Sam Birrell
Nicholls · National Party · Australia
“They will put it maybe in New South Wales, Western Australia or Queensland, but they won't even consider Victoria. The taxes, the government interference and now this proposed work-from-home legislation just mean that Victoria is not an option.”
“The Mitchell Shire Council has identified the Kilmore-Wallan Bypass as one of the highest advocacy priorities, but the project has been languishing for years. The bypass is essential to improve safety, reduce congestion and return the historic town centre to local residents and businesses.”
“As I've often said in this place, it's a great privilege to represent the electorate of Nicholls in northern Victoria, one of the great food-producing parts of Australia. Recently, I had the great honour to go to a place called Legacy Packing in Cobram for the official relaunch of their state-of-the-art packing facility.”
“As at the last election, the AEC boundary changes meant that the town of Kilmore came into the electorate that I represent, the electorate of Nicholls, and Kilmore is one of the oldest inland towns in Australia. It's a beautiful place. It has bluestone buildings, a historic jail and a monument to Hume and Hovell.”
“A major agribusiness operator in northern Victoria who operates very successfully has told me: 'We're doing no more investment in Australia. The government's making it too hard.”
“We've also got high-tech investment in the dairy industry and the apple and pear industry and we have some new investments in the processing facility SPC, which is an iconic brand in Australia that processes peaches, pears, apples and also tomatoes.”
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“This bill does not reduce prices at the bowser tomorrow. It does not fix the underlying problem that Australia is less prepared than it should be. So this is not a silver bullet. The deeper problem is one of economic management and national capability. After four years in office, Labor has failed to build sovereign fuel capability and has left Australia more exposed and more reliant on overseas supply, and now they want to fund imports of the very fuels it restricts at home. So I think what this whole crisis lays bare to us—if I could paraphrase and call it an inconvenient truth—is that we do rely on fossil fuel liquid fuels a lot more than we, as a nation, and in particular the government, have wanted to make out. There have been comments that we can just electrify everything.”
“Those shipping lanes could close down because of conflict, and we're already seeing that as a result of the disruption to freight out of the Strait of Hormuz. That freight, critically, for us, has crude oil going to refineries, in particular, in Asia, so that's what is contributing to our current crisis. But the lack of sovereign capacity in relation to those issues should give us all cause for concern. Let's be clear about what this bill does not do and what it is not. It will not get fuel to empty service stations today. That requires a distribution plan led by the minister, and we've been harping on about wanting to see that over the last two weeks. Whilst there is more fuel moving, and I acknowledge that, there are still issues with fuel getting to regional service stations and regional businesses, including farms and mines.”
“In a crisis, the government should act to keep supply chains moving and ensure essential imports like fuel and fertiliser can reach Australia. This bill allows Export Finance Australia to step in during extraordinary disruptions. It's a sensible objective, and we support practical, targeted action in a crisis. What it does show—and many people before me who have come into this place have been saying this for a number of years—is that Australia is an island continent in a world that has become, over the last four years in particular, more sensitive to geopolitical shocks. The old world order doesn't seem to be holding as much as it used to. Australia has become incredibly reliant on inputs from overseas that come to us via ship.”
“A group of Western Australian wheat and barley farmers told me that they'll probably need 35 litres of diesel a hectare for the entire crop cycle. That's the sowing, the spraying of the weeds, the top dress of urea and then the harvest, so it's significant. They're wanting to know that there is going to be security of supply and that cost is going to be under control, because the cost of that 35 litres and whether you can get it in the first place is part of the decision-making process for how much crop you put in and whether you'll have the margins to make it a viable exercise. It's absolutely critical for agriculture. The coalition's position on this bill is that it will support it. We think this is a sensible measure.”
