The $80 billion blowout

$80 billion is the combined blowout on Snowy 2.0, Inland Rail, VNI West and the Murray-Darling buybacks. That figure is the waste on top of what was promised, not the cost of the projects themselves.

Here is what $80 billion could have done for regional Australia instead:

Under $800 million rolls out the carp herpes virus across every Basin river system and funds the dead-fish clean-up

$6 billion rebuilds Burrinjuck Dam to its original 4,000 gigalitre design and gives the Riverina the water security we were promised a century ago

$1 billion permanently modifies the South Australian barrages so the Murray flows like a river again instead of being trapped as a chain of artificial lakes

$2 billion closes every mobile blackspot in regional Australia so farmers, ambulance crews and country families have a working signal when it matters

Makes MND a notifiable disease, funds a national register, and puts real money behind the cure Neale Daniher has spent a decade fighting for

Keeps the Coleambally Post Office open and funded forever

Funds a mental health hub in every regional town while farmer suicide rates sit at triple the city average

Rebuilds half a dozen base hospitals across the Riverina

Restores native fish populations in the Basin

Modernises the rural ambulance fleet

Secures town water for every Riverina community

Locks in a permanent rural GP workforce for the next decade

How many more billions before regional communities get the basics we have been promised for decades?