Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Can I firstly congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on the position you now hold. I am sure this House will be particularly well served with you in the Speaker’s role.

I would like to thank the people in the Forrest electorate who supported my re-election as their federal representative for another term. It is certainly an honour and a privilege to serve the people in my electorate. I am absolutely committed to working on their behalf both within the electorate and here in Canberra.

My constituents continue to raise a number of concerns that I will continue to work hard on: the areas of health and aged care, education, infrastructure, environment and law and order, as well as issues affecting our agricultural and food producers. Forrest is, as we know, a rapidly growing regional and rural electorate with some areas amongst the fastest growing in Australia. It is an area with an over $11 billion GDP based on mining, resources, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, tourism and various forms of commerce. The rapidly expanding and ageing population inevitably means that we must address shortages in our medical workforce, continue to improve community health services and provide additional aged-care services and facilities. More specialist services are needed in the south-west so that residents can be treated closer to home and to minimise their need to travel to Perth, which is not only costly but also affects people’s capacity to manage and recover from illness or injury.

Unfortunately the high standard of health care in the South West was undermined by an incoming Labor government in 2001 when it scrapped local health boards. Local hospitals in the South West had local boards made up of community leaders who were looking after the health interests of their communities. The Labor Party dumped them and centralised the administration, which meant that local people no longer had any say.

Recently the federal Labor government has also taken measures that will seriously impact on the quality of health provided for my constituents. The government has made a decision to withdraw the Greater Bunbury region in my electorate from the District of Workforce Shortage register. This is very serious for the people in the region who need to see a GP and are already on long waiting lists. My office is receiving many calls from those in the South West medical industry, as well as calls from very concerned residents asking why the Labor government has done this. I do not have an answer. It is completely illogical in an area with serious shortages of GPs. I understand that some of the international doctors being sought for the Commonwealth funded after-hours practice in Bunbury would have come as a result of this registration and without these practitioners the Commonwealth strategy may not progress.

I have written to the minister to provide answers to the following questions. Why was Bunbury removed from the register? Why was the WA Country Health Service not consulted or notified of the register changes by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing? Given that the Western Australian state Liberal government currently classifies the Greater Bunbury area as a medical area of unmet need and there is currently a ratio of over 1,500 residents to one doctor in the region, will the minister reconsider the recent review of the register and re-include Bunbury in the District of Workforce Shortage register? Will the Medicare provider number of overseas doctors currently working in the Greater Bunbury region still be valid under the changing of the register? I have also sought a meeting with the minister as in my electorate we have a shortage of at least 11 GPs. Recent figures in a local newspaper now put the doctor to patient ratio at one to 1,684.

I also intend to keep working on mental health issues with over 15 different service providers, who are committed to delivering a headspace service for young people in the South West. The headspace model, which was introduced by the coalition government, provides a one-stop shop for young people aged 12 to 25, covering the areas of general health, mental health and counselling, education, employment and of course alcohol and other drugs services. I was really pleased when our Liberal Party gave a very serious commitment to the headspace program during the election campaign. No-one is more aware of the importance of education, I would suggest, than people in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia. We are very directly aware of how and why it provides almost any opportunity in life not only for a young person but also for mature age people through lifetime learning. This is why I will keep working constantly on the youth allowance issues facing students in the South West.

I was simply appalled for the young people in my electorate who are being disenfranchised in their tertiary education opportunities by the changes introduced by the Labor government in the May 2009 budget. Those on a gap year would have totally missed out on youth allowance support if it were not for the pressure we and our constituents applied. And now students are being seriously disadvantaged by the Labor ruling which defines most of the South West as an inner regional area, forcing students who have no choice but to move away from home to pursue their tertiary education to have to work an average of 30 hours per week for 18 months out of two years to qualify for the independent rate of youth allowance.

Anyone who understands regional areas will know that this is very difficult and sometimes downright impossible. Students have far fewer employment opportunities to start with. Many live in very small towns or on farms and have distances to travel to find employment. In some areas there is no regular employment and when you are dealing with seasonality in agriculture, with tourism and hospitality it is very difficult for young people. I will not give up on this issue.

The tertiary education opportunities for young people in my electorate are just too important. This issue is raised with me constantly out in the community and I constantly receive phone calls and emails from students who are concerned about their future plans, from parents who are uncertain whether they can afford to send their children to tertiary education, from families who cannot support more than one child at university and from families who will have to leave our South West to move to the city simply so that their children can live at home—otherwise the family can simply not afford for their child or children to access the territory education. What a drain on a regional area.

