Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

One thing I find amazing in a lot of these speeches on regional Australia is that it's almost as if those opposite haven't been the government for eight years. You would have thought that, with eight years to properly and strategically plan things like decentralisation and other much-announced initiatives, we would have seen a bit of action by now, but there's a heap of ways in which the government, those opposite, have failed regional Australia. It's been a failure of strategy, but also, I think—and we saw it last night in the budget—it's been a failure of imagination. There's been a failure to plan for the future of our regions, which is vital if we are going to have a sustainable growth trajectory and strong development of our regional areas to make Australia a truly great country. It's no great surprise that those opposite had to be dragged kicking and screaming by the Senate to even release their Australia's regions report, more than two years after they received it from the Select Committee on Regional Development and Decentralisation. They've been in government for eight years and had to be dragged kicking and screaming for two years to actually deliver it.

That could be because they've got no vision for the regions. That was shown today in question time when I asked the Deputy Prime Minister if it was true—and it certainly was—that only one per cent of the new infrastructure funds to be spent in the NT were to be spent over the forward estimates, over four years. So we've got eight years of neglect and now another four years where only one per cent of new infrastructure funds are going to be spent over the forward estimates. You can't run this country and neglect a sixth of the land mass. You can't pretend to stand up for regions when one per cent of the new infrastructure funding for the Northern Territory is going to be spent within the next four years.

So there's no vision in the budget. Australia's been saddled with a record debt by those opposite, the government. There's a great graph going around on social media at the moment. I recommend you have a look, because it puts paid to the absurdity that we heard from those opposite when we were last in government, when there was a global financial crisis.

What would have been great for regional Australia including the Northern Territory, besides having more than one per cent of new infrastructure spending over the forward estimates, would have been the realisation of the announcement, in the last federal election, of a bit over $200 million for Kakadu. We haven't seen it, and it would really have come in handy in the last 15 months, or since the last federal election, if we could have used those funds to make sure that Kakadu was good to go for this boom we're seeing in domestic tourism. We're going to have a great dry season. It would have been great if the promises made at the last federal election had been honoured.

In terms of social infrastructure, we had more announcements from those opposite—$5 million for a veterans wellbeing centre. And then, when the budget came last night, nothing—zip. Those opposite basically can't be trusted. If they rock into your electorate during an election campaign and make a commitment, it's not honoured. There is no honour. Regional Australians scratch their heads and go, 'They announce a lot and they've told us they're going to do things for us in the regions in terms of social infrastructure, which is badly missing, but we've been dudded on the NBN.' We say this quite a bit, but it's because it's true: there's always the photo op, always the announcement, but never the follow-up on the ground. That's disappointing to me as someone who represents people in regional Australia.

There are a number of things that could happen in the Top End in terms of social infrastructure. One of them is a youth hub that's badly needed. I will continue to put those ideas, as others have, to the federal government, and hope that they start doing something for regional areas in this country.

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