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

I stand to support the amendment that opposes the Regional Investment Corporation Bill 2017, which is before us. It is another demonstration of pork-barrelling by this Deputy Prime Minister, and this government, in a way that is just trying to shore up his mates in the National Party. The Regional Investment Corporation is first and foremost a pork-barrel exercise by this government. That's what it is. I'm also going to set out in my contribution today why this is actually a very bad example of decentralisation: Orange is the wrong town.

Can I begin, though, by saying loudly and clearly that regional development is important. However, I want to put clearly on the record that it should never be about taking public sector jobs—jobs that are in established networks—and resources from Canberra and dumping them in regional areas like we have seen in Armidale. There needs to be research, support and evidence and a process in place to demonstrate that the place where we're establishing our public sector and our public sector jobs is actually going to work.

The Regional Investment Finance Corporation, which this bill seeks to create, will administer farm business loans on behalf of the Commonwealth—well, it will try and do that—when our state governments are already doing this. This is an example of creating more bureaucracy. That is what this government has done. It also doesn't address the core issue that we have with the Drought Concessional Loans Scheme, which is that it was set up poorly by this government, and, therefore, it has been poorly taken up. I have met with the dairy farmers, who the previous member spoke about, in the Murray region. Time and time again, they told me that one of the fundamental problems with the way the government had designed the concessional loan scheme was they couldn't get their bank to be involved. They weren't willing to be part of the refinancing process. The banks themselves weren't interested in the way the government had set up the Drought Concessional Loans Scheme. Farmers also told me that what they didn't want was more debt. They were over government policy that was all about extending their debt. It wasn't what they wanted. They wanted support in upgrading and updating their infrastructure, but what they didn't want was more debt. That was just another problem that they identified in the government's approach to agriculture.

So, why is it that I am arguing that Orange is not the best choice for this new Regional Investment Corporation?

I point out that the government did very little research. The Bendigo Advertisersaid:

Bendigo was one of seven regional centres considered for the new bureaucracy along with Albury-Wodonga, Wagga Wagga, Bathurst, Lithgow and Toowoomba.

Yet the government didn't ask the City of Greater Bendigo how we could best host this facility, didn't engage with Bendigo Bank, the largest bank outside a metropolitan city, with its head office in Bendigo, and didn't consult with Rural Finance, also based in Bendigo. It was just a gift to a National Party mate. They didn't do their homework or make the business case as to why Orange should be the home for the Regional Investment Corporation. The article continued:

Bendigo has missed out on being the home of a new $28 million Commonwealth regional banking agency to deliver $4 billion in loans.

I've already established there's a real question mark about that, because our farmers don't like the way it has been structured. We were one of seven areas to be considered, but how were we considered? What work was done? What research was done?

At the time I also asked what impact this would have on the jobs already in Bendigo. What functions will it try to take over that Rural Finance and the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, both based in Bendigo, are involved in? The comments at the time, from the Nationals senator whose office is in Bendigo, were disappointing:

… the government body would bring jobs to Orange—

Not Bendigo; Orange. The senator went on to say:

[Bendigo] weren't successful this time, but we'll just keep on batting.

That doesn't give much comfort to the people who work for the Bendigo Bank or the people who work for Rural Finance. This is what the senator said:

Having a facility like the Rural Investment Corporation in a place like Orange, there might be people growing up … in regional Victoria that, once they go to Melbourne or Sydney, and get that commerce degree, they'll be able to seek out a job opportunity … in the Rural Investment Corporation in Orange.

You have to do better than that. That is an appalling response to the people of Bendigo—that your kids might move to Melbourne or Sydney to study at university and then one day may go to Orange. That is not how it works.

We have La Trobe University's Bendigo campus, whose finance degree already has graduates. When they finish their studies, they transition into working for Bendigo Bank and Rural Finance. We already have established pathways. In fact, Bendigo Bank and the Rural Finance Corporation, both based in Bendigo, comprise the largest financial sector hub in regional Australia. It's not Orange, it's not Wagga Wagga; it's Bendigo. Over a thousand people are employed at the head office of Bendigo Bank, and a couple of hundred are employed in Rural Finance—the state based enterprise that the former Liberal-National government in Victoria, respecting the work of Bendigo Bank and acknowledging the expertise in our town, sold to Bendigo Bank.

It's not just our finance sector that is strong in Bendigo. The Vic Farmers Federation is based in Bendigo. A large network of financial planners are based in Bendigo. We have all the support services for not just Victorian based farmers but South Australian and southern New South Wales based farmers, all who engage with and have their finances organised through Bendigo. When I met with Rural Finance during the Sheep and Wool Show that was hosted in Bendigo, they said that they have customers and clients throughout Australia. They already have the network. They can't work out why the government would plonk this new bureaucracy in Orange when they could've brought it to Bendigo's financial sector.

