Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The fact of the matter is that the Nationals have some of the poorest electorates in the country. This is not new; this has been happening for decades. It's been happening for decades because it's always the National Party that leave their electorates behind. The reason they have poor education, low incomes and all the other job opportunity failures is that there's one consistency—National Party representation causes that. We heard before the absolute rubbish that was spewed out about what we did with the district workforce shortage stuff in relation to doctors. Well, none of them would know, but there are places like Kyneton, Woodend, Gisborne and the Mitchell shire, which is now half-represented by the absent member for Nicholls. That lot changed the doctors rating to 1, which treated rural communities the same as Brighton, which is where old Bridget used to live. So you've got to sit there and say, 'How can you come in here and attack us, when more money gets invested in rural and regional committees under our government than ever is under your government?' It was your lot that changed the doctors rating to make rural and regional towns the same as inner city.

Now, let's have a think about what they did when they were in government. The Inland Rail is four years behind, $15 billion over budget and getting nowhere. It's just an absolute joke that they come in here and waste our time, and waste the parliament's time. You'd think that they might actually be standing up for farmers. That's what it's about. You'd think that the leadership would have all the knowledge and the wisdom of farmers, but I think the only time the leadership over there ever went on a farm was to foreclose, because that's what they do. They just come in here and waste time. They don't talk about the positive things or how we can actually build to make things better.

In 10 years of government, they couldn't get a thing done, yet in our first budget we delivered $15 million to the hub in Seymour, for which the member for Nicholls was quite happy to get out of his box, make his first trip to Seymour and say, 'Look at that! Isn't that great?' But he never apologised to the community for waiting nine years to actually get that done, because it took a Labor government to do it. The Macedon Ranges Regional Sports Precinct covers a big area that takes in all the Macedon Ranges and surrounding areas. It gets all the kids and all the people together for sports. For nine years it was asked for, and each year it was knocked back by those opposite. We got into government and we funded it straightaway. And, now, what do we see? We see these magnificent facilities in regional Victoria that are actually delivering benefits for kids and their families.

If you want to talk about road funding, I'd be happy to talk about that for days. Let's talk about the $50 million for the Watson Street interchange, which was promised to be delivered after the member for Riverina and I went to a tragic event in my electorate. Fortunately, he wasn't still there, but his replacement then took that money away. And when they promised to put $50 million into the Hume Highway, what did they do with that? They took that away as well. So the only constancy you have with the National Party, if you vote for them, is that they will take away from regional communities just look after themselves.

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