Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There has been some attempt to have some sort of discussion about what is in the best interests of Australia and what plans each respective major party has for Australia. The member for Grayndler in his matter of public importance was very disappointing. The opposition, as its basic guiding principle, should have to contribute to the democratic processes of this parliament and politics in this country by doing the hard work, the hard yakka. It should understand the issues and concerns of the diverse communities we have in Australia and be able to put that hard work into practice and come up with alternative policies.

The Labor Party claim—without backing it up—that this government does not have a plan about securing Australia’s future. The plan that this government has pursued is a plan for growth and financial and economic independence and jobs for Australians and Australian families. Under this government we have seen real wages growth of 16 per cent. What was it under 13 years of Labor: 0.2 per cent. We have seen over two million new jobs created. We have seen unemployment rates of 4.5 per cent. We have seen investment in important infrastructure—$1.2 billion in Roads to Recovery in the first four years and another $1.23 billion in 2005 for another four years to local councils.

There has been an investment of $10.7 billion over four years—a 35 per cent increase—in our government schools. Why? Because this government understands. The two political parties—the Liberal Party and the National Party—understand that they are vested with responsibility to build on the infrastructure that is required by this growing nation and by the various diverse communities so that families and individuals can continue to enjoy economic prosperity and have jobs. Why? Because that is the proven path to independence—not being reliant on the welfare system and being at the beck and call of others but having genuine independence and freedom.

The Labor Party want to talk about water. Let us have a look at the Labor Party’s policy. Again, there is nothing. They have promised nothing. They have said—and I quote from the ALP website:

Collectively, we must work to eliminate the bureaucratic stumbling blocks that have resulted in little or no real progress on water reform.

I think we would all agree on that—that is a nice motherhood statement. They go on:

We must be engaged in investigating real solutions ...

The time to engage has been the last 11 years in opposition. The opposition should engage now in some real policy solutions and provide some answers. This government has tackled that very important disappointing aspect in the community. Everyone knows that the management of water across the various states has failed. There is universal agreement on that, and this government has come up with a $10 billion plan to fix once and for all the problems facing our water infrastructure.

And what do the Labor Party choose to do? They choose to keep ignoring the fact that they have no policy, no alternative. Give us the policy to have some real choice later on in the year so that the Australian people can decide who has a vision. You cannot have a vision with spin. You cannot have a vision with criticism. You have to have ideas and you have got to have people in your party from a diverse background who can provide that experience and those ideas. But what do we see? All we see are stunts from members of the Labor Party. They cannot even orchestrate a media stunt. Very recently we saw the member for Grayndler, together with another member of the opposition, inaccurately select a couple of farmers who did not disagree with their policies and who rejected the connection of climate change and drought. They cannot even get the stunt right, so how can they get the substance right? They cannot. They are so incompetent and so fixated on criticising this government without providing any alternatives themselves. We have seen political vision over the decades. We saw it in Victoria from the Bolte government when they built dams and had plans for the improvement of dams. (Time expired)