Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Pearce for the motion a lot of which I disagree with fundamentally, other than point 3 where the work of the ACCs is recognised. I want to touch a little bit on the history of the ACCs and on my understanding of them. As someone who has been engaged in regional development for a long period of time, both at the local level and as a consultant, I did a lot of work across the country in regional development.

One of the issues that I think happened under the previous government is that the area consultative committees were regional development bodies. They were established to do economic development, to do social development, and they had a great role to play in skills and training and in providing a good understanding of what the economic development needs were for a region. They were also important alongside the regional economic development organisations, which were abolished and gradually phased out. I think there is one still existing nationally, but they had a really important role to play in regional development.

What happened under the previous government was that they became grants processing bodies. They ceased to be regional development and economic development bodies. What our regions desperately need is not a grants body because regional partnerships grants in themselves are not regional development. What happened under the previous government is we ceased to have a regional development program that not just enabled funding a good project, which is important, but actually worked together with business, with labour organisations, with not-for-profit organisations and with local government to say, ‘What is it that our region desperately needs government to do to grow our economy? What does our region desperately need government to do to make sure that the social and cultural wellbeing of our region is being looked after?’ That is what happened under the previous government.

I think the difference we are having in this particular debate is very much about the experiences that regional MPs in the Labor Party had under the previous government, which is very, very different to the experiences that regional MPs in the National and Liberal parties had under the previous government. They may like to say that the Howard government was fair but that was not what happened in our regions. You have many regional MPs on the Labor Party side who are saying to you, ‘Regional partnerships did not treat all regions equally.’ It was a funding program that was unfortunately largely discredited because of the actions of the previous government. There were good projects but they were largely discredited because of the way they were dealt with.

What we are trying to do now is actually put in place what we should have had for years—a regional development program that includes funding for regions—whether it be for roads, rail, ports or local schools—to go through local government for community infrastructure. We want to bring back proper regional development so that in our regions we have a body that works with local government, that works with state government and that works with federal government to say: ‘This is what the economic development needs of our region are and this is what you as the Commonwealth government, state government or local government can do to actually assist to grow our region.’

That is what we are trying to do with Regional Development Australia. I absolutely contend that the previous bodies, the ACCs, were done a great disservice by becoming grants funding bodies, and the regions were done a great disservice. They did a fantastic job but it was a very, very narrow view of what regional development was about and there was so much more they could have done. I think many of the chairs and CEOs were itching to do that work but they unfortunately were bound by becoming a grants funding body for regional partnerships.

In the short amount of time I have left, I want to acknowledge the work of the ACC in my region. It has been wound up. I attended the final day on Friday. While Peter, Lauren and Rachel are very distressed about what has happened to them personally, I also know that they are very keen to see what the new model is going to be like. They are very keen to participate and are absolutely desperate to participate in regional development in my community. I want to put on record my thanks to them and my thanks to the boards, the many members of which I have worked with over the short time I have been a member of parliament. I want to say: thank you for your work but regional development still lives under this government.

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