Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

After 2½ years, regional Australians are worse off under this government, and those opposite have no understanding about what regional and rural Australia are about. They just have no concept. They wouldn't know a farmer if they fell over one—although they do spend a bit of time trying to trip them over.

This is a little lesson for those opposite: regional Australians provide the food and fibre, not Woolies and Coles; they don't grow it out the back. Farmers have provided blood, sweat and tears and that's how you get the food. The wild-caught fishing industry is how we get fresh fish on our plates, and the grazing industry—that beautiful hunk of rump steak; how good is that? Well, that comes from a grazier. That actually comes from a cow, not from one of those plastic packets in Woolworths. And the mining industry produces so much.

But rural and regional Australians do so much more than just do the jobs and produce food. They create the wealth. In my region alone, $15 billion from royalties is generated from coal—the resources minister should actually know this—and what happens with that? That money goes towards our police, our fire and our ambulance, all generated within the regions. From the export earnings, billions of dollars goes towards our NDIS, defending our country and securing our borders, all created in the regions.

Then there is the sugar industry. In my electorate of Dawson I have the biggest sugar-cane growing area in the whole of Australia. Over 80 per cent of that sugar is exported, again creating export earnings. And horticulture: in my home town of Bowen, half a billion dollars worth of horticultural crop provides food to feed this country as well as provide export earnings. You would think that, with all those contributions from regional Australians, some money, or a little bit, would come back, wouldn't you? That's what you'd do: you'd give some money back to those that are providing so much.

What has this hopeless one-term Albanese Labor government done in 2½ years? They've made things more difficult. They've cut funding to the Bruce Highway. The Bruce Highway is the main road, the main highway, from Brisbane to Cairns. It's about 1,600 kilometre long, and that's how farmers get their produce to market and how people get their supplies up from the city and how our families get home safely. What have the Albanese Labor government done? They've cut the funding. Forever it's been an 80-20 arrangement, with 80 per cent provided by the federal government and 20 per cent by the state government. But that's been cut to fifty-fifty. So now the work is not getting done. So now we have a long conga line of potholes, and it's not as safe for my people to drive on.

And what about the fishing industry? The Labor government has decimated the fishing industry with the ban of gillnets in order to 'save the Great Barrier Reef'. Can you imagine having a net on the reef? It would get tangled up, and you'd never get it back. Gillnets go absolutely nowhere near the Great Barrier Reef. This was just a stroke of a pen; it was just a silly idea to once again appease their buddies the Greens, but it has decimated the fishing industry—the fishers and also the chandlery shops, the ice works, the boatbuilders, the whole lot.

What about the introduction of a biosecurity levy? How's this one: the Labor government has brought in a biosecurity levy into make sure they have to pay for the rest of their overseas competitors! No-one else in the world does that. But the Labor government brought that in. They have absolutely no idea.

They introduced the car and family ute tax, another blight on regional Australians. The vehicles that we need to drive—LandCruiser, Rangers, HiLuxs and those sorts of things—have gone up in price. But here's a newsflash for those opposite: electric vehicles can't carry the weight, they can't overload and they can't cover the distance. But, again, it's another attack on regional Australians.

They are driving up power prices. Power prices are going through the roof, and this was after the promise of a $275 reduction. They made this promise 97 times. I cannot believe it.

The Albanese Labor government must stop demonising regional Australians. Without regional Australia, Australians starve and Australia stops.

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