Kristy McBain (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Where?

An opposition member: East Gippsland.

East Gippsland—I'm really glad you've mentioned this. East Gippsland is where the former deputy prime minister, once or twice removed—I'm unsure—the member for New England, said he was going to fund two projects for important bushfire-affected communities. He wrote a letter to them saying, 'We've fully funded it,' but they failed to put it in the budget. That's absolutely distressing for regional communities. And I feel sorry for the member, because it is really difficult to go to communities and try to explain that your own party shafted you. The Labor Party made sure those two commitments were delivered, because it's important to back communities that have been through natural disaster.

Despite all the noise, the reality is that you supported some regions. You didn't support all of regional Australia. You can sit here and say you're here for regional Australia, but you were not. You governed via colour coded spreadsheets, by postcodes. You determined that people who were represented by other parties were not worthy of taxpayer funds. You said that funding the North Sydney pool through a regional development program, a closed-tender program which was meant to provide upgrades to women's changerooms, was the most important thing. I don't know where the National Party was then, standing up for regional Australia saying, 'How about you invest in regional pools in regional areas?' It's absolutely ridiculous.

To top it off, we've got 800 projects in an infrastructure pipeline, but not money for 800 projects in the infrastructure pipeline—great economic managers on that side of the House! 'Let's put some projects in a pipeline. Let's do some press releases. I don't want to fund them; that's someone else's job!' And local roads and community infrastructure: I hear a lot about it—it's incredibly important—is a measure that you didn't continue in the budget. Actually, on our side of politics, we added $250 million to it. Do you know what else we did? We said, 'We know how important it is for regional, rural and remote communities to deal with roads upgrades.' So, we said that round 4A was going only to those councils who needed it the most.

That is what standing up for regional Australia looks like. That doesn't mean we're going to give it to metro councils and say: 'Go for your life. I know parking fines have topped $90 million in the city of Sydney, but that's okay. Here: take some more taxpayer dollars and deal with your nice-to-have projects.' We delivered for remote communities doing it really tough. We are a government committed to working with our communities, to listening to local government. That's why we brought them back to the National Cabinet table. That's why we redelivered the Australian Council of Local Government—because we want to work with our regional communities, we want to work with all communities across the country. As I said earlier today, there are a couple of key themes across our regions. One of them, no matter where you are, is housing. Among the Far North Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils, 10 councils told me last week that housing is a priority for them, that they can't get more council workers, can't get childcare workers, can't get aged-care workers, can't get teachers or nurses, because they don't have housing.

I know those opposite get the same comments in their own communities. But they are failing to understand that they have a role to act. The Housing Australia Future Fund is one way to make sure we can get more dollars into housing supply across the country. Shepparton council backed in what all those councils across Far North Queensland said to me the following day: 'Housing is a critical shortage for us. We need houses for our fruit pickers, for chefs, because unless we get those people we cannot get a productive workforce.'

And childcare workers are an absolute essential if we are to get productivity moving in our nation. We know there is no access to child care in some regions across this country. In the Kimberley there's a critical workforce shortage. Earlier today I was speaking to a parent from Kangaroo Island, who said, 'Unless we have houses, unless we deal with that critical shortage, we cannot attract childcare workers to start the facilities to get people back into the workforce.' From Bega Valley to Broome in WA, the same issue is housing, but those opposite have sided with the Greens to block that. The time for talking is over. Your petitions need to stop. Get on with it so that we can deliver housing across the country.

The other key theme, regardless of where you are in this country, is connectivity. Digital accessibility is important no matter where you live, but it's even more critical in the bush. The digital divide could not be more stark. Those opposite know that we need more connectivity across this country. You've been through natural disasters—everyone points you to a phone: 'Get on the Fires Near Me app. Check your hazards report.' You know what? If you have a black spot and you don't address it, you cannot deal with it.

The NBN was left in a critical mess—an absolute mess. It was going to be $29 billion, then $41 billion, then $49 billion, and then they ended up spending $58 billion on a redundant system—a system that was just outrageous. During lockdowns, I had community members say to me, 'I can no longer have my child learning from home because I've reached my cap on Sky Muster.' Honestly! The champions of regional Australia over there forgot to have unmetered data for people on satellite plans!

Let's get serious—you cannot grow a business, you cannot invest in a business, you cannot skill up and learn from home and you cannot keep in contact with family and friends unless you're serious about connectivity. That's why this side of the House has made the biggest commitment to regional communications since the creation of the NBN. As I said, it's a Labor government that delivers those critical infrastructure needs for regional Australia.

Our communities said to us, 'Invest in disaster resilience and mitigation,' and that's exactly what we did. We have backed regional communities by making sure that there are critical investments in mitigation and resilience projects that are critical to our communities. We are supporting regional Australia, we'll continue to do so and we're going to do so with clear and transparent regional programs.

The Growing Regions Program is a new opportunity to apply for funding for social and economic infrastructure, for councils and not-for-profits, and it is going to be done through an open, competitive grant process. The Precincts and Partnerships Program is going to provide a strategic, nationally-consistent mechanism for funding and coordinating our large-scale projects. It will transform places. It'll benefit communities in our regional cities and regional and rural Australia. Why is that so important? It's important because we respect regional people. They are in every town and village across the country. We want them to know that, if they put in an application, it's going to be treated on its merits, not treated on the postcode that it's in. We want to give people a fair go, and we will back their ideas.

Unlike those opposite, we're listening to regional Australia. We will deliver for regional Australia. As I said, it takes a Labor government to put regional people first.

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