“My portfolio is agriculture, so I would like to talk a bit about how critical diesel is for agriculture and how time sensitive that is. We are about to go into the winter cropping period, which means that farmers will be sowing seed. In the old days, you had to wait for a rain—the autumn break, whenever it arrived—and then you'd put your seat in. But, now, with new technologies which have seed protection, we can put seed in dry soil, and it will stay there without being attacked by pests and diseases so that, when the rain does come, the seed will come up. That cropping window pretty much starts now. It'll go through, probably, till the end of April and maybe into May, depending on the hectares that people decide to sow. The supply of diesel right now to the farming areas is absolutely critical.”
“I would have thought that was pretty obvious. But the fact that we already had that uptick means that this comes at a terrible time. The government's response has been, I think it would be kind to say, chaotic and complacent. For weeks, there's been the denial of a problem, the dismissal of legitimate concerns, with Australians being blamed and us on this side being told we were not serious people. We were seriously laying bare the problems in our electorates. It's nice to see the government actually take it seriously and not only move on a couple of issues, including the fuel excise cut that we suggested last week but also this Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Amendment (Strategic Reserve) Bill that we will be supporting.”
“Diesel is absolutely essential to the operations that we have, particularly in regional Australia, particularly around the industries that pay for Australia, and those industries are mining and agriculture. Now, there's a lot of other very important, great industries going on in Australia but they're underpinned by our resources and our agricultural industries, and they rely on diesel. When the fuel prices rise or there's a supply disruption, that flows on to the price of groceries—I think we're about to see that, unfortunately—freight and logistics, household budgets. This crisis risks the homegrown cost-of-living crisis that we already had because of the mismanagement of the Labor Party and because of the government not taking seriously the concept of increased government spending without productivity dividends leading to inflation.”
“What you do when your constituents tell you there is a serious problem with the way they go about their business, which keeps Australia running and keeps Australia paid for, is you bring it up in the chamber; you bring it up in question time. So we make no apology for trying to get the Minister for Energy and Climate Change to understand the severity of the problem by bringing these examples in. Even last week I said that I had just spoken to a group of grade 6s. One young girl told me, 'Dad ordered a load of diesel three weeks ago and it hasn't arrived yet, and we need diesel to start putting our crops in.' I made the comment that the grade 6 student understood the severity of the issue better than the Minister for Energy and Climate Change.”
“I rise to speak on the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Amendment (Strategic Reserve) Bill 2026. Australia is facing a serious fuel supply shock at the worst possible time, and we have spent the last two weeks trying to explain to the government, particularly the minister for Energy and Climate Change, how serious this problem is. We've been called scaremongers. We've been accused of causing people to panic buy. But the reality is that our constituents, many of them in regional Australia—for whom diesel is not a nice to have; it is an absolute necessity for their business—have been telling us about price shocks and supply issues.”
“They told me: 'We work hard and we love keeping Australia moving, but we cannot continue to operate very long if this continues.' It shouldn't have taken sustained pressure from the opposition for the government to finally see sense and act on cutting petrol tax and the heavy vehicle user charge, but it is good that it has happened. But there is more to do on delivery to farming areas. And wheat in the ground and milk for lattes needs diesel to get to the regions.”
“Well, the good news today is that the government has finally decided to take the fuel crisis seriously, and do what the coalition advised last week, and cut the fuel excise and the road user charge. This is a positive outcome. But the seriousness of the situation needed to be hammered home by many stories of real hardship across Australia—especially in regional areas, from dairy farmers to grade 6 students. I'll give just one more example. I was contacted by a husband-and-wife team who run an owner-driver transport business in my electorate, delivering grain and—when they can find it—fertiliser, across northern Victoria and southern New South Wales. Today, at $3.29 per litre for diesel, they are paying $1,320 for the 400 litres they use every day. That's an increase of $620 to fill their truck.”
“It brought the community together, and it explored an issue that we were facing: our drought and our irrigation system. Congratulations to Shepparton Theatre Arts Group. Here's to another 50 years of wonderful performances.”
