Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to take the opportunity to make a few remarks about the electorate of Grey, South Australia's largest electorate, which covers no less than 92 per cent of the state. For those senators not familiar with Grey, the major population centres are Ceduna, Port Lincoln, Whyalla, Port Augusta, Roxby Downs, Port Pirie and Kadina. In my time as a senator I've spent a lot of time travelling around Grey. Whyalla is my hometown. I grew up there and I have family there. I've long had an affinity for that fine city, for the coast of the Eyre Peninsula and the Yorke Peninsula, for the long drives across plains filled with wheat, for the dramatic peaks of the Flinders Ranges and for the surreal landscape of Coober Pedy.

I must say that one of the delights of my job as a senator for South Australia has been to tour about and meet the people of Grey. There are some great characters there, whether in the fishing industry in Port Lincoln or amongst the opal fields of Coober Pedy. I've also come to know Rowan Ramsey, the local member for Grey. He has been a member there for a long time now. He's from Kimba, with a property not far from the nuclear waste repository that the federal government has imposed on the local community through a sham consultative process. Mr Ramsey was elected in 2007. He's held the seat for 14 years now. Once a Labor stronghold, Grey has been regarded as a safe Liberal seat since Barry Wakelin won it in 1993, 28 years ago. Grey has been a Liberal fiefdom for quite a while now.

The current incumbent in Grey spoke in the House of Representatives on 28 October, waxing lyrical about how well the people of Grey are doing. He spoke at length about roads—without question a significant issue in many parts of the electorate. He spoke about the sealing of the Strzelecki Track that stretches from Lyndhurst and goes through to Innamincka and on through to the Queensland border. The member went on to enthuse about the money that is been provided by the federal and state governments to support that and other road infrastructure developments across Grey, including the Joy Baluch Bridge in Port Augusta. Mr Ramsey was able to refer to hundreds of millions of dollars of road funding that will be spent in Grey. He declared:

It's been a great time for the electorate of Grey. It's been a good time to be the member. Obviously, these are good announcements to make back in one's electorate, but I think it is so important to see this rebuilding of the roads.

I think roadworks are great. Having driven far and wide across the electorate, I know the value of better roads and the value they provide for the graziers, the farmers, the miners, the people of the remote APY Lands—indeed everyone across the expanse of the electorate. I was jarred, however, by the self-congratulatory tone of the member for Grey's speech. I did wonder about his essentially one dimensional view. Roads are important, but I couldn't help but recall the many conversations I've had with the people across Grey who, while thankful for new bitumen, have bemoaned the great disadvantages they face in so many things in terms of limited economic opportunities; drug-related issues; youth unemployment; limited access to key health, mental health and aged care services. I've heard concerns about the future of Whyalla, the lack of strategic planning for the future development of the Eyre Peninsula, the tendency for decision-makers in Adelaide and Canberra to make ad hoc decisions with little regard for circumstances on the ground, the shambles concerning Coober Pedy's power supply and the impending shambles in relation to their water supply, and the botched decision-making of the South Australian government for a desalination plant at Port Lincoln. These are just recent examples.

No doubt the member for Grey would say that this is all anecdotal, that things are going tremendously well. As he said in his recent speech:

It's been a great time for the electorate of Grey. It's been a good time to be the member.

However, when one looks at the bigger picture all is not well—far from it. Throughout the entirety of the Liberal's hold on Grey the electorate has remained the most socially disadvantaged region of South Australia and, indeed, one of the most disadvantaged regions of Australia as a whole. Plenty of money has been spent on bitumen, but in the absence of real strategic vision for Grey and the will of the federal and state governments to make major investments required to remedy the region's entrenched disadvantage things will not change much for many people.

In this regard I would recommend that all senators take a look at the latest Dropping off the edge report. It's a hugely valuable study of social disadvantage across Australia produced by leading social researchers at the University of Canberra for Jesuit Social Services. It's a very comprehensive study looking at a host of indicators from income levels and employment to housing and rental stress, from environmental factors to educational levels, incidence of domestic violence and access to social and health services. It's a study that has been undertaken repeatedly since 2007.

Senators would do well to look closely at the patterns in their own respective states. In the case of South Australia the latest report shows serious disadvantage across the state, with the most of the disadvantage in the seat of Grey. In the study's map Grey is coloured red, indicating the highest level of disadvantage across almost all of the indicators. This entrenched disadvantage, whether expressed in low incomes, family stress, higher rates of imprisonment, domestic violence or poor health outcomes, is persistent. Most of those rated as highly disadvantaged in 2021 were similarly disadvantaged in 2015 and, indeed, in studies further back.

In highlighting the findings of this report, I don't want to suggest that life in Grey, and especially on the Eyre Peninsula, is all bleak, but it's a useful correction to the triumphant media releases from the local member trumpeting the latest federal grants for laydowns and bitumen. Grey is an electorate with much economic promise but also with much deeply entrenched social disadvantage that hasn't changed greatly through the long Liberal hold on the seat. Of course, part of the story of the Grey electorate is that it is on the geographical margins of South Australia but also on the list of so-called safe Liberal seats. It has been on the political margins of policymaking in both Adelaide and Canberra. Grey has been taken for granted.

In the months to come, as the federal election approaches, I have no doubt that the member for Grey will be putting out more press releases about road funding and this or that federal grant, but it's far from clear that Grey receives any more funding than would normally be the case for a remote or regional electorate, and it's certainly less than what Grey would receive if it were one of the colour-coded marginal electorates on the Prime Minister's political spreadsheets.

What we really need to see is a strategic, economic and social vision for the entire electorate, one that is backed by the will and investment needed to tackle the entrenched disadvantage across northern and western South Australia. That's what ought to be on the table for the seat of Grey at the next federal election. We'll have to see whether political circumstances are conducive to that, but if he's left to his own devices and there's no effective challenge from the Labor Party, I can't see the current member for Grey delivering that.

Senate adjourned at 21:12