Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Oh, we have got it. If you need any example of how this government are simply incapable of running the country, their amendment comes in handwritten form on the back of an envelope. And this lot are supposed to be running the country! No wonder they have run us into over $300 billion worth of debt.

Senator Conroy’s amendment removes ‘regional Australia’ and substitutes ‘the national interest’. The whole purpose of our amendment was to highlight the fact that this government is stealing from rural and regional Australia funds the previous government had allocated there and diverting them to the cities. They are part of Australia, sure, but I think any fair observer would say that those living in the more populous areas of Australia do have better infrastructure, better facilities and better roads. They have a suburban train network, they have taxis down the end of the street and they have bus systems. Those sorts of facilities are not available in rural and regional Australia. I am sure Senator Conroy, with his wide journeys into rural and regional Australia, would understand that the reason you need better roads—or at least decent, usable roads—in rural and regional Australia is that you do not have a commuter train down the end of the street. You do not have a hospital one suburb away.

The AusLink program, which this is a steal of, put money into rural and regional Australia, because roads in many instances are the only means of transport. There are no trams, no buses, no suburban railway stations, very few taxis and no ferries. We in the previous government were keen to make sure rural and regional people got a fair go. This government is not interested in a fair go for rural and regional Australia. They have gone to where there are more votes, which is obviously in the capital cities. So we will certainly not be agreeing to the amendment to our amendment. The bill, as I say, we are allowing through with amendments to highlight these issues, and we are hoping for support from the crossbenches for the amendment that we have moved.