PRIME MINISTER: Thank you very much, Michelle, and thank you all for coming out here today. It’s wonderful to be here in Rockhampton, of course, with the Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, and of course, you Michelle. We have a tremendous partnership in our Coalition and it goes back for when when the Liberal Party was first born. And Sir Robert Menzies made it very clear that there would be no governing without our friends and cousins in what was then the Country Party. And from that day to this, and going forward, this has to be the most enduring, honest political partnership in our country’s history, and our most successful. And the thing that binds us together, more than any other issue, is represented in both Michelle and Barnaby, the Deputy Prime Minister, here today. In us joining together, we share a passion for rural and regional Australia, and the values that underpin rural and regional Australia – that is our point of connection. So in thanking Michelle for her introduction today. I will join with Barnaby in commending her on the tremendous work she’s done here in Central Queensland. It is truly extraordinary. She is indefatigable, and as you say, when she calls me, she gets a yes more often than not. A tremendous report that we’ve been provided here in Central Queensland. And it’s not just because she’s a great advocate, it’s because we get it. We get it. We understand how important regional Australia is and Central Queensland is to regional Australia. Can I acknowledge the Durambal people, their elders – past and present, emerging. Can I also acknowledge many veterans and members of our defence forces who are with us today, and thank you for your service to our country and we remember that, just a few days ago on Anzac Day, and I’m sure here, just as it was where I was in Darwin, or elsewhere in the country. The nation stopped and remembered, and we reflected and we rededicated ourselves to the great freedom and liberties that our defence forces have been able to gift us. Again to you Barnaby, thank you very much for being here together today, for these remarks on our policy, on a stronger future for our regions. Barnaby and I have a very strong working partnership. We lead two parties. And they are two parties. And and we respect each other’s parties and we respect each other’s leadership. And we work strongly together to do the right thing, right across the country, but to ensure that rural and regional Australia is paramount in how we are developing our economic plans, but also importantly to service the needs of regional Australia. I love coming to Rockhampton. My only disappointment about Rockhampton is the Beef Week is not on every week. I mean, how much better would that be? It is absolutely great experience. I, the organisers of Beef Week would say don’t do that to us. It’s hard enough to do every few years. But it is a tremendous celebration of rural and regional Australia. It really is. It’s confidence, it’s vibrance, it’s personality, it’s character, it’s a connection to our major metropolitan areas, to our overseas markets. It reminds us, just how important regional Australia is to Australia. Regional Australia is home to one in three Australians. Regional Australia accounts for almost a third of our national economy and a similar share of our small business. It’s the source of around two thirds of our export income. That’s called punching well about when it comes to national economic performance. In effect, it pays, as Barnaby reminds our Cabinet all the time, it pays regional Australia, for the choices Australia has. As the export powerhouse of our economy, as a government, we want to do everything we can to ensure a child growing up in regional Australia. And I saw a few of them last night down at the War Memorial Pool where I got some laps in and they were finishing their squad. Those some young kids looking forward to a future in this town, I want those kids, and I know Barnaby does and Michelle does and our whole team does, to be growing up whether it’s on a farm, on a cattle station, in a mining town, or a tree change community, a coastal community, I want them to have the same opportunities that any Australian living in any of our big cities does. Because Australia is more than our capital cities. It is the great rural and regional strength and wealth of our country. We don’t want two Australias, with two different levels of opportunity, because that means it, and just means respecting people who work in regional industries so vital to our national prosperity. This means investing in communities so Australians in our regions can access the essential services they need. And our vision is an Australia that grows together, regions and our cities, not apart. And this is very, very important.
