Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Yes, it does. It passes though the very city that I used to be the mayor of, and I can well recall the first train leaving the northern suburbs of Adelaide to go up to Darwin. It was a very significant day for South Australia.

I rise to speak in support of the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008, the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008 and the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 associated with it. I do so because the bills are important ones which I believe set the scene for some of the major infrastructure expenditure that we will see in this country, infrastructure that I believe the member for Kennedy was alluding to the need for. The bills also set the scene for a much greater level of cooperation between the federal government, the states and the territories. For those reasons they are indeed very significant bills.

When our constitution was established over 100 years ago, I am sure that it was very well intentioned by those who framed it. I am sure that they framed it with their best possible efforts in looking at what lay ahead and therefore how to best structure an arrangement between the federal government and the states. At that time, as we know, the states were six colonies and they operated independently of one another. The reality is that time has moved on. It has moved on around the world and it has moved on here in Australia. Here in Australia the states cannot continue to function in isolation as they did, just as countries around the world cannot continue to function in isolation as they might also have done in years gone by.

We have seen, particularly in the last 100 years or so, the range of international agreements and international frameworks that have been established by countries because they recognised the need to work together. We have to work together because we all face similar challenges. We all have common objectives about where we are trying to get to as peoples of this world. Therefore, we understand that when you face those common objectives you do have to work together. It is recognised that today, more than ever before, we do live in a global village. What happens in one country affects the social outcomes, the environment and the economy of another country.

We are seeing that on a daily basis in respect of the financial turmoil around the world. We are seeing it on a daily basis when we debate issues such as the Kyoto protocol and, here in this country, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. We know full well that that scheme will be dependent on the goodwill and the same level of commitment by other governments. In a similar way, we know that the management of our economy is also dependent on the goodwill and the good management of other economies. Not surprisingly, only in this last week we have seen the Prime Minister attend two international meetings as part of global governance of this world, which is absolutely necessary.

Here in Australia, it is even more so, in that we are no longer six colonies. We are one country. We are all Australian. The states cannot continue to operate in isolation as they might have done, and they cannot continue to compete with one another and to undermine each other as they have done in the past. What we have seen as a result of that competition is quite often an absolute waste and duplication of resources. When one thing happens in one part of the country—and I use the example of an industry that relocates from one part of the country to another—it creates jobs in the part that it locates to but they are lost to the other part. Ultimately, we are all Australians, and ultimately those consequences have to be borne by the national government, the federal government. So it is important that we work together, because the issues facing this country are common to all Australians.

We saw that only today in the debate on the education bill, which deals with a national curriculum and assessment. Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom, you were one of the speakers on that bill. It is another great example of where we need to go to in order to work as one nation, because education, like every other service provided in this country, ought to be consistent wherever you go throughout the country. If that is the case, it will make everybody’s lives so much easier and it will create much better opportunities for people in this country.

That is exactly the process that these bills begin. These bills are about nation building, and they are about states working together with the Commonwealth government. For too long we have seen states working against each other and the Commonwealth playing states off against each other—quite deliberately playing one state off against the other—to disrupt the governments of the day for political purposes. We have seen that for much too long. We certainly saw it in the last decade or more of the previous coalition government, where it was convenient to play one government off against the other and it was convenient to play the Commonwealth off against the states and even the local governments.

In my previous role as Mayor of the City of Salisbury, I can well recall a report being commissioned by the federal government about the issue of cost-shifting that was occurring throughout the country, an issue that was occurring because, again, it was convenient for it to occur. It was convenient for the federal government. It was convenient for the states. It was not convenient for local government, because they did not have any say in the matter and they would pick up the pieces and the additional costs as a result, but it was convenient for the other two levels of government. That is not good government. Good government is about governing with one clear focus in mind, and that is the ultimate wellbeing of the people of this country.

One of the things that have concerned me over the years—and I am pleased to see that in recent years it is starting to be put to one side and there is a level of cooperation, even without the intervention of the federal government, amongst the state governments—is the ridiculous notion of competing with one another for businesses or for sporting entertainment. That created no good for any of the states whatsoever. Ultimately, it was causing taxpayers to subsidise the relocation or the securing of the particular event or business—I am using that as an example for the purpose of the point I am trying to make. We saw that happening quite prolifically about 10 years ago. As I said earlier, ultimately the winners are the people setting up the business or—

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