Russell Matheson (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the successful applicants, Lauren Hokin, has been awarded $33,375 to write and publish a book commemorating the citizens of Macarthur who enlisted in World War I. This research project, the first of its kind covering the whole of Macarthur, ensures that the great sacrifices made by local men and women from our region during World War I will be formally acknowledged and recorded in history. These are just some of the fantastic investments that the government is making in the Macarthur community. This government is investing in the future of my electorate of Macarthur and the future of Greater Western Sydney and south-western Sydney that will benefit the region, the state and, ultimately, the country.

I am proud that I have been given the opportunity to represent my community and to help secure this funding to create jobs, to create opportunities and to create a safer, more integrated community. My electorate of Macarthur stands as proof that the Abbott government is providing the right mix of infrastructure, public transport and investment in health, education and sporting and cultural activities that is making, and will continue to make, Macarthur one of the best places to live and work in the country.

After six years of the chaos and dysfunction of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments, the Abbott government is focused on delivering the infrastructure of the 21st century. As the saying goes, purpose is the engine, the power that drives and directs our lives. The government's unprecedented investment in Macarthur has given our region the purpose and the opportunity it needs to reach its full potential, and in doing so Macarthur and south-western Sydney will in turn become the power that will drive our economy.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Next month, on 17 April, my dad would have been 81. But, if he had not died, as he did, I would not know him as well as I do now. I am pleased that I know him well. I wish he had not died, but I treasure the love we did share, and I am proud of Dad—proud of how he died and proud of how he lived. It has been six summers now since my father, Gordon, died. He was a mate, a partner and a supporter that I often did not know I had. Dad died in August 2009. He was proud of me, of my brother David and of my twin sister, Carol, and after 53 years he was still in love with our mum, Olive.

Dad's death came at the hands of cancer—an oesophageal tumour identified in late January 2009, which meant that in 202 days Dad was dead. There are worse things than a cancer death. After his diagnosis, Dad and I could talk about our relationship. We talked about our conflicts—many matters I came to understand which before he began dying I just did not know about. There were many things I did not know, but by the time of his death I understood more. We had taken long walks together throughout March, April, May and June 2009 and by July he could not walk, but we could still talk.

I learned about my dad before he died. That was a blessing. That he died was simply inevitable; an oesophageal tumour is a fatal opponent. I had been impatient and sometimes aggrieved by Dad. He was a good bloke. He enjoyed a beer, did not work too hard and lived by a simple working-class ethic. 'The kids will be okay if I look out for Mum'—and he did that. He would vote Labor nationally, and he said, 'Workers will get whatever little bit is able to be given by a Labor government.' He would also say, 'The Liberals, by their nature, won't help at all.' He would vote conservative in local government elections. He would say, 'They will keep the rates down.' And he would vote communist in union elections: 'They'll give the bosses hell,' he'd say. None of that is a philosophy I agreed with, but it was Dad.

Gordon Gray was born at home in Dalton Brook, Yorkshire, in 1934. His mother, Fannie, was 22 years old. His father, David, was a 28-year-old stonemason. Gordon often talked about his father's work as a stonemason on the maintenance of All Saints Church in the centre of Rotherham. Gordon attended Doncaster Road Primary School and was a full-back with the school soccer team. He grew up in the shadow of the Great Depression and was a boy during World War II. Gordon talked of the bombings of Sheffield, of the life of a child in air-raid shelters, of growing up when there was not a lot to go around, and how his mother's sister—his Aunt Kath—became the most important person in his life. Kath lived with the family in Dalton Brook. She gave Gordon the love and support his mother could not.

Gordon's grandfather, Robert Gray, had been a coalminer at the Silverwood colliery. Like his father, Gordon was determined not to work down a coalmine. Gordon left school at 14 to start an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic. He worked on Bedford trucks. However, in 51 years I never, ever saw Dad display any mechanical skill whatsoever. I guess that is why, in 1949, answering the call of the Navy, Gordon began training with HMAS Raleigh. Over the following six years he visited ports in South Africa, South Korea and South America. He later transferred to submarines, serving on T-class submarines HMS Telemachus. Gordon enjoyed life in the Royal Navy—in particular, the raucous life of a stoker. In 1955 Gordon's father succumbed to cancer—he was 48—and Gordon returned to England.

That year Gordon met Olive Lees and they married on 14 January 1956 at All Saints Church in Rotherham. Through the late 1950s and early 1960s Gordon worked as a steelworker and he and Olive began a family. David was born on 11 July 1956 and the twins, Carol and I, on 30 April 1958. Gordon was convinced that his young family would have greater opportunities in a new country. In June 1966 they packed a few suitcases and a tea chest of belongings and boarded the Fairsea and moved to Australia. Gordon thrived in Whyalla. Indentured to the Broken Hill Proprietary Company as a labourer, he enjoyed the town, its life, the sun and the beach, the Ada Ryan Gardens, and the people. Most of all he enjoyed the opportunities on offer for David, Carol and myself. The family even bought a car—a Volkswagen beetle—in 1967, in which family tours of the Flinders Ranges and Eyre Peninsula would be taken. Gordon held positions in the local naval club and the RSL. He was not just a club joiner; he was a doer. As a long-term treasurer his financial numbers always added up. He took pride in getting his numbers right, and he was a popular and social person—very smart, very clever.

From BHP Gordon moved to the Electricity Trust of South Australia. He enjoyed his work as a storeman, but, most importantly, he enjoyed his life with Olive and his children. David became an electrical engineer at BHP and now lives in Brisbane, I am a parliamentarian and live in Western Australia, and Carol is a carer in Whyalla, South Australia. Throughout their adult years, Gordon and his children often mused that Gordon's Victa lawnmower arrived after David and Gary left home, and the air-conditioner and the colour television set were purchased when Gordon and Olive moved out of their housing trust house into one that they owned themselves once all three kids had left home. Gordon and Olive planned and built their lives together and around each other. In later years Gordon and Olive travelled on yearly pilgrimages to Brisbane and then Canberra and Perth to visit David's and my families. Carol lives in Whyalla, and Gordon played an important part in the life of her daughter, Victoria. This relationship was reminiscent of the one he had enjoyed with his own Aunt Kath while growing up in Dalton Brook, Yorkshire, 70 years before.

Gordon was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in January 2009. And Gordon died as he lived—in Olive's loving care—on 17 August 2009. He was strong and in complete control of his life and his death. You see, Gordon had made an informed and thoughtful decision about dying. Under care, Dad could have lived longer. He did not want that, and he told me so. He told me that if the positions were reversed he could not bear to see mum as sick as he was, and he could see that his pain hurt mum more and more. He chose his end carefully, thoughtfully and with some humour. He checked into palliative care on a Friday night, having first checked the detail of his will with his solicitors—checking again and again that Mum would be okay. On the day he died—on the Monday—from his room at the palliative care ward at Whyalla hospital, I was able to ask Mum to go home, so that she could get dressed in her best clothes and return, as she did, looking beautiful. By then I had all the medical machinery, the bottles, the pipes and the like removed from Dad's room. The bedsheets were changed. Dad was clean, neat, tidy and rested. The room was full of flowers, full of the music Mum and Dad loved—and there was Mum and Dad, he with a central line delivering him the peace and ease he wanted. Dad died, as he lived, in mum's care. And he died, as he wanted, in mum's arms. Dad died at 12.30 pm that day.

Later that week we celebrated dad's life where the sun, the sand and the beach meet at Ada Ryan Gardens on the Whyalla foreshore. Mum did not like the idea of a funeral at the funeral home. 'It's too dark,' she said, preferring the beach, the sun, the trees, the grass and the sounds of children playing—even during the funeral. Dad's casket was near the garden seat where she and he had often sat watching children play.

You see, there are worse ways to die than cancer, because with cancer I had the time, and dad had the time, to say goodbye. How we die is important. It is not as important as how we live, but we should be able to die peacefully and, as best as we are able, with dignity, as dad did. I will miss Gordon—husband, father, grandad and great-grandad. He is survived by his wife Olive; his children David, Carol and Gary; his grandchildren Sonia, Andrew, Victoria, Riley, Darcy and Toby; and his great-grandchildren Aydan, Charlotte and Oliver.

I do not support many of the calls for legalising processes that govern how we die. I do believe that, in our modern hospital system, in our modern systems for providing care and palliative care, with good general practice, with good doctors, and with consent, care, compassion and love, it is possible to die with dignity, without attempting to regulate and unnecessarily create black-letter law around those provisions that govern our dying. I think my dad demonstrated that, and the doctors who cared for him and his family demonstrated that it is possible in our current system—perhaps especially possible in a regional hospital, or perhaps especially possible with a GP who has known a patient for 20 or 30 years, or perhaps especially possible with a person like my dad who realised he would not get well and that mum would only get more worried, more sick and more uneasy by dad's slow and painful death so he made the choices that he made. He made them as a loving husband, he made them as a person who enjoyed life and he made them in a way that made me proud. Thank you.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2014-2015 and related bills and to talk about the work the Abbott government is doing to help the people in my electorate of McPherson and all Australians. Every day we, the government, are working to build a stronger economy and a safer Australia. The Abbott coalition government is continuing to deliver growth, jobs and real opportunity for all Australians.

Today, I would like to speak about some of our recent achievements, including that the carbon tax is gone, saving the average household $550 a year. Our Direct Action Plan is making a practical difference to the environment without slugging Australians with a carbon tax. Major projects worth $1 trillion have been given environmental approval which will provide many of the jobs of tomorrow. We have delivered the biggest cut in electricity prices on record, which is good news for everyone looking to save money. The mining tax is gone, so this vital sector can create more jobs. Our $50 billion infrastructure program is underway. This includes major projects right around Australia to save you time and money. We are cutting red tape, with $2 billion in red tape savings already identified. We are driving trade with our neighbours by delivering free trade agreements with Japan, Korea and China. This means more exports, more jobs and lower prices for families, and we are working with Australian businesses to ensure we are taking advantage of these new opportunities. The NBN is being rolled out in a way which is fast, more affordable and less costly to taxpayers. There is a $200 million boost for more than 770,000 Australian part-pensioners and allowance recipients, with the lowering of the social security deeming rates. This has certainly been well received in my electorate of McPherson where we have a high number of retirees. We have put in place better scrutiny and reporting of foreign purchases of agricultural land. These are just a few of the many things that we have achieved.

As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Science, I would like to take this opportunity to speak about some of the great things happening in that portfolio. We have introduced the Industry, Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda. This has been the focus of the first full year of our government, and we have been very active in this area. Some of our achievements to date associated with this agenda include the rollout of Industry Growth Centres, with three chairs already being announced: Mr Andrew Stevens, Chair of the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre; Ms Elizabeth Lewis-Gray, Chair of the Mining Equipment, Technology and Services Growth Centre; and Mr Peter Schultz, Chair of the Food and Agribusiness Growth Centre. We are well on the way to reforming the vocational education and training sector, and this work is continuing in the education and training portfolio. I congratulate the Assistant Minister for Education and Training, Senator Simon Birmingham, for the work that he is doing in this area since his appointment as the assistant minister in December last year.

In schools we are promoting the stem subjects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We are implementing the Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Program, worth $484 million, to support SMEs. In Tasmania, we have established the Tasmanian Innovation and Investment Fund in recognition of the unique challenges this state faces. We are now assessing more than 130 applications from across the Tasmanian economy, including in forestry, food, furniture and tourism. In Victoria, the Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund rounds 1 and 2 have now been completed and round 3 is to follow. Melbourne's North Innovation and Investment Fund round 1 has been completed. Australia's anti-dumping system has been reviewed and there is now legislation before the House that deals with a number of very important reforms.

I turn now to some of the important commitments the government is making in science. Science is vital to Australia's future, particularly given the strong impact of science on industry. Across government we are continuing to make a strong commitment to science and the critical role it plays in the economic growth of Australia. In 2014-15 we are spending $9.2 billion in science, research and innovation across all portfolios. Over the next four years this government will spend approximately $5.8 billion for science and research in the Industry portfolio. This includes $3 billion for CSIRO over the next four years. This will see year-on-year funding increases over the forward estimates.

We are also making new investments of $181.2 million to secure the operation of vital scientific activities and promote the benefits of science to Australians, including $65.7 million for CSIRO to operate and maintain the new research vessel, Investigator. There is $31.6 million over four years for ANSTO to operate the Open Pool Australian Lightwater reactor, OPAL, at full capacity. There is $25.9 million over four years for the permanent and safe disposal of used Australian nuclear fuel. There is $28 million in science for Australia's future, which includes National Science Week. There is $10 million to extend the Australia-China Science and Research Fund and there is $20 million to extend the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund.

Australia's ability to compete in global markets—in all sectors—depends on our ability to move up the value chain. Producing high-quality innovative or niche products and connecting science to industry is the cornerstone of our industry policy. The Australian government is continuing to support businesses to innovate and engage in research and development through the R&D tax incentive, which is expected to provide over $1 billion in tax offsets for eligible companies in 2014-15.

I turn now to a topic dear to my heart, STEM. As part of the government's Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda, announced in October, we are delivering an extra $12 million to improve the focus on science, technology, engineering and maths—the STEM subjects—in primary and secondary education. I am privileged to have been given the responsibility, by the Minister for Industry and Science, to assist in the preparation and implementation of the whole-of-government response to the chief scientist's STEM strategy and recommendations. It is essential that we inspire young Australians to participate more actively in the STEM subjects and to develop strong STEM skills. We must continue to promote the value of STEM skills not just to the students of tomorrow but to all Australians. We need to promote the impact that STEM research has had on our quality of life as well as the impact STEM will have in the future. Those STEM skills are critical to future economic growth, sustainability and social wellbeing.

