MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS

Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Deputy Leader of the National Party) (12:22): I must say, from the outset, regional Australians want their country back. I do actually feel sorry for the Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories because I like the minister. I don't doubt for a second her passion for regional Australia.

She's a good Traralgon girl. She grew up in Latrobe Valley and worked hard in the Bega shire in local government and has gone on to become a member of parliament, and I think she is passionate about the future of regional Australia. In that same vein, when I've seen her work with our communities impacted by natural disasters, she has been honest in her exchanges and determined to get a good outcome for our communities.

We all know in rural and regional communities we live with natural disasters, and we need support from government from time to time. But, having said that, I feel she is constantly let down by her colleagues in the ministry and in her own party. What we saw last night was not a blueprint for the future of Australia; it was a 'red print' for the future of the Labor Party.

This was a ruthless political document designed to inflict pain on certain members of our community and to divide our community in ways that only this prime minister would think appropriate. I say to the minister that the majority of her speech was simply rehashing previous announcements—putting the word 'regional' in front of general government programs—and didn't provide any actual new insights into the way this government is going to support regional Australians as they strive to get ahead in difficult times.

If the minister and the government really believe that they have so much to offer regional Australia, you'd think they'd want to go and contest a by-election on the weekend in a regional community. An opposition member: Where were they? Mr CHESTER: We couldn't find them!

I've heard members opposite laugh about the result for the coalition, and they've had great joy in pointing out our primary vote. I accept that there are quite a few voters who didn't like us in Farrer, but you should have heard what they said about you. They hated you—boy oh boy!

They mightn't have liked us, but they hated you. What we saw in last night's budget, instead of a plan for the future of regional Australia, was more Labor lies and broken promises from a prime minister who simply can't tell the truth. He's just incapable of telling the truth.

This is a budget which is full of broken promises—higher taxes, more debt, lower living standards for all Australians and fewer homes for Australians. In its own budget papers, the Treasury acknowledges there will be 35,000 fewer homes as a result of the tax changes being implemented by this government. We've got to this point for the age-old reason: Labor can't manage money, and when they run out of money they come looking for more from the Australian people.

We're now facing a decade of deficits, worth $150 billion, and every Australian will be forced to foot the bill. Australians will pay an extra $50 billion in taxes over the next four years, in the highest-taxing budget in our nation's history, and still there wasn't much in this budget for regional Australia. In fact, there was nothing in terms of new regional initiatives to help our communities prosper.

During the Farrer by-election, I had the opportunity to spend some time in a paddock at Holbrook with about a dozen farmers, and I asked them a question: 'Over the last four years, under the Albanese government, put your hand up if you think you're better off.' No-one put their hand up. I asked a second question. These farmers were aged between 20 and 75.

I said, 'Put your hand up if you think our country is heading in the right direction,' and not one put their hand up. Then, in front of the group, one bloke said to me, 'Mate, it just feels like they hate us.' That was a horrible thing to hear from an Australian farmer. He's a successful farmer.

He's worked on the land. He's built his family farming enterprise up. His daughter is working on the farm.

And he said, 'It just feels like they hate us.' When you look at the compliance burden, the red tape, the green tape—all of the punishments inflicted on our farming communities by Labor-Greens ideology—you can see why they feel that way. When you think about the Labor Party's obsession with banning the timber industry, cutting jobs in regional communities, you can see why they feel like Labor hates them.

When you look at the live sheep export sector—a decision made with no consultation, a complete debacle—you can see why farmers feel like the Labor-Greens hate them. Our commercial fishermen are constantly facing cuts from Labor-Greens ideology. They're constantly cutting jobs away from our communities.

And, in all of those cases, it's not like we're not using timber anymore and it's not like we're not using fish anymore. We're just importing it from other countries, countries with poorer environmental credentials and protocols than our own country. The only plan in the budget last night from the Labor Party was to tax regional Australians more.

Their own budget papers forecast that the cost-of-living crisis is far from over for all Australians. Then, in question time yesterday—in one of the few times he actually tried to finish a question off—the Prime Minister said he's 'doing the right thing'. So you have to ask: is lying to Australians doing the right thing?

You simply can't believe a word this prime minister says. He told Australians many times in the lead-up to the 2025 election, very solemnly, 'My word is my bond.' The Prime Minister was repeatedly asked about his plan for new taxes. I don't know how many times he was asked, but he told us—he said he'd answered it 50 times—there would be no negative gearing changes and no capital gains changes.

