Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In respect of the historic first annual Ministerial Statement on Rural and Regional Budget Outcomes, delivered by the Deputy Prime Minister in the other place on 8 October and tabled here today, I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

As the National Party Senate leader and a very proud rural Australian, I welcome and endorse this statement. It is our plan for a rural-and-regional-led economic recovery. The Nationals are proud barrackers for the bush in good times and in tough times. The 2020-21 budget is a budget for regional Australia. It is a plan to ensure we emerge post-COVID in a stronger position.

The year 2020 has been like no other in living memory. Many of our regional communities continue to navigate through years of drought and communities across northern Queensland faced the worst flooding on record. Large areas of the country were ravaged by summer bushfires which tragically claimed 33 lives and decimated more than 17 million hectares, and we sadly saw the death of more than one billion Australian native animals. Then, as the recovery process started, an equally tragic pandemic swept the world. It brought so many of our already hurting rural and regional communities to their knees.

However, out of every tragedy and hardship there is cause for hope. This is an opportunity to review and to reset our targets and goals. From the rubble of these hardships, we've already seen the opportunities we've been able to create for an even more prosperous and vibrant future. From COVID-19 we've seen the rapid expansion of telehealth, increasing connectivity gains, greater remote-working opportunities and agile and flexible manufacturing from our regional manufacturers. We've seen the migration of so many city residents to their new homes in the country, who we welcome with open arms. Bernard Salt has been mapping that transition of urban Australians embracing our lifestyle and liveability out in regional areas. We've seen the ability to truly collaborate with some, not all, of our state and territory counterparts to deliver sensible policy with less red tape for our industries—like the code achieved for our national freighters—and that's kept us going.

As the Deputy Prime Minister outlined in his statement on regional Australia, the regions offer opportunity and, along with that, a quality of life that is second to none: a life with less traffic; homes with big backyards; reliable, well-paying, sustainable jobs and careers; and affordable living. This is regional Australia, where you are connected to your fellow Australians in a very human-like community and you can tap into and connect with the natural environment in ways that you can't in our capital cities. It's not just the National Party that have been saying it, the Business Council of Australia has penned an opinion article recently which recognises the key role our regions will play in securing Australia's economic and social recovery.

We have the jobs too. I continue to hear and read of unfilled jobs out in regional Australia in everything from high-paying professional careers, to hospitality and to jobs in our fabulous, globally focused agriculture industry. It's absolutely dire for so many in agriculture right now. Many farmers are at their wits end, having to plough-in bumper crops after fabulous rains to start off the season because they can't get the workers. In Maranoa, in the Darling Downs, we've got 10,000 jobs in agriculture that need to be filled just this season. Farmers in Cairns and Wide Bay need 15,000 workers right now. The New South Wales grain industry alone was calling for 3,000 workers at the start of harvest. Not to mention there are the tens of thousands of job vacancies in agriculture in my home state of Victoria, in Shepparton, the Mallee, Gippsland and beyond.

The Nationals back incentives to help fill the worker void in the region. There's up to $6,000 available to cover relocation costs for Australians wanting to head inland. We back the incentives to help those who want a better life with us out in regional communities. We back tax relief that will boost GDP by $3.5 billion in 2020-21 and $9 billion in 2021-22. Our lower-tax approach will help create 50,000 jobs by the end of 2021-22. The key indicator of success in economic recovery is the number of jobs we create. When we think back to National Party governments of the past we think of Black Jack McEwen and his backing of the manufacturing, mining and agriculture sectors, driving reforms across international trade frameworks. His one KPI for himself and the Menzies government was full employment: how would we get the increased number of immigrants who flooded our shores post World War II employed in sustainable careers not just in our capital cities but right throughout regional Australia as well?

We're supporting young people to get into tertiary education so they can get the jobs they want in industries where they're needed. And we're supporting the millions of small businesses, who are the heart and soul of rural and regional communities, with a $32 billion cashflow boost to around 800,000 small businesses. More than 99 per cent of businesses with a turnover of up to $5 billion can write off the full value of any eligible asset they purchase for their business. The Nationals back small businesses because they employ local people and support local communities, like our footy and netball clubs. Small businesses are our innovators, our adapters to change and the value-add champions. This budget is for them, to help them rebuild their communities and our economy through value-added manufacturing. Our $1.5 billion modern manufacturing plan sets six priority areas that include regional industries, because the regions are the perfect place to build advanced manufacturing across foods and beverages, minerals and critical resources, defence, and sustainable forestry products. I'd like to see the government back not just our food and beverage industry but our fabulous fibre industries—our timber harvesters, who have world-class processing facilities; our wool producers, including our growing alpaca-farming community; our cotton gins et cetera. We want to value add to those primary products in regional communities, and I'm looking forward to seeing government support for that.

