Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I was genuinely hopeful when I received the budget papers. I was hopeful that our regional communities would finally receive some recognition of the potential that we have when it comes to solving the issues facing our country at the moment. When I heard, prior to budget night, statements like, 'We will be providing a framework for more houses to be built in every corner of the country,' I thought, 'Brilliant,' because my electorate—that's us. We've got the room. It's certainly a beautiful place to live. We've got the demand, particularly in coastal areas, and we could see some really decent infrastructure built there to provide those houses that we are desperately in need of. Then I saw that Labor's broken promise on negative gearing wouldn't apply to new home loans, and I thought, 'Okay, silver lining to a very dark cloud—at least it's aimed at electorates like mine so we can get the benefits of investor builds.'

But then I read the Regional Ministerial Budget Statement and I looked at the Regional Investment Framework, and it was this government telling regional people what they wanted—not asking what they wanted or what they needed. Effectively, they were sanctimoniously treating regional people in ideological terms, not tangible ones—'in every corner of the country' actually meant 'outer suburbs'. The three priority areas and the key objectives—this is on page 19 of the budget report—for regional areas are 'meeting the needs of, and providing opportunities for, First Nations people', 'supporting the transformation to a net zero economy' and, finally, 'achieving gender equality'. These are the three focus areas that the government believed were 'unique' and 'specific'—their words—to the needs of regional communities.

Now, I'm not going to say what came out of my mouth when I read that, because it would be unparliamentary—and I'm in enough trouble as it is, at the moment. But the fact is my community's population is growing rapidly. I'll give you an example. Port Macquarie-West has grown by 17.5 per cent since 2021, and Coffs Harbour is now ranked third on the New South Wales top 10 list of unaffordable areas, outranking the affluent North Sydney, as a result of the population boom putting an extreme squeeze on the housing market. We are desperately in need of infrastructure to keep pace with this boom. From a national perspective, we need to be recognising the potential that we have in the regions—in Cowper—to solve the housing crisis. People want to move to the Mid North Coast. People want to move to the regions, out of the cities, to have a better life, and they should be able to have that choice.

We just need the funding, and we just need the focus to achieve it. We have to invest in our roads—both in paving the roads and maintaining them in areas in Port Macquarie like the Oxley Highway and Wrights Road. If you live in Port Macquarie or travel to Port Macquarie, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I have lobbied long and hard, firstly for the return of the $5 million that was taken from us for the feasibility study and secondly for the minister to come up and have a look. But those requests have been denied. To add insult to injury, the state Labor government has contributed funding to the doughnut, which is completely the wrong area. It should be focused on Wrights Road.

Then you have a look at Waterfall Way. Again, it was closed recently. The shop owners and retailers in Bellingen saw a 60 per cent decline in turnover—in fact, some of them have been forced to close. Again, they were on bended knee begging for funding that has been ignored. In fact, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government went up to Coffs Harbour, which is only 30 minutes up the road, to claim credit for the bypass, which is ongoing, and which, in fact, was promised under the coalition state and federal governments in 2022. She wouldn't go and visit Bellingen and have a look at Waterfall Way. It was 30 minutes away. These poor people in Bellingen and Dorrigo have to put up with this day after day. We need the funding for our regional towns.

We also need investment in telecommunications. We can't reach our economic potential without it. I lament the last disaster round of 28 towers. They went to 28 Labor seats. I've made the point time and time again. Five of those were deemed not appropriate, so it just went back into the bucket. These aren't big-ticket items that we're asking for. We're not asking for football stadiums. We're not asking for the top running tracks. We are asking for the basic services—water, sewerage and telecommunications—that you have in the city and that you have in periurban areas. Why can't we have that? Why can't our people have that? Port Macquarie is facing a situation where their water and sewerage is now at capacity. The mayor said to me: 'If it gets any worse or if we do any more development, you will not be able to flush your toilet.' This is not the Philippines. This is not Indonesia. This is regional Australia.

Every single mayor in my electorate I spoke to the day after the budget are gutted. They're also very, very angry. They know that the best they're going to get out of this budget is a million dollars per electorate. One million dollars does not cover the construction of one kilometre of roadway. We have tens of thousands of kilometres of roadway throughout my electorate, and those mayors now have to go back with their directors and with their staff and say, 'What are we going to do to make sure that we provide those services for our residents and ratepayers?' They can't keep going back to the ratepayer and saying, 'We're putting your rates up,' because the ratepayer can't afford it.

We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, with interest rates going up, food going up—you name it; it's going up. And it is a direct result of the incompetence of this government. But, according to Dr Jim Chalmers and the Prime Minister, there is nothing to see here and you've never had it so good. Well, I ask you, Prime Minister and Treasurer, to come to my electorate. Come to my electorate, speak to my mayors and speak to my people, and they'll tell you how bad it is.

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