Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare, Women and Youth) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to talk about something that is very distressing to rural and regional Australia and, I know from direct experience, to my part of the world—north-east Victoria and the border with Albury-Wodonga. That is the demise of area consultative committees. The Rudd government’s decision to shut down the network of regional development agencies by June this year will have major consequences. It has hit our regions and it has hit those who have served on these committees in volunteer capacities very hard. I think one of the harshest things of all is the personal effect it will have.

There are individuals who have volunteered their time for many years. In fact, some of them have served on these area consultative committees for longer than some people’s marriages survive. Not only have they been told, ‘No thanks; we don’t need you anymore,’ but they have not even been thanked for the job they have done over these many years. Let us remember that these are volunteers. They include people like Eric Lund, who chaired the North East Victoria Area Consultative Committee, and Shane O’Brien and Joan Ross, also from NVACC. They include Bert Eastoe, who chaired the Albury Wodonga Area Consultative Committee, Ray Hortle—also from AWACC—and all the committee members who have served on both these area consultative committees.

I want to go on the record today and say thank you. Thank you for going through those mounds of paper and selecting the best local projects. Thank you for helping our councils, other community organisations and individuals develop their applications so they could be the best applications possible—to get funding not only through the Regional Partnerships program but through other government programs. I know that the small-business officers who worked in area consultative committees have gone well beyond their duty in assisting locals, individuals, organisations and local government in putting together applications—for state funding as well. They have been an invaluable resource and they have not been given a thank-you from the government; they have just been told very hastily that they are no longer needed. This was after they were told there would be transitional arrangements.

Imagine: you have all these volunteers and you have a smaller group of paid staff, who not only have this extraordinary experience with the funding programs previously available but also know what projects and needs exist within the regions that they have operated in—and their expertise is not even being utilised in this transitional process. I call on the government to have some sort of small ceremony to acknowledge those who have worked as staff and those who have worked as volunteers—to acknowledge their efforts. It is a small thing to do in return for the efforts that they have put in over many years. It is not just good manners; it is the right thing to do. Quite rightly, some of these people have taken the sudden shutting of these area consultative committees as a bit of a personal slight. The government has not even thanked them, and they have put in so much.

I know many of them will continue to put a lot into their communities in other ways, but I think the government should follow the lead elsewhere and actually provide some sort of job security for local ACC staff. It is interesting that, at a time when the government attacks private enterprise for its lack of job security and its callousness, the government has shown the exact same—worse—callousness in first promising transitional arrangements and then dumping on the staff, at very short notice, saying: ‘No thanks, you’re not even needed for transitional arrangements.’

Thank you very much to the area consultative committees for the money you have helped bring to our region, whether it was for libraries, whether it was to help with telecommunications, whether it was to help with community halls, whether it was to help with the sheds, whether it was to help with childcare centres or whether it was to help with maintaining and learning about our heritage through Ned Kelly restoration works at Glenrowan or myriad other projects. Thank you very much for what you have done. Our communities have been enriched, and we have had the services that otherwise would not be there. I want to put that on the record, and I call on the government to follow my lead. (Time expired)

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