Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think this is a very important topic to be talking about. I'm not sure that what Tony Abbott did 14 years ago matters a pinch to any single man—

No, you've had three years, Member for Blair. If it mattered so much, you could have dealt with it, and that's the truth. I'm not going to go down this pathway. I think you're absolutely in the wrong place if that's the argument you're going to put on the table.

You know what? I'll stay on the Tony Abbott theme. In 2013, Tony Abbott got off to a very good start when he talked about having a look at the federation model and how all three levels of government work together. I think it's a really good topic for us to explore because at the heart of this problem is how we find ways to make sure councils like the Toowoomba Regional Council and those within the footprints of the members for Blair and Kooyong have the adequate funding to deliver the services that Australians expect.

We went back 14 years; I'll go back a little bit further, to 1942, when, at the federal level, we took over responsibility for income tax from the states. Ever since then, we have seen a lot of different approaches to how we get that funding down to the local communities who need it. I would argue that today we have a situation where we have multiple overlapping responsibilities. We have all three levels of government competing for different ways to raise revenue, and what are they doing it for? They're not doing it for themselves. They're doing it to provide services to Australian citizens. It's important that we go back to that fundamental question: how do we ensure that every level of government is adequately funded to do what it's supposed to do? So I will take up the Tony Abbott point. That conversation on how the federation model works today, after all the changes it has been through, is right, and I think our councils want to hear that conversation.

My local council—much like the member for Bowman, I have only one—has just given a 9.5 per cent rate rise. It is struggling, and it's very open about that and about how it continues to raise revenue in ways that are appropriate for regional council. It points out to me regularly when we talk that there are so many different challenges that regional councils face. It's not something special, because they're regional; it's simple mathematics. If you have four-acre blocks, there's a lot more road from doorstep to doorstep. When you start building that further out into the regional communities, where you have large farms—I'm thinking about the feedlots out near Nangwee—the council still has to find ways to fund the maintenance of those roads. After the most recent round of floods, I can assure you there's a lot of work to be done in our area that our council simply does not have the funding to do.

In 2021-22, financial assistance grants to Toowoomba Regional Council were $19 million. This year, they're $5.5 million. I'm not going to throw this over the two sides here. That determination is made by the state government, and I expect the Queensland state LNP government to review that process to make sure that councils like mine get an appropriate share of that funding. At the moment, my argument is that they do not. To drop funding from $19 million to $5.5 million and expect a council to maintain the same standard of service it has provided to the people of the Toowoomba region, I think, is too much to ask. I would point out that, amongst the many costs—and it was raised earlier that costs have been increased across the country—my council has seen a $1.9 million increase in electricity costs in that time period. Not only have we lost funding—from $19 million to $5.5 million—we've had to pay an extra $1.9 million in electricity costs. Councils are struggling.

I can't help but raise another issue. My council has asked me to raise it many, many times. I think it's relevant for this. They're not responsible for upgrading a dam wall at Cressbrook Dam. This is a $275 million piece of work that a local council is supposed to fund. The changes required for that were put in place by the state government quite some time ago. The impact on this council of having to maintain that piece of infrastructure has the ability to absolutely drive them bankrupt. That's the scary situation we're in. No-one wants to see that. Why is that situation in place? There's a long history to it, but it goes back to my fundamental point: how the federal model works needs to be reviewed, because, for a regional council to have to find $275 million to upgrade a dam wall clearly shows we're in the wrong place.

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