Ben Small
Forrest · Liberal Party · Australia
“My question is to the Prime Minister. Aussie legend Joseph Daoud spent $17½ thousand of his own money on billboards telling the Labor government to drop their ambition taxes. He's paid up again, winning an auctioned tennis match at the Lodge to get the Prime Minister's attention.”
“What creates that situation is where people are forced into a choice no Australian should have to make—a choice between getting care or keeping up with the bills. That's just not good enough.”
“Health care in this country, despite the press releases and the political spin, is under real pressure. In regional communities like mine, the pressure continues to mount on families who simply can't afford it. We're seeing hospitals under strain and emergency departments stretched thin.”
“I was recently contacted by Kim in my electorate who shared his telling experience with our local healthcare system. Kim doesn't need to see a doctor very often, but, on this occasion, he required a basic consultation by phone. He was told that it would cost him $75 for a few minutes on the phone.”
“The dissenting report the coalition has tabled in response to this details a litany of gross overreach on the part of this partisan witch-hunt because, ultimately, this is anything but a fair, balanced and impartial approach to assessing the feedback of the Australian community that we saw in the wake of the 2025 federal election.”
“By leave—Unfortunately, I stand here today to convey to the House that the coalition's position is that one of the most serious committees in the parliament has been reduced to a one-eyed, hyperpartisan witch-hunt of a group of religious Australians.”
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“He is cutting taxes for Australians, as he tells us. But the reality is that this budget includes sneaky, hidden and toxic taxes that mean that his is just a charade of appearing to give a little while taking a lot. We all know people like this—people who come to a barbecue with a sixpack; they'll drink 12 and take a carton home. Australians can see right through this budget and the tax grabs that it contains. Indeed, the central fib of the budget is the notion that it rebalances our tax system away from salaries and incomes towards investments and asset ownership. But, in the Treasurer's own budget papers, in Budget Paper No. 1, on page 140, there's a neat little chart that shows the share of personal income tax increasing next year, the year after that and indeed every single year after that out until 2062.”
“For the benefit of my colleagues who no doubt are looking for an expansion of their lexicon to describe this budget, here are just a few: falsehood, fib, untruth, fabrication, falsity, a story, a tale, a myth, deceit, deception, dishonesty, distortion, misrepresentation, perjury—if we ever succeeded in putting this man on the stand—perfidy, fudging, spinning, misstating, baloney, hogwash, poppycock, claptrap, bunkum, bull, codswallop or, my favourite, porkies. There are some more colourful alternatives that the Labor MPs are currently reading on their social media posts right up until the moment that they turn the comments off. It seems to me that that is now the default position of each Labor MP in this place, such has been the backlash to this budget of betrayal. Central to it is a claim by the Prime Minister that he is cutting taxes.”
“If only those important economic principles and that dire need for tax reform had been apparent to them before the election, they might well have fronted up to the Australian people with their real plans to reach deep into the pockets of Australians and tax their aspiration. Of course, there is one little word that we're not allowed to say in here when directed at the government. It starts with 'l' and ends with 'e', and I won't break the standing orders. So I spent some time researching some alternatives that we might use.”
“Today we've seen scenes of high farce and calamity right here in the House of Representatives. It seemed to us, on this side of the chamber, that the government MPs weren't very keen to publicly back this government's budget. So the member for Wannon helpfully wandered in here with a motion that would require each and every one of them to front up and put their support for these toxic taxes in Labor's budget of betrayal on the public record. Well, the government weren't having a bar of that, and, in seeking to gag the member for Wannon, the member for Perth moved the wrong motion, so we had scenes of absolute calamity in here—which I think reflects the government's handling of this budget. We've heard a lot from government MPs today about sound economic principles and the need to undertake tax reform.”