In the lead-up to 2025 election and in the months afterward, he ruled out any changes. It's abundantly clear this prime minister lied to get elected. We've now seen Labor's true colours.

It's a reheated version of the Bill Shorten manifesto. At least the former member for Maribyrnong and former leader of the Labor Party Bill Shorten had the decency to take it to the election. He had the guts to face the Australian people and say, 'This is my bold new plan for the future of our nation.' Then we had—I think it was in the 2019 election—that genius, the member for McMahon, saying, 'If you don't like it, don't vote for it.' Australians didn't need to be invited twice!

But at least at least the former member for Maribyrnong Bill Shorten had the guts to take his plan out in front of the voters, to the Australian people, and give them a chance to decide what direction they wanted to take their country in. Thankfully, the Australian people rejected it. Did you know it was Bill Shorten's birthday yesterday?

It was actually Bill's birthday. You couldn't make this up. Happy birthday, Bill.

You got the budget you always wanted! At the end I thought: 'Oh, the Treasurer has finished five minutes early. Do we sing Happy Birthday to Bill?

What are we doing now? We're filling a bit of time. Happy birthday to Bill!' Anyway, it actually was Bill Shorten's birthday yesterday, and all his birthday wishes came true, with his hit job on aspirational Australians being stamped and endorsed by the Treasurer and the Prime Minister.

We know on this side—and I reckon the Prime Minister knows, too—that, if Labor had taken that budget announced last night to the election in 2025, it would have been rejected by the Australian people. The Prime Minister wouldn't be living in the Lodge any more. The Prime Minister knows that, so he said: 'I'll just keep that a little bit quiet.

Hey, Jim, hey, Treasurer, hey, member for Rankin, the lad from Logan who wants to go to the Lodge as soon as he can—hey, we'll just keep it quiet. You and me—we'll work this one out, and at some point in the future, we'll get a chance, find a crisis somewhere and pretend everything's changed and we need to introduce the most regressive taxes that Australians have seen in a generation.' The fortunate thing about this for us is there's no amount of spin that can change this story.

Labor and every member opposite told lies to their electorates to get them elected. But, funnily enough, they actually think they can spin their way out of this, because, through the blessings of this parliament, someone left the talking points behind in an office yesterday, and we all got the chance to see how they will try and spin their way through this. The coalition, the press and everyone got a copy of Labor's talking points, their morning note.

For those joining us at home—those five people who are listening—the morning note is our is our way of dealing with those tricky questions that any journalist might ask during the day. And in Labor's morning note yesterday—its message to the members and senators—it said that, if MPs are asked, 'Have you broken a promise?', they are told to say, 'The right decision is to do the right thing with the right policies at the right time.' That could have been ChatGPT, I think.

Maybe Dr Seuss wrote that one for them! The right decision, if you ask the Australian people, is just to tell the truth. Honourable members interjecting— Mr CHESTER: Hey, lash out.

Just tell the truth. The right decision was not to lie to the Australian people to get elected in the first place. The right decision is to develop policies which actually unite Australians rather than always seeking to divide our nation, as this Prime Minister inevitably does.

What we see is that, whenever the Labor Party gets in a bit of trouble, the tactic is always, always the same: how do we divide Australians here for some sort of political advantage? How do we divide Australians to make sure we get some more votes out of this and keep our place in this building? The career of the most left-wing Prime Minister in Australian history is summed up in one line from his own mouth: 'I like fighting Tories.

That's what I do.' He is like the great dividing range of Australian politics. The Prime Minister is the great divider. He has no interest in building a consensus, and he views every issue through a political lens and political opportunism. 'I like fighting Tories; that's what I do,' is the boast of the most institutionalised member of parliament in this place.

He has 30 years in this place—the ultimate Canberra bubble boy. It's the boast of our Prime Minister. It explains everything about his divisive approach to his parliamentary career and his failure to govern for all Australians.

We saw it last night. There are many examples of this Prime Minister being the great divider of Australian politics. Remember how he tried to divide Australians with the Voice?

He went out of his way to try and divide Australians on the basis of race and forced a referendum on the issue, and he lost. He's dividing Australians right now with this reckless renewables rollout, which is tearing families apart and tearing communities apart in regional Australia. None of these transmission lines and this industrial-scale use of farming lands is occurring in their electorates.

