Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two minutes is not actually long enough to list the evidence of disregard that this government has for people living in rural, regional and remote Australia. Their actions since coming into government have absolutely proven that Labor does not care for regional Australians. One of the first things they did was to expand eligibility for the distribution priority areas, a system designed to help rural, regional and remote Australia access GPs. But now, thanks to Labor, it has been expanded to outer suburban areas, so Maitland is competing with Western Sydney for doctors. Bye bye doctors from the regions! Then they cut all our rural and regional investment programs. The Building Better Regions fund, that provided vital assistance for local governments and NGOs to invest in infrastructure or community building, mentoring and resilience programs, is all gone. Do we want to talk about Mobile Black Spot Program? A government who proudly declared they would end pork-barrelling decided—Labor decided—on where to put mobile black spot towers before they even got into government, before they even had a chance to look at what departmental recommendations were there. And where did they fund these towers? Surprise, surprise! They were in Labor-held seats.

Regional infrastructure spending was cut, deferred or is being reviewed. Community pharmacies: let's just rip $180,000 from their bottom line. And water! I can tell you it's not for growing food or fibre, that's for sure. I could go on and on and on, but I'm out of time.