“Shepparton Theatre Arts Group is an absolute gem of the Greater Shepparton and Goulburn Valley area. It has musical productions. It has plays. It has all sorts of events that bring the community together to participate but also be the audience. They've done some really big things like G rease , My Fair Lady and Jesus Christ Superstar . Local playwrights have also written about issues that affect us. One local playwright—who's a podiatrist as his day job but writes plays when he's not looking at feet—wrote some great plays, one called Dookie and one called Watershed . I was actually in Watershed , playing a dairy farmer with a pair of binoculars who was trying to look at a bunch of ladies doing a naked rain dance. I performed that rather well! But it was a wonderful play.”
“I've attended football training there, and I've attended junior cricket training, where I was clean bowled by a young guy and then thought, 'Instead of batting, I'll go and try bowling.' A young lady sent the ball back over my head a considerable distance. It's also the reigning premier of the Picola and District Football Netball League. Above all, Katamatite is a great little town. It produces high-quality agricultural produce that goes all around the world. It's weathered drought, changing economics and fluctuations in population. But, throughout this, Katamatite has maintained a strong sense of identity and community. When they had some fire dramas earlier this year, they all banded together to help each other out and get through that crisis. Last year, Shepparton Theatre Arts Group celebrated 50 years in existence.”
“Over the weekend, I attended a great event, which was the 150th anniversary of the town of Katamatite. Katamatite is a small country town that sits on the Boosey creek near its junction with Broken Creek, about 46 kilometres north-east of Shepparton. Many iconic people have come from Katamatite, including identical twin brothers Rod and Don Kilgour, local media personalities who became sports announcers on GMV-6 television. Don later entered the Victorian parliament as the member for Shepparton in 1991. As you enter the town, a sign greets you, saying 'Home of the 1995 Stawell Gift Winner'. That was Glenn Crawford, who won with a time of 11.79 seconds. Katamatite's got a great reputation as a sporting town.”
“We will always support having a productive, streamlined and effective export regulatory framework in Australia, and, when it comes to the Export Control Amendment (Clarifying Obligations Relating to Registered Establishments) Bill 2026, the federal coalition believes that the measures outlined in this legislation are sensible and reasonable. It's for those reasons that I commend this bill to the House.”
“In the Senate, we have successfully moved an order for the production of documents that demands that this government release its modelling and evidence behind these massive cost blowouts, because, in order to secure full transparency and accountability and maintain a fit-for-purpose export regulatory system, we need to know how the Albanese Labor government allowed the department's costs of providing export services to explode by such a large magnitude and now expects the agricultural industry to pay for it. We will take time to go through this data. In conclusion, as I affirmed in my earlier remarks, the federal coalition strongly backs our agricultural exporters.”
“These export regulation services cover responsibilities like documentation, assessments, inspections and audits. Unfortunately, we know that our nation's key export industries are already confronted with tariffs and rising fuel, fertiliser and input costs, so a 47 per cent rise in regulatory costs by the department to provide export services is enormously concerning, as it will be passed on to our agricultural industries. This increase needs to be heavily scrutinised, and, in the interests of our agricultural exporters, the ruler needs to be run over this. That's why the federal coalition is taking action.”
“When this legislation was introduced a couple of weeks ago, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry said that this bill was about 'increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of our export regulatory system'. However, when it comes to export regulation, there are some significant challenges which currently confront the sector, and they need to be recognised. Among these are the excessively rising costs of Australia's agricultural exports. It is extraordinary that, over the last five years, between 2020 and 2025, the export regulatory costs of the department for our agricultural industries such as meat, seafood, grain, dairy and fruit and vegetables have increased by 47 per cent—an increase of 47 per cent in five years!”
“To add a further note on the government's legislation, the explanatory memorandum indicates that the amendments in this bill are supported by industry. Overall, it is crucial that Australia maintains an efficient, robust and evidence based export system, because we know how vitally important exports are to the health, profitability, sustainability and resilience of our agriculture sector and all of our hardworking primary producers. This is underpinned by the reality that Australia exports 70 per cent of its total production, and, in 2025-26, this is forecast to reach $80.5 billion, which is truly a remarkable achievement.”
