I want to acknowledge my colleagues Senator Williams and Senator McKenzie, who jointly were involved in the development of the reference. Senator McKenzie drove this process. Senator Williams and I joined the reference almost as an afterthought, I suspect. This reference was, I think, stimulated by events that occurred in the Barnawartha saleyards in Victoria. Knowing that Senator McKenzie is going to speak, I probably will refrain from spending too much time on that aspect of the report and its recommendations. I want to acknowledge the support of Labor, through the chairmanship of Senator Glenn Sterle. This was a difficult inquiry and a very long one—in fact, it spanned two parliaments. It is fair to say, and I am sure Senator McKenzie will visit on this, too, that we didn’t always receive the level of cooperation and assistance from the industry stakeholders that one may have expected. I can place on Hansard that Senator Sterle did an exceptional job in chairing the committee as we navigated through some of those challenges.

The early recommendations are to consider an inquiry into pre-sale and post-sale weighing in saleyards, to try to bring some consistency, particularly on the eastern seaboard, with respect to practices in saleyards. Again, I will yield that aspect of the report to Senator McKenzie, because I am sure she is going to touch on that, including the recommendations around what we have named ‘the standards of practice in saleyards’. Again, I will yield to Senator McKenzie on that.

One of the recommendations is in relation to the operations and capability of AUS-MEAT, particularly in their role in oversighting objective carcass management in beef processing plants—a significant role, one that has been challenged by, I think, almost a majority of producers at one time or another. This is where the rubber meets the road—when it is determined what they will be paid for the carcasses of livestock they have sold to the works on what is called the grid. There are positives and negatives about the inspection of carcasses and I think it is fair to say that, in this particular case, over a long period of time there has been a collapse of trust and confidence between producers and processors that this process is as objective as they might like. It was often challenged. There were, and remain, reasonably inadequate options for producers to be able to themselves objectively assess and perhaps even challenge processors on some of the descriptions of their carcasses that resulted in payments that they thought were less than what they had wanted.

The advent of technology coming into the meat processing sector, particularly the technology known as DEXA, a dual X-ray system, will allow processors to more accurately—now in the 90 per cent—assess what the meat yield is of a carcass. It will separate meat, bone and other, and this is a positive step in the right direction, even though there has been, I suppose, caution around how this technology is to be introduced. Nonetheless, anything that increases the prospect of objective carcass management in our processing plants in this $11-plus billion industry is a step in the right direction.

We have made recommendations that the operations and capability of AUS-MEAT be looked at by the minister, through the agriculture department, to see that they have adequate powers and that they are adequately resourced and that we ourselves can have oversight over their operations to see that they are doing the job to the best of their ability.

There are two recommendations that I really want to focus on—and I’ll leave the main interest to me until last. The final recommendation to government and to the minister was that they establish a joint government and industry task force to effectively review all aspects of the meat processing and the meat supply chain and production sector. I think this is very timely. The current structures that they operate in are complicated—relationships are complicated. There is disparity in power bases within the whole sector. Of course, they’re working under operations that were put in place about 19 years ago in 1998 by the then Deputy Prime Minister and minister for agriculture, the Hon. John Anderson. It is almost overdue for that entire sector to be reviewed by this joint government and industry task force. It will be a skills-based task force if the recommendations are accepted. We anticipate it will take them some considerable period of time to do their work, as a comprehensive review in such a big industry and sector would be the case.

Let me use the final time I have to speak about what I think is the key recommendation—or, certainly, which is up there with the top recommendations made in the report. It is for government to do virtually whatever it takes to support the establishment of a new peak industry body for cattle producers. Various numbers have been given to us over time of between 30,000 and 60,000 different producers in this country in the beef sector, ranging from small operators who might only have half a dozen livestock through to big family corporations and, in fact, public companies who oversight an industry that has, or ought to have, about 29 million head of stock at any time. We believe those numbers are down quite considerably due to the advent of droughts all over the country. But what is, I think, agreed to by everyone in the industry is that we need to beef up—if I can use that term—the peak industry body that—

 Senator Siewert: No bad puns!

I thought it was a good pun, and it actually came to me spontaneously, Senator, so I’m very proud of it. We need to beef up the peak industry body that represents these producers. The advent of new technologies and legislation passed here—I think we all were involved in supporting the legislation—allow the peak body to find out who those levy payers are that, collectively, pay about $50 million plus a year into the Meat & Livestock Australia for the support to the industry in research and development. This is about getting a peak industry body. I said at one of the inquiries: ‘We’ll know when we’ve arrived when members of the Meat & Livestock Australia, and senators and other politicians in this place, break into a sweat when they hear that this peak body has arrived in the building to come and see them.’

I want it to be a powerful body. I want it to get its way on behalf of producers around the country. It needs to be a very transparent body. It needs to have its strength and its power embedded in a grass-roots movement within the industry. It needs to have a skills-based board that I personally believe needs to be renumerated. I don’t care how much they have to pay the members of the board and the chairperson to administer this very important industry in agriculture and, indeed, to our whole national economy. It needs to make sure that its structure allows it to represent and reflect the ideals and the ambitions of producers all around the nation.

I want to commend the report and, in the last moments, I want to pay great tribute to the secretariat under Dr Jane Thomson. This was a difficult report to structure. There was a lot of work and effort, and there were a lot of amendments and restructuring of the report as we got towards this tabling date. Their work, as is always the case, was first class.

