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

Madam Deputy Speaker, allow me to set the record straight on a few statements. This MPI can only be described as an absolute furphy and a complete distraction from the real story of what is going on in regional Australia.

I will start with tax cuts, because they are something that those opposite continue to ignore. Their stage 3 tax cuts would have benefited the highest income earners, meaning those on the lowest income, people earning the smallest amount, would have missed out on a tax cut altogether. That was their plan. As we know, many people living in regional Australia earn less. In regional Australia people are lower income earners by the nature of the work they do. Tax cuts are one measure that this government has introduced whereby all Australian taxpayers, including those in regional Australia, will get a tax cut and disproportionately those in outer metro suburbs and our regions will do better. Just like women will do better and younger workers will do better, regional workers will do better because they earn less. Under those opposite they would have got no tax cut; under us they'll get one.

Another change this government has introduced is the tripling of the Medicare incentive. The electorate that will do best under this tripling of the Medicare incentive—my own electorate will do really well, but I don't get to claim the top prize—is the member for Mayo's electorate, a regional electorate. What I mean by that is that more doctors are bulk-billing because of the tripling of the incentive.

There are the changes to the social security safety net. We've heard time and time again from those opposite that they represent some of the poorest electorates, and it is true that they have a higher proportion of people who are pensioners, who are on a Newstart, who receive rent assistance or who are single parents. These are all measures that we have improved since coming to government. There are also back-to-back increases to rent assistance and making sure we fairly index pensioners. Those opposite say that it's a budget blowout to index our pensions properly. There have been increases to Newstart. Electorates like Hinkler, Durack, Mallee, Braddon, Grey and New England, represented by those opposite, have more people receiving those benefit from us and doing better under our government—not under their government, under our government—because we understand and we represent communities that are disadvantaged. They are not just in the regions but also in the outer metro areas.

They try to claim that they represent all poor people. They don't. There is disadvantage in most electorates. We understand that because we represent the regions and the rural areas, as well as the outer metros and the cities. It is so disappointing that those opposite continue to throw up old rhetoric like 'inner-city elites'. It is just shameful that they try to wedge us that way, because it is just not true.

I do like the way they keep bringing up this issue of live sheep exports from WA. Those sheep are being trucked across the Nullarbor into electorates like mine, and spare land is being turned into sheep farms. Can I tell you the net result of that? We're having more sheep processed in abattoirs in my electorate, which is bringing the price of lamb down, so rural people, like all consumers of lamb, are now paying a fairer price for lamb. Lamb became superexpensive. Pensioners weren't buying lamb. But now, because of what has happened—it's the side of the story you don't want to talk about. We are seeing the price of lamb come down, and that is helping people.

When we talk about 'all regional Australians' or 'all rural Australians', you have to think past the rhetoric. It's not just about mining companies and big farm corporations; it's about the communities and the people that live in them: the pensioners, the workers, the self-funded retirees, the people who are struggling. Our government is delivering for them through the measures that I've mentioned and through measures that others on this side will mention. There are the changes to housing, the changes that we're bringing forward to help people. We are a government that cares. We are a government that understands because we represent regional Australia.

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