Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am sure you had a worthy contribution to make, too, as you did to the regional Australia committee. That certainly benefited from your wisdom, even if the Australian people have not benefited from your support of this tarnished Labor government.

In this final report of the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Local Government, there were some very interesting graphs and pie charts, one of which was titled 'Support by Regional/Urban (Percentages)'. Regionally, there was overwhelming support for the yes case—even more so in the remote areas. Interestingly, in the urban areas of Australia, the no case received the majority of the votes. The chart suggests it was somewhere near 60 per cent. That leads me to believe that a lot of people in city areas, in metropolitan electorates—I do not like saying this—just seem to exist. They just live their lives. They are good people and they contribute to tax revenue and all the rest of it. But they do not always know who their local councillors are. They do not get involved in local councils unless they really have to. A lot of them do not even know who their state members are, let alone their federal members.

When you come to the bush, so many more people are aware who their federal member is and who their state member is—and they get involved in local councils. There is a lot more media attention. The local newspapers, radio stations and television stations talk about the parish pump stuff of potholes in roads, garbage services and all those great local services which we know our local councils do such a fantastic job of delivering. In my Riverina electorate, there are 13 local government areas.

Ms Hall interjecting—

I hear the member for Shortland agreeing with me. She is certainly agreeing with the—I do not know what she is saying, but I am sure she is agreeing with the yes case

She is hand signalling she has five in her electorate.

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