One year of Rudd Labor and Australia is worse off
23rd November, 2008
Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the election of the Rudd Labor Government, and there can be few if any Australians who would claim to be better off after 12 months of reviews, symbolism and empty headlines, the Leader of The Nationals Warren Truss said today.“If it was the Prime Minister’s intention to promote media interest above the national interest, then he certainly gets 10 out of 10 on his report card,” Mr Truss said.
“We have seen him declare war on everything from inflation and unemployment to whaling and skinny models. Apologies have been made and treaties ratified, international groups have been promoted and more than 140 reviews started.
“But we have not seen the sort of confident and coherent leadership Australia needs during a very challenging time. Labor has spent the year talking down the strong economy it inherited from the Coalition, taking consumer and business confidence with it, and Mr Rudd is failing as the economy’s custodian.
“A record Budget surplus is on the verge of disappearing, with so little to show for it. Transport projects have been deferred or scrapped in an effort to protect the bottom line, but communities are paying the price of poorer road and rail links.
“One ‘war’ that Mr Rudd has not mentioned is his unofficial war on rural and regional Australia. More than $1 billion was cut from country areas in the first Budget, and senior ministers have spent considerable time attacking the Coalition’s funding of good and much-needed infrastructure projects in local communities. Agricultural research stations have been closed.
“The use of taxpayer’s money to purchase Toorale Station near Bourke has not received big coverage in the cities, but if it is used as a template for more water buybacks then all Australians are going to see the sharp end of the global debate on food security.
“This once productive farm will be turned into a national park so the Government can access its water entitlements. However, the drought has meant there is nothing to access for the stressed Murray-Darling river system.
“The Coalition provided $6 billion for Labor to use to support on and off farm water efficiency measures, so that farmers, consumers and the environment would all win. But nothing has been done under Labor.
“Labor is also hell-bent on introducing an emissions trading scheme by 2010, which would proportionally hit regional Australia harder than the cities. Moving ahead of the rest of the world would be folly of the highest order.
“The bungling of the bank deposit guarantees has had flow-on effects such as freezing retirees’ living allowances and threatening the future of smaller financial institutions and small businesses such as car dealers.
“Promises to reduce cost of living pressures have come to naught, while the pre-election pledge to have the ‘the buck stop’ with him on the nation’s health system was a commitment Mr Rudd just does not want to meet.
“I genuinely wish I could give Mr Rudd and his team a better report card. Although Mr Rudd has done well in creating diversion and distraction, he has failed on the things that really matter to Australians,” Mr Truss said.
