Kristy McBain (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I hear the sea of suits—really lovely to hear you today! But when you were in government, instead of playing a game of charades about what you thought government looked like—it's more than just a press release, a photo, a head nod in the back of the press conference—you actually have to do the delivery part. That's what you forgot over the last 10 years.

We have done more in the last 12 months than those did in 10 years, because the regions are much more than just a grants program, because we want regional Australia to seize the huge opportunities that come with a shift to cleaner and cheaper renewable energy, a shift that those opposite deliberately ignored for a decade. But, first, we've got to clean up the mess that was left by those opposite.

Every time we've looked at the big regional programs dreamt up by those opposite, we've found real problems for our communities: an inland rail project that blew out by approximately $31 billion, an infrastructure pipeline where the projects blew out from 150 to 800—

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