For years I have enjoyed catching up with countless people at the Wimmera Machinery Field Days and I am very disappointed that my strong run of attendance will be broken this year because I am required in Canberra for parliament.  However, I will be at the White Hart Hotel, 55 Firebrace St from 5:30pm Monday 23 February so I can see you there.

I am very concerned about the Albanese Labor Government’s utter neglect of Mallee.  We’ve copped a one-third cut in spending in Mallee, about $86 million over 3 years. Clubs and community groups can’t upgrade their facilities, councils can’t help them, and this is where the rubber hits the road from Labor’s neglect of western Victoria.

Speaking of roads, Transport Minister Catherine King had the weak shot at me in Question Time claiming Labor delivered the Horsham Junction roundabout. Let’s be very clear about this – The Nationals were the ones in 2021/22 who funded that project in government.  In 2023 I, with then Shadow Transport Minister and Victorian Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, called out state and federal Labor’s woeful lack of progress.  It’s pretty cheap for Minister King to try and take credit, 5 years later, for actually spending Coalition money and now adding more due to cost blow outs, to finally begin the project.

Minister King also claimed Labor are improving the Western Highway which I am sure readers will meet with equal measures of mirth and horror.  What ‘works’?  A little bit of work on bridges over railway lines, sure, but duplication of Western Highway isn’t getting anywhere past Ararat, and we know  Labor bungling is the reason for that.  

The simple fact is Labor don’t want to lift a finger beyond their pet regional cities Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong.  I will use every opportunity I can to call them out for their cheap shots.  Maybe Minister King should set foot in Mallee, just once, maybe bounce around on our roads, to get a small sense of how we have to live with Labor’s neglect of western Victoria.