Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question to the Acting Prime Minister is a relatively simple one. After I put it, I want to set some context around it. Acting Prime Minister, are you aware of the incredibly positive impact that the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program is having in my electorate of Barker and the nation more broadly? That's the question.

Mr Gosling interjecting—

Let me set the context for that question. Those opposite might laugh, of course, but it might have escaped their attention—particularly, perhaps, the member for Solomon, who's throwing scorn at the moment—that we're dealing with a one-in-100-year pandemic. There's been a recession induced by that pandemic. But, before that, the member for Solomon needs to know that, in my electorate, we were gripped by drought—two years, two seasons, complete failure. Do you know what happens when farmers go and get $1 million worth of seed and other inputs and pour them into the ground and it doesn't rain? They get a little concerned about that. When they have to do it twice, they get very concerned about it.

All of that was happening as the global pandemic broke. I was at home in lockdown, in South Australia, thankfully. We've avoided most of the extended lockdowns. I was thinking back then that, in 12 months, we would have an unemployment rate 12 to 15 per cent. I was petrified. I've lived through the best of times in Australia—26 years of unbridled economic growth. I was worried that my generation and those younger than me wouldn't understand what kind of hardship was coming, nor would they understand how to deal with it.

Fast forward to now. Those opposite might think that there has been some miracle not connected to the decisions in this place—not that the outcome that we've achieved, so spectacular as it is, is all about decisions made in this place; it's a cooperation between every Australian, not just the people who get the great privilege of being in this building but the 24 million Australians who've lent their shoulder to the wheel. But the reality is that that miracle didn't arrive in and of itself.

We now have more people in employment than we had prior to the pandemic. We have unemployment with a 'five' in front of it, and it's projected to go lower still. Those spectacular outcomes, not just in my electorate but across the nation, have occurred because we lent in when we needed to. We were in the financial position to be able to make those decisions—our fiscal position was strong, as you know, Acting Prime Minister—but we were able to lean in, and we leaned in with lots of programs.

Of course, we had the drought support programs in my electorate, but if I'm talking specifically about the pandemic induced recession then I think one of the greatest measures was the partnership with local governments through the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program. I spent eight years on a local council, and I could have only dreamt of this kind of partnership. In my time, I think we attracted a grant of $1 million over eight years. Well, local councils in my electorate, over the course of three phases of this program, Acting Prime Minister, have received—wait for it—$53.8 million; 18 councils. But that's not the end of it. They've taken this funding and they've leveraged it with their own to put shovels in the ground to help employ Australians, leaving behind them, in the wake of that work, social capital.

That social capital runs to the priorities that councils themselves determined. Those priorities are a product of what their communities want. I know, as I know you know, Acting Prime Minister, that local councils, councillors and mayors are closest to their community. They know what priorities their community wants. They get to spend more time in their community than I get to spend in their community. I'm quite envious. I get dragged away to Canberra 20 weeks of the year; they don't. It's projects like the Pinnaroo aerodrome; the riverfront at Sturt Reserve; LED lighting across the city of Mount Gambier; a skate bowl and recreation park for Naracoorte; the Renmark town wharf renewal; and the Barossa United Football Club, a million-dollar playing surface. This is social capital. I repeat: Acting Prime Minister, are you aware of the positive impacts the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program is having in my electorate as well as the nation more broadly?

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