He is dividing communities with his approach. The Prime Minister also widened the city-country divide in this nation by cutting regional programs from the day he started in the role. And now?

I didn't actually think we'd ever get to this point. I never thought we'd get to this point. He's dividing Australians based on the year they were born.

He's dividing Australians on their birthdates with a suite of broken promises in last night's budget. They're trying to claim this is some sort of intergenerational equity issue. This is intergenerational fraud.

It is fraud that they're trying to commit onto the Australian people right now. Many of us—in fact, a lot of people in this parliament—have had the opportunity to work hard, save money and use the property investment system to provide for their own futures and aim to be a self-funded retiree one day, have no burden on the tax system as a pensioner at that point and pass on something to their kids when they pass away.

But what the Prime Minister did last night—and the Treasurer, in supporting him—was pull up that ladder of opportunity and say: 'No more. You can't do that. You can't work hard and invest in property and have that opportunity to get ahead and prepare for your own retirement.

You're not going to have that opportunity.' But it's okay, because the Prime Minister had it. He's still got it. I've still got it.

But the next generation, in this gross intergenerational fraud, have been told it's good for them. How is it good for them? Rents are going to go up.

There are going to be 35,000 fewer dwellings built. You're killing aspiration in this country, all on the basis of political division opportunism to try to get some sort of political advantage, and it won't work, because Australians are awake to this mob. Instead of helping young Australians into homes, the Treasury itself acknowledged in the budget papers that 35,000 fewer homes are being built, rents will increase and young Australians have been robbed of the same opportunities that I've enjoyed and the Prime Minister has enjoyed.

I'm staggered that those opposite—any of them, just one of them, maybe two if we're on a good day—don't realise what an outrageous fraud they're committing on young Australians by breaking their promise and then pretending it's okay because we'll be looking after you. All this is being done while the Prime Minister is happily bringing 1.2 million more people into the country without the housing supply to support it.

In regional Australia, we're very proud of our communities and our contribution. In regional Australia, we grow great food, we grow great fibre and we grow great kids. Those kids want a future in those regions, and part of their future is dependent on having governments willing to invest in the infrastructure and the services that make it possible to thrive in regional areas.

On this side of the House, we make no apology for always standing up and fighting for the interests of people who don't choose to live in our capital cities and see a future for them and their families in our regional areas. Regional Australians have had a gutful of being punished by this government because they didn't vote Labor. We've seen it with the water buybacks in the Murray-Darling Basin.

They're stripping water out of productive use. You go out to those communities in the Murray-Darling Basin. You look those farmers and shopkeepers in the eyes and ask them what they think about these water buybacks, and it is traumatic, because they're having their livelihoods and their futures stripped away from them by Labor-Green ideology driven out of metropolitan areas.

We've seen it with Labor's attempts to make farmers pay for the biosecurity screening, which is a national responsibility, and of course it should be borne by all Australians who benefit when pests and diseases are kept from our shores. We've also seen it in this budget with funding cuts to control invasive species, which have an enormous economic impact on our farmers and devastate our biosecurity.

Remarkably, we've seen it in the budget with cuts to the Future Drought Fund. I don't know why anyone opposite thinks we won't need that funding at some point in the future while farmers are preparing for El Nino, but we have cuts to the Future Drought Fund at a time when we're already seeing farmers struggling with dry seasonal conditions in large parts of our nation.

We've also seen it with cuts to productive infrastructure investment, like the Inland Rail project. The minister did mention Inland Rail. She didn't mention that the original plan was to take it from Melbourne to Brisbane.

Now, it's going to stop at Parkes. Instead of providing for what is widely regarded as a corridor of commerce through Victoria and New South Wales into Queensland and providing funding for that Inland Rail project which would take 200,000 truck movements off the road per year and continuing that program, the government has bailed out Premier Jacinta Allan and the Jacinta Allan vanity project—the Suburban Rail Loop.

Maybe, if we had got the Comancheros to build the Inland Rail, it would have been safe. Instead of backing the Bandidos, the bikies, the thugs and the big build projects in Melbourne—maybe, if we had of had them on the Inland Rail project, it would have been safe. This mob has cut funding to a project which, funnily enough, they used to support.

