Wednesday, 13 August 2025

 Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (09:54): I rise to speak about the stark disadvantage many rural and regional Victorians are facing at the hands of this Labor government. Our roads are rubbish, and you only have to look at the Western Highway to see that there are more ‘Slow down’ signs than actual roadworks happening. The emergency services tax continues to slug rural Victorians, particularly farmers, throwing CFA volunteers under the bus. The proposed changes to the VicGrid laws, fining property owners $12,000 if they refuse access to their land, are a disgrace. With the green drought, the government’s lacklustre response is a taskforce. Their only task seems to be spin and PR. Hospital waiting lists and massive delays in emergency departments – the Ballarat Base Hospital even told people, ‘Don’t come here,’ and turned them away. An education system with chronic shortages in teachers – many rural communities cannot even get teachers at all. An energy crisis where power bills, despite the promises, keep going up and up and up and shortages in gas – Labor’s cost-of-living crisis keeps crunching country Victorians. And we have a public transport mess, where you are more likely to get a bus on a train line, and a Ballarat railway station which is being ruined in heritage aspects and completely destroyed. You have to ask the question: why does Labor hate regional Victorians so much? The Premier is meant to be a regional Victorian, but she hates country people, clearly, because she is throwing them under the bus time and time again. We on this side will never apologise for standing with country Victorians; Labor should do the same.