APPROPRIATION BILL (NO.1) 2011-2012 – CONSIDERATION IN DETAIL – PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET PORTFOLIO (REGIONAL AUSTRALIA, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT)
June 2, 2011
Mr LYONS (Bass) (11:34) – I am very much a regional person; I am from the electorate of Bass. For those who do not know, most people in Tasmania actually do not live in a capital city. Tasmania is similar to Queensland in that it has a very dispersed population. I travel around my region a lot, and the way things are developing is fantastic, with irrigation schemes in the north-east and the NBN starting in Scottsdale. I am also very keen on health. The Launceston General Hospital is probably one of the best regional hospitals in Australia. The minister’s brother was a registrar there some time ago, so I hope that every time he thinks about hospitals he thinks about the Launceston General and that we are on the agenda and very much the target for whatever needs to be done in health around the country.
Launceston General Hospital is a 300-bed hospital and there has been some fantastic work done there. Going back through the history, things that have been commenced in Launceston include the first anaesthetic for Australia and the first reattachment of an amputated hand in Australia. When I think about some of the great advances that have happened at the Launceston General Hospital I think what a great idea it is to support regional Australia. These are not things that have happened in a capital city. These are regional events, and they have happened because we have had management that has pushed down decisions and allowed individuals to come forward with some great ideas and innovations. It is a fantastic place to be, and the model in Tasmania is a great model for Australia. I look forward to there being three regional areas in Tasmania, three regional local health networks. It is obvious that we should be managing our health services at the lowest possible level, where people have full information. It is a very simple proposal, and I am sure it will be acceptable to and indeed promoted by those opposite. A lot of them are in regions and I am sure that if they came to Launceston they could learn a lot that they could take back to their regions.
The hospital in Launceston has had some magnificent work done in recent times. I remember when I was working there as a business manager I did a sketch on a map of how we could expand the emergency department, and I now see it coming up in concrete—fantastic. I see the cancer centre, where they have three linear accelerators, and I see how they have moved the central sterilising department onto the same level as the operating theatres. When the hospital was built they had to save 15 per cent, and at that time they chopped down the size of rooms by 15 per cent. Most of the rooms then had to be rebuilt because they were not big enough to take equipment in the operating theatre. I am absolutely over the moon about the work that is going on at the Launceston General Hospital not because it is a great edifice, which it is, but because it is going to help the people. I am looking forward to the great work that is going to be continued at the Launceston General Hospital. We also have the university in the top level of a new building, which is going to be fantastic. We need to have some additional level-four work for the university.
I am really looking forward to the minister’s answer as to how the budget improves services to regional Australia.
Mr Chester: I could answer that question, Simon.
Mr CREAN (Hotham—Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government and Minister for the Arts) (11:39) – I thank the member for Bass for his question. I had the opportunity in the week after the budget to go down to the Launceston General Hospital with him, and what we saw there was an investment from a previous budget for significant expansion in a wonderful new facility.
The member for Gippsland says he could have answered the question that the member for Bass asked. That is probably true. But what his government never did was to fund it in the way we have funded it. What we have had to do in the last three years and now into this term is to overcome a decade of neglect of our ageing hospital infrastructure. The member for Gippsland would also be aware that in this budget alone there are important new medical facilities in Timboon and Bairnsdale in his electorate. There were 63 projects announced in this budget.
Mr Chester – Not Timboon though.
Mr CREAN – Yours is not Timboon? Then just Bairnsdale. The truth is that there were 63 projects—
Mr Chester – And Traralgon.
Mr CREAN – And Traralgon as well. I think that might have been an earlier one. This is a love-in because I think there is a recognition of the huge new commitment of resources that we are making to regional Australia. The question of the member for Bass is very instructive because he asked how we are improving the services. This is where the Launceston General Hospital has been excellent in joining the dots because, yes, we have funded the physical infrastructure. There is a magnificent new structure down there, in two parts. I think it will be opened officially in October. It is very interesting that they have taken the challenge of the application of the national broadband rollout to see how they can deliver better health services from that new base.
