BILLIONAIRE businessman Clive Palmer says keeping people in regional areas, suicide and farm foreclosures are just some concerns the Riverina's next federal member should have on their radar.
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The comments came during Mr Palmer's visit to Wagga on Saturday to support his own Senate campaign, as well as the campaign of United Australia Party candidate Richard Foley in Riverina.
During a press conference, the UAP founder was asked about the incumbent federal member's performance in representing regional Australia.
Mr Palmer said many politicians throughout Australia were not prioritising the people who elected them and their welfare.
"You have to look at what happened here in the region and there has been serious calamities - loss of people from this region to the city, there have been suicides, foreclosures of farms," he said.
"They are the things that if I was the local member would be concerned about."
Mr Palmer believed very few rural people would know who holds the position of deputy prime minister. He said Michael McCormack could have done a lot more in his position.
Regional development was high on Mr Palmer's list of priorities. He said the party's plans for zonal taxation was a key policy that could benefit a city like Wagga.
The policy could see people who live 200 kilometres away from a capital city, paying a 20 per cent lower tax rate.
Mr Palmer said the population are "handicapped" by a complex, uncertain tax system that was limiting growth.
"We think there is an opportunity to development more resources here than what is currently being developed," he said.
"There is less congestion and regional areas can take a greater population. At the moment, it's clogged in our cities and they are establishing infrastructure to deal with that."
Mr Palmer said that 85 per cent of the country's wealth was created outside capital cities and in the regional areas.
"Our plan will deliver real incentives for investment, resettlement and growth," he said.
Mr Palmer also talked about his downstream processing policy, which he said was a "practical way" of kick starting the manufacturing sector.
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He said the policy ensured that jobs will be created for young people in their home towns, which will help keep families together.
"We should be processing resources from mineral rich states in regional centres of New South Wales, so that we are creating jobs and infrastructure for the future," he said.
"Australians should be the beneficiary of our resources, instead of our minerals being sent overseas and other countries profiting at our expense," he said.
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