I will briefly touch on skills and training, having worked closely with Minister Macfarlane on this area before becoming the parliamentary secretary. It was pleasing to see the successful implementation of the trade-support loans, with legislation passing through both houses last year. Pleasingly, this was one of the first pieces of budget legislation that went through and is now delivering support for thousands of tradies around the country. With our VET reforms, started by Minister Macfarlane and continuing under Assistant Minister Birmingham, we are changing the focus of the system to be more outcome focused and industry led.

From 1 January this year we saw new training provider and national regulator standards introduced that have allowed for a crackdown on dodgy practices through new requirements around marketing and advertising policies. It was this government that provided new funding of more than $68 million, over four years, for the national regulator, ASQA, to focus on serious breaches of standards. From July this year we will see the new Australian Apprenticeship Support Network take off. This will provide a one-stop-shop for apprentices and their employers. It is currently out to tender. Very exciting for both industry and workers is the new $476 million Industry Skills Fund, which includes two new $44 million youth pilot programs. The Gold Coast will definitely benefit from this.

Turning to my electorate of McPherson, as a government we are spending more than $23.4 million in road infrastructure for the 2014-15 financial year. One of the major road projects to which the government has committed more than $111 million, over the life of the project, is the M1 Nerang to Robina widening, which will have a huge positive impact on both my electorate and the Gold Coast region. Across my electorate, our government is getting on with the job of tackling black spots on the roads. From Coolangatta to Cottesloe Drive at Robina we are making our roads safer through this vital road-funding project.

I am committed to working with other local members and all levels of government to further improve transport and road infrastructure for the Gold Coast. I have spoken in this place on many occasions about the transport issues that are facing Gold Coast residents and tourists. Effectively, the problem we have on the Gold Coast with regard to transport is that the Gold Coast is very different from every other major city—just about in the world, but particularly in Australia. Instead of having a central CBD, where all of the road and transport infrastructure emanates from, to the outer suburbs, the Gold Coast has evolved from a number of small villages that over time have developed and joined together. The Gold Coast is effectively a long coastal strip.

This gives us a number of significant issues with relation to transport infrastructure. We have three opportunities available to us on the Gold Coast and they serve somewhat different purposes. We have the M1, which is going through an upgrade process, interchange by interchange. It certainly would have been more advantageous if the former Queensland Labor government had not changed the priority from Tugun to Nerang to further north, closer to Brisbane. That way, we may well have—and should well have—had the M1 widened by now, all the way through to Tugun. But it is progressing.

Secondly, we have the heavy rail from Brisbane which currently terminates at Varsity Lakes. This is perhaps three stations away from the airport at Coolangatta. We also have the light rail, which at this stage has very limited capacity on the Gold Coast and terminates south at Broadbeach, which again is a long way from the airport at Coolangatta. We do know that tourists to the Gold Coast wish to stay within a kilometre of the beach, and so the light rail is ideally suited for our tourist visitors as well as our local residents.

Work clearly needs to be done on all three—the M1, heavy rail and light rail. The priority of people who speak to me is, at this stage, getting the light rail through to the airport. I would also say that we must continue at the fastest possible pace to upgrade the M1, which provides commuter access up through to Brisbane and is invaluable. What I would see as the third priority is getting the heavy rail down to the airport. We of course cannot ignore the fact that the Gold Coast is developing westwards. We need to have good transport links to the east and to the west to make sure that we are looking after the best interests of our residents on the Gold Coast.

As I indicated earlier, I have spoken in this place on many occasions about transport on the Gold Coast. It continues to be an issue, and it is an issue that I will continue to fight for, not only by talking here in Canberra to my colleagues but also by pushing the new state government in Queensland to make sure that the Gold Coast, and particularly the southern suburbs of the Gold Coast, is not ignored when it comes to transport infrastructure.

In conclusion, I say to the naysayers and those engaging in constant negativity, we as a government are getting on with the job of good government. We see very little by way of real positive policy alternatives coming from those sitting opposite. We are a government that is responsible, sensible and united—united in our commitment to clean up the mess left by those opposite and united in delivering a better future for all Australians.

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation (No. 3) Bill 2014-15 and related bills and, in doing so, update the House on a number of exciting initiatives from across Bennelong. This will include the latest news on the Hyundai Bennelong Table Tennis Schools Program and Bennelong Cup in the year of the Anzac Centenary, as well as the Bennelong Gardens Initiative and the resumption of the Bennelong Village Business campaign.

As I have informed the House on several occasions, I founded the Bennelong Schools Table Tennis Program in 2011, when, during visits to local schools, I identified cultural divides amongst students in their participation in sport. Through the generosity of Hyundai Australia, and in cooperation with Table Tennis Australia, table tennis tables have been provided to almost all schools in Bennelong. Coaching clinics for the students were organised for each school, and the Bennelong Schools Table Tennis Competition was born and is now held every year.

Bennelong is home to a diverse range of cultures and identities, and table tennis is a great way to get people of all backgrounds active and interacting with each other. It is an excellent exercise in inclusiveness, which is bridging the cultural divide throughout my electorate. I warmly remember a moment from the competition in its first year. I watched a particularly timid child grow before my eyes when his table tennis ability was shown off with a leading Korean champion in front of his school mates. With his sudden popularity came confidence, acceptance and a renewed zest for school life. His table tennis career is progressing well too. If this program can bring this sense of fulfilment to more children, it will continue to grow into a roaring success.

Likewise, the international tournament is this year also taking on a very exciting and topical turn. The Hyundai Bennelong Cup is an official annual sporting event, involving the Australian table tennis team and international competitors. It is held annually, with games played within my electorate and some exhibition matches played in the Great Hall right here in Parliament House. Hyundai Australia has extended its generosity to sponsor these test matches, and over the past four years the tournament has involved high-level competition between four nations: Australia, South Korea, China and Japan. This year, I am very happy to announce that two more countries will be joining us: Malaysia and New Zealand. I am particularly delighted that we will be joined by our friends from across the Tasman.

In this year that commemorates the 100th anniversary of the ANZAC landings, I am happy to declare that this strong relationship of partnership will continue as the Australian and New Zealand teams will be together, competing as one Trans-Tasman team. This sporting collaboration is not a first. In fact, we owe our grand slam status to our friends from across the Tasman. New Zealand and Australia originally competed in the Davis Cup, with great success as Australasia. There are countless other collaborations that could be mentioned from the fields of sport, academia, diplomacy and more. However, it is our 100-year old military alliance which I would like to briefly speak to.

One hundred years ago, when the Australian nation was forged on the Turkish beaches of the Gallipoli peninsula, a special bond was created not only amongst our diggers but also with the allies who shared our trenches. New Zealand celebrates their national baptism on 25 April like we do, yet the creation of the shared bond between us, forged at the same time as our respective national identities, receives less attention. The ordeals were shared between two nation's troops, which were of course no more segregated than those of the Australian states. And 100 years on from this momentous time our troops will once again be working alongside our New Zealand allies in the Middle East. The Anzac spirit of partnership is still alive and well.

Bennelong will, along with the rest of the country, be hosting a plethora of events for the Anzac Centenary. Over $100,000 in Anzac Centenary grants have already been approved to a vast range of organisations across Bennelong. To pull out some highlights: Rydalmere East Public School is putting on a theatrical production entitled 'Do not Forget, Australia'; Gladesville Public School and Denistone East Public School will both be building or upgrading memorials on their grounds; St Alban's Anglican parish in Epping is restoring its World War I memorial; and Epping RSL is providing an exhibition of First World War memorabilia.

I would like to officially congratulate all of the organisations who are contributing to these commemorations and I look forward to visiting each of these projects over the coming months. I also look forward to visiting all of the excellent RSLs within Bennelong for the large number of events that I know are being organised. The celebration and commemoration of this anniversary is being taken up wholeheartedly across Bennelong, and I know that the Anzac spirit will not be forgotten in my electorate.

The centenary will be an important time to reflect on the ideals that have grown out of the trenches. These same ideals have gone on to forge our Australian identity and indomitable spirit. It is right that this centenary of the Gallipoli landings is indeed a celebration of this spirit as well as a memorial to the brave diggers who gave their lives and suffered on the other side of the world.

And it will be all the more symbolic for 300 families following this month's announcement that once again our troops will be returning to the Middle East—and, again, we will be alongside our trans-Tasman neighbours. I wish all our troops well on this new mission and hope they all return safely and soon.

To return to electorate matters, alongside the revamped and expanded Hyundai Bennelong Cup, there are a number of big initiatives that are continuing this year that I would like to update the House on. I have spoken in the past about the Bennelong Gardens initiative which I am promoting, and now it is coming along at a rapid pace.

Bennelong Gardens is a large-scale, commercially viable community gardens project, utilising unused public lands across Bennelong. It provides rewarding work for people with disabilities as well as volunteer opportunities for local retirees and others who will benefit greatly from social interaction and physical activity.

This initiative has been hugely popular across the electorate and is being supported by a large and varied number of other groups. These include Achieve Australia; Royal Rehab; Harris Farm Markets; Ryde city council, the New South Wales state government; Australian Native Landscapes; TAFE New South Wales; NOVA Employment; and Social Ventures Australia. In addition, a number of businesses and individuals have pledged money, expertise and materials to ensure that Bennelong Gardens are a success.

The aim is to establish commercial gardens across approximately 100 acres of unused land throughout the electorate. Fresh fruit and vegetables grown in the Bennelong Gardens will be sold on site to local greengrocers and members of the public. Harris Farm Markets has agreed to allocate shelf space to Bennelong Gardens, with all sales going directly to our social enterprise.

As beneficiaries of the Bennelong Gardens social enterprise, the people with disabilities will gain economic benefit from the sale of produce. Achieve Australia have agreed to administer the project. Their expertise in the field of disability employment has been invaluable. They will be essential to the ultimate success of the garden's main goal, which is of course providing social and physical activity for those who need it—from people with disabilities to retirees.

Seed funding for Bennelong Gardens comes from the establishment of the Granny Smith apple Heritage Orchard—in honour of Bennelong being the home of Grandma Maria Smith and her famous apple variety. Each tree will be sponsored by a company or individual for $1,000, and I was delighted to purchase the first tree.

Royal Rehab in Putney is housing the first of the apple trees. Royal Rehab is another fantastic local facility that helps get people back on their feet after tragedy strikes. Like Achieve Australia, they fully appreciate the necessity of movement and social interaction in the rehabilitation process.

Towards the end of last year, I visited Royal Rehab to turn the first sod in our silver spade event. The first of the trees in the Granny Smith Heritage Orchard were planted, and the event was a huge success. Subsequent to this, more donations have come in and the trees will continue to be planted, highlighting the huge popularity of the scheme and the real desire to see it succeed.

Ryde city council has also been consulted with extensively, and I addressed the council in the last month. The support was unanimous from all sides of the political divide, and my office is currently working with all of the partner organisations to get the paperwork approved so we can get plants in the ground as soon as possible.

This project represents direct action to support those that need it most in our community, to empower them to achieve independence and an increased sense of personal pride. It will have fantastic outcomes, and I look forward to it becoming a reality very shortly.

Finally, I would like to update the House on my ongoing local campaign known as the Bennelong Village Businesses. In conversation with a number of local businesses, I heard that there is real concern within Bennelong—and indeed across the country—with local businesses being forced out by the larger supermarkets and chain stores.

The BVB program is designed to reinvigorate community shopping villages through a combination of strategic business initiatives. To promote the enormous benefits to shopping locally, each month I will be celebrating a new

Bennelong village—22 shopping precincts have been identified across Bennelong which will take turns for the honour. They will be publicised widely and even have access to cheaper advertising rates in one of the local papers.

The 22 villages are made up of over 200 small and local businesses. Small businesses are the lifeblood of our communities; yet they are often overlooked for the apparent convenience of the larger shopping centres. The allure of bigger shops is plain to see but denies some real local benefits.

The benefits of shopping local are wide and varied, including supporting the local economy, the convenience of staying close to home and, of course, the social benefits to elderly or less mobile local residents. A core group of 10 reasons to shop local has been set out by my office and forms the cornerstone of the campaign.

This campaign will resume in the middle of April with a fantastic little line of shops that have been a part of the local community for as long as it has existed. The exact location will be announced in a matter of weeks and will be the first in a long line of local shopping districts that will receive the benefit of their local community's support. These are just a few of the exciting developments in the suburbs of Bennelong.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the cognate appropriations bill before the House and to highlight the significant contribution to South Australia being made by the Commonwealth through the budget—in contrast, of course, to the hysterical claims being made by the South Australian state Labor government. As members would be aware, in 2007 Australia had an unemployment rate of four per cent and zero government debt, and we were operating budget surpluses. When the Labor government left office six years later, they left us with over 200,000 more unemployed Australians, gross debt projected to rise above $667 billion, $123 billion in cumulative deficits and, of course, not to forget, the world's biggest carbon tax.

This budget has begun the long, difficult task of fiscal repair that will be the basis for sustained economic growth and prosperity into the future. It is clear that the former Labor government's approach of using borrowed funds for current expenditure was neither sustainable nor desirable. What the coalition has done, as laid out in the budget and in the Intergenerational report tabled on 5 March, is to remove the debt burden from current and future generations. These decisions have been difficult and have been opposed, in most cases, by those opposite, despite the responsibility they bear for having caused the budget crisis we inherited. Despite the fact that some of the saving measures were in fact proposed by those opposite, they are now opposed by those opposite in the Senate. This is the height of political opportunism and the first best demonstration that the Labor Party does not have the political maturity or, indeed, policy honesty to govern this country.

Even more disturbing than federal Labor's economically reckless tactic from opposition are the tactics of the South Australian state Labor government. First, I want to place on record the level of Commonwealth investment in South Australia. Total Commonwealth funding to South Australia continues to increase in each and every year over the forward estimates. Total Commonwealth payments to South Australia will rise from $7.6 billion last financial year to $8.2 billion this year, to $9.3 billion in the last year of the forward estimates, that being the year ending 30 June 2018—a $1.8 billion increase over this time. Going forward, South Australia is projected to receive $35.6 billion in total funding from the Commonwealth across the forward estimates. This figure includes both GST revenue and payments for specific purposes. Comparing the numbers contained in federal Labor's last budget, that of the 2013-14 fiscal year, to the numbers in our latest MYEFO, over the same common four-year period, from 2013-14 to 2016-17, South Australia will receive an extra $1.4 billion from this coalition government.

At the 2014-15 budget the Commonwealth government provided $2 billion in funding for major South Australian road projects, with $1.8 billion to be spent over the next four years including, of course, a billion dollars for the north-south road corridor upgrade to improve freight transport productivity across Adelaide. The Commonwealth government has abolished the carbon tax and the South Australian Labor government has booked a $10 million dividend from that abolition. The abolition of the carbon tax is also helping households, who are benefiting right now through lower electricity prices—a drop of eight per cent in my electorate of Barker alone. Commonwealth funding for South Australian hospitals will increase by $293 million, or 30 per cent, from the level we saw in 2013-14 to the projected level in 2017-18. This funding grows at an average rate of seven per cent per year. Across the forward estimates Commonwealth funding to schools in South Australia will increase by $274 million. Year on year, school funding to South Australia grows by seven per cent, six per cent, six per cent and six per cent. This is a significant investment by the Commonwealth into South Australia, but that is not the story you will hear from Premier Weatherill or Treasurer Koutsantonis.

The South Australian state Labor government has a very clear strategy in place designed to shift blame, distract and avoid scrutiny over the myriad problems it has presided over for more than the past decade. Central to that strategy is to use the responsible but politically unpopular decisions of the Commonwealth as cover for its own mismanagement. Every time it has failed to invest properly in infrastructure, schools, education or regional development, the South Australian state Labor government points to Canberra and says, 'Blame them.' Well, I am sorry, Premier Weatherill, but you need to show some leadership and take ownership of your own decisions.

It is the Weatherill government that refuses to accept $25 million in Murray-Darling Basin diversification funding—money that is available for my electorate today, if Minister Brock were to act. The Commonwealth has put the money forward. It has been waiting for Premier Weatherill and Minister Brock to confirm the projects since August 2013—not August 2014; August 2013. In an all too familiar pattern, the South Australian government is dragging its heels on its responsibilities, when every other state government has agreed to the package, confirmed the projects and indeed, in many cases, has spent the money, which is intended to help create new jobs and new opportunities for people living in river communities.

Despite the fact that they signed up to this agreement when federal Labor was in office, because it is no longer politically advantageous for them they are confecting some sort of claim about GST funding, the figures of which are very rubbery, and punishing people who do not live in metropolitan postcodes because—and here is the rub—it may be possible that they will lose some GST money that they can spend in Adelaide. They would prefer to harm the people of Barker, the Riverland and Murraylands than lose any of the capacity to spend that money in marginal Labor seats in Adelaide.

It is the Weatherill government that refuse to maintain the pensioner concessions on council rates, instead pocketing $98 million. Despite being responsible for $171 of the $190 rebate, they are using the federal government's decision to pull back $19 of that same rebate as cover for their decision to save, as I said, $98 million. It is the Weatherill government that are closing hospitals across the state, like the repatriation hospital. I have seen firsthand the reckless and wilful neglect of the state Labor government in inflicting damage on regional hospitals and health services. Thanks to the state government, there is not a single MRI machine outside of Adelaide, nor a resident clinical psychiatrist between Adelaide and Warrnambool in Victoria—and that is before the government's Transforming Health process starts. Now we have a clear stated intention to cut services to the bone. You cannot even go as far as from North Terrace to Noarlunga before you run out of emergency departments under the government's plan. How are the people in the Riverland and Mount Gambier expected to access metropolitan equivalent emergency services when the people in the southern suburbs of Adelaide cannot?

Sorry, Renmark; sorry, Murray Bridge—you do not even rate a mention in the document, and Berri and Mount Gambier are referred to only once in relation to some much needed and long-overdue mental health beds. But there is nothing on accident and emergency and nothing on increasing surgical bed numbers, even at the new RAH, and yet somehow, despite all these cutbacks and chronic lack of investment, regional services are magically going to achieve better outcomes for patients because we are putting more people through fewer fully equipped hospitals. It is your government, Premier Weatherill, that has imposed massive increases in the emergency services levy and now wants to impose an additional $1,200 land tax on every single South Australian family home.

Despite these actions, the South Australian Labor government continues to run deficits year on year and has a ballooning debt crisis. It is the Weatherill government that has presided over the worst unemployment rate in Australia, at 7.3 per cent—clearly shameful. What is the state government's answer to these problems? Its first tactic is to blame the Commonwealth for everything, as I said earlier. The second tactic is to announce an investigation into controversial subjects without actually taking a firm position or taking any action on them itself. An example is a discussion which has begun around a South Australian nuclear industry. I think it is a great debate and a good one to have, but what is the state Labor government's position on this? It does not have one because this is all an exercise in distraction. No-one knows its position, but the state government will spend millions of dollars on finding out what it already knows. It ought to be mentioned that this is the same proposal that the South Australian state government some years ago spent hundreds of thousands of dollars arguing against in a High Court challenge.

Should we change time zones? That is another distraction. You could hardly believe it, but it is what is occupying the minds of North Terrace at the moment. Talking about time zones is certainly more important than the government providing details about what services it is cutting from regional hospitals or about how it has manifestly failed in child protection or what really went on with the Gillman land deal. I jest, of course, but this seems to be the debate that is wont to be had in South Australia, as I said, as an exercise in distraction. These are just a few of the examples where the duplicity of the state Labor government's claims about federal funding is revealed. It reflects the very clear intention of the Weatherill Labor government to punish people in regional South Australia and intimidate them into changing their votes lest they face some kind of further reprisal. It is not just a preference for economies of scale available in metropolitan Adelaide but a deliberate ploy to punish people for their democratic choices.

The third tactic is to say that anyone who criticises them is not a team player. I cannot begin to tell you the number of times I have heard the state government announce with much fanfare that they are undertaking a massive infrastructure project, complete with hard hats, high-visibility jackets and shovels, only to later find out that the project will only go ahead if there is substantial federal funding and that there was no agreement between the governments before the state government made the announcement. In fact, I understand that in one case in particular, despite heaping blame on the Commonwealth for not funding a certain project, the state minister has not once, on my investigations, raised that issue with his federal counterpart across 18 months. Instead, we get taxpayer funded, party political advertising campaigns, each one costing $1.1 million, attacking the federal government. These actions are not those of a responsible government and do not reflect the fact that there is now more federal investment in South Australia than ever before.

The people of South Australia are being repeatedly taken for mugs by this state Labor government and being fed a campaign of lies and misinformation. There are serious challenges facing our country and my state, and this budget is a serious attempt at addressing those challenges before they become insurmountable. Unlike those opposite and those back home on North Terrace, we will not avoid our duty to leave Australia in better shape than how it was left to us and we will not hide behind cheap political tricks to obscure the hard decisions that need to be made. I commend these bills to the House.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the appropriation bills and update the House on the electorate of Solomon and the solid progress that the coalition government is making for the people of Darwin and Palmerston.

When the government were elected we promised we would stop the boats. And we have. For the people of the Top End, people-smuggling activities were more than something we read about in the newspapers. They were something that we dealt with on a daily basis. Mr Deputy Speaker, you probably remember that one boat got within 13 kilometres of Bathurst Island and another one landed on Croker Island undetected. When the number of boats surged after Labor opened the gates to the people smugglers, my electorate was one of the ones that bore the brunt of it. At the peak of the boat arrivals in 2013, there were five immigration detention centres within, or immediately surrounding, my electorate. You would have heard me, Mr Deputy Speaker, saying that Labor opened more detention beds than hospital beds during its term in government.

Labor's complete loss of control over the immigration system had a number of flow-on effects for my electorate. Essential services had to cope with the rapid influx in the population. The ambulance, police and fire services felt the strain, as did the Royal Darwin Hospital and the other medical services in my electorate. The tourism industry felt the squeeze, with entire hotels in the CBD booked out by immigration, either to accommodate asylum seekers—yes, things got so bad that the immigration department rented an entire CBD hotel as a makeshift detention centre—or detention centre workers, and there were fewer rooms available for tourists. Even major construction projects and heavy industry were put out, with the developments built to accommodate the fly-in fly-out workforce snapped up by Immigration.

This is why I welcomed Minister Dutton's announcement last month that, due to the coalition government's success in stopping the boats, the Blaydin Point facility would no longer be required by the Australian government. The Blaydin Point facility is the 11th immigration detention facility that the coalition government has closed in just over 12 months. The savings to the federal government from the centre closure will be around $18 million in lease costs alone. Despite Immigration moving out, the local economy will not suffer. I am pleased to advise the House that the facility at Blaydin Point will actually revert to its original intended purpose as accommodation for fly-in fly-out workers on a nearby major construction project.

You have heard me speak, a number of times, about Tiger Brennan Drive. When I was campaigning for re-election I promised the people of Solomon that we would deliver on the duplication of Tiger Brennan Drive. Tiger Brennan Drive is one of the major arterial roads linking my home in Palmerston to the Darwin CBD. It gave me great pleasure to stand beside the Deputy Prime Minister and my Northern Territory colleagues at the opening of another stage of the Tiger Brennan duplication. The duplication of the section between Woolner Road and Gonzales Road is easing the congestion and improving safety for traffic arriving to the CBD.

The $88 million duplication of Tiger Brennan Drive's section between Woolner Road and Berrimah Road is well underway. Just last Friday I was joined by my good friend the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Minister Briggs, and another good friend of mine, the Northern Territory transport and infrastructure minister, Peter Chandler, and we inspected the works that are currently underway. Despite the wet season, it did not rain while we were having a look.

The many thousands of constituents who commute between Darwin and Palmerston every day along the road will already be seeing construction of safety barriers and heavy equipment moving into place, as well as the specialised machinery building up the roads in low-lying areas to protect against storm surge. When these are completed, these works will give the 22,000 vehicles that use the road each day easier access between Darwin's CBD and the Palmerston and rural area. It will reduce traffic on the parallel Stuart Highway, and will ease congestion of traffic between the East Arm Wharf and the Darwin industrial areas.

And that is what this government is all about. We are about delivering on our promises—delivering infrastructure. Tiger Brennan Drive alone represents a $103 million commitment. The coalition government promised that we would deliver the roads of the 21st century; that we would be an infrastructure government. I am very pleased to report that, in Solomon, we are doing exactly that.

It is not just in constructing world-class road infrastructure that the coalition government is making life easier for people in the Top End. We are also doing our very best to drive down the cost of petrol. Darwin and Palmerston motorists—and, indeed, all Territorians—have being paying far too much for petrol for far too long. At its worst, someone filling-up in my electorate would pay probably 30 cents per litre more than a driver in Sydney. That is an extra $18 on every 60 litre tank of fuel. A forum convened by the Northern Territory government had an immediate impact by reducing prices by a few cents a litre, but Territorians are still paying too much.

That is why I was delighted to hear the news last week that the ACCC is to undertake an unprecedented investigation into the fuel price in Darwin. Under its new powers, the ACCC will break down each element of the supply chain to determine where it is going so badly wrong for Territory motorists and to see what can be done. And I would like to place on record my thanks to all the Territorians who got involved in the campaign to get the ACCC to come to Darwin and investigate. It is a true sign that people power actually works.

A fortnight ago I was also delighted to announce to my electorate that a proposal for an $18 million joint defence logistics facility at Darwin's East Arm Warf is being investigated by the Public Works Committee, and I am hoping to have their sign-off very soon. This facility, including barge ramps, staging areas and supporting infrastructure, will give the Navy the ability to operate their new helicopter, and to dock ships and amphibious vessels out of Darwin harbour. It will also be available to commercial operators such as the Top End's transport, fishing, oil and gas operations, and pearling fleets. This is another big win for Darwin and Palmerston. A facility of this scale will mean jobs in the construction phase, ongoing civilian and military jobs to run the facility, and a boost to the industries which will use this area.

Another thing that I have talked about many times in this House is the Palmerston hospital. Throughout my 2010 election campaign and my first term in office, I fought hard for the people of Palmerston to get a hospital. Northern Territory Labor had 11 years in office, and federal Labor, as we know, had six years through the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era, and in that time they could have built a hospital. Throughout this time, though, the only progress towards a Palmerston hospital was a temporary fence erected around a small bush block on Palmerston's fringe—hardly something that I would call progress.

I can tell you that works are now well underway upgrading infrastructure around a larger site in the area to accommodate a major new full-service hospital at Palmerston. The roads, intersections, traffic signals and paths in the area are already in the process of being upgraded and planning for the hospital itself is well underway. There is room for the hospital to grow, which was always the Country Liberals plan: to build a hospital that is going to grow with the community.

Labor were aiming to underdeliver. It was a box-ticking exercise for them. They were aiming to build a small hospital on a small block, with no room for growth, in the fastest growing city in Australia. And they could not even manage that!

As I said, during the six years in the federal government and 11 years in the Territory government Labor managed to deliver only a temporary fence around three hectares of bush. Thanks for nothing!

When complete, the new Palmerston Regional Hospital will be the first facility of its kind built in the Northern Territory for more than 40 years. The coalition is delivering a level 3 facility, meaning it will offer a 24-hour accident and emergency department, as well as general medicine, surgery, maternity and children's services. The hospital will have a full-support service, including pathology and pharmaceutical services. The Palmerston Regional Hospital will complement the service already offered by the Royal Darwin Hospital, the Northern Territory's only level 6 facility.

The Northern Territory Minister for Health, John Elferink, along with my Palmerston Territory colleagues Lia Finnachiaro, member for Drysdale; Peter Chandler, Minister for Infrastructure; and Nathan Barrett, member for Blain and I are all absolutely united in our drive to deliver a new hospital for Palmerston and the Greater Darwin area.

