Damian Drum (Murray, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Next week in the electorate of Murray it is going to be a very, very busy time, as I welcome two ministers and an assistant minister. On Monday next I am going to be hosting Darren Chester, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, and taking him to the historic river town of Echuca. During the election campaign, Minister Chester was able to confirm that the funding for the Echuca-Moama bridge—which is certainly going to be a bridge over troubled waters, when it gets built—has now been secured. What we have to raise awareness of is that—after the announcement of all of the moneys, between Victoria, the federal government and New South Wales—some five months on, nothing has happened. So we need to get the Victorian government and VicRoads—the organisations and the bureaucrats—into gear and at least get the design of the bridge completed as soon as we possibly can before we can move onto construction.

On Wednesday I am going to be hosting Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, and Barnaby Joyce is coming to Shepparton to look at the new program that has just been announced by La Trobe University, which is a degree in agribusiness. This is showing the changing face of agriculture where these degrees and courses are being introduced into many of the universities around Australia. It is certainly great news for Shepparton that we are going to be able to offer a new degree in agribusiness. It is going to be very, very important.

The next day, on Thursday, the Hon. David Gillespie, the Assistant Minister for Rural Health, is coming to town. He is going to highlight an ophthalmology and vision program. It is an awareness-raising program called 'Do You See What I See?', which is going to be offering free eye tests for everybody. These eye tests will be available all year round with a whole range of high-quality optometrists. We are going to see Graham Hill in Shepparton and we are going to raise as much awareness as we can, because macular degeneration is an eye disease that can be cured; it can be fixed. There are treatments available. What we need to do is make sure that we find these problems very, very quickly.

So I am looking forward to these three visits from those ministers and assistant ministers and they, obviously, are along National Party lines. The ministers are continuing to deliver for the Goulburn Valley, the seat of Murray. They had a very high presence through the region during the election campaign, and it is great to see that their visits are continuing now that they are in government and that they are delivering these amazing programs for Shepparton and the Goulburn Valley.

Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.