Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gave me great pleasure to welcome the Prime Minister to my electorate on Friday a week ago in the south-east part of Tasmania, in the town of Sorell. Sorell is the capital of south-east Tasmania, indeed, and I was very pleased to host the Prime Minister at a community breakfast that was attended by nearly 100 people from the Tasman; from Sorell municipality, obviously; from Glamorgan Spring Bay; from Brighton; and from the Derwent Valley, the Central Highlands and the Southern Midlands. So it was a wonderful opportunity for President Tim Weir at the RSL club and Sue Birch, the Secretary of the RSL club, Rodney Dean and Stephen Pears, the Vice Presidents, and Treasurer Michael Itchens to showcase what a wonderful facility the RSL is for such an event.

Community members, as I say, from all around south-east Tasmania were particularly represented by fire brigades from Primrose Sands, from Midway Point and from Wattle Hill, and there were representatives from the Coal River group of fire brigades. There was the Dunalley fire brigade, of course, that was so instrumental in fighting the terrible bushfires of January of 2013. I was particularly pleased to see that Brad Westcott was able to join us; he was the brigade chief during that terrible time. There were also representatives from east coast fire brigades.

There were other community members there. I thank Yve Earnshaw from the Dunalley Tasman Neighbourhood House for attending; they do fantastic work in that part of the community. There were many councillors there. From the Sorell Council there was Deb De Williams AM, and Kerry Degrassi, who is a wonderful contributor to her council. Mayors were represented by Roseanne Heyward from the Tasman, Tony Foster from Brighton, Martyn Evans from the Derwent Valley, and, of course, Kerry Vincent, the Mayor of Sorell, as well as the Deputy Mayor of the Central Highlands, Andrew Downie.

Following the community breakfast, we visited with the Prime Minister to Houston's farm, just down the road. Their processing factory is actually in the electorate of Franklin, but they have farm production facilities in and around the Sorell and Forcett areas. It was an opportunity to see a business that is benefitting very much from the expansion that we have been able to deliver in terms of the Freight Equalisation Scheme, as well as the irrigation schemes in south-east Tasmania. If you go into pretty much any Woolworths supermarket along all of the eastern seaboard you will find products from Houston's farm. It truly is an extraordinary story, where a family business that started as chicken farmers over a hundred years ago is now supplying much of Australia with lettuce product, and increasingly looking towards those export opportunities that have been opened up through the free trade agreements that we have signed in Japan, in South Korea and hopefully soon also in China. Following a visit to Houston's farm, the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, the Premier and the state Treasurer met at the Sorell Council chambers, where the Joint Commonwealth and Tasmanian Economic Council meeting was held for the reminder of the day.

This was an election commitment. Indeed, there has been a forum chaired by Dale Elphinstone, a very well-respected businessman from the north-west coast of Tasmania. He has chaired the Economic Council and already, through that mechanism, we have delivered an expansion of the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme, to the tune of $204 million over the forward estimates. It effectively puts Tasmania, in terms of exports, on a level playing field with other parts of Australia. We have delivered $60 million for the expansion of the tranche 2 irrigation schemes in our state, which is really an enabler to expanding agricultural production in areas that are typically dry areas.

At the end of the day our agenda as federal members in this place, combining with our state colleagues, is about jobs. Our agenda is about invigorating small business, it is about delivering opportunities for business more broadly in Tasmania to open up to markets to our north, through the free trade agreements. It is through infrastructure, such as the Mobile Phone Blackspot Program, that we have delivered the sort of infrastructure that regional Tasmania very much needs.

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 12:02.