Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

May is the month of Granny Smiths, butternuts and sebagos in Hume. It is when the southern part of my electorate celebrates truly unique annual events that draw thousands of visitors from everywhere. Apple Day at Tallong saw furious competition in the great bake-off and apple-pie-eating events. The small village, just north of Goulburn, only has a population of 700, yet the 12th Apple Day pulled over 5,000 people, a record. It was a corker of an event by the innovative organising committee, led superbly by Chrissie Wursten.

On the same day, Collector, just up the road from here, staged its 14th world-famous Collector Village Pumpkin Festival. The crowds were big, almost 15,000. Traffic was banked up on the Federal Highway. But the hordes were never going to go hungry, not while ACT local Rick Downes keeps growing his giants. He won the Joe Medway Memorial Heaviest Pumpkin competition with a monster of 109.5 kilograms. Gary Poile and his group do an amazing job of putting the festival together. Let us not forget that Collector has a population of maybe 400 yet manages to entice enough pumpkin pilgrims to fill a footy stadium.

Out at Crookwell they staged the Potato Festival, which celebrates more than a century and a half of growing spuds high in the Southern Tablelands. Now in its seventh year, it is one of the most anticipated community events on the Upper Lachlan Shire Council. More than 2,000 people came this year, jumping aboard the spud bus at various locations across the township. There were 45 entries for the decorated potato competition, and dozens of local students entered the junior Australian poetry competition, which I supported. Well done to overall winners Emily Lamb and Jarion Long. I know chair of the organising committee, Joyce Edwards, and her fellow volunteers toil hard to showcase Crookwell and its significant potato growing heritage. Importantly, it gives local growers like those represented by the Crookwell Potato Association an opportunity to talk to locals and visitors about the industry.

The good people of Hume are hard workers, and it is only fair that the coalition's budget is working hard for them through tax breaks for small businesses, more affordable and accessible child care, and a fairer needs-based schools funding system. I am also pleased that the coalition's record investment in rural and regional telecommunications is connecting together Hume's communities, like in Golspie, where the mobile black spot tower has just been switched on, and in Bundanoon in Wingello, where NBN towers are servicing 550 premises.