Nash puts decentralisation agenda in focus

But in a broad ranging post-budget interview, the Regional Development, Local Government and Regional Communications Minister refused to identify whether the Nationals had any specific decentralisation targets in sight, like the federal Department of Agriculture and Water Resources.

Senator Nash was recently made deputy-chair to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on the new Regional Ministerial Taskforce and is now responsible for creating a template for government ministers to assess which departments or parts of them, are suitable for decentralisation.

In her April National Press Club address, she said all portfolio holders must report back to federal cabinet with “robust business cases” for decentralisation by December.

However, the Nationals deputy-leader denied last week’s announcement of the new $4 billion Regional Investment Corporation (RIC) or “Barnaby Bank” - that aims to streamline the delivery of drought support loans and other financial assistance to farmers and water infrastructure funding - being based in Orange, had gone ahead of the new ministerial decentralisation identification process.

“This is something Barnaby Joyce has been discussing for some time,” she said.

Senator Nash said locating the RIC in Orange “makes a lot of sense” given the location in regional NSW carried synergies, given other financial institutions like Macquarie Bank were already based there.

“It’s just a good decision,” she said.

Senator Nash said she was currently drafting up the criteria that will be used to determine the suitability of moving other departments or parts of departments and agencies out to the regions.

“It will very much involving the top level of the bureaucracy within that decision making process,” she said.

“(But) I’ve been very clear to say it won’t be policy parts of the departments.

“I think we all understand that in terms of policy development, you need access to ministers and governments and other departments so it makes sense to not have those involved in the areas that will be looked at for potential decentralisation - but the rest of it we’ll be having a very close look at.”

Senator Nash said by August, ministers had to respond to her request, having benchmarked against the criteria.

“And then obviously there will be business cases done as well that will go towards informing any decision making,” she said.

Senator Nash said her intention was to make an actual decision by the year’s end on which government departments, or sections of them, would be relocated.

She said corporate decentralisation was also on the government’s agenda and she’d already met with national business leaders and groups like the National Farmers’ Federation and was “encouraged” by their expressions of willingness to see commercial businesses or parts of businesses, move out to the regions.

“No. I just want a methodical and measured process to determine the suitability of moving agencies to the regions. I just want to let that process take its course – I don’t have a particular target – but where we’ve got synergies with the regions in the departments or agencies, clearly that would make sense. And the point is, it’s not just about Canberra - we’re also talking about Sydney and Melbourne and where it’s appropriate, moving these agencies and departments out to the regions. I don’t want to pre-empt it - I don’t want this to be a target, pick and choose type arrangement. I’ve outlined what is a sensible and methodical way to step through this to determine the appropriate ones so I’m not going to start guessing what may or may not be appropriate.”

“Virtually everyone I’ve spoken to or virtually everyone who has been in touch with me, have been very supportive of it. They’ve been very supportive of the comments I’ve made around regional people deserve the benefits of these public sector jobs as well; in particular around providing career opportunities for young people, to either stay in the regions or move back to the regions and the fact we are providing real career paths for young people, around the decentralisation process. Most of the people are concerned they don’t see Labor having the best interests of the regions at heart and the sentiment is that they’re probably playing a bit of politics and opposition for oppositions’ sake.”

“I don’t think we’re looking at relocating departments or agencies to tin sheds so I suspect he was being a little bit of colourful with his language. “But the regions are fantastic places with an awful lot on offer that by and large have great opportunities for people to live and invest and grow their families there. The reason for the process is to look at the barriers as to why we should or shouldn’t relocate any of these agencies. I disagree with Wal and don’t think we should be making any prejudgement in any of these areas.”

“It was a big win for the regions when you consider things like $8.4b for the inland rail and increasing the Building Better Regions Fund to about $500 million. For as long as I’ve been in politics we’ve been talking about the inland rail but it took this government to deliver on it. (Nationals’ leader) Barnaby Joyce has been relentless on this and the Transport and Infrastructure Minister Darren Chester, as the responsible minister, has also been terrific in making it happen. It’s a fantastic investment into regional Australia. Also, there was $10b for rail infrastructure and $3b of that going to regions and overall there was $75b for infrastructure across the country which is so important for our nation’s future. We also provided smaller amounts like $15m for eight extra education hubs in the regions and $9m for helping regional Australians improve access to psychologists, through teleconferencing and digital services, paid through Medicare.”

