Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Albanese government is committed to regional Australia. Its sustainability, its prosperity and its resilience are critical to the Australian economy. Over the past four budgets, 560 regional initiatives have been brought forward by this government, and this is crucial to regional Australia. Accessibility, connectivity and equity of service are crucial to nearly one-third of Australians who live in regional and rural areas. Complex challenges are experienced by those living in rural and regional areas in relation to fuel and food security; climate change; the tyranny of distance, which impacts people's health; educational opportunities, which disadvantages young people; and job creation, which is always a big issue for young people in rural and regional areas on farms and in country towns.

It is absolutely vital that we support regional Australia, and that's what this government is doing in this budget. We are backing regional Australia. We're delivering on cost-of-living relief, health care and housing, because every postcode is critical in this country. We're delivering the transport and community infrastructure that regional Australians need. As part of our $120 billion, 10-year infrastructure investment pipeline this budget will see a total of $12.1 billion in new investments across the infrastructure, transport and regional development portfolio, with $10.3 billion for transport infrastructure projects, $976 million for transport and $803 million for community infrastructure. During a period of global uncertainty we're building on infrastructure with investment in responsible projects that boost productivity, deliver safer and faster freight and support connected housing.

The budget will see new investment to support new and existing projects across every state and territory. In my home state of Queensland, there's an $812.5 million investment to deliver stage 2 of the Bruce Highway—Gateway Motorway to Dohles Rocks Road—which will build on the $758.4 million investment into stage 1, which will connect Moreton Bay and the Sunshine Coast regions north of Brisbane. In Western Australia, there's a $552 million investment to deliver the first stages of road upgrades to strengthen supply chain resilience, support housing supply and improve productivity in the defence and critical minerals industries. We're also supporting productivity and resilience upgrades in our national freight rail network with a $1.75 billion investment, which will bring the Australian Rail Track Corporation's network investment to nearly $2.8 billion. I'll have more to say on Inland Rail and the ARTC shortly.

This government is absolutely committed to making sure that we support not only local governments but also local communities. We continue to invest in local communities by providing grant funding, which will make our suburbs and regions even better places to live. This includes bringing forward 80 per cent—that is, $2.9 billion—of the 2026-27 financial grants entitlement to local government and providing funding for the delivery of infrastructure that meets the needs of our cities and regions. I want to highlight our commitment of an additional $750 million for further rounds of our flagship programs, the Growing Regions Program and the Thriving Suburbs Program, which brings our total investment since 2022 to $1.7 billion.

The government is creating a new $2 billion local infrastructure fund under the Housing Support Program, with $500 million being dedicated to local enabling infrastructure in regional Australia. I can tell you, Deputy Speaker, there are stakeholders and organisations in my community chomping at the bit to get access to some of that money. There's $22.5 million to deliver round 10 of the Stronger Communities Program, which builds on more than 18,000 projects that have already been delivered to benefit local communities—many in the regions. We're providing $500 million to build on the successful Active Transport Fund. It will provide active transport options, like walking and cycling, and will make our cities and regions more vibrant places in which to live.

This budget also provides support to keep Australians moving through current fuel disruptions while investing in long-term productivity and resilience in the transport industry. When it comes to the cost of living in regional Australia, not much bites more than the cost of fuel, and there's no doubt regional Australia has been hit the hardest by the impacts of the global fuel shortage. That's why our comprehensive $14.8 billion plan to secure more fuel, to strengthen supply chains, to build resilience and to take the sting out of prices is so incredibly important for regional communities.

As I said earlier, the Albanese government is committed to making sure people in regional and rural areas are not disadvantaged in terms of health care. We're making that more accessible. The Medicare urgent care clinics—we're investing $580 million to keep them permanent and free. There are 137 clinics providing accessible urgent care services across the country, and 47 are supporting communities in regional, rural and remote Australia. We're making them permanent, as I said. In my local community, there are nearly 37,000 visits to the clinic, the Ipswich Medicare urgent care clinic, which opened in August 2023.

On top of that, in regional areas, people have had access to cheaper scripts. For example, in my electorate, people have got nearly 3.1 million cheaper scripts under Labor's cheaper medicines policy. This is absolutely crucial, and we're supporting fully bulk-billing practices across the area. In my electorate alone we've seen an increase of 12 to 30 bulk-billing practices. We're investing in public hospitals and making sure that there's a $25 billion Commonwealth investment in public hospitals. This is so critical in regional towns like Rockhampton and Townsville and Mackay and Bundaberg and Hervey Bay. It's absolutely critical in my home state of Queensland.

