MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
Ms TRISH COOK (Bullwinkel) (12:15): I rise today to speak about a fundamental shift in how the government serves the people who live outside of our major cities. I represent the electorate of Bullwinkel, which of course has a peri-urban section and also a rural section. For nearly a decade, regional Australians watched a coalition government treat regional investment like a game of political pork-barrelling.
They would drop a chunk of money into a selective seat, issue a breathless press release and call it a day. The tragedy is that so many of those promised projects were never actually delivered. They left behind a mess of unfulfilled promises and neglected infrastructure.
The Albanese Labor government are doing things differently. We don't just build a single road or hand out a single grant and walk away. We believe in systemic, lasting progress.
We are delivering across every single program and across every single portfolio to ensure that regional Australians are structurally considered in everything that we do. Our guiding principle is simple: no-one held back and no-one left behind. Nowhere is this holistic approach more critical than in regional health care.
We have committed to the largest investment in the history of Medicare to ensure quality, affordable care is a right and not a privilege, and is not dictated by your postcode. We have expanded bulk-billing incentives, and the results speak for themselves. Before our reforms, only about 2,000 general practices nationwide fully bulk-billed patients.
Today that number has grown by 1,300 practices, and it increases every single day. By 2030, nine out of 10 GP visits will be bulk-billed. Furthermore, our Medicare urgent care clinics have been an absolute game changer.
All 137 clinics have been opened across the country, and 47 of them are located right in regional, rural and remote areas, and they are providing free top-tier care to families where they need it the most. I'm also very proud to have opened a Medicare urgent care clinic in my own electorate of Bullwinkel, in the Shire of Mundaring and in the suburb of Mundaring.
That has now seen well over 3,000 patients since opening only three months ago. Located near the Great Eastern Highway, it services a lot of the peri-urban and regional suburbs where they need it. We know that attracting healthcare professionals like myself to the regions is a long-term challenge, and that is why we're investing more than $600 million to grow the regional workforce, training a record number of GPs and waiving HECS debt for doctors and nurses who commit five years to working in our regional communities.
Our support doesn't stop at health. We are tackling the housing supply crisis head on. In the 2026-27 budget, I'm proud to highlight our new $2 billion Local Infrastructure Fund under the Housing Support Program.
This includes $500 million specifically dedicated to local enabling infrastructure in regional Australia. This is real, practical support to unlock regional housing supply. We are backing this up with significant infrastructure investments: $7.2 billion for the Bruce Highway, $2.8 billion for the ARTC freight rail projects and a doubling of Roads to Recovery funding to $4.4 billion, with 85 per cent of that funding going directly to our regions.
In my own electorate of Bullwinkel, I was incredibly proud to announce an election commitment to deliver an early childhood education centre in the Shire of Mundaring. For-profit providers often ignore regional areas, but our government is stepping up with capital grants to build not-for-profit centres where they are desperately needed, giving regional kids the best possible start to life.
We know that regional families are feeling the squeeze of the cost of living. This is why our cost-of-living relief is broad and impactful. We have delivered tax cuts for every single worker, every single taxpayer, with another round of relief hitting our pockets in July.
We've supported a wage rise for minimum and award wage workers. We've delivered a 20 per cent cut to student debt, helping young people in particular. We've capped all PBS medicines at $25 a script or less.
We've also provided a 30 per cent discount on home batteries, to permanently drive down power bills. For our regional industries and older Australians, we are delivering. We have unlocked a landmark $10 billion fuel security and resilience package to safeguard our energy and fertiliser supply sovereignty, and we're investing an additional $3.7 billion in aged care, supporting the 500,000 older Australians in rural and remote areas with better facilities, including more home-care packages and reduced waiting times.
Productivity and prosperity rely on working smarter. We've invested in regional fee-free TAFE, establishing 56 regional study hubs, including the one at Northam, which I was proud to open with Minister Jason Clare. We're also upgrading digital connectivity through our $1.1 billion Better Connectivity Plan for Regional and Rural Australia, and we're investing heavily in health, housing and education.
We're securing the future of regions. The Albanese Labor government isn't interested in cheap press releases. We are interested in long-lasting real delivery.
We are cleaning up the mess of the past—when the regions were forgotten—and building a stronger, fairer regional Australia for tomorrow. I'd like to add that I have invited ministers to the rural section of my electorate of Bullwinkel, and at least 16 ministers have come out to the region to see it for themselves, including Minister McBain; Senator Don Farrell, to talk to Northam people about trade; Minister Jason Clare, who, as I said, opened the Northam Study Hub together with the York Study Hub; Minister for Agriculture Julie Collins, to see and talk to the grain growers and the farmers in that area about the fuel crisis and the fertiliser issue; Ged Kearney, to look at social services and women's health and refuges; Patrick Gorman, to look at Services Australia; and Jenny McAllister, to talk about the regional aspect of the NDIS program and their outreach program.
The Albanese Labor government are getting out and about into regional areas and delivering. I commend these achievements to the House.