John Anderson (Gwydir, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

After the Neville report pointed to its need a long time ago. But, as I am sure the principle behind the Neville report would have been at the time, you had to rebuild confidence in rail, get freight back to rail and start to make it look like an economic proposition again, prove the case if you like, before you would ever get people—governments and the private sector—investing heavily in rail again.

At the other end of the spectrum to the massive infrastructure involved in heavy rail and so forth is Roads to Recovery. Mr Deputy Speaker, you would be well aware that on narrow economic criteria you would never build or pave a street in Australia or build a local road. The bureaucrats in this and other cities around Australia, in economic think houses and what have you, would say that you will never get a benefit-cost ratio, a BCR, that stacks up for a street or a local road—and you will not. It is at that point that legislators have to make sensible decisions in the face of what the computerised models spit out.

Nobody would seriously pretend that you do not pave your streets and, if you stop and think about it, people would also recognise the importance of local roads that work. I sometimes see disparaging remarks about how we have given money to local governments to fix potholes and what have you, and they are disparaging. They are written all too often by people in this town who do not get out and about and do not think. We are an export oriented economy. We live very well, but nearly everything that we wear, that we eat, that we value add, that we export and that we transform starts its life on a local road. Our local road network is very important. It forms the capillaries of the body, without which the veins and the arteries cannot work properly and the body will not function.

I feel very strongly about that, so I am delighted to see that the federal government has again stepped up to the mark with Roads to Recovery. There is a significant one-off injection this year and local councils everywhere will receive extra money. I am sure that they can use it and they will use it, and I trust that they will overwhelmingly use it wisely, because of course it is funded to them directly—to the horror of many of the state governments who believe it ought to be channelled via them. But that is a welcome initiative and it is an important one. It will add to the social functionality as well as to the economic viability of many, many businesses and therefore individuals and communities across the nation.

I see the member for Canberra here, and she might be interested to learn—I say this in good faith—that the CWA, the Country Womens Association, was headed up for many years by Jenny Mitchell, from my electorate, who some 10 years ago commissioned a paper into country services and what mattered most for country women. It was really quite fascinating, because you would have thought there would be concerns about health, education, communications and all of those sorts of things. But in fact what that paper said was most important of all to country women was local roads, so they could access health services, get their kids to school on a wet day and enjoy a normal social life. It has always struck me as quite an interesting outcome that the CWA should have identified that as the chief service priority for their members in country Australia.

Let me come briefly to water. The National Water Initiative is now—interestingly to me, and I say this with some gratification—being recognised internationally as perhaps the world’s best blueprint for water management of any of its type. That is good. I do not really fear the eventual putting in place of the National Water Initiative’s essential commitments and objectives, because they stand as very sound policy and they bring with them their own economic, social and environmental imperatives. But there is little doubt that the whole process needs a very stiff kick along.

Because I was able to work so closely with Craig Knowles from New South Wales, a man with whom I have remained good personal friends, and the Deputy Premier of Victoria, I feel that I can say—without it simply being seen as a political reaction—that it is New South Wales, in particular, that really needs to wake up. It is in New South Wales that the worst problems of overallocation—by successive governments over a long period of time—have emerged. It is in New South Wales that the greatest need to get on with fixing some of those problems undoubtedly stems.

It is also the case that, in New South Wales, the great need is for them to help us put together the information bank that the National Water Commission must have as we move towards water trading. Markets will not work without good, solid information, nor will they work without the hard work being done on the commitment that all governments signed off on as the central principle of the National Water Initiative—that is, clearly defined water rights. I want to hasten to add, for those who might have a concern that clearly defined water rights confer ownership of water, that they do not. It was never proposed that they did. But they do confer very clear rules on water users over their rights of access and their rights of use and give them the investment security that is critical not only to the sensible use of water in economic terms but also to the capacity of water users.

Seventy per cent of the nation’s consumed water is used by farmers, though they are not the end users of the water. People who eat and wear clothes are the end users. Farmers need investment certainty, because systems that work better and are more environmentally acceptable usually coincide with systems that produce better economic results, but both require a farmer to be able to say to his financiers, ‘I have certainty.’ In Victoria, where there has been a greater level of certainty than there is in New South Wales, greater investment has flowed and there have been better economic and environmental outcomes—not just marginally better, but dramatically better.

New South Wales needs to get on with it. I say for the sake of the good people in New South Wales, including the previous minister, Craig Knowles—who put his heart and soul into this and understood it and deserves a gong for what he did—‘Get on with it; it is terribly important.’ I say to all governments that, where you are dealing with overallocation, remember the principles: proper science and proper consultation. David Suzuki, a man with whom I probably would not agree on a lot, made the very profound observation that, if you have got an environmental problem and you want to find the solutions, you should go and talk to the people who live with the environmental problem, who live where it is at, who are committed to the area, and you will get the answer quicker and you will get the solutions faster. Consultation is very important when it comes to dealing with natural resource management and water overallocation.

Thirdly, I say: where changes have to be made, for goodness sake get on with the job by being appropriately fair and generous. I say that to all governments, including the one of which I was until recently deputy leader. Do not penny-pinch. If you want to get to environmental sustainability, recognise that that will sometimes mean enormous economic and social pain for individuals and the communities that they live in. They will need assistance. All you are really doing in making compensatory type payments—or whatever you want to call them—is paying back to them some of the wealth, jobs and so forth that they have created over the years so that they can help themselves restructure and not lose the valuable investments that they have often made, trusting in governments that gave them the licences to use these natural resources and so forth in the first place. I feel very strongly about that—as does, I know, Mr McMullan, the occupier of the chair at the moment—and I do urge that, on a bipartisan basis, the very important objectives of the National Water Initiative be recognised and be re-energised.

Finally, I am very pleased to see the commitment on regional development remain. Very interestingly, we had a Senate inquiry—initiated for some pretty dubious reasons, I have to say—to have a look at Regional Partnerships. Even though the majority on that committee were not members of the government, it is interesting to note that it was not recommended that the scheme be scrapped. Nor, for that matter, was it recommended that the government give up its discretionary powers. There were other recommendations made, and I think the present minister has acted on those as he and the government have seen fit.

I make the point that there are many people in rural and regional Australia who, through no fault of their own, feel very deeply that they have been missing out on their fair access to the services and the opportunities that so many of us take for granted. When I go to country towns now and I find that they have their bank back, that they have been able to secure their post office, that they have a telecentre, that they have a mobile phone tower, that the bridge out of town has been repaired under Roads to Recovery, that they have got some help with their aged care and that they have been able to attract a doctor because we have helped them—never by simply shoving money at them but by working with them in a partnership sense where they have had to bring ideas, hard work, initiatives and real resources to the table before we have been prepared to even talk to them—I reckon we have performed a great service. That has been very good for the social harmony that breeds the political stability that produces good government in this country—and I do not say that lightly. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute in the Main Committee chamber, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker.

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