Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Indi for her question. The regions are a big focus of the budget. Even in the member's own electorate, when you put together the three tax cuts that we are providing, the average tax cut is about $43 a week. The 30 clinics in Indi will be financially better off, switching to bulk-billing as a result of our reforms. We expect something like an extra 148,000 bulk-billed visits in the honourable member's electorate by 2030 as a consequence of the investments in health that the Minister for Health and Ageing secured in the budget and that we announced last night and previously.

As I said, in the budget there are a number of important elements for the regions. I know that the member for Indi mentioned two funds in particular. I acknowledge that. We have invested $1 billion, my colleague reminds me, in those two funds, one of them $600 million and one of them $400 million. That is because we do believe in providing grant funding to the regions, and we're doing that in the most robust and responsible way that we can.

But those aren't the only investments that we're making in regional Australia, if you think about the investments the communications minister is making in the NBN or if you think about the investments we're making in health care, in regional education. There are a whole range of investments in my own portfolio, making sure that banks stay open in the bush, making sure in the minister's portfolio that we have access to decent aviation services.

The regions were a big focus in the budget. I know that the member for Indi won't mind me saying publicly what we talk about privately. She is a very effective advocate for her local community, always seeking more funding and more advantages and more opportunities for her local community, but those two funds already have a billion dollars in them. We're finding other ways to invest in the regions because, as the Australian economy recovers, we want the regional economies to be a bigger and bigger part of Australian story and that drives our investment in infrastructure in particular in the regions.

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