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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-10-18 Daily Xml
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COUNTRY REGIONS, PROFESSIONALS

Ms BREUER (Giles) (15:15): I want to talk today on a matter which is becoming more and more of a concern to me, and it was highlighted by an article in the The Advertiser today regarding the shortage of pilots in regional airlines. There was quite an extensive article there about regional flights having to be cancelled because there are no pilots to fly those flights, and, of course, consequently regional areas do suffer. The Airport Owners and Pilots Association blames the lack of federal government support for flight training. I believe there are not enough young people being trained, or not enough people being trained as pilots. Also, I believe there is a considerable amount of poaching from the regional airlines by Virgin, Jetstar and Qantas.

This is symptomatic of what is happening in regional South Australia. There is a real problem in attracting and retaining professionals, of all kinds, in our country regions. We hear a considerable amount about lack of obstetric services in country regions. Why? It is because there is a lack of obstetricians and also anaesthetists, which are required if you want to provide obstetric services. There certainly is a major problem with a lack of doctors in country towns. I am told that with the population base we have in Whyalla we should have approximately 22 GPs, and we have, varying, between 12 and 14. I know that the Whyalla Hospital has been trying for almost three years to get a physician for our town and is still unable to attract one to come and work there.

There is a shortage of dentists, teachers and police officers everywhere in regional Australia. I know that we certainly cannot fully staff many of my country police stations, including Roxby Downs, Whyalla and Coober Pedy. There is a crisis about to occur in the mining industry because we will not have a work force available, both skilled and unskilled workers. The better paying industries are poaching from other industries. For example, the aquaculture industry is finding it very difficult to attract workers now and retain those workers, because they are unable to pay the equivalent of the mining industry in wages.

What are the reasons we cannot get people; why can't we get people into our regions? I believe there has been a massive failure by the federal government to provide sufficient university places for many of our professions. I believe that the TAFE system has certainly accomplished a lot in our regional areas and provided training, but the universities certainly have not followed suit. There is a particular lack of interest by professionals to move away from the city. They cannot fathom country life, the thought of country lifestyle, and they certainly do not appreciate the benefits of a country lifestyle.

I think there is also a lack of sufficient incentives to move to country regions, and we really have to have a serious look at this, in all professions. We need to look at financial incentives to get people to move there. However, for example, there is no point in saying to a young teacher, 'We will pay you $5,000 extra a year,' when there are other commitments on their time and money. Also, if we look at offering them tenure, 10 years or whatever, they are not particularly interested in that at that age.

I think we need to look at things like rent and power subsidies for many of our country regions, particularly at the moment with the increases in rent in my part of the state because of the mining industry. It is very difficult for a young teacher or young police officer to be able to afford to pay the sort of rents that apply. So we need to look at other financial incentives apart from money, such as power and rent subsidies. We also need to look at offering fares for people to come back to the city when they want to. If you are living in, for example, Coober Pedy and you want to get back to Adelaide it is going to cost you a considerable amount to pay for your petrol. If you want to fly you are looking at a $600 or $700 return flight to go back to Adelaide, and young people cannot afford to do that on their first or second year wages.

I think we need to have better access to tertiary education for our country students, and this has been an ongoing issue for me for many years. We need to look at change in the Austudy provisions and make it easier for our country people to be eligible for Austudy when young people go to Adelaide. I think we certainly need to look at distance education and providing courses in regional areas, and, as I said, I think TAFE has done considerably well in this but the universities have not followed suit. I think they have to learn to not be so protective and so elitist about their city campuses and start to realise that there is a world out there and that the world has changed and go to the people rather than make the people come to them.

I also believe we need to have a serious look at migration. Currently we have 457 workers in Whyalla. I think if we can bring in workers—and I was appalled at the federal government's decision to stop Sudanese migration. We would welcome these people in our areas for our skilled and unskilled work.

Time expired.

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