Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I fear for rural and regional Australia, I fear for all of those people who live outside the capital cities and I have had those fears since election day. What I have heard today from the Labor Party and what I have seen in the last couple of weeks clearly confirms that the Labor Party have absolutely no interest in rural and regional Australia. Indications of their lack of interest started right at the beginning of the Rudd government with the appointment of the two ministers responsible for the portfolios that are principally involved in what I might loosely call ‘the bush’.

To the portfolio of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the portfolio of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government they appointed two members of parliament who come from inner city Sydney—not even in the suburbs. I took the time to have a look at the websites of those two people who had been appointed to these bush portfolios and their websites clearly indicate that both are entirely unsuitable for the jobs which they have been given. But it demonstrates that the Labor Party do not care about who the ministers are for these portfolios because they have no interest in them.

I read the maiden speeches of both ministers hoping to find something in those maiden speeches that might, in some way, justify their appointments to these rural portfolios. The only thing I could find was in Mr Burke’s maiden speech when he referred to a terminally ill goldfish in a solicitor’s office. That was the only reference he made in his maiden speech which was in any way related to agriculture, fisheries or forestry. I do not think a goldfish in his solicitor’s office really classifies as fisheries.

We have these two guys who are, no doubt, quite nice gentlemen with some ability, although their backgrounds seem to be entirely in managing a union, or one of those union operators or working for another politician. One of them worked for disgraced Senator Graham Richardson, so you can imagine what sort of grounding he has had. Neither of them has any interest in rural and regional Australia and one would say, ‘Why would they?’ I doubt that they have ever been there.

This is a real difficulty for those in the bush. It does not matter how good you are; you have to have some empathy for the portfolios you are dealing with, particularly if those portfolios relate to rural and regional Australia. We have had a long series of ministers who either were farmers or have lived in rural and regional Australia; who knew what it was like to suffer droughts, floods and deprivations; who knew what the movement of populations from the bush to the city were all about; who knew the heartbreak of many not only on the land but also town dwellers in country Australia.

We have these two inner city Sydney members now in charge of the bush. With respect to Senator Sterle who, no doubt, has some qualifications or good points—although I am yet to find too many of them, and I think he is now head of the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport—he has no interest in rural and regional Australia. If you listen to the speech he has just given, you can understand that rural and regional Australia is in for a really tough time. It did not take long for that to become more obvious than through the appointments made to those important positions.

The first go of the razor gang showed that there were huge cuts mainly in the areas dealing with rural and regional Australia. Almost $50 million was cut off the apprenticeship incentives for agriculture and horticulture. Not only are the Labor government attacking training, which they are rabbiting on about at every opportunity, but here is a program helping with training in the bush and it has been cut. Why would the people in charge of the Labor government’s arrangements in the bush have any interest in apprenticeships in agriculture and horticulture? Yet it is one way that you can have country kids actually getting jobs in the country and staying there rather than having to move to a factory in the electorates of Minister Albanese and Minister Burke. That is what has happened to country kids. This apprenticeship scheme was all about keeping country kids in the bush.

Then we had $10 million slashed off the drought package assistance to rural research and development which was even before the parliament met. There was some $100 million cut from the drought package. Because it rains in Sydney, the government think the drought is over. Because they see some photos of a flood in Emerald, they think the drought is over. They think that people on the land do not need that transitional assistance to go from drought to the aftermath of a flood.

Over $100 million has been slashed from the drought package. The National Plan for Water Security, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority—$45 million just slashed from that. And the Bureau of Meteorology—an excellent organisation doing a hell of a lot of good work, which I do not think the Labor Party understand—has had a reduction in departmental funding of some $5 million. And so it goes on, and that was just the start—before the parliament even met for the very first time—so you can imagine what this budget is going to be like for rural and regional people.

I could not help but laugh at the previous speaker’s comment about the Regional Partnerships program. That was an excellent program that did so much for country towns in Australia. The most iconic one that comes to mind is the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach, in an area where I spend a lot of time. That particular building and centre that is now iconic has not just put Longreach on the map but has meant jobs in Longreach and has meant other activities and other businesses have come into that town. That program spawned the Stockman’s Hall of Fame, and we have upped it over a couple of years. That has really made the difference in that country town, yet the Labor Party would not know about it. They did hear about the old tree dying at Barcaldine, just down the road, and I think that is perhaps indicative of what will happen to Labor support in the bush in the not too distant future.

Those sorts of programs—and I could go through any one of literally thousands of programs that have done marvellous things for country towns—have kept young people in the bush and have provided an Australia that just does not exist in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Perth. So when the Labor Party say that they are scrutinising these things and they have all this accountability and they are going to be really good ministers, well, actions speak louder than words. Remember the whiteboard affair with Minister Kelly? That is just one of them that we had to put up with when last we were in opposition. Fortunately, we were able to expose her as, I promise the current ministers, we will expose them. Minister Kelly made rorting into an art form, and that was the Labor Party. That is what you can expect from the Labor Party in the years ahead.

In respect of the programs that our government quite deliberately targeted towards the bush and about which we were told, ‘Oh, it all went to Liberal and National Party seats,’—well, I’m sorry, fellas, they went to Liberal and National Party seats because the members of those parties were the only people who held seats in the bush until this election. So that is why all the money went to Liberal and National Party electorates. There were no Labor Party members in the bush. Regrettably, in my home state of Queensland there are now three: one in Flynn, one in Dawson and one in Leichhardt. All three of them, of course, have very little interest in the bush. All three, I think, are union organisers or big-city solicitors. So we will see what sort of interest they take in the slashing of these programs for their electorates. In Flynn, now held by the Labor Party, the Stockman’s Hall of Fame is one such place.

We will see what the Labor Party does about the Regional Partnerships grants we put into Longreach, into Winton, into Barcaldine, into Emerald—into any number of those little rural communities out there. And I will be watching the budget with great interest when we will see the real detestation that the Labor Party has for country people. I fear for the bush, Mr Acting Deputy President Sandy Macdonald, but I know you and other colleagues on this side in both the Liberal and National parties will be doing whatever we can to make sure that the bush is not forgotten under the Labor government as it was in the Hawke and Keating governments. It is going to be difficult, but I can guarantee the people of rural and regional Australia that those of us in the Senate—Senator Boswell, Senator Joyce, Senator Nash, Senator Adams and Senator Heffernan—who have a real and genuine commitment to and an interest in the bush will be doing our best to stop the Labor Party slashing its assistance to the bush as it has done in the past.