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

I'm really pleased to rise and speak on this matter of public importance and highlight how wrong the members of the opposition are and how it's just not true. Regional Australians have been some of the biggest beneficiaries to policies that have been introduced by the Albanese Labor government. Five minutes isn't enough time to outline in detail all of the changes we have made since coming to government that are making a real difference to the lives of regional Australians.

I can start with health. Access to bulk-billing doctors is increasing. The tripling of the Medicare bulk-billing incentive has meant that more and more of our doctors in regional areas are bulk-billing. In my electorate, we've seen the biggest uptake. Regional electorates are tapping into this incentive; another regional electorate is the electorate of Mayo. Cheaper medicines are helping people in regional Australia. We all know the health statistics: sadly, people in regional areas don't live as long and have more chronic health conditions, therefore to have access to cheaper medicines is making a real difference to their lives.

I can also talk about the difference that the urgent the care clinics are making in Shepparton, Bendigo, Geelong and Ballarat, plus others being rolled out in other regional areas. They are all making a real difference to people's lives. I can talk about the changes that we have introduced in terms of reduction of debt for university fees and the debts that people have. Free TAFE is making a difference to regional students, by starting to try and reverse the trend of our young people not accessing tertiary education when they finish high school. These are all reforms from this government.

There are tax cuts for every worker—not just for those earning big incomes, which the previous government introduced. We changed it to make sure every worker, including those in regional Australia, got access to that. Regional wages are slightly lower than those in the metro cities—it is just a fact of life—meaning more workers in the regions got a tax cut under us than from those opposite. That is a simple fact. That is another measure of how regional Australians are doing better under us, because of our tax cuts reform.

Can we also talk about aged care and early childhood education? The pay rises introduced by this government are reversing the bleed. Aged care in regional areas was desperate for workers, but we've stabilised that by increasing the wages, encouraging workers to stay where they live and where they work. It's the same for childcare workers; when those wages come in, it will stabilise and help reverse the desert problem that we have in regional Victoria. Fixing wages is critical to turning around the challenge that we have with early childhood education.

I'm glad that renewables were put on the table. Renewable energy is a real opportunity for regional Australia. In my own electorate, and in the electorate of Mallee yesterday, a new solar power plant was approved by this government. That will power every single home in my electorate. That is what was approved yesterday. It's not just in the electorate of Mallee; it is everywhere where we can get a project that stacks up economically and environmentally. I am so pleased to stand here and say that this government, our government, has approved a renewable energy project that has the ability to power every single home in my electorate, and it is being built in my electorate. So it is not just the electorate of the member for Mallee; it is every part of regional Australia where it stacks up environmentally and economically. That is where we are making a real difference.

We are helping communities power themselves. We are training our own in our regions—through our universities and through our health system—to take care of our own in aged care, in early childhood education and in our medical service. We're giving every worker that works in regional Australia a tax cut and we're getting on with building the infrastructure that we need.

I've got 30 seconds left to even start talking about the infrastructure that we're doing. We are doubling the Roads to Recovery budget, which is helping our councils fix the roads that they need. We have the Growing Regions Program—which is not being rorted, it's being delivered through a transparent process that is being backed up by the Auditor-General's office. This is just the beginning of the shopping list of what we have done for regional Australia. Regional Australians are better off because of our government.

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