Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let them have their say, Senator Farrell, and let us get to the pointy end and actually put the bill before the Senate and vote for it, as was the mandate given to the Abbott government at the election.

There is more to do, but we are keeping faith with the Australian people after they were so badly let down after six years of Labor. Before the election, Labor said they would scrap the carbon tax. Just this week, Mark Butler said they would scrap the carbon tax. Now is the time for Labor to determine whether or not they will break their own election promise. How hypocritical of the now opposition to accuse us of not honouring the election promises, when every person in the country would have known, as I said earlier, what our No. 1 promise was. Labor gave us six years of chaos and poor governance, and we need to remember what that Labor legacy is.

We are meeting our promises. We are actually delivering on Labor's promises, which I find quite curious. There is one Labor Party election promise that we are not going to commit to, because, in a very cynical way, the then Minister for Regional Development, Local Communities and Territories, Catherine King, went around in the lead-up to the election, misleading community after community, and community group after community group. Round 5 funding agreements in the Regional Development Australia Fund will not be funded. They were election promises by the Labor government during a very bitter election campaign. She put that out into communities that are now seeking us to fulfil Labor's promises, but that is not our job. Our job is to do what we were elected to do, which is to get rid of the debt and to repeal the carbon tax and the mining tax.

I am quite chuffed, though, that some rounds of RDAF have been funded by the government in terms of building sustainable regional communities. These rounds 2, 3 and 4 of RDAF grants were not dealt with by the previous government, even though they were Labor election promises. In Indi, for instance, in my and Senator Ronaldson's home state, the government is funding $150,000 for a feasibility study of the Bright Hospital redevelopment. I know that is something the local member, Bill Sykes, has championed. The Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Jamie Briggs, made the announcement two days ago. The government is funding $405, 000 towards the construction of the Bonegilla boardwalk and bike track. The Abbott-Truss government will also deliver $50,000 towards CCTV cameras in the Alpine shire, $5 million towards the catheterisation lab in Albury-Wodonga and $1.4 million in local roads funding, as well as funding for a Green Army project for Lake Hume, the Murray River and the Kiewa River.

This is delivering on election promises. This is about the Liberal-National government making sure that regional communities are not left behind, as they were by the former government, despite promises from the former minister—empty promises, as it turned out, because the money was not there, is not there. We will deliver on these promises, and that announcement was made by the minister. Each of these projects will provide critical investment in regional communities so that they can continue to develop and prosper. They are projects that were developed with the assistance of coalition members, Liberal members, and the ministers in charge, who are very supportive of these projects. The Bonegilla boardwalk project, for instance, will contribute to closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage through skills development and employment on enhancing the tourism infrastructure of the Kiewa River flood plain.

One election promise that I am really looking forward to delivering is the establishment of the National Stronger Regions Fund. From 2015, regional communities will be able to apply to that fund for social and economic infrastructure that will contribute to their economic development. It is a $1 billion fund over four years starting in 2015. So we are actually doing what we said we would do. We are keeping faith with the Australian people.

It is the height of hypocrisy for those opposite to come in here and, after less than 100 days, ask why we have not repealed the carbon tax. Why haven't we? Well, it got through the lower house okay, but here we are, standing in the Senate on the last day of sitting, and it has been on the red every single day. When it was first listed we had the debate to separate the bills, so we could maybe multiply each of the 11 bills before us by the number of Greens and Labor senators. If you do the calculations—and I haven't brought my calculator in with me and my arithmetic is a little rusty—I think it might take us until April before we can actually get to a vote when we have run out of speakers from the opposition. The debate throughout the past two weeks has been quite repetitive—we could have tabled the talking points and gotten on with it. I do believe it is important for the Senate to ensure that senators are able to air the concerns of their communities and constituents, to bring those concerns to the Senate and ensure that issues are properly debated. I would also ask, after the amount of time and the range of issues that have been canvassed in this debate, why we are still unable to put that package of bills to the vote, why the Labor Party refuses to accept that the Australian people want this legislation repealed.

I had SPC, a food manufacturer in my home state of Victoria, come up to Canberra today to talk to coalition members and senators about the challenges that face food manufacturing in Australia, particularly in regional areas. The challenges are significant, and not dissimilar to the challenges faced by Holden and by General Motors, spoken about by their head, Mr Akerson. It is about a high dollar and high input costs. When the Leader of the Opposition was on ABC News 24 this morning and was asked by Virginia Trioli about what made up those high input costs, particularly for automotive manufacturers here in Australia, he was unable to give an answer that gave any comfort that he understood the very real concerns of the manufacturing industry in Australia. That is a huge concern. It is huge concern for AMWU members in Shepparton. It is a huge concern for workers more generally right across manufacturing. It is similarly of concern to the small and medium enterprises, many located in regional communities, who support the larger automotive industry and the larger food-processing industry and may employ upwards of five to 10 people. How are they going to sustain their business? The disconnection that the Labor Party and the Greens have from the reality of the everyday life of Australians was demonstrated by Australians throwing them out of government. Now they need to recognise that and to get on with the business of delivering on the people's will.

The task before us is daunting. I do not think any of us could have predicted just how much mess Labor has left us with. They have wreaked havoc on the Australian budget, and not just for the coming term, the coming parliament, but for decades ahead. We are going to work very hard to deal with that issue. We are up to the task. We have been given a job by the Australian people, we have started that job and we will not stop until it is completed.