Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

We have got interjections from the other side: something about bumping up the Labor vote. I will not take that interjection because perhaps I will get the sway of it wrong. Perhaps the other side need to recognise that there are a number of people who are confused by this matter and perhaps they could explain it to the members of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, who are patiently waiting for notification of whether this government is going to match the $600,000 that they have raised themselves to fit out a medical centre to expand this vital service to rural and regional Australia. So we have got a problem: we have got a Labor Tree of Knowledge and we have got people in the outback. Suddenly, one of these projects manages to push through all the processes and gets through.

It is going to be absolutely pointless, if we have a new Regional Development Australia board and a network, if the ideas and advice are never implemented. It does not matter that we have again had: ‘Core election promises will never be broken’—that has been shattered on a number of issues. But, clearly, we have an evidentiary trail to say that the Prime Minister was not fair dinkum when he said, ‘I’m going to stick to this promise.’ It was some other sort of promise, but let us leave all that aside. This is not going to work if the advice and the ideas are never going to be implemented, simply because we do not recognise the importance of rural and regional Australia. It is the boiler room of the economy of Australia, and we need to ensure that funding is adequate, timely and in response to a whole suite of advice that can only be provided through the area consultative committee network.

It is absolutely essential that the network survives with the new government—I recognise that these things change. This has been an outstanding program that was put in place by the previous government and, over a great deal of time, it has improved the worth of those people in rural and regional Australia. So, despite the duplicity of the Prime Minister and those opposite in terms of the election promise, we support the broad intent of the government’s plans for Regional Development Australia. Whilst not completely endorsing it, we are looking forward very much to some of the details later on.

Question agreed to.