David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

On Tuesday night we saw Labor's fifth budget and, let me tell you, they haven't got any better, particularly for regional Australia. You only have to go back to their first one in October 2022, when $27 billion was ripped out of regional infrastructure and put into little chestnuts like the Suburban Rail Loop, which is going to cost over $200 billion and beyond. Infrastructure Australia hasn't even been able to have a look at it or tick it off, but we're going to continue to take infrastructure spending out of regional Australia and throw it all into the Suburban Rail Loop.

That's taking away the productivity of this country. If you don't give regional Australia the tools they need, this country gets poorer. That is what we saw, again, in this budget. We are seeing infrastructure being stripped out of regional Australia and put into the Suburban Rail Loop. The Inland Rail—for some reason, the government can't tell us exactly how they got to $45 billion for this project. They won't tell us in any detail where the costs have blown out, but they have decided to pull it up halfway and not go through with this. Even if they were saving $45 billion, there's not a dollar being spent on filling in some potholes on the Warrego Highway, the Cunningham Highway, the Leichhardt Highway, the Landsborough Highway or anywhere across regional Australia.

They've been forced into spending a few dollars up and down the Bruce because we made a commitment in the last term about doing an 80/20 split with the Queensland government to fix the Bruce. It does need fixing. It's outside Maranoa, but, I grant you, it's an important arterial. But this government has stripped away the 80/20 arrangements they had with state governments. That means that the funding all goes into the capital cities, and regional Australia misses out.

It's not just about the productivity of our nation; it's also about our safety. We are driving on roads that are effectively killing people. That's right. That is the stark reality that we live with every day. This is about making sure that there is equity. Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, on election night in 2022, said: 'No-one held back. No-one left behind.' Well, that's unless you live in regional Australia.

When you look at what was ripped out in 2022, they've come back again to take what was left in the cupboard on water infrastructure, with another $100 million taken out of the national water infrastructure fund. This was a fund that we had set up with $7 billion. In fact, in my electorate, a dam at Emu Swamp, near Stanthorpe, was fully funded until the Albanese government came to power and took it away with the Miles government. That is a community, Stanthorpe, of around 8,000 people. It's one of the most productive food bowls in our nation. They are now, already, cutting water again to keep their permanent plantings alive for your apples, your peaches and your plums. They don't have water security. Primary producers are spending thousands of dollars every day on sending water tankers from down the road in Warwick. They're taking away the water supply from the town of Warwick, where 15,000 people live. We haven't thought about digging some holes and storing some water for when it rains so that these communities can not just survive but prosper.

To take another $100 million out of that might sound great. People in metropolitan areas don't have a clue that this has happened. They'll probably wipe their brows and go: 'You know what? It doesn't worry us, because we'll probably get an intersection upgraded.' But what this means is your food security diminishes and your food prices go up. If you do not give primary producers the tools they need, then you produce less and that means you pay more. That is the stark reality of what is happening to regional Australia. For communities like Stanthorpe and Warwick, a piece of infrastructure that would have not just increased agricultural production but given water security to the town of Stanthorpe as well has been taken away by a government that is city centric. That tears at the very heart of exactly what it is to be Australian. It shouldn't matter where your postcode is.

We've got a housing crisis in regional Australia as well, I've got to say. We're looking for people to come out and do the jobs. For some reason it's taken five budgets for the Albanese government to think that there now is a crisis for young people trying to get into housing. I mean, really? That wasn't an issue 12 months ago? They've only now said that we have to tax housing more to get young people into housing? That was a problem 12 months ago. That was a problem two years ago. And now, because of this ideological budget, they've decided to tax housing more when effectively all they need to do is actually reduce migration.

This government's going to bring 2 million people into this country, and they're not just being poured into capital cities. We're missing out in the regions where we need skilled workers. They have bought in people that haven't got the skills that we need. They were prioritising dog groomers and martial arts instructors up until about 12 months ago, rather than maybe some engineers, some roofers, some tilers, some builders. I mean, that's just common sense. We're giving the greatest gift we can give to any person on this planet—a ticket to Australia. We should pick and choose who comes here and where they live. We should be saying to them, 'We want these skilled people to live in regional Australia.' But instead we've had this open door policy to send them all into Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and there's been an epiphany here in Canberra by the Treasurer to go, 'We've got to help young people get into housing.' You keep fuelling demand by letting these people pour in.

It doesn't cost us a cent to use some common sense and stop the migration rot that has gone on, this mass migration, and have the numbers that we need where we need them to come. But we've even had those tools taken away from us because we had the agricultural visa taken away. We have communities that can't get mechanics. I've got communities where pubs cannot even open at night to put meals on because they can't get cooks. We're pouring all these people into capital cities, but there's no chefs sitting at the pubs in Barcaldine, the home of the Labor Party. We cannot get the skilled workers because of this ideology that has just gone out of control, and we are paying the bill for it.

And then you get to telecommunications. Again, we've seen this heartless response by this government—tools that we need. There was outrage across this country when triple zero didn't work on the east coast. That was tragic. But let me tell you, we face that every day. Triple zero doesn't work for us most days because our mobile phones don't work, and what this government has taken out of this budget is the regional tax hubs. This was an organisation that was funded by the Commonwealth through the NFF to help people in regional Australia navigate new technology and find new technological ways to be able to keep themselves safe—not just do business but keep ourselves safe.

I feel sorry for the families, my heart bleeds for the families, who lost loved ones in that triple zero outage. But let me tell you, come and have a walk through western Queensland. This mobile phone isn't worth the paper it's written on. It's worthless. It doesn't work in half the places because we haven't got the connectivity. We've had the investment stripped away from more mobile phone towers and better regulatory reform for protecting us. Now the one organisation that was set up with just $20 million—I mean, most departments have spilled that before smoko on a Monday—they took 20 mil away from the regional tech hub to help regional Australians navigate technology to keep them alive. Where is the national outrage on that? Are our lives not as valuable as those that lost them on the east coast when triple zero didn't work? I have a community of Dalby, and 12,000 people didn't have mobile service for two weeks. No-one cared. No-one batted an eyelid about this in Canberra when you raised it with the minister or anyone else.

This is the reality that we live in regional Australia, and this budget just goes to show that it just feels as though this government hates us. They don't think that there's any value of us living in regional Australia. We contribute, we're paying the bills, we're feeding you, we're clothing you and we're putting a whole lot onto trains that go out the port which allows you to be able to have the infrastructure and the cities that you enjoy and you take for granted. We're not asking for a lot. We're just asking for some potholes to be filled in. We're asking for some water to be to be able to grow some more food for you. We're talking about simplistic things like technology that would be able to give us the tools to be able to operate a business in the 21st century and to keep us alive and safe, being treated fairly and being able to say that we are part of Australia in a way that is valued.

Even when you talk about housing—I will give credit where credit is due—the $2 million that they've announced around helping the last piece of infrastructure in housing across this country is a great thing, but it's a fraction of what we announced at the last election. You have market failure in many of these communities. A block of land in Charleville will probably cost you $60,000 to develop—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 12:24 to 12:36

Debate adjourned.

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