Mr WAKELIN (5:02 PM) —Today I want to highlight in this House a few re gional issues which have evolved over the last 20 years or so. If you were to formulate a checklist of the things that were most important to regional Australians, it would be that their health services be of a reasonably equivalent standard to metropolitan Australia; that their education be of a reasonable quality, standard and cost, as it is for metropolitan families; that their communications be of a reasonably convenient standard to enable them to operate their businesses and to progress the investment that is required to maintain our communities; and that the general investment climate in regional Australia be strong enough to generate as much employment as is possible. Petrol prices should also be reasonably equivalent.

For the record, it is worth looking at what has happened over the last 10 to 20 years. I will mention one example to show the very clear difference between regional Australia and metropolitan Australia. Everybody is familiar with SBS. Many people in this place would know that it costs about $100 million per annum of taxpayers' subsidy to run the SBS. Many regional Australians do not have access to SBS. Those that do are offered it on the basis—regretfully from this government but also from the previous government—that they pay for it themselves. There is no subsidy whatsoever. That is a glaring inequity. Metropolitan Australians can access SBS at no cost, but regional Australians must pay for it themselves. It would be far fairer if SBS were funded on a similar per capita basis. Perhaps it could even be capitalised out, considering that it has been subsidised for 20 years. There should at least be some equity between rural Australians and metropolitan Australians.

I want to briefly touch on health. If you look at the Medicare payments per capita per annum per electorate—

Mr Adams —In regional Australia?

Mr WAKELIN —In regional Australia. The figures that I have are for 1993-94. I am sure there are later figures, but I have not been able to lay my hand on them yet. In 1993-94 the electorate of Kalgoorlie, the largest electorate in the world, had a per capita costing of $137 per head. If you look at the electorate of Sydney, it was $407 per head. Therefore, taxpayers' dollars in the electorate of Sydney were accessed at almost three times the rate of that in the electorate of Kalgoorlie, an inequity that regional Australia would not find acceptable.

In its defence, this government has introduced a number of initiatives—for example, higher rural and remote centres of excellence. We have tried to train the professionals in a regionally appropriate way. There have been some initiatives in the GP area. There has been a range of initiatives, but there is this bottom line figure that we cannot avoid. Drawings on the Medicare services are at least 2½ to three times greater in metropolitan Sydney than in the remote areas of Australia. We really need to address that issue.

Touching on education, everybody knows that, if you are a regional Australian, you will have far less opportunity to go to university. Also, you will have significantly less opportunity to acquire the most competitive secondary education—and that, of course, has implications as to whether or not you will be able to access a university education. A lot of work is going into that area and many things are being tried, but that is the fundamental situation.

These things come down to cost. The government has, in the youth allowance, extended the rent subsidy in certain cases which has made it more generous than it was. But I believe the basic issue is that the billions of dollars which are available in those metropolitan facilities are not available to the smaller group of Australians, those millions who live outside the main cities of this country.

Currently, at a time when education and opportunities for the future through education have never been more important, and at a time in regional Australia where change is occurring at a more rapid rate, access to education is inequitable. In fact, I would suggest that greater change, much greater fundamental restructuring, is occurring in regional Australia than in the cities. So there is this issue in terms of education.

A matter of great grievance in regional Australia is that of petrol price. It is an age- old problem. From memory, we have been wrestling with this issue for at least 20 years. The greatest complaint that I used to get from regional retailers was, `We can't buy it wholesale for what the retailers in the city can sell it.' Clearly there is something wrong with a system that allows that to happen. Once again this government has acted, as the previous government endeavoured to, to do some things about this issue. Nevertheless, in dealing with these major oil companies, I think everybody understands that it is not easy to overcome this problem.

So generally there exists this fundamental issue about getting some equity in city and country fuel prices. I have already referred to the issue of the oil code that the government is still trying to negotiate. There is the matter that the price charged at the terminal should be reasonably equivalent or at least as close as possible for everyone, no matter who you are. There are those sorts of issues in which the ACCC takes an interest, and I think it needs to take a greater interest in the issue of accessing supplies at a terminal at a fair dinkum price, no matter how big you are.

You can imagine the concern attaching to this issue. For example, there is a Woolworths in Port Pirie; the people of that town certainly enjoy the opportunity to access cheaper fuel that that store brings with the bigger companies having to match its price. But a small community 20 kilometres away is pretty indignant that it cannot have fuel prices at least 8c to 12c cheaper, similar to its neighbour just down the road. So, for regional people, there are some issues of equity.

Last Friday I participated in an absolutely brilliant ceremony: the opening of the expansion at Roxby Downs or Olympic Dam by the Prime Minister. That expansion was an exercise worth nearly $2 billion. At that opening I had the pleasure of meeting one Norman Foster, a former Labor man who, with great courage, crossed the floor in June 1982 to allow this project to proceed.

There was a lot of banter on the day and it was all in good fun and occurred with good humour. But these are serious issues when relying on an upper house and the vote of one man to allow a $3 billion to $4 billion project to go ahead, with $24 million of royalties currently going to the state government, let alone all the other activity such as employment and a population of 4,000 people. That project would not have occurred but for the courage of one man. Perhaps that puts too much on Norman Foster. But I think it really does show the weaknesses in our system of government where upper houses operate. I am grateful to Norman Foster for crossing the floor and enabling this project to proceed, and for the opportunities it has brought to the people in my electorate. But I think we ignore the excess use of power by our upper houses at our own peril.