Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Water Resources and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to inform parliament about my visit with the Nationals Leader, Warren Truss, to the New South Wales North Coast last week. After arriving late Monday, we started early Tuesday when Warren Truss was the keynote speaker at the Kingscliff and District Chamber of Commerce breakfast. The chamber is extremely well run by local businessman Alan McIntosh, who, as it happens, was in parliament this week for meetings with various shadow ministers. Mr Truss’s address on economic issues, particularly the financial crisis and its impact on local small business, was well received by the 60 or so small business people and community leaders who attended. I thank Alan McIntosh, Idwall Richards and the Kingscliff community for the warm welcome afforded to us.

We then went on to meet the Tweed Nationals MP, Geoff Provest, for a comprehensive briefing on Tweed issues. Geoff is known in the NSW parliament as ‘Mr 100 per cent for the Tweed’, and it is easy to understand why when you meet him. He is a great local champion fighting against a range of measures the NSW Labor government has taken against North Coast communities, particularly in its recent minibudget. These include downgrading the Tweed Hospital, the appalling taxing of parents to put their kids on school buses, partially closing the Tweed fire station, underfunding local schools, allocating insufficient police resources and delaying the Pacific Highway upgrade.

We then went to Sexton Hill in Banora Point to again meet with representatives of the Community Highway Action Group. These good people are fighting alongside Geoff for the upgrade of the Pacfic Highway at this awful black spot. They support community option C of the upgrade, which is superior to the RTA’s preferred option B in every respect—except perhaps cost. The Labor government’s preferred upgrade is great for passing B-doubles, but a nightmare for local traffic. Warren Truss was able to offer the community his full support. NSW Labor has just deferred the upgrade for two years; however, the Rudd government promised over $200 million for the upgrade before last year’s election, so it could proceed with or without the cooperation of NSW.

We enjoyed lunch at the South Tweed Sports Club with a great group of local people, including pensioners’ advocate Don Morgan and his wife, Nancy; their friend Sue Hudson, with her seeing eye dog; Tweed skate park advocate Daphne White; Southern Cross University researcher Geraldine O’Flynn and her very bright teenage son Stuart Perry.

It was then off to Ballina for an afternoon tea with Ballina Shire Councillors, Keith Johnson, Ben Smith, Sharon Cadwallader, Robyn Hordern, Sue Meehan and General Manager Paul Hickey. Ballina is proud to have, under the leadership of Mayor Phil Silver, one of the most efficient councils in the state, with among the lowest rates. In the evening, the Ballina Nationals MP, Don Page, organised a great evening with local people at the highly recommended Shelly’s on the Beach. Many thanks to Don’s staffer Donna Cruz and the tireless local Nat, Kim McInnes, for all the work they put into organising the event.

In the morning, Don Page took us to Alstonville, where, unbelievably, the NSW Labor government is closing down the Tropical Horticulture Research Station. We held a protest outside the station. We were outside, because the NSW Labor primary industries minister denied us permission to visit the facility. We were joined by local media and key stakeholders including Robyn Amos, Managing Director of Australian Fruit Producers and a great lychee grower; Rebecca Zentfeld, who started growing coffee in the region thanks to research undertaken at the station; Jolion Burnett and Kim Jones from the Australian Macadamia Society; Natalie Bell from the Blueberries Association; and Kim Wilson, General Manager for Gray Plantations. All these people, their families, their employees and their communities depend to some extent on the 40-year-old research station. Labor is closing it along with seven others across New South Wales to sell off the land and raise cash. It is absolutely appalling and follows on the Rudd government’s sell-off of six CSIRO ag stations earlier this year.

We then travelled to Harwood Island to meet the people at Harwood Island Slipway, particularly Ross Roberts and Gio Cervella. They build some amazing boats there between the cane fields and the mighty Clarence River. It is quite an extraordinary sight to see when you are driving through cane fields and there is a ship mast sticking up in between the rows of cane. It was also an opportunity to meet probably one of the most interesting and extraordinary gentleman I have met in quite some time—a fellow by the name of Max Hayes, an old seafarer, who is quite amazing in his ability to build, make and engineer all types of unknown things.

At Slipway, they have just completed a new million-dollar sand-blasting shed. It was officially opened a couple of days later by the Page Labor MP, Janelle Saffin, who correctly described it as an ‘excellent example of sustainable development’. What she failed to mention was that it was partially funded by a $445,000 grant from the previous coalition government’s Sustainable Regions program. The irony is that Labor has since abolished Sustainable Regions, claiming it is National Party pork barrelling.

We moved on to Grafton to a meeting organised by Tony Wade of Timber Communities Australia. This was attended by around 30 representatives from the local timber industries, which remain strong despite years of aggression from Labor governments. They are concerned and confused about Rudd Labor’s emissions trading scheme. We did our best to explain the government’s policy to them—something Labor has failed to do. We finished off the visit with a dinner in Grafton with the Clarence Nationals MP, Steve Cansdell, and local community leaders.

I would again like to thank everyone involved for a very successful visit. Warren Truss and I left the region better informed than ever about the concerns of local people, including the poor representation they are getting from their federal Labor members of parliament. We look forward to returning to the North Coast. In fact, I will be there on Saturday to join in protests against NSW Labor cuts to local hospitals and federal Labor’s failure to keep its election promise that Kevin Rudd will fix our hospitals.