State MP for Gippsland, Peter Ryan manages to compile a thousand and one bits of Gippsland news, business, sport and gossip in this incredibly long parliamentary speech.
Needless to say, this page is mainly of interest to locals.
Click here to get to his comments on the Regional Forest Agreement process in East Gippsland
There's a bit where he call the East Gippsland logging protesters "Dills"

Hansard
8 - 10 - 97
        RURAL VICTORIA: ECONOMIC INITIATIVES

Mr RYAN (Gippsland South) -- I move:

       That this house congratulate the government for the many initiatives it has pursued to encourage economic
       development in country Victoria.
It gives me great pleasure to move this motion because since the election of the Kennett government in 1992 for the first time
in many years country Victoria, in stark contrast to the 10 years of the Labor government, has experienced a renaissance. At
long last it has had the opportunity to see the great benefits flowing from the contributions country Victorians have made to
this wonderful state.
As a primary point, I believe country Victoria is the backbone of the state.
Even allowing for a measure of poetic licence having regard to the electorate I represent, country Victoria historically has
made a contribution to the welfare of the state that is acknowledged as being above and beyond the call of duty. I make that
statement on the basis that no matter what their size one sees replicated in country locations and in our country towns -- my
own town of Sale included and other small towns throughout my electorate -- many war memorials. One sees monuments to
the people who have contributed with their lives to the safety and protection of the state and the nation. Many names are
etched on the memorials. From these memorials in many locations in our larger towns and provincial cities it is evident that
country Victorians have put their lives on the line and made the ultimate sacrifice for our health, welfare and protection. That
sacrifice is evident in country Victoria just as it has always been and is represented in many ways. One of the great benefits of the election of the Kennett government is that we have been able to establish a strategic
position for country Victoria so that the willingness of country Victorians to make a contribution to the health, welfare
and safety of the state is now married with the government's commitment to the same purpose. No longer do we have the
situation that we had throughout the 1980s of a government devoted to Melbourne's welfare. We now have a government
that is devoted not only to Melbourne and its metropolitan areas, which are crucial to the fortunes of the state, but also
committed to policies that will benefit country Victorians over many years to come.

I will address various issues during this contribution. I intend to demonstrate that the Kennett government has actively
pursued a policy that will ensure country Victorians continue to make the contributions they sought to make, but were
denied the opportunity of making, during the years of the former Labor government.

The community spirit that has been a feature of country Victoria is as strong today as it ever was. That spirit is
represented in a vast number of ways, but the essence of it and the bottom line in country Victoria in particular is the
networking that goes on in communities between individuals and the groups that comprise the many interest elements of
the state's country regions. Those individuals and groups make a magnificent contribution to our communities in a
variety of ways, and I will touch on that as I go through my contribution.

The community spirit sets country Victoria apart from the Melbourne metropolitan area to a significant degree. In saying
that I do not intend to denigrate our metropolitan friends.

However, from my experience of living in the country for most of my life and my experience of spending a lot of time --
with due respect to all concerned, sometimes too much time -- in metropolitan Melbourne during the past five years in
fulfilling my parliamentary commitments, I have discerned that there exists in country regions a community spirit that is
fundamental to the structure of our society.

The community spirit of which I speak is the capacity to give and to be involved as part of life in country Victoria. It is
the desire of people to take charge of their own destinies and, as country areas continue to develop, there is anxiety of
people on behalf of others to ensure that country Victoria is a proper place for country folk to live and for youth to be able
to work and that it is a secure environment in which to reside.

All those things are supported and underpinned to an enormous degree by the great community spirit in our communities,
and the Kennett government has been very concerned to offer appropriate assistance to enable the various aspects of
community existence to go forward.

Community spirit is reflected in a variety of ways. I have a strong association with sporting organisations in my
electorate and have attended sporting functions of various types. Over many years I have been invited to numerous
sporting functions and activities, as I am sure have all honourable members, and I have found it invigorating and
inspiring to see how people have been prepared to participate in sporting outlets and give their time to ensure they are
maintained.

Some years ago, following the announcement by Esso that it intended to move its administrative headquarters from Sale
to Melbourne, an advisory group was formed to devote itself to doing what it could to assist in the recovery of Sale's
fortunes. That action was necessary because of the difficulties created by so many Esso personnel moving away -- 187
families, as well as a similar number of families of contractors. Sale was not devastated -- that is far too strong a term --
but it certainly set us back on our heels.

As a community we set about solving the problem caused by Esso's moving. I was asked by the then local council to
chair the group, and I was also the vice-president of a similar group established by the business community. We
conducted a forum to which were invited all the sporting interests in Sale and the immediate region, to form an entity to
act as a mechanism to attract sporting groups into the region for the purpose of participating in regional, state, national
and, if we could get them, international sporting activities.

It astounded me that representatives of some 78 sporting organisations came to a gathering I chaired in Sale. You can
well imagine, Mr Speaker, that the presence of representatives of that number of organisations, with the huge number of
people involved, indicated to me the extent to which sport and participation in it reflects life in our country environments.

One of the things the Kennett government has done at that base level which is so vital to our community structures is
provide assistance to sporting organisations to enable them to better serve the purposes for which they were established.
We saw the benefits of that in Leongatha recently when to their great credit the mighty Parrots again won the Latrobe
Valley!Gippsland League grand final for the second time in three years. That football team is formed from the town's
population of only 5250, according to the board at the entrance to the town.
It was a tremendous effort for a team drawn from a comparatively small town, and again indicates the great spirit that is
present in such sporting groups.

Recently I was a guest of the mighty Maffra Eagles when they hosted a visit by people from Sale for the annual derby. I
was the guest speaker at a lunch attended by 40 or 50 people and I could not help but reflect in the course of the
comments I made on the contributions many people make to such organisations. Sporting groups make a tremendous
contribution to communities in country Victoria, and what I have described as the situation in Sale and other parts of my
electorate is replicated all around the state. It might be said that these days such groups struggle for numbers, and they
do. These days football clubs must contend with the fact that there is an enormous diversity of sporting activity. There is
much greater attraction for young people to be involved in a variety of other arenas.

I cannot help but reflect that although I played football for many years -- of a very ordinary standard, I must confess --
my son James, who is 15, plays soccer, and I coach my son Julian, who is 12, in basketball -- and we won the grand
final again recently. My sons love football and like to follow the mighty Demons, who will inevitably win an AFL
premiership in the next five years, having signed up Jeff White yesterday. That was a great coup. I congratulate all the
board members on a wonderful effort. However, sporting organisations change their nature and hue with the passage of
time, and like everything else it is something we have to accommodate in country Victoria.

I have touched briefly on this issue of change, and I will address it further as I proceed this morning. The question of
change is one of the most fundamental issues facing communities in country Victoria. It is a truism that you either face
change and embrace it or you are consumed by it to your loss.

In my view it is imperative that when change is necessary and imminent and will inevitably be part of the way we all live
our lives it places more responsibility on us, wherever we may be, to adopt and drive it in the direction we want it to go,
so that we produce outcomes that are ours and not outcomes that are thrust on us. We want to make sure we are ahead of
the pack on these issues.

One of the great attributes of the Kennett government is that it has been prepared in country Victoria to be ahead on the
issue of change, and to be in charge of it in a wide variety of ways. It is imperative that the government continue to do
just that. Governments have a responsibility to establish a structure under which communities have opportunities to
embrace change and take their livelihoods in the directions they want them to go.

However, it would be nothing less than tragic if communities of any nature, let alone those in country areas, reached the
position where they were dependent on government of any persuasion to prop them up, where they saw themselves
going forward alone on the back of government. They need to have the capacity to control their own destiny.

This is an area where the Kennett government deserves many plaudits. It has gone about establishing a scenario in which
if country people are willing, and I am sure they are, to grasp the opportunities that are being made available, particularly
through improvements in infrastructure in the country, they will have a much better chance of being able to develop
country regions to the best possible level.

That touches on another point I wish to emphasise. The greatest threat to country Victoria is underachievement.
That is our biggest risk in country regions if we do not identify the areas we want to occupy with the passage of the years
-- I am talking now about the situation in not only the year 2000 but in 2050 and so on. If we do not come to grips with
where we want to take our communities by then we will be damned.

It is imperative in this day and age, when change is as necessary and imminent as it is, to have leadership in country areas
to enable us to do the best we possibly can to realise our ambitions. Again, from a government perspective, it is
important that we maintain this division of identity. It is most important that government establish -- as the Kennett
government is -- structures so that if communities are prepared to lead and get in there and do their bit they can justifiably
look to the government for assistance in realising their goals. That is imperative. That can be contrasted with the position
where government comes in and, in a Big
Brother sense, takes ownership of what country communities, or indeed any communities, want to do in their own right.

Before I came to politics I was always critical of concepts such as the Victorian Economic Development Corporation
(VEDC). I shall leave aside the issue of what ultimately happened to that corporation; I am more interested in the policy
of the government of the time. A strong distinction can be made between a government encouraging the development of a
community and enabling it to go forward and a government having ownership of what is represented by community
assets. Governments need to be very careful about becoming involved in the ownership of projects, particularly in
country Victoria. Country Victorians do not want the government to own what is best handled in a private sense.
However, they want the government to establish sufficient infrastructure to permit private enterprise to come in and do
what it is designed to do: make the best use of the attributes in a community.
The Kennett government has excelled in that regard.
One of the great challenges for country Victorians is not to be shy of their prospects. People should not think they have to
wait on government for whatever it might choose to do or not to do. Country Victorians need to decide what they wish to
do and what they regard as the future for the regions. Having done that, I think they are entitled to come to the
government of the day saying, 'This is what we see as the future. This is the scenario for enabling us to achieve our best
outcomes. Therefore, Government, we are calling on you to provide the basic assistance, through infrastructure in
particular, and government services to permit us to realise those ambitions'.

I shall talk about some of the initiatives the government has undertaken at various levels and in various regions.