I rise to bring the attention of the chamber to a cruel disease called spinal muscular atrophy or SMA. It’s a relatively unknown illness, despite it being the No. 1 genetic killer of infants under the age of two in Australia. It is largely unknown because babies born with it rarely live beyond their second birthday. I’d like to share with the chamber the story of one couple who have had their world shattered by this illness. Their names are Rachel and John, and all members of the parliament would have received a letter from them introducing you to their young daughter, Mackenzie, who suffers from SMA. Mackenzie was the couple’s first child and they told me they couldn’t have been any happier. But, shortly after, their world was turned upside down. At 10 weeks of age, their little baby daughter was diagnosed as having SMA type 1.

This disease is a neuromuscular disorder characterised by the loss of motor neurons and progressive muscle wasting, often leading to death. It manifests over a wide range of severity, affecting both infants and adults, and is broadly divided into five types in accordance with age or onset of symptoms or from the highest attained milestone of motor development. In the case of Mackenzie, she was diagnosed with having the most common form of SMA, which is type 1. Type 1 is terminal. The prognosis for Mackenzie is devastating, cruel and quite unforgiving. The average life expectancy for infants with the condition is nine months at best.

In December last year, a clinical trial was commenced in Australia of a drug that, in some cases, can delay the onset of symptoms. It has also shown itself to be a big step forward in medical advancement and is currently being assessed by the TGA. However, it is not a cure and the prognosis for little Mackenzie remains the same. Rachel described to me how she felt as the medical expert advised them that Mackenzie had a terminal illness for which there was no known cure and that her life expectancy was likely to be less than one year. Rachel described how, as their world fell away, everything went blurry for her. Sounds muffled and she felt like she was collapsing. She remembers looking at her husband, John, and saying, ‘What just happened?’

For most of us, it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine how such a devastating and shattering experience would feel—from being on such a positive high with the birth of their daughter to being told that their precious little baby will die, perhaps before her first birthday, and that there’s nothing she or they can do to change the situation. As I’ve said, the disease is a cruel and unforgiving condition. From planning and dreaming for the future of their daughter, their time is now spent arranging and giving the best palliative care for Mackenzie. In Rachel’s words: ‘I cannot adequately express the love we feel for Mackenzie. Rather than dreaming of Mackenzie’s future and imagining all the beautiful experiences of life that lay before her, we are now going to have to watch our baby slowly lose muscle movement, lose the ability to feed and swallow and, finally, lose the ability to breathe.’

Before Mackenzie’s diagnosis, Rachel and John had never heard of SMA. Neither had anyone amongst their families or friends. They were soon to learn that it is the No. 1 genetic killer of children under the age of two years. It begs the question: how is it that no-one has heard of this disorder?

One in 35 people in Australia are carriers of SMA. If two carriers have a baby, there is a one-in-four chance of their baby having SMA. These statistics are simply astonishing. This rare neuromuscular disorder is clearly not so rare. Rachel and John undertook all the tests offered to them before and during pregnancy, including genetic testing for more common genetic illnesses, such as Down syndrome. But they were not offered genetic testing to check whether either was an SMA carrier prior to conception. In most cases, such genetic testing is offered only if you have a family history. But four out of five children born with a genetic disorder do not have a family history of the disorder.

Today SMA is not curable, but it is 100 per cent preventable. A couple planning for a family today can find out if they are carriers through having a blood test during the pregnancy screening. Not only can this testing be undertaken before conception, but tests can also be undertaken for more severe genetic disorders, such as cystic fibrosis and fragile X. I’m instructed that this simple test to protect our community obviously only works as a prevention if people know about it.

Rachel and John are both proud to be federal police officers. They are made of fairly stern stuff. When confronted with such a personal tragedy, in their grief they looked to ways to help others and to turn their suffering to something of a benefit for others. They know they cannot change the outcome for Mackenzie, but perhaps their campaign can prevent others from going through such pain and suffering. Accordingly, while caring for Mackenzie they also make the time to push for greater awareness of SMA and increased access to carrier testing. It is through this initiative that I got to know Rachel and John and to know about their story and their aims.

When I met Rachel and John, I asked them what they were hoping to achieve and how we could help them. As Rachel explained to me, they have three main aims—although there is much that can be done in this space. They want to help raise awareness of pre-pregnancy genetic testing amongst people planning a pregnancy and among healthcare professionals. This testing already exists; people just need to know about it so that they can make an informed choice. There is a general lack of awareness of these genetic tests, and SMA more specifically, even amongst healthcare professionals. Secondly, they would like to encourage the federal government to consider subsidising pre-implantation genetic diagnoses during the IVF process for those couples known to be carriers of genetic disorders. This is currently being looked at by government and should be approved without further delay. They hope that eventually genetic testing becomes routine and subsidised to make it more accessible to all Australians. It is so much more effective for us to spend our money on increasing access to carrier testing than to pay for the medical, palliative and social costs associated with these disorders, to say nothing about the emotional impacts on in this case a child and their parents.

I’m pleased to say that there appears to be broad support across parliament for what Rachel and John are trying to achieve. Both the Minister and Assistant Minister for Health have begun looking at ways to assist in achieving these outcomes. In addition, the New South Wales health minister, Brad Hazzard, has met with Rachel, John and Mackenzie and has made a commitment to create a change for Mackenzie. In fact, our own federal Minister for Health has indicated that he has taken a personal interest in their representations. Rachel and John are thankful for the support they have received from some members of parliament, and now they hope that this support turns into action. For my part, I also pledge to do all I can to assist Mackenzie and her family to realise these sensible ideals. Our hearts remain with John and Rachel as they confront what is a very personal and enormously difficult struggle. I promise you that your efforts won’t be in vain.

