Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to preface my remarks today by saying that none of my comments are said with any rancour or lack of respect for my Labor colleagues. I think sometimes we tend to politicise committees and we should not. I have immense respect for my Labor colleagues, but, with the greatest respect to them in this particular instance, I think that they have written their report to an agenda rather than to what we received in evidence. We did not receive evidence that would have justified a number of things that have gone into the body of the report.

Wherever we went in Australia with this inquiry into the funding of local and regional community infrastructure, one thing stood out—and that was that there was no criticism of the program itself. There was criticism of the administration of the program by the department—such things as the slowness of getting applications dealt with, rising costs while applications were being dealt with and puerile questions being put to ACCs or proponents of programs, and those sort of puerile questions indicating that either the department did not have a knowledge or an understanding of the region where the particular project was going or alternatively—and I am reluctant to say this—they were trying to slow the process down.

One project in particular that stood out was a very elaborate playground that included access for disabled children and road safety training areas for kids on bikes. That project had been going on for over six years—not all through the department, I might add. There was a lot of preamble work done on that project in the community. I attended lots of meetings in the early days of that project when it was to be located near the olympic pool. It is called the Lake Ellen project, being located near Lake Ellen in the Baldwin Swamp environmental area of Bundaberg—a beautiful area.

One of the issues that slowed the project down and nearly cost the project its Commonwealth funding, because at that time the government was going to cancel those community projects that did not have contracts signed off—and I congratulate the government on going back on that and allowing those projects through—was the fact that the department wanted to know whether the Bundaberg City Council was a fit and proper person to run the project. That should be a given. When someone says to me, ‘Oh, some funny things happened at Wollongong’—come on! We have all these local authorities across Australia; to try to drag out Wollongong to make all the other local authorities look suspicious is just puerile.

This report is not supported by the evidence. I remember that at the meeting in Toowoomba, which I chaired, I asked the question: what are the criticisms of the Regional Partnerships program itself? I repeated the question. There were no criticisms. In fact, the member for Gilmore, who was sitting next to me, said something like, ‘Oh God, you’re game.’ But I wanted to hear what people had to say about the program. Almost everywhere we went there was not a criticism of Regional Partnerships. There was certainly criticism of the way it was administered—mainly, I might say, by the department. In fact, very few of the witnesses made any reference at all to the audit report, which I thought they would. I thought there would be a lot of argy-bargy around the Australian Audit Office report and there was not. There was very little.

After I said, ‘At every meeting we went to there was praise for this program’, one or two of my colleagues said to me, ‘Well, there are a lot of ACC representatives there and they would say that anyhow.’ Come on! Look at all those ACCs—57 or 58 of them across Australia. Most of them were very well conducted; certainly the ones in my area, Wide Bay and Central Queensland, were outstanding over the years and the chairs of those committees ended up on various Commonwealth reference groups because of their leadership. Are we seriously trying to say that all those voluntary people—engineers, doctors, accountants, farmers and union representatives—who all had busy lives were going to come and prostitute themselves in a concocted or confected scenario? Because the ACCs wanted the program, what these people said was suspect? That is a terrible slur on all those voluntary workers across Australia for the last 12 years. Remember, this program in its genesis was a Labor program, continued by the Howard government. It was a good program.

I am not saying that every project was good. There are always failures in this. There is a risk factor when you have a program as extensive as this. If you want to look back to the previous programs of the Hawke and Keating governments, there are plenty of failures there too. Have a look at some of the outrageously indulgent RED scheme projects. Some of them were just so wasteful it is almost unimaginable that they could have got through. Then there was the final employment program under the Keating government: the figures showed up after the event that it was costing $100,000 a client to get these people supposedly into jobs.

For $100,000 you could have bought someone a business. So do not say to me that, because there were a number of failures in the Regional Partnerships program, suddenly it was deficient. Nine-tenths of these projects, or even a higher proportion, were very good and, in my opinion, some of the ones that failed were underresourced. They were not indulgent in the sense that they had too much money and they were throwing it against the wall. The one I would cite is the Beaudesert to Bethania railway line. I could never see that being done for $5 million; that was probably a $15 million or $20 million project. It was a good concept—it was to link the people from around Beaudesert in south-eastern Queensland into the suburban rail system of Brisbane and, in turn, into the city. The concept was also forward looking, and the principle involved in it will probably be a term of reference that the minister gives this committee to look at in the future: how do we get rail services out to outer metropolitan and country areas? So it was a good concept, and there were others.

I have been in regional development for over 20 years; I know the field well. Some of the things that have been put into this report are the complete antithesis of good regional development. Regional development must be holistic. You must take the community, its resources and services on the one hand and you must take its means of production or its manufacturing base on the other hand and make sure that they work in harmony and work together. Tourism is a further overlay over that. You pull one of the components out and you get a lopsided community engagement. The other thing with regional development is that you must have a sense of ownership. That is absolutely vital. You cannot just impose government structures on people in country areas and get a result—it just does not happen. We have had examples of this over the years, especially in Victoria. Once the state government or the federal government pulls its money out, the whole regional development organisation falls over. For 12 or 18 months or two years nothing happens and then you get another model and work it up.

The way it should be done is by involving the community. For example, development boards should be in every town. They should be funded by, firstly, the local business community, which should pay a subscription; secondly, the local authority; thirdly, the state government through the department of state development or whatever it might be called in each state; and, fourthly, the Commonwealth government. It should be run by a board of local people. The best models in Australia have had that structure. Regional Partnerships or the ACC model came very close to that. But the model that my colleagues are suggesting will be much less than that because, in my belief, there is going to be far too heavy an emphasis on local government. I was ambivalent about assessment panels, and my appeal to government members is that they realise that if assessment panels are largely federal, state and local government and do not have those core people who understand how regional areas work then the whole system will not work. The very criticism of the department in this fiasco is that people in the department—and there is clear evidence of this—did not understand how things worked in the country or the scope of the various projects. If you are going to have an assessment panel that is set up roughly the same way, you are going to have a repetition of that lack of engagement. I am saying: if you have assessment panels, make sure that they contain businessmen, accountants, engineers—people who have an on-the-ground understanding.

The other thing I would say is: do not try to run this program through state offices. I suggested in my dissenting report that we should have three regional offices in Queensland, three in New South Wales, two in Victoria, two in Western Australia and one each in Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory. The reason for that is that every two or three ACC or, as we are going to call them, RDA regions could be clustered under that regional office. There should be field officers, I agree with the report, but the field officers should be confined to that part of the state where they have knowledge and engagement. If you do not do that, you are going to have remote decision-making processes. So if you want to look at field officers, yes, I agree with having them, but I think it should be contingent upon them being in regional offices in regional areas. For God’s sake, don’t try to run this thing out of capital cities. I acknowledge that the parliamentary secretary has closed some of the capital city offices and I congratulate him for that, but I think he must replace those with a goodly number of regional offices.

I put in my dissenting report how I think this thing should be structured. I do not think there was a Sustainable Regions Program; wherever we went, people were saying that there needed to be a model like that where the proponents do not need to find 50 or 60 per cent of the money but, rather, 10 or 20 per cent. That is for deprived regions in endemic drought or unemployment or whatever it might be. We have another report to come and I have got a lot more to say about it. I am passionate about regional development. I think my colleagues have got it wrong and I will continue to pursue this matter well into the development of the program.

Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I thank the member for Hinkler for his contribution. I know, as he said, he is very passionate about regional development and has been involved for a long time. That was certainly made clear in the committee work that we did. I applaud him for flying the flag of regional development. It is interesting that this interim report of the Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government came about because of issues raised in the audit report and a whole range of other inconsistencies. In fact, the member for Hinkler did refer to the electorate of Forde by way of talking about Beaudesert Rail, and it was certainly my experience that that was a project that went badly wrong. Without a doubt, over all the inquiry and the different projects we looked at, it was one that had been reviewed to death, so it was not a case of us going through that again. But can I tell you it was something I had direct involvement with at one stage simply to try to resolve the issues on the ground.

Again, I thank the member for Hinkler for his contribution, because in a lot of ways he has had to take a lot of hits from the media and different areas of government because of some of those projects that went wrong. His area has gained a lot from these projects and programs, and it says something about having a local member or other people on the ground who can assist in the implementation of projects. This interim report looks at a number of ways and suggestions about how we might in future roll out these funding programs. I think that is really the essence of this. I do not want to get too political in my statements today, other than talking about Beaudesert Rail and some of the issues that occurred there because I think we will all learn from that project.

The report on funding regional and local community infrastructure provides proposals for the new regional and local community infrastructure program. In context, this new infrastructure program does relate to hard infrastructure—the sorts of things that the member for Hinkler has spoken about. The Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and local government committee was asked by the government to examine the Australian National Audit Office’s performance audit of the Regional Partnerships program and to provide advice on new funding models.

