Building Regional Australia 2013 - Thoughts & Policies - Armidale
10th April, 2013
Councillors, delegates, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity to address you today and to present a perspective of where I see regional Australia and what the opportunities are for the future.Australia is at a cross-roads and regional Australia, now more than ever, needs to be front-and-centre in our national consciousness.
This Summit provides an opportunity to give overdue recognition to the modern role regional Australia plays in our nation¡¦s prosperity.
But the regions will need to play an even bigger role if we, as a nation, are to see a return to the brighter future Australians want for themselves and expect for their children.
It has always been the case that regional Australia drives our country¡¦s economic prosperity.
When the regions are strong, so is our nation. Too often these days that fact is forgotten ¡V or just plain ignored.
But Australia¡¦s iconic economic achievements, both of yesteryear and today, are regional Australia¡¦s folklore and our modern day-to-day reality.
Those prosperous roots are firmly embedded in regional Australia and its time we, as a nation, recognised it and re-invested in it.
Our very first exports were from the regions. Fifty year ago, wool was still over 50% of our total national export income. When I went to school l learned that when it came to the most important industries where wool, wheat and wine¡K the three ¡¥W¡¦s¡¦.
Then came beef, sugar and dairy. There wasn¡¦t much mention of services or manufacturing.
But when we did talk about manufacturing, most of it was happening in regional communities ¡V such as steel making, metal refineries and the biggest employers in secondary industry, food processing.
When Australia looked to diversify it was industries like gold, copper, coal, iron ore and more recently bauxite and gas¡K all from the regions.
But, in recent times, our miners, farmers, manufacturers, tourism operators, electricity generators and small regional businesses have been worse than forgotten¡K they¡¦ve been targeted, demonised and vilified.
With the ascension of the Labor-Greens-Independents alliance in Canberra came a bizarre new sport that, at its core, involves kicking the life out of anything that is successful and has given this country a global competitive edge.
At a time when our country is falling deeper into debt, we need to be backing our regional industries for growth and jobs.
Not just saying no or putting barrier in the way of those who want to invest in regional Australia.
Our regions are not just a memory of the past, they are vital today and must play an even more import part of our nation¡¦s future.
As an example of the things that have been put in the way of the regions achieving their potential is the carbon tax. It adds to the cost of everything we do, particularly in regional Australia.
The burden of this tax on our transport costs, electricity and other inputs is making us less competitive globally. The carbon tax is by far the biggest tax of its kind anywhere in the world. It is set at a rate way above emissions trading schemes anywhere in the world.
Is it any wonder that we¡¦ve lost over 110,000 jobs in manufacturing over the last five years?
Is it any wonder that our farmers, miners and other region industries are battling to compete against countries that do not have this added cost imposition.
We have high wages in Australia and a high standard of living. The costs of doing business in Australia are already high, so we shouldn¡¦t be imposition an unnecessary tax on Australia families and businesses that makes us less competitive.
And, on the other, all the while is doing nothing to help the environment.
For our part, the Coalition has a positive plan to build a strong, prosperous economy that unashamedly focuses on playing to Australia¡¦s strengths.
We will end Labor¡¦s chronic waste and get its high tax/high debt monkey off the back of business. That waste and debt are dead weights on the economy and every Australian household.
But the burden on regional businesses and families is always harder felt, through higher costs and lost opportunities.
Our plan is a recipe for more jobs, better jobs and greater job security.
As the Leader of The Nationals we will put regional Australia at the heart of a national economic recovery is not just good for the regions¡K it¡¦s good for the nation.
And it¡¦s good for our nation in more ways than just economically.
It goes hand-in-hand with a proactive approach to unclogging our major cities that are already choking under a national population of just 23 million people.
Investing in regional Australia is a key to unlocking Australia¡¦s urban population squeeze.
We need to pull the policy triggers that will re-energize and build the under-developed 97% of this country that is regional.
That¡¦s where Australia¡¦s untapped growth potential truly lies. It¡¦s an investment that is overdue.
With much of Australia¡¦s real wealth generated in the regions, it is only fitting that a fair share of the revenue they create should be returned to the regions.
It is an approach that my Nationals counterparts in State Coalition Governments across the country have seized upon.
Most famously in Western Australia with the Royalties for Regions program, but that same focus has been brought to bear with like-minded programs in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, which dedicate a share of the wealth created in the regions to go back to the regions.