I rise tonight to reflect upon the life of a friend and fellow political traveller in Alexander Rodney Lockie Wilson, known affectionately to all as Rod Wilson. Rod passed away less than a week ago. He was a pastoralist, a cattleman of serious note, having built very substantial interests in that sector with his wife, Sylvia, and members of their family.

Rod was a political activist. I had known him for more than 35 years. He was a fellow traveller. Rod was a giant within the movement of the National Party of Australia, both at our state level in the state of Queensland and at a national level. He was a community leader, having resided in the Callide and Central Queensland area for most of his life. Rod and his family, including extended family, have made enormous contributions to those communities over that period of time. He also provided very clear leadership over the decades in agripolitics as well as general politics. I have memories of any number of speeches or groupings and activities organised by Rod in his capacity as one of our leaders in that part of our state. His influence was enormous.

Rod was a very fair and measured individual who had a very practical and very, very acute political intellect. He demonstrated often that he was before his time in work that he had done around issues that we now refer to as workplace health and safety. Long before that, the people who worked for him and Sylvia and their family, and indeed members of the broader community, were in the core of his mind as he developed measures and practices around pastoral enterprises that he owned with an emphasis on improving the safety and working conditions of those people. He was responsible for many innovative designs and process changes that have been adopted by so many in that industry. He was a pioneer in developing the use of hydraulic mechanisms that were used in double-decker cattle trucks so that cattle on the top deck could be loaded and unloaded safely using that system. He also had done a bit of work using some innovative engineering adjustments around the design of windmills. I know a number of my colleagues here and those who are not present have had to do the laborious job of pulling bores. Rod designed features around bores and windmills that made that job so much safer. He was an early adopter, for example, with the use of solar energies and retrofitted bores at great expense very early when that innovation of the use of solar pumps and solar energy came into the marketplace for use in pastoral pursuits.

With his wife, Sylvia, Rod built what I think could be referred to as a cattle empire with their daughters, Zoe and Eliza, and their son, William, and their broader family. Rod always acknowledged the contribution of the people who worked with him. They had built a very substantial business, and very frequently, being blessed with those things that come with being a successful businessman, Rod would reinvest not just his time and energy but also financially in the community. And there were other pursuits where he and Sylvia shared the goodness of life that they’d been blessed with.

Rod will be remembered as an individual who had great strength of character. He was a tall and quite imposing man, quietly spoken and very measured. His intellect and intelligence were often very evident in the delivery of his arguments, which were always well structured and very persuasive. Rod was a man who did his homework on issues. He thoroughly understood his subject matter before he put forward his arguments. He will be remembered also for his integrity and his honesty. He and Sylvia, and their entire family, were enormously respected in the communities in which they lived, which I referred to earlier.

Rod also had a great sense of humour. When his darling twin daughters, Zoe and Eliza, were born, he put an ad in Queensland Country Life in which he referred to ‘welcoming two spring heifers’. Sylvia, I understand, has never forgiven him for that, but nonetheless it was entirely consistent with Rod’s way of life and his sense of humour. He will be remembered as a giant of a man and he will be remembered for his contribution and serious influence around state and national agricultural policy. He was a leader in the field, and for my party, the National Party of Australia, he was responsible for building and maintaining a very significant presence in Central Queensland. He had great influence and was very respected by our political movement there.

If I had had the opportunity, which I did not, to ask Rod how he would like to be remembered, I am quite certain that his answer would have been very simple. He would have wanted to be remembered, clearly, as a very good and sound member of his community through life, but he also would have wanted to be remembered as the magnificent husband, father, and grandfather to eight grandchildren that he was. He is missed greatly by members of the Calliope and Central Queensland community. He is missed greatly by members of the inaugural National Party of Queensland and the National Party of Australia. He will be remembered for his legacy of policies and initiatives that he drove and nurtured over many years. It’s only been in recent months that Rod, very unwell and battling a condition that eventually overtook him, rang me about labour reforms in agriculture—about how people who would otherwise have difficulty getting employment because of age or disability might be accommodated by changes in policy that would make it easier for them to be employed.

Rod, you will be well remembered for all the things that I have spoken about and much, much more. I wish Sylvia, the children, the grandchildren and Rod’s extended family condolences on behalf of all of those in our political movement over a long period of time who came to know Rod and work with him. I felt it was important that a contribution as significant as his be recorded in the Hansard of our federal parliament. I just hope that Sylvia and the family are able to confront Rod’s loss and find peace in the knowledge of the enormous contribution that this man made to our state and, indeed, to our nation.

I rise tonight with a heavy heart to reflect upon a tragedy that has happened in recent weeks that resulted in the loss of a little angel named Willow Walker in the Central West part of my home state. I have decided to reflect upon this for a number of reasons. Willow Walker, the daughter of Brooke and Daniel, and sister to her brother, Harley, was a child of the Collins and Walker families of the Central West in Queensland.

