Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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

The Government hurting rural and regional Australia with its new petrol tax and unfair budget.

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—

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We just heard a personal explanation from the member for Dawson. I say to the member for Dawson: it will take more than that to save you in your electorate following the bringing down of this horrendous budget. It will take more than your opposition to that terrible PPL scheme to save you in Dawson. I hope constituents in Dawson are listening to this debate this afternoon because I have no doubt that, at the conclusion of this debate, my colleagues and I will have convinced them and left them in no doubt that this is a bad budget for rural and regional Australia. While there is a lot of competition in measuring which is the biggest broken promise in this budget, I suspect many of them will come to the conclusion that the increased fuel taxes in this budget will go down as the worst broken promise of all. I hope that the constituents of the member for Dawson are listening. I hope that the constituents of the member for Eden-Monaro are listening. I hope the constituents of the members for New England, Page, Capricornia, Braddon, Lyne and Parkes are listening. They are all members who represent rural and regional Australia who I know fear going back to their electorates again this weekend because of their incapacity to sell this terrible budget to their constituents.

It is Thursday afternoon and I know everyone is pretty tired and, indeed, they are probably tiring of budget debate, so I thought I would keep everyone alert this afternoon by starting with a quiz. I have a quiz for members this afternoon and I invite all members on both sides of the chamber to participate. I have six questions this afternoon. The first is about people who have embarrassed themselves in politics. The second is about political parties which have embarrassed themselves in politics and then I have three questions on mathematics—three maths questions just to keep people alert.

The first question is about people embarrassing themselves in politics. I am going to share a quote with the chamber and then I am going to ask people who this quote is from. I am going to give people hints because, as I said, I know we are all a bit tired on Thursday afternoon. So I am going to give people hints. This is a person who has actually served in this place and, in fact, it is a person who remains in this place. The person says this of fuel taxes: 'Fuel tax is a tax on distance. If ever there was a country that should not aggressively tax fuel it is a vast country like Australia. It is a tax on doing business outside the capital cities. It is a tax on farming in the distant parts of our nation. It is a tax on living and setting up a business in a country town.'

Now, who do members think might have said that in this place?

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Was it the member for Parkes? Do I hear the member for Parkes?

Honourable members interjecting—

No? Was it the member for Richmond? It might have been the member for Richmond—it sounds like something she might say. Was it the member for Bendigo? It could have been something she would say, but no. That quote comes from someone on that side of the chamber. That quote comes from none other than the Deputy Prime Minister of this country!

That was a question about people embarrassing themselves in this place. Now, what about political parties embarrassing themselves in this place? The question is: which party would take the prize for ultimate embarrassment in this parliament? Would it be the Liberal Party? Would be the Liberal Party for bringing down such an embarrassing budget? Would it be the Liberal Party? It is a pretty hot contest, once again, but no, I think—

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's the Nationals!

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Blair has it! It is the National Party! I remind members of the play in the lead-up to this budget, when we were going to lose the diesel fuel rebate. This is the straw man the coalition likes to put up, 'We've got a plan. We've got to put petrol taxes up, despite our election promises. But what are we going to do about the National Party? They won't be happy about it because they know it impacts adversely disproportionately on country Australia. I know! I know what we'll do. We'll feign the revocation of the diesel fuel rebate and they'll get themselves all worked up about that. Then, on election night, we'll say, "No, we're not revoking the diesel fuel rebate," and they'll all breathe a sigh of relief. But they won't work out until the next morning what has happened with petrol taxes!'

That's what went on in this place only a couple of months ago, and the National Party takes the prize for the most embarrassing moment for a party in this parliament.

We move to mathematics, and I make this point very deliberately because it helps people understand what is happening with fuel taxes in this country, and it helps us to understand what the difference is between excise in petrol now compared to the days prior to the GST.

I ask members this question: if petrol were at 70c at the bowser and you take 7c off because John Howard, when he was Prime Minister, took 7c off excise—I say '7c' but I think he took 6.7c off, so we will say 7c to keep it easy—so that the GST would not necessarily increase the price of the GST. So if you take 70c and subtract 7c off the excise and then you put 10 per cent on, what do you get? You get roughly the same price.

But what about when fuel is $1.50 a litre? When you get to $1.50 a litre and you take 7c off you end up with a fuel price of about $1.57 a litre. Even John Howard understood that you cannot put a tax on a tax. He did not anticipate, of course, that oil prices would accelerate and that the 7c reduction would go nowhere near compensating motorists for the GST.

Now, if John Howard had left the excise indexation in place fuel excise would not be 38c today, it would be 50c. So that tells you what the now Prime Minister's decision is going to do to fuel prices in another 10 years. So this is not just a decision that impacts today, this is a compounding decision—something that is going to increase exponentially petrol prices over a period of time.

