John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sad and disappointed that I have to rise today to talk about the fact that on 24 September, almost two months ago to the day, I wrote to the Prime Minister outlining to him in detail the state of affairs for western New South Wales with regards to crops. The Lachlan River is now no longer flowing below Condobolin. We are not talking about two or three years of problems here. People out west of the Newell Highway in my electorate have not had any good times in an awfully long time—unlike the member for Hume, who has now got good crops and had some good times.

I laid on the line for the Prime Minister how devastating it was and how bad the crops were going to be. We now know they are as bad as we then thought. It is water, crops and people who have been in hell for a long time. A few days ago I got a reply on what I think is a huge national problem—mental, physical and financial—especially for the people who live out there. I asked the Prime Minister to visit and take a leadership role, but no. The parliamentary secretary gave the government spiel about drought programs and how they would like to come up with a new drought program to get people ready for drought. We have had a disaster for six or eight years and they are talking about a new drought program to help people get ready for drought!

I think this letter is a denial and repudiation of the people in western New South Wales. I did not tell the Prime Minister what he had to do. I asked him to come out, as his predecessor did, when his people were in trouble and have and look at it to see what the federal government could do to help the state government and to help the people of that region get through the most tumultuous time of their lives. We are talking about a Prime Minister who would go to the opening of a toilet block in Brussels if he had the chance—he has spent far more time overseas than he has in regional Australia, let alone in the west of New South Wales. He did get just across the mountains to Bathurst the other day, but that is the only time in two years he has been near it. I am not talking about people who moan because they do not have a bit of bitumen or even because their hospitals are not right; I am talking about people who face a community-threatening situation that has been going on for a long time in the worst drought of my lifetime. If the Prime Minister can only get his parliamentary secretary to write to me and give a spiel on drought reform, then I wonder who exactly he thinks he is representing.