Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We are here today because of a classic move by this government—a classic move that, as the previous speaker said, many in the community have come to expect. When the petrol tax, the increase in the fuel excise, first came into this House in the last budget, I was one of the most vocal opponents of it. In fact today I am still vocally against increasing the fuel excise. But in the situation we are now in, I support this bill. That is because, rather than respecting this parliament, rather than allowing the Senate to vote on this bill, the government directed the petrol companies to start collecting their increased petrol tax. They have been collecting it for a good eight months. We are now in a situation where we have to decide what we are going to do—whether we increase the petrol tax in legislation or whether the government hands the money back. Quite frankly, it is not fair to the many people in regional areas, people in my own electorate, who have already been paying the increased petrol tax, if they do not see some benefit from the extra revenue they have been paying this government. What Labor put forward—it is great to see the government has come on board to support it—is that over the next two years this $1.1 billion go into the Roads to Recovery program.

My electorate, which is part of regional Central Victoria, covers the Macedon Ranges Shire Council, the Mount Alexander Shire Council and the City of Greater Bendigo Shire Council, along with part of the Loddon shire. It is a large electorate with hundreds of kilometres of roads, most of which are local government roads and some of which are state government roads. Quite a bit of work will be done to the state government roads through increases in the VicRoads budget. A few of the roads are funded by the federal government, the Calder being the main arterial from the top to the bottom of the electorate, as well as the Calder Alternate. But the majority of motorists in my electorate use local roads. The funding from this bill will be welcomed to help local governments ensure that our roads are safer. They will be able to go further down their priority lists to fix some of the trouble spots, some of the safety spots in Central Victoria.

I have been out quite a lot talking to people in my local area through regular listening posts. Maiden Gully has seen significant growth in recent years, with a number of new housing estates, but the infrastructure has not kept up. Edwards Road has become a major safety concern for a number of people living in that area. Many motorists have to turn on or off Edwards Road to get to the local primary school. The Calder Alternate cuts straight through Maiden Gully, so Edwards Road is a major concern. Another local road in that area that is a major concern is Rathbones Lane. Many years ago it was just a fire access road that was used by the CFA in case of a bushfire or a farm fire. But today it is a local road and one of the only access roads that people living in a particular housing estate have. So the money that will be allocated through this bill will be welcomed by our local communities. It will ensure that our local councils, in discussions with state government, will be able to go further down their priority list.

My part of the world, Bendigo, is seeing significant growth, with a number of new housing estates. Old road infrastructure and public transport infrastructure needs to be improved. We also still have significant farming areas. I spoke to the Macedon Ranges Shire Council this afternoon to explain what was happening. They said that they could see a lot of this funding going towards long-distance roads, trying to link together the small towns in many of the farming areas in the Macedon Ranges.

When I first met with the Macedon Ranges Shire Council, I asked them, 'If I am successful and I go on to be your local federal member, what matters to you?' It is a question you get to ask when you are out there talking to people: 'What is it you would like to see us do?' Since that conversation many years ago, one comment has stuck with me. A councillor said that they could not match the funding they receive in one year from the Roads to Recovery budget with 10 years of rate based funding. I used to be a resident of the Macedon Ranges. It is a large geographical area with a small rate base, which means that their roads budget is small. What is allocated to them through Roads to Recovery is more than they can allocate to their roads and maintenance over 10 years. To me, that spoke to the importance of the federal government continuing to allocate funding to this program. It is very popular with our local mayors and our local council areas. It is also very popular and important to areas like Loddon shire, which is one of the largest geographical council areas in state of Victoria. Only part of it is in my electorate. Again they have the issue of a small rate base; they simply do not have enough ratepayers to keep up with the maintenance of their roads. One local councillor said: 'We just can't possibly do it. If we spent every dollar in our budget on maintaining roads, we would still be short.' We know that our local government areas are struggling to keep up with the maintenance of their roads. One figure we have heard to date is that 11 per cent of roads managed by council are in poor or very poor condition. They are trying to do their best with what they have in their rate base. So it is important that the federal government partner with the state government and help to fund road maintenance.

