Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I start by thanking both sides of the House (a) for allowing the Independents to have a matter of public importance before the House this afternoon and (b) for having more than the required eight members stay around and support the matter before the House. So thank you to both sides for that. We have heard a lot in the short time I have been in this chamber about global issues confronting Australia, such as a $152 trillion collapse in financial markets. We have heard a lot about national responses to that global collapse and there has been at least $42 billion in several responses from government to those global pressures. I contend this afternoon that, whilst we certainly have some meaty global issues to discuss as problems confronting this chamber, the answers lie in regional responses and policy settings that strongly support regional answers to the future of Australia.

I represent the mid-North Coast of New South Wales, but I am sure many of the topics that I will be discussing this afternoon are felt in similar regions throughout Australia. I hope the bipartisan spirit that saw members on both sides of this House support this MPI remains at the end of this discussion. I start by referring to a report that was done in 2000 called Time running out: shaping regional Australia’s future. It was by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Regional Services. It was a bipartisan report that had 92 recommendations in it, all good, solid bipartisan—I may say tripartisan—work done by members of this chamber. There were 92 recommendations that, in many cases, have remained outstanding and undelivered despite the response from government in 2001.

To start, I want to refer to the seven founding principles in the government response, which might make some of the regional members in this chamber have a chuckle if it were not so serious. The seven principles in the government response to this report were that: governments will seek to minimise duplication and overlap; governments will encourage communities to set their own priorities; governments will cooperate with each other; governments will cooperate with the private sector; governments will seek to use existing systems; governments will seek to build on the competitive and comparative advantage of regions; and governments will consult with each other wherever possible when new programs and services are being developed. If only those seven principles had been adhered to by governments within Australia over the nine years since this report was done!

Representing a regional area, I have also noticed some cultural issues for policymakers and planners to reflect on when thinking about the regions. There is a tendency to look at the regions as a tack-on to policy development. There is a tendency to look at the regions as places with a handout mentality, asking for more than their share, and there is a positioning by government in policy to almost be patronising to the regions, treating them as some poor rural cousin in regard to policy development and implementation. I also contend this afternoon that none of those things are true. For any policymakers who think that way, I ask you to change that view. Most of us, and certainly I include myself and my family in this, choose to live where we live, to do business and to retire there because of the wonderful benefits there are in being in a regional location. There are problems confronting Australia in so many ways as a large landmass with one of the most urbanised populations in the world. In many cases the answer to just about every piece of legislation that comes through this place would be to put some more emphasis on encouraging regional development and regional growth in Australia.

What do I and what do we want from government and policy planners? It is not more than our fair share; it is just our fair share. It is engagement with government and engagement with the policy planning and policy setting done at local, state and federal level. It is simply nothing more and nothing less than fairness. In so many examples, and I will touch on some, it cannot be argued that government is being fair to someone living in a regional area compared to someone living in an urban area. So there is an argument to be made this afternoon for the level playing field that all of us talk about and yet in so many cases is not delivered. It is about the equity of services to fill the gap and examples of resource redistribution formulas in all the various departments of government not being adhered to. Not even our fair slice of the pie is being delivered to the regions. That is to the detriment of not only the regions but government as well.

This committee report is a good starting place. I reflect that the late Peter Andren was a good member on this committee and referred to this actual report on many occasions. I also note that there are existing members of this parliament who participated in this process, who titled it Time running out, and nine years later we still have many outstanding recommendations from a very good report waiting to be delivered by government. Recommendation No. 1 is decentralisa-tion of a couple of government departments. Environment Australia is one of them. Decentralisation seems to have become a dirty word to government. Only this morning I walked up from where I am staying past the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, nicely located a short distance down the road. Wouldn’t it be great, if we are serious in this country about digital communications, to place the department of broadband and communications in a regional location? If the policy settings are right, there is absolutely no excuse for that department to feel any impediment by being based in a regional location. And if the policy settings are wrong, wouldn’t it be some great tough medicine for a few people to feel what it is like to live in a regional area in regard to accessing the internet and communications services that so many other people take for granted in their everyday life? With a national broadband rollout about to happen, I would ask the government to consider having those that are involved with that rollout located in a regional area. What a great message for Australia that would be.