We know that Tasmania was one of the earliest recipients of the national broadband rollout. With Launceston hospital at the moment, patients with complex medical conditions who require acute care are faced with long delays, discomfort and the inconvenience of travelling to Launceston, where they occupy the emergency department whilst being assessed and a clinical care plan is developed before they are admitted to an acute care bed. That is a very costly system. When they connect up this new physical facility with the application of the broadband network, specialists will be able to assess patients remotely, engage directly in real time with the GP and make decisions as to whether transport to Launceston hospital is necessary. This will keep patient trips to a minimum, it will not overload the emergency department and it will free up this new facility—which the member for Bass and I visited when we were down there—where analysis of patients who are judged as needing to come in will be received immediately and their complex range of issues will be seen to.
We are not just making a huge commitment to the regions in this budget. We understand the importance of building new infrastructure, but this is a great example of where, in challenging communities to come up with creative solutions as to how they deliver the services—and there are eight hubs that the Launceston hospital has to service—we actually end up saving money. So there is an economic return for the nation quite apart from better health service delivery to the patient. I suggest this is where those on the other side, instead of criticising the rollout of the National Broadband Network, understand its inherent potential and engage in it. I might say for the regional members: in the regions they get it. There is no question as to whether we should be rolling out the fibre; it is a question of when. The debate that goes on here about whether we should be funding it or not is simply seen as surreal, and indeed it is.
Mr CHESTER (Gippsland) (11:44) – Firstly, let me thank the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government for his attendance here today. We do appreciate the opportunity to raise issues in this manner. I will not take up every comment made by the minister but get to my questions as quickly as I can. However, I will take exception to the suggestion by the minister that there has been a decade of neglect in regional areas. I think the minister knows full well that many things were achieved under the previous government and that they were good for regional Australia. I know the rhetoric sounds good and it might look okay in the Hansard but the bottom line is that I do not think any government sets out to neglect regional areas or any other particular area; there are just some ways of doing it better. I am one of the members on this side of the House who is very passionate about regional areas, and I will certainly commend the government when it does something positive and hold it to account when it does not. That is my approach, Minister Crean.
It is with that very brief preamble that I want to raise a genuine question to the minister about the first round of the Regional Development Australia Fund. It is an issue which I have written to you on. It is in relation to the eligibility criteria for a particular project in my electorate—a plan by Southern Rural Water to work in conjunction with the Macalister Irrigation District to do upgrading on some irrigation infrastructure. It is a very good project, and it would tick a lot of boxes along the parameters that the minister has talked about here today. At the moment, though, as I understand it, the Regional Development Australia-Gippsland board encouraged Southern Rural Water to be part of the process and to make an application through round 1. But it was only late in the process that it came to their attention that a not-for-profit state government enterprise such as Southern Rural Water was not eligible to apply for funding under the RDA round 1. I think this is a problem on a couple of points. One is that Southern Rural Water would be the only organisation in my electorate with the capacity to deliver a project like this. It has the relationship with the irrigators themselves; it has the infrastructure capacity; it has all the know-how to get the project done. I respectfully seek the minister’s advice on whether the eligibility criteria from round 1 could be reinterpreted or whether in subsequent rounds it could include a combined application. I do not expect the minister to announce funding for it on the spot but it would be nice if a project like this could at least be considered rather than be ruled out on a technicality. That is the question I raise on behalf of the Southern Rural Water board people, who have worked hard in this area, on behalf of RDA-Gippsland and also on behalf of the irrigators, who are very keen to upgrade the infrastructure in that area.
I take up the minister’s comments regarding the opportunity for this fund to leverage funding from other sources. This is one of those projects that would have that capacity. The irrigators understand that, if the infrastructure is going to be upgraded, they are going to benefit from more water and they are going to be expected to dip into their pockets in order to get those benefits. This would have broader benefits—beyond the social and even the economic, through to the environment for the Gippsland Lakes. So it is something that, as I said previously, does tick a lot of boxes. I would appreciate the minister’s comment on that.
The other area I want to briefly raise is the term ‘localism’, which the minister currently uses a lot. I like the term and I think I know where you are coming from with it, but I want to make the point that it does not get on the ground sometimes when it comes to federal or even state government announcements on infrastructure or other types of projects. A lot of these projects do not get on the ground in regional communities. My classic example is the BER program—the Building the Education Revolution program. From day 1, I said to the minister for education at the time: ‘If you are going to run a program like this, let local building contractors have a crack at the contracts.’ What we saw with this program was a whole bunch of portables that were built in Bendigo and sent to Gippsland on the backs of trucks. The workmanship on the ground was shoddy on many occasions. There was no pride shown because the people who were doing the work were not from my community. I do not think we leveraged the money off it that we could have. If you had come to my school community and said, ‘I’ve got 400 grand for you to do a project in your school,’ you would have been amazed at what they could turn 400 grand into. We have plumbers on our school boards. We have local tradies whose kids are at our schools. They will move heaven and earth to provide facilities for the schools that their kids attend. I think we lost a lot of money in that project because we did not give the local blokes a chance to actually implement it. I think that was a mistake. So when we talk about localism, I would like to know that in the future we would make a commitment to a least let the local people compete—at least let them have a crack at the contracts. There was no way that my schools were going to be able to compete with Bendigo Relocatable Buildings—no chance of that. The local people would have leveraged off that project and delivered more value for money.
