When the Prime Minister asked me to become the minister for health, a great deal of peripheral commentary was made on the number of women in Cabinet. My response simply noted that, far more importantly, of nineteen parliamentarians around the table I was the third or fourth representing rural and regional Australia. As a ‘bush’ MP I wear my ‘from the country’ badge with pride, but it also comes with a significant challenge: how do we best help our rural communities grow and thrive? 

Arriving at what would become the inland NSW border city of Albury (my home town), explorers Hamilton Hume and William Hovell reflected they had located the ‘finest country yet discovered … and a river, not inferior in magnitude to any yet known in the colony!’ Barring the ravages of droughts and flooding rains, it is pleasing to note the assessment these gents made of the Murray valley in 1824 remains very much the view before me today.