Where there are more than 8.3 million people live, in our rural, regional and remote Australian communities, they need to have a shared stake in Australia, because they are so much at the heart of what Australia can achieve and should never be taken for granted. It’s not something that any of us can take for granted. So you have to work at it. It just doesn’t happen on its own. Governments, leaders, like Baranby and myself, need to constantly challenge and remind ourselves that we must work hard to achieve this equality. For our government, the Liberal and ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾s Coalition team, creating these opportunities in (inaudible), it’s part of our DNA. It’s who we are. Now I’ll give you an, example of what I mean, and Barnaby can attest to this, at every Cabinet meeting we have, for every meeting of our Budget Committee, which is now as the Expenditure Review Committee, we’ll discuss how this or that issue is viewed and will impact in regional Australia. And what we need to do is ensure that the voices of regional Australians are heard and that their needs are met and that their opportunities are opened up. Now I know that happens in our government because there are so many people in our Cabinet and our government that are from regional Australia. And of course, not just from the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾s, Dan Tehan, Sussan Ley, Liberals living in rural and regional Australia. Our Government is from regional Australia. We don’t just talk to them every now and then. It is regional Australia. We know how much of our national income is generated in our regions. We know that regional Australia is (inaudible). We know that Rockhampton is different to Bunbury. We know that Darwin is, is, is different to Eden on the New South Wales coast. We know that regions are not the same everywhere and they have different challenges. It’s about preserving also, I believe, in regional Australia and rural Australia, a way of life. Australians wanted to live in cities who currently live in regional areas. Sometimes they move there even if they don’t want to go there. They prefer to stay in regional Australia. And Australia has been one of the most successful countries in the world when it comes to spreading opportunities in regional areas. But it’s a constant task. The truth is that many countries in the world, like Australia, have not been as successful in this as Australia comes to ensuring that they grow together, not apart. The United States, for example, the politics of geography has seen the rise of was an incredibly fractured society and we’ve seen that on display. The divide has seen big urban metropolises in New York and Washington and San Francisco pull away from large parts of the American heartland economically, definitely, but also socially, and also culturally. Causing great divisions in their country. And so today, as we observe, many Americans in rural areas (inaudible). The places they call home, spoken over dismissively as flyover country. Many rural people and European communities feel a similar disconnect in the wake of decades of the industrialisation and a drift of people to the big cities. They feel looked down on, spoken down to. Their jobs and lifestyles, derided or seen as somehow unsophisticated. In a world where the big talk is all seen to work in government or finance or the tech industry, or the media. You witnessed this sort of thing firsthand in the last election, courtesy of Bob Brown, the Greens and their convoy to Central Queensland, a convoy against coal jobs. This was the green left in this country basically saying, we’re more virtuous than you and we think you need to change. That’s what they were saying. That’s not a country I know and nor is it a country I want Australia to ever be. But this is why I do worry, that if Australia chooses to go in a different direction at this next election, if they choose to go with Labor supported by the Greens, I fear for the regions in Australia. Not just for their economic future. I fear for the way of life. I fear for a growing polarisation between the regions and rural areas of our country and our cities.
I believe the vast majority of Australians though in our capital cities because I’m from I grew up in the suburbs of Sydney, I believe they feel a great affinity and connection with Australia’s heartland. I know that’s the case in where I’m from, where I live, well before I became Prime Minister in the Sydney’s Sutherland Shire and I miss it terribly. I know that because I saw as a local Member for Parliament, my community, feeling and seeking to feel the terrible pain that rural Australians and regional Australians were going through through drought. That was one of the most common calls that I would get in my own electorate office in Cronulla. You won’t find any really big sweeping plains in my electorate with cattle and roaming and large wheat fields. No, you won’t. You’ll find lots of other things, which is fantastic, including the Cronulla Sharks who won here in this very stadium. (inaudible). But they get it too. And they empathise. And I think that’s where all Australians, whether they live in the cities or regions alike, want to see an Australia that grows together. And we do have a great capacity to pull together. We can carry the best hopes of our nation and the concerns and interests of our region. And as a Liberal ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Coalition, we do that in government. We do that in the room, we come into that lead Australia, and we’ve done that through one of the most difficult times that this country has seen since the Second World War and the Great Depression. Bringing our regional and rural areas, which frankly, for a large part of that carried the nation, and particularly the resources industry, the primary producers of our country, after many years of drought, finally getting some good seasons, and that has supported our economy to achieve what we’ve been able to achieve. We have that commitment. Despite