But it¡¦s more than just a fair share principle.
We recognise the role regional areas can, and must, play in overcoming Australia¡¦s national challenges and driving economic development.
Unless we can bring businesses and people to regional cities and develop new commercial hubs, 36 million people where expected to have by 2050 will grind our cities into gridlock.
With the cost of providing urban infrastructure and the compromises to lifestyle damaging our national as a whole.
Australia¡¦s population is already one of the most densely concentrated in the OECD.
In fact, it¡¦s almost double the OECD average, with just under 90% our population crammed into around 3% of the landmass ¡V namely Sydney and Newcastle, Melbourne, Brisbane and Queensland¡¦s south east, Adelaide and Perth.
In 2011, I launched the Regional Investment Strategy on behalf of The Nationals, which recalibrates the scales of inequality set against regional living.
It embraces policies to attract businesses and people to the regions and, in doing so, benefit the entire country.
On average, it costs rural residents five-times more to access essential services. The biggest disadvantages are for hospitals, residential care services, secondary schools, TAFE colleges and universities.
Some initiatives come with a price tag, but others come from re-thinking and re-prioritising policies and functions.
We can¡¦t make people move to regional areas, but we can create the business case for start-up or relocating operations with the help of innovative policies and support.
People will follow worthwhile employment opportunities for themselves and their families.
And the government can take the lead by locating government departments and agencies to regional centres.
By far and away the majority of unemployed Australians live in capital cities. Government policies must enable them to move to jobs in regional areas.
A decade of drought, the global financial crisis and major flood events have masked a critical developing workforce shortage in the regions. In agriculture alone the NFF say there are around 100,000 jobs ¡V some 80,000 skilled jobs and 22,000 entry-level positions ¡V that will go begging as farm production kicks back into full gear.
Young, mobile welfare recipients who refuse to take up gainful employment in the regions should not expect to continue to receive those benefits.
You know, we should not need 457 visas or guest harvest workers, but we do. Regional industries would not exist if they could not rely on some imported labour.
Our mines, meatworks and horticultural growers could not get product out without the help of 457 or guest workers.
But it¡¦s not just labour. How many of our doctors in regional communities are only here because they are on a 457 visa.
What¡¦s gone wrong in this country that Australians don¡¦t want to live and work in our country towns? There are well-paid positions that go unfilled.
People seem to prefer to live in poverty on welfare in the cities rather than make the shift to a country lifestyle.
Most Australians were born in the city and don¡¦t even know what it¡¦s like away from the traffic, the crime and the noise of the cities.
We must do more to encourage Australians into the regions.
Tying new migrants to regional locations experiencing skilled and non-skilled labour shortages can help fill the gaps.
That¡¦s not a new idea. Under the Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship Scheme, doctors are required to live and work in rural areas for a minimum of six years.
Good infrastructure, be it roads, rail, telecommunications, bridges, dams or airports, is the key to unlocking regional Australia¡¦s full potential.
Our miners will continue to extract resources for hungry economies around the globe.
Our farmers can producer more food for more and more hungry people around the world.
The question is, are our road, rail and port networks up to the surging demand and massive volumes on the horizon?
The answer is a resounding ¡¥no¡¦.
Despite over $50 billion in ¡¥stimulus spending¡¦ by Labor, where is the national freight infrastructure to set Australia up for the next 20, 50 years and beyond?
Only 14% of the stimulus spending went to productive infrastructure in this country.
This was a massive missed opportunity and one that regional Australians are already lamenting as miners and farmers compete for freight lines that cannot cope with new demands.
Those new demands are just the beginning.
But the infrastructure task is so much more when it comes to the challenges for regional Australia.
We also know the lack of soft infrastructure, like health and allied health services, education resources, childcare and other social institutions, are barriers to regional relocation, especially for families.
Young families contemplating a move to job and career opportunities simply will not be moved without the modern day essentials and support services they expect in today¡¦s society.
There is no doubt in my mind that the obligation on the federal government in this regard is more than money.
A clearly defined regional population push is essential, demanding a commitment to long-term investment and planning.
Once-upon-a-time, miners used to build cities as a lasting legacy. Today, they just pay royalties to the government.
So we need to make sure that a share of what the miners contribute is re-spent on regional communities.
Some of these initiatives, as I have mentioned, will come at a cost.
