David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

Again yesterday we heard this government and the Prime Minister reiterate what he said when he was first elected: no-one held back, no-one left behind. Well, that's unless you live in regional Australia, because, since the Albanese government came into power in 2022, we have seen over $30 billion worth of infrastructure ripped out of regional Australia. That's roads, that's rail, that's dams. That's about the tools regional Australia needs in order to give this country over $350 billion worth of exports.

This government has callously just said to regional Australia that there are two classes of Australians: there's one that lives in a capital city and there are those of us who live outside a capital city, who can do without. That is not a government that is governing for all. That's a government that went to the last election and did not even promise one cent in new programs, for programs that they have cut—did not say they would reintroduce or refund any of them. They went to regional Australia at this election and said, 'You get nothing.'

That is the contempt that this government has held for regional Australians—the fact that we are contributing to this country's wealth yet having the tools taken away from us by a government that is looking for political expediency in capital cities, worried about fighting the Greens and winning seats off the Greens and not thinking about those who are generating the wealth of this country. That shows absolute contempt—and a Western Australian sits here and doesn't even have the courage to stand up for her fellow Western Australians, cannot even explain the science or economics of why they have called out and destroyed live sheep exports out of Western Australia. Where is the courage of the Western Australians? They have gone missing in their moment of truth, when they condescendingly sit here and talk about what's important in this country.

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