John Cobb (Parkes, National Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

My electorate is the most drought affected electorate in Australia, so I want to refer to the government’s ongoing commitment to helping farmers as much as possible through what is without doubt the worst drought in my lifetime. Having regard to the budget that was recently handed down, it is an appropriate time to recap on just what our farmers are facing, particularly in western New South Wales.

This is now the fifth year of drought. While the drought in 1982-83 might have been as bad as ever existed, this one is certainly the longest in living memory. I probably do not need to remind the House of the actual effect it is having out there, but we should note the financial hardship being faced by people. Admittedly, there have been times in the last five years when there has been rain and people have had the promise of a start; there has been a crop here and a crop there. But nobody, in that five years, has been able to build on two successive crops or on the continuation of a season. They have started; they have never been able to continue.

At this time, it is very relevant to reflect on the Prime Minister’s recent announcement, reiterated in the budget, that we have put aside $1.9 billion to deal with mental health issues. I have to say that, while the drought in western New South Wales in particular involves financial issues of extraordinary proportions, it involves mental health issues of even bigger proportions. The effect on families, businesses and towns goes beyond anything in my experience.

I have spoken repeatedly in recent times to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry about this matter. The fact is that EC is not something that the government has capped; it is something that the government will continue. The federal government will continue to support those areas of Australia that are suffering from this drought. Certainly, the electorate of Parkes is at the forefront in this regard. As I said, I have brought this matter to the minister’s attention, particularly in recent times, as we approach the end of the current funding cycle.

I am somewhat surprised that in one minute New South Wales is withdrawing transport subsidies; in the next minute it puts them on. I think I am right in saying—I am not clear on this; it has certainly changed its position on numerous occasions—that at the moment it has decided to continue freight subsidies for those seriously affected by drought, as indeed it should. New South Wales, in a year’s budget, spends approximately what the Commonwealth would spend in a fortnight on drought in Australia.

I have had enormous trouble working out where our opponents are on some of these issues. The only member of the Labor Party who I have seen show serious interest in what is happening in terms of drought, and particularly in terms of regional issues, is Gavan O’Connor. He has been put to one side by Bill Shorten and his cohorts in Victoria, which I find surprising and very sad, from the point of view of regional Australia.

One of the issues which again was underlined in the budget was our commitment to what I call ‘commonsense conservation’ by way of the Envirofund. In the current rounds in the electorate of Parkes I am very happy to say that we have people putting in for commonsense programs such as to fence off areas which have trouble with erosion and that need to regenerate. We continue to help people to do that on a case-by-case, individual or collective basis.

At the same time, I have to look at what our opponents say. Instead of funding people to take commonsense, practical measures, such as using fencing to protect waterways and other measures to protect the environment, they want to fund green groups who simply want to become lobby groups at the expense of the taxpayer. Mostly they put out not scientifically proven issues but issues which they get carried away with. Because they do nothing themselves, they seem to find great delight in trying to have a go at those people who are involved in production and helping Australian people.

The other issue which was so incredibly important in the current budget—and I have to say it was very important to the electorate of Parkes—was the fact that a few things happened with water. One was a $500 million—half a billion dollars—commitment to the Murray-Darling Basin. For an electorate that is totally within that area, one that has the Darling River and places like Broken Hill, which has suffered so badly with some of the current policies at a state level, the water issue is important. I find it incredible that New South Wales are still to truly come out and say how they are going to cooperate with the Commonwealth on the water sharing agreement. We have already got the $2 billion which we are putting towards the three programs involved: $1.6 billion for Water Smart Australia, $200 million for Raising National Water Standards and $200 million for community water grants. When you combine that with the half a billion dollars that we are putting into the Murray-Darling Basin and all the other money that has gone into the Murray-Darling, you find that no government has ever shown such a commitment to Australia’s water issues and probably will not in the future. However, we do have to keep showing the lead and taking our states along with us.

The Water Smart Australia program—$1.6 billion—is there to accelerate the development and uptake of technologies which make us use our water in a way which helps people achieve greater water savings and efficiencies right across Australia. Then we have $200 million for the Raising National Water Standards program which is, in effect, about experimentation or showing technologies that will lead to better water usage. Finally, there is the community water grants program, which provides a culture of water-wise usage through the community, and that could be in commercial usage, urban usage or agricultural usage. It is to encourage and promote far better uses of water right across Australia.

In my electorate, the electorate of Parkes, where water is always at a premium—let alone at a time of drought like this—we have bowling clubs that are able to have far more efficient usage of water, whether it be putting in water systems which are computer driven, which are automatic and which make you spray rather than flood. Right around my electorate groups are putting in for what I have to say is one of the easier and less complex grants which schools and other community groups have been able to apply for.

While water is a big issue for inland Australia, and it certainly is for my electorate, there is also rural health. I have often said that it does not really matter how wealthy you are or what your lifestyle is—none of it matters very much without health. Nowhere is that more true than in the electorate of Parkes, in the far west and the central west of New South Wales. Health has always been a big issue and it is certainly a big issue now.