Today, Australia¡¦s gross government debt ¡V the debt we have to pay back ¡V is at $269 billion and is trending toward $300 billion by the middle of the year. It¡¦s $2 billion up on last week alone.
So I will not be promising things we cannot deliver. But we are serious about getting things done.
Opening up northern Australia, with its vast untapped resources can make a difference to building a stronger Australia.
Building dams and water storages to protect us from droughts and floods have the capacity to make regional Australian more productive.
You¡¦ve heard these strategies and the Coalition commitments to significantly invest in those areas into the future.
These invests will provide the impetus for redeploying human capital to develop and populate inland and northern Australia, ensure regional businesses can achieve their full productive capacity and provide more Australians with better opportunities and higher living standards.
It makes no sense to ignore the regions and make them more isolated.
Most of you will have heard of the federal government¡¦s Regional Development Fund, which is supposed to be financed by the mining tax, which hasn¡¦t raised much money. Its premise is to fund development projects in regional areas.
But Labor has changed the meaning of ¡¥regional¡¦. Under Labor millions of dollars have been spent in the name of the Regional Development Fund in Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide and Perth.
Indeed, the single biggest project funded under the government¡¦s regional strategy ¡V accounting for half of all the money committed so far ¡V are the roads around Perth airport.
I¡¦m sure they are all worthwhile projects in their own way, but I don¡¦t think that many people living in regional country towns would consider them to be regional investments.
Perth does need a good road system around the airport, but when the Minister was challenged about spend RDF in Perth he said it would make it easier for regional people to get to Perth.
I would have preferred him to say it would make it easier for Perth people to get to the regions, so they might live there!
It has been an incredible re-engineering of the term ¡¥regional¡¦ to classify it as outer suburbia or even inner metropolitan areas under this program.
So it is important that we have a government that is actually focussed on the regions.
You may or may not be surprised to know that there is not one single minister in Julia Gillard¡¦s cabinet that lives in rural Australia.
That¡¦s the entire time under both the Rudd and Gillard eras.
For the record, six of my colleagues in the Shadow Cabinet proudly call regional Australia home.
The point is, if we are elected, we will have a government with a strong regional focus and will ensure that the regions share in the growth and development to deliver real opportunities to those who live outside the capital cities.
Global population is rising. Food production is going to be more important than ever. Australians have taken it for granted over the years.
Food security is not a subject discussed around kitchen tables in this country, except when there¡¦s a short-term banana shortage.
Most modern Australians have never known what it is to go hungry. But we do need to regard food security as important in future.
Around 60% of everything of farmers produce goes overseas, so we¡¦re not likely to ever go without ourselves, but what we have to do is make a much larger contribution to feeding the world.
We will always need a vibrant and productive food sector to secure not only our own food security, but play our role in feeding the world around us.
Unfortunately, in Australia agricultural research and development has been on the decline. That¡¦s despite knowing that for every dollar we spend on farm research $11 are returned to the economy.
Australian farmers have a proud track record of innovation and success through research innovation to lead virtually all Australian industries ¡V averaging productivity growth of 2.8% per year over a 30-year period.
There are very few, if any, industries in Australia that can boast that record of achievement.
The opportunity to establish Australia as a global hub for farm sciences and a major producer in meeting world food needs, is an opportunity was should not allow to pass.
Our ag research effort has been going backwards. Agricultural research intensity ¡V or spending as a proportion of output ¡V has fallen by over one-third in Australia since the mid-1980s.
Technological advances, especially the high-yielding crop varieties of the so-called ¡¥Green Revolution¡¦ are petering out, so we need to seek out new advances and new opportunities if we¡¦re to meet the challenges ahead.
Not resist those advances and find new ways to make it harder for farmers. We need to be world-leaders ¡V not world-trailers ¡V when it comes to productivity.
Unless we do more with the farmland and resources we have, Australia¡¦s luxury of always being confident about our food supply will instead become challenges.
Making the economy strong again is the place to start. We have a plan to get government spending under control and ensure spending is focussed on projects that benefit the nation.
We know that a stronger economy is not an end in itself ¡V but it is the precursor to the better services and modern infrastructure that everyone wants and regional Australia desperately needs.
The Coalition has a track record in delivering a strong economy by providing a government that lives within its means.
We¡¦ve already made key policy commitments:
„X Abolishing the carbon tax ¡V that¡¦s a positive in taking direct cost pressure off families and businesses.
