Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises that the Government has turned its back on regional Australia in the budget;

(2) acknowledges that the Government's broken promises and wrong priorities in the budget will hurt those living in regional Australia and further increase the divide between the city and the bush;

(3) notes that this budget will hurt regional Australia by:

(a) slashing $1 billion in funding to local government by cutting into the Financial Assistance Grants;

(b) introducing co-payments to Medicare that will discourage doctors from bulk billing, meaning there will be less choice for people to access general practitioner services in regional areas;

(c) cutting health which will mean fewer services in regional Australia;

(d) cutting education which will impact on regional schools and students with less funding available;

(e) increasing the fuel excise which will hurt regional Australians the most who rely on being mobile and being able to travel to work;

(f) cutting the ABC that regional Australians rely on for information; and

(g) increasing university fees that will hurt regional students and regional universities; and

(4) calls on the Government to reconsider its broken promises and wrong priorities for regional Australia in the Budget.

This government has really turned its back on regional Australia with this latest federal budget. The budget devised by those opposite is full of broken promises and of twisted priorities that will hurt people living in regional Australia more. The things in this budget that particularly impact on people in regional Australia include the freezing of indexation for financial assistance grants. That is more than $925 million across four years that will no longer be going to local government. Introducing a $7 GP tax will discourage bulk-billing and there is less choice for people in regional and rural Australia to visit a GP, so it will impact on them. There are cuts to health. An $80 billion cut to health and education will mean less services in regional Australia. Cutting education will impact on those smaller regional schools and students, with less funding available.

The increase in the fuel excise will hurt regional Australians more because they are more mobile and they rely more on transport, particularly their own vehicle, to get to and from work and to pick the kids up from school. Cutting the ABC will affect regional Australia as well because of the services that they rely on the ABC for. Particularly concerning is the change in the deregulation of university fees and the HECS debt, which will hurt regional students and regional Australia. There is so much in this budget that will hurt and impact on regional Australia. There is so much to talk about. Where to start?

Interestingly, we have seen the National Party, the coalition partner, stay pretty silent on the impact of this budget on regional Australia. Indeed, the minister, in this chamber in consideration in detail on the budget, would not answer when I asked many questions about whether any government agency, anywhere in the whole of government, had done an assessment of the impact of these changes in this budget on regional Australia? Of course, he did not answer because the answer is no. Nobody anywhere in government—in the education department, in the health department, in the Treasury, in the Regional Development Australia portfolio—has assessed the impact of these changes in this budget on regional Australia. One of the reasons they have not done that is that the findings will come out and show that regional Australia would indeed be hardest hit by this budget should these measures get through.

The cuts are astounding. We have the Australian Local Government Association coming to Canberra this week for the local government assembly. The financial assistance grants cuts are expected to dominate debate. Indeed, local governments across the country are pretty angry that they received no consultation and no notice of this cut, to take effect from 1 July, when the budget was introduced. This is a $925 million cut over four years across the country. This will impact more on those smaller regional and rural councils that can least afford it.

The President of Australian Local Government Association says councils are coming to Canberra 'somewhat shell-shocked'. Of course they are shell-shocked. They had prepared their budgets for the next few financial years. They had locked all that in, and suddenly they are getting a cut. As the Mayor of Geraldton said, there are 15 small councils outside of Geraldton and some of these councils depend on the grants to fund half of their budgets. This is a very substantial impact on smaller and regional councils.

What do people opposite actually think is going to happen? Councils are cutting services and staff because of this government's changes and/or increasing rates in regional and rural Australia, because of this budget and this financial assistance grant cut. It is very significant indeed and the impact on councils is very significant. We have 900 delegates coming to Canberra this week who are very, very concerned about these cuts to local government right across Australia. It will be interesting to see what those opposite are going to say to these councils en masse—900 of them—here, this week, lobbying for their councils, their regions and their cities, for funds from Canberra. They will be lobbying for the funds that they are actually entitled to under the Local Government (Financial Assistance) Act—funds that they were relying on, that were cut in the budget with no notice and no consultation.

How on earth can those opposite sit there and say they care about regional Australia when they have allowed this to happen? And where are the Nationals? They are silent. Warren Truss, Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, has not been out there defending regional and rural councils; he has not been out there standing up to the government and Joe Hockey, the Treasurer, to say, 'These grants should not be cut.' This is almost a billion dollars that these councils will never get back. Services will be cut in regional Australia, and it comes on top of all of the other measures in the budget that will impact on regional Australia, as well as all of the public sector cuts that will impact on regional Australia.

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