I had the privilege to be able to join the family, extended family, friends and, indeed, almost the entire community of the Central West as Willow’s life was celebrated. I was particularly moved by a number of things that I saw. Firstly, the stoic and resilient approach taken by her parents as they celebrated this little girl’s life was inspirational—nothing short of inspirational. Supported by the broader family, the grandparents and, indeed, the entire community of the district, in so many ways it really was a restoration in the faith of our communities. I’m reflecting on this on the basis that these are rural communities. I think that the opportunity to provide support in these circumstances—the very nature of those communities, where everybody knows each other and everybody feels affected by these things, makes it easier or more likely for that support to happen in some of our smaller rural communities than we might sometimes see in larger metropolitan areas.

The entire Central West was affected by this enormous tragedy. It is an area that’s remained under the heavy hand of drought now for four or five years. It remains one of the districts—there are many—in Australia that have not recovered from the impacts of drought and of market forces that have really challenged the economic and social stability of these places. In the midst of that, to see them rally around the Walker and Collins families around the loss of this little angel, Willow Walker, was something that I am unlikely to forget.

I felt so moved that I believe the circumstances need to be placed on the annals of our Hansard here in the federal parliament, to let all the Brookes and Daniels of Australia, who each face their own tragedies, many of which we don’t learn about, know that we recognise their strengths. We recognise the strengths of their communities. They go to the very heart of what makes us Australians. They are deeply held in the culture and psyche of our people, who endure very difficult circumstances as they make their contributions to this nation. So I just wanted to say to Brooke, Daniel and Harley: the loss of Willow has not gone unnoticed. The impacts of how you celebrated her life were inspirational, and they will continue to play a part in underpinning this enormously important culture.

I want to thank Senator Wong for the opportunity to make a contribution on issues such as secure jobs, rising power prices, investment in education and health care, and addressing housing affordability. I think it is fair to say that most people who have a basic understanding of economic principles understand that most of the generation of wealth in a nation happens from the private sector. We know that the public sector, governments, can borrow more money, and my colleagues on the other side of the chamber know all about that; cut services, and nobody in this country wants to see an unnecessary reduction in services; or we can increase the receipts of the nation by higher taxes and charges. Of course, it is two out of three for my colleagues in the Labor Party and the Greens, who support those anti-economic measures in terms of their management of the economy. It’s well known that whilst the Labor Party, historically, has made great contributions to this nation over many decades, it cannot manage an economy. It mismanages every economic opportunity that it has. It’s also well known that it has no interest in rural, what I refer to as provincial, Australia.

This government, the Turnbull-Joyce government, has created some 240,000 new jobs—a quarter of a billion new jobs—since it come to power. I don’t know how many more jobs the Labor Party think there are to be had, but this is an outstanding record. As you all know, when people have the dignity of a job, it creates a much fairer Australia. The missions we’ve created with reductions in taxation create opportunities for private sector businesses to go ahead and employ more people and give people the dignity of employment. It creates these opportunities. Investment creates opportunities, and opportunities come in the form of jobs, which see a reduction in the impacts on the social security net in our nation. It gives us improved living standards, and Australians, generally—not all; I don’t think it matters at what stage in life we look, there are some people who find themselves left behind—have first-class living standards and education compared to anywhere in the world and have some of the best health care in the world. When you get people into jobs, all of this impacts on the economy and, amongst other things, results in a reduction in the cost of social security and an increase in receipts for the Commonwealth. And what does the Commonwealth do when it is in good economic circumstances? It invests that money, mainly in infrastructure projects and the provision of services for the nation. That is regarded as an investment in those economies. That turns to creating opportunities and jobs and in the wonderful economic cycle, the circle joins and goes on forever.

I find it difficult that the Labor Party would talk about creating a stronger and fairer Australia when their current tax policy is to increase taxes. This is a well known 101 of economics. Increasing taxes simply stifles investment. It reduces investment, and, therefore, these opportunities that I spoke of, these jobs that are created, don’t appear. In fact, jobs are lost.

Let’s just link that to what they’re talking about: to tackle rising power prices. It is well known that the Labor Party—it almost defied logic for me as I watched them over the last decade—abandoned blue-collar workers in provincial Australia and particularly those who were involved in our coal industry up in central Queensland. There were 14,000 jobs gone. There were 14,000 real jobs gone in Central Queensland between Townsville and Gladstone. The Turnbull-Joyce government has compensated with the creation of 240,000 new jobs, but, nonetheless, 14,000 jobs are gone.

Let’s talk about how the Labor Party might support us in dealing with this. It’s no surprise that my speech concentrates on Queensland, my home state, and on projects that will lift the economic fortunes of all the people in Central Queensland. We’ve got the Adani Carmichael project, with 2½ thousand direct jobs and nearly 4,000 indirect jobs once that goes into operation. We’re talking about a total employment impact of 11,800 jobs when the secondary jobs are taken into account—those businesses and industries that will support the development of the Carmichael project. With GVK there are almost 3½ thousand jobs in construction, along with 3,200 when it’s in operation. We haven’t even touched on some of the ancillary stuff that happens here. We haven’t even touched on the $1 billion rail line that has to be built and the increase in the port facilities in Central Queensland.

I have invited colleagues from across the chamber more than once—to save having to do it every time I speak, the invitation stands open—to make contact with my office. I’m happy to meet the costs of travel. We’ll go up into Central Queensland, into the public bar of the Black Nugget Hotel, into the town square at Blackwater or into the main street of Emerald and you can meet the people who will be directly affected by your policies that you continue to espouse. You can meet these people. You can meet the small-to-medium-sized businesses for whom you resisted a tax cut that would provide them with some surplus that they—most of them at least—would inevitably reinvest in employment opportunities. Going back to my cycle: employment creates opportunities, increases the receipts of the nation, puts the Commonwealth in the stronger economic position and allows us to invest in projects like the development of northern Australia, a $5 billion fund.

