Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am proud to live in regional Australia. I grew up on a dairy farm. I went to a small public school and my local high school. It's where my tradie husband and I have raised our four kids, who still live locally. I get regional Australia and, as a mum, I have always wanted to give back and help people in the area I love. That's why I am here in this place. So let's talk about some of the things that are hugely important to people in my electorate.

One thing is roads. There's a reason that the Nowra bypass is finally moving forward: because we're funding it. I picked this project up when no Liberal member ever did and made sure it got funding. I'm pleased to say that, through our efforts, the project has $97 million in funding from the Albanese Labor government. Once the initial planning phase concludes in 2026, the Nowra bypass project is expected to move into its development phase. The Jervis Bay flyover is under construction thanks to $100 million in funding from the Albanese Labor government—and what a huge difference this intersection is going to make when it is complete. The Princes Highway upgrade from Jervis Bay Road to Hawken Road is also progressing well, with a contract awarded for the next phase. The Milton-Ulladulla bypass has recently moved into that next phase, with a contract awarded for the development of the concept, design and environmental assessment. It is a project with $752 million in federal funding. We not long ago opened the $35 million far north collector road, for which I sought additional funding so it could be finished and opened. Local councils will see more money to help fix local roads because of our decision to progressively double Roads to Recovery funding over the next five years. Black spot road funding is increasing too.

We've had so many natural disasters in our region: over 38 landslips and pummelled roads and over 150 local roads all fixed with federal and state funding under disaster recovery funding arrangements. I made sure that in the October 2022 budget Shoalhaven City Council had an extra $40 million to fix more local roads. While there have been some delays due to those natural disasters, I am pleased that Shoalhaven council have been progressing this with their appointment of the project consultant who is scooping up those works.

With health, I am pleased to say that over 11,000 people have now benefited from our fully bulk-billed Batemans Bay Medicare urgent care clinic. I also have a petition going to expand the hours and the level of care at the Batemans Bay urgent care clinic, and I encourage people to sign the petition. In fact, the urgent care clinic has been so successful that I've launched a new petition to establish a second federally funded urgent care clinic on the New South Wales South Coast. Bring it on! I've already opened a Medicare mental health hub at Nowra and one at Moruya. I've opened a headspace at Kiama. I've opened the south-eastern endometriosis and pelvic pain clinic at Milton.

There is so much going on in the health space to support locals and ease cost-of-living pressures where we can, like our cheaper medicines. We've tripled GP bulk-billing incentives for pensioners, concession cardholders and students. Just today we announce an additional $1.7 billion for public hospitals to strengthen Medicare and fund hospitals and health services to cut waiting lists, bring down waiting times and tackle ramping.

We've provided energy bill relief for every household, and we've provided fee-free TAFE for skills shortage industries like trades, because we know we need tradies to build more homes, which we're doing under our ambitious housing agenda. There are $10,000 apprenticeship incentives to encourage more apprentices into the residential housing sector. There are tax cuts for every taxpayer. Wages are up and, if we're re-elected, we'll slash 20 per cent off student debt, helping 13,000 university students in Gilmore.

But the Liberals just oppose all that. There's one consistent thing about the Liberals: they're all negative. They've opposed every cost-of-living relief measure we've implemented and, as a mum, I just find that offensive. The Liberals will say and do anything to try and get elected, but the truth is that does nothing to help people in my electorate and regional Australia. We're getting on with providing sensible cost-of-living relief where we can and building a future in regional Australia that we can all be proud of.

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