Newsroom

6 January, 2004

Interview Transcript

Champions of the Bush Executive Officer Darren Chester ABC Statewide Victoria.

Topic: Additional cash incentives for first home buyers in regional areas

Bedford: Background to Regional Business Development Analysis and Champions of the Bush statement calling for additional grant for first home buyers in regional areas. Welcome to Darren Chester, Executive Officer of Champions of the Bush.

Chester: Good morning Glen and thanks for inviting me on the program.

Interviewer: Explain what Champions of the Bush is on about.

Chester: Champions of the Bush is a group of regional business. They formed their own organisation about two years ago basically to have a voice, to have a say on issues that we thought were important to country people.

Some of our members are major companies of the nature of Bendigo Bank, Patties Bakery in Bairnsdale which you would be aware bought Four 'n' Twenty Pies last year, Brown Brothers Wines - our chairman is John Brown from Brown Brothers Wines. Basically it's a group of businesses that are keen to promote if you like and just champion the causes of regional Australia.

Interviewer: First home buyers can already access $7000 - you're saying it should be more for country buyers.

Chester: That's right Glen and it's not just us that is saying it either. There was a Regional Business Development Analysis released last year. That was a report prepared by an independent panel.

Part of the findings - there was a lot of good findings in that report - and one of them was - they were saying that perhaps we should look at extra incentives to attract skilled workers to regional areas. The incentive they were talking about was to have an extra cash payment, above and beyond the First Home Owners Scheme.

Interviewer: How much are you looking for?

Chester: Currently it's $7000 and there's been no talk of exactly what figure would be required as an extra incentive. Perhaps five or ten thousand dollars isn't out of the question.

It's got to be enough to act as a carrot if you like, to give people, graduates in particular to start looking at country areas, particularly in areas like health and education. So it needs to be a significant amount but it doesn't want to be exorbitant to force housing prices up beyond all control.

Interviewer: Are you trying to make it more attractive for young people to move back to country towns after they receive training - pushing the message that you can have a successful career in regional areas.

Chester: That's one of our organisation's great aims - to bring our kids home. Once they've gone away and received some additional training or some experience in the city our message to them is you can have a successful career back in the bush if you want one.

We want people to realise that there's some great opportunities in regional Australia and we've got to address this negative image that's been there in the past that everything's broken in the bush - that it's all about floods and droughts and fires.

We have some great businesses, some very successful businesses in regional Australia and we've got some great opportunities for young people.

And given the current pressure in the metropolitan housing market, where a lot of young people are finding it difficult to get their first step in the door, perhaps this is something where they can start broadening their horizons, looking out at some of our regional centres and saying 'look, maybe that's for me', maybe that's a good spot where I can go with my young family. I can take my first step on the ladder and purchase a home for a far more reasonable price than I would ever get in Melbourne or Sydney or Brisbane or somewhere like that.

Interviewer: Prices are rising in regional areas too.

Chester: Certainly the regional markets are rising along as well and that's one of the issues of why we need this incentive payment. Housing affordability has always been an issue in country areas in the sense that it's been one of our great attractions.

One of the reasons people love living in the country is that their houses don't cost them as much. We've got to be careful that we don't push prices up unsustainably obviously, but one of those great attractions is housing affordability and we think we can make it even more affordable.

It will give us a competitive edge to say to graduates, to say to young families, have a good look at regional Australia... have a good look at it.

I know the State Government last year put a million dollars into a marketing campaign for regional Victoria and this might be the next step. To actually help people to make the step out to a country town.

Interviewer: Difficulty of creating jobs in country areas, are there jobs available, incentive - isn't it a chicken and egg situation, what comes first.

Chester: That is a difficult issue. There are a great number of jobs in regional Victoria that people probably aren't aware of. You look at things like Patties Bakery buying Four 'n' Twenty Pies last year, that was 100 new jobs out towards Bairnsdale way. I think Woolworths are in the process of setting up a major complex at Wodonga.

The East Sale RAAF Base is undergoing a $50 million expansion in the next couple of years.

So things are happening out in regional Victoria and it's probably not accurate to say that you can't get a job in regional areas. If you've got skills, I think you'll find that you can get a job anywhere in regional Australia.

Helping businesses to become more prosperous, more successful, is obviously like you said, the chicken and egg situation. We're encouraging governments to work in partnership with us, to invest in infrastructure, to help us out a little bit but I think that regional Australians can make the step themselves and create more jobs in the future.

Interviewer: Housing as an election issue.

Chester: I think the whole issue of housing will be an election issue because of the fact that the government places a lot of credit on its economic management skills and now there's a bit of pressure in terms of interest rate rises and that sort of thing.

I get the sense that first home buyers will be more interested in whether they can afford to buy a home, rather than the beautiful set of national figures that we might have.

So attracting and retaining skilled workers in regional Australia is a major issue for us and we believe that an extra incentive payment is just something that the government should have a good look at.

After all they commissioned this report. It was called an action plan and we'd love to see some action on it.

Interviewer: Timelines for implementation... confident of success?

Chester: Well the report was released in about September. The government has made it publicly available and we have congratulated them on that - making it available for us all to have a good look at it - there's been some good feedback for them.

I would hope to see some action in the near future - in the very near future in fact.

Over the Christmas period, not a lot happens in terms of reports and that sort of thing so we'd love to see something in the next couple of months. Exactly which of the recommendations the government is going to support.

Interviewer: You will keep the pressure on?

Chester: Exactly. As I said, it was called a plan for action and country Australians have seen a lot of plans, a lot of strategies over the years. We don't want another report to gather dust, we want action on some of these issues.

Interviewer: Close.

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