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

It's a pleasure to rise today on the budget. It gives me the opportunity to point out how the budget is failing Australians, particularly regional and rural Australia and my great electorate of Wannon. When the first thing that you note in a budget is that there have been cuts to infrastructure, then you know it's not a budget for rural Australia. Sadly, you know it's not a budget for my electorate of Wannon.

One of the key things I've always focused on in over 14 years as the member for Wannon, year after year, is delivering more money for our roads. We know the Victorian state government won't do its job when it comes to funding our roads, so I pushed relentlessly to make sure the Commonwealth government does its job to the best of its ability in giving the state government money to fix its roads. We've been able to make progress with the Princes Highway and the Western Highway. We've been able to make progress working through local government to fix roads. But there is still such a gigantic workload to be done, because the state government, for every dollar the Commonwealth puts in, sadly peels money away.

We've seen that in their recent maintenance budget. They are cutting their maintenance budget at a time when the roads in my electorate need more maintaining, not less. Before the budget, I called on the Albanese Labor government to do its job to make sure it stepped in and said to the Victorian state government, 'We need you to deliver for roads in regional and rural Victoria and in western Victoria, and here is money to do it,' so at least the maintenance budget would be maintained. But what we've seen from this Labor government here in Canberra is exactly the same now as from the Labor government in Melbourne. They are quite prepared to fund big infrastructure projects in the capital city, but they will not fund road projects right across our rural areas and regions. This is having a devastating impact.

One of the things we always did when we were in government was put additional funding into roads. For instance, we put $60 million into fixing the Princes Highway between Warrnambool and Port Fairy. The sad reality is that the state government hasn't been able to show that it got value for money from that $60 million. As a matter of fact, it's very hard to see what they did with it. Then there was $80 million for the rest of the Princes Highway, and once again it's very hard to see where we got true value for money from that spending. There was over $200 million for fixing the Warrnambool to Melbourne rail line. Once again, we were promised velocity trains as a result of that investment, yet the state government seem to have squandered that money as well. But we were able to deliver the funding.

The real test of both the Albanese Labor government and the Allan government in Victoria is (a) for the Commonwealth government to restore the funding we were delivering and (b), when it comes to the Victorian state government, to make sure they're getting value for money out of what is being invested in our roads. I will continue to advocate day in, day out for that funding. We know the Commonwealth government can't build the roads and it can't maintain the roads. It has to do that through the Victorian state government because it's their roads that need fixing. But we can provide the funding and then shame them into doing something—and that is what I will continue to do.

This budget also failed the people of Wannon because it hasn't addressed cost-of-living pressures. It's done nothing when it comes to addressing cost-of living pressures. I've done listening posts over the last five weeks in my electorate, and, for the first time ever, people have been coming to me with their power bills. And it's not just one or two; they're coming to me five, six and seven at a time to show me their power bills. It's individuals who are coming to show me their power bills, and, sadly, it's small businesses as well. Small businesses in many of the rural towns in my electorate, because of the increase in their power bills, are now working the first two, three or four days of any week for nothing. Power bills are eating so badly into the returns that they make that one constituent came to see me to say that he and his wife now can't employ any staff and are basically working just to keep the door of their small business open. That is something I have never seen before. They are lining up with their energy bills.

If this government could do anything, it would be to immediately address cost-of-living pressures. But the sad reality is that it seems like the government is clueless when it comes to how to address cost-of-living pressures. It is no plan to deal with inflation. More and more, people know—and know quite clearly now—that the only way that the cost of living will be addressed, the only way that inflation can be brought under control, is through the economic management of a coalition government.

There was also, sadly, nothing in the budget when it came to community infrastructure in my electorate of Wannon. On Saturday I had a great pleasure of going to Panmure for the opening of family-friendly, female-friendly new change rooms for the netballers, women cricketers and others. That building came about because of $500,000 from the coalition government, under our community infrastructure and roads program, that went to local government. We saw firsthand what that program has delivered. There are numerous other examples across my electorate of where that program has delivered.

Yet what have we seen from the government? We've seen an announcement of a community infrastructure fund, yet not one project has been nominated to be a recipient of that fund. We are now over two years into this government, and not one project has been nominated for funding under its community infrastructure fund. In my electorate there are examples such as Port Fairy Football Netball Club and Skipton Football Netball Club, clubs with female participation, waiting for the government to make some sort of announcement on the funding of some sort of community infrastructure. Just north of Hamilton there is another example where the community is waiting to see whether this fund will be used. My hope is that the people of Cavendish, who have put so much time and effort into making sure that they have put a proposal in, will be recognised and funded under this program because the work required to go through the various stages is enormous for a small community club. I hope that this will be recognised by the government.

There are many ways that this budget continues to fail the people of my electorate, but there are those three crucial ones. Let's hope that these three areas are recognised by the government in MYEFO or in the next budget. We need more funding for our roads, we need the cost of living addressed and we need money for community infrastructure projects.

Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned.