Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Financial Assistance Legislation Amendment Bill 2009, dealing with financial assistance grants to local government, will be supported by the coalition, although we wonder why the legislation is being brought forward. We can only suspect that it has a lot to do with the semantics of the budget and, perhaps, Mr Rudd not wanting to confess to a deficit in excess of $58 billion.

What this bill is all about is bringing forward from the next financial year into this financial year an amount of $480 million going to local government. The government gives the explanation that it will allow local government to get on with job-creating works, but that does not seem to ring true. Our consultation with the Australian Local Government Association suggests that this was not sought by local governments throughout Australia; it is simply something the government is doing. As I say, we cannot quite understand why it is. It means that the quarterly payment that was due at the beginning of next financial year, $480 million, will be paid in this financial year. It means councils will have that additional money this financial year. They will not be able to spend it in the next couple of months, quite clearly, and it means they will have to hold it in reserve to spend next year.

So what is this all about? Perhaps whichever minister is dealing with this legislation in the Senate can give us a convincing reason why this is happening. We can only think that the Treasurer did not want to talk about a deficit of more than $58 billion. It is fudging the figures somewhere along the line. Local governments are certainly not getting any more money; they are getting the same amount of money, but it is just that the first quarterly payment is coming forward in this financial year. There is no sensible or believable explanation given by the government in the second reading speech or the explanatory memorandum. We are just curious as to why it has happened.

But it is good to see the Labor government continuing the financial assistance grants that the previous coalition government made to local government throughout Australia in recognition of the quite significant work that local government does in all aspects of the life of Australians. Certainly councils look after the old triple R—roads, rates and rubbish—but these days they look after a lot more than that. I know that in my state of Queensland, particularly in many of the smaller regional councils, they take on a real community leadership role and deal with a lot of infrastructure projects and many other works that benefit their communities.

Councils also get money under Roads to Recovery, another initiative of the Howard government which I am pleased to see the current government continuing—for the time being, at least. That is an initiative where roads money goes directly to councils, cutting out the middleman at state government level, so councils can do good works on local roads. Unfortunately, in Queensland we are finding that quite a number of local councils are using their R2R money on state roads, roads that should be maintained and improved by the Queensland state government but that the Queensland government are not at all interested in because they are outside the south-east corner of our state. We find the local authorities using the money given to them by the Commonwealth government for local roads on these state roads simply because nobody else is maintaining them.

But local governments play a much wider role in the community as well. I was interested the other day to see all of the mayors from local governments from Townsville out to Mount Isa—and there are five or six of them—indicating that, as the headline in the newspaper says, ‘Mayors support uranium’. The newspaper article says that:

Mayors in the seven shires between Mount Isa and Townsville have unanimously voted in favour of uranium mining in Queensland.

That is a very interesting aspect of the views of some community leaders in that particular area.

Their support for uranium mining simply mirrors the support given by Ms Betty Kiernan, the Labor member for the state seat of Mount Isa. It also mirrors the urgings of the former Labor member for Mount Isa, who was minister for mines in the Beattie government, who is very vocal in his support for uranium mining. I think one of Queensland’s leading union officials, Mr Bill Ludwig from the AWU—

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Good man.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A very good man. I am not quite sure why he supports the ALP, although perhaps there is evidence of why in this chamber at the moment! He, like me, is very concerned about workers in the north-west and the north of Australia. He is very concerned about the emissions trading scheme. I do not think he has said too much publicly because he does not want to embarrass those who might be close to him who might be forced to take a position on it that does not support the interests of his members. But he is the sort of union leader who is interested in workers’ jobs. He is the sort of union leader who would be very concerned about the emissions trading scheme and the impact it will have on jobs in the Bowen Basin coalfields, the aluminium industry, the cement industry, the cattle industry and the dairy industry across Australia. Also, as I recall—and, if I am wrong, someone will no doubt tell me—Mr Bill Ludwig, the AWU union leader, is a supporter of uranium mining in Australia.

I am not indicating that I necessarily am or am not a supporter of uranium mining. I do know there is a hell of a lot of it. I declare an interest here. I have a couple of shares in penny dreadfuls, some of which are prospecting for uranium or think they have found it. I will just declare that as an interest. But there is a lot of uranium in Northern Australia, particularly Northern Queensland, and that is why these men across that part of Northern Australia have unanimously voted in favour of uranium mining in Queensland—as I say, mirroring support given by the Labor state member for Mount Isa. They have done that because they realise that uranium is used around the world. In Australia, uranium from three mines seems to be okay, but uranium from any more than three mines seems to be bad uranium—the policy of the Labor Party that everyone finds difficult to understand. But they also looked at emissions trading, carbon emissions into the atmosphere, and realised that one of the reasons the European Union is able to talk about meeting targets is because a substantial part of the power in the European Union comes from nuclear power. One wonders why people like the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, who are paranoid about carbon emissions, are not at least investigating—I am not saying supporting—the possibility of having uranium in the mix of energy providers for Australia.

