Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a great MPI topic—whether regional Australians are better off under this government. The answer clearly is no. I live in regional Australia. I engage with my constituents often, and they're doing it very tough. This government has failed to get core inflation under control, and that means the Reserve Bank is holding off on interest rate cuts. My constituents have mortgages; my constituents pay rent—all people across regional Australia have mortgages and pay rent. And the stubborn inflation that has been caused by the government not taking this seriously and not doing their No. 1 job, which is to get inflation under control, means that people are paying higher mortgages, higher rents, and higher prices for a number of things.

I came in here earlier for the Treasurer's economic statement, and it was very self-congratulatory about how well the government has done on economic management. And I tell you what: there's a former Australian left-arm leg spinner in the building today, but he's not the best spinner in Parliament House today; the Treasurer is a much better spinner than the forenamed former Australian left-arm leg spinner!

What the member for Gippsland said in his address—and I made these points yesterday as well, in relation to another piece of legislation—is that you can see during question time that the government seems to have given up on the vision and the policy and it's all about calling the opposition leader names. Now, come on: we deserve a bit better than that in Australia. I know the tactics committee and the focus groups have said, 'If we demonise the Leader of the Opposition, that's the pathway to holding on to government, however slender that may be.' But it's not really the path that I think Australians want us to go down. Calling the opposition leader names is not leadership; it's not vision. And another thing: a lot of people in my electorate and in regional Australia are involved in small business, whether they own a small business or are employed by one. Those small businesses are reporting to me that it is harder to do business, mainly because of the industrial relations legislation they're forced to wade through. That might be fine for really large businesses to deal with, but, for a small business who doesn't have an HR manager, it's very difficult and it makes it harder for them to do business.

I had an agribusiness investor, farmer and producer tell me just last week, 'I'm not investing in Australia at the moment because I'm too worried about what this mob is going to do around policies to do with IR and water. My investment's going into the United States.' Now, that breaks my heart, because, when he invests, my people get employed and we produce things. It's hard to produce things in my patch in the Murray-Darling Basin without irrigation water. The lack of investment confidence in the agricultural sector because of the changes to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan—and I'll call out again the minister for the environment's failure to come to basin communities and find out the actual consequence of the damage she's doing—is hurting my community. Those people aren't better off.

When people invest in agribusiness, people get employed, we export products to South-East Asia and beyond, and Australia is a richer, wealthier place. If you take away that confidence, Australia is a poorer place, and the people who live in regional Australia who rely on these industries are poorer. The policies announced by this government have damaged confidence and are making regional Australian people poorer.

There was an infrastructure pipeline in my electorate. It built some great things. The Echuca-Moama Bridge improved rail lines between Shepparton and Melbourne. I haven't seen much infrastructure development in the 2½ years of the Albanese government. In fact, we have had some funding, but no work's started. We've got to build some stuff; then people in regional Australia will be better off.

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