Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Our nation's heart is very much with the people of the rural and remote parts of Australia. Australians have great respect for their true-blue country communities—including for our farmers, who are doing it very tough at present. This country has been built on the backs of our farmers—firstly, the sheep industry—and, even now, we rely very heavily on the food produced by the hard work of our agriculture and livestock farmers, and other rural industries. Farming is among the few industries that produce considerable value from effectively nothing. The crops and the livestock produced are value-added as they go along the supply chain, to the benefit of the economy. The marketeers add their mark-up, the retailers add their mark-up and the restaurants who prepare the produce for their diners also add a mark-up. At each step of the process the government takes a cut through taxation. The same could also be said of any business that invests in production and in the employment of local people in our country. Some suggest that in the 1930s, during the wool era, there was a six-to-one growth of money for the economy to the benefit of Canberra. Others suggest that figure today could be 11-to-one.

The argument is that our primary producers are a foundational part of the money tree and, if they're gone, their earnings will be gone with them. So it is important that the government ensures rural and regional communities receive the services they need to survive and thrive, but the government is not always supportive of regional and remote communities. One example I've been raising lately is that the government has fallen flat on its support for the dairy industry. I have called for a mandatory code of conduct to protect the dairy industry and to help dairy farmers. The government has also fallen flat on its handling of water. Many landholders see water flow past them yet they are not allowed to access it, due to the act that says someone else owns the licences. Other farmers have seen water from dams like the Paradise Dam in Queensland flowing out to sea.

This matter of public importance here today is about the failure of the coalition government to deliver for rural and regional Australia. That may be the case—and I do support it—but what have the Labor Party been doing while they were in government, not just in the federal government but also the state? I see in the state of Queensland and as I travel around that towns are dying, shops are empty and services have been forsaken. Those communities are crying out about education, about hospitals being taken out of communities. They don't have birthing wards anymore in these communities, they can't get doctors there—they're only fly-in, fly-out—and they don't have aged-care facilities.

People live in these communities. Governments talk about bringing in refugees and migrants and think they can put them into these communities. That's not going to work; we can't keep our own people there. How on earth can we bring people from a totally different culture and way of life and put them in rural and regional Australia when Australians don't want to stay there? The government has tried to address this whole system at the moment with what is happening with our drought. It is what Australia is all about. Whether it's cyclones, droughts or floods, we will continue to go on in the future. It is about having a vision for Australia and having governments look at how we can best stop this from happening. With the droughts, you put in water infrastructure.

Senator Bernardi got up today and said, 'Why would you want to waste so much money on the Bradfield scheme?' Well, I'd say to Australians out there: at least it would provide much needed water to areas throughout Australia. Why on earth, then, would you want to spend $50 billion-plus building submarines in South Australia that are going to be defunct because they're diesel-electric submarines? By the time we get the last one in 2050, they will be defunct. So why are we spending billions of dollars on submarines when we can put in a Bradfield scheme that will deliver water throughout the eastern states, to his state of South Australia, for the cost of $15 billion? I know which one the Australian people would prefer to put their money into.

I'm pleased this debate is here today, because Labor, a lot of times, forget about the bush. They really don't understand. They don't connect with people in the bush and that's why the people don't vote for them. And if the National Party keeps heading down this pathway, people won't be voting for them either, because they are no longer the people of the bush representing the bush. So I'm pleased that we're here and discussing this, because those communities need all the help they can get.