Thursday, 7 March 2024
Subjects: NSW Women’s Week 2024, water issues in regional NSW, proposed rural & regional crime inquiry.
E&OE…
Dave Eisenhauer: Good morning, Steph Cooke.
Steph Cooke: Good morning, Dave. It's wonderful to be with you and your listeners this morning. I'm actually en route to Sydney today for a few meetings, and let me tell you how beautiful the sunrise was when I left Young at about 5:00. It's a beautiful time of the year, and especially down through your part of the world down there, and your local listening area.
Dave Eisenhauer: Oh, you're right. Everything sort of slows down for 15, 20 minutes at sunrise; it's just a lovely time of day.
Steph Cooke: Seeing it come up was just lovely, and a reminder of how lucky we are to live in the region that we do. Our communities are beautiful places to live and work and raise a family. I've been spending a lot of time in our schools and with our community groups – whether it's CWA or the Men's Shed – and talking with people of all ages, and the one consistent theme is how much we all love where we live and we love our communities. And on that basis, it is my responsibility to fight for what we have and what we need, to keep it all moving forward.
Dave Eisenhauer: And one of those things Steph, is of course Women's Week this week, and the women contributing to so many different organisations, and we just spoke about the show societies and the wonderful work done by the committees and the clubs there.
Steph Cooke: We are in Autumn and there are a number of shows around our region at the moment, and I was fortunate enough last weekend to attend Koorawatha and also the Boorowa shows. And I know that there's shows happening down in Adelong and those other places, but they don't happen without an awful lot of work from volunteer committees, and volunteer stewards and judges, to make sure that these shows continue for the benefit of current and future generations.
And they're all volunteers, and women make up a good proportion of these groups – of course there are men that are well and truly lifting their weight as well – but this week is an opportunity to acknowledge the hard work of women in this space.
Dave Eisenhauer: It doesn't matter what section you’re at with an agricultural show, we recognise the amazing work done by the volunteers, our women volunteers around the region.
Steph Cooke: Absolutely, and I think that's really important to point out. We are right in the middle of Women's Week and tomorrow is International Women's Day and it's an opportunity for me to recognise all of the hardworking women in whatever their chosen field is, across the Cootamundra electorate.
So this week I've had the wonderful opportunity to catch up with young entrepreneurial women, women that have created their own business, some that have teams of women all working together, doing a fantastic job running their own business. There are so many small businesses that are owned and run by women. Before I came into Parliament, I was a florist, so I know it's hard work running your own business, so to see women being able to do that and succeed is tremendous.
But there are many other areas where women make that important contribution. And you mentioned volunteering, and I had the opportunity yesterday ahead of Senior’s Week to acknowledge two local women in the Cootamundra electorate who have given so much over more than 40 years to various organisations in and around Young; whether it's Meals on Wheels, whether it's the hospital auxiliary – cause after cause after cause. And it's important that we give that recognition; they don't ask for it, but it's really important that we're able to do that.
And I think we should never overlook the importance that our mothers play, particularly within that family setting and that family environment. And I certainly know that I look up to my mum; I wouldn't be where I am without her love and support and encouragement over the years. And so to all of the mums out there, thank you for what you are doing to nurture our young people, and to really give that guidance to children everywhere.
And of course then you've got women involved in sport; they might be working full time during the day and then they're coaching the netball team after hours, or the touch football team – we could talk all day about the wonderful contribution that women make, and having a week to be able to do that is really important.
Dave Eisenhauer: Steph, let's look at Budget Estimates last week, what did the Water Minister have to say?
Steph Cooke: Yes, we did have Budget Estimates and the Water Minister did appear and it was quite a disappointing performance with respect to the water space.
The Minister has a number of other portfolios including water, and all of her portfolios are very, very serious and there are a lot of complex and complicated challenges. But when it comes to water, we have no plan, we have no progress, and we've got a government that really doesn't have a vision or a way forward around some of the issues that we are facing, particularly in rural and regional areas.
I think one example that I can point to that came out of Budget Estimates is the water infrastructure backlog that's building up around the state. In our region most recently we've seen Yass on a boil water alert. You and I have talked about communities over the summer that have been on boil water alerts, the latest being Yass, which follows Boorowa being on a five and a half week boil water alert.
Dave Eisenhauer: Five and a half weeks?
Steph Cooke: Yes, it’s just unacceptable and untenable in this day and age. We are talking about two significant towns. I mean Yass is 7,000 people; it's an hour from our national capital. It is unacceptable in my view that people can't turn on their taps and be able to drink the water coming out of it. That's not good enough and of course Boorowa is not that far down the road…
Dave Eisenhauer: That's right.
