Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

It's 20 to four, it's a Wednesday afternoon in May and it's a post-budget MPI. I've got that strange feeling we've seen it all before. To top it off, the member for Jagajaga is scaring the heck out of older Australians. She's talking about cutting taxes and removing supplements that were to pay for a carbon tax that no longer exists. She's working in that murky, grey area of half-truths. The irony of her statement about older Australians working until they're 70 is that older Australians now have a job, younger Australians now have a job and middle-aged Australians now have a job because of the policies of the coalition government. We have the lowest rate of unemployment for some time. While the members of the Labor Party are trying to create anxiety and chaos and while there is gnashing of teeth and slashing of wrists in this place, out in the wider realms of Australia, there's a degree of calmness because they know that they have a government that is in control. They know that we've just seen a budget that will provide a platform for Australians, as individuals, as small businesses and as companies, to do the best that they can. The Labor Party like to find someone who can achieve, so they can shut them down or tax them. This budget is enabling people to take charge of their own lives and get on with things.

In this budget we've touched on things that are important to the people of Australia, and I'll go through some of the budget measures for my part of the world. We've recognised the tax relief, and 57,185 of the taxpayers in the electorate of Parkes will get some relief from paying tax in the 2018-19 financial year. We're going to see more high-level aged-care packages because of the importance of giving our most valued citizens, our older Australians, the care, the nurture and the support they need to stay in their own homes. We are encouraging young people in rural areas to participate in tertiary education by reducing the guidelines around parental income so that more people can access youth allowance because they will not be put out because of their parents' income.

We're looking after rural health with $550 million through the Stronger Rural Health Strategy, which will mean the Murray Darling Medical School. In the city of Dubbo, Sydney university will have a facility where you can do end-to-end degrees in medicine and go on to do specialisation in medicine. Coupled with the $25 million that was in the last budget for the cancer centre, we will see doctors being trained as oncologists in Dubbo in the near future with the facilities that are there. These are important things in the day-to-day lives of people in rural Australia.

Roads of Strategic Importance will provide $3.5 billion so that we can tackle some of the pinch points. Sometimes the first mile is the most difficult mile in getting produce to market, tourists to a destination or kids to school. With Roads of Strategic Importance, several councils will be able to work together, come up with a project and combine to do something that will grow the economy and be of benefit. The return of the Stronger Communities Program will provide small grants for sporting organisations and community groups so they can put some money into their facilities. A couple of thousand dollars can mean that the community doesn't have to spend days selling sausage sandwiches to make money.

There is the Building Better Regions Fund. We're just about to see, from a previous round, the Bourke small animal abattoir. There will be over 200 jobs in the country town of Bourke, with many of those in the Indigenous community, to process feral goats for the international market, partly funded by the federal government. That program can continue. This government is focusing on what matters to the people of Australia. We're not getting caught up in the campaign— (Time expired)

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