“If you actually go through the budget in detail and you look at the capital program from a regional Victorian point of view, regional Victoria gets less than eight per cent of the capital program across this budget — only eight per cent,” he said.
“Twenty-five to 30 per cent of people live in regional Victoria, with the economic activity that regional Victoria generates, but only eight per cent of the capital budget is actually spent in regional Victoria.”
Speaking in Parliament, the Victorian Nationals leader said the Shepparton Bypass, an “absolutely essential” project, received no money in the state budget despite the Federal Government having committed $208 million.
“The Commonwealth is willing to talk about it. The state is not putting money into it,” he said.
Mr Walsh also hit out at cuts to the overall budget for agriculture.
“Given the demand for food and fibre in the world, why wouldn’t a government actually be investing in agriculture, investing in the research, investing in the next generation of productivity gains in this industry?” he said.
Mr Walsh was also critical of the amount of money committed to protection from fruit fly and the absence of any new money for the on-farm water infrastructure rebate scheme.
“The Commonwealth has put another $50 million on the table for this particular program that is to be matched by the state. Then there are grants available for people to put in place water infrastructure to make them more resilient in a drought, to make them more drought-proof,” he said.
“The Victorian Farmers Federation asked the government to stump up $10 million, which would have generated another $10 million from the Commonwealth government: $20 million in total. It would have helped a lot of farmers get better prepared for drought in the future.”
