Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

In my role as the shadow assistant minister for regional development and member for Mallee, I am passionate about regional Australia and I am passionate about my home electorate. Mallee is the largest division in Victoria, comprising over one-third of the state, with 83,412 square kilometres in my electorate. That is a lot of ground to cover, and a lot of infrastructure is required to meet the needs of Mallee residents. The 12 local councils in Mallee are committed to getting their local projects off the ground and ensuring residents and visitors alike benefit from them. Many of my fellow coalition MPs represent country areas too, with the same desire to see their electorates prosper. But, before a sod can be turned, before a switch can be flicked or before a contract can be signed, there needs to be one key thing, and that is funding—funding which turns a dream into reality. That word buys materials, pays wages and ensures projects get off paper and into bricks and mortar. Without funding, there are no projects and no progress.

Labor's axing of the Building Better Regions Fund round 6 and the Community Development Grants Program in this year's budget robbed the regions of that funding that they desperately need. For Mallee, the removal of this funding was far reaching and hurts so many people. For example, it impacts family businesses which rely on tourists who would visit and stay at Beaufort, from funding applied for by the Pyrenees Shire Council. It takes away the opportunity for students to study medicine in Mildura at La Trobe University because their biomedical wet lab funding has been taken away. This is a crying shame. Time and time again, our best and brightest students with a goal to become a doctor or an allied health worker need to leave the regions and go to the city in order to study. And time and time again, we lose them permanently. They fall in love, find a good placement near the hustle and bustle of city life, and spread their wings. The problem for smaller regional towns is that most don't come back. Being able to train healthcare workers locally at La Trobe University in a wet lab would help solve that problem. No longer would all potential doctors and nurses leave the region to study in the city. They can choose to stay, to do their placements locally, and contribute significantly to solving the regional healthcare crisis.

Minister King, the minister for infrastructure, paints all projects delivered to the regions under the Building Better Regions Fund and the Community Development Grants Program, as pork-barrelling—as favouring coalition seats. It is the ultimate hypocrisy, given what we know. Minister King's government will describe coalition funding for the regions as a rort, all the while granting $2.2 billion of funding to the state Labor government which is heading into an election next week. This funding is not for regional projects in Mallee but for Dan Andrews's suburban rail loop—a project the Victorian Auditor-General has stated he has yet to see the economic rationale for. While Labor like to say that Infrastructure Australia should approve large-scale projects such as the Suburban Rail Loop, they have not sighted it. Let's face it, the promise of the Suburban Rail Loop in Melbourne helps Labor's re-election in contested urban seats. I understand Minister King doesn't see it this way, but it cannot be seen as anything but politicisation, given her views on regional funding by the coalition.

It is the role of every politician in this building to deliver for their electorate. The coalition delivered for Mallee, Wannon, Bendigo, Ballarat, Parkes, Maranoa, Durack and Grey—all regional seats—because we represent regional seats. Given the Liberal and National parties represent the majority of regional communities, they are therefore more likely to benefit from a regional grants program than the Labor Party, which unsurprisingly represents fewer regional electorates.

The National Party supports our regions; we fight for our communities' interests. I have invited Minister King to visit and meet with stakeholders in my electorate and see how important the projects in Mallee are. She is welcome to drive up the Calder Highway, if she can get through, and tell people in Mallee why they don't deserve the funding. She can explain how the funding we have delivered or had promised in the election amounts to corrupt rorting of the system.

History provides some salient evidence of the pot calling the kettle black. In 2013, under Labor and the prime ministership of Kevin Rudd, Minister King was the Minister for Regional Australia, Local Government and Territories. Labor had the Regional Development Australia Fund, with Minister King having the power to sign off on or scrap projects. It was a predecessor to the Building Better Regions Fund, designed to ensure regional Australia genuinely got its slice of the pie. It was in this period that the Australian National Audit Office highlighted some interesting facts. Fact No. 1 is that more than a quarter of all projects approved by Minister King under rounds 3 and 4 of that fund had not been recommended for funding by the advisory panel. Fact No. 2 is that 80 per cent of decisions Minister King made to not award funding, even though they had been approved by an advisory panel, were located in coalition held electorates. Fact No. 3 is that Minister King approved 23 projects worth almost $91 million that the advisory panel specifically recommended not to fund as they did not represent value for money or failed to achieve the objects of the program according to the Australian National Audit Office. These projects were of course in Labor seats. Fact No. 4 is that, in round 3 of the Regional Development Australia Fund alone, 93 per cent of recommended applications that were rejected were from coalition electorates.

