David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

It's been three long years since the Albanese government was elected, and we all remember the election night, when the Prime Minister stood before the nation and declared, 'No-one held back; no-one left behind,' a pledge that was supposed to be the government's guiding principle. However, with another dismal Labor budget handed down last night and with a federal election on the horizon, those words ring hollow in regional, rural and remote Australia. There are millions of men and women in the regions—the people who drive our economy, grow our food and fibre, power our resource sector and work tirelessly in healthcare, small businesses, tourism and manufacturing. This government has failed them. These proud, resilient Australians deserve better. After three years of a weak and incompetent government, regional Australia is hurting. Under Labor, our regions have been abandoned and forgotten. Under Labor, our regions have been held back and left behind.

Year after year, budget after budget, we've seen damaging policies inflicted on regional Australia by a government obsessed with ideology and out of touch with reality. The results? A cost-of-living nightmare crushing Australian families; a farming sector strangled by workforce shortages, made worse when Labor scrapped the dedicated agricultural visa and damaged the PALM scheme; billions slashed from regional infrastructure and water projects; an outrageous proposal to tax Australian farmers to pay for the biosecurity risks of their foreign competitors; a healthcare crisis worsened by the gutting of distribution priority areas for overseas trained doctors, which is ripping GPs from small, rural communities and sending them to the cities; prime agricultural land, native bushland and pristine coastlines sacrificed for industrial-scale transmission lines, solar panels and wind turbines, all to prop up Labor's chaotic renewable agenda; bipartisanship torn up on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to push through damaging water buybacks; a new emissions reporting burden on primary producers, threatening the productivity and competitiveness of our agricultural exports; a hike on popular vehicles, forcing up the costs of SUVs, four-wheel drives and utes; and, in Western Australia, sheep producers seeing their livelihood shattered by Labor's decision to shut down the live sheep industry.

This government has waged a relentless war on regional Australia, and last night's budget shows that this pain is far from over, because there is absolutely nothing in it for regional Australia other than more ruthless Labor cuts. Right now, regional Australia finds itself at a critical crossroads. The men and women who live in this part of our nation simply cannot afford another three years of the Albanese government. Over the past three years, Australia has descended into a cost-of-living crisis—a crisis that has pushed families and households in the regions to the brink. We've seen the biggest fall in living standards in the developed world. People in regional Australia are asking the question: are we better off now than we were three years ago? The reality is that, under the Albanese government, Australians are paying more for their food, more for their rent and more for their power and gas. Under Labor, the cost of food is up 13 per cent, health is up 10 per cent, housing is up by more than 14 per cent, rents are up by 18 per cent, insurance is up by 35 per cent and gas is up by 34 per cent. Instead of seeing a $275 reduction to their power bills, as Labor promised, families have seen them increase by up to $1,300, while the government's new $150 energy subsidy is simply an admission of failure and won't touch the sides.

When it comes to effectively tackling the cost of living, what Australians desperately need is a federal government that gets back to basics—a government that has the courage to pull the fundamental policy levers to help fix a broken energy system. If elected, that's what the coalition will do. We'll take decisive action to immediately pump more Australian gas into the system to bring down power prices, we'll remove the moratorium on nuclear for a long-term transition and we will ensure that we deliver a mixed and balanced energy grid, one that sets Australia up for the future without carpeting our regions with renewables.

To ease financial pressures, we need to do more. In regional Australia, we know that Labor's cost-of-living pain is being felt at the checkout. Groceries are getting more expensive. Right now, Australians are struggling to put food on the table and our producers need a fair go. When families can't cover the cost of essential items, it's more important than ever that they can have faith that businesses, including the major supermarkets, are doing the right thing by their customers and their suppliers.

In contrast to the weakness of those opposite, the coalition has a comprehensive plan of action to put integrity and fairness back into the market. It's a plan that will protect consumers, small businesses and farmers against any instances of improper conduct by supermarkets. A coalition government will impose stronger and tougher penalties for anticompetitive behaviour in the supermarket sector, starting with infringement notices of $2 million for breaches of the grocery code, which is 10 times higher than Labor's measly $198,000.