“Indeed, he founded his first business in 2013 with just $3,000 in the bank after being made redundant as a labourer on the construction—”
“He has also founded a charity that is dedicated to raising funds for childhood cancer after losing his son at the age of five in 2021. These are the sorts of Australians that I want to back, that I think the government should be backing, instead of attacking with this budget of betrayal and its taxes on aspiration. Here's Ian's story. He's lived in Bunbury most of his life and now is proudly part of a family of five. Living a modest life as a sole income family, his dad worked at the Bunbury TAFE and then later for Wespine, something of a local institution, as it has been for decades. Ian worked in a factory as a teenager which was shut down shortly after the GFC, and his parents lost everything. This is a chap who's seen times when they're tough.”
“Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027 is where the rubber hits the road. This budget of betrayal is built on Labor lies and broken promises and becomes clear to all Australians. It has been sobering, to say the least, to listen to the stories of so many small-business owners in my own electorate offering a vastly different perspective to the propaganda that we are hearing from government MPs at the moment as to what these changes will have on their small businesses. So today I want to share the story of Ian, who has written to me as a local Bunbury business owner who founded his first small business 13 years ago, at the age of 26. Subsequently, he has built that business to employ 100 people. And since taking on his first apprentice in 2017, he has seen 33 young Australians successfully complete an apprenticeship and qualify as tradesmen.”
“One constituent says: the recent budget is appalling and has raised so many questions This particular constituent goes on and says: they are going too far and continue to— I've got to stop there, Deputy Speaker, because this constituent has used a three-letter word starting with L, ending with E, and I won't break the standing orders.”
“I'll take the finger-waggling from the member for Hasluck about this MPI, which is about the rushed and damaging taxes on all Australians—those Australians who save more and will pay more tax, those Australians who invest and will pay more tax and those young Australians who take risks and will pay more tax under this budget of betrayal. Indeed, the member for Hasluck is right. It says a lot about the opposition that we will fight these taxes. We will fight these taxes until the very end. The Prime Minister of Australia has become very fond of quoting people in this place. So I thought I'd enlighten the House with a couple of quotes from my own electorate.”
“In the absence of a truly great scheme, like we had in WA before the introduction of the NDIS, we should be focused on making this scheme the best possible scheme for those that depend on it. Some elements of this bill, as other speakers on both sides of the chamber have touched on, go some way to addressing it. Do they go far enough? No. Do they give those Australians who depend on the scheme comfort that they won't be victimised and targeted just for the sake of realising the aggressive cost savings the government proposes? No—and that's our concern.”
“It's absolutely unacceptable, because to lose confidence in this scheme ultimately risks those people who depend on it for their independence and for making a contribution to our community—which was the whole point of it. That was the compact that the Australian people, through successive governments, entered into for a scheme that is spending some $50-odd billion a year now and growing at 10.3 per cent. That is the difference between what Australians thought they were signing up for—those Australians who have very happily accepted this through their taxes every year, as a significant impost on the Commonwealth—and the experience of the people that should be receiving the services.”
“So you'd think that a focus of a bill like this that seeks to drastically curtail the growth in the expenditure of the NDIS would be ensuring that integrity systems are absolutely robust. Every dollar that is lost to fraud through this sort of leakage is a dollar taken away from Australians with a disability, those same Australians in my own community that are being denied the supports they deserve and being forced through the courts to get those supports. I just don't see that we've got far enough in this legislation towards addressing that. The NDIS is drifting under this poor stewardship that, we have to accept, has been provided by both sides of the chamber over the 13-odd years since the NDIS was introduced.”
“In the calendar year of 2025, some $48.8 billion was spent through the NDIS. If you take the Australian National Audit Office's estimate that six to 10 per cent of those claims were noncompliant, fraudulent or otherwise incorrect, we're frittering away some $4.8 billion a year on a scheme. We're taking those billions legitimately from Australians who expect that money is supporting people with disability, and instead it's going into outright fraud, deliberate overservicing, false invoicing or claims for services that were never delivered. It's subject to collusion between providers and participants. Law enforcement agencies have also warned that organised crimes are increasingly targeting the scheme, exploiting weak entry controls and fragmented oversight.”