As the Deputy Prime Minister himself has pointed out, this is a decision that falls disproportionately adversely on rural and regional Australia, because we travel longer distances. The Treasurer goes from North Sydney into the city for his meetings, just across the bridge. In rural and regional Australia we drive hundreds of kilometres on a daily basis. Sometimes we drive 100 kilometres just to go to the supermarket. This is not something understood by those who live in our capital cities. And it is about time those members who I mentioned earlier, those who purport to represent their rural and regional electorates, stood up to this mob—stood up to this government and explained how these things fall disproportionately on rural and regional Australia.

I will leave others to go through the many other budget issues that adversely affect us in the bush in particular. They go to the GP tax, changes to the universities and changes for the unemployed who, themselves, have to travel long distances to apply for a job and who have to travel long distances to get to a TAFE course or any sort of a training course—if, indeed, in rural and regional Australia they can get one all. That is another disadvantage faced by those living in the bush.

I want to turn to one very specific broken promise before I close on the budget, because the minister for agriculture is with this. I put these questions to him in the parliament last night and he refused to answer them so I am going to give him another chance today.

When he donned the Akubra back in February and wandered out into drought-affected Australia he got all the newspaper reports he was looking for. He and the Prime Minister were on the 6 o'clock news, and in the lead-up to that drought tour the drought was in the news on a daily basis. We could not turn on our televisions in the morning for the Today show or for Sunrise without them talking about drought. The Daily Telegraph in New South Wales was running a drought donation scheme. Everyone was talking about drought. But at the moment the Prime Minister and the agriculture minister went out to announce their package it all stopped. It was a beautiful political circuit-breaker for them.

But guess what? The drought has not ended for those struggling in rural and regional Australia. I was outside Emerald just last week, meeting with some of these people who are very disappointed in this mob on the other side. I ask the minister again: is the $80 million I was referring to still available to assist drought affected farmers? You have taken $40 million out of Labor's scheme. You will not deliver $40 million under your scheme this year because you have not delivered one cent to farming families. I want you, Minister, to guarantee here today that the $80 million—the $40 million you took from the old scheme and the $40 million you will not spend this financial year in the current scheme—will remain available to farmers in the coming financial year.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we have, obviously, is a shadow minister for agriculture who cannot get a question up during question time, so they have relegated him to this section.

Last night I went to the Midwinter Ball, and I have to say there was a comedian there who did not really hit the high notes at all. So he went away, dressed up as the Queen and came back, and it was not much better. Today he has come back and dressed up as the member for Hunter, and he's about as bad as he was last night! I will give you a tip: if you are going to be a comedian, you have got to be funny.

But he did raise a range of things. The issue today is a less-than-1c excise which was initially introduced by the Labor Party under Hawke. What the Labor Party are proposing—unless you want to tell us this is not the truth—is on 1 July to introduce a 6.85c-a-litre increase in the price of diesel. That is still your position, isn't it?

Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—

He has gone quiet all of a sudden. He's gone from a comedian to a Trappist monk! Silence is golden! So here we have the tactics of the Labor Party on full display. They have moved a motion about a less-than-1c increase in the price of fuel, yet they stand behind a 6.85c increase on diesel. It just goes to show you how bizarre they are.

Today we had the representation of the things that are done—like a quiz show. We can have another quiz show. Who were the clowns who came up with an idea on the back of a coaster that they would build themselves a new telephone company which was going to cost us approximately $100 billion at the end? Who was that? Who could that possibly have been? Who could be that bizarre that they would come up with the biggest capital infrastructure project in the life of our nation, bigger than the Snowy Mountains Scheme, and do it apparently because Senator Conroy was trying to track down the Prime Minister—your old mate, Mr Rudd—got on the plane, said, 'I just have to talk to him quickly,' and, by the time he got off the plane had stitched Australia up for the biggest capital infrastructure project in our nation's history without a cost-benefit analysis. Do you know how good that game was? I was looking at its books at the Senate estimates. I remember going through it. They spent more on airfares for their staff than they actually earned. So there is something for the quiz. Who put that up?

Who came up with the idea that they would stick fluffy stuff in the ceiling for the rats and the mice to sleep on and then, after they set fire to approximately 200 houses and, unfortunately, four people were killed, they would spend another billion dollars trying to get it out? Who did that? Who could that possibly have been? Was it you? Did you do that? You are looking at me. I think it was you. I think you know who did it. It's the Trappist monk! And yesterday, when we were in the other chamber—I would have left that conversation behind—he wanted to blow it up. He's a violent Trappist monk! If he's not burning it down, he's blowing it up! You in reality are a lot funnier than you as a comedian.