The hearings garnered a wide range of views about the previous program and a replacement program. One thing that came across was that the communities maintain the view that they need support from the government. Infrastructure is vital for communities to remain vibrant and to be able to deal with the increasing pressures of growth—the community halls that we build, the parks children play in, the pools during the long hot summers, and public spaces that contribute to the community and outer-community regions. We know that the previous system was broken. Some on the other side might not have that view—certainly not the member for Hinkler, from the statements he made—but I have just explained where and how this program can work if we manage well the replacement of the previous program.

Let us look at recommendation 1 from the committee report:

The Committee recommends that the government establish well defined and clear objectives for the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program that sit within an articulated Commonwealth Government regional development policy.

How we structure and manage these types of programs is very important. This recommendation is one of the most important with regard to the Regional Partnerships program. I think the previous government started to have a meltdown and there was a breakdown of the process. Occasionally, of course, there was political outrage and there was certainly concern from the media and the opposition at the time about what was going on. I think those of us who have had direct involvement with the Audit Office would say that they perform a very important function. The report was certainly an indicator of a whole range of things that just were not taken into consideration.

An example is in the seat of Forde. While the Beaudesert Rail project dates back to 1999-2000, it really had a meltdown by 2001, so it was a process over a period of time. I will give you an example from the recent election campaign—recent being a year ago now. I was of course a candidate for the seat of Forde. There were promises being made all over the place under the banner of the Regional Partnerships program. It is certainly a difficult thing for a new member to come into a community and find that a particular expectation had been developed during the campaign. As we looked more closely at the promises, we saw that they certainly were not valid; they were, in the truest sense, pork barrelling. I do not want to politicise my statements today, but clearly it was an example of something that was used as a lever in the election campaign. We know it happens, but it was clear on the ground. I am still working with the community to get some future resolution on particular projects.

One project concerned a community precinct in Jubilee Park, which is a major park in the centre of Beaudesert; the park was to include ultimately a hydrotherapy pool. Of course, hydrotherapy pools around the country now are becoming of major importance to people with certain health problems. They are certainly very, very important pieces of community infrastructure. There were letters that said the pool was confirmed, that it was going to happen. Those claims were baseless and the community were of course very angry that baseless promises had been made. As the new member, I basically drilled down and found out that they were baseless and then I had to inform the community that the pool was not going to happen and discuss how we were going to resolve it for the future.

Another project was on Tambourine Mountain: the Zamia theatre, which was a project that had been undertaken by the local community. A historic theatre had asbestos issues and, on the basis of the asbestos, the building was kept stable until such time as there would be funding to go towards its upgrade. They stripped the theatre of everything—its internal walls, every piece of asbestos—on the basis that they were to get funding to renew and renovate this building. Of course, that was another promise that was made and not ever going to be delivered on. When you look at a community like Mount Tambourine, you see that they value such pieces of infrastructure. The theatre is now inoperative two years down the track; it now is a shell of a building that will probably need extensive dollars. Of course, the longer it sits, the more money that will have to be spent to bring it back to what was a very important piece of community infrastructure, one with certain historical value. Again, it is something that I am dealing with in the electorate.

I am hoping that we can resolve such issues with the rollout of the new programs and the fact that we have had the Australian Council of Local Government bringing groups together, that we have local government involved in the process. It is certainly one of the recommendations that we have put forward: that councils should have various ways of accessing funding. Importantly—and I spoke about this yesterday in the House with regard to nation building, and we are going to talk about it again in fact—Labor governments are very much about the future, about having a vision and about nation building. Yesterday I used examples in the field of education showing that, from the Whitlam era through the Hawke-Keating era and now into the Rudd government, our vision for an education revolution is very much built on nation building. There is the soft infrastructure and the social infrastructure that we put in place, but these programs for funding community projects are very much about providing the hard, physical, infrastructure.

I know the opposition continually talks about us making false promises; they throw out catchphrases and say that we are hairy-chested about our promises. The reality is that we are nation building, and this is another component of that. We fund communities directly by engaging as many of the stakeholders as possible. Local government councils on the ground are certainly a major part of the way that we were looking at rolling out this particular program.

It is very important to understand what we have done as a government. The very first, historic meeting of the Australian Council of Local Government was about bringing local government to the table to start talking not only about how we might put in place a particular fund like this but certainly about all of the other opportunities we have to utilise the three tiers of government. We are now talking about the three ‘spheres’ of government. It is really about making those tiers of government more efficient. The role that local government will and should play in community development—and certainly in infrastructure development—is very, very clear.

If you look at Queensland, you see that there was a huge amount of political fallout over the council amalgamations, where we took 157 councils and turned them into about 73. It was historic, it was a mammoth task and of course, as you would expect, it raised a lot of concern in the communities. Interestingly enough, it is very much in line with how we fund local infrastructure, how we put projects into place. Local government is very much a part of it. People used to say and have said to all of us, ‘Why do we need local governments? Why do we need state governments? What does the federal government really do? Why can’t the federal government have involvement at different levels?’ The reality is that there have been constraints on how we do that. Local government is an area of interest to us of course; we understand that there really does need to be some reference within our Constitution to local government and the role it plays.

The three levels of government are here now—and I am sure they will be here for a long time, irrespective of what anyone’s desires may be. It is about efficiencies. I will give an example regarding the local government amalgamations in Queensland. We have all heard people say that we have too many politicians. People who do not engage with politicians do not quite understand what we do. That is a shame and that is probably something we need to manage a little bit better. Certainly in my state of Queensland when you say to those detractors, ‘How do we reduce the number of politicians?’ no-one can really tell you how to do it. But I note the efficiencies gained through the local government amalgamations. In Queensland there are now 770 fewer politicians because of the amalgamations.

When you talk to people about maintaining the three spheres or tiers of government, you should also note that we can build efficiencies and we can allow the implementation of funding sources like this to have direct benefit on the ground. Local government is very, very important to us. Less than 12 months into the amalgamations, Queensland is dealing with that. This is about funding programs that are in place with local government through our new dialogue. By bringing everyone to the table we can roll out a whole range of infrastructure—social infrastructure as well as the physical infrastructure that we are talking about here.

I mentioned before the example of Beaudesert Rail—and I said I would give some examples. It was a project that was well conceived. For the area, it was going to mean major tourism activity. But you had very aged rail infrastructure that had been closed for 15 years at the time. It had been closed for a whole range of reasons but certainly there was a need for ongoing maintenance. There were 40-odd timber bridges and 40 kilometres of not very good track. One of the reasons that rail line was never modernised was that it had some very hard bends, with soft foundations put in place in the 1860s. The state government at the time looked at that corridor to upgrade it as a normal rail service, and at that stage it was looking at something like $60 million just to put a basic service in place.

Five million dollars went to the Beaudesert Rail project—$5 million to get a historic rail system up and running! If you do the calculations it would be almost $5 million a year simply to maintain what was an ageing piece of infrastructure. In fact, it got to the stage where local government and state government came to the party—of course Queensland Rail still had some role to play in that particular corridor. Within the first couple of years, local government spent, in kind and in cash, far more than the $5 million that went to a project that was going to establish a rail. The 12 months of establishing the project—upgrading, renovating buildings and platforms and even putting a steam engine in place—simply gobbled up most of the money. In fact, this particular organisation was pretty much insolvent by the time it was due to open its doors.

While the particular rail ran for a period of time, we had much community anger because there were creditors who were owed large amounts of money. In fact, not only was all the money spent; there were creditors of probably $6 or $7 million unpaid. So this particular rail was never going to succeed. In the end, the creditors lost 85 per cent of the dollars when the administrators finally ruled everything out. There was so much anger in the community that the rail could not continue because there was a series of small sabotage activities against the rail—bridges getting burnt. It created an enormous amount of community anger.

That really is an example of projects that go badly wrong. Today I commend this interim report because I believe it is on the right track in terms of how we should better engage with local government. We should better engage federally directly on the ground to be able to fund programs but we must certainly have some very legitimate processes in place. On that basis, I commend this report to the House.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to acknowledge the time and the effort that the members of the Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Committee put into undertaking this inquiry. I also acknowledge the role that the federal government has in promoting development in regional areas. I will be brief but I would like to highlight, from my experience in local government and in regional areas, some of the recommendations in the report that I believe may not end up giving the results that have been hoped for. I will also discuss the fact that the Regional Partnerships program has become very much a political issue. Unfortunately, quite often what is said in the House and what has been found here in evidence is quite different.

