Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on this occasion to speak on an issue that is causing much concern in my state of Queensland and across the country. Local government provide many essential services that people rely on in their everyday lives, including garbage collection and roads and parks maintenance, and they provide many of the skills and resources necessary to recover from natural disaster. To perform their vital tasks, many local councils rely on funding which in part comes from the federal government. Commonwealth Financial Assistance Grants are an untied payment provided to councils to invest in community services and infrastructure. According to the Australian Local Government Association, ALGA, the 2014-15 financial year saw $2.3 billion provided to local councils under this program. Many small councils, particularly in rural and remote areas, rely on these grants for the majority of their revenue. The 2014-15 federal budget, delivered by Mr Tony Abbott and Mr Joe Hockey, saw a freeze on the indexation of these grants for three years. The ALGA has calculated that this will cost councils $925 million by 2018, with the cost to Queensland councils being around $453 million with a permanent reduction to annual grants of around $177 million.

In many small communities, the local council is the biggest single employer in the town, and the public servants who fulfil the tasks and maintain community infrastructure cycle their wages back into the community as consumers and patrons of private businesses. Like in any private business, those in rural and remote communities cannot survive without a customer base. By slashing funds to councils, real harm will be felt in the private sector and around these communities. As businesses close and council workers are forced to leave the local areas to find alternative employment, the very viability of these communities can be put at risk.

We all know that there are limited opportunities for councils to raise their own revenue, particularly outside the major population hubs. Queensland farmers, already suffering from years of drought and floods, can hardly be asked to pay more in council rates to cover the cuts made by the Abbott government. As it stands, many rural and remote residents already miss out on many of the benefits those in larger cities receive from their local government. There is no domestic waste service in many areas and many of their roads are unsealed; their water is often supplied by rainwater tanks and private bores rather than treated tap water; and private septic tanks are used in place of council sewer networks. These factors are further compounded by other government cost-shifting, which the ALGA reports has added around $1.1 billion every year to the cost incurred by Australian councils. These extra responsibilities include emergency and disaster management, environmental programs, community education, business development, management of certain lands and the transfer of roads.

The role of councils in disaster recovery has been an issue of particular importance to me since the floods that devastated Queensland in 2010. Disasters such as floods and cyclones are not uncommon in Queensland. They generally bring out the best of people. We see armies of volunteers form to help deal with the carnage. Local businesses work overtime to ensure people have access to food and the resources they need to build and resume their lives. Once you get out of the major population centres, however, there are fewer and fewer people to cover a much greater area.

During the 2010 floods, around 75 per cent of the Queensland council area had been declared disaster zones. Along with the damage to private property, many local roads were torn up; community halls, parks and sporting facilities were water logged and in need of urgent repair; and, of course, trees and other debris needed to be cleared. Many contractors who were available to perform this emergency work in capital cities and other large towns simply were not able to get their equipment or personnel out to those regional areas. This work had to be done by local councils using the equipment they had and their available workforce. Disaster recovery funding is important, and it is a topic that I have spoken about in this place before. Without the underlying council infrastructure that is now at risk due to these funding cuts, it will be extremely difficult for remote communities to find the equipment and skills necessary to complete this important work, regardless of how much funding is made available in an emergency situation for disaster recovery.

Premier Palaszczuk and her government in Queensland have recently successfully lobbied the federal government to be able to use NDRRA funding to reimburse councils for providing day labour to rebuild in the wake of Cyclone Nathan and Cyclone Marcia. Under previous restrictions, councils were prohibited from using their existing workforce for reconstruction work—as ridiculous as that may seem. Following the Queensland floods in 2011 and 2012, a trial of day labour found councils delivered reconstruction work faster and more efficiently. But, in typical form, this government and the previous Newman government in Queensland allowed the trial to expire, prohibiting the use of day labour when cyclones hit the state. Under current arrangements the trial will only extend until the end of the 2016-17 financial year, giving no certainty to councils. Given the evidence of the savings that day labour generates, I call on the federal government to permanently change the NDRRA rules and allow councils to use day labour to complete reconstruction projects. Not allowing workers who are directly employed by our local councils to be funded during their ordinary hours of work to rebuild our communities after major disasters leaves outside contractors to be engaged on overly inflated rates. These workers are not uncommonly brought in from areas outside of the local community, meaning that the benefit of the work leaves and goes elsewhere.

In their discussions with the Commonwealth, the Palaszczuk government produced figures from an independent report that showed just how much could be saved by allowing councils in these communities to do the reconstruction work themselves. During a trial of the day labour program following the Queensland floods, not only was the work completed more quickly but the taxpayer was also saved around $160 million in comparison to what it would have cost to have private contractors complete the same work. Again I would like to stress that this work will not be possible if councils are not adequately funded and allowed to maintain a skilled and well equipped workforce. I recognise the Australian Workers Union in Queensland in lobbying the federal government to make day labour arrangements permanent with their 'Keep it Local' campaign. It is just one example of how the loss of funding from the Commonwealth grants program will make it much more difficult for councils to provide the services Queenslanders and indeed all Australians rely on.

When you look at the work of councils across Queensland, you can see they contribute to community values and that they contribute to the community much more than what you would expect. As they get called on to do more work by the federal government, it is imperative that the federal government not only reinstalls the indexation for the Commonwealth financial grants but also broadly recognises where they can help—for example, with disaster recovery funding. They may ensure that the local labour force can be utilised and they may give the councils sufficient help to fix things up when cyclones hit or floods occur. The councils around the country have passed resolutions acknowledging the importance of the Commonwealth grants and of providing vital community infrastructure. It is time for this government to sit down with councils and find a way to move forward with sensible new funding arrangements.