Minister Elferink will be here this week, meeting with our new federal health minister, Minister Ley, and me, to update us on the Palmerston hospital, because there are some mistruths being spread by those opposite.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Very unusual!

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know it is very unusual, Assistant Treasurer, for those opposite to spread mistruths! But, in this case, they are. The coalition government is not the only organisation investing in Northern Australia. Private enterprise is flourishing under this 'open for business' government. New industrial and commercial areas are springing up throughout the Top End.

Perhaps the best example of this is the beef industry. After Labor's disastrous knee-jerk decision to ban live animal export, the Territory's cattle industry was absolutely crippled. Many farmers and agribusinesses were bankrupted. There were some terrible stories which I know you, Deputy Speaker Scott, are aware of.

However, just south of Darwin, the Australian Agricultural Company has invested $90 million in a new beef-processing facility. I, along with the Prime Minister, was delighted to attend the opening of this facility just a few weeks ago.

Compare and contrast: under Labor, an entire industry and a sizeable chunk of the Northern Territory economy was deliberately crippled in one fell swoop. Now, 18 months into a coalition government, we have a diversified industry: live cattle and boxed beef, attracting major investment. So what has changed? The government. Under the coalition, stability has returned. Free trade agreements with Korea, Japan and China are opening up economic opportunity for Australian businesses. This means that our agricultural, mining and service industries in the Top End now have access to huge new markets.

The China free trade agreement alone will drop or eliminate tariffs on exported products, including live animals, beef, hides, skins and leather. This agreement will give Australian exporters unprecedented levels of market access to the world's second largest economy, with a population of 1.36 billion and a rapidly growing middle class. This will mean greater economic growth, more jobs and higher living standards for those households across the country but particularly those in Darwin and Palmerston.

Free trade agreements will provide a range of new opportunities for our service providers—everything from legal services, financial services, education, tourism, agriculture, architecture, urban planning and transport, and many more.

In summary, the people of the Top End bore the brunt of Labor's incompetence. It is a great honour to stand here as part of the coalition government to report that things are getting better. Job creation is running at three times the rate it was under Labor. Job ads growth is currently at 13.6 per cent so that is 585 jobs a day.

The Australian Stock Exchange is sitting at a six-year high. Thousands of pages of unnecessary red tape have been slashed. The carbon tax is gone, the mining tax is gone and the boats have stopped. (Time expired)

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an honour to speak today on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2014-2015 and cognate bills. Given the wide-ranging nature of the debate, I want to focus on an issue of paramount importance to not only my electorate of Deakin and the state of Victoria but, increasingly, all Australians and that is the progress of Melbourne's East West Link. I refer to the abysmal way in which that project is now, purportedly, being handled by the state Labor government and, unfortunately, the way in which that project is being treated by the Leader of the Opposition, given some comments that he made earlier today, which I will refer to a little bit later on.

For those who do not know, the East West Link is the most important infrastructure project, in recent memory, in Melbourne. It is a cross-city link that will basically enable the free flow of traffic from, as the title would suggest, the east to the west of Melbourne, saving commuters in my electorate of Deakin and, indeed, all throughout Melbourne, up to three hours of travel time a week, enabling the free flow of goods from our major port to the eastern suburbs and indeed the western suburbs of Melbourne and also the free flow of all goods between small businesses operating in Melbourne. So it is, absolutely, a productivity-enhancing piece of infrastructure. It is also a piece of infrastructure that will improve the lives of Melburnians who are living in an ever congested city. With a population set to grow quite significantly in the years to come, quite frankly, it is a project that will be catching up on work that should have been done previously.

I was very fortunate to be able to secure $1½ billion before the last election for stage 1 of the East West Link, which was really the federal contribution that unlocked the ability of that project to happen. We were then able to secure an additional $1½ billion before the election for stage 2 of the East West Link. So, $3 billion of federal funding was committed to ensure that this transformational infrastructure project could go ahead. On the basis of that very generous commitment, the former state government committed, with a consortium, to proceed with the project.

Where we are now is that the project is shovel ready, it is fully funded with contributions committed from the federal and former state governments and, obviously, from private operators. The problem is now, though, that the state Labor Party is committing to tear up the contracts and potentially open up Victorian taxpayers to hundreds of millions of dollars—if not over $1 billion—of compensation not to build the East West Link. It is quite extraordinary. We now have a state Labor government which has said, 'No thank you. We don't want the $3 billion the federal government's committed to the East West Link. And not only are we going to say we don't want the $3 billion commitment, we're actually going to cancel the contract that we said before the election wasn't worth the paper it was written on. We know that was a lie. But we will cancel a contract and pay potentially over $1 billion not to build the East West Link, a piece of infrastructure that the Labor Party has championed for many years, all the way back to 2008.'

In the submissions to the 2008 Eddington review, which was commissioned by the former state Labor Party under John Brumby, there was a very good submission from the Australian Workers Union. The key submitter here was Bill Shorten, the National Secretary. They absolutely supported the East West Link and said it was crucial to the future development of Victoria and was key to the economic prosperity of Victorians.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought he was against it!

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Bill Shorten, the now Leader of the Opposition was right when he said that. But after he entered parliament in 2008, when he was the member for Maribyrnong, he co-signed another submission, to the East West Transport Options Review, again supporting the East West Link, saying that he and the other members that wrote the submission support a cross-city road link from the western suburbs to the Eastern Freeway. That is called the East West Link.

But, quite extraordinarily, I have been waiting for this moment for a while, because we all know the bumbling Leader of the Opposition just bloviates and waffles and pulls up pointless historical references—as we all heard on John Faine last week—and basically gets through interviews without saying a thing. He has done that on half a dozen occasions, but today he let the cat out of the bag. Finally, he got pinned down to giving an answer. The question asked by a reporter was: 'So, do you support the building of the East West Link? You've written two submissions previously broadly supporting Sir Rod Eddington. Do you now support the building of the East West Link?' Given the Leader of the Opposition has supported it twice, as correctly referenced by that reporter, and given that he is a man of such conviction who never really changes his mind—he is not known for changing his mind very often—I was wondering what the answer would be. This was his answer: 'No, not in the current circumstances.'

So there we have it. Mark it in the diary. Today is the day that Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, notwithstanding his previous strong support for the East West Link, is giving Daniel Andrews and the state Labor Party permission to trash Victoria's economic reputation and ruin the development of Victoria by tearing up the East West Link contracts. I held very slim hopes for the Leader of the Opposition, because you may not have picked up from my comments when I said he does not change his mind very often that I really had my tongue in my cheek when I said that. We all know that he does change his mind on a far-too-regular basis. Just ask Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard. I was hoping he would pick up the phone to Dan Andrews and say, 'Dan, this is not just a Victorian problem.' Victoria is an economic powerhouse in this country. It represents 25 per cent of the Australian economy. If a state Labor Party is going to trash the economic reputation of the state government and the state in its entirety, this has flow-on implications for the rest of Australia, and for that reason I thought the Leader of the Opposition would do the right thing and pick up the phone and tell him to change this outrageous proposal to cancel the East West Link contract.

But it actually gets worse, because now the state Labor Party is saying that in order to get out of possible compensation that will be payable—potentially over $1 billion—they may legislate to cancel any damages claim that the consortium may have. So we have got the first lie, and that lie was that this contract is not worth the paper it was written on. That is what the state Labor Party said. That is what the Leader of the Opposition supported before the Victorian state election. When that was proven to be a complete falsehood and compensation is definitely payable and most likely over $1 billion, the state Labor Party have said that they are actively considering legislating to ensure no compensation is payable. This has sent shock waves through the investment community, including not only through those investors in Australia but also through international investors. A very reputable publication, Infrastructure Investor, had a front page just a couple of weeks ago. The headline to the article referencing Dan Andrews and the state Labor Party and now the Leader of the Opposition and all of the Labor opposition was: 'Can Australia be taken at its word?'

The first line of the article says: 'Retrospective legislation—two words designed to send shivers down the spine of infrastructure investors following the post crisis solar PV debacle in Spain.' The solar PV debacle in Spain was just another example of a government retrospectively legislating away previous commitments it had made, previous contractual arrangements it had made. The article went on to say this: 'So why would any other country even think about following suit today? And, more to the point, what would the world's leading infrastructure market think about it? Those questions are being directed with increasing frequency at Daniel Andrews, Premier of the Australian state of Victoria.' So we now have reputable publications around the world highlighting that the market and investors whom Australia relies upon for a lot of our development—in particular, our infrastructure development—will not want to touch Australia with a 10-foot pole if the environment is such that a contract legally entered into in good faith is cancelled by an incoming government.

I can assure members opposite that, every time a coalition government takes power, there is a hell of a lot of stuff that we would love to cancel—because we always inherit an absolute mess. In my state of Victoria we inherited a white elephant desalination plant. It is costing us millions of dollars a day and not even a drop of water is coming out of it. We inherited the myki ticketing system on our public transport system which, frankly, is moribund. But so much money was invested in those things that it was not prudent, not in the interests of taxpayers, for those contracts to be cancelled. So we did not cancel them—even though, to our core, we dislike those projects.

But here we have got a project which in addition to the time savings for commuters will also create nearly 7,000 jobs during the construction phase. It will be the economic shot in the arm Victoria needs. Victoria cannot afford to say: 'Thanks but no thanks; we don't want 7,000 construction jobs.' But that is what the state Labor government is doing and that is what the federal Leader of the Opposition has today endorsed. So we are now in a situation where we are absolutely on the edge of it. I know there are a lot of Labor Party people who are shaking their heads at the thought that they would trash Victoria's reputation like this. I appeal to those few sensible people in the Labor Party to speak to Dan Andrews and the federal Leader of the Opposition and tell them this would be an absolutely disastrous decision for the Victorian economy.

I would also recommend that everybody get behind our campaign. Recently we launched the Build the Link campaign—at buildthelink.com.au—and we got nearly 40,000 signatures in a couple weeks. The reception from the electorate has been absolutely extraordinary. Victorians want the East West Link. They absolutely weep at the thought that the disgraceful Labor Party would spend over $1 billion of taxpayers money not to build a piece of infrastructure that is going to future-proof our city. We are already congested and Victoria is projected to grow quite significantly over the next five to 10 years. This is going to affect the lives of everybody, not just the people in my electorate of Deakin. Sure, the people in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne will be hit hardest. We will be the ones who pay the best price for Labor trying to win over a few inner-city Greens voters. I say to the Labor Party: don't look at the inner-city Greens voters as your core constituency, look at what is right for all voters—and that includes people who live in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne. I say to Bill Shorten and Dan Andrews: walk away from this ridiculous position and build the East West Link.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2014-2015 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2014-2015. These bills seek approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the ordinary annual services of the government. I am pleased to speak on the appropriation bills today because they help provide a road map that aids us in achieving sensible, responsible budgetary measures. I note that standing order 76( c) provides that, when we are debating appropriation bills, members of parliament are able to speak freely about issues in their electorate. When considering these bills, I think about the concerns and funding needs in my electorate of Paterson.

Our future depends upon what we as a nation do today. Every generation before us has contributed to the quality of life that we enjoy so much today. Our nation's prosperity is not just a matter of luck. Prosperity needs to be earned; it should never be taken for granted. It is our turn to build, it is our turn to contribute, so that the generations to come may enjoy a prosperous quality of life. As 2015 has well and truly commenced, I am looking forward with renewed vigour, energy and enthusiasm to working with my coalition colleagues to produce real outcomes as we continue to build a strong and more prosperous economy for a safe and secure Australia.

I want to take this opportunity to update the House and my constituents of Paterson on what action has been recently taken to advance their cause, as we have recently seen some great outcomes in my electorate and, indeed, across the Hunter. I am absolutely pleased to report on a number of road and infrastructure projects that are taking place within the electorate of Paterson. I know that the government had a clear mandate prior to the 2013 election, and this mandate was to reduce road fatalities, to make our roads safer, and to increase the efficiency and ease of use of our roads and our motorways, in particular for road freight and traffic movement.

I am proud to announce that the coalition government is delivering on this promise. One such example is through $325,000 of federal funding to update Woerdens Road Bridge near Clarence Town in my electorate of Paterson. This funding is part of the government's new Bridges Renewal Program. By way of background, I sat and talked with the Mayor of Dungog Shire Council, Harold Johnston, and the General Manager, Craig Deasey. We sat down and we had a look at the bridge that was there. It was an old bridge. It was in tatters. It was unsafe, and it was actually propped up with a temporary bridge structure that they had bought from an army disposal. This funding of $325,000 will go towards the cost of replacing this bridge, which will provide certainty of access for the farmers and the community there. And it is good that that temporary bridge structure will now be moved to support another failing bridge. More work needs to be done, and I make the minister aware and I warn that I will be knocking on his door regularly, seeking funds to help repair and rebuild bridges in my electorate.

We have also seen a great example of the fusion of council and the federal government, coming together to develop infrastructure projects that will benefit the community. Recently we committed $28.5 million, matched by proponents, to 29 projects across New South Wales as a part of round 1 of the Bridges Renewal Program. This coalition government has also recently delivered $100,000 to fix an extremely dangerous black spot within my electorate through the government's Black Spot Program. The intersection of Head Street and West Street in Forster has been in dire need of urgent attention for years. The dangerous intersection has seen six accidents—sadly including one fatality—and three injury crashes in the five years to June 2012. This upgrade will see the installation of a concrete median island and signage on both sides of West Street at the intersection, reducing the risks of accidents. This is all about putting safety first. The additional works on the existing narrow concrete median and the line marking on Head Street will increase lane width for vehicles turning right from Head Street into West Street.