The Australian National Audit Office has already reported on the merits of the Building Better Regions Fund, despite what Minister King says. It acknowledged that Building Better Regions was well designed in a number of respects, and the last two rounds were structured to support communities through tough circumstances, including drought, bushfires, floods and the ongoing effects of COVID-19 in regional communities. We know the Audit Office is non-partisan; it gives a straight-down-the-line account and fair judgement, which is all that regional Australia should be expecting from their minister. Again, I call on Minister King to reflect on how she can ensure the regions get their fair share—and, by 'regions in Victoria', I do not mean Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong.

When Australia was in the middle of the pandemic and cities looked like ghost towns, it was our regions that continued producing, and their reward has been only lip service from the Labor government's recent budget. But the coalition has given them the model to change this. We have a proud record when it comes to infrastructure spending in the regions. We delivered record investments across Australia, supporting 40,000 jobs. The coalition government increased the federal infrastructure investment pipeline in the March 2022-23 budget to $120 billion to create new jobs, keep people and freight moving and drive economic growth. The coalition's last budget also announced an additional $17.9 billion for road, rail and community infrastructure projects across Australia.

We know that Australia relies on its regions, and the regions know they can rely on the coalition to deliver. Labor has a chance to show the regions that they can rely on them, too. If they do so, I would be the first to congratulate them. They may not have started well with the cuts to regional infrastructure funding, including to projects such as the $6.4 million Sawyer Park pavilion upgrade applied for by the Horsham Rural City Council, or the cut to the $3.5 million re-imagining Robinvale project applied for by Swan Hill Rural City Council, or the $845,000 Dunmunkle child care applied for by the Yarriambiack Shire Council. The good news with that particular application is that the state government, both sides, have approved that funding. I heartily congratulate the Yarriambiack Shire Council on their persistence and their diligence in fighting for this childcare centre.

There's the $1 million Beaufort Lakeside Tourism Park development applied for by the Pyrenees Shire Council, also applied for in the Building Better Regions funding; there's the Mildura Clay Target Club's $1.6 million upgrade, which was applied for by the company Green Range; and there's the $5.1 million Nexus Accommodation project applied for by the Birchip Cropping Group. The Birchip Cropping Group is outstanding in its innovation in drawing scientists to a regional area to look at agriculture for the future. It desperately needs accommodation and has had its extensive business case and the plans drawn up. It's now waiting for potentially another program to rise. These projects were all projects under the Building Better Regions round 6 funding.

As for the Community Development Grants Program, Labor cuts have affected the Mildura Tracks and Trails—13½ million. It's an incredibly important project for tourism to link the Murray from one end to the other to improve healthy lifestyles for everyone who wants to travel to the regions. La Trobe University and Cann Group in Mildura lose out on $5 million for research between medical cannabis growth and La Trobe University, a fantastic project that would again see scientists rise in our regional areas. Davis Park in Nhill is set back $1.6 million that it will not be receiving from the current government. La Trobe University Biomedical Wet Lab I've already spoken about. Deledio Reserve in Dunnolly, $3.6 million. Karinie Street reconstruction project in Swan Hill, $2½ million. And upgrades to Castle Crossing Road in Nangiloc, currently dealing with major floods, will desperately need even more funding than the $290,000 promised in the Community Development Grants Program.

Despite the current poor outcome for regional communities in Mallee, they are typically quite understanding. They don't hold grudges and work on solutions. It's time for Labor to assure country people that they will not abandon the regions. Help our Mallee towns build childcare centres to get their children looked after and give parents the option to get back to work. Help the Mallee tourism industry get visitors back to our beautiful pristine Mallee country, particularly once the floods have dispersed. Help regional education to train our next workforce and to keep our local brightest sparkling in the regions. Do these things and Labor will be giving people in Mallee the infrastructure funding they deserve. I am calling on Labor to show respect to the regions. I will always fight for the people of Mallee and for regional communities across Australia, but I call on Labor to step up and do the same.

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