Parliamentary Speeches
Rural Infrastructure ( 30/08/2006)
Mr DONALD PAGE (Ballina—Deputy Leader of The Nationals) [5.02 p.m.]: I welcome this opportunity to make a brief contribution to debate on country infrastructure, which we all know to be very important to lifestyle and the quality of services in country areas. I take this opportunity to thank the honourable member for Murray-Darling for his very complimentary remarks about the quality of members of The Nationals representing regional areas. We have excellent members, and they are achieving a lot for their electorates. Despite those great achievements, the honourable member for Murray-Darling has failed to recognise that overall country New South Wales has been neglected by the New South Wales Labor Government. In fact, we are not getting our fair share of funding.
Within the funding that is allocated, members of The Nationals are doing extremely well by comparison with the Independents in particular. However, the fact is that country people generally are not getting a fair share of the budget. I will give two brief examples. Country people comprise about 33 per cent of the population, but in the last budget we received about 25 per cent of the capital works budget in the Health portfolio. In Police, the figure was even lower—about 10 per cent of the capital works budget for the portfolio, despite the fact that 33 per cent of the population live in country New South Wales. One could argue that because of the geographic location of disperse communities in country areas we should be entitled to an even greater share of capital works budget funding than the proportion of population.
I would like to refer to a couple of other examples, particularly cuts in funding for water and sewerage in country towns. The Government indicated at the beginning of its term that it would provide $850 million for country town water and sewerage. In fact, in its first 10 years in office it has delivered about half that amount. That has had very significant negative impacts for country communities. Obviously, it has meant that many water and sewerage programs that were on the drawing board and ready to go have not been able to proceed. As a consequence of a lack of state-of-the-art technology, many sewerage systems discharge sewage into our river systems and we do not have the best possible environmental outcomes for them. That has been a very short-sighted policy of this Labor Government.
The honourable member for Murray-Darling spoke about a number of issues relating to his electorate. I make the point that after 11½ years in office this Labor Government has now decided to introduce what it calls a New South Wales State Plan—a new direction. I would have thought the fact that, after 11½ years in government, it is looking to a new direction is an admission that the previous direction was a complete failure. The Government now has its State Plan out there in the community and it is seeking feedback on it. At five minutes to midnight, just before a State election, the Government is out there in the community pretending it has a vision and it is doing something—having demonstrated that it had no vision for, and committed very little money to, country areas for 11½ years. The Government's own web site tells us that it asked the Tamworth community:
What could the NSW Government be doing better?
The answer was:
Water—improvements required in the supply, cost and water conservation areas.
Social infrastructure—provision of educational, health and cultural services.
The people of Tweed Heads—and I note the presence in the Chamber of the honourable member for Tweed—were asked:
What could the NSW Government be doing better?
The answer was:
Hospitals and medical services need improvement.
This is the community talking, as recorded on the Government's own web site. In Broken Hill, in the electorate of the honourable member for Murray-Darling, the people were asked:
What could the NSW Government be doing better?
The answer was:
More funding for repairs and maintenance in schools.
Decentralise services, don't centralise them.
Is that a message for the Labor Party! And further:
Access to health services locally—not Adelaide or Mildura.
This is the community speaking, and telling the Government what it thinks of infrastructure expenditure in its area. In Queanbeyan, in the electorate of the honourable member for Monaro, who I note is in the Chamber, the community was asked:
What could the NSW Government be doing better?
The answer was:
Improve provision of health and transport services in rural areas.
That is what the community wants the honourable member for Monaro to do. Get out there and do it! This is on the Government's web site, and this is what the people of New South Wales, particularly in those seats that I have mentioned, think of the Government's efforts in relation to infrastructure. This Government has been deficient in its allocation of funds in particular portfolios. The roads budget, for example, has been cut in real terms in the past couple of years.
There have been major blowouts in funding and delays in Pacific Highway projects, such as in the Bonville deviation and a four-year delay in the Ballina bypass. There was a commitment by the Government at the beginning of the process that it would complete 80 per cent of the Pacific Highway between Hexham and the Queensland border by 2006, as part of its 10-year program. What has it achieved? It will be less than 50 per cent at the end of this year. There have been significant delays in projects, and almost a $1 billion blowout in expenditure. That is the extent of the lack of management we are experiencing under this Government.
The Government has cut funding to the timber bridges program. As we know, it closed four branch rail lines and withdrew train services on the Casino to Murwillumbah rail line. Despite its protestations that it is interested in doing something about that matter, the Government has no real intention of reinstating the Casino to Murwillumbah rail line. It is saying that it will put $75 million on the table if the Federal Government puts up a similar amount. The fact is that this is a State responsibility. It was the State Government that took away the trains, and it is a State responsibility to put them back on the track. Serious cost studies done indicate that a train could be put back on that track for an absolute maximum of $21.8 million, and that it could be funded for much less than the $30 million per annum for the first five years that the Government claims. It could be funded for a lot less than that. The honourable member for Tweed is interjecting. If he and his Government were fair dinkum about putting the train back on that line, they would use the $75 million that they say is on the table to put a train back on the Casino to Murwillumbah rail line, preferably a commuter service. Such action would have a lot of tourism benefits and a lot of local benefits.
I have a long list of projects in country areas that need priority attention, but I will mention just a few. We need a new library for Deniliquin South Public School. We need natural gas connected to Deniliquin—it almost gets there. We need a new Deniliquin ambulance station, timber bridges in Wakool shire and repairs to a grandstand in Dubbo. We need to upgrade hospitals in Parkes and Forbes, and upgrade the sewage treatment plant in Parkes. The Alstonville bypass is a classic example. A week before the last election the Premier came to the area and promised that construction would commence in 2003 and that it would be finished by 2006. But guess what, not one sod has been turned. That promise by the former Premier of the State was not worth the paper it was written on. We need a new hospital for Byron shire, a school hall for Ballina Primary School, a new Gunnedah courthouse and a new hospital or multipurpose service at Manilla. We need to upgrade the Manilla Road at Tamworth and boost power supply to Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School to aircondition dormitories.
We need a new bridge at Nundle and a new Gunnedah ambulance station. We need to upgrade the Jack Evans boat harbour at Tweed Heads. We need to develop a new community health centre at Pottsville. The Government should get on with it. We need to commence construction on the upgrade of Sextons Hill, which has been hanging around for a long time. We need a heavy truck bypass to deliver traffic solutions for Queanbeyan and Jerrabomberra. We need sporting facilities and an oval for Jerrabomberra. We need to upgrade the Broken Hill water supply. We need to improve the water supply at, and upgrade, Menindee Lakes. We need to complete the Silver City Highway between Tibooburra and Broken Hill. Timber bridges over the Murray River need attention. At one location a truck had to travel an extra 90 kilometres because of the failure of this Government to reinstate the Timber Bridges Program.
We need to get serious about some big picture items, not just the Pacific Highway. We need to construct a divided carriageway over the Blue Mountains to open up the central western part of New South Wales. We need a new police station for Orange. There is a stack of other projects, but that is just a small sample of the sorts of things that have to happen in country New South Wales. But they will not happen under this Government. It will be up to a Coalition government to clean up the mess and invest in infrastructure. I was amazed that Planning has identified Parramatta, Liverpool and Penrith not Wagga Wagga, Tamworth and Lismore as regional cities. That is what the Government believes, which only demonstrates how city-centric it is.
