Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on behalf of my electorate and regional and rural Australia, because what we are seeing and reading about is the predictable way, sadly, that Labor governs. Two weeks ago in the lead-up to the budget, there was a newspaper article both in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age which headlined 'Tens of billions of regional funds at risk in search of budget cuts'. What is it that Labor has against regional and rural Australia? What is it that Labor has against investing in regional and rural Australia? This is a leaked article in the lead-up to the budget; they are preparing the ground to cut our road funding, to cut our telecommunications funding, to cut our Building Better Regions Fund, to cut programs about investing in energy-saving measures in regional and rural areas and to cut the ways our communities are going to flourish and make sure they can be strong into the future.

I say this to all those members opposite and to the Treasurer and the Prime Minister: we will be going through your budget line by line and we will be identifying every single cut to regional and rural Australia and pointing it out. We know you're coming after regional and rural Australia, and we will not let it happen.