We dedicated $500 million to local enabling infrastructure and regional Australia—the power, the roads, the drains. These are all crucial for new housing and we're working with local government across that space. I want to speak about the Inland Rail. We have made a commitment not to continue the northern leg of the Inland Rail project from Parkes in New South Wales to Queensland. Last week, the government announced it would only prioritise the construction of the southern leg from Beveridge in Victoria to Parkes in New South Wales by the end of 2027. The planning work north of that in rural areas will continue on, but there's important work that we need to do in terms of rail, and we've given the money—as I outlined earlier in my speech—to the ARTC and put an emphasis on freight.

In 2013, we provided $1 billion for planning work on Inland Rail. Who wouldn't like the idea of taking trucks off road and reducing carbon emissions? But the coalition government came to power, and they allocated $9 billion, off budget, and said, 'Thank you very much. That will build, the $9 billion, the whole of the Inland Rail,' which, by the way, initially went to 43 kilometres west of the Brisbane port, finishing at Acacia Ridge, going through the Lockyer Valley into rural Ipswich. Now the farmers and small business residents and homeowners in the Lockyer Valley, Toowoomba and rural parts of Ipswich are very pleased with our decision not to proceed, because two-thirds of the cost was going from Toowoomba to Brisbane. I don't think they want 1.8-kilometre-long rail freight trains going every hour on embankments without noise abatement. That's precisely what was going to happen in my community.

I've met with landholders across the proposed route, like Ivory Rock's convention and events centre at Peak Crossing who raised concerns with me. The rail was going to go 500 metres, and when they sought assistance from ARTC on noise abatement—crickets, no support whatsoever. The Inland Rail is disliked immensely in my community, and I'm very pleased the government has decided what it's done. It was high impact with no value for rural Ipswich and the Lockyer Valley. So the decision we made is absolutely vital for koala protection and conservation in our local area, including farms.

The Inland Rail was going to go just south of Rosewood with an intermodal, affecting the people in the township of Rosewood. Imagine their lifestyle and their livelihoods in that area. Also, it was going to go right beside Grandchester State School—right beside this rural school through koala habitat, through the food bowl of the Lockyer Valley, through into rural Ipswich with the cattle farms et cetera in those areas. The decision to stop Inland Rail was the right outcome for the people in my community. I am very pleased we made that, and the people in my community are supportive of that in relation to the decision the government's made. That is critical, and I'm very disappointed that the coalition can't see it. The member for Wright knows how important that decision was. He knows that people in the Lockyer Valley in his community, which I used to represent, absolutely hate the concept of the Inland Rail going through the Lockyer Valley.

Our government is getting on with the job of delivering for regional Australia. The stark contrast for a big game opposite and failure to deliver. It's absolutely vital that we support regional Australia and that's what this budget is precisely doing.

Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Electoral Matters) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians have seen a budget built on Labor lies and broken promises with higher debt, higher taxes, more migrants and fewer homes. It is absolutely the last thing that Australians needed, particularly those Australians who live in regional communities like mine in the south-west of WA. The Prime Minister has sought to sow his politics of division through this budget and divide Australians between those who live in the city and those who live in the country in some sort of sick postcode lottery.

We know that they're racking up spending at an almost unprecedented rate because these budget papers show that this is the highest taxing government in Australian history outside times of war or pandemic. Indeed, the government's own projections show that there is no sign of a surplus until at least the middle of the next decade, and they are sneakily squirrelling away a bunch of spending in off-budget numbers, racking up some $256 billion in total spending on the national credit card. That is money that our kids will have to pay back, so to dress this up as a budget that somehow addresses intergenerational fairness while pushing that credit card debt onto our kids is a disgrace.

With more than $1 trillion in national debt on the horizon and rising beyond that, we are seeing our debt climb towards some $1.2 trillion over the decade, or some $37,000 for every Australian. This is a government addicted to spending more than it saves, and it highlights the fact that there's a big difference between what Labor says and what Labor does. So let's have a little bit of a deep dive into it because the economy is sick.

