Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and related bills. Much has been said already in this place about the direction the Rudd government is taking our nation with its high spending, high deficit and long-term debt. While debt is something that many Australians have come to expect from Labor governments, the magnitude of this debt—up to $315 billion—exceeds all other efforts. There is a growing fear within my electorate of Gippsland that Labor has lost control of our nation’s finances and that this unchecked and reckless spending with borrowed money will take decades to repay. I do not suggest for a second that everything in the budget is bad, but I am prepared to say that the focus needs to be on making sure we have value for money in the future.

It is hard to believe that in the massive spending spree that has occurred since the Rudd government was elected there are still people who have missed out. The winners and losers under this government are there for all to see. The government has turned its back on regional areas. It has cut programs in agriculture and rural and regional health throughout Australia. It has stranded regional students currently in their gap year. And even the programs that are designed to support regional jobs, such as the $14.7 billion schools program, are not living up to community expectations.

Let me begin with the cuts to benefits for students who are on their gap year, intending to attend university in 2010. It is hard to believe that just a couple of weeks after the fiasco where the Treasurer and the Prime Minister would not say the word ‘billions’ in public, we have the Minister for Education and the Minister for Youth avoiding the words ‘gap year’. In response to a question in the House last week, the Minister for Education could not bring herself to say ‘gap year’, and this week in a matter of public importance discussion the Minister for Youth was happy to claim that I was scaremongering on this topic, but she was too scared to say ‘gap year’ as well. I must admit that being attacked in the chamber by the Minister for Youth is a bit like bumping into Bambi in the forest. She tried to kick me around, but her heart really was not in it. She is no Labor attack dog. Even Bambi knows the government has made a blue in this case and she knows that young Australians are being treated unfairly by a government that likes to talk about social justice.

Both ministers are accusing the opposition of scaremongering on this topic, but I fear the government may be giving us way too much credit. Do the ministers really believe that I am so well connected in my local community that I could find 3,000 people to sign a petition in just 10 days—that I can scare principals, teachers, students, parents and representative groups into writing all the emails and letters which have landed on the ministers’ desks? I am flattered that they believe I have so much ability, but the truth is that this is not a scare campaign in any sense of the word. These are people who are genuinely worried, and they have every reason to be concerned.

In what I believe was a well-intentioned effort to stop the misuse of the independent youth allowance, and in response to the findings of the Bradley review, the government took steps to change the workforce eligibility criteria. The government also increased the income thresholds, in a move which I do not believe anyone has criticised—not to the best of my knowledge. The problem for the government is the students who are left stranded in their gap year. The students did the right thing. They took advice from their teachers, their principal, their careers advisers and even from Centrelink officers. They were told that, if they took a year off and achieved the eligibility criteria, they would be in receipt of $371 per fortnight. With these changes, the government has pulled the rug out from under their feet midway through the year. It is no wonder these students in particular are disenchanted. I fear they will not ever become engaged in the political process.

Do we really want young people leaving school to have their first experience of this great Australian democracy being that the government pulled the rug out from under their feet as they were preparing to go to university? I believe the young people in my community have a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to offer as young leaders of the future. How are we going to get them engaged in the democratic process if their first experience is one of complete disenchantment with the way they have been treated in their gap year? The minister talks about new thresholds and scholarships but will not admit that students right now in their gap year, who would have qualified for a full independence allowance, will be financially penalised. This is not a scare campaign. I must say to the minister, before she jumps on that white horse and charges down the hill to see the opposition on this issue, that it would be prudent for her to stop and take a look over her shoulder. When she yells out, ‘Charge!’, she might find the cavalry is running the other way.

I have been stopped in the corridors of this place on three separate occasions this week by Labor backbenchers. They have urged me to keep up the fight. I understand that finally some of the backbenchers found their voice in the party room meeting this week. There is a gap running down the middle of the Labor caucus on this issue. Those who live in regional areas or care about issues of social justice are on our side, and the others are with the minister. My message to the minister is to take the time to read the letters from regional Australians. Just in case the minister or her advisers did not have the time, they could listen in now to some of the quotes from people who have contacted my office over the past two or three weeks. The Bairnsdale Advertiser is a well-respected local newspaper in the Gippsland electorate. On 22 May, 2009 the headline read, ‘Country kids are the losers.’ The minister has the opportunity to make sure that the next headline will read, ‘Minister comes to her senses.’ Let me quote from the principal of Lakes Entrance Secondary College, Mr Craig Sutherland. I know Craig very well. He happens to be the principal of the school my daughter Morgan attends. Craig does a wonderful job in increasing the ambition of young people in the Lakes Entrance area. He is bitterly disappointed that the students he has coached in the last two or three years, in aiming towards the gap year process, have now had the rules changed midway through the year. Mr Sutherland was quoted in the newspaper as saying:

As for the government’s stated intention of making university more accessible—well this behaviour just raises the question of whether they have thought through their strategy—it should not be at the expense of participation by country kids. Access is always harder for country kids.

