Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

so it is always clearly in our thoughts. I want to remind honourable members that six of my cabinet colleagues are from rural and regional Australia. They provide a very strong voice on all government policy in the cabinet. We are backing regions through a $297 million Building Better Regions Fund. We are supporting regions to drive sustainable growth and employment through our $220 million Regional Jobs and Investment Packages, including $20 million for the Goulburn Valley—a particular interest to the honourable member. We are committed, as the honourable member knows, to a $10 million road upgrade package for her electorate of Indi. We are rolling out 30 new or upgraded mobile base stations in Indi under the Mobile Black Spots Program. I might say, on the matter of the NBN—an issue the honourable member is very enthusiastic about—there are 7,382 active NBN services in Indi and over 34,000 premises are able to order an NBN connection if they wish, including of course access to the Sky Muster satellite. The honourable member and the coalition will no doubt have differences at election time, but we are absolutely united in our commitment to regional Australia and our determination to ensure that the budget and every element of our policy delivers for regional Australians. We will have a very close look at her bill and I thank her for raising it.

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