“The coalition will always seek to support measures that improve the integrity of the NDIS, measures that place safeguards to protect participants and the taxpayer. At the end of the day, every dollar that is spent by this scheme is a dollar that the Australian public reasonably expects is going to supporting vulnerable Australians. But every day we see reports of fraud, misuse and other frivolous expenditure under the scheme. There are more than 10,000 public servants here in Canberra just within the NDIS, and yet it seems that they cannot use those resources to get on top of these very real expenditure issues. The confidence of the Australian people in the NDIS and indeed the very support for the scheme are dependent on an assurance that those taxpayer funds are actually being spent for legitimate purposes.”
“The answer isn't clear, because the bill establishes a legislative mechanism to change the way that a person is assessed for the NDIS but provides no detail on what that assessment process will look like after the passage of this legislation. It seems to me that the Albanese government has banked the savings. They've spent the savings, but they haven't yet got the detail developed and ready to show the Australian people what this looks like. That is causing a level of fear, anxiety and concern in the community because of the many hundreds of thousands of Australians who legitimately depend on this system. I think that many in the coalition have been calling for the fraud, the corruption and the organised crime elements of the NDIS to be addressed for a long time.”
“When we hear important and reasonable propositions from the government when it comes to access to the scheme, things like ensuring that the scheme allows access for those who need access on the basis of functional assessment rather than simple diagnosis—that sounds to me like an important and sensible sort of reform and something that should be supported. But the problem is always in the detail. The bill is going to change that to reflect their reduced functional capacity, but there are a lot of people in my community right now who are exceptionally worried about whether they themselves—or perhaps a child, family member or a loved one—will still be eligible for support on an ongoing basis through the NDIS.”
“The national credit card is being swiped at an incredible rate, racking up some $256 billion when you include off-budget spending over the forward estimates, yet here we are today with a bill that's claiming to achieve a massive reduction in the expenditure of this program. The reality within our communities is that those people who rely on these supports are concerned that they will be unfairly victimised by a cost-cutting initiative here in Canberra. We need comfort that those who rely on these support packages for their very way of life—those with substantial, significant and permanent disability—will remain supported and protected by this scheme. I think that, for every coalition speaker I listened to today, that has been front of mind.”
“In April 2023, the Albanese government committed to reducing the annual growth rate of the scheme to eight per cent, and they failed to achieve that target. The minister for health and disability then went on to announce that the government would seek to reduce the annual growth rate of the scheme to between five and six per cent over the medium term. Again, that has not been achieved. Right now the growth rate in the NDIS expenditure is sitting at 10.3 per cent, which means that the proposed two per cent growth rate, which is banked in the budget coming before this House, is not only a serious and substantial reduction but also extremely unlikely to be achieved. That should be of concern to every Australian who's focused on intergenerational fairness.”
“Like I said, I keep hearing these stories everywhere I go of the failures of this scheme, which is costing tens of billions of dollars a year and growing at an extraordinary rate, to actually deliver those outcomes in the community. With that in mind, I think it is very pleasing that the coalition are approaching this with a lens of bipartisan support for important reforms but with some concern and trepidation that the savings from these measures have already been spent. In today's Australian we see that more than the savings from these NDIS changes has already been committed in this budget alone. This is the second in a series of legislative changes that the current government has made in the wake of the 2023 independent review into the NDIS, and it is of great concern to me that already the money's gone.”
“… You can't move around the corridors of Parliament in Canberra without tripping over a Coalition Minister whispering the Scheme is unsustainable. I'm here to tell you today that is a lie. The final part is a true Bill Shorten zinger. Here we are a couple of years down the track, and I'm listening to a minister in the Albanese government just now tell us that the scheme is unsustainable. It's appalling that it's taken this long to get to the realisation on both sides of the chamber that action is needed. Certainly action is needed to rein in the fraud, the corruption and the organised crime that's prevalent within this scheme, but I also think that action is needed to ensure that it's delivering the outcomes in our communities that it should.”