We go through what the Labor Party have done for regional Australia. Who brought in tree clearing laws? Who decided to take a private asset and put it in the hands of the government? That was you. That was your party. Who was the party that divested people in New South Wales of their coal assets back in 1983? Who did that? It was you. Who took the nation to about $330 billion in current debt? When we handed over to you we actually had money in the bank. The world owed us money. By the time you handed back we were around $300 billion in debt. Who did that? They did.

When we try to do something that is a small improvement in regional Australia—we go to move a ministerial office out of Sydney and into Armidale—who complains about it? They do. They like it in Brisbane, they like it in Sydney but they just do not like it out in the country. When he is doing an observation of the chamber and looking for people in regional seats, how many have you got, mate? How is this for an idea for regional Australia? Their biggest item with the word 'regional' in front of it was a ring road at Perth—the regional town of Perth! Who could have done that? It is a mere village! It's a hamlet! Who could do that?

We asked in estimates. We said, 'It looks like in this regional fund under the Labor Party means everywhere.' Mr Crean said, 'That's right; it's everywhere.' So we said, 'Could you have a regional fund that would upgrade the Opera House?' and they went, 'Possibly.' That is the sort of regional delivery you get with the Labor Party.

And still they have a carbon tax. They said to the Australian people that they would get rid of the carbon tax. They would terminate the carbon tax. That was the word, wasn't it—'terminate'?

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. It is still our policy.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, did you hear that? It is still his policy to terminate the carbon tax. The trouble is, it might be your policy to terminate the carbon tax, but it is not your colleagues' policy to terminate the carbon tax. They are over in the Senate. You can do something for our nation right now. If you are listening to this over on the other side—they actually do have a telephone on their desk and they can listen to this—I can assure you that the member for Hunter said that it is still their policy to terminate the carbon tax. If you are listening to this, move it now, get rid of it. The member for Hunter is vastly more amusing when he is trying to be serious than he is when he is trying to be amusing.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You've got two minutes to answer the question.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will get onto the drought. On 4 March we made the interim farm family payment available. In fact, 1,403 people have got access to it. They get approximately $900 a fortnight or better. We have made real money available to people.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was always a welfare payment—what are you talking about?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We completely changed the criteria for it. Last night they told us they had every state bar one signed up to the concessional farm family payment. We checked the records: they had three signed up. So they could not even get their own policy through. Who got their policy through? We had to fix it up; we had to sign it up. We got the money rolling from it. You could not do it. Who got a $320 million drought package through? We did. Who has now got it available so that QRAA can lend it out? We did. They may be lending it out right now. It is all for them.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who gave us the mining tax?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who gave us the mining tax? This is like Million Dollar Minute. This quiz show should lead the seven o'clock news. Who stopped the live cattle trade? You did.

It is really quite interesting when someone appears in the chamber today and makes Mr Connelly's effort last night look like a Barnum and Bailey number. If there is going to be a friend for regional Australia, there is only one side of the chamber they are going to find that person.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am more than happy at some point to have an opportunity to talk about my attitude to the mining tax and why in fact it has not impacted negatively. It may have impacted negatively on the Labor Party, but it has not impacted negatively on the mining industry in Western Australia.

What we want to talk about today are all the surprises for rural Western Australia, for all of rural Australia, that were contained in the budget. Mr Abbott promised over and over again that his government would be a government of no surprises. People would know exactly what was going to confront them. But rural Australia had a lot of very nasty surprises. The member for Hunter spoke about the very nasty surprise of the fuel tax indexation. But I want to talk a bit about the financial assistance grants, the FAGs, and how over $900 million in cuts to these grants has disproportionately affected rural Australia and indeed remote rural Australia. If we look at the analysis of the regions that are most affected, we see that the very small rural and remote shires rely on the FAGs for around 36 per cent of their income; small rural and remote shires for 22 per cent; and the others between 20 per cent and 36 per cent. So the small rural shires are the ones that are going to be disproportionately affected.

Just the other day I ran into the shire president of Morawa. She explained that, this year alone, her council is going to have to increase its rates by four per cent just to cover the reduction in the financial assistance grants. There are many more shires that are far more affected. In Halls Creek, Wiluna, Carnarvon, Derby and East Kimberley shires, in the member for Durack's electorate, FAGs represent in excess of 20 per cent of their budget. They will have to hit the residents with an increase. Yilgarn, Leonora and Laverton shires, in the member for O'Connor's electorate, all have a heavy reliance on FAGs. So this is going to have a major impact.