This report touched on a whole range of other areas and I ask government to think about the energy issues, the health issues and the job issues. I will talk about specific examples. The energy issue has frustrated me and I still do not understand why a national feed-in tariff has been pretty well ruled out by this government. We now have something called NEMCCO, a national electricity market. It is in operation. Why is it seen as a state based issue to talk about feed-in tariffs and therefore why do we have so many discrepancies between the various states in the development of their gross versus net and all the variations in or out in regard to these tariff systems? It is going to create problems. This is a great area for government to engage with communities in regional areas and encourage people to participate in one of the great talking points of our time, the climate change debate. I will mention a Singleton based company, Ausra, a solar thermal company, that was sent to California in the US to commercialise. The governor thought it was a good idea and has rolled the Ausra program right throughout the Californian precinct. We are seeing California now take a lead in regard to renewables, efficiency gains in the home and engaging people in the climate change debate. How sad it is that a Singleton based company could not get off the ground in Australia and had to go overseas, and now we are trying to get them to come home to be involved in some of the answers to the questions that we are debating.

On the question of the national feed-in tariff: please, government, consider it once again. It is a great way to engage people. It is an efficiency gain that is proven in other jurisdictions. Germany is a really good example. It is sitting there waiting to happen. No, there are not vested interests lobbying for it, but it is a great engagement for people, including people in regional areas.

I have already mentioned the Health and Hospital Fund this afternoon. Many in regional areas—particularly in growth areas like the North Coast of New South Wales—whose populations want to access health and hospital services are frustrated by the lack of investment from government. There is a mentality of sandstone hospital thinking in many locations within urban areas. New South Wales and Sydney spring to mind for me. So many of these sandstone hospitals are right next to each other. That is the region’s money. A hard decision has to be made but it needs to be made, because regions are not getting, per head of population, their fair slice of the pie. It is a simple argument of fairness that I put before the House this afternoon.

The question of jobs is certainly one that has, quite rightly, been raising its head a lot. There are some practical and cost-effective steps government can take that will assist in protecting and enhancing local economies through the next 12 years and in the long term. I refer to the Department of Defence and the Defence Materiel Organisation, regarding issues of procurement. A lot of small business work in regional areas hangs off that DMO process. We have a business that is absolutely sweating on the outcomes of the Air Warfare Destroyer Program. If we get even a small slice of that, it will be a huge benefit for a regional area. Army procurement work is done by various small businesses on the mid-North Coast. In this place, a couple of hundred thousand dollars here and there might sound like absolutely nothing but, for our small business community and our local businesses, that is a lifeline for staying in business and for growing business.

But the message I want to leave with the House this afternoon—to drive the message home—is about something very close to everyone’s heart. In fact, they should be in everyone’s pockets. Mine are here in my pocket near my heart. It is about the company that provides the locks and keys for everyone’s room in Parliament House—a company called API Security. They tell me that a sad indictment of the times is that their locks and safes arm of the business, through their DMO tendering, is now under attack from overseas imports. Not only is it the case that these do not meet Australian standards but there is also no pre-purchasing audit done by the Department of Defence as to the statements made about the quality of the product.

The usual argument in this place is that we should have open competition and that protectionism is bad because you get a lesser quality. This is a reverse example, where the quality product that is being delivered by a regional area is under attack from a cheap import. In 1998 the Department of Defence worked with Standards Australia to develop a standard for locks and safes in Australia. We now have a standard, developed by one arm of government. The Department of Defence does not use that standard; it uses a US standard and does not even follow that standard. Without being too ‘proppish’, I could turn up with a cardboard box, put a tender to the Department of Defence and argue the case that it is meeting the US standard—

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