Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is always a pleasure to be in the Main Committee when you are in the chair. In the two appropriation bills we are debating there is funding for the Local Government Reform Fund of $12.5 million—$0.5 million in Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and $12 million in Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. The previously noted figure of $165 million in appropriation bill No. 4 included amounts that have been previously appropriated under various mechanisms including appropriation bill No. 1 and the new federal financial framework appropriation arrangements.

The total of $167 million dollars includes amounts which have been previously provided and the details are as follows: $114.9 million has been reclassified from administrated expenses in Appropriation Act (No. 1) to make payments direct to local government for the East Kimberley Development Package; $18.3 million has been reclassified from payments which were to be made under the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009 to direct payments to local government for various Nation Building Program Roads to Recovery projects; and $10 million, which was unspent last financial year due to delays in the negotiations of funding arrangements, is proposed for the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program, which is a great program. These additional appropriations are fully offset by savings against the original appropriations and estimates and thus will not lead to additional expenditure.

Once again, the government has proved itself to be responsive to local needs. Through the stimulus package, it has enabled many local communities to achieve goals that they could only dream about during the period of the last government. Some of the programs funded in my electorate have allowed country communities to upgrade small facilities so they can be used again properly after they struggled to find funds to put on a new roof or to put up a kitchen to make morning teas for a pensioner group. The upgrade of a walking path from one council facility to another allows the bringing together and mixing of social groups, and a health benefit of course. They may only be small items in the scheme of things but to many it gives a lot of pleasure, a chance to assimilate and a chance to involve themselves more in the communities in which they live.

One that I was prepared particularly pleased about was the sound shell that has been built in New Norfolk, the gateway to the Derwent Valley. I was invited to open this during Australia Day. A part of the opening ceremony was a concert provided by the Derwent Valley Concert Band. The band shows what a community can do. It was born in the New Norfolk High school and became a community band as many of the young players left school and had nowhere else to play. I would say it was because of the local dedication of Layton Hodgetts, OAM, who used to teach music at New Norfolk High, that the band existed at all. Although he has been recognised as a Tasmanian Local Hero of the Year in 2009, nothing can really acknowledge the amazing work and dedication of this man whose life’s work has been to ensure his community has an outlet for their talent.

The Derwent Valley Concert Band Inc has been in existence since 1993 and is based in the beautiful town of New Norfolk, 30 kilometres from Hobart and nesting on the banks of the Derwent River. The band was established because of the perceived need for a local band to cater for musicians of all ages in the New Norfolk community and the wider Derwent Valley. Since the inauguration concert in October 1993 at New Norfolk, the Derwent Valley Concert Band has grown into a very active and versatile community band. At present it has over 50 regular players whose ages range from 15 to over 70. The Derwent Valley Concert Band now consists of the senior band, the development band, the stage band and the marching band with rehearsals held every Wednesday at the band’s room in New Norfolk in a friendly and congenial atmosphere.

The DVCB has an extensive repertoire and performs regularly in the local and surrounding communities at a wide range of celebrations and ceremonies, such as Australia Day, Government House open day, Kempton Festival, Derwent Valley festival, the Taste of Ogilvie, the Anzac Day march and service, the Hobart Christmas Pageant and the Derwent Valley Carols by Candlelight. The DVCB also performs major public concerts each year in both Hobart and New Norfolk, often joined by other bands from the Hobart area. The band presents on average more than 20 performances each year, including competing in the state band championships.

The Derwent Valley Concert Band is one of Australia’s most highly acclaimed, widely travelled and successful community bands. It was the winner of the state band championships in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2007 and 2009. It was also the winner of the open B grade concert band section at the Australian National Band Championships in 2000. The band has travelled to Japan, Canada, Austria, France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Denmark and China. That included playing at the wedding of Princess Mary in Denmark. They are all remarkable achievements for this band from a small town in the middle of Tasmania.

The council sought the building of this soundshell really as a thankyou to the band so they have a good public area from which to continue their amazing story. It will allow many other activities to be planned in the beautiful Tynwald Park in which it sits. It is one small addition to a community that is making the most of its talents.

Another community which has benefited from the infrastructure package is that of Kentish Council, not far from your seat, Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom. This was funding for a well-loved building that badly needed renovation. The council’s funding went into removing asbestos from internal walls, the kitchen and toilet; upgrading in line with fire regulations; sanding and sealing the floor; upgrading the kitchen and lining out the old storeroom, which has a roller door, to separate the youth drop-in room and the kitchen so both can be used independently of each other; replacing backboards and hoops; and building a disabled toilet. This will make the old Green Hall a useable building again—although we might have to change the name to the Blue Hall, because the cladding is blue. But that could be a problem because it is well known in the community as the Green Hall—something for the council to consider in the future. I think the whole renovation came to $150,000, which was amazing considering the asbestos removal was quite difficult and had to be carefully done, then replaced and sealed. Once again, a community has breathed new life into an almost dead asset and now has great plans to make use of it. In the process, a number of jobs were created, and those people are now working on other community developed projects. Those dollars are going round in the community, as they should.

