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

The Rudd government showed scant regard for employment when it ran up the white flag and predicted 134,000 Australians would lose their jobs in the period after the 2008 budget. The government’s lack of will to fight unemployment comes into even starker relief when you look at the current economic conditions. Local and overseas agencies know we are in trouble. The OECD has predicted unemployment will rise to six per cent by 2010 and the government itself has again thrown up its hands in surrender, saying we can expect national unemployment of five per cent by June next year and 5.75 per cent by June 2010. But the national bank says it will be even higher. The national bank says it will be 6½ per cent. So jobs are going to be scarce under Labor, and there is no doubt regional areas will be hardest hit.

Looking at the unemployment rate for the entire Wide Bay area—my area—over the past 20 years, the all-time high was in February 1996, just before we came to power, when it was almost 20 per cent. The all-time unemployment low, ironically, in the October just before we left office was 3.9 per cent. Those figures are from either side of the Howard government. I am sad to say that the region’s unemployment rate is already creeping up under Labor. The Wide Bay-Burnett area is an ideal template for what can be achieved when the right regional development policies are put in place. Conversely, if job losses increase to Hawke-Keating levels, we could see unemployment in my area back to around 15-plus per cent.

As members are aware, I delivered a dissent to the interim House committee report Funding regional and local community infrastructure. There was no malice in it, I might add. The committee’s recommendation that commercial enterprises not be considered for funding—despite the evidence in favour of it—is a huge mistake. The 20-year recovery achieved in the Wide Bay-Burnett area cannot happen without robust local enterprises. One such example is Austchilli, a Bundaberg-based company which processes and packages small crops for the domestic and export markets. Austchilli was due to receive $650,000 from Regional Partnerships so it could complete stage 2 of its development, incorporating state-of-the-art high-pressure pasteurisation of food products. It would have created 25 new jobs and, despite the fact that the former Deputy Prime Minister announced the project, the Rudd Labor government withdrew the funding, causing the loss of these potential jobs as well as six other positions within the company. Austchilli also lost a contract to provide avocado puree to a nationwide food outlet—the same product is now being imported from Mexico.

The infrastructure committee took some very interesting evidence at the public hearings. The former mayor of the Isis Shire, Bill Trevor, told the committee of the importance of government supporting business, which in turn creates jobs in the regions. He said:

The last thing a community needs is a bright new shiny toilet block but no jobs … Jobs in rural and remote areas are extremely important for the value-adding that they do in a community.

He went on:

If you take away all those opportunities to bring forward the technical advancement and development of industry in rural areas, then, what we are going to have left is people on unemployment queues.

It was hard to get money into regional and rural areas from banks previously. It is going to be even more difficult in the future to convince the bankers to lend into regional and rural areas because of the financial situation around the world.

This is where these grants—whether it be through Sustainable Regions, Bundaberg Futures Programs or the Regional Partnerships—play a vital role in lifting the technology job values and letting the enterprise grow.

And he goes on:

By having this grant coming in it allows it to happen now. We need jobs now in rural and regional Australia, not in 10 or 15 years time.

What he and I are saying is that small and medium industries are essential for the growth of provincial communities. They are a buffer against creeping unemployment. When government supports small and medium industries it gives confidence to banks and other investors to come on board. Government approbation creates a level of confidence in itself. That is why seeding programs must continue. The government should not wring its hands about unemployment and throw money at the problem. Rather, the answer is in strengthening regional employment profiles.

See this speech in context