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

That is true. What has our government done? Our government has put a $5 billion stimulus in place—a $5 billion package to promote northern Australia. That is going to lift some of those communities up and bring them some of the prosperity that the rest of us enjoy—those who live in postcodes ending with three noughts.

We put the Sky Muster system in. We had an agenda to build a communication base so that our businesses in the bush right across Australia were able to compete. These are people who used to have to get up at two o'clock in the morning under the old system to try and fill out a form online to send it back to their accountant or to one of their customers.

Senator O'Neill interjecting—

Listen, I bet it has been a long time since you have been out bush, Senator. I bet you it is a long time since you have been out in the bush. I have never cut your tracks out there; I promise you. I am telling you that in country Australia they are over the moon about the introduction of Sky Muster. There are new enterprises and there are new investments going on, because now they can—before they could not.

Under Labor not one bit of attention was paid to the people in the bush with respect to communications, so our agenda to fix the communication issues in the bush is working a treat. Before that we had families divided. They were trying to get schooling via the internet. You did nothing—not one thing—to support isolated families financially to enable them to give their children an education. That was something that they could only dream about. It is something that you take for granted around the corner from where you live. We put $44 million into that recently. So we do have an agenda to build circumstances in regional and rural Australia to give those young ones an equal chance at education, which is something that you and your mob take for granted.

Senator Watt from Queensland talked about our investment but that nothing was happening with it. Well, I tell you what, Senator Watt: I intend to make sure that the Hansard of your speech goes to everybody in the Darling Downs, because they are seeing tractors, dozers and graders, using the $1.7 billion investment from this government, to deal with the bottleneck on the range crossing. Sixty-six per cent of our country's beef that is exported comes off the Darling Downs and down the range crossing. We have invested $1.7 billion into that. That is part of our agenda. Our agenda is to invest in that part of the economy, where Senator Williams and I have a particular interest—our deputy agriculture minister is also in the chamber, so they are well represented on this side of the chamber here today. We are investing in them. We have not forgotten them. Just because they will not vote for us in certain areas does not mean that we forget them like the Australian Labor Party has done. We are investing the $1.7 billion to increase productivity on the Darling Downs to bring all those commodities down to the Port of Brisbane.

Our people supported the development of the first private airport on the Darling Downs—the first in something like 30 years to be developed. We are bringing enabling infrastructure around that out at Charlton and with the Warrego Highway. Another half a billion dollars is being spent there. We have committed $100 million to the Outback Way, and there is another $500 million to be distributed. We have found $500 million in our budget to get the arterial road systems in the west moving again, so that we can get more of these cattle, more of this produce, more of this wheat, more of these chickpeas to the Port of Brisbane and get our terms of trade in order.

I have been sitting patiently since this government was returned waiting to hear anybody from that side of the chamber ask a question or offer something constructive in the field of education, particularly education for rural Australia—not a single word. I have waited to hear your contribution on health—