Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

The Sustainable Region for Darling Matilda Way stops, though. It does not include Mount Isa, Cloncurry, McKinlay, Richmond, Flinders or Dalrymple. Why? Because they are represented by the member for Kennedy. That is why. The member for Kennedy’s area was deliberately excluded from this Sustainable Region.

But let us go further and look at a third sustainable region, the Campbelltown Sustainable Region. You know: remote and rural Campbelltown, represented from Mosman. We had two areas—Camden and Campbelltown; not Liverpool around it; not Wollondilly, which is far more regional than either of them; not Wollongong, which is a regional centre—just Camden and Campbelltown. I wonder why? I wonder why you would single out Camden and Campbelltown to make into a sustainable region. What an outrage.

The only thing that makes the Regional Partnerships program just look red hot, rather than totally on fire, is the Sustainable Regions program. What an outrage. This mob opposite define ‘regional Australia’ by how people vote and not by where it was actually located. It was all about politics and not about geography.

See this speech in context