Damian Drum must have wondered what his government had let itself in for after its stunning come-from-behind victory in the 2019 federal election.
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The Member for Nicholls said the Nationals and their Liberal partners went from the giddy highs of victory to dealing with the ongoing and spreading drought; then some of the worst bushfires in history ravaged the country and now the global COVID-19 pandemic.
There's been hardly time to draw breath, and yet the daily nuts and bolts of government must go on regardless.
But the toughest test, perhaps, is still to come: kick-starting an economy that had been on a bull run for decades before being deliberately thrown under the bus in a bid to avoid our country suffering the mass deaths that have been the hallmark of coronavirus in so many countries around the world.
Mr Drum said Australia might have taken a hard hit on drought and fire but he believed we had dodged a bullet on the coronavirus, and says now is the time for all Australians to start moving forward.
Which, for him, is all about driving the local economy and local progress — with one of the first musts on his wish-list being the Shepparton bypass.
Mr Drum said we had all waited and debated enough, and this major piece of infrastructure must happen now.
“Having $208 million in Federal Government funding just sitting on the table for the past year is ridiculous — it’s time the Victorian Government completed the business case and dipped into its pockets,” Mr Drum said.
“Now the state budget is going to be in October there is no reason they can’t complete the business case now and put in their 20 per cent at the same time.
“We have committed 80 per cent of the cost and it’s there ready to be used.”
Mr Drum said he understood the business case was expected to blow out the 2016 project budget but insisted “if it means I have to go back to my government and find an extra $50 to 70 million then I am prepared to have that fight — but I need the business case completed by the Victorian Government”.
Trains and infrastructure
Once the bypass is up and running, Mr Drum has set his sights on the Shepparton rail line.
He said it must be matched to other regional hubs such as Geelong and Ballarat.
Done properly, he said an hour could be cut from the trip each way, allowing dozens of services a day to come in and out of the region.
Mr Drum claimed it was “sheer unfairness” the Greater Shepparton region was not benefiting from an efficient train service.
“By the time you take in the populations in our surrounding smaller towns, we have a population about the same as Bendigo, which has dozens of services a day,” Mr Drum said.
However, Mr Drum’s dreams are still stuck in the hands of the Victorian Government; a frustration he said was always the same with these joint government projects.
“While we (Federal Government) are happy to pay our share, historically passenger rail has been a state responsibility; but in the past decade Canberra has been investing in passenger rail at a rate never before seen,” he said.
“We need the Victorian Government to invest in the business case so we can design a route through Melbourne’s suburbs.
“The state needs to put it on its priority list and not just keep spending money in Melbourne.”
Water
Water, Mr Drum conceded, accounted for about 70 per cent of each and every day — but he was not veering from his determination to break up the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.
And on the way, he is trying to do everything possible to make changes around the plan.
“We are expected to get government advice about how we break open the authority in the next month or so,” he said.
“No-one loses their job; but all the work currently run by the authority are split into different organisations.
“So instead of one organisation being responsible for everything, instead we will have someone look after the river system and another look after compliance and regulation.”
Mr Drum said that timetable was dependent on legalities and other leaders.
“It’s a matter of us trying to work out the fine print; a lot of these government institutions have protections based around them.
“But we may yet be able to do this relatively seamlessly and simply, and get on with it if I can convince the leaders in government this is the right thing to do,” he said.
Under that agenda, Mr Drum said he was also working on a range of other related water issues.
Infrastructure and professionals
Mr Drum has also sided with Shepparton’s Chamber of Commerce for plans to reinvigorate Shepparton’s Maude St Mall and invested $8.5 million into the project.
“I think we would all concede there are way too many shops that are vacant,” Mr Drum said.
“We need to do whatever we can to reinvigorate the Shepparton CBD.
“I think we need to get behind the Chamber of Commerce and if they want to redesign the mall, if they want to create a better community space underneath the tower on Fraser St, then I think that is a project worth fighting for on behalf of the Federal Government,” he said.
Other projects Mr Drum was proud to have helped into the region included the Shepparton Art Museum build and the Murray Darling School of Medicine.
He said without the Federal Government committing an extra $5 million to finish the build, SAM today would look vastly different.
“We put our $10 million in and we came to the rescue when there was a cost blowout,” he said.
“Had we not done that, we would have been designing a vastly different museum.”
Mr Drum said the Murray Darling School of Medicine was quietly working away at bringing skilled professionals to our region.
A joint arrangement between Melbourne and La Trobe universities will see students currently studying an undergraduate degree in biomedicine at La Trobe campuses in Bendigo or Wodonga, guaranteed a place to study medicine.
“At the completion of that they will move to Shepparton and work placements allocated under Melbourne University’s School of Medicine based in Shepparton.
“Every year, possibly from 2026, we will have 40 to 50 doctors graduating from the Shepparton campus each and every year,” Mr Drum said.
“In our endeavour to create more doctors, more health professionals and more surgeons and specialists, this starts that major program.”
Post Covid-19
Mr Drum predicted Shepparton would perform significantly better than other areas as Victoria and Australia continued to ease coronavirus restrictions.
“But Shepparton will still be reeling from the drought,” Mr Drum said.
“The drought effectively means many of our farmers had exceptionally poor years last year. Now, they have had to reinvest this year, and hopefully they have, because it looks like it’s going to be a very good year; but cashflow can take at least 12 to 18 months to turn around.
“The Goulburn Valley is still quite reliant on agriculture, and if agriculture can bounce back this year then that will help this whole region,” he said.
Last month Mr Drum also helped boost the economy by “gifting” local councils $10 million to fast-track road and infrastructure projects.
“They (the projects) will be able to get work done on local roads that would normally be the responsibility of council,” Mr Drum said.
He said Canberra was looking into areas of Shepparton which would be eligible for a road and bridges program, and suitable roads and bridges that needed an upgrade — such as Watt Rd between Mooroopna and Kialla.
“We are prepared to bring infrastructure projects forward to get people back to work,” Mr Drum said.