Speech - 20th November 2007
It is great to be back in Ballarat, together with Catherine King. I would like to thank Vice-Chancellor and President Professor of the University of Ballarat, David Battersby, for hosting today’s forum. I would also like to welcome the Mayor of City Ballarat, David Vendy and the Mayor of Moorabool Shire, Councillor Dianne McAuliffe.
On Saturday, Australians have a clear choice to make about the future leadership of our great nation.
The choice to elect Labor which has fresh ideas for an education revolution, and will take decisive action on climate change, restore balance and fairness in the workplace, implement a national plan to fix our hospitals and roll out a first class broadband network for all Australians, not just the cities.
And we have fresh ideas about regional development and about how decisions about the provisions of core government services to regions should to be made.
Today I am announcing a fresh approach, an about turn, in the way regional problems are identified and solutions developed. I strongly believe that it is regional communities themselves that are best placed to identify and prioritise the problems they face. And it is communities themselves that are often best placed to develop the solutions.
It ought to be the role of government, at all levels, to step in and back locally developed solutions that stack up. Of course locally developed spending proposals must be subjected to a rigorous assessment process. That is only right where taxpayers’ money is concerned.
But where locally developed solutions do stack up they should be backed. And just to make it clear, I am not just talking about what the current government sees as regional services and regional development. I am also talking about giving local communities a say in how such mainstream services as health, education and infrastructure are delivered to regional communication.
We will never end the blame game until we really embrace locally developed solutions to local problems.
The key structure in this, and the first port of call for communities identifying problems and solutions, will be Regional Development Australia - RDA. Regional Development Australia will replace and build on the highly successful Area Consultative Committee Network. The ACC network has served regions well since I set it up when I was Employment Minister around 15 years ago.
I set it up to give local communities a structure that allowed then to identify the skills they needed and also a say in determining how these skill needs could be met.
It worked in the skills area and I have no doubt that the new RDA network will be just as successful in its much broader role. The need for a new approach to regional development was highlighted in the Audit Report handed down last week.
It is clear that the Coalition have been using regional programs to pursue their narrow political needs. There have been serious failings have been in the way these programs have been administered.
A Senate inquiry identified the problem areas a couple of years ago, but Labor’s call for the full implementation of the Inquiry’s recommendations have been ignored.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Regional Services owes the Australian public an explanation, and he owes the Auditor General an apology.
The day the damning audit report came out the Deputy Prime Minister apart from attacking the message announced two more of his pet subjects in his electorate. Projects which hadn’t been recommended by the ACC. How brazen can you get?
Australia deserves much better. The Government has used the regional partnership programs not to empower regions but to help the electoral chances for their members of parliament – a political slush fund.
But nothing will change because the Coalition does not believe it should change. They have failed to make the necessary changes in the past and they will fail again.
They have never demonstrated a commitment to localism.
On coming to government they abolished key programs and structures like the Better Cities Program and RDOs which were highly successful in responding to the needs of regions dealing with the pressures of growth and change.
Labor takes a different approach. Labor will not be throwing out regional programs, including Regional Partnerships, but we will be improving their accountability and transparency.
And the first port of call in assessing proposals under Regional Partnerships will be our new Regional Development Australia network. And at the heart of Labor’s regional agenda is a commitment to localism.
But regional development is not just about fixing one or two regional programs.
If we just do this we are still sidelining regional and local issues and keeping them separate to the mainstream. A new approach to regional development is required. One which commits to genuinely empower our local communities.
By working together with communities we can go a long way towards finding the sustainable solutions to meet regional challenges.
Federal Labor will also
create a stronger and more participatory federal regional development structure.
Labor considers that Regional Development Australia’s involvement in the approvals process is an essential safeguard.
Regional Development Australia will not only be the eyes and ears for Canberra into regional development, it will be the eyes and ears for regions in Canberra.
Regional Development Australia will not only value-add the work of Local Government and it will provide a mechanism to support community champions who have a vision they want to share in their region.
It will not to replace Local Government but it will work with it. Labor’s approach is one of building partnerships. Partnerships between Federal and State Governments, partnerships with local government, and partnerships with local communities.
There are many people in communities who don’t necessarily want to stand for local Council or get elected to Parliament, but who nevertheless have a passion and commitment to their local community and want to make a significant contribution to it.
Regional Development Australia will tap into the work of these champions.
By better resourcing the network we can better empower these community champions to develop the local solutions which stack up.
