Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2008-2009 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2008-2009. On 12 December last year, the Prime Minister announced the government’s nation-building plan—an investment of $4.7 billion in infrastructure projects to strengthen the Australian economy, support jobs and provide much-needed infrastructure. As part of nation building, the Prime Minister announced that the Australian government would provide up to $195 million to support further economic development in the east Kimberley region of Western Australia through investment in social and common use infrastructure. The legislation appropriates funds for an initial investment in the east Kimberley as part of this initiative. This is real regional development—an economic and agricultural investment made sustainable by social investment.

The Rudd government’s investment in the east Kimberley region, for which this legislation appropriates funds, follows the decision of the Western Australian government to invest in the expansion of land for irrigation around Kununurra. The state government’s plan is to double the amount of irrigated land—from 14,000 to 28,000 hectares. This is popularly known as the Ord stage 2 project. Western Australia’s investment in the Ord stage 2 project will be matched by the Australian government’s financial contributions, creating real regional development which will provide an ideal opportunity for both the state and the Commonwealth governments to make a sustained impact to cut the levels of social and economic disadvantage experienced in the east Kimberley.

In a statement on 16 December in Kununurra, the Prime Minister said that the Commonwealth’s contribution was conditional on a joint assessment by the Commonwealth and Western Australian governments to identify the most effective infrastructure investments to meet the social and economic development needs of the region. As Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia, I am leading the Commonwealth’s participation in this joint assessment. I have been asked to report to the Prime Minister and the Premier of Western Australia on the outcome of this assessment process by the end of March.

I have taken four guiding principles into the joint assessment. First, the Commonwealth investment will be used to fund social and open access infrastructure that will bring long-term benefits to the whole east Kimberley region. Second, the Western Australian government will fund those infrastructure works directly related to land use, the expansion of the irrigated land and the new irrigation and drainage channels. Third, where possible, the Commonwealth’s new investments will be delivered into the east Kimberley through existing arrangements and frameworks to minimise delay and cost and to avoid duplication. Fourth, we have an agreed national approach to managing Australia’s water resources, reflecting the National Water Initiative—an initiative of the then Howard government minister, former Western Australian Senator Ian Campbell, who signed the National Water Initiative at the Council of Australian Governments meeting on 25 June 2004. It should be noted that Western Australia did not actually sign up until April 2006.

The Ord stage 2 proposal builds on the potential of the water resources of the east Kimberley. It creates the potential for significant agricultural developments, supporting jobs in a sustainable, agricultural economy. In supporting the proposal, I want to take the opportunity to ensure that the future operations of the Ord scheme, existing and new, reflect the agreements already made between the Australian and WA governments. Water is a resource that we have to use sustainably. That is why the National Water Initiative is central to the development of the water economy of the region. If the state invests in water delivery, drainage and land access, what types of infrastructure might the Australian government invest in? In its initial submission, the WA government identified some social and open access infrastructure projects that it considers are required in the east Kimberley. The list includes improvements to the main schools and hospitals, early childhood and aged-care facilities and services, Indigenous development and the Kununurra airport.

I have talked to ministerial colleagues, including the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Education and the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations; the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs; the Minister for Health and Ageing; the Minister for Resources and Energy; the Minister for Tourism; the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry; the Minister for Ageing; the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts; and the Minister for Climate Change and Water about what the Commonwealth is currently doing in the east Kimberley region and their departmental ideas about how the Commonwealth’s new investment of $195 million can be best used to benefit the whole east Kimberley community and to support the expansion of the Ord.

The proposals that I take to the joint assessment will be projects that support the expansion of economic activity in the Ord region such as agriculture, tourism and mining; provide benefits to the whole region and its citizens; fit with and add to the work the Commonwealth is already doing in the east Kimberley; and align with current Australian government policy goals and frameworks, such as ‘closing the gap’, social housing initiatives, boosting regional economies and our environmental and water policies, including the National Water Initiative.

