Dr WEBSTER (Mallee) (15:47): I want to note in Hansard my great disappointment in the behaviour of the government benches the last time I spoke, the other night—I know you were in the chair, Deputy Speaker Claydon—when I was talking about the suffering in regional Australia. Those in the House laughed. They laughed at the suffering of those in regional Australia. I want to note that was incredibly disappointing.

I have been surveying Mallee voters and have well over 5,000 responses so far. I note, for any cynics listening, that the people answering this survey identify as voters from all political persuasions. I remind those opposite that these are the voices of thousands of Mallee voters, not echo chambers, not small focus groups. Mallee voters are saying, in their thousands, that they are under pressure with the higher cost of living. For over 88 per cent of respondents, it has got worse.

What's contributing to these living-cost pressures? They say no. 1 is groceries. The Nationals have continued to take a strong stance on the major supermarkets and fought hard for a coalition position that the divestiture powers are a big stick which remains on the table if supermarkets abuse their market power. The Albanese government continues to sit on its hands about grocery prices. The no. 2 on the Mallee survey for cost-of-living pressures is residents' energy bills. Who would have thought? Thousands of my voters say energy prices are putting immense pressure on their budgets. Yet, Minister Bowen parrots that renewables are the cheapest form of energy.

The latest CSIRO GenCost report has been manipulated—and now found out. But do you know which figures were also manipulated? They were household power bills. Regional Australian voters have the lived and documented experience that energy prices are going up. Worse still, they are being railroaded and threatened with now $12,000 fines if they refuse to allow Transmission Company Victoria onto their private property—their farms.

Third highest in living-cost pressures is council rates. My constituents' views come from Victoria, where the Victorian Labor government imposes rate capping. I moved a motion on Monday on the financial sustainability of councils, particularly in regional areas. The Albanese government must restart the local government inquiry in this House, with a committee which must deliver recommendations that the Albanese government acts on to improve the sustainability of our councils. Regional councils are picking up essential services as victims of cost shifting from state and federal governments, because they passionately believe that their local residents deserve services and they don't want to see them miss out.

Councils have stepped in to provide services to vulnerable seniors, or they are even abandoning them because they cannot afford to deliver those services any longer. Of the Mallee survey respondents who rely on home-care services, 43 per cent said those services are hard to access in regional Australia. A further 24 per cent added that they cannot afford those needed services. Forty-six per cent of those needing residential aged care have concerns about the cost. In Mallee, almost 50 per cent—49 per cent to be exact—cannot access childcare services. Childcare deserts persist in Mallee, despite what the government say they are doing to address it. Unsurprisingly, 73 per cent of Mallee constituents also rate our roads as being in poor condition—not medium condition but poor condition. That speaks to the rate increases and struggles that councils have maintaining roads, but also to Labor's neglect of the regions.

The Albanese Labor government has neglected Mallee, giving us zero regional Housing Support Program funding, and, of my 12 councils in Mallee, giving only one funding through the Growing Regions or the partnerships and precincts program. Minister King did not once set foot in my electorate during the 47th Parliament. That's what the neglect of regional Australia looks like—a dangerous deterioration of roads; the neglect of aged-care, home-care and childcare services; and an Albanese Labor government that not only raids our regions for taxes and railroads farmers for energy projects but has the hide to laugh about it in this place.

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