That’s the role I see for Regional Development Australia. Tapping into the knowledge, experience and enthusiasm of local champions and empowering local communities to make better use of Government programs in all policy and portfolio areas.
Local Government
Partnerships
Regional Development
Australia would be empowered to
strengthen these partnerships.
Partnerships across the three levels of Government, and with the private sector, the not-for-profit sector, service delivery bodies and local communities, to develop a strategic approach to service delivery and the development needs of a region.
And Labor will explore mechanisms to fund the network beyond the political cycle. While we welcome the recent change to a three-year funding model, this still leaves the network to the whim of political opportunism. These bodies must have greater certainty so they can plan over the longer term.
Localism across
Portfolios
Federal Labor is firmly
committed to ending the ‘blame game’, and buck passing which has blighted
service delivery and infrastructure development in this nation for too long.
We will take a whole-of-Governments approach. If we simply address the blame game from the perspective of carving up responsibilities between the different levels of Government, we are not genuinely embracing local solutions and we are missing a real opportunity
A commitment to localism is good regional policy. But it can also play a key role in developing an effective narrative to end the blame game between State and Federal Governments.
It will not be possible to do this by simply fixing one or two regional programs, or even by improving the regional development network. What we must do is bring regional issues into the mainstream.
We will require the mainstream portfolios such as education, health and transport to identify how much they are spending in each region. This would not only produce greater accountability in the budget papers, but also allow for the spatial allocation of funds.
It also enables comparisons between regions to be made to show where resources are going. Not for the purpose of equalisation, that would be silly. Different regions have different levels of need.
But, for the first time, communities will be able to see exactly where the taxpayer dollars are going.
We will also develop mechanisms within the mainstream portfolios like health and education so they can respond to innovative, local solutions for better service delivery.
This is what we are doing with the GP super clinics and rural medical infrastructure funds. Not just committing the extra dollars to fix the problem but using local solutions to solve it. Infrastructure to draw the doctors. Promoting the results as best practice models and encouraging local communities to develop creative solutions which stack up.
Under Labor communities will have an input on how their service needs can be better met. An input for example to their health, aged care, skills, infrastructure, schools and higher education needs.
This platform puts local communities in the driving seat. The challenge I issue to regional communities is to come up with the local solutions which stack up and meet the sustainability test. No more wasted opportunities, but support for real solutions to meet the needs of our regions.
Building the Nation and
the Regions
Many regions across
Australia are under growth pressure. This is particularly the
case in regions feeling the full force of the mining boom. But it is also communities on the growing
fringes of our big cities and larger regional centres like Ballarat.
And we are all familiar with the pressures that the sea change and tree change phenomenon have created for many smaller communities. Labor recognises with rapid population growth comes pressure on community and economic infrastructure.
Labor’s Better Regions Program has been developed to help communities deal with the pressures on community infrastructure resulting from growth. It aims to build on the strengths of the region, improve liveability, and create jobs.
Better Regions will invest in locally-driven projects which support:
- economic sustainability
- affordable housing
- clean, safe and attractive environments
- vibrant communities
- provision of economic and social services
- urban renewal
We have already during the election campaign announced a number of community projects through our Better Regions program. For example in the growth corridors that are experiencing higher growth rates than the national average such as the Mandurah-Peel region, Sunshine Coast Queensland, Northern Adelaide and the Northern Rivers region, NSW.
This funding will be used to improve community amenity and revitalise community infrastructure that is groaning under the pressure of growth. The packages will assist to create vibrant, diverse and liveable regions.
Not since Labor’s Better Cities program, has there been a strategic vision to inject funding into infrastructure to renew and sustain growth corridors.
For too long the Howard Government has taken the back seat on meeting the community infrastructure and development needs of these regions, which are holding them back. Better Regions will plug the funding gaps that often prevent important community infrastructure renewal projects from going ahead.
Infrastructure
But major transport and
road infrastructure will be dealt with through Infrastructure
Australia. Labor has committed to set
up a national infrastructure council, Infrastructure Australia with
input from the public and private sectors to provide recommendations to
Government on the nation’s infrastructure needs.
Infrastructure Australia will complete an audit of our nation’s infrastructure needs. It will analyse, prioritise and monitor the delivery of major projects. It will also be required to consult with the Regional Development Australia, ensuring that there is local input in developing the nation’s infrastructure priorities.
