Mr REPACHOLI (Hunter) (18:48):

I rise to support this motion by my good friend the member for Gilmore. The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government recently released the informative State of Australia's regions 2024 report, which is a crucial step forward towards understanding and addressing the needs of our regional communities. The report offers insights into how we can best develop sustainable regions and capitalise on opportunities while addressing challenges.

First and foremost, it is imperative to acknowledge the pivotal role our regions play in the prosperity of our nation. As we navigate economic shifts, it is essential to support our regions in leveraging these challenges for their benefit.

The report examines critical issues and opportunities facing regions, pinpointed at the grassroots level through the Regional Development Australia network. It also uses data and insight from trusted sources like the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Regional Data Hub and the Regional Australia Institute.

The report also shows that our government is committed to taking charge of regional policies again. We aim to coordinate and target our investments across different parts of the government more effectively. This is made possible through the Regional Investment Framework announced in the last budget. The report also recognises the significant contribution that regional Australia makes to our nation, while highlighting some of the pressures and opportunities arising in the regions as our world continues to change. It is vital that governments, industries and communities have the information required to navigate these challenges and to support evidence based planning, prioritisation and investment.

The report also tells us what we as a government have been doing to tackle these challenges. In our last two budgets we have introduced over 350 plans and measures to help regional communities. These include: programs that focus on helping people in regional areas to get better jobs, like the employment white paper, and providing hundreds of thousands of fee-free TAFE positions; our tax cuts, to be delivered from 1 July, will overwhelmingly support regional Australians; investing billions of dollars into building things like roads and bridges in regional areas; making homes more affordable; getting ready for and recovering from disasters like the floods that ripped through the Hunter in 2022; and providing services such as health care and child care in regional and rural parts of Australia through increases to bulk-billing and rolling out Medicare Urgent Care Clinics like the one in my electorate in the Hunter. We're also about to have a Head to Health mental health clinic open its doors very shortly in Muswellbrook. We're supporting regional businesses and industries by setting up programs like the Powering the Regions Fund, our $15 billion investment in the National Reconstruction Fund, the Critical Mineral Strategy and the THRIVE 2030 tourism strategy. All these things are being rolled out by a Labor government.

But 'compare the pair': when we came to government we inherited a bucket of rorts and some of the most incompetent administration of grants funding ever seen. There were things like the Building Better Regions Fund and the Community Development Grants. And who could forget the sports rorts? The list goes on and on. Let's just have a look at the Community Development Grants program rort. More than 120 projects weren't contracted by the previous government. Nine of the projects dated back to 2016 and six of the projects had no proponent at all. This was just business as usual from those opposite, but we're restoring integrity to these regional grants programs. We're providing certainty and fairness to regional communities and we'll invest $1 billion over the next three years in our new regional grants program. These will improve liveability in our regional towns and cities, in partnership with local government and the community.

We also know that success lies in listening to our communities and local voices that know their region best. The last couple of years have seen significant population growth across all regions, including the Hunter. Many regions are finding it difficult to meet local workforce demands, with job advertisements doubling between 2019 and 2023. The continued growth of freight transported on our regional roads is a good example of why targeted investment in infrastructure is needed for growth and liveability. We're listening to regional Australia because we have great local members who are helping to shape policy.