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

As I travel around my electorate and I meet constituents face to face, it is becoming more and more apparent that they feel they are being treated as second-class citizens. It is a shame on this government that they feel like they just don't matter, whether it's farmers, farming communities, people running small businesses or mothers who can't get child care—because there is a desert out there; it's called a childcare desert, and not a penny is being spent to deal with this issue. It is a crying shame, and those who are in the cities ought to be aware of just how much—as my good colleagues have been talking about—we actually contribute to the economy.

We on this side of the chamber are not surprised. In fact, we in the Nationals know Labor robs regions to buy votes in the cities. Labor has abolished through the forward estimates the very successful Building Better Regions Fund, the Community Development Fund, the Stronger Communities Program, Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, Roads of National Significance, the Regional Accelerator Program—do I need to go on? Yes, I do—the Regionalisation Fund and the Energy Security and Regional Development Plan. I might add that last month's budget gave the Mobile Black Spot Program a two-year death sentence as well.

Labor's Growing Regions Program, which they claimed would replace Building Better Regions alongside the Regional Partnerships and Precincts Program, has been so delayed that it has now been two years since regional communities received a cent under the equivalent region-building programs. In my own electorate, only one Growing Regions application has been successful—one program for 83½ thousand square kilometres. It was $5 million for the Swan Hill riverfront. I don't begrudge them that, but what about the other 11 councils? Swan Hill also received $650,000 under the Regional Partnerships and Precincts Program. I would like to be able to say that other councils in my electorate received some funds as well. They deserved it. All 12 councils deserved funding. Did they get it? No, they did not, and there is no promise that funding is coming. Under the Growing Regions Program, Labor rejected 90 per cent of the applications, despite the department deeming 300 of the 380 applicants as being suitable for funding. Only 40 projects were funded and, damningly, $94 million from the Growing Regions Program round 1 was left unallocated. Who does that?

At a Victorian level, the Andrews and now Allan Labor government axed the Regional Jobs and Infrastructure Fund of more than $100 million per year, stranding shires and councils in electorates like mine that relied on joint state and federal funding to get projects off the ground. Under Minister King, Labor have changed the funding requirements, requiring a greater proponent contribution. Mallee shires simply cannot commit that money without a Victorian government funding partner. Remember the 90-day infrastructure review? Minister King's review ran for over 200 days in the end, further delaying the rollout of infrastructure, like upgrades to the Calder Highway, the Murray Valley Highway, the Sunraysia Highway and the Western Highway and the long overdue replacement of the Swan Hill Bridge.

Our roads in Mallee are abysmal. I drive them regularly. At least my car has decent suspension, but the experience is still literally painful. Constituents tell me they are having to repair their cars due to the many potholes that Labor have not lifted one little pinky to fix. It's worse than abysmal; it's downright dangerous and it's threatening lives. That's what a combination of nine years of Victorian Labor and two years of federal Labor and a scorched earth approach to regional Australia does to you. It should be criminal. Regional Australians drive on dangerously damaged roads, and shires have also been stranded by Labor's promise to increase their funding. That can wasn't just kicked down the road; it was kicked into a pothole called a 'local government sustainability review', which is yet to report and, unless we have an early 2025-26 federal budget, won't see more funding during the life of this 47th Parliament. It is a shame.

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