The communities in the east Kimberley, and particularly Indigenous Australians there, face extreme levels of unemployment, social disadvantage and poor health, with a serious shortfall in available social and community amenities and services. This situation was again identified in a work recently published by Dr John Taylor of the Australian National University. Dr Taylor, one of Australia’s leading social and economic demographers and an expert on Indigenous affairs, concluded:

The evidence from 20 years worth of census analysis regarding the relative socioeconomic status of Indigenous people in the Kimberley region compared to that of Indigenous people elsewhere in Australia, indicates that outcomes in the Kimberley are amongst the most disadvantaged in the country and have shown no sign of change. If anything, they appear to have worsened over time.

That analysis is carried in the document relating to the relative socioeconomic status of Indigenous people in the Kimberley, published by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research just last month and launched by the Western Australian minister, Brendon Grylls.

Sustained Indigenous population growth, low Indigenous economic status and limited human capital for mainstream economic participation will reinforce this disadvantage unless we act. Education is a key foundation for life and economic participation. The levels of engagement in schooling and literacy outcomes amongst Indigenous people highlight the need to close the gap in schooling in the east Kimberley. Taylor points to Indigenous enrolment rates for compulsory school ages which is at about 85 per cent. These relatively low levels of Indigenous school enrolment are compounded by low school attendance. In some of the larger schools, Taylor notes, ‘no more than roughly three-quarters of those enrolled attend class at any year level’. This means that less than 65 per cent of the target population receive effective teaching at any given time. The combination of lower levels of Indigenous enrolment and attendance lead to poorer overall education outcomes for young Indigenous people. Indeed, the retention rates for Indigenous students in east Kimberley schools will need to be increased to improve the job prospects of young Indigenous people and provide more employment opportunities in the mainstream workforce.

Likewise, health statistics reflect the poverty of Indigenous communities in the east Kimberley. According to Dr Taylor, a primary barrier to the enhanced participation of Indigenous people in the east Kimberley labour market is poor health status and associated high morbidity and mortality. In Western Australia, the ABS estimates that Indigenous male life expectancy at birth is under 59 years and just over 67 for females. Compare this to the estimates of ‘over 79’ for all Western Australian males and almost 84 for all females. Closing the gap is a mission for all of us. Dr Taylor’s research points to injury and poisoning, non-specific causes and respiratory diseases as well as infectious diseases, diseases of the nervous system, the digestive system and skin diseases as notable causes of morbidity. These disease conditions are third world.

But—if it is possible—it is worse than that. Aboriginal people suffer the illnesses of the First World as well as the diseases of the Third World. Cardiovascular and heart disease, trachoma, drug and alcohol substance abuse, as well as diabetes have a deadly grip of disease, deprivation and despair in the east Kimberley. The factors that cause skin disease are also implicated in liver and kidney disease—and they are preventable.

In the Prime Minister’s Closing the gap report, delivered in this House, he highlighted the success of some of Australia’s best Indigenous organisations. He quoted the Productivity Commission chairman, who found that, ‘The best among these Indigenous bodies actually outclass most mainstream organisations or enterprises in Australia.’ That means they outclass even many government initiatives and NGOs. We need to support such Indigenous solutions. The Prime Minister also referred to the work of Dr Chris Sarra, Director of the Queensland government’s Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership and former principal of the Cherbourg Primary School in Queensland. Dr Sarra’s leadership and vision facilitated many changes at the school, which saw a dramatic improvement in attendance and increased community involvement in the life of the school.

Increasingly, we see that, when Indigenous people are given control of their future—when they have functional leadership and the accountability that goes with that—we have the best protection for Indigenous people. In this place, we need to be careful that we do not become paternalistic and take leadership away from Indigenous leaders. Dr Taylor’s research on east Kimberley housing shows that the number of Indigenous people per house has only fallen from 7.5 to 6.3 people over the past 20 years, compared to an average of 3.9 persons per Indigenous dwelling recorded for WA as a whole.

The poor education, health and housing in the Indigenous population all make it harder for Indigenous people to be healthy, get enough sleep, get an education and obtain and retain work. The Australian and Western Australian governments need to work together and to work with Aboriginal organisations to resolve these problems—and we are. We are working closely with our Western Australian ministerial and state government colleagues—in particular, Premier Colin Barnett, Brendon Grylls—my friend—WA regional development minister and WA Minister for Education, Dr Liz Constable.

