Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw. It's quite simple. Those opposite cut funding to roads right across Victoria. In fact—the member for Nicholls might want to get his crayon out and note this down—what did they do to the black spot program for mobile phones? They cut every tower in the Black Saturday bushfire area, a place that passed every single test that they had. They took those towers out to fund and look after the member for New England, to try and save his backside.

So right across Victoria we can see everything that has been cut: education, health, veterans, workers—whichever way you look at it, they have had nine years of doing absolutely nothing. We saw this last week. We announced $7 million for a northern railway upgrade to help bring electrification and more trains out, with more jobs and more opportunities. They couldn't even wait for the election. They've come out and they want to cut it by $5 million. It's no wonder, when you talk about Peter Dutton—sorry, the member for Dickson. When he cuts, you'll pay. That means people are going to be paying more no matter what they do, whether it's in food, roads, education or health. They cut and destroy every single thing that you look at.

We knew that. We'd seen it with the regional programs. Remember, they stopped funding stuff in regional areas to fund a pool in North Sydney because they think the Sydney Harbour Bridge is regional. There's one thing you can be sure of with the nats. When you have a look at their record, you'll see Nationals seats have poorer outcomes, poorer education and poorer job opportunities. The one simple reason for that is that they've got poor representation by the National Party.

The only way this country will go forward and keep building a better future is for an Albanese Labor government to be re-elected, because only Labor actually invests in regional areas. They don't care about farmers; they only care about what's under the ground.

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