“Right now, we know that the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry is conducting an export assurance reform project that is examining the regulatory oversight of certain non-prescribed goods, including commodities such as wool and wool grease, skins and hides, animal food, honey and bee products, food and beverages, pharmaceuticals and technical and blood products. Collectively, these categories of products are intended to be prescribed for purposes of the Export Control Act 2020 and be referred to as 'general products' once prescribed. The amendments in this bill will be of particular benefit to these 'general products' because registered establishments are not proposed to be used as a regulatory mechanism for those commodities.”
“Ultimately, the federal coalition will always support measures that are aimed at cutting red tape, boosting productivity and maximising efficiency for Australia's export system and our key agricultural industries, who depend upon it. The second set of amendments in this bill includes minor changes to expand the scope of export documentation that can be issued by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry when it comes to trade. This part of the legislation would allow the department to provide additional documentation required by Australia's trading partners to cover 'a range of goods' for export to a maximum period of 18 months, rather than 'a specific kind of goods'. This is also a measure that we welcome, given that it could help meet changing requirements from overseas countries.”
“This bill will reduce the regulatory burden on industry and facilitate regulatory reform of certain goods, 'general products', that are not currently prescribed for the purposes of the act, which are 'non-prescribed goods'. On this front, this bill before the House today would amend the Export Control Act 2020 to deliver several outcomes. First, it will allow export operations, including production and preparation, 'to be carried out at registered establishments without needing to be included in the registration if it is not a prescribed export condition to so be included'. This can present an excessive regulatory burden for some export operations, and this particular amendment in the bill will remove it.”
“On behalf of the federal coalition, I'm pleased to inform the House that we will be supporting the passage of the Export Control Amendment (Clarifying Obligations Relating to Registered Establishments) Bill 2026. We are supporting this legislation because it will deliver sensible and minor amendments to the framework of export operations in Australia. The Export Control Act 2020 sets out the overarching legislative framework for the regulation of exported goods, including food and agricultural products, from Australia. It is important to acknowledge that this is a legislative framework which is regularly reviewed to ensure that it remains streamlined and fit for purpose.”
“We are a great exporter of food, but we can't do it without diesel and we can't do it without fertiliser, and I'm not convinced that the minister is taking this seriously enough and doing everything he can to ensure that the diesel and fertiliser supply and therefore the food issue is being sorted out. (Time expired)”
“I'm failed to be convinced that the minister's doing everything in his power to sort that distribution problem out, because people are ringing us and emailing us saying: 'I can't get fuel. I can't get the delivery of fuel. I can't go down to the service station and fill up.' When Australian families go to the supermarkets, even if they do drive electric vehicles to get there, and they start to see shelves that don't have food on them, they will understand how significant this fuel issue is for the agricultural sector. If we don't get fertiliser, we will see how significant this issue is in relation to a lot of the grain that we export. I was talking to some farming groups this morning about the Asian countries that rely on that grain.”
“This is a real problem for Australian families because I don't think people understand how important the food supply chain is in this country. I've just come from the NFF Horticulture Council, who've told me that the cost and the supply of diesel is affecting their harvest operations of, for example, avocados and bananas and is making those unviable. But, even if you can get the crop off, the diesel that you need to get it to market—some of this stuff is grown in North Queensland and some of it in Western Australia—is not arriving, or it's too expensive. I understand that there are global supply shocks, but the minister has told us that there is not a supply problem in Australia. I said in a 90-second statement last week that I take him at his word at that, but the distribution issue has not been sorted out.”
“They say: 'If I don't get diesel, I can't put my crop in. If I don't get urea, I won't get the yields to make growing a crop profitable.' They're judging the minister on what they see on the ground. 'Is my delivery of diesel turning up or not? Is there a service station in regional Australia that has got fuel or not?' As we heard today, there are over 400 service stations in regional Australia that do not have fuel. I'm happy that the minister's focused. I'm happy that he's telling us that 'he's working with'. He will have achieved something when those farmers get their delivery of diesel and when those service stations have fuel in the pump. That's when he can claim success, and I look forward to that happening.”
