Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

No. I come to this place from a background of local government, where we speak not as lawyers. I am speaking here so that, hopefully, my contributions will be helpful to the process of this committee. What I am saying, if you would like me to rephrase it, is that the New South Wales state government did not carry its weight under the previous program.

One thing I would like to discuss is moving away from partnerships with individual organisations. Minister Albanese has displayed great mirth and merriment speaking about this in the House. He mentioned a particular project in my electorate in the town of Walgett. From memory, it was a pet food facility and unfortunately it failed. He was having a great old time talking about putting money into this project in Walgett that failed. Let me talk about Walgett. Walgett is one of the most disadvantaged communities in Australia. Walgett has the largest ratio of Aboriginal people to European people of any community in Australia and is really struggling for employment opportunities for its residents. Of course a project that was going to employ people in a place like Walgett is always going to be on the edge. If we wanted to make sure that all the projects we funded were secure, we would have them in the CBDs of the capital cities. Of course a project at Walgett is going to be under some sort of stress—and the fact that it happened in the middle of the worst drought in 100 years did not help. There were a whole range of reasons why it did not succeed, including the lack of grain for this facility. But that does not mean that we should not try.

I believe an obligation of government is to assist with the creation of sustainable and long-term industry in these disadvantaged areas—and private enterprise is the right way to do that, whether you like it or not. We can put in as many government backed programs as we like, and, quite frankly, the government does put a lot of money into Walgett. The Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service is one of the most switched on and efficient organisations I have ever had any dealings with. It provides a wonderful backup to its community in the services it provides. But, ultimately, if we are going to develop these communities, we have to assist them. We cannot move these people somewhere else. That is their home. So we need to bring something out to where they are to enable them to live with dignity and to have the opportunity of employment. In doing that, there is always the possibility that these projects are going to fail.

I realise this is an interim report but I encourage the committee, as it looks into this further, to not discount the employment possibilities in encouraging businesses to start up, particularly in remote areas. As we go through this process we really need to be careful that we have something that works. If we put a process in place that has so many checks and ties in it that it is absolutely impossible for any mistakes to be made, projects will be so bound that they will be ineffectual. I agree with the member for Hinkler’s comments that there needs to be a large number of people from the communities involved, because there needs to be some kind of ownership. I understand that from my period as the mayor of a regional area. When the community has ownership of and a belief in their future, something will happen. Something that is brought in from afar, even with the best of intentions, is destined to fail.

I welcome the work of the committee, and as you go through to the final report I encourage you to look at those other possibilities. Do not be frightened of bringing in something that has the possibility of failure. If they have the ability to be successful, those are the long-term projects that will help these communities. In the just over 12 months that I have been in this place, one of my frustrations is that we deal with complex issues in very simple terms. Certainly I hope that the rhetoric we have seen in the House and the rhetoric we have seen from Minister Albanese is seen as just that—political grandstanding—and that the real effort of community development steps away from that and looks at what is really going to work for regional Australia.

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