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

Might I say what a pleasant night this is to give my first grievance debate speech in my time in politics, 15 years. So you are present for a moment in history. Today, with some of my colleagues on the other side, we have been successful in making sure that we maintain two seats in the Northern Territory. It was quite clear that National Party senators—being Senators Canavan, Bridget McKenzie, Perin Davey, Sam McMahon and Susan McDonald—were not going to be seen as part of a process of removing a regional seat from Australia. Then it was about what would happen when it came to the House of Representatives, where I said quite clearly that I would not be part of that either and that I would be voting to make sure that we maintain those seats, even though they are Labor Party seats. That should be irrelevant in representing regional—

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

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

Yes, 'A Daniel come to judgement.' I think that's what he was saying.

An honourable member interjecting—

That's right. It's really important.

One of my grievances is that at times you have to actually go with what is logical and not with what your party says or demands. That's why God placed a head on your shoulders. It would be good to see that in other parties from time to time, to give people a sense that their democracy actually resides in your better judgement, in an informed conscience and your better judgement that is to be guided by your party and not ruled by your party. And all of a sudden the clapping disappears.

An honourable member interjecting—

You gave up your job, so I have to give it to you. Good on you, mate! You're one of my mum's favourites, God rest her soul.

An honourable member interjecting—

You always thought that was the great opportunity, the great Labor hope, and that was my mum. Anyway, what we should also have before us, what we should be dealing with is getting a better regional franchise. My grievance is that at the National Party federal conference we had a unanimous resolution to support regional senators, that the regional party believes in regional representation. The democratic weight of our nation should always be represented by the lower house—there are no problems there. Your House of Representatives seats will overwhelmingly be in the nation's capitals, and that's fair enough. But we have this ridiculous situation in Australia where 4½ per cent of our elected members represent about 85 per cent of our land mass. How do you think Indigenous Australians see that? How do you think they deal with that issue? We've got seats like Durack—1.629 million square kilometres for a nation that is only 7.6 million square kilometres.

An honourable member interjecting—

If we had regional senators you could have six regions per state. This is based on the Washington system. They only have two senators for New York, and they are very important senators. Why do we need 11 out of the 12 senators in Western Australia residing in Perth? Why? If we had six regions and two senators per region, based on the same process as what they would have had in the Washington system of government, then you'd actually give the people of the Kimberley and Indigenous people in the gulf and Indigenous people in the Northern Territory and the western districts of Queensland and New South Wales a chance—a very good chance; in some cases I would say both chances—of being senators here. They wouldn't be a voice to parliament, they would be a voice in parliament.

It's a sad day. I introduced this bill; it didn't even get debating time. In the Order of Business the Labor Party and, on my own side, the Liberal Party said, 'We're not even going to debate this.' That is a shame. That is also another time when it should have resided in the well-informed beliefs of the people in that committee to say: 'I don't know if I'm going to vote for this, but we're going to have the debate. Let's have the debate and let's get this thing out. Let's have a discussion. Maybe some good will come of it.' I will give you the names of some people disappointed with that: Richie Ahmet; people up in the gulf; people in the cape; Aboriginal people from my electorate—they call themselves Aboriginal in my electorate; the people back home. Yet again it's all rhetoric. When you actually can do something, when there's a possibility to do something real, no, that's too much; back away. Back away to Hollywood. Back away to the photos. Back away to the benevolent statements and the wondrous desires, but not in the realpolitik of actually delivering a real outcome.

To continue on with that, it's why we back Lingiari to remain as a seat. It's so that we won't just have one seat called Darwin. That is why I think we need to deliver that, we need to show that we're willing to break from our party's solidarity and support the Labor Party on something—not because it's going to get us a seat, but because it's the right thing to do. At the same time, someone in the bills committee should have the capacity to stand up and say: 'I believe this needs to be debated. I believe this issue needs to be discussed.' Otherwise, to be quite frank—I say to Labor, 'What you ask of us, we always turn around and say: "Where's the quid pro quo? Where's the time that we see the stand from you?"'

Who are the beneficiaries of this? People in remote regional areas, where the poorest Australians come from—they have the least opportunity of going to university, as I was just speaking about in the other place—and where life expectancy is shorter. That is why I wrote the book, Weatherboard and Iron. People would ask, 'Who would live there?' and I'd say: 'See the smoke coming out of that chimney. That means people are living there. That is their house. That is their life.' The reason we have to get better representation for those people is that they've got no other avenue back.

More and more seats like Durack, O'Connor, Grey, Maranoa, Kennedy, Parkes, Lingiari are getting bigger and bigger. The smaller ones are becoming wealthier and wealthier because the political weight resides with them. Not only do they have the lower house members; they have the vast majority of the senators. Usually, 11 out of the 12 senators live in the capital city. This means that the desire for investment in a motorway, or, God bless you, the desire for an investment in a new park or foreshore redevelopment or whatever—you've got so much political weight to do it. But the fundamentals of what is required for a basic health service in an area where they don't have a doctor—there is no doctor. If you get sick, good luck. That is what you'll get: good luck. You might get a nurse, maybe, but, in a lot of these areas, there is no medical practitioner.

I'll put some numbers to that. In Double Bay, there's one doctor for every 200 patients. Do you know what it is in New England, which I would say is a fairly affluent sort of seat, as far as regional seats go? One to 4,000. In other areas, like the Mallee, it's one to 6,000. It's probably the same for the outer suburbs. But we just stand back and let this happen. No-one ever has the debate. Maybe if you had regional senators, they'd say, 'Let's have a debate about where Medicare provider numbers go.' Do we just allocate them to anybody who wants one? My daughter is doing medicine at the moment, so I've got some skin in this game. My brother is a doctor—that's on the record—and my cousin is the director of ICU at PA in Brisbane.

But do we just give Medicare provider numbers to anybody that wants one, even if they all want to stack one on top of the other in Double Bay, or is there a contractual obligation here—that, after the nation has invested so much in a person, there should be an expectation that that person should invest something back into their nation? It might be that you have to go to Blacktown, or to Penrith, or to Moree, or to Longreach, because those people are also Australians, and they also need the largesse of an understanding government that has the capacity to push services out to them, beyond the rhetoric.

So, we supported two seats for the Northern Territory, because that's the right thing to do. The debating time for regional senators should also have been supported, because that was also the right thing to do, but it didn't happen. I say to the people who went to that federal conference: I apologise to you. I'm sorry, I tried my best; I just didn't get anywhere. But I implore the Labor Party: if you want to change the direction and cut into a debate that everybody is listening to then start talking about issues such as regional senators, and you'll get yourself on an even keel.