David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Brand proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The adverse impact on families living in regional Australia of the Government’s distracted, divided and destructive performance.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There could be no better backdrop for this MPI than the arrogant, out-of-touch performance by this government in question time—their absolute determination to be interested in their own affairs and not anyone else’s. The Nationals are particularly to blame. They spend their time longing to be Liberals, when they ought to be standing up for the bush. They should be protecting people like Mrs Annette Harris from the Prime Minister’s AWAs. That AWA, which after all is being offered in one of the government’s constituencies, would see Mrs Harris lose $90 in penalties and get just 2c an hour extra in return. That AWA trashes the conditions that millions of Australians hold dear—the penalty rates they need for their mortgages and the time they need for their families. Of course, in the bush, where there is less freedom of choice when it comes to jobs, these things are all the more important. If workers lose their employment—if they opt not to take the AWA—it virtually means they have to leave town.

This government is divided, this government is distracted and this government is destructive. It is a government that cares more about itself than about Annette Harris and the millions like her who are forced to compete in the Prime Minister’s race to the bottom—the hundreds of other workers of Mount Druitt who now find themselves to be unwilling participants in the Prime Minister’s race to the bottom. Annette Harris deserves better, people in rural Australia deserve better, the workers of Mount Druitt deserve better, middle Australia deserves better from the Howard government and regional Australia deserves better from the National Party. Fair dinkum! This government has been in office 10 years now—how out of touch they are. They are talking about themselves, they are talking about their internals, they are talking about the relationship between the Liberal and National parties and they are talking about nuclear power. They have every conceivable form of elite and internal distraction out there and running. Do they give a darn about what is happening to ordinary Australians? Not one bit of it!

This government is imploding from one of its member’s hatred and contempt for another. We all know about the relationship between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, in which the Treasurer sulks with a sense of entitlement and the Prime Minister feels that he is entitled to stay there forever, travel wherever he likes and no longer be accountable to ordinary people in this country. Neither of these two perceptions of the world have much to do with the needs of ordinary Australians, but they have nevertheless got them locked in a death dance of ambition.

Then there are circumstances in which the Deputy Prime Minister finds himself. He is treated with absolute contempt by the Prime Minister—I will get onto that in a minute —and he is treated with absolute contempt by his own party people. He is completely undermined by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry who, I see, is going to speak on this.

Peter McGauran (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What are you talking about?

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You know what you have been doing in regard to single desk. You know what you have been doing in all the trouble that Vaile has been confronting. Do you think we do not know? You know exactly what we are talking about. Let me get to the position of the member for Blair, because this is most interesting. This gets to the nub of what has happened in Queensland in recent times. This gets to the obsession of the Liberal Party and the National Party with their own affairs—who gets the white cars, who is on top and who gets to share the spoils. It does not matter a darn what is happening to ordinary people. This is what the member for Blair said when he was asked a question—and he was not going to retreat, despite the Prime Minister’s intervention at the time:

When the person who moves the motion on the Liberal side is the Prime Minister’s representative on the state executive, and when the president of the party is appointed with the Prime Minister’s imprimatur, I think people who are sitting around that table are entitled to expect that those moves have been done with his full knowledge and concurrence.

That is not all the member for Blair had to say. It is quite a lot, but it is not all that he had to say. He continued:

But the people who have to have answer to that—

this refers to the fact that the whole show collapsed—

were the people who were aware of it earlier. Like, they weren’t just aware of it on Sunday like a lot of us were. They were aware of it on Friday. They were aware of it the week before. They were in a position to be able to plan for it and facilitate it effectively or stop it if it wasn’t going to work.

Journalist: Are you disappointed in the way the Prime Minister has handled his position on this?

Cameron Thompson: You know, I mean, I think there is answers to be had all round.

Indeed there are. For two weeks, the Prime Minister had that information before him. For two weeks, the Prime Minister understood that the Liberal Party and National Party were to amalgamate in Queensland. For two weeks, others of course had an understanding of it—and these were the sorts of things they said. Bruce Scott said, ‘Queenslanders wanted a single alternative to Labor that would get the priorities right for all Queensland.’ De-Anne Kelly said:

In terms of the state, we need to forge a closer relationship between the two parties to provide an alternative to the Beattie government.