I also want to talk about the impact this is going to have on the Aboriginal communities across Australia, specifically the health services in the Western Australian Aboriginal communities. From recent hearings of the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia, it is becoming very clear that the condition of our Aboriginal communities is a major constraint on development in northern Australia. We are very clear, as report after report has been, that progress cannot be made in northern Australia unless we close the gap. What is happening here? Over $500 million is coming out of Aboriginal services.

On top of that, the GP co-payment is just going to compound the problem for Aboriginal health services in Beagle Bay, Kalgoorlie, Derby, Broome, Carnarvon, Geraldton, Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing and Kununurra. There is absolutely no way that these Aboriginal controlled community health services can charge the co-payment. They bulk-bill the vast majority of their services. If they waive the co-payment they will receive $5 less per visit in government rebates. That cut will directly result in them having to reduce a whole raft of services. So the co-payment alone is creating a great problem. (Time expired)

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always interesting, in a debate on regional Australia, to follow the member for Perth, which is one of those far-flung regional centres that was so disadvantaged by the last parliament that we had to spend about $14 million on their road to the airport. The member for Perth mentioned the freezing of the financial assistance grants, but she did not mention that the Roads to Recovery program is going to be doubled. For many of the regional shires she is speaking about, the net effect is actually a positive one, not a negative one.

I would like to address the comments made by one half of The Two Ronnies, my neighbour down here from the Hunter. The member for Hunter gives irony a whole new meaning. For those who are new here, we had a boundary change in 2010. There was wailing and screaming and protest from a bit of the Parkes electorate about having to leave Parkes and go into Hunter, but these things happen in a redistribution. A couple of towns from the Parkes electorate went into Hunter, one of those being Kandos, which happens to have a cement plant that had been there for 100 years. Guess what happened on the day after the election? They shut it down, taking 106 jobs and leaving generations of people unemployed. So I went up there. It was not in my electorate, but I thought that, as I had been looking after these people for a term or so, I had better go and see what was going on. The members of the union had come across from Newcastle and were explaining to the workers that losing their jobs was a good thing, because it was for a greater cause. The carbon tax was going to cool the globe and make us look good on the international stage. Kevin Rudd was going to Stockholm and we had to have something to sell, so they had lost their jobs for a greater cause. The member for Hunter did not make his way across there until some time later, and, when he got there, it was like: 'Don't mention the war; don't mention the carbon tax.' A lot of the people of Kandos are now fly-in-fly-out miners in Cobar, North Queensland and Western Australia, because the industry that sustained them—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ah, my favourite rural Labor person: the member for Richmond—the one who fights so hard for the 17 per cent of her constituents who vote Green, the one who dies in a ditch for those Green votes, for those hardy rural souls from Byron Bay as they toil away over their hydroponics in the back shed. She is such a great advocate for the 17 per cent of people in her electorate who vote Green. But I do not want to be negative.

We are talking about this budget, and what I like about this budget is that this government treats rural Australia as if it has a future. This government treats rural Australia with respect. This government does not watch a Green-inspired program on the ABC and shut down a cattle trade, decimating not only a whole industry but also a couple of states and territories.

This government respects and understands regional Australia—not only in areas such as this, but in R&D. There is real money now in research and development, because we understand that Australian farmers and Australian regional communities have a future. For those of you who may be new, we sat here for two terms with this government and heard ministers such as Burke and others talk about farmers in slow voices, because they needed to help farmers to adapt to climate change. How were they going to do that? 'Oh, we will close down the cattle industry—that'll help.' They sacrificed the aspirations of rural Australia in order to get the vote from the member for Melbourne, up here behind us, because he had such a struggling urban electorate in inner-city Melbourne that they had to pacify him.

With telecommunications, Minister Conroy actually came to Goolma—it is in the outreaches, 25 kilometres from Mudgee. In six years, despite the fact that the minister had sat in Goolma Hall with 150 very angry people, Labor did not fund even one tower. We are talking about an NBN network that delivered no services to my electorate in six years—and we still have people who cannot have a telephone. The hypocrisy! I admire the member for Hunter's attempt at humour, because it is better than his attempt at politics. (Time expired)

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always good to follow a National Party member who has obviously been drinking the water downstream from the herd. Five minutes—and not one thing about this budget!

Government Member:

A government member interjecting—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You ought to talk; you are a great one. Let's have a talk to the nuffington over there who has done absolutely nothing but decimate his electorate. He and his mate from Corangamite shut down the national rural farmers health service. They shut it down—because they do not support farmers. They do not support people in regional areas. They sit there and they say they do all these things and they get the clown prince 'Jaja Binks' Joyce over there to come in and rant and rave, but he could not talk about the budget. The reason he could not talk about the budget is that this petrol tax the government increased, despite saying that they would not increase taxes, is hurting rural and regional Australians.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for McEwen. Order! Order! Member for McEwen—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sit down, sugar boy! Put the paper on—

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for McEwen will resume his seat. I call the member for Dawson on a point of order.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Could Jubba withdraw that reference to the agriculture minister?

