Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

We're hearing a lot in this budget about intergenerational inequity, but we never hear about regional inequity from the government. Australians who live in the regions are worse off under virtually every metric, whether that be health, housing, education, pension assets tests, capital gains tax or even road trauma. Regional Australians represent around 30 per cent of the nation's population and make an even greater contribution, but, whether it is health or whether it's road spending, we are short-changed, and it affects our lives.

The question is: has the budget let down regional Australia? Well, I would say yes. The government will be ending the halving of the fuel tax excise in June—because there's no indication the government is going to continue it after June even if we still have conflict in Iran. When this temporary relief ends, it is the people of my electorate, it is the people of regional Australia, who have no choice but to rely on cars, who will suffer the most. We just don't have public transport in the regions. That's something that's only ever funded for metropolitan areas.

When we look at the health gap, regional Australians experience higher costs of health care and worse health outcomes than our metro counterparts. Twice I've asked in question time about what the government's doing to address that expenditure gap, and the answer really is nothing. This budget does very little to correct it. In fact, the National Rural Health Alliance in 2021 saw that there was an $848 spend gap between a person who lives in regional Australia and a person who lives in metro Australia. For the 2023-24 year, that blew out to over $1,000 per person. What that means is that we die younger. We feed you all, but we die younger. We get less spend when it comes to health. It's a postcode lottery. Despite serious criticism, the distribution priority area changes that were made by the government still stand. The government has taken away doctors from the regions and put them in areas like Elizabeth in South Australia or leafy Mitcham and taken them away from where they're desperately needed, where that person was perhaps the only doctor.

When we look at education, a regional student is more likely to work in a regional community, but regional students need support, and there are so many barriers that it's insurmountable. For young people on Kangaroo Island in my electorate, unless they are incredibly wealthy, it is near impossible to fund a life and go to university after high school. They just don't do it. They get through high school and they stay on the property. They stay on Kangaroo Island. We have some incredibly bright young people. We need the doctors and lawyers, and we need them in regional communities as well. That means we need to ensure that those young people get supported to go to university.

This is one that hasn't been picked up by any journalists. The capital gains tax rules on rural residential properties in this budget is going to make it even more expensive for people who live as their primary place of residence on anything over two hectares, because, under the rules, if you live on more than two hectares and you sell your property—perhaps you're living on 50 hectares and you run some cattle or run some sheep, but you never actually made any real income on your property—you will pay capital gains tax on anything outside of those two hectares. With the current changes that the government's proposing in the budget, that tax is going to be even more expensive if you sell after next June. Of course, you could have a Sydney harbourside mansion worth $20 million, and if that's your principal place of residence you don't pay any capital gains tax. But, if you're on 50 acres or 50 hectares, you will. That is the kind of inequity that exists whether you live in the regions or whether you live in metropolitan Australia. That is just plainly unfair.

That also impacts you if you're an older person and you are seeking to go on the pension. The pension assets test looks at the two hectares around your home, and then outside of that is on the asset side. You could be on a 10-acre block, and the balance outside of that two hectares goes on the asset side. We find so many older Australians that are living in poverty on a 10-acre block because they only maybe get a part pension simply because of the fact that they're on that 10-acre block. Again, if they are in that $15 million harbourside mansion and that was their only asset, no problem. Here's the full pension for you.

We in regional Australia feed you three times a day. They say that you should thank a farmer three times a day. But we in this place do not do enough to support regional Australians, whether they be farmers or whether they be workers out there in the regions. I would urge this government, when you are next putting together a budget, to sit down with some farmers, sit down with some people from regional Australia and make a budget that is far more equitable for all of Australia, not just the metro people of Australia.

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