John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report presented to parliament by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. This is a report about country and regional Australia and what can be done to help deal with social issues around employment and how to help the various communities, the youth in those communities and, in the past at least, how to help commercial entities increase job opportunities, production or whatever it might be.

I speak as someone who did not go to the hearings but who did go to two of the review sessions held by the then ACCs—now called Regional Development Australia. The ACCs were instructed by the government to hold public hearings in their regions into what was thought of the program run by the former government, a program which has since been cancelled—and they did. I attended one of those sessions in my region and another outside of my region. What I am told the committee heard sounds very much like what I heard in the two sessions I attended, but that certainly does not tally with what is in this report. In fact, people who did attend those hearings tell me that the report does not reflect what was said at those hearings but that the dissenting report from the member for Hinkler, Mr Neville, does reflect what was said at those hearings.

You have to assume that this is simply a government, on the one hand, taking an opportunity to beat up on the Regional Partnerships program while, on the other, trying to justify what it wants to do in the future. It wanted to get rid of Regional Partnerships because it was one of the most popular programs I have ever seen a government introduce. As I go around the electorate of Calare—my new electorate, which I am very proud to represent; it is an area close to my old one but which now takes in Orange, the eastern side of Blayney, Cowra and Cabonne—the thing I get asked about the most is, ‘How can we get money to help the PCYC and the local hall? How do we get money to do these things?’ I have to say to them, ‘Look, I am sorry, there used to be a program specifically designed to help provide seed money in conjunction with local communities et cetera, but that has gone, that has been wiped.’

Some of the recommendations coming out of the report are fine. I do not have any great issue with there being less scrutiny on projects. Instead of the amount being $25,000, as it used to be, it will now be $50,000 on projects. That is fine; I do not have an issue with that. Where I have an issue is when it is categorically and heart-warmingly said that we must not have any commercial projects involved. I think I heard the member for Parkes, which used to be my electorate, say that the projects—and it is very true because I have seen it—that are the most long term, not short term for six months, are commercial projects. There is no doubt about that. Sometimes there is a need to help a commercial project, which is job oriented, get going.

A recommendation has been made that funding be in rounds. If it is only the smaller funding, I guess that that is okay to an extent, but the minute you put up, say, a three-month round with a limited amount of money then it becomes a very competitive thing. The reason we had flexible and open rounds—in other words, without a time limit; it was actually a three-year program which was rolled over—is so you do not ask a town like Tibooburra, for example, which is no longer in my electorate but has wonderful people, with 150 citizens and very few resources, within a space of three months to have to compete in a round of $1 million or $100 million on the same terms as Orange, Sydney or any other huge population. Any town or city is huge compared to Tibooburra, I can assure you. White Cliffs is not much bigger and is almost as far out. You are asking them to compete for seed funding and all these various things which they want to have. They cannot possibly have any failures or have rules set for them. How do 150 people compete with 40,000 or with six million or with even a million? It means that, from day one, you are saying, ‘Don’t worry about the remote or the disadvantaged communities; they can compete on the same terms and in the same time frame for the same amount of money as the big places where they have got all the resources to come up with the idea and to find the money.’ Of course they can’t compete. It is not designed as the original Regional Partnerships program was. The idea will not be to help those in the most disadvantaged and remote regions to do something for themselves.

Perhaps I can be a little bit generous now and offer some advice: if you want to be serious about it, don’t put this into a series of rounds because you will disadvantage those who are in remote areas. The more rules you put around it the more you will disadvantage them. They cannot compete. Don’t shake your head, Mr Sullivan.

See this speech in context