Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening, after that appalling contribution by the member opposite, to speak in this debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and related bills. These bills will appropriate money for a range of departments to bring into effect the initiatives the Treasurer announced on budget night. I say at the outset that it is a budget for all people, for all Australians. I think this has been highlighted even by media commentary, which saw the budget as delivering on the priorities but ensuring that there were not people left out in terms of sharing the appropriations that we as a government will be making as a result of the budget passing the due processes.

The other day I spoke in the grievance debate in the House and, because time was limited, I was not able to finish my remarks. I want to add to my remarks tonight. I was talking about the Beattie Labor government’s proposal to force amalgamation on local councils without the councils having their democratic right to vote on any proposition put forward by the commissioners—which are appointments that he has made. Do we have an interest at a federal level? You bet we have an interest at a federal level, and this budget highlights the importance that we place on rural and regional areas of Australia, the importance that we place on local councils and the role that they play in their local communities. So many of our programs at a federal level require local government input and require a local government to deliver them. Importantly, we respect the role that the local government plays right across this nation—in road building, in providing emergency services, and in providing a much needed local face to local people and local needs.

I attended a rally in Barcaldine 10 days ago, where some people had travelled over 1,000 kilometres to attend a protest. We marched as a group of people and protesters to the Tree of Knowledge in Barcaldine. That tree is, sadly, dying. I think it is dying of shame. I do not think it was poisoned; I think it is dying of shame because the Labor Party in Queensland has absolutely walked away from its people. It has walked away from people in rural and remote parts of Queensland. I want to have recorded in Hansard some words that I was unable to include in my remarks during the grievance debate the other day because of the limited time. These are comments made by a councillor who came from the Boulia Shire Council. She came with members of the council, councillors, council workers, Aboriginal stockmen and Aboriginal workers. I want to incorporate some of her words in this debate on the appropriation bills tonight. I will read from where I left off the other night in the grievance debate in the House. These are the words of Kelsey Neilsen, a councillor from Boulia Shire Council:

Councils in the outback towns provide so many services to the people. They run the banks, the tourist centres. They are even the undertakers. An old lady recently asked of an outback mayor, “If the council goes—

which would be a result of Peter Beattie and his Labor government’s forced amalgamation of councils—

who is going to bury me?”

The government’s reform will strip us of local representation, they will silence our voice and they will see the far-flung places slowly starved of funding, people and services. Amalgamations will not bring any benefits to the people of Queensland neither will it bring a quick and clean death to the outback but rather like a slow and treacherous cancer it will eat away at our towns until they become shells and crumble. The domino effect of this loss of population which will surely follow amalgamations will see our services fall away one by one. The school, the bank, the post office, the police, the health centres. Families will be forced to leave and the social fabric of our towns will disintegrate. Vibrant, robust little towns, dots on the map connecting our great state, will become sad, lawless places—ghost towns. If I can draw on an analogy—the introduction of forced amalgamations and radical reforms will be to outback towns what the poison was that came from a gutless and cowardly hand to kill the Tree of Knowledge—The symbol of the people’s fight for what is right and the Aussie “fair go”.

There is no “fair go” in this reform process. The appointed reform commissioner members, Minister Fraser and the Premier hold the beating heart of the outback in their grasp, they are about to crush it and they will have the blood of the outback on their hands. I call on the reform commission panel to think long and hard about that. I want them to think about how they could be named in history as the group of people who brought the axe down on outback Queensland towns.

Councillor Neilsen went on to say:

The commission could be listed as the ones who stood by and allowed our ruthless, dictatorial government to push through radical and rapid change without regard for people and communities. As commissioner members, will they sit around the desk and deal out the death card to the Outback towns of Queensland? Will they be able to lie straight in their beds when they hear on the news that there has been an emergency in the west and people died in the vast and vacant outback as a direct result of the lack of medical services available to them. Medical centres that had been closed due to council amalgamations. OR will they listen to our story?

I was there with Kelsey Neilsen as she spoke to the assembled rally and I also represent 25 per cent of the local government areas in the state of Queensland. In my time as the federal member I have gotten to know those local communities and what they do for those towns. I know that the anger that is out there at the moment will not stop and that these people will fight for what they believe is right. If the Premier of Queensland wants to bring forward reform, give the people a say. We know in Queensland, as we have seen in other states, that the impact of forced amalgamations without a referendum of the people—that democratic right that people have—is that jobs will be lost. We know, as we have seen it in other states, that the power of that local council will be centralised and ultimately the smaller communities will lose out.

Many of the local council areas in my electorate are communities of 1,000 or 500. The Diamantina shire, right on the west of my electorate, covering Birdsville and Bedourie, I think has a total population of a couple of hundred people. Birdsville is iconic; it is on the Diamantina River. It will be a land where no-one lives and no-one is able to do anything for the few people who remain. The Diamantina shire is an area the size of the landmass of Tasmania, but I have to say that the Diamantina shire, with its very few people, can see its population swell to some 6,000 at Birdsville race time. I was talking to some people in Birdsville a couple of nights ago. There are tourists who are going out there because the inland rivers have flooded this year, with rains up in the north—water coming down the Diamantina River, Eyre Creek, Georgina River and into Lake Eyre. The pelicans have travelled out there to build their nests because that is where they build their nests: in the Lake Eyre Basin. There are literally hundreds of people going up there to see the wonders of the great outback. I can assure you that the pelicans are there in far greater numbers—tens of thousands—which is quite a remarkable sight. Nature at work is something quite unique to see; how they know the rains have occurred, the floods have occurred, the rivers are filled up and the lakes are filling up, I do not know, but they come from the coastal areas of Australia and fly inland some 2,000 kilometres, where they nest and their young are hatched.

