Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased tonight to make my contribution to the address-in-reply to the Governor-General's opening speech. While this has probably been a little more drawn out than in previous years, I do take this opportunity to take part in the debate.

About a month ago it was nine years since I made my first speech in this place in February 2008. I had cause to go back and reflect on some of the points I made in that first speech and look at where we are now. The electorate of Parkes is considerably different from what it was in 2008. After several redistributions, the electorate has moved from 107,000 square kilometres in size to 393,000 square kilometres, which is roughly half the land mass of New South Wales.

What has particularly changed in the last redistribution—and the electorate that I now proudly hold after the 2016 election—is that I have gained a large part of western New South Wales: the Central Darling Shire, the unincorporated areas of New South Wales and the City of Broken Hill, which is right on the western side of New South Wales. So I believe I am one of the few federal electorates that is in two time zones, Broken Hill being in central time. Because of that redistribution, I have lost the communities of the mid-western council: Mudgee, Gulgong and the Shire of Wellington as well as the southern half of Gwydir Shire, which includes the township of Bingara. That is difficult, as anyone here would know.

The role of being a federal member of parliament is all about relationships. You work very hard with your communities to build those relationships, to understand their hopes and aspirations and to get involved in the problems they come across—and then, because of a redistribution in boundaries, all of a sudden, those people move on and you are looking after another area. Even though there is a process in place the people are quite resentful. They feel that they are taken advantage of because they are chopped round and put in different areas.

I have also, in the redistribution, picked up the community of the Gunnedah Shire, which is on the eastern side of the boundary of the electorate of Parkes. I have been working very hard since the election to make connections with the new parts of my electorate. Indeed, before Christmas I opened an electorate office in Broken Hill, staffed by two very capable local people, and they are doing a great job out there for me in the Broken Hill office. I also believe I am the first federal member to have three electorate offices: one in Broken Hill, one in Moree and a main one in Dubbo. The nature of my electorate is that I am actually 4½ hours drive from my main office, one hour's drive from Moree and 13 hours drive from Broken Hill.

That does present problems, managing an area such as that. But the advantages of having an electorate like Parkes, with quite separate, diverse and independent communities, is that it is a great privilege to become involved with those communities. I suspect in a large metropolitan area it is hard to have that identity. I can tell you that all of my towns have that strong identity, no more so than Broken Hill. Broken Hill has a magnificent tradition going back to the early discovery, many years ago, of minerals by Charles Rasp. The culture and independence in that town is still very strong today.

I understand that as a member of the National Party, a conservative party, who does not live in Broken Hill it presents certain problems. I understand that the people of Broken Hill are suspicious of those who come from outside. But I want to promise the people of Broken Hill and western New South Wales—Wilcannia, Menindee, Tibooburra, Ivanhoe, White Cliffs and all those magnificent communities in the west—that I am going to work very hard to be their voice, in this place, in the Australian parliament. I take it as a great privilege and an honour—something that I do not take for granted. I am going to do my best to be their representative.

Likewise with Gunnedah, I did represent Gunnedah Shire in the first term of my government, of which I was a member. Subsequently, it had two terms—six years in New England; it is now back in Parkes—and I am very pleased to be reacquainting myself with the communities of Gunnedah and getting reconnected with the hopes and aspirations of that community. That has also been a great privilege.

The Parkes electorate is half of New South Wales with an economy underpinned by agriculture and mining. There is an assumption, I think—I am a member of the National Party, representing a very strong agricultural area—that all the issues I deal with are to do with agriculture. The reality is: I do have a strong agricultural area—I have an agricultural background, and there are some exciting things happening—but 85 per cent of the population of the Parkes electorate are not farmers. I represent nearly as many miners as I do farmers; and I actually represent more Aboriginal people than I do farmers.

I believe, after the Northern Territory, I represent more Aboriginal people in this parliament than anyone else, and that is also an honour that I take very seriously. It is a great privilege to represent Aboriginal communities, and I can tell you the work you do as a local member can only be effective when you have a relationship with those communities. With Aboriginal people, you have got to take the time to meet with people, talk with people and not just be another bloke in a suit who turns up every now and then, and blows in and blows out. I have still got work to do in some of the newer areas—Wilcannia, Menindee and places like that—but I can assure the Aboriginal people in those towns that I take this role very seriously.

Over the years, we have seen some great success stories come out of those western towns. Young Nathan Johnson is now in the third year of a fine arts degree at the University of Newcastle—and I first met Nathan as a student at Brewarrina high school. Great things are happening through the Clontarf Foundation, and we now have Clontarf, which is a wonderful organisation, across many of the communities in my electorate. Indeed Dubbo has three campuses of Clontarf, and they tell me this year that 300 boys in Dubbo are attending Clontarf on a regular basis and 58 Aboriginal boys this year will do their Higher School Certificate. Last year the cohort of Aboriginal boys in Dubbo who did the Higher School Certificate was the largest ever, and we have seen great success stories ticking through. We have got to make sure that that next follow-on goes and the potential that is harnessed by keeping these young people at school is carried on into further education and employment. We are starting to see that.

Other communities—for instance, Boggabilla and Toomelah and right up on the Queensland border—were very proud last year to be major sponsors of the Macintyre Warriors. They went right to the grand final with their rugby league side and were beaten narrowly by Inverell in the final. They were undefeated until I actually went and watched them—I suspect that I might not be invited back, being bad luck. But it was great to be there on a Saturday afternoon in Boggabilla to see the entire community engaged in watching the footy—an alcohol-free event: the kids looking up to the older fellows as role models; and girls' league tag taking place. While in some circles, this might not seem a big achievement, for the people that have got in and organised this football club, it is a great result.