„X Abolishing the mining tax ¡V a boost to investment and jobs in the regions.
„X Cutting red tape by $1 billion a year ¡V giving small business the relief they need in business terms, but also taking pressure of the family unit.
„X Creating two million new jobs over the next decade.
„X Embracing the full suite of border protection policies that actually stop the boats.
„X We¡¦ll cut green tape ¡V creating a no-nonsense one-stop shop to fast-track approvals for developments that have languished under Labor and The Greens.
„X Local schools and hospitals will be run by community leaders, not by bureaucrats in big cities, so they¡¦re more responsive to the parents and patients they serve.
„X We will not make unexpected changes that are detrimental to people¡¦s superannuation. It¡¦s your nest egg and governments need to remember and respect that fact. Taking money out of your super is not a lot different to Cypress taking money from people¡¦s bank accounts.
„X There will be no more cuts in defence spending ¡V which today has lapsed to its lowest level, as a percentage of GDP, since 1938.
These are the commitments we have already confirmed and there are many more to come.
They are not pipedreams, we¡¦ve done it before. When last in government we created 2.4 million new jobs, we delivered budget surpluses, we had a strong and growing economy and $70 billion in the bank.
Now, yesterday, the Coalition announced our plan to deliver high-speed broadband to all Australians by 2016. You may have heard promises in their arena before.
Back in 2007 Kevin Rudd promised that Labor would deliver high-speed broadband, fibre to the node, to 93% of Australians by 2013 at a cost of $4.7 billion.
We are now in 2013 and only 10,400 premises are connected to fibre-optic cable in the whole of Australia. By June of this year we are told that around 200,000 will have cable going passed their front doors.
To meet that commitment, the government must connect 6,800 homes every day to the NBN. The average at the moment is 28 per day.
Analysis now suggests that the NBN will now cost $90 billion and will not be completed until 2025 or later.
Our plan will deliver faster broadband to Australians sooner and more affordably than Labor¡¦s costly NBN.
By 2016, most Australians will have access to download rates of between 25 and 100mbps and, by 2019, 90% of the population with have access to speeds between 50 to 100mbps.
Under our plan, as with the NBN, it is anticipated that most people out as far as 2021, will only be requiring and contracting for download rates of 12mbps.
So 25mbps is twice as much as the NBN expects to be in use come 2021.
Our estimated wholesale price in 2016 will be capped at a maximum of $38 per month, and by 2021 at $26 per month.
Under Labor¡¦s NBN, in 2016 you¡¦ll have a wholesale price of $62 per month ¡V almost twice the cost of our plan.
How is it that we can deliver faster broadband for less, when Labor has been struggling with for five years, deliver ours almost a decade earlier at one-third the price and with double the speeds of what consumers will require?
Simply, we are not going to dig up the existing infrastructure to replace it with something that most people will not opt to use.
Our existing copper network is capable of delivering these speeds we¡¦re talking about. We will be delivering fibre-optic cable to the node, as Kevin Rudd originally proposed in 2007, but we will use the existing copper network wherever we can to connect to people¡¦s homes.
Now if people want faster speeds again. If they want 100mbps immediately, they¡¦ll be able to connect to it at an extra cost to them, not to taxpayers.
So what we¡¦re proposing is affordable and deliverable. It will still be the second most expensive broadband network in the world. They only one that is more expensive is Labor¡¦s at around three-times the cost.
It¡¦s cheaper and will roll-out sooner, especially for regional Australians. All regional Australians will have access to 25mbps by 2016. That¡¦s just a pipedream under the NBN.
Now Luke Hartsuyker, the Shadow Minister for Regional Communications, will be here tomorrow and he¡¦ll give you more details about our broadband commitment.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am positive about the future and the key role regional Australia must play in resuscitating our country.
It¡¦s the role regional Australians have always played in driving this country forward.
But now it¡¦s the nation¡¦s turn to back the regions and invest in their growth if we are to reap the rewards and opportunities ahead and deliver better living standards for all Australians.
Now, there¡¦s an election coming up, most of you will have noticed that, and regional Australians have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put regional interests atop the national agenda.
It needs to be a national priority and it is certainly a priority for The Nationals.
I want to assure you we will be doing all we can to ensure regional Australia gets its fair share so the regions can achieve their full potential.
Thank you.
[ENDS]