I cannot believe that Senator Wong selected some of these issues for the debate under standing order 75 today. She forgot to mention or wasn’t aware of the $2 billion dams package that will be invested in infrastructure in so many of our states. She forgot about the $1.7 billion invested in the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing to get our commodities from provincial Australia, particularly the central west and the south-west of my home state. There is $1.5 billion already invested in the Inland Rail, with a further $9 billion committed to be invested in that project. There is $10 billion invested in upgrading the Bruce Highway to make it flood-proof. There are all those commodities in the north. Hundreds of thousands of people are employed in the banana industry and the sugarcane industry, and they can all have secure jobs, knowing their commodities can make their way down to port.

I want to finish where I opened. The Australian Labor Party has a long tradition of poor economic management. It’s reflected in their policies today and the fact that these policies will impact on rural Australia. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I rise tonight to respond to a very clumsy, lacklustre and impotent attempt by a colleague in this place today to cast aspersions on the good work and character of another politician in this parliament.

The speech delivered can only be characterised as a clumsy and juvenile attempt—and will only be remembered as being delivered by a desperate individual, a failed politician himself—to damage the outstanding credentials of the federal member for Capricornia, the truly outstanding coalition warrior, Michelle Landry.

It is a matter of public record that Michelle Landry and her parliamentary colleague Luke Howarth, the member for Petrie, are credited with delivering the Turnbull coalition government to office. So that makes this attempt by a colleague in this chamber, Senator Watt, even grubbier, in my view.

Senator Watt claimed in his speech earlier today that Capricornia MP Michelle Landry is ‘arguably the biggest failure in the House of Representatives.’ Before we get on to Michelle Landry’s performance as the member for Capricornia, let’s just take a couple of minutes to compare the records of these two politicians.

In the case of Senator Watts, except for a short period of time, he has been nestled in the breast of the public purse for his entire adult life. His first failure came when he took on the job as the chief of staff to Premier Bligh—and we all know what happened there. It resulted in the most catastrophic Labor loss in the history of this nation—losing 40 seats in my home state of Queensland. What contribution did Senator Watts make to that? Well, he actually had to lift heavier than any of his colleagues in his attempt to enter the parliament.

He was successful in the seat of Everton, but he took a 9.2 per cent hit to the holding of that seat—the biggest in that election. Then, of course, not satisfied with his failure there, he went on to lose the seat for the first time in 40 years. The seat was held for 40 years by Labor, and he took another hit of 14.5 per cent. He took it from being one of Labor’s safest seats in the state of Queensland and handed it over to us. It is now one of the safest seats we hold.

This is the legacy of Watts. What did he do then? He had to find a way to make his way into this place. This is a man who in this place often champions the support of Labor in the regions. He even said so to the Daily Mercury:

I think it’s important Labor geographically spreads, that’s why I’m setting up my office on the Gold Coast.

You can get a light rail ride for $6.70 to the Gold Coast. It is hardly regarded as the regions and certainly not a region like that represented by the great Michelle Landry. What did he do? How did he make his way back? Labor had, accidentally, only one senator in the state of Queensland in the regions, and that was Jan McLucas in the seat of Cairns. You have heard me say in this place that poor Jan threw her legs over the side of the bed one day and sat up and looked down and her head was still on the pillow, because Labor took it off and replaced her with Senator Watts. Dear, oh, dear! I do not know even where to start. Before you lose the recent memory of Senator Watts’s performance as a failed politician, let’s have a look at Michelle Landry. What did she do?

She wrested the seat of Capricornia out of the grasp of Labor. It is one of the crown seats of the Labor movement. Do you know how Labor is? It is Labor that left a convicted paedophile as the member for the state seat embedded in Capricornia. He got elected. And then they went on to make him the opposition leader. This is how Labor in this area is.

She took it off them not once but twice. For the first rime in 50 years, this woman held that seat and returned it into our government twice. They were still riding horses around the main street of Rockhampton when that was last done.

In case I run out of time—because this is going to take me a couple of hours to get through, but I am sure there will be further opportunities for me to finish—let’s have a look: this woman has delivered into the region of Central Queensland in the seat of Capricornia $550 million worth of funding. It is on the public record and in the budget papers. What has Senator Watt put into the place? That would be zero. She got $166 million to fix the Eton range, $38 million to replace five country bridges near Mackay and Isaac, $1.1 million for Mackay Regional Council in funding to fix the intersection of Horse and Jockey Road and $8.5 million to engineer two overtaking lanes.

Let me take a breath. She got $7.9 million for the new north- and south-bound overtaking lanes on the Bruce Highway, $190 million for future defence infrastructure for Capricornia, $10 million for the Yeppoon beachfront, $7 million for Rockhampton riverbank precinct and $2.3 million for the Capricorn rescue chopper. How many things has Senator Watt delivered for the seat of Capricornia? That would be none. And, just as we are attempting—and Michelle Landry is leading the charge—to put the Adani mine into Central Queensland, he voted in this place, along with his Queensland Senate colleagues, to knock it on the head. He voted to close coalmining in Queensland.