The Labor government claims in the Governor-General’s speech that it ‘will continue to improve standards and quality, to increase transparency and to modernise infrastructure’; yet, the Labor government’s changes to youth allowance hinder the higher education prospects for many of our regional and rural students. I have fought and I will continue to fight in the federal parliament and in my electorate for students, parents and families. I cannot believe that these changes were introduced by the Prime Minister of this nation, who simply refuses to understand the issues affecting young people out in our regional areas. People in Forrest should also have access to lifetime learning opportunities, education and training programs. During the election, the Liberal Party committed to $15,000 to the Shire of Busselton to fund a higher education forum and our $1 billion regional education fund would have also seen benefits being delivered into the South West.

With a mining resource rent tax, which the WA Treasury estimates will take $7 billion out of Western Australia, I wonder just how much of that will come back to regional areas like Forrest. I call on this Labor government to deliver significant infrastructure to the South West from their new tax on Western Australia. According to its agenda for this term, ‘the government is investing $37 billion on transport infrastructure’. I call on the Labor government to invest in road, rail, and in the Bunbury port. We certainly need an extension to the Nation Building Program to include road transport routes south of Bunbury such as upgrading the Bussell Highway, a very important coastal route which runs from Bunbury to Augusta and services major population areas of Capel, Busselton and Margaret River. It also links some of the iconic tourist destinations that many of you would understand when I mention Margaret River, and it provides a freight corridor for wine, agriculture, forestry and manufacturing industries. It needs dual lanes from Bunbury to Margaret River and expanding to Augusta over time.

The South West Highway also needs significant upgrades. It is the same with the Coalfields Highway. I was very pleased that it has taken a state Liberal government to achieve a further $14 million commitment to the Coalfields Highway. Finishing the Bunbury Outer Ring Road is also an important infrastructure project in my area. The port of Bunbury has major movements with alumina, woodchips and minerals sands but does not have a container handling facility.

In 2005 the state Labor government committed $60 million to the port of Bunbury, but unfortunately the money was never delivered. The existing rail system in the South West is under significant pressure, particularly in freight transport. The Collie-Brunswick Junction-Bunbury port transport triangle is the key hub of freight in the region with very serious capacity constraints. Recent estimates put the cost of the required rail expansion at around $63 million, which was highlighted in a submission by the WA state government to Infrastructure Australia for funding to duplicate the line in that area to increase capacity.

The additional capacity will be required on the Collie to Brunswick Junction line, especially with the expansion of the Worsley alumina facility. I also have in my part of the world disused lines and rail reserves that still exist south of Bunbury and they provide a potential asset for future development of rail services, freight and transport opportunities throughout the South West.

The government’s announcement of ‘$800 million in a new priority regional infrastructure program’ for projects identified by local communities must also fund significant investment in the South West region. As we know—and perhaps some of my fellow members, the newer ones, may not know—the South West of Western Australia is one of the world’s recognised biodiversity hot spots, the only one in Australia.

There are many issues impacting on the environmental health of the South West. Given the community’s concerns over the oil and gas leases off the Mentelle Basin—the Labor government has released the oil and gas leases off the Mentelle Basin—I have called on the Minister for Resources and Energy to release the report on the Montara oil spill and to come to the electorate to meet concerned local people. I have also written to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities regarding a proposed coal mine in Margaret River and my concern about the aquifers and the effects on the critically endangered hairy marron, and the interface of this classification with the EPBC Act.

My region continues to face very serious challenges, as many do around Australia, in balancing planning, development and conservation. While I could list the number of ecological threats today, and bring many of them to the attention of the House during the next three years, I would really like to raise one now that I am sure Judi Moylan will understand—that is, the threat of dieback, Phytophthora cinnamomi, an insidious disease killing native trees as well as a number of imported garden species. It is an environmental cancer spreading at an alarming rate.

I will be looking very seriously at the government’s programs to find funding that will be needed for further comprehensive mapping of the South West land division including both state-held and private land. The mapping process must identify dieback-infected areas, free areas, and areas at specific risk. Only then can we mount a proper and effective response involving the whole community. That would build on the significant work done by the South Coast Natural Resource Management Group. I could not believe it when the Labor government cut funding to vital community groups such as the South West NRM, making their work far more difficult to complete.

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