Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let me open by telling you what I have been doing for the last 100 days. I have been bunkered down in my office, on my knees, praying—praying, Doug—that you would ask this question. That is what I have done. You have given me all my Christmases and birthdays in one day. Even Ripley would not believe the work we have done. Do not go, Doug. Loosen your tie, kick your shoes off, put your feet on the desk and have a listen.

We have put $3 billion—we have committed it through the Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper. Every Labor supporter in this country and every member of the CFMEU and every tofu-sucking Green can take their shoes and socks off and count their fingers and toes and they would not even know what $3 billion was. That is an enormous investment in agriculture in this country. We have put $7 million into the rural financial counselling service. So it will come as no surprise to my colleagues on the other side that I am going to concentrate on what we have done in 100 days in this Turnbull government for agriculture around the country.

We listened to that. He talked about a husk. We listened to that hollow presentation then by Senator Cameron. It sounded like—do you remember the Proclaimers from back in the seventies? 'I will walk 100 days' —a repeat. It was one song that just had the one verse that just went round and round and round. All he talked about was Patty Hearst the Stockholm syndrome and husks. He sounded like an old aluminium boat that was washed up. You know: that wave hits it, you sit there quietly and listen, and the wave hits it again. It is the same sound. But when you walk over and you look in it, it is an empty vessel. There is nothing in it. That is Senator Cameron and his contribution.

We extended $35 million to the Drought Communities Program. I can take you—if you have five minutes, come up to my home state of Queensland. I will take you out to Charleville and I will take you to Quilpie and I will take you to Longreach and Chinchilla, and they will tell you what an enormous benefit that was that the Turnbull government provided to them and their communities.

We put $18.6 million into drought community project proposals; $1.5 billion on water infrastructure modernisation. We put $15 billion into water reform agenda across Australia. Just yell out when you have had enough. Put your hand up, just yell out, and I will pull up. We brought in the Water Amendment Act. We put $2 billion into the National Water Infrastructure Loan Facility that provides loans for growers and producers all across the country. We put another $13 million shared between 25 projects into the irrigation industry improvement scheme. All of these are designed to improve the performance of the Murray-Darling Basin, having very high regard to the environmental issues, making sure that we got the balance right—the sustainability with agricultural production.

So we had $13 million shared with the irrigation industry in the improvement program. We brought in the Water Amendment (Review Implementation and Other Measures) Bill. We put $103 million into Sunraysia, a modernisation project, to keep manufacturing in one of Australia's iconic agricultural companies alive.

You talk over there about the fact that we have not supported particular industries. These are all support measures for industries.