Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would make the invitation for him to come with me out to north-western and western and far northern Queensland to see what rural and regional Australia is about. He would be surprised to know that just in July this year I drove around with my new Palm Treo, that device that gets emails, messages and the internet. It is not a bad device—it does not always do what I want it to do. Would you believe that as I drove through western Queensland the device, using the Next G—or whatever Telstra do and I do not particularly want to promote Telstra—was working when other people travelling with me in the car found their phones were not working? It is not a perfect system, I have to say, but it has been doing pretty well in rural and regional Australia—unlike when the Labor Party shut off the analog system and left rural and regional Australians without any form of mobile telecommunications.

Over the years in my travels in what is genuinely rural and regional Queensland and rural and regional Australia I have been able to see the improvements that this government—Senator Coonan and her predecessors—have made to telecommunications in rural and regional Australia. Several years ago I was in Birdsville, almost in the centre of Australia. People there were actually using the internet to sell organic cattle from Birdsville into Japan. It was a satellite service but it was a service sponsored by the Howard government, a government that understands the needs and interests of rural and regional Australia.

So it is not what Labor promises in their great taxpayer funded robbed telecommunications fund plan for broadband in rural Australia. Do not listen to their promises. Have a look at their record. Up in Rockhampton, where I am spending a bit of time these days, there is a bit of a debate going on about dental health for rural and regional Australians—in fact for all Australians. The Howard government has put in the Medicare funded scheme to spend up to $400 million, I think it is, on people’s dental health. The Labor Party had a proposal that would give everybody dental health at the Commonwealth’s expense. It is a state responsibility. The Howard federal government has come into it because the state Labor governments are absolutely hopeless when it comes to dental health. The Labor Party spokesman promised that every Australian could have this at a cost—and I just want to mention this figure, Mr Acting Deputy President, because it is relevant—of $5 billion per annum.

For those who might be listening to this, that was the surplus in the last budget. The Labor Party would have blown $5 billion on one initiative. I mention that figure because here today the Labor Party are saying that they will blow another $5 billion on their broadband scheme. They do not have to, because, as Senator Coonan has proved, the commercial operators will take that up and the market forces will drive it. But there we have the Labor Party in one year spending twice the surplus. You do not have to be Einstein to work out where this is leading. In just two initiatives the Labor Party have spent twice the surplus. When they promise things for ports, roads, universities or whatever, you can easily see why they ran up a debt of $96 billion before 1996.

It is simply the case that you cannot trust Labor with the chequebook because they just keep signing the cheques and have no idea where the money is coming from. They borrow it, which pushes up interest rates and pushes up inflation. That is what Labor are all about. Their plans for broadband are just more of the same. They are simply signing the cheques with no idea of where the money is coming from. They work through the focus groups that Mr Rudd seems to be so driven by and find out what is popular and then promise some money for it.

I mentioned the ALGA. Ask any local government council anywhere in Australia—but particularly in Queensland—what they think about the Labor Party. The Labor Party are destroying local governments—and mainly the ones in rural and regional Queensland. By opposing this bill, they are destroying the people they are pretending to support. I cannot believe what the Australian media has picked up on. The Labor Party made it an offence to have a plebiscite on what form a local government should take. I cannot understand the Australian media. If Mr Howard blows his nose with the wrong handkerchief it is a front-page headline. But here a Labor Premier—sorry, ex-Premier, thank goodness; he has done the best thing by Queensland by resigning today—and a Labor government, supported by Kevin Rudd and all the other Queensland Labor Party people, although they are trying to distance themselves, brought in legislation that prevents free speech in the state of Queensland.