This funding follows a number of funding packages in the past year for my electorate of Paterson to upgrade roads, to ensure that my constituents have safer, better driving conditions and to make travelling around my electorate much easier and, as I said, much safer. Last year, $265,774 was allocated for Phoenix Park Road in Maitland; $350,000 was allocated for the Pacific Highway from Gates Road to Swan Bay Road, as there were eight dangerous crashes on this stretch of road in the five years prior to 2012. There was $195,943 for Maitland Vale Road and Melville Ford Road, as there was 2.2 kilometres of road along this stretch that caused six serious injury crashes in the five years to 2012. There was $100,000 for Gresford Road, as there have been, in tragic circumstances, one fatal crash and two serious injuries on this stretch of road.

I know that more work needs to be done. I know how hard it is for councils to fund roadwork, and I am sure that this federal government will, in the process of time, provide much needed support to upgrade these roads. But these funding announcements are on top of the $13.8 million that was announced by the Deputy Prime Minister through the Roads to Recovery funding. The $13.8 million is to give councils in my electorate the discretion to use that money based on local needs—to ensure that this funding was directed to where it was most needed within our community. I am proud to report that Paterson electorate has received a 22.31 per cent increase in funding under the Roads to Recovery program since between 2009 and 2014, an increase on what was outlined under the previous, Labor government. I am amazed that they could spend so much money and create so much debt and deficit and not deliver road infrastructure projects to my constituency. The 22.31 per cent increase is a welcome injection of funds into roads and infrastructure in Paterson, and it is necessary to ensure upgrades to our rural and regional roads and bridges to make them just a bit safer and a bit better.

Under the Roads to Recovery program the Dungog Shire Council received $2.4 million. Great Lakes Council received $4.5 million. Maitland City Council received over $3.5 million, and Port Stephens Council received $3.2 million. I have also campaigned hard for upgrades to the Tourle Street Bridge. Although I note that this bridge falls outside my electorate, it directly services the thousands of my constituents who utilise it and commute daily into Newcastle for work, study at the schools and universities, or for leisure and recreation. The $51.9 million that has been allocated to the Tourle Street Bridge under the infrastructure and investments program is being matched by the New South Wales coalition government, and I congratulate them for that.

I want to point out that the members opposite will try and say that this funding was always going to be matched by Labor, but this is grossly untrue. It is grossly untrue because Labor's so-called commitment was predicated on a mining tax—a mining tax to fund a bridge; a mining tax that delivered little or no revenue. How were they going to fund these projects when, indeed, there was no revenue from a mining tax? The mining tax was a poorly conceived tax that actually stymied investment in the industries that support my electorate so well. This $51.9 million, promised and being delivered by the coalition government, is based on real dollars for this project—not whimsical promises based on non-performing and burdening taxes. Under Labor's reign, road funding in my electorate eroded and the people needed affirmative action—not spin and news articles, but real action and real dollars—delivered on roads. It was time for the rubber to hit the road. I am proud of these funding announcements, as they demonstrate that the Australian government's focus is not just city centric, but that this government is committed to upgrading regional and rural roads and infrastructure. Each of these funding announcements are in direct action to the mandate given by my constituents to target road upgrades to save lives and reduce road trauma.

I am also pleased to update my constituency on projects that pertain to my portfolio as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment. I welcomed the announcement that my electorate of Paterson will be hosting four new projects under round two of the government's Green Army program. I am passionate about the Green Army, as I was of the previous Green Corps, and about these recent developments for two main reasons. Firstly, my electorate of Paterson features some of the most beautiful coastlines, rivers, creeks, forests and national parks in New South Wales, if not Australia. I, like all of my constituents, want to only see this natural beauty preserved, developed and maintained.

Secondly, I see that the Green Army provides opportunities for young Australians aged 17 to 24 to gain training and experience in environmental and conservation fields and explore careers and future studies in conservation management, while participating in projects that generate real benefits for the Australian environment and their communities. It is a win-win. I see this as a great fusion of educating and providing practical, hands-on experience for the next generation with fostering and cultivating our existing and fragile beauty.

In round two of the Green Army projects being rolled out in my electorate, Minister Hunt announced $11,000 for habitat regeneration at Clarence Town wetlands, the ex-pony club and Wharf Reserve to reverse years of neglect and environmental degradation; $10,000 for Caring for the Dungog Common Recreation Reserve to protect and preserve the locally listed eucalyptus glaucina through weed removal; $10,000 for Enhancing Littoral Rainforest Connectivity and Wallis Lake Clean-up Project; and $9,560 for Living in Harmony with Nature for the Port Stephens Koala Corridor Restoration to protect and enhance habitat vital to the survival of our koala population in Port Stephens. That does not sound like a lot of money, but each of these projects is backed up by over $190,000 in wages, support and training. That money I announced was for the capital aspect of the project; there is more to it.

This is very welcome funding that will help young people in Paterson to be a part of an outcome that directly benefits our community and delivers important local conservation outcomes. I look forward to visiting and meeting with these teams and observing and monitoring the results through the six-month program. I welcome and encourage applications within my electorate and, indeed, from across Australia for round three of the Green Army projects, which are now open until tomorrow, 17 March 2015.

I am also proud to announce that the Myall River, Corrie Island and Jimmy's Beach in New South Wales—which are in my electorate, around the Port Stephens area—will benefit from $750,000 as part of the Australian government's National Landcare Program, which is being matched by $743,000 from the NSW government's Coastal Management Program. That is part of $3.1 million project that is supported by Great Lakes Council to dredge the channel at Corrie Island. Importantly, it is to rehabilitate, provide restoration and get rid of feral animals that have been going across because of the siltation that has occurred, which are affecting this Ramsar wetland. This is a complete package that will deliver for the long-term. It is placing much-needed dredging infrastructure in on a permanent basis to help rehabilitate Jimmy's Beach. It will also provide protection for Corrie Island.

I congratulate the Myall River Action Group on their work in bringing this project to fruition. This area around Winda Woppa and Jimmy's Beach has some of the worst erosion issues in Australia. The siltation of the channel near Corrie Island has had a very detrimental effect to the health of the whole Myall lakes and river system because of the lack of flows. It will also provide a great benefit for tourism in my electorate, as constituents and businesses alike will be able to safely navigate these waterways. Again, I congratulate the Myall River Action Group.

Time limits me from being able to speak about the many more projects that have been delivered. I want to give this commitment to my constituency: while each and every one of those projects may not be able to be spoken about in parliament because of my restricted speaking abilities as a parliament secretary—which means I do no adjournment debates, et cetera—I want to assure my constituency that I have no shortage of time for them. I am knocking on ministers' doors, demanding that their projects be funded and putting forward the best case. I will continue to do that, as I have done in the past, because I believe I am fortunate to represent the very best area in Australia with the very best people. They deserve the best of representation.

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

I rise to speak on Appropriation (No. 3) Bill 2014-2015, Appropriation (No. 4) Bill 2014-2015 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) (No. 2) Bill 2014-2015. When this government was elected, the people delivered to Canberra a very clear request to do a number of things. These things were spelt out clearly in the Liberal-National campaign. We were going to stop the boats, axe the carbon tax, scrap the mining tax and clean up Labor's mess. After just one year, the Liberal-National government has already put runs on the board with those issues: the boats have stopped and people have stopped drowning at sea; the carbon tax is gone and families are saving on their power bills; the mining tax is gone, making Australia less risky for business investment; and the clean-up of Labor's debt and deficit disaster is ongoing.

The scale of Labor of the mess left behind cannot be overestimated. The 2015 Intergenerational report: Australia in 2055 forecasts that Australia's net debt position under Labor's policies would put us in the same league as Greece and Japan and worse than Italy, France, the UK, the United States, Spain, Germany, Canada, Korea, the Netherlands and New Zealand. Those countries were already carrying enormous debt levels seven years ago. That was at a time when Australia had zero net debt and a time before Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard got their hands on the public purse strings—and not to forget the member for Lilley.

It was clear during that Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era that Labor set the debt levels of Greece as their target. But just as worrying as their waste on the spending side of the budget was a determined undermining of the economy on the revenue side. Labor's reign weakened our economy, and their allegiance with the Greens, in particular, attacked jobs.

A key focus for t he Liberal-National g overnment now is to rebuild the economy and to create the jobs that families need to put food on the table and that the government needs to fund services. In his address to the National Press Club last month, the Prime Minister said:

During 2015, our priority will be creating more jobs; easing the pressure on families; building roads; strengthening national security; and promo ting more opportunity for all— with a new families policy and a new small business and jobs policy.

To create more jobs and more opportunities for families, the Prime Minister said we must build a stronger economy. He said a stronger economy would provide a foundation for a stronger Austral ia, make everyone's life better and help everyone who is doing it tough. That includes:

In North Queensland we are witnessing first hand the effects of putting politics ahead of the needs of ordinary Australians. At a time when we have seen thousands of jobs disappear from the mining sector, we have seen the extreme green movement actively campaign against projects that would create in excess of 10,000 jobs for the state of Queensland. The motivation of the se extremists is nothing to do with the Great Barrier Reef, as they often trumpet. T hey have used the reef as a weapon to wage war against coal mining.

This has been especially evident in the ir war against the expansion of the Abbot Point coal terminal near Bowen in my electorate. Even in the lead-up to the 2013 election, the Greens candidate for Dawson admitted that they would not necessarily opp ose the dredging and expansion o f the terminal if—get this!—it was bein g used for agricultural exports rather than coal exports. This wa s at a time when the proposal included disposal of dredged material at sea. So they would not have minded if that had taken place if it was ag exports, but, given that it is coal, they do not want it.

As a result of the extremists' campaign against the port expansion, including delaying the project through many frivolous legal challenges, a different solution was negotiated. The then Liberal-National g overnment in Queensland and the federal Liberal-National Abbott government pu t forward a land based solution which would place dredged material on land adjacent to the current terminal, including on a man-made wetland area . The affected area where the spoil was going to go was around three per cent of the Caley Valley W etland s. I have to say that the Caley Valley W etland s are far from being a century-old pristine wilderness. It was once a dry flat plain before two gun clubs got together in the 1950s and diverted water courses to create a wetland where they could shoot ducks. So s uddenly the Greens were out t here campaigning to save a duck- hunting pond. The Liberal-National g overnment at the time were not going to be fooled by such a ridiculous campaign . We were on the verge of approving the Queensland government 's proposal when the state election happened and the government changed.

The newly elected Labor government in Queensland was immediately fooled by the Greens campaign to save this duck pond and caved into the extreme G reens and their plan to close down coal mining in Queensland . While the Labor Premier claims a victory by moving the dredge spoil location a stone's throw to the left, what she has actually done is reset the clock on this to zero. The move triggers a new application process and is likely to set the project back by another year at a time when the proponents have said extended delays could place this in jeopardy. I note the state development minister Anthony Lynham has said it is going to take six to nine months to get the application through. We simply do not have six to nine months. We probably have six months at best for everything, including the federal approvals, to get out. It will need to happen if this project is to go ahead this year, and there is desperate need for that to happen this year.

Instead of seeing job advertisements going in newspapers this week, we see these 10,000 or perhaps even up to 20,000 jobs put back on the shelf. At stake is not only the port expansion at Abbot Point but also the job-creating coal mines in the Galilee Basin and the rail infrastructure that would link the mines to the port. These are the jobs that were needed last year. They are the jobs t hat would have been created this year if the Greens were not at war with coal mining. As these jobs have gone begging, we have seen dozens of businesses in the town of Bowen close down. We have seen families pack up and leave from Bowen and the Mackay region and from right throughout Central Queensland. And t here will be more to come because, i nstead of jobs being advertised this very week , as they would have been under the LNP, the project is going on hold once more all for the sake of three per cent of the Caley Valley W etland s, which is a man-made duck-hunting area. There was a time when the Labor Party actually stood up for jobs and stood up for workers and that they wanted jobs to be created for working families. But that time looks long gone.

Already, we have seen the evidence that the Queensland Labor government is getting ready to walk away from its commit ment to end 100 per cent fly-in fly-out operations at mines throughout Central Queensland. In the lead-up to the Queensland election campaign, the now Premier put out a policy document clearly promi sing to end 100 per cent fly-in fly-out operations that are killing local communities in the Bowen Basin. One of the Labor Party's commitments in its policy document Strong and S ustainable Resource Communities is this:

Review, within the first 100 days of office, all existing 100% FIFO approvals. Where a mining operation is located near a resource town or regional community, 100% FIFO will not be permitted.

But just four days after the election there were signs that Labor was walking away from that commitment. In a radio 4BC interview with Patrick Condren on 4 February , the now Deputy Premier Jackie Trad said:

Just for clarification it’s 100 percent fly-in fly-out, so it’ll be about new proposals for mines, so it won’t be retrospective.

It will not be retrospective, yet before the election its policy said it would be.

There is no way BMA's current 100 per cent FIFO mines can be seen as anything but located 'near a resource town or regional community'. If a miner living at Moranbah wants to work at the mine just a few minutes up the road from his home, he must go to the Moranbah airport and fly to Brisbane, get off the plane, get on another plane and fly back to the Moranbah airport. That is because the FIFO workers must fly from Brisbane or Cairns to Moranbah. But even that is not allowed, according to current job advertisements.

This morning, jobs were advertised on Seek that were very specific about where you must live to be allowed to apply for the job. There is an advertisement for mining jobs in Mackay and the coalfields, for 'CHPP Operators/ Fixed Plant Fitters'. And here's the kicker:

Please note only those residing within 100kms of Brisbane Airport or Cairns will be considered for these opportunities

Another ad for a job in Mackay and the coalfields is for 'FIFO Document Controllers', with the ad stating:

Must live within 100 kms of Brisbane Airport.

In North and Central Queensland at the moment there is no policy more unpopular that 100 per cent fly-in fly-out. Even the number of people employed on 457 visas has dramatically reduced under the Liberal-National government. When so many in mining communities and the regional service centres are out of work, there should be no requirement for FIFO workers and there should be no requirement for 457 workers in the resource sector.

