Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

In the Nationals we often talk about bringing common sense to Canberra, and I can tell you that this is needed more than ever. The Albanese government doesn't seem to get regional Australia. They're trying to get farmers to pay for biosecurity, trying to tax unrealised capital gains in the superannuation accounts of farmers and small businesses, and threatening the viability of small pharmacies, which are often the only frontline health services in regional towns. Those attempts all failed, but the backflips are continuing.

In another win for common sense, the proposal to drop the default speed on unsigned country roads to 70 kilometres an hour has been dumped. This was a bad idea created in Canberra without any understanding of how regional communities actually live, work and travel. It ignored the realities of regional life: long distances, freight, farm work, emergency services and families who simply can't afford to lose more time on the road. It was an idea so bad there was not only pushback from regional communities; regional Labor members didn't want it either. Instead of wasting resources on silly ideas, the government must invest in money to repair and maintain our roads. Regional drivers are fed up with dodging potholes, repairing busted wheels and slowing down at roadworks only to see them washed out after a couple of months.

The second backflip, another win for common sense, came with Labor abandoning its attempt to weaken the integrity of the Defence honours and awards appeals system. I want to pay tribute to my colleague the member for Gippsland, a champion of veterans, for leading the campaign against those changes. Veterans who contacted me were worried, frustrated and feeling overlooked, and these changes would have stripped rights away from the very people who have served our nation. There are a number of people who wouldn't have received much-deserved awards had these changes been in place for some years. Thankfully, they're not going to be in place at all.

These examples speak to a broader pattern of misplaced priorities and missteps from this government. Meanwhile, regional funding programs that should be providing practical help in our communities have been either scrapped or starved of new funding. People are coming to me in my community, saying, 'We really need this piece of infrastructure. We really need that,' and I say, 'Well, the cupboard is bare because there's no allocation in the growing communities program.' Regional Australia deserves better from this government.

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