Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like Senator Wong—they had absolutely nothing to do with it because they have no input and they are not taken seriously. We have only to look at a couple of other programs that have been cut, including a $10 million cut from drought research. Senator Wong is continually going on about climate change and the importance of dealing with that—and it is important—so why on earth would you cut funding to drought research? We know that this is one of the driest continents in the world, and we know that we are going to be facing drier times, but what do the Labor government do? They cut funding to drought research.

We are continually hearing Labor saying how important skills are and that they are the only ones who can fix it, but they have slashed nearly $50 million from the apprenticeships incentives for agriculture and horticulture program. I might be missing something here but these are skills that Labor are continually talking about yet we see the slashing of an apprenticeships program. It has become a clear Orwellian case—they think that, if they keep saying things, the people out there in the Australian community will believe them. Well, our job here is to make sure that they realise the truth of what is going on here.

There are other things like ending the extension that was proposed to the living away from home allowance for Australian school based apprentices. These are working families. These measures were put in place to help them, but Labor are cutting the funding to them. They are working families in rural and regional Australia who were hoping against hope that their worst fears would not be realised—that Labor might not be like the Labor of old but actually be prepared to do an empathetic job. But, no, we are not so lucky. People need to realise what Labor are going to do—what they are starting to do to rural and regional Australia—and be aware that it is not fair, not right and not on.