But I digress. I am simply indicating that local governments in Australia take on a far wider role than the old road rates and rubbish activities of the past. In Australia local government is very well led at a national level by Councillor Paul Bell—a Queenslander, I am proud to say. He hails from the mining city of Emerald in Central Queensland. I know he would be having concerns about the emissions trading scheme, as anyone who lives in those areas would be. Certainly local government is well led and well resourced in Australia. There are a lot of very good CEOs of the various state local government associations, people like Greg Hallam in Queensland, who are very professional and do a great job in assisting local governments deliver their services.

I was at a local government conference in Hughenden in western Queensland just last week and I took the opportunity there to urge local governments to get together across the top of Australia to try to establish some sort of North Australian congress to fight for a better deal for North Australia. As I know you know, Mr Acting Deputy President Trood, about 45 per cent of Australia’s land mass is north of the Tropic of Capricorn, but only five per cent of Australia’s population lives in that area. In a federal parliament of over 200 members and senators, 142 federal members and 73 senators are in the south of Australia, below the Tropic of Capricorn, and across the north of Australia there are only eight federal members and three senators. I guess that is why, in a democracy, Northern Australia at times gets overlooked.

Northern Australia contributes 33.4 per cent of the national sea exports from Australia. Of Australia’s export earnings, Northern Australia contributes something like 30 per cent. We in the north—this is very relevant in these times of a drying continent—have anywhere between 47 and 66 per cent of the national river run-off. That all occurs in Northern Australia. The predictions on climate change are that the south of our continent will get drier and the north will get a little wetter or stay the same. We have that huge freshwater run-off across the north. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to work out that in the future most of Australia’s food will be grown in Northern Australia because it has good, reliable water and it has a mosaic of good quality lands. In fact, I often proudly quote the Peanut Company of Australia, which originated in Kingaroy at the time when the name ‘Kingaroy’ was synonymous with peanuts. It is difficult to believe that in the not-too-distant future there will be very few, if any, peanuts grown in the Kingaroy district. They will all be grown in Katherine in the Northern Territory or in that corridor between Townsville and Mount Isa once good water storage comes into play.

In those parts of Northern Australia there are carefully considered programs for the harvesting and storage of some of that fresh water. We know about the Menzies government’s great initiative in the Ord irrigation scheme, a scheme which I am delighted to say the new Western Australian government has picked up and committed $200 million to extending. I give credit where credit is due. I am pleased to see the current government matching the Western Australian government’s $200 million to go on to stage 2 and perhaps stage 3 of the Ord River scheme. I was delighted in Darwin last week, in discussions with ministers in the Northern Territory government, to find that the Northern Territory government has dropped its disinterest in stage 2 of the Ord and is now coming to the table to be part of the discussions in looking at stage 3.

The Douglas Daley area in the Northern Territory is a good water supply source. There are certainly issues to be addressed, but that is an area that will support agriculture into the future. In my state of Queensland there is a lot more capacity in the Burdekin dam area. By increasing the size of the dam wall you could almost double the amount of water available, which will feed not only Australia but the world in many years to come. There are smaller projects too. There is the O’Connell Creek diversion off the Flinders River at Richmond. It is almost shovel-ready. It is the sort of project that I hope Mr Rudd would be seriously looking at as he wants to spend some of this money on nation building. I suspect it will not get a guernsey because it is probably too sensible.

The Queensland government need to make some decisions in relation to water allocation, which they seem quite incapable of doing. There is a good project that could start now and create a lot of jobs and more good quality agricultural land to feed Australian mouths and indeed the mouths of the increasingly hungry across the world. The Mt Beckford scheme is further up the Flinders River near Hughenden. It is a good project that could be put into operation with a bit of government leadership. There is also the Green Hills dam proposal on the Gilbert River just north of Georgetown up in the gulf. These are all projects that are almost shovel-ready. That seems to be the new buzz word these days. Those are some projects that the Labor government could very well and usefully have a look at if they could get their mates in the Queensland government to make some decisions.

We in the north really do need to get the people of southern Australia to understand just what a significant contribution the north makes to the national economy and to the future of people living in the south of Australia. That is why I have suggested that a Northern Australian parliament, sponsored by local governments across the north, might be one way of attracting the focus and the impetus to get some interest from southern-centric governments, both in Queensland and in Australia. That demonstrates the length and breadth and the width and depth of work that local governments do for our country these days. That is why the coalition continues to support financial assistance grants to local governments. That is why, although we are mystified as to why this bill is being introduced, we are supporting the bill currently before the chamber.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Prime Minister for Social Inclusion) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Macdonald for his contribution to the debate on the Financial Assistance Legislation Amendment Bill 2009 and for his ongoing support for local government. Can I explain quite clearly why this bill is being brought forward. Under the Local Government (Financial Assistance) Act as it currently stands there is no mechanism for the Commonwealth to respond quickly and responsibly to support local government by bringing forward a portion of next year’s financial assistance grants. So the amendments we are seeking here are simply to provide the flexibility to advance payments from the next financial year to the current year. The amendments will also increase the general drawing rights authorising debits from the COAG Reform Fund for the purposes of making grants of general revenue assistance to the states. The government is looking forward to the passage of this bill to enable the Commonwealth to provide that general purpose financial assistance to the states and of course to help local government meet the current economic challenges. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.