Warren Entsch said, ‘The sooner they can get together, the better it will be.’

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The leader will refer to members by their seat or their title.

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ferguson said: ‘You don’t have to run two different campaigns, you don’t have to run two different organisations. When parties merge it does not mean the end of the party, it means the start of something new.’ The member for Blair said, ‘If we are to be competitive, if the good conservative people are to have the strength of representation that they expect, they need one strong political party to represent them.’ The member for Fisher said, ‘Look, I think this is a very positive initiative.’ The Minister for Health and Ageing said: ‘I am happy to see people in Queensland doing what is necessary to beat the state Labor government there. I am always pleased to see new Liberals. I love new Liberals.’ Doug Anthony said: ‘From my point of view it would be brilliant if it can be done quickly. The nation would be served by two major political parties.’ Larry Anthony said, ‘There is no doubt a united conservative party in Queensland would really challenge the supremacy of the state ALP.’

This has been an extraordinary time. This is a time when the National Party has finally declared itself irrelevant. Understand this was not an amalgamation; this was a surrender—this was a takeover. Here is the relevant section of the agreement between the relevant party officials:

Liberal Party of Australia Queensland division to remain and continue to be part of the Liberal Party of Australia with existing name, an amended constitution incorporating transitional provisions—

That refers to the proposed constitution; in other words, the Liberal Party is the proposed party. It continued:

National Party of Australia Queensland to become part of this organisation in accordance with the following process.

Then it goes through a series of approvals from various organisations. This is the National Party in Queensland saying: ‘We no longer exist. We are there for the Liberal Party and no-one else.’ Elsewhere it says:

Staff and assets of NPAQ and LPAQ, including intellectual property, such as livery and use of names ...

The intellectual property would be in a very small basket indeed—probably something like the 2c an hour that Annette Harris was offered. That would be the equivalent of the intellectual property. Under this agreement all that would pass over to the Liberal Party.

The essence of it is this: the National Party has ceased to consider itself an effective representative of regional Australia. Eighty-six years ago the National Party was created in order to contest the bush with the Labor Party. People may have forgotten this, but at the time the Labor Party actually held most of the bush seats. The Labor Party was strongly founded on the working men and women in regional and rural areas of Australia. It is no accident that many of the iconic sites, as far as Labor Party people are concerned, are all in regional Australia—Barcaldine is a good example.

The National Party, then called the Country Party, was put in place to contest the bush with the Labor Party. After 86 years the con job has finally come to an end. The con job is now completely exposed, as the National Party has surrendered every position that matters to ordinary workers in regional Australia. Its members surrendered palpably on Telstra. They surrendered despite the fact that there was barely a person in regional Australia who did not absolutely comprehend that, for them to be guaranteed the services they need, Telstra had to remain in public hands. And they totally surrendered on these industrial relations propositions.

As we go around the country now, we see the Spotlight case in Coffs Harbour, but we also see the meatworks in Cowra. We see people having to compete with foreign workers and losing their apprenticeships and jobs in Ballarat. We see the affairs at an abattoir in Naracoorte. We go around regional and rural Australia and we see examples of the first assault of that termite-like undermining of the industrial conditions of this nation. The National Party guaranteed the passage of that legislation.

Of course, what does this mean for people in rural and regional Australia? These people do not have choices. I do not think workers get choices in many places anyway, but they certainly do not get many choices in the country towns of this nation. When a Spotlight store in one of those rural centres says to a person coming into town, ‘You take this AWA,’ it means that that person would have to undermine every other worker in that shop and threaten them with a $90-a-week wage cut. If that worker does not take that AWA, it is likely to be the only job they would find on offer in that town. Therefore at that point they would determine to leave. It is as simple as that.

