Thursday, 24 September 2026

 Annabelle CLEELAND (Euroa) (18:50): (1861) My adjournment this evening is for the Premier, and the action I seek is for the Labor government to adopt a fair share guarantee of at least 25 per cent of new infrastructure investment for regional Victoria. This should not be controversial. Regional Victorians are a quarter of this state’s population. We are asking for a quarter of that investment – no special treatment, no handout, just a fair share guarantee. Right now we are not getting it. The Parliamentary Budget Office shows less than 12 per cent of infrastructure spending reaches the regions under this Labor government – a quarter of the people and we get less than an eighth of the investment. Do the maths at any kitchen table and you know something is terribly wrong in Victoria right now.

In my electorate that gap has a face. It is a mum in Benalla who can no longer have a baby in our own community. It is a patient waiting months, sometimes years, to see a physio or a speech therapist. That is why the Nationals will invest $40 million in a rural health workforce incentive scheme, with up to $10,000 to get doctors, nurses, midwives and allied health workers into country jobs that are hard to fill. It is also the farmer driving on a road that has been patched, patched and patched again. A shovel of coal mix in a pothole is not a roads plan. We have committed $5 billion to fixing and rebuilding Victoria’s roads, and we will bring back the country roads and bridges program – $288 million going straight to rural and regional councils.

It is also a family in Kilmore, one of the fastest growing towns in the state, still putting their kids on a bus every morning because there is no public secondary school. This government moved a zone boundary on a map and called it a solution, only to do a backflip this week. That is not investment; it is abandonment of regional education. We will deliver the school a site, a plan and a pathway to construction. It is also the CFA volunteer who leaves the dinner table at 2 am to protect their neighbours, then works out of facilities with gear that is no longer fit for purpose. After the fires we have been through this year, our volunteers deserve investment that matches what we ask of them. It is a family in Seymour or Benalla who are frightened in their own community because Labor has closed the nearest police stations or they are short-staffed or under-resourced. That is why the Nationals will recruit 3000 more police, so regional towns get police on the beat and not a phone number and a long wait.

These are not separate problems. They are the same problem. The regions are asked to do more with less under a Labor government. We grow the state’s food, power its economy and raise our families here. We should not have to leave our communities to get the basic needs. Premier, commit to a fair share guarantee. If you will not tell regional Victorians why they are worth less under a Labor government, only the Nationals will stop the waste, end the corruption and give regional Victoria the fair share that it deserves.