Also, due to the government's attacks on and cuts to the financial assistance grants, it is important that this funding go specifically to our regional councils this year. This is another issue that local council areas have raised with me. Funding to local councils has been cut, because the government has frozen the Financial Assistance Grants, meaning that our local governments will struggle to maintain community assets—to maintain sporting facilities—and ensure that they have enough in their budget to pay increases in staff wages. Our local governments in regional Australia are large employers, and in some of our council areas they are the largest employer. In Mount Alexander they are the largest employer—they employ the most people. These funding cuts do put real pressure on that council—can they afford to keep the staff that they have; will they have to look at redundancies? These are the pressures that this government is putting on local councils because it has frozen indexation.

Local government has also been whacked since this government got elected because the government completely scrapped round 5A of the Regional Development Australia Fund. That funding was not an election commitment like this government likes to rant about—just after the budget and before the election local governments were told that they would be allocated funding, based upon the size of their council, to spend on a project or projects in their council area. They had to put forward those projects, they had to go to the department, and then the department ticked off on those projects to make sure that they were in accordance with the rules and the guidelines of RDAF. In my area, Bendigo, they decided to prioritise the gardens—it was one of their major projects—and $1.2 million was to be allocated. Bendigo is a larger council area than Macedon Ranges, who are allocating their 5A funding to improving the Gisborne town centre. In Mount Alexander, they went to the community priority list and decided to divide the funding up between three projects that were sitting there waiting to be done—they simply did not have the dollars in the budget to do them. They did everything right—they met with the minister, they understood the brief, they received the information after the budget, they did their work at a local council level, they did the planning, they submitted the paperwork to the government of the day, the government of the day ticked off on it and issued the letters to say yes, but before the contracts could be signed we had an election and this government, on coming to office, scrapped the funding for those projects. You can understand why local government is very pessimistic about this federal government—their first act when they got into government was to scrap round 5A of RDAF. Since then we have seen attack after attack after the attack on our local governments.

The problem when you attack local government is that you are attacking local regional communities—you are attacking major employers in those regions and you are attacking local communities, making things harder for those communities. This fuel excise funding going into the roads in regional areas will improve productivity and will improve safety. It will create jobs and it will ensure that people working for local government in the roads division will have ongoing and continuous employment. It will ensure that there continue to be good blue-collar working jobs in our local government areas. That is a good thing.

As I said, is it is disappointing that we have got to this point. After the chaos, the madness and the disappointment that tax has already started to be collected—but the government is collecting that tax without the approval of this parliament. We can turn that into a good news story for our regional communities. I know this is my first term here and being here in parliament is all a new experience, but I never thought I would be standing here saying that we have to work out what to do with money the government have collected but that they never had approval to collect. It is ridiculous. I have been talking to local media tonight and I have been talking to the local mayors, saying, 'Look, this is going to sound crazy because it is—the government started to collect an increase in the fuel excise before it had the authority of the parliament to do so, and now we have to try and fix it.' Labor's solution is to take the money that the government took off road users and give it back to road users through local government, through better roads.

I mention the member for Lingiari, because I heard his contribution, and it is true that people in regional areas pay more, as a proportion, in petrol tax simply because they drive further. They use more petrol and therefore they pay more, as a proportion, in fuel excise. And in regional areas fuel prices are higher—they just are. That all impacts on household budgets. I do a lot of driving myself, and I meet a lot of small business people who do lots of business around the Bendigo electorate and they, like me, spend a lot of time on the road. They do complain about petrol prices, and they are right—they are higher in the regions. They also complain about roads. At least when I go back to the electorate over these holidays I can say, 'It has been unfair that you have been paying an increase in the petrol price, it is unfair that the government did imposed that without having the authority of the parliament, but at least we have now linked that extra money that you have paid into improving the roads in our area.' This means we can get on with fixing Edwards Road; it means we can get on with fixing the Heathcote-Redesdale Road. That is going to help three local government areas—we might be able to bring the three local government areas together to help fix that local road. These are the issues before us. It is unfortunate we have got to a situation where we have had to bring the two together, but we are here because the government has pulled another dodgy on the Australian people by collecting a tax they did not have the authority to collect. At least today Labor has been able to clean up their mess and see that money go back to motorists through improving their roads. I support the bills.

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