Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. I note that I was with the honourable member in his electorate recently. One of the great things about the Community Development Grants Program is the Katie Rose Cottage Hospice at Wide Bay. It's an incredible job they do there with people at the last part of their life, having their family around them. It's an incredible thing. I want to commend them.

The Building Better Regions Fund allows those in smaller areas to get some form of benefit that would otherwise go to a major capital city. By its very nature, a major capital city can have the Western Sydney airport, which so many people are beneficiaries of. But if you live in a place such as Murgon, in the seat of Wide Bay, you need something vastly more targeted, and the Building Better Regions Fund allows that form of targeting to these people so that they can get projects that are so important to them. That allows us to do such things as the expansion of the 1,600 square metres of exhibition space we have done with the Newcastle Art Gallery. I was up in the Hunter at the Newcastle Art Gallery the other day. This allows them to at least have what they believe is a premier facility in their area, with the capacity to expand. In the city areas, in one instance, the member for Sydney—close to half a billion dollars was recently spent on the art gallery in her electorate. Regional areas also deserve to have their time for investment by our nation because they are the people that we stand behind, they are the projects that we stand behind and the resources in their industry we stand behind.

Ms Catherine King interjecting—

I hear the interjections from the member for Ballarat, who obviously wants to lead the charge to get rid of these projects. She believes they're a rort. She quoted them as 'dodgy grants programs'. I've never heard her come and defend the programs; I've heard her come to talk about getting rid of the programs. The Labor Party just want the votes--but they're going to leave the people behind. They always do. They never actually present themselves. And, although we may see the member for Grayndler, the Leader of the Opposition, in regional areas at times, we'll never see the member for Sydney coming up to Central Queensland to stand behind the coalminers, or look forward to Minister Penny Wong going to Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley to stand behind the coalminers, or maybe the member for Port Adelaide going to the Hunter Valley to stand behind the coalminers, because they don't believe in these industries. They don't believe in these people.

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