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Was the minister offended by the comment?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot even understand him.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister is not offended. The member for McEwen will continue.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that the agriculture minister finds it hard to understand, because I speak in fluent, coherent English, and that hurts him. He has no idea.

Today I went out and spoke to people in my electorate about this fuel tax and what it means. The government comes in here and tells another untruth when it says, 'It is only going to impact 40c a week.' That is a lie. The average person—

A government member interjecting—

No, he said 'week'. Please listen to your own minister—I know it is hard and it is painful and it is shrill, but try and listen to him. Every week the average person in rural and regional areas uses at least 100 litres of fuel. They will now pay extra tax on that fuel—a tax that that lot said before the election they would not have. They also have to pay an increase in the GST on that tax—a tax on a tax that is built on a lie that is built on a lie. It is unfair. Because we do not have shops on every corner, hospitals in every town and access to schools and public transport, which we know this government is afraid of, so the impacts are greater.

The impacts are so great that a former Liberal minister came out of her slumber. The member for Wannon would certainly know this minister who was dragged out of her slumber and said that this tax is unfair and unbelievable. Your former employer Fran Bailey, a Liberal minister in the Howard government, said how disproportionately this affects country areas. It affects country areas because they need cars to travel. Most people travel 30 or 40 kilometres to school and have to travel 60 to 70 kilometres to get jobs in regional areas.

This government before the election said that they would be a government of no surprises and no excuses and that there would be no increases in taxes, but they did every single one of those. The foreign minister, the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, said: 'It's wrong to say we are talking about increasing fuel excise. We're not doing that.' But in actual fact they did. When the Prime Minister was asked before the election whether the conditions of the budget would be an excuse for breaking promises, he said: 'Exactly right. We'll keep the commitments that we make. All the commitments we make will be carefully costed.' We found out through The Weekly Times this week that the government has not done any impact statement on the impact of this fuel tax on rural and regional Australia.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister before the election was your one, you clown!

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Jar Jar, get back to the bar. The Australian Automobile Association CEO, Andrew McKellar, also called on the government to rule out any budget that would increase the fuel excise.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Get the lines right. Don't stumble.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Coming from the fluent idiot! He said that any increase in fuel excise in this budget would be unjustified—and it is—and that motorists are already paying too much and—

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The current speaker has been using the word 'lie', which I understand is unparliamentary. He has been using several unparliamentary words and I would like him to withdraw them, please.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It depends on the context in which they are used, but if the member for McEwen would assist the chamber. The member for McEwen's time has expired anyway. But, Member for McEwen, would you assist the chamber by withdrawing the reflection—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am more than happy to assist you, in particular against the member for New England.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you.

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hunter is—

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Eden-Monaro is top of my target list!

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And Hunter is on our target list. After the redistribution there might not be a seat of Hunter. We will see what happens.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You won't be here anyway!

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hunter may not be here after the election after the redistribution.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll be here, my friend.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Eden-Monaro has the call and the member for Hunter will desist interjecting.

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is sensitive about that. He is also sensitive about the fact that he has been asked by his leadership group to raise this matter of public importance. He needed a lot of face to put forward the arguments he did today. We have already heard from the member for New England the hypocrisy of the Labor Party in terms of raising the fact that rural and regional Australia would not have a better friend than the coalition government. The fact is we are fixing the budget mess that these guys created over the last six years. We left them with a budget surplus and we left them with net debt of $40 billion and they ended their six years with $123 billion in future forward deficits and then left us approaching in 10 years a $667 billion debt. That is what we faced when we came into government. Now we have to fix that.

My electorate is a rural and regional electorate. It is very dependent on small business. In the course of the last six years some 519,000 jobs in small business were lost. In a rural and regional electorate, after you consider government jobs in teaching, in the provision of police services and in hospitals for example, small business is the largest employer. If we cannot put in place policies that support small business, we are dooming rural and regional Australia to a dreadful existence. That is what happened over the last six years.

In Eurobodalla Shire, one of the major shires in my electorate, the unemployment rate is over seven per cent. That is what we inherited. We have to fix that problem, so we are repairing the budget. That was one of the key policies that we put to the Australian population at the election and it is one of the key reasons we were actually elected in a landslide in the 2013 election. This budget, however, is not just about contributing; it is also about building Australia. The budget contains the biggest infrastructure project in the history of Australia. We have put forward a policy that includes $50 billion of expenditure on roads and other infrastructure and my electorate of Eden-Monaro is getting a down payment on that.

