Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to acknowledge the time and the effort that the members of the Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Committee put into undertaking this inquiry. I also acknowledge the role that the federal government has in promoting development in regional areas. I will be brief but I would like to highlight, from my experience in local government and in regional areas, some of the recommendations in the report that I believe may not end up giving the results that have been hoped for. I will also discuss the fact that the Regional Partnerships program has become very much a political issue. Unfortunately, quite often what is said in the House and what has been found here in evidence is quite different.

I would like to mention the extremely unusual event of the government putting the member for New England on the committee just for this inquiry, obviously with the intent that he be the main attack dog for a witch hunt on Regional Partnerships. What the member for New England has said in the House and in other places about Regional Partnerships there is no evidence for or any comment about in this report. The transcripts of the hearings that were held—the very few inquiries that the member for New England actually bothered to attend—do not match his rhetoric elsewhere. The member for New England is going to have to put up or shut up. Possibly one of the most successful examples of a regional partnership is in his home town of Tamworth and it is operating very well. That is the regional equine centre that is now attracting events of a national and international standard into that area. His comments have been particularly unhelpful in this whole process.

There is one other thing I would like to comment on. I have had discussions with the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia, the member for Brand, on the idea—and it comes through in this report—of a partnership with local government. My background is with local government and quite frankly I welcome that direction. Local governments are in tune with the communities; they do know how to spend that money.

I can remember the member for Longman speaking in the House about the rorting of Regional Partnerships. The Regional Partnerships program that came through my local government area included things like putting disabled access in a community hall that is 40 kilometres from the nearest town. We got $120,000 as part of a $600,000 project for a medical centre so that, when the current doctors move into retirement, the remote community around Warialda can have a walk-in, walk-out medical facility. That is hardly rorting. I understand the process and that there was an election going on, but I think that, once we get away from the heightened atmosphere of an election and we start to work out how we are going to develop Regional Partnerships and other regional projects, we need to make sure that we do not get caught up in the rhetoric but rather look at the facts.

To finish on the subject of local government, last week the council mayors visited Parliament House. That was well received—that money will be well spent in the communities in my electorate. I acknowledge that, but there are a couple of things that worry me. One is the idea of too close a relationship with the state governments. In the projects that we did and that I dealt with, we almost had to fudge the figures for the state government because of its lack of contribution. It was more of a lead weight than an active partner in the process. So I encourage the federal-local relationship. I think that getting too tied up with the state bureaucracies would have a wet blanket effect on this.

See this speech in context