Three years ago, we were the seat of Murray, and being asked to make a choice between 10 candidates as to who would be our representative in Canberra.
Given the long history of our electorate voting for one of the Coalition parties, it was essentially a choice between the Liberals’ Duncan McGauchie and the Nationals’ Damian Drum. The ‘Drummy for Murray’ campaign won the day, as did the Turnbull government, albeit with a small majority.
Since then we have had a change in the National party leadership, and the Liberal party leadership, which led to a change in Prime Minister.
We are also electors in a new seat — Nicholls. We have lost a bit of the west (Wedderburn to Pyramid Hill) and gained a bit of McEwen (the Seymour and Broadford area).
The Committee for Greater Shepparton wrote an article back in 2016, prior to that poll, looking at what we saw as the key federal issues. We spoke of water and infrastructure and outlined some key performance indicators for the new member.
In terms of water, some progress has been made in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin plan. Federal Minister David Littleproud and Victorian Minister Lisa Neville, along with their other basin state counterparts, were able to come to an agreement around a socio-economic test for the proposed 450Gl to South Australia.
Labor water spokesman Tony Burke has said a federal Labor government will not honour this agreement, and push for recovery of the 450Gl, a scenario that could be a disaster for our area.
Some of the independent candidates are campaigning on a platform of getting rid of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan altogether. While this prospect may sound attractive to many in the agricultural sector regionally, it would be a hard ask in a parliament that, back in 2012, voted in favour of the plan overwhelmingly.
It will be interesting to hear their strategy around this. Still, the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District remains hugely vulnerable to the combined effects of Commonwealth water recovery and inter-valley trading, and voters rightly want to see a government which can ease pressure on our farming sector.
We spoke of roads in our 2016 article, and there has been significant movement there.
The Federal Government committed $208 million in the 2019 budget to stage 1 of the Goulburn Valley Bypass.
Another funding suggestion we made in 2016 was for the Shepparton Art Museum — that has come to pass, and the building project has begun.
We also called on oncology services to be provided and improvements in education — recent announcements of funding around Goulburn Valley Health cancer services and capital works for La Trobe University have been very welcome, but the Federal Government needs to lift its general funding freeze on universities, which have hit regional campuses the worst.
In our 2016 contribution, we looked upon the selection of the Member for Murray as akin to a managing director or CEO. You appoint a person you think is capable of the job and set them a set of key performance indicators.
Has Damian Drum achieved on his KPIs? That will be for the electors of Nicholls to decide. We are still not where we want to be on water, but in fairness it is a complex issue and successive parliaments that have not had too much sympathy with our region in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
Recent infrastructure investments, especially for the bypass, have been very positive.
On May 8, the Committee for Greater Shepparton will moderate a candidates’ forum at the Eastbank Centre. It will be our chance to hear from the incumbent, Labor, the independents and the minor parties. A chance to assess the competing visions for our region, and who is best placed to deliver.
Sam Birrell is the Committee for Greater Shepparton’s chief executive.