Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

Senator McLucas, I am telling you nothing but the facts: your government decided to close these facilities at Mildura and Rockhampton. Research is needed to tackle rising agricultural input costs. Look at what has happened with diesel, fertiliser, herbicide and pesticide costs, which my colleague Senator Heffernan knows about all too well because of the inquiry that is going on. His work is to be appreciated in this area.

How are farmers going to produce cheap, quality, environmentally productive food in a changing climate without the research that is required to make sure that this is possible? The potential inclusion of agriculture in the government’s emissions trading scheme reinforces the need for stronger resources in science and research to enable rural and regional communities to best cope with such a situation. A hundred scientist positions and $63 million have been cut from the CSIRO research budget. That is this federal government’s response to the problems that face rural primary producers and others today. The coalition had a $54 million National Food Innovation Strategy. What did Labor do? They cut $20 million off it. We have a most irrational reduction in the spending on rural and regional communities.

There are a couple of other areas that I want to mention in the time available. How on earth could a federal government that pretends to be doing all it can for climate change axe a volunteer youth development and environmental training program which 18,000 young Australians have participated in and which has planted 14 million trees. I am talking about the Green Corps. How could a government axe that in all conscience? It was one of the most successful programs that the previous government put in place—planting trees, training young people, developing youth and the environment. The majority of the Green Corps projects in South Australia have been located in our rural and regional communities. What has this government done? They have axed it with no prospect of it being replaced.

The other area that I want to talk about briefly is the Investing in Our Schools Program leading to a smarter Australia—the education revolution. The Investing in Our Schools Program was one of the most successful programs that the previous government put in place and a third of the $1.2 billion invested in that program went to regional Australia. It has been replaced with a one-size-fits-all computer pledge. Communities in the previous program were able to identify their own priority area of need at their schools and apply for funding for it. Now, they can only get computers. As well as that, they are asked to cover the extra costs associated with the computers. These communities that are doing it so tough are being asked to fund the extra costs. I ask you, what is the use of computers and internet broadband access to many rural and regional communities when the proper infrastructure is not even in place? What is the point?

If you had left the money in the Investing in Our Schools Program, you might have supplied what the communities required instead of what this Prime Minister said they needed. Probably, he has hardly visited any of the rural and regional schools in Australia and yet he tells them they all need a computer for each child—which I think is now one computer between two children. So we have this enormous cut in the spending on regional and rural schools. None of these policies are going to help any of our rural and regional children and their communities to do all of the things that they hope they will be able to do to be a part of regional development and a sustainable future.

I support totally the motion moved by Senator Fiona Nash that has been put to the parliament today. There have been a lot of contributions but I go back to the first comment that Senator McLucas made, which was that the ALP absolutely understand the problems facing rural Australia. They have no idea. Perhaps if they spoke to people who live in rural and regional Australia, we might get a better outcome.