“They will probably sow with fertilisers called MAP and DAP, and most of them are saying they've got enough of those. They are worried about the supply of diesel. Western Australian farming groups say that they'll probably need about 35 litres of diesel per hectare for the crop cycle—that's sowing, spraying, putting out some urea and then harvesting. They're really worried about where that fuel is going to come from and where the fertiliser is going to come from. These are people who don't talk in the way that we talk in Canberra, where we say 'we're focused on', 'we're working with', and, 'We're considering options.' These are people who, if they don't work their businesses and judge their businesses on results, go broke. They don't say, 'we're working with'. They don't say, 'we're focused on'.”
“Earlier today, I did what a lot of us enjoy doing, which is talking to a group of grade 6 students who are visiting Canberra. One young girl, whose family farms out in the Dookie region, which is in the eastern part of my electorate, said: 'The fuel issue is really hitting us because Dad put an order in for diesel three weeks ago, and, without that diesel, he can't sow his crops. We're starting to get worried.' We had a discussion about it, and it occurred to me that this grade 6 student understands the fuel crisis in Australia better than the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. We are at a point in broadacre farming where farmers are about to sow their crops—I'm sure the member for O'Connor, who's from one of the great cropping regions of this country, will talk about this.”
“Beyond fuel, we are seeing industrial supply chain disruptions, particularly in petrochemicals, plastics, construction materials and fertilisers. Nitrogen is fundamental to Australian productivity, and any sustained disruption to supply has serious implications. It has implications for food production, farm input costs and broader food security. Disruption will feed into inflation, which was already a problem because of the Albanese government's record spending and failure to address productivity. Diesel is needed by Matt to harvest his pears, Luke to plant his wheat and Mandy to milk her cows. If they can't get diesel and carry out those operations, Australia is in real trouble.”
“Fuel and fertiliser supply disruptions are now being felt across Australia. While national fuel stocks remain stable for the moment, price shocks and supply risks are escalating, particularly in regional areas. Industries are already experiencing sharp increases in fuel costs. Freight and logistics operators have imposed steep fuel surcharges, with air freight seeing sudden increases and shipping lines adding emergency container fees. Many businesses are absorbing these costs in the short term, but they have made it clear that they cannot do this into the future. There is a growing concern about diesel availability, especially in regional and rural communities. Higher fuel costs are also impacting workers who rely on travel.”
“I say to the government: show us the completions, show us the employment outcomes and show us it's working, and then we can talk about celebration. My experience with TAFE and of having witnessed vocational educational training overseas, particularly in Germany, Sweden and Finland, is that their vocational education training schools, facilities and teaching are far better than what we have in Australia—and that has led to highly qualified people going into the workforce in those countries, and they're much more linked with industry than people here in Australia. I say to those opposite: we want people to access TAFE, but we also want a much better TAFE system than we have at the moment.”
“That's not to say that taxpayer money should not be invested in skills training for people who most need it, but this act contains no capacity to pay-test, no targeting of the most disadvantaged and no mechanism to ensure completions. Pointing across the aisle or pointing to the Victorian parliament doesn't change any of that. I think everyone in this chamber supports skills, supports TAFE and supports giving every Australian the chance to build a better career. But what we don't support is spending $1.5 billion of taxpayers' money and getting a completion rate that wouldn't be tolerated in any other area of government. We wouldn't tolerate refusing to publish a proper evaluation of a program that spends that amount of money and then coming in here and wanting the chamber to somehow congratulate the government for it.”
“The question was never whether we should invest in skills; the question is whether this particular investment is working, and the government can still not demonstrate that it is. The fourth point is the comparison with Victoria—and this is a distraction. What happens in Victoria is for the Victorian parliament. But in this chamber we are accountable for how Commonwealth taxpayers' money is spent. On that question, the facts are clear: a cleaner earning $60,000 a year is subsidising fee-free training for plumbers and electricians, who will go on to earn sometimes $100,000 a year. I challenge the word 'free' because everyone always pays for something.”
