Senate debates

Thursday, 24 November 2016

Committees

Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee; Report

4:04 pm

Photo of Peter Whish-WilsonPeter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement in relation to the Rural and Regional Affairs References Committee's regional capitals inquiry report, which was tabled by Senator Urquhart.

Photo of Alex GallacherAlex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Is leave granted? Leave is granted.

Photo of Peter Whish-WilsonPeter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

I commend all senators and Australians to read the Rural And Regional Affairs References Committee's report into regional capitals. It is an important piece of work. I initiated this inquiry after meeting with Regional Capitals Australia. I was very interested because I live in a regional capital, as defined by that group. I live in Launceston. I moved to Launceston for good reasons, and I see huge potential for regional capitals around the country to help remove and relieve congestion in the major cities and provide a quality of life and a lifestyle for a lot of Australians, like it has for me and my family. I am also very interested in seeing regional capitals prosper, because they are great places to live, and also because they can serve communities and provide environmental benefits to this country.

We went right around the country. We heard from a number of stakeholders, including community groups, about the benefits of regional capitals. The report makes a number of important recommendations. The way I see it this is just a first step in officially recognising the Regional Capitals Australia group. They have now brought together dozens of regional capitals from around the country presenting a united front when they come to Canberra to ask us, as senators and members of the other place, to take them seriously in the way we prioritise infrastructure spending around this country and in the policies that we adopt.

In this place we tend to focus on either cities or what we might call the bush. Regional capitals occupy a place in between. They are what some may even call second cities. They are great places to live, but they nevertheless need our focus in terms of upgrading their infrastructure and services. This is something that was very clear to us when we went to Rockhampton, Geraldton, Launceston and Geelong. We heard that these regional capitals have a number of constraints on their infrastructure financing and investment and on the services that are provided by federal government. They feel like they are batting well above their weight in terms of what they contribute to the Australian economy and community, yet they do not get that back in terms of funding from the Australian government.

I am very proud that the Rural and Regional Affairs References Committee took this on, and I thank Labor for supporting the Greens' push to have this inquiry. Although the inquiry report only has a small number of recommendations, they are nevertheless very important. I am particularly interested in defining what a regional capital is and having both the federal and state governments recognise them as official entities that we should build policy around. So I recommend this report to all senators and the Australian people.

There is one recommendation in there that I would definitely say is aspirational. Evidence was provided to the committee in Geraldton from the Mayor of Geraldton, who set up the Regional Capitals Australia group. He said that we need to plan ahead 50 to 30 years for developing regional capitals. We need an aspirational target on how many Australians we would like to see move from our major cities to other second cities and regional capitals. I think that kind of long-term, strategic planning is really important.

I seek leave to be in continuation so that others can make a contribution on this important report, and I look forward to the Senate and this parliament building on this report, taking Regional Capitals Australia seriously and developing a plan to help get Australians back into regional capitals, where we started. That is where we started at federation: most of us lived in regional areas. Very few do now, but there is huge potential for this country to see more demographic change and for it to go the other way.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.