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

I rise to express my disappointment and, to be frank, utter confusion at the Nick Xenophon Team and their policy stance on tackling drug use in our communities. The coalition government is committed to its drug-testing trials because it's good policy. It's about helping people help themselves. The purpose of the trials is to ensure that those receiving welfare payments from the Australian taxpayer are not using this money to fuel their drug habit but are directed into treatment and rehabilitation to assist them to get off drugs and into employment. Unfortunately, to my great disappointment, the Nick Xenophon Team don't support this policy. They stand with Labor and the Greens—yet again, I should note—to block this legislation in the Senate. The Nick Xenophon Team are opposing measures that will ultimately channel illegal drug users into treatment.

That is disappointing, but what, quite frankly, is perplexing is the fact that Xenophon is campaigning in the South Australian state election to force ice addicts into mandatory rehabilitation. What that highlights is not only that the Nick Xenophon Team are, once again, going against good policy in choosing to vote with Labor and the Greens but that they seem at odds with their state counterparts. Like many communities around the country, my electorate of Barker is struggling with the scourge of ice and is looking for help. Not only are the Nick Xenophon Team standing in the way of these measures; they are also announcing ill-thought-out policies because they, quite frankly, are desperate for support and popular votes. What you can't pretend is to be strong in South Australia on ice but soft as butter on the same issue in Canberra.

The Nick Xenophon Team and his party in South Australia are emerging as a party at odds with itself. Not only are his state and federal policies in relation to drugs at odds with each other but there seems to be some confusion on the topic of free trade. Those in this place will know that Nick Xenophon has, for a very long time, been an ardent critic of free trade agreements—free trade agreements which, I should say, are delivering gargantuan benefits in my electorate of Barker. I see firsthand the positives of free trade that are being felt by producers and communities in Barker. Free trade is delivering increased returns to the farm gate, meaning more investment, more jobs and better paid jobs. Barker is home, of course, to so many who are employed in the wine industry, the beef industry and the sheepmeat industry, and in horticulture, dairy and citrus—the list could go on and on. If people are not directly employed, they are providing services to these industries as truck drivers and in catering mills and financial and allied health services, directly to the primary producers, who are, in turn, benefiting from these free trade agreements.

By not supporting free trade, Nick Xenophon and his team are not supporting these industries. They're not supporting the jobs they sustain. They're turning their backs on the farmers in my electorate. More trade means more and better-paying jobs, as I have said, and anyone who doesn't support free trade is not supporting regional communities. That may be why the Nick Xenophon SA-BEST candidate for the Riverland seat of Chaffey is an ardent supporter of free trade. When asked why her position differs from that of her leader, she simply can't explain. That is because Nick Xenophon and the SA-BEST team know that free trade plays very well in regional communities and that the less that is spoken about Nick's opposition to free trade in regional communities, the better off they will be.

My constituents deserve to know what policy Nick Xenophon and his local candidates will ultimately subscribe to. They can't cut and run on this issue. They need to be clear. It is not good enough for the Nick Xenophon SA-BEST team in the Riverland to say they support free trade and for Nick Xenophon in Adelaide, as the candidate for Hartley, to tell the constituency in Hartley in South Australia, consistent with his history in this place as a senator for South Australia, that he does not support free trade. What we need to know is what they stand for. I fear that they don't support farmers in my electorate because they don't support free trade.

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 12:35