Andrew Gee (Calare, National Party, Minister for Decentralisation and Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

We've grown the regionally based Public Service workforce from 12 per cent to 14 per cent. We all know that this budget was the budget that saved Australia.

Opposition members interjecting—

It was—it was a historic budget for regional Australia. In this budget we also saw the first elements of the government's new decentralisation agenda emerging, taking further steps down the path first blazed by Black Jack McEwen and those great National Party members of the past.

We know, and the member for Mallee knows, that COVID-19 has brought great heartache and pain to Australia and Australian communities, but one thing it has shown is that people can work productively from home, and if you can work productively from home in the suburbs of the big cities, it's only a short hop, skip and jump over the Great Dividing Range where you can work in the country. This budget invested $41 million to support businesses to relocate to regional Australia. This investment—

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