David Littleproud, Liberal National Party
1. What is your stance on climate change and your policies regarding it?
The Liberal National Government’s emissions target is sensible and achievable, protecting traditional jobs while creating new clean energy jobs.
I’m proud as Agriculture Minister to have created a world first Biodiversity Stewardship program that will pay farmers not just for carbon abatement but biodiversity. The budget introduced tax incentives for farmers to participate worth nearly $100m that will go back to farmers and regional communities. The government has also introduced protections within this program so that productive agricultural land is not locked up to protect regional communities.
We’ll achieve our emissions target through technology, not taxes.
2. How do you plan on ensuring the safety of the roads in the Southern Downs?
Our record $120 billion, 10-year infrastructure investment program is helping Australians get home sooner and safer. This includes more than $33 billion over the next four years to make our roads safer.
In the Southern Downs, projects like the $20 million Eight Mile Intersection Upgrade and the $22.4 Cunningham Highway Safety Upgrade are under way.
Locally, Southern Downs Council identifies their priority road projects and the Liberal National Government makes funding available – $6.6 million annually for Financial Assistance Grants for local road priorities, along with over $9.4 million in Roads to Recovery funding.
3. What are your policies regarding the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)?
The Liberal National Government has fully funded the NDIS with $33.9 billion this year and $157 billion over the forward estimates – compared to just $8 billion spent on disability support before the NDIS.
We’ve worked to reduce the red tape; successfully passed the Participant Service Guarantee to set new standards for shorter timeframes for participants’ engagement with the NDIS; improved the Supported Independent Living Home and Living supports process to ensure participants benefit from faster decision-making; and made it easier to access Assistive Technology (AT) up to the value of $15,000.
With zero tolerance for fraud, we’ve also established a dedicated NDIS Fraud Taskforce to protect participants and their carers.
4. How will you combat the rising cost of living?
The Liberal National Government has an economic plan to help families with cost of living pressures when they need it most – cuts to the fuel excise, saving 22 cents per litre; tax cuts are helping more than 53,300 people in Maranoa to save $2,745; apprentices and trainees in priority occupations will receive $5,000 to offset training costs; changes to the child care subsidy so that families with two or more children aged under five, will save on average $2,260 a year; and more older Australians will have access to more affordable health care and medications to help ease cost of living pressures under changes to the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card.
5. What are your policies regarding the Ag Visa?
The agriculture industry is worth a record $81 billion this financial year with exports to peak at $64 billion. I’ve implemented the biggest-ever structural reform of this workforce with the introduction of the Australian Agriculture Visa, to provide farmers with medium and long-term certainty about their workforce.
The Government will continue to sign up countries to the Australian Agriculture Visa Program, building on the agreement with Vietnam and will also continue to support our Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme that played such a vital role for our primary industries through the pandemic.
6. How will you and your party support our growers, given the rising costs of production?
Only the Liberal National Government has a plan to help our primary industries achieve their goal of reaching $100 billion output by 2030. The plan includes delivering and expanding the Ag Visa program.
Our Government is committed to securing the water our farmers need: $168.5 million to help build Emu Swamp Dam and $790,240 to support the Warwick Recycled Water for Agriculture Project.
An additional $10.9 million allocation for horticultural netting will help growers to protect produce from pests and weather.
Other supports include improved access to agricultural chemicals through an investment of $25.7 million to 2025; and the Fuel Tax Credits Scheme – ensuring agricultural businesses are not disadvantaged by paying excise on the off-road use of diesel in the production of their goods.