Under our plan, the coalition will deliver increased court-ordered penalties for more serious contraventions, and we will introduce sector-specific divestiture powers as another powerful deterrent. We will establish a supermarket commissioner who will cover the entire supply chain and provide a confidential avenue where farmers and suppliers can have their concerns heard and acted on without the fear of retribution. Our measures will help Australian shoppers at the check-out and support our farmers and suppliers throughout the supply chain in regional Australia. Supermarkets don't fear the Albanese government. That's why we will introduce real deterrence and real consequences for them.

Across the nation, homeownership is one of the defining issues of our generation. We're experiencing a full-blown housing disaster, and it's hurting regional Australia as well. This is a crisis that's being fuelled by record-high migration, skyrocketing rents and scenarios where families with a typical mortgage are now up to $50,000 a year worse off. Meanwhile, the construction of new homes is at a decade low. After three years in government, the Labor government has not built a single home under its Housing Australia Future Fund, Help to Buy scheme or build-to-rent scheme. Australia needs a new approach to fix housing, one backed up by practical action.

A coalition government will boost housing supply, rebalance migration, incentivise first home buyers and take pressure off interest rates and rents. We'll implement a two-year ban on foreign investors purchasing existing homes, and we'll unlock up to 500,000 new homes by investing $5 billion to fund essential infrastructure like water, power and sewerage at housing development sites, with up to 30 per cent of that secured for regional Australia. It's time to restore the dream of homeownership for young people in this nation, and these measures will make a real difference.

Under this government, we've endured three years of economic vandalism, and businesses have paid a very high price. Since Labor took office, nearly 29,000 businesses have collapsed. In the budget last night, there was more bad news for business, with the government slashing the popular instant asset write-off scheme, ending the current $20,000 asset threshold. This means that the threshold is set to drop to its rock-bottom legislated rate of $1,000 next financial year. In regional Australia, the decision will shock many small businesses who are planning capital upgrades, and it will spark major concern in a sector that is already doing a tough.

When it comes to delivering infrastructure in regional Australia, we know that this government has an atrocious record. Over the past three years, the Albanese Labor government has cancelled, cut and delayed more than $30 billion worth of infrastructure projects across our nation, and this horror budget is no different. Last night, we saw that this government's appalling trend to cut and cancel regional infrastructure will continue. This fourth federal budget has no funding for the Stronger Communities Program, the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, the Growing Regions Program or the Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program. We know that, of these, the Stronger Communities Program and the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program are critical to building community infrastructure and engagement in regional Australia. The Growing Regions program is the government's own measure, intended to support regional communities. It has no new funding from last night's budget. This essentially means that no more Growing Regions grant opportunities will be available over the next four years.

It's a major concern that this government is utilising federal funding that could otherwise extend these regional community programs to instead pay for 41,000 new public servants here in Canberra. It's shameful that this budget inflicts cut after cut, but in regional Australia there's no money to fix basic things like potholes. Even after being in government for three long years, Labor will spend less than one per cent of their infrastructure announcements in 2025-26.

Going through the budget papers, this government is attempting to mislead the Australian public on infrastructure, because, if Australians are waiting to see work commence on recently announced projects, then they will have to wait, and they will be sorely disappointed. Of the $17.1 billion claimed to be for new infrastructure investment, only 0.7 per cent of the so-called new infrastructure announcements will be delivered next year in 2025-26, and only 10.7 per cent of infrastructure funding announced in the budget is over the forward estimates. Meanwhile, when it comes to road funding, it appears that this government plans to short-change the states by $1.1 billion a year, with a further $273 million cut in 2025-26 compared to last year's budget.

We've just covered the damage done by this budget to infrastructure. Looking over to the water portfolio, there is similar carnage. Building on the billions of dollars that was ripped out of water infrastructure in the early budgets, the Albanese government has yet again deferred $190 million in funding for crucial project such as the Paradise Dam Improvement Project, the Hughenden Irrigation Project and the Big Rocks Weir project. All the while, in our nation's food bowl, the government continues to hide the cost of the Murray-Darling Basin. What Labor doesn't understand is that, when you take away infrastructure for water, you take away the future of our communities in regional Australia.

