Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not content with voting against the funding to help Queensland recover after cyclones and floods, the LNP members from Queensland have not stood up in relation to the $5.8 billion cuts to higher education. I wonder whether the member for Capricornia who has a campus in Rockhampton, the member for Flynn who has a campus in Gladstone, or the member for Dawson who has a campus in Mackay, have actually gone to their campuses and spoken to their students there about the fact that they are going to see up to a 37 per cent decrease in funding for those campuses as a result of the higher education changes in this budget.

I also wonder whether the member for Lyons who has not been to Tagari Lia in Bridgewater, or the member for Durack who has not been to the children and family centre—two of 38 around the country—are going to do about those centres, because they were not funded in the budget. We see regional and rural members from Tasmania to New South Wales to Queensland sitting opposite in the government and not standing up to their city cousins, the Liberal Party.

It is exactly the same in respect of the dementia supplement. Recently, I was at a wonderful aged-care facility in my electorate, Cabanda. We have got beds there—and it is the same in Alkira—with dementia patients. The coalition members from regional and rural areas have not stood up because the Abbott government has cut the dementia supplement. They should hold their heads in shame. (Time expired)