Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A couple of weeks ago BlueScope Steel in Port Kembla announced that they would have to axe 800 jobs. The domino effect of this on their contractors in the Illawarra is likely to be in the hundreds. Some of the jobs that are going are held by the constituents of Gilmore. Over the next 12 months economists expect another 100,000 jobs to be lost nationally. Retailers are already concerned—and rightly so, since some big retailers have gone under this year. Gilmore has an extensive small business community that has been doing it tough for quite a long time. That could well get worse if the jobs market in the Illawarra continues to slide downwards. Some small businesses are barely holding their heads above water and many are living a hand-to-mouth existence.

While things might be booming out in the west—not a pun—this is not happening in the eastern states. There is a real concern out there that this government seems either blissfully ignorant or in denial of reality. The Treasurer reckons we are going gang busters—that everything is rosy and the sun is shining. I see thunderstorms. Just last week, it was reported that, if it was not for the mining industry, we could well have been in a technical recession at the start of this year. That is food for serious thought.

Despite all this happening in plain sight and being plastered all over the media, Regional Development Australia has refused to back a massive local job generator, the Shell Cove marina project. What sort of insanity is this? The Shell Cove project management agreement stipulates that a minimum of 50 per cent of workers on the project must be local. The average for the project so far has been 84 per cent local workers. The provision of RDAF funding would have shortened the overall construction period of the boat harbour—stages 1 to 3—and provided financial confidence to the business plan.

RDAF funding at this time would have accelerated the delivery of benefits to the Illawarra and adjoining regions, notably 2,560 FTE jobs attached to the boat harbour's construction and operation. In excess of 500 jobs would have been created in stage 1. In addition to the immediate stimulatory benefit, there would have been a multiplier effect for our regional economies due to the use of local labour.

The addition of this major regional tourism infrastructure asset would have contributed significantly to the diversification of our regional economies. The completed Shell Cove project would have created over 7,200 jobs, which would have been a massive injection of jobs into the Illawarra and adjoining regions. All approvals are in place for the boat harbour, and tenders for the construction could have been called immediately. But through some sort of twisted logic, and despite job losses announced just a couple of weeks before, Regional Development Australia says no.

Here was an ideal opportunity to offset the job losses in the steelworks; but they refused to help. Surely, with a result like this they should be mightily embarrassed to even utter the words 'regional development'. This decision shows the government is relying on hollow rhetoric and false promises. Gilmore has worn the neglect of 16 years under a state Labor government. Our local infrastructure needs a serious injection of funds. Population growth is outstripping services.

Crucial to growing job opportunities is the transport infrastructure. This federal Labor government, the so called champion of the working class, has turned its back on the region. When the Minister for Regional Development visited the area we asked for funding for the Princes Highway to build a greater load-bearing bridge on the Oallen Ford at Nerriga. This is a vital infrastructure initiative needed to sustain main road 92 to Canberra. We also asked the minister for help to get power to the technology park in Nowra to help stimulate economic growth in the lower Shoalhaven. We did not get that either, but the two adjoining Labor electorates did.

A third of the regional and rural electorates are held by Labor and the Independents who support them. These electorates got two-thirds of the available funds, a fact that I am sure will not be lost on the people of Australia. That is the first instalment of the pay-off. For all the trumpeting about workers rights, I have serious doubts that the local unions have the moral courage to speak up and really support job creation. It is all about hanging on to power and preserving the status quo.

The only practical option is a change of government, a case being well made by this government itself. When we are re-elected, the Shell Cove marina project will go ahead as was promised prior to the last election by the coalition.