I shall refer to some of the developments that are currently occurring, and I do not mean only in a commercial sense but
also in a community sense. I shall talk about our aspirations in the country, where we want to go, what we will do, what
we see for the future, how we will accommodate change, and how change will influence country Victoria. Most
importantly, I shall talk about my own electorate because I am most familiar with it, but I will do so to exemplify the
issue I raise today.

One of the primary areas where government needs to be involved is education. What the government has achieved in my
electorate over the past five years has been magnificent. In country Victoria people have faced the fact of change and have
worked to accommodate it. My electorate encompasses 6000 square kilometres. I must confess that I am not sure how
many towns and locations it contains, but there must be 50, 60 or thereabouts. Often when travelling through these small
areas one sees the remnants of what were once local primary schools.

Decades ago in these little locations there were small schools with 10, 12 or 15 students.

I pause for a moment because the honourable member for Footscray is anxious to make an interjection and I want to give
him the chance now. Sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, he had nothing to say.

Mr Mildenhall interjected.

Mr RYAN -- We have recognised the fact of change; we have recognised the necessity for it and acted on it in a manner
which, I must say in fairness to the Labor Party, was started by it during its time in government. The Labor Party in
government closed many country Victorian schools.

That is an undeniable fact and, to its credit, the former Labor government recognised in the days when it was supposedly
running the state that this element of change was present and would need to be accommodated in an educational sphere,
so it began the inevitable process of closing some smaller country schools. Obviously that came about because of the way
technological change has brought necessary benefits to schools.

The former Labor government saw the opportunities for country communities to bring some smaller schools into larger
groupings. Typically, it did that in a half-baked fashion; it did only half the job. When the coalition government came to
power it found the former Labor government had made a complete mess of the education system as well as of other areas
in which it had been involved, to the extent that in the area of education the state had an outstanding maintenance bill of
$600 million, a black hole of $40 million as a result of promises it had made that it could not keep and never had any
intention of keeping, and so on.

But let us not dwell on the past.

The Kennett government set about repairing that damage and taking Victoria forward to where it wants to be in the new
millennium. Let it be said at the outset: the government has a tremendous, unqualified commitment to Victoria's young
people. The government considers the future welfare of the state as being very much bound up with the future of its young
people. For those of us in this house, this is our time, but
in future the opportunity will come for those who are now in our educational system at its various levels to have their
time to run the state and take it forward. In recognition of that, the government has made an enormous commitment to
education.

I will highlight that statement by talking about some of the initiatives that have been taken in schools in my electorate.
I can pick them at random because there are many from which to choose. I start by referring to Sale College, which
derives from the amalgamation of the Sale High School and the Sale Technical School, as it was known historically. The
former high school had 600 or 700 students and the technical school, which a few years ago became known as Macalister
Secondary College, had a student population in the order of 500.
The amalgamation has been an enormous and unqualified success. It has been wonderful to see how it has evolved
because it is indicative of the fundamental principle of which I speak. When I was elected five years ago members of the
two school communities came to me and said that they had been trying to grapple with a problem for many years and had
been unable to successfully resolve it.
They were troubled that because of the breadth of educational opportunity -- the many courses available, particularly at
the VCE level -- they considered the schools did not respectively have the resource base to do justice to the local school
community as a whole. They also felt that unless they were pro-active about the issue they faced the prospect of being left
in an educational backwater and would not be able to provide a standard of education for students that was appropriate
for their current and, more particularly, future needs.
Under the general guidance and the imprimatur of the minister of the day, the Honourable Don Hayward, they set about
establishing a plan for the two schools with a view to bringing them together. It was not done without pain, but anything
worthwhile involves pain -- and there is no doubt that we saw plenty of it in this exercise. I had the great pleasure of
being able to work with the two school communities.
We had numerous meetings and other gatherings, not only among ourselves while we worked out which way we wanted
to take the process and defined for ourselves the future that we saw for the school community at the Sale College, but
also with people associated with the department to look at the capital and the general resourcing requirements.
The minister, as was his wont when he had responsibility for the portfolio, made himself readily available for the
purpose of speaking with the school communities. We had a number of such forums and we were able to see the plans
gradually come to fruition. The product of that process has been nothing less than magnificent, and it is a representation
of the fundamental point I make.
We have brought the two schools together. Our three-stage program is designed over three or four years to result in an
end product that will bear comparison with anything anywhere in the state.
The first stage has been the allocation of approximately $1 million to the Macalister campus, the former Sale Technical
School. It must be borne in mind that the facilities in that location had been there forever and a day. With due respect to
everyone involved, when one walked around the facilities one could see that they had had their time -- I suspect that in
some instances they were there when Cook stepped ashore! -- and the time had come for work to be undertaken to bring
them up to the appropriate standard. As I said, the first stage has seen $1 million devoted to that aspect of the
redevelopment.
During the course of this financial year the second stage will result in another $1.5 million being contributed. Some $400
000 will go to the Macalister campus of what is now the Sale College and the balance will go to the other campus, the
original Sale High School, and will result in a major update of the facilities at that location. Over the course of the
subsequent year or two, as budget requirements allow, we will see the third stage in which in the order of $1.
5 million to $2 million will be devoted to finalising the marriage of the two facilities.
It has been a huge success, with input from people from a variety of backgrounds. I say this with the best will in the
world: the actual teaching community, the teachers, were very understandably concerned about whether it could be made
to happen. All those years ago when we started they were concerned that they had been down the track before, that they
had heard it all before; it had been talked about forever and all it seemed to produce was a raising of hopes that were then
dashed.
It is an enormous tribute to the teaching staff that they have been able to get into this, really take hold of it, and direct
particularly the curriculum development in a way that does them credit.
It would not be fair to name members of the staff, but suffice it to say some took strong leadership positions. I will name
only the principal, Ian Wallace, and his deputy, Greg Edwards, the former principal of the Macalister campus, who has
just been promoted to principal at another school. Those two gentlemen and many others on the general staff did a great
job in bringing together the teaching staff at the two campuses of the school and getting them right behind the plan.
The general school community in the form of the two school councils was absolutely committed to the intention that the
two campuses would come together successfully.
able to come together over a process of many meetings and go about the important task of defining where they wanted the
proposed school to go -- that is, what was seen as the future development -- and then see it realised when it came together
so successfully.
In addition, and importantly, input came from the perspective of the student body. These types of issues impose their
own pressures on the students, particularly those at the senior levels who are undertaking VCE subjects. There is no
question that when such issues arise, a degree of uncertainty also arises. One of the basic structures was to move the
whole VCE level to the Macalister campus location, which resulted inevitably in curriculum delivery being disjointed. It
is to the great credit of the students that they were able to accommodate those many meetings during the couple of years
required to complete the amalgamation.
As I speak it occurs to me that a third teacher to whom I should pay particular credit is a fellow named Neil Ross, who
was in charge of the important matter of the coordination of the curriculum between the two campuses. That was an
enormous task given a teacher population that is now in the order of 140. Of course he was ably assisted, and that has
resulted in the successful amalgamation.
Another important aspect in the context of the issue of change is that we have seen an innovation on the campus that does
great credit to the Kennett government and is again indicative of the background to the motion congratulating the
government for the work that it has done in encouraging development in country Victoria. We have developed a
community library through a liaison with the Shire of Wellington and in concert with the school community.
That has been a wonderful outcome.
Indeed, only six weeks ago I had the great pleasure of opening the facility. The shire was able to put $100 000 of its
money into redeveloping the library because the existing library in Sale was no longer up to it and also faced the prospect
of change. We were able to marry the $100 000 of ratepayer funds with the state government contribution of $300 000 of
the first $1 million for the initial stage of the project. The expenditure of approximately $400 000 has enabled the old
school library area to be completely revamped and beautifully lit for a magnificent outcome. There has been wonderful
coordination between the school staff and the shire -- not an easy task, because often a fiefdom mentality develops
around some of these issues. Happily, in this instance that has been put aside. The community has an excellent outcome
because of the coordinated effort between the two groups of people which has resulted in the establishment of a
community library.
It must not escape anybody's attention that not only do students have complete and free access to this service throughout
the day because the facility is located on the school grounds but the general community also has access to it. There is a
marriage of two enterprises which, left in their own right, would not have amounted to the totality of what the community
now has. It is the perfect example of this fundamental point to which I keep returning: faced with the prospect of change,
the government got in there and created a magnificent opportunity for the school community, and the local shire got in
there, recognising a development which would benefit its ratepayers. The community has received an outcome resulting
from a great marriage and an ideal that will serve it for many years to come. That is but one example.

Let me give another slightly different example. It is still coming to fruition, but it is an exciting project indicative of
change. The lovely township of Mirboo North is perched on top of the Strzelecki Ranges.
I am sure you are familiar with it, Mr Deputy Speaker -- most people are. It is a township of about 1500 people. The
honourable member for Ripon was of enormous assistance to me and to the school community in working on a project
that is not quite complete but is well on the way.
What is currently delaying the project is an interesting problem of a type that I do not usually have to accommodate and
which I will come to in a moment. The primary school is located on one side of Castle Street and the secondary college is on the other side. At public meetings that I have attended, chaired or hosted over the past couple of years it has been perfectly evident that for
the past three or four decades there has been a dream in this small community of bringing the two facilities together to
enable them to provide education to the children of the town on a cooperative basis. Approximately 350 students attend the primary school and about 450 students attend the secondary college across the
road. Harry Forrester, the principal of the primary school, is a top bloke who does a terrific job, is very able and has
great empathy with the local community. Val Jones, over the road at the secondary college, is equally doing a wonderful
job. These respective communities have wrestled with the problem of how they can cooperatively provide a better
educational standard for the children.
Bear in mind that, as is so often the case with country Victoria accommodating change, this school facility has a
significance far beyond simply delivering a curriculum: the school is very much the key to the town. It would be a
disaster if a school of this dimension were taken from the town, failed, was found to be not up to par or for whatever
reason ceased to exist. The frustrating part is the attempt to arrange the delivery of curriculum between the schools so that
the future of the town will be much more secure.
There is no surprise here: enter the Kennett government.

