AUSTRALIA’S millionaire, eastern suburbs prime minister does not strike Parade as the fast food type, but we might have been reading him wrong all these years.
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Federal Member for Calare Andrew Gee has (jokingly) outed Malcolm Turnbull as a fan of the Chiko roll during his maiden speech to parliament on Wednesday.
The speech was live-streamed on Mr Gee’s Facebook page and included a travelogue of the Central West which, Mr Gee said, was “blessed with fertile fields of plenty that help feed our state and our nation”.
And while he said the lamb, beef, apples, cherries and wine his colleagues might enjoy could well have come from Calare, Mr Gee said the electorate aimed to please as well.
“If it’s Tic Tacs or Nutella that you enjoy – and I have to confess I’m partial to both – well, they were definitely made in Lithgow,” Mr Gee said.
“Or if Australia’s iconic Chiko roll is more to your liking – and I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker [Parkes MP Mark Coulton], the deputy prime minister [Barnaby Joyce] and, dare I say it, the prime minister himself would all be fans of the Chiko roll – well, they were made in Bathurst.
“The produce and products of our region find their way all over the world.
“Our electorate is as big as it is diverse. It is the heartland of Australia.”
Mr Gee went on to talk about the divide of opportunity in terms of education and health between city and country residents, and also the physical barrier created by the Great Dividing Range.
“There is no better way to literally bridge the great divide than to build a new expressway over the top of it or, indeed, tunnel underneath it, or both,” he said.
“A Bells Line of Road Expressway from Sydney’s north west into Lithgow would open up the communities of the west.
“Let’s not dither for another generation.
“If the money for an expressway can’t be found at present then the federal government needs to be following the lead of the NSW Government and putting some serious funding down to help upgrade that road now.
“It’s not impossible.”