If employment in North Queensland is to be restored, the radical green movement, which has hijacked the environment to fight a socialist cause, must be exposed for what it truly is. Governments must see through the lies and deception and concentrate on delivering for families, and that starts with employment creation, with industry, with jobs. We cannot give in to the Greens and their anti-nuclear power stance, as the Queensland Labor government did last week when they declared a ban on uranium mining in the state. Uranium mining is just one more industry that should be a part of the mix for growth in North Queensland.

As a member of the committee inquiring into the development of Northern Australia, I was privileged to visit many parts of the northern half of the continent where potential job-creating projects and development opportunities are going begging. Sometimes they are blocked for environmental reasons. While I support environmental regulation where it is appropriate, at times you have to say that it is highly inappropriate and counterproductive.

In the Burdekin, in my electorate, an aquaculture project was stalled because of ridiculous environmental regulations. A new prawn farm proposed to extract water from the Great Barrier Reef lagoon to feed into ponds. The water would be treated so that it would be a higher quality than the original water and then put back out into the lagoon. So the water would be cleaner going back out than when it came in. But the environmental regulations do not allow it.

There are also environmental regulations that prevent a new industry in the Whitsundays—the superyacht industry. The regulations apply to boats larger than a certain size, despite the fact that smaller boats, laden with tourists, have a far greater impact on the marine environment. The superyachts would carry only a handful of passengers but would make enormous contributions to the local economy in terms of jobs and revenue. A local, Paul Darrouzet, from Abell Point Marina, explained to me that every week one of these superyachts is in dock $50,000 is injected into the local economy. In Noumea, I understand the average stay for a superyacht is a week or more, and they have 200 visits a year—a $10 million boost to their economy that could be coming into the Whitsundays. But, because of environmental regulations, they cannot come.

These are industries the government should be supporting. These are job-creating industries that you would expect to be supported by any party that supports workers in Australia. It is vital to encourage new industry and also to support the industries our nation was built on. It is not government that creates jobs; it is business that creates jobs. But government needs to do whatever it can to help businesses employ people and to keep the doors open—even the doors to the farmhouse.

In North Queensland, the biggest concern for sugar growers at the moment is their relationship with their mill. Since Wilmar announced that the sugar they milled would be withdrawn from the marketing process undertaken by QSL, growers have voiced concerns to me about losing their right to have a say in how their sugar is marketed. I am currently chairing a government task force looking at the need for a code of conduct in the sugar industry. If we do not stand up for the long-term viability of farmers today, there will not be any farmers tomorrow. We need to do whatever we can to lower their costs. The cost of electricity for those farmers in sugar and horticulture is spiralling out of control. Families also face cost-of-living issues with electricity, child care, and an issue specific to the North: insurance. The government is working on these issues because balancing the household budget is as important as balancing the national budget. We are enabling business to create jobs and we are building a stronger Australia.

Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the heart of good government is good financial management. The challenge we always have in this place is to turn what we believe into reality. It is easy to stand by and say, 'I believe in free education for all.' I have heard that said by some in this place. It is another thing to say, 'I believe in universal health cover.' These are wonderful things—they are wonderful things to believe in, and it is good to have beliefs and dreams. But what separates the boys from the men in this place is the decisions we make. Talking about appropriations bills really heightens this, because they are about the decisions we make. It is very easy to have dreams; it is a lot harder to take those dreams and turn them into reality.

I fear that we have not taken Australian people on the journey, like we should have done. Perhaps that is an overhang of our history. If you think back in recent history to 1992, when Australia had the recession it had to have, people felt the pain of bad economic management—the difficult times when houses were repossessed, when people lost their jobs, when there was high unemployment. When it came into power in 1996, the Howard government presented a rather disciplined and tough budget, but people accepted it because they could understand that there had to be tough choices made. They accepted that a parliament needs to make tough choices—choices that are not always universally popular.

Contrast that with the scenario in 2007, when the world went through a global financial crisis, which was largely driven by people living beyond their means across the world—people had high personal debts. The government of the day attempted to stimulate the economy by moving private debt into public debt, and the borrowings of the country were substantially increased. They threw money around; I got the $900 cheque, as many other people did, including a few dead people—at least they probably could not cash their cheque. The government attempted to stimulate the economy by moving things into public debt, and we now find ourselves with a substantial public debt of $320 billion. But we do not have an Australian population who was put on the journey, though they have lived through the consequences of those decisions. We are trying to say to the Australian people that we need to tighten our belts and that we need to live within our means because at the heart of good governance is good financial management.

We believe in quite a number of things in this parliament. We believe in creating opportunities for our children to make sure that they can access good primary education, secondary education and good higher education, but we have to make tough decisions about how we afford that. We believe that a strong society looks after those who are unwell, but we have to fund that. What separates us from the other side is that we are putting forward scenarios and suggestions and ideas on how to do that in a sustainable fashion. We also believe in good aged care. I think those who have worked all their lives, who have been valued and have contributed to the Australian economy—if they are unable, through their own means, to pay for their retirement—we need to make sure that they are not on the poverty line. We are putting forward suggestions on how to address that—difficult suggestions so that our welfare and pension remain viable, ongoing and sustainable. The greatest thing you can give to a senior Australian is surety that the pension will go into their bank book every fortnight. It is these things that separate us.

It is easy to talk about what you believe in, but it is harder to talk about what you are going to do about it. This appropriation bill is quite important to me, because it allows about $90 million for agricultural concessional loans. It is appropriate that our food producers, who contribute so much to the Australian economy, have a government that stands by them in difficult times. They usually ask very little. I know even in my electorate in a good year they would produce $5.3 billion worth of economic activity to the Australian economy. What we have proposed is some low-interest loans of $30 million. The advantage of offering low-interest loans is that it introduces some competitive tension with their existing finances. In the past some banks were inclined to put the penalty interest rate up in order to mitigate the risk and the outworking of that was that the interest rate became even more burdensome for the business going through a difficult time. A low-interest loan affords us the opportunity to say to a farmer that there are other options, and it also puts less pressure on the banks to put penalty rates up.

As well as running a strong, robust economy, we are also building. It is also important that the government has a role in growing the economy and in looking at ways that we can achieve growth so that we can ultimately set ourselves up for prosperity. Even in my electorate in the last 18 months, we have received over $297 million of additional federal investments. There is the $103 million of federal money for the Sunraysia Modernisation Project—a project that will revolutionise agriculture in a horticultural region and that has the potential to export to the world with the additional free trade agreements that we have developed and achieved. We have to take the next step of getting the protocols right, so producers can access those markets. The Sunraysia Modernisation Project has largely been built by local contractors. We have seen $4 million to upgrade to the Henty Highway and $5.6 million to upgrade to the Western Highway. We have opened trade training centres to harness the potential of our young students and give them the skills to build productivity. We have given additional money to local councils for Roads to Recovery—doubling that money in fact in the 2015-16 financial year.

I am a strong believer in practical environmentalism—environmentalism where young Australians can experience the environment and where their love of the environment is fostered by doing something. My passion that comes from my farming background. When you walk around the farm, you have time to think; you have less noise; you can hear the birds tweet in the trees. It makes you realise just how special the Australian ecosystem is—very unique. Having Green Army projects that take our young Australians and give them those opportunities to identify a scar tree or the type of grass or to understand the difference between a eucalypt and a wattle; to understand birdlife and to understand why, for example, carp do so much damage to the Murray system, whereas Murray cod do so much good. It has been a good project.

We have announced money for a Headspace, not only for Swan Hill, but also for Mildura and Horsham. Headspace centres show we stand by young Australians as they experience the struggles of life. We have seen rollouts of NBN in the Wimmera, Mildura and Kerang. We are providing Safe Haven Enterprise Visas to give opportunities to people who come into our communities to work. We have upgraded Longerenong College—$2 million in partnership with the state government to invest in the skill set of our food producers into the future. So—amongst the difficult budget—we are doing a lot of things. To continue on with the list: we have committed to building an overtaking lane between Red Cliffs and Ouyen to make it safer for people to drive on the roads; and we have invested in tourism, with $1.86 million for the Heartbeat of the Murray Experience.

My great dream is that more Australians will come to my part of the world—because it is simply a beautiful part of the world to come to—and not only that, but that they will come and spend time: to the port of Echuca; to then move their way on to Swan Hill and the pioneer settlement, where they can understand the trials and tribulations and value of our history; and to see the Heartbeat of the Murray while they are there—which is going to be a great laser light show on water; and that they will then to continue on to Robinvale, the sister city of Villers-Bretonneux—which will be particularly relevant in three years' time, when we celebrate the struggles of Australians at Villers-Bretonneux at Anzac Day Centenary events in 2017; and then continue on to Mildura, which is the mecca of great food. So we have invested in that tourism route. We have also provided cheap energy. We have committed to a natural gas pipeline in Robinvale, Swan Hill and Kerang; something that was raised with me on behalf of business. I know there is some argy-bargy—is gas going to be cheap?—but if you can provide gas—an energy source—with our food production, it then facilitates secondary business. We have made it easier for business by repealing the carbon tax—something we said we would do and something we have delivered on. And we are also valuing our culture with the Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program: a great program that has also given us the opportunity to restore some of the memorial plaques in our country halls, and to educate schoolkids and inspire them about the sacrifices of so many before us.

We were also very blessed last Thursday to have the Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, come to the electorate of Mallee. In my understanding, it is the first time a Prime Minister has visited the electorate of Mallee in over 32 years, with the last to visit being Malcolm Fraser. It was nice that the Prime Minister came, but what was more important was that he came with money! He came with $1 million to commit to the $1 million that the community is raising—and hopefully the state government will commit another $1 million—to build an oncology wing to look after people with cancer. In fact, I have to say the Prime Minister did commit $1 million, and also $100—because I gave $1,000 of my money, and that kind of shamed him into having to reach into his own wallet and pull out two $50 notes and chuck them in the tin as well. That is all he had in his wallet—I can verify that he did give every last cent that he had on him at the time. So that is the way to get some additional funds out of a prime minister!

At the heart of good government is good financial management: we are doing this. We are slowly but surely offering up suggestions about how to tackle the hard decisions—to make our economy and to make our society great. It disappoints me at times that those hard decisions and ideas which we put forward are not given time to be considered by the opposition before they are just dead against them. It is perhaps a utopian dream that we should consider ideas and listen to one another a little bit more, rather than being dead against them. I know that if Labor were in government, there would be real soul-searching as to how they, too, would go about making the tough decisions that have to be made. The future is determined by the decisions we make. The decisions we make are certainly an outworking of the beliefs which we have but, ultimately, it is the decisions that define us.

The future for the Mallee electorate is pretty good, I think. We have free trade agreements that create opportunity. We need to turn the opportunity into reality. Today, I have written to the Prime Minister outlining that, whilst Andrew Robb is leading the way and opening up these great opportunities, we also need to be resourcing someone—as assistant minister, or certainly someone in the department—to make sure that we can turn the opportunities into realities. How do we work with small business people who want to export, and help them to become exporters? I think our free trade agreements are good. I think our liveability in the regions is great. I think we have great opportunities for those people who want to realise their assets—and who are in capital cities which might be a little bit congested with traffic; the region might be reasonably well-priced for those people to come and shift to our region: we can use your skills—and the weather is warmer, so it is better for your arthritis!—and there are some great golf courses. We can have you in our country area.

We are what we believe, but we are defined by the choices we make. Our government is prepared to make the tough choices—sometimes the unpopular choices—to set up Australia's prosperity in the future. When our performance review comes up at the next election, I think Australians will consider that, and will look favourably upon us.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to rise to speak on these appropriation bills. Today, I want to focus in my contribution on the many job creation programs and initiatives that our government is rolling out in Corangamite and across the Geelong region. Our government proudly has a very strong focus on job creation: front and centre in reflecting that focus is the commitment of the Australian Bureau of Statistics to an ARC Centre of Excellence that will be commencing operations in Geelong next year, with 250 jobs coming to Geelong. This is particularly significant because it stems from a review of the Victorian economy, chaired by industry & science minister Ian Macfarlane, that was established in the wake of the announcement of the end of car manufacturing in this country. The review identified a number of different initiatives including asking how we as a government can work with communities around Australia, including in my electorate of Corangamite, to create the jobs of the future—not the bandaid solutions that we saw under so many of the programs delivered by Labor.

A great example is the money that was given to Alcoa. Very sadly for our town, Alcoa is closing its operations in Point Henry. This is causing enormous distress and concern amongst many families in Geelong. But we are focused on the long-term solutions. We are focused on creating long-term jobs—not on band-aid solutions, not on giving money here, not on giving money there, but on building a strong and prosperous economy. We are investing in businesses, because let us not forget that 80 per cent of our economy is driven by private enterprise. Unless we support businesses—small, medium and large—we will not see those jobs generated.

The ABS Centre of Excellence is one of the initiatives identified by the review panel. It is a great opportunity to bring part of this agency to Geelong. It will be based at Deakin University on the waterfront and will open up many other opportunities for both Deakin and our town. That is very, very positive. As part of the review that we conducted, we established a $155 million growth fund including $30 million that will be rolled out shortly for regional infrastructure and $60 million for a next generation manufacturing investment fund.

Again, I come from a proud manufacturing town. It was with some significant disappointment that in a recent contribution I heard the member for Corio speak about the fact that, under the federal government, manufacturing has died. It was regrettable. I think the member for Corio now regrets what he said. He knows that is not the case. Manufacturing is responsible for something like 40 per cent of our local GDP—12,000 jobs and 500 manufacturing companies—and we are going from strength to strength. Yes, we have challenges, but our growth fund announced last year by both the industry and science minister and the Prime Minister in Geelong—a great heartland of manufacturing—will help to drive the jobs of the future.

One of the applicants under the next generation manufacturing investment fund that I am supporting is AKD Softwoods, a wonderful softwood saw mill in Colac. They are investing enormous dollars in their local business and in the Colac economy. The forestry industry is very important in my region. AKD supports about 300 local jobs, and I am very, very supportive of the investment that they wish to make.

