Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is with some regret that I dissent from my government colleagues in several parts of this report and have lodged a dissenting list of comments. It is the first time in my career in this parliament that I have dissented from a committee report. I feel that this report needed a wider scope. Members were not given the opportunity to consider the commercial development as a driver of ‘genuine regional economic development’. After all, we are talking about the department of regional development and you cannot isolate genuine regional development from this department without making the whole process farcical. To some extent last week’s $300 million spending package announced to councils at the conference of mayors in Canberra pre-empts some of the understandings of this report. Nevertheless, I believe that the recommendations of this report take away from local communities the power to determine unique and individual solutions to their own set of economic and social circumstances.

The overwhelming body of evidence from all the committee’s hearings was not critical of the work carried out by the ACCs themselves nor, for that matter, of the program itself, but more particularly of the department and its very slow processes. I personally favour a three-pronged pre-assessment process for applications under the new process, all involving greater understanding of projects: enlargement of the ACC/RDA role and strategically placing regional offices and a program of skilled field officers. And, although I was initially lukewarm to the idea of assessment panels, I would support this model on the proviso that some changes are made. I believe each RDA regional office should host an assessment panel. This would provide a more direct and tangible link with the communities they are meant to serve, and that might mean two or three ACC or RDA divisions under that regional office.

I would also like to see assessment panels broader in membership than currently recommended. I would like to see them operate more independently from departmental influence than currently recommended and I would certainly advocate less red tape. That was the criticism at nearly every hearing I attended and, along with the chair who has just spoken—and I do stress that there is no bitterness or rancour in my dissent—I think that the evidence I saw at those hearings is not supported by the majority report.

In terms of the funding itself, I feel that there needs to be a clear recognition of the particular economic and social needs of individual regions and not a ‘one size fits all’. While we cannot craft a program that will suit every single situation, there needs to be a degree of flexibility that recognises unique circumstances ranging from long-term drought to entrenched unemployment and population drift. To this end I would recommend: three-monthly rounds of grants to $50,000; six-monthly rounds for applications seeking between $50,000 and $500,000; a rolling round of $50,000 to $2.5 million for deprived regions or declared areas within regions—and on that basis there would be a lesser measure of assessment; a rolling round of $500,000 to $7.5 million for major projects; and emergency grants in exceptional circumstances of $500,000 on ministerial direction and with a three-month application completion proviso.

This has not been the easiest inquiry I have ever participated in. I assumed the chair’s role for some time while the member for Ballarat took maternity leave. The committee travelled widely, as she has said in her report, and I acknowledge the hard work of the committee secretary, Michael Crawford, Sophia Nicolle, Peter Keele, Jazmine Rakic and Claire Young. They all did a marvellous job. They did it professionally and my disagreeing with their report does not mean that I do not acknowledge their work or the work of my colleagues. On this occasion I just felt that we were missing the point. (Time expired)

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