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

Every day in this place it becomes clearer and clearer that regional Australians are simply worse off under this spineless Labor government. I have noted before the remarkable similarities between the new, modern Labor Party and jellyfish. It's quite extraordinary. It is a scientific fact: jellyfish have no brains, no backbone, no heart and no stomach. When it comes to standing up to extremism in the Greens, standing up for working families, standing up for blue-collar workers and farmers, I have never seen a more gutless government.

Old Labor members would not even recognise this blubbering mess of a political party that has completely lost its spine when it comes to regional Australians. Now, I'm afraid that the Labor Party—the new, modern Labor Party—foolishly believes that you can placate the agreements and the activists, but I need to let them know and warn them: they will never be satisfied and they are always going to come back for more. They have no concept of practical environmental management. Zealotry and extremism have become their modus operandi at the expense of regional jobs, our way of life and our culture. Yes, European Australians, non-Indigenous Australians, have culture as well. That should be respected and recognised when we make laws in this place or in other places around the country.

What we're seeing now is the modern Labor Party selling out blue collar workers for Greens preferences right across the nation. If you are a farmer or a miner or if you like camping, fishing, hunting, collecting firewood, occasionally betting on a horserace or generally enjoying a free life outdoors, Labor and the Greens simply don't like you. Between them, they have combined to ban rock climbing at Mount Arapiles, ban live sheep exports, ban the hardwood timber industry in Victoria, ban irrigated agriculture in many areas, ban firewood collection, ban new gas connections, ban grazing in the high country and ban commercial fishing, and they also want to ban duck shooting and horseracing. Labor keeps wanting to create more national parks across our country, both at land and at sea, banning more activities in rural and regional Australia, when they don't even look after the national parks they've got today.

In relation to the motion moved by the member for Mallee, it's just the latest example of an all-or-nothing approach by the Labor Greens movement. Mount Arapiles, as we have just heard from the member for Mallee, offers world-class climbing, and it's part of the attraction, for skilled health workers in this case, to live and work in the region.

Decisions made in this parliament and other parliaments have consequences, and what we are seeing now is that people who want to enjoy that rural way of life, to enjoy Mount Arapiles and all it offers, will leave the region because of a decision made by the Labor Party, backed by the Greens. And not a single member of this place ever stands up and shows the spine to contest this extremism in the green movement. We will see more of this if the Labor Greens return to government next year in this place. Instead of a balanced approach, which allows for a multi-use of land and sea resources, they adopt this 'lock it up and leave it' mentality, and they couldn't care less about the impacts on the country people and their way of life.

I have seen it firsthand in my seat of Gippsland over the last 12 months with the complete ban on the native hardwood timber industry. The skilled workforce and forest contractors needed in the next bushfire season won't be there because of this ban. My community will be left at the mercy of poorly maintained public forests. The state government is making no efforts to mitigate the risk and has just cut its workforce in both DEECA and Parks Victoria. What we need to see in our regional communities are the practical environmentalists: more boots and less suits. That's more boots on the ground doing the work, doing the fire prevention mitigation activities, and less suits in Melbourne and Canberra making excuses and putting in more green tape that prevents work from occurring in the first place.

So if we're going to have any bans in this place, perhaps we should ban the Labor Greens from banning anything else in regional Australia without first consulting with the community that's going to be adversely affected—affected socially, economically, environmentally and culturally. Deputy Speaker Archer, I know you come from a regional community, and I think you probably understand this as much as I do. Regional workers are tired of being told what jobs they can have and what they are not allowed to do on their weekends by these city-based Labor Green politicians who have no interest in ever living in our communities in the first place. Regional Australians will be better off when we get rid of this spineless government and stand up to the extremists in the Greens.

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