Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was part of the Standing Committee on Regional Australia, which produced the report Cancer of the bush or salvation for our cities? There was certainly some excellent work done by that committee. The final report had 21 recommendations, a similar number, in fact, to the report of the Murray-Darling Basin inquiry, which we conducted previously. Had those 21 recommendations of the Of droughts and flooding rains report been adopted by the government, I do not think that we would be in the mess that we are now in with water policy. I do hope that the government seriously looks at the 21 recommendations made by the Cancer of the bush or salvation for our cities? report of February 2013 into the fly-in fly-out workforce practices in regional Australia.

Interestingly, the first recommendation that the committee made—that the Commonwealth government fund the Australian Bureau of Statistics to establish a cross-jurisdictional working group to develop and implement a method for the accurate measurement of the extent of FIFO and DIDO workforce practices in the resource sector and service populations of resource communities—is perhaps the most important of all the recommendations. I hope earnestly that it is taken up by the government.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 16 : 00

During the report and getting all the information for the report, Cancer of the bush or salvation for our cities?, the regional Australia committee conducted 26 public hearings, from 2 November 2011 to 12 September 2012, and one of the things we heard the most concerned the health service aspects of fly-in fly-out, drive-in drive-out practices.

This morning I attended the Rural Doctors Association of Australia breakfast, at which we heard that at Kalgoorlie, where there is a population of 31,000, there are limited general practitioners available. I spoke to the member for O'Connor this afternoon, who told me that the city is 17 short of GPs. At nearby Kambalda they actually do not have any doctors at all. At Mount Isa there are only four GPs servicing a population of 22,000. This is in line with exactly what was told to us during these hearings.

It was certainly borne out this morning, when the Rural Doctors Association of Australia President, Dr Sheilagh Cronin, said that for two areas—and I notice the member for O'Connor has just joined us in the chamber—Kalgoorlie and Mount Isa have produced billions of dollars for this nation, and to have such limited access to doctors is nothing short of a disgrace.

The member for O'Connor told me that there was a three-week wait to get into a doctor in parts of his electorate. I know he is doing everything he can, but we as a parliament should be doing so much more. Somebody who is certainly doing his utmost is a man who I believe is the gutsiest politician in Australia at the moment, and that is the Hon. Brendon Grylls who on the weekend won the seat of Pilbara, a Labor stronghold. He went from a safe seat in the central wheatbelt—this 39-year-old politician—and stood for the Pilbara and won the seat.

I do not want to get to political, but Brendan Grylls was one of the architects and one of the promoters of Royalties for Regions. Certainly the Royalties for Regions program was mentioned at length. I notice that currently in this chamber we are all regional members. We all should be fighting for our fair share for our regions—and I know we all are—because far too often governments of all persuasions are too city-centric. They are too focused on coastal capital cities. Certainly so much of the wealth comes out of our regions. All of the food comes out of our regions and we are all in there fighting for our fairer share. Certainly Brendon Grylls, with his Royalties for Regions program, is transforming Western Australia, with more than 2,500 projects and programs initiated under this wonderful state government program.

In the progress report for Royalties for Regions for the financial year ending June 2012, Brendon Grylls said:

Royalties for Regions is addressing significant shortfalls in infrastructure and services across the state, giving those who live, work or invest in regional WA a renewed sense of optimism, enabling them to capitalise on opportunities for growth and plan for the future.

Certainly I know the member for O'Connor is very much in favour of what they are doing over there in the West—certainly what his WA Nationals colleague is doing for his state.

We heard some great evidence in the course of our inquiries. On 22 February 2012 at Moranbah in Queensland in the electorate of Capricornia—whose member Kirsten Livermore is sitting opposite—we heard some great evidence from Laura Terry from Moranbah Medical. She told us how her area was fighting to provide services. It has many fly-in fly-out workers coming and providing such a strain to the Moranbah Medical Service.

We also heard from Mark Crawley, the CEO of Isaac Regional Council, that has a really interesting program. The council actually built 45 units of accommodation which they call Isaac Views. The units are one, two and three bedroom and are available for service industry workers. They went to see the Anti-Discrimination Commission so that they would not allow mine workers. The union were given that exemption as part of their application so those units are only available to the non-mining workers. This is really important in these areas because people such as childcare workers, school teachers, police officers and any occupation other than mine workers cannot afford to live there. A three-bedroom weatherboard house that in some regional towns and cities in other parts of Australia would be battling to be $120,000 or $150,000 is getting upwards of $3,000 and $4,000 a week rent and places are valued at anywhere between $750,000 and $800,000. You are talking about these lonely outposts where in some cases, because they are so close to a mine, they are commanding prices equal to Toorak or Double Bay in Sydney, which is quite frankly amazing.