He was not satisfied that, when he worked for Bligh as her chief of staff, they eroded 14,000 jobs from this part of the world that Michelle Landry is reinstating with this phenomenal effort that she has done to bring funding into the area.

There is $2.3 million for the Capricorn Helicopter Rescue Service. That’ll be there for Senator Watt when he needs to be rescued at the next election! There is $136 million to floodproof Bruce Highway in Rockhampton. There is $300,000 to Meals on Wheels when he is next unemployed, because it will only be a matter of time. There is $3 million for 16 Green Army projects and $2.7 million for Beef Australia. Given the time, I have no capacity to get through the pages and pages articulating this $550 million.

This is a bloke who should have given this some thought. He did not even need to go around and get the library to do some of this; he can Google most of this. He should have given this some thought before he made this attack on this woman. I promise him this: he can come in here as frequently as he likes to attack my colleague and the colleague of the Nationals and the coalition.

He can come in here every day. For every five minutes he does, I will do 10, and I have not even started on him. This was a grubby speech. It needs to be stopped. If he wants to take it, he can take it outside. If he wants to fight us, I will go with him up into Central Queensland. I made the offer to Labor today. I will take him into the public bar of the Black Nugget Hotel, and he can tell them what he has done and what he is doing for their jobs in Central Queensland.

I tell you what: Michelle Landry is in and out of there all the time. She is much respected and much respected to win a Labor seat and then hold it for the first time in 50 years. For her to be maligned by a man who has failed at every political effort he has made since he came onto the public teat some 15 years ago is, I think, a grubby attempt. He should be ashamed of himself. It was a clumsy effort. It was a juvenile effort. He needs to be encouraged not to do it again.

 

 

 

It is always important – after expressions of sadness – that we throw some joy and light into our lives, and that is what I have chosen to do. I woke up today one of the most excited men in the Australian bush. Do you know why? It was because of the good news story of last night for all of those terrific people who live in provincial Australia—Western Australia, the western parts of my state and some of the other areas. Senator Collins—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President—despite everything positive that you could have said about these changes in education—not just the stuff announced by Senator Birmingham the other day but the $44 million we are putting into supporting isolated families with the education of their children and the $15 million being put into regional university hubs—despite all the positive things that you could have said about education, you did not. I will tell you why you are unhappy. It is because you are now witnessing a government that for the first time can declare, with evidence, which we are going to return the economy of this nation back to a surplus. Remember Mr Swan’s assertions?

Forty-seven times he declared we would return to a surplus—47 times—and 47 times he failed. So whether you like it or not, I intend to devote my time to talking about the good news stuff that came in the budget last night for our country, for our nation, and, most importantly, with a slant and an emphasis on what is happening in the bush and in regional and rural Australia—the place that nourishes every single one of us in Australia, the place that produces the great wealth, the place that balances our accounts and the place where we have had an increase in agricultural soft commodities.

I have got to tell you—I am going to lay it on the table and I said it in a radio interview just recently—this is where Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals, with their colleagues here in the coalition and the Liberal Party, have delivered. We have delivered: we are rewarding people in rural and regional Australia for the efforts that they have put in. They have had a tough time of it, and it is about time they can pick up a telephone and use it like every one of you can. That is why we spent $2.7 billion on Sky Muster. It is about time that they can get a good-quality, cutting-edge education for their children. It is something you get for a remote fraction of what it costs our families in the bush.

I know it absolutely irks you to see that we have been able to lift, for example, agriculture, one of the great pillars of this nation’s economy. We have lifted its performance by 23 per cent—$60 billion worth of exports of soft commodities. This is in the face of messages that we get from the Labor Party and the Greens, who resist aspects to do with our trade agreements. They were against the TPP. They were against clauses that existed in our Korean, Japanese and Chinese trade agreements. The opposition and the Greens are people who do not want to see people in the bush get ahead. They resent the fact that money has been spent on the inland rail. We have heard them talk about it. All they want to talk about is putting a cross-river crossing somewhere here and a rail link between this suburb and that suburb. They are too tired to pedal their bike out to the airport that is 25 minutes away. They want an eight-lane highway out there but they want our people in the bush to flog themselves to get their commodities.

Do you know what? It costs more to get commodities from some parts of the bush to the Port of Melbourne or the Port of Brisbane than from some of those ports to the Middle East. We are finally about to put an end to that. This is a dream that has come to realisation with our inland rail project and the $8.4 billion commitment from this coalition government. I have to tell you: after this budget came down last night, you people are going to have to work a lot harder. There is not one single vote for you inside the Great Dividing Range any longer, because those people have realised that, with our efforts to try and bring these things into play, all you have done is resist.

We have seen my Senate colleagues from the Labor Party vote in block to support a motion to close down the black coal industry in my home state of Queensland. So I have got to tell you: all the people in central Queensland, all those good people who live in the Galilee Basin, the tens of thousands of businesses in Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton and Gladstone are watching this very closely. For those who missed it, I have made it my mission to go out and fill in the gaps so they know exactly what sort of support they are getting from their senators in Queensland and indeed our federal members up there in the Labor Party.

