Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the member for Indi for moving this very important motion regarding the regional Australia white paper, Regions at the ready: investing in Australia's future. I can't think of a better thing that the government should be focusing on. Our regional areas are so important to Australia. I take exception to what the previous speaker said. I grew up on a dairy farm in a country area—six generations. I proudly stand here as the member for Gilmore. It is an absolute honour to represent people. But the reason I stood as a candidate and became the member for Gilmore was that I saw what was happening in our regions. I saw how our people were hurting and how they were missing out under 24 years with a Liberal member.

The budget last night left a whole lot of things out, and I've got a lot of people in my electorate who are very, very unhappy. Here's an article from today, from the CEO of Waminda. Waminda is our South Coast Women's Health and Welfare Aboriginal Corporation, looking after Aboriginal women's health. They are a leader in what they do. They have lots of great programs aiming to improve health and educational outcomes for Aboriginal women as well as families. They have a lot of great programs, like Dead or Deadly. They have stroke prevention programs. They have programs that go into our schools. They have been trying to work with the government for years to create Birthing on Country. This would be an Australian first and would go a long way to reducing the Indigenous child mortality rate. So, they are very disappointed, and there's an article in my local paper today about that.

Health is probably the No. 1 issue in my electorate. We have a lot of elderly people, but of course health affects everyone, of all ages. A new Eurobodalla hospital is coming to Moruya, but there is concern that level 4 facilities are not going to be at the hospital. In the budget last night, funding was announced around mental health, and I always welcome funding around mental health. But the new Eurobodalla hospital needs an acute mental health unit—mental health inpatient beds. People are crying out for that. We also need a training facility so we can attract more health workers to our region. It's absolutely imperative. And radiology funding was promised under this government previously. Where is that? That's what people are asking me.

And housing: on the New South Wales South Coast we have the worst housing crisis that anybody has ever seen. I have people coming into my office who cannot find a rental. We have the lowest rental availability in New South Wales. What do we say to them? There is nowhere to go.

I've got a letter here today from the Shoalhaven homelessness interagency. It says: 'The strain on our services, in being able to find alternative housing solutions, is increasing exponentially and is simply untenable. The chronic shortage of housing has been compounded by increasing rents in the private rental market, the appallingly low rate of JobSeeker, which limits people's ability to access housing, and a shortage of stock available through the public and community housing services.' What is this government doing about it? Nothing. They have no vision. That's what I take exception to. Regions at the ready: investing in Australia's future. We should be looking after our greatest asset—that is, our people in the regions.

Then we've got our roads, which are crippling around us. The duplication of the Princes Highway is absolutely paramount. That definitely needs more funding. We have a lot of different roads, like the Araluen Road. We've gone through the bushfires, four disaster-declared floods, COVID—you name it, we've really seen it all. We don't even have an emergency operations centre in Moruya. They were working out of a hall with trestle tables from Bunnings. How does that happen? We've got the national disaster mitigation fund and we've got communities crying out for support. This government needs to get serious and start helping regional Australia.

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