Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today, as every day, the Rudd government borrowed another $100 million. It goes on day after day after day, and my kids and my kids’ kids will end up trying to pay it back. That is symptomatic of what the Rudd government, in its first term, has done to Australia. All we have got from the Prime Minister is ‘blah, blah, blah’, and that is why Australian voters are turning off. But there is an alternative: the leader of the alternative government stands for real action, and that is the difference between the current government and the alternative government. Voters want clarity and the resolution of problems, not spin and policy backflips.

If we look at the economy, what has the Rudd government done? The cost of living is going through the roof, and public debt is forcing interest rates through the roof. There is no relief in sight—no relief on petrol prices, no relief on grocery prices and no relief on rents. There is nothing for my electorate; everything just keeps going up and up and up. Voters certainly thought they would get an increase in wages under the Rudd government but nothing of the sort has happened. But, boy, have they had increases in prices and costs, and the budgets of families are under enormous stress.

What has the government done for Townsville? This is a key test for me. The answer is: all talk and no action. Let us look at health. The Townsville Hospital is in the same state today as it was three years ago. There has been no federal takeover, as the Prime Minister promised. The waiting lists are still where they were, and the GP superclinic will not actually be up and running until next year—four years after it was promised. The government have been all talk and no action. But what they have done is to deliver a great big new tax on our mining economy, which Townsville relies on. Townsville is the support base for the north-west mineral province. Not only the big miners but all the little miners and all the support industries—which supply the cranes, the trucks, the engineering, the paintwork and all that sort of stuff—rely on the mining industry, and they are going to be hit hard. In relation to the wasteful school halls program, what people in my electorate want to see are more teachers and more resources going to students, and that is a pretty fair requirement from people in Townsville.

My message to the people of Townsville is that you have to change the government. That is what will deliver real action for the capital city of Northern Australia, and I will certainly be working as hard as I can to make sure that Townsville returns a coalition member.