Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Prime Minister for Social Inclusion) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in this debate to reiterate the Labor government’s complete commitment to supporting rural and regional communities in Australia and recognising the particular challenges that confront our communities and our citizens living there.

I do not want to denigrate the contributions of the National Party members in the Senate this afternoon who are passionately defending their constituencies. I certainly acknowledge their loyalty and their deep understanding of the complexity that surrounds living in the country in Australia. It is not easy trying to sustain a rural community that is struggling after seven years of drought. It is not easy trying to sustain family farms where there has been no income for seven years. The indebtedness to the banks and financial institutions takes people down the path where they actually have no capacity to even escape the circumstances. It is not easy.

But the circumstances that confront rural and regional communities in Australia today are complex. They are part of the global economic cycle, certainly part of the response to climate change and reflect many challenges that have been around for a long time. Today we have had this debate about Minister Tanner’s announced funding cuts, but really it has been part of selective reporting and selective commentary on only some of the projects and programs that he has identified in that first statement to the National Press Club.

The Labor government is certainly committed to community based solutions and I totally identify with the kind of solution that we just heard about from Western Australia and the Regional Partnerships program. But I do have to say that one of the failings of those kinds of programs is when communities are being forced to cobble together bits of funding from here, there and everywhere to try and develop a sustainable service in those communities. That is probably not the best way to do it. The Labor government really is entitled to review the programs that have been in place through the previous government of 10 years plus. It is certainly entitled to allow program evaluation cycles to take their natural time and for programs to be reviewed in the evaluation cycles. It is all good public policy.

We heard this afternoon about some of the rorting, particularly of the Regional Partnerships program and the pretty damning comments of the Auditor-General about the way in which that program has been abused in the past. We want to be a government that is about improved transparency of decision making and improving the way in which we share the funding that is available for these kinds of community based programs.

The Labor government has actually taken us to a new focus. I have spoken in this chamber already about my role as the Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and how important that is in driving a whole-of-government approach to dealing with the problems that are confronting our communities. Our rural and regional communities are just such communities. Every community has its own set of particular and peculiar challenges and we certainly want to move away from a kind of one size fits all approach and start working with local communities to develop solutions to the challenges that they are facing.

One of the challenges that we know is absolutely there in rural and regional Australia in the small communities that abound across the country is the ageing community infrastructure because the pools, halls and facilities built in the Whitlam era have not had any capacity from the Commonwealth to actually support renewal of that infrastructure. What we have been finding as we have been travelling around Australia is crumbling swimming pools and community halls that need re-stumping, as Senator Joyce said, and we are trying to find some new ways that we can engage in community development programs and community funding.

We certainly have some very interesting information with which to work in Professor Tony Vinson’s Dropping off the edge report which really highlights the failure of public policy to deal with entrenched disadvantage in our country. When you look at the amazing amount of data mapping and analysis that Professor Vinson has undertaken, you will see that many of the critical communities that he has identified, where people are living in abject poverty and with extremely complex disadvantage, are in rural and regional communities. They are in communities like Kempsey, Wilcannia and Bourke and they are communities where we are determined to take a new approach and make a significant difference.

So I take on board the comments, the recommendations and the advice of the National Party senators who have spoken in the debate today. But I think that it is the Rudd government’s prerogative to challenge the way in which we are funding communities and to come up with some new solutions to deliver for the communities of rural and regional Australia. I intend to be part of that process. So let us not be too disingenuous about the cuts that have been announced. We are committed to regional Australia and we will continue to be.

Debate interrupted.