Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Winston Churchill once said, 'A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets out of bed and has a chance to put its pants on.' What we are hearing today is an attack on what is happening in regional Australia. I want to talk about what is happening in my electorate, a National Party electorate, where $350 million has been poured into this electorate in less than two years. We are building a $120 million irrigation project. We have just approved the build of 22 mobile phone towers—towers that did not get any funding at all under the previous Labor government. We have got an extra $20 million a year, going from $10 million to now $30 million a year, into our local governments to build country roads. We have built and got funding for $2 million for the Longerenong College to encourage young people to get training in agriculture.

We have committed a million dollars for cancer oncology treatment where we have the lowest five-year survival rates in cancer. We are still waiting on the Victorian Labor government to commit their one-third. The community has raised a million dollars. The Abbott government has given a million dollars. The Labor government in Victoria has given nothing. We have given a million dollars for the Heartbeat of the Murray program to encourage tourism; $10 million for the Grampians Peaks Trail to have tourism in the Grampians—please come and visit it; and $1.75 million for a dark-matter laboratory so we can do some research to get high-end research to eliminate cancer. We are delivering for regional Australia and it is the National Party that is doing it.