Nationals Member for Tweed Geoff Provest MP has used a major speech in the New South Wales Parliament to call on the Minns Labor Government to do more to ease cost-of-living pressures facing families and pensioners across the Tweed.
Mr Provest said that since the 2023 State Election, many local families and seniors are worse off and struggling to make ends meet.
“In community after community across the Tweed, I am hearing the same message, people are hurting,” Mr Provest said.
“With inflation in New South Wales sitting at 3.7 per cent, households are being squeezed from every direction. The cost of electricity, transport, education and groceries continues to rise, and families simply cannot keep up.”
Mr Provest told Parliament that the LNP Government in neighbouring Queensland is delivering stronger cost-of-living relief for its residents than the Minns Labor Government is providing in New South Wales.
“Queenslanders are seeing meaningful relief measures, while families in the Tweed are being left behind,” he said.
Mr Provest said many residents in his electorate are being forced to make difficult and unacceptable choices.
“I have spoken to pensioners and young families who are deciding between buying groceries and turning on the heater in winter, or whether they can afford to use the air-conditioner during the heat of summer,” he said.
“These are not luxuries, they are basic necessities.”
Mr Provest said the Coalition had delivered practical support measures that directly assisted Tweed families and seniors, including the Regional Seniors Travel Card, Back to School vouchers and Learn to Swim vouchers, programs he said have been cut or wound back by the current government.
“These initiatives made a real difference to household budgets in regional communities like ours,” Mr Provest said.
“I have always said I am 100 per cent for Tweed. But with inflation running at 3.7 per cent under this Government, perhaps it is time to say I am 103.7 % for Tweed, because our community needs even stronger advocacy in the face of rising costs and a Sydney-centric spending agenda.”
Mr Provest said the Minns Government must do more to support regional communities and stop overlooking areas such as the Tweed.
“I am again calling on the Minns Labor Government to deliver real, targeted cost-of-living relief for families and pensioners in the Tweed, the kind of support a Coalition Government delivered and would deliver again if elected in 2027,” Mr Provest said