Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, I withdraw. The Albanese government has provided for a 15 per cent increase in the minimum wage for aged-care workers. For 1,606 Territorians working in aged care, that's great news.

As for regional infrastructure projects, something that was simply missing from those on the other side, I am proud that our government is upgrading seven major highways and roads: the Stuart Highway, the Central Arnhem Highway, the Tanami, the Carpentaria Highway, the Buntine Highway, the Mereenie Loop Road and the Paru Road—a lot of highways and roads. This is providing connectivity for those remote communities. The government is building five new or upgraded health clinics at Mutitjulu, Alice Springs, Santa Teresa and Palmerston. These health clinics certainly weren't supported by the people opposite.

One thing that we need to do for young people is to keep them engaged, and one of the ways of doing that is to build or upgrade sporting facilities. I'm proud that we're going to be delivering 80 new or upgraded sporting facilities, including upgrades to the Katherine pool and the Freds Pass Reserve. Community shade places are often taken for granted, but we are building those in 13 remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. There will be two new cultural centres in Central Australia, including the state-of-the-art National Aboriginal Art Gallery.

On communications, I know one of my colleagues talked about connectivity and just how important it is. There are new builds or upgrades to internet and mobile reception for over 30 different remote communities. There are 75 communities in the Northern Territory. Out of those 75 communities, 30 had no mobile access whatsoever. These are major communities that have populations of over 2½ thousand people, and communication simply wasn't available to those communities.

For Central Australia, there is $48 million under the Central Australian community safety package and a commitment for a further $250 million. That is money that was put back after the coalition government, over 10 years, removed more than $500 million from Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. It is the Albanese government that has put this investment back on the table to try and deal with some of the intractable issues that we are seeing in those communities. There are 30 different individual programs and infrastructure commitments coming out of those funding commitments.

I want to repeat: this investment in community infrastructure in the Northern Territory and in Lingiari is the largest ever in the history of governments in Australia. I'm proud to be part of this government that has put investment back into those communities in the Northern Territory. It's not just about those mob on the other side. It's about getting services to Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.

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