Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to speak tonight about the opportunities in rural and regional Queensland for expanding and strengthening the settlement of people of migrant and refugee backgrounds. I note that a conference is happening at this moment, today and tomorrow, in Toowoomba, a town that is a great example of taking on board a large number of people from quite a wide diversity of refugee and other migrant backgrounds in the last decade or two, to great success. It's a really positive counterpoint to some of the fact-free, deliberately manufactured racial divisiveness that has been put forward by some in the media and, sadly, some in this parliament in recent times, trying to manufacture and exacerbate racial division, when we have so many examples all around Australia—including, of course, in many parts of Queensland—of communities, both large and small, that have demonstrated and continue to demonstrate the huge contribution of people working together from a big diversity of migrant and refugee backgrounds.

I was recently, a couple of weeks ago, in the town of Biloela. I was partly there to support and congratulate the local community, who have continued to campaign after five months in support of a family of Tamil background with two very young girls, aged three and one, both of whom were delivered in the local Biloela Hospital. I met the doctor, also of Tamil background, who delivered at least the younger of those two. That family, who I've spoken about in this place before, were taken away at dawn by a range of armed people from the Border Force and locked up in detention in Melbourne, and that community have continued to rally to support that family and to encourage the minister to give them an ongoing visa and to bring them home to Bilo. It's a great example of a supportive community that just instinctively came together because they had a family living in their midst who were contributing to their community, working in the community, having children in the community and helping build those small regional and rural communities that rely on new settlers, whether from an overseas background or locally born.

Whilst I was there, I also met with people from the local chamber of commerce and Biloela Enterprise about all of the other opportunities there and their ongoing desire to have people from migrant and refugee backgrounds—and, of course, everybody else—move to and contribute and work in those communities. Apart from that family I mentioned, I think there are about 40 people of Tamil background with varying degrees of visa status. I met one fellow there—I think he's been in the country for about seven years—who is still on a version of a temporary visa, very much wanting a permanent one, because a person can never properly settle until they have a permanent visa. He's one of many people helping keep the local meatworks open. Others who started working there have moved into other jobs in the community. Also, people of other migrant backgrounds are working in the hospital and in aged care and other allied health related activities.

As I'm sure many senators would know and many others would know, were it not for people of migrant background and recent arrivals such as refugees being prepared to live in and work in health facilities, aged-care facilities and lots of other places in small regional and rural towns, those facilities often would close or the services there would be much less reliable and more intermittent than they are. One of the challenges is enabling those communities to have people, whether it's doctors, nurses, midwives, aged-care workers, teachers or other people with varying levels of skills, who are willing to move to, settle in—and particularly have children in—and help build an ongoing future for those communities.

I raise that issue because I think it very much directly links to the situation which has started to get some significant attention in Queensland, which is the threat of ongoing closure of more maternity units in rural areas and small regional towns. One which is under immediate threat of closure is in the town of Theodore, which is only 100 kilometres or so a bit further inland from Biloela, which I was just mentioning. There were some very alarming statistics publicised over the weekend—and I believe these are not disputed—which clearly indicated the rate of 23.3 babies in every 1,000 dying in those towns in communities where there are no birthing services, compared to 6.1 babies in rural areas with obstetrics and other birthing services available. That is a pretty clear, stark statistic which translates into real lives and real lives lost.

I commend the state health minister for acting immediately to investigate this and see what can be done, but a part of it is clearly an unwillingness to provide sufficient resources. I know it's the refrain of governments at state and federal levels, of all colours, to always say, 'Well, you can't fund everything and you have to make tough choices.' That is certainly true up to a point, but the point is, as we've seen and debated at length in this chamber in recent times, the choices being made by the current government are to give literally billions of dollars of potential revenue over to corporate tax cuts and literally billions more to income tax cuts that will significantly benefit the wealthiest in our community. That's just one example; there are plenty of other examples of policies and subsidies of significant support being provided to benefit big corporations at the expense of communities.

We are a wealthy country. We should be able to offer world-class health care to everyone. We are a country that should be able to afford to provide those basic birthing services to rural and regional communities. I accept part of the issue is being able to find people to staff those, and work needs to be done alongside that. That is, in many cases, about providing training, support and incentives for nurses and midwives to work in regional and rural areas. Again, that is a matter of a political choice to invest in providing those incentives and that support for midwives, nurses and other health workers, including doctors where needed, to work in rural areas. It can be also integrated with our migration system, our migration rules and our rules around encouragement for refugee settlement that provide incentives for people with appropriate skills, or the willingness to be trained to get those appropriate skills, to settle and work and provide those services in regional areas. But the bottom line there is the political choice about funding. I think the direct line needs to be drawn repeatedly between the political choice of the parties in the political establishment to adopt policies that repeatedly provide resources or give tax breaks, rebates or tax loopholes to those that are better off rather than investing directly in the community.

It doesn't have to be like this. This is a political choice. The statistics show that it is a political choice that is literally leading to deaths. We can be a country that offers world-class health care to everyone. One of the key reasons why we continue to see policy choices that don't deliver world-class health care, affordable housing and other appropriate services to the community is corporate donations. The two parties of the political establishment have taken over $100 million in corporate donations in the past five years, and at the same time we have this underfunding which is leading to people dying whilst the tax breaks are being given over and the corporations are getting the subsidies. That's something that needs to change. We heard some good words today about my colleague Senator Rhiannon and her commitment to political donations reform. I certainly join with continuing to commit to working to get big money and corporate money out of politics altogether.