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

The budget rhetoric we heard last night from Labor shows they are taking the Australian people for mugs. While proclaiming to take pressure off Aussie families and lift living standards, Labor is, in reality, taxing aspiration, lifting the ladder from young would-be investors and pouring an irresponsible level of migrants into our already overstretched networks—from housing to health and everywhere in between.

For the regions, it appears that any savings made in this budget are at our expense: $4.7 billion cut from infrastructure; $103 million cut from the national water grid; $191 million cut from pest and disease, regional trade and drought funding for farmers; and $21 million cut from regional communications funding. That's money being ripped away from nation building and redistributed to Labor's metrocentric pet projects, with a tax cut of $4.80 a week—not enough to even buy you a coffee.

Infrastructure and communications funding are, literally, lifelines for my communities. We're seeing them brutalised by this Labor government, and that shows the true lack of care they hold for my electorate of Cowper. The irony is that solutions to so many of our nation's problems lie in the regions: housing, resources, food and sovereignty. That's what the regions have to offer in this country. But Labor continues to ignore us. (Time expired)

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night's budget provided $24 million to upgrade major safety hotspots on Bagot Road in Darwin, in my electorate. This issue is very close to my heart, as someone who's very well aware that a road user is four times more likely to die in a road incident in the Northern Territory than in other parts of Australia, and I'm also the chair of our local blackspots committee. It's a very important issue.

We all know the physical, mental and social impacts of road injuries and deaths, not only on the individual themselves but on their families and the whole community. Improving road safety is a challenging issue, particularly when it comes to pedestrians, as well, as is the case on Bagot Road. There are Aboriginal communities that are located close to that road, with little public transport and safety infrastructure, so it's both the pedestrians and the drivers that become vulnerable.

I met with the Menzies School of Health Research team last week to hear about the Roadmaps for NT project, funded by our government, which talks to Aboriginal community members in Darwin, service providers, policymakers and researchers to get more effective local road strategies, and I thank them for that work.

Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night's budget told you everything you need to know about this Labor government's priorities: in the macro, punish ambition, tax wealth, make it harder for everyday Australians to get ahead, lift rents, keep pressure on interest rates and, in doing so, crush the construction industry's willingness to build the homes we so desperately need. By Labor's own data, 35,000 fewer homes will be built over the next decade. But the true-believer, pro-union, anti-employer bias is in the microdetail of the budget, too. Last night the Albanese government set aside $5.3 million to prop up the CFMEU's administration, a union mired in allegations of corruption, criminal infiltration, intimidation and bikie links. How much money for small businesses trying to navigate the impossible morass of Labor's ever more complicated Fair Work system? It's $1.3 million.

Labor is spending five times as much on shielding the CFMEU as it is on helping small business find its way through the Fair Work quagmire Labor has created. Every day I meet small businesses being crushed by it—the cafe owner in Rosebud, the tradie in Hastings, the restaurant owner in Sorrento, the family business struggling in Somerville. All are expected to keep pace with Labor's endless industrial relations changes with next to no support. Australians are now literally paying more to keep a dysfunctional, corrupt union afloat than to help small businesses create jobs and opportunity.

Kara Cook (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night, Labor announced we are investing almost $183 million to make the child support system safer and fairer. There is currently $2 billion in unpaid child support debt in Australia, and women make up around 83 per cent of recipient parents. These historic reforms will help prevent the weaponisation of child support and protect parents and children from financial abuse.

These are the most significant changes to the child support system in nearly 20 years. They include $3.6 million to ensure that when Services Australia identify systems abuse they have the power to stop it. From 1 July next year, the Child Support Registrar will be able to refuse applications made for the purposes of harassing the other parent. There's also $6.1 million from July this year to support the ATO to prosecute parents who repeatedly fail to submit their tax returns, and there's $12.4 million to improve income data checking so that income changes can be flagged. About half of the 70,000 income estimates each year are incorrect.

There is more to come. Labor is making the child support system safer and more effective, delivering accountability and justice for those who need it most.