Minister Gillard has called such criticism scaremongering—but it is not so—the whole issue raises questions about universal access to university and the way young people can develop pathways to independence—how we allow them pathways to adulthood.

There are many more people out there who are keen to make the same point. Mick Murphy, the executive officer of the Baw Baw Latrobe Local Learning and Employment Network, says:

This policy discriminates against rural and regional students and has taken a city-centric view of further education. Sadly, this new policy is going to make university less attainable for many local people, which will have long-term ramifications for the social and economic fabric of Gippsland.

I know Mick well. He also is not in the habit of scaremongering. Phil Whiteman from Churchill wrote to me:

These kids who have done the right thing and planned their future want to study and better themselves but are now left in limbo. I do not agree with this change at all, but why does it have to be introduced without warning for this new wave of students. Surely students should be given sufficient warning that this policy is changing and then be able to plan their income and studies. This change should exempt country kids at best or at least not be introduced until the next financial year.

I understand Peter Jennings has also written directly to the minister:

These changes further disadvantage students from rural areas who must leave home in order to undertake university studies, unlike their urban counterparts who can live at home. From personal experience, I can inform you that accommodating a student in Melbourne costs in the order of $18,000 per year. In addition, with a two-year absence from studies, there is a greater risk that young people may remain in the workforce and not seek higher education—an undesirable outcome, I am sure you would agree. I urge you to abolish these changes and give country kids a fair go.

And finally from Sophie Jennings, a student from Gippsland who is now studying in Melbourne after completing a gap year, there was this comment:

Coming from Sale, staying at home while studying was simply not an option for me. I was so pleased and lucky to gain access to Queens College that I took a gap year in 2007 at the end of year 12 in order to earn enough to gain youth allowance so I could pay for my college fees. Many of us also have brothers, sisters and friends who undertook gap years at the start of this year, understanding that their hard work would be worth it when they became independent and gained access to financial services required to move to the city and study at university. Of course these young adults are now not assured of that.

There are many, many more. In fact, I believe I have sent at least 30 letters to the minister on this topic.

The minister has the title of ‘social inclusion’ among her portfolios. Surely she can understand that young people and their families in regional areas are feeling excluded. They are disenfranchised and they are angry about this decision and the impact it will have on them as they complete their gap year. They had plans which they made in good faith and in consultation with respected members of their school community. The minister needs to take action and guarantee that no student currently on their gap year will be worse off as a result of these changes. I accept that these are difficult economic times but our students should not be paying the price for Labor’s spending and record debt.

In the time that I have left I would like to turn my attention to another education issue of great significance, and I refer to the government’s Building the Education Revolution program and some serious concerns that are being relayed to me by schools across Gippsland. If you listen to the minister, again, it is all rosy. But on the ground it is a very different story. There is a growing sense of frustration as schools realise that they are not going to be able to build a project that they want to complete, and in many cases local builders have been restricted from tendering for local projects. Many smaller schools will be receiving portable buildings instead of engaging local builders in construction projects.

I am not going to debate the merit of the Building the Education Revolution program. That debate was had and won by the government. My concern now is making sure that the people of Gippsland get value for money out of the $14.7 billion that has been allocated. I have written to the minister to raise my concerns about the lack of local jobs flowing from this program, but the minister has chosen to plough on regardless.

Many Gippsland schools can look forward to a truck turning up with a relocatable building on the back. It is the ‘portable education revolution’! This whole program was meant to be an economic stimulus to create local jobs, but there are not many local jobs involving a few portables being taken to some of my smaller schools. I have grave concerns about the veracity of this program and making sure that taxpayers will receive value for money in the future.

The Victorian government has an appalling track record of cost overruns and a failure to deliver regional infrastructure either on time or on budget. As I have told the minister, it would make more sense to get this money to the local school councils themselves and get them to administer the local contracts to help ensure that employment is generated within the local community. The schools in my region are very good at leveraging off any funding assistance. There would be opportunities to employ local traders and to deliver projects that are actually required within their schools, rather than the situation which is unfolding at the moment.

