Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes:

(i)

the challenges facing Australia’s rural and regional communities, and

(ii)

that the Government is showing its contempt of rural and regional Australia, including through cuts to rural and regional funding programs; and

(b)

calls on the Labor Government to continue the strong commitment of the former Coalition Government to rural and regional Australia.

It gives me some pleasure to stand here today to discuss this issue because there is nothing more important to me than rural and regional communities—their welfare, benefit, security and sustainability into the future. One of the things that is vitally important to those communities is support from government when it is needed. That is absolutely vital. Some of the most important people in this nation live in these communities. They provide fibre, food and the very backbone to this nation’s wealth and prosperity.

Certainly in recent times we have seen a dreadful period of drought. There are absolutely no two ways about that. Some areas have seen nearly seven years of drought. In recent days we have seen the government cut funding to rural and regional communities to the tune of nearly $500 million. To my mind, cutting drought funding to those communities, which are already struggling and doing it so terribly tough from these years and years of drought, is absolutely appalling.

The government talks about its fiscal responsibility. It certainly seems to be a very new-found fiscal responsibility because I had never heard about it in this place before about halfway through last year. This fiscal responsibility has led to the need for cuts, so the government says. But the government has introduced a range of cuts that affect people who are the victims of any rises in inflation, not the cause of it. These are the people who are least able to cope with any kind of funding cuts from the government.

Yet what do we see? We see this government completely ignoring the needs of rural and regional Australia. They think a shower of rain finishes a drought. That is absolutely indicative of what the Labor Party think about the bush. Not only do they have no idea how it works; they have no idea how people in rural and regional Australia function or feel. This is absolutely borne out by this latest round of funding cuts. It is not on; it is not fair. Labor need to be shown up over these cuts and over the appalling way they are treating rural and regional Australia.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I look forward to making my contribution to this debate this afternoon in this chamber. I think it is very important to ask what we are going to do. I will tell all senators opposite what we are going to do. We are going to be accountable. We are not going to perfect the art of pork-barrelling like the previous Howard administration did. I can certainly say that. The previous government did that. They did it systematically and effectively. Whether it was under the banner of Sustainable Regions, Regional Partnerships or Growing Regions, the National and Liberal members had pork-barrelling down to a very fine art. They systematically neglected need, but never took their eye off the marginal seats. In November last year—

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Outrageous!

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Nash can shake her head, but I suggest that she take a walk to the Table Office to grab hold of these three very heavy volumes of a report from the Audit Office about the Regional Partnerships program. There are 1,200 pages. It would do Senator Nash good to get a copy. If she cannot get one, I can lend her mine. In November last year, the Auditor-General released a damning three-volume report over the rorting of Regional Partnerships. Out of that report came 20 recommendations—that is, 20 recommendations from one rorted program alone. Like other senators on this side of the chamber, I look forward to the sequel on Sustainable Regions.

The Auditor-General found that grants were approved by ministers before full applications had even been submitted. Ministers overruled departmental advice and gave grants for no apparent reason other than that the money would be spent on marginal coalition seats. More than one-third of the program’s money was pumped into just 10 rural coalition seats—including the seat of Mr John Anderson, a former minister responsible for the Regional Partnerships program.

Of that, no less than $4.6 million was earmarked for not one, not three, not six, not a dozen, but no less than 22 projects for the electorate of the member for Lyne, another former minister responsible for this program. I see you shaking your head in acknowledgement, Senator Nash. I do take that acknowledgement, thank you.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators—It’s pronounced ‘line’.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is still 22 projects and $4.6 million: what a disgrace! Large numbers of grants were approved in the lead-up to and, worse, even during the election campaign. The member for Wide Bay reminded us last week that the Regional Partnerships program was, to quote him, ‘an exceptionally popular program’. It was popular indeed amongst his National Party mates, who had been in raptures to receive millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in grants that were approved by ministers before formal applications were submitted. $1.2 million went to no less than eight projects in the member for Wide Bay’s electorate, and three of them were against departmental advice. So it is no wonder the local member felt very popular.

On 24 November 2007 the Australian public said no to a government that was willing to spend taxpayers’ money on anything that would buy a vote. The previous government’s spending had been growing at an unsustainable rate, and Australian taxpayers had paid for it in no less than 10 consecutive rate rises. There were no less than six consecutive rate rises during the last term of the Howard government.

For the benefit of the senators opposite, I would like to take the opportunity to quote some recommendations from the Auditor’s report that I find absolutely amazing—and I use the term ‘amazing’ very loosely. Recommendation No. 1 is about the application and assessment and approval process:

ANAO recommends that, in the design and implementation of discretionary grants programmes, the Department of Transport and Regional Services further strengthen its administrative processes, and provide relevant advice to responsible Ministers in relation to:

(a) the statutory obligations relating to the approval and payment of grants arising under the applicable financial management legislation; and

(b) options for implementing administrative arrangements that satisfy programme policy objectives while ensuring the efficient and effective compliance with all applicable statutory obligations.

Ministers did not know, or just did not care, about accountability in spending taxpayers’ money. I find it absurd that we have to have recommendations in writing to tell ministers of their responsibility. Recommendation No. 2 from the report was:

ANAO recommends that, as part of its responsibilities for developing and maintaining the Commonwealth’s financial framework, the Department of Finance and Administration assess the merits of proposing amendments to the FMA Regulations that would have the effect of requiring approvers to document the basis on which the approver is satisfied that the proposed expenditure:

(a) represents efficient and effective use of the public money; and

(b) is in accordance with the relevant policies of the Commonwealth.

I mentioned the word ‘approvers’. The approver happened to be the minister. This recommendation would not have been needed if the minister and the government were not totally committed to use this program for blatant pork-barrelling. There are another 18 recommendations in this damning 121-page, three-volume report.

I want to take this opportunity to highlight a couple of facts about the regional rorts program. Despite the maladministration in the lead-up to the 2004 election being exposed by the media, when re-elected the coalition continued to betray the trust of the Australian people. Projects were funded, despite no application for funding being received, and ministers approved funding that did not even meet the funding criteria. Ten electorates that received the most funding were all held by the coalition. They were all coalition seats—isn’t that amazing?

Of 43 projects that were approved—despite the department not recommending them—38 were in coalition seats. This is pork-barrelling to the max. You may find this hard to believe, but it is all there in the report: in a 51-minute—not 51-week, not 51-month but 51-minute—spending spree in the hours before the government went into caretaker mode in 2004, the parliamentary secretary responsible for the program, Mrs De-Anne Kelly, approved 16 grants worth over $3.3 million. In 51 minutes! My wife can do a lot of damage with my credit card at Myer in 51 minutes, but even she could not spend $3.3 million.

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

By the way, I do not have $3.3 million, but if I did it would be another story. Two of the projects were not recommended for funding by departmental officials. In February 2004, former Prime Minister John Howard announced an $845,000 grant to the Peel Region Tourist Railway, four months before an application was received by the department. This is gross misadministration.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Long term vision!

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You call it long-term vision—well, it was not all that long term, Senator Bernadi, because the previous government has been well and truly exposed. I suggest you will find this very interesting reading: all three volumes, all 20 recommendations.

A heritage park in that fantastic state of Western Australia received over $660,000 of taxpayers’ money and three years later there is still no construction. It has not begun, three years later! I have here some quotes from the previous minister, Mr Vaile. In November 2007, he said that the program delivered ‘fantastic outcomes to regional Australia’. Three years later, still nothing has been built there. This is absolutely incredible.