The benefits of this inland rail are going to be phenomenal. It is a project that will include construction of over 1,700 kilometres of rail. If you happen to be living in these places—Albury, Wagga, Parkes and Moree; in my own home state, Inglewood, Millmerran, Toowoomba, in particular, where I happen to live and all the way through the Lockyer Valley to the port of the Brisbane—you will be celebrating today that, finally, every one of those local communities, every one of those regional and district economies, are going to get a lift here that they have not seen since they settled those districts in the 1800s. This is the biggest uplift they have ever had. If you want to park that beside the $5 billion development of the northern Australia fund, if you want to park it beside the $2.5 billion dams package which is going to store water and bring prosperity to regions at the moment that are struggling from the drought—and I know you hate hearing it—and the cessation of the live cattle—

Senator Farrell: Why didn’t you tell the truth?

Senator O’SULLIVAN: No, well you can. Let me say to you, through you, Mr Acting Deputy Chair Back: you people brought thousands of families to their knees. You do not care—you do not even know their names. I can tell you their names. I can tell you the names of their children and their grandparents. You brought them to their knees. You have done nothing but battle against development in the western parts of our nation—absolutely, from top to bottom.

Senator Farrell: Why didn’t you tell them you were increasing taxes?

Senator «O’SULLIVAN»  : No, you have done it in this place. In fact, you were here, Senator, and you voted for it. I will tell you what—why don’t you go down to the Department of the Human Services and tell them that right from this very second there is no more money to come to you, but you had better turn up for the job. Tell them they had better pay the expenses of bringing themselves there—

Senator Farrell interjecting—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT : Senator Farrell, a point of order?

Senator Farrell: Senator  O’Sullivan  is simply not telling the truth in this chamber. He has not told the Australian people why he did not go to the last election telling them about the tax increases.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: That is not a point of order, Senator Farrell.

Senator «O’SULLIVAN : What a feeble defence. Even when the Senator had an opportunity to make an argument that I did not tell the truth, he did not relate it to the decision of the Australian Labor Party to cease the live cattle export. That is what I was expecting him to say, and there is a reason he cannot. And I have got some respect for this Senator. He will not mislead this place, and if he had said that he would have misled this place.

Under Labor, for so many decades, every time they were office they could not use their telephone. There were no roads built or invested in across the western parts of our country, the bush and the provinces, to develop things. They have no members out there because they would just tar and feather them and run them out of town, between them and the Greens.

I invited the Greens yesterday to come with me up into the Galilee Basin and explain to the 14,000 people who have lost their jobs because of the resistance between them and you people in relation to the coal industry. I could not guarantee their safety, and I mentioned that. They would have to come up and put a false moustache on with a wig. But the fact of the matter is that no-one has taken up my offer. It has been out there for 24 hours, so let me refresh it: anybody on that side of the chamber who wants to roll their swag—now, that might need a bit of explanation. That is a bed-roll that you use when there is not a five-star out the window of your Comcar. If you want to roll your swag and pick up a tin billy—now that is an old cream tin you use to boil water to make a cup of tea when there is no latte shop next to where your office is. If you want to come with me into the bush, I will take you. I will fund you, and we will go up bush and you can meet these people. You can tell them straight up. I will take you to meet the 12,000 people who are employed in the coal industry in the Bowen Basin, and you can meet them and personally tell them. I will take you into the public bar of the Black Nugget Hotel, but I am not going to wait with you. I would be frightened I might get a clip on the ear because they have mistaken me for some big hefty Labor fella. I will take you in there and you can tell the front bar at the Black Nugget Hotel that you are going to do everything within your power to take their jobs away.

You people know nothing about the bush, you and the Greens, and I am tired of it. I am going to get louder and stronger and I am going to speak as frequently as I can to continue to expose you to the Australian community. They rely upon this government to support them and provide them with the infrastructure and the support they need to underpin the wealth that you enjoy in this nation. Now you have distracted me. Leave me alone for a minute.

We now have $75 billion committed to infrastructure outside the cities of this country. This is going to build an environment where these people can get on with the job. These are people who do not get out of bed when you get out of bed. These are people who get out of bed in the dark and come home in the dark, and they do it seven days a week. I said here recently in a speech that all they do is kneel down and pray for rain. All they pray for is rain and an eighth day. They need an eighth day to do the washing and to get themselves started so they can start their seven-day week again.

I am tired of the resistance that comes from the opposition and the Greens, and particularly the Greens. You can feel good, because I feel less about them. They are one pink feather from being a flock of galahs, that mob. All of you together resist the legislation that comes through this place time and time again. You resist, in a bloc, legislation that would benefit these great people of the west of our country, who underpin the great wealth that you, your families and your communities enjoy. If they were not there, you would not have anything to eat or anything to wear or a floor to walk on. You would not have a tin roof to keep the rain off your heads. So I intend to keep your feet to the flames and expose you for your resistance to country Australia.

 

It is always a pleasure, might I say, to speak on an MPI on a subject put up by the Greens. It makes it very simple. Very little research is required, because the response you can give to their contribution is the same very time. This anti-development party, anti-employment party, is a party will go to extreme lengths to prevent the development of economies in regional and rural Australia in particular, where resources and, in this case, the Adani mine will be developed. Of course, the Greens were supported by the metro-based Labor senators from the state of Queensland. Every one of the colleagues on the other side have an office in Queen Street—nobody has an office in regional Queensland—and they want to do things that will impact on the economies of communities that are thousands of kilometres away from where they are, places they rarely visit.