everything we’ve been through as a country over these past couple of years I remain extraordinarily enthusiastic about what can be achieved in our regions. And in this year’s Budget, when Barnaby and I and Bridget McKenzie and Josh Frydenberg and David Littlepoud and and Simon Birmingham, we all came together to pull this project together at its centre was a commitment to the growth and development of regional Australia. Why? Because it’s the hope of (inaudible). As Barnaby often explains to us, all that stuff that comes in on the boat that we buy, we’ve got to put stuff on other boats that go back the other way to pay for it. And that stuff that goes on the boats and goes back the other way is not coming out of Pitt Street in Sydney. It’s coming out of Rockhampton, it’s coming out of North Queensland, it’s coming out of the Western plains of New South Wales and Gippsland, and it’s coming out of all of those, that’s where it’s coming from. It’s coming out of crayfish out of Tasmania, it’s coming from all of those places or the coal mines of the Hunter or indeed the vineyards of the Hunter. And so that’s why we decided to invest. And that $21 billion of investment this year in the Budget comes on top of $100 billion investment in our regions since the Government was first elected in 2013. So in the time I have now, let me just, bear with me, because this is important. This is what we’re doing. This election is about a choice between a government that has a record of delivering in rural and regional Australia and has a plan to keep doing that. That’s a choice of a Liberal ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Government that has a plan and has a record of delivering or a Labor Opposition supported by the Greens that rural and regional Australia does not know. A leader in Anthony Albanese that they do not know and therefore presents a great risk to the future growth and development of our region. So this is what we’re doing. $7.1 billion of transformational investments to turbocharge the economies of our next generation industries. And export hubs in the heart of of the Pilbara, the Northern Territory, North and Central Queensland – right here – investing in our Northern Australia Roads program, our Beef Roads program, improving the resilience of agriculture supply chains in Central Queensland and other regional areas. This is alongside our Roads of Strategic Importance Initiative, with an additional $880 million helping to connect regional businesses to local and international markets. Our latest agreement with India. We got it there even before Boris and the UK. We’re out every day to try to secure new markets and also to deal with those low tariff barriers which I know are an enormous frustration to our agricultural producers. Commitments like $10 million to upgrade the Rockhampton Airport and to better service locals and tourists. Delivering the Rockhampton Ring Road, as Michelle says, part of our more than $10 billion investment of a safer and more reliable Bruce Highway. Unlocking the benefits of inland rail, there’s been no greater champion can I tell you than Barnaby Joyce. I think he one day hopes to drive the train himself. Unlocking the benefits of that inland rail and extending it from Toowoomba to Gladstone. That is where we want to get to. That’s where we want to go and we want to make sure we get it right. This is part of our infrastructure investment pipeline – $120 billion over ten years. ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ freight links, supporting jobs, ensuring Australia in regional areas, get home sooner and safer, and certainly don’t get left behind, in fact they’re able to lead the way ahead. We’re leveraging our traditional advantages in mining and agriculture, unlocking those opportunities in emerging industries, in critical minerals, hydrogen, advanced manufacturing, renewable energy – right here. $464 million to create clean hydrogen industrial hubs, co-locating hydrogen production and industrial users and building on the infrastructure and workforces of regional areas. Not In replacement of what we’re doing right now in how we generate energy right now, which is so important, reliable, affordable energy right here in Central Queensland, but understanding where the future is going and understanding where the jobs are going to be and making sure that we do maintain our existing industry, industrial advantages in Central Queensland. And ensure there’s a future for those young kids that were down doing squad training last night at the War Memorial Pool. We’re driving growth in our critical minerals sector, including here in Central Queensland, supporting the Alpha HPA, Orica in Gladstone with $45 million grant, part of a $330 billion industry investment in high priority alumina production. So we’re further diversifying our resources sector that without for a minute, as I said, relinquishing our traditional energy strengths of coal and gas underpinned by our technology, not taxes, plan to reduce emissions. As we know Labor has their sneaky carbon tax on their Carbon Credits Scheme. A sneaky carbon tax which is going to punish and cost our traditional industries not just coal by the way, oil and gas and many other sectors that will be hit with that measure. We’re investing $2 billion in one of my favourite programs, the regional accelerator program. Which is ensuring our regions get more support in areas like apprenticeships, export market development trends, the regional trailblazer universities and so much more. It taps 12 of those very successful programs and saying we need to supercharge that in our regions with $2 billion of investment. Continuing to contribute to the liveability of our communities by improving access to services. Mobile and broadband is not a luxury. It should not be a luxury. And we’ve been working hard to turn that around with a $1.3 billion new investment in regional telecommunications. You know, under our government, we’ve delivered around 1,200 of those mobile blackspot towers. Under Labor, zero.