Last night's budget was a deeply disappointing one for Australian agriculture. Although the budget papers show that the production value of agriculture, fisheries and forestry is projected to be worth $98 billion in 2025-26, this government can only throw a few crumbs their way. Despite driving our nation's wealth and feeding the world, there's virtually nothing in this budget for our primary producers. The Treasurer couldn't even utter the word 'farmer'. The government's lack of action on agriculture only highlights their ongoing mismanagement of this portfolio.

One glaring omission from last night's budget is the absence of Labor's failed biosecurity protection levy. First announced in the 2023 budget, this $150 million fresh food tax proposed slugging Australian producers with a levy that would make them pay for the biosecurity costs of their international competitors to bring their products to this country. What sort of government would do that to their own farmers? As soon as it was announced, the biosecurity protection levy copped a fierce and universal backlash led by the agricultural sector and the coalition. As soon as the legislation was established, this levy was withdrawn from the Senate earlier this year because of the resounding victory of strength from Australian farmers and the coalition. We fought hard against this disgraceful new tax, and we are pleased that we were able to deliver a good outcome.

In stark contrast to the wrong approach of those opposite, the coalition government will substantially fund Australia's biosecurity system by targeting the risk-creators: the importers. We'll do this by introducing an import container levy, as recommended by the independent Craik biosecurity review. This is the sensible way forward to fund biosecurity in this country. But when it comes to the scale of the pain, anguish and trauma being inflicted on farmers right now by the Albanese government, their harmful policy to shut down the live sheep export industry in Western Australia is a shameful stand-out.

As this government continues to push ahead with this appalling measure to end what is a lawful and sustainable industry, all over rural WA, we are seeing the consequences and the human toll. We've seen world-leading animal welfare standards abandoned, the science ignored, a botched consultation process, abattoirs actually closing down, jobs being lost, trading relationships threatened and innocent livelihoods thrown into turmoil. We've seen the impacts of this policy reverberate, with the WA sheep flock declining by 25 per cent last year and more production in the state—which is intrinsically linked to live exports—at its lowest level in a century.

Then there's Labor's inept transition package—the sort of package that allocates $2.3 million to a media company based in the USA to promote the closure of Australia's live sheep trade, while not a single cent of transition funding has gone to helping an impacted farmer. This insanity and cruelty must stop. On behalf of the federal coalition, I reaffirm our ironclad commitment that, if elected to government, we will legislate to reinstate the live sheep export industry.

Over the course of its first term in office, reinforced by four disastrous budgets, the Albanese Labor government has failed regional Australia. Our nation urgently needs to change course. Australia deserves new leadership, a vision and a new government that has the right priorities for the regions—a new government that can fix the basics and restore some common sense. On this side of the House, the coalition is ready to govern and ready to deliver. A coalition government will provide the economic leadership that's needed in regional Australia to ease the cost-of-living pressures and to get a fair deal for consumers and farmers at the check-out. We'll bring down energy prices by unlocking our massive reserves of Australian gas and invest in a balanced long-term energy plan. We'll secure regional Australia's fair share of funding by properly investing in roads, rail, local infrastructure and water. We will provide the workforce that our primary producers need by reinstating the ag visa and fixing the PALM Scheme. We will sustainably fund our biosecurity system with an import container levy instead of taxing farmers. We'll protect our prime agricultural land from being destroyed by ideological renewable projects, and we'll stop water buybacks. We will reverse the disgraceful ban on live sheep exports. We'll invest in essential infrastructure, like water sewerage and roadworks, to build more housing across our nation, and we will stop foreigners from competing with Australians at auctions on a Saturday. We will back local solutions to provide flexible access to child care for families living outside the major cities, and we will make it easier to see a GP by bringing in more doctors, specialists and nurses to rural communities by providing more incentives to work in the regions. This is the coalition's commitment to regional Australia. It's all part of our ambition and our comprehensive plan to end the Labor rot and to get regional Australia back on track.

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