Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. Yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister said he was proud of the aviation assistance the government had provided to the owners of private jets. Is he proud of the thousands of taxpayer dollars used to subsidise the Leppington Pastoral Company's luxury private jet, on top of the $30 million already delivered to them for land that was worth just $3 million?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm proud of the assistance that the federal government has provided to help the nation recover from COVID-19. I'm proud of the fact that we have put in place $2.7 billion to help the aviation sector. I'm proud of all the measures that we put in place in the budget for regional Australia and to help those transport links. I'm proud of the fact that we have put in place the money for farmers to help them with their on-farm water infrastructure. I'm proud of the fact that we've put in place $2 billion to increase upon the $1.5 billion we had for the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund. I'm proud of the fact that midyear we put in place half a billion dollars for the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program. I'm very proud of the fact that we topped it up by a billion dollars in the budget. I'm proud of the fact that we put $2 billion in place for road safety upgrades, which is going to save people's lives. I'm proud of the fact that I belong to a Liberal National government which is getting on with the job of getting this nation out of COVID-19. I'm very proud of that fact.