In January, I again visited the East Kimberley to listen to the community and its representatives. I wanted to hear their ideas directly. During my stay, different community groups gave me their ideas across a range of factors in which they considered the Commonwealth should invest. We discussed a range of priorities, including teacher training facilities, employment and training, particularly how more local Indigenous people can successfully join the mainstream workforce. We discussed broader Indigenous issues: access to accommodation and housing affordability—an issue which directly affects labour supply; health and aged-care services that meet particular local needs; education and early childhood services, which encourage local kids to stay at school and help them be job-ready and ready for further study and vocational training; and potential new agricultural, tourism and business activities and opportunities to broaden and deepen the East Kimberley economic and employment base.

Over the next three weeks I will be working closely with the Australian and Western Australian government ministers to finalise our ideas. I will also be working with the Western Australian government to jointly assess their proposals and ours, so that, when I present my report to the Prime Minister and the WA Premier at the end of this month, the projects I am recommending for Commonwealth funding have the support of both governments and some can begin immediately. I will also revisit the east Kimberley in the coming weeks to hear from the community again. I want their ideas to directly feed into the joint assessment.

I would like to finish by coming back to the reasons that the Australian government decided to invest in social and open access infrastructure to support the expansion of the Ord irrigation area. The Ord scheme, as most of us know, has played an important role in broadening the economy of northern Western Australia. In 1941 a small experimental farm was established on the Ord River by the Western Australian Wilcock Labor government. It closed down in 1945 when a joint Commonwealth-state research station was established at Ivanhoe Plain, to the north of Kununurra—named after Frank Wise and now known as the Frank Wise Research Station.

For the next 12 years the research station experimented with crops such as rice, safflower, linseed and sugarcane. In 1957 Prime Minister Menzies announced that the Commonwealth would provide the WA Hawke Labor government with a general development grant to develop WA north of the 20th parallel. A change of WA governments did not halt the progress in the Kimberley, and in 1963 the first stage was completed under the Brand government and the future Premier, Charles Court, as minister for the north west. It was during this time that Kununurra was established as the main construction town associated with the irrigation scheme. By 1966, there were 31 farms on the Ord River plain. In 1972 the next stage of the scheme was completed, with the opening of the huge Lake Argyle Dam by Prime Minister William McMahon and state Premier John Tonkin.

Many WA state governments of both political persuasions have considered plans to expand the Ord. The Court government did so in the 1990s, the Gallop government did so in the early 2000s, and the Carpenter government did so just two years ago. But it has been the Barnett government that has put forward a submission to double the size of the irrigated land in the region and to place the irrigation scheme on a more sustainable footing. The Rudd government is willing to invest $195 million to support and leverage those plans, to ensure that the benefits are widely shared.

Expanding the Ord scheme also presents opportunities for the Northern Territory. I have already held discussions with the WA government and the Northern Territory minister for primary industries, Konstantine Vatskalis, about the Territory’s plans for expanding agriculture. On Friday, 13 February, I had meetings with Minister Vatskalis and the WA minister for agriculture, Terry Redman, in Canberra to discuss the Ord development. I am considering a joint approach with the WA and Territory governments to explore how the three governments can work together to maximise the opportunities generated by further investment in social and economic infrastructure in this region.

I want to ensure that we take a properly thought out, regional approach to development in the east Kimberley across the state boundary. By continuing the Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce, which submitted its mid-term report in February, the Rudd government have already shown our willingness to seriously explore opportunities for the development of land and water resources across the whole of Northern Australia, including in the Kimberley. I commend the work of Senator Bill Heffernan with regard to the creation of this task force.

Members of the House will be aware that major direct and indirect benefits have already come to the region through the local mining sector, particularly via Rio Tinto at the Argyle mine site. But the region’s future must be made more sustainable by broadening its economic base. Mining, agriculture and tourism together offer the potential for a sustainable, broadly based local economy. The decision by the WA government to expand the Ord scheme represents a tremendous opportunity for all members of the east Kimberley community—and one which the Rudd government is pleased to support and build on. These bills commence the funding for this initiative, and I commend the bills to the House.

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