Mr Mildenhall interjected.

Mr RYAN -- Steady down. I know you are anxious to hear about this so I'll tell you what has happened. A great thing
happened: the school community defined what it wanted to do. The boards of the respective schools, together with their
staff, came together to look at this issue because the standards of facilities at the secondary college, in particular, are not
up to par. Indeed, when I first visited the secondary college three years ago I advised the principal that I would like to
have a cup of coffee with the staff and talk about issues of mutual interest. After inspecting the school I went into the
staffroom and said to the staff, 'Your students should not have to learn in facilities of this standard and you should not
have to teach in such facilities. We can cooperatively do something about this if we are all prepared to have a go at it.

' To their credit, once again the teaching staff leapt in and did a wonderful job.

The government has now agreed to contribute around $1 million towards redeveloping both sites for new facilities on the
road which now divides the schools. Before anybody gets excited, let me emphasise that an important part of the project
is the road closure. An alternative access road will be built to ensure there is no interruption to the appropriate traffic
flows in and around the town.

The closure of the road and the construction of an alternate road involved the investigation of a variety of issues which
created problems because of the topography of Mirboo North. As I said, the town is perched on top of the Strzelecki
Ranges and there is a paucity of flat land. It was one thing to close Castle Street but it was no mean feat to design an
alternative access road.

The problem that I referred to at the outset is that a lot of work is being done to define the alternative access road.

The Kennett government has committed $440 000 to the roadworks. The plans are defined and the money is available, so
the project is ready to go. The issue is the precise location of the road. I am in the delightful position of being able to tell
the community that the Kennett government has committed $1 million to the educational side of things and $440 000 to
the roadworks, and on behalf of the people of Mirboo North is ready to assist in the further development of this great
project.

A community library will be built on the area between the schools; it will service both schools and the people of Mirboo
North will also be able to access it. A new interchange will be created for bus travel by students into and out of town.

These days in many country towns the bus services are not necessarily where the community would like them to be.

There is an element of concern about the movement of buses, the interruption of traffic and the necessity for students to
cross the road one way or the other. All that will be dealt with. It is a wonderful project, and it would not have been
possible if the Kennett government had not recognised the necessity for change, respected what a country community had
done to arrange its future and been prepared to support well-made plans to achieve a magnificent outcome.

I can talk about educational issues all day long because there are so many of them throughout my electorate. On a smaller
scale there is the redevelopment of the Nambrok Denison school of only 120 students at Nambrok. The principal, Kevin

Mealing, is doing an excellent job. The redevelopment is representative of what has occurred in various locations around the state in that two or three smaller
schools within a radius of 5 or 8 kilometres have been brought together on one existing site for the purpose of
consolidating the available resources.

The outcome has been very good. As each stage of the development of the school has occurred the parents and staff have
held opening ceremonies, and at the latest count there were about four plaques stuck on walls in various parts of the
school indicating the latest stage of the school's redevelopment. The parents are absolutely delighted with the outcome,
and the children, who are the true denominators of the success of the project, have fitted into the fabric of the new
arrangement. It is only necessary to go to the school to see the children's delight in being part of the facility. I am thrilled
to see such high quality educational outcomes for students in that part of my electorate.

Excellent developments have occurred at the Leongatha Secondary College over the past five years. The government has
established there a facility that is second to none in delivering local curriculum and has shown a tremendous commitment
in providing educational resources to the people of country Victoria.

I move on to the important issue of roads. In the Melbourne metropolitan area the issue of roads is not significant in a
day-to-day sense. There are no dirt roads in the Melbourne metropolitan region, and when motorists pull up in their
driveways they are not faced with the prospect of mud being splashed all over the panels of their cars after having driven
home from work on a rainy day. That just does not happen. In the Melbourne metropolitan regions all the roads are
sealed, tarred and macadamised, and it is all sweet and lovely.
That is not the case in country Victoria where roads are the lifeblood and communities need the appropriate road
infrastructure to enable them to exist and to increase the many opportunities that people have for developing their futures.
In that regard the Kennett government has made enormous commitments. The Better Roads funding and general budget
allocations have been very beneficial.
Dare I say that the leading example of government commitment in my area is the famous Rosedale bridge, which was
constructed in about 1934 or 1936 as a single-lane bridge across the Latrobe River. Miraculously, since that time,
including the 20-plus years that I have lived in Sale, by an immense stroke of luck no-one has ever been killed on that
bridge, although there have been some serious accidents.
However, it was inevitable that unless something was done about the bridge a tragedy would occur because the lovely
town of Rosedale is situated on the Princes Highway, and travellers on the east coast of Australia between Melbourne
and Sydney and further points must go through downtown Rosedale and across what was a single-lane bridge across the
Latrobe River. This was trouble on the hoof: not only was the old bridge dangerous to motorists but clearly it was also an
impediment to commercial development in a part of East Gippsland that was dependent on heavy haulage. Trucking
operators with wide loads were reluctant to negotiate the bridge because they feared their loads might clip the railings on
either side of the bridge. Truck drivers had the difficulty of trying to get wide loads across the bridge with oncoming
traffic and the attendant problems of trying to cross at night, particularly when it was raining. Something had to be done
about the situation.
Enter the Kennett government.
At the time the Minister for Roads and Ports was the Honourable Bill Baxter of another place, and he did a fantastic job
in the discharge of his ministerial responsibilities looking after roads. In saying that I direct no criticism towards the
current incumbent. In the many submissions I made to the former minister over the first couple of years of coalition
government probably the winning one concerned an occasion when he came down to look at the bridge and met with me
and local community groups. I asked him to drive a car slowly across the bridge, and he saw that on every one of the
brick pylons on both sides of the road bricks were missing or had been damaged in some way. That indicated that loads
on vehicles had been smacking into the bridge pylons and taking pieces from them over the years yet, almost
miraculously, not smacking them sufficiently hard to dislodge the loads. That clearly showed the extent of the problem.
The Rosedale and regional community had developed a plan for the future refurbishment of the bridge which people saw
as being the appropriate outcome. That is an important point in this debate because one of the options that was being
explored was to bypass the town, and the townsfolk were concerned that if that happened it would have deleterious
effects upon the local community. Members of the community told the minister in the course of various presentations to
him that they did not want that to happen; they wanted the general roadworks around the facility begun on the basis that the
highwaywould continue to pass through Rosedale. They saw that as being of benefit to them, and the minister listened to that
view and acted on it.
Again, enter the Kennett government. A total of $17 million was allocated to the project, and the outcome has been
magnificent. The road has been duplicated and there is now a series of bridges each about a kilometre in length across the river. A lot
of road work has been done in the Rosedale township and the landscaping work is a sight to behold. I read in a Vicroads
magazine that the whole project recently won an award for its design standard.

The project has been a tremendous success and has provided a lifeline for the Gippsland region by allowing better
movement of produce and opening up all sorts of options. Late last year or earlier this year the Minister for Roads and
Ports visited Rosedale for the opening celebration -- and what a day it was. The Sale Roulettes were in their glory flying
past and side slipping over the bridge at an alarming rate. At one point we thought there might be the classic disaster of
the Roulettes crashing into the new bridge. We had the formal cutting of the ribbon, bands playing and all the
townspeople were there.
At the time the project represented the largest contribution -- $17 million -- from the Better Roads funding to any area in
country Victoria.

Another relevant aspect of the project is that this wonderful and most successful undertaking was never published
anywhere in the true sense. That highlights an important point in the context of this debate. I recognise the concern
expressed in country Victoria about the extent to which the government is contributing to the fortunes of country regions.
The point it highlights is the ongoing problem in properly publishing the implementation of projects such as this. Only
recently I asked the editor of a newspaper in my electorate whether he published anything about the development at
Rosedale. He said that of course he did not because it was not local news.

In one line from the best source possible that statement illustrates the problem the government has to grapple with -- that
is, people in other parts of country Victoria are simply not aware of the government's effort to develop country regions
around the state simply because of lack of publication in the print and electronic media. The government has intrinsic
difficulty getting the message around Victoria so that people know that developments of this magnitude are taking place in
country locations.

I contrast that with developments of that sort in Dandenong, Footscray or anywhere else in the metropolitan area. I
guarantee that representatives of the electronic and print media would be publicising the development up to the stars.
There would be plenty of comment in the metropolitan area and, by dint of publication in our major dailies, that would
flow into country areas. Everyone in the country would be able to read or hear about it.

Developments in the country are unable to get anywhere near the same widespread publicity because they have to contend
with elements of parochialism in the country media.

I am not being overly critical because country publications do a marvellous job in publishing issues relevant to their local
communities. However, the tendency is that anything that does not relate to the localised communities does not rate a
mention unless it is taken up by the statewide dailies. In my area, local newspapers only 60 or 70 kilometres away from a
development are not prepared to devote time and space to it. If they do, it is only in a passing sense. Local newspapers
tend to regard their immediate role as publishing issues pertinent to the area in which their product is distributed. It is a
problem that is hard to come to grips with.

Enter the Kennett government.

Recently it published and sent to all Victorians the fifth edition of the report of the work it had undertaken. At least it goes
part of the way towards rectifying the problem. My motion puts the issue directly on the table. It is something we have to
contend with. The public needs to know the effort being made by the Kennett government. For instance, an extra $95
million has gone to the Better Roads funding this year. The money was contributed to honour the promise made by the
government that one-third of the funds would be spent in country Victoria. Because of the concentration on major works
around Melbourne in the past some of the money went to Melbourne. Now the balance has been righted. This year 50 per
cent of the funds will go to country Victoria and the allocation of funding from the Better Roads program will be
maintained with the passage of the years.

Many other projects are on foot in my electorate.