This example of maladministration is not on its own. A significant number of questionable episodes occurred in that time, and I would like to highlight a few of them for the benefit of senators opposite. One is the Gunnedah ethanol refinery project in the electorate of Gwydir, which was held, as we all know, by the former leader of the Nationals, Mr John Anderson. The project was to help Primary Energy build an ethanol bio-refinery plant in Gunnedah to the value of no less than $1.1 million. Mr Langhorne, John Anderson’s chief-of-staff, actively intervened in the Gunnedah ethanol refinery project after the department had advised that the claimed benefits of the refinery were ‘difficult to substantiate’. He told the then junior minister, Ian Campbell, to give $1.1 million to the project in his boss’s electorate of Gwydir, which was abolished following the redistribution. For his efforts, Mr Langhorne was given a senior advisory position in the Prime Minister’s office. The role of junior minister went to Mr Jim Lloyd, who was also advised by the department not to proceed on a $1.1 million taxpayer funded project. Guess what? Mr Lloyd approved the project, and the plant has never been built.

Another example is AUSGUM sawmill operations in the electorate of Maranoa—there is a familiar ring here: it keeps coming back to National Party seats—held by Mr Bruce Scott. The project was to buy equipment for AUSGUM’s Emerald sawmill operations, with a grant to the value of $130,000. Mr Scott supported an application for buying the equipment. The department advised the then parliamentary secretary—no prize for guessing, Mrs De-Anne Kelly—to oppose the project. However, Mrs Kelly disagreed and wrote to then minister John Anderson, asking him to waive a program criterion—just waive it; have it go away; lose it. Mr Anderson disagreed but suggested that an alternative project for AUSGUM might be suitable for funding. A new application for machinery to be installed in Emerald was approved, but the equipment was installed in Gympie instead. The company provided no receipts, thereby breaching the funding agreement.

Another example is Country Homes and Cabins in Emerald. Once again, it is in the seat of Maranoa, with the same member, Mr Scott, and the same party. The project was for the construction of a transportable house-building factory to the value of a half a million dollars plus GST. On 11 February 2005 the department advised that the application not be approved as it did not meet several criteria. The local member, Mr Bruce Scott, wrote to the then member for Parkes, Mr John Cobb, who is the current member for Calare, requesting that the decision be reconsidered. He did not like the answer and wanted the department to reconsider it. After an external applicant and project viability assessment, Mr Cobb approved the funding, but his recorded reasons for approving the funding failed to address all the concerns raised by the department.

We also have an example of this in Western Australia. I mentioned earlier the Peel Region Tourist Railway, which is in the electorate of Canning, held by Mr Don Randall from the Liberal Party. This project, as I said, involved the restoration of the historic railway to the value of $845,000. In February 2004 the then Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, announced this grant to the Peel Region Tourist Railway—no fewer than four months before an application was received by the department. An internal review of the project and the development of the business plan by the proponent failed to demonstrate the viability of the project in its existing form. A scope and budget for the project were varied. The funding agreement for this project was not able to be executed until 24 January 2007—nearly three years after the former Prime Minister’s announcement. I know things move slowly in government, but this is three years. The project is yet to be executed. The future of the line is now in doubt, following rising costs and bushfire damage.

Another example is the expansion of seed and grain breeding by Keith Seeds in the electorate of Barker, held by the Liberals’ Patrick Secker. The project involves the expansion of seed and grain breeding, marketing, processing and fractionation at Keith Seeds and is funded to the value of $571,000. Following an unsuccessful application to the Dairy Regional Assistance Program for funding, Keith Seeds applied to the Regional Partnerships program. Mr Patrick Secker MP, the local member, provided a letter of support for the project and was later identified—I should not laugh; it is not funny—as a company shareholder. On two occasions, the department recommended against funding this project because it failed to meet the program’s assessment criteria. But the ministerial committee proceeded to approve funding for the project.

I like it when those on the other side, the opposition, ask us what we are going to do. I will tell senators opposite what the Rudd Labor government is going to do. We do care about rural and regional Australia, and rural and regional Australia do care about what promises are made to them, what can be funded, what cannot be funded and what is just an episode in vote buying. The Howard government’s attitude was one of ‘whatever it takes, just get the vote’. When the Rudd Labor government begins spending money on discretionary grants, it must be properly administered—and in the future it will be. Ministers will not be able to make decisions on discretionary grants for their own electorate. I think that is a very, very good thing. When we hear some of the examples that I referred to earlier, we can understand why we have to go to this process. We need discretion. We cannot have ministers running around the country pork-barrelling their mates in marginal coalition seats—but, sadly, that has occurred in the last few years.

The Rudd Labor government has a very strong commitment to ensuring the highest standards of public administration and accountability and delivering real benefits to people living in regional Australia. I think everyone can appreciate it will take time to sort out the mess left behind by the Howard government—there is no question about that—but the Rudd Labor government makes no apology for taking the time needed to get it right for regional Australia.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I fear for rural and regional Australia, I fear for all of those people who live outside the capital cities and I have had those fears since election day. What I have heard today from the Labor Party and what I have seen in the last couple of weeks clearly confirms that the Labor Party have absolutely no interest in rural and regional Australia. Indications of their lack of interest started right at the beginning of the Rudd government with the appointment of the two ministers responsible for the portfolios that are principally involved in what I might loosely call ‘the bush’.

To the portfolio of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the portfolio of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government they appointed two members of parliament who come from inner city Sydney—not even in the suburbs. I took the time to have a look at the websites of those two people who had been appointed to these bush portfolios and their websites clearly indicate that both are entirely unsuitable for the jobs which they have been given. But it demonstrates that the Labor Party do not care about who the ministers are for these portfolios because they have no interest in them.

I read the maiden speeches of both ministers hoping to find something in those maiden speeches that might, in some way, justify their appointments to these rural portfolios. The only thing I could find was in Mr Burke’s maiden speech when he referred to a terminally ill goldfish in a solicitor’s office. That was the only reference he made in his maiden speech which was in any way related to agriculture, fisheries or forestry. I do not think a goldfish in his solicitor’s office really classifies as fisheries.

We have these two guys who are, no doubt, quite nice gentlemen with some ability, although their backgrounds seem to be entirely in managing a union, or one of those union operators or working for another politician. One of them worked for disgraced Senator Graham Richardson, so you can imagine what sort of grounding he has had. Neither of them has any interest in rural and regional Australia and one would say, ‘Why would they?’ I doubt that they have ever been there.

This is a real difficulty for those in the bush. It does not matter how good you are; you have to have some empathy for the portfolios you are dealing with, particularly if those portfolios relate to rural and regional Australia. We have had a long series of ministers who either were farmers or have lived in rural and regional Australia; who knew what it was like to suffer droughts, floods and deprivations; who knew what the movement of populations from the bush to the city were all about; who knew the heartbreak of many not only on the land but also town dwellers in country Australia.

We have these two inner city Sydney members now in charge of the bush. With respect to Senator Sterle who, no doubt, has some qualifications or good points—although I am yet to find too many of them, and I think he is now head of the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport—he has no interest in rural and regional Australia. If you listen to the speech he has just given, you can understand that rural and regional Australia is in for a really tough time. It did not take long for that to become more obvious than through the appointments made to those important positions.

The first go of the razor gang showed that there were huge cuts mainly in the areas dealing with rural and regional Australia. Almost $50 million was cut off the apprenticeship incentives for agriculture and horticulture. Not only are the Labor government attacking training, which they are rabbiting on about at every opportunity, but here is a program helping with training in the bush and it has been cut. Why would the people in charge of the Labor government’s arrangements in the bush have any interest in apprenticeships in agriculture and horticulture? Yet it is one way that you can have country kids actually getting jobs in the country and staying there rather than having to move to a factory in the electorates of Minister Albanese and Minister Burke. That is what has happened to country kids. This apprenticeship scheme was all about keeping country kids in the bush.

