Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government report titled Funding regional and local community infrastructure: principles for the development of a regional and local community infrastructure funding program. From the outset I would like to put my thanks to the committee secretariat on the record. The nature of this inquiry and the nature of the work undertaken by this particular committee make the logistics of organisation challenging, and I am certainly very appreciative of the support provided by the staff of the secretariat. I would also like to put on record my thanks to the member for Hinkler who, through a period of this inquiry, acted as committee chair whilst the member for Ballarat was taking some time off with the birth of her first son, Ryan King. I very much appreciate that and I know other committee members do as well. I also acknowledge the contribution made through the course of the inquiry by the member for Hinkler. He certainly has vast experience in regional development. Whilst he has dissented from parts of the report, I know that we enjoyed his support for quite a substantial amount of the report.

Like the member for Hinkler, I was motivated to seek public office by a number of issues and areas. Regional development, of course, was one of those areas that I had a pre-existing passion for. That extended back to my time in local government, where I certainly had some responsibilities, within the council that I served, in regional development and assisting in growing the economy and growing the liveability of a region.

I think it is fair to say that the effort that we have put in through the course of the inquiry has led to some very substantial recommendations in this report. It is pleasing to see that government has, in a very short period of time, moved on quite a number of the aspects of the recommendations and the work within this report. I am tremendously pleased and grateful that that has happened.

A government member’s perspective of why we thought there was a need to undertake this inquiry is that it arose from the previous program, the Regional Partnerships program. This government, then in opposition, was tremendously critical of the approach that the previous government took with respect to Regional Partnerships. We were particularly concerned about a number of recommendations that came out of the National Audit Office that were critical of the previous program. From my perspective, I know that I was very keen to ensure that, in the course of this inquiry and the report that we developed as a consequence, we picked up the issues that were dealt with there and the criticisms and concerns that we heard through the evidence in the inquiry’s work around the country.

As you might well appreciate, Mr Deputy Speaker, by the nature of the work that the committee undertook, we needed to engage with all of the states and territories across Australia. We also needed to engage with local governments and regional development boards across Australia. I think it is fair to say that, depending on where we went and who we talked to, criticisms and concerns varied throughout the inquiry. But it is also fair to say that there were a number of very practical concerns that were raised with us, and I will deal with some of those shortly.

The committee’s report specifically looked at a couple of things. We provided advice on the future funding of regional programs in order to assist in genuine and accountable community infrastructure projects. The evidence that was gathered through the course of this inquiry but also evidence and knowledge gained by committee members, particularly those who had presided on this committee in previous parliaments, was taken into consideration by a number of us.

Clearly, local government has a very substantial role to play in providing infrastructure projects that lead to communities becoming more liveable and more sustainable, leading to healthier and more vibrant communities. We also know, through previous reports, that in many parts of this country local government practitioners are concerned about a growing infrastructure gap.

We also examined ways to minimise administrative costs and duplication for taxpayers. One of the clearest observations that I made through the course of this inquiry was at a practical level. When a community group made an application for funding, under the previous program in particular, they often needed to make an application to local government, to state government and to the Commonwealth government. That led to many community groups and organisations being utterly daunted by the volume of paperwork and correspondence that needed to be entered into to access funding across those three levels of government. It became clear to me that, in many cases, there were competing priorities, making it difficult for communities to access regional development funding to address some of the significant challenges that they might have.

The third term of reference was:

Examine the former government’s practices and grants outlined in the Australian National Audit Office report on Regional Partnerships with the aim of providing advice on future funding of regional programs;

We spent considerable time on this term of reference and considerable evidence was received in relation to it. The fourth term of reference was:

Examine the former government’s practices and grants in the Regional Partnerships Program after the audit period of 2003-2006 with the aim of providing advice on future funding of regional programs.

I know that the member for New England was particularly concerned with that.

After undertaking the inquiry, the committee came up with five broad recommendations, which I hope provide clear guidelines to the government on how where we might go forward in this area. Recommendation 1 was:

The Committee recommends that the Government replace the Regional Partnerships Programme with a new program designed to provide ongoing funding support for regional and local community infrastructure.

I might take a moment to speak on that point. It was absolutely clear through the work that we undertook that both the government and the opposition were firmly committed to the view that the Commonwealth government ought to play a role in assisting regional and local communities to grow. That became obvious throughout the course of our inquiry. The second recommendation was:

The Committee recommends that the Government examine RLCIP applications received from local government and quantify the amount of funding which is being allocated to non-profit organisations.

We spent considerable time discussing this. I think it is fair to say that there is more work for the government to do in this area. Not-for-profit organisations in many instances provide the glue that holds our communities together. Without the support, guidance and assistance that those organisations provide in our communities, things become that little bit harder.

One of the previous occupations that I held before coming to this place was working for an organisation called Vision Australia Foundation, which provided services to the blind and vision-impaired. Whilst that organisation was of quite a significant size, of quite a significant nature, and, as a charitable organisation, had been around for a long time, I know that there are many others that have not been around for anywhere near that length of time and do not have their own internal resources that they have built up. I think accessing programs like this is critical in enabling those types of organisations to grow.

The third recommendation was:

The Committee recommends that the Government, in establishing a new regional infrastructure funding program, consider the need for clarity and simplicity when structuring guidelines that address an applicant’s eligibility and the manner in which it will assessed and funds awarded.

It was clearer under the previous program that guidelines and structures were not necessarily always followed to the letter that they should have been. In fact, it became quite clear that the majority of funds seemed to go—from my observations—into a limited number of National Party and Liberal Party marginal seats. I think that is a chapter in our history that we should not revisit in the future. We need to ensure that there are proper guidelines in place that enable a fair and equitable distribution of funding to all communities, with a discrete bucket of money being made available for applicants to chase on a more competitive basis.

I note, with some pleasure, that the federal government moved down that path with its various stimulus packages. We provided substantial funding to all local governments so that they could make their communities much more liveable and sustainable into the future. I think that is very important. We also made funding available under a set of arrangements to ensure that small councils got more of a cut of the pie than larger ones. (Time expired)

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