Damian Drum (Murray, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I can proudly say that I am talking to this motion and I am certainly not ashamed of myself. I think this is an opportunity to stand up and tell the parliament and the people of Australia what is happening in my electorate in relation to a whole range of infrastructure projects, tertiary education, employment and business opportunities, and initiatives that are going to drive amenity in my area and certainly be a rolled-gold advertisement for what a government can do when it simply puts its nose to the grindstone and gets things done.

We campaigned fiercely on a strategy of jobs and economic growth. The $20 million Regional Jobs and Investment Package that has been put forward by Senator Fiona Nash has garnered a lot of interest in my electorate. The Hume region and the Goulburn Valley region are going to be very active players in this space. Last Friday representatives of 13 local government areas, the Committee for Greater Shepparton, the Committee for Echuca Moama and local RDA representatives were all there to give advice and their opinion on how this $20 million can best be spent. Collectively this is some of the best regional development acumen that we have. They were brought together to work out the best use of the funding for further growth in regional jobs.

In relation to infrastructure in the electorate, there is a $97 million commitment from the federal government to go with the commitments from the Victorian and New South Wales governments to the Echuca-Moama bridge, which is a vital piece of infrastructure that is going to give the local transport industries a real boost and provide great amenity for the river towns of Echuca and Moama into the future. That is a flagship project in my area that has been waiting somewhere around 40 to 50 years for funding, and it is Darren Chester and the Nationals who have led that charge to get that funding allocated for that area.

Another project in relation to water development is the $20 million for the mid-west pipeline based around Wedderburn, linking the Grampians system to the Goulburn-Murray system. It is an amazing piece of infrastructure. There is going to be hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of pipeline linking up and proving secure high-quality water to around 600 to 700 residences, many of them active farms and also some lifestyle properties as well. There is $20 million from the federal government into this pipeline project, which is for communities that have been waiting 20 and 30 years and have never had secure water in the past. Also there are some significant road upgrades to the Goulburn Valley Highway and the arterial route around Shepparton. Some very dangerous roundabouts are going to be fixed, building on the road safety issue.

When we want to have a comparison between how the coalition goes about its work and how a potential Labor government would go about its work, all you have to do is look at the Victorian Labor Party, and you will see the sheer hundreds of millions of dollars that have been ripped out of the roads budgets over the last two years—$160 million in local roads and bridges. That project was just abandoned by the Andrews government. That funding was given to local governments so that each council could spend, on average, $4 million per year on their local roads and bridges. That was just abandoned. We have had this incredible desire to spend every available piece of income in Melbourne and a total abandonment of regional Victoria by the Andrews government. So, if we want to know how the Labor Party might potentially act if it ever had the opportunity to govern, we simply have to look at the fights that have been picked between Daniel Andrews and the CFA. It has been a disgraceful term in office whose impacts are still being felt on a daily basis. In comparison, we have had the way that Barnaby Joyce was able to jump in and assist the dairy industry in times of crisis, and thank goodness we have the packages available.

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