Then we had $10 million slashed off the drought package assistance to rural research and development which was even before the parliament met. There was some $100 million cut from the drought package. Because it rains in Sydney, the government think the drought is over. Because they see some photos of a flood in Emerald, they think the drought is over. They think that people on the land do not need that transitional assistance to go from drought to the aftermath of a flood.

Over $100 million has been slashed from the drought package. The National Plan for Water Security, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority—$45 million just slashed from that. And the Bureau of Meteorology—an excellent organisation doing a hell of a lot of good work, which I do not think the Labor Party understand—has had a reduction in departmental funding of some $5 million. And so it goes on, and that was just the start—before the parliament even met for the very first time—so you can imagine what this budget is going to be like for rural and regional people.

I could not help but laugh at the previous speaker’s comment about the Regional Partnerships program. That was an excellent program that did so much for country towns in Australia. The most iconic one that comes to mind is the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach, in an area where I spend a lot of time. That particular building and centre that is now iconic has not just put Longreach on the map but has meant jobs in Longreach and has meant other activities and other businesses have come into that town. That program spawned the Stockman’s Hall of Fame, and we have upped it over a couple of years. That has really made the difference in that country town, yet the Labor Party would not know about it. They did hear about the old tree dying at Barcaldine, just down the road, and I think that is perhaps indicative of what will happen to Labor support in the bush in the not too distant future.

Those sorts of programs—and I could go through any one of literally thousands of programs that have done marvellous things for country towns—have kept young people in the bush and have provided an Australia that just does not exist in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Perth. So when the Labor Party say that they are scrutinising these things and they have all this accountability and they are going to be really good ministers, well, actions speak louder than words. Remember the whiteboard affair with Minister Kelly? That is just one of them that we had to put up with when last we were in opposition. Fortunately, we were able to expose her as, I promise the current ministers, we will expose them. Minister Kelly made rorting into an art form, and that was the Labor Party. That is what you can expect from the Labor Party in the years ahead.

In respect of the programs that our government quite deliberately targeted towards the bush and about which we were told, ‘Oh, it all went to Liberal and National Party seats,’—well, I’m sorry, fellas, they went to Liberal and National Party seats because the members of those parties were the only people who held seats in the bush until this election. So that is why all the money went to Liberal and National Party electorates. There were no Labor Party members in the bush. Regrettably, in my home state of Queensland there are now three: one in Flynn, one in Dawson and one in Leichhardt. All three of them, of course, have very little interest in the bush. All three, I think, are union organisers or big-city solicitors. So we will see what sort of interest they take in the slashing of these programs for their electorates. In Flynn, now held by the Labor Party, the Stockman’s Hall of Fame is one such place.

We will see what the Labor Party does about the Regional Partnerships grants we put into Longreach, into Winton, into Barcaldine, into Emerald—into any number of those little rural communities out there. And I will be watching the budget with great interest when we will see the real detestation that the Labor Party has for country people. I fear for the bush, Mr Acting Deputy President Sandy Macdonald, but I know you and other colleagues on this side in both the Liberal and National parties will be doing whatever we can to make sure that the bush is not forgotten under the Labor government as it was in the Hawke and Keating governments. It is going to be difficult, but I can guarantee the people of rural and regional Australia that those of us in the Senate—Senator Boswell, Senator Joyce, Senator Nash, Senator Adams and Senator Heffernan—who have a real and genuine commitment to and an interest in the bush will be doing our best to stop the Labor Party slashing its assistance to the bush as it has done in the past.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity this afternoon to speak to this motion. The problems in towns of country Australia are not new, and any of us who have travelled through them are well aware of a number of the significant ones that are there. I cannot say that I come from rural Australia, but I certainly come from what might be called regional Australia—in the west of Sydney, in the Blue Mountains. I have for some years looked after coalition-held seats both on the north coast and in western New South Wales. The point that Senator Sterle put this afternoon—and that I want to re-emphasise—is that the difficulties in regional and rural Australia did not just appear overnight, and the answers to them are not going to come with the wave of a magic wand. I do not doubt Senator Ian Macdonald’s sincerity in what he said about what he believes to be our past failings. But we are committed to ensuring that they will not happen again, and if Senator Ian Macdonald wants to make sure that scrutiny is observed then I, and I am sure my colleagues, welcome it.

The difficulties in regional and rural Australia are, as I said, not new. Only this morning I received an email from a Labor Party branch member in Wilcannia who was reminding me of some of the great difficulties that are confronted by Australians who live outside the major centres. He emailed me about the ageing population in that town. He talked to me, as have many others, about how young people are leaving the towns because there is no work or opportunities for them and how that is now a problem because there are no skilled or unskilled workers left in the towns to do the jobs that are necessary. He talked to me about the difficulties confronting our regional and rural Australians in the health field as well, where they have to travel long distances to go to hospital because the hospitals are just not available there.

I said that these are not new problems and we do not have the magic wand at hand to correct them overnight. But, indeed, we are committed to pursuing the solutions to make sure that every Australian is treated equally and has the same access to services whether they be living in Sydney or Wilcannia. So I am disturbed about the level of anger that Senator Macdonald directed towards us in his speech this afternoon.

Senator Sterle raised a number of significant points in his contribution. The fact that the coalition, in their last few years in government, decided to treat the people they claim as their own natural party base with contempt in the way they used these rorts in the Regional Partnerships schemes is a disgrace. I highlighted to you earlier, Mr Acting Deputy President Sandy Macdonald, the difficulties that you and I know are confronting our state. But what was the previous government’s solution to these difficulties? As Senator Sterle has outlined, we know exactly what you thought of your natural constituency: you thought you had to buy them, and you did it in a really crass way.

I remember seeing a film some years ago with Paul Newman in it, which was about a governor of Louisiana called Earl Long. There is a nice paved road in the county, then it is a dirt road, then it is a paved road again. A journalist from New York came down and said to Earl: ‘Why is that dirt and why is that paved?’ Earl said: ‘It’s simple. The county that has got paved roads votes for me; the one that doesn’t, does not have paved roads, it’s got a dirt road. And until they vote for me, they are going to have a dirt road.’

That is the way that you have treated your natural constituency for some years. You took them for granted; you thought that they could be bought with beads; but you never actually went to the heart of some of the problems confronting regional and rural Australia. That is why you got it in the neck at the last federal election.

Mr Acting Deputy President, you would know as well as I do the number of rorts that were carried out very quickly in that last period. As I understand, between 3.25 pm and 4.04 pm on 31 August 2004, the then parliamentary secretary for transport approved 15 projects in the government’s Regional Partnerships program. As a result of actions like that, the Auditor-General produced a report in November of last year—a massive three-volume, 1,200-page report that picks apart the first three years of the program which handed out $327 million to more than 1,000 projects ranging in size from $2 million to $11 million. You took what you saw as your natural constituency for granted. You treated them as mugs, and they revolted on you. Why wouldn’t you look at something to do with rural health or rural unemployment in those areas? Why wouldn’t you do something like that? But no, you did not.

Senator Sterle has outlined some of the programs that received money in this period. Mrs De-Anne Kelly sought $9,720 to upgrade the Cannon Valley Pony Club. At some point she also sought, and received—83 minutes before the government went into caretaker mode—$220,000 for a horse show in Rockhampton. The then Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the National Party, Mark Vaile, in this period sought and received $500,000 for a lifesaving club in Bonny Hills and indeed, to his credit, a medical centre in Lake Cathie in his electorate. In the seat of Hume—and I appreciate Senator Stephens bringing this to my attention—Alby Schultz, the member, promised 800 grand to the Anglican community for repairs and restoration of the cathedral in Goulburn. He got this by announcing in the local paper that he had got the commitment from the Prime Minister, because it would take too long to go through the proper channels. Alby is a Liberal, so you do not need to grimace, Mr Acting Deputy President—I think there is another Liberal, so Senator Adams can defend him; I do not think you need to.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What’s wrong with that?

