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

I'll go to the comments by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition says that governments shouldn't own airlines. This is about the Australian government saying, 'Look, this is really important to regional Australia that we actually say this.' But she does think that it is perfectly okay for governments to own $600 billion worth of publicly owned nuclear reactors. That's what the Deputy Leader of the Opposition thinks is worthy—absolutely important—for the Commonwealth to own. What an absolute joke. You either back regional Australia—you back making sure we continue to have services in our regional communities—or you back $600 billion of publicly owned nuclear reactors and the cuts that are coming in order to actually fund them.

What we've seen on that side of the House is that they've got no interest in supporting regional Australia and no interest in making sure we continue to have that connectivity. Unlike the Liberals and Nationals, we're going to back regional airlines.

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