Rudd’s ministers snub city meeting

Andrew Mathieson
More than half the Rudd Government’s ministers failed to attend a “community cabinet” meeting in Geelong on the weekend
The turnout for the year’s last meeting was the smallest in the series of eight around Australia, with 12 of the Government’s 20 ministers absent in Geelong.
The Government filled vacancies on Sunday with parliamentary secretaries including high-profile MP Bill Shorten alongside local MPs Richard Marles and Darren Cheeseman.
Geelong’s leading lobbyists and business groups said the meeting gave them little opportunity to influence ministers but it was still beneficial to the city.
Committee for Geelong’s Peter Dorling said ministers were generally “as scarce as hen’s teeth” in regional areas.
“To try getting the full cabinet of the Federal Government anywhere outside a major capital isn’t that easy,” Mr Dorling said.
“The committee has only been back three weeks from a three-day visit (to Canberra) where we met all the ministers that we wanted to meet on the issues we wanted to deal with. This (the Geelong meeting) was used more to assist community groups who wanted to make presentations to the cabinet.”
Geelong Chamber of Commerce executive director Lawrie Miller called the community cabinet meeting a “well-staged performance”.
“Not much was actually achieved in the public session,” he said.
The floor was restricted to 12 questions, many of which crossed over to state matters like fluoridation, Mr Miller said.
Chamber president Grant Sutherland and Mr Miller used the meeting for a last-ditch appeal to Environment Minister Peter Garrett on the impact of the Government’s proposed carbon trading policy.
However, Climate Change and Resources and Energy ministers Penny Wong and Martin Ferguson were among the ministerial absentees who missed the chamber’s presentation.
“We will be the most exposed region in Australia because we have five emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries,” Mr Miller said.
“All of them are controlled by foreign boards and they could all shut down if the carbon trading scheme is deemed punitive and impacts on them.”
Mr Miller said the chamber of commerce made a submission to the Government’s Department for Climate Change in September seeking security for Geelong jobs in the cement, aluminium, power, motor and petroleum industries.