They are only some of the projects published in a map recently distributed by the department of the Minister for Roads
and Ports showing the location of various projects being undertaken during the current financial year. At long last $12
million has been devoted to the bypass on the South Gippsland Highway near Bass.

I have arranged deputations to the minister in connection with another significant development just south of Sale on the
South Gippsland Highway. In fairness I should spend some time telling the house about that project because it is
important in the context of the motion and the point I made a moment ago about publishing the projects in which the
Kennett government is involved for the purpose of promoting economic development in country Victoria.

Just south of Sale at the confluence of the Thomson and Latrobe rivers is a swing bridge. This magnificent structure was built in 1883 and sits astride a central pylon which is so constructed that the bridge can
swing over to allow boat traffic to come up from the Gippsland Lakes to the port of Sale. I am sure honourable members
are familiar with the history of the City of Sale, its surrounds and the lakes. The ability of boats to travel up and down the
river was fundamental to the way in which the region developed many years ago. At the time the bridge was built it was
regarded as a marvel. Although it served its purpose for many years the bridge was closed to two-way traffic about 10 or
12 years ago. It has traffic lights at each end and caters only for one-way traffic. This creates a real problem with
economic enterprise and the movement of traffic. Bear in mind that the bridge is on the South Gippsland Highway so all
the traffic travelling south from Sale around the coast of Victoria towards Melbourne must cross that single-lane bridge.
The situation cannot continue.

Additional problems arise because the road access to the bridge is too low.

The road runs immediately beside the Thomson River and at times of even moderate flooding the river runs over the bank
and across the road, causing it to be closed. Motorists cannot gain access to Sale even from Longford, which is about 5
kilometres south of the city. The residents of Longford take an alternative route, which is about a 40-kilometre diversion.
That is unthinkable. Coupled with that is the increasing commercial and industrial development in the region that
increases the number of trucks moving over the bridge. Longford, with its three gas plants, has been the centre of
operations for the Bass Strait oil fields since the 1960s.

With the recent announcement of the east coast pipeline I expect it will be necessary to upgrade the existing gas plants and
even develop a fourth plant. There is an enormous amount of truck traffic going back and forth just to service the gas
plants. Additionally, the horticultural industry has assumed increasing significance south of the bridge.

Hugo Covino and his two sons purchased 400 acres of dry land in the region, found water at a depth 1250 metres and
have now converted that land into 400 acres of magnificent horticultural production. They produce the best lettuces you
will find anywhere and other magnificent vegetables. Enormous amounts of traffic travel back and forth across the bridge
serving enterprises such as that.

Properties owned by such luminaries as the Honourable Phil Davis in the other place are situated on the other side of the
river. It is very important that the local people around Longford overcome the problem of getting to Sale during periods
of flood. Enter the Kennett government. We have gone through a process.

Mr Cameron interjected.

Mr RYAN -- I heard the interjection from the honourable member for Bendigo West. For some years the local
community has worked to solve what it believes is a difficult problem. It has decided to construct two new bridges: one
across the Thomson River and a second bridge will cross the Latrobe River and link up to the South Gippsland
Highway. A road will be built through land that is in the process of being acquired. Other issues need urgent attention.
For example, we must ensure that during the construction of the bridges water traffic can move up or down from the
lakes. We must continue to preserve the historical swing bridge. The last thing we will do is destroy a local heritage that
is about 114 years old.

When building the bridges and the road link connecting the bridges we do not want to construct a barrier to floodwaters
that will come down the Thomson River. We must have regard to flood plain issues.

During the past few years Vicroads has done a marvellous job consulting with the local community to ensure the options
selected to solve the difficulties suit everyone. It has been a long and tortuous process. It has been concluded on the basis
that the land over which the bridges are to be located and the roadway connecting the bridges are rezoned. Over the next
12 months the impact on local areas of the section of road being constructed and what it may mean to the flood plain, the
natural flood process, the adjoining wetlands and the height of the bridges will be defined.

Some three of four months ago I took a deputation from my municipality to see the Minister for Roads and Ports. He
agreed to the general parameters and

to put the plans in place. Over the next three years a staged development will occur. The road approaches on the South
Gippsland Highway south of Sale will be constructed first, then the bridges and finally the attendant roadworks.
Those works will cost approximately $12 to $13 million on current estimates -- a significant amount. I am delighted to
inform the house that at long last this problem is being solved through the initiative of the Kennett government.

The road approach to Loch Sport has been a hoary issue for about a decade. Loch Sport is a growing tourism area.
Although it is an important location, the road entrance to the town is terrible. It has a single lane for about 6 or 7
kilometres and motorists towing caravans often run their car wheels over the shoulder of the road, which throws up
rubbish and causes broken windscreens and so on. Enter the Kennett government and the problem is solved. I had the
great pleasure of opening a project for additional works costing about $1 million that will significantly increase the
fortunes of the town.

In the first term of the Kennett government approximately $25 to $30 million has been spent on roadworks in my
electorate.

If the expenditure on roadworks during the term of the Kennett government is totalled it would double the amount spent
by its predecessor Labor government, which was supposedly running the show. It is a wonderful outcome that will reap
benefits over time. Throughout country Victoria many Better Roads signs indicate the marvellous projects that have been
developed and the amounts of money spent on them. The government has given a commitment that in the years ahead
one-third of Better Roads funding will be devoted to country Victoria which is critical to encourage economic
development. Infrastructure development that accommodates change will greatly benefit country communities over time.

I refer to health delivery in country Victoria, another success story of the Kennett government. The question of change in
the delivery of services is never more appropriate or better seen than in the area of health services. We are seeing an
enormous amount of change, which I am sure was not contemplated even 5 years ago, let alone 10.

The Gippsland Base Hospital at Sale, a facility of approximately 120 beds which is part of the Central Wellington Health
Service, is an example. It was built approximately 10 years ago, and I venture to suggest that if we were building it again
now its design would be completely different. The way we would build that hospital today and the services we would
look to offer from it would be substantially different from what was contemplated when that hospital was first designed
and constructed only a comparatively few years ago.

That has happened particularly because of the inroads made by technology in the delivery of health services. We have
seen that happen in a variety of ways. Turning to football, for example, the brilliant career of John Coleman was
unfortunately brought to an early conclusion by a knee injury. I am too young to remember having seen him play, but I
am told that his was an extraordinary talent in the football sense and that it was tragic that his great career was cut short.

What do we see happen these days? Some 12 or 18 months ago Shaun Rehn, who played in the ruck for Adelaide,
sustained an injury which, had it happened a decade ago, let alone two decades ago, would probably have finished him.
However, because the time required to be spent in hospital having work undertaken to repair such an injury has been
foreshortened enormously there has been a good outcome, which is wonderful for the man and his football club. That
was done in a manner which was not event contemplated a couple of decades ago. Those advances are reflected in the
current delivery of health services, particularly country health services.

Another factor of great importance is the structure that surrounds the basis of health service delivery in country areas. It
differs fundamentally from the way health service delivery occurs in metropolitan Melbourne. In the city area there is a
concentration on lateral development or one-line development, the intention being to develop specialist facilities.

The government is putting an enormous amount of money into the development of resources in the Melbourne
metropolitan area that will enable it to provide specialist care health services in particular locations around the city and
suburbs. That is a great idea because it prevents a duplication of the provision of those services. For example, if you are
trying to duplicate cardiac services at 20 different locations around the city you end up getting four-fifths of nothing. It is
much better to concentrate the delivery of those services in fewer locations and make sure that you get the best. We are
forever contending with the cost of the provision of such services, not only the resourcing of the bricks and mortar but
also the medical technology that goes into the facilities.

In the city we have networks working on a basis of providing health care in a one-line structure. The specialist providers
have around them more generalist providers, but it is focused around the specialists. In country Victoria it is radically
different. What we need and what we tend to have in country Victoria is a vertically integrated structure. In its own way it is
exemplified by the power industry, as it was -- that is, we need to be able to develop health services in a structure in
which people go to one location and everything is provided there.

We have some marvellous examples in country Victoria, and I will refer to some in my own electorate. I commend the
Yarram Health Service to the house as being a classic example of accommodating the issue of change, what our
communities want and how best to deliver it in cooperation with the government. Yarram is a comparatively small town
with a population of 1200. The people of that town saw the future of health service delivery and the imminent change
about eight years ago. It was as plain as a pike staff that they could not continue to provide a complete range of health
services in a generalist sense in a facility in a town of that size because it did not have the mass to enable it to happen.
They set about addressing the problem as a community.

That small community raised $250 000 to $300 000 over a period of two or three years -- an absolutely fantastic effort.
In concert with government it built new facilities at Yarram to marry in with those already there. The community was
prepared to leave aside the concept of surgery being undertaken at that hospital and it is now done either at Sale or
Traralgon, both of which are about 80 kilometres away. Surgery is not conducted at Yarram. Approximately 20 beds
have been retained for acute care, nursing home facilities have been built around that, and an extensive service of primary
care has been developed. The annual report of the Yarram health service shows something in the order of 25 to 30
different forms of primary care service have been added to the service.

Again it is a matter of the Kennett government entering the picture. Early last year I had the great pleasure of
accompanying the Honourable Rob Knowles, when as the Minister for Aged Care he opened the new facility, which was
dedicated particularly to people in aged-care facilities at Yarram.

It was a $400 000 commitment by the Kennett government that recognised the need to cooperatively be part of a structure
that was basically being driven by the local community.

What do we see now at the Yarram health service? The local general practitioners operate their practices from the grounds
of the hospital, part of which has been refurbished. All the local health services are provided out of that one location in a
vertically structured arrangement, and just over 60 people work at the service. It is a brilliant outcome, and Yarram is one
of the five locations that are now funded under the Healthstreams model. Quite rightly the hospital was successful in
being included in that structure when late last year or early this year the minister decided to introduce that method of
funding in concert with the federal government. It has been a great success, and it is but one example in my electorate.

