John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I would like to continue my previous remarks by finishing with a positive story about Woomelang, a small township on the Sunraysia Highway in the eastern Mallee that lost their general store. Woomelang is a town with fewer than 300 people. The community got some funds together and got a small grant from the state government and bought their own store and, through working bees, have restored it. They have an ambitious program to save the petrol bowser in their town and set up a traveller’s rest to attract passing traffic on the Sunraysia Highway.

I wanted to mention that as a positive, because it is a celebration of community and a great testimony to the resilience of those hardworking people out there in the Mallee who just never give up. I applaud their efforts to save their general store. There is nothing more important than a store to provide those important victuals—the newspaper, the milk and the bread—and an opportunity for the community to meet and greet. I was a little disappointed that the federal government have not recognised the needs of communities like this. We have to wait to see how they will replace the wonderful Community Assistance Grants that were put in place by the former government to assist proud communities like Woomelang.

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