I would like to mention the extremely unusual event of the government putting the member for New England on the committee just for this inquiry, obviously with the intent that he be the main attack dog for a witch hunt on Regional Partnerships. What the member for New England has said in the House and in other places about Regional Partnerships there is no evidence for or any comment about in this report. The transcripts of the hearings that were held—the very few inquiries that the member for New England actually bothered to attend—do not match his rhetoric elsewhere. The member for New England is going to have to put up or shut up. Possibly one of the most successful examples of a regional partnership is in his home town of Tamworth and it is operating very well. That is the regional equine centre that is now attracting events of a national and international standard into that area. His comments have been particularly unhelpful in this whole process.

There is one other thing I would like to comment on. I have had discussions with the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia, the member for Brand, on the idea—and it comes through in this report—of a partnership with local government. My background is with local government and quite frankly I welcome that direction. Local governments are in tune with the communities; they do know how to spend that money.

I can remember the member for Longman speaking in the House about the rorting of Regional Partnerships. The Regional Partnerships program that came through my local government area included things like putting disabled access in a community hall that is 40 kilometres from the nearest town. We got $120,000 as part of a $600,000 project for a medical centre so that, when the current doctors move into retirement, the remote community around Warialda can have a walk-in, walk-out medical facility. That is hardly rorting. I understand the process and that there was an election going on, but I think that, once we get away from the heightened atmosphere of an election and we start to work out how we are going to develop Regional Partnerships and other regional projects, we need to make sure that we do not get caught up in the rhetoric but rather look at the facts.

To finish on the subject of local government, last week the council mayors visited Parliament House. That was well received—that money will be well spent in the communities in my electorate. I acknowledge that, but there are a couple of things that worry me. One is the idea of too close a relationship with the state governments. In the projects that we did and that I dealt with, we almost had to fudge the figures for the state government because of its lack of contribution. It was more of a lead weight than an active partner in the process. So I encourage the federal-local relationship. I think that getting too tied up with the state bureaucracies would have a wet blanket effect on this.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You didn’t really just admit to fudging the figures?

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. I come to this place from a background of local government, where we speak not as lawyers. I am speaking here so that, hopefully, my contributions will be helpful to the process of this committee. What I am saying, if you would like me to rephrase it, is that the New South Wales state government did not carry its weight under the previous program.

One thing I would like to discuss is moving away from partnerships with individual organisations. Minister Albanese has displayed great mirth and merriment speaking about this in the House. He mentioned a particular project in my electorate in the town of Walgett. From memory, it was a pet food facility and unfortunately it failed. He was having a great old time talking about putting money into this project in Walgett that failed. Let me talk about Walgett. Walgett is one of the most disadvantaged communities in Australia. Walgett has the largest ratio of Aboriginal people to European people of any community in Australia and is really struggling for employment opportunities for its residents. Of course a project that was going to employ people in a place like Walgett is always going to be on the edge. If we wanted to make sure that all the projects we funded were secure, we would have them in the CBDs of the capital cities. Of course a project at Walgett is going to be under some sort of stress—and the fact that it happened in the middle of the worst drought in 100 years did not help. There were a whole range of reasons why it did not succeed, including the lack of grain for this facility. But that does not mean that we should not try.

I believe an obligation of government is to assist with the creation of sustainable and long-term industry in these disadvantaged areas—and private enterprise is the right way to do that, whether you like it or not. We can put in as many government backed programs as we like, and, quite frankly, the government does put a lot of money into Walgett. The Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service is one of the most switched on and efficient organisations I have ever had any dealings with. It provides a wonderful backup to its community in the services it provides. But, ultimately, if we are going to develop these communities, we have to assist them. We cannot move these people somewhere else. That is their home. So we need to bring something out to where they are to enable them to live with dignity and to have the opportunity of employment. In doing that, there is always the possibility that these projects are going to fail.

I realise this is an interim report but I encourage the committee, as it looks into this further, to not discount the employment possibilities in encouraging businesses to start up, particularly in remote areas. As we go through this process we really need to be careful that we have something that works. If we put a process in place that has so many checks and ties in it that it is absolutely impossible for any mistakes to be made, projects will be so bound that they will be ineffectual. I agree with the member for Hinkler’s comments that there needs to be a large number of people from the communities involved, because there needs to be some kind of ownership. I understand that from my period as the mayor of a regional area. When the community has ownership of and a belief in their future, something will happen. Something that is brought in from afar, even with the best of intentions, is destined to fail.

I welcome the work of the committee, and as you go through to the final report I encourage you to look at those other possibilities. Do not be frightened of bringing in something that has the possibility of failure. If they have the ability to be successful, those are the long-term projects that will help these communities. In the just over 12 months that I have been in this place, one of my frustrations is that we deal with complex issues in very simple terms. Certainly I hope that the rhetoric we have seen in the House and the rhetoric we have seen from Minister Albanese is seen as just that—political grandstanding—and that the real effort of community development steps away from that and looks at what is really going to work for regional Australia.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of and to acknowledge the hard work of and the significant contribution that has been made by the Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in the preparation of this interim report. I am very pleased to follow on from the member for Parkes. Whilst I do not agree with everything that he said, I certainly acknowledge that he is one of the people in this place who are great advocates of the potential of and the opportunities that can be realised and delivered upon by local government. I know that his background in local government is something that has held him in good stead in making a contribution.

Much has been said already in this debate about the Regional Partnerships program, and even more has been said about it in other places. I do not wish to pick through the entrails of that program; I think others have done that much more competently than I could ever aspire to. But I make the general observation—and I think this is an observation that is confirmed in the committee’s interim report and indeed in the consultations that led to it—that there seemed to be a fairly loose set of objectives that that program was seeking to achieve. ‘Loose’ might be a euphemistic description; when we look at the process that was applied to applications, we see that ‘loose’ would not do justice to the reality of what occurred. I think that that has been acknowledged, and certainly the recommendations that are set out within this report go a long way towards tightening up the process for any future regional and local community infrastructure program, which I think is a great thing not just because it will deliver greater confidence in the program but because it will deliver greater accountability in terms of where taxpayers’ dollars are ultimately being spent.

I want to focus in on a couple of the committee’s recommendations. The one I want to begin making a few comments in relation to is recommendation 4, which reads:

The Committee recommends that local government be the auspice agency for applications in a region with a requirement that local government contribute (whether by way of capital, maintenance or operational funding). Not-for-profit organisations that do not require a local government contribution would require a letter of support from local government and then be able to apply directly.

I speak in support of that particular recommendation. I know that the quality of the contribution made by local government right across this country can sometimes be varied in nature, and there is no question about that. There are some councils that are performing better than others. Notwithstanding that, I think that due recognition should be given to the fact that, as elected representatives within their local communities, councillors and aldermen are representing the interests of their local communities and often are the best way of ascertaining the true sentiment of local communities. They are accountable because they, like us, are elected and are therefore accountable to the people. I think that that extra layer of accountability, which comes in the form of local government elections in those areas where they do occur, ensures a degree of robustness and accountability in those organisations. I speak very much in support of recommendation 4.

I note that the committee’s report actually foreshadows and contemplates the fact that there was to be a gathering of local government mayors from right around this country with the Prime Minister and various ministers. It was timely that this interim report was handed down in advance of that, particularly given the announcements that were made by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government.

I note with great interest and also with great pride the fact that the announcement that was made in relation to the $300 million for regional and local infrastructure will deliver, out of the first $250 million which has been allocated to various councils, just over $1.7 million to the Penrith City Council, which is the local government authority within my electorate. That is very promising to see. I note in particular the special attention that this initiative has paid—and it has been a very long time coming—to those local government areas that are in high-growth areas. Through my previous involvement with local government, having spent nine years on the council at Penrith, I know that a number of the growth area councils had identified that the usual formula that is used in the financial assistance grants process does not always take into account some of the factors that impose greater costs on local government authorities in areas where there is greater growth and a more rapid rate of growth than others. The National Growth Areas Alliance was formed in recognition of that particular reality, and I note that the Penrith City Council is one of the member organisations of that peak body. I welcome the component that was built into the allocations that reflects the growth component of those councils.

I also welcome the announcement of the $50 million fund for strategic projects. I am doing everything I can to encourage my local council to make applications in respect of that fund. We are in a time where we can make a contribution towards stimulating not only our local economies but our national economy. We all understand the importance of that, given the impacts of the global financial crisis. But, apart from delivering those benefits, I think that there are some great local projects in my community that would benefit from funding under that particular proposal.

A meeting occurred that involved the mayors from around the country: the Australian Council of Local Government. The formation of this body was an additional element, a new dimension, to the Federation. We all know that the Federation, which was basically enshrined in the Constitution back in 1901, reflected some different realities to those that we deal with today. The states were very much enshrined in that process. Today we see much of the hard work, when it comes to service delivery, being delivered on the ground in local communities by councils, particularly councils that are large and have a greater capacity to actually deliver in these areas.

