Country Australia takes $1 billion hit in Labor’s first Budget - Rural Australians are working famil
13th May, 2008
Kevin Rudd said on election night that Labor would govern “for all Australians” – tonight seven million regional Australians discovered they don’t count in Labor’s eyes.In three key areas – regional development, communications and agriculture – Labor has stripped more than $1 billion from regional and rural Australia, said the Leader of The Nationals, Warren Truss.
Labor has abolished the Regional Partnerships and Growing Regions programs, saving $436 million, but it has only put $176 million back for regional development. All of that funding is already committed to Labor’s election promises and there will be no new money for regional projects until late 2009 (just in time for the next election campaign).
Existing agricultural programs worth $334 million have been replaced with those worth only $220 million, nearly all of which relate to climate change.
Labor has provided no funding for an alternative to the decision to scrap the Opel contract ($959 million) for providing fast broadband to all Australians. Labor has only extended the Coalition’s Broadband Guarantee, which will cost $271 million – this is not adequate to meet rural, regional and remote communication needs.
Labor’s commitment for road and rail funding will be at least $10 billion less than what was promised by the Coalition. Money allocated to the Building Australia Fund will not be available for projects for some years and most of the money previously allocated for this year will be shifted into planning only.
“Tonight’s first Labor Budget in 13 years demolishes much of the good work the past 12 Coalition budgets did for rural and regional Australia.
“Treasurer Wayne Swan has produced a Budget of Confusion. It is a Budget that Labor says will fight inflation but introduces new inflationary taxes. It is a Budget that Labor says will build new infrastructure but decisions won’t be made for years.
“It is meant to be a Budget to address skills shortages yet skills building programs have been cut or abolished. Regional programs that created and maintained jobs in some of the nation’s most hard-pressed communities have been abolished.
“Labor has inherited an economy that is the envy of the world, but it is so caught up with its short term slogans that it has created a visionless mess.
“Labor said it would keep Regional Partnerships but has now axed 116 vital projects approved by the Coalition before the election. These include community centres, hospitals, support for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, sporting facilities and surf rescue boats.
“Labor says the program is a pork barrel, yet none of these individual projects have ever been criticised. Labor even supported many of them during the election campaign.
“Labor has even squibbed on projects it said it would fund. But Mr Swan has managed to find more than $2.5 million to honour a now dead tree in Barcaldine that marked the spot where the ALP was born in the 1890s.
“This first Labor Budget will do nothing to lower fuel and grocery prices. It will do nothing to help people keep their homes, do nothing to shorten hospital queues, and do nothing to boost plummeting business and consumer confidence,” Mr Truss said.