“The Business Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and major employer groups have all opposed this legislation, not because they're against skills and training—none of us are against skills and training—but because they recognise that you don't lock in a program with a sub-26 per cent completion rate and no published evaluation. The third point talks about the $1.5 billion investment. The motion celebrates $1.5 billion in spending as though spending itself was the achievement. But we've got to ask: what has that $1.5 billion delivered? For every dollar spent, roughly three-quarters has gone to enrolments that have not yet produced—and may never produce—a qualified worker. Meanwhile, apprentice and trainee numbers have fallen, with commencements dropping 36 per cent since the government took office.”
“This motion frames scrutiny as obstruction, and that's not what it is. This side of the House has asked three very reasonable questions about this policy: what are the completion rates, why is there no means testing, and where is the evaluation? These are very reasonable things to ask of any policy, and the government's response was to legislate the program as permanent before answering any of those. Making a program permanent doesn't make it effective; it just makes it harder to fix.”
“It's great to be able to contribute to this motion moved on free TAFE, and I'd just like to go through the points in the motion itself. In the first point, the government asks us to celebrate three years of expanded opportunity, but let's look at what the three years of data actually shows. What it shows is that, out of roughly 650,000 fee-free enrolments since January 2023, fewer than one in four has resulted in a completed qualification. Now, a completion rate below 26 per cent isn't expanding opportunity; it's expanding enrolment numbers for a press release. Opportunity means someone finishes their course and walks into a job, and by this measure this program is failing the very people it claims to help. The second point says 'despite opposition from the opposition'.”
“My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. I refer to the minister's previous answer describing the current fuel situation as a 'national crisis'. Minister, are we in a national crisis?”
“The Minister for Climate Change and Energy says there is enough fuel in Australia overall, and I take him at his word. I agree that people shouldn't be panic buying—they don't need to—but the minister must also accept the urgency of the regional supply issues being reported in my electorate and across regional Australia. The government must act to get fuel where it's needed to keep farms and regional businesses running. Mandy from Inionba Pastoral said, 'Sam, can you tell the minister that, if he wants milk in his latte, he better get this sorted out quick.'”
“Onto something important: the fuel situation is getting worse by the day in my electorate, affecting businesses, farmers and families. Inionba Pastoral in Kyvalley milks 1,500 cows and crops 5,000 hectares to feed cattle. They can't get a delivery of fuel or urea. Another family dairy farm needs fuel to deliver feed to their herd, but a 20,000 litre order never arrived. A major transport operator says fuel deliveries in regional depots are now being rationed, with some receiving only half their usual weekly supply. Terminal gate diesel prices have jumped 30 per cent in six days. A quarry operator using 30,000 litres of diesel a week has been told deliveries are no longer guaranteed. Independent contractors say on-site deliveries to farms are now severely limited.”
“I stand by that, and I'll continue to say that. It is a great honour to represent all of the people of Nicholls. In the context of appropriation, we are appropriating money to help people right across the country, and we should do it in regions as well as cities to make our country as great as it can be.”
“One last thing: I said that Shepparton—the town I grew up in, the town I live in and the town I love—is the greatest example of successful multiculturalism in Australia. I do worry about where social cohesion is going in this country. We've seen some tragic things happen. I want to reiterate what I said at the time, not as a point scoring thing but as a genuine contribution to the debate that I think we need to have about us all living together in this beautiful country. My observation, as a member of the Greater Shepparton community, as to why multiculturalism works was: … we seem to do better when we celebrate each other's different cultural identity but moreover embrace each other's humanity, the humanity being a stronger bond between us than any divisions that tend to be amplified by race, gender, sexual orientation or religious view.”
