Mr LIEBERMAN (10:41 AM) —I support this legislation, the Albury-Wodonga Development Amendment Bill 1999, as one of the local members on the Victorian side along with my colleague Mr Fischer, the member for Farrer, on the Albury side. It obviously is of great interest to me to see the further steps along the path of the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation's history. I would like to briefly say that the bill is designed to simplify the structure and streamline the functions of the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation and to facilitate the agreed winding-up processes. Those winding-up processes were in fact inherent in the establishment of the growth centre by the Labor Prime Minister Mr Whitlam and two coalition government premiers from New South Wales and Victoria. So in fact it was a partnership across all political boundaries when they came together to establish the growth centre.

The funds from the disposal of assets as provided in the bill are a progression again of the original generic agreement that the dividends from the Australian taxpayers' financing of the Albury-Wodonga Development Project would eventually return to the Australian taxpayers. Former minister under the Keating government and Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon. Brian Howe, was the minister responsible for cementing in the arrangements with New South Wales and Victorian governments that the dividends would return to the Commonwealth and the states would also be repaid for their financial advances. This bill actually proceeds along that path. It is not a Howard government decision that the moneys go to the consolidated revenue of the Commonwealth and are returned to the states for their advances. It is ratified by the Howard government, but the agreements to do that were made by previous governments and supported on both sides of parliament, I understand, when they were first agreed to and discussed.

I am obviously very proud of the achievements of people from the region of Albury-Wodonga, north-east Victoria and the Riverina and southern New South Wales area—the area of my colleague, the member for Farrer, the Hon. Tim Fischer. I am proud to say that the Albury-Wodonga area is now regarded as one of the fastest growing regions in Australia, and Wodonga is regarded as the fastest growing regional city in Victoria. But in the whole region of the catchment of north-east Victoria and Goulburn we are seeing significant economic investment and job creation. In fact, unemployment has dropped about two to three per cent. Whilst I am not being carried away with those figures—I want to see them continue for a year or more—I am very excited by the growth of jobs and the lowering of unemployment in those areas.

The member for McMillan, obviously passionately arguing for his community, as he should, reflecting their aspirations and wanting to address the very serious economic problems in the Latrobe Valley—and they are serious—has asked that the money from the Albury-Wodonga dividends be allocated by the Commonwealth towards regional development. I am proud and happy to say that the Commonwealth is doing that to assist regional Australia not just with the dividends from the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation but also with other vast amounts of money.

Let me quickly give you some examples to refresh your memory. Firstly, in less than four years of government, the Howard coalition government has created 596,000 jobs since March 1996. That is 200,000 more jobs than in Labor's last six years of office. The unemployment rate of January 2000 was 6.8 per cent compared with 11.2 per cent in December 1992 under Mr Keating's prime ministership. Inflation was 1.8 per cent in the December quarter compared with the average of 5.2 per cent under Labor. The interest rate is 7.3 per cent—it went up recently. The standard variable mortgage rate today is 7.3 per cent, down from Labor's level of 10.5 per cent, and there are those of us who can remember the double-digit interest rates that we had just a few years before 1996 under Labor.

There has been an increase in apprenticeships in Australia and in regional Australia, but there is more to be done. In fact, 140,000 new apprentices are in training—a 15 per cent increase since 1995. The tax system is being reformed, despite obstructions, knocking and scare campaigns from the Labor party and others. In regions such as the Albury-Wodonga region, a great value adding export region of Australia where great companies are winning markets overseas against stiff odds, the tax reform package will enhance the competitive advantages of Australian value added exporters. This will be possible because of the removal of the embedded taxes and the dreaded wholesale sales tax, which remarkably and sadly Mr Beazley and his colleagues still argue should be retained. This is quite a remarkably stupid political position to be in. I think the Labor Party should be ashamed of itself for being in this position, particularly in the first year of the new century.

In less than four years—I emphasise again—other efforts have been made by the coalition government to address the very serious problems that exist in Australia, particularly in regional and country Australia. We are dedicated to continuing our efforts and to improving upon them. The Prime Minister, in his recent tour, said that he was not satisfied with the action taken so far. He said that there was more to be done and that to address the differences and difficulties of regional and country people required a greater effort. He committed his government to further efforts.

