a cost-of-living crisis. They've finally bumped into it.

Now, there are a lot of things in the world that can spin. A Ferris wheel can spin. Carousels, windmills—they'll spin. Planets are all spinning around. But the Minister for Climate Change and Energy is the biggest spinner our nation has seen since the late great Shane Warne. This minister is spinning harder than a redhead on a skid pan. He just won't be honest with Australians. He can't be honest when it comes to telling the truth to the Australian public about his plan to introduce fuel efficiency standards, which will drive up the cost of Australia's favourite cars.

Surely Australians have a right to know what the impacts will be from Labor's plan to introduce a new tax on family cars and utes. Surely Australian business owners have a right to know—like Anthony, a multigeneration car dealer in my electorate, who wrote to me in relation to this government's plan for new vehicle efficiency standards. Anthony said in his email: 'This proposal further unfairly disadvantages small rural and regional communities when compared to our metro counterparts due to the vehicle mix. I can't see our customers magically thinking a Yaris or Corolla will be a substitute for their Prado LandCruiser or HiLux.'

On Anthony's estimates, some of the most popular Toyotas that he sells through his yard will cost his customers more than $10,000 extra under this disastrous plan by the minister for climate change. And who are these customers? They're farmers. They are tradespeople. They're small-business owners. Some of them are grey nomads, travelling around, exploring our beautiful country. But the biggest group of all is everyday Australian families, who need their SUVs and larger vehicles, particularly in our regional communities.

For the life of me I can't understand why, if the minister is so confident about his policy, if he's so adamant he's on the right track, if he's so sure of himself—because he doesn't lack self-confidence, it's fair to say—this minister won't just come to the dispatch box and be honest with all Australians who are worried that they will have to pay more when they purchase a new vehicle in the future. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, why do the Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues think it's a good idea to increase the prices of our highest selling vehicles?

This Prime Minister made quite a fuss during the election campaign about what he said would be a new, open and transparent government under his leadership.

An opposition member: His word is his bond.

His word is his bond, I'm reminded by my colleagues. So why won't the Prime Minister order the minister for climate change to simply release the economic modelling regarding the increased cost to purchase Australia's favourite cars under his government's fuel efficiency standard? Surely the Prime Minister understands that hiding the modelling makes the Australian public feel they are being misled.

There are those opposite who, when I've raised this topic before, have laughed and tried to comfort themselves a little bit that this is a coalition scare campaign. I say to those opposite: if that's the way you feel, if that helps you sleep at night, that's good for you, and keep thinking like that, because the member for McMahon, the minister for climate change, is really only famous for one quote in his entire political career. The member for McMahon said, in the lead-up to the 2019 election—he was bold, he was upfront—to Australians: 'If you don't like our policies, don't vote for us.' And the Australian people warmly welcomed his advice.

Let me assure those opposite who are new to this place: you have every chance in the world of becoming a one-term member of parliament if you back this minister's extreme plan to increase the cost of SUVs, people movers and other vehicles. Families who are struggling with the increased cost of living don't like this policy and they don't like the extreme direction the minister is taking our nation in.

I am concerned that the Prime Minister and the minister are simply hiding the truth from the Australian people, from the Australian motoring community, when it comes to this policy. But perhaps the worst aspect of the policy is the way it was designed—in fact, it actively discriminates against and targets our regional Australian communities and their way of life, because it is regional Australians who are more likely to purchase those larger vehicles—because of the nature of our roads in our regional communities, because of the likelihood we'll be towing boats or caravans or trailers or horse floats and because of the range that we can achieve with a single tank of fuel with those vehicles. Obviously it can be a long way between fuel stations in regional communities, but it's even further between electric charging points.

Why would we on this side actually be surprised, though, that this government, the Albanese government, is targeting regional Australians? It's been the pattern of behaviour throughout the last 22 months. This is a government that has abolished regional grants programs, has cut regional transport projects and has failed to fund further rounds of some of the most successful programs initiated by the previous coalition government—just because it wasn't their idea.

If you see a crane, a bulldozer or a grader working on a major project anywhere in regional Australia today, I can assure you of one thing: this minister, the minister for infrastructure and transport, had nothing to do with it whatsoever. After almost two years, we're still waiting for this minister to deliver a single project—to even announce a single project—under her Growing Regions fund. The minister hasn't started work on a single project of her own, but she has led a conga line of hypocrisy, parading through regional Australia—ministers, senators out there taking credit for projects they'd had nothing to do with; they were out there wandering around. They come in here and they spout their lines about a decade of inaction, but then they rush out to cut the ribbons, rush out to unveil the plaques and the projects that were fully funded by the previous government. The member for Barker and I well know that the most dangerous place to stand in Australia today is between a Labor minister and a ribbon-cutting event! It is a terrifying place to be, particularly when they had absolutely nothing to do with delivering the project in the first place.

The hypocrisy of those opposite, in failing to deliver regional infrastructure, is most obvious in two particular funding programs: the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program and the Stronger Communities Program. If you look on their Facebook pages and Instagram—and the minister for local government is one of the repeat offenders; if you look on her social media, you will find plain examples of taking great credit for the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program and the Stronger Communities Program. They love these coalition programs—so much that they cut them both. This government have also cut the Roads of Strategic Importance Program, the Regional Airports Program and the Building Better Regions Fund—and they wonder why we think they've got it in for regional Australia.

This is a dog of a government. This is a government that is pursuing extreme policies which hurt regional Australian families. Sadly, right in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, this government is determined to put more pressure on our household budgets. This government is putting more pressure on volunteers to fundraise for local projects because it doesn't respect regional Australians. This government simply doesn't trust our local communities to make good decisions with their own money.

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