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the sort of hypocrisy we hear from those on the other side.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What have you got against the Anglican Church?

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have got nothing against the Anglican Church, Senator. In fact, as you know, our leader converted from Catholicism to Anglicanism. I do not have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is the fact that Mr Schultz said that it was going to take too long to go through proper channels. You have been a minister. You know how much scrutiny is required of you when you make decisions, and you should never let  something like that happen. If you did let that happen when you were a minister, you should have been dealt with because, as you know, in these regional rorts programs that you had going you had the opportunity to make sure that at least scrutiny was provided. However, when it got to—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Come on, give the Anglican Church a bit of a hand.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I will not give them any more touch-ups. You, Mr Acting Deputy President, also know that in a number of these places—like with Mr Schultz—no applications were received. As the report said, there was significant ministerial intervention. In fact, the department declined to recommend some of these rorts. It said that they did not follow the relevant guidelines and that they were almost exclusively in marginal coalition seats. For those that are not aware of it, ‘marginal seats’ are defined as those with margins of anything under five per cent. Most of these rorts were given to the seats where there was less than five per cent in them—and it did not do them any good. You had Mr Bartlett, indeed, who had access to a number of these schemes. In fact, even Jackie Kelly—it seems Kellys have problems with propriety!—was dipping into the pork barrel, and I may get a chance to talk about Jackie on another occasion.

One of the other significant comments that was made with regard to this program was in relation to Beef Australia. You may well be aware of Beef Australia, Senator Ian Macdonald, because it comes from up near your region. The Commonwealth contributed $2.2 million to the beef expo in Rockhampton. The funding was approved before documentation was provided to the department. The departmental assessment was later undertaken in only six days. There was no regional office assessment and a number of the partners in the project were not identified on the application. Surely you cannot be proud of this sort of activity and scrutiny by the party that was in government at that period.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very proud of the result.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You should not be proud. It is a terrible thing to have had it done in this way, considering what we all know of the difficulties confronting our fellow Australians in rural and regional Australia.

Let me continue. There was another one mentioned called Country Homes and Cabins. This again comes from your state, Senator Ian Macdonald. This involved the production of a facility in Central Queensland for the production of relocatable houses. Firstly, it was not initially approved. Secondly, it was approved after representations from the local member. There was no evidence the applicant had ever been provided with notice that their application had been denied. The federal member acted on advance notice when requesting the review. The shortcomings were identified in the original DOTARS assessment, and it was not addressed in the, later, approved submission.

Again, how can this be a way to conduct government? No wonder the people of Australia turned to the Labor Party on 24 November last year. Indeed, the coalition has lost its way. We are all well aware of the divisions within the coalition throughout the country and the steps taken to try to rectify them. In Queensland, as we all know, they have been at each others throats for years.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All five of them.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are only a few left. In New South Wales they seem to have a bit of a relationship, but again, like the National Party federally, they are declining rapidly, as I am sure the new member for Page can tell you. I do not think the National Party is represented in parliament in South Australia, except for a bloke who sits with the Labor Party in cabinet, or he did. In Western Australia I do not know that they have got parliamentary representation at all. In Tasmania—

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, on a point of order: the person he is referring to is not a bloke, she is a woman, and I think that should be corrected. Also, in your first quote, it was not Earl Long, it was actually Huey P Long. I am just helping him out here.

Sandy Macdonald (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order, Senator Joyce.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If I have offended the lady, I do withdraw my comment. Also, you are incorrect, Senator Joyce: Earl was Huey’s younger brother. Huey went up into the senate—Huey was assassinated—and Earl took over as the governor.

The coalition is probably in the history books, particularly the National Party. There seem to be all these attempts to have some sort of marriage effected, but people in the National Party are resisting it because they believe that that will inevitably lead to their decline because of their identity. Some people say that, in country Australia, if there is no National Party candidate to vote for then people will vote Labor. Why is that? It is because, once upon a time, that great party—not that I ever voted for it—that was once called the Country Party used to represent rural and regional Australia. Where is the National Party now? There are very few of them left in the House of Representatives and very few of them left in here.

They have been abandoned, as they have abandoned their natural constituency. The people have turned now to the only party that will look after their interests and make sure that they have access to services so long denied them by those in the coalition in power. We are the only party that is able to look after them. Our people, including Senator Stephens here, who is a farmer—and I notice, Senator Ian Macdonald, you did not mention a number of our people on the front bench who have a regional and rural background—are there and they are going to look after the interests of regional and rural Australia. Mr Acting Deputy President, I told your namesake that, if he wants to make sure that we do that, I invite it and welcome it, because these people are indeed entitled to services as much as the rest of us are, and over the years this has not been available to them. We may have failed them, as well as those opposite, but they indeed failed them significantly because they thought it was more important to have a pony club canteen than to have a medical centre or to improve rural health.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me open my address by saying that, if the people of rural Australia have to depend on Senator Hutchins and his colleagues, God help rural Australia. If there is any indication of that, let me just refer to the press release of Mr Tanner of 6 February. The writs for the candidates were hardly dry and the government had hardly been declared a government when a press release came out saying, ‘We’re going to cut $640 million in government spending, including $243 million in 2007 and 2008.’ Immediately, I smelt a rat—a big, fat rat.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A Labor rat?

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A big, fat, Labor rat. I went to the list of cuts and, would you be surprised to know, out of the $643 million that was cut, $416 million—nearly 70 per cent of it—was cut in rural and regional programs? It was not only that, and you have to say this for Mr Tanner: he is honest. He said that the $643 million savings are an initial and modest down payment on those that will be announced on budget night. Honesty may be a virtue, but he is warning rural Australia to buckle up their seatbelts because on budget night they are going to cop it. Rural people know this and that is why they do not vote for the Labor Party. I would suggest to Senator Hutchins that the movement in votes for the Labor Party did not come from rural and regional Australia. So, of $642 million, $416 million was cut from rural and regional Australia.

Since the Labor Party came to power, I have listened to them talk, and all they seem to be able to do is talk up interest rates. Every day we have an attack on the former government for letting the inflation run to the extent to which we must have hikes in interest rates. I am even waiting for an announcement that we will have a credit squeeze that we have to have—reminiscent of the days of the previous Labor Party Prime Minister. That is one of the things that is worrying us. In December 1995, when the Labor Party were in power, interest rates were 5.1 per cent and they were 3.9 per cent in March 1996. But if we are to be blamed for that then let us be honest: today we had a breakthrough with regard to the lowest unemployment in Australia. If you are going to claim that we are responsible for the highest interest rates, then let us be fair about it and say that we were also responsible for the lowest unemployment rates. That is what the former coalition government has done; it has handed you one of the best economies that has ever been in place in the history of Australia. It has handed it to you on a plate, so do not destroy it and do not make cuts and take the knife to rural and regional Australians.

Some of the things we have seen cut in this package include $115 million in drought relief. I know Tony Burke, and I think he is a good fellow, but I do not know how he drew the short straw and got the portfolio of Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, because he does not understand it—and I would not expect him to understand it, because he comes from right in the middle of the city and has not had any experience. I bet he got a shock when he read in the paper that he has had something like $400-odd million cut from his department. Why would you cut $115 million from drought funding? Some people in southern New South Wales have not had a crop for seven years. They are just hanging on by the fingernails, trying to get up a crop this year. The $115 million was cut because it rained, but it does not rain money. It is going to take a long time for these people to recover. It takes a long time for people to recover after a seven-year loss. It may even be worse; they may not even get a crop now, but $115 million has been cut.