You can take that through to apprenticeships. It is unbelievably difficult to get an apprenticeship in any industrial centre outside the main metropolitan areas. It is possible, but it is incredibly difficult. It is difficult to get a kid in the bush a chance at an apprenticeship, let alone a university degree or anything else—very difficult. So what does the government do after it puts in place its industrial legislation? It brings in this idea of foreign apprentices coming in. Where are they going to be located first? In regional Australia—in the bush. So what little chance the kid had goes forever, as the employer in the bush is invited to bring on at half price an apprentice from overseas. I simply cannot believe that the National Party sits in this place and permits these things to go on.

You can see it too in the trashing of universities in this country and how extraordinarily difficult it now is for kids to get an opportunity to educate themselves in regional Australia. The government do not care. The seriousness of the situation even goes to nation building—once you move away from those little bits and pieces that encourage a National Party member to stick a plaque up somewhere in his constituency so he can pretend to be working. When it comes to something serious which will determine whether or not anyone with any decent progressive business, such as Telstra, invests in the bush again, we respond in the Australian Labor Party. We say, ‘We have a plan for high-speed broadband connection across Australia which we know, if put in place’—and it is affordable with the slush funds handed out to the National Party, and thank God not yet spent by them, for little penny-packet stuff—‘would actually create an opportunity for employment in regional Australia.’ But they do not care.

All that they and the Deputy Prime Minister care about now is sustaining themselves in office. The Queensland section thought they had a cunning plan for sustaining themselves in office to become Liberals. I tell you what our cunning plan is: to expose The Nationals in every regional area in Australia with positive alternatives to their propositions, which really do serve ordinary people in this country. We will start this century off where we started the last century off—as the party of regional Australia. We are on their side. We think about them, not about us. We think if they put in, they ought to get something decent back. That is what we think, and we are going to pursue The Nationals and their hypocrisy to the next election. (Time expired)

Peter McGauran (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Confected rage and bluff and bluster will never be a substitute before the jury of rural people and public opinion on hardcore policy that is credible, that is targeted and that is properly enlisting country people. The funniest statement amongst many in the presentation by the Leader of the Opposition today, which I will address, was that the National Party was founded to compete with the Australian Labor Party, which was created in the bush. That is not an accurate reading of history. The National Party was created by its forefathers because of the failures of the Labor Party in representing country Australia, just as it remains the case almost 90 years later.

The sweeping and challenging final statement of the Leader of the Opposition was that the Australian Labor Party will represent country Australia today as it did those 90 years ago. You only have to rely on the assessment of one of their senior frontbenchers, the shadow Assistant Treasurer, Mr Fitzgibbon—

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will refer to members by their electorates.

Peter McGauran (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hunter, a frontbencher, on 10 February, made a thinly veiled attack on the Leader of the Opposition for his failure to support other frontbenchers under attack by ambitious union officials with the aid and support of branch stackers. He said:

In recent years, federal Labor has struggled in rural and regional Australia ...

He noted that the ALP holds:

... just 4 of 45 rural electorates in the House of Representatives.

Their own frontbencher, the shadow Assistant Treasurer, has condemned the Leader of the Opposition and his own party for their systemic failure over decades to properly represent rural Australia and which has left them with four seats out of 45. So, when the Leader of the Opposition thinks that he can turn over a new leaf and, on the basis of some generalised criticisms of the government on issues such as workplace reforms—which country people and their representatives very broadly and enthusiastically support—he is sadly mistaken. The opposition has four out of 45 rural representatives in this House. Quite frankly, as the realistic frontbenchers of the opposition themselves know, that is a dismal performance. It says a lot about the Leader of the Opposition himself. For all of his years in opposition, he has never sought to properly represent people in rural Australia. They are not going to fall for a three-card trick that suddenly the Leader of the Opposition and his party have seen the error of their ways.