Outside of and west of my electorate in the Latrobe Valley we are seeing another indicator of change, another of the
inevitable outcomes of building facilities that will service the needs of our communities for decades to come. It is a
change in more than just bricks and mortar. The government will purchase services provided by a privately constructed
$45 million facility. The exciting thing about it is that we in Gippsland will get a level of delivery of tertiary health
services that we presently do not enjoy.

We will not have to face the issue of patient leakage -- people who would otherwise have to come to Melbourne and be
away from their families and local support services -- to anywhere near the same extent as occurred in the past. This
development will provide a means for the delivery of a higher level of services in a local regional sense. It will be useful
for the people not only in the Latrobe Valley but in the general region.

Currently I am involved in a process that will see another fundamental change to the delivery of health services in the Sale
region, further east from the Latrobe Valley development. Because of the inevitability of change and the need to
accommodate what the future brings, hospital and health services delivery must be restructured. I commend the members
of a working party that was established earlier this year from the hospitals at Sale, Maffra and Heyfield to examine the
issue of future health service delivery in the Central Gippsland region.

In the Latrobe Valley in the west a superb new facility is being built at Bairnsdale. Further east the hospital and health
service delivery is excellent. In

the centre there are three hospital-based health services that needed to review their respective positions, bearing in mind
this fundamental concept of change. The future delivery of health services was at risk unless the service delivery between those three hospitals was
restructured. It is important that communities drive the outcomes they want. The working group designed a structure that
will continue to service the needs of the people in the immediate region. The group has prepared a preliminary report and
will present it to the minister in the next couple of weeks. I am confident the proposed new structure will continue to
provide the appropriate level of services in the future.

I shall talk about health service delivery in the broader Victorian sense and touch on some of the issues relevant to these
considerations. Acute care hospitals in rural communities are facing two major challenges. The first is to maintain access
to specialist services at a time when it is difficult to attract and maintain the presence of specialists in country
communities. The second is to encourage small rural hospitals to provide a wider range of community-based as well as
bed-based health care services.

On the latter point I refer to the Yarram hospital and the way it has been able to adapt to the necessity for change. The
Kennett government has tackled these issues in several ways. Over the past two years there has been further recognition
of rural costs.

A rural specialist services grant is paid to regional and subregional hospitals -- that is, hospitals with activity exceeding
3000 weighted in-line equivalent separations (WIES). The grant was introduced to foster and maintain specific specialty
services in rural, regional and subregional hospitals. The minister and the department have allocated $7.2 million to this
initiative, allowing for $60 000 to be devoted to each hospital which in turn can be devoted entirely to a single specialist
area. In Sale, through the Wellington health service and the Gippsland-based hospital, $300 000 was allocated to five
specialist areas that received $60 000 each. That is an initiative introduced to attract specialists to country Victoria and
keep them there.

There has also been an increase in the fixed component of the case-mix formula for rural hospitals. Economies available
to metropolitan networks are simply not available to single-campus rural hospitals and small hospitals. The regional
(group B) hospitals receive a case-mix price some $100 per WIES more than networks. Small group D and E hospitals --
for example, Cohuna and Terang -- receive $160 per WIES more than the networks.

We do not need to reflect on the returns that each hospital has been able to achieve over the past 12 months. It is
self-evident that the hospitals are benefiting. More particularly, the communities are benefiting through these initiatives.
Over the past year small group C hospitals earned a surplus of $4 million, or 2.5 per cent of revenue, and rural D and E
hospitals earned a surplus of $8 million, or 5.8 per cent of revenue. That shows the initiatives are succeeding.

There are issues to contend with at the base hospitals. Because of the concentration of specialty services at the centres and
the cost component they attract, there is a problem that relates primarily to visiting medical officers. The 10 or 12 base
hospitals in country Victoria are continuing to wrestle with the questions of how to get away from a system that relates
more to a session-based form of payment and how to structure a form of remuneration for doctors that will do justice to
them and be within the bounds of the hospitals they visit and to which they are attached.

The crucial issue is again the provision of health services to rural communities. The encouragement of local treatment and
services is a key policy objective of the Department of Human Services. The throughput targets were significantly
increased for 1995-96 and continued in 1996-97 for selected rural hospitals to improve self-sufficiency.

Although those targets have been met, in a number of cases it has been decided to continue the existing aggregate rural
regional activity targets for 1997-98. It is important that appropriate health efficiencies are introduced into the delivery of
health services to ensure people are looked after in the best way possible.

We also face issues related to the rural medical work force. The poor distribution of the medical work force between
urban and regional areas has been identified as Australia's most significant medical work force issue. Once again a
problem is being faced not only in terms of health delivery.

When for three years I managed a legal firm in Gippsland which employed 85 people in four offices at the peak of its
operations in the late 1980s, it was difficult to attract professional staff to the country to practise law. That was an
ongoing problem.

When the Esso company withdrew its administrative headquarters from Sale in about 1991 it said that one

of its difficulties had been attracting and keeping appropriately qualified accounting staff. I could go through each
professional area to demonstrate that it is consistently difficult to attract professional people to the country. I do not shy
away from the significance -- indeed, I emphasise it -- of the problem that must be faced in the medical sphere. However,
it is important to recognise that it occurs in many other areas as well.

As an aside, I mention that for a long time the issue has had considerable fascination for me because there is absolutely
no doubt that the quality of life that one enjoys in a country location -- with due respect to our city cousins -- is far
superior to city life.
Often over the years in my legal practice I found that having got people to come to the country and having got them
established, after the first 12 months it became a non-event because they were perfectly happy to stay and continued to do
so. Nevertheless, it is an issue in the sense of being able to attract doctors to our country areas.

That brings me to the ministerial council on medical work force management established by the Minister for Health. It
will address various issues, including the geographic distribution of the medical work force in the state. Currently the
council is considering a range of options that will increase the recruitment, support and retention of medical practitioners
in rural communities.

I refer also to medical education issues.

We have to contend with the fact that the shortage of trained specialists in rural areas means that often general
practitioners are required to assume responsibility for delivering a wide range of services. In our smaller locations we see
this day by day. It is an inevitable element of the structure of our health services. It is imperative for the purpose of
attracting doctors into country areas and keeping them there, and importantly being able to maintain the standard of
delivery of service, that we have ongoing education opportunities available to them.

On 1 July 1996 a continuing medical education subsidy program for rural practitioners commenced. It is funded by the
state government and is based on a shared contribution to costs by the department, hospitals and general practitioners.
Already 18 public hospitals and 34 general practitioners have made claims under the program.

It provides a mechanism by which doctors can come to the Melbourne metropolitan region and have the benefit of
medical education that will enable them to better deliver their services.

Recently the Minister for Health announced the establishment of a joint project between the Monash Medical Centre
anaesthetics simulator centre and the rural division of general practice. A sum of $80 000 is to be made available to cover
the costs of anaesthetists visiting rural areas to work with rural general practitioners and nurses, whose access to the
anaesthetics simulator at the Monash Medical Centre will also be maximised.

I am pleased to be able to say also that in 1993 the coordinating unit for rural health education in Victoria was established.
It is jointly funded by the Victorian and commonwealth governments and its objective is to enhance multi-disciplinary
education for the full range of rural health professionals.

Through that unit, allied health professionals, including nursing staff and doctors -- and importantly Koori health
workers -- are developing new education programs for rural areas.

One of the features of the program is that health service management has demonstrated that it understands the necessity to
give staff ownership of programs. One cannot take the position of simply seeking to impose such things on staff. Much
better outcomes are achieved if staff have some ownership by being able to participate in establishing the structure of
what is being delivered and being able to organise their movements and participation accordingly.

The centre for rural health at Monash University is funded and supported by the department through the state government
as a key centre for rural health education and research in Australia.

Currently it supports projects such as the Victorian advanced training for general practitioners program; the rural medical
family network; the early management of severe trauma education program for rural GPs; rural general practice training in
cooperation with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Melbourne Division of General Practice;
and research projects on rural health status and service changes.

Over the past couple of years we have also seen the emergence of the hospital in the home program, which has been a
brilliant innovation. Again on the fundamental issue of change, we have been able to adapt the delivery of health services
for those folk who otherwise historically would have faced having to move out of home, away from their loved ones and
into hospital.

The hospital in the home program was born and has flourished.
It was a pilot initiated by the government which offered public patients the choice of receiving hospital care in the comfort
of their own homes, with the support of well-trained nursing and medical staff, including general practitioners. In May
1996, the state government allocated another $20 million for the continuation of the program over the next four years. It
has been a resounding success in rural areas, with 21 different hospital in the home projects -- which represent 50 per
cent of the total number of hospitals participating in the program -- operating in rural centres. What a wonderful outcome
for rural health service delivery. I have heard first hand from constituents who have come to my office that the level of
patient satisfaction with the program is extremely high, and that has been demonstrated by a recent independent
evaluation of the program.

In addition we have the issue of the quality of service of medical practitioners in rural areas.

The department's clinical risk management program is an initiative in quality improvement in Victorian hospitals in
several rural sites. Clinical risk management addresses the prevention and management of unexpected or unplanned
incidents experienced during the care of hospital patients. The program is intended to improve outcomes for patients by
piloting new systems to control the risk of unexpected incidents. Three of the five funded projects are based in rural
Victoria. I am delighted to say that one of those projects is the Central Wellington Health Service, based in the fair and
sunny city of Sale. Again, it is wonderful to see such a project being undertaken in response to the question of change
and its inevitability.

All that I have described in the medical health service area can happen for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is
the critical issue of capital investment that the government is prepared to make.

It is in addition to the notion of the private hospital development in the Latrobe Valley that I have described, and which I
might say is reflected also in the announcement that has been made about Mildura.

Over recent years the funding for major projects in public hospitals in rural Victoria under the department's acute health
capital program has been: in 1994-95, $18.6 million; in 1995-96, $16.9 million; and in 1996-97, $25.5 million. It is
estimated that in 1997-98, $24 million will be spent on just capital works in different locations around country Victoria.