The other cut that has been announced in this package is in the farm business sector. FarmBis has been cut. How often have we heard, ‘We’re going to have an education revolution and educate people; we’re going to educate farmers; we’re going to make people more resourceful by education’? The first thing this government has cut, apart from the drought assistance, is the FarmBis and Farm Help programs. The Farm Help program puts food on the table. The FarmBis program provides training for farmers and workers in primary industry, but now it has gone just to save a lousy $3 million. I do not think that that will make any difference to the interest rates or the pressure on lending. Labor said that we would have an education revolution, and yet the Farm Help and FarmBis programs have been cut.

We have also seen Farm Help—$22 million this year—being cut. Farm Help is so important for people that do not have any access to any money at the moment—it puts food on the table. Apart from that, we have seen many other cuts just appearing. Here is one that I picked up today: $42 million removed from the budget for Renewable Remote Power Generation. This was a program that put power into places that were not serviced by the electricity grid. It was a program that we had invested in out there. In 2007, we had an additional $123 million, and we had put around $328 million into the program. That, by the way of solar power, gave access to lighting and generation to properties that were off the grid. I do not know what they are expected to do. You could argue that the Labor state governments should look after them and should provide them with access to power—but unfortunately that is not the case. Many times, we, as the federal government, had to step in to replace the services that were due to the people in rural and regional Australia. We were not responsible for them, but the only way they were ever going to get these services was if our government stepped up to the plate and made it possible for those people to access them.

One of the ways we did that was through the Regional Partnerships program. I was a senator that represented a number of electorates. One of those electorates was Capricornia. It was a Labor electorate and it was a regional electorate. I can say, without a word of a doubt, that that electorate was able to access many, many, many programs. If I had known that this resolution of the Senate was going to be turned into an attack on the regional programs, I would have been able to prepare on these initiatives. In the Labor seats—non-coalition seats—that I was the senator representing, I can tell you that there was no discrimination. If a seat was regional—it did not matter whether it had an Independent, a Labor person, a Liberal person or a National Party person representing that seat—it got the same access to these programs. We were able to put in many programs that provided employment. I can nominate many that I thought were absolutely brilliant programs. One of them was in the little town of Wowan—a little town that had lost about everything, but still had a service station and a pub, but did not have a community centre. It did not have anywhere for the doctor or the dentist to come or anywhere any other service could take place in that area. It had nothing there. We put in a building that could be shared by all people that wanted to offer delivery of services in that particular small town of Wowan.

That was only one of many, many programs that we put out. They were great programs. There is one in Blackall—a fantastic old people’s home—that we topped up. The people in Blackall were able to go out and collect money from the graziers and the townspeople, and they built this wonderful retirement village, by donation. Then they needed about $300,000 to top it up. This program was millions of dollars worth. We topped it up, and the old people of Blackall did not have to move away. They could stay in their retirement village and then move on to higher care, because of programs such as Regional Partnerships.

This did not just happen in National Party electorates and Liberal electorates; it happened in all electorates in regional Australia. It is all right to come in here and criticise that and draw the flak away from the cuts that this government has made in regional and rural Australia in the first two weeks. Like Senator Ian Macdonald, I am frightened of what is going to happen. I knew what would happen. To be honest, Mr Tanner has warned us of what is going to happen on budget night. I think it will be a holocaust for rural and regional Australia. I believe that we have seen the government, in its initial two or three weeks, take the axe to rural and regional Australia. I hope and I pray that this is not the forerunner of many more cuts—although I fear that it will be.

Sandy Macdonald (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support this motion because the fear of God has been put into a section of the Australian community least able to defend its economic future—and that is regional Australia. I do not for a moment resile from, or apologise for, the coalition’s record in government and its response to the needs of regional Australia. I would like to pick up on a couple of things that my good friend Senator Hutchins said. He made the point that more assistance was given to coalition seats. The reason for that, of course, was that before this election—and even now after this election—far more regional seats were held by coalition members. I have seen the statistics and, like Senator Boswell, I wish I had brought the information in with me. I saw the record in our last period of government where very clearly, statistically, Labor seats benefited from these grants in just the same way as our seats did.

We invested record amounts in local roads, in rail networks, in schools and in measures to address skills shortages and to sustain the natural resources of the country. The strong economic and financial management by our government enabled us to invest in these important areas. It was not until we had balanced the books that we were able to spend the money that was needed to rebalance the economic prosperity and opportunities between country and city.

I remind the Senate, because sometimes these things are forgotten and we are certainly not in a position to write history anymore because we are no longer in government, that we inherited a $96 billion debt from Mr Keating and Mr Hawke, we created two million jobs in our period in government, we cut unemployment to the lowest levels in 30 years, we kept interest rates low, we kept inflation low and we increased real wages.

The contributions to the debate today have often included some personal anecdotes. I can remember talking to John Sharp, who was our first Minister for Transport and Regional Development. He said that when he came to government he looked in the cupboard for the regional services budget and he found that he had about $200,000 to spend—less money than was spent on the pelmet of grass over the top of Parliament House at the same time.

We resolved to change that. When we balanced the books, we were able to direct that money where it needed to be directed for the benefit of all Australians. But, while the strong economic conditions in the broad opened up greater opportunities for regional Australia, more needed to be done because we realised, coming as we did from regional Australia, that Australia’s economic prosperity was not spread uniformly across the country. Above all, one of the most severe droughts in our history had caused enormous pain to families and communities right across our nation. While we were in government, we devised policies that recognised that the one-third of Australians living outside the major cities could get a fair go and should not miss out on the economic benefits stemming from Australia’s more general economic prosperity.

You will recall, Madam Acting Deputy President, that on election night the Prime Minister said that the new government would be a government for all Australians. They were very appropriate and noble words. My hope is that we can take the Prime Minister’s words for all their good intentions, but the political facts of life are that all governments are captives of their political representation. Unfortunately, still very few members of the new government come from regional Australia. Two-thirds of the members from regional Australia in the House of Representatives still come from the Liberal and National parties, and that is why the majority of assistance went to and hopefully will still go to coalition seats in the future.

But the reality of politics is that you are what you are, and a new government with new priorities and new ministers in finance, in Treasury, in primary industry, in transport, in health and in regional development may likely have little understanding of regional Australia, as we have heard—why policies and programs were developed, the pain of the last couple of decades in connection to the economic prospects of regional Australia and, of course, the pain of the drought which seems to have lasted most of the last decade.

Governments cannot invent the economic future, but they can get the macroeconomic and microeconomic issues right, which we systematically did. From the earliest days, once we had balanced the books of Australia Inc. we targeted regional Australia with programs that were able to lift standards of living; provide social capital, which is so very important; and build on natural advantage. You cannot create economic prosperity in a vacuum. You can only build on natural advantage, and across this vast nation there are very many opportunities to build on natural advantage. If you look at what has happened over the last 10 years, that has certainly been done. We also targeted regional Australia with programs to make for stronger communities, to give them that lift up—that little bit of money, that large amount of money, that infrastructure, that commitment that has enabled communities to go forward and create new opportunities and new jobs.

I want to mention some of these programs. Probably the most important was the Regional Partnerships program, which you have heard a lot about today. The Regional Partnerships program really is a testament to John Anderson. Substantially it was he who developed the regional partnerships concept, which allows for the funding of projects that stimulate growth in the regions, improve access to services, support planning and help communities adjust to changed circumstances—in other words, structural reform which is always going on in the community.

Some $270 million were spent on the Regional Partnerships program, but amounts mean very little until you look at where the money went. I give relevance to the program by looking at the New England north-west region, where over $13 million were spent since 2003. We have had a lot of criticism of these projects, but in fairness I think people listening will appreciate that this money was given to very good projects in the main. If the money had not come from the Regional Partnerships program, where would the money have come from to provide for that community infrastructure?