Growth, on the government's own numbers, will slow to 1.75 per cent, whilst inflation rages in our country at five per cent in the optimistic case, or pushing seven per cent in a more pessimistic case. That means that already Australians are poorer today than they were on the day the Albanese government was elected, and that will only get worse in the years ahead. We have been in a real GDP per capita recession for years, and that will continue on the government's own numbers.

The budget did contain some 130 new measures, reflecting the continued expansion of government, which is pushing some 27.1 per cent of GDP. There's billions of dollars of spending in the short term, despite claims of restraint. But where's the good news for regional Australia? The reality is that regional Australia has been shafted by this budget, and none more so than my community in the south-west of WA. There's $3.7 billion for the Suburban Rail Loop in Victoria, a fanciful project that the Allan government seems determined to do no matter the cost. And we all know why; it's because of the CFMEU and their cartel mates demanding more and more infrastructure funding to be funnelled into the organised crime links that they have. There's some $30 billion in money that's already been siphoned off by organised crime and the bikies in Victoria, and yet more billions are being pumped in by this government.

However, is there $25 million for the Busselton Margaret River Airport? Not a cent. Margaret River Hospital has been unchanged for some 25 years, despite the population surge around it and the huge numbers of tourists that flock to that part of the world every year. Any money for the upgrade there? Not a cent. Indeed, the only infrastructure funding in the regional budget statement for Western Australia is a $4 million road. It is a disgrace that the Prime Minister and his government pretend to be a friend of Western Australia whilst handing down a budget of betrayal, built on Labor lies and broken promises, that leaves Western Australia, particularly regional Western Australia, high and dry.

The reality is that Australians are going to pay more for this spending spree. They're going to pay through bracket creep, inflation raging at between five and seven per cent, as well as the policy changes that are dressed up as tax reform but are really a tax grab. They expose the central lie of this budget. The Treasurer has claimed that this budget rebalances the taxation revenue in Australia from salaries and wages towards assets and investment income. However, his own budget papers show the share of personal income tax rising over the decade ahead. This is a budget that is shamelessly a tax grab and attempts no serious tax reform at all. They rely heavily on banking and some $37 billion in projected NDIS savings, which are backloaded and uncertain. And, indeed, in regional communities like mine, where we've already seen slashing to things like regional travel allowance, it seems that those who live outside a city will bear the cost of that disproportionately. But that increase in debt means more taxpayer money diverted into interest payments rather than delivery of services, especially the delivery of services in regional WA, where we have been ignored for too long.

So the major changes—including capital gains tax discounting being adjusted to an inflation model, restricting negative gearing to new builds and increasing the taxes on trusts—target aspiration. Tuesday 12 May 2026 will go down as the day that aspiration died in Australia, and unfortunately people like my farmers, small-business people, fishermen and other agricultural operators are the ones who will pay the price of this.

The reality is that some 13 million Australians have been promised a $250 carrot from 2028. The bad news is that, with inflation raging, the benefit of that will be gobbled up in real terms in just six months from today. That means Australians are poorer today than they were on the day the Albanese government came to power, and that situation will only get worse from here.

We've seen immense pressure on rents and house prices across the south-west of WA. The reasons for that are obvious to anyone who has bothered to look: too many people have been welcomed to Australia too quickly, and the standards for those migrants coming to Australia has been too low at a time when we are delivering fewer and fewer houses. In Western Australia, the number of dwelling completions has decreased every quarter for the last year. More migrants arriving in a country and a state with fewer houses being built is obviously pushing up prices. It is obviously pushing up rents. And that is why, in car parks next to the Bunbury Outer Ring Road, there are things resembling shantytowns now, with more than 100 people living in them—all with cars, all with jobs and some, shamefully, with kids forced to live alongside them in their cars. This is a housing crisis, and this government is now entering its fifth year running this country.

Those opposite talk about what went before. It's time we saw some accountability and some ownership from the bloke who promised Australians that he would be the guy who would show up, who would take responsibility and be accountable, but I guess that was just another promise broken. Another time that the Prime Minister look down the barrel of a camera and promised the Australian people one thing before the election, only to do something completely different the day after.