We heard from the students from Moranbah State High School. They were great kids. They all had great ambitions to go on and better themselves and to go to tertiary studies, but one of the worrying aspects was that they talked to us about the safety aspects of their town. Chantelle Winter said, 'I would never walk the streets even at 8 o'clock because there are so many guys driving around and things and it is a bit scary sometimes. I do not really go out at all because I do not feel safe.' A lot of the mine workers abide by the rules, abide by the laws of our land and all the rest, but it is sad that some of the kids that have grown up in these communities because of the absolute boom that their communities are having now no longer feel safe to walk the street at night. That is sad.

I spoke about the price of housing. At Port Hedland, where we took evidence on 29 March last year, Janet Ford, who has her own real estate firm, said that the median house price was $867,000. I asked her, 'What do you get for that?' She said:

Depends where you buy. If you go out onto the rural estate, which is about 20 kilometres from town, you would get a block of land and a shed.

She said that if you come into Port Hedland you get a little bit more but it is still nothing compared to what you would get in another regional town where there is not the mining activity.

Lynne Craigie, the President of the Shire of East Pilbara, said:

With the way the real estate has gone, people have to leave. If they are not in the resource industry, it would not be possible for a young couple to buy or rent a house in Newman. If I can give you an example, we had a house rented a few weeks ago for $3,500 or $3,300 per week. What happened was that not a resource company but a related industry, a contractor, rented the house and put five people in—a five-bedroom house, five people. It is cheap rent for him, but it ups the market to $3,000 a week.

These towns are just really struggling under the huge cost of real estate.

We had Mr Allen Cooper, the CEO of the Shire of East Pilbara, taking about the Royalties for Regions program. He was glowing in his praise for it. He said it:

… is a great state program. There is no doubt that country people benefit—to rewire a town hall, put a new roof in a town hall, put a new kitchen in a town hall. Things that were probably earmarked have been sped up so it improves the facilities in the smaller towns.

He could not speak highly enough of it.

When we went to Karratha, we spoke to Joanne Pritchard who is from the local Soroptimist branch, and she gave evidence on 28 March last year, and it was really telling evidence too. She said that:

Karratha was once a family town consisting of permanent residents in a family-friendly environment where parents were happy to commit to companies on a long-term basis. This has now changed to being a place, not a town, where people come to work, not live. Long-term residents feel their identity and lifestyle and the vitality of the Shire of Roebourne have changed considerably, with our once strong community spirit and community cohesion diminishing as fewer permanent people are living here.

I attended Soroptimist dinners in both Griffith and Coleambally in recent weeks in my electorate of Riverina. It is a wonderful organisation. These people are the heart and soul of their communities and they only want what is best for their communities. When you hear evidence like that from the local Soroptimist branch, it really does drive home to you the problems that they feel they have in their community.

As with so many of the other hearings that we conducted throughout this great land of ours, while we were at Karratha we also heard from students and teachers from Karratha Senior and Saint Luke's College high schools, and the sort of evidence that they gave married up and aligned with the sorts of evidence that we heard in other communities. One thing that I was really impressed with was that many of these young kids, despite the fact that there is so much money to be made in the mining industry, wanted to go out and experience a tertiary education elsewhere and to make the most of their high school certificate or equivalent and to go on and be the best that they could be, which is really impressive.

What I am saying here is not a slight on the mining industry, because I know that the mining industry has made this country great. There is no doubt that mining, and foreign investment in mining, has helped Australia to become the great nation that it is. B fairer share for the regions from which a lot of these minerals were extracted, such as is provided by the Royalties for Regions program, is admirable. In many instances we heard from mining companies who are doing a lot to ensure that they look after the local government areas they go into. They are doing their best, but they can do more. Many of them are accepting of that.

The inquiry that was conducted will be a bit of an eye opener not just for the MPs who were part of it but for the mining companies. It has been a ground-breaking inquiry in as much as I believe that more will be done to help assist those local communities from which a lot of the minerals are being extracted and where a lot of the mining is being done to help those communities to provide better infrastructure, local roads and other provisions that local governments provide, as well as to provide a wake-up call to provide better health services. If that pushes state governments along then so be it. I hope that it will ensure that the Commonwealth government does more to help these local communities which they rely upon so much to help our balance of trade figures.

If I can just speak once again on the Australian Bureau of Statistics, I believe that the census data that we collect has to reflect the numbers of people who actually live in the areas. We cannot have census data that says that 7,000 people live in a particular area such as Moranbah when indeed there are 14,000 people there who are relying on that local government infrastructure, relying on those local GPs, and representing such a strain to those communities in every which way. We did hear from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, from the census people, during the course of our deliberations, but we really need to make sure that recommendation No. 1 of the 21 recommendations in this report is followed through. I do hope, as I said earlier, that the 21 recommendations, similar in number to the Murray-Darling Basin report, will be viewed seriously by the government, as I know that they will. I do hope that they will follow through on the recommendations that have been made by the Regional Australia Committee. (Time expired)

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