This year members of the Army, through their remote Indigenous communities program, are spending the year at Toomelah. Indeed, I think that in August, as part of a parliamentary exchange program, I will be part of a team that is going to go and spend a week at Toomelah with the Army, building infrastructure, engaging with the local community and building relationships in that town.

Again going back to my first speech, I recall I mentioned the importance of inland rail. I can say, nine years later, that we are getting to a point where we can point to a piece of equipment and say: they are constructing the Inland Rail. Two weeks ago we were able to identify the preferred route north of Moree through to Yelarbon, using the existing defunct Boggabilla rail line, going right through nearly to the border. It will cross over east of Goondiwindi, which will give Goondiwindi, which has a large inland grain terminal, access to the Port of Brisbane and, indeed, to any port in New South Wales. Inland Rail will mean that, for the first time, every capital city in Australia is linked by rail.

At the moment, the ARTC are undertaking community consultation in the area between Narromine and Narrabri. I understand that there are constituents of mine out there who have concerns, and obviously they have every right to be concerned. A railway line through an agricultural district is of great interest because of the effect it might have on access to farms, maybe dividing parts of properties, so the ARTC are working through those issues with people at the moment. This government is committed to this—and in particular I am committed to this—because it will be a steel Mississippi. It will give communities right throughout my electorate, in the 600 or 700 kilometres over which it will travel in my electorate, access to all the capital cities. There will be no reason why industry cannot relocate to western New South Wales and make use of an efficient rail network to deliver goods and services right around the country.

The other things that I am very proud of are the policies that are implemented when you are part of a government. You get to see the effect of them. When people do things that are maybe influenced by government policy they are probably not even thinking about the fact that there was a debate, that legislation was drawn up and that a considerable amount of effort went into that. As I drive around my electorate, I see grain silos, hay sheds, new fences and water systems that have all been facilitated through the agriculture white paper that Barnaby Joyce, as the minister, implemented. Accelerated depreciation, which allows farmers to write these things off their tax over three years, instead of 15 or 20 years, has been a great incentive. Not only have farmers had the advantage of having a more efficient water system, being able to store grain on-farm, and having better marketing options, but all those towns have had income generated by the cement companies, shed constructors, contract fencers and contractors who put in water supplies. It has generated a lot of activity, as has the instant asset write-off for equipment under $20,000. That goes right across the country, with small businesses and tradespeople buying toolboxes, electric saws, computers, stainless steel cooking benches for restaurants—a whole range of things. It has generated income which has made a difference to these small businesses.

In my electorate we are still dealing with some issues that are quite contentious and quite difficult. I represent a third of the Murray-Darling Basin, from the Border Rivers at the top, right down to the Lachlan in the Murrumbidgee area and right out to the Lower Darling below Lake Menindee. As you can imagine, issues that are affecting one community have an effect on another community. It does not matter where you stand in the river system. If you look upstream at the residents there, with a level of thought, and downstream in another way, you always think that the people upstream are taking your water and the people downstream are wasting your water. It does not matter where you stand.

So we need to get that balance right through the Basin Plan and balance up looking after the environment, which is incredibly important—I have some iconic environmental assets in my electorate: the Macquarie Marshes, the Gwydir Wetlands and places like that that are incredibly significant—with the importance of agricultural production. People say to me, 'Why are you growing cotton in the Murray-Darling Basin?' I will point to their shirt and say: 'That's a nice shirt. Where did that cotton come from? Do you realise that the kilogram of cotton that would go to make that shirt is now grown with a fraction of the water, a fraction of the diesel and a fraction of the chemicals that would have gone into that 20 years ago?' Those are the efficiencies of those irrigation systems, which are now progressing into citrus, corn and a whole range of other things. It is incredibly efficient. But we still have that balance.

I have my residents at Broken Hill and Menindee, who are concerned. They saw their lakes dry last year. They got up to 90 per cent with the rain that we had over the winter, but there is great concern out there, as water is released from those lakes to the orchards in Victoria and South Australia and also to the environmental assets, that they will be left high and dry once again. The water is incredibly important to the lifestyle and wellbeing of those communities in Broken Hill, Wilcannia and Menindee, those western towns.

So it is an incredible balance because of the variable nature of the rainfall, where it falls and the timeliness. In the last winter, I had half of my electorate under flood and half of my electorate under drought, and that is the nature of it. But we need to get this process to a conclusion. We need to make sure that people know where we stand, because my communities are reformed to death. They have had enough of it. We need to make sure that we are going to do some practical things. There was a huge ruckus before Christmas in South Australia, with the water minister in discussions with Barnaby Joyce about 450 gigalitres of upwater with a wet winter, which is going to be nearly impossible to deliver down the system without causing enormous grief and flooding to the river communities. We need to make sure that we can do things that are practical and possible to get the best economic, social and environmental outcome and not get caught up in the debates in this place about who cares about the environment the most because they are going to take the most water out.

That is probably one of the most difficult decisions that my electorate is facing. As a part of the nation that feeds the country and a large part of the world, we need to get this balance right and we need to understand the importance of production, the importance of the environment and the fact that these local communities have made a huge sacrifice with the water that has been taken. There is no greater stimulus to a river town than a megalitre of water. If you want to go for employment, wellbeing and social amenity, that water is incredibly important. So we will work through that.

As I start my 10th year in this place, it is interesting to look back at the changes and the things that do not change. I am deeply privileged and honoured to have this position and to represent half the land mass of New South Wales, from the edge of the Hunter Valley to South Australia and from Queensland to the Riverina—all those wonderful communities that are out there beavering away, working hard and raising families in an incredibly inclusive environment. It is a great privilege to be their representative in this place, and I look forward to doing it for some time yet.

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