Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the motion before the chamber today and the amendment that has been put by the member for Grayndler that would see a referendum for constitutional amendment to recognise local government. Local councils are an important part of our system of government and a vital part of our communities. As the tier of government closest to the community, they have the capacity to react quickly to changed circumstances, more closely represent the views and aspirations of their communities and provide better direct services. They do a great deal often with very limited resources. That is no more so than in regional and rural areas. Councils in regional and rural areas face all sorts of challenges that metropolitan councils do not even encounter. Small rate bases, a range of geographical challenges and diverse service requirements are but a few. Despite these challenges, local governments in regional and rural areas are out there delivering much needed services, infrastructure and development.

In my own electorate I am lucky enough to have four outstanding local governments which support and enrich their respective communities at the grassroots level—the City of Ballarat, Moorabool Shire Council, Hepburn Shire Council and Golden Plains Shire. The City of Ballarat is the largest local government area in my electorate. Ballarat has a diverse and rich economy, which the City of Ballarat does an outstanding job in supporting. Manufacturing, tourism, health and community services, education and retailing are now the key industries in the city. These industries, along with the banking and finance sector and government services, are strengthening Ballarat’s role as a regional service provider. Ballarat has a proactive council which is continuously looking for ways to build a better Ballarat into the future.

The City of Ballarat does not just provide many of the traditional services associated with local government but has also adopted key strategic positions with regard to infrastructure, service delivery, planning and community development. You only have to look at some of the local projects that are currently underway in Ballarat to realise the breadth of work undertaken by the council and its officers. There is the Ballarat Aquatic Centre dry areas redevelopment. This includes upgrading the gymnasium and program areas of the facility, relocating offices, and creating new health suites and entrance and water play elements, valued at approximately $1 million. Part of this development has seen the city very strongly promoting health and wellbeing within the community as well as providing a world-class facility for people within Ballarat to enjoy their recreation time.

The Delacombe and Wendouree West neighbourhood renewal projects are things that council has been actively involved in. These projects are supported by state government initiatives and they look at two neighbourhoods with high levels of public housing. Support has included the development of physical infrastructure including parks and community arts projects, holiday programs, youth events, facility redevelopment and community development projects with a range of community groups, schools and organisations within these two neighbourhoods. The Strengthening Generations program of the City of Ballarat and its local community services have also facilitated two working groups: Family Harmony and the Drug Education Working Group. This program targets key areas that impact on young people that the community has identified as social priorities through the research and evidence-collecting phase. To address these issues, coordinated community driven prevention plans have been developed.

The City of Ballarat not only supports the types of projects I have just been discussing but major events such as the Begonia Festival, the Royal South Street Competition and sporting events involving both local people and participants from a large district. These kinds of events are the lifeblood of regional communities and yet another example of how local government plays a fundamental role in supporting community life in regional towns. The mayor, Councillor David Vendy, and his council have a tough job: growing the local economy at the same time as preserving our unique heritage, and balancing the needs of an increasing urban population at the same time as assisting the rural parts of the city grapple with loss of services, drought and population drifts. I wish to congratulate the City of Ballarat council and staff on their work and I also want to wish them well for the upcoming World Conference of Historical Cities that Ballarat has been lucky enough to be able to secure in just a few months time.

Moorabool shire, another local government area in my electorate, is a very different local government area. It has approximately 27,000 residents and combines country living with easy access to the city, being only 35 minutes from the heart of the city centre. It is packed with many small rural towns and a large commuter belt from Bacchus Marsh right the way through along the Western Highway. It has wonderful orchards, deep gorges and forests.

The agricultural industry is still an important sector in the rural areas of the shire and employs a significant proportion of the rural population. But increasingly services, retail, hospitality and tourism have taken over as the main employment industries. Bacchus Marsh and Ballan’s employment needs are supported by the community and town centre service sectors, whilst the construction industry is an important sector due to Moorabool’s growing population, as many people from the western suburbs of Melbourne move out to find cheap land and cheap housing.

The range and extent of services Moorabool Shire provides is impressive, especially in light of their relatively small revenue base, the huge geographical area they have to cover and the large number of small to large towns that come within the shire’s gamut. The construction of the Deer Park bypass along the Western Highway is one of the largest and most important infrastructure projects in my electorate. It was the Moorabool Shire and particularly the mayor, Councillor Peter Russell, along with the Western Highway Action Committee, that led the campaign to secure federal funding for that bypass. There is no doubt that the continuous and passionate lobbying and campaigning of the Moorabool Shire was instrumental in getting the federal government to finally commit to funding the bypass. Moorabool Shire is the driving partner in the Western Highway Action Committee’s work in securing the required funding for a second major infrastructure project along the Western Highway. Anthony’s Cutting would deliver similar benefits to business and motorists as would Deer Park.

While on the subject of Anthony’s Cutting, I would like to reiterate my support for the project and once again urge the minister to fund its construction. VicRoads have informed me that the planning process is complete and ready to be implemented. The minister concedes that Anthony’s Cutting is an extremely important project which will deliver a large number of benefits to the local community. The minister should now back up his convictions and show Moorabool residents that the government is not going to procrastinate, as it did with the Deer Park bypass, but actually fund Anthony’s Cutting in the next round of AusLink funding. Now that all the plans are in place, the minister should act. I want to give my congratulations to Councillor Peter Russell, the Mayor of Moorabool Shire, and the staff at Moorabool Shire for the terrific work they are doing in balancing the interests of what is a very diverse shire.

The third shire in my electorate is Hepburn Shire. The natural beauty of the area and its period character have drawn a widening artistic community, providing visitors and the community with performing and visual arts by artists of national and international repute. It is a large tourist destination with Hepburn Springs and Daylesford within it, and 80 per cent of Australia’s mineral water is within its district. That one district alone has over 3,000 bed and breakfast beds.

Whilst tourism plays a major role in the area’s economy, many more traditional types of commercial enterprises abound, such as the Daylesford Abattoir, a highly modernised pork-processing plant with an ever-increasing export focus. As a small rural shire, it has had to work to draw together the many wonderful towns in our area—Creswick, Clunes, Hepburn, Trentham and Lyonville, to name a few, and obviously the larger centre of Daylesford itself. It is a large tourist destination with work also in the hospitality, retail and tourism sectors.

Hepburn Shire has a tough job. It has to balance the very disparate needs of its community. It has a large traditional farming and agricultural sector within the shire—families that have been there for generations. And, of course, we have the tree changers. Many people who are attracted by the beauty of Daylesford and Hepburn Springs and district wish to move from the centre of Melbourne into the area, and they often bring in very new and very different ideas that challenge some of the existing ways of doing things. The council is faced with having to balance all of these. Along with the traditional farming population, Daylesford and Hepburn Shire have one of the highest gay and lesbian populations outside of Sydney and Melbourne, so it is often a tough job with some very differing views on different issues.

I would like to pay congratulations to the mayor, Councillor Heather Mutimer, who is doing a terrific job of balancing the many disparate needs of that community in sometimes very difficult circumstances. I also congratulate her staff. With a very limited small rate base and a large rural area to look after, they are obviously very happy with the government’s Roads to Recovery program, but I know that the government could literally double that tomorrow and they still would not even scratch the bucket of the number of bridges and repair works that need to be undertaken within that area.

The fourth local government area within my district is that of Golden Plains Shire. I have only a very small wedge of Golden Plains Shire—the towns of Haddon, Napoleons, Ross Creek and Enfield are in my area. The rest of the towns within Golden Plains Shire are in the member for Corangamite’s electorate. I know that sometimes he would like to pinch some of the areas that are in Golden Plains Shire off me.

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