Only last Friday the then Acting Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, visited Queanbeyan in my electorate and announced a $50 million road project for the Queanbeyan bypass. This is a vital piece of infrastructure. It is not just about road safety in the Queanbeyan district; it is about an economic development project that the Queanbeyan City Council has regarded as its top priority for years now, which was denied by the former member for Eden-Monaro, whom I defeated in the election. He would not support that road project. I think it is actually one of the reasons that he lost the electorate in the election. A matter of weeks after the federal budget was released, we were able to announce that we would put forward $50 million: $25 million from the New South Wales government and $25 million from the Commonwealth government. We were also able to announce a number of black spot programs worth some $622,000 in the Eurobodalla shire, in the Bega Valley shire and also in Queanbeyan. These are the down payments for the changes that we announced in the budget. It is a fact that the coalition is looking after Eden-Monaro, and I am very proud of this budget.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After the contribution by the member for Eden-Monaro, it is easy to understand why the Minister for Agriculture just said that Eden-Monaro is at the top of his hit list. I can say one thing to this House—

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not think the agriculture minister said that, because I am the agriculture minister and I didn't say it.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Bendigo. I think it was a wrong reference.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw that comment. But I will say that it will be very hard for the coalition to maintain and hold the seat of Eden-Monaro going forward, because this government's budget is hurting rural and regional Australians. This new petrol tax and this unfair budget is hurting rural Australians, not just people in the area of Eden-Monaro but also people in regional Victoria, including in my own electorate of Bendigo.

The fuel tax increase is another hit on regional Australians. This tax, which was frozen by the then Prime Minister, John Howard, in 2001, is now going to go up twice a year every single year. How did this come about? The Nationals were claiming a great big victory in the lead-up to the budget: 'Don't worry, bush. We've got it under control. There'll be no touches to the diesel excise—no touches.' What they did not see coming around the corner was an increase in the petrol tax—and, if they had, then maybe they would have had a voice on it, because this tax hurts the bush. Petrol going up hurts the bush.

What the government have not acknowledged and probably one of the reasons why they have not done their research on this particular area is that petrol prices are even higher in the bush. The further you go out from the city the more petrol goes up. Even in an electorate like Bendigo, you can find on one particular Saturday four or five different petrol prices, depending on where you are. In Bendigo, one day in Woodend it is $1.65 and, on the very same day, it is a $1.50 up the road. Already people who are further out are paying more, and what this tax does is compound that and they will pay even more. The fact is that people living in the country have further to go.

You just have to compare some of the electorates around the country to really understand why the city based Liberals in this government do not understand what is going on in the bush and why they did not think it would be a problem. In my own electorate, it is 136 kilometres from Elmore to Macedon. Let's take the member for Wannon's electorate: it is 251 kilometres from Warrnambool to Dunolly. In the member for Mallee's electorate, it is 380 kilometres from Mildura to Halls Gap. These are big distances that people have to drive. Let's compare that to the Prime Minister's electorate, which is only 12 kilometres wide; compare it to the Treasurer's electorate, which is 10 kilometres wide. When you live in the city, you do not have far to drive; but when you live in the country, you do. So every increase in the petrol tax increases the price of petrol that people in the country have to pay.

This tax is compounded by other measures in this budget. As we have heard, local councils have been hit hard by their grants being frozen. In my own electorate, the councils have added up that it is about $1.8 million collectively over the life of this government. In health, we have seen massive funding cuts in regional communities that may force some of our regional hospitals to close or to amalgamate. In ., it is a cut of $25.8 million over the next five years to its hospital. When you look at schools, universities and other higher education institutions, there are, again, big funding cuts. This will hit regional universities really hard. Students may not enrol. For students who have to travel mostly by car, because we do not have decent public transport, there will be extra costs. This government has cut funding to volunteer organisations. Volunteers say that one of the biggest costs associated with the work that they do is the travel—driving in their own cars. Regional communities are held up and kept strong by the work of their volunteers.

What compounds the pain of the other cuts in this budget is the fact that the fuel tax is going up. So there is less money in a school budget and then they have to pay more for their petrol. There is less money in the hospitals and then they have to pay more for their petrol. That is the problem with this government: their budget is hurting regional and rural Australia and this petrol tax— (Time expired)

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must say the way that the member for Hunter led with his chin in this MPI reminded me of the CS Lewis quote:

Answers to leading questions under torture naturally tell us nothing about the beliefs of the accused; but they are good evidence for the beliefs of the accusers.