“I say these things to the House today only to point out that there have been severe failures of this scheme to come good with the promise that it held out for Australians, and that's that it would be a true safety net for our most vulnerable Australians. I think everyone who comes to this place has a responsibility to approach a bill like this with that lens and that understanding. It's not a time to play politics, and unfortunately there has been a strong history of playing politics with this. I want to go back to the then shadow minister for the NDIS, Bill Shorten. In the lead-up to the 2022 election, he said: This Government has a problem with the NDIS but they'll never come out and declare it.”
“He had sought, for more than a year, to get a communication device funded under the NDIS. In what in seems to me a very clear case of need, rather than assist that struggling Australian family, the NDIS instead lawyered up with some of the best lawyers in Perth, from a nationally prominent law firm, and put these guys through the wringer. They forced them to go through the ART, where, eventually, after great expense—I say expense not only in the sense of the tens of thousands of dollars they spent in legal fees but also in terms of the emotional and psychological impact on that family, a normal aspirational Australian family—the government and the NDIS were finally forced to give this poor six-year-old girl the communication device that enabled her to get on with life.”
“That was a very poor outcome under the previous government, and, unfortunately, through my time campaigning in the seat of Forrest, I've just heard story after story of folks caught up in the attempts to bring this scheme under control. I was doorknocking in the suburb of Treendale, and a police car pulled up next to me. The police officer wound down his window and inquired as to why I was loitering in the front yard of this house. Upon explaining who I was and what I was doing there, the police officer informed me that it was, in fact, his house. He was quite ready to arrest me had I had any sort of ill intent. We went on to discuss matters of the day, and his six-year-old daughter was severely autistic, non-verbal and going through a torrid time with her condition.”
“I'm not going to come into this chamber today and pretend it has been a glittering success under previous coalition governments and only turned to custard under the Albanese government because, when I was in the other place in this building, one particular example stood out to me. A person who suffered an accident and lost both lower legs was, after 18 months of wrangling, bureaucratic nonsense, red tape, form-filling and endless assessments, awarded under the NDIS funding for one prosthetic leg, which clearly, in the absence of two legs, did not help them live an independent life and enable them to make a contribution to society.”
“The NDIS is heralded as one of Australia's truly great reforms. Perhaps it's just my parochialism as a proud Western Australian, but, of the 4,400-odd folk in Forrest who depend on the NDIS for their independence and, indeed, their way of life, I am yet to meet anyone who contends that outcomes under the NDIS have been more successful than the scheme that existed in Western Australia prior to the introduction of the national scheme. I think this reflects, in no small way, the fact that, so often in government and in politics in this country, outcomes are better where decision-makers are closest to the people that they represent and impact with those decisions. Notwithstanding that perhaps slightly parochial view, let's consider the NDIS as it stands.”
“Her accountant said that she would have been financially and physically better off, having never taken that work. It says everything about Australia under this government. What troubled Emily the most, though, was Albanese's, 'tone deaf, insulting, patronising political theatre'. On the $250 carrot, she asked: What does it buy? Scattering pennies while taking winter stores. Her question to me was, 'How does this stop?' Well, it stops by axing Labor's tax grab in its budget of betrayal.”
“These aren't my words, but the words of Emily, a constituent who wrote to me the day after Labor's budget of betrayal. She began saying: I have woken up this morning feeling battered, empty and abused. But my abuser is my government. This is the lived reality of a regional family running a small business who work hard yet are unable to get ahead as Labor's taxes rise and the pressure builds. She described the cycle as: … a payment plan for last year's tax, a payment plan for next year's tax. It never stops. To break free, she got a job working 80 hours a week on top of her business. Instead of relief, she was pushed into a higher tax bracket, saying: If you earn it, they take it. The strain sent her to hospital, suffering stress related illness and ulcers.”
“Their budget papers further show that they are ripping the guts out of Western Australia's Commonwealth infrastructure spend in some sort of underhanded way to offset the GST deal that they claim to stand behind. Western Australia's infrastructure spend has gone from $3.45 billion just in the 2025-26 budget papers to $1.5 billion. Where has the money gone, Minister and Treasurer? Again, it seems to me that regional Australia and the powerhouse state that is WA are being made to pay for these suburban follies.”
