Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. Just about every nurse at Chinchilla Hospital was married to a farmer, and when years were tough it was the nurses' incomes that kept the farms going. I know that because my mother was a nursing midwife who would keep the ship steady when the family farm was going through drought. I would like to add that when the LNP did govern in Queensland between 2012 and 2015, they reopened three maternity wards, and we will do that again next year if elected into government.

Then there were the council amalgamations. My home town once had its own council, as did many other small towns. My father was a third-generation councillor, back when it was unpaid. Now we take orders from another town up the road—great for democracy and regional representation that is!

I should point out that it was a Queensland Labor government that introduced vegetation management laws that have restricted property rights for farmers. Today, farmers are being locked up for feeding mulga to their stock to keep them alive in drought. Seriously, some of the people in Labor should come out to Charleville and Quilpie to see just how much mulga is out there. You've got to manage this stuff, as you do with all vegetation. You just can't leave it. If you do, when there is a fire the impact is devastating. That's not just my opinion; even the hippies in Nimbin are blaming the Greens for being against fire hazard reduction.

And there is more: Labor is shutting down agricultural colleges. If you care about the environment, why would you shut those down? Our farmers are the ones who manage the land. If you want to look after it, then surely the best way to do that is to make sure they're up to date with best practice land management skills. But the reality is that Labor doesn't give a rat's pyjamas about the bush. They never have, and they never will. Labor is throwing beekeepers out of state forests, throwing fishermen off their boats and throwing roo-shooters off properties.

And last, but not least, there is privatisation. Queensland Labor went on a selling spree—lotteries, the trains, airports, ports, forestry plantations, gas assets, wind assets and motorways. One of the chief architects behind this was none other than Senator Watt, another typical Labor neoliberal traitor. Compare and contrast with what was built in the 30 years prior to Labor coming to power back in the eighties: Burdekin Dam; Wivenhoe Dam; the industrial powerhouse of Gladstone, with its aluminium smelters; the opening up of the Bowen Basin; Stanwell Power Station—