Senator CADELL (New South Wales—Nationals Whip in the Senate) (16:36): This government and their New South Wales colleagues are intent on slashing and burning funding in regional New South Wales, my home state. It's no wonder when Labor's own campaign bus can't leave Sydney without getting a flat battery. Not only can they not represent us; they won't even visit us. When the Labor government were elected last year they cut—and I thank Senator Sterle for reminding us—$9.6 billion from infrastructure projects. What does that mean for regional Australia? Across the forward estimates there was $7 billion cut from dams, including from two major dams in New South Wales at Dungowan and Wyangala. These vital water storage projects, which secure the essential water supply for our regional communities, have been gutted. The communities around them are gutted and the ability to plan for the future is destroyed. What is more concerning is that we know that federal Labor and New South Wales Labor don't care about New South Wales regional areas either. These people are all about cost-benefit ratios, or CBRs, and, where there aren't people, they don't stack up. When we put money there, it's called a rort or a waste, but it's like the chicken and the egg. If you don't build the roads and the infrastructure, people can't go there. In COVID we saw people move to the regions. They moved for the lifestyle, they moved for a tree change or they moved for a sea change. They realised they could have a better life outside of cities. But housing supply was tight, the infrastructure wasn't there and they returned to the cities. If you spend this money in regional areas, they will come. We have regions of dreams, not fields of dreams, in our country. Build it and they will come. But the government cut, delay and rip the hearts out of regional communities. It is important to expose the legacy of this federal government after just nine months in office because it's a foretaste of what— Senator Chisholm: Ten months. Senator CADELL: Ten months, sorry—even worse. It's a foretaste of what the people of New South Wales can expect under the new Premier, Chris Minns, and Labor. Of course, we're used to Labor saying one thing before the election and doing something else after the election, and we'll see this in New South Wales. It's not just in infrastructure. We've seen it across all things. I'm sure senators of the Greens party are aware of promises that were made in green areas that haven't come through since the election. We're seeing that in superannuation. We're seeing that in energy prices. Regional Australia doesn't vote for you, because they see through you. It's because Labor doesn't understand our communities. When it comes down to promises, the regions and the bush are expendable to Labor. Regional infrastructure is a cost of doing business. It doesn't just affect National Party seats. It affects Labor Party seats. I'm looking at Hunter, Dan Repacholi's seat. There's a great business waiting to open up in Mandalong Road. The Lake Macquarie council has a Labor mayor. It is unsure whether that funding, which would open up huge potential in that area, will go forward under this budget. So what we see is more of the same: the experience of 10 months under this. We are going to get the same in New South Wales. What does that mean for the Great Western Highway? The Liberals and Nationals understand how critical the Great Western Highway is to upgrade the Central West. Getting that pathway through would open up freight lines, potential businesses and so many other things. It's a project that has been spoken of for decades, with its ability to transform travel for thousands of people and tens of millions of dollars worth of business. But again the Labor campaign bus never made it that far, so they've never seen what it's going to do. The last federal government and the last state government promised to commit to that Great Western Highway tunnel as an essential piece of nation-building, but the weekend's result has ended 20 years of progress on this vital upgrade. Labor has promised to scrap the tunnel and is not prepared to invest in the big infrastructure projects that keep the state going. It's becoming clear day after day that Labor will not build the infrastructure that regional Australia, including regional New South Wales, needs. New South Wales Labor built nothing for 16 years when they were last in office, and, now they have won election, they will go back to doing what they were doing. We've seen this government already slash and burn regional programs and projects all over New South Wales, with a growing list of broken promises. At the last election, the slogan was, 'It won't be easy under Albanese,' who is now Prime Minister. We've seen that, for mortgage holders and superannuants, the statement has been proved right. To the new New South Wales government I say: do the right thing and keep regional New South Wales moving, because at the next state election I think it will be, 'Nobody wins under Chris Minns.' The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Van ): The time for the discussion has expired.