Nationals’ opening statement

October 15, 2007, 2:49pm,  191 views

Here is the opening statement of the election campaign from Nationals leader Mark Vaile:

The Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of The Nationals, Mark Vaile, today welcomed the formal start of the 2007 Federal Election campaign and outlined the third major party’s plan to share the benefits of a strong economy with local communities.

“The Nationals in Coalition have a plan for the nation and a plan for each of its local communities that will be outlined in full before Election Day on 24 November 2007,” Mr Vaile said.

“The biggest issue facing local communities at this election is the terribly rundown state of public hospitals under the watch of the various Labor state governments.

“Our party is the only one with its heart and soul in local communities across our country. That is why our plan calls for the return of local community management of public hospitals and our plan is for a dedicated funding stream to ensure those hospitals get their fair share.

“We want a local takeover of hospitals, not more Labor bureaucratic mismanagement. We plan to train more nurses with 500 places a year for in-hospital training and we are creating more university places for doctors and providing incentives for them to work outside the capital cities.

“Labor has no real, detailed plans for our nation, but they have planned 97 inquiries and reviews and 67 new Federal bureaucracies to bog down our nation in red tape.

“Labor doesn’t know how to govern because its ranks are full of professional union officials. Our candidates and MPs come from all walks of life and work hard to get results – they have real world experience balancing budgets and creating employment – they aren’t just lawyers and union bosses.

Our plan is to responsibly manage the strong economy we’ve built, and to spread the benefits of our strong economic management to every community and family.

“Even though unemployment levels are at a 33-year low, our local communities need more job opportunities and so our plan is to expand the Sustainable Regions Programme, we have introduced the new Growing Regions Programme and we are providing more apprenticeships and training opportunities to local people.

“Labor has only ever criticised the Regional Partnerships Programme, only The Nationals in Coalition are 100% committed to this important program that funds local projects initiated by locals to address local needs.

“In contrast, Rudd Labor will cost jobs, with respected independent economic analysts Econtech warning that Labor’s plans to put union bosses in charge of small business again will cost 316,000 jobs.

“The Nationals’ plan for roads is to fast-track safety work on local roads by injecting funds directly into your local councils through Roads to Recovery and to improve the safety of our regional and interstate road networks through our new National Transport Plan – AusLink 2.

“Our vision includes a strong rail network to get more big trucks off our roads through projects like the Inland Rail link from Brisbane to Melbourne through Western NSW.

“In contrast, Rudd Labor has promised to establish a committee to review road and transport issues – putting bureaucracy before people.

Ourr plan to share the benefits of a strong economy has been to cut taxes at every opportunity and to provide assistance to working families raising children through the Family Tax Benefits system. In 2007-08, a single income couple with two children will get all of their income tax back until they earn more than $50,813.

“Keeping downward pressure on interest rates is vital to working families and you only need to look at the way state Labor governments have run up $80 billion in debt to be concerned that Federal Labor could put more pressure on interest rates.

“All of the spending we are now able to announce is only possible because we took the hard decisions to pay off Labor’s $96 billion debt – we became debt free last year and that has meant we could for the first time embark on major new initiatives like the $10 billion National Plan for Water Security.

“Current world stock market instability shows that we need to be more careful than ever before when it comes to economic management. Now is not the time to risk inexperience.

We have committed $3.5 billion to stand by farmers and give them a fighting chance of coming through this long drought.

“And we’ve committed the same amount to help prepare Australia for the challenges of climate change in a balanced way that doesn’t cost jobs and protects consumers from massive price hikes.

“The Nationals have championed policies that are creating a sustainable biofuels industry in Australia to help address greenhouse gases, to give us cleaner air and to give motorists a cheaper fuel that cuts imports.”

Mr Vaile said The Nationals in Government were delivering policies to make Australia strong, prosperous and secure – the alternative was a big risk.

“Australia’s best years are ahead of us, now that we have finally paid off the debt the last Labor Government left us with, at this election we are asking the people of Australia to give us the opportunity to show them what can be done without debt holding the country back.”