I have been looking forward to this matter of public importance. I consider myself very fortunate that I, amongst some serious competition from a number of my colleagues, have the opportunity to address it. This matter of public importance is a test of which party has the credibility to best represent rural Australia and is best credentialed to represent rural Australia. Until now, rural Australia has voted literally for the Liberal and National parties in overwhelming numbers. That is not a vote we take for granted. We know we have to constantly prove ourselves. We have to be relevant and we have to be effective.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I take you back just three weeks. I know that in Australia we have political memories that are extraordinarily fleeting. But only three weeks ago this government brought down a budget that was universally praised and endorsed by rural Australia for its funding of roads and bridges and support for social security reform and assets tests for farmers and landholders. The government was also widely praised for its capital gains tax reform. That is concrete delivery of reform and benefits of a measurable and concrete kind to regional and rural Australia. The Leader of the Opposition, being out of touch with the aspirations and needs of rural Australia—and it is very hard for him, having but four of them to counsel and guide him—is doing them a disservice.

The backdrop for today’s debate is not as the Leader of the Opposition would have us believe of a disunited or divided government, but rather it is one of a chaotic opposition. We have seen over the course of this week a deliberate and calculated strategy to bring the House into disrepute by way of uncontrolled, disorderly behaviour—so much so that the Manager of Opposition Business and the Deputy Manager of Opposition Business, the two supposedly most responsible servants of the parliament, are absent. They were both evicted for disorderly and rowdy behaviour—that is quite unprecedented—together with a number of their colleagues. That is what desperate oppositions will do. They will seek to pull down the institution of the parliament because they have nothing else to say. Look at their questions. I ask any fair-minded and balanced observer to go through the Hansard of the questions of this week and see the opportunism and shallowness of the opposition.

But the Leader of the Opposition would have us believe that today is a new day, because he has announced a new initiative for rural Australia. He is going to establish a new dialogue directly with regional Australia. He has been Leader of the Opposition for several years. The Labor Party have been in opposition for 10 years, but as of 1 June 2006 they are going to develop a dialogue with rural Australia. Better late than never, but do it on a meaningful and respectful basis. Do not treat them like fools. They can see through the political hyperbole and the political manoeuvring. You will have no credibility with rural Australia—not that it behoves me to give tactical or political advice to the opposition on regional politics—but it is self-evident that you must take rural Australia seriously.

Simply having a new task force is not nearly enough, particularly when it is headed by the member for Hotham, who is the shadow minister for regional development—and I will come to that in a just a moment. That may be a surprise to people; it certainly was to me. I did not know that the Labor Party had a shadow minister for regional development; when you go to his website and the ALP’s website, you will understand why.

The co-chairman of this task force or talkfest is the member for Corio, the shadow minister for agriculture. The shadow minister for agriculture no longer has a seat at the next election. He has been stripped of his preselection and, as a result, will not be returning to this parliament after the next election. For several months, he has been heavily distracted. He has been railing against the branch stackers and has these matters on appeal within his ranks. All of us on this side of the House feel more than a passing sympathy for him. I do not believe that the member for Corio is an effective shadow minister, but I am biased and happy to admit it. But I will say one thing about the member for Corio that I cannot say about any other member of the Australian Labor Party in this place—and that is, he has a rural background. On the few occasions that he ventures into rural Australia, he gets dust on his boots; nonetheless, instinctively and intuitively, he understands agricultural needs, farmers and rural and regional communities. I will give him that. However, I will not make the same concession about the member for Hotham.

Today the Leader of the Opposition was on Country Hour, which is the principal voice that deals with country people on a daily basis. He was interviewed by James Martin, a serious journalist, who does not give anyone a free ride, me least of all—and fair enough. James Martin put this question to the Leader of the Opposition:

So then you’re talking about a new dialogue with the bush. Your regional development spokesman, Simon Crean, just survived a preselection battle—

which was notable for the Leader of the Opposition’s total abdication of responsibility and total absence of support—

Gavan O’Connor has been disendorsed by the Labor Party. He’s your agriculture spokesman. Does this show the sort of level of commitment that you’ve got towards regional Australia, that you have these two people heading this campaign?