Over the past five years, a key focus of the major building projects has been on enhancing the network of base hospitals
in each of the rural regions, including significant redevelopment and upgrading at places such as the Geelong Hospital,
the Warrnambool District Base Hospital, the Wimmera Base Hospital, the Bendigo Base Hospital, the Wodonga
Hospital, the Goulburn Valley Base Hospital and, as I said, the private development being undertaken through the
Latrobe Regional Hospital.

It is all very well to build bricks and mortar, but you also need appropriate standards of equipment. Over the past few
years the following contributions have been made by the Kennett government to equipment and infrastructure
maintenance grants: in 1993-94, $2.5 million; in 1994-95, $8.9 million; in 1995-96, $7.1 million; and in 1996-97, $7.2
million -- a total of $25 million. What a great outcome for those country hospitals.

When compared with those of bygone years the grants are far in excess of what was ever contributed by the previous
government to the maintenance of these important areas.

I want to move away from health and talk about some of the other areas that are fundamental to this motion, which
applauds the Kennett government for its efforts in the development of country Victoria. I want to speak particularly about
the outstanding efforts of the Minister for Youth and Community Services and his department. The Kennett government
has an enormous commitment to Victorian youth and is intent on doing everything conceivably possible to better enable
Victoria's young people to make their way in the world. Through the Minister for Youth and Community Services
various initiatives have been pursued in country Victoria.

Some of the recent youth and community service initiatives relevant to country Victoria include: $300 000 per year for a
specialist deaf worker in each of the five rural regions of the Department of Human Services to improve services for the
deaf and the hearing impaired; $11.2 million to redevelop the Pleasant Creek facility in Stawell, providing community
accommodation options for people with intellectual disabilities; and since 1996, $7.2 million additional funding has been
provided for equipment and minor capital works for preschools across Victoria. Honourable members should keep in
mind that about 40 per cent of preschools, of which the government funds 1576 in Victoria, are in country Victoria, and
that minor works funding utilises local tradespeople and services.

Approximately $4 million is being provided over four years for Freeza events across the state. Only yesterday during question time honourable members heard of the great success of the Freeza program under the able
guidance of the honourable member for Wantirna, who is doing a great job in those projects, many of which are in
country areas, including Portland, Bairnsdale, Wodonga and Wangaratta. Importantly, as emphasised by the minister in
the course of his answer yesterday, these events are using local bands and resources.

Approximately $100 million has been provided for Victorian carers initiatives to the many agencies in rural and regional
Victoria. That is a particular interest. I have great pleasure in seeing that money contributed because during the first term
in office of the Kennett government, along with several other government members, I had the pleasure of serving on the
Premier's bills committee. One of the areas we were especially concerned about was providing support services to the
carers who do such a fantastic job in our community.

That is reflected in the $100 million going into those initiatives and is an enormous credit to the minister and his
department.

In 1997-98, $32 million will be provided for the future of young adults initiative, assisting young people with disabilities
across Victoria. There is also $8 million for parenting initiatives, including nine regional parenting resource services, five
of which are located in rural Victoria. There has been a $12 million redevelopment of the Malmsbury juvenile justice
facility, and local contractors are being used for that redevelopment.

In the state plan for intellectual disability services for the period 1996-99 the government has committed $1 billion to
provide services for people with intellectual disabilities. A significant proportion of that will be spent on housing and
staff support for people with disabilities in country regions.

It is particularly important to the government because that money is devoted to those within the community who are
among the most disadvantaged and who tragically suffer intellectual impairment. As I just demonstrated, the government
has made a commitment in the most meaningful manner to ensure that appropriate financial resources are devoted to those
folk. In addition, Victoria's young people are also being given additional opportunities through the department's efforts.

I now move to the area of natural resources and environment under the able hand of the Minister for Conservation and
Land Management. What a great job she has done in the time she has occupied the portfolios of health and conservation
and land management.

Victoria has seen tremendous developments through the minister's department and ministry over the course of the current
period of government, and that is again indicative of a recognition of change and reflects the many initiatives of the
Kennett government to encourage economic development in country Victoria.

There have been a variety of initiatives in Gippsland. For example, the finalisation of the East Gippsland regional forest
agreement, the first in Australia. What a fantastic project. It is a mechanism whereby all the parties to this important issue
have been consulted extensively and have come together. Earlier this year the Premier and the Prime Minister signed the
RFA, which will see the state's forests in East Gippsland preserved for the future. In this context the state is again seeing
a further fundamental development which is important to country regions, and which is so integral to those locations.
Concepts of conservation and preservation are also important, but the two issues are not mutually exclusive.

If everybody involved in the process is prepared to come together on the basis of goodwill outcomes can be achieved
such as those represented by the RFA in East Gippsland, which on the one hand serves the purposes of commercial
enterprise and ensures future job development and on the other hand honours Victoria's estate, national and international
obligations for the preservation of its natural resources. Victoria is a world leader in that regard. It is a credit to the
minister and those who have occupied her portfolios previously that Victoria has achieved this outcome.

In a rash of generosity and for the sake of completeness I pay due regard to the previous government and the Honourable
Joan Kirner, who took an interest in this sort of area and adopted a constructive approach. The Kennett government has
been able to take the sorts of initiatives that were talked about at the time and give them a practical outcome which
represents a best result for all concerned.

I mention in passing that it makes it all the more unfortunate that having had that agreement established, after the tortuous
process of getting it together and enabling it to happen, the community still has to witness the nonsense in East Gippsland
over the protests on behalf of those who have a different point of view. Let me be clear: I have no

difficulty with those who have a different point of view about whatever the issue happens to be, but I do have difficulty
with those people who see fit to take their complaint into the area in East Gippsland where the contractors are doing
nothing more than lawfully pursuing their normal activities. Those people in East Gippsland who are involved in
commercial activity associated with the timber industry are doing nothing else except that which the law entitles them to
do and which is prescribed by the regional forest agreement. Yet to this day we still see protesters up there who are
prepared to conduct themselves in such a fashion as to interrupt lawful activities. That has repercussions in a variety of forms, not the least of which is that the poor devils who are getting the brunt of
this, who are going about their occupations in a completely legal way, are faced with daily interruptions to their
endeavours which necessarily reflect on the returns they receive from the investments they have made in their
occupations. It is a real threat to people employed in the industry, and all because a small element persists in illegally
taking its point of view into those areas -- and I use that term advisedly because now numbers of police have been
allocated to ensuring the safety of all concerned. The time of the courts in East Gippsland is being taken up in dealing
with these idiots, and it is a dreadful state of affairs -- shame upon them.

It is all the more appropriate to make that comment having gone through the agonising process of signing off on a
regional forest agreement.

Pursuant to that agreement there was a call in 1996 for expressions of interest for the purchase and processing of
approximately 800 000 cubic metres per annum of residual logs from East Gippsland and Tambo forest management
areas. In October 1996 the department entered into heads of agreement with Harris-Daishowa, the T. J. Andrews sawmill
company, Misal Technologies and Midway Wood Products. Negotiations for supply contracts with those four companies
are almost complete, and an announcement in that regard is imminent.

All of that would not have happened without the removal of export controls, which has been achieved. As to sales,
initially there will be woodchip exports and each company will propose further developments to offer significant benefits
to East Gippsland through potential investments of up to $200 million and direct employment of up to 500 people. Plants
will be established for the production of engineered wood products and there will be plantations and integrated sawn
timber processing facilities.

Utilisation of the residual resource, which was previously wasted, will significantly improve the viability of logging
operations, particularly in areas where previous selective logging has reduced forest quality. That will allow the
department to economically return large areas of state forest to maximum growth potential and, in the long term, increase
the resource base available to the industry.

To further improve the performance of the forest and forest product industries in East Gippsland the department will
undertake contract logging in the East Gippsland forest management area, so it is win-win all around. If only those dills
in East Gippsland who persist in obstructing things could have regard for the damage they are doing, everybody
concerned, including them, would be better off.

Various initiatives are being pursued in the Central Highlands, where the government wants to achieve similar outcomes.
The government has finalised a new wood supply agreement with Amcor Ltd lasting until the year 2030 that will provide
the basis for increased investment in Amcor's pulp and paper mill at Maryvale. The department currently supplies about
500 tonnes of wood per annum to Amcor, and it is critical to the production of high quality paper products. Amcor's
initiative will produce about 300 jobs in the future.

In the park's flora and fauna area many initiatives have been taken. At Phillip Island assistance has been provided, with
private sector funding of $13 million, for the construction of a new visitor facility at the Nobbies, and $15 000 has been
invested at the Phillip Island nature park.

In 1996 at Tidal River 17 new family cabins were completed at a cost of $1.5 million. I was present in November last
year when the Premier opened the cabins.

It is instructive to pause and look at some of the Tidal River and Wilson's Promontory issues because they have been the
subject of comments from the other side of this house over the past few months and I now have the opportunity to
respond.

The expertise of the people charged with the hands-on responsibility for the management and maintenance of Victoria's
national parks is second to none. The chief ranger in Gippsland, Graham Davis, does a wonderful job and was
instrumental in designing the management plans for Wilson's Promontory and Tidal River. Over the past few months I
have had very close association with

Graham's work. He is delighted with the support he and his regional departmental colleagues have received from the
minister and her department throughout the debate over Wilson's Promontory. Some aspects of the Wilson's Promontory National Park are of particular interest to me because the Prom is an integral
component of the electorate I represent. It comprises about 50 000 hectares and contains fantastic World Heritage and
wilderness areas. In addition an area of about 80 hectares within the park boundaries comprises Tidal River. What seems
to have escaped the attention of many people participating in the recent debate over the management plans is that there is a
fundamental difference between the Wilson's Promontory National Park and the comparatively minute area of Tidal River
within its boundaries.