There is also the funding for schools, which is allowing many old country schools to renew a hall, re-equip a classroom, upgrade a sports field or a playground—a program that not only is doing great work for these small schools but also brings local contractors into the schools to see where their children are being taught and makes them more a part of the school community. In some way the latter is proving to be a greater asset to the schools than the work they came to do. I have always been keen to develop the social capital of a community, as that is the way you can develop innovative ideas.

I was particularly pleased to see that my old school at Cressy had put in for and received funds for the kindergarten upgrade as well as a complete redevelopment of the school hall and gym. This hall has been the centre of many community events, including the annual trout festival, the trout expo. They are also in receipt of funds to develop their science laboratory. When the Deputy Prime Minister visited last year she took time to visit this school and hear of the proposed developments. Both she and I were very impressed with the plans and the whole feeling of the school.

Cressy District High School is a farm school in Cressy, which is a small town of around 650 people that is 35 kilometres south of Launceston. It has classes from kindergarten to grade 10 and also a birth to four-year program. Approximately 360 students attend the school, with 185 in the secondary sector and 175 in the primary area. Cressy District High School is truly a community school. They have numerous partnerships with the community and their students benefit from belonging to a well-ordered, purposeful community. Close cooperation between parents and teachers is encouraged because they recognise that home and school share a common purpose—the academic progress and the personal development of each individual child.

They provide some significant programs like the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, the No Dole Program of the Beacon Foundation, the Flexible Farm Program, the Individualised Learning Program, Esk Band, the Buddies mentoring program, sheep and cattle judging teams, the traineeship and apprenticeship pathways program, and the Active After-school Communities program. Their vision is for students to grow to become unique individuals of integrity, able to make sound and positive judgments and decisions about their future. In their school community strong values exist around personalised learning, a sense of community, appreciating individual uniqueness, positive relationships and a commitment to improvement. The school’s motto is: reach upward.

This school has a proud history, having been established in 1863. It has been in continual use since then. Its fortunes have been mixed, but today it is seen as one of Tasmania’s top country schools. It fared well in the literacy and numeracy tests, which is a great credit to its principal, Annette Hollingsworth, and her team.

So the general infrastructure package has been of enormous benefit and has assisted in stimulating the economy in country areas because of the way the funding has been delivered. The Prime Minister announced 14 months ago the $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan to cushion the economy from the worst effects of the global recession. The plan was developed as the global financial crisis took hold and the full extent became clear to government. The plan built on the earlier Australian government Economic Security Strategy and nation-building packages. At that time, world policy makers were confronted with a crisis that threatened to engulf the global economy. Without intervention by government it is estimated that the economy would have contracted. The unemployment rate was predicted to rise to 8¼ per cent, meaning hundreds of thousands of Australians were at risk of losing their jobs, creating a vicious downward spiral in our economy.

The plan was a bold and decisive strategy to arrest the downturn in the economy, cushion Australia from the global recession and build lasting infrastructure for Australia’s future. It brought federal, state and local governments together, along with the businesses, unions and community organisations, in a common effort to protect Australian jobs, businesses and communities.

Today the implementation of the plan is well advanced and its results are visible to all. Australia is now the third fastest growing economy of the 33 International Monetary Fund advanced economies. We are one of the three economies not to fall into a technical recession and we also have the lowest level of government debt, approximately 10 per cent of GDP. This compares with an average of about 93 per cent of gross domestic product for major advanced economies.

The difference between what Australia was facing and what we have achieved is stark. Without stimulus, the economy would have contracted in each of the past four quarters, shrinking by two per cent over the past year and plunging Australia into recession. Unemployment is expected to peak at around 1½ per cent lower than in the absence of the stimulus and we know that it has now fallen to 5.3 per cent. Treasury estimates that overall the government stimulus will support around 200,000 jobs.

Through Australians working together, and with financial stimulus working hand in hand with monetary policy, the Australian economy has been able to weather the storm of the global recession. Only a few weeks ago I read from the latest economic figures that the economy is better off by $7 billion, so the government’s approach has been vindicated, despite all the opposition’s ranting about the government’s ‘big spend’ and voting against the stimulus package when it was before the parliament.

Out in country areas, particularly in places like Tasmania where small towns have often been forgotten in the past, this strategy has delivered, through councils and through local community groups and through schools, and everybody has been able to take part in developing the economy, creating new jobs and allowing youngsters who have just left school to stay in their regions. Every time I see a new house being built in one of my country towns I know that this government is working and doing the right thing. I have seen the stimulus working. To me, this means new thinking, helping the communities help themselves, getting them to think beyond their boundaries and applying the can-do attitude. Somebody has bothered to look outside the city limits and has said, ‘You are valuable to our economy too.’

Government intervention into the economy allows this thinking to happen. The old conservative attitude of ‘let the market run its course’ gets into the ‘survival of the fittest’ mode and people are then competing for small amounts of nothing and squabbling over the outcomes. To allow everybody an amount of money to help them develop their communities means that those who want to will make it go much further. But it will not leave out those who are not as adventurous. I want to keep on going and helping those communities that are not as innovative to be more so and to do more, while encouraging the go-ahead ones to seize all their opportunities and create all the jobs, to build all those houses and to grow their schools and their communities. Under this government we have those opportunities, and I hope we still have them after this year. That is what I will be fighting for at the next election, to show communities what real government is about, not what we went through for 12 years.

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