“If they wanted to reach around in the bottom drawer and find money the way that this mob spend it, I'm sure this project could have been completed. But, as I say, there's no focus on productive freight infrastructure. Instead, there are billions upon billions for high-risk metropolitan projects riddled with organised crime and CFMEU linked thuggery. Where are the economic returns and the productive assessments of these projects? It seems that the independent analysis of the Suburban Rail Loop suggests that there is a net return of less than 50c in the dollar. This is a government that promised to link infrastructure spend to productivity and to take the politics out of it. Well, I think tonight we are seeing again that we shouldn't listen to what Labor say. Look at what Labor governments do.”
“One wonders, when there are estimates of between $15 billion and $30 billion of public money already siphoned off into organised crime in Victoria, whether that is a prudent use of Commonwealth taxpayer money. The juxtaposition against this project, which admittedly has had some challenges—as I say, spanning three states and dreamed of for a century now in Australia—is inexplicable. Where we've got funding continuing to flow into the other states as costs spiral out of control but only in metropolitan areas, the failure of this government to stand up for regional Australia, as it claims to do, becomes clear. Victoria's North East Link was originally $15.6 billion. It's now blown out to $26 billion and counting, a 67 per cent increase. Despite that, the Commonwealth has increased its own contribution by $5 billion.”
“Not only have we seen $4.7 billion cut from infrastructure spending overall—and, indeed, in the other place right now, Senator Mckenzie is forensically examining the department on exactly where those cuts have been made—but we've seen significant reductions in regional communications, the National Water Grid, pest and disease programs and drought and trade support, meaning that regional Australia is carrying some $11 billion in cuts. Meanwhile, there's still $18.2 billion for net zero fantasies, including more than $1 billion for the green hydrogen dream that even prominent mining billionaires who've thrown a lot of money into that have walked away from, and there's $6 billion for the Suburban Rail Loop.”
“This $45 billion productivity boosting, nation-building project, spanning some three states and boosting our freight capacity for the future, is somehow unaffordable, but the $200 billion pipe dream that is the Suburban Rail Loop, servicing only suburban Melbourne, is somehow worthy of $6 billion of federal money and counting. Let's just go through the numbers piece by piece, because the $6.15 billion cut from the Inland Rail project is not an isolated decision, as I said, but just one indication of this government's determination to rip the guts out of regional infrastructure spending.”
“It was only about 10 or so weeks ago that I ascended to the dizzying heights of shadow assistant minister for infrastructure. So I am quite certain, listening to the contributions tonight, that the former infrastructure minister here, the member for Riverina, has forgotten more about infrastructure than I currently know. But, in my glittering 10 weeks in this portfolio, the failures of this government, as it sets about ripping the guts out of infrastructure funding for regional Australia, have become abundantly clear. We have a tale of two railways in Australia right now.”
“This is a classic Labor cost shift from a government that is addicted to spending. The Commonwealth books are saving, but patients, families, states and public hospitals are left to deal with the consequences and, inevitably, the cost blowouts that flow from that. The private system isn't separate from the public system. It helps to carry the load in Australia. Weakening private participation risks the sustainability of the entire health system in Australia. So let's see from this government— (Time expired)”
“Every person who drops or downgrades their private health insurance in the wake of this budget raid, which of course was never ventilated in the election campaign—there was no public commitment that if Australians voted for the Albanese government this is what they would get. This is another Labor lie in the budget of betrayal. It means more pressure on public hospitals, longer elective-surgery waiting lists, more pressure on EDs and more stress on doctors, nurses and, of course, the ambulance paramedics parked outside hospitals because they simply can't get their patients in—in some cases for eight, 10 or 12 hours at a time. Public hospitals across this country are already stretched. The last thing that they need is a policy from Canberra that pushes more Australians into the public queue.”
