Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Leader of the House, I move:

(1) that this House establish a select committee, to be known as the Select Committee on Regional Development and Decentralisation, to inquire and report on the following matters:

(a) best practice approaches to regional development, considering Australian and international examples, that support:

(i) growing and sustaining the rural and regional population base;

(ii) the benefits of economic growth and opportunity being shared right across Australia;

(iii) developing the capabilities of regional Australians;

(iv) growing and diversifying of the regional economic and employment base;

(v) an improved quality of life for regional Australians;

(vi) vibrant, more cohesive and engaged regional communities;

(vii) leveraging long-term private investment; and

(viii) a place-based approach that considers local circumstances, competitive advantages and involves collective governance;

(b) decentralisation of Commonwealth entities or functions, as a mechanism to increase growth and prosperity in regional areas, considering Australian and international examples, including:

(i) examining the potential for decentralisation to improve governance and service delivery for all Australians, considering the administrative arrangements required for good government;

(ii) identifying the characteristics of entities that would be suited to decentralisation without impacting on the ability to perform their functions;

(iii) identifying the characteristics of locations suitable to support decentralised entities or functions, including consideration of infrastructure and communication connectivity requirements;

(iv) considering different models of decentralisation, including:

- relocation of all or part of a Commonwealth entity to a regional area;

- decentralisation of specific positions, with individual employees telecommuting, considering any limitations to this in current Australian Public Service employment conditions and rules;

- co-location of decentralised Commonwealth entities or employees in existing regionally based Commonwealth or State Government offices; and

(v) examining the family, social and community impacts of decentralising;

(c) actions of the Commonwealth that would encourage greater corporate decentralisation and what can be learned from corporate decentralisation approaches, including:

(i) considering the role of the private sector in sustainably driving employment and growth opportunities in regional areas in both existing and new industries;

(ii) comparing the access to early stage equity and or debt finance of metropolitan and regional businesses for both start up and established businesses;

(iii) examining access to capital for regional business, including agribusiness, manufacturing and technology;

(iv) considering the adequacy of regional businesses access to early stage accelerators and incubators, including access to business mentors, business networks and capital (debt or equity);

(v) considering the adequacy to support the private sector to attract and retain skilled labour to regional areas; and

(vi) examining the extent to which employment and growth can be supported by growing existing and new industries in regional areas, leveraging strong transport and communications connectivity; and

(d) any related matters;

(2) the committee consist of 10 members, six members to be nominated by the Government Whip or Whips, three members to be nominated by the Opposition Whip or Whips and one non-aligned Member;

(3) every nomination of a member of the committee be notified in writing to the Speaker of the House of Representatives;

(4) the members of the committee hold office as a select committee until presentation of the committee’s report or the House of Representatives is dissolved or expires by effluxion of time, whichever is the earlier;

(5) the committee elect:

(a) a government member as chair; and

(b) a non-government member as deputy chair who shall act as chair of the committee at any time when the chair is not present at a meeting of the committee, and at any time when the chair and deputy chair are not present at a meeting of the committee the members present shall elect another member to act as chair at that meeting;

(6) in the event of an equally divided vote, the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, has a casting vote;

(7) three members of the committee constitute a quorum of the committee provided that in a deliberative meeting the quorum shall include one government member and one non-government member;

(8) the committee has power to appoint subcommittees consisting of three or more of its members and to refer to any subcommittee any matter which the committee is empowered to examine;

(9) the committee appoint the chair of each subcommittee who shall have a casting vote only and at any time when the chair of a subcommittee is not present at a meeting of the subcommittee the members of the subcommittee present shall elect another member of that subcommittee to act as chair at that meeting;

(10) two members of a subcommittee constitute the quorum of that subcommittee, provided that in a deliberative meeting the quorum shall include one government member and one non-government member;

(11) members of the committee who are not members of a subcommittee may participate in the proceedings of that subcommittee but shall not vote, move any motion or be counted for the purpose of a quorum;

(12) the committee or any subcommittee:

(a) has power to call for witnesses to attend and for documents to be produced;

(b) may conduct proceedings at any place it sees fit;

(c) may sit in public or in private; and

(d) has power to adjourn from time to time and to sit during any adjournment of the House of Representatives;

(13) the committee may report from time to time, but will produce an issues paper no later than 31 August 2017 and an interim report no later than 31 December 2017, with its final report no later than 28 February 2018; and

(14) the provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.

Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to add my comments to the minister's and welcome the government's motion here and acknowledge the work of the Prime Minister, the member for Mayo, the Leader of the House and many members of parliament we have worked with on this particular motion over a period of time. I would particularly like to acknowledge the people of Indi, who have asked that this motion be brought to the House. Also, I would like to thank my staff, particularly the work of Jeremy Mickle, for the huge amount of work they have done.

