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

Labor's fifth budget is a budget of broken promises—broken promises on tax, broken promises on the cost of living and broken promises to the regional Australians who feed this nation, fuel this nation and build this nation. It betrays the bush. Labor have said they wouldn't raise your taxes. They have—$50 billion in higher taxes, including $15 billion ripped straight out of the pockets of working Australians through higher personal income tax. And who pays the price for this? It's families in Shepparton, farmers across the Goulburn Valley, small business owners on every main street from Kilmore to Cobram.

But it gets worse, because, while Labor are taking more from the regions, they are giving less back. Across this budget, regional Australia has been hit with at least $11 billion in cuts: $6.5 billion gone from the Inland Rail, a project that would have taken 200,000 trucks off our roads and saved $280 million of diesel every single year; $4.7 billion gone from infrastructure; $100 million from the National Water Grid; and nearly $200 million gone from biosecurity, drought support and regional trade for our farmers.

Australians wanted relief from the high cost of living. Instead, we have inflation heading to five per cent, and energy, food, insurance and rental costs are soaring. A typical family with a mortgage is $32,000 a year worse off, and that's only going to get worse. Real wages are going backwards, living standards are going backwards, and the government response is more taxes, including changes to capital gains tax that they repeatedly said, before the election, would not happen. The people of Nicholls did not vote for this, and they did not vote for higher taxes, broken promises, cuts to their communities and a government that thinks cities matter more than regional Australians.

Now, I don't carp for the sake of it, and, if there is something good in the budget, I will acknowledge it. There is money in this budget to accelerate supporting infrastructure to open up land for housing. That was a coalition policy taken to the last election. This is a lot less money than what we had promised, but it's a step in the right direction in terms of housing developments. There is finally some money in the Growing Regions and Stronger Communities grant funds, but, overwhelmingly, this is a bad budget. And the intergenerational equity argument is a fallacy, given that young Australians are going to be paying for this government's reckless and unproductive spending for most of their working lives.

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