“They've worked hard, paid taxes, raised families, built communities and contributed to our country. This shouldn't just be another budget line item to be scratched out by Jim Chalmers' pen. This measure, in particular, is nasty. It pits younger Australians against older Australians in the divisive politics of this prime minister when the real issue is Labor's failure to manage its own spending and relieve pressure on households. A fair health system in Australia should have both public and private health care. We must have a safety net for all Australians, but it shouldn't punish those Australians who can and do do the right thing by taking pressure off the public health care system.”
“They shouldn't be thrown on the scrap heap of victims from this budget of betrayal built on Labor lies, higher taxes, higher debt, more migrants and fewer homes. At a time when insurance premiums, groceries, power bills, council rates, medicines and out-of-pocket health costs are already going up, Labor's answer is to make private health insurance even more expensive for older Australians. We believe that those older Australians deserve dignity, certainty and access to the health care they need, not to be victimised in yet another budget raid dressed up as reform. Labor want to frame this as intergenerational fairness, but there is nothing fair about forcing older Australians, many of whom are on fixed incomes, to pay more for their health care.”
“Glenn's a Vietnam vet, and Margaret, now at the age of 85, is a stalwart volunteer for the Bunbury Soup Van. Margaret has written to me, at her wit's end, unsure about how they are going to make ends meet with this massive hit to the cost of their private health insurance—a cost that they as Australians chose to wear because they wanted to do the right thing. They wanted to be in private health insurance so that, when they needed help, it was there for them, at their own cost. This is another cost-of-living hit from a government that, on one hand, tells Australians that it understands the pressure that they're under, but, on the other, does everything in its power to make life more expensive. Many Australians over 65 aren't wealthy.”
“Labor says it is helping with the cost of living, but this policy directly increased the cost of health care for older Australians. Labor says it supports Medicare, but this policy risks putting more pressure on crumbling public hospitals around the country. Labor says it cares more about older Australians whilst directly targeting those aged over 65. Labor says this is about fairness, but it is simply unfair to increase the cost of health care for pensioners and retirees on fixed incomes. Labor says this is about strengthening our health system, but this policy weakens one of the pressure valves that helps keep health care moving in Australia. These aren't just arguments that we make here in a hypothetical sense. These are the experiences we are hearing from constituents in our own electorates. Take Margaret and Glenn from Bunbury.”
“I think it would be fitting that, when one day a government listens to these pleas to build an endo clinic in the south-west of WA, we get Nola Marino there to cut the ribbon and to celebrate what would be a defining achievement for someone so personally committed to advocating in this space.”
“I find it a little bit hard to reconcile the government's closer-to-home rhetoric when announcing these new clinics with the fact that for women outside of Perth, the south-west is home to the largest population of people—some 200,000 people—and the only regional clinic in WA is in Albany, which, for women in the south-west affected by endometriosis, is up to a 3½-hour drive from the Perth clinic or a four-hour drive from Albany. It affects one in seven women, who, as I said, have to wait up to seven years for a diagnosis, although hopefully don't experience what Kylie Marino did. I do have to ask why it was that the government chose to pass over the south-west of WA for an endo clinic. It is a priority for the region. It is something I will continue to advocate for, building on Nola Marino's proud legacy in this space.”
“Additionally, in 2020, Nola managed to get the PPEP Talk into WA, so that school-aged women and girls were receiving the information that would ultimately build the awareness of this insidious disease. Clinical guidelines have gone on to be updated and promulgated across the medical industry, and Nola has led direct constituent outreach across the south-west of WA to build the case for a pelvic pain clinic in the south-west of WA, which is sorely needed. Nola is still an Endometriosis Australia ambassador and remains committed to that work to this day.”
“I want to take just a few moments to step through those achievements because, alongside the then health minister, Greg Hunt; the then member for Boothby, Nicole Flint; and the then member for Canberra, Nola set up Parliamentary Friends of Endometriosis Awareness, which ultimately led to the National Action Plan for Endometriosis being launched in 2018. It was the first ever national action plan focused on improving awareness of the disease and understanding of its impacts, speeding up diagnosis for Australian women and investing in medical research to develop better treatment options and ultimately pursue a cure. This is a foundational policy document. The entire program has followed on through successive governments.”
