David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Trade and Investment) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to totally refute the aspersions made by the member for Ballarat. The Building Better Regions Fund has been the lifeblood for many local government councils in regional Australia and reflects the geography of Australia and their representations.

It's interesting; the coalition seats cover five million square kilometres. Labor has 1.5 million square kilometres of Australian country that it represents, and one seat, Lingiari, which covers 1.35 million square kilometres of it. In this huge, wide, brown land called Australia, there are Labor Party members representing 130 square kilometres around Australia. So it's no wonder more of the seats went to regional areas!

The member for Shortland didn't worry about getting $10 million for the Hunter Sports Centre, or the member for Cunningham—I think it's now called a different name—when it got $1 million for the Wollongong Regional Tennis Hub. The members for Solomon and Lingiari both claimed credit for getting the SWELL Centre, which is a $5 million swimming, wellness and leisure centre up there in Palmerston. Nor did the member for Lyons complain about a $625,000 playground upgrade or the Derwent Valley Health and Wellbeing Hub for $3.7 million. Gee—I mean, hypocrites! The seat of Bendigo covers 5,280 square kilometres. The members for Mallee and Maranoa, between them—Mallee has 83,00 square kilometres, so obviously they have many more local government areas; Maranoa has 70 local government areas and 730,000 square kilometres.

In the last decade, the amount of investment going into regional Australia has been second to none. In infrastructure, you've only got to look at these megaprojects that the coalition has championed, like finally completing the Pacific Highway upgrade, a $5.5 billion project. Under the Building Better Regions Fund, there are the amounts going into really good infrastructure and community and social projects—there's just short of a thousand of them—in regional Australia. The last round will be supporting 9,900 jobs during construction of these projects. They are critical to regional areas, which have local governments that are really stretched. They have huge populations, huge areas to cover—not like inner-city electorates; some of them you could ride around in two hours on a pushbike. The member for Parkes's electorate is bigger than Germany. The member for Maranoa's is even bigger. Of the members in South Australia, O'Connor is absolutely massive. That is why there is a sway towards regional Australia with these funds.

We have really helped connectivity in physical infrastructure. Just think of all the funds into regional infrastructure. Roads to Recovery has been expanded. There's the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program. There's the Mobile Phone Black Spot Program. Do you know how many mobile phone black spots the ALP did when they were in government? How many mobile phone towers did they supply? The answer is zero. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, there are 1,270 new or upgraded mobile phone towers around the country because of that program. I would like to thank the former member for Cowper, the Hon. Luke Hartsuyker; that was his policy brainchild, and it has transformed mobile phone coverage in regional Australia.

We have supported small businesses, which are the lifeblood of employment in regional Australia. The small business tax rate is now down to 25 per cent. For unincorporated businesses, their tax offset has gone from 13 per cent to 16 per cent. In my own electorate, I've got over 10,500 small businesses that benefited from this lowering of the small business tax rate, before COVID struck.

In regional Australia, home building has been given a massive boost because of the HomeBuilder program, and we have really powered up apprenticeship training with our wage subsidies for new apprentices. There were 100,000 that benefited from this program in the first couple of rounds, and, during COVID, that number has grown to potentially another 170,000 subsidised apprenticeships.

We have established regional university centres around Australia, including the Taree Universities Campus. It started just over a year ago and it has already got 85 people utilising that centre to remotely gather and study together and do a university degree that they didn't have before. But they're in other places like Griffith and Goulburn, also in Maranoa, and in other areas around the country—over in WA and in South Australia. It's been transformational, giving people a chance to do a university degree with support, rather than doing it on their kitchen table, with difficulty, after hours. Many of the people doing it are first in family to get a university degree started, let alone finished. In terms of completion rates, these programs really give people a major benefit—because it is a hard slog if you're doing distance education and working.

There are other things that we've done—in agriculture, for instance. In the 10 years that the member for Ballarat was complaining about, in agriculture we have supported and developed the Future Drought Fund. There's the farm household allowance. People maybe have got a big farm worth a lot of money. They're asset rich but cash poor, because owning the land doesn't give you an income. In the worst drought that we've lived through in a hundred years, that farm household allowance has been a lifesaver.

We've developed the mandatory code of conduct for the dairy industry and, likewise, the sugar code of conduct. We've got the Made in Australia label showing the country of origin, where foodstuff comes from, so the food that we produce gets a premium. We've developed sustainability for agriculture. We've developed a soil strategy for keeping our soils rich so that farmers can take part in soil carbon and Australian carbon credit units. Our free trade agreements have turbocharged our food and fibre exports. As I say, there is so much we have done for regional Australia.

We've also been supporting modern technology to address climate change in the agriculture space. We're doing practical things in this road map that actually make a difference and include increased productivity. Methane biodigesters are being supported in the technology space. That can be applied to dairies because with dairy, obviously, cattle cluster in one area so you can use their excrement to recycle and develop fertilisers, clear water and develop energy sources. The Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia today mentioned research into various seaweeds and asparagopsis species. If you turn those into pellets they reduce methane in bovines. That is technology that we are exploring to see if it's applicable.

All these things are really critical in supporting regional Australia, but cherry picking support for regional councils, which are the major beneficiaries of all these great programs—we look after regional councils, because they are really important in regional Australia. The metropolitan councils have huge rates bases and little road infrastructure. We have been supporting the delivery of water infrastructure, with dams being built. We have given money to the states to get forward and get cracking on delivering extra water for agriculture and industry and for population growth. We have a decentralisation agenda. We have a minister dedicated to regional development. We've delivered the Inland Rail, which is going to improve freight between Melbourne and Sydney and all those regional areas. It will have a freight line going directly into Brisbane, and we are arguing to get it done up to Gladstone. They have all been done because the National Party is in this building, realising that if we get the right infrastructure, if we get connectivity—we've got the Sky Muster satellite up there through the NBN that's been given a double amount of extra capability—so internet connectivity, physical connectivity, infrastructure, tax treatment—you name it. Social and capital infrastructure in regional Australia is second to none and by the National Party.

See this speech in context