Federal Member for Hume Angus Taylor says the nation’s best growth prospects and the majority of business investment and export growth will come from regional Australia.

In a passionate speech in Parliament yesterday, Mr Taylor branded Labor’s forgetfulness of regional and rural Australia as “absolutely breathtaking.”

“The list was long; the list of forgetfulness and failure was long. And it started with the introduction of a failed mining tax in an attempt to create the highest taxed mining industry in the world. And then the extraordinary attack on the live-export trade and the complete failure to open up new export commodity markets.

“The Coalition Government is the great friend of the bush. We stand shoulder to shoulder with these great lifters of regional Australia; with commodity producers and exporters; with country uni students needing to live away from home to go to university; with commuters on long stretches of highway needing safe roads on which to travel; with regional businesses trying to grow their companies and asking for internet and phone services equal to their city cousins.

“The people of rural Australia have always driven our largest export industries. That is more true now than ever. In the 1820s, it was the wool industry. It moved to the gold industry in the 1850s, and then back to wool. And by the 1950s and 60s, we recognised the extraordinary opportunity in selling iron ore and coal to Japan.

“Most recently, we’ve seen opportunities again in mineral exports and energy exports up into China. And today, we see extraordinary opportunities in opening up agricultural exports into China, and the rest of Asia.

“And we saw Labor not only forget those markets, but destroy the most important agricultural market, the fastest growing agricultural market in recent Australian history – the live export market.

“Deputy Speaker, we are the friends of regional Australia, not the Labor Party.” 

Excerpt of Angus Taylor speech in the House of Representatives May 29: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INUkcoaS3Ow&feature=youtu.be