In the brief time I have left, I refer to another comment you made, Minister, in relation to diversification of the economic base. I raise a point in regard to tourism. There is a really good opportunity for the federal government to do more in the regional infrastructure and tourism space. We have some outstanding natural attractions in regional areas. It is very hard for businesses in those communities to leverage off those great natural attractions unless governments are prepared to commit funding to the infrastructure that we need. I have not got a long wish list in front of me today, but there are plenty of things that we could be doing in the regional tourism space, with the cooperation of local, state and federal governments. Once again, I thank you for being here today and for the opportunity to raise those few issues.
Mr CREAN (Hotham—Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government and Minister for the Arts) (11:49) – I should not let the preamble go without passing this comment. I do acknowledge that there were important things done by the government that preceded the Rudd Labor government. But if you go to the question of essential health infrastructure and education infrastructure, there was no capacity in that government to fund it through Commonwealth funding. I remember the debate because I was the shadow Treasurer at the time and I suggested that the Commonwealth actually establish an intergenerational fund—which is what I called it because the Intergenerational Report was out and about—and that we should take the proceeds of what the nation had earned in the prosperous times and reinvest them into the future. Your Treasurer of the day, Peter Costello, ridiculed the idea and then came up with the Future Fund. But the future fund that he introduced was limited because the future fund that he said he was establishing was simply to pay off the Commonwealth’s liability for Commonwealth superannuation. We accepted that was an important contingent liability that we needed to address, but we said, ‘Why should the nation’s surplus only go to pay off the debts from Commonwealth public servants? Why shouldn’t it be used for the bigger issues of the nation?’ Of course, your Treasurer of the day ridiculed that concept. So when we came to office we kept the Future Fund. We said that we were prepared to spend not just the earnings on the fund but also, where necessary, the capital on the fund—but we set up two more funds, one for education and one for health. So my point is that when one looks at the issue—and this was raised by way of a preamble saying that they did not neglect anything—you just did not have the capacity, because you did not think it through. We had it.
So let us move on to the next point, and that is your specific example of Southern Rural Water. I know that you have written to us about it, and I have asked the department to look at this because this issue has been raised in a number of other contexts. At the moment the guidelines for the first round, as I understand them, do prevent that consideration. If in fact the analysis that goes through the panel says ‘but for that consideration this would have been the most worthy project’ then I think that is something that we might need to look at in terms of subsequent rounds. I am not just taking that on notice; I am actually already looking at it and will come back and advise about that at a later date.
I might have said earlier, although I thought I had left it more flexible than this, that the first round would be announced on 1 July. Obviously, because there have been so many that have come in, it might take a bit longer than that 1 July date to be able to announce the first round. We will have to take advice on that. Obviously, we put the funding out immediately that the budget was announced and opened the first round, and we want to try and have this thing hit the ground as fast as is possible.
On the localism question, you do not have to convince me about the importance of it. I saw it in practice when I was the primary industries minister and also when I was the employment and training minister. That is how the area consultative committees were established. That is how we used the Landcare groups and the catchment management groups for better natural resource management initiatives. Indeed, one of the recommendations out of the Orgill review of the BER goes to that very question of recognising that for future programs there should be better local input. I hope that what we are doing in this budget is not just to signal our intention to commit resources to the regions but to also genuinely embrace localism and embed it in the way in which we govern things and embed it in a way that cannot be unpicked, just as other governments could not unpick superannuation and could not unpick Medicare. I happen to believe that localism is the right way to go because it can give you a more efficient outcome if you are creatively engaging locals. What I say to the locals and the communities is this: ‘Just don’t give me wish lists. I want the proposals that stack up.’ If we are going to make this system work, we have got to show that we are spending the nation’s resources more efficiently than spending through the sorts of examples that you alluded to before. If we get it right that will embed localism.
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