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

To have the Labor Party effectively put forward a motion accusing the government of focusing on itself doesn't quite ring true when you look around regional Australia, certainly when you look at the National Party, at my colleagues and their electorates—I'm sure Liberal Party seats would be no different. What are we doing here? We're coming to Canberra so that we can meet with our ministers so that we can bring home the projects and programs that we need for our people. When you look around the seat of Nicholls, you can see that the Echuca-Moama bridge has just been completed. That's not a government focused on itself; that's a government focused on a project that needed to be built for the last 60 years. We've gone and built it. It's an investment of over $130 million just from the federal government but also with $100 million from Victoria and $100 million from New South Wales. We got that project built.

We've got $208 million sitting on the table to get the Shepparton bypass started. That's not a government focused on itself; that's a government focused on what our people need. When you drive into Shepparton, you'll see a couple of enormous museums. One is the Museum of Vehicle Evolution, which has an incredible history of cars, trucks, motorbikes and a whole range of other fantastic items. Then you drive a little bit further on and you'll see the Shepparton Art Museum. They're huge investments by this government, giving that region what it needs as its most important projects.

We've got $5 million going into a new building for La Trobe University on the city campus in Shepparton. It's a fantastic project. One of our most liked and respected organisations, ConnectGV, has just been able to build a brand-new home for people in the Goulburn Valley who are dealing with disabilities. This federal government has provided them with $2.5 million for a new home there.

We've also got a rail upgrade going into the Shepparton and Seymour area. There will be $400 million of this federal government's funding, put through the Victorian government, to upgrade that rail line, which has been left behind by the Victorian Labor Party. The Victorian Labor government have done up the Bendigo line, the Ballarat line and the Geelong line, but they have left the Shepparton line. We had four services a day. This federal government putting money into that line will see nine services a day. It's not as good as those other areas, but effectively an incredible change is coming as a result of a government that's prepared to look at the connectivity that we need so that we can get better access into Melbourne with our rail services.

As you drive through Mooroopna, you'll see this incredible new building there, where the federal government has invested in the fruit industry. It's one of the leading industries in the Goulburn Valley, and here's an opportunity for that industry to move into the modern age with a world-class sorting process that's going to take hundreds and hundreds of photographs of every piece of fruit that will go in there. That fruit will be flicked left, right, dropped down, moved across and graded by size, shape, colour and blemishes. This is the type of technology that this federal government has invested in with the industry, to drive that industry and to make it even more competitive on the world market.

This government has also invested in the CBD of Shepparton, right in the heart of the Goulburn Valley. Many regional cities around Australia have malls that don't really work, that have become unsavoury places, as their centre point. Shepparton is going to implement slow-moving traffic, thanks to an $8 million grant from this government to give the CBD of Shepparton what it needs. Many cities around Australia will be looking at this project to see whether or not it works; to see whether or not this courageous decision by the CBD, by the chamber of commerce, by the council—with the support of the federal government—can actually create slow-moving traffic with a whole raft of parking options in Shepparton; to see if that has the capacity to build the pedestrian traffic and make it easier for the shoppers. This is something that is incredibly important.

I can just keep reading through the list of all the works that we've been working on as hard as we possibly can. We come to Canberra. We talk to the ministers. We get back into our electorates and give our communities what they need. That's not looking at ourselves; that's looking at our people. (Time expired.)

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