Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'NSW' stands for New South Wales. In the past, particularly in those 16 sorry years of Labor state government between 1995 and 2011, many in country New South Wales thought it represented merely Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong. When those terms of office overlapped with the Rudd-Gillard years of federal Labor, between 2007 and 2011, it spelt disaster for regional New South Wales. Country people in that state remember all too well the neglect. They talk of the 'Forgotten people', Menzies's famous Liberal Party founding speech. Well, I'll tell you who was forgotten during those dysfunctional, chaotic years of neglect when Labor was in power at both state and federal levels at the same time. It was country New South Wales people. These days, with Liberals and Nationals governing in Macquarie Street since 2011, things are different—vastly different.

I was speaking this morning to New South Wales Upper House member Bronnie Taylor, the Deputy Leader of The Nationals and Minister for Mental Health, Regional Youth and Women. She said: 'You only have to drive into a country city or town to see what we've done as far as education and health are concerned. New schools, new hospitals, updated schools, upgraded health facilities—they're everywhere.' The New South Wales coalition government has achieved great things, particularly for country people, on the back of record funding and support from the federal Liberal and Nationals government since 2013. The work done by Minister Taylor MLC, supported by federal initiatives such as headspace, has been exceptional and is of course ongoing. Efforts to ensure that country people, especially vulnerable regional youth, receive the right support where and when they need it are ongoing, and they must be.

I read with interest in the Daily Telegraph today of new New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet's intention to announce a new minister for cities when his cabinet is reshuffled later this month. The minister, according to the Telegraph, will have authority to 'rev the engines of Wollongong, Newcastle and the Central Coast as well as Greater Sydney'. As someone who announced funding for, turned the first sod on sites of or cut the ribbon for many Sydney projects, I am one regional minister—or was one regional minister!—who was welcome at these projects and in city electorates. Indeed, I refer specifically to Western Sydney's Nancy-Bird Walton international airport, the WestConnex M4 and M8, and the Botany rail duplication projects, to name just a few.

But what does concern me—and I do hope this is not right—is that the New South Wales government has not committed to the raising of the dam wall at Wyangala. Whilst the Premier was asked this in question time just the other day, he has not committed to it. Admittedly, he said that the business case needs to come forward, and that is true. He said, and other New South Wales ministers have argued, that biodiversity offsets need to be determined, and that is also correct. But I also appreciate that originally there was a loan applied for, and obviously given by the federal government, as far as water infrastructure is concerned. That loan was then requested to be a grant, and that was also provided for and allocated. Now the costs seem to have blown out from the order of $650 million to potentially more than $2 billion. Well, that might be so, but how much would that money save the community of Forbes, which, on average, gets flooded—and has since 1887—every seven years? The situation is appalling for those farmers and townspeople, who have to constantly rip up the carpet and replace floorboards. Farmers' crops are ruined, and that costs in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars. And it's a cost not just for the farmers but for the national economy, because when those farmers require assistance, when those farmers require support from the various levels of government, they're not paying taxes, and that then hurts us all.

It's time to get the costings done, and I urge and implore the New South Wales government to do just that. If it costs $2 billion, well, that is a down payment on water security. That is an investment in the future of not only Forbes but the Central West. It's an investment in the national economy. It's time to stop the talk, it's time to stop the procrastination and it's time to raise that dam wall by 10 metres.