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

I rise to make some comments this afternoon on the failure of the Gillard government to focus on the business of government. Nothing could be more obvious than a government that simply has no idea how to run the country. We have seen year after year of policy failure from this Labor government. It is extraordinary how absolutely completely unable this government is to run the country properly. As somebody said to me the other day, regardless of which side of politics you support, you expect the government of the day to properly be able to run the business of government, to properly be able to run the process of government, and this Labor government simply has absolutely no idea how to do that.

What do we see? We see this consistent bickering from the other side over who should be leader. First of all we had Kevin Rudd and now we have Julia Gillard, and are we going back to Kevin Rudd? It is no wonder the Australian people have absolutely had a gutful. What they want to see is a government that is committed to good policy for the Australian people, a government that is committed to the future sustainability of the nation, not this self-indulgent navel gazing from the Labor Party that we consistently see. Quite frankly, I do not think it matters if Ms Gillard, the Prime Minister, leaves the position and somebody else takes it, be it Mr Rudd or Mr Crean or whoever else it may be. I do not think it matters. This party simply is incapable of running the country. It does not matter a toss who is leading this party, who is leading this government, because they are systemically unable to run the country properly, right through the ranks. So it simply does not matter who is at the helm, in my view. We are going to get the same shambolic government from the other side that we have seen today.

The lack of any ability to run the country is so obviously seen in the lack of attention to policy, particularly when it comes to regional students. We have seen this government consistently ignore the issue of inequity for regional students compared to city students when it comes to accessing tertiary education. Indeed, we recently got some data from the department. Many would know that there is a target to have 40 per cent of people in the 25- to 34-year-old age bracket holding a degree. What we see from this data is that, in the cities, 36 per cent of people in that age bracket have a degree, compared to regional communities, where that figure is only 17 per cent, and remote communities, where it is only 15 per cent. That is an absolute indictment of this government for their failure to address this inequity for regional students. A financial burden sits on these regional students because they so often have no choice but to relocate to attend university, and that comes at a huge financial cost. This government has no ability whatsoever to understand that. It has no idea what is occurring out there in regional communities and how so many regional students are being precluded from attending university because of its failure to act, its failure to properly put in place a policy to assist regional students. It is just not right. It is not fair that regional students simply do not have the same opportunities as city students.

This Labor government chose to put in a parental income test cap on independent youth allowance, which is one of the very few ways that our regional students have to access some financial assistance. These students, who are proving themselves independent of their parents, get hit with the government saying, 'By the way, if your parents earn a combined before-tax income of $150,000'—we are effectively talking a police officer and a schoolteacher—'sorry, you are not even able to apply for financial assistance through independent youth allowance.' So often that is the only financial assistance that makes attending university available. It is simply wrong. The failure of this government to focus on the business at hand and on the policy that is actually needed to make regional communities sustainable is simply appalling. We know that regional students are far more likely to come back to regional communities and work or practice a profession, which is exactly what we should be encouraging. We should be providing those opportunities, not putting up more barriers, which is consistently what this Labor government continues to do.

This government has no vision for the future when it comes to agriculture and rural Australia, none whatsoever. You never hear them talk about how they want agriculture to look and how they want rural communities to look in 2030 or 2040 or how they want to shape the nation to make that happen. We get absolutely nothing. Instead, we get things like the export ban on live cattle. This knee-jerk reaction from the Labor government caused the decimation of families and businesses across the north of Australia, and it is now coming right down the country, flowing from north to south. The ramifications of that stupid decision now affect more than just the north of Australia. It was appalling to see at the beginning of the year the Prime Minister, in an answer to a question after a Press Club address, refer to that snap live export ban as short-term pain. That is appalling. That is wrong.

Senator Sinodinos interjecting—

Thank you, Senator Sinodinos. I will take that interjection of 'shame'. It was shameful that this government reacted to an email campaign. They did not think it through. So often this comes from people who simply have no understanding of the industry and how it operates. Not long after that, the Prime Minister was asked some questions on radio in South Australia about the dairy industry. A dairy farmer raised the issue of the carbon tax. Of course, the Prime Minister had said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead,' but we do now have a carbon tax, which affects agriculture and rural Australia probably more than anywhere else. When the Prime Minister was asked by the dairy farmer about the costs and the imposts of the carbon tax, the Prime Minister said, 'The industry will not only survive; it will thrive under the carbon tax.' How disconnected from the real world can a Prime Minister become if that is her view of the dairy industry under the carbon tax? It is simply appalling and unacceptable that this Prime Minister and this government are so disconnected from rural Australia, what we need and what we should be doing.

In my view, the Treasurer should be coming out now with regard to the issue of the potential takeover of GrainCorp by Archer Daniels Midland and saying that, regardless of any recommendation by FIRB, he absolutely does not see this as being in the national interest. I can tell you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that this is not in the national interest. We are talking about GrainCorp, which on the eastern seaboard holds a virtual monopoly of our grain storage, handling and logistics. It has seven out of the nine ports. That virtual monopoly on the eastern seaboard now potentially will go into the hands of one of the largest grain-processing giants in the world, operating in 140 countries and six continents. Australian grain-handling and logistics processes will become a cog in the giant multinational company of ADM. I have to declare—although many would already know—that I am a grain grower. This is not in the grain growers' interests, and it is most certainly not in the national interest. We are potentially going to lose control of that virtual monopoly of grain handling, storage and logistics on the eastern seaboard. We have no certainty around the operation of the receival sites. We have no certainty at all around the buyers and around how that process is going to work. It is not in the national interest for that to go ahead.

The government should pay more attention to issues out there in our communities and—from our perspective in the coalition—our regional communities. The Nationals and my regional Liberal colleagues understand what is needed in those regional communities. Perhaps if this government started paying a bit more attention to the business of government instead of this constant self-indulgent navel-gazing—who should be leader and who is going to run around with all the lollies—we might have a government that could actually start delivering something for the nation, particularly for the regional communities. But I suspect that is not going to happen. We are going to continue to watch this soap opera of a government. At the end of the day, the sad fact is that this nation is losing out and this nation is suffering as a result of this Labor government.