Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This has been, self-evidently, a very difficult summer for rural and regional communities. In New South Wales we faced down fires, floods and drought all in the space of just a couple of months. I think, as everyone in this chamber acknowledges, the stories that are emerging in my state on the North Coast and the South Coast of New South Wales are genuinely heartbreaking. If you live in country New South Wales, you might reasonably, at a time of great uncertainty, look to the national parliament for reassurance and for leadership, not just about the immense damage to property and the loss of life but also about the economic direction at a time when many businesses are facing very, very significant challenges. Well, pity those people in those seats who've looked to this parliament over the last two weeks and seen what's happening in the National Party, the party that claims to represent rural and regional people. If country Australians looked here and saw what was happening in the National Party, they would be appalled.

The National Party were once proud representatives of regional Australia. In fact, I grew up in a seat that had basically been represented by the National Party since federation, with just one or two interruptions. The seat was pretty much represented by the same family in the National Party for generations. That's no longer, I can inform you. But that was the seat I grew up in. So they were a proud party, but over the last sitting fortnight, even while people in country New South Wales continue to face very difficult situations in terms of natural disasters, they have been completely self-obsessed, more focused on themselves and their jobs than on the people they claim to represent.

Last week, at the request of the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, the parliament scheduled a day to offer our condolences to communities affected by bushfire and to express our gratitude to those people who served to protect them. It was an opportunity for unity, for leadership. Instead, it was overshadowed by the National Party's internal fighting over leadership. It's all about who gets to sit in the big chair; it's all about who gets to sit in the front row. As an aside, I'd observe that, at the end of all that, nobody in the Senate gets to sit in the front row; we have no National Party representation on the front bench in this chamber, no-one to whom we can ask questions about their participation in this government.

This week, an important and historic state visit by Indonesia's president was, again, overshadowed by the party's chaos, with Mr O'Brien quitting the Nationals' party room—reportedly after a shouting match with their leader, Michael McCormack. Indonesia has a very significant relationship with Australia; a very significant trading relationship which the National Party claim to care about but which they have no interest in. Instead they are completely preoccupied with their own jobs.

Today is another significant day: the delivering of the Closing the gapreport 2019. It is of enormous significance, of course, to First Nation people, many of whom have the misfortune to live in National Party seats. But if you pick up the paper you don't see the National Party talking about the shocking statistics recorded in that report. You don't see the National Party advancing a vision about a future for Aboriginal people. Instead, the pages, again, are full of National Party members undermining one another and bickering amongst themselves. A day of great national importance is overshadowed by division and drama within the National Party.

It's very obvious that Mr Morrison has completely lost control of this debate and the government has lost focus on the things that matter. Instead of listening to the concerns of regional communities, the government has just appointed the Nationals member for Hinkler, Mr Pitt, as the minister for resources and water. You might remember Mr Pitt. He quit the front bench in 2018 because he opposed the government's commitment to reducing emissions under the Paris accord. He has been a very strong advocate for nuclear power, something many regional communities have been opposed to for decades. Those who advocate for nuclear power, who applaud enthusiastically these ideas, should go into the country communities that I speak to and explain to them the place that they wish to place a nuclear reactor. I can tell you what their reaction will be, and it will not be enthusiastic.

In any case, Mr Pitt, so enthusiastic about this matter, now holds two portfolios that shape the future of rural and regional Australia—what a champion. And this is just the start. The National Party, as far as I can tell, still continue to oppose a farmgate milk price. In the region around Lismore, where dairy farming is a large industry, one farmer reported working for $2.46 an hour, based on how much he received from the supermarkets for the milk he produces. Yet the minister for agriculture refuses to even acknowledge that there is a problem. The Nationals member for Page, Mr Kevin Hogan, has failed to stand up for the farmers in his community, failed to stand up for those farmers who work tirelessly for an unfair and inadequate reward.

In the other place, my friends Ms Clare O'Neil and Dr Daniel Mulino have been doing terrific work going over stats looking at underemployment. What they find is that the crisis, the scourge, of underemployment is most pronounced in rural and regional areas. That's where the burden is falling. In the home base of the new deputy leader of the National Party, Maranoa, in the Darling Downs, the number of people who cannot get a job or enough hours is at 15 per cent. That is an eight per cent increase since the coalition assumed office. Combined unemployment and underemployment in regional Queensland is now at 17 per cent, and that is up nine per cent since 2013.

Across New South Wales and Queensland there is a dire lack of jobs and work available for people in regional communities. Do we hear National Party MPs speaking up about underemployment in their electorates? Do we hear that? No, we don't. All we see is page after page after page on the front pages of the newspapers talking about one another and the jobs that they would like to have. It's not as though there is any shortage of material. There is no shortage of material whatsoever. I picked one article, one article from the journalist—I've lost the name of the journalist. It doesn't matter, because there are stories and stories.

Government Senators:

Government senators interjecting—

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my right!

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me tell you, every paper has these stories printed, because what has been happening—

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are too many!

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are too many stories, Senator Seselja, you are correct. There are too many stories about the National Party and their infighting. What happened last week? There was a spill, an attempt to remove Mr McCormack by Mr Joyce. By all accounts, the margin of that dispute was very, very close. After that there had to be a reshuffle, didn't there, and a lot of people missed out—Senator Canavan missed out, Senator McKenzie missed out. Mr McCormack said that these portfolios represent experience. Apparently not everyone agrees, because Mr Joyce then engaged in some kind of text exchange, making threats, it seems, to Mr Morrison about what was going to happen in this new, precarious arrangement, the precarious leadership arrangement established by the National Party and their leadership.

How can Australians have any confidence whatsoever that this rabble is able to govern? From resignations to leadership spills, the National Party has started the year doing what they do best: undermining one another instead of representing the regional communities that they claim to care about so much. Is it any wonder that Australians are losing trust in their government when every time they turn on the news they find the people they've elected to represent them fighting amongst themselves.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 2 pm, we'll move to questions without notice.