This is a budget of betrayal. It is built on Labor lies. It contains higher debt, higher taxes and higher spending. It also promises fewer homes and more migrants. It does nothing for the people of regional Western Australia, the people that I am fortunate enough to come to this place to fight for. Those opposite blame the war in Iran for all of it. It is a disgrace, because at the same time the Australian Public Service here in Canberra has grown to more than 217,000 staff. The budget includes funding for some 700 people for the new National Environmental Protection Agency. At the same time, the government's promising to cut red tape and get projects moving in states like mine. However, four months after the passage of the EPBC reforms, Minister Watt travelled to Perth to announce there would be eight months of discussion to land an MOU by the end of the year. If we really had a one-stop shop for approvals, to get projects moving in WA, we certainly wouldn't need 700 people at a cost of many hundreds of million of dollars here in a new Commonwealth environmental protection agency. This budget is a shameful betrayal of regional Western Australians.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the government's 2026-27 budget and what it means—or, more importantly, what it fails to deliver—for the people of Capricornia and across Central Queensland. Let's be clear: when you look beyond the headlines, this budget follows a familiar pattern—big promises but very little for the region that actually powers this nation. Regional Australia is not an afterthought; it is the engine room of our economy, driving our agriculture, resources, manufacturing and energy sectors. Yet, time and time again, we see budgets that prioritise the capitals while leaving regional communities behind. As my colleague the member for Gippsland has constantly highlighted, there is a growing concern that regional Australia is facing what can only be described as an investment drought, with fewer new infrastructure commitments and no clear pipeline of future projects to support jobs and growth. Unfortunately, this budget does little to change that.

In Central Queensland, we know exactly what this looks like on the ground. It means motorists travelling on roads like the Bruce Highway, one of the most critical freight and tourism routes in the country, still waiting for the upgrades needed to improve safety and reliability. It means local councils are struggling to deliver essential infrastructure because key funding programs have been cut or scaled back. And it means, quite frankly, that councils are being left behind. Local councils and community organisations are crying out for support to deliver critical infrastructure. Yet funding programs have been scrapped, delayed or not replaced, leaving communities in limbo. We've seen regional programs axed, billions in promised funding delayed and councils left trying to plan their budgets without any certainty about when or if support will arrive. That reality is being felt right across Capricornia. Our local governments are doing the heavy lifting, maintaining roads, delivering community facilities and supporting local growth, but they are being asked to do more with less. When councils miss out, it's not just the numbers on a balance sheet; it's fewer community projects, it's delayed road upgrades, and it's missed opportunities for local jobs and economic development. It means industries like mining, agriculture and manufacturing, industries that underpin our national prosperity, not receiving the long-term infrastructure investment they need to remain competitive. It means families in communities like Rockhampton, Yeppoon, Moranbah and Clermont continuing to face rising costs of living without meaningful relief that reflects the realities of regional life.

We know that cost-of-living pressures hit harder in the regions. People travel further. Fuel costs more. Services are fewer. And yet too often the measures announced in this budget are designed with city living in mind, not the unique challenges faced by regional Australians. Even where there are national initiatives, whether it's tax changes, health funding or housing programs, they often fail to account for regional workforce shortages, housing supply constraints and the higher cost of doing business outside the capital cities. This budget does include significant spending across the economy, including billions for infrastructure and cost-of-living measures. But the question from my constituents is simple: Where is our fair share? Where are the transformational projects that will unlock growth in Central Queensland? Where is the commitment to regional roads, regional rail and regional connectivity? Where is the long-term vision for the communities that keep this country running? Without that vision, we risk falling behind.

Central Queensland is not asking for special treatment. We are asking for fair treatment. We are asking for investment that recognises our contribution to the nation's economy. We are asking for policies that support local jobs, strengthen local industries and build stronger, more resilient regional communities. We are asking for a government that understands that, when regional Australia succeeds, the entire nation succeeds. We should be investing in our regions, not overlooking them. We should be building infrastructure pipelines, not allowing them to dry up. We should be backing regional Australia, not taking them for granted.

So, when we look at the budget in more detail, we need to ask: where is the money for projects like Rockhampton Airport? This is something that the coalition made a commitment to last election. This has the potential for international exports, tourism and more defence in Central Queensland—we have Shoalwater Bay sitting on our doorstep—and we have been ignored. The Rockhampton Ring Road was something that we had to fight enormously for. We had people coming down here fighting for it, a $1.8 billion project that's transforming for Central Queensland. Rockhampton-Yeppoon Road was something that just recently opened, but we had to fight for the funding.

