Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Humphries. I will take that interjection. That is absolutely disgraceful. So we see the list of waste and mismanagement, yet our defence forces are bearing the brunt of that. That is absolutely unacceptable. I went yesterday to the funeral of Private Robert Poate, who was an old boy of Canberra Grammar School and was an incredible Australia. The fact that other Australians just like him who are continuing to serve are suffering from budget cuts from this Labor government because they have wasted so much money is absolutely appalling and unacceptable.

The list goes on. Let us go to agriculture, because the hits just keep on coming. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry spent $77,627 on consultants to alter its mission statement. What happened then? They removed the word 'agriculture' from their mission statement. So we have nearly $80,000 with all this help and the consultants that they needed to do more than just change the mission statement—though I am sure there was a significant contribution towards it—which was 'increasing the profitability, competitiveness and sustainability of Australia's agricultural, fisheries and forestry industries'. That is what it was. They changed it to, 'We work to sustain the way of life and prosperity of all Australians.' What is that? I am a farmer. To spend all that money on advice and consultants, eventually altering their mission statement to remove the word 'agriculture' from it—what is this government doing? That is absolutely extraordinary. It is not at all surprising that the people of this nation have just about had a gutful. They also spent nearly $80,000 coming up with identity branding to work out how the department projected itself. All of that wrapped up in that $80,000 is absolutely extraordinary.

What is interesting is that, if we had not had all of this waste and mismanagement that I have been talking about, we would not have had to have cuts like the Labor government abolishing Land and Water Australia, cutting $63 million in CSIRO agricultural research and a $12 million cut in funding to the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. In the 2009-10 budget Labor cut cargo screening resources at ports and airports by $58 million, obviously risking our borders when it comes to plant disease and animal risk, and cut the government's contribution to biosecurity by $35 million. When we look at all these things and look at the list of waste, people wonder, not surprisingly, what on earth this government is doing. How dare they put at risk our borders? How dare they cut funding for agriculture for our farmers, who are the backbone of this nation? And yet we see $80,000 going on trying to get identity branding for the department. It is absolutely ludicrous.

When it comes to education, colleagues have already mentioned Gonski and the costs there. Again, if we had not seen the waste and mismanagement, we would not have had to see the cuts that we have seen. The minister has admitted—and I take his point—that, when they made changes to youth allowance, they could not have any greater impact on the budget. What I find absolutely appalling about that is that part of what they did was put a $150,000 parental income test cap on independent youth allowance for students. As the minister said at the time, that was because there is technically only X amount of money to go around in the youth allowance changes and it was a savings measure. So we see this situation from this Labor government where there is a parental income cap for students wanting to get independent youth allowance. How incongruous and stupid is that? These are students who have proved themselves independent of their parents. That is the nature of it. That is why they go and work for a year. They are independent of their parents when they go to university. But this government, which clearly has no understanding at all of the needs of rural and regional students, puts a cap in place saying, 'By the way, if your parents earn that, too bad: you're not eligible and cannot even apply.' That is $150,000 before tax for two parents. We are talking about a police officer and a schoolteacher whose children are unable to apply for independent youth allowance because of this government's stupid parental income cap because they did not have the money to increase the budget for the youth allowance measures.

When we look at all this waste and mismanagement, it is absolutely no surprise that the Australian people have concluded beyond all doubt that this government cannot manage money. They do not believe a word the government say anymore. The government no longer have any credibility. They never had any ability to manage the economy properly. The Australian people are seeing through this government day after day. They are seeing the negative impacts we are seeing right through our communities because of the economic mismanagement of this government, because the government have no vision for the future, and the Australian people will make this very clearly felt at the next election.