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

Thank you, Senator Abetz, I will take that interjection—who cares? Minister Burke keeps running around the countryside saying, ‘I’m a city boy and I know they’ll know better than me.’ He hides behind the fact that he is a city boy but thinks he is still going to do a good job. Maybe he will, but we certainly have not seen any sign of it yet. Travelling around the countryside from one state to another does not mean you are doing a good job as a minister. The proof of the pudding is in the eating but, so far, all we have seen from the agriculture minister is a bunch of cuts to rural and regional people.

The most interesting thing is that these communities are some of the poorest in the country—some of the lowest socioeconomic communities in this country. But what has the razor gang done? The razor gang has targeted rural and regional communities, which I think is appalling. It is not fair and it is not right. What we have seen is nearly $100 million cut in drought assistance. What government minister would think of cutting assistance to regional communities at the end of seven years of drought? Apparently, from what I have been able to glean from what Minister Burke has said, it is because we have had some showers of rain—it is all more optimistic—and the forecast is good. He has not gone into the lounge rooms of those people who have not had a decent income for years and years, but the forecast is good so therefore ‘we’ll cut the program’. If that does not show how out of touch Labor are with regional communities I do not know what will. These are working families that are trying to put food on the table, make ends meet, get through this drought and find some light at the end of the tunnel. They are hopeful that they will make it through and be able to stay on their farms and keep producing food and fibre for this nation.

But what do Labor do? They cut funding to regional drought programs. I do not know about anybody else in this chamber but, to me, that is stupid. Around this country I am sure people would be asking, ‘Why on earth are the government doing this?’ There are a range of other things in this trillion-dollar economy that they could perhaps have started with rather than rural and regional Australia. They should be ashamed that they have taken nearly half a billion dollars away from rural and regional communities at this time—hopefully we are potentially coming to the end of the worst drought in Australia’s history—and it shows a lack of empathy and understanding. I suggest that the minister do a lot more travelling around, because, from what we are looking at now, so far he probably has not helped at all. But then again maybe it was out of his hands; maybe it was the finance minister. Maybe the agriculture minister had absolutely nothing to do with it.