So what is missing in this budget? Upgrades to the Bruce Highway. We see that the Treasurer says, 'Oh, we've put an extra billion dollars into the Bruce.' Well, where? Down in the south-east corner, around the capital cities. Nothing—

An opposition member: Not in my patch.

No, not in your patch, not in my patch, not between Rockhampton and Mackay—that's for certain. The amount of traffic that we have on there, with the trucks, the tourism, the military—it's enormous, and we keep missing out. There's the Peak Downs Highway, a major highway that accesses the minefields of Central Queensland, the coalfields—nothing for that either. Once again, the wealth of the nation comes from areas like this.

Today I had a phone call from a very distressed constituent who was very upset about these tax changes. They'd lost hundreds of thousands of dollars overnight in the share portfolio that they use instead of their superannuation. We saw a major drop yesterday in our banks. What is going on is horrendous. People have worked hard all their lives, and, now, this has been ripped away by this government. It's an absolute disgrace.

The people of Capricornia and the people of Australia deserve more than words and more than what has been offered in this budget speech. They deserve action, and, until we get it, I will continue to stand in this place and fight for them.

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

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This budget from the Labor Party is a Trojan Horse. It looks okay on the outside, but dig a little deeper and you find out that, for regional Australians in particular, it is a shocker. We already bear the brunt and the cost of the renewable fantasy that this government has stuck to like glue. The cost to our communities is division. The cost to our communities is that we cannot get on with the jobs that already should be happening in our electorates.

Our farming land is being taken over by renewable enterprises funded by this government. Do we know where the funding comes from for these projects? No. We don't know, because they're hidden in clever entities such as the CIS, the CEFC and the National Reconstruction Fund. The list goes on. Australians are kept in the dark, and they don't know what is coming for them.

In point of fact, it is a socialist dystopia that Bill Shorten tried to bring in—capital gains tax and attacks on negative gearing and trusts. What else do they want to do? There was nothing honest—

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At least Bill had some courage.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At least Bill had courage; he took it to an election. And guess what? The Australian people didn't support it.

What do we have? We have a prime minister and a treasurer who are not honest with the people of Australia. They did not say—in fact, they deliberately said the opposite—that they would be attacking CGT, negative gearing or trusts. And here we are. They say that it is about ensuring 'intergenerational equity'. What a title! It is an absolute con. It is a Trojan Horse, because, in actual fact, it is our younger people who will not have those tools. CGT, negative gearing, trusts and the ability to build wealth and aspiration are being taken away from them. It's older people who will be able to keep such benefits, because they're going to be grandfathered. This is shonky, and I could use a whole bunch of other words to describe it. This budget is not for regional Australians, and it is not for young people, as this government want to say that it is.

Labor talks about equity. The words of the National Rural Health Alliance's Susi Tegen come to mind. She said on budget night:

There is … no reference to how the government will implement the National Health Reform Agreement Schedule F: Better Health Equity for Rural and Remote Communities—

which has been agreed to already. It will take effect in—guess how long—two months. In fact, it will take effect in less than two months—six weeks. But there is no funding for it. What is going on that this government can make promises and then walk away from them as though it doesn't matter? It absolutely does matter, and people who live in regional Australia are feeling it. There's no funding for health care, no funding for aged care and no answers to the problems they face every day.

I acknowledge the member for Cowper, who just spoke about the cost of living in his electorate. You know what? It's same same in my electorate and same same for the next speaker, my colleague the member for Lyne.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And Fisher.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And Fisher—absolutely. The member for Fisher tells me right now that it's the same for him. Our people are suffering under this government, and what is this budget bringing for them? Absolutely nothing. It is bringing no funding for regional communications—in fact, regional communications funding has been cut—no funding for mobile black spots and no funding for regional connectivity. They've taken away the funding for the Regional Tech Hub. It is an unbelievable disgrace that this government walks away from the people it says it is leading, for all Australians. 'No-one held back, no-one left behind'—yes, we know the words, Prime Minister. We hear them often enough, just like we heard you say you would not attack the capital gains tax or negative gearing or trusts—but here we are.