For instance, the Tamworth Meals on Wheels kitchen, a vital community infrastructure program, received $770,000. The Challenge Equine Laundry Service in Tamworth received $210,000. Challenge is a disability service provider. The Bellata Gold durum milling plant received over half a million dollars. This plant provides enormous export opportunities to high-value exports of grain. There are some little projects, like the restumping of the Mingoola Community Hall. Senator Joyce knows where Mingoola is. It was a little project, just over $7,000, in a little community that would never have been able to raise that sort of money. Mingoola is in the electorate of New England, which, quite frankly, the National Party would have loved to have won but with every realisation that the sitting Independent was likely to be successful—it was hardly a political decision.

There was a technology CTC in Warialda supported with $6,000. In Tenterfield a multipurpose centre received $55,000. A bigger project was the Moree Plains Gallery art precinct—we are very keen on the arts in the National Party—with a grant of $269,000. These projects went far wider than simple community investments. A regional GP access centre in Tamworth—the Peel Health Care Centre—was supported with $215,000 to provide a home for GP practice in Tamworth. Tamworth is a large regional city with a very large hospital and public and private health infrastructure. It needs GPs. We addressed that through the Regional Partnerships program. I congratulate all those people who were involved in the regional GP access centre in Tamworth. There was the National Equine and Livestock Centre in Tamworth, for which over $6 million was provided. This is a project that has not just national—

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remember that one well.

Sandy Macdonald (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator McGauran. We fought very hard for it. It provides not only a national focus for Tamworth and the livestock industry but an international focus. Long after we as politicians and senators are dead and gone this will provide jobs and opportunities for many Australians in a vital lifeblood industry to Australia. There was $300,000-odd for the Glen Innes Learning Centre to provide opportunities for higher education to a large provincial town. There was the Mungindi Rural Transaction Centre. I do not know if any of you have been to Mungindi.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have.

Sandy Macdonald (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Joyce is thought very highly of in Mungindi. There was $300,000-odd for their rural transaction centre, giving them access to carry out business, making their geographic position really unimportant in so many ways. I have another little one. I have a whole host of them here, but this is the last one I will give. I am just trying to give a flavour of the types of grants that were provided under this program. There was one for the kitchen of the Spring Ridge Community Hall, which also doubles as a childcare centre for that little community in the north-west of New South Wales.

To say that these projects were not valuable and worth while is one thing—actually, they were very valuable and worth while. Furthermore, they were not funded by any other method. When we came to government in 1996 these sorts of projects were not funded. It is one thing to say that we should review them—and I do understand a new government wanting to review programs—but I think it is pretty tough that the first announcement my good friend the new finance minister, Lindsay Tanner, makes is that $640 million is going to be taken away from regional Australia. This is at a time when a government comes in and finds a surplus of maybe $18 billion. That is the projected surplus. It may be more than that. If you look at Treasury over our period of government, Treasury was always out in terms of what the projected surpluses were. We always had far higher surpluses. So, despite certain prospects of an economic downturn in the past financial year, I cannot expect that the surplus will be below $18 billion. But the first people who take a cut, the first people to take a hit, the first people who have to walk the plank are those very people that the Hawke-Keating government punished so dramatically during their period of government. As I said, John Sharp, when he came to government as the first minister responsible for regional development, had nothing in the kitty. There was no money to spend on these projects.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Prime Minister for Social Inclusion) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Stephens interjecting—

Sandy Macdonald (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You fund these projects as you like, Senator Stephens—I do not mind. If you change the name of Regional Partnerships, I do not care. The point is that these are valuable projects. Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. You are entitled to review these policies. You are entitled to make them better. But do not say they are not valuable, do not say they were vexatiously and improperly granted, do not say there was favouritism shown and do not say we are going to remove the opportunity and the avenue for regional Australians—not just regional Australians, but mostly regional Australians—to access that assistance that will help create an economic future for them. You may or may not keep the macro- and microelements of the economy in line—and I suspect you will not, given your past record in government—but one thing you can do is help those communities who cannot help themselves. You fund it any way you like, but you do it through programs like we had in Regional Partnerships, Sustainable Regions, Roads to Recovery and Investing in Our Schools. These were all projects and programs that were very well received.

There were many other avenues of funding, too—and I think Senator Boswell referred to them. They were things like the Envirofunding, which was very important, the Community Water Grants, and the small assistance grants to local community organisations. There were so many opportunities for ordinary Australians to access some of the assistance that city Australians inherit and receive as of right. I think it is a little churlish and a great mistake to say, in your first announcements about prospective budget cuts, that regional Australians—the least able to defend themselves, the least able to look for and develop economic sustainability—will be the first to take a cut. Senator Stephens, you are the representative of the government here today. Through you, Acting Deputy President, I say to Senator Stephens: you take this message back, because you are a fair person and I know that you would understand the priorities and needs of regional Australia. You can do and say what you like, but just do not cut these opportunities out of the mosaic of economic management that this nation requires from its new Labor government.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to support this motion. I will start with a justification, possibly a moral justification, for why these projects are relied upon. If we took any person who lived in a metropolitan centre and asked them to stand on their roof and look at the 10 square kilometres that surrounded their house and add up the amount of public spending in infrastructure they could see—the public hospitals, the roads, the bridges, the childcare centres, the ports and the airports; all that is manifest in those metropolitan environments—then we would find that there would be multiple billions of dollars invested over hundreds of years. That is why people have a tendency to live in those areas: because the public dollar has been spent there and has improved the standard and quality of life. It becomes an impetus and a reason for people to move to those areas.

My friend Senator Sandy Macdonald mentioned Mungindi. If you went and stood on a roof in Mungindi and looked around at 10 square kilometres then I think you would be quite surprised at what was not there. You would probably be looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars of public infrastructure spending. So there is a manifest inequity between the two areas—between the quality and the access that one person in the urban area has to the public dollar and the quality and access the other person has in the regional area to the public dollar. Therefore it is the responsibility of the government to address that inequity—not necessarily in a grand way but at least in a way that reaches out to them in some manner or fashion and says, ‘We recognise this inequity and we will try to deal with it in any way that we can.’ It is, as Senator Macdonald stated quite well, rather churlish, given the reflective dividend that has been presented to the incoming government of approximately $18 billion, that we make this statement of about $400 million to $600 million in cuts. To put it in a way that can be understood by the people of Australia, the Australian government spends approximately $700 million a day on public spending. So in essence regional Australia is worth less than a day’s spending for the incoming Labor government. To be completely frank, these cuts are tokenistic but nasty. They make a clear statement about what this incoming arrangement is.

We can look at these cuts as a metaphor for what the Labor Party say they stand for. The Labor Party say they stand for infrastructure. They talk about bottlenecks. They talk about the things that affect productivity. But it is absolutely fascinating to see that they are cutting the money for the AusLink inland rail. So once more we will see the coastal roads clogged up. You cannot deal with the bottlenecks at the ports by cutting the mechanism that is actually going to alleviate the problem. This Labor government say that they are about water, but they are about to axe $45 million from the Murray-Darling Basin area. This government say that they are about communications, but they are going to axe broadband now. They say they are about the worker, but they are going to get rid of the Rugby League Hall of Fame. I am someone who played rugby league in the past. I know this is not a major issue, but there are a lot of people around this nation who do have a sense of connection to the game of rugby league and who would like to see things like that maintained. I remember the allegation that this was a program for National and Liberal Party seats. I remember clearly taking on Senator O’Brien in estimates. They wanted to question, and I suppose they will axe money from, dental clinics in areas such as the Tweed.