Notwithstanding what we have in the Constitution, the official document as it stands at the moment—and we all understand how difficult it is to amend that document—the Rudd government I think very wisely has sought to embrace local government and commits not only to seeking constitutional recognition of local government but also to dealing very closely with local government and improving opportunities for a direct relationship between the national government and our local governments. Of course, this is something that has been very much supported by Labor governments in the last 30-odd years. The Whitlam government was the first Labor government that began the process of having a direct dialogue with local government, with the establishment of untied grants directly to local government. We saw both the Whitlam and the Hawke governments put to the Australian people a referendum to grant constitutional recognition for local government.

What we have seen since then—and I acknowledge in this regard one of the things that the Howard government did; I think it was one of the better decisions that they made in the time that they were in office—is the establishment of the Roads to Recovery program. That builds upon the commitment that had already been established and enunciated—the direct relationship between the Commonwealth government and local government. I note that in present-day terms we have some $1.75 billion being made available by the Commonwealth government to local government authorities under the Roads to Recovery program.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And they love it.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They do love it. I acknowledge the honourable member’s interjection. They love it because of the massive demands on local authorities when it comes to maintaining their local infrastructure. Roads are only part of the equation. Certainly, when it comes to roads and other forms of infrastructure, local governments have many obligations and many liabilities, but they do not necessarily have the capacity to raise the funds in order to adequately address and maintain those obligations. In addition to the direct assistance in the Roads to Recovery grants, we also have funding in the order of $1.9 billion that goes not directly to local government through the Grants Commission process but through the financial assistance grants that are made available by the Commonwealth.

I note that there was some criticism at the time the Australian Council of Local Government meeting was held, but I want to reflect on the comments of the mayor of Penrith, who I should note is an independent mayor and would probably describe himself as a conservative, having previously been a member of the Liberal Party. He made some very favourable comments in the Western Weekender on 21 November 2008. He said:

“This is keeping a promise made by the Rudd Government to have direct discussion with councils right across Australia. The PM announced it would become an annual event because he believes in direct dealing with local government,” …

The article goes on to a few more flattering comments:

Believing the trip to Canberra was worthwhile, Cr Aitkin now hopes to present ideas that were discussed on the day to his fellow councillors.

“It’s been a wonderful experience to share Penrith’s journey with mayors from across Australia and also to learn about some of the marvellous projects delivered to each mayor’s respective cities, some of which I will follow up and see if Penrith would like us to go down the same roads,” …

He also noted that the council was well and truly underway in its efforts to draw up a hit list of projects that could be funded with the $1.7 million that had been allocated to Penrith City Council by the Rudd government. I note that the council was already in the process of considering those projects, and next week the council will formally determine its list of priorities. There are some very worthy projects on the list in the business paper prepared by the council. From my background on the council, I know that many of these infrastructure projects, particularly the refurbishment of neighbourhood centres, are very much needed. The capacity and the funds to deliver them has been something that has prevented local government from being able to do what they would like to do in order to present the facilities that their communities need. This funding is one down payment, one step, in the process of providing the council with the wherewithal to do that.

In my community, the council is looking at the Ridge Park Hall, the Arthur Neave Memorial Hall, the Namatjira Neighbourhood Centre, the Emu Plains Community Centre and the Quarterdeck, which is co-located with the Penrith Swim Centre. These community facilities will either benefit from or are proposed to be the beneficiaries of the new investment in local infrastructure coming from the Rudd government. The Penrith Senior Citizens Centre will be fenced, and I know that that has been an ongoing issue. Victoria Park in St Marys—which is a tremendous park with a lot going for it but which does need a little bit of work in order to restore it to its once grand state—is also a proposed beneficiary of these works. As well as numerous other playground replacements and equipment upgrades, the funds will also supplement the proposal for the Cranebrook Skate Park, which ended up falling short of funds. The project costs for that park exceeded what the council was able to deliver on the original estimates, largely because community consultation with the young people in the area demanded facilities that were of a higher quality in some respects. Hopefully, those enhancements will be delivered as part of this program.

In conclusion, I note that this is the direction that the report sets out in terms of future funding for regional and local community infrastructure. I think that it is a direction that has the support of the community, and that it is the right direction. I am sure that, with the continued resourcing that this government will commit to these projects, we will see local government authorities right around this country having an even greater capacity to deliver for their communities. (Time expired)

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report presented to parliament by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. This is a report about country and regional Australia and what can be done to help deal with social issues around employment and how to help the various communities, the youth in those communities and, in the past at least, how to help commercial entities increase job opportunities, production or whatever it might be.

I speak as someone who did not go to the hearings but who did go to two of the review sessions held by the then ACCs—now called Regional Development Australia. The ACCs were instructed by the government to hold public hearings in their regions into what was thought of the program run by the former government, a program which has since been cancelled—and they did. I attended one of those sessions in my region and another outside of my region. What I am told the committee heard sounds very much like what I heard in the two sessions I attended, but that certainly does not tally with what is in this report. In fact, people who did attend those hearings tell me that the report does not reflect what was said at those hearings but that the dissenting report from the member for Hinkler, Mr Neville, does reflect what was said at those hearings.

You have to assume that this is simply a government, on the one hand, taking an opportunity to beat up on the Regional Partnerships program while, on the other, trying to justify what it wants to do in the future. It wanted to get rid of Regional Partnerships because it was one of the most popular programs I have ever seen a government introduce. As I go around the electorate of Calare—my new electorate, which I am very proud to represent; it is an area close to my old one but which now takes in Orange, the eastern side of Blayney, Cowra and Cabonne—the thing I get asked about the most is, ‘How can we get money to help the PCYC and the local hall? How do we get money to do these things?’ I have to say to them, ‘Look, I am sorry, there used to be a program specifically designed to help provide seed money in conjunction with local communities et cetera, but that has gone, that has been wiped.’

Some of the recommendations coming out of the report are fine. I do not have any great issue with there being less scrutiny on projects. Instead of the amount being $25,000, as it used to be, it will now be $50,000 on projects. That is fine; I do not have an issue with that. Where I have an issue is when it is categorically and heart-warmingly said that we must not have any commercial projects involved. I think I heard the member for Parkes, which used to be my electorate, say that the projects—and it is very true because I have seen it—that are the most long term, not short term for six months, are commercial projects. There is no doubt about that. Sometimes there is a need to help a commercial project, which is job oriented, get going.

A recommendation has been made that funding be in rounds. If it is only the smaller funding, I guess that that is okay to an extent, but the minute you put up, say, a three-month round with a limited amount of money then it becomes a very competitive thing. The reason we had flexible and open rounds—in other words, without a time limit; it was actually a three-year program which was rolled over—is so you do not ask a town like Tibooburra, for example, which is no longer in my electorate but has wonderful people, with 150 citizens and very few resources, within a space of three months to have to compete in a round of $1 million or $100 million on the same terms as Orange, Sydney or any other huge population. Any town or city is huge compared to Tibooburra, I can assure you. White Cliffs is not much bigger and is almost as far out. You are asking them to compete for seed funding and all these various things which they want to have. They cannot possibly have any failures or have rules set for them. How do 150 people compete with 40,000 or with six million or with even a million? It means that, from day one, you are saying, ‘Don’t worry about the remote or the disadvantaged communities; they can compete on the same terms and in the same time frame for the same amount of money as the big places where they have got all the resources to come up with the idea and to find the money.’ Of course they can’t compete. It is not designed as the original Regional Partnerships program was. The idea will not be to help those in the most disadvantaged and remote regions to do something for themselves.

Perhaps I can be a little bit generous now and offer some advice: if you want to be serious about it, don’t put this into a series of rounds because you will disadvantage those who are in remote areas. The more rules you put around it the more you will disadvantage them. They cannot compete. Don’t shake your head, Mr Sullivan.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before you stand up here and talk for 15 minutes, read the report!

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know a town of 150 people in the most remote location of New South Wales in a round cannot compete with the big ones. It is a fact.

I will go back to the debacle surrounding all this in the first place. The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, the Hon. Anthony Albanese, has been very disparaging of the previous government and of the National Party, in particular, over Regional Partnerships. He accused us of rorting the program and of terrible things. Yet this is the same person who had not been the minister for more than five minutes before he rorted big time a program about noise abatement and Mascot airport. He gave $14 million to a school in his own electorate but outside the program, so just to the one school. He did not even increase the region in which people could apply for the noise abatement funding, which I believe would have added something like $250 million—an enormous figure—to the whole program so that everyone else who was just as far outside the current program as this particular school in his electorate could have been included. He just gave it to that school. He did not make it available to anyone else. Without commenting on that any further, I say I do not think he of all people is in any position to throw stones or anything else.