So what does that make the words of this prime minister? I can tell you: absolutely not to be trusted. There are so many Australians right now who do not trust politicians—well, what a shock! Why would that be, when they've got a prime minister who is not telling the truth to Australians before an election and then comes out and says: 'Oh, it's the right choice. It is the right policy for the right time.' I'm sorry, Australians are not that gullible. We don't believe what you say, Prime Minister. Every day we get the same story, and we don't believe it.

Tuesday's budget is divisive, setting one generation against another, pitting the older generation as the bad guys or the cash cows, or both, so Labor can pretend they are doing the right thing by the younger generation—as I said, the Trojan horse. They've deployed the influencers to sell the budget, and it's falling flat. Labor's reckless spending is bequeathing $1.2 trillion of debt to the younger generation. It is not just the younger generation; it is their children and their children's children that are going to be paying off this debt into who knows how long into the future. Intergenerational equity? Give me a break! Are you joking? They can use all the spin they like, but the fact of the matter is it's not true. The very tools that gave older people an advantage, such as capital gains tax and negative gearing trusts, are being removed for our younger people. What a con!

Speaking of cons, how's this? Despite the finance minister saying they're pulling back on climate spending, Labor is spending another $12.3 billion on net zero commitments over the next few years and $18.3 billion over the next decade or so. That brings Labor's total net zero spending to $80 billion. As I said before, that's if you don't consider all the other entities they are funding on the closed books; nobody can know what is actually being spent. I can tell you right now that the people of Mallee are not happy about that announcement. They are very unhappy because it's their farms that are being railroaded through the push from the federal government and the support from the Victorian Labor government to ensure these renewable projects go ahead.

I can tell you right now, I'm meeting with over 100 farmers on Wednesday in Mallee with the new Leader of the Nationals, Matt Canavan, and shadow minister Darren Chester, the member for Gippsland. They're coming down to meet with my farmers because my farmers are very angry with the Labor government, and they have all the right to be. It's their land that's being ripped up, and there are no consequences for this Labor government to continue bulldozing, literally, through Mallee.

It's ironic hearing a government use the word 'equity' to describe the creation of the intergenerational divide between older and younger people, when the gross inequity that we in the Nationals know, sadly, all too well is the inequity between the city and the bush. This is literally the prime minister who has brought the greatest division to our country, going back to the Voice—which was never flagged prior to the election. What else is going to come from this prime minister that has never been flagged with the Australian people prior to an election? Setting older against younger Australians, setting city Australians against those in the bush, is an outrage. And his dealing with antisemitism over the last couple of years—what awful leadership, if you can call it leadership. This budget is simply another nail in the coffin for regional Australians. Worse, it continues to bring division to Australians. I can tell you the truth. I'm not impressed, and my electorate's not impressed.

Alison Penfold (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Next week represents a year since my electorate was smashed by a once-in-500-years flood. Next week will be a very traumatic time for many people in my electorate. I had hoped that the federal budget that was released on Tuesday night might just do one thing: give some hope that this government cares, listens and delivers for the people on the Mid North Coast and Hunter region that I represent.

I wasn't going to leave anything to chance with this federal budget. I'm a new MP. I'm learning the ropes. I did not want to leave anything to chance, so I took the opportunity to develop a prebudget submission. I worked with my communities. I asked them: 'What are the priorities in your community? Share them. It doesn't matter if it's a pothole in your local street or a major piece of infrastructure.' I developed a submission which I put into the Albanese government's Treasury process prebudget submission. I did the right thing, making sure the government was very clear on the agenda for the Lyne electorate. The budget was handed down, and all I can say is that the budget that was handed down provides no hope to the people of the Mid North Coast. It is a regional funding bloodbath at a time when my community needs support. It's crying out for support and for so many services and so much infrastructure right across the region.

I know a lot of you would be expecting me right now to say, 'What about that urgent care clinic in Taree?' I'm saving that up for the women's statement. I was very disappointed to see in the regional statement that the list of urgent care clinics in regional Australia left off Maitland. It left off the Maitland urgent care clinic. I was very disappointed because like you, Deputy Speaker Swanson, it's important to communities in the southern part of my electorate. Deputy Speaker, you may want to have a look at that list; I think it's on page 51 of the regional statement. Maitland is not listed. It should have been listed, as should Taree, but I will come back to that in another speech today. You're all welcome to join.