Of course we have the Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund, which to date has created something like 750 jobs at wonderful companies such as Cotton On and new and developing companies like Carbon Revolution, an advanced manufacturer which is making state-of-the-art carbon fibre wheels and is making Geelong so proud. The GRIIF is primarily funded by the federal government but there is also funding from the state government, Ford and Alcoa. Our government helped to negotiate a $10 million contribution, with $5 million going directly into the GRIIF. Under this fund, we are helping to drive these advanced manufacturing jobs. I visited Carbon Revolution recently with the defence minister, Kevin Andrews, and we saw what they are doing already. It is incredible. Already this new factory that has been developed—again at Deakin University, but this time at the campus in Waurn Ponds—is delivering something like 160 new jobs. Another recipient of the GRIIF fund is Quickstep, which is working in the area of high-tech automotive materials development for the global auto industry. Anyone who says that manufacturing in our town is dead needs to come down to visit and see what is going on. We are proudly investing in these jobs. We are a proud manufacturing town and we have a great future in manufacturing. Just last week we announced, under our auto diversification fund, a $200,000 grant for another great manufacturer—Backwell IXL, which is also doing wonderful things with the manufacture of solar panels.

That is one of the reasons that I have been so supportive of the renewable energy target. The renewable energy target is incredibly important for driving jobs, investment and opportunities, particularly in regional Australia. I am very pleased with the announcement today from both the environment minister and the industry and science minister in relation to the important position that we have reached in trying to get a deal. We really hope that the Labor Party comes to the table. We have certainly made some concessions because, as even the Australian Workers' Union has said, the 41,000 target is actually going to hurt jobs because it absolutely will impact on the aluminium sector for one. We have tried to come up with a practical, rational proposal—one that I think is supported by unions such as the AWU. There is a lot of support from bodies such as the Clean Energy Council. The position that we have announced is a very important one because it recognises how important renewable energy is in Australia. It is certainly embraced very widely across my electorate of Corangamite, where some 24 per cent of homes have either solar PV systems or hot water systems. The RET has been very, very important in driving up this uptake in solar energy.

I have also been very, very proud of a local program that we have announced—the Geelong employment connections program. This is a $500,000 program assisting the delivery of local job creation programs. It is doing some incredible work. It is supported to a large degree by the Geelong LLEN. I must particularly mention Anne-Marie Ryan, who has been driving that program and bringing local employers together with industry and retrenched workers to introduce them to new opportunities. There are some wonderful programs, such as the community services taster program, which gives retrenched workers an insight into the opportunities in the community services sector. The 'On the front foot' series was also funded. This was a series of six half-day sessions targeted at retrenched workers but open to all job seekers that again identified areas and gave people the incentive, enthusiasm and skills to find out how they could seek opportunities in those areas.

There is another program, the advanced manufacturing taster program, which is, again, a very important program in helping workers and job seekers identify new opportunities in advanced manufacturing. We talk about advanced manufacturing very broadly, from companies like Carbon Revolution right through to Boundary Bend, which is the biggest producer of olive oil in Australia and a very proud local manufacturer. The Foot in the Door program is being rolled out—again, giving job seekers the important opportunities to identify the jobs in our region. And the National Disability Insurance Scheme—the Barwon trial—is being rolled out, and that has been a great success, with some 3½ thousand participants already reaping the benefits of being involved in the NDIS trial. We proudly have the headquarters in Geelong, and when it is up and running by about 2018 it will deliver some 300 jobs—again, some wonderful opportunities for our region.

One of the projects I am championing, which will absolutely be a game changer for our region, is the LAND 400 project—the $10 billion Defence contract which will deliver armed combat vehicles. It is an incredibly important project for the region. I have got on the front foot on that project. It was wonderful to be there with the Defence minister—on an ASLAV, wearing my hard hat—and saying to all the primes, the international defence companies, 'Come to our region, and if you leave Geelong out of your bid you do so at your peril.' I was pleased to see that the Victorian government has announced a defence procurement office for Geelong. But I am disappointed—and I do want to make note of the fact—that, while it was a $5 million commitment, so far we have had a commitment of only three jobs in that office and very little evidence of an expenditure of $5 million by the Andrews government. The Victorian government really needs to ramp up its effort if it is going to compete with South Australia. We need an ambassador, we need an incentives package, we need the sorts of incentives to bring defence companies to Geelong to make sure that we are front and centre on the LAND 400 project. The Victorian government and Premier Andrews need to get their act together very, very quickly.

We have some incredible roads infrastructure projects in our region: the Princes Highway, a project for which I have been advocating for some six years, has been rolled out. Some sections of the road between Geelong and Winchelsea have been opened and work has started on the section between Winchelsea and Colac, and that is going to make such an enormous difference for Winchelsea, for Birregurra, for the people of Colac. And for the Great Ocean Road a $50 million commitment has been made by ourselves and the previous Victorian government. It is very disappointing that this project—such an iconic tourist road—was so opposed by Labor in the lead-up to the last election and is still being opposed by Labor.

As we heard in question time today, the big missing link is the East West Link. This is a project that will deliver 7,000 jobs. This is a project that, frankly, is making Daniel Andrews look like an absolute laughing-stock in the eyes of investors right around the world. This is a project that will save commuters in my home town of Geelong some three hours a week during peak hour. And this is a project for which Daniel Andrews is threatening to pass retrospective legislation to ensure that the Victorian government does not have to pay compensation for ripping up the contract.

As the Prime Minister said in his letter to the Premier on 11 March, this is a vital project for Melbourne and it is a vital project for Geelong, and the threats made by Premier Andrews are, frankly, quite frightening, because they will cause irreversible damage to our state and they will cause irreversible damage to our reputation as a place to do business. So, once again, as I have been campaigning for, for many months, let us build the East West Link. Let us deliver almost 7,000 jobs. Let us invest in this vital infrastructure that is so important for jobs, for our future and for our regional economy—where, frankly, we need every job we can get.

Last but not least is the NBN. I am incredibly proud that after such a mess under the previous government—where the satellite did not deliver what Labor said it was going to deliver, and, on fixed wireless, the government did not acquire the spectrum it was meant to acquire in order to roll out fixed wireless NBN—we are now rapidly rolling out the NBN. In my electorate some 34,000 premises will receive the NBN under the first 18-month rollout, on top of about another 5,000 premises under fixed wireless. And all of the small towns, like Barongarook and Alvie and Coragulac and Gellibrand—so many small towns that were left off the rollout under Labor—have now been embraced by our government, because we committed that we would fund and we would roll out the NBN to those towns that need it first. But I am very much on a mission that Geelong must be included in the next rollout, the southern suburbs of Geelong—Belmont, Highton, Grovedale, Marshall and Waurn Ponds. It is so important for our local economy and so important for our future.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The people of the Central Coast deserve a government that delivers on its commitments, and I am pleased to say that with this package of appropriation bills before the House today this coalition government is doing exactly that. We took to the electorate of Robertson the coalition's growth plan for the central coast, a document with clear commitments to our region that would deliver growth, jobs and opportunity. I am pleased to say that we are delivering, and in some cases increasing, our commitments to the people on the Central Coast. These commitments reflect the concerns and aspirations of people in my electorate. We are privileged to live in the best region of the best country in the world, but we also need to see better infrastructure, more jobs and a place where hope and opportunity abound.

As part of this positive growth plan for the Central Coast which we took to the last election, we pledged to locate a Commonwealth agency, or part thereof, in Gosford's CBD. This is a city that local newspapers have recently described as a 'dead zone' with empty buildings and run-down streets. We want to revitalise Gosford so it can truly be the capital city of the Central Coast that our region needs. Combined with the other commitments that I will outline today, and the great work being done by the New South Wales state Liberal government and by Gosford City Council, things are starting to turn around. In fact, many community leaders are declaring that they are more optimistic than ever.

The Commonwealth agency relocation—thanks to the delivery by this coalition government—has the potential to add significantly to their optimism, because this is an investment of 600 jobs. That is 600 new jobs for Gosford right into the heart of the CBD. In the lead-up to the election we committed 250 to 300 jobs, but in last year's budget we doubled it to 600. Five hundred of these jobs will be from the Australian Taxation Office, with another 100 from a complementary agency or agencies. There has already been significant interest in this project and in the tender process, which will ultimately see a purpose-built building constructed in Gosford and open by the end of 2017. In fact, the Treasurer recently described this Commonwealth agency as 'a centre of excellence for Gosford', and in his earlier visit to Gosford outlined why this will have such a vital impact on the Central Coast as a whole. The economic multiplier effect of 600 jobs into Gosford shows great flow-on effects to our economy. That is 600 more lunches that will need to be bought and 600 more coffees every single day—and, if you are like me, that is probably 1,200 coffees that will need to be bought.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Eighteen.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Eighteen some may say. And, of course, there will be a rise in demand for accommodation and services. So that is hundreds of additional new jobs that we have demonstrated can be created as a result of the significant investment by the federal government. It is an important commitment that has been embraced wholeheartedly by my community, and it is one that I am determined to ensure becomes a vital part of Gosford's long-term future.

We have also committed $7 million in funding for Kibbleplex, a project that will further revitalise Gosford by transforming the old market town building—once a vibrant shopping centre that I frequented as a teenager that now lies dormant and is used as a car park. The Australian government delivers on its election commitments and we will deliver funding for this project. We committed the funding in last year's budget, and the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development is now awaiting information from Gosford City Council so that a value for money assessment can occur and a funding agreement can be prepared. In turn, I am advised that council is working with the State Library of New South Wales on possible locations for a city library in Gosford with the planned Kibbleplex Learning and Enterprise Centre one of the preferred places. The council has advised me it is still working to finalise the remaining tenant mix for the Kibbleplex project and the review of the state library's report will form an important part of this process. Work to build the Gosford Smart Work Hub is also well underway, and I am advised that council also plans for this to be located in Kibbleplex.

The vision that council have outlined includes a mixed-use complex, including a hub for collaboration and innovation, new business start-ups and education and research that delivers educational, business and other services to the Central Coast. As part of our growth plan we have also indicated we would consider stage 2 funding for a performing arts centre in Gosford should the New South Wales state Liberal government and Gosford council pledge support. As somebody who used to learn violin from expert violin teachers at the Central Coast Conservatorium of Music and as somebody who taught music and violin to young students on the Central Coast, I warmly welcome the Baird Liberal government's recent commitment to this project. I encourage Gosford City Council to consider applying for a grant from the federal government's National Stronger Regions Fund to assist us seeing this vision become a reality for our city.

For those who may know the city of Gosford, you will also know its proximity to the M1 and the thousands of commuters who head down the freeway to Sydney or north to Newcastle each day. In my electorate of Robertson alone, that adds up to around 30,000 commuters who leave their homes early in the morning and return late at night to their families. For decades there has been debate about building what the locals now know as the 'missing link', joining up the M1 at Wahroonga with the M2 down Pennant Hills Road. I am pleased to say that this project, now of course called NorthConnex, is underway. The first sod has been turned, and we are on track for completion in 2019. The federal government has committed $405 million towards this project which will build a nine-kilometre tunnel that will service up to 50,000 vehicles in each direction. For the people of the Central Coast who head down to work every day—including my husband Chris—NorthConnex means that you can bypass around 21 sets of traffic lights and save up to 15 minutes of travel time each way. That is 30 minutes every day, around 10 hours a month, that families with commuting members can spend at home with their family instead. With NorthConnex a reality you could also drive from Newcastle to Melbourne without a set of traffic lights. NorthConnex will also deliver 8,700 jobs as a direct result of construction each year. Once open, there will be about 120 jobs to support operation, contributing around $32 million directly to the state's economy with a flow-on effect of $17 million a year.

We are also delivering funding for local roads. Our growth plan includes $675,000 for the dangerous intersection at Langford Drive and Woy Woy Road in Kariong. In the lead-up to the 2013 election, 3,000 locals put their name to a petition, calling for us to help improve safety in the area. After consultation with Gosford City Council, I am confident that we are close to securing a traffic solution that will make this busy intersection, which is near a much loved community centre, safe for pedestrians. We are delivering a share of the Australian government's $2.1 billion Roads to Recovery program to assist with local road construction and maintenance. Just this month we have delivered the latest instalment of more than $400,000 into my electorate of Robertson. We have also announced $305,000 to fix two dangerous black spots in Narara and Kincumber as part of a separate Black Spot funding program. For the commuters I mentioned earlier we have also launched a petition for fairer petrol prices. Our petition attracted hundreds of signatures within just a few days to help put pressure on the ACCC to select our region as a place to investigate fuel price disparity.

Our growth plan also includes funding for important community and civic infrastructure. We have delivered $3.5 million for the redevelopment of Woy Woy Oval for the construction of a new grandstand building, clubhouse, change rooms, forecourt and field relocation. Many local clubs that use this field have told me how this project will be a great boost to the peninsula as well as to its club members, and will improve the region's ability to meet the demands of population growth and the need for more recreational facilities. The project will create approximately 186 jobs during construction, which I am pleased to say is already well underway. We have also committed $100,000 for the popular Terrigal sportsground, Brendan Franklin Oval. Local sports groups have told me the field has been reshaped, irrigated and turfed and the drainage is also expected to be completed soon.

Another massive uplift for our community is the rapid rollout of the National Broadband Network into my electorate. We recently added another 17 suburbs to the rollout plan to June 2016, and have seen start-up companies choose suburbs like Koolewong as their headquarters, because they trust our NBN rollout and its rapid progress.

Unfortunately, Labor's record on the Central Coast was abysmal in this regard—just 203 connected premises after six long years in government and misleading announcements about who will be connected and when. But under this government we are delivering to more than 50,000 premises, which is great news for people living and working in places like Umina Beach, Woy Woy, Pearl Beach, Patonga, Green Point, Killcare, Killcare Heights, Ettalong Beach, Booker Bay, Daleys Point, St Huberts Island, Blackwall, Bensville, Saratoga, Davistown and Koolewong.

