Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My grievance concerns the failure of the government, after 10 years, to develop a coherent policy for regional Australia. I am a passionate believer in the need to encourage our regions—not just those that are disadvantaged and fall behind but those that have real opportunities but are held back through various constraints and lack of services. In many of the boom mining regions, housing is a good example of this. I also fervently believe that there is a clear role for the Commonwealth government in regional development—as a facilitator and in better ensuring that resources meet particular needs of the regions.

Since I was given back responsibility for this area, I have visited almost 20 regions in the last 12 months. My party has open dialogue with area consultative committees all around the country. Last week I visited central west Queensland in the new seat of Flynn. I visited the towns of Emerald, Blackwater and Winton. I also called in at Lark Quarry. I visited Longreach and Barcaldine. I did this in response to an invitation to address Remote Area Planning and Development—RAPAD—group, which is a grouping of 11 shires. That invitation in turn arose from my contact with them in relation to their proposal for broadband access in their region.

The meeting at Winton was hosted by the mayor of the Winton Shire, Bruce Collins. It was organised by David Arnold, the CEO of RAPAD. It was a tremendously rewarding experience, as would be attested to by the member for Maranoa, who was also there, and the state member for Gregory, Vaughan Johnson. I want to place on record my appreciation to Bruce Collins and his colleagues for their hospitality, their friendship and the openness with which they discussed their ideas with me.

I met separately with Peter Dowling, the General Manager of the Central Highlands Development Corporation. I had that meeting in Emerald, where I had the opportunity to meet the mayor of Emerald, Peter Maguire, and Gary Howard, the mayor of Duaringa Shire Council in Blackwater. This is another grouping of shires who have got together to develop their visions.

Interestingly, these shires are suffering through the drought. The drought is affecting not only their pastoral industries but also the towns that service them. Drought relief, I observe, is important. Having developed the national drought policy when I was the minister for primary industries, I understand full well how important it is. That policy was built around the notion of support in difficult circumstances, but fundamentally it aimed to ensure that farmers are better prepared.

Part of the problem that this country is facing at the moment is that the current government has failed to tackle adequately the issue of climate change. This is an area of great negligence by the government. It is one thing to deal with the symptoms; it is another to address the cause. Labor has a commitment to Kyoto, raising the MRET, renewables and clean fuel technologies. This is another grievance because the government has squandered the opportunity by failing to embrace genuine bipartisanship with Labor to solve the problems of climate change and water allocations.

Another area that I visited on this trip was the Bowen Basin, which is experiencing boom times in contrast to the falling off in the pastoral sector, essentially through the great demand for coal. It is interesting that these mines are developing ‘green’ coal technologies and approaches. But what is holding them back? It is things like housing shortages and skyrocketing costs, as well as the lack of basic services such as medical and nursing facilities in these regions. It demonstrates that the failure to plan ahead always costs. If governments do not make provisions for the basic delivery of services, expansion is held back.

I was also impressed with the huge potential for heritage and tourism to be developed in this region, not only through its vast array of national parks but also through the proposal at Blackwater for a coal interpretation centre, the magnificent prehistory on the age of dinosaurs around Winton and the great work by David and Judy Elliot. This painstaking work, piecing together, with very little support, this huge prehistoric dimension in the country in order to visit the tracks of dinosaurs, a snapshot in time, a 30-second stampede 95 million years ago is just mind-boggling, and the way in which it is presented is quite magnificent. It goes together with the Stockman’s Hall of Fame, the Qantas Founders Outback Museum, the Australian Workers Heritage Centre and, of course, the Tree of Knowledge, so recently tragically desecrated by vandals with no concept of heritage. Barcaldine was not just the place of the formation of the Labor Party; it also nurtured the formation of the Country Party and the recognition that remoteness required representation in this place. A response to the shearers strikes of that time, 1891, also saw a union of employers formed and then the united graziers. It is this capacity to draw on the history and heritage that I do see great potential for and which governments of all persuasions and at all levels should support.

I mention these things because the groups of councils that I met with are not unique. More and more of them are coming together to go beyond the boundaries of their own specific shires to recognise that there is a vision and an agenda that cross boundaries, which they want to develop. We should be responding more effectively to those agendas and visions developed by the regions in order for them to come up with solutions, not through pork-barrel responses or responses to any wish lists but by backing proposals that stack up, that make economic sense, that are sustainable and that recognise the great contribution that these regions make.

Canberra cannot determine what is in the interests of these places—only those regions can do that—but Canberra must put itself in the position of more effectively responding to them and more effectively empowering them. Government must be responsive and supportive and forge partnerships with them to more effectively empower those solutions so they can be implemented.

I believe that a new paradigm for regional development is required, an approach which supports location-specific solutions and puts faith in a new partnership of stakeholders. I know that localism works because as a former Minister for Employment, Education and Training I established the area consultative network. What this network did then was specifically to bring together local government, industry, employers, the training sector and the community and match their skill needs with what government through its resources was able to supply, to undertake skills audits at the local level and to match labour supply with demand. That is not happening, and yet many of these regions are being held back by skill shortages. I know that in the last six months of our term of office 300,000 jobs were placed. If it worked in that portfolio, I ask myself: why not in the other portfolios? Why not empower the area consultative committees to become Regional Development Australia, to really go into the other areas of portfolio activity, identify the local needs and challenge governments through the mainstream portfolios to respond? Labor will rebrand the network. We will call it Regional Development Australia and we will give it the opportunity to get involved in infrastructure and have input on broadband, hospitals and aged care as well as water and natural resource management.

My point is that this has been 10 years of wasted opportunity. We need a change. My grievance is that we have a wasted opportunity out in the regions. If our regions are doing well, the nation prospers. It is incumbent upon government to make sure that it empowers regions more effectively and develops a partnership that works for them. Because if we get that right, it will work for the nation as well.