Steph Cooke: …and growing at a rapid rate. And we have a significant issue with respect to water quality and water security in that town. And when we get significant droughts as we have in the past, and we'll do so again, we have to truck in water to that community of over 2,000 people.
It's just unacceptable. And unfortunately there's no new money in the Safe and Secure Water Program, which is a dedicated program for these types of projects. And the minister is just unfortunately not across the brief and doesn't really view this as a significant priority, which it needs to be for rural and regional communities like ours.
Dave Eisenhauer: In a big way. I spoke with fellow National Michael McCormack last week about these very items; there's something missing in the equation in that step. I'm watching them pop up all the time, but it shouldn't be happening in 2024.
Steph Cooke: No, absolutely not. And I think it's fair to say, and not unreasonable to say that if this was in the city, it would be national news.
Dave Eisenhauer: Of course it would.
Steph Cooke: Every time there's a power outage in Sydney affecting a couple of thousand residents, that's significant nightly news. But yet we can be on a boil water alert in a place like Yass for two and a half weeks, Boorowa for five and a half weeks, and yet there's just very little attention given to it. And everybody knows that water is the lifeblood of where we are and what we do. We simply cannot live without water.
And these are significant challenges. They require priority attention by the government; it requires planning and it requires progress. Otherwise these issues will just languish and it just becomes this long running saga, and there are very obvious steps that the minister can take on any number of these issues. When it comes to Yass for example, we need to see that business case expedited so that we understand exactly what the cost of redeveloping their water treatment plant is. That is fundamentally what's required there.
With respect to Boorowa, it's about a water pipeline connecting Harden across to Boorowa. This is pretty simple stuff. The technology exists in both of those cases. What it requires is the political will and the plan and the determination to get on with it. And I think that the government really needs to step up.
Dave Eisenhauer: Before we head off to the news and sport we must also talk about the proposed rural crime inquiry, what's the latest update there? We spoke about this last time.
Steph Cooke: Yeah, we sure did Dave. And what's happening now is that more and more victims of crime in our regional areas – more community leaders – are starting to really speak up about the challenges that we are facing in our rural communities in this space, and the fact that nothing short of a parliamentary inquiry is really going to get to the bottom of what our police resourcing looks like in regional New South Wales; how we can better support our hardworking women and men in blue.
They do a magnificent job. And you and I talked previously about the fact that so many of our police stations are one or two officer stations. They're living and working in environments that were established for bygone eras. We need a closer look at some of these issues when it comes to the resourcing of police. But we also need to look at the other factors that are impacting on things like youth crime and other crimes that are being committed in our communities.
And so we continue to advocate very strongly on behalf of our communities. I've had many CWA branches writing to me expressing their support for an inquiry. I continue to make those representations to the minister and look, it's now gaining traction right across New South Wales; we’ve had the spotlight on the situation with youth crime in the beautiful town and community of Moree, now spreading further from that point where we are looking at other places like Gunnedah, and Inverell. We also know that in Cowra we are desperate for 24/7 policing there, with respect to an open station that people can go to at any hour of the day or night and have their matter attended to. These are important issues for our community and I'll continue to fight for them.
Dave Eisenhauer: And we had the police minister visit the southwest region and went to Jindabyne and opened a new police station there. But one of the big issues is that 24 hour policing that we've talked about quite often. And again, we can compare that to the city perhaps, but Steph, there seems to be no end to the amount of lobbying work that you're doing there in Macquarie Street; busy days ahead and you're off there again today. So many different things to chat about.
Steph Cooke: Absolutely. I've got several meetings over the next couple of days to do what I can to push up on these all important issues on behalf of the Cootamundra electorate. Of course, we've got a situation I've mentioned before, Dave, where there are fewer parliamentary sitting weeks now. So the opportunity for me to raise these issues have been reduced and my trip to Sydney this time ties in with that situation.
I need to go down there and make a special effort to go down there and talk to other people that I know can help move some of these issues forward. Things that I may otherwise get done in a sitting week, I'm now making a special effort to ensure that we move water policy forward, that we move these other important issues forward. So that's about it for me for this time, but I know that we'll catch up again in a couple of weeks and hopefully I'll have more to say on these issues and some other issues at that time.
Dave Eisenhauer: Indeed, including of course, we will touch on the de-merger case again next time we talk; another very, very important local issue for all our council areas locally. As we do each and every Thursday fortnight, appreciate you joining us as Member for Cootamundra. Steph Cooke, thank you so much for the time today.
Steph Cooke: Thank you so much, Dave. It's been lovely to be with you again.
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