Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Minister for Regional Development, Territories and Local Government is letting regional Australia down. Come to my electorate and speak to the 18.6 per cent of young people who are looking for work while TAFE has been gutted. Talk to them and then represent regional Australia. The government is letting down regional and rural Australians and this is certainly the case in my electorate of Dobell on the New South Wales Central Coast. It's letting down regional Australians in health care, education and employment. On the Central Coast, one in five of us is aged over 65 and one in five of us is aged under 15. These are the regional Australians who you're supposed to represent, who need your help. The very young and the very old are the people who most use and need health care and yet Medicare rebates are not keeping pace and people are paying higher gap fees to access the healthcare services they need, after the New South Wales government tried to sell off our local hospital in Wyong.

Our oldest are waiting too long for home care packages and too long for their pensions to come through. Some have been waiting since last December. Our youngest, especially those from vulnerable families, risk missing out on important early childhood education because of the harsh changes that this government has made to childcare subsidies. On the coast, our population is hollowed out in the middle, as people of working age are forced to travel to work or study outside of our region—to Sydney, Newcastle or further. Young people are forced to travel away for TAFE to Sydney or Newcastle. Under this government, Central Coast TAFE has been gutted. Our schools have lost $33 million. Yes, $33 million to Central Coast schools has been cut. And our university, the University of Newcastle, has lost $69 million that would have supported regional Australians to get a better education, a better start and a better job.

There is no doubt this government is letting down rural and regional Australians and it's not fair. We're not wealthy on the coast. We're decent people, we work hard and we support one another. Young people, in particular, are struggling to find work. We have stubbornly high youth unemployment, sitting at 18.6 per cent, and yet this government is doing nothing. It's sitting on its hands, doing nothing to help them get a job, nothing to help them acquire skills or education and nothing to help them get apprenticeships.

Only Labor is interested in young people and in education, skills and apprenticeships for young people. Labor will commit $100 million to rebuilding TAFE with our Future Fund to reverse the decline in TAFE and rebuild campuses across regional Australia. Labor will ensure two-thirds of funding for vocational education goes to TAFE and will scrap up-front fees for 100,000 students. Labor will provide pre-apprenticeship programs and advanced adult apprenticeship programs, and Labor will ensure one in 10 jobs on Commonwealth priority projects are filled by apprentices. In regional areas like mine on the Central Coast of New South Wales, the chance to gain skills through an apprenticeship is a trusted pathway to a secure career.

Behind health care, manufacturing is our second biggest value-add sector on the Central Coast, worth nearly $1 billion and employing nearly 10,000 people. What is the government doing to support manufacturing in regional and rural Australia? Nothing. The manufacturing sector is crying out for support to grow, expand and employ more people, and the government is doing nothing. The manufacturing industry needs skilled workers and willing apprentices and the government is cutting them off at the knees.

Our regions even more than our cities need TAFE, and Labor will work to rebuild TAFE. We will rebuild education and we will rebuild health care. What could be more important to anyone, whether they live in the city or in the regional and rural areas of Australia, than access to quality health care, a good local education and a secure job? This is what is necessary for anybody in our country.

Before I finish, I want to turn to something that this ideologically driven government is fixated on: trickle-down economics. It has let down the people of regional and rural Australia. It has let them down badly. I want to talk to you about Enid and Warren. Enid is 94 and vision impaired. Warren is 97 and living with dementia. Last April they were assessed for a level 3 home care package. They are still waiting. When my office contacted My Aged Care, we were told that they'd look at another assessment, to hopefully move them from a medium priority to a high priority. It is just outrageous that someone who is 94, is vision impaired and is the carer for her husband, who is 97 and living with dementia, has to struggle. Do you know what they said? 'Don't bother, Emma. We'll be dead before this gets fixed.' That is how this government is supporting struggling regional Australians who are suffering. It must do better. This is not fair.

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