What we are seeing real evidence of this here. Members may have missed the Guardian article which appeared recently titled:

Labor plans 'country caucus' to tap regional voters alienated by budget

Federal move would ensure rural impact of every major policy is taken into account, believes Joel Fitzgibbon

It goes on:

Federal Labor is preparing to establish a “country caucus” that would meet separately before the main caucus and could use its numbers to ensure policy takes regional and rural Australia into account.

Given the member for Perth followed the member for Hunter in this debate, I was wondering where and in what room would this caucus occur?

This article goes on, and it gives some hope to the member for Hunter:

On Tuesday night the New South Wales Right faction endorsed the New South Wales farmer, firefighter and leading rural advocate, Vivien Thomson, in Labor's No 3 winnable spot in the Senate ticket for the next federal election.

If the member for Hunter can hold onto his seat in the redistribution, all is not lost for him. He may have another person to join his caucus. I was thrilled for the member for Hunter when I read that. The article continues:

Her endorsement, led by the NSW general secretary, Jamie Clements, was seen as part of the move to diversify Labor's appeal in rural Australia.

By bringing another member into this place from rural Australia, they are going to diversify Labor's appeal. I can follow that. It goes on:

Joel Fitzgibbon, as agricultural spokesman and member for the regional seat of Hunter, is the architect of the country caucus idea.

Hence we have this MPI today. The article continues:

He said while the rural group was a 'work in progress', he hoped it would eventually review the regional impact of every major piece of Labor policy and generate ideas to benefit the bush.

'We are currently looking at ways we might engage on rural and regional Australia more formally and better as a caucus', he told Guardian Australia.

I wish him all the best in that, because for one person doing that for the whole of Australia it is going to be an enormous task. Mr Fitzgibbon went on:

We hope to get country members—

himself and I think this newly preselected New South Wales candidate for the Senate—

and like minds together to become a clearing house for policy; generating ideas and when necessary using our collective weight to ensure policy takes into account regional and rural Australians.

What collective weight the member for Hunter is going to throw behind this! The article continues:

Fitzgibbon has just completed a drought tour and in an unusual move for Labor, he ran a 'matter of public importance' on the effect of the budget on rural and regional Australia.

What we have seen here is the second unusual move by Labor with an MPI on regional and rural Australia. What an absolute joke. They all should be ashamed of themselves. They are starting, in the year 2014, a rural and regional caucus and they are in here telling us who should stand up for regional and rural Australia. This is a shocker. (Time expired)

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be speaking on this MPI, which is about the government hurting rural and regional Australia with its new petrol tax and unfair budget. I will actually be referring to that in my speech today. In regional areas it is the National Party that is driving this cruel and unfair budget, particularly through the petrol tax. In my area, on the North Coast of New South Wales, we call this the National Party petrol tax. It will be one of the many legacies of the National Party for a very long time to come in rural and regional Australia. Every time people fill up, they will be saying thanks to the Nats for the petrol tax. This tax will go up twice a year in line with inflation from August this year. This tax increase is a broken promise, and indeed the whole budget was a budget of broken promises. These broken promises will hurt pensioners, families and seniors, with all this array of cruel cuts and unfair increases in the cost of living. The people of regional and rural Australia have every right to feel totally betrayed by this budget of twisted priorities and many broken promises. There are so many of them, including the $80 billion cuts to hospitals and schools, the unfair doctor tax, pension cuts, education cuts, deregulation of university fees and cuts to council assistance grants as well.

I held a rally in my electorate last week in response to the Abbott government's cruel and unfair budget, and I want to thank those hundreds of people who attended my 'fighting for a fair go' rally last Thursday at the Tweed Heads Civic Centre. In particular, I thank those who travelled a very long distance to make their voices heard. The rally was arranged in response to the overwhelming community concern about this unfair budget and in response to the budget of broken promises. Before the election the Prime Minister and all of his candidates—in my area they were all National Party candidates—were running around saying there would be no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to pensions, and no new taxes. All of those National Party candidates on the North Coast were saying there would be no new taxes but the fact is they were not telling the truth. This budget contained all of those things—all of those things they promised would not happen. Many of these issues were raised at the rally.

I especially thank our guest speakers who came along. We had Walt Secord, an MLC from the New South Wales parliament and shadow minister for the North Coast and shadow minister for roads, and also Ron Goodman, Labor's candidate for Tweed in the state election. Both spoke about the unfairness of the budget. The rally heard an array of concerns that locals had. The petrol tax was one of the major issues brought up, because it is particularly unfair for those people in regional and rural areas who do have to travel so much further. The doctor tax also came up, because that will really impact on people in regional areas. Reference was also made to cuts to pensions, family payments and education. Some state issues came up as well, one of the major concerns being the increase in people's power prices that will occur due to the New South Wales Nationals' plan to sell off the poles and wires. That was a big concern—the National Party selling off those poles and wires will push up the price of electricity for people in regional New South Wales.

