Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Tuesday's budget announced an extra $4 million of funding into our region's eight local councils through the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program. Since 2019, over $20 million has been allocated to our region through this program, and in my opinion it's one of the most effective funding initiatives available to our regions.

It gives councils and their local communities the freedom to choose which projects are important to them. Whether its local roads, bike paths, community halls, playgrounds, parks or sporting facilities, the decision is theirs. Local businesses and tradies are being used to deliver these projects where they matter most. The money is flowing through local, hardworking businesses, through their employees, through their families and back to their communities.

More than 80 projects have been delivered in my region alone, projects like the Ulverstone Skate Park redevelopment; the Smithton dog park; the Devonport Highfield playground development; painting the Currie Lighthouse on King Island, in the middle of Bass Strait; the Wynyard Basketball Association locker rooms update—the list goes on and on. Thank you to our councils, thank you to our local businesses and thank you to our local tradies who are delivering these projects on behalf of the federal government.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there anything more that this Prime Minister and his Deputy Prime Minister like more than making big, splashy announcements but then burying the truth in the fine print? Year after year they do it. Again, we see the Monday drop of the infrastructure announcements and a big, splashy headline, but the devil is always in the detail. I think many Victorian MPs on both sides of the House would be surprised to learn that, of the $3.3 billion the government claims for new infrastructure investment in Victoria, only 6.1 per cent is actually in the forward estimates and is actually in the budget. The Victorian government is pretty ropable. For those MPs in South Australia: only 8.2 per cent of that new money is in the forward estimates. If you win the next election, you're not going to see it in that period of time. In Queensland it is only a quarter. They have been short-changed.

This morning, we also saw on the front page of the Age: 'Coalition snubs Victoria on $7b fund, key pledge'. Why were none of the Victorian regions actually included? If this were really about energy security transition, why is the Latrobe Valley not included? The front page of the Courier Mail read: 'Qld to wait for billions'. Why does the Sunshine State have to wait years to see investment that it needs now. With the Olympics coming up just around the corner, you've got to invest now. Why don't you like Queenslanders?

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to congratulate the Treasurer and the Prime Minister on their budget delivered on Tuesday evening. Who would have thought two years ago that, when Treasury predicted that Australia was heading for a 14-plus per cent unemployment rate, we would be standing here today talking about a four per cent unemployment rate, heading for 3.75? Who would have thought at the time of MYEFO last December that the bottom line of the budget would be turned around by over $100 billion by the time we got through to the budget? It is just one of the most outstanding recoveries of the Australian economy.

Andrew Wallace (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.