Anyone who went and listened to people talk about this program would point out, as I think the member for Hinkler might have said, the people were not upset with anything except perhaps the time it took the department to do the processing. They were not upset with the program, they were not upset by the fact that it was commercial and in fact they were very supportive. Everyone I heard at the two hearings I went to was very supportive of the commercial aspect. All saw exactly what it did in providing jobs et cetera. They were very appreciative of the fact that it was flexible enough to allow Tibooburra to compete with the bigger towns, be they on the edge of Sydney or in the central west.

I am here in this parliament to represent the seat of Calare in western New South Wales and its country people. As well, I do see myself as being a member of the Australian parliament, not just as somebody from west of Condobolin in New South Wales. I think we have all got a responsibility. I believe I very much have a responsibility in that way to the taxpayer of Australia. I have a duty to equity, and I have a duty to seeing the taxpayer’s money well spent. I think the member for Parkes said something to the effect that if you do not take any risk, you actually do not have any gain either.

As for the old program, I think that, yes, we could have mucked around with the edges and made it better. But basically its aim was to give regional people an opportunity to help themselves. I would ask the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government to stand up in parliament and say which PCYC, which medical centre and which community hall we should not have helped. If there were any failings in that program they were far outweighed by the good that it did. The first two medical centres in Australia that were helped by this were actually both in my electorate—not under my hand, and I was responsible for this program at one stage. The Cobar and Narromine centres were the first two, and they set a benchmark that went right around Australia. These were medical centres in areas that did have a problem attracting doctors and did have a problem putting records in one place. It has all done so much and set a standard for what can be done by common sense and by not having rules so rigid that a community is unable to access funding. That is what has been so good about it.

As I said, I have no great problem with some of the changes they want to make, like doubling the amount before you get to the stage of having to do the full process to make it quicker et cetera. That is fine, possibly even common sense. But I would beg those responsible, if we do get a program in the future—and, if we do, I will bet it is just before the next election, but no-one will actually get any money before the next election; I will guarantee that too—to not make it impossible for small towns. Do not make it a program that puts a council or a region in Sydney on an equal basis with a small, remote town in the electorate of Kalgoorlie or Lingiari. And that is another thing—as somebody who used to be involved in this program, I can tell you that, in fact, applications made from Labor electorates basically had a success rate equal to any other. In fact, if any area was down on the success rate of applications, I think it was our own, but there was virtually no difference between the success rate of applications out of Labor electorates and the success rate of any other applications. The fact that there were far more regional electorates in coalition hands—there certainly were in those days—than in Labor hands meant that of course more projects were successful in our electorates. After all, it was based on helping regional communities.

For the sake of people in the future I would beg the government to focus on being flexible enough to allow the small towns an opportunity not to have to compete with cities or large towns. I think that was one of the beauties of the previous program—it had the flexibility. It allowed them to do it and it did not mean that everything had to be run to a particular rule that disadvantaged them.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have discovered that one of the disappointing things about debates in this place is that it is a kind of hit-and-run situation. People stand and make their contributions and then depart. It is a shame to me that less than 30 seconds into my contribution all the speakers from the other side and my own side who have preceded me in this debate have fled the chamber so that we cannot have a conversation. I think that, particularly in a chamber of this size, to be able to have a conversation about matters like this is far better than doing set-piece speeches—’I’ll present my case, you present yours and we’ll beg to differ.’ Given that the member for Calare is gone, I shall revert to the format that I had previously decided to follow and talk about the matters that he raised a little later on.

First of all, I say right from the outset that I reject absolutely the suggestion that was made by the deputy chair of the committee and first speaker on this debate today, the member for Hinkler, that the government members were working to an agenda in relation to this inquiry. That is entirely false and needs to be rejected absolutely out of hand. This is an interim report; it is not a final report. I am interested that the member saw fit to introduce a dissenting report and to make some alternative comments in the body of the interim report given that this interim report came about because, in its response to the global financial crisis, the government had made a fairly clear indication that it was considering funding local governments—and we saw that come about at the event involving the mayors that took place at Parliament House last week.

This report was developed in a reasonably interesting environment. For example, there has been plenty of talk about the area consultative committees, ACCs, and the new body, Regional Development Australia, or RDA. In the context of us considering this report, we were not aware—and we are still not aware—of exactly what form RDA, the successor to ACCs, would take. We do not know that all ACCs are guaranteed to become RDA organisations.

We do know, though, that throughout this process—and the member for Calare mentioned attending two public hearings conducted by ACCs in and near his area—they were engaged in a process parallel to it to try and determine, through the minister’s office, what RDA would do. While we were engaged in the quite clear process of looking at a program that had been absolutely slammed by the Audit Office in order to develop a program of integrity for introduction next year, there was this additional process going on on the side. Then, through our process, the ACCs turned up in force to argue their case for retention and to be left in charge of the dollars. ACCs were established as organisations that looked after employment programs, and they were very, very successful. They got an additional role in relation to the Regional Partnerships program, they got a sniff of the dollars and that is what they then considered would be their justification for existence.

This report would not have been possible without broad cooperation from members of the committee—including Mr Neville, who ultimately introduced the dissenting report. I would like to particularly mention the chair of the committee, Catherine King, and the committee staff, who worked very hard to bring us to this position—in particular, Michael Crawford, the inquiry secretary, and the research officers, Susan Cardell and Dr Brian Lloyd. All the staff of the committee office are very vital to those of us who work in the committees and they ought to be acknowledged for the work that they do on every occasion that we stand on our feet.

The report was based on a series of roundtable meetings and site visits. Not all of the members of the committee were able to attend all of the hearings. I was able to attend hearings in Toowoomba, Cairns, Darwin, Bundaberg and Canberra. There were also roundtable meetings in Perth, Launceston, Ballarat, Shepparton, Dubbo and Nowra. We heard a range of views. The member for Hinkler mentioned earlier a view that he picked up at Toowoomba. I was listening to the same people and heard perhaps with different ears, but in that hearing I heard a plea from the local government people that were in attendance that they needed to not have their program priorities taken over by ACCs, who develop projects with community groups and then come to the council for the matching partnership funding. Some of us live in small areas or have lived in small towns. I should say to the member for Parkes that I listened as he mentioned Walgett at length because Walgett is one of the towns that I have lived in in my life. I listened to what he had to say, and I think pretty much everything that he had to say in regard to that town was accurate. We are knowledgeable on this side of the chamber about a number of things that you assume that we are not knowledgeable about.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Chester interjecting

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is nice, isn’t it. In fact, while we are talking about Walgett, I will send out some cheerios to my cousins Tommy and Stewart Evans. Now I will have to get in touch with them to tell them that they have been mentioned in the national Hansard.

There are a couple of major thrusts in this report, and the one that we have been hearing most about from members opposite today is the recommendation that commercial projects be removed from this program. Each and every one of us understands the value of commercial programs in the development of regional areas. The dissenting report from the member for Hinkler says that we have said no to commercial programs but what we have said is, no, not under this one.

We then went on, in recommendation No. 7, to recommend that the government establish a particular program to look after the commercial projects within a department with expertise in this area. Commercial projects represented eight per cent of the money given out and, although I am not sure that I am accurate, probably a hundred per cent of the rorts. I believe that one of the reasons that was able to occur is that business decisions were being made by bureaucrats in departments without business expertise.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And politicians.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the interjection, but we are being kind here today. My view is and has been—and I have stated it and you can read it in Hansardthat regional development is not possible without economic development, and regional development is not possible without social development. We are not asking the community infrastructure program to provide police stations and hospitals. Those things are done by departments, or state governments in both of those cases. These kinds of community assets are developed and provided by departments with expertise in that area, and it should be the same with the development of business programs.

I visited Bundaberg, the member for Hinkler’s headquarters, and went to three businesses that had received funding from the Regional Partnerships program, one of which had received one bunch of funding and then did not get the next. First of all there was a business that had relocated from Nambour with the assistance of that program to set up a business packaging cane mulch and selling it through various places like Bunnings Warehouse. I think they received $1 million from the Regional Partnerships program. The banks would not look at funding this business until they got the government money, yet this is the same business that, in the course of this season, put $2 million into the pockets of cane farmers in that area by buying the trash off their properties. If that is not a decent business plan well supportable by banks I do not know what is, yet the banks hang out to get that Australian government $1 million so that, if their assessment is wrong and things go bad, there is $1 million of government money that they already have to help them recover their losses. The second business I went to was the food processor, and I agree with the member for Hinkler that it is a business worthy of government support.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

AusChilli.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was not mentioning names, actually. Anyway, the process had not been completed and there was no money available to give them under this program once the decisions that had to be made were made. But, yes, I believe it is worthy of support, but not through a group of people in a department inappropriate for business. If we get the business portfolios looking at regional business, at least we are getting them out of the city and understanding the differences and how people should be supported.