I think this is going to be a visionary committee. I know that the intent is to look at regional development, the future of Australia and the role of decentralisation to assist and support in doing that. There are so many innovative and creative things happening in rural and regional Australia. There are so many wonderful people doing amazing things, so many communities, projects and issues that can really value add to how the government wants the country to be. We can build connections.

Before I address the details of this particular motion, I would like to share with you, Mr Speaker, a couple of moments of history if I could. In the 1990s, as president of Australian Women in Agriculture I was approached by John Anderson, then Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party, to chair the Regional Women's Advisory Council. This was a national representative council reporting directly to the Deputy Prime Minister on issues of important to Australia. As chair of that committee, we did an enormous amount of work of joining up government and talking to the government about how their issues impacted on the lives of people in rural and regional Australia. Our first report was called The success factors. It talked about the success of economic growth and development in rural and regional Australia. It underpinned the next part of the work that I and many of my colleagues did for the next 15 years and directly resulted in me standing to become a member of parliament. There was so much wisdom in The success factors about how government and communities can work together. I am looking forward to bringing some of that knowledge back to this committee.

Before I was involved in Women in Agriculture, in my earlier life I was working for the Victorian Department of Agriculture. The Premier of Victoria at that time was John Cain. John Cain established a committee called the Rural Affairs Committee of cabinet. He brought together some of the key portfolios that impacted on rural and regional Australia. I had the fortune to be a staff member who worked to that committee of cabinet, and I could see the impact joined-up government had. I could see the impact of partnerships between communities and government. I could see the respectful relationships developed when rural communities better understood how government worked. I could see the capacity-building that happened right across rural Victoria as cabinet ministers came out, met with communities and better understood the problem, and then we worked together to actually be solutions focused. It was a most amazing career for a young country woman from a farm to get a really good experience of how government works in partnership with communities.

And the results were amazing. Right across Victoria, communities came together, people put their hands up to become part of government. They joined committees. The capacity-building happened as people understood that they had authority, they had personal power and government was a partner. And in supporting this particular motion I am hoping we can do the same thing. I am hoping we can bring government together. I am hoping we can work with the opposition, and it is so good to have you here today. I know there are issues about the actual format of the committee, but I am looking forward to working with the government, with the opposition and with my crossbench colleagues, to ask, 'What's our vision for rural and regional Australia?'—how we can actually work together and with government as a partner to do the detailed planning that needs to happen for us to be the shining light that I believe we can be for this wonderful country.

Before I talk about some of the key aspects of the committee, I really want to acknowledge the work everybody has put in place to get here today, and particularly for me as an Independent to be standing here to put my hand up to be on the committee—and I certainly hope to—and to work with all my rural colleagues. I know we have the connections, we have the links, and we want to do this. I will note just a couple of things about the committee that I think are going to make a really big difference. It is going to look at best-practice approaches to regional development, considering Australia and international examples, and many of us have great knowledge of how things work in other countries. We are going to look at decentralisation of Commonwealth entities and functions as a mechanism to increase growth and prosperity in regional areas—again, considering Australian and international examples.

Really importantly for me, with my background in business, we are going to look at the actions of the Commonwealth that would encourage greater corporate decentralisation and what can be learned from corporate decentralisation approaches—how we can bring business with us. I will give you one example of this. In my local community of Bright last week I met a woman who has a consultancy company working for Google, out of Bright. She does it all by telecommunications. One of my volunteers this week works for the Victorian Department of Agriculture. He is part of the department's HR team and works from Rutherglen. We have so many examples of this joined-up, clever decentralisation approach that we could bring to parliament and work to.

In closing, I say, the time is now. The right people are here. The parliament is together in its will. And I say to all my colleagues throughout rural and regional Australia, come and join us; this is going to be the most exciting thing we do for the next eight months.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her contribution. I think this is going to be very good. It works on the back of the inquiry we have had in the Senate, which was also premised on decentralisation and premised on what we can do for regional areas. In the Nationals we are very much focused on making sure that we continue with a process of decentralisation, and people would note the work we are doing with RIRDC, going to Wagga; with GRDC, going to Toowoomba, to Dubbo and to Northam in Western Australia; with APVMA, going to Armidale; and with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, with the decentralisation to Wodonga, to Adelaide and to Toowoomba. The centre of our party's purpose is the development of regional Australia, and we are very proud of the work we are doing there—even recently, the announcement of the Regional Investment Corporation in Orange, which will be capitalised to $4 billion.

With all this, the more that we can get other people to put their shoulder to our wheel in driving this agenda the better, because we know that there is always a tendency that it oscillates—at other times people go back to centralisation. There is never an inquiry about how they close down post offices or close down services and move them out of regional areas and back into major cities. There has to be a concerted push, when the opportunity arises, to decentralise back out to regional areas.

