Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister's going to be going to the Bush Summit in Ballarat on Friday. Just so I can help him with his talking points, I say to his advisors, 'Listen up, these are the issues that the people in my electorate will want to discuss with the Prime Minister.' They're actually going to go to Ballarat and deliver the message because the Prime Minister won't go down the highway to see them. They'll want to talk drought and what is this government doing to help them at this time of drought. Are they going to deliver the $30 million for the East Grampians Rural Pipeline? We need that money. The state government, who are broke, have committed to it. When is the federal government going to stump up? He could drive down the Western Highway and see the importance of road funding and how we need much more road funding.

We've got the infrastructure minister here. When he gets past Buangor, he'll be able to see that the duplication stops for no good reason. When are you going to finish it? We could talk about social licence for transmission lines and renewable energy targets. When are you going to do something around social licence? Then, of course, there is the Victorian state government's fire services tax. Will the Prime Minister say to the Premier, 'Scrap the tax.' The worst thing you can do to volunteers in the community is to tax them for keeping the communities safe. At the same time, he could talk about unrealised capital gains and what's that going to go to farmers, and I could go on and on and on because there is—

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