A 15-minute deep-dive with Danny O’Brien

With the challenges mounting up in our community we need our political representatives working hard to bring a quality of life to our region.

The State Member for South Gippsland Danny O’Brien sat down with Korumburra Staying Strong recently for an interesting conversation which spanned from potholes and hospitals to adapting in this confusing and ever-changing landscape of modern life.

Danny met with the community at Kelly’s Bakery recently.

 Q: I have never seen politics in such a state where it seems governments will not listen to the community. What’s the problem?
A: I think it’s twofold. I think it’s the type of government. That’s what I’m going to say politically. Here’s an example of listening to the community: for the tape, I’m holding up my schedule for today. That’s what I like to do — get out and actually speak to people.

I think it also goes the other way as well. There are a lot of people in the community who don’t engage, and then when a decision they don’t like is taken, they try to have it overturned after the fact, rather than getting involved in the first place.

Q: Have you seen similar situations before?
A: Yes. I remember a former colleague saying years ago, people would say, “You didn’t listen to us.” Sometimes we did listen, we just didn’t agree. I think some of that comes from a lot of misinformation out there. I see it every day. People come to me with questions or statements and say, “This is happening,” and I have to reply, “That’s just not right.”

That’s probably a challenge too, and sometimes it leads people to think that governments are doing things they shouldn’t be doing, when in fact they’re not.

Q: Is this part of a wider issue?
A: I think there is a democratic deficit to a degree in that governments have outsourced a lot more decision-making to commissions, independent commissioners, and audits. There needs to be more grassroots discussions from government, from MPs, and ensuring that they are at work in the community.

Q: What are your thoughts on the Allan government’s current standing? The decisions they’re making around treaties we’ve already had national referendums on, new taxes, cost of living, housing, immigration — all those things — are under intense scrutiny, and social media is on full blast at the moment. Do they even consider what’s being said?
A: They do, very much so, because they wouldn’t be doing any of these things if they didn’t think they were popular, and clearly they believe in most of them.

You’ve probably just touched on the other answer to your first question, which is social media. We are more tribalised now than we’ve ever been, because not only do we only hang around with people who share our worldview, but on social media we’re only fed back our worldview. The algorithm repeats to you what you want to hear, and that makes it very difficult.

Q: How does that affect you personally as an MP?
A: It makes it difficult, frankly, to be an MP sometimes. People who vote Labor and Greens don’t tend to come and talk to me, although I’ve literally had a couple today who had a very different worldview to me. You have to be conscious of that — that you get reinforcement bias from the community telling you you’re doing a great job and Jacinta Allan’s terrible.

Well, we’ve got to look at the election results and say clearly not everyone voted for us, state and federal, the last couple of elections. So you have to understand that there are views out there that don’t necessarily align with yours, and you need to be cautious about listening only to one side.

Q: Let’s move to the local level. What can a regional community like Korumburra expect? We’re struggling with potholes. We don’t have an airport out here. The nearest public hospital is about 30 or 40km away from us. What do we need to do? What can we expect?
A: From the Nationals, and I’ll answer this politically first, we want to see as close as possible equality of opportunity for everyone, no matter where they live. When I say equality of opportunity, that goes to the infrastructure and the services that government provides.

Clearly you can’t have a tier one public hospital in every community with an emergency department and everything. It’s just not feasible. But we do expect basic telecommunications, basic infrastructure, basic healthcare.

Q: What would it take to achieve that?
A: Well, not just basic healthcare, but needs being met. Frankly, it needs a change of government. But it probably also goes back to your first question about governments not listening. Every election we hear Daniel Andrews or Anthony Albanese say, “I’ll govern for the whole state,” or “I’ll govern for the whole country.” But we actually don’t see that happen. We see them govern for the area up to Pakenham, and then it stops.

Q: Is there any investment happening here?
A: We are getting investment, just not enough and not quick enough. Korumburra Secondary College is the example. When we were in government, we funded the first stage of it. It then took me six years of lobbying to get it finished. We finally did get it done, a $12 million investment. So that investment is coming, but it just takes so long and takes so much effort to get it.

Q: What do you see as the priorities for Korumburra?
A: Korumburra is an interesting mix because it’s a growing community, but we’re also a very old, not age-wise but very established, community, going back to coal mining and farming roots. It needs all the things that I’ve just mentioned and that you touched on. It needs better services.

It needs a vibrant commercial hub, which from a retail perspective, literally Main Street, has become more and more difficult, and that’s not unique to Korumburra. But we need to make sure we’ve got good connections. There are a lot of people commuting from Korumburra now, not necessarily to the city, but to Cranbourne, Pakenham, Dandenong, or Frankston. So we actually need decent roads. We need those facilities, medical facilities, education, and the secondary college was a good example of that.

One of the stories that stuck with me on the secondary college: when we did the first stage, on the day we opened it, the principal told me afterwards that one of the kids had been looking through this new building, and their response was, “Wow, this is too good for us.” That got me right in the feels, but it also made me more determined to ensure that we got the funding for the full rebuild, because kids shouldn’t be thinking this is too good for us. They should think they’re getting the facilities that they need.

And it’s not just bricks and mortar. They need quality teachers and all those sorts of things too. But it was really important, and a bit of a shock, to hear that. We had to make sure that we look after this region’s kids as well as those in Balwyn or Broadmeadows.

Q: What do you love about Korumburra?
A: I love the community. I love its community feel. The discussions I’ve had today covered everything from Coal Creek to the train station to schools to businesses.

The community is really active, sometimes overactive, and sometimes energy could be better directed. But when you look at Korumburra, it’s a community that has a lot of active people who want better things for their town. It’s an interesting amalgam of old and new. A lot of new people moved here for the beautiful location, the rolling green hills, but also proximity to Melbourne. And then you’ve got people who have been here for generations as well. It’s a great place.

I often say, only half joking, that Leongatha and Korumburra are 13km and a world apart. It’s a very different community to the one just down the road. I won’t pick which one anyone would prefer, but I know Korumburra is very proud of itself, and so it should be.

Q: Last question — what does resilience mean to you in today’s world?
A: Adaptability. It’s one of the things I talk about when I speak at schools. They don’t ask me for advice, but I offer it anyway. The world is changing, it always has been, but it’s changing even more rapidly now.

To be resilient in the future, you’ve got to be adaptable, and you can’t look at how things were 20 years ago, or even five years ago, and say it’ll go back to that. Korumburra, and just about every country town, has to be adaptable to be resilient going forward because the world’s changing really quickly, and it brings opportunity.

For example, the number of people I know now who live here — they might be commuting to Melbourne two days a week, but they’re working from home the other days, or they’re running their own business from home — that’s a great opportunity. But it’s also about adaptability, and that’s where you’ve got to have the facilities. You’ve got to have the technology, telecommunications for example, up to scratch to ensure those communities can adapt.

We have to recognise that there’s not going to be a shoe store, a bakery, a butcher, a candlestick maker in every town anymore. But how can we take advantage of changes in technology, in consumer patterns, and lifestyle patterns? I think Korumburra is already doing it pretty well.