Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to join others in speaking on the appropriation bills that are before the parliament for debate and deliberation. The job of an elected representative is a pretty basic proposition. We are paid to assist the communities we represent to solve problems. That's it. That is the one thing we—from the Prime Minister to the most junior members of the backbench—have to do. People have different responsibilities. They might have portfolio responsibilities or shadow portfolio responsibilities or be committee chairs—you name it; there are a range of roles we all play—but at the end of the day the one thing we are tasked with doing is to seeking to resolve the problems faced by the communities we represent. I think somewhere along the way this government has lost the memo on that.

I think Senator Cox was right to quote the Prime Minister on one of the most important comments he made on election night, and that was that no Australians would be left behind. It was in the first few paragraphs of his election victory speech, and I think there were a lot of people out there listening to that, following on from having cast their votes that day and the weeks of campaigning where they were promised a range of measures that, if elected, an Albanese Labor government would deliver to make their lives better, to ensure that they wouldn't be left behind. Incidentally, it wasn't just about Australians being left behind—while that is a noble and admirable goal to have, to ensure that not a single member of our country, no citizen, is left behind. He went on to say that no-one in this country would be held back, because we should always support aspiration and opportunity, alongside ensuring that no-one will be left behind.

Now, they were great promises made through the campaign, big words on election night from the Prime Minister, and those words have been echoed—or at least some of them have. Most of my colleagues have referenced, and I will do the same, that promise around electricity prices, the reduction in the cost of electricity by $275 per annum, a promise made nearly 100 times in the lead-up to the election and referenced once by a member of the Labor frontbench since. It's great to see Senator Ayres here. He did make reference to it—the only Labor politician who, since the election, has talked about that promise of reducing power bills by $275. I pay credit to you, Senator Ayres, for being the only one among your colleagues who doesn't shy away from that promise. We are looking forward to holding you to account on that. But those promises were all broken. I will come to those.

But I want to start by turning to my home state of Tasmania, because I took great issue and a high degree of interest in an opinion piece written by a colleague of mine, Senator Anne Urquhart, a great Tasmanian whose heart is in the right place. But she penned this opinion piece titled 'A fairer society and a stronger economy'. I was wondering where she might be writing about—whether she was talking about our country or somewhere else. I went on to read this opinion piece, in a great daily publication, the Advocate newspaper from the north-west coast of Tasmania. Senator Urquhart, who is a very good Tasmanian said: 'How a government decides to direct its resources, what it sees as its priorities and whether it keeps faith with its commitments tells you a lot about who is running the country.' Now, never has a truer word been said, can I tell you. Senator Urquhart goes on to say: 'Labor's budget makes important choices'—much to the point that Senator Cox was making before about tough choices—'It chooses a fairer society and a stronger economy. It chooses to focus on taking the pressure off households and families.'

Now, it's great to say that, and to point to a few things the government might have done—and then completely ignore all the things, the problems, that Australians are facing, be they households or businesses, people who invest to create economic activity and provide employment for other Australians. There was silence when it came to the problems we are to solve—going back to my original point—as elected representatives with one job: to solve the problems our communities face. Senator Urquhart does not go anywhere near talking about dealing with the problems that the people of north-west Tasmania are facing. She talks about a fairer society and a stronger economy, but I struggle to see how, in the two budgets that have been handed down, that's actually been delivered to the people of Tasmania, on any count. At the last election the coalition promised $3 million to support between six and eight aged-care beds in a town called Queenstown, on the west coast of Tasmania.

If we were genuine about making Australia fairer and stronger—and in this case making the north-west coast of Tasmania, the electorate of Braddon, a fairer and stronger part of our country—then funding would have been matched and provided for that facility and that community. We all know about the situation, the pressure faced by our aged-care sector and those who rely upon it: those most in need, those who are at the end of their days, who've made a massive contribution to our country and who deserve the respect and dignity of good quality care—except if you live on the west coast of Tasmania, because $3 million was too much to find in the budget to ensure that people who live in a very remote part of my home state get what they need. I commend the member for Braddon, Mr Gavin Pearce, for calling this out. That community is still waiting for that money; that community still needs it. A fairer society, a stronger economy would do well to have that commitment honoured. The people of the west coast deserve it.

Indeed, we only have to look across to the electorate of Bass, where community infrastructure has gone begging under this government. Commitments were not made to support grassroots sporting activities, for example. And while I enjoy Senator Polley's TikTok videos about what's happening here in Parliament House, I'm more concerned about what's happening—