Already we have seen some remarkable and valuable achievements. The shortage of doctors in rural areas has been addressed for the first time. Michael Wooldridge has done a remarkable job in that area. In 1997-98, doctor numbers increased by 5.3 per cent in rural Australia and by 19.6 per cent in remote areas. There is more to be done. We are providing a $60 million rural retention program to encourage long-serving doctors. We believe it is far better to keep a doctor who is already there than to try and attract a new one. We need to do that, too, but we need to have a policy that enhances and encourages the doctors who are already there to continue to practise there. In my electorate of Indi, more than 70 doctors are receiving the rural incentive annual payment. This will assist us to persuade them to stay and act as mentors for young doctors coming in to learn about the remarkable new challenges that are confronted by doctors coming to rural areas to practise. It is different from the city.

We are in fact looking at work force incentives for pharmacists. We have put $500,000 a year into a program to help recruit and retain pharmacists in rural and remote areas. We have established a scholarship scheme—an $8 million funding initiative. About 186 country students will receive $10,000 per year to study medicine. In respect of the John Flynn scholarships, nearly 600 medical students will receive financial support to work in a country environment and, hopefully, to become doctors permanently in regional Australia.

The current budget provides an extra $170 million for rural health, including over $40 million for 30 new regional centres. I am proud to see that the other day the government released its new regional health community policy, which has $40 million of new money. It is directly pitched to communities of less than 5,000 in country and regional Australia to enable them to develop from the ground up the primary care services that they would like to see, such as a palliative care service in the home with volunteers assisted by trained people and perhaps to fund new mental health nurses or a qualified nurse to assist the local doctor to give him some respite with some of the work that he does. This very innovative program has been very well received and has a lot of flexibility. Those moneys are of course on top of the increase that we have made to the Commonwealth-states Medicare agreement. A lot of it is spent in country and regional Australia. I understand that Victoria will receive, over the next four years, more than $600 million more than they had under the previous Keating government Medicare arrangement. That represents, I think, more than a 30 per cent increase in funding by the Commonwealth government to public hospital acute services.

We have increased the home and community care programs—something that I am very pleased to see. Having people stay in their home and their own community, with support systems such as community transport systems, home nursing and the like, is absolutely invaluable for small country communities. We have increased funding in those programs by more than 10 per cent. The member for McMillan talks about his hopes that the dividend from the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation to the Commonwealth will be used to fund certain programs. Without wanting to be cynical—because I know the sincerity of the member—I can tell him that the moneys that he wanted for his own electorate will in fact exceed the dividend from the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation for this year and next year anyway. It is an indication of the vast demand that we see that needs to be funded. The funds from the Albury-Wodonga Development dividend, dedicated by the former Labor Deputy Prime Minister, Brian Howe, to go into consolidated revenue, are actually helping the Commonwealth government to fund these exciting programs in regional Australia.

We also of course have seen the fantastic development of the environmental fund, the Natural Heritage Trust, from the sale of the first tranche of Telstra. In my electorate, millions of dollars have been allocated already because we are part of the Murray-Darling and the Murray River starts in my electorate. We have enormous responsibilities there and we have spent a total of $128 million under the Natural Heritage Trust in Victoria alone in the last three years, some of it in my electorate. There are nearly 2,000 regional and country environmental projects that have been funded under the Howard government's exciting Natural Heritage Trust.

We have established postal and Medicare easy claim services and rural transaction centres in country and regional areas. Ian Macdonald, who was with me in the electorate last week, is doing a fantastic job in helping to develop those rural transaction centres and to restore services for very small communities who are losing their banking services. I think the banking industry deserves condemnation for its last decade of closures without addressing its social and corporate citizen responsibilities. I do acknowledge that some of the banks are now addressing them and trying to redress some of the errors that they made but the Howard government is acting to provide these transaction centres in a very innovative way. They are very welcome.

