Subjects: Federal Budget 2025/26
E&OE
STARTS: 9:23am
GEORGIE BURGESS
What’s in the Budget for your region?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
It’s an attack on regional Australia. This Budget does nothing to help regional Australia in so far as the infrastructure on which we’ve relied those grant programs, which would mean so much for so many councils and so many people right across the Riverina. There is nothing in there, in this Budget, for that. They’ve taken all the money away from the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program. This program I put in place as the Deputy Prime Minister. It enabled councils to choose where they were going to spend their Federal money and on what particular project, whether it was an upgrade of a hall, whether it was a roundabout, a lick of bitumen on one of their unsealed roads. It’s all gone. It’s absolutely all gone and I just cannot believe that the Labor Government would do this to the regions, the regions which carried this nation through Covid, the regions which produce all the power, produce all the resources and of course all the agriculture that put the food and fibre, into our nation’s balance payments and they’ve just been totally ignored by this particularly city centric Budget.
GEORGIE BURGESS
If you had to list only 1 or 2 items that were really missing the funding. What would have been the two things you would have liked to see get guaranteed funding.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, Australian’s at the moment need cost-of-living relief and while Labor’s put in place $150 rebate, I mean for power bills, I mean where’s the relief going forward for cost-of-living. People in New South Wales will be paying an average $328 more on their annual power bill, $150 is not going to go anywhere near covering that. As I say, the local grants program, the regional funding for all that infrastructure, it’s all gone and here we are we’ve got 41,000 more public servants and yet we’ve got 29,000 small businesses gone to wall and the instant asset write-off program, which was unlimited under the Coalition Government, which enabled tradies to buy that ute that they needed and equip it with tools, farmers to buy that header or that harvester and, you know the coffee maker, the café to buy that barista machine. Well all that’s gone they can’t do that anymore. Small business which is carrying this nation, it’s been ignored by this Budget. It’s just simply not good enough and what we’ll see on Thursday night is the Budget-in-reply speech from Peter Dutton. What we’ll see is our plan to get the nation back on track. There’s one little thing I’ll say about the budget, at least they followed the Nationals’ plan to stop foreign buyers going into Australia’s property market, but that’s the Nationals plan they have adopted that. But with the supermarkets, they haven’t put in a supermarket commissioner, they haven’t put in divestiture powers and that would provide much better relief for both farmers at the farm gate and buyers at the checkout. They’ve totally ignored that, they’ve just totally ignored regional Australia, and it is a disgrace. It is absolutely a disgrace when you consider that regional Australia is the engine room of this economy and that those people who have fought so hard for this country to build this country up through Covid and all the other natural disasters that we’ve had in recent times have been just totally wiped.
GEORGIE BURGESS
And how confident are you feeling heading into the election and do you think Thursday night’s budget might bolster efforts a bit more?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, a vote for an independent is a vote for more of the same. A vote for Labor is another three years of misery. Another three years of cost-of-living crisis. Another three years of Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers totally ignoring the regions. So whether you vote Labor or whether you vote teals or independent doesn’t matter. That’s what you’re going to get. Under the Coalition we’ve got a plan to get this nation back on track, and we’ll do just that.
ENDS: 9:27am