Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I rise to speak this afternoon I would also like to congratulate the community of Balgo, as my colleague Senator Johnston has done. There was one thing that I was very impressed with in the community: the school and the community store had formed a partnership. Truancy had been rife in this little community—as you are aware, Madam Acting Deputy President Moore, because you were with us as well. The community decided that something had to be done, and the day we were there was the third day of a program in which the store remained closed until 65 per cent of the students were at school. Through this partnership the school would notify the store that it could open once this had happened. The day we were there, the program had been running for three days and the school had 85 per cent of its students. So it was working, without the governments. They were desperate: how could they get their students to school? So, without government assistance, the community had done this. It was a great little community, and I think that both the Catholic school and the store should be congratulated for this initiative. I hope that it continues.

Unfortunately, being a rural person and someone who supports the bush, I feel that both federal Labor and state Labor have walked out on the bush. Since taking office in November last year, the Labor government’s policy agenda has sent a clear message to regional and rural communities: ‘As long as Labor is in government, your needs will be neglected.’

The member for Brand, the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia, was in Karratha at a recent conference. He described a call from the locals for extra funding for local infrastructure as whinging. I really do wonder about that. A place like Karratha has terrific need for extra housing and has many jobs but cannot fill them simply because there is no accommodation. Just where do they go when the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia—and Karratha is in Northern Australia—makes a statement like that?

I will give you a sample of what Labor have cost regional Australia in the last eight months. They have introduced a new 33 per cent luxury car tax on all vehicles, including four-wheel drives over $57,123. Of course, most people would know that when you get out into remote Australia four-wheel drives are an essential part of being able to conduct one’s business. They have abolished the hugely successful Regional Partnerships and Growing Regions programs, of which I was very supportive, with no new money for regional projects until late 2009—just in time for the next election.

Labor have axed the Agriculture Advancing Australia program, including Advancing Agricultural Industries, FarmBiz and Farm Help. They have axed the women’s representation in decision-making program and have cut funding to rural health services, regional arts programs and rural financial counselling services. They have also cancelled the $900 million Optus and Elders joint venture, denying regional and rural Australians access to competitive high-speed broadband by the end of 2009.

Coming back to the West Kimberley region, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, wants to add 17 million hectares to the National Heritage List, putting an end to new developments and stifling job opportunities for Indigenous people. There was no consultation with the people who earn their living in the area. An article appears in today’s the Australian, titled ‘Jobs for Aborigines: Rudd’s army of nation builders’, which states:

Kevin Rudd is poised to use a $76 billion nation-building infrastructure program to tackle indigenous disadvantage by insisting Aborigines be recruited to work on dozens of new roads, ports and railway projects across the nation.

I agree with this, but we really do have this conflict where things are going a little awry within the Office of  Regional Development in Northern Australia.

But, we do have hope. We have Liberal candidate for the Kimberley, Ruth Webb-Smith. She is working very hard. For 40 years she has been a teacher in schools and Indigenous communities. She is a pastoralist from Yakkamunga Station between Broome and Derby, and states that she wants to:

... represent the people of the Kimberley in State Parliament, to work with the local community to secure the long-term future of our region. The Carpenter Government has ignored the needs of rural and remote Western Australia. We do know how to survive doing it tough in the Kimberley, but we deserve a government that values the contribution the region and its people make to our great State.

I commend Ruth Webb-Smith for standing as a candidate and I do hope she is successful for the sake of the people of the Kimberley.

Moving to Esperance, where they have had problems with lead coming from a mining company’s ships, today’s West Australian has an article titled ‘Esperance lead report not ready before poll’. Are the Carpenter government really hiding these things? The article goes on to state:

... the Esperance lead contamination fiasco is unlikely to be released this week, sparking accusations that the Carpenter Government will avoid scrutiny over the issue before the election.

Esperance residents said frustration was building after up to eight months of delays in the critical report, commissioned by the Government to provide a broader look at the remaining lead contamination risks in the town.

Shadow health minister Kim Hames said the early election had cost the Esperance community access to the report by environmental consultants Golder Associates.

Esperance is not very far from where I come from, and I think the people of Esperance deserve better from this government and from the Carpenter government.

The Patient Assisted Travel Scheme is something that is very dear to my heart. Following the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs report on the inquiry into the operation and effectiveness of patient assisted travel schemes titled Highway to health: better access for rural, regional and remote patients, I have written to the minister twice. The report was handed down in November 2007. We still do not know if our recommendations have been accepted. The way I feel about this is that the Australian healthcare system is based on the principle that all Australians are able to have access to the same level of health care, regardless of where they live. Luckily, the Western Australian shadow health minister has come out with a very comprehensive PATS policy and has taken up the plight of regional cancer patients, me having been one of them.

Any patient who is living more than four hours drive from Perth will now—under a Liberal government, if it is elected—be able to fly to a metropolitan hospital for treatment under the Liberal Party’s reformed Patient Assisted Travel Scheme instead of the current minimum 16-hour drive under the Labor government. The only treatment cancer patients can receive is in Perth. We do not have any regional areas that can provide radiotherapy. Some hospitals can provide chemo, but most patients have to travel to Perth. It really upsets when I have colleagues who say: ‘We cannot afford to stay in Perth. We cannot be away so therefore we won’t have treatment.’ That is just not on. And—surprise, surprise—Minister for Health Jim McGinty has finally said, ‘Perhaps subsidies need to be increased, at least to keep pace with the rise in petrol and accommodation costs.’ So, guess what, we are now having another review into PATS subsidies.

Quickly going to Regional Partnerships, I have had a number of my shires in rural Western Australia desperate to try to get funding to carry out small projects within their community. They have their partners organised, but unfortunately it will not happen because there will be no funding available until 2009-10. At present we have Regional Development Australia community consultations going on. I have been to three of these meetings and—surprise, surprise—what do you have to do? You are told: ‘You tell us what you would really like.’

After the axing of a very successful program in Regional Partnerships, which worked for everyone, we now have to sit back and wait until we can get these Regional Development Australia partnerships off the ground. I understand that the area consultative committees, which will become Regional Development Australia, are going to be cut down from 54 throughout the nation to probably 30. Unfortunately, the office in Perth has been closed down. Therefore, we are going to have to rely on the eastern states bureaucrats to tell us what we need in Western Australia and what projects should and should not get up. And, guess what, the Carpenter government has said nothing. (Time expired)