Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

all those people representing rural Australia who will know that this budget falls disproportionately on rural and regional Australia. When you cut $80 billion out of health and education, it is axiomatic that those cuts will fall hardest on rural and regional Australia. Think of those small, struggling rural hospitals—that is where the state governments will look for savings first. Think of those small, rural schools that struggle to secure the critical mass of students required to keep those rural schools viable—they are the schools the state governments will go after first as a result of this tearing up of the agreements between the Commonwealth and the states. This budget is a fundamental breach of trust and faith. It is a bad budget. It is going to hit all Australians but, in particular, it is going to hit health and education services in rural Australia.

See this speech in context