“I do think that the better, fairer plan that we've come up with—where we tie our emissions to comparative nations, and we use a suite of technologies and be technology agnostic—is a really good plan, and I implore everyone to look through it. It does advocate for emissions reduction, and I believe in emissions reduction. But, as I've studied a lot of the literature and what's happened overseas, I do see an overreliance on intermittent power generation—that is, wind and solar. I'm not going to demonise those technologies, because, in the right place and in the right percentage of the grid, they're actually pretty good. But I think that the policy that the Labor government are embarking on will lead us to an overreliance on that.”
“I accept that, but we're coming up with real-life examples of people in our regions who are not getting the fuel they need to run their businesses. I think the minister's got to come clean and say, 'I know this is a problem, and this is what we're doing about it.' That brings me to energy. I did talk about climate change being a real challenge. It's a challenge we can't run away from or pretend is not happening. We do have to act. But, as I said at the time, it's not about if we act but how we act. If we act in a really reckless way, with reckless timelines, and we don't do it in a measured way, we could see business and, therefore, emissions move offshore. As someone who cares about global emissions, I worry that policies that move business offshore move emissions offshore. That's a real issue.”
“It is a really good, interconnected hub of cities, all with industry—although energy policy is threatening that, and I'll come to that in a second—that is connected by high-speed rail. This element of what the then deputy prime minister did, funding this Shepparton-to-Melbourne rail, is enabling that population rebalance. That's important for housing, and it's important for regional industry. But we've got to make sure that regional industry can thrive. We had conversations today about those regional industries struggling with fuel. I thought we asked a lot of reasonable questions of the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. And I do take the Minister for Climate Change and Energy at his word when he's saying that there's enough fuel in Australia, and we don't want to be scaremongering for panic buying.”
“What that means is that, due to all of the signalling upgrades and the passing lanes and all of that infrastructure—and it's big money; I think the Commonwealth contribution was $320 million—there will now be nine return services between Shepparton and Melbourne. I can't tell you what that means for people who live in the city of Shepparton and want to get to the metropolitan area of Melbourne. I talked in my maiden speech back in 2022 about us having to have a big conversation in this country about population rebalance. I used the example of Germany. I talked about the population of Germany being 80 million people. The population of the biggest city in Germany, Berlin, is only about three million.”
“A key bridge was damaged and had to be shut down to traffic at the end of 2022. I have tried three times to find a way to get the funding—and it's not a huge amount of money in the scheme of things—to enable that bridge to be reopened, and everywhere I go I get duckshoved. They say, 'Go here. Go there.' I do as I'm told—I go here; I go there—and every time the answer is no. It's emblematic of a government that's not really serious about building infrastructure. While he's one of those opposite, I'll give a shout-out to the member for Riverina, because the member for Riverina, as the Deputy Prime Minister, worked constructively with the Victorian government to fund 80 per cent of an infrastructure project, the Shepparton to Melbourne rail upgrade.”
“I haven't seen as much productivity-enabling infrastructure funding for regional areas since the Albanese government came to power in 2022. What we were able to do—this is before I came into parliament—was access to Building Better Regions Fund. Now the Labor government has got rid of the Building Better Regions Fund and they've created their own fund. They call it by a different name. That's okay. I don't mind the government coming in and saying, 'We want to change the name of the fund.' What I do mind is when they fail in successive budgets to put any money into it, because local councils come to me and say, 'We've got nowhere to go.' One example of this is a piece of infrastructure called Kirwans bridge, which was damaged in the 2022 floods. It was something I had to deal with very early on in my career as an MP.”
“It's very disappointing to see where we've now got to in 2026. In relation to that policy, the restoring our rivers bill is the worst bill I've seen go through this place, and the damage will only continue. In that maiden speech, I also talked about the fantastic infrastructure that had been funded by the federal coalition government. I thought: 'This is a government that understands that building infrastructure is important. It understands the productivity dividend of building infrastructure, and it wants to do it in the regions, where a lot of the wealth is created.' One of those infrastructure projects was really driven by the now new deputy leader of the Nationals, the member for Gippsland, when he was in that portfolio. It's the Echuca-Moama bridge, which was opened with great pride.”