John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in the House this evening not to farewell Forbes and Parkes following the federal redistribution—because, in the normal course of events, for the next six months or more I will still be their representative—but I acknowledge that today, 25 February, is the legal day after which, if an election is called, the redistributions in New South Wales and Western Australia are what we would go to an election under.

Forbes and Parkes are the two LGAs that, despite three redistributions in my time in parliament—or maybe four; I forget—I have always had in my electorate. They are absolutely fantastic areas. I would be very upset if anyone in the Forbes and Parkes local government areas were ever able to say that I treated anyone differently because they were of a different political party or anything else. I would hope they think I have been loyal to them, because, by heaven, they have been extraordinarily loyal to me.

I was born in Bathurst but I grew up out west of Condo, between Cobar and Hillston, and we always went through both Forbes and Parkes on our way to Orange or Bathurst or Sydney. So I have known them my whole life. It is rather shattering to me that, after all this time, after the next election they will not still be in the electorate of Calare—I started off with the electorate of Parkes, but that is what redistributions do.

I think about the couple of decades—or getting on that way—that I have been involved with them at a personal and political level. The thing that stands out that had such an effect on all our lives in that part of the world was the almost decade-long drought that went from about 2001 to 2008 or 2009 and the effect that it had on everybody. I think about most of western New South Wales, but I think about these two areas in particular, as they are the only parts that were in my original electorate, which included Broken Hill and Tibooburra and the far west.

I think John Howard came out to my electorate four times in that time just because of drought—and John Anderson and Mark Vaile probably most of those times—and he was extraordinarily sympathetic too. The last one was between Forbes and Parkes. I recall a couple I had known who wanted to talk to John Howard about mental health. He spoke to them about mental health. He gave the time to understand the issues and afterwards made special provision in the drought program, as it then was, to help deal with it. It was such a huge thing on all our lives. Dealing with the drought was probably the biggest thing I personally have had to do in politics and certainly the biggest thing western New South Wales had to do.

Quite apart from the normal part of drought, there was the irrigation situation, which certainly went through most of Forbes. It went into Condobolin and out to Hillston on the Lachlan River. Seven years without an ability to irrigate on the Lachlan River had an incredible affect. Whether you are from Forbes or Parkes or Tibooburra or Broken Hill, or wherever it was in western New South Wales, we all became close in that time because it affected all our lives so much. I thank them for backing me as I believe I have backed them in that time.

The other couple of issues that stand out include what was happening with communications in that time. I remember the Parkes Christian School was just starting off—

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