As we've seen firsthand through the pandemic, Australians are resilient and adaptable. No longer do we need to rely on congested cities and high-rise office towers to collaborate and innovate. Our regional small businesses are perfectly placed to pick up the manufacturing baton. We need to encourage businesses out of the city. City based small businesses should make the move and make their mark in regional Australian manufacturing. The Nationals' vision is that Australia will make the products Australia needs right here at home. We need to make Australia make again by investing in industries in the regions, where we already produce 32 per cent of total manufacturing, to create jobs.

We're building water infrastructure, through the national water grid, to build on our potential. Just add water—we've got everything else we need out in regional communities! We're building rail infrastructure, such as the $10 billion Inland Rail project, to connect producers to markets like never before. Our $5 billion Future Drought Fund, for instance, is about preparing for the future. In communities right across regional Australia the Nationals are backing infrastructure. We're backing connected communities, which isn't just about ports, rails and roads but about digital connectivity as well. We're proud to be part of a government that's investing $4½ billion in new upgrades to the NBN. Our Mobile Black Spot Program now has more than 850 activated base stations so businesses can connect to their markets and customers anywhere in the world. We've also backed connected communities through our $100 million commitment to regional airports over the next four years. This will ensure our regional airports maintain their vital link for regional communities, from food deliveries to health care, from transporting our fabulous fresh, clean, green produce to the markets of the world to ensuring that our medical professionals can get into regional communities and towns and service their residents.

The $50 million Public Interest News Gathering program will provide financial support to our 91 regional media outlets at a time when we need our fourth estate more than ever before. We don't want capital city newsrooms reporting on us; we want news gathering and news reporting that is from us, that is embedded in our communities, that understands who we are and what we need to hear—not some romanticised version of who they think we are.

The fact is that the Nationals are working to ensure our nation's recovery through practical investment in regions and industries that will deliver jobs, drive economic growth and give confidence to Australians that, together, we will get through this pandemic. We are building our sovereign capability and, by doing so, we are securing the future of Australia and our nation.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The regions are the key to Australia. They are the key to our history, our culture and our future. They are the key to our recovery from this crisis. The regions are home to about a third of our population, but they punch well above their weight in accounting for almost 40 per cent of our national economic outlook and contributing half of our nation's growth since the global financial crisis. Too often our regional communities are talked about in terms of crisis—of drought, flood, fire and lack of services—when in fact their story is far more complex and their contribution to our nation far more significant. From farming to resources, energy production, manufacturing, tourism and service provision, our regions contribute so much to our nation—often more than they are given credit for.

Labor knows and recognises this. It is only a month ago that Mr Anthony Albanese delivered his vision statement on regional Australia, talking about the talented, ambitious Australians who work hard and work smart in our regions—the regional people who do so much for our country and who have the potential to do so much more. Over recent years and, most accurately, over the last 12 months, those strong communities and proud people have been tested. I won't pretend that times have been easy. The regions of Australia have borne the brunt of multiple challenges—drought, flood, fire and the pandemic. Alone, each of these challenges would have historical significance and would have been remembered as markers of a period. Instead, we had all four over the course of a few months. Through it all, regional Australians have shown their best and stood up to everything demanded of them. Communities stood by each other through fire, flood and drought. Through COVID, communities came together in new ways. They met on Zoom. New businesses emerged, and walking outside became the new meeting room.

Now, as we recover, regions are poised to lead the way. The Deputy Prime Minister and the shadow minister for infrastructure have had many political differences, but they truly are on a unity ticket when it comes to the joys of living in regional Australia. I cannot understand why anyone would live anywhere else; we know all the regional members of the House share that feeling! Regions are joyful places, marked by strong communities and proud people. They are the economic powerhouse of our nation, contributing a third of our national output and providing employment for a third of all working Australians.

