Ian Gilfillan: Australian Democrats in the SA Parliament

	Extract from Hansard Legislative Council 4 April 2001

Ian Gilfillan Australian Democrats Member of the Legislative Council		Parliament Index 2001 Autumn Sitting Index Browse by Subject Search all Democrats material About the SA Parliament Hansard on line

The Hon. IAN GILFILLAN: It is with some pleasure that I acknowledge some good news as far as rural and regional South Australia is concerned. I want to refer to portions of a budget submission that I have received from the South Australian Regional Organisations of Councils. This organisation represents the Central Local Government Region; the Eyre Peninsula Local Government Association; the Murray and Mallee Local Government Region; the South-East Local Government Association; Southern and Hills Local Government Association; and the Spencer Gulf Cities Association.

Enclosed is a copy of a submission which was put to the state government in the latter part of last year on behalf of country councils in this state. We are yet to receive a substantive response from the government, but we hope that the proposals we have put forward are being given serious consideration by the government in the budget context.

I will not read the rest of the letter, but I commend SAROC for its submission. It does not pull any punches but is written in moderate language and, I believe, offers some very constructive recommendations as to how to improve the general prosperity and good management of rural and regional South Australia. I quote at random from that submission as follows:

This submission is of a selective nature: it does not purport to cover all issues of interest to our communities. Among the issues not taken up in detail in this document, but which are of very great concern to rural and regional councils, are the cuts which the government made in its 2000-2001 budget in the funding of public libraries and the catchment management subsidy scheme.

However, translating rhetoric into reality, it points out, is a different matter. It refers on page 3 to an example of disappointment, when it states:

and I can remember this very clearly (in fact, I think that I raised the matter in this chamber)-

five regional local government bodies wrote jointly to the Premier proposing the creation of a rural and regional areas infrastructure and facility fund. In May of that year the Premier responded negatively, stating that he did `not believe that your proposal should be pursued further at this time'. However, about a year later (mid 1999) the government changed direction by 180 degrees and, in fact, did establish a regional development infrastructure fund. Unfortunately, this fund is not operating as well as it could be were there greater scope for influence by regional local government.

One can see that, although critical, this is actually a constructive identification of areas where there could be improvement. They want some funding assistance for the regional organisations; they want an improvement, according to the budget paper, in the range and, more important, the quality of information in the new annual budget paper introduced by the government last year entitled Regional Statement .

A little later the report speaks about the devolution of parts of large government agencies, and on page 14 lists about 10 separate entities they believe could be appropriately decentralised. They are very good suggestions, and I urge the government to take these specific examples to act on. On page 16 they ask the government to commit to the following approach regarding regional South Australia:

3. when new state agencies or sections of agencies are to be created, for there to be discussions with the regions.

Obviously, I do not have time to go through this in detail, but I would recommend it to all those who care about the matter, indicating that the recommendations are very modestly costed. At $40 million, compared with the public sector outlay of $8.7 billion for the whole of the state, it is quite modest in its expectations. It is a very well thought out and presented document and goes very well with the other piece of enthusiastic good news that I can bring, which is the annual conference of the Regional Development Board that I attended last Friday in a slightly different area of activity. There again, there is genuine constructive cooperation between the development boards in the regional areas, with positive proposals. I believe that together they offer a lot of hope for a brighter future for regional South Australia.