Schools are being pressured into accepting state government templates for projects that may or may not meet their needs. I have spoken to at least 10 principals in my electorate and they are angry and frustrated with the way the program is being conducted. In their desperation to shovel the money out the door, the government has set unrealistic time frames and is pressuring schools to accept whatever is on offer. I have been told by the schools which are entitled to receive up to $250,000 under the government’s guidelines that all they will receive is one portable building. That is hardly a revolution.

Other schools which are entitled to much larger sums of money—up to $2 million—are being pressured to accept template designs which do not meet their individual needs. The school principals and the school councils know that they could build better and cheaper buildings using local contractors, but they are being ordered to take what they are offered and do not dare waste time complaining. It is galling to listen to the minister in this place, spinning her lines about jobs in every community when the reality on the ground deserves much greater examination. I will give the minister the benefit of the doubt in that maybe she is not aware, given that there are so many projects under way across Australia, of exactly what is happening on the ground in Victoria. There must be greater commitment to achieving value for money for the Australian taxpayers, who will be paying off this government’s debt for decades to come.

For the benefit of the House and the minister, let me outline a scenario which was presented to me by a local builder in Bairnsdale. I will not name the firm because I fear that there are people who are vindictive enough within the system to compromise the builder’s chances in the future. The scenario goes like this. The firm is a significant employer in Bairnsdale and has completed work for the education department in the past. It was offered the opportunity to tender for three projects in Gippsland. There is nothing wrong with that, you might say, and members opposite would probably agree. But the three projects were located in Foster, San Remo and Wonthaggi. Those towns are all two to three hours away.

Meanwhile, there was a multimillion-dollar contract available in Bairnsdale that the firm has been excluded from tendering for as part of the stage 1 process. What genius in Melbourne in the education department came up with this plan and why won’t the minister intervene to ensure that local traders have the opportunity to tender for all local projects? It defies logic and is completely contradictory to the minister’s comments that local jobs would be supported in every region of Australia. Once you get an out-of-town firm coming into a small regional centre to complete these jobs, there is a complete distortion of the local market. You will end up with workers being taken from existing local firms. It will destabilise the local workforce, and the profits of course will head straight out of town.

This system of packaging projects and offering them for tenders is convenient for the government and may suit the time frames, but it will not deliver value for money or support local jobs in the longer term. Keep in mind that this is only round 1 of the program, which involves 20 per cent of the total funding pool. When the next round comes online with tenders for 40 per cent of the work, local builders fear they will miss out completely. I also fear that the next round will be dominated by major city companies and the locals will not even get the chance to tender because the packages will be priced out of the range that they are qualified to undertake. It is a very real concern for small country builders.

As an economic stimulus, the Building the Education Revolution program is starting to shape up as the biggest con job this government has delivered. The undue haste to roll out this program is showing no regard for the needs of the local education sector or the capacity of the local community to undertake the work. When the Prime Minister talks about it being ‘shovel-ready’, it means: ‘Shovel the money out the door and cross your fingers that some of the projects actually hit the mark.’ I am not complaining about the nature of the program, in the sense that the government has made a commitment to spend that money, but it is up to the government now to ensure the money is spent wisely and fulfils its ambition of being an economic stimulus in creating jobs right throughout Australia. There should be a more strategic approach to this program, and local communities should have more control over when the money is spent, what it is spent on and which local firm is hired to get the job done. By putting locals first and supporting local small businesses, which are the backbone of the Gippsland economy, the government will achieve a lot more than it is achieving at the moment.

In the limited time that I have left I would like to refer to a topic that I have raised previously with the Minister for Health and Ageing on behalf of the health service providers throughout my electorate and the concerns over the rural retention grants. As feared in the lead-up to the budget, the minister has realigned these zones and there are many concerns within the health sector in Gippsland. In Sale, for example, the health sector has now been included in the same zone as Pakenham and classed as ‘inner regional’ in terms of any retention grants or government assistance. It is a bizarre decision which will make it harder to attract health professionals in the future to regional communities. It is an issue that I will be pursuing further on behalf of the health professionals in my region because the changes appear to fly in the face of every effort that has been made in recent years to encourage health professionals to practise in regional areas. In Gippsland, there has been some outstanding work done over the years with the rural medical school and the Monash University courses designed to given medical students a taste of life in a rural and regional setting, and I fear that these changes are completely contradictory to those moves.

As I said at the outset, Gippslanders are concerned with the way this government is managing our nation’s finances. I share their concerns as this government’s spending priorities are increasing the gap between city and country residents, and I do not believe we are receiving value for money on the borrowed money that is being run up in this budget.

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