We talked at Bundaberg about the form of government money to businesses. This money was all grant money, and it was: ‘Thank you very much. Here’s a nice cheque in the bank. Do what you like with it.’ One fellow, not from Bundaberg but from another place I visited, sold his business not long after he got it going. Okay, the money that the government gave provided ongoing jobs for people in that business, but a nice little wedge of it went into his pocket, and he was not at all embarrassed about that. In Bundaberg we discussed this with a number of people who had received commercial business grants through this program. They are not necessarily greedy and indeed saw that there was a reasonable case that, if somebody sold their business having received funding through this grant program, they ought to be required to pay money back to the government. They saw that low-interest or no-interest loans which, at a certain trigger point, could be repaid to the people of Australia would be just as valuable to them. They did not think that the government necessarily owed them a living. They want to work for their money—that is why they are in business. People in business want to work for money, and this program in some instances was really giving them an opportunity to be lazy.

I have only got a short time left, so I will not talk about the issues around local government being the primary auspicing body. I think they have been well canvassed. Members opposite, many more of whom have local government experience than members on this side, would understand the reason that that needs to be so. I am very happy with that particular recommendation. I went out and made quite a deal of ground in that regard.

One of the problems with the funding rounds, as mentioned by the Member for Calare, was the time it took for people to get decisions—for example, sending another letter out because next week they might get a better application than the one that is sitting in front of them and not be able to deal with that one because they have given the money to a lesser project. If you have got funding rounds, you can set timetables. In Toowoomba, we heard from the Queensland department of sport that when the round closes, the department has 14 days to have the information on the minister’s desk and the minister has to sign off in 10 days after that. If you are an applicant, you should know when you are going to be told and when you are going to get the money. We heard horror stories of people waiting for three years.

I just want to mention the remarks of the member for Parkes about the member for New England being on this committee. This is just another example of the National Party sticking the boot into an Independent who they cannot beat in the polls. The member for New England sought to be on this committee for this inquiry, and he does have expertise in this area. This is a government that will embrace and work with the Independent MPs. If you want to have a look at what the Independents think of you guys, read the member for Kennedy’s evidence at the hearings in Cairns. He gave you a proper bucket.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Funding regional and local community infrastructure interim report and the dissenting comments by the member for Hinkler. I do take up the commentary from the member for Longman, who I thought made a very constructive contribution to the debate, though he could not resist in the last 30 seconds giving the Nats a spray on the way through.

I think there are many positive aspects to the report, just as there are many positive aspects to the previous Regional Partnerships program. I do fear that, in its desperate attempts to trash the legacy of previous government, the new government has shown a willingness to perhaps throw the baby out with the bath water when it comes to the Regional Partnerships program. I am not suggesting for a second that members of the committee are that way inclined, but there are some opposite who have shown perhaps a willingness during the heat of an election campaign to go a little bit too far. As the member for Parkes indicated, now that we are 12 months into the new government, I hope that cooler heads will prevail and there will be a real emphasis on ensuring that regional development projects and initiatives with the support of local communities do get undertaken in the future.

I will take up the comments from the member for Hinkler, who submitted his report with a great deal of respect and reluctance. The member for Hinkler has an enormous amount of experience in regional development. While I am a newcomer to this place, I am a strong believer, as is the member for Hinkler, in the committee system and working together to achieve better outcomes for all Australians. I know he was reluctant to submit his dissenting report, but he did so in good faith and I believe he made some very pertinent points.

The member for Parkes also referred to the Regional Partnerships program, basically appealing for people to understand and let the facts speak for themselves. There was an overwhelming amount of good that came out of the Regional Partnerships program. In my electorate of Gippsland, without running through every project that was supported, I think there was some enormous good done in my community with projects like Lifeline Gippsland with its $1.9 million centre. It received $550,000 of federal government funding. For those who do not understand the work of Lifeline, it provides an absolutely critical service in Gippsland, providing counselling, information and referrals for those contemplating suicide and that type of thing. That particular project was very well supported in my electorate, as was the Churchill and district community hub, which received $880,000 for redevelopment of the town centre of Churchill—one of the most perhaps disadvantaged communities in my region with very high unemployment rates and in need of a major commercial centre redevelopment. That and other projects were funded through Regional Partnerships.

One of my particular favourites, for which we saw funding from the state Labor government as well as the Regional Partnerships program, was the paddle-steamer Curlip, which will be launched this weekend. Volunteers have built a replica of a paddle-steamer, and it will be plying the Snowy River this weekend for the first time. It is an enormous achievement by the people of Orbost, a community that has been knocked around by some, particularly, state government decisions in relation to resource allocation in the timber industry. This Regional Partnerships funding—and it was supported by state government funding—has been incredibly important to the people of Orbost and the wider East Gippsland region in terms of promoting the tourism industry. There was a Gippsland Immigration Wall of Recognition, which received $40,000 funding, in the town of Morwell. It recognised the enormous contribution that migrants have made to the community of the Latrobe Valley over the past 120 years, and it is a fabulous project. I note that the chair of the committee is the member for Ballarat. I notice that Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, an outstanding regional tourism attraction, received $500,000 for its Chinese village. It just reflects that the Regional Partnerships program did fund a very diverse range of projects. It had flexibility and it was innovative, and that was one of the strengths of the program.

I note that the Funding regional and local community infrastructure report raises some of the issues that have been raised by other members in relation to the administration of Regional Partnerships, and I am happy to concede that there were some negative findings in the audit and that some aspects of the administration of the program have been criticised. But I completely reject the commentary from the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, who has gone as far as claiming in this place that former ministers were corrupt. I think the minister is developing an unsavoury reputation for this type of grubby politicking. Yesterday he defamed the character of the former mayor of Port Macquarie and claimed that he had been sacked for corruption. He has made similar allegations about ministers involved with the Regional Partnerships program. I think that it is an outrageous slur from a minister who cannot help playing the man, and I really think he needs to take a cold shower, settle down a bit and realise that there are members on both sides of the House who actually want to get on with the job—in particular with Regional Partnerships or regional development initiatives. There are people who want to get on with the job and start delivering for their communities, and the minister himself would be well advised to do that. It took him 12 months to finally announce some funding for regional development last week. That was well received, I accept, throughout regional areas, but it did take 12 months. The minister should spend more time on those positive and practical applications of his skills rather than playing the man and making false allegations of corruption without any substantiation whatsoever. It reflects poorly on him and on his side of politics.

The member for Hinkler made a dissenting report. I read the dissenting report and the interim report, and I think there is a lot of good in both of them, but there are two aspects of the reports that I want to concentrate on. They deal with the recommendations regarding the grant sizes and the approval processes and also the recommendations on the exclusion of for-profit entities from this program. I would like to start with recommendation 6, and I quote from the report:

The Committee recommends that the new Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program exclude applications from for-profit entities.

I note the contribution from the member for Longman in this regard, but I am afraid that we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. At a time of rising unemployment, when job opportunities, particularly in regional areas, are going to become tighter and tighter, I believe that seed funding can really make a difference to these commercial entities, and I think it is a mistake by the committee in this case to recommend that the funding not be provided to for-profit entities. It is not just my opinion; it is also one that is shared by the member for Hinkler, who I believe has demonstrated, with his vast experience in regional development before entering this place, his breadth of knowledge. It is also the opinion of the former Victorian Minister for State and Regional Development, now Premier of Victoria, the Hon. John Brumby. I would like to quote from a media release from the Premier when he was Minister for State and Regional Development, from 30 October 2006:

A $300,000 Bracks Government grant will trigger a $21 million expansion of Patties Foods Bairnsdale plant creating 100 new full-time jobs …

The minister, who has never been one to hide his light under a bushel, went on to say:

This expansion by Patties Foods is a major investment for East Gippsland that will allow the company to export into other new markets, especially in the lucrative US market, for its range of savoury pies, pasties, and sausage rolls.

He went on to say:

… the Regional Investment Initiative was a key part of the Victorian Government’s agenda to drive prosperity and growth across provincial Victoria …

I have not always agreed with the honourable Premier of Victoria, but in this case I feel I must. Patties Foods is one of the great companies in regional Victoria and in East Gippsland.

