Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, through you, my humblest apologies. I do not think I have caught my breath from racing up here earlier on. I do this all the time: I do not catch up with the elevation from parliamentary secretary to minister. The Minister for Workforce Participation is a great champion of regions, anyway. The northern suburbs of Melbourne are a very distinct region as well. Often, I think some of the regional and rural members have an advantage because they can clearly define their regions much better. But in the northern suburbs of Melbourne there are impediments because of a lack of infrastructure, such as telecommunications infrastructure. We have made advances because of the way in which road infrastructure is improving, as well as private transport—we really need to have a greater commitment to public transport—but on this occasion we are talking about communications. I would hope that the government can embrace a national approach to ensure that we can be fully competitive in IT based industries.

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