“The disease almost killed Kylie, who, in the course of very, very serious treatment, developed peritonitis, septicaemia, a lower bowel infection, a burst appendix and had an episode where her heart went into fibrillation while she was in surgery. She spent 11 days in ICU, had some 1,500 internal staples, 15 tubes inserted and three external colostomy bags. That is how serious endo can be for women in Australia. It of itself is a story that highlights how unacceptable it is that for a condition affecting some one in seven women in Australia, the average wait time for a diagnosis can be seven years. So Nola's advocacy was built on concrete achievements in this place.”
“I couldn't allow a discussion of endo to go on in this place without mentioning and paying tribute to the legacy of my predecessor in the seat of Forrest, Nola Marino, whose deeply personal and profoundly effective advocacy in this space was built on the experiences of her daughter Kylie, whose story Nola shared because it highlighted the failings of our healthcare system and its inability to respond to endo appropriately. After seeing two gynaecologists, who simply dismissed Kylie and told her that she was overstating her symptoms, her condition progressed disastrously. Finally, a third gynaecologist diagnosed what he called the worst case of endometriosis he'd ever seen, so aggressive that it was attached to her bowel and was strangling it.”
“I can't help but think this is smoke and mirrors from a government that says, on the one hand, it is committed to Western Australia's GST deal, but, on the other, is pulling funding from every program in the infrastructure portfolio that would otherwise be put into Western Australian projects. We'll continue to call it out and we'll continue to bang the drum for what is a small and sensible investment that would diversify the local economy in the south-west of Western Australia and ensure that this mining boom isn't wasted once again.”
“At the current state of play, there are people waiting to board a flight who can't even clear security because the cleared zone is so small that just two flights at once means that there's insufficient standing room for people to clear security. That's how parlous the situation has become, and it isn't exactly the sort of world-class experience that you'd hope for the people who travel to Margaret River for a premium tourism experience, who come and experience the very best of Western Australia's wine industry, not to mention the breathtaking scenery, the pristine beaches and the iconic karri forests of the south-west. That was just one humble ask in this budget that was completely ignored. WA's share of infrastructure funding has fallen to a seemingly all-time low.”
“These are not only for the recreational and tourism sectors, with direct flights to Melbourne and Sydney, but importantly also for the some 5,000-plus FIFO workers in the south-west who leave their families and leave our community to travel to the far north of Western Australia to work for weeks at a time in the iron ore mines that generate billions of dollars for the Commonwealth and for the state of Western Australia. After generating the billions of dollars of royalties for our country, those hardworking FIFO folks should be rewarded with the small and modest investment that is upgrading the Busselton Margaret River Airport.”
“I rise on behalf of my electorates and indeed the south-west corner of Western Australia to express our profound disappointment at being ignored and left completely high and dry by the Labor budget, a budget of betrayal built on lies, higher taxes, higher debt, more migrants and less housing. We put forward very sensibly to government some economically and productive infrastructure investment proposals, which included the Busselton Margaret River Airport, which, from humble beginnings as a tin shed, now hosts more than 200,000 passenger movements a year.”
“But when an Australian does exactly the same thing, hitches up a caravan, drives a thousand kays into the desert and risks everything in the hope of discovering the next great ore body, suddenly they don't deserve the same recognition, the same discount, the same maths and the same basic fairness. At the end of the day, these are folks who should not be treated as second-class citizens just because their factory floor happens to be in the red dust of the Pilbara and not in the co-working spaces of Surrey Hills. Western Australia built the prosperity of this nation on the back of risk-takers backed by ordinary Australians who wanted a higher standard of living for themselves and were prepared to put their money on the line for it. The Greens, the teals and the government should think very carefully before taxing that out of existence.”