Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Decentralisation and Regional Education. Will the Minister for Decentralisation and Regional Education please update the House on how the Morrison-McCormack government's investment in decentralisation builds on our economic recovery plan by creating jobs in rural and regional Australia?

Andrew Gee (Calare, National Party, Minister for Decentralisation and Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank very much the member for Mallee for her question and for her ongoing support of the government's decentralisation agenda. We on this side of the House support decentralisation, and for the National Party it's core business. Indeed, as Black Jack McEwen once said, we are 'the specialists for rural industries and rural communities'. That's what Black Jack McEwen said. Since 2013, this government has relocated over 1,700 jobs from the major capital cities.

Ms Madeleine King interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Brand!

Andrew Gee (Calare, National Party, Minister for Decentralisation and Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We've grown the regionally based Public Service workforce from 12 per cent to 14 per cent. We all know that this budget was the budget that saved Australia.

Opposition members interjecting—

It was—it was a historic budget for regional Australia. In this budget we also saw the first elements of the government's new decentralisation agenda emerging, taking further steps down the path first blazed by Black Jack McEwen and those great National Party members of the past.

We know, and the member for Mallee knows, that COVID-19 has brought great heartache and pain to Australia and Australian communities, but one thing it has shown is that people can work productively from home, and if you can work productively from home in the suburbs of the big cities, it's only a short hop, skip and jump over the Great Dividing Range where you can work in the country. This budget invested $41 million to support businesses to relocate to regional Australia. This investment—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Brand—again!

Andrew Gee (Calare, National Party, Minister for Decentralisation and Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

will commercialise raw material supplies, allowing firms to move close to their raw material supplies, securing the supply chain, commercialising those raw materials and bringing with them jobs and growth and prosperity to country Australia.

We've also taken the handbrake off public sector decentralisation, meaning that departments no longer have to find internal budget savings to make the move to country Australia. And we've changed the definition of decentralisation so that it no longer supports relocations from the inner city to the outer suburbs of big cities. We are turbocharging the government's decentralisation agenda, and there is an enormous amount of interest in decentralisation. Those people wanting to move from the city to the country were once called tree changers or sea changers, but Bernard Salt coined a new phrase in The Australian recently. Those folks are now known as VESPAs: 'virus escapees seeking provincial Australia'. We want the VESPAs to come to country Australia. We want them to come to regional Australia and help build the future of our country communities.