We also have a $100-million plan to fix mobile phone black spots, to assist people who need it most in regional areas that may be currently under-served by mobile coverage. This is an issue I campaigned on at the last election and which we included in the coalition's growth plan for the Central Coast. I am pleased to say that while there is always more work to be done in this area we have made some great progress. We have announced locations that have been nominated as having poor mobile coverage, after consultation with the community. The first list of base stations will be announced by the end of June this year.

I have also fought hard for—and now we have seen a change to—the district of workforce shortage system for the Central Coast. This will allow GPs in busy locations, like Erina, to hire more doctors, because finally the data is up to date and shows, in over 20 suburbs in my electorate, where we need more medical services. To give the House an indication of the weight of importance of this announcement, the Erina Fair Medical Centre Practice Manager, Peter Carr, has described the change as the biggest single positive step to get more GPs to the area than anything in the last 20 years. Mr Carr said it was smart policy as it gives all practices an equal opportunity, unlike the Super Clinic idea, and it does not cost the government anything to do it.

We have already delivered—or are delivering—so many things in my electorate, but there is always more to fight for on behalf of my community. There is one issue, in particular, that weighs deeply on my heart—that is, seeing a university campus in Gosford established at some stage. In our growth plan we recognised the crucial role that universities play in driving development, in regional areas, through job creation and educating the community. We pledged to work in partnership with the Central Coast community to identify further training and education opportunities, particularly in progressing approvals that are necessary to facilitate universities to develop campuses on local government owned land.

In this effort to have or fight for a strong university presence in Gosford, I welcome the state Liberal government's support for a globally connected, fully integrated Central Coast health and medical research institute. It is an issue very close to my heart. I have been lobbying the state government for around six months, alongside the University of Newcastle Vice-Chancellor, Professor Caroline McMillen, for capital infrastructure funding to deliver a medical research institute and medical school attached, perhaps, to the new Gosford Hospital. This is a unique opportunity to deliver a shared vision for a university in Gosford, which would be another centre of excellence, right in the heart of the city. These facilities have the potential to become a base for world-class health care, medical research and education co-located with a fantastic hospital.

The University of Newcastle is working with partners to develop two shared components in the plan: a globally connected, fully integrated Central Coast health and medical research institute and a co-located Central Coast medical school. This plan would help tackle emerging health issues on the coast as well as attract high-quality students, clinicians, researchers and health-care professionals to Gosford. We are keen to see this happen as soon as possible. We want to work in collaboration with the world class University of Newcastle and key stakeholders across the Central Coast.

This is a government that is determined to ensure we deliver hope and opportunity to the Central Coast. Our growth plan is a major part of seeing these projects become game changers for our region. We are delivering growth, jobs and opportunity to a region that has a perception—perhaps made too real until now—of being long forgotten. But it is now seeing real solutions delivered to benefit future generations in the most important and beautiful region in our nation. I commend this bill to the House.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I would like to thank those members who have contributed to this debate on these additional estimates appropriation bills and for the member for Watson's grand-standing amendment. I will come to that shortly.

As is often the case with appropriation bills, the debate in the House has been wide ranging and informative. This place is, I think, at its best when members speak about the part of Australia they are privileged to represent. We heard the member for Robertson do just that. That is, after all, the purpose of this, the people's House. So it is a pleasure to have this opportunity to reflect on members' contributions to this debate on these appropriation bills.

A theme in this debate—at least in contributions from this side of the House—was this importance of pressing on with the task of repealing red tape, creating export opportunities for Australian businesses and investing in all-important infrastructure. We are repealing red tape, doing away with regulations that stifle enterprise and that do not serve a wider public purpose. We have already exceeded the target of $1 billion per year that we set ourselves, but that is no reason to rest on our laurels.

The member for Page hit it squarely on the head when he remarked during the debate that 'red tape is real money and a real cost to our businesses'. We have another repeal day coming up, and I know the member for Pearce and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister is on the case, continuing the good work initiated by his predecessor the member for Kooyong. I am always pleased to hear from the member for Page—he is a good member. It was terrific to hear about the opportunities that preferential trade deals with China, Japan and Korea are opening up for businesses in his electorate of Page, particularly for his dairying enterprises and meat processes and, I understand, even for a local manufacturer of campervans! It is the same story I hear as I travel around my electorate of Riverina. I know that citrus growers and horticulture producers throughout the Murrumbidgee and Coleambally irrigation areas are excited about the possibilities created by the significant cuts to tariffs that these agreements will deliver. We will see Australian businesses reap the rewards of preferential trade deals with China, Korea and Japan for many, many years to come. Nobody underestimates the challenges involved in reaching a similar agreement with India, but I have every confidence that the Minister for Trade, and member for Goldstein, is very much up to the task.

It is a pleasure to be able to reassure members opposite that despite all their fears and protestations to the contrary there have been no cuts to the Financial Assistance Grants. Local councils are $30 million better off this year than they were last year. It is true that as part of our budget repair strategy we have paused indexation of these grants for three years, but we are also making important investments that will benefit local councils and the communities they serve, including an extra $200 million for the road Black Spot Programme—totalling half a billion dollars; $2.1 billion for the Roads to Recovery program, including a double $350 million payment in 2015-16; a new $300 million Bridges Renewal Programme; and an expanded $200 million Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Programme.

The member for Mallee said that the basis for good government is good financial management—and he is dead right. The member for Dawson, who spoke earlier tonight, understands that in order to build a stronger economy government needs to focus on job-creating industries. I know how much the towns and communities in his electorate around Mackay rely on the resource sector and how passionate he is in standing up for farmers to ensure they have a viable future. In the Riverina, we have seen funding for road upgrades. There is the upgrade of the Byrnes Road with funding of $1.276 million under the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Programme. There is the Carrathool Bridge upgrade with funding of $7½ million under the Bridges Renewal Programme. The communities have waited 30 years; the coalition, in conjunction with the state government, is answering their call. I was very, very pleased to be there just last week with the member for Murrumbidgee, Adrian Piccoli, to announce that joint funding initiative. The Gobarralong Bridge project in Gundagai is receiving $1.046 million—again, under the bridges renewal strategy. There is $27½ million, in conjunction with the state government, for a new Kapooka Bridge. I know how hard The Nationals Duncan Gay, the upper house member in the roads ministry in New South Wales, has fought, in conjunction with the member for Wagga Wagga, Daryl Maguire, to provide that funding for the Kapooka Bridge. There is half a million dollars for closed-circuit television in the Wagga Wagga central business district.

We have all got Anzac grants. It is still a good initiative, with up to $120,000 for each electorate. With the Financial Assistance Grants, there is more than $52 million for the Riverina. There is more than $5½ million in funding confirmed for local trade training centres. The coalition government is funding the round 5, phase 1 trade training centre projects. This is fantastic for Riverina students. It means that the Riverina will have funding for four trade training centres, which will benefit six schools. Temora High School, Batlow Technology School and Tumbarumba High School will each have a trade training centre facility, with Ardlethan Central School, Ariah Park Central School and Barellan Central School as partner schools in a $2.845 million centre. These four trade training centres will provide students with certificates in engineering, building and construction, agrifood operations, carpentry and joinery and the metal fabrication trade. We have also provided $3.8 million for the University of Notre Dame Australia’s Australian Rural Clinical School, Wagga Wagga.

Members on this side understand the importance of investing in road infrastructure—we really do. In some parts of Australia we are dealing with years of underinvestment in roads. The member for Forde noted that much of the investment we are making in road infrastructure in his electorate is the result of a failure of infrastructure to keep up with population growth in the region. We have heard members on this side from Victoria speak passionately about the need for the East West Link. The members for Corangamite, Aston and Casey—to name just three—all called on the Andrews government to just get it done. We heard the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development in question time today talk about the reputational damage the Andrews government is doing to Australia as an investment destination; it is not good enough.

It was great to hear the member for Capricornia explain in this debate what the investments we are making in repairing roads across Central Queensland will mean for her community. The people of Capricornia made a wise choice sending her here. Her response to the recent devastation caused by Cyclone Marcia just goes to show they have elected a true and strong local champion. The member for Calare understands the importance of infrastructure. I know he is passionate about the $250 million upgrade to the Great Western Highway, specifically the stretch between Katoomba and Lithgow. It is a project that will create local jobs—that is important; but, more importantly, it is going to save lives, as will the upgrade to the Pacific Highway. I know that this is a project of vital importance to the members for Lyne and Cowper and the communities they serve. The Pacific Highway is an important artery for keeping our nation's economic pulse beating. We have made good on our commitment to invest $5.64 billion to finally get the job done on the duplication of the Pacific Highway, and we are on track to see it finished by the end of this decade.

I note that the member for Longman spoke of his pride in having delivered a headspace centre for Caboolture, describing it as one of the best things that he could possibly do during his time in parliament. I trust that he will have many more years of delivering for the people of Longman, but I agree wholeheartedly with him about the importance of mental health support and facilities, particularly for our young people. I am also proud to have finally delivered a headspace centre for Griffith, in the western section of the Riverina. It was the result of a strong grassroots campaign, involving local advocates, council—particularly Peta Dummett—and literally thousands of people who contacted me, indicating their support for a headspace facility in Griffith. I particularly want to acknowledge the advocacy of Griffith teenager Jenna Thornton, a victim of school bullying who made it her personal cause that this centre became a reality—and, under the coalition government, it has.

Mental health and issues of addiction are two of the most serious health challenges facing our communities. It is certainly something I hear about a lot as I travel across my electorate of Riverina, which is almost as large as Tasmania. The member for Gippsland and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence spoke about the impact of ice on his community and particularly its infiltration of local sports clubs, especially football clubs. He has seen firsthand—as I am sure have many members on both sides of the parliament—the invidious effects of this pernicious drug. As the member for Gippsland said, there are no easy answers but that is no reason not to try. We have made ice the focus of work to be undertaken by the Australian National Advisory Council on Alcohol and Drugs, and I know it is something that the Assistant Minister for Health is very engaged in and that is good.

The impact of ice and amphetamine use in regional Australia was also an issue raised by the member for Parkes—an outstanding local representative who also mentioned the great work the government is doing by continuing to fund the successful Great Artesian Basin Sustainability Initiative. It sounds long-winded but it is so important in the overall scheme of what the member for Parkes is getting on with and doing for his electorate. He knows the value of this program, because he has seen firsthand the difference it has made to protecting the important environmental and economic resource that is the Great Artesian Basin.

And it was great to hear members, including the member for Hinkler, speak of the good being done in their electorates through programs like Work for the Dole and the Green Army. I know we are spending $50,000 in Riverina with the Green Army, but in electorates like Hinkler, where unemployment is a real and ongoing challenge, these programs can make a real difference in helping to get job seekers, job ready. Having been an apprentice himself, the member for Hinkler knows the value of the $20,000 trade support loans that we are making available for tools and the like.

Turning now to the member for Watson's amendments—amendments that reveal that Labor has not learned; no, they have not learned—yes, the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook confirmed we are still facing a very real and serious budget deficit—a deficit that would have been worse had we not taken action to get it under control, had we not take action to get government spending in check. As the Intergenerational Report showed, without any policy change—

David Feeney (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How is it going?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will tell you how it is going, member for Batman: we were on track for a growing budget deficit. In fact, we would face continuous budget deficits for the next 40 years—that is how it is going—had we not done something.

But as a result of the tough decisions we have taken since coming to office, we have started to get spending growth under control—something Labor is not used to, but we are. There is still more to do, and we understand that we are going to need to bring the community along with us.

As the member for Moncrieff and parliamentary secretary to the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Trade put it during this debate: 'It's easy to be Santa Claus'. It is easy to tell people they can have whatever they want and not to worry about the consequences. We credit the Australian people with a little more nous than that. And that is why the IGR is such an important document—it demonstrates what is at stake tomorrow from the decisions we take today. And what is at stake is nothing less than the living standards that our children and grandchildren will enjoy.

In closing, I would like to highlight five areas relating to the delivery of the government's commitments that are supported by these bills. First, these bills provide the Department of Defence with just under $558 million, reflecting, in the main, additional funding for Defence's overseas operations; the re-appropriation of amounts between Appropriation Acts to better align funding with Defence's current work programs; and supplementation for foreign exchange movements. I know the member for Batman will be interested in that, because I know how interested he is in defence. But he also knows how under Labor we let Defence slip as a proportion of gross domestic product down—down to 1938 levels.

On this side of the House, we are certainly interested—here we go.

David Feeney (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Hawke, I seek to intervene.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the member for Riverina willing to give way?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I am not, and he knows full well that this side of the House understands the importance of spending on defence. He understands the importance of making sure that infrastructure is so important at places such as Forest Hill and Kapooka. Labor never worried about it, but we are.

The Department of Employment receives just over $115 million, primarily for increased payments to providers following an increase in the number of successful job placements and to implement the new employment services 2015 contracts.

The Department of Agriculture receives $90 million for concessional loans under the Drought Recovery Concessional Loans Scheme. These funds will be used to provide support to eligible primary production businesses in Queensland and New South Wales that are experiencing financial difficulties resulting from the impacts of severe and prolonged drought conditions, or as a result of the combined effects of drought.

The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service would be provided with just under $35 million for additional counter-terrorism activities and to repurpose the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield for transition of its ownership from the Department of Defence to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service.

Finally, the Department of Parliamentary Services would receive additional appropriations to enable it to enhance the security of the Australian Parliament House, including the enhancement and upgrade of closed-circuit television equipment and access systems. It will also cover additional Parliamentary Protective Service staff. The total of the appropriations being sought through these three appropriation bills is just over $1.7 billion. I commend this bill to the House.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Watson has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Question negatived.

The question is that the bill be now read a second time.

Question agreed to.