One great disadvantage for regional and country areas has been the tyranny of distance and the cost of telecommunications and other systems of communication. It has always been a battle for people like me, who have tried to attract industry and investment into regional and country Australia, to hear the proposed industry talking about the difficulties of the extra cost overlays. I am pleased to see that the Howard government is addressing those and making very significant investments in regional and country Australia to improve the telecommunication system. We have got, as my friend Tim Fischer said, SBS television now for hundreds of thousands of rural and country Australians. They never had a chance under the previous Labor government. The Labor government would not listen and did not do anything in that regard. We have now got that and we have got more rollouts to come.

We have the Regional Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund. We got a grant of $600,000-odd into Wangaratta to provide additional training and services in small country towns around Wangaratta, to establish Internet services training, small business access and the like. An extension of mobile phone infrastructure and Internet services is going on. My personal wish is that we put more emphasis on subsidising satellite telecommunications systems in regional, country Australia. In years to come that will be the way to travel. We are very happy to see work being done there, but there is not enough money available in the first four years of government to address all these things. The Prime Minister has made it very clear that he intends to dedicate himself to addressing those areas to ensure that people do get a fair go—that people in city and country get a fair go.

The party that I proudly belong to, the Liberal Party, is a broad church dedicated to serving and fostering the partnership between city and country Australians, because indeed that is the way the nation must go. The country people must help the city people and the city people must help the country people together to develop and deliver strategies that will strengthen the fabric of this great nation, built on the sacrifice and hard work of both city and country people. That is the partnership that the Howard government is dedicated to working towards strengthening, to ensure that people receive a fair go.

I would like to acknowledge the leadership of the chairman of the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation, Mr Bill Hanrahan, and his board members. They are doing an excellent job in fulfilling the functions required of them by the New South Wales, Victorian and Commonwealth governments. I acknowledge also the chief executive, Mr Dennis, and the staff of the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation. It is important that the corporation deliver a program and a strategy that will ensure that the assets of the corporation, owned by the Australian taxpayers, are managed properly, that there be an orderly sale of those assets and that the marketing of them enhances the future growth of Albury-Wodonga and the region and ensures that the dividend to the Australian taxpayer is also protected.

I emphasise that the money which was dedicated to consolidated revenue by previous ministers, under the Labor government, is being used by the Howard government to fund and help fund a range of services for city and country people. From just the brief outline that I have given, it can be seen that a substantial sum of money is being expended by the Howard government for regional and country communities. I hope that the member for McMillan will be able to achieve some funding approvals to help him to address the very sad position of people in the Latrobe Valley. I recognise and support the need for all Australians to give greater emphasis to helping these areas with double-digit unemployment. It is a very sad thing. I think that if we all work together in partnership and put aside party politics we can do a lot better in that regard.

I am a little sad that the recent tour by the Prime Minister has attracted some cynical comments from the other side of politics. I would have thought that those on the other side of politics, if they genuinely wanted to help country and regional people, would be praising and encouraging Australia's Prime Minister to continue along the strategy and path that he has demonstrated so ably at the beginning of this working year. He has indicated that he intends to travel further and more extensively, listening to country and regional people to get their good ideas. They have got fantastic ideas; they are very innovative people.

We have great leadership in regional Australia. People are not negative—they are very positive. We have an alpine agricultural forum, for example, ably led by the chairman, John Brown, of Brown Bros wines of Milawa. We are bringing together there all the agricultural producers in that rich region—producers of wine, nuts, flowers, vegetables, you name it—and we are going to market all our products as products from the alpine area. We will be in the world markets, we will be in the regional markets and we will be gaining more wealth for Australia and creating more jobs by those ideas.

We are also working hard in developing Australia's timber industry. Sadly, Australia still imports more than 50 per cent of its total timber requirements. Many of those requirements are being supplied in an inappropriate way from forests in Asia and other areas where the trees should not be cut down. In north-east Victoria, in my region, I have got fantastic people who, with the assistance of the federal government, are developing plantations and forests, both on crown land and in private plantations. Our aim, our dream, is that we will make Australia self-sufficient by sustainable timber production. That will also help farmers attain viability in areas where they are producing products that are no longer necessarily viable.

The Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation is an important chapter on regionalism in Australia's life. I am sure that the story will continue to be one that will provide growth, dividends to the Commonwealth, more payments to regional country Australia, as we all want, and the ability to show that country regional people can create jobs, investment, employment, trade and overseas market development if we are given the right settings and the right support from all levels of government.