Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's no wonder that Australians are so disheartened by the state of Australian politics at the moment, when they hear the sort of contribution that we've just heard from the member for Herbert. Regrettably, what the Labor Party does is make a whole lot of claims—I would have to say very untruthful claims—about cuts to schools, cuts to health. It goes on and on and on. We just heard the member for Herbert say that we're imposing the Medicare rebate freeze. Let me say very clearly to the member for Herbert that it was the Labor Party which imposed a freeze on the indexation of the Medicare rebate. We are lifting that freeze. So that is an absolutely unmitigated untruth from the member for Herbert, and that is the standard and calibre of the contribution we have from the Labor Party.

We've heard very little from the Labor Party today about how it would stand up for regional Australia. As we know, Labor's plan is all about imposing more than $200 billion of taxes over 10 years on nearly every aspect of the economy—and we saw the Leader of the Opposition on television the other day looking for a handbrake. The only handbrake he would be looking for is a handbrake on the Australian economy, because that's what would happen if Labor were elected. We know that because we can see that Labor is planning to impose considerable taxes on electricity. Capital gains tax would go up. There would be increased taxes on family trusts, on housing, and of course on our retirees and pensioners—on self-funded retirees, with the shocking retiree tax, which is the single biggest tax that would be imposed on Australians.

We've heard very little about infrastructure from the Labor Party today in this MPI. If I look at and consider what's going on in my electorate of Corangamite, we are rolling out massive investments, not just in regional roads but also in rail. That's happening across the nation under a $75 billion infrastructure plan. I say shame on the Labor Party for the way in which it is failing to fund rail in the Corangamite electorate. We have actually announced and committed $254 million to upgrade local rail, and we have received a very small proportion of funding from the state Labor government—only $20 million. It took two years to create a business plan. There is no plan, no construction—it is an absolute joke. The member for New England rightly called out the member for Hunter, who was in the chamber before, for slinking out of the chamber. When the member for Hunter was in charge back in 2008, along with the member for Corio, he presided over one of the worst economic decisions for our region, which was to stop Avalon Airport building an international terminal. That was an absolutely disgraceful decision for our region. Proudly, we are now building, with $20 million announced in this year's budget, an international terminal, creating Victoria's second international airport at Avalon.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you know, we're rolling out a program with $245 million to combat mobile black spots around the country, including 18 in Corangamite, and I'm fighting for more mobile base stations for Teesdale, Armstrong Creek and Moggs Creek.

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