Under our government, there are more doctors and better service initiatives. Over half a billion dollars in an integrated package of measures provides for more doctors and better health services in our country areas. Ever since that package was introduced, and it is still current, we have continued to build on measures to assist rural communities. We have put in the specialist outreach program, bonded scholarships, the John Flynn scholarships and rural and remote nursing scholarships to assist country children to study and become registered nurses, which is a huge thing. Since we established the university at Dubbo, which is run by CSU in Bathurst, it is so much easier for kids in the bush. They only have to go to places like Dubbo or Bathurst rather than Sydney. It is such an advantage. It is so much cheaper, so much easier and they do not have to remove themselves mentally from the areas where they feel at home.

The Rural Australia Medical Undergraduate Scholarship scheme is run at the Dubbo Rural Clinical School. We now have city students spending up to six months in Dubbo and, from there, going to Broken Hill, Parkes, Lake Cargelligo and towns like that. We are finding that the more they come to the rural medical schools the more they find that it is not such a terrifying thing at all to go to the left of the Blue Mountains. It has been a huge success. I congratulate the health ministers who have made this is a reality. Apart from that, we have put the University of Sydney’s Department of Rural Health into Broken Hill and a similar program is being run there. It allows doctors who do not necessarily come out of regional Australia to realise that in today’s era of communications you can practise in the bush without a feeling of isolation and that if you need further guidance or help it is at hand.

One of the biggest things that we have done, which my colleague the member for Gwydir, the former Deputy Prime Minister, initiated—and he initiated a lot of things in his time, not only as Deputy Prime Minister but as Minister for Transport and Regional Services—is to give country kids the opportunities. I have to give credit to the University of Newcastle, the University of Sydney and others for assisting country and regional kids to do medicine. Over the last eight or nine years, entries from rural areas into medical schools have gone from around eight per cent up to around 26 per cent. Obviously, that makes it far more likely that we will have doctors in the bush in the future. But these things take time. There is a long time—probably nine years—of study before somebody is a doctor, free to practise where they will. It is only in the next few years that we will see the fruits of those efforts, but it will happen and I think it is currently happening.

Since the budget, one of the other things recently announced by the Treasurer in Broken Hill was that the Commonwealth is putting another $5 million towards the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Broken Hill to help them buy new aeroplanes. That is an enormous thing for Broken Hill and the whole of western New South Wales and south-west Queensland—a huge area that is serviced by the Broken Hill Royal Flying Doctor Service. Not so long ago, we put $5 million towards helping St Anne’s to update its aged care facility and to put two facilities together. Health-wise, that is an enormous thing to do for Broken Hill. Over the last couple of years, we have put $10 million into improving aged care and health services that are run out of that region.

At the same time, I should mention that the Royal Flying Doctor Service not only does emergency services in the region; it contracts to the New South Wales health service. It flies doctors to places like Tibooburra, Menindee, White Cliffs and Wilcannia on a regular basis every week—in other words, it provides fly-in doctor service clinics 52 weeks of the year. I am very proud to say that, in actual fact, most of those services in the outback are run by Aboriginal health services on behalf of New South Wales Health, and they do an excellent job. They are not just for Aboriginal people or white people; everybody uses those services. It is probably a model that could be looked at right around Australia. It works very well.

I have talked about some of the services that have been underlined by this budget. I talked about aged care a minute ago and the fact that the Southern Cross St Anne’s nursing home at Broken Hill got $5 million to build a new aged care facility in Broken Hill. I had a look at it a couple of months ago and have been led to believe that it should be ready to receive people in the next couple of months. As well, Condobolin, very close to my home, got $2 million to put in a dementia unit. That is very big funding for some smaller towns. Condobolin has no more than 3½ thousand people, and for a town that size that funding aids the council, which currently funds and looks after the very large aged population. The funding for all these services comes out of the capital grants program. For our aged care programs, especially after what has happened over the last five or six years, it has meant that not only do we have far better facilities and set standards which have to be met but we can be confident that people are being very well looked after in those situations, even in the far west, in the outback.

Talking about health and the need for doctors and nurses in New South Wales, particularly in country areas, one of the most astounding things I have heard is the announcement by the Leader of the Opposition that he was going to scrap skilled migration where it relates to section 457. This is the most incredible thing I have heard since I became a member of parliament. I was very involved in getting foreign doctors out to country areas when I was with the New South Wales Farmers Association. We had to work with state, federal and other governments to make that happen. The member for Brand clearly stated that he was going to scrap that and get rid of some 2½ thousand registered nurses who have come from overseas and who are working in Australia, particularly in country areas, and about 230 or 240 doctors—doctors who have made a difference. As a government we instigated changes to get more doctors out into country areas by way of education, and he has said that he is going to get rid of this opportunity for states. The New South Wales government would be the biggest user of section 457 to prop up their health service, but the fact is he wants to get rid of it. What is he saying to New South Wales and other country areas in Australia? He is saying, ‘It doesn’t matter what your health situation is like; you can go without a lot of the doctors and nurses you currently have.’

A lot of things have happened in recent times; Regional Partnerships and Roads to Recovery are doing marvellous things. The extra money to Roads to Recovery in my electorate is marvellous. Places like Lake Cargelligo and the shires of Lachlan and Bland are going to get over $1 million extra, and that makes a huge difference to the local road systems. When you have roads like the Hillston to Lake Cargelligo road, the Hillston to Rankins Springs road and the Tullamore to Narromine road, it allows the councils in those areas to do things they just could not otherwise do. The greatest thing that John Anderson ever did was to make that money go straight to those councils rather than having to go through the state government.

See this speech in context