Damian Drum (Murray, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Select Committee on Regional Development and Decentralisation, I present the committee's report entitled Regions at the ready: Investing in Australia's future, together with the minutes of proceedings.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—As Australia battles to deal with its centralised population and congestion caused by having over 40 per cent of its population living in its two biggest cities, the realisation is stark that we have to take a different approach to growing our regions if we want to achieve a different outcome. For many decades, Melbourne and Sydney have dominated Australia's population. As these cities and our other capitals have grown and prospered, the demand for further infrastructure investment continues to grow. These endless demands from our capital cities for more lanes on freeways, more trains running more often, bigger hospitals, more universities, bigger airports and new airports put the nation in a continuous need for more resources.

Once these infrastructure projects are completed, these capital cities continue to thrive and become more liveable and then more and more people make the decision to live in this capitals, and the congestion cycle starts all over again. Until we have a fundamental shift in spending priorities away from our congested capital cities and share the infrastructure spending with regional Australia, we cannot expect the current imbalance to correct itself. As a result of this cycle, more and more Australians are now growing tired of the congestion in our capital cities, despairing of their inability to enter the housing market and generally struggling to get ahead while living in these growing suburban based cities.

The regions of Australia have never been in a better position to take advantage of an Australian population that is looking away from our capital cities and looking to the regions for a better all-around life. Regional Australia is ready to welcome these people with open arms, to live five to 10 minutes from work, to own your own home, to have space for your children to grow and play. These are the benefits our regions have over our capitals. We just need a greater share of the funding pie invested in regional Australia.

While the quantum of spending in regional Australia is a critical factor, it is also important that our funding be more targeted. The committee continually heard that the most important issues are around making our regional cities, towns and communities more connected. Connectivity can be described as having better roads, better rail services, mobile phone coverage and access to quality broadband internet. Especially important is that those living in regional Australia have access to a reasonable base level of services such as health and education.

The final piece of the puzzle that influences people's decisions to live in the regions is that of amenity. The amenity of a city, town or community can be visual aesthetics, buildings, parks, theatres, access to shops, recreational facilities, et cetera. While amenity is a broad and wide-reaching category, if we fail to invest in amenity, we will fail to entice people to live in regional Australia.

The government's decentralisation agenda was warmly welcomed by every regional city that the committee visited. At every regional hearing, witnesses espoused the advantages of relocating government agencies or parts thereof from capital cities out to regional cities, where their performance and outcomes would be improved due to either a natural geographical advantage or advantages gained by creating a cluster and critical mass of agencies or businesses.

While it is undeniably the preference of government to move more government agencies to regions where there will be a natural advantage, the committee also saw a number of successful examples of relocated government agencies where there was no natural advantage to speak of, other than the benefit of having well-paid government employees living and working in regional towns and cities. In these instances, I believe that there should never be any disadvantage to the efficiency of a government agency when a potential relocation is being considered. We also heard evidence that, even when the positives associated with moving an agency far outweigh the perceived negatives, there will always be an element of pushback from public servants who would much prefer to stay in their current location.

It must be noted that while government agencies being relocated from capital cities out to regional cities become the face of decentralisation policy, it is the private sector that has the ability to dwarf the benefits that will be delivered from relocating government sector positions. Private sector decentralisation is often dependent on the decisions of government that set the environment for private sector movements.

It is also abundantly evident that we need to categorise our own investment in regional Australia into four discernible categories. First, there are what we would all acknowledge as investments that maintain the status quo. These projects are necessary as they assist in enabling regional towns and cities to provide that universal base level of service and amenity. Second, and perhaps most importantly, is catalytic investment. These investments attract further investments, and they help create and build on critical mass in a particular sector. These catalytic investments that lure other businesses into a co-location should be given greater priority within government decision-making. Third is an investment in capacity building, and, finally, there is investment in human capital. The role of identifying catalytic-type investment is one that would be well served by our regional development committees into the future.

There is so much work yet to be done in this space. Regional development and decentralisation will play an increasingly important role in growing the national economy and creating a more even spread of Australia's population. The committee strongly agrees that the Australian parliament create a joint standing committee on regional decentralisation to continue this work into the future.

The committee would like to thank everyone who participated in this inquiry, particularly the members of our informal expert panel, namely: Jack Archer, Professor Andrew Beer, Professor John Cole, Ms Anne Dunn, Professor Robyn Eversole, Professor Fiona Haslam McKenzie and Professor Tony Sorensen, all of whom made an outstanding contribution not just as witnesses to our public hearings but also through submissions, other written contributions and advice. I would also like to thank the members of the committee, especially the former chairs, Dr John McVeigh and the honourable Darren Chester. I would also like to thank the deputy chair, Ms Meryl Swanson MP, for her professionalism and bipartisan approach. I would like to thank all the members of the secretariat, namely: Fran Denny, Lynley Ducker, Andrew Gaczol, Danton Leary, Kelly Burt and Julia Agostino.