The Prime Minister himself—you'll find plenty of press releases. The Prime Minister advocated for it and championed the project. The minister, Catherine King, also supported it.

He took credit— Opposition members interjecting— Mr CHESTER: That's right. I'm reminded that the member for Grayndler actually took credit for the Inland Rail at one point, just as he actually took credit for building the pyramids and the sphinx. The fact is the Prime Minister was fully on board with Inland Rail until he wasn't.

It's not convenient anymore, and he'll just break another promise. We have another broken promise in this budget, which is going to have real social and economic and environmental consequences in regional Australia. I say, with great earnestness, that the Newell Highway is regarded as one of the most dangerous sections of road in our country for good reason.

There have been some tragic crashes on that road over a long period of time. In Australia today, 1,300 people are killed on our roads on an annual basis, and a disproportionate number of those people live and work in regional communities. One of the really key reasons for the Inland Rail project was to reduce that heavy vehicle movement on the Newell Highway and to make it safer for people, because, when someone is killed and someone is injured on a regional road, the ripple effect of that accident, that crash, goes right throughout communities, particularly in regional communities because, more often than not, the first responders—the SES volunteers, the CFA volunteers, the police, the ambos—might know one of the victims because they live in those communities.

It ripples through the community. They're attending a crash site where someone they know or played footy with or went to school with has been killed. The Inland Rail project wasn't just about moving freight efficiently between the two great cities of Brisbane and Melbourne and linking the regional communities with opportunities on that route.

It was also about saving lives, and what value do you put on that? What price do you put on that? At a time when road trauma costs the Australian economy $30 billion a year—that's the economic cost of road trauma—the social costs of so many Australians being killed and injured on our roads, particularly our regional roads, have to be factored into any decision to abandon the Inland Rail project.

I'm sure they weren't, because, if they'd thought about that, there is no way they would have pulled the rug out underneath the feet of regional Australia and abandoned that project. The Labor Party claims to care for the environment. They're spending an additional $18 billion on the net zero dream, but, at the same time, they actually cutting sustainable land management and our pest control programs.

Right now, it's our farmers and our landholders in rural and regional areas who are doing the majority of the heavy lifting when it comes to pest animal control. Every environmentalist actually agrees with this fundamental point: the greatest threat to biodiversity and extinction of native species in our country is not climate change; it's invasive species. It is the feral animals and the weeds preying on native species which are causing the extinctions and reducing biodiversity in our nation.

This government has cut sustainable land management and pest control programs in this budget. I argue we need more boots and less suits. That is, more boots on the ground doing practical environmental work and less suits in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne making excuses for why that work can't be done.

The minister mentioned disaster resilience. One of the keys to disaster resilience is more boots and less suits. That's more people on the ground doing the hazard reduction work, clearing the firebreaks and maintaining roads.

I accept these are largely state government responsibilities, but, at the same time, the federal government has a role as an active partner in ensuring that sustainable, practical land management and pest control programs continue to have an impact on these invasive species. As we're all well aware, the pigs, the dogs, the foxes, the rabbits, the cats and the deer don't respect state borders.

These are all invasive species which require a national response in partnership with our state governments. When it comes to health care, we saw Labor's true colours again in last night's budget. There was no standalone regional health package and not a single regional workforce measure in the budget.

The member for Lyne has been an active campaigner on behalf of her community and for Labor's much-vaunted urgent care clinics—the locations of which, funnily enough, closely match the Labor-held seats around Australia, but that's purely a coincidence. Despite that need in other communities like Lyne and Gippsland, the Labor Party continues to target the urgent care clinics strategically for political advantage.

The minister knows it, the press gallery knows it and communities like mine miss out. Despite the obvious need in my electorate of Gippsland—and the minister opposite knows Gippsland well; as I said, she was born in Traralgon—there's not a single urgent care clinic delivered or promised from Warragul to the New South Wales border. In fact, it is beyond the New South Wales border, all the way to Bega and the lovely clinic the minister spoke about in her statement.

The minister spoke about the Bega clinic and the poor fellow with the Stanley knife accident . I'm sure it's a very welcome initiative and I'm sure it's working well in Bega, but it's 505 kilometres from Warragul to Bega. If the poor fellow had his Stanley knife incident in my electorate, he'd be driving for three hours in either direction to try and find an urgent care clinic provided by this government.

