Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tomorrow is The Daily Telegraph's second Bush Summit. It was held in Dubbo last year, and tomorrow we will be hosted by the wonderful community of Cooma. Last year, the focus was largely on the terrible drought we were experiencing. Tomorrow, the focus will be on the economic recovery in the regions post COVID, something that I hope comes sooner rather than later. I've been a student of regional development policy for a long, long time. I've read all the books, the reports, the research papers, but, most importantly, I've lived in a regional community all of my life—born and bred in regional Australia. I know that the foundation to good regional development policy is the people in our local communities. They know where the opportunities and challenges are. They are the innovators. They know how to make their local economies work best and how to make their local communities more vibrant.

It is for government to supply the building blocks for the foundations local people provide as they seek, rightly, a bottom-up approach to economic development. Governments need to therefore provide the enablers: the connectivity, whether it be transport or telecommunications; the skilled workforce a local economy needs; the schools and hospitals and the health services that local families need—and a community needs to attract new people. These are the things that a vibrant region needs. This approach will be the right approach post COVID. In fact, it's always been the right approach. It was certainly the right approach pre COVID. But, sadly, this is not the Morrison government's approach. This is the point I will be trying to make tomorrow.

To stick religiously to this approach, you need plans. At the last Bush Summit, in Dubbo, the Prime Minister said he'd develop a plan. He said he'd develop a plan to back the National Farmers Federation's plan to grow the farmgate value of the agricultural sector to $100 billion. Alas, and sadly, more than a year on there is no such plan. In fact, since Dubbo, the Prime Minister hasn't even mentioned the development of such a plan.

He also told the Bush Summit that he'd have a Regional Development Committee. This is one promise, other than promising to do nothing—one other promise—that he's kept. In fact, he's had not just one Regional Development Committee but two. He had one in the last parliament, announced with great fanfare. It did a lot of work, and I congratulate all members for their good work, but the government never responded to the committee's recommendations. Then, in this new parliament, he appointed another Regional Development Committee, with almost the same terms of reference. That's not good enough.

When Labor were in government and we were dealing with the global financial crisis, what did we do? We asked local people what they needed in their communities that would provide both economic stimulus and long-lasting benefits—in my own electorate, the $1.7 billion Hunter Expressway and the $1.2 billion dedicated coal trail track to get more coal to the Port of Newcastle more quickly and more efficiently. We upgraded our TAFEs. We refurbished every school, giving them new and meaningful capacity. We built a mining school. We built a tourism-hospitality school. We put trades training centres in our local high schools. We went to the councils and asked them about smaller infrastructure projects—parks and gardens and the like, the things that make for a vibrant and happy community. We did those projects in their electorates. We put gates on railway level crossings that were dangerous. We put roundabouts in. We rebuilt intersections that councils deemed dangerous. These are the things this government should now be thinking about—talking to local communities, building their infrastructure projects and giving them the best opportunity to be strong post COVID.