I would never be so bold as to say that this is something peculiar to the National Party. Without a shadow of a doubt the Labor Party themselves have been instrumental in decentralisation. The Albury-Wodonga push by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was a clear example of that. We have also had the Department of Minerals and Energy that went to Maitland. We have had the Labor Party moving other departments into the Northern Rivers of New South Wales. All of these I agree with. All of these I think make abundant sense. It makes sense for a section of the minerals department in New South Wales to be in Maitland, because that is where the coalmines are. That is where it should be.

This is something where, if we as a government and in a bipartisan way can drive an agenda of decentralisation then we make our nation a stronger place, because the essence of our nation only exists in a form of decentralisation in its primary aspects of closer settlement. The idea of a penal colony at Sydney was a policy of a government—not a policy of our government; a policy of an English government—but that is precisely how the closer settlement of Australia came about.

The only reason where we are right now—Canberra—is here is the policy of government. There was no natural inclination for the creation of our nation's capital on the banks of the Molonglo River, but what an incredible jewel it is for our nation now. In fact, it was part of the process that the nation's capital had to be more than 100 miles from Sydney or Melbourne. It was one of the reasons why we are where we are at this moment. Now, with around 380,000 people living in Canberra, I think less than 40 per cent of its GDP is to do with the public service. It is growing under its own speed now, and that is a great outcome.

We support this inquiry. This inquiry adds to the work that has been done by the Labor Party and works on the whole premise of the National Party, which is a party for Regional Australia. It works off the back of the Senate inquiry. I want to commend the work that has been done by the Deputy Leader of the National Party, Senator Fiona Nash. She has done a power of work in this space. Also, Senator Bridge McKenzie has been working so hard in this space. We are only too happy to support people across the parliamentary spectrum who share in this goal of decentralisation.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start by congratulating the member for Indi, who has put a power of work into this. I read an earlier motion that she had prepared and I know she had been in discussion with the government and others on an earlier motion which had envisaged a joint select committee to inquire into decentralisation and regional development. Labor would have supported such an approach. We think the power of having both houses of parliament and the independence that is brought by a joint select committee would have brought a valuable contribution to the subject matter which is going to be covered by this committee.

As the Deputy Prime Minister has just said, Labor has a long and proud history in the area of decentralisation. It is well known that the Whitlam government established the Growth Centres (Financial Assistance) Bill 1973and the Albury-Wodonga Development Bill 1973 as a means of driving through this place a decentralisation agenda. It was not a process that stopped with the Whitlam government. I know, for example, that any of the members who are representing electorates that have an Australian tax office in their electorate have it as a result of a deliberate initiative of a Labor government to ensure that we decentralised the work that was being performed by such a large department of the government.

Some people have often quipped that this is something that is going to give Labor a natural advantage in some of these regional areas; it is a view that, if you are decentralising public servants out of Canberra, they will move to areas and change the political spectrum.

I always remind people who make that observation that actually the member for Farrer used to work in the Australian Taxation Office—I believe she used to be a union delegate in the tax office—and was one of the beneficiaries of a Labor government's commitment to decentralisation. We believe that there is a right and a wrong way to go about this. We think you need a methodical, systematic approach to decentralisation. I see the member for Hunter is here in the chamber with me today. He and I will have an active role in watching and participating in the work of this committee. I know that the member for Hunter has had some critical things to say about the move of the APVMA from Canberra to New England. We see this as an example of the wrong way to go about things: an ad hoc approach, very, very costly and a great disruption to the normal operations of that agency, without any cost-benefit analysis of the long-term benefits of that move.

This cannot be interpreted as a hostility from Labor to the proposition of decentralisation. It is something that we have had a long-term commitment to, dating back to well earlier than the 1970s, to the Chifley and Curtin governments, and even earlier than that. Labor have had a strong commitment to decentralisation. It has to go further than just looking at the activities of government, which is why I appreciate the work that the member for Indi has put into the drafting of the terms of reference for this committee, because they go to those important areas of regional economic development and the role of the private sector as well.

The objective of the decentralisation is to create jobs and economic opportunity in regional areas. That is what it is all about. Therefore, we argue that it does not make sense to be moving agencies or parts of agencies from capital cities into regional centres if, at the very same time, you are cutting jobs from other Commonwealth agencies that already exist in those regional areas. Sadly, that has been the case. We note that within the existing budget there are a further 1,200 jobs slated to be cut from the Department of Human Services—one of the most decentralised agencies in the Commonwealth. These are issues that need to be looked at and will be looked at. We will be looking at them very carefully in our participation in this new select committee. Once again, we want to congratulate all members of parliament who have had a role in bringing this motion to the parliament today, and we will be active and positive contributors to the work and the considerations of this committee.

Question agreed to.