Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

And we saw what happened with Work Choices. It was not a good policy—although I do not believe the figures are commensurate. It was not a good policy and we walked away from it because of the impact on people. Likewise, this policy was not a good policy. Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, I accept Senator Sterle's acceptance that the marine reserves policy was a bad one because it cost people in Karumba $2,000 a year. We should consider those impacts on people. This gets ignored because Karumba is a place of only a few hundred people and it is a long way from here. There are no TV cameras there. There is no media there to report people's stories and heartache at the policies that we do here.

What I would love to have happen in this place is that we stop the demonisation of people who are just trying to have a job and make a living in this country. When we make wild claims about fishing, about the beef industry and about irrigation in the Murray-Darling Basin we are individually and personally attacking people in our community. We are telling them they are doing something that is not right—which is absolutely rubbish. All of us still eat steaks that the beef industry provides—or most of us do. All of us still eat the fish from our waters. All of us still wear clothes that are made from the cotton that is irrigated in those communities. Very few of us give up those things, but we want to righteously stand here and condemn and object to people's livelihoods while living on the back of the wealth they produce. I hope this bill goes down, because it will be a small step towards rejecting the demonisation of these industries and starting us back on the path of supporting industries such as fishing, farming and mining. People here like to condemn those in the mining industry all the time while living off that wealth and using the taxes they generate to make this country a better place.