The other thing it demonstrates is the unwillingness of this government, when it comes to decentralisation, ag finances and our farmers, to work with our state governments. In a meeting with the Prime Minister, the Premier of Victoria, Dan Andrews, said that if he's looking at creating a body such as this, he should consider Bendigo, because we have 'expertise in finance'. Dan Andrews first suggested to the Prime Minister that Bendigo would be a prime location to host this facility. But no: rather than working with the states, looking at best practice, and working with the bodies who will ultimately still deliver these loans this is, instead, another pork-barrelling exercise whose impact on current jobs in the finance sector is unknown.

In raising the concerns on behalf of my community I did write to the Deputy Prime Minister back in May. I'm still waiting for a response. I did ask these questions. Why was Bendigo overlooked, given the workforce that we have, being the home of the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, which is the only Australian bank headquarters located outside a capital city? We have a highly skilled workforce with expertise in the health, finance and education sectors. So why was Bendigo overlooked? I also asked about whether the new corporation would have a negative impact on the functions and the jobs at Rural Finance, which is part of the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. Rural Finance offers agriculture-related services such as a drought concessional loans scheme, a farm business loans scheme and other industry and business loans. So I want to know the impact that this government will have on the people and jobs at Rural Finance.

I'm still waiting for a response. I understand that the Deputy Prime Minister has been quite distracted—perhaps he knew back then of the problem with his citizenship—but quite frankly it's not good enough for the people of Bendigo and central Victoria that they continue to wait for answers from this government.

This is one reason Labor is opposed to this government's approach to agriculture and decentralisation. Time and time again we have seen pork-barrelling from this government. It's the only way to describe it. We see policy on the run, belated coming out, changing the rules, setting up new rules. They first of all said that to be considered for a shift of public sector agencies and jobs you needed to have a stand-alone university and you needed to be more than 100 kilometres from a metropolitan city. Well, that original proposal put forward by this government ruled out every single part of Victoria, because while Bendigo is more than 100 kilometres from Melbourne its university is a satellite campus of a university based in Melbourne. So then they said, 'No, we're going to change that.' Their policy on decentralisation and regional development is a shambles. It is nothing but a smokescreen to try and cover up the fact that they are just pork-barrelling for their own electorates.

Don't get me wrong: I support the concept of growing public sector jobs in the regions. However, what this government does time and time again is shut down jobs in one part of the community in regional Australia and open them up in another. That's not creating new jobs, that's displacing jobs. That's creating uncertainty within those agencies, creating problems and then moving them somewhere else. An example from my electorate is that we used to be the home of the Australian Emergency Management Institute on Mount Macedon. In an area that was devastated by bushfires we had world-class experts and a place for training management expertise in emergency disasters. Lots of people who work in the emergency services space spoke very highly of the quality and skill of this institute. Then one night, in a federal budget, they announced they were closing it and turning it into a virtual institute so that people could do the training online, missing the critical fact that they were losing 60 jobs in the Macedon Ranges and losing the ability to debrief, train, discuss and develop expertise and excellence in terms of emergency management face to face. Later we found that they established a new part of it in Brisbane. That's not new jobs for Brisbane—that jobs stolen from Bendigo.

They did the same with the ATO. They shut down the Bendigo ATO office, as well as other ATO offices around the country, and announced great news: 600 new ATO jobs in Gosford. Again, all they did was move jobs around, displacing families, sacking workers and creating instability in delivery of service. That is not good decentralisation policy; that is chaotic policy, which is about nothing but trying to deliver votes and save your own job.

Labor is opposed to this bill because it establishes the Regional Investment Corporation but there was no business case done and there was no decent consultation work done with the states. You have to be able to partner with the states for this to be successful. It also doesn't address the underlying problems that we have with the drought concessional loan scheme, it doesn't go to the core needs of the farmers, and it moves people away from where the expertise is in rural finance. People of Bendigo and central Victoria shake their heads at the way in which this government is behaving, particularly when it comes to our town and particularly when it comes to jobs. We on this side call on the government to do better. When you are talking about establishing an institute like this, do the research: is it necessary? Will it add value? Will it create jobs, not take away jobs? Will it build upon the expertise we have in our regions?

I would like to think that in Bendigo we are experts at everything, but we're not. We don't have a good dairy footprint. Bendigo would not be a good place for the headquarters of a dairy institute. However, what we are very good at is rural finance. What we are very good at is making sure that we support farmers, support innovation and support people's access to capital so they can grow their businesses. Having a facility like the Regional Investment Corporation in Orange does only one thing; it satisfies National Party voters. It satisfies the Deputy Prime Minister's push for decentralisation but it doesn't actually demonstrate best practice in decentralisation or regional development. I encourage all those in this House to rethink the move the government is making and to support the amendment moved by the member for Hunter. We are serious about regional development. This is not it.

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