Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

While the previous government did govern, and they say they governed for the regions, they governed for their own regions; they didn't govern for all regional MPs. They didn't deliver for all regional MPs, and for their own electorates they didn't deliver or govern well. The previous speaker talked about the Building Better Regions Fund and actually was incorrect in what he told the House. In round 6 of Building Better Regions they did call for applications, and lots of organisations and councils did put in their applications, but they were never assessed by the department. The minister asked, on coming into government, and there had been no list of priorities prepared; there has been no work done by the department.

The other reason why our government scrapped that fund was that, under the guidelines that were set up, it was going to be left wholly up to ministerial discretion. There was no independence or transparency and no departmental involvement at all. Being a government of good governance and transparency, our government decided that we wanted to restore integrity—the independence and the oversight. That is why that fund has ended and we announced in the budget a new fund to deliver good regional infrastructure projects—projects that are a priority for the regions and assessed by the department, not by an individual minister's wish or whim of the day.

The region covered by my electorate welcomed that, because we were hurt by the previous government. The department had decided, through the community sports infrastructure fund, that a soccer field in my electorate was worthy of a grant: $500,000, or just under, to upgrade the Kyneton soccer field. It became a victim of sports rorts. Colour-coded red, it got cut from funding which went to another project in a coalition seat. That's what happened under the previous government. They didn't govern for all regions, they didn't govern for all regional Australians; they only governed for their own, and they did it badly.

The previous speaker also spoke about doctors and the shortage of doctors. We too feel that in greater Bendigo and throughout my electorate. I've been speaking in this parliament since I was elected nine years ago about the growing GP crisis in our regions and the growing gap fees that are charged to patients. It didn't just happen after the May election. It's been happening for a long time in the regions. But now it's convenient for those in the National and Liberal parties to be raising it. We have a GP crisis, we have a Medicare system in crisis, we have a bulk-billing crisis, and these things started under their watch.

The Labor government has a plan for rebuilding Medicare. A billion dollars has been set aside to help GPs with their clinics and to put money back into bulk-billing, and that's just the start. We recognise that to help solve the GP crisis we have to start reinvesting in Medicare. That's why we're also expanding places at universities and making sure that more regional kids get the opportunity to go to university. The gap continued to widen in terms of educational outcomes in the regions under the previous government's watch. The gap in health outcomes and life expectancy between metro and regional people widened under the previous government's watch.

Life is getting harder in the regions, and it didn't just start after the May election—it started a lot sooner. We're going to be more targeted in how we support the regions. We are helping with cost-of-living pressures. We're lowering the cost of child care—a huge issue for regional parents. We're supporting the development and growth of the early childhood education workforce. A massive barrier for women in the regions is not having access to child care. It's not just about the cost of child care; we literally don't have enough educators in the regions to help educate our youngest children. There's enough space, there's room, but we don't have enough educators, so we have a plan to tackle that.

I could go on and on about what our side is doing to help support people in regional Australia. What's disappointing is that, rather than realising the mistakes they made in government, the opposition have come in with this MPI to attack the good work that we've started in our six months of government will continue to do once we enter next year.

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