Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

If governments want support from regional Australia, then they must deliver tangible outcomes for regional Australians. For too long, regional communities have endured worse outcomes in health, education, connectivity and aged care. We're poorer, we suffer chronic diseases at higher rates and we die younger. Dying earlier shouldn't be a tax for rural Australia. We're too often the last to receive services and too often the first to lose them. Look at the banks. Look at the post offices. We are the wide brown land, but we need more houses on it. We need better roads. Our connectivity lags well behind the cities, and we lack sufficient investment in our hospitals.

In Euroa, in my electorate of Indi, persistent energy insecurity means people don't know whether the power will stay on from one day to the next. It's a small-business killer and a huge frustration, and it is basic infrastructure. Would people in Melbourne or Sydney accept endless power outages? The answer is clearly no. The lack of such basics should not ever be accepted as an inevitable part of country life, because they are not inevitable.

Regional inequity is, in fact, a policy choice. I want choices that value our regions, partner in our ambition and invest in our future. Regional Australia is not just a place of need; it's a core contributor to our nation and a source of enormous opportunity. Our regions grow the food and fibre that sustain Australia and our export markets. Agriculture, forestry and fishing leads Australia's multifactor growth, but we also have thriving manufacturing, tourism and small-business innovation. Regional Australia accounts for around 40 per cent of national economic output and employs around one-third of Australia's workforce. Regional Australia's productivity already exceeds our population per capita. So I put this to you: at a time when Australia is trying to boost stagnant productivity, investing in the regions is the smartest measure that any government could do and will deliver even greater benefit to the whole nation.

Beyond the economic contributions, regional Australia has strong, connected, networked natural beauty, enduring resilience and local leadership. It's clear the potential of regional Australia is immense, but this potential can only be realised with the fundamental infrastructure and services to support it. In my electorate of Indi, we focus on solutions. We roll up our sleeves, we do the work, we engage with communities, we develop ideas and we push for practical change. In this pursuit, I've introduced bills, amendments, petitions and policy proposals and have made some progress, like the cheaper home batteries, the mobile phone towers, the sustainable agriculture facilitators and the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

Lasting and durable change is rarely immediate. It takes steady and persistent work to make a difference. Unfortunately, this week's federal budget does not do enough to shift the dial on the key drivers of regional inequity, but there are welcome elements. I'm pleased to see further funding for the Growing Regions Program, but its sister program, the rPPP, has been axed and replaced with nothing else. The housing crisis impacts regional Australia too, and a major handbrake on that supply is the pipes, the power, the poles and the roads that make new homes possible. The enabling infrastructure gap has been my focus and why I've been pushing for a regional housing infrastructure fund, and I congratulate the government for taking my policy initiative forward and committing 25 per cent of funding to regional Australia.

Now, I recognise this as a restrained budget and that the fiscal environment is difficult, but every line in the budget is a choice, and the budget does not deliver enough to address the pain and frustration regional people are feeling. Just one example is that we need an open, competitive grants program for regional health infrastructure. The case is clear for Albury Wodonga Health in my electorate. That's why we need a building rural and regional hospitals fund to provide a solution that's good for our health. These needs can only be met by pursuing bolder reforms.

The member for Kennedy is quite right. We need to grow the revenue cake. We should be taxing gas exports. It was a missed opportunity to boost our revenue and use that revenue to do the things that we are seeking to: invest in the regions in the way that we need to grow the productivity of the nation, because regional Australia needs and deserves equity. It's why rural and regional Australians get mad. It's why they get angry. It's why we've seen that play out across the nation. We have the same ambition. We need the investments, and we need to deliver to our regions.

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