I will just say for the record that the former chairman of the company, Richard Rijs, has been a great contributor to regional development through his involvement with a group called Champions of the Bush, which is a successful lobby organisation, based primarily in Victoria, where regional companies have invested their own money—about $10,000 each per year—to support regional development and to encourage state and federal governments to invest in regional communities. Richard Rijs, as the former chairman of the board and ongoing member of Champions of the Bush, has been a great champion of regional communities.

Some of the commentary from the member for Longman was that it is difficult for governments to pick winners, and I accept that. There have been some mistakes made in the past and I am sure there will be some more in the future. As the member for Hinkler says in his comments, to exclude ‘commercial development is a denial of the stated role of the department itself, Regional Development Australia’. The focus on community and social infrastructure is not something that I oppose at all, but I believe that the committee is being unnecessarily restrictive in this recommendation by excluding commercial operators from applying in the future. Providing a helping hand to existing or new operators to establish ventures in regional areas is a valuable use of taxpayers’ resources if used appropriately. I accept the need for checks and balances, which is a point that has been well made by members opposite.

The government has had no hesitation in putting up about $6 million to bail out the car industry, and I believe it is serious about regional development. It will provide a funding stream for commercial developments to access in the future. I appreciate that the committee’s report in recommendation 7 supports the establishment of a regional industry grants scheme under another department, but I believe that scheme rightfully belongs with the new Regional Development Australia. In any case, I am not convinced that the government is committed to providing funding in relation to recommendation 7. I believe this program would lose its local input and focus if the commercial aspect was taken out of the grants scheme, and I support for-profit enterprises being able to apply for funding.

I also take up the committee’s recommendation 13, regarding the sliding scale of complexity for forms and information requirements. I think it would be an excellent move to streamline the application process. If it is at all possible to go further in the future, I would urge the committee to consider some type of smaller community grants scheme—a quick grants scheme, for want of a better phrase—for the not-for-profit sector. We have a problem in our smaller regional towns in that, if you apply for a small amount of funding, it almost becomes too onerous to bother. If communities raise dollar-for-dollar funding for projects up to $20,000, they demonstrate that they are committed to the project. I would strongly advocate a low-paperwork scheme of some description. The type of work carried out with that type of program would be upgrading community halls in small country towns, upgrading or establishing playgrounds—which have a regional tourism focus in themselves—and improving sporting facilities. I accept that you will need to maintain the accountability factors that go with it, but I think we need to actually start trusting some of our local communities a lot more. If the local community groups and the not-for-profit groups have the capacity to raise $5,000 or $10,000 themselves for a worthwhile community program, I think we can develop a quick grant type of scheme to assist them to undertake that type of work.

I make one point, though, in relation to improving sporting facilities, and this links into other discussions about excessive use of alcohol and responsible service of alcohol. We have a major problem in country communities in that the only avenue available to some of our country sporting clubs to raise funds is selling alcohol. We can preach to them as much as we like about the responsible service of alcohol and encouraging young people to pursue healthy lifestyles but, unless we are prepared to put some money in to help these footy, netball and cricket clubs, the way they make their money will be over the bar. We are going to need to support them in the future and I think this grants program is one opportunity to do that and to really support these small local communities.

Regarding the approvals process, I believe that we need to make sure we have a focus on developing local solutions to local problems. I take up the views of the member for Hinkler again on support for local development boards, views which were echoed by the member for Parkes and also the member for Lindsay in his commentary about the success of the Roads to Recovery program. One of the great successes of that program was the local buy-in—that we have trusted local people to understand their local area, to develop their own practical solutions using their common sense and to set their own priorities in their communities. The Roads to Recovery model is a very good model for us, particularly when looking at smaller infrastructure projects. I believe there are opportunities to involve local government more in that regard, and I encourage the minister to involve local government directly in the $300 million program announced last week. My only criticism of that program is that it needs to go two, three or four years further into the future to give these councils some surety that funding is on the way. The backlog of projects is always going to be there—you can invest as much as you like in regional infrastructure but there is always another project waiting around the corner. The minister made a good decision in relation to that $300 million project. It was well received in my community, and the only hesitation we have is that we would like to see some surety of investment going forward.

Just in terms of local input and ensuring that local communities are engaged in the process, once you get your local communities involved in setting the priorities and achieving the funding you will find that the local communities will actually leverage off the available funding and turn 10 bucks into 100 bucks very quickly. They are very good in small country communities: one bloke will have a truck and the other bloke will know someone with a bobcat whose cousin is a painter whose mate will put the whole playground up for a slab of VB. That is the type of leveraging you will get out of country communities. They will put in a lot of in kind community work for you and use their resources for the benefit of their community once you have engaged them and ensured they have some control over how the funding is allocated.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge that the Regional Partnerships program did an enormous amount of good for country areas. I would also like to put on the record the support for the area consultative committee, particularly in Gippsland, where the staff and the board members have unfortunately been caught up in this whole debate. I join the member for Hinkler in raising some serious reservations about the report and urge the government to abandon the politics completely and just get on with the job at hand. In saying that, I am not seeking at all to reflect negatively on any of the individual committee members. I believe they have been put in a difficult situation where the heat of an election campaign has flowed into a report, and now we really want to get on with the job of doing some good for regional areas

I commend the committee at many levels for the work they have done with their interim report. As I said at the outset, there are many positive recommendations in the report. As an interim report there is always room for improvement. I urge the members to have the courage to possibly take risks in their final report and support the potential growth in regional communities. I also join with the member for Parkes in calling on members on all sides to ignore some of the rantings and ravings we have seen by the minister in relation to this and focus on the important job at hand. I believe the committee will focus on the important job at hand and that they will ignore the minister, because he is actually going through the process of discrediting himself with some of the ranting and raving he has been going on with in parliament of late. I wish the committee well with their deliberations and look forward to supporting them in their efforts to invest in the future of regional communities.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Funding regional and local community infrastructure report is outstanding. It comes about as a consequence of a number of issues. It comes about because of the need to refocus and realign public policy in the area of regional development. It comes about because of the unfortunate negative consequences of the three-volume, 1,200-page audit report from the Australian National Audit Office which was released in November 2007. The report, which the member for Gippsland would do well to read, was constructed for the former government. It was a report constructed by the Australian National Audit Office at the time of the former government; it was a report to the former government. It was simply outstanding that the former government was prepared to consider the operation of this program via the Australian National Audit Office and, furthermore, to accept the recommendations of the ANAO.

Over the course of the past 12 months, regional development discussions in this parliament have tended to be inspired by members opposite in the context of defending the almost indefensible decisions that were made by ministers of the former government to support political regional development—to support projects that were frequently for private enterprise, that frequently had not passed competitive neutrality tests and that frequently were questioned in the broader community, and they mostly lost taxpayer money. It is unfortunate that it has proven so difficult for members of the former government to put the past behind them. I wish they would—I encourage them to do that—and look to the future through this outstanding report. The outstanding report comes about because the members of the committee who produced the report are simply outstanding members of parliament. Catherine King, as the chair of this committee, brought to focus her significant experience in Ballarat, in the broader community and in watching and participating in the regional development debate over the course of the last decade. A very good friend of mine, Paul Neville, brought to focus both his participation in the former government and his concern to see regional development in his own community. There was also a valid debate around the role of private enterprise and for-profit organisations in the receipt of funding for regional development. Jodie Campbell, Darren Cheeseman, Jason Clare, Joanna Gash, Brett Raguse, Don Randall, Andrew Robb, Jon Sullivan and Tony Windsor are all members of parliament with significant interests in this debate and are all members of parliament whose desire was only to get the best possible result.

The interim report is in my view the best possible result. If we look through the recommendations of the interim report, we see recommendations that have integrity, recommendations that will strengthen how regional development and the local community infrastructure program can work into the future. Recommendation 1 reads:

The Committee recommends that the government establish well defined and clear objectives for the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program that sit within an articulated Commonwealth Government regional development policy.

That is absolutely valid, absolutely necessary, and stands in contrast to the way in which former governments have operated in this area. In that, I do not simply refer to the government led by former Prime Minister Howard; the previous Labor government also stands condemned for the way in which it approached many of these regional development issues. Recommendation 2 reads:

The Committee recommends that the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program retain the option of establishing sub-programs to direct funding to strategic priority areas or applicant groups.

That is something that is worthy of consideration, something that the government will take seriously. Recommendation 3 reads:

The Committee recommends that the new Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program:

• cover all regions of Australia—

it will—

• employ a partnership model …

It will. The partnership model structured under Regional Partnerships at its best is simply outstanding. There were many projects that were funded under Regional Partnerships that were simply outstanding. We should not be blinded by the three-volume, 1,200-page report that found significant shortfalls in the administration of the program, found significant political interference in the expenditure of taxpayer money and found significant unexplainable decisions. These include decisions to fund, for instance, an ethanol plant that did not exist and a community railway facility which had not made an application and which subsequently burnt down. There are legitimate questions, but some outstanding projects on the part of outstanding community groups, producing outstanding results, came out of the many hundreds of millions of dollars that were expended through this program by the former government.