“I think we are doing a very good job in pushing mobile phone coverage out across the country. We’ve now committed $160m in round one and two of the Mobile Blackspots Program - 765 new towers are going to be built and 32,000 homes and business will have new or improved coverage. I think its 86,000 square kilometres of coverage now under rounds one and two that’s going to be rolled out and that is a massive, massive achievement. We’ve also announced the extra $60m last year for a priorities location round so it’s a significant investment. There hasn’t been further funding in this budget because in discussions with the Telcos about the roll out of rounds one and two and the priority locations round as well, all of the resources that they’ve currently got, in terms of physically building these towers and rolling them out, is going to take another couple of years. So even if there’d have been money in the budget, you would not have seen a new tower for at least another couple of years. It’s not that we’re stopping investing - we’ve got a massive investment roll out that’s happening at the moment. In contrast to Labor in six years in government they built not one tower and spent not one cent on mobile phone coverage.”

“I think most people are very sensible and realise there’s not a never ending bucket of money sitting under parliament house. We have to sensibly and appropriately use hard earned taxpayer dollars to get the benefits that we can, in particular for the regions. “I think it’s a great achievement to say that we’ve committed $220m - almost a quarter of a billion dollars - on expanding mobile phone coverage. And of course it’s not everywhere - there are some parts of the country where the terrain simply won’t let it be utilised - but compared to where we were, people are now looking at $220m from this government which because it’s in partnership with the Telcos and state government and often local government, it’s around $660m overall because we’ve been able to leverage that investment off our $220m into rolling out more towers to cover those mobile phone blackspots.”

“Across regional Australia we should always be working to do as much as we can to improve the lives of regional Australians. I’m not a genie – I haven’t got a magic wand – but I certainly have the ability as minister to work incredibly hard and get as much funding to invest in the regions as we possibly can. I don’t think it’s a how much more (money) do we need question. I think it’s a case of continually evaluating where the needs are and doing what we can to address those needs. I’ve been around a long time now and understand where we have come to date, in terms of pushing out that mobile phone coverage, the nbn connectivity, and fixed wireless, which has been a fantastic success, is a lot further than it was before. The majority of people on SkyMuster are happy – I think around 5pc of people under SkyMuster are hitting their data caps so I’ve been working with nbn to work out how we lift the data capacity. I’m not so much concerned around NetFlix but particularly around business and education and health capabilities that the data capacity is there.”

“That’s just speculation. I love being the Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories and Regional Communications. I’ve been really pleased to achieve as much as we have for the regions. I love and enjoy it and am not thinking about anything else. I’d like to stay where I am in my regional development portfolio and just continue doing what I’m doing. That’s where I’m at, at the moment, and the rest is just sheer speculation. I’m not aware of any actual timing for any reshuffle – I’m just getting on with the job. But I will say, Barnaby Joyce is the best Agriculture Minister we’ve ever seen, given what he’s achieved with the portfolio. He has had an absolute focus, whether it has been his dealings with the commodity groups, delivery of water infrastructure and building dams, or his excellent management of biosecurity.”

“I don’t take any criticism personally – but I’d really much rather that Labor got on board and worked with the government to actually make things better for the regions instead of carping and sniping from the sidelines. Whenever any of my Labor counterparts come out and criticise us about the mobile blackspots program, it’s absolutely laughable. And it’s absolutely pathetic when they have spent not one cent in government on improving mobile phone connectivity – not one cent.

“Of course not. The best thing that regional Australia can have is a Coalition government. People would expect me to say that but it’s absolutely true. When you look at the history of the Labor party, they gave regional Australia a carbon tax that hit regional Australia harder than anywhere else. They banned the live export cattle trade to Indonesia which decimated the northern part of Australia and even further down into southern Australia. They’ve, spent not one cent on mobile blackspots so the Coalition is definitely the best thing in government for regional Australia.”