The answer to that is self-evident—they have little regard. This is purely a stunt and a publicity gimmick. Shall I say that the Leader of the Opposition’s answer was prolonged and hardly focused? The key line is when he answered immediately by saying:

The Labor Party was founded in the bush.

Great. Your credentials to represent regional and rural Australians in 2006 come from the fact that 90 years ago the Labor Party had rural origins.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A bit more than that.

Peter McGauran (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not a bit more than that. We get no questions on agriculture in this parliament. About 700 questions are given to the government each year—maybe it is several hundred more—and hardly any, if there are any at all, go to rural, regional or agricultural matters. That is a deep disappointment because all on this side representing rural and regional Australia want our issues to be the focus of attention and consideration by not just the government but the parliament.

As for the shadow minister for regional development, I find it very interesting. As I have said, I did not know that the member for Hotham was Labor’s spokesman on regional development. I looked up Simon Crean under regional services on the Labor Party’s website and I found one lonely entry. It is the transcript of a doorstop that the member for Hotham gave in August last year—almost 10 months ago. On top of that, the transcript was criticism of Telstra for announcing its $5 billion fund for the bush. So the only transcript, rambling and disoriented, on the website criticises Telstra for investing in rural and regional areas.

But, to be fair to the member for Hotham, I took it a step further. I looked up regional development. Surely this would be where Labor would hide its interest and engagement in rural Australia. I looked up that website and what did I find? I found a press statement dated 30 May, two days ago, but unfortunately it was from the shadow minister for regional development complaining about the government amalgamating five Melbourne area consultative committees into one organisation. He was complaining about a Melbourne issue. With the greatest of respect to the member for Hotham, I am glad that he is interested in a multitude of issues, but we would rather that he, as shadow minister for regional development, understand that Melbourne is not part of regional Australia. So his latest and most significant contribution for some time has been to issue a press release entitled ‘Labor opposed to amalgamation of Melbourne ACCs’. That is a deep disappointment and a deep worry.

The member for Hotham and the member for Corio, on the few occasions they do come together to live up to the Leader of the Opposition’s empty promise of a new dialogue with the bush, will have a lot in common and will sympathise with each other’s position. They have both claimed that the Labor Party is ‘rotten to the core’. Are we meant to forget that, only a few weeks ago, a number of its backbenchers were overlooked because, stripped of preselection, they do not attract the same attention as frontbenchers? But only a few weeks ago the Labor Party, especially in Victoria—

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Isaacs.

Peter McGauran (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One was the member for Isaacs. See how quickly you are forgotten when the Labor Party exiles you? It is papering over all of its cracks, but the divisions and enmities within run deep. The disagreements and the dislikes plunge to almost unfathomable depths. After all, it was the member for Corio who talked about the rottenness in the Labor Party. Empty promises with no track record to rely upon and no serious policy initiatives of any kind are no substitute for hard work. Lazy oppositions are always held accountable in the same way that governments are.

Country people are above all else fair and balanced. They will assess the performance of local members. They will assess the performance of political parties. They will give Labor a chance. But Labor has never done anything for them to assess, as against the policies and the programs of the Liberal and National parties. We have much to be proud of in government in our 10 years of representing regional and rural Australia and we have many plans for the future. We have the same energy and dedication that first brought us to office. We have a vision for rural and regional Australia—the building of infrastructure and support for rural and regional communities. Unlike the Labor Party, we will not sell them out and we will never descend to the depths of empty rhetoric and false promises.

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on this MPI. I was really pleased to learn from the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry that it is actually the failure of the Labor Party that has sustained the National Party—in its origins and today, he said. I can imagine what a terrific conversation the minister had with the senator from St Kilda. ‘Pete,’ he’s saying, it’s the Labor Party, it’s got me. I’ve got to leave the Nats because of the Labor Party and go over to the Libs. I’m sorry, the Labor Party’s let us down again, Pete, and I can’t take it!’ I do not know that anyone really believes that. What has been in the news this week? The Liberal Party and the National Party are going to merge. They are going to develop a deeper and more meaningful relationship. In fact, as someone interested in property law, they seemed to do the property settlement before the marriage. But, anyway, it is all off. The National Party and Liberal Party are divided to the extent they can have a relationship but they will never get married.