A net zero on mobile broadband and technology for our regions. We’re making big investments here. Our government has funded, as I said, over 1,200 and we’ve already built 1,000. Our investment in the Budget means we will deliver even more, there’s $811.8 million to provide new and improved cargo coverage on up to 8,000 kilometres of regional roads and adjacent households, businesses and tourist hotspots. That’s as much about ensuring our regional and rural economies work, as is ensuring that people in communities living in rural and regional Australia are safe, and can be as safe as someone driving down the Kingsway in my electorate in Cronulla. Digital connectivity is opening up new opportunities and particularly what we’ve seen during the course of the pandemic. We’ve leaped ahead. So we’ve got to back small business in regional Australia. 83,000 small businesses in Central and North Queensland already keeping more of what they earn with lower taxes. But in the Budget this year we have extended that to ensure they get 20 per cent tax deduction when it comes to investing in data and digital technologies in their business. From anything from cloud accounting to new CRN systems, or whatever you have to do. Invest in that, get a bigger tax deduction. Also investing more – a 20 per cent tax deduction on the training that you give to your employees. We’ve cut the tax rate to 25 per cent for small and medium sized businesses and we’re backing manufacturing, as I said, through the Regional Accelerator Program to some some $500 million out of that $2 billion program on top of what we’ve already invested in modern manufacturing to support the development of advanced manufacturing, specifically in regional areas. It’s about making sure that in an uncertain world, whether due to pandemic or economic coercion or supply chain challenges, we’re anticipating and acting to keep our economy on the road ahead. We understand the growth in regional areas brings with it new demands and pressures in areas such as workforce and skills, health, education and housing. We’re investing $144 million to boost the regional employers of apprentices. We’re also providing $2.8 (inaudible) investment to train the next generation of apprentices and trainees. Our small business skills and training boost will help at least 19,000 eligible Central and North Queensland businesses have access to a new 20 per cent bonus deduction for the costs of travelling and upskilling their workforce. The tyranny of distance means that access to essential services can be extremely challenging. So we introduce Medicare-funded telehealth, which is now universal and permanent, with more than 100 million services delivered to over 17 million Australians since March of 2020. World-class healthcare reaching into rural and regional Australia. Our 10-year Stronger Rural Health Strategy, I pay tribute to David Gillespie for his leadership in that area is focussed on increased access to health services in regional Australia, reducing costs for patients. In this Budget alone almost $300 million in new investments in regional, rural and remote health, including $66 million to deliver Medicare-funded MRI scans in regional Australia and long-term investments in the Royal Royal Flying Doctor Service and other key aeromedical and health outreach services, and will expand Headspace to 164 sites by 2025-26, up from just 56 when our government took office in 2013, and delivered new adult and child mental health services and eating disorder centres across Australia, including in regional Australia.
We’re expanding education opportunities. Our Quality School funding project and in this year’s Budget we invested $11 million in a new Commonwealth Regional Scholarship Program to help students and their families from low-SES regional and remote communities afford boarding school fees. I know how much of a burden that has been. I remember when I was out in Quilpie when the drought was on. And as I looked out on the dusty planes on the Tully’s property out there, what actually brought Mrs Tully, at the end of the day, brought a tear to her eye, wasn’t the fact that just she’d been through breast cancer, she’d been through a drought and they were hanging on. She was worried about boarding school fees for her kids and that they would not get left behind because they happen to live on a property in rural Australia.
Important stuff, these things. It makes a big difference. And in our ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Guarantee Scheme which is helping Australians in regional areas. 10,000 places every year to get 10,000 regional Australians into their own home each and every year. And when it comes to jobs, we’ve got a great story to tell about what’s happening in rural and regional Australia. Under our economic plan unemployment is down to 4 per cent. It’s the equal lowest in 48 years and it’s going down further. In contrast, we inherited an unemployment rate of 5.7 per cent. But let me tell you about what’s been happening in regional Australia. In regional Australia, the number of unemployed people when Labor were in office, actually increased by over 40 per cent. We’ve had that number fall by more than 20 per cent. We’ve been getting regional Australians off welfare and into jobs and more and more of them are staying in regional communities, further strengthening those communities. And that’s why there’s a choice. A government that has been able to deliver services, deliver a stronger economy, more jobs, backing in investments, community infrastructure, all of these things. That’s what we’ve been doing for regional Australia, but more importantly, that’s our plan to keep doing in regional Australia. A government that gets it, about what’s happening in regional Australia and to focus on some of what might not be in the grand scheme of things, in terms of the great scale of a Budget, about $660 billion or thereabouts. But looking after boarding school fees, looking after telehealth services, making sure that those apprentices can get trained in this town and not have to go somewhere else, and there’s a job for them in this town, so they don’t have to leave and go somewhere else. That’s what makes communities in regional Australia stronger. And we want to see more jobs, and so that’s why as part of our 1.3 million jobs commitment, we will ensure and we commit 450,000 jobs more in rural and regional Australia as part of our economic planning. Because I know jobs change lives. I know jobs change communities. I know jobs turn the economic situation around. And for a stronger economy, for a stronger regional economy, for stronger regions, which means a stronger Australia. What we need is a strong economy. And our government has shown how we know how to do that. And that’s why this election, yeah sure, things are tough. Things are tough in the security situation too. There’s no argument or dispute about that. We’re still coming out of the back end of the pandemic, and undoubtedly there will be other things we have to face. Three years ago, I don’t think we could have ever anticipated what we had to face over the last three years. But guess what? Particularly in rural and regional Australia, we have seen it through. And there’s one big (inaudible) that myself, Josh, Barnaby, and the whole team have made, is that we backed Australians and we particularly back rural and regional Australians to ensure that Australia came through. So here we are, at the precipice of an enormous era of opportunity for Australia and particularly for rural and regional Australia. Now is not the time to turn back. Now is not the time to risk it all on Labor, but to stay the course, with the economic plan that’s delivering a stronger rural and regional Australia. Thank you very much.