I attended a couple of rallies in my electorate, apart from the Barcaldine rally, and there are more to come. I went to Surat the other night, a little community south of Roma in the Warroo Shire Council area, with a population of 700. A total of 250 people turned up. The population of 700 includes women and children. At seven o’clock at night most of those children are of course at home, ready to go to bed or perhaps doing their homework. People are spread around an area that is almost the size of Tasmania, so many were not able to travel the distance to be in Surat. But they were unanimous in their resolve that they will fight this because they are proud of their little community.

This community have won a tidy town contest. That is the sort of pride they have in their community. They have received a number of grants from the federal government under our Regional Partnerships program. They have a rural transaction centre that provides banking services to a community which lost its banking services 20 years ago. But they are back there under a program that the federal government have put in place, and we will be appropriating more money in this budget to continue that rural partnership program. They have received money for Roads to Recovery. They have received financial assistance grants, aged-care money for health services. So much of what is in this budget will continue to support the little community of Surat and the Warroo Shire Council.

I then went down to St George. St George has gained a little more notoriety since Senator Joyce was elected as a senator for Queensland. That is his home town. Out of 2,500 people in the area of the Balonne Shire Council, as it is known, 1,100 people turned up for a rally, which indicates the concern that these people have for their communities. The concern is not about reform of local governments. The concern is really about forcing upon communities the amalgamation of shires against the will of the people. Many people at that rally asked me: ‘What will happen if we are amalgamated with a shire and the headquarters of our shire is some 300, 400 or 500 kilometres away? What will happen to the value of my house—a weatherboard house with a galvanised iron roof in western Queensland—which is my piece of Australia, my pride and joy?’ I can assure the Main Committee it will be devalued, just as the local cafe proprietors in towns such as Surat and others—there will be fewer people living in the towns; there will be fewer business opportunities—will also have their businesses devalued. But is there, from Premier Beattie—an arrogant, dictatorial premier—any plan to even consider paying compensation to these people who may have assets devalued as a result of forcing the amalgamation of shires on communities?

The other element of this forced amalgamation that was revealed when I went to Charleville to attend the south-west Queensland local government conference was the grouping of councils out in that south-west Queensland part of my electorate of Maranoa. I give Minister Fraser credit for attending and fronting the councils. Of course our councillors, their mayors and their CEOs were all very polite; they listened to him in silence. But what made them angry was that he was not prepared to listen to any counter-arguments. He said, ‘This is going to be good for you.’ Minister Fraser went on to say that by September this year—and I am paraphrasing what he said—they will be putting legislation through the parliament of Queensland to force these amalgamations, based on recommendations from the commissioners who have been appointed by the Premier and his minister. They will be bringing forward that legislation to bring about the forcing of that amalgamation on local communities against their will.

He went on to say that these councils will have an interim committee to transition from the old council to the new council. He then went on to say that each of those interim transition committees will have a union official appointed by the government. That reeks of the Labor Party’s approach not only to industrial relations but also to their desire to take control of the workforce and unionise the Australian workforce if they are elected at the next federal election. There is no need to put a union official on each of those transition committees but if the Labor Party gets its way in Queensland it will continue to proceed with its dictatorial and undemocratic amalgamation proposal in relation to local government.

I have limited time left in this debate but I just conclude by saying that our budget does support our rural communities; it does support our capital cities; it does bring forward new initiatives that will help a whole range of people. In fact I said in my release on the evening of the budget that there is something in this budget for everyone. I would just like to highlight a few things. I think the incentives for working families are a great initiative, as are the tax measures so that there is a reduction in income tax and families will keep more of their hard-earned money. That will support our constituents living in rural and remote communities, which I have talked about in relation to the forced amalgamation of local government areas.

The education skills elements within the budget and the fact that first- and second-year apprentices in skills shortage trades will receive a $500 education voucher to offset fees will certainly help the people in my electorate and in those rural communities. The $1,000 tax-free wage top-up will also help those apprentices under 30 years of age.

I noted also rewarding our older Australians. Many of our rural communities have significant populations of older people. This federal government, through our aged-care funding, community aged-care packages and our whole approach to caring for senior citizens and older people, is trying to make sure that we do keep our communities together—unlike the Labor Party in Queensland which, through forced amalgamations, wants to split these communities and drive people away from the communities where they have lived their lives. We are supporting them, and this budget is further evidence of that.

One of the initiatives in the budget that I certainly also applaud is the $25,000 ex gratia payment to the ex-prisoners of war of the Second World War who were imprisoned by the Germans or Italians during that war, and I know that will be well received. In my electorate I have a number of those veterans who for some time have wanted to be recognised for the hardships and the privations that they suffered during the Second World War. You only have to go to any rural town and look at the war memorial in that community to see the large numbers of people from rural and remote parts of my electorate who came forward willingly and volunteered and who are listed on the rolls of honour of those who served. Tragically, so many did not return.

Another initiative that I know will go down extremely well in the natural resources and environment areas is the rebate of up to $8,000 for the installation of solar panels by households and $12,000 for community buildings and schools. That too will be well received in rural and remote parts of my electorate. If we are able to win the fight with the Labor government in Queensland in relation to forced amalgamations, this program will deliver significant benefits to those communities out there because they will be able to utilise that initiative to use the solar energy that is so abundant in parts of my electorate. (Time expired)

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