Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I want to be absolutely clear on what Senator Ludlam said. He may, as he was walking back in, have been fully au fait with what was happening but I am not sure. Perhaps I can briefly say that the government sought to amend the first part of the opposition’s second reading amendment by removing the words ‘regional Australia’ and inserting the words ‘the national interest’ so that the amendment would read:

… calls on the Minister when approving a Nation Building Program Off-Network project to consider the extent to which the project benefits the national interest …

rather than, as we had it, ‘benefits regional Australia’. The whole point of the amendment with which I thought Senator Ludlam agreed was that it was highlighting that this was money that had been set aside for regional Australia and which was now going into the cities. It was simply alerting them to that. Perhaps Senator Ludlam did understand that but I am not sure which way he was calling. Could we get clarification of that before giving Senator Conroy leave to recommit?