Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wholeheartedly agree with the member for Forde, who has just said when governments do not pay for funding, Australians are left to pick up the tab. When they do not fund something, Australians are left to pay the bill, and he is so very correct. Because what we have seen from this Labor government is a complete neglect of regional Australia.

We heard in question time today that Labor apparently has more regional members than there are on this side. Well, if that is the case—and I am not disputing it—then why aren't those regional members sticking up for their constituents? Why aren't they sticking up for their electorates, which are being left high and dry by the minister for infrastructure, who is from Ballarat, by the regional development minister, who is from Eden-Monaro, because they are not funding regional Australia, certainly nowhere near to the point where we were when we were in government, and roads are just full of potholes. We have civic centres, aquatics centres, regional hubs just being left behind, and this is just such a shame. When we talk about the difficulties of regional Australians in particular, we are talking about those people who during COVID carried this nation. We hear about the trillion dollars worth of debt. The member for Rankin, the Treasurer, goes on about all the time. ABC Fact Check have said it's nowhere near a billion dollars. What that trillion dollars—it was about $800 billion, but let's not let $200 billion get in the way of the Treasurer's remarks—did was it kept the doors of businesses open. We kept people alive during the worst global pandemic ever, certainly the biggest pandemic in a century since the World War I Spanish flu.

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