News

Opposition says budget fails region

By Darren Linton

May 3, 2022

Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy. Photo by Megan Fisher

Member for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell has attacked the Victorian budget as an example of the ineffectiveness of independents and the Victorian Government’s history of timeline blowouts and failure to invest in new priority projects in the Shepparton electorate.

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“Major infrastructure and service delivery projects that have been prioritised by Greater Shepparton City Council in its budget submission have been ignored by Daniel Andrews, providing further proof of both the ineffectiveness of independent members to secure funding for vital projects and the low priority Labor place on our region,” she said.

The failure to fund the Shepparton bypass, the top priority infrastructure project in the region, was top of Ms Lovell’s list – with the timeline for planning now extended out to June 2023 from the original date of March 2020.

Despite her claim of “ineffectiveness” Ms Lovell then went on to try and claim credit for projects that have been delivered, including additional mental health services and the early parenting centre.

Nationals Leader Peter Walsh said regional development and agriculture budgets will suffer more heavy cuts in 2022-23, with $87.1 million cut from regional development and $47.8 million to be cut from agriculture.

“Cruel cuts to road asset maintenance will expose Victorian drivers to 12 more months of dangerously crumbling, unsafe roads,” he said.

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said Victorians hoping for hip-pocket relief will instead be hit with billions of dollars of increased taxation, including increases of $603 million in land tax (up 14.2 per cent), $1.5 billion in stamp duty on land transfers (up 22.6 per cent) and $1.1 billion in payroll taxes (up 17.0 per cent) in the coming year.