The committee also recommended that ‘local government be the auspice agency for applications in a region with a requirement that local government contribute’ to the projects. It is the view of the government that local government has a valid, important and organic role to play in allocations, in decision making and in prioritising in local communities. In the past we found that some projects had been supported by area consultative committees but were not supported by local government. On some occasions hundreds of thousands of dollars—or millions of dollars—went to fund pieces of infrastructure, and local government then had the ongoing maintenance costs, salary costs or staffing costs of projects which were not on local government priority lists. Why is that important? It is important because local government is actually transparent. It is important because local government is answerable to local communities. It is important because local government is accountable. Area consultative committees were not always accountable to local communities.

Recommendation 5 reads:

The Committee recommends that the Government consider:

• establishing a quarantined sub-program of funding to which community organisations, with local government support, only can apply; or
• where feasible, requiring that a set percentage of applications put forward by a local government area be from community organisations.

We will look at that. I am not quite sure how that will work, but I look forward to exploring how we can make recommendation 5 work. Recommendation 6 has been commented on significantly by members opposite. Recommendation 6 reads:

The Committee recommends that the new Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program exclude applications from for-profit entities.

We will accept that recommendation. That recommendation is there because we wish, through this program, to support initiatives that are for the benefit of the broad community through community organisations and not through for-profit organisations. I am absolutely delighted that in recommendation 6 the committee recommends that the government consider regional industry grants as a separate stream under another department—it has suggested the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research—when looking at how for-profit granting should take place.

I know the member for Hinkler has spoken many times in this place about an outstanding commercial enterprise in his area, Auschilli. I am very aware of Auschilli. I am aware of it because I have read and understood the application. Frankly, when I look at Auschilli or when I look at an avocado producer’s request for funding for a shed in the south-west of Western Australia, I see some outstanding requests for funding by for-profit organisations which would have a significant regional impact. There is no doubt about that. But there is equally no doubt that the process of assessing Regional Partnerships applications, considering competitive neutrality, considering the transparent expenditure of taxpayers’ money, was not appropriate through the Regional Partnerships model. That was the conclusion of the Australian National Audit Office; that is the conclusion of the government.

As we move closer to 2009 and to the possibility, though we hope not, that economic circumstances will become significantly tighter in 2009, that we will see increased unemployment and that there will probably be damage to regional communities, though we hope not, as a consequence of the global financial crisis, it may well be necessary through Regional Development Australia to deliver labour market programs. It may well be necessary through Regional Development Australia to deliver programs which support communities during this difficult time. It is my hope that Regional Development Australia in its new incarnation will be equal to that task. However, it will not be the function of the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program to fund programs that are for-profit organisations.

Recommendation 8 says that the committee recommends that the government consider more formally charging RDAs with a role of assisting applicants to develop their expressions of interest into an application. That is an outstanding recommendation; the government will have pleasure adopting that as part of the role and function of RDA. The recommendation 8 further argues that the department:

… could undertake this role utilising either a regional field officer in each region or an officer allocated a specific region from either the national office or a regional office … .

I am enthusiastic to make the connection here between Regional Development Australia and the local communities that it represents as organic as possible. I think it is essential that RDA be able to assess its community in a way that allows it to support applicants to literally help develop expressions of interest and to form communities of interest around particular ideas for government funding. I think recommendation 8 is particularly strong.

Recommendation 9 reads:

Should the Government wish to pursue the option of having regionally based field officers … collaborating with local council and community groups to identify opportunities, priorities and partnerships—

and there are a range of recommendations in that which I will have to take on notice and in the fullness of time consider how recommendation 9 may be implemented. Recommendation 10 refers to regionally based field officers again. I place that in the category with recommendation 9.

Recommendation 11 reads:

The Committee recommends that the Government consider developing a centralised assessment process for the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program.

I think this is essential. I am pleased to see the former minister has entered the chamber. I know the difficulties which the former minister had in assessing and watching decisions being made in this area. I hasten to make the comment that there are many very good decisions that were made to support community organisations. The ones that were less good have been adequately highlighted by the three-volume 1,200-page report of the ANAO, which was commissioned in the time of the former government and which reported to the former government.

Members in this chamber have seen, over the course of the last week, the government announce its $300 million program at the local government conference here in Canberra. It is important that, as members look at how that $300 million has been earmarked for expenditure, there are clearly transparent indicators in how that money is being spent. Every local government area received a $100,000 allocation. Growth councils, which are an identified group of councils, received a growth component. The balance of the allocation was made on the basis of the states’ financial grants granting processes. This is transparent, clear and of outstanding value to local government. The general reaction to this kind of transparent process has strengthened the government’s resolve not only to ensure the involvement of local government in the new program as it goes forward but also to ensure complete transparency in the way in which these grants are both announced and considered by the government.

We announced, in the course of the last election campaign, the now government’s Better Regions Program. This was constructed by the former shadow minister for trade and regional development and member for Hotham, Simon Crean, in a way that ensured that the then opposition could match in local communities, in some way, the significant regional development efforts of the then government. This program and these projects are in the process of being rolled out as every single proponent and project recipient is confirmed in their project. As every project is confirmed for funding, we will put the project on the departmental website. Every dollar spent through the project will be transparently declared publicly on the departmental website. The first project, which was the painting of the Ben Chifley engine, is already publicly available and on the website.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Liberal and National parties generally support the government’s Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program. Councils are obviously keen to obtain whatever money they can for local infrastructure and, as a former council chairman, I know how welcome those payments will be. However, the new program has missed some opportunities and I hope that those gaps may be filled by the government sometime in the future. The coalition spent between 1996 and 2007 $30 billion on regional and rural programs that built infrastructure, improved social and economic opportunities and created jobs. One of the many programs that emerged to deal with regional disadvantage was the Regional Partnerships program. This program has been criticised by many from the luxury of living in wealthy capital cities but it was successful in helping to grow country towns and disadvantaged communities right through the nation.

More than 1,500 projects were approved under the Regional Partnerships program during its four-year life, at a cost of about $350 million. It was a popular program and it delivered results. One of the best elements of the program was that it also levered local community investment. For every dollar provided through the Regional Partnerships program, funding of $3 to $4 was contributed by other funding partners. So local businesses in communities were able to invest in projects and it gave them a great sense of community ownership. They were locked in to making the project a success.

Not every project was as successful as was hoped and some taxpayers’ money was lost. However, if a project was so financially solid in its own right then it did not need government support; it should have been supported and funded by the normal banking sector. This program was about helping make financially achievable the projects which otherwise would not have been possible. For that reason it was able to break through and deliver community infrastructure in ways that otherwise would not have been possible.

There has been criticism that somehow or other it favoured coalition electorates. The fact is that the coalition held most of the regional seats. But the approval rate for electorates was this: of projects submitted in National Party electorates, 70 per cent were approved; 72 per cent were approved in Liberal electorates; 69 per cent were approved in electorates held by Independents; and 72 per cent were approved in electorates held by Labor. So there is no evidence that there was any kind of special political patronage. The approval rates for projects, from whatever electorate they came from, were broadly comparable.

The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government takes great pleasure in throwing scorn on projects. He is one of those who has the luxury of living in a wealthy city, and he does not have an understanding of how important some of these projects can be in small regional communities. It is important that there be a program available that helps the most disadvantaged. We have to be careful in designing a new program that, because of all its accountability requirements, it is not only accessible by well-skilled grant applicants—the professional grant receivers—but also accessible by those poor communities that actually need help in the development process of the project and that it is managed effectively in the weeks and months during which that project is being undertaken. It is very important that we do not just look to the high achievers to receive funding from a program like this. If it is going to be really useful it should include those who are underachievers—those who are at considerable disadvantage. They are the ones who need particular help.

As time is limited I will make only one more point. I do think it is disappointing that the for-profit sector is being excluded from the government’s program. If we do want to rebuild regional economies, we have to attract new industries and new projects. Some financial support to create jobs in those disadvantaged communities can do much more for them than painting the hall, even though we like that community infrastructure. It can be more important than the construction of a new tourist information centre, although that in itself can create jobs. We do need to be looking at the overall strength and depth of an economy. By providing support and seeding funding for new industries, we are actually permanently building a new economy and making those regional communities better able to support themselves. I strongly support the comments of my colleague the member for Hinkler in his dissenting report to this inquiry. I do believe that there is a role for governments to support these kinds of projects to help get communities working again so that they can permanently care for themselves in the years ahead.

Debate (on motion by Mr Melham) adjourned.