Commercial development at Tidal River began after the war in the 1940s, when the Australian army took over the area for
commando training. The area I have just described is a dot on the map. When one looks at a map of the Wilson's
Promontory area in any context one can see that the 80 hectares of Tidal River is a minute part of the broader park region
of 50 000 hectares.

When the management plan for Wilson's Promontory was being drawn up the Minister for Conservation and Land
Management was adamant that the distinction between the two areas be recognised. There was no need to produce a
management plan for Tidal River alone, but to her credit the minister saw the need to recognise what is essentially a
commercial location within a national park area, so that is what eventuated in the development of the management plan.

There have been great outcomes on both scores. At long last there is a notional fence around the commercial development
of the Tidal River region. At long last we are going to stop the creeping ad hoc development that has occurred over the
past five decades, because under the terms of the management plan the government has now defined what will occur in
the immediate vicinity of Tidal River. It has put a notional footprint across the Tidal River area and stated through the
management plan where the prescribed forms of development will take place -- not out in the broader part of the park but
contained within the Tidal River region.

There are now about 30 commercial operators in the Tidal River area. Towards the end of last year when this discussion
about Wilson's Promontory was at its most heated I attended a forum where members of the National Parks Association,
the Wilderness Society and similar organisations were generating plenty of heat in the kitchen.

I went along to a forum at Maffra at which Doug Humann was present. I had met Doug a few times previously and he is
a good bloke; it is just that we do not necessarily see eye to eye on some issues. Advising him on the management plans
was an earnest young English gentleman, whose name escapes me. He was purported to be an expert on national parks
and was against the Tidal River proposal. His analogy was that if you cut a small piece from the Mona Lisa you destroy
the whole picture; if you take a small section out of the totality you destroy it.

While listening to him speak it occurred to me that he possibly had not visited Tidal River. When I had the opportunity of
speaking I asked the chairman whether it would be appropriate to ask him that. Eventually I had the opportunity to ask
the question and he replied that he had never been to Wilsons Promontory. He was the expert who had been engaged to
come along and give the benefit of his views! He did not know that the sealed roads in Wilsons Promontory have been
there for decades. He did not know it had established street lighting, an outdoor picture theatre, a tourist information
centre and an extensive kiosk where one can buy all manner of things to sustain oneself while staying in the park. He
was unaware of the extended area of camping sites or any other infrastructure development that had been at Tidal River
for many years. I remember that the honourable member for Bundoora, the opposition spokesperson for the
environment, tabled a petition signed by 45 000 people opposed to the development of Wilsons Promontory. I wonder
how many of those 45 000 people have actually been to the Prom or know what has existed at Tidal River for a long
time.

I return to the basic point: there is an extraordinary distinction to be made between the de facto commercial zone at Tidal
River that has been there for a long time and the developments that have occurred within the broader national park.
Within that broader area are limited but nevertheless welcome additions to the facilities. At long last many of the
initiatives that had been sought by people over the years are happening in a constructive way. That includes the
completion of the great Prom walk, which has been needed for a long time. Walkers at the Prom will now be able to
enjoy facilities that walkers in New Zealand and other parts of Australia enjoy. That has never happened before at the
Prom.

The current length of the established tracks is about 170 kilometres. Additional facilities will include 15 kilometres more track, a halfway hut and commercial walks so that those who want to
enjoy the magnificence of the park but who do not have the capacity to get around freely will be able to do so because of
well-managed and appropriate facilities. More huts will be established behind Tidal River in addition to the 17 opened by
the Premier in November last year that have been booked out ever since. I am told the occupancy rate has been 98 per
cent since the huts were opened. That should answer some of the criticisms about the need for decent facilities in the
national park.

I refer to another issue that is critical from a country Victorian stance. We must ensure that although country regions that
have a natural advantage should be developed to suit their communities, they should also be properly managed. The
current management plans are producing marvellous outcomes for all concerned. I have spoken so far only about the park
but there are flow-ons to the regional community generally.

Several weeks ago I visited South Gippsland for the launch of a brochure produced by a group of about 34 people
involved in what might loosely be termed bed-and-breakfast facilities. The brochure is available in the marketplace
through tourist information centres and through Tourism Victoria. The group publishes its product in the local region to
attract tourists. They told me they are seeing the benefit of the discussions that occurred about Wilsons Prom. People are
coming into the area to go to the Prom and either staying overnight at bed-and-breakfast establishments before proceeding
down to the Prom or spending time at the Prom and then coming back to those establishments.

The townships of Leongatha, Foster and Fish Creek have all benefited from the discussion that occurred about Wilsons
Prom. It all comes back to the basic fundamental point of the minister meeting the needs imposed by change and seeking
to achieve a community-driven result that will be best for all concerned.

I urge as many people as possible to see what Wilsons Prom and Tidal River have to offer. I urge them to spend time in
the most magnificent part of Victoria.

I refer to some of the other government initiatives in sustainable development such as the Good Neighbour and Landcare
programs that have been tremendously successful in Victoria. That is probably news to many on the opposition benches.

Ms Kosky interjected.

Mr RYAN -- Yes, Landcare may well have started during the Labor government. All credit to Labor; it was a great
innovation. However, Labor did not quite know what to do with it once it got it going. Today more than 700 Landcare
groups have been established in Victoria, some of which are in urban areas. Some 47 per cent of rural property owners
are in Landcare groups around Victoria.

They are involved in tree-planting schemes and salinity issues and the forestry task force report has just been produced.
A number of other works have been undertaken through these groups.

One of the other great initiatives in which the Minister for Conservation and Land Management has been involved is the
Good Neighbour program. I spent some time with officers from the Department of Natural Resources and Environment,
which now has a new office in Maffra that was recently opened by the Deputy Premier. I spent a day in the field with
those officers and looked at some of the Good Neighbour programs. I saw the problems involving the infestation of
weeds and thorns at the headwaters of the rivers and looked at the works undertaken in concert with adjoining
landowners. The program is a brilliant success and the minister is to be applauded for her ongoing support.

The Kennett government is seen at its best in developing agricultural programs.

Over the past five years there have been many wonderful initiatives in agriculture. About $1.7 billion of investment has
gone to different areas of country Victoria and has produced many hundreds of jobs for country Victorians -- an outcome
that has seen produce, particularly from the dairy industry, increase enabling the state to do even better in sustaining its
position in export markets around the world.

I have a summary of the investments by Victorian businesses in the period from October 1992 to 30 June 1997. The
document is about 13 pages in length, but because time is short I will not go through them. I believe it is the same
document the Premier was invited to incorporate into Hansard by the Leader of the Opposition during question time some
weeks ago. I refer honourable members to the list of investments in country Victoria -- it is obligatory reading.

In passing, I refer to the $15 million investment of Australian Leather Holdings in Rosedale. It is a classic example of the
economic initiatives of the Kennett government, as outlined in the motion. The

former pine board factory at Rosedale has been empty for about 10 years. It is a monument to the past. As part of the
process of relocation and retraining personnel previously employed in the power industry in the Latrobe Valley Australian
Leather Holdings, a West Australian company, developed a magnificent project with which members should be familiar.
The government contributed more than $1 million to the establishment of this industry and the company now produces
about 1100 hides and skins a week for the spot market treated at the facility at Rosedale. Importantly, it has created 125
jobs for the local community. It is an example of the response to change and the cooperation that exists between the state
government, private enterprise and local government, which was involved in planning issues.
In so many other parts of my electorate and in other areas of country Victoria we have many examples where the
government is actively involved in pursuing developments that are a great benefit to rural communities.

The Department of State Development has a wonderful initiative for projects in country Victoria valued at more than $3
million and for the city of more than $5 million. It has established a task force which assists businesses in their many
contacts with government departments. You can imagine what a great benefit it is for a potential investor to come to a
one-stop shop, which has all the personnel in the one place and which can overcome the problems that may otherwise
involve contacting individual departments. I have personally seen the benefit of this initiative. In Yarram there were
problems with the Sunwood timber mill when it went into corporate administration with assets being sold and a
purchaser required.

The mill is an integral part of the town and I was obliged to call on the services of the Department of State Development
to ensure we could get all the players to the table and achieve an outcome that suited the future purposes of the business.

I return to an issue I made at the start of my contribution. So much of the future of country Victoria lies in the hands of
the people who live there. It is tragic if people in the community, let alone those who live in country Victoria, have to rely
on the government. That is not what is wanted. We want cooperation from all the stakeholders: state government, local
government, private enterprise and the local community to achieve the best outcomes. There are myriad examples of
opportunities throughout country Victoria. The real challenge is being prepared to dare and dream to achieve those
outcomes.

I refer now to some of those issues in my electorate.

I refer first to the establishment of a deep-water port facility in Corner Inlet. It is often referred to as a port facility at Port
Welshpool, but it is not. There is an existing village, which is a lovely place and is within the Shire of South Gippsland.
Many fine people live in the town, an established centre, particularly for fishing, commercial enterprises and recreational
activities. Esso Australia Ltd maintains significant infrastructure at Barry Beach from which it services the offshore oil
rigs, and barges and supply vessels move in and out of the beach facility. So there is quite an established facility there.

It might be that we can do something that would suit Esso's purposes and which would suit the additional and broader
purposes of establishing a deep water port at Corner Inlet. Even if that were not able to come to fruition we need to and
we have the capacity to build a deep water port on the land immediately adjacent to Esso's existing facility around the
point at Barry Beach.

This has been dreamed of and spoken about for approximately 40 years. This is the classic example of what I am
speaking about when I talk about the necessity for establishing major infrastructure development in country Victoria and
about giving best opportunities to country communities to realise their aspirations in the best possible way. That is what
this sort of development offers. By general construction standards it is not expensive. It will cost about $35 to $40
million to build. There have been impediments over the years. Those impediments are still there and they have to be
accommodated. Crucially we have the issue of the dredging, which would be necessary for ships to be able to come into
Corner Inlet from Bass Strait.

