Labor is demanding answers after National Minister Paul Toole confirmed the Regional Seniors Travel Card has more than doubled its budget, in just the program’s first month.

Veterans are again being left on the side of the road by the Nationals, with reports they will be forced to wait up to three months before they can apply for the Regional Seniors Travel Card.

Jo Haylen MP, Shadow Minister for Seniors and Cost of Living, has made an official complaint to the NSW Electoral Commission about the Nationals’ Regional Seniors Travel Card rort.

An expansion of the eligibility criteria of the $250 Regional Seniors Travel Card has failed to include seniors who receive a carer’s payment or disability support pension. 

In what appears to be another major issue with the card, only seniors in receipt of the Aged Pension are able to apply, leaving some of the neediest and most vulnerable seniors in regional communities without access to the $250 scheme.

The Nationals have delayed the card, excluded whole communities, underfunded the card by $135 million and now veterans are being turned away when they try to apply. It’s just not good enough.

The Nationals’ have had nine long years to act on rail trails and have done next to nothing to build them. The benefits are clear. John Barilaro needs to stop the talk and get rail trails built in bushfire affected communities.

We know that the contribution seniors make to our community is too often overlooked or undervalued, and the failure of Ms Berejiklian to appoint a permanent Minister sends a terrible message. 

Labor has launched a new push to make it is safe for children to walk to school, and is calling on students, parents, teachers, and the community to help them do it.

Labor is warning that the Nationals are disadvantaging seniors in rural and regional NSW already hit by drought and fires, after delaying the Regional Seniors Travel Card until February.