People brought many signs to the rally, saying nobody voted for the petrol tax, nobody voted for extreme university fees, nobody voted for a doctor tax and nobody voted for pension cuts. The fact is that both the federal government and the New South Wales state government are out of touch with the concerns of people struggling week to week. One of the sentiments raised at the rally was that surely Australia is a better place than this; surely we are a fairer place than we see in this government's cruel and nasty and unfair budget. At the conclusion of the rally there was a resolution passed. The rally resolved that I raise in parliament the fact that the people of the North Coast reject the Liberal-National Party's unfair budget and acknowledge the fact that this budget is harmful to families, seniors and young people. The people of the North Coast condemn this unfair budget.

When we talk about National Party betrayals, the petrol tax is surely up there as one of the biggest betrayals. Another big betrayal is in relation to the Pacific Highway. I would like to point out that in this budget there was no new money at all for funding of the Pacific Highway compared to when we were in government— $7.9 billion in funding for the Pacific Highway and not one cent from them. I was very proud in my electorate to have delivered the federal funding for both the Sexton Hill upgrade and the Tintenbar to Ewingsdale Pacific Highway upgrade. There was $350 million in funding for the Sexton Hill upgrade. It has been open a couple of years now and it is fantastic. Also there was $550 million in federal funding for the Tintenbar to Ewingsdale upgrade which is going to be finished very soon—all that money delivered by the federal Labor government, nothing from the other side.

In contrast, we see the Nationals cutting services, slashing infrastructure funding and increasing taxes. At both the state and federal level the National Party are 100 per cent behind the cruel and unfair budget cuts. They are responsible for the doctor tax, they are responsible for the petrol tax, they are responsible for cutting family payments and pensions. Each member of the National Party should be deeply ashamed. They are cutting pensions of the people who have built our nation, our seniors. They are bringing in a petrol tax. They should be deeply ashamed. It is the National Party that betray the people of regional and rural Australia, and people will remember that for years to come. (Time expired)

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak on this MPI on the impact of the budget on regional people and particularly people in my electorate. I will get onto the impact of the budget but first I want to dwell on the impact the previous government had on my electorate. The first and most devastating decision that comes to mind was the suspension of the live export trade. You have to have lived in a regional area that produces livestock to understand the impact that this had on our communities. We saw live export prices for shipping wethers fall from $120 to $35. For farmers in my electorate a 1c increase in the fuel excise pales into insignificance compared to the loss of income they suffered in that one decision. It has taken four years to recover and I applaud the efforts of the Minister for Agriculture, who has instilled confidence back into the live export industry. Just recently at the Katanning saleyards we saw shipping wether prices reach $110 a tonne again for the first time since early 2012. I want to applaud the Minister for Agriculture for his efforts.

Then they introduced a carbon tax and families across electorate suffered the increase in living costs that people in metropolitan areas suffered. But it wasn't just that. The WA government copped a $50 million bill, which also impacted on the services people in regional areas receive. The mining industry, which is currently going through downturn in my electorate, copped the loss of the 7c rebate on diesel used off-road. That included diesel used in generator sets and picked up people on stations, picked up people who own roadhouses on the Nullarbor—all extra costs for people in my electorate.

The people of my electorate want roads. That is what they need and that is what they going to get from this government. I do not need to be lectured by the member for Bendigo about distances. I drive 650 kilometres from my home to my office in Kalgoorlie, I drive 480 kilometres from my home to my office in Esperance and I drive 180 kilometres from my home to my office in Albany. I have to tell you that the roads are well below standard. They are unsafe and the people of my community want new roads, they want upgraded roads, and this government is going to deliver a $50 billion infrastructure package which will build the roads of the 21st century. As part of that we will see an additional $320 million injected into Roads to Recovery, taking that program to over $2.1 billion over the forward estimates. This program is funding directly to local government authorities so that they can fix up the roads that they prioritise in their own areas. We have also just announced today an extra $520 million over the next three years for the road black spot program, once again a great investment by the government in saving people's lives in my electorate.

I want to finish today by talking about the diesel fuel rebate. People in my electorate very much dislike the diesel excise rebate being referred to as a subsidy. When the diesel fuel excise was introduced in 1957 it was introduced for road maintenance and building. It was deemed at the time that those people who did not use the roads—farmers, miners, fishermen and other off-road industries—would be exempt from paying that levy. That levy is critical to the economic wellbeing of my electorate and I am prepared to defend that levy. I am very pleased to say that this government also is committed to retaining the diesel fuel levy.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired.