LAWRENCE, Mr Vernon, Chief Executive Officer, Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley and Kimberley Regional Group MENZEL, Mr David, President, Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley; and Chair, Kimberley Regional Group ACTING CHAIR: It now gives me great pleasure to welcome witnesses representing the Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley and the Kimberley Regional Group here in person. I understand that information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses giving evidence to committees has been provided to you both. I'm going to give you both the opportunity to make an opening statement. The floor is yours. Tell us everything you want us to know. This is your opportunity to help us shape a report. I will quickly apologise for our chair, Marion Scrymgour, who is on her way from the airport now. When you see me shuffle a seat further to the right, I'm not trying to escape; I'll be giving the chair back to the chair. Mr Menzel : Thanks for the opportunity to present. I have a brief one here, which will set some context. Thanks for the opportunity to appear on behalf of the local government of the Kimberley. It's the most significant strategic region in Australia, we believe, with abundant renewable energy resources, nationally important critical minerals precincts, access to ample water and proximity to Asian markets. We have very strong First Nations leadership in the Kimberley, and land ownership is determined over more than 90 per cent of the Kimberley region. The opportunity is clear: the Kimberley can play a material role in Australia's economic diversification, energy transition and national resilience. However, the constraint is not ambition; it's delivery. Emerging industries in the Kimberley are being held back by structural barriers. These include inadequate enabling infrastructure; workforce shortages and housing constraints; the high cost of construction and service delivery; fragmented funding and policy settings; and, most importantly, a lack of coordinated place based planning. Local governments sit at the centre of this challenge. We're not only service providers; we're enablers of industry. We provide infrastructure, livability and coordination that make investment viable in remote Australia, but the current system doesn't align responsibility with capacity. If Australia is serious about developing northern Australia, we need a shift from reactive, project-by-project funding to coordinated, supply-side investment, where infrastructure, housing, workforce and services are delivered ahead of demand. We also need to recognise that First Nations participation is not optional; it is fundamental. Economic development in the Kimberley must be built on partnerships, ownership and long-term benefit for traditional owners. Finally, there are some other risks that we must address urgently, including a totally dysfunctional insurance market, inadequate disaster resilience funding, biosecurity exposure, and uncertainty around the Kimberley DAMA. Without intervention, these will constrain investment and undermine national objectives. Local governments are ready to partner with all levels of government to deliver outcomes. What we need is policy, funding and accountability aligned to the realities of remote Australia. Thank you. ACTING CHAIR: Thanks, David. Vernon, did you wish to add anything? Mr Lawrence : No, Mr Chair. Shire President Menzel has said everything that I need to say, basically. ACTING CHAIR: Forgive me. We are in the Kimberley—the greatest place in the greatest country in the world—and we are very informal up here. I should say 'shire president' and 'CEO', but let's talk how we normally do, anyway. I said when you walked in, David, that your ears might be burning. I just want to get on the Hansard what we were talking about earlier with Dan from ORDCO. I'm not blowing wind up the backside of you gentlemen: the shire has done great work, with its many hats on—the Kimberley development hats and the regional development hats—coming to Canberra. Over the last two years, I've seen the greatest input coming from the four shires speaking as one for the Kimberley. Like you, I get frustrated when I hear certain leaders in certain portfolios in Canberra talk about this being Asia's food bowl. Quite frankly, I'm sick of hearing that sort of nonsense talk down in Perth, because we could be a damn good delicatessen, if Canberra could get its act together and start talking about housing, Indigenous employment, roads and everything else that goes with it. Sadly, that's lacking, and it has been lacking in the 21 years that I've been in the Senate. Under this committee, where we talk about emerging industries—I'm on my gospel, here; I'm going to have a real play-up here, because I'm the boss at the moment, until Marion gets here—it's now time to say: enough talking about what we can do; let's roll our sleeves up and get the bureaucracy to start listening and start implementing what we need up here, for crying out loud. I'm someone who's proudly spent two-thirds of their life running through this region. We're seeing growth and we're seeing things move, but, by crikey, if you want to see glacial examples of how slowly the wheels of government can turn, just come to the Kimberley, unfortunately—not through any fault of your own. I'll flick over to Senator Smith in a moment, who'll be a lot more circumspect than I am. As I said earlier on, I've been coming up here all these years. There's a massive big thing of water sitting out there, and we don't even talk about the Dunham Pilot Dam when we google, 'How much water goes down the Ord?' I still don't get that, when we talk about irrigation, energy and environmental water. What do we need to do to get the appropriate government agencies here to actually pull their finger out? If we could clear plots of land for Ord stage 2, 12 to 14 years ago, what the hell do we need to do to get the other plots of land so we can start developing that to grow the same stuff that's being grown next door, for crying out loud, and start adding value to the emerging industries you've got here? It's your time to have a rant, Shire President, but I know you'll be a lot more balanced. Mr Menzel : Thank you. Senator. I probably do need to say a couple of little thankyous. We actually did get something happening with stage 2. It's probably been a slightly slower rollout than we'd all have liked, but it is happening. To your point, we still seem to determine Australia's policies, if I could be so rude as to say so, based on the needs of the rust belt states of the south-east, and we don't recognise that we're actually looking north. We're fortunate here that we sit inside a Commonwealth that has those good, sound foundations, but our opportunities here are to the north, not to the south. Hopefully, we'll get the support we need from the south, but it's probably more of a constraint because things are so focused on the south. I think it goes to allowing more place based decision-making and taking more regard to the needs of those remote communities. As I said in my opening statement, we do need to actually facilitate things to happen here. We're in such an infrastructure deficit here. We've got a bridge, over at the side of our town here, which can basically limit the size of anything that moves across the north of Australia. It's Highway 1, but it's got a gantry sitting on it. We've got a bridge that's limited in width and capacity, and that's our diversion dam. So some of that infrastructure is just not fit for purpose. I think the Northern Australia Agenda is a really good start, but we seem to have a lot of difficulties in actually committing it and giving people confidence that that agenda is going to transform the north—and what transforming it even means is probably not that well defined. ACTING CHAIR: Vernon, do you wish to add anything? Mr Lawrence : Yes, if I can. ACTING CHAIR: Jump in. We're pretty informal. Mr Lawrence : We seem to suffer from metrocentric thinking and priorities up here. A lot of the funding programs that local governments have access to are competitive. The guidelines suit metro areas more than they do regional and remote areas. So there needs to be some form of change so that the north of Australia has access to a bigger pool of funds that are more tailored towards the needs that local government can get involved in. For example, in the first round of the Growing Regions Program, we understood that there were about 800 applicants to that program, and only 40 were successful. We were lucky that we were one of those, but that level of competition for funding for infrastructure in remote areas makes it extremely difficult for us to get on the front foot and deliver the infrastructure that economies can be built on. While we've been very lucky, we certainly know that there are neighbouring regions that don't have the resources that we have to apply for those funds. The whole structure will fall down unless we have coordinated development right across the north. ACTING CHAIR: Yes. Thanks, Vernon. I think I should clarify this for the department, who may be listening in. Do you know what I mean? I haven't lost my marbles, but, quite simply, there has been a lot of good work going on in the Kimberley in the last couple of years. I tilt my hat to the infrastructure around roads. There is a long, long way to go, but we're making some great inroads. Unfortunately, it took the loss of the Fitzroy River bridge to put us into the forefront of the decision-making. There's been some good stuff on the first port of entry. We'd all love that to be quicker. We can't stop. There is a lot more to do. I just clarify that so the boffins don't go out there and freak out at the coffee machine at smoko. David? Mr Menzel : Senator, thank you. I just note that I think there's a bit of confusion within Australia and maybe within the Kimberley as well. We saw the water use report on the Fitzroy catchment released finally to the public. With that massive river—which I don't think anyone really understands the size of, especially if they haven't visited or lived in the Kimberley—we've found that there is literally half a bucketful of spare water there. We've just gone down this pathway—and I understand this—where traditional landowners and members of the community have a particular view, where we've just decided that we're almost going to lock up the potential of that water resource into natural beauty. Because we're so remote there is a lack of clarity about whether we want any economic development in the Kimberley or whether we want it as a pristine national park. To me, it's that lack of clarity that makes it so tricky to make decisions. We don't have a goal in mind, so we've got no idea what our decisions are trying to achieve. And when I say 'our decisions', probably our decisions are less important than those of others who live 3,000 kilometres from us. We see frustration that there's some limited decision-making about economic development in the East Kimberley, which is distinctly different to Central and West Kimberley, where it seems more focused on protecting the natural environment as it is at whatever point of time you want to decide it is. ACTING CHAIR: That's a good point you raise—so we're talking about water going down the Fitzroy? Mr Menzel : Yes. The fact is we've got enough water there to take bridges out, but we haven't got enough water there to reserve a small portion for some economic development. My point is that there's not much difference between Kununurra and Fitzroy. Fitzroy is a much older town. It's been there a lot longer. It lives on a bigger river, but they don't have access to the water. Kununurra is a new town built because we have access to a small—I think the irrigators take somewhere around three per cent to five per cent of the water out of the catchment. So we maybe have a bit more of a focus in East Kimberley compared to Central Kimberley. That lack of a goal, lack of a direction manifests itself in so much of the decision-making about the region in which we live. ACTING CHAIR: David, while we're on a roll, I'm provided every week, through one of the pastoralists down there in the valley—you probably know who that is; he's a damned good man, and I'm sure Senator Smith knows who I'm talking about. Anyway Phil Hams sends this through to me all the time, and I appreciate that. Phil's latest email that I received—was it today? Yes, 5.09 this morning. To date this year, through the gauges at Dimond Gorge, Margaret Gorge, Mount Krauss, Fitzroy, Christmas Creek, Noonkanbah, Fitzroy Barrage and Willare, the equivalent of 12 cubic kilometres of water has gone through. Twelve cubic kilometres. Mr Menzel : I don't understand what that looks like, but it sounds very large! ACTING CHAIR: Normally when I talk to Phil, I have to say, 'Phil, put it in Olympic swimming pools for me, because I'll get that.' So now he's progressed it to cubic kilometres, which is just absolutely frightening. And none of that is retained in station storage to use as cattle fodder or irrigation water. No local jobs are created in farming or cattle feed lotting et cetera along the river system. You started that; I just thought I'd throw that in. Thank you, shire president! Mr Menzel : Thank you. ACTING CHAIR: It should give people a lot of food for thought. Imagine what we could do with it! I have to confess I'm a fan of Ernie Bridge. It was 40 years ago when Ernie first brought that plan out, and to this day that man was before his time. Senator Smith, would you like to have a go? Senator DEAN SMITH: Thank you very much. I would just add my congratulations to the remarks made by Senator Sterle about the success the four Kimberley shires have had in recent years in their advocacy. Can you give us an update on a number of road projects? Can you give us an update with regard to the Tanami Road, but also share with the committee the importance of advocacy around the Diversion Dam and the importance of that as a freight network, as a tourist network et cetera? What might the estimated cost be? What does the advocacy look like at the moment? What are some of the impediments to realising that particular project? Mr Lawrence : As far as the Tanami Road goes, it's the second year of really intense work going on there. They have completed sealing through the hills, and they are now getting into the flatland, where it will go a hang of a lot faster. There's something like 40 to 50 kilometres that should be complete by the time we get to the end of this dry season. So that project is going really, really well. My understanding is that there's a high number of Indigenous locals who are employed in delivering that infrastructure, which has made a huge impact on some of those families, in particular down in Halls Creek. That's very, very encouraging. As far as the diversion dam goes, I think I'll hand over to the shire president. He's a lot closer to that story than I am. Mr Menzel : The diversion dam provides the only access across the Ord River. It is Highway 1. Being a dam wall owned by a water corporation, a state trading entity, with a road on top, I'm not sure of the exact ownership, but it's very complicated. There have been preworks done on a proposed second crossing—a bridge. That was done at least a decade ago, so quite a bit of the geotech has been done to link further downstream, over the unregulated part of the river below the dam. If we talk ballpark figures, it's always been around a $300 million to $400 million project, which probably means $400 million to $500 million. That possibly includes a bypass for the town as well. ACTING CHAIR: Is that Ivanhoe? Mr Menzel : No, it's— ACTING CHAIR: North of Ivanhoe? Mr Menzel : River Farm Road. It's Mills Road—from the co-op, across Mills Road and across there—and it links up out over the hills. The issue I've always had is that I'm not ignorant of the fact that, if I go to Canberra advocating for $400 million or $500 million to build a bridge—as necessary as that may be for the greater good of Highway 1 and Australia as a nation—I'm probably going to see very little other money for quite a significant amount of time. So, as a local representative, I struggle with advocating for that. But I do understand that, if the Army or the defence forces want to access the other side of the river, they're in a bit of trouble at the moment, because of the limitations that are there. I'm sure it will require a strategic decision to replace that. Or, as I keep pointing out to our water corporation executives, they could make the decision. Because they do so much work on that bridge through the dry season, I've suggested that maybe their work health and safety requirements might mean removing traffic while they're working on the bridge. So, if they were to come up with a proposal to shut the traffic during working hours from eight in the morning till four in the afternoon for six months of the year, it may stimulate a discussion about an alternative crossing. But that's being a bit facetious. We'd love to see it happen, but we don't want to wear the pain in all our other bits of infrastructure that are missing or in poor repair here, which goes, again, to the point that one of our biggest problems in a remote region is sustainability of local government. I know that's for another committee based in Canberra. We have so many assets and such as small rate base that we cannot sustainably maintain the assets that we've got, let alone fund and build the assets that we require to bring us up to a reasonable standard of assets across our region. Again, I know that this local government sustainability issue is not your responsibility, but it is fundamental to the way we operate. We can't generate the funds to maintain some of our old assets. With a good CEO in hand, we can advocate for new assets and put together a funding model that will sustain them into the future. But many of our roads and that are well and truly due for a significant amount of funding, which we're struggling to achieve the required levels of. ACTING CHAIR: I'd encourage you to tell us all this too, because the beauty of it is that this is the committee for northern Australia. It's not specific just to, say, infrastructure or health. We'll capture everything. Mr Menzel : My CEO can blow his own trumpet! But he has done a significant body of work on local government sustainability with both the federal assistance grants funding models, which we don't think are fit for purpose, and the State Grants Commission, which applies a whole lot of mathematical and not even mathematical, subjective and objective criteria to the federal assistance grants. We find it hard to believe, where some local governments can be banking tens of millions of dollars of surpluses in the year. They would typically be a metropolitan-type councils or cities with large ratepayer bases, whereas I would suggest that, across the north of Australia, across the three jurisdictions, you would find many local governments that don't generate enough funds to sustainably maintain the assets they have, let alone consider improving the liveability for the populations they're responsible for. ACTING CHAIR: I'd encourage you to share that, absolutely. Mr Lawrence : I can put a couple of numbers around that, if it helps. On our road network, at this point in time we have what's known as a renewal gap. Those are renewals of approximately $50 million that we haven't done on our road network, which represents possibly one-third of our road network. Our road network is, with the new transport methodology, running quads, as opposed to 50 years ago, when axle loading was a hell of a lot less. Our roads aren't fit for purpose. Finding $50 million to upgrade them is an impossible task for us. ACTING CHAIR: Vernon, for the purposes of Hansard, we're talking about coming out of Ridges mine up to the port, on the Great Northern Highway. Mr Lawrence : Yes. That would be a main road, but they will go on local roads as they go through the port in Wyndham. On those local roads, there are issues that we just don't have the funding to be able to address. ACTING CHAIR: Good. I wanted you to differentiate that. Mr Menzel : Just for clarity, we have Boab Metals preparing their smaller mine site out at Weaber Plain Road at the moment. I think the initial proposals may only be in the order of 100,000 tonnes plus of freight per year in the first year or two, but that will be on local government roads to access highway No. 1, ultimately, once they get into town here. Although some funding models are unfortunately another hit on new businesses trying to establish, there will be a charge the local government will make to them on their haulage campaign to help maintain or improve some of the roads that they will be utilising. But it still leaves us with a large deficit on our local government road network. ACTING CHAIR: Absolutely. Is there anything you wish to share as examples? Mr Lawrence : As a fair comparison—in Western Australia, if you look at our average rate per rateable property up here in the Kimberley, it's around $4,000 a year. In the metro of Perth, it's about $1,600. Our ratepayers pay a lot more up here for what they get. The renewal burden per ratepayer up here in the Kimberley is about 2½ thousand dollars per rateable property. That's what we need to get from ratepayers to look after our assets. That equivalent figure down in the metros in Perth is around $600. We've got between four and five times the burden of looking after assets per rateable property than the metros have. In the funding mechanism that relates to roads that come through the Financial Assistance Grants, there's no recognition of ability to raise funds. It works purely on what your asset base is, and funds are distributed on that basis. We don't generate surpluses on an annual basis; some of the metros generate significant surpluses. But where we will get a road component of around $2 million a year, some of the metros are getting three to four times that amount. We believe it's an equity argument more than anything else. ACTING CHAIR: I think it's a fair argument—a more than fair argument. And it's not only that; it's the cost of doing business up here, which you made very clear in your opening statement, Mr Menzel, before we start talking about the challenges of finding somewhere to house people. Mr Lawrence : Again, to put some figures around that, with our capital works program at the moment, we're getting the quotes back where—they itemise the quote as the cost of constructing the assets in Perth, as opposed to here. So they add on a regional loading, and that regional loading can mean it is anywhere between 70 per cent and 100 per cent more expensive to do business up here in the Kimberley. ACTING CHAIR: Sorry, Senator Smith; I cut in on you. I apologise. Senator DEAN SMITH: That's quite okay. Staying with the reform idea around funding for local governments, how do you progress that? What is the mechanism through which that would be progressed, and how far have you been able to progress it thus far? Mr Lawrence : We've been in Canberra a number of times over the last four to five years and discussed it. I have to say that the conversation has gone from, 'We don't see a problem that needs to be fixed,' to, 'Maybe there is a problem that does need to be fixed.' So there's certainly a recognition in Canberra, I think, that there is an issue that needs to be fixed. There are two aspects to it. On the federal legislation that governs financial assistance grants, there needs to be a little bit more flexibility. I don't believe that the quantum of funds needs to be increased; I just think that the methodology of distribution needs to change. I don't see that it's going to be a huge impost on the federal budget to correct this. If the methodology that allows the states a little bit more flexibility on how the funds are divided up between local governments—then I certainly believe that the problem can be substantially addressed. Senator DEAN SMITH: So the flexibility is provided to the states, which then have some freedom around the allocation of those funds between local governments within that jurisdiction? Mr Lawrence : Yes. At the moment, the financial assistance grants are divided into two sections, essentially: your general purpose grant and your roads aspect. Your general purpose grant states that a minimum of 30 per cent has to be paid based on population. So your big population areas will get a minimum amount of funding. We're suggesting maybe a bit of flexibility in that. Instead of 30 per cent, make it a range of between 10 and 30 per cent. That should be a fairly easy fix. That will give the states a bit more flexibility in distributing their funds. The road aspect has no minimum grant criteria attached to it, as I mentioned earlier, so, the greater your infrastructure, the more funding you'll get. A fairly wealthy metropolitan local government that's generating significant surpluses and that has a big road network will get far more funding than a regional or remote local government. The metro will have a lot more ability to generate funds in order to look after that road network. So having some criteria around a minimum grant on the road side of things would be helpful as well. Some modelling that we did internally found that, if they took the minimum grant down to 10 per cent and had a minimum grant criteria on the roads aspect, our local government would receive approximately $1.8 million of additional funds without changing the pool of funds. On that basis, we thought that was entirely reasonable. Senator DEAN SMITH: Is your proposition one that's been socialised with other regional local governments across Western Australia? Mr Lawrence : Certainly across the Kimberley—but we haven't gone and advocated with other local governments across Australia on that aspect as yet. Senator STERLE: I think you're all going to be in the same ballpark—in the same field. Mr Menzel : Senators, if I could—and welcome, Chair; thank you, and welcome to Kununurra. CHAIR ( Ms Scrymgour ): Thank you—sorry for being late. Mr Menzel : That's okay. I'm sure it was beyond your control. CHAIR: Yes. Mr Menzel : If I could, to that point, it is hard to socialise this proposal to rejig local government funding, because each angle you take generates—let's call them 'enemies'. With our— Senator DEAN SMITH: We had that about GST distribution once upon a time as well. The enemies are still there, but we were able to secure an outcome. Mr Menzel : I think, at a local government and state representative level, we're impacting on people's bank accounts. If we take the argument to the federal level and say—as my CEO has said—that it is not necessary to increase the quantum, then, at a state level, we're going to impact on the distribution. Some win and some lose, so that one doesn't fly too well locally. If we go to the federal level, I'm sure you've heard our national representative body— CHAIR: ALGA. Mr Menzel : talk about a one per cent increase for all local governments. With hand on heart and a clear conscience, I just can't agree with that, because I think—ultimately, this is taxpayers' money, through the federal government, that's being given out, and I can't see how you can justify a one per cent increase for everyone. There are some that need more than others. So it's a tightrope. It's a policy decision that needs to be 'bipartisan', for want of a better word. Mr Lawrence : If I could just add one other aspect, I mentioned a little earlier that the funding to local government is an equity issue. The current arrangements purport to be equitable, but they're certainly not. If you take local governments across different states, over here in WA your average regional or remote local government will get around $800 per capita in financial assistance grants. If you go through to the Northern Territory, that drops— CHAIR: Even more. Mr Lawrence : quite significantly to about $250 per capita. If you go into New South Wales, regional and remote local governments there get about $1,800 per capita out of financial assistance grants. That's purely because of the way the grants are structured, the way they have to distribute it. CHAIR: Population versus need. Mr Lawrence : Yes. In Queensland, I have a member of staff that lives over in Cooktown, and his local government demographic is pretty much the same as ours over here in the Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley. We get about $4½ million in financial assistance grants a year, and they get in excess of $12 million. We're very, very similar population wise, infrastructure wise—all of that sort of thing. So the equity certainly isn't there. CHAIR: 'Population versus need' has, for a long time, been an issue that local governments have been trying to get successive governments to have a look at. But you were saying that that situation—the population is still the same. If you were to compare apples with oranges—it's the same. Mr Lawrence : As I say, it's in the distribution methodology. Queensland has a much bigger population than Western Australia, and, because of the minimum-grant criterion, the city of Brisbane will get a minimum grant. So there's a bigger pool of funds to be able to distribute to the regions. In WA, Perth doesn't have a huge population compared to a Sydney or a Melbourne or a Brisbane, so the pool of funds that is available to distribute to the regions is a lot smaller. That gives rise to the inequity. CHAIR: But the need is— Mr Lawrence : The needs are exactly the same. The needs are there, but the funding mechanism to alleviate those needs is not. CHAIR: But, when you look at the equalisation and at the equity in that distribution, would you say that the need in Western Australia, when you look at the region, is different from Western Sydney or Cooktown? Do you reckon that's on par or the same, or would the need be greater? Mr Lawrence : I think the need is greater, mainly because our population is so much smaller and our ability to raise our own funds is significantly reduced. So the need in the regions is much, much more. If you've got a local government that's got a population base of 200,000, you can raise funds and your grant distribution is significantly larger than your population base is. Ours is only 8,000 people, so it is very, very different in the equity basis. Senator STERLE: What we heard earlier on was that there are certain local government councils that are banking huge amounts of money while the regions are struggling to even meet their own budget requirements. CHAIR: Thank you. Any further questions, Senator Smith? Senator DEAN SMITH: You mentioned the dysfunctional insurance market in your opening remarks. Your submission does propose a pathway, and that's the RDA Kimberley insurance report of last year. We can ask RDA this later in the week, but how have the four Kimberley shires used their Canberra based connections to advocate for insurance market reforms? Mr Menzel : I'm not convinced we've done that well yet. The key piece of work was getting that RDA work, and that's been a wonderful piece of work for the four shires here in the Kimberley and probably reflects some commonality across northern Australia, if not more widely. Again, we probably haven't got to the level of advocacy that we would like. Trying to identify which of the pathways for advocacy might make a difference is quite difficult as well. This is one of those pathways. If we can't make good conditions here and the livability is not good enough, all our employees will be based somewhere else and we'll just fly people in, which we do more and more of, because housing is so impossibly difficult to find and afford or construct. So, as a local government, we've got to focus on the livability side and on advocacy for anything that might improve that. CHAIR: Senator Sterle? Senator STERLE: No, it's been quite exhaustive actually. We did touch on emerging industries as well. What we have heard, Chair, is that there is the opportunity here in Kununurra, particularly—before we get down further down the valley in the central Kimberley—if we could encourage government agencies to do their work in a fair amount of time, rather than keep stretching out what we have. Please jump in to correct me, Shire President or CEO. We have land that is here if we could get the work done quicker, not in the nine or 10 years it's taken so far. We have people who are very keen to work that land, with the add-on or flow-on effect that it could bring to other industries here in the Kimberley, particularly the cotton and corn and food production, with fertiliser coming in and getting across to the port. If we could make sure of the first port of entry stuff and increase that—or not increase it but get it here quicker—then, all of a sudden, this part of the world will start rolling around and enjoying some of the common wealth within the Commonwealth. Is that a way of putting it? Mr Menzel : Yes. Senator STERLE: Something like that. CHAIR: I do apologise for being late. What have been some of the impediments? Either Mr Menzel or Mr Lawrence can answer. You talk about the emerging industries, Senator Sterle. Are there impediments in terms of land? If we talk about emerging industries and other opportunities, are there impediments to land release or opportunities to do that? Mr Menzel : I think it takes an extremely high level of resilience to battle your way through the challenges here. That might be the build-up prior to the wet season, or it might be enjoying working with all our decision-makers through the dry season. I'm not sure which one's worse. CHAIR: I've lived and worked in rural for a long time, so those challenges wouldn't be surprising. But, if you want to articulate— Mr Menzel : Yes. I've got some key messages here. A lot of what we've got is not funding gaps; it's coordination problems. CHAIR: Is that with governments? Mr Menzel : It's with key decision-makers, I guess, as to what we, as a nation, want the Kimberley to look like. I'm primarily concerned with the Kimberley until we start talking northern Australia; I think we have another level of commonality across that. With the release of the water study for the Fitzroy Valley, as we spoke about earlier, we're not sure if we want the Kimberley to be a national park or if we want it to generate economic wealth. That's a fundamental philosophical problem that makes it difficult to get alignment. There are four shires of the Kimberley, and I'm representing them. After many years of advocacy, we managed to get the Tanami listed as a project that needs doing. It's amazing what you can do if you have a clear goal in front of you. You don't need a lot of government support when you have a clear goal and some clear pathways. To return to my other key messages—and I realise we'll have other presentations—local government can be and is a critical delivery partner, but it is underrecognised and absolutely underfunded. Infrastructure in the north needs to precede industry often. 'Build it and they will come' is another great philosophical argument that we could spend a lot of time on. The business case for the Tanami was that you need to actually get a fit-for-purpose road there so you can shift animals, people, critical minerals—whatever it is. You need a road that derisks. Most of the mining in Australia sits beside a bitumen road. You've got that 900 kilometres of dirt road down there, which presents just about anything other than—some people in the room may have moved some gold out of there in the past. It's very limiting not having that basic foundational infrastructure. Workforce and housing have become our primary constraints, and we're struggling. In fairness to our federal housing minister, the last time we were in a room with her—she always makes time to see us, the Kimberley, when we're there, so credit to her—we went through all the programs and she said, 'I just can't see anything that fits the needs of the Kimberley.' It was one of the most refreshing things we heard on our last trip to Canberra, because it was honest. Insurance and resilience are emerging as economic risks, not just social issues. I believe friends in Broome might be paying around $14,000 or $15,000 a year annually on rental of a private house. It takes a good wage to make that affordable. The other point is that, with over 90 per cent of the Kimberley being native title determined, First Nations participation is central to success in the Kimberley. It's not a peripheral or a value-add. Our ask for the Commonwealth, if I could be so bold, is for it to adopt a more place based northern Australia delivery model so that we're actually engaging with the people and making the decisions based on the needs of the people, rather than having something that, as I said earlier, may suit the south-east rust belt or the needs of those living down in the temperate southern climates. Funding infrastructure and enabling infrastructure ahead of demand—and I will give our state government some credit; the roadworks that are happening across the Kimberley are certainly building that Highway 1. Our state treasurer has been very good at funding that program of work so that we can eventually get the last of the one-way bridges on our nation's Highway 1 removed. It's taken a long time. I think Federation was quite a while ago, so we've been working on it for a while, but we will get rid of those one-way bridges. On the reform to local government funding, as we mentioned and into which my CEO went in depth, we do need some support in the Kimberley on a housing pipeline and workforce programs. The insurance market failure if the place is not affordable or liveable—we're really struggling. The next one was to retain Kimberly-specific migration settings through the DAMA. I've been an employer of lots of backpackers and overseas workers over 30 years. The DAMA was a clear pathway to actually build a workforce in our community, and that is being folded into a state DAMA. For the life of me, I don't get why we need a state DAMA. Obviously, there are some fundamental problems with immigration policies if we need a yet another way of getting workers into the country. I was working on the Northern Australia Agenda when the NAIF was first proposed. Gosh, we had some dreams and aspirations back then—until the bankers got involved and the risk people got involved. NAIF can be a useful tool, but it's really targeted at two bigger projects for us. Some way of getting funding out with less risk to the person requiring the funds—a small loans program. Sorry, that was a bit long, but those are probably the main points of what we see as helping us prepare for the future in the Kimberley. CHAIR: Thank you. Senator Smith, do you have anything further? Senator DEAN SMITH: In speaking to people around Kununurra in the last few days, when the housing issue has been raised, they also raise the issue of land availability for residential and business purposes. Can you give us the shire's perspective on the issue of land availability? Mr Menzel : I'll be happy for the CEO to make a start on that. If there's something he can't say that he'd like me to, I'm happy to finish. Mr Lawrence : I'm happy to answer that. Our local government area is 121,000 square kilometres, so it's a huge area. Land that we've got available to develop housing on is 5,000 square metres. By November of this year, that will be developed on, and we will have no further land on which, as a local government, we can address any housing issues. The housing that we need to attract people to stay in our shire for the long term is rural-residential-type housing, not your medium density as you have in the metros. We have no land that's available to us to do that at this point in time. If I had 200 one-hectare blocks to sell, I would sell those by Friday and people would be building on them. There just is no land to develop, so much so that, when a block of rural residential land gets on the market, it doesn't even get advertised. It gets sold by word of mouth in town. So, yes, we desperately need land available to develop. Senator DEAN SMITH: So you have 121,000 square kilometres, of which only 5,000 square kilometres is available? Mr Lawrence : No, it is 5,000 square metres—half a hectare. Senator DEAN SMITH: That's right. When we walk out of this room—and many of us would have flown here—we can see that there's no shortage of physical land. Mr Lawrence : There is no shortage. Senator DEAN SMITH: So what is the problem? For the committee, could you explain how land becomes available? What are the delays to land becoming available? Mr Lawrence : Most of the land is state owned, and land that the shire controls is reserved land, which has got a purpose. If the purpose is not for development—if it's for recreation, tourism or the like—we can't develop it for housing. So access to land that's suitable for housing and zoned correctly—there is no land available to the shire on a freehold basis within a reasonable commuting distance of town. There is legislation where we can request that the state make land available. We're not quite sure of the mechanism they use for pricing, but, generally speaking, the state policies around the development of land tend to be metrocentric. Land can be made available for medium density, not necessarily rural residential. So we haven't been able to succeed in advocating for rural residential land. At the moment, we're going through a land-planning strategy process where we've tried to identify some land in that process. Hopefully, that will lead to some, some opportunities down the line, but, at the moment, there is no land available for us. Senator DEAN SMITH: Would you characterise this issue as the most urgent issue when we think about emerging industries? If there's no place for a new, growing business or emerging industry to physically base itself in and around Kununurra, that is surely the most significant impediment. Mr Lawrence : It is. We don't have any industrial land around Kununurra that's suitable for emerging businesses— Senator DEAN SMITH: But you could have— Mr Lawrence : We could have. Senator DEAN SMITH: if the WA state government were responsive in responding to what sounds like you going through a shire planning process. When that's done, you would hope that the Western Australian government would be super, super responsive in making land available, because how can you get additional workforce if there's no housing, and there's no housing because there's no land available? Mr Lawrence : Yes, that's part of it. There are also other complications in the infrastructure side of things such as access to sewerage and water. Senator DEAN SMITH: Western Australia has been receiving billions of dollars in additional GST revenues. If I were to drive around Kununurra, what could I look at, what could I point to, to demonstrate that those GST windfalls that Western Australia is receiving are reaching residents and businesses in Kununurra? What would you point me to? Mr Menzel : The train line doesn't stretch this far. Senator DEAN SMITH: The GST train line doesn't stretch this far. The GST rainbow with a pot of gold at the end of it doesn't stretch to Kununurra. Mr Menzel : We don't particularly see that benefit from it, no. We have a significant concern about our wastewater treatment plant in our two towns in our shire—Kununurra and Wyndham—and its capacity to deal with any growth. We have some land with our state agency that hasn't got buildings on it, and they're trying to get buildings on it. We're very unclear but are making inquiries as to what the true constraint is with regard to wastewater treatment capacity. So there are these infrastructure constraints. We have extraordinarily high electricity costs here. It goes to the fact that we are the beneficiaries of a hydro plant. We've been 95 to 96 per cent renewable in our shire on electricity through our hydro plant since, I think, around 1996. So we've had 30 years of hydro here. I would argue that, other than feeling good about it, it's potentially taken business out of the town because it's such a free and easy electricity source. It's taken businesses out of the town with regard to if it were any other form—as in diesel or anything. But we don't see the benefit, because we sit inside state based tariffs. Again, we pay the extra as we're a long way from civilisation, but we don't always get the local benefits from our comparative advantage, which is the hydro station upstream of us. So there are all these factors that play into the difficulties of maintaining a high level of liveability in our shire. Senator DEAN SMITH: I may have overlooked it, but I didn't see anything in your submission that addressed the land availability issue. Perhaps on notice you could provide us some additional information about what those state based processes are that need to be gone through in order to make land available. CHAIR: For the purposes of that, Senator Smith, if you're asking two witnesses to provide further information, can you just frame that so that we can then— Senator DEAN SMITH: Yes. Could you provide to the committee some additional information on the Western Australian state based process that is necessary to go through to make land available across your shire. What might be the impediments to the Western Australian state government approving the release of additional land for residential housing and business/industrial purposes? And provide us with some information about the shire's planning process in advance of that WA state regulatory process. Mr Menzel : Thank you, Senator Smith. I'll ensure the CEO does that for me! CHAIR: I'll just add to that as well about the Western Australia state government. What work is being done between the Western Australia state government and your peak body for Western Australia local governments, WALGA? I had asked a previous question about some impediments and challenges to land and land release. So your peak organisation would be—what role is played there with the WA state government in terms of planning for infrastructure and servicing those lots? If there is land availability, what's the outcome of that? Could you provide that. Mr Menzel, I'm not asking you to say it now, but, if you're willing to take that on notice, that would be good. Mr Lawrence, is that okay to take on notice? Mr Lawrence : Yes, Madam Chair, I'm very happy to take that on notice and address that. CHAIR: Thank you. There's nothing further. Thank you for your evidence today, and I'm sorry that I did miss a lot of it, but I came in at the right end, with the discussion of population versus need. The committee has agreed that any responses to questions on notice should be provided within two weeks. The committee secretariat will write to you outlining what Senator Smith asked and the addition to that. Could you respond back to the committee within two weeks of receiving a copy of the Hansard transcript. I thank you for giving your evidence today. Proceedings suspended from 11:32 to 11:48 .