In the Albanese Government’s budget delivered last night, Labor has once again cut funding to regional, rural and remote Australian, including Cowper.
Federal Member for Cowper Pat Conaghan MP said expressed his disappointment in this continued trend after the past three years of funding cuts to the Mid North Coast region.
“Labor has once again promised no new funding to programs that are crucial for our region. Not only to sustain our growth, but also to maintain what we have. The Stronger Communities program, Local Roads and Community Infrastructure program, Growing Regions program and the Regional Precincts and Partnership program are all critical to building community infrastructure in regional Australia and there has been no acknowledgment of this,” Mr. Conaghan said.
Mr. Conaghan expressed frustration that Labor appeared to be raiding what was left of regional community programs to pay for 41,000 new Canberra public servants. The Budget has no money for projects that create extra childcare places in Cowper or anything to fix a few potholes let alone major road projects in Cowper and the instant asset write off will end in July this year for our already struggling small businesses.
“The people of the Mid North Coast and regional Australia more broadly not only bear the brunt of more infrastructure cuts but have the extra burden of Labor’s cost-of-living crisis.
“Labor’s $150 energy rebate is the kind of superfluous sugar hit you expect to see in an election budget, but when energy bills have increased by up to $1300 per household since Labor came to government it leaves a bitter taste. The proposed 70 cents a day election tax cut bribe doesn’t come in until next year and is there for headline generation only. I fully supported the previous tax cuts, but what do they believe 70 cents to truly achieve for the average Australian? Labor continues to run away from fixing the fundamentals of what is driving cost-of-living pressures.
“Key to this is a sensible energy policy, which in the short-term is flooding the market with Australian gas and in the long-term adding clean and efficient nuclear energy to the mix to secure our baseload power, like every other developed country, which is $263 billion cheaper than Labor’s all-renewables approach. Under a future Coalition Government, regional Australians in Cowper won’t just get its fair share of funding, they will get meaningful solutions to solving the nation’s cost-of-living crisis.”
“The next few days will be spent assessing the full impact of the funding stream slashes on our electorate of Cowper, and as the Shadow Assistant Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence, my team and I will be scouring the portfolio documents in detail to see what, if any, real commitments have been made for 2025/26 towards prevention program funding aimed at creating generational change and ensuring that no slashes to recovery measures continue to be delivered as promised.”