Let us have a look at the impacts of the policies of the Labor Party and the Greens in their efforts to date. They have been particularly successful. We have lost 14,000 jobs in Central Queensland in the coal industry, not directly from coal employees but from businesses and others who are there whose whole welfare in life exists around the development of the coal industry. I look to places like Emerald. If only my Labor colleagues were present, though I have one of our Queensland Greens senators here. Emerald is a small community that is west of Rockhampton. If you are ever inclined, you should go up the Cap Highway until you get to Rockhampton and then turn left—there are no other deviations—and you will find yourself in the centre of the township of Emerald. It is a fine place. I used to own a property not far from there—a farm that we had.

I bet you London to a brick that you will never go to Emerald. But, if you do, I bet that you wear a false moustache, because you will not want the good people of Emerald to recognise you—with 600 vacant houses in the community and unemployment rates nearly double that which you enjoy out the window of your office and where you live. Communities like Emerald have gone into depression because of the efforts of the Greens and the Australian Labor Party to prevent the development of industries in regional Queensland.

It is a remarkable thing for a party like the Labor Party, who live on the back of union support, to be anti-union with respect to the development of these 14,000 jobs that are on the table in Central Queensland. It defies logic. Slowly but surely, and sadly for them, the coalition are becoming the party of the workers, particularly as you get into the resource industry. They are looking to us now. They are looking to us to nourish their lives. They still put money into your coffers and the coffers of the Australian Labor Party, but that is slowly changing. In my home state a couple of private unions have performed. People are voting with their feet; they are moving across. I think the nurses union is getting 80 or 90 new memberships a day in my home state.

I invite you—and I am happy to put it onto my tab; our offices can liaise—and I invite all the senators from the Labor Party and any senators from the Greens, particularly the Queensland senator, to join me. We will have a good couple of days. We will kick back and we will have the odd stubbie in Blackwater, Emerald and Alpha, and places. These economies are depressed and they will remain depressed until we stimulate them with the proper development of this Adani mine resource.

We have 400 kilometres of rail line to be built that they are suggesting that somehow the government is doing for this company without any form of return. The cost-benefit analysis has been done. The stimulus that it will give to Central Queensland and all the way through to the port at Bowen will be enormous. It will have a flow-on effect that will last for decades. Generations of people will have job opportunities up there as a result of this investment. For Senator Chisholm to cast aspersions on the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator Canavan, and somehow suggest that his support and the processes involved in trying to get this project up have happened in the shadows and that no-one is following the script is complete and absolute nonsense.

We know that units of the Greens party in Australia have taken these people to court. These Newcastle based environmental activist groups funded by corporate money from the United States have been taken to court. Every single facet of this project has been thoroughly and transparently examined not only in the court system but in the public. I can tell you the jury has come in—the jury of Mackay and the jury of Townsville, where unemployment is almost at 10 per cent when the national figure is 5.9 per cent. These are depressed economies that want this project to happen.

If you think about it, there is not a business or a service in Central Queensland, all the way from Townsville down to Gladstone, that does not have a real interest in this. This is a massive part of our home state. I remind you that no senators other than our party, the coalition government, have senators in these areas. We have Senator Macdonald in Townsville. We have Senator Canavan in Rockhampton. That was done deliberately so that we could spread our representatives across the state so that we could get on top of what our communities want in terms of development and progress for their economies.

It really is insulting to hear Senator Chisholm and our friends in the Greens come into this place and endeavour to influence decisions that will impact on the hundreds of thousands of people and families in this massive area of my home state without one thought for their welfare. Senator Roberts raised a good point. There are those in this place who are absolute bleeding hearts. They would like to see us develop tofu farms and injured animal hospitals all the way through Central Queensland rather than invest in something that will provide a job. They put a lot of time and effort into saving the blue-winged parrot and a possum that I cannot pronounce, yet there is not one regard for the hundreds of millions of people in India who are endeavouring to pull themselves out of poverty.

I know it does not affect Labor or the Greens. You can look out of your office and look out of your house down on your mown lawn, but you do not have any regard for these people because you do not understand these economies. Our government tried to give some tax relief. Mind you, those opposite lost sight of the fact that this is the money and the business. They own it and all we wanted to do was to take a bit less. They think it is some sort of tax break that we are gifting them out of the Australian purse. That is not what is happening. We just wanted to take a bit less. We know what they do with it.

I say to those opposite—and I have said this in here before and no-one has ever protested or corrected me—none of you have ever employed anybody. You have never put your hand in your own pocket and pulled out your own money to pay wages or to promote the development of any industry or any business anywhere in my home state—not one of you. When you put your hand in your pocket you have got someone else’s money. I tell you now that you are ignorant to what it takes to drive regional economies.

We have had a lot of depression in my home state. We have had a battle because the mob over here decided to knock out the live cattle trade. That absolutely devastated thousands of business enterprises in the middle of a drought, which no-one wants to support. No-one wants to support us to support those people in drought conditions. Here is a serious opportunity for us to develop an area where the impacts on our national interests will be very positive. It will put much into the purse of the nation, so that we can continue to invest in supporting business and regional and provincial communities so that they can employ people.

When they all get a job they can spend their spare time going out to find your wounded possums, strap their legs up, take them home, put them on the teat and try to save them, but until then you have to start to consider supporting this government as we support these industries and as we promote the development of this wonderful state of ours—in my case, the state of Queensland. The invitation stands for all of my Senate colleagues on the other side, including those in the Greens, who I doubt have ever been outside the CBD of Brisbane. Give my office a bell. I will make myself available to take you for a run and to introduce you to some of these people. I cannot guarantee your safety and I cannot guarantee that I will get you home, but the offer stands.