I commend this report to the House.

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I rise to speak on the Select Committee on Regional Development and Decentralisation's report into ways to increase the growth and prosperity of rural and regional Australia. The chair of our committee, the member for Murray, has just spoken about our findings. I would like to thank him for his remarks and for the level of cooperation and support he has extended throughout the committee's tenure. As the deputy chair of the committee, I would also like to note the substantial contributions made by the previous chairs, namely the member for Groom, Dr McVeigh, who joins us in the chamber, and also Darren Chester, the member for Gippsland, who was also a chair of the committee for a short time. We have had a very productive time on this committee. I would also like to thank the members of the secretariat, including: secretaries Julia Agostino and Lynley Ducker, inquiry secretary Fran Denny, senior research officer Andrew Gaczol, research officer Danton Leary, and administration officer Kelly Burt. Thank you so much. None of this would have been possible without your good work.

Mention must also be made of the many individuals and organisations that provided essential information for this report and attended or made submissions to our hearings around the country—particularly our expert panel, whom the chair has already individually thanked. I would like to reinforce that thanks. I also make mention of the member for Indi, who has in particular applied her knowledge of rural and regional Australia and committed many hours to this. I would like to personally thank her for her assistance and cooperation in working through what were at times very complex issues across a very important part of our country.

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts, your experience, your expertise and your passion for the fortunes and wellbeing of the people of regional Australia. I really share that passion about regional Australia. It is in many cases the untapped gem. My electorate of Paterson is one such gem. It spans wine producers, traditional industries, beef and dairy farmers, emerging high tech, the coalfields, booming regional and coastal areas, vegetable farmers, the Williamtown RAAF base and the glorious blue-water destinations of Port Stephens.

The committee's draft report, Regions at the ready: investing in Australia's future, acknowledges that our nation's economic prosperity is underwritten by investment in regional and rural communities such as my own. This is hardly surprising, considering around a third of Australia's workforce is employed outside of metropolitan areas. These people and industries really do ply some serious heft—they account for around 40 per cent of Australia's national economic output. How can we further capitalise on the marvellous opportunities presented by our fantastic regions?

It is a complex issue, and there is no one-size-fits-all for the regions. There are almost as many solutions as there are regions. But the Select Committee on Regional Development and Decentralisation's report has found that decentralisation, in and of itself, isn't enough. For example, it isn't good enough to lift up a government department or other public agency and drop it into a regional community hundreds of kilometres away for short-term political gain. We need to really grasp the nettle on this. We've got to stop politicising our regional areas for short-term political benefit.

To this end, the committee sought feedback from far and wide, throughout the country, over the past year, and it has drawn on this information to set out the basis of a solid Commonwealth decentralisation policy. Within it, there are some vital learnings. These include the fact that decentralised agencies or functions need to be a good fit for the location. This could mean a natural geographic advantage, existing complementary businesses or industries or a skilled workforce. Any decentralisation should be a catalyst for broader social and economic change. It should give rise to clustering opportunities—that is, attract relevant industries and businesses, encourage an expansion of services and facilitate education and training opportunities. One of the biggest items of decentralisation is efficiently and appropriately equipping agencies that are already in regional and rural areas.

The draft report also highlights the fact that we face two major challenges as we work to encourage more people to embrace a life in regional Australia. One is purely a matter of perception. The second could be a matter of trend. With reference to the first challenge, our committee identified the fact that many hold a perception that our regions are somehow second-rate—not those who live in the regions but perhaps those in other, more metropolitan areas. I'm the first to dispute that perception. I'm a product of a rural and regional environment. I know firsthand what sort of wonderful people and opportunities lie in our regions, and I know that our regions themselves, such as my electorate of Paterson, are often sustainable, vibrant and enjoyable places to live and work and raise a family. An erroneous perception that life in regional Australia is a second-rate existence really often fails scrutiny. Our metropolitan areas are often congested and many are experiencing the stress of rapid population growth and housing affordability. Those stressors, combined with the high cost-of-living expenses, make it harder for people achieve the quality of they want.