I want to praise today in the MPI debate a great woman from regional Australia. I have to say I admire her immensely—Annette Harris, the employee of Spotlight. And haven’t we heard a lot about Spotlight this week? Haven’t some of the things the Prime Minister has had to say been very destructive? He says that the reason the Spotlight employees at Mount Druitt are getting a job is the new IR laws. It is really quite laughable. The DA went in in October last year before the laws were passed. In fact, the shop is not open anymore. Yes, Prime Minister, it is I think a tragedy for me in Chifley and for so many families there. I have 6,000 people who are unemployed. The one thing I desperately want for them and for any person who is unemployed wherever they are in Australia—in the cities, in the regions, in the bush—is that they get a job, because that is how we credential ourselves.

This is where the Prime Minister and I disagree. I do not believe someone who goes from unemployment to employment should be exploited. That is what we have learnt this week. Under the Spotlight AWA at Mount Druitt, people will not be getting penalty rates. Their penalty rates have gone. There is no provision for overtime, so if you work 12 hours—tough—you are still on single rates. Mr Deputy Speaker, even you, the Speaker and the Speaker’s panel have a structured workload that allows you to have a rest break. Why can’t those workers at Spotlight also have a rest break for things like going to the toilet? There is the elimination of breaks between shifts, the elimination of the maximum and minimum shift length and a cap on the number of consecutive days work. They are all gone for those new workers. They are working at inferior rates. But this is the rub. There are 86 other Spotlight stores throughout Australia with 6,000 employees. As sure as night follows day, as someone said in this place, they are going to have a race to the bottom. All those conditions are going to go, they will get 2c an hour and the whole 6,000 current Spotlight employees will be on the same Australian workplace agreement.

The shadow minister for industrial relations talked about the stores in Mount Druitt. I have to say I was not at the original opening of Westfield Mount Druitt, but I was there when Prime Minister Hawke opened the second extension and this year I opened the third extension. We have shops such as Coles. Woolworths, Kmart, Target, Just Jeans, Best and Less and Liquorland. What is going to happen to those workers? Spotlight is not going into Westfield; it is actually going into ShopSmart. I did not open the original shopping centre, but when it changed hands and became ShopSmart I opened that. What is going to happen to the stores that are there—the coffee shop, Colorado et cetera? Those workers are going to be faced with a race to the bottom. We are not going to improve overall employment.

If new stores open where the wages are lowest—Prime Minister, in India the average wage is about US80c an hour—why wouldn’t Spotlight be opening 50, 100, thousands of stores there or in China or in Thailand? Of course, stores open where there is a market. Not only are we going to have competition on price, product and service but all stores now are going to be competitive in terms of the rates of pay they offer and it will be the workers and working families of Australia that will pay the price.

We have heard that 600 additional workers are going to face that pressure in Mount Druitt. In the electorate of Lindsay, Penrith Plaza is a much bigger shopping centre. If I have 600 workers, they will have 1,000. In the electorate of Greenway—the member for Greenway is not in the House—the Westfield shopping centre there is much bigger. In fact, I would say the shopping centre is even bigger than Penrith. So there will be more than 1,000 workers facing the grim reality not only of high petrol prices and increases in their mortgage repayments but also now, if they have work in the local shopping centre, of taking a $90 a week pay cut in trying to bring up their families.

Of course, Spotlight is not just confined to those shopping centres. For example, there is one in Dobell. Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, we have already noted that you have a Spotlight store in your region, as does the member for Cowper in Coffs Harbour. The electorate of Riverina has one. I saw the member for Riverina in here yapping away whilst the minister was responding. It is going to put pressure on the Riverina. Are we saying that there are heaps of jobs and heaps of choices in the Riverina?