Broadband
There are a range of
infrastructure priorities to be determined, but the most critical
infrastructure investment
Australia must make in our regions is the rollout of high
speed broadband.
Regions need a first class broadband network, not a second best service and for too long they have been left to do with poor, or worse, no broadband services. It’s the great enabling infrastructure of our day.
The Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) found in its State of the Regions Report last year the cost of inferior broadband to Australian regions in 2006 alone was $2.7 billion in foregone gross domestic product and 30,000 regional jobs.
But it is not only the economy that will benefit. It will also open up opportunities for rural and remote communities in telemedicine, education and social connectivity.
On broadband, we have seen an abysmal performance from the Government, and their most recently announced bandaid solution is flawed. It will leave rural and regional Australia with a mix of unspecified wireless technologies, not a superior fibre network.
Labor will connect the whole of the nation to fast broadband. Labor will provide a guaranteed 98% of Australians access to a fibre to the node National Broadband Network delivering true broadband speeds of a minimum of 12 megabits per second. The 2% which cannot be covered by fibre due to their geographical location will be guaranteed broadband access through alternative technologies.
Health
Together with key
infrastructure, Labor recognises that many regional communities are facing
critical difficulties in accessing health services. It is why Labor has
developed a $2.5 billion plan to improve
Australia’s health and hospital system and ensure better
health services for patients.
At the centre of that agenda is Federal Labor’s commitment to develop flexible, long-term solutions – developed in partnership with local communities to meet their local needs. It also recognises that good health infrastructure is essential to ensuring good quality health services and to attracting medical professionals to in rural and regional communities.
Part of that plan includes:
- reform the Rural Medical Infrastructure Fund (RMIF) to improve health infrastructure in rural communities; This fund has existed for sometime but only 20% was ever spent.
- establish GP Super Clinics throughout Australia to provide access to doctors, nurses, specialists and allied health professionals, such as physiotherapists, podiatrists, dieticians and psychologists, all in one centre, in their local community where they need them.
Federal Labor's GP Super Clinics will provide infrastructure funding to establish a greater range of convenient and quality services in local communities—particularly in rural and regional areas and where Medicare has not been utilised to its fullest because of workforce shortages.
By providing this infrastructure we will attract more doctors and other health professionals to the regions.
As a further commitment to primary care, Federal Labor will commit $2.5 million over three years for the establishment of an Australian Allied Health Rural and Remote Clinical Placement Scholarship Scheme. This scheme will seek to increase the number of rural health practitioners by establishing a program for the delivery of rural clinical placement scholarships for allied health students.
We know that practical experience in a rural placement whilst undertaking study is more likely to lead to the consideration of rural health as a career.
Closing the Skills Gap
in Regional Australia
Skill shortages are being
acutely felt in many regional and rural areas as the demand for skilled labour
increases. Federal Labor has released
a comprehensive plan, Skilling Australia, to increase and deepen the
skills capacity of the Australian workforce and ensure demand for skills and
skills training are matched.
Regional Development Australia will also have a strong input into closing the skills gap in their regions.
The Keating Government set up the Area Consultative Committees to match training programs with local needs. The local approach worked and 300,000 jobs placed in the last six months of Labor’s term in office.
This approach can work again if Canberra resources and consults closely with Regional Development Australia to deliver its Skilling Australia plan to close the skills gap in our regions.
Skilling Australia will increase and deepen the skills capacity of the Australian workforce and ensure demand for skills and skills training are matched. Federal Labor’s plan to increase and deepen the skills capacity of the workforce and ensure demand for skills and training are matched includes:
- Fund an additional 450,000 skilled training places over the next four years – 200,000 more than the Howard Government
- Ensure that 90 per cent of these places lead to a higher qualification than the Howard Government’s proposed new training places.
- Place industry demand at the heart of the skills training system – so that training providers equip Australians with the skills that industry needs.
A Rudd Labor Government will work closely with Regional Development Australia to identify the skills gaps and training needs to effectively address the needs of regions.
Conclusion
A one-size-fits-all
approach fails to recognise that every region and community is different. It
will not work. We must as a nation
capitalise on the creativity and enthusiasm within our communities and empower
them to develop local solutions to meet regional challenges.
There must also be greater cooperation between all tiers of Government and recognition of the role played by local government as a partner in ideas and a partner in development. Labor will turn regional development on its head. We will not impose solutions on communities.
We will back locally developed solutions that stack up. By embracing localism, we will end the blame game.