The second challenge the committee identified is that there is an established trend of people moving to the capital cities, to the metropolitan areas. That trend is on; it is happening. Rooted somewhere in the psyche of many Australians, I think there's a deep-seated message that lends them to believe that they could even perish if they lived more than half an hour from the coast. Maybe it's because our home is girt by sea. Maybe it's because we are a proud island nation. Maybe it's our collective pride in our beautiful coastline. Regardless, there are many of us, though, who might not clap eyes on the ocean more than once every six months, despite our relative proximity to it. So, we've got that challenge to understand. We've got to understand that trend of people moving to the capital cities and wanting to stay close to the coastal band. How do we tackle that challenge and encourage people to look beyond the big cities and the beach?

For regions to thrive, they need to attract and retain people. And, yes, much of regional and rural Australia lies more than half an hour from the big city or the beach.

Our committee identified four ways in which we can support this outcome, and they all boil down to investment: investment in infrastructure, such as roads, education, training, information technology, connectivity and regional facilities; investment that drives development and growth, such as in an airport, hospital, university or government department; investment in capacity building—that is, providing leadership development, education and training opportunities for people in rural communities; and, finally, investment in human capital—employing good people to deliver the services that our communities need.

However, decentralisation and investment across our three tiers of government are not enough on their own. We must encourage private entities to invest in regional and rural areas and we must collaborate and work collectively with our communities. Some Australians might baulk at the idea of moving to a regional or rural area, due to the perceptions. We must actively promote the value of and the advantages of living and working in regional Australia, and we must ensure universal access to reasonable services. These points lie within the 12 principles that the select committee believes should form the basis of all regional development policy.

We must also acknowledge that it is most important that the decentralisation of any Commonwealth or corporate entities meets the requirement of efficiency. We can't shift operations somewhere where the locale and the location hinder the function. In addition, we must acknowledge and embrace the fact that we live in a fast-evolving world. The ramifications of these changes, and the pace with which the changes occur, must be considered when we conceptualise, formulate and implement regional development policy. For this reason, the committee sees a need for the establishment of a Joint Standing Committee on Regional Development and Decentralisation. This issue demands an ongoing committee that exits to constantly examine and assess the issues that face rural and regional Australians. The committee asks that the same committee that is tasked with examining the issues also oversees the broader Commonwealth decentralisation program.

I would like to reiterate the committee's call for a consolidated government policy on regional Australia, through a regional white-paper process. In closing, I would like to make special mention of my electorate of Paterson and thank those people who submitted to the inquiry. I thank those who attended the Hunter hearing. I was most honoured to chair that hearing and I was very pleased that representatives from the airport at Newcastle, Maitland Business Chamber, Kurri Kurri District Business Chamber, the University of Newcastle and the Hunter Research Foundation all gave some fantastic ideas and evidence. Thank you so much for your commitment to helping our community thrive and, more broadly, thank you to the committee and those who served on it with me, as deputy. It was a terrific experience and I do hope that we can move forward and really help our regions that are so ready to prosper.

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

by leave—To endorse the comments of the chair and deputy chair—thank you. What I'm so pleased about is that this is a principle-based report and if the recommendations are accepted by the government it will lead to good governance for all of Australia. The principle that the deputy chair has referred to that I most want to stress, the one that's most important to me, is that of subsidiarity. This is a concept which says that decisions are made at the level of governance most close to the people who are going to be impacted by it. I think it's that particular principle that governs the whole report. How do we make sure that the people who live in the regions and in rural and remote areas of Australia have decisions made for them and by them at the level closest to them?

If I could briefly pick up on three of the recommendations in the report that support this principle. The long-term recommendations, as has already been mentioned, are about policy. I and very, very supportive of the green-paper and white-paper policy processes. As we travelled around the country, we saw examples of where this process works. It had the unanimous support of the committee and it's a process that, if we do well—which, of course, we have the capacity to do—will give this country a regional policy that will be there for the long term for all people.

However, in the report there are also some short-term, easily picked up recommendations. I'm delighted the minister is at the table. From my perspective, the most important recommendation in the report is about regional deals. I'm delighted that, when the minister was speaking to the National General Assembly of Local Government, both he and the Prime Minister endorsed this concept of regional deals. We look forward to working with you, Minister, on piloting these in the very, very near future and getting them underway. I think we can do things in a reasonably short time frame to actually show the people of rural and regional Australia that they have been listened to and to say, 'This report has been taken seriously, and here is the action that the government is going to take as a result of it.' We all know how well the city deals are working. So taking that machinery of government and applying it to regions will, I think, have a really big impact. So, Minister, I'm looking forward to working with you as we do that.

