Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is withdrawn. So that is the background of the government. There are more people that live in the western suburbs of Sydney than in all of rural Australia. All but 12½ per cent of the people in New South Wales live in Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle. So politically they are important, and traditionally that is where this government gets its support in this parliament. So they, the bush, do not count politically. Tonight is a demonstration that they do not count.

We sold Telstra, and there was a lot of anguish in the bush about the sale of Telstra, but we sold it at the top of the market. The last sale was as the market was falling, and we got 50-odd billion dollars. If we were trying to sell it now, it would not sell. If we had not sold it and got the $50 billion—and I remind Senator Sherry about his bush credentials—this government would be in serious financial trouble. It has been a great assistance to the government in Australia to get that $50 billion at the top of the market. If you were selling it today, you might get $10 billion. So we picked the top of the market.

This government has taken $20 million out of the Northern Development Taskforce and put it away. This today says to me that not only are you fellows selling out the government but you would rob your mothers’ graves if you thought there was anything in the coffins to support the government. You are going to try and buy your way back into government, and that is what this is an exercise in. This money was ring-fenced and protected for all time as a sovereign fund to protect the integrity of the future development of the bush in terms of this sort of infrastructure. What you have done today is take the cheap, easy and lousy way out of that. There was absolutely no need to knock off this $2 billion, absolutely none. It was in cash in 30-day accounts in a bank somewhere. It is exactly the same as the New South Wales government the other day reprehensibly telling people that they have got to pay for donated blood, to save $8 million in their budget, at the same time as they are paying $34 million for water at Tandou that does not exist. This is the same crazy logic.

Can I say to the bush: you do not count if this goes through. You do not count. This government does not care. You blokes in the government can pretend all you like that you know what the bush is. All you know about the bush is the two trees in your backyard in town. That is about all you know about the bush. I think it is a disgrace. I think we ought to abandon this chamber as a symbol of our disgust at the way you have absolutely held the bush to ransom and ambushed this parliament with this proposition just to save your own skins. It is damn disgrace and, as I say, the next thing we know you will be digging up your mothers’ bloomin’ coffins to get anything that is left in them to keep you in government.