Independents Bad Deal
09-September-2010
Source: Warren Truss, MP –
The decision of the majority of Independents to back the Gillard Labor Government is a bad outcome for regional Australia, Leader of The Nationals, Warren Truss, said today.
Mr Truss said that Labor’s offer to the Independents delivers far less for regional Australians than they would have received had the Coalition been elected to Government.
Labor’s $9.9 billion deal is mostly smoke and mirrors and I am amazed that the Independents were so easily conned.
$6 billion of the proposed $9.9 billion package will trickle to the regions over ten years and comes from the proceeds of a mining tax which will not even eventuate until 2015-16. There will be two more elections before then.
But the mining tax will destroy thousands of regional jobs, put up the cost of electricity, and make Australian industry including farming less internationally competitive. If the Greens get their way in the new rainbow coalition, the mining tax will be much harsher and apply also to a whole range of other farm inputs.
Only a small proportion of Labor’s new tax on mining on regional Australia will be returned to the regions. The biggest project announced so far from the proceeds of the mining tax is in Perth city. The remaining $3.9 billion of Labor’s promise to the Independents is mainly re-badging of existing programmes and re-announcements of monies, much of which was always going to the regions.
Labor will still be a city centric government with all, or nearly all, of its Cabinet coming from the capital cities.
Now that the Independents have been lured with an old bone, Labor will be just as city-centric as ever.
Mr Truss said the Independents could have sided with the Coalition which was overwhelmingly preferred by the voters of regional Australia, including in their own electorates.
If they had chosen to follow the wishes of regional Australia, there would have been a new $1 billion education fund, specifically dedicated to redressing the imbalance in education outcomes between city and country students. There would have been a new commitment to regional health services, including an offer of a higher proportion of Commonwealth funding and local hospital boards to make key decisions about local health priorities, 2800 extra hospital beds and 3000 aged care places. More country students would have been trained to be doctors, dentists, nurse practitioners, and health professionals and there would have been many new mental health services in regional communities.
The Independents could have backed a government which would have appointed a full time agriculture minister living in regional Australia, increased funding for research and development, and restored Australia’s quarantine and custom services which have been so downgraded by Labor.
They could have backed a Government with a revitalised and better funded regional development program, a $300 million program to rebuild local bridges, and more funding for regional highways.
The Independents chose to back a Labor Greens rainbow alliance which threatens the future of commercial and recreational fishing, is actively seizing water rights from farmers and country communities, wants to ban intensive agriculture, and will spend more money trying to buy a seat on the United Nations Security Council than it will on new regional facilities.
The Independents could have backed a fair-share deal for regional Australia offered by the Coalition. Instead they have opted to back Labor’s ongoing assault on the regions. Labor will not get any better.
The so called Independents have let regional Australia down.