Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would suggest to Senator Singh that she have a look at that report and have a look at the graph in that report showing the proportion of GDP concentrated in just 10 locations. You will see, if you look at that report and the graph, that most of the 'badness' in the report occurred in the years of the Labor government. Even the dysfunction shown in recent times is the rollover, the follow-up, from the Labor Party. So before the Labor Party misread—perhaps deliberately—these reports, they should understand that it was their party that caused this problem.

Why did the progress, the economic growth, in rural and regional Australia fall during the time of the Labor government? The first thing I can point to is the ban on live-cattle exports, the most disastrous, stupid, uninformed and ill-researched decision that any government has made for as long as I have been here and I suspect even longer. That one decision—made overnight, by the Gillard government and Senator Ludwig when he was the minister for agriculture—decimated rural and regional Australia, particularly in the north of Australia, where beef cattle and live exports were so important. The industry was not doing too badly, and then—overnight—by a decision of the Labor government the income to that very significant industry in the north was stopped. As a result of that—in addition to suicides—the economic growth of those parts of rural and regional Australia has plummeted. You can thank the Labor Party and the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments for that.

So before you get up and look at these reports, Senator Singh, I suggest you study them and understand that most of the things you complain about occurred during the time of the Labor government. If you have a look at the graph—and I invite you to do that—you will see that during the latter Howard years the increase in rural economies was much better. It is only in the Labor years that rural economies have gone backwards.