Dear Friends,
Gillard’s legacy: another year older & deeper in debt
The last 12 months have been a shameful chapter in the governance of this country’s affairs. It has been a period punctuated by lies, stuff-ups and contempt for the Australian people.
The litany of policy failures since the Prime Minister seized power – most profoundly abuses against the trust of Australian voters – mark this occasion and are forever etched in the psyche of our people.
It is regional Australia that has been dudded the most.
The ‘new paradigm’ touted by the Independents that handed government to Labor has failed abysmally. Even Independent MP Bob Katter has publicly declared that the Independents have failed to deliver anything for regional Australians.
But the Gillard government’s record speaks for itself.
Mining Tax
The mining tax hangs like a sword over the heads of entire regional communities. The uncertainty and the confusion caused by the government’s chopping and changing has already deterred investment and circumvented sound business decision making.
Jobs in regional areas will go. Our international competitiveness will be diminished
It is a kick in the teeth for regional Australia that the $800 million for regional projects promised under the 2011-12 federal budget is contingent mining tax revenue.
That’s a lose-lose for the regions. If the tax does not pass through the parliament, those projects will not proceed. If the tax does pass, regional communities will lose jobs and economic prosperity created by mining developments and mineral processing.
Even so, over half of the $800 million provided in Labor’s Regional Fund ($450 million precisely) has been allocated to the roads around Perth Airport – hardly what I would call regional Australia.
Even worse, the Minister for Regional Australia Simon Crean has declared that even more of the money will be spent in the cities.
Carbon Tax
The proposed carbon tax will hit regional Australia hardest. Recent research by the Australian Farm Institute exposes that an average grain farm in Western Australia will be up to $37,000-a-year worse off under a carbon price of $36 a tonne – and that’s even if agriculture is excluded from the carbon regime.
Farmers drive $155 billion a year in production and $32 billion in annual exports and support 1.6 million jobs. That is a lot to sacrifice on the altar of a carbon tax.
It confirms what farmers and their communities instinctively know: that even the indirect costs will make many farms unviable. Regional people will carry a bigger burden under the carbon tax simply because they have to travel further and their costs will, therefore, be compounded.
And the Prime Minister said: ‘There’ll be no carbon tax under a government I lead.’
Those words will live in infamy and will haunt this government to its electoral grave.
NBN
Labor’s NBN is another fiasco and setback for regional Australians, with $50 billion being spent with no cost/benefit analysis and taxpayers now forced to foot the bill so Telstra can scrap its copper network.
The government is boasting that it is going to pay $12 billion to Optus and Telstra to close down their network. How is that a good investment in infrastructure in this country?
Ironically, under our OPEL plan most regional Australians would have access to high-speed broadband right now.
In fact, Labor specifically excludes people who live in regional areas from its commitment to high-speed broadband – they have to depend on wireless or satellite. That’s another two-speed economy: one for the city and a second-class service for people in regional Australia.
Live Cattle To Indonesia
The bungling of the live cattle export issue is another example of Labor’s incompetence. Labor ignored the warnings and then was panicked into a decision without any plan for the future.
The situation has degenerated into a diplomatic gaffe of growing proportions, which is standing in the way of this trade restarting at all. Around 13,000 direct Australian jobs are at risk and an estimated 17,000 more in allied industries. We must salvage the relationship if we are to restart the trade.
The Indonesians are already in contact with other countries to supply them with live animals and there are indications that our current boxed meat quota may also be cut – with the Indonesians preference now for anything except Australian product.
Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig’s visit to Indonesia was a debacle. He failed to achieve anything and the poisonous nature of the current relationship demands that the Prime Minister dispatch Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd to mend bridges.
Given the government’s bungling, all we’re left with is hope that the $320 million-a-year trade with an important neighbour can be restored.
The cattlemen and women of northern Australia are in great distress, and this government has no plan whatsoever to help them through this crisis.
Yet another example of a government that has failed all Australians and, particularly, regional Australians.
Economic Mismanagement
All the while, we’re another year older and deeper in debt.
The final insult to injury for regional Australians is that despite enjoying the most positive terms of trade in Australian history – 90% higher than the average we had through the 1990s – and inheriting $70 billion in net assets, Labor is plunging us all towards $107 billion of net debt.
That means today we will borrow another $135 million to pay our bills, the same again tomorrow and the next day and so on.
Labor’s economic ineptitude took a $20 billion Coalition surplus and deftly turned it into a $50 billion deficit.
As anniversaries go, there’s not much to celebrate.
Kind regards,
Warren Truss MP
Leader of The Nationals
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