Member for Barker Tony Pasin MP says last night’s Federal Budget fails to address the cost of living crisis and turns its back on rural and regional Australia.
Mr Pasin said Australian’s are poorer under Labor and in its third Federal Budget, the Albanese Labor Government was still failing to tackle inflation.
“This Budget has fundamentally failed to tackle inflation and that is the only way to deliver lasting cost of living relief,” Mr Pasin said.
“The average Australian household with a mortgage is $35,000 worse off since Labor came to Government – a $300 dollars energy rebate is not going to make up for that,” Mr Pasin said.
Mr Pasin said that communities in regional Australia, including those in Barker are being disproportionately impacted by Labor’s poor decision making. It is an obvious feature of this budget that regional communities are being starved of funding while budget measures benefit the large population centres in the eastern states.
“This budget is more about billionaires than battlers,” said Mr Pasin.
“The budget has failed the grape growers of the Riverland, it’s failed to support our farmers and it’s failed to deliver any additional funding to local councils,” Mr Pasin said.
“While our roads have fallen into disrepair under Albanese, last nights budget failed to address South Australia’s $3 billion road maintenance backlog, let alone fund much needed upgrades to our regional freight networks,” Mr Pasin said.
The Budget papers show that Labor is now spending $1.6 billion less on road and rail projects than it forecast in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook five months ago.
This comes following Labor’s review of the Infrastructure Investment Pipeline, which scrapped $400 million worth of Coalition Government funded road projects in South Australia.
While last nights Budget re-instated funding for the Mount Barker and Verdun interchange, projects such as the Truro Freight Route, and the Hahndorf access upgrades remain unfunded.
Mr Pasin said that it was a disgrace that regional communities were missing out on productivity boosting and safety enhancing projects were being ignored while the Albanese Labor Government provided funding for 36,000 additional Canberra based bureaucrats.
“While our road and community infrastructure projects remain in the dark about their funding future, Labor is very happy to grow its Canberra based bureaucracy,” Mr Pasin said.
Mr Pasin said with immigration continuing to soar Labor isn’t delivering enough houses or the public infrastructure to support our population growth.
“Nothing in this Budget will address the housing supply problem, and until we increase supply the cost of putting a roof over your head will continue to increase,” Mr Pasin said.
“Labor’s Budget fundamentally fails the economic tests. In the midst of this cost of living crisis we needed a Budget that got back to basics. We didn’t get it and Australian’s will continue to pay the price for Labor’s wrong priorities and bad decision making,” Mr Pasin said.
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