And what about Taree? The member for Lyne has campaigned actively. Surely at some point the minister will show just one ounce of compassion and look after the people of Lyne and the people of Taree and provide them with an urgent care clinic, particularly when you consider it is a region heavily impacted by natural disasters in recent times.

The Nationals, as part of a strong coalition, believe that regional Australians shouldn't have to put up with second-class access to health care just because of where they live or the way they voted. Families across regional Australia are facing GP shortages and long wait times for specialists, and there is a shortage of mental health and allied health providers.

There is a worsening workforce shortage, and this government is not listening to the people in our communities. In a time of crisis, one thing I did expect to see last night in the agriculture portfolio budget statement was funding to implement the National Food Security Strategy—but there was not a single dollar for implementation of that strategy. It's time for this government to stop having roundtables, stop having dialogues and stop having strategies and waffling.

Let's get serious about food security. No new funding means no action for yet another year on this issue. In the middle of this fuel and fertiliser crisis, we've urged the government to fast-track the National Food Security Strategy and make sure it remains targeted at the key issues and does not wander off into fluffy topics which are best addressed through other mechanisms in the health sector.

I also urge the government and ministers to occasionally listen to members on this side of the House. When we come forward with ideas from our regions, it's because the people in our communities are telling us that is what they need. We are well connected to the people in our communities.

We hear from them every day, and, when we come here seeking some support for things like an urgent care clinic in Taree or other projects in our communities, don't always approach it from a direction of political advantage. Sadly, that is what we've seen from this government. The neglect and the division go on day after day.

The Prime Minister divides Australians into Labor and non-Labor voters. In just four years he went out of his way to cut a long list of regional programs which were designed to boost productivity and livability in our regions. And last night's budget did nothing to reverse those cuts.

We've seen the Building Better Regions Fund disappear, Roads of Strategic Importance cut completely, and local roads and infrastructure programs all cut, with no new rounds, by this government. Most regional Australians didn't vote for this prime minister, so he goes out of his way to cut the programs they need. But it's even worse: they actually did create one program, called the Growing Regions Program, and then they cut that as well.

They brought it back to life last night for one more round by the sound of it, but it is being rolled into—would you believe—the Thriving Suburbs Program. There's no clarity or transparency now. How much of that is going to the regions?

How much is going to the suburbs? I'm going to take a bet that we'll get shortchanged. I'm going to take a bet that under the Growing Regions Program, thrown into the Thriving Suburbs Program, regional Australia will get done over again.

Instead of a plan for regional Australia, Labor have shown us their plan to try and spin their way out of trouble. This prime minister probably doesn't know how much trouble he's actually in. When I was out in the booths in Farrer, it was pretty obvious they were voting for change, and the Prime Minister can't hide from the voters of Australia forever.

On that weekend in Farrer, yes, they voted for change. They're angry. They're frustrated.

They don't want business as usual. They've been left behind by a prime minister who promised to govern for all Australians. But the problem is that business as usual for this prime minister is more broken promises.

The first chance he had after the Farrer by-election was to break more promises and break more trust with the Australian people. It's tough out there for our farmers, for our small-business people and for our Australian families. What does the Australian prime minister do when the going gets tough?

He goes missing, and then he goes out and announces more broken promises in the budget. This is a prime minister who was too gutless to face the voters in Farrer, and now he's breaking more promises with taxes he ruled out dozens of times. I say to those opposite with all sincerity that, if you'd bothered to go out to Albury or Griffith or Moama or Leeton and listen to what the voters had to say, you would have heard just how much the voters in those communities have had a gut full of Labor's approach to regional Australia.

You would have heard from them directly: their message is that they want a fair go. They want a government actually on their side. They don't look for handouts.

They just want a government on their side, helping them through tough times and giving them the freedom to invest in their businesses, invest in their farms, invest in their family's future and have a great opportunity to enjoy life in the greatest country in the world. We on this side will continue to fight for a fair go for regional Australians. Regional Australians want their country back, and we're going to give it to them.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Scrymgour ): Before I call the minister, I say to the Leader of the Nationals in the House of Representatives—and to all members—that on page 516 of House of Representatives Practice says that an accusation that a member has lied is clearly an imputation of an improper motive and is therefore ruled disorderly. I just need to point that out and ask you to withdraw those comments that you made in your speech.

Mr Chester: To assist the House, I withdraw.