The other aspect of the report that I really like is the practical nature of the recommendations. I acknowledge the member for Murray for his work and his absolute tenacity in supporting Regional Development Australia groups as the main mechanism for grounding these regional deals. It's a strategic approach. We already have Regional Development Australia bodies in place. Let's use them. Let's do strategic planning at the regional level and then let's work with the governments—the Commonwealth government, state governments and local governments—and communities to do the planning and strategising that will enable these deals to take place. Here is a huge call-out to the RDAs: we're really looking forward to you having the resources you need to do the planning you need. We can work from that.

The other aspect of the report that I would like to talk about is that it is bipartisan. Again, I would like to acknowledge the leadership of all the chairs we've had and the contribution of the Labor Party. We have worked really hard with our communities, because we absolutely understand that, if we are going to get the development that we need in the regions, it's got to be a parliamentary activity. We can't fight on traditional tribal lines. It's got to be everybody working together regardless of their political affiliations. We have that in this report. It's a fantastic achievement. I'd like to really pay tribute to the leadership, who did the really hard work to get everybody to agree to the recommendations. So congratulations to this parliament. I think it will make the people of Australia really proud that, when we have to, we can work together as a parliament, not play those tribal games and deliver a report that everyone agrees with.

But, having done the report, the work's not over. As the deputy chair said, we've recommended setting up a parliamentary standing committee to make sure it gets supported. But here is my real call-out. It's to the Prime Minister and to the relevant ministers. This is only going to work if we have leadership. One of the reasons why this committee exists is that it had the support of the Prime Minister in the beginning. So I know he is onside with this. But, if we are going to have regional Australia reach its potential, be full of opportunity, be caring, be prosperous and take its place in this nation, it's going to need significant leadership. It's going to need us all pulling together behind that leadership. We absolutely know it's possible, but it's not going to be easy.

I mention to this parliament that one of my predecessors as the member for Indi, Lou Lieberman, in his maiden speech in 1993 said regional development was his major issue. Twenty-five years later I'm standing here as the member for Indi making the same call. But we must draw a line in the sand. We can't keep going without a national strategic approach to regional development.

In bringing my comments to a close, I want to say to my colleagues in this House—to the members of the National Party who represent regional seats, to the members of the Liberal Party who represent regional seats and to the members of the Labor Party who represent regional seats—that we have shown we can work together. We have a report here that has some significant recommendations in it. Over the next six months, if we can get that standing committee set up really quickly and begin to do the work that we know we can do so that, before the next election, before we all go out and face our electorates again, we can say, 'We have done this, we have delivered regional deals and we have the standing committee,' and if we could even get the Commonwealth government, through its cabinet, to reform its Regional Ministerial Taskforce to provide the coordination we need, they would be such good activities about which we could go back to our communities and say, 'Tick—we've done what we said we were going to do.'

In bringing my comments to a close, I also want to acknowledge—the general thankyous have been done—and thank the people of Indi for 44 submissions. Forty-four community groups and individuals got together. They did the hard work. They put the hours of preparation in. They heard the call. They turned up at the hearings. They delivered results. I have to say proudly that there were more submissions from Indi than from any other electorate in the country. Clearly, my electorate cares, and I care. So thank you to the people of Indi for absolutely getting behind me as your member. We'll continue to advocate for this.

The other people I need to thank are my staff. All our staff have worked so hard on this. I want to acknowledge Kerryn Lee for managing the diary, a really hard task. It was very, very difficult as we chopped and changed and did the hearings around the country. I want to acknowledge my electoral officers, Christine, Sara and Peter, for handling the constituent inquiries—fantastic. I want to thank my media people—Leah currently and other media people—who have got behind this whole process and helped explain to my electorate and particularly to the young people in the electorate why this is important. I want to thank Jeremy, my political adviser, who continues to give me really sound advice on how to do work. I thank George for a fantastic job, which you continue to deliver; you continue to persist. I know that in the last month you've worked so hard on this draft. I thank Di, my chief of staff, for the guidance you give all of us to enable us to keep doing our work. And to all my other staff, who I'm not going to name, but to all of you: this has been a whole-office job; it's been a whole-community job, and I am so pleased that we've got to this stage. I give my commitment to my community to work with my colleagues now, to work on the standing committee, so that we can advance the recommendations and actually do the hard work that we know needs to happen next.

Thank you, Deputy Speaker, for the honour of being here. I thank my colleagues, the chair and the deputy chair particularly, for your work. It's been a real—I want to say 'baptism of fire'—challenge, but I think that, if we can do what needs to be done next, we will all retire from this job, in the long term, very proud of the work that we've done for regional Australia.

Damian Drum (Murray, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

Debate adjourned.