Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Riverina for her question. Of course the member for Riverina knows only too well that it is just as important that we continue to invest in critical infrastructure across regional Australia to support our exporters as it is to open up new opportunities in export markets for them, whether it be the wheat growers in her electorate of Riverina or the manufacturing exporters like Celair-Malmet or Precision Parts that are doing very well. They are in regional Australia, and we support them. We support their efforts of competing across the world and providing jobs in those regions in the export industries.

This year we have committed a significant amount of money to invest in infrastructure across Australia, particularly in regional Australia, through our AusLink program, in adding to the already successful AusLink program and in building it to a $15 billion investment in roads across Australia. But we have also announced a significant investment in communications infrastructure to underpin the need for modern communications across regional Australia as well as in the metropolitan areas. I instance the $3.1 billion Connect Australia package that we announced. It had two components: the $1.1 billion investment for services such as Broadband Connect to help fill in those gaps, particularly across regional Australia; and the $2 billion perpetual Communications Fund, which is going to provide the safety net for regional Australia for years to come.

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