Mr LAWLER (2:18 PM) —My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Since it is now 12 months since the government staged the groundbreaking Regional Australia Summit at the instigation of the Deputy Prime Minister, would the minister outline to the House what action has been taken by the government in response to recommendations from the summit? How will this action enhance the social and economic wellbeing of people living in rural, regional and remote areas, and is the Deputy Prime Minister aware of any alternative policies?

Mr ANDERSON (Deputy Prime Minister) —I thank the honourable member for his question. The government has listened and has acted. We have listened very carefully to the concerns of regional Australia, both in terms of what we glean when we move around rural and regional Australia and also in terms of what was put to us at the summit last year. We have been acting in comprehensive and decisive ways to meet the concerns wherever we can legitimately help make a real difference.

I mention last Friday's very successful launch of the $90 million Regional Solutions Program. It is carefully designed to respond directly to requests from the summit for flexible partnership arrangements to help in areas of real disadvantage. It has been very, very widely welcomed by everybody—except, of course, the carping opposition spokesman in this area—including the NFF, who made a point of saying that it offered the prospect of making a very real difference to people in disadvantaged areas.

There has also been the announcement of the $700 million national action plan for salinity and water quality. One of the issues that was consistently highlighted at the summit was the need to ensure a more rapid transition to greater sustainability in agricultural land use and production in this country. There has also been the announcement of the $240 million stronger families and communities strategy, again addressing a very real need, specifically identified at the summit.

There has also been the $1.8 billion package announced in the last federal budget. In that was the $562 million `more doctors, better services' package, which has been referred to in this place by my good friend and colleague the Minister for Health and Aged Care. That is a very valuable set of initiatives designed to address the policy failure by those opposite to ensure that we had sufficient quantity, in particular, of training in medicine for rural children, because they are the kids who, having completed their training, will go and practise in rural and regional Australia and make a difference. Under that program we have, for example, amongst many other initiatives, a new bonded scholarship scheme for medical students who agree to practise in rural areas. We have doubled the number of rural Australian medical undergraduate scholarships, giving country students access to the same opportunities.

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr ANDERSON —We hear interjections from the other side, but we are addressing their policy failure in this most critical area of rural and regional Australians' health. There was the announcement just the other day of the extension of the full Medicare rebate to GP services provided by OMPs—other medical practitioners. There was the increased discount for farm and business assets from 50 per cent to 75 per cent under the youth allowance family assets test; increased funding for students who live away from home through the Assistance for Isolated Children scheme; the $309 million extension of Agriculture Advancing Australia, taking it to around an $800 million initiative; support for the Year of the Outback; and meeting our commitment to better coordinate state, local and federal government initiatives between the three spheres of government. There has been the expansion of the Community Development Employment Program. There has been the setting up of the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal, which has now announced its first round of funding initiatives. The most cursory and honest glance at what we have done in the last 12 months by those in rural and regional Australia reflects a rich and diversified response to the needs of rural and regional Australia.

I was asked, in part of that question, was I aware of any alternative policies. Am I aware of any alternative policies? The fact is that we have heard of only one. We have not heard its name mentioned for a while, as the Treasurer has pointed out. It is `roll-back'. That is the only one we have heard of. When it comes to roll-back in rural and regional Australia we have a very real understanding of what it means, because we saw the greatest single roll-back of opportunity in rural and regional Australia in the history of the country under Labor in the eighties and the nineties—the greatest ever roll-back of opportunity ever seen in rural and regional Australia under this lot opposite. The fact is that their record is a disgraceful one. They sucked the lifeblood out of rural and regional Australia. You sucked the lifeblood out of the place with high interest rates, with high inflation and with—what has been referred to in this place today already—such approaches as a 500 per cent increase in fuel excise. Let us not forget that. There was a 500 per cent increase in fuel excise from these hypocrites opposite in the time that they were in power. That is what it was: 500 per cent.

All we have opposite is a shadow spokesman who offers no alternative policy—nothing. We have seen no policy at all—none—from the member for Batman. We have seen no vision. We see no hope at all offered to rural and regional Australia. All we see is carping, misinformed and mean spirited criticism. That is all we get—absolute drivel from Labor's spokesman from the region. He cannot even match the New South Wales Premier. The New South Wales Premier, Bob Carr, was actually able to say in February this year on the Howard Sattler program that, `We got working with the federal government.' He was talking about the regions. He said, `I give them part of the credit.' But could the member for Batman actually manage to acknowledge the value of anything we have done, let alone put up a policy proposal that might be positive in its own right? The answer is no.