Regional Australia will suffer far more than the cities from savage spending cuts in next week’s federal budget, NSW Nationals Senator Fiona Nash has declared.
“In the past few days, almost all of the strategic leaks from the Rudd Government about Budget 09 disproportionately target Australians living outside the capital cities,” Senator Nash said.
The Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate gave four examples to back her case:
1. The re-indexation of petrol excise hurts regional motorists more, because they have greater distances to travel and with little or no access to public transport.
2. The axing of incentives for GPs practicing in regional areas would send doctors back to the cities.
3. The National Farmers' Federation had rightly slammed the Federal Government's decision to slash spending on rural research, at a time of growing risks to Australia’s food security
4. While everyone living in the city electorates of the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Treasurer will get super fast broadband, hundreds of smaller communities across regional Australia would miss out, because “Fibre to the Home” will only be made available to towns of more than 1,000 people.
“People in regional Australia can’t understand why one minute the Rudd Government is throwing cash, only to claw everything back with savage and stupid cuts to key services and tax hikes,” Senator Nash said.
“This amounts to a massive, outrageous and completely unfair transfer of resources from regional Australia to Labor’s capital city heartland.”
“The fact that Labor’s few regional MPs like Janelle Saffin (Page), Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro) and Justine Elliot (Richmond) stand by and let this happen shows just how ineffective they are,” Senator Nash concluded.
Contact: Murray Lees, media adviser, 0417 406 338
Source:
There are currently no comments, be the first to post one.