Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about the local 2020 summit that was held in my seat of Dobell, because there were some fantastic ideas there, and to put on the record the support that we had from Wyong Shire Council and the state government in holding the summit at Wyong, in Dobell. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the mayor for his efforts—he contributed greatly to the day—and the two state members for the area, David Harris and Grant McBride, who also contributed.

The Prime Minister said that the Australia 2020 Summit that was held in Canberra had Australia’s best and brightest, but, let me tell you, on the Central Coast we know that that is not the case, because we had 150 of the best and brightest at our summit. Many of the ideas that were canvassed at our summit were similar to those that came out of Canberra, but we focused on a range of issues that were specific to the area—in particular, the lack of infrastructure. The No. 1 issue in relation to that was transport. The Rudd government has done something towards that, with its promise in the budget of a rail freight link between Newcastle and Strathfield, which will help ease the freight that goes down the F3. The electorate of Dobell has close to 35,000 people who commute for over an hour and a half every day, so issues to do with transport between the Central Coast and Sydney are of paramount importance. A second important infrastructure issue that was raised was access to broadband. Ours is one of those areas where we have more broadband black spots than operational broadband. Again, it is pleasing that the Rudd government has taken that head-on already in terms of the policy that has been announced.

I suppose, though, the overarching issue that was raised at the 2020 summit on the Central Coast was about trying to give our area a greater local identity. We have over 300,000 people living on the Central Coast, yet, for almost all infrastructure issues or even not-for-profit organisations, we are seen as somehow part of either Sydney or the Hunter. People on the Central Coast think that we need to be looking at our local identity more than just in terms of name; we also need to look at it in terms of the institutions that are there.

I think it was vitally important that local 2020 summits took place, enabling the community to be properly involved, as well as the summit that took place here in Canberra.