In Queensland there is a Spotlight store in the electorate of Moncrieff. There is one in the electorates of Fisher, Dawson—the electorate of the absent parliamentary secretary—Longman, Bonner, Groom and McPherson. Wherever the Spotlight stores are—whether they are in West Burleigh, Townsville, Toowoomba or Mount Gravatt—the workers in those stores know the one thing the Prime Minister has guaranteed them here in question time is that, at some point in their future and their family’s future, they are going to be signing an AWA which will be giving them 2c an hour, all their conditions will go away and they will be worse off but they will be expected to pay for petrol, their mortgage and their kid’s education and it is all for their welfare—and, if it is not for their welfare, it is for the good of the country. I do not think people will believe that.

In South Australia there is a Spotlight store in Clovercrest in Adelaide. There is a Spotlight store in Mount Gambier, in Kingston and in Grey. The same things are going to happen in those shopping centres. The workers in those shopping centres know that they face in future a $90 a week pay cut. They will get 2c for doing away with things like overtime, shift allowance and restrictions on the number of days worked. There are only two Liberal members in Tasmania, but I might point out that the same thing will happen in Burnie in the electorate of Braddon and also in Launceston in the seat of Bass. Gee! The member for Bass has got a lot to say but not one word about the workers who are facing this $90 a week cut. I think the Prime Minister has been very destructive, in the terms of the MPI proposed by the Leader of the Opposition. (Time expired)

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this matter of public importance we really have not heard any serious policy discussion from the Labor Party—not from the Leader of the Opposition and not from the member for Chifley, who has just delivered a 10-minute speech on shopping centres. The Leader of the Opposition has touched on a couple of issues, because he did mention a broadband policy for the bush. I think I can argue that you have to have activity, business and confidence in the bush before people are going to take a step that involves what he proposes.

Why is the Labor Party so afraid of the ‘A’ word—agriculture? Agriculture has not been mentioned today by either of the speakers from the opposition. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and I certainly have mentioned it and will continue to. The Leader of the Opposition talks about opening a dialogue with rural and regional Australia. I, too, have the transcript from today’s Country Hour where he said he met with the NFF last night. He said:

We had a very good chat with the NFF. They came to Canberra—

in fact they do not come to Canberra; they are here already—

to talk to us about issues that were important to them, and we discovered very high levels of commonality, very high levels of commonality on regional policy, on things like nationbuilding issues—

et cetera. I will give some advice to the Leader of the Opposition on talking to the NFF—and I do not propose to speak for that particular group: you as an opposition will have to tackle the hard issues if you are to win over the hearts and minds of rural and regional Australia, not one of whose votes we ever take for granted. Where do you stand on the hard issues facing agriculture and rural and regional Australia: live sheep exports to the Middle East; intensive factory farming; irrigated agriculture in the Murray Valley; plantation forestry; the very difficult issues farmers face with state governments on native vegetation laws that are driving them absolutely mad; Work Choices, which farmers support; and foreign workers, which farmers support? If you want to open a new dialogue with regional Australia then you will have to come out with some statements about these issues that can resonate with the people that I represent and the people that other coalition members in rural areas on this side of the House represent. That is a lot more difficult for you than simply mentioning nation building and talking about broadband connections in the bush—which I am keeping a close eye on and I think it is going very well. If the Labor Party takes to the next election the policies it took to the last election, it will be doing nothing for rural and regional Australia. It has to move a seismic shift away from where it was then to even get the attention of farmers and people in rural towns.

If I think back to the 2004 election, I was concerned—and I am sure the member for Mallee was equally concerned—about the Labor Party’s policy to put 1,500 gigalitres of water into the Murray River. The member for Kingsford Smith trotted down to the confluence of the Murray and the Darling with the then Leader of the Opposition—everybody was looking very uncomfortable because they were so far away from the big smoke—and announced, ‘We are here to save the river’—how many times have we heard that from them?—and, ‘We will put 1,500 gigalitres in the river.’ Every individual along both sides of the Murray River—and that adds up to a significant proportion of rural constituents—was horrified because they knew what the Labor Party did not know, which is that, if you chose a policy like that, you would decommission Hume Dam and you would close down irrigated agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin. I am not sure about the figures for irrigated agriculture, but agriculture generally makes a contribution of about $13 billion to the national economy from the Murray-Darling Basin alone. So to come up with a policy like that, designed to provide some confidence to a city based constituency, was a very big mistake.