Our regions have been central to the economy of our nation through times of crisis in our history. Labor has long known this. In 1942, with war still raging, John Curtin looked to the regions as a source of untapped economic growth to drive postwar reconstruction. In the 1970s Gough Whitlam looked to the regions as a source to tackle the entrenched social inequality that marred our nation. Bob Hawke helped build regional centres such as Geelong, Newcastle, Mackay, Townsville, Bunbury, Launceston and Hobart into wonderful, vibrant places to live, with strong local communities.

Last time Australia faced an economic crisis, back in the global financial crisis, another Labor government looked to the regions. We focused on sparking regional growth and building connections between regions and cities, knowing that doing so would build regional resilience. Today, as we emerge from these crises, the regions can do it again. However, to drive regional recovery you need a regional policy and a plan, and this government, despite the statement of the Deputy Prime Minister, does not have a regional policy, let alone a plan for regional Australia. As you heard, all they have is a grab bag of programs and funding initiatives, without a central policy to guide them. They have no clear vision of where regions are now and where they want them to be in the future.

You cannot get to your destination without a map. The Morrison government is driving blind. The government's own Strategic Regional Growth Expert Panel—chaired by Peter Ryan, former Victorian Deputy Premier and Nationals leader—highlighted just this point. In their final report, which the government belatedly released only after a Senate order, this expert panel recommended the Commonwealth implement a regional development framework. They also recommended that the government deliver a white paper on regional Australia as soon as possible and be completed no later than July 2020. It's now November 2020 and we ask, 'Where is it?'

Instead, regional policy has continued under Prime Minister Morrison the same way it did under Prime Ministers Abbott and Turnbull—a grab bag of funds largely in the control of the National Party for their use in pork-barrelling. When it comes to the regions, this budget is more of the same. Now they have gotten so brazen that they don't even try to hide it. Last month on ABC Ballarat the Deputy Prime Minister was asked why that part of regional Australia again missed out in the budget. His answer: 'Maybe you need to look at your federal member.' I'm not making this up. You can't make this up. He isn't even bothering to hide it. The only regions he cares about are those that elect members of his party room. This is nothing short of disgraceful. The Deputy Prime Minister openly said to residents of regional Australia that he will only deliver the infrastructure and services they need when they vote for a member of his party.

Maybe that is why we don't have a regional plan—because it might involve supporting, God help us, all of regional Australia. Instead, we have a grab bag of funding schemes and endless pork-barrelling. Guess what? It ain't working. Health, employment and education outcomes are generally poorer for regional Australians than for people in metropolitan areas. In the regions they also have greater difficulty in accessing services. The Morrison government is doing too little to fix it. Geographic distance, small markets and economies of scale all contribute, of course, but the government needs to provide the services that can make this better.

The Nationals like to talk to themselves and whoever might be unfortunate to hear them. They talk themselves up as the party of the bush, but their stranglehold on allocating regional funding continues to the detriment of regional cities and remote Australia. It has got to change. The local governments across the country that worked so hard to submit applications to the main regional funding program—that is, the Building Better Regions Fund—describe it as nothing short of a lottery. If it were a lottery, at least each region would have an equal chance of winning. But under the Morrison government money continues to flow to the favourites and, unfortunately, the others miss out.

Funding under the Regional Jobs and Investment Package, the Building Better Regions Fund and the Drought Communities Program has been so highly partisan that it is no wonder that the ANAO is now taking an interest in these programs. Under round 3 of the Building Better Regions Fund, 155 of 165 projects were in coalition seats or coalition targets—155 of the 165. Ahead of the last election, four regional Labor seats in Newcastle and the Hunter shared just over $200,000 through the Community Development Grants Program, with two of them receiving nothing, while the two Nationals seats received—are you ready for this?—$20 million each. And who can forget the North Sydney pool? In the shadows of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, this pool scored a $10 million upgrade through the Female Facilities and Water Safety Stream, a program designed to remove barriers to women participating in sport 'in our regions'—the proud regional community of North Sydney! So much for the Nationals being the party of the bush!

At its current rate, the Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility will take 150 years to spend its $5 billion. It's just been extended again, because you cannot get the money out the door. That's the truth of the matter: you can't get anyone to apply for it. This in no way grows the regions. It serves only to entrench disenchantment, pit regions against each other and deliver worse outcomes. No-one talks up regional Australia like the Nats, but no-one lets down regional Australia like them either. Mr Acting Deputy President, I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later time.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.