I have already had some preliminary work done on that over the past few months. In general the cost of doing that
dredging is probably in the order of $20 to $30 million.

That would give us a channel of about 130 metres in width with a draught of about 13 or 14 metres, which would permit
us to get in shipping with a capacity of about 40 000 tonnes. That dredging issue has to be contended with and that will
involve surveys being done. Gippsland ports has been very cooperative in that regard and some of the folk at the
Victorian Channels Authority have also been of assistance in that initial work.

Recently the Deputy Premier had the opportunity of coming to Port Welshpool, meeting some of the local

folk and hearing them talk about the prospect to be offered for us, and dredging was one of the initial impediments. There
is also the issue of about $8 million-worth of infrastructure that would need to be built on land.
However, we do not need it to be of a similar nature to facilities in the port of Melbourne -- it does not need to come with
all the accoutrements for handling containers and the like because in the initial stages at least that would not be what we
want to do through the port.

There are questions to do with the capacity of the road infrastructure to provide services into the area. Although we are
very well served in that sphere, nevertheless it is an issue that needs to be considered. We also have the question of who
is going to use the facility -- that is, the market, who can be identified as being the potential user for this important
development. Happily some have already been identified as being appropriate, and the leader among them is the Victorian
Plantations Corporation.

A report recently released by the Minister for Agriculture and Resources details the establishment of a committee to
oversee the future development of the minister's aspirations for the growth of the pine plantation industry in Victoria. The
minister has some wonderful things in mind. His intention is to triple our production of pine by the year 2000, and
hardwood, particularly plantation hardwood, by the year 2020. Gippsland has a great part to play in that.

However, with due respect to the minister and those advising him, there was a little bit of a slip up in the advice he was
given about Gippsland's capacity to participate in the proposal. It was said that because Gippsland does not have an
appropriate export facility, or an export facility at all, that would diminish its capacity to properly participate to our fullest
extent in what this exciting future market has to offer.

That situation is a classic example of the way we can realise our aspirations by setting ourselves in a way that will serve
our communities in the best way possible and making sure that we are not in the terrible position of underachieving in
respect of what might otherwise be available to us, with the consequent cost to our communities for the years to come,
particularly our young people.

With due respect to those who prepared the report, some of it is simply not right. The content of the report was drawn up
in part to provide the answer that everybody thought was right -- that you cannot build a deep water port at Corner Inlet.
In fact such a port can be built there, and if people want to dare to dream that they are able to do it, they will be able to do
it.

If the Victorian Plantations Corporation were able to have that facility operating it would be able to export directly
through Port Welshpool.

It is required at the moment, and will be required for the next five years, to put the major part of its product on trucks and
take it by road around to Geelong for export purposes. How stupid is that when about 20 minutes away the potential
exists to export those logs through a port at Barry Beach at Corner Inlet, adjoining Port Welshpool.

I am advised by the corporation hierarchy that it would save the corporation something in excess of $3 million a year and
would supply the port with about two shiploads of timber a week, which equates to around 40 per cent of the output
needed to go through the port to justify its existence. What a fantastic opportunity! Other people in the marketplace are
also interested in pursuing the same issue. As the honourable member for Narracan rightly says, it all produces more jobs
in the area.

Already we have the timber mill at Yarram that I have spoken of, which is consuming around 60 000 cubic metres of
timber annually. At the moment the Victorian Plantations Corporation is producing about 250 000 cubic metres of pine
through its Yarram office, a lot of which is going into export. Within five years that will be doubled. On a quiet night in
Yarram you can hear the pine growing. This is a chance that we cannot let go, and one of the fundamentals for the
proposal and its future will be the construction of a deep water port at Corner Inlet.

On 23 September Business Victoria hosted a seminar at Traralgon at which representatives of the federal government
were present, and not surprisingly they expressed interest in the development. I look forward to being able to stand in
this place over the passage of time and relate to the house the progress of what I see as a wonderful development that is
critical to the future of this Gippsland region.

In a wider sense, all the timber product from East Gippsland, much of which presently is intended to go north out of
Victoria up over the hills to Eden, should be going out through Port Welshpool.

There are plenty of enterprises in the Latrobe Valley that would be able to access the port at Port Welshpool. We have the
prospect of exporting briquettes, for example, out of the port if we are able

to get a deep water port facility constructed at Corner Inlet. That is the first area I refer to as indicating that as
parliamentarians we have a responsibility, particularly those of us who represent country Victoria, to take a lead in
developing the notion of infrastructure of this scope, participating in the community and liaising with government at all
levels to bring it to fruition. The Shire of South Gippsland has been doing a great job in this regard, particularly Cr
Janette Harding. To her great credit and that of the council Councillor Harding is in there going her hardest to bring this about. Tomorrow
representatives of the shire are coming to Parliament House for another meeting with me on this matter and other issues
of relevance. While I am on the topic of Port Welshpool, I mention that the Tasmanian government has announced that it
will run a fast ferry service to the mainland. The only thing it got wrong was deciding to send the ferry to the wrong
place -- Melbourne. People in Port Welshpool have been anxious to re-establish the ferry service that operated until late
1983 and had its own distinct market along the eastern seaboard, although it received some business from Melbourne.

We have been trying to secure the return of the ferry service to Port Welshpool from Georgetown, Tasmania. I met with
the mayor of Georgetown along with the chief executive officer and representatives of the Gippsland shire to see if we
could get the ferry service back.

The Tasmanian government has given a commitment to run the ferry, but it will go to Melbourne, not Port Welshpool. I
emphasise that that may be only temporary because if the government is prepared to consider the proposal -- and I think it
should -- it would cost only about $400 000 for dredging work on the approaches to the jetty at Port Welshpool, and next
season the ferry service could be back again.

I take the opportunity to dispel some of the terrible publicity that surrounded the operation of the Tascat, Tasmania's
current vessel, when it ran to replace the Spirit of Tasmania for two weeks in July. There was plenty of media coverage
of the problems of the vessel, but very little attention was given to the magnificent service it provided. When I went
down to the port to examine the vessel with Rob Clifford of Incat, the company that builds these vessels in Tasmania, I
saw what a magnificent structure it is. The day before my visit the vessel had come across Bass Strait averaging 42 knots
for the journey.

It made the journey in about 5.25 hours, which is an extraordinary feat. The tendency of the media was to concentrate on
the problems the vessel encountered on the second day it travelled from Tasmania when, unfortunately, 7-metre waves
ruled the day. The vessel had no problem handling them, but the passengers presented the story another way!

Incat is a good company that builds excellent vessels. The announcement about the ferry coming to Melbourne is
fantastic, but the people of Gippsland want the operator, TT Line, and the Tasmanian government to consider extending
the service to Port Welshpool. If that occurs, the visitors will certainly get a proper look at some of the most attractive
parts of Victoria.

Another development in Gippsland is the flight screening and training facility through the RAAF base at Sale.

The armed forces are examining the concept of establishing a single location where initial screening can be undertaken to
see whether applicants have the capacity to undertake a pilot course. That would take about 10 or 12 hours after which, if
the applicants had the acumen to do it, the initial flight training of 90 hours would be undertaken at the same location.
This is a huge opportunity for Gippsland.

By coordinating efforts with the Department of State Development and the Shire of Wellington under the able leadership
of the mayor, Gordon Cameron, the government has been able to bring together a group of people to accommodate the
various groups that have tendered to provide that service. There has been interest not only from within Australia but from
overseas in bringing the tender to fruition.

The initial flight screening and training would take place at Sale.

It would be a huge boost for Gippsland and would provide jobs for some 120 people, 40 of whom would be instructors
who would be paid handsome salaries. There would also be flow-on effects with the establishment of such a place in
Sale. That is another example where the Kennett government has stepped up to the mark and provided assistance, albeit
on an in-kind basis. If we can get out of the nitty-gritty of this week I hope the government can make a real financial
contribution towards attracting these people into the marketplace. The flight screening and training facility is one of a raft
of developments occurring in my electorate at present and follows behind many others that have occurred over the past
five years and were born out of the fundamental principle that change is upon us. Change began in the days when the
stump-jump plough was first used in a field in Victoria. Fifteen years ago there were probably some 23 000 dairy cattle in
Victoria. There are now about 8000, and they provide 20 per cent more milk than the 23 000 did. In the educational sphere, small country Victorian schools have satellite dishes on their roofs. At primary
schools like the one at Seaspray children in years 2 and 3 are learning the Indonesian language. That is fantastic: it was
not even dreamed about 10 years ago, let alone 20 years ago.

When people examine the community structure throughout rural Victoria they see what makes up those communities and
also the ever-present issue of change. The government's responsibility is to provide the appropriate infrastructure support
and services on the basis of small -- not intrusive -- government doing what it must to look after the young and the
disadvantaged; at all times to have policies that accommodate people in need and to pay due regard to its various
community service obligations. It is encouraging to see they have almost doubled since the Kennett government came to
power in 1992.

All those things are integral to the maintenance, support and ongoing development of country communities because they
are the backbone of this state. It is my completely unbiased view that country communities make a magnificent
contribution to the state, and through Parliament the government must provide a forum in which the dreams and
aspirations of those people can be realised.

I have never been into negative politics, and today I have refrained from spending time berating the government's
immediate predecessors because there is no real benefit in doing that when it comes to this important issue. If the
government wants country Victoria to realise what it can achieve, it must look at the issue of change and what the future
has to offer to us and to our children. It must recognise its responsibilities to provide the resources for people who live in
country communities and have dreams and aspirations.

The government has that responsibility, whether it be in regard to the recent difficult times in Gippsland because of the
drought and the unseasonal conditions or in policing, community services, education, commercial development, care of
the disadvantaged or the provision of housing. The house should congratulate the government on the many initiatives it
has pursued to encourage economic development in country Victoria.

Debate interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.

Sitting suspended 1.00 p.m. until 2.04 p.m.

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