Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks very much to the member for Hunter for the question. He's an incredibly strong advocate for his community. One of the things that we all love about the member for Hunter is that he'll give absolutely everything a go—although I was a little worried about his testing of the zip-line at the Lake Mac climbing tower last week! But well done, mate. That was quite an effort.

As members from regional Australia, we do understand that people in our communities are under pressure and we do know that some of them are doing it really tough. It's why our No. 1 priority every single day is addressing cost-of-living relief for every Australian. We're working hard to deliver that cost-of-living relief to ensure that Australians, particularly those in our regions, earn more and get to keep more of what they earn.

It is six days until 1 July, and that means it is six days until every Australian taxpayer will be getting a tax cut. It's six days until our $300 energy bill relief begins, and it's six days until 2.6 million low-paid workers get their third consecutive pay rise backed in by this government. At the same time we are strengthening Medicare and we're delivering cheaper medicines to every community, from the cities to the regions. We're delivering HECS relief for everyone with student debt, from the university student in Broome to the supermarket worker in Broken Hill, to the nurse in Katherine, to the teacher in Kincumber, to the cafe owner in Cairns, to the parents in Ceduna buying medicines for their kids. We are building more homes more quickly; we're helping put downward pressure on rents in our regions. We're strengthening the food and grocery code to get a better deal for the farmers and cheaper groceries for Australians. And we're backing regional jobs by incentivising and investing in developing low-carbon liquid fuels under our Future Made in Australia plan.

When it comes to infrastructure and regional investment, we've increased funding across the country—in particular, increasing Roads to Recovery funding from $500 million to $1 billion. That means every single council across Australia will have more money to spend on local roads, reducing pressure on ratepayers across all of those local council areas because otherwise they would have to pay for them. In two years this government, a Labor government, has delivered historic increases to local road funding that the coalition was never able to do.

We know there's much more to do. That's why we are working every single day to help make the cost of living better for Australians. That is how you deliver cost-of-living relief, not by pushing up power prices with nuclear reactors all across regional Australia.

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