100 days of delivering a fair share for regional Australia

27 Oct 2016

 

  • 100 days since the Coalition Government was sworn in for its second term;
  • Nationals’ achievement checklist reveals historic delivery for regional Australia;
  • Vital job-creating infrastructure includes safer roads, record investment in dams, pipelines and aquifers, more mobile phone towers and rural broadband top checklist;

Leader of The Nationals and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and Deputy Leader of The Nationals Fiona Nash said The Nationals in Government were building vital job-creating infrastructure to strengthen regional economies and communities.

 

“Over the past 100 days in Government, The Nationals have been fearless champions on behalf of their regions, their stakeholders and common-sense,” Leader of the Nationals and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said.

 

“We’re growing our industries with record commodity prices, we’re rolling out $2.5 billion water infrastructure to support farmers and the resource sector and delivering $700 million in major road upgrades in northern Australia.

 

“We’ve fought for regional Australians – that’s why we refused a proposed sugar tax that would make grocery bills higher, why we delivered a fair backpacker tax which means Australian farms will remain one of the most competitive places for working holiday makers, and why we’ve introduced plans to Parliament to slash the company tax rate for small business to its lowest level since the late 1960s.

 

“From decentralising government agencies into the regions, progressing delivery of the Regional Investment Corporation to be tasked with delivering $4.5 billion of concessional loans for farmers and water infrastructure, to setting up the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility and the establishment of a commodity milk price index, The Nationals are working to deliver our fair share to the regions.”

Minister Nash said The Nationals were delivering for communities outside major cities, with the commitment to appoint Australia's first National Rural Health Commissioner as a statutory position, a rural health champion who will advocate for regional, rural and remote health issues and help deliver more doctors to the bush.

“We’re listening to what regional Australia needs and delivering. That’s why we’ve accelerated the broadband build to connect rural Australia. More than 30,000 rural homes and businesses are now connected to the Sky Muster satellite and we've continued to connect 2000 people a week to the Sky Muster satellite – Australians who would never receive broadband any other way given Australia’s terrain.

"We continue to deliver new mobile phone towers to regional areas - some 499 being built from Round 1 of our Mobile Black Spots Programme alone. The announcement of the locations of hundreds more towers is expected in the next month.

“We’ve approved 67 projects worth $126.5 million across Australia under Round 3 of the National Stronger Regions Fund and launched 65 new mobile phone towers with a further 434 to be delivered over the next 2 years.

“Our 100 day checklist shows our progress including new guidelines under the Building Better Regions Fund to ensure funding is directed to the rural and regional parts of Australia, which is expected to open in December, as well as our progress on developing the Integrated Rural Training Pipeline for Medicine integrated medical training pathway in rural and regional areas.

“We are also delivering $11 billion of budget repair, personal tax cuts to 500,000 middle income Australians and fairer and more flexible superannuation.

“In the first 100 days, we’ve made moves to lift immunisation rates, address long-term welfare dependence and increase digital literacy and improve school resourcing.

“We’ve secured an agreement with the states on energy security and reforms for affordable, reliable power, and fixed problems in vocational education and training by cracking down on dodgy providers.”

 

Our 100 Day Achievement Checklist

 

  1. Delivered a win on the ‘Backpacker Tax’ ensuring our agricultural industry remains competitive and maintaining Australia’s status as one of the most competitive destinations for working holiday makers.
  2. Delivered the first Foreign Ownership of Agricultural Land Register report to protect Australian farmland.
  3. Investing $100 million under the Northern Australia Beef Roads Programme bringing the total funding to improve roads in Northern Australia to $700 million.
  4. Ruled out the sugar tax.
  5. Delivering our $2.5 billion water infrastructure programme including feasibility studies across Australia.
  6. Committed to establishing the Regional Investment Corporation to deliver $4.5 billion of farm business concessional loans and water infrastructure loans.
  7. Securing Australia’s borders with $15.9 million to better target biosecurity risks to our agricultural industries, the environment and economy.
  8. Commenced decentralisation of government agencies into the regions.
  9. Delivered the dairy industry rescue package.
  10. Progressed the establishment of a commodity milk price index.
  11. Approved Round 3 of the National Stronger Regions Fund, delivering 67 projects worth $126.5 million across the nation.
  12. Launched 65 new mobile phone towers with a further 434 to be delivered over the next 2 years.
  13. $94 million over four years to develop a medical training pathway in rural and regional areas to attract more doctors to the bush.
  14. New guidelines under the Building Better Regions Fund to ensure funding is directed to the rural and regional parts of Australia.
  15. Launched the second Sky Muster satellite which is connecting 2,000 remote regional customers a week.
  16. Reached 100,000 regional connections on the fixed wireless broadband network. Now more than 1 in 4 Australians can connect to the NBN, 70 per cent of these people in regional areas.
  17. More than $360 million for new road upgrade projects in Northern Australia across QLD, NT and WA.
  18. Commenced work on the $1.6 billion Toowoomba Second Range Crossing viaduct, as well as 135km section of the Pacific Highway between Woolgoolga and Ballina.
  19. Created the office of the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility and appointed its board.
  20. We've committed to appoint Australia's first National Rural Health Commissioner as a statutory position who will be a champion for rural health champion.
  21. Supporting 5000 jobs for Indigenous jobseekers through the Vocational Training and Employment Centre initiative.
  22. Driving our regional economy by securing Australia’s 25th consecutive year of economic growth. Our growth is faster than every other G7 economy.
  23. Making banks answerable to regional Australia by requiring their CEOs to make regular appearances before Parliament and answer questions, when necessary, on rural finance issues.
  24. Legislated to protect volunteer firefighters from union takeovers.
  25. Growing our industries with record commodity prices.
  26. $23.7 million for Carbon Capture and Storage Research which will fund greenhouse gas reducing technologies.
  27. Driving regional economies through access stronger ties and greater access to new world markets include with East Asia, Singapore, Europe and the United Kingdom.
  28. Introduced the Ten Year Enterprise Tax Plan to Parliament, which will reduce the company tax rate for small business and reduce company tax rate to its lowest level since the late 1960s.
  29. Secured an agreement with the states on energy security and reforms for affordable, reliable power.

 

 

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