Senator Joyce today congratulated Brendan Grylls, Wendy Duncan and the whole West Australian Nationals team and supporters for what has been a tumultuous, but rewarding week for Western Australian regions.

“Yesterday’s agreement will mean a better deal for all Western Australians, but particularly those living in regional areas. For these often neglected Western Australians yesterday’s agreement is a great deal, which will now see a return of some of the wealth that their area and their labour produces.

“In an area the size of Western Europe, it is more than fair and reasonable that there be a proactive policy engagement to more equitably distribute the State’s wealth across the whole State in order to deliver better services for regional areas so that those who live there can enjoy a reasonable standard of public facilities and services.

“Twenty-five percent is an amount the Labor party should have been spending years ago but it is the National party in West Australia that has forced the agenda and this has been applauded by so many, including many who have never voted National before.

“The Country Party, the forerunner to the National party, was formed in 1913 because the regions wanted a better deal and it is the same National party, in the same state, that almost 100 years later is still hard at work looking after the interests of people who do not live proximate to the major hospitals, who cannot drop off their kids at the local childcare centre, who cannot catch the electric train to work, who do not have the multi-billion dollar freeways to drive on to work and who do not have the choice of schools for their children’s education.

“It is still these people now who need a National party as much as they did 100 years ago. It is these forgotten people who have recognised this need in the way they have voted and who have been instrumental in the change of government in West Australia. It is these forgotten people that are the lifeblood of the National party and the Party will never forget that.

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