Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much. As I was saying, the Albanese Labor government will always ensure that there is integrity, transparency and accountability in all funding across this country. But, even more so, we will invest in regional Australia because we know how important it is. It isn't going to just pass by. Senators from that side come in and want to talk about health care or education for regional Australians when they did nothing but cut health care. We know how much they dislike Medicare. We know how critical our hospital infrastructure is to regional Australia. We also know, and I know, only too well that ambulances are ramping at every hospital around this country because of the lack of funding from the previous government.

But I just want to remind people, because this is really important. Coming from Tasmania, as a senator for Tasmania, I know that during the federal campaign we made commitments to invest in jobs in regional areas. So, in May, what we did was make a commitment to Northern Tasmania's Firmus Tas, a great new initiative; we invested $5 million in LINE Hydrogen for them to start their project off because we actually care about delivering better outcomes for Northern Tasmanians; and we made a commitment to Waverley Woollen Mills so we can start manufacturing. I'm sure my two fellow Tasmanian senators who belong to the Liberal Party would support our funding to all of those businesses in Tasmania.

Waverley Woollen Mills is a very old woollen mill that is now doing some amazing work and developing future projects for itself to ensure that it has a business model that is going to take it forward. They're getting into recycling and all sorts of wonderful things, creating real jobs in Northern Tasmania. We did that, and I'd be very surprised if those fundings aren't part of the budget that will be announced in October.

But there's a difference between coming into this place and defending your old policies—when you had policies, because you don't have policies now—and coming in here and trying to rewrite history. It's very different. (Time expired)