This is a statement about Labor’s belief in the preservation of the family farm. We know that out in the regional areas you can get rid of all the packages. You can let the family farm disappear. You can incite and bring on corporate agriculture in Australia so that it is harder and more difficult for Australians to actually have their feet on the ground and own the country that they live on. The way you do it is to start to take away the services provided for those people in those regional areas. You start to make it such that it becomes difficult, some would say near impossible, for any person to contemplate going back onto the land. If you take away the access to a package that can deliver better health outcomes and better public service outcomes—even, as we were talking about, for example, the re-stumping of a community hall—you are saying, ‘I do not want you to live in the country. I do not want you to live in regional areas.’ You obviously give people the only option of moving to where the public infrastructure spending is.

There are so many packages—for example, in Brisbane. We never heard the National Party or the Liberal Party complain about convention centres being built or art galleries or multimillion-dollar investments in paintings. I imagine that these things will go on. But we need an ability to deliver some form of largesse from the nation back to those who in a lot of cases are the most afflicted and the most marginalised. One of the biggest areas of expenditure is in Indigenous areas. What are you going to say to them: ‘Oh well, we were sorry yesterday but today we’re going to take the capacity for you to get access to that money away from you.’ There are so many other ways that you could go about it if you wanted to make a statement on budgetary measures. There are so many other ways you could make it. There is no real reason to make it, because you have been left with a surplus. So what is the purpose of this? We are talking about less than a day’s worth of public expenditure that is directly targeted to the most regional, the marginalised and the most disaffected already in our nation. What is the metaphor here? What is the message that you are trying to send—except for a message of unnecessary nastiness from Mr Tanner.

We can go through some of the areas affected such as the drought package. The drought package is still essential. I acknowledge that there has been extremely good rain in the country and the country has been blessed with good rain but it does not rain fat steers. It does not rain wheat crops. It does not rain dollars and cents for the bank manager to collect. These people are still out of cash and they need to be supported into a cash flow. Unless they get a cash flow, the dynamics of their farm and the business success of their farm will collapse. If it collapses, it gets sold up; if it gets sold up, it gets gobbled up by bigger organisations, and you start to get the centralisation of wealth in regional areas—all in all, a bad outcome for our nation.

One of the primary things that our nation always has done, from right back when we had soldier settler blocks to where we are now, is to try to make sure that the Australian citizen has the right to own and live on the land and to prosper. It is not something that was invented by the National Party, as is claimed in the derogatory barbs that have been sent from the other side of the chamber; it is not something that was invented by the National Party or the Liberal Party. It has been spoken about by people such as Jefferson: the belief in trying to keep the right of your citizen to be an owner and to profit from their participation in the land. One of the first philosophical statements you make is that you disregard that and that you are moving the nation to a position of centralisation—centralisation in geographical areas; centralisation in wealth—and that is an inherently unhealthy place for us as a nation to go. I am too humble to counsel anybody, but I would love to draw your attention to the questions of why this position has been made with these cuts, what message it is sending, where it leads us as a nation and what the outcome is if this is the path that you intend to wander down.

There are so many things that can be dealt with in an effective manner. These people out in the rural lands already have to deal with problems such as the overcentralisation of retail markets, the drought and the problems that have been brought on them by the financial overhang from trying to deal with the fact that they have been in a drought and a period of privation for a number of years. Why was it necessary to do this to them? Why was it necessary to make this statement? What is the real outcome? To be completely frank, with the budget that the government has and the money that it has spent, this will not make three-fifths of five-eighths of very little of a difference to the outcome of the nation.

I implore you to return to Mr Tanner and to try and counsel him in some way so as to mitigate these effects. Look at some of the other things. We talk about trying to reduce the carbon footprint, yet you are removing the ethanol production subsidy—there is $10.8 million going there. We are trying as a nation to alleviate the cost to motorists from the ever-increasing cost of fuel, to try and bring competition into the market, to bring about an alternative product that puts some downward pressure on fuel prices and to alleviate the cost to all those people now driving home and possibly listening to this so that they can get a better deal at the pump and a better outcome for our nation. Yet one of the first things you say is that we are going to try and destroy any mechanism to produce an alternative product. Why? Why the malicious barb about the ethanol plant at Gunnedah? Surely it is a good outcome to have an alternative source of fuel, at 85c a litre, delivered to the pump. If you can get the proportion of ethanol in the fuel put into every car up to 10 per cent, that means that 10 per cent of every person’s fuel budget goes down to 85c a litre. Surely that is a good outcome, not just for regional Australia but for Australia in general. So why target it?

I know that the Labor Party has gone on about apprenticeships and the lack of investment in apprenticeships. One of the first statements they make is that they are going to cut apprenticeships. They are cutting apprenticeship incentives for agriculture and horticulture. This is a parody: the juxtaposition between rhetoric and the reality of where this Labor Party is. It is a shame. It is unnecessary. I know that conceit and pride will mean that no-one will review these policies. They will go through because they will become core Labor business.

In closing, I am perturbed by the statement that this is all about conservative members of this parliament—whatever you want to call them and whatever words you use—stacking the seats or however you want to put it. I want to give you a quote in relation to Mr Crean’s promises during the last election:

On a recent election campaign trip to Central Queensland, Mr Crean also promised $1 million for the Blackwater aquatic centre, $1.7 million for the Hegvold Stadium in Rockhampton, $160,000 for a softball ground at Kele Park, $1.5 million for the Dysart Sports Complex and $1 million for the Winton Dinosaur project and $2.6 million for the Tree of Knowledge centre.

That was just a little trip out in the country for Mr Crean. The reason is that he was targeting seats such as Flynn, Leichhardt and Capricornia. Let us not be too removed from saying that everybody does not have, at times, a motive in trying to look after their people. I would be quite happy for Mr Crean to continue to do that, but we have already got the program in place for him to utilise. So why destroy it unless you want to destroy the aspirations and the dynamics of this nation and you want to destroy and take away that final little candle of some sense of benevolence delivered from this capital, by this nation, to those who are most disaffected and marginalised?

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to concur with my colleagues, who have certainly raised a number of issues. I would like to start with an article that appeared in the Australian on 8 February. It is headed ‘Croc Festival cancelled after cuts’.

In Western Australia, my home state, I was at the Croc Festival at Meekatharra last year. Six hundred young Indigenous children were there for the week. They had an absolute ball. So after yesterday I really do wonder just where this government is going. Why would you take $3.3 million which is required to hold seven three-day events planned for 2008? Our people cannot get their funding. I think that this is just an act of hypocrisy. I am very disappointed as, I am sure, are those young Indigenous children, who travel sometimes 1,200 kilometres to be able to join in with their friends for a week—by the time they travel from home and back it is a week. They really have a most enjoyable time and they are being denied that. I would really like Senator Stephens to find out why this has happened, because it is certainly not good.

I have taken note of my Western Australian colleagues saying that we are all being punished because Labor voters are not prolific in the regional and rural areas. I have news for you: there are a lot of Labor people who live in regional and rural areas, so if this is some way of getting stuck into us then you are also hurting your own people. In Western Australia we have gone through the one vote, one value problem. We have six seats going out of the regional and rural areas into the metropolitan area, so we are going to be even worse off.

Apprentices have also been mentioned. It is very difficult to get apprentices in the rural and regional areas—and I will go back to my own state—because of the huge wages that are being offered in all the mining areas, whether they be in Ravensthorpe in the south or in the Pilbara or the Murchison in the north. There is an assistance scheme to improve the take-up of apprenticeships in the rural areas, where we have such a shortage of labour, and $47.7 million of that assistance scheme has gone. Under the incentives that we had, there was an $800 grant for tool kits, which the apprentices all absolutely enjoy, and up to $1,000 to help with training fees. To go further, we then had the living away from home allowance, and $100,000 has been taken out of that budget. That $100,000 could go a long way to helping an apprentice with their travel to and from home. Coming from stations and trying to get into a regional centre, a lot of them really do struggle with their travel costs alone, without their board and accommodation. So I just cannot understand this. You are trying to boost training, especially trade training places, and you are doing this sort of thing. It is denying some of these younger rural people the chance to take up an apprenticeship, to do a trade. Now there is just no money.

Last year, according to our statistics, 50,000 people left the agricultural and horticultural industry as the drought crippled rural areas. When the drought eases, how will we get those people back? They have had to go elsewhere to get jobs and they will not come back because the money that they have earned away they will not be able to earn when they get back into rural areas. So once again we have this problem. The Growing Regions program is being abolished. I know my colleagues have already spoken about this, but once again this was to be a huge benefit for us in rural Western Australia. We have a lot of sea change and now tree change people. What has happened is that small rural communities have attracted many people from the city to come and live in their area and enjoy the lifestyle, and those towns just cannot afford the infrastructure to cope with the massive expansion of the population. So once again they will be in trouble.

I am really disappointed about plans for the FarmBis sector, because once again this is a training thing. It is a jointly funded initiative between the Australian, the state and the territory governments. This is about helping rural people become more proficient in their business, and that is what it is about. Agriculture is a business. It is not just a farm and a lifestyle any longer. To remain there and to be sustainable, it has to be a business, and these people should be helped, not hindered.

There are also green vouchers for schools. There are huge problems there. We as a government were accused of not doing anything about climate change. Last year on 17 July, $336 million was given to Australian primary and secondary schools, including rural and remote schools. They could get $50,000 grants to help install rainwater and solar hot water systems. Now we have the Victorian environmental activist Mr Eric Noel, who persuaded the Howard government to start up the initiative, saying:

Why discontinue green vouchers? It is likely to cost millions of dollars simply to rebadge the program and call it something else. Why not keep the existing program and improve it as promised?

Already 3,000 schools have received grants, but there are another 6,000 that have been left in limbo. During the election campaign Labor announced it would replace the green vouchers scheme with the National Solar Schools Plan, costing $489,000 over eight years. Under the plan, schools would be able to apply for grants of up to $20,000, or up to $30,000 for their rainwater tanks. This just will not help. Unfortunately, after having a program there, it is going to be impossible to get all these other schools to apply again.

We have heard a lot about Regional Partnerships. I have had a lot to do with Regional Partnerships and strongly supported any application from the rural areas of Western Australia that I considered worthy. I am certainly out amongst the shires a lot, and one of the projects is not very far from me, at a place called Mount Barker. The partnership was between the Shire of Plantagenet, which covers that area, and the Mount Barker Baptist Church. These people have been through quite a lot of negotiations. Their business plan was signed off. They have been able to lease premises in Mount Barker to provide a community centre which will include an alternative school for disadvantaged and disenfranchised youth, a full-time youth worker and drop-in centre, a telecentre which would be the management hub for the Mount Barker Baptist community centre and would provide support for the alternative school, a food bank, after-school care and any one-off programs required. The food bank facility would provide food for any young person or townspeople in need. They are seeking funding for a chef through the National Community Crime Prevention Program. The canteen would service all functions held in the auditorium as well as the sporting activities on the adjacent oval and provide meals and refreshments for special functions held within the community centre. They would also have after-school care and holiday programs.

I thought this was a great project and I have given it my full support. The previous Minister for Transport and Regional Services, the Hon. Mark Vaile, approved the project, but shortly after that the 2007 election was called. Unfortunately, no further action on these applications has taken place. We have asked and asked, but we still cannot get any reply as to whether the funding is going to go on. They have to sign a 55-year lease and they will be paying rent on premises which they cannot use if they do not get their funding. It is at the heart of the Regional Partnership funding and the reason it has been such a success. This happens in a number of small communities. We really rely on Regional Partnership funding. We do not abuse the system and any of these partnership programs that I have supported are very good and well supported. In closing, I would really like to say to the minister: please reconsider what you are doing because rural and regional Australia need a lot more support. They do not need money taken away. I am sure, if the budget cuts have to come, there are areas other than regional and rural Australia.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Prime Minister for Social Inclusion) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in this debate to reiterate the Labor government’s complete commitment to supporting rural and regional communities in Australia and recognising the particular challenges that confront our communities and our citizens living there.

I do not want to denigrate the contributions of the National Party members in the Senate this afternoon who are passionately defending their constituencies. I certainly acknowledge their loyalty and their deep understanding of the complexity that surrounds living in the country in Australia. It is not easy trying to sustain a rural community that is struggling after seven years of drought. It is not easy trying to sustain family farms where there has been no income for seven years. The indebtedness to the banks and financial institutions takes people down the path where they actually have no capacity to even escape the circumstances. It is not easy.

But the circumstances that confront rural and regional communities in Australia today are complex. They are part of the global economic cycle, certainly part of the response to climate change and reflect many challenges that have been around for a long time. Today we have had this debate about Minister Tanner’s announced funding cuts, but really it has been part of selective reporting and selective commentary on only some of the projects and programs that he has identified in that first statement to the National Press Club.

The Labor government is certainly committed to community based solutions and I totally identify with the kind of solution that we just heard about from Western Australia and the Regional Partnerships program. But I do have to say that one of the failings of those kinds of programs is when communities are being forced to cobble together bits of funding from here, there and everywhere to try and develop a sustainable service in those communities. That is probably not the best way to do it. The Labor government really is entitled to review the programs that have been in place through the previous government of 10 years plus. It is certainly entitled to allow program evaluation cycles to take their natural time and for programs to be reviewed in the evaluation cycles. It is all good public policy.

We heard this afternoon about some of the rorting, particularly of the Regional Partnerships program and the pretty damning comments of the Auditor-General about the way in which that program has been abused in the past. We want to be a government that is about improved transparency of decision making and improving the way in which we share the funding that is available for these kinds of community based programs.

The Labor government has actually taken us to a new focus. I have spoken in this chamber already about my role as the Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and how important that is in driving a whole-of-government approach to dealing with the problems that are confronting our communities. Our rural and regional communities are just such communities. Every community has its own set of particular and peculiar challenges and we certainly want to move away from a kind of one size fits all approach and start working with local communities to develop solutions to the challenges that they are facing.

One of the challenges that we know is absolutely there in rural and regional Australia in the small communities that abound across the country is the ageing community infrastructure because the pools, halls and facilities built in the Whitlam era have not had any capacity from the Commonwealth to actually support renewal of that infrastructure. What we have been finding as we have been travelling around Australia is crumbling swimming pools and community halls that need re-stumping, as Senator Joyce said, and we are trying to find some new ways that we can engage in community development programs and community funding.

We certainly have some very interesting information with which to work in Professor Tony Vinson’s Dropping off the edge report which really highlights the failure of public policy to deal with entrenched disadvantage in our country. When you look at the amazing amount of data mapping and analysis that Professor Vinson has undertaken, you will see that many of the critical communities that he has identified, where people are living in abject poverty and with extremely complex disadvantage, are in rural and regional communities. They are in communities like Kempsey, Wilcannia and Bourke and they are communities where we are determined to take a new approach and make a significant difference.

So I take on board the comments, the recommendations and the advice of the National Party senators who have spoken in the debate today. But I think that it is the Rudd government’s prerogative to challenge the way in which we are funding communities and to come up with some new solutions to deliver for the communities of rural and regional Australia. I intend to be part of that process. So let us not be too disingenuous about the cuts that have been announced. We are committed to regional Australia and we will continue to be.

Debate interrupted.