This is an example of how the Labor Party view agriculture issues: they simply do not understand. If you talk about water, they do not think of irrigation; they think of environmental flows. If you talk about things growing in the bush, they do not think of crops or produce; they think of native vegetation. As the minister said, we have an ongoing vision for rural and regional Australia about improving market opportunities, about tackling the difficult natural resource management issues, about having an industry policy that facilitates capacity building. In the bush we do not have large numbers, so we have to punch above our weight. We need the capacity there, and we are building it in our rural industries. We have a vision about structural adjustment, where and when needed, and about drought relief for exceptional circumstances. This government has been criticised most unfairly for its record on exceptional circumstances drought relief. I remind people that we have already paid out $1.02 billion in drought relief. To whatever extent we need to support farmers in drought, we have an open-ended commitment to do so.

We have a vision for research and development—an issue close to my own heart as the parliamentary secretary. The only way we can combat the decline in farmers’ terms of trade is by increasing productivity, and the main driver for increasing productivity is R&D. Our commitment of a $500 million research and development package and 14 statutory and industry based R&D bodies is really making it happen for the nation’s farmers—the best science, the best minds and the best people applying themselves to the task, with an extension network that means that in the paddock and on the tractor you can realise a benefit that puts you at the cutting edge of the world in leadership in agriculture, farming and productivity.

We have made significant contributions to protecting our flora and fauna from pest and disease incursions. I ask the four rural members opposite if they can name just three weeds on the national list of weeds of significance. There are 20 weeds on that list. Can they name three of them? I doubt it. To further emphasise our commitments, particularly in the last budget, we have a $2 billion Australian water fund, we have committed $44 million to defeating weeds—

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Paterson’s curse.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lowe is naming weeds, but I will have to get to him after the MPI. The government has made a commitment of $500 million to the Murray-Darling Basin. This is significant. The government has said it recognises that it has made a promise regarding additional water for our icon sites but that it has to get the balance right between agriculture and the environment. We recognise that it has been difficult for the states—I am being polite here—and that they have faced some obstacles. We have another $500 million on the table to get this right and to make it happen, for the benefit of everyone, by 2009. I certainly recognise that it is not just about watering the icon sites, important though that is, but about the security of water for the irrigated agriculture interests along the Murray, giving them the level of confidence they need to produce and contribute, as they have done, to our terrific record.

The government’s commitment of $9 million in the last budget for rural counselling demonstrates that we know only too well the disastrous social effects drought can have on communities. It is disappointing that in my own state of New South Wales, around Christmas, the amount of the state that was drought declared was about 40 per cent less than it is now. So much of New South Wales came out of drought, but just for a brief time. We have now slipped back into drought. The government’s commitment is still there. The drought task force is working to make our exceptional circumstances program as good as it can possibly be, and we have provided additional support for rural counselling because we know what a drought does to farming families and communities.

The Leader of the Opposition mentioned various things that I do not think were particularly relevant to the debate. A lot of argument has centred on the issues that the Labor Party has with the Liberal and National parties. I think I should comment on that as a rural Liberal. The constituents whom I represent are not interested in the squabbles that the media or the Labor Party may report on our behalf. They have no time for representatives who come here with an agenda like that. All they want to see is their representatives cooperating with each other—as we do in the coalition—and working together, as is evidenced by the strong working relationship I have with the member for Mallee and the member for Riverina. When we talk, we do not talk about these issues. We talk about the industries we share that reside in our areas and that matter to all of us as rural members. That is the only basis on which our constituents should vote for us. Maybe some of my constituents do not realise I am a Liberal and not a National. The same thing could be said elsewhere. It is not the No. 1 issue. The No. 1 issue is who you are and how you do your job. (Time expired)

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion is concluded.