If I can just focus on one area, quite extensive notes in my submission were around local roads. I think all of us—the member for Fisher and the member for Mallee—are desperately needing investment in local roads. I'm on an inquiry at the moment looking at the financial sustainability of local government. They're crying out for more investment. I know the government says that they've doubled investment in Roads to Recovery, a great coalition and National Party program from 20-odd years ago. They acknowledge that Roads to Recovery is making some difference, but it's come at the expense of axeing the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, a program that every council that's appeared before the inquiry has praised as a means of getting funding out to key projects because it's not competitive; it's effectively block funding, and it allows them to prioritise those critical local roads and small roads in their communities.

In this budget, there was not one additional cent in roads funding for any part of regional Australia, including the Lyne electorate. I made a number of submissions about particular roads, including the unfinished Pacific Highway. When the commitment was made to duplicate the Pacific Highway back in the mid-nineties, it came after the Kempsey and Grafton bus crashes. The decision was made at the time to fast-track the four-laning of the Pacific Highway and come back and do those overpasses and grade separated interchanges. We are now 20 years on, and we've got six of those overpasses still not on anyone's books. They're not on the state government's priority list. There has been some funding, I admit, for The Bucketts Way, but we are a long way from seeing any prioritisation of fixing those intersections. Anybody that's from Dungog—maybe their kids go to school in Medowie or maybe they're working at Williamtown or Raymond Terrace—use the intersection, The Bucketts Way and Medowie Road. You're playing chicken with the traffic at those intersections, yet they're not on the priority list for the New South Wales government. They need to be, as does the Houston Mitchell Drive intersection with the Pacific Highway, which is, I think, one of the most dangerous intersections on the Pacific Highway. It needs to be addressed.

When you raise it with the New South Wales government, they're talking about making another U-turn 200 metres down the road. That is not going to save the lives of the people that use that intersection, and the community has been crying out for investment there. They're also crying out for investment and support for local councils to put money into the length of The Bucketts Way, the length of The Lakes Way. The Lakes Way used to be the Pacific Highway. I've now got constituents coming to me talking about busted suspensions and blown tyres on that Lakes Way, which is not only an important route for people from Foster and Tuncurry down to Bulahdelah along the Pacific Highway, but is a tourist route. We're talking about attracting people to our region, and they're coming on a pothole filled road. It's a substantial road, but it's one that's full of potholes. That's just great for showcasing the wonders of the great lakes. We've got the Thunderbolt's Way as well, and I could go to a lot of those smaller roads that are key productive routes.

We've got the Lorne Road, and the member for Maranoa is here. He has been to Lorne Road and made a substantial funding commitment to Lorne Road. This is a key road from the Comboyne Plateau down to the Pacific Highway. It's a produce route for dairy, beef and horticulture, yet, again, you're playing chicken with your life if a tanker is going up to collect milk and you're bringing your family down, maybe to go to school at Camden Haven High School. These are critical routes. This matters to the people in regional Australia. Good roads matter to people in regional Australia. I think it is different in the cities. I've lived in Canberra. They do a pretty good job, I have to say, for roads in Canberra. I don't think they should be getting much money from the Commonwealth. I know where the money should be going, and that's to local councils.

On that point, I was exceptionally disappointed to learn that under this budget the distribution of financial assistance grants has fallen again as a percentage of Commonwealth tax revenue down to 0.49 per cent, from one per cent. That has a real impact on regional councils. Some councils in regional members electorates rely 10, 20 or 30 per cent on those financial assistance grants. They make the difference to fix the local roads, to make sure that the local footy club has a field that they can play on that's safe and to look after the local swimming pool. In our local council areas—we're talking about in the MidCoast—it's not just one centre that they have. They have five or six centres that have a swimming pool, that have a library and that have community sporting facilities. So, when you reduce financial assistance to local governments, you are impacting the way that people in our communities can live.

I've just touched on one issue that that is incredibly disappointing from this federal budget. I'm also disappointed at the stripping of $103 million from the National Water Grid. I have a dam that needs to be built in the Manning. That opportunity is potentially now lost. I also note that funding has been stripped from the Wine Tourism and Cellar Door Grant program and that funding has been reduced for the agriculture stream of the Natural Heritage Trust. Now, this is about helping and supporting people in our regional communities to invest in environmental stewardship. As I said, I think this is a regional funding bloodbath. Shame on this Albanese government.

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to 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.