Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

It is a national disgrace and it is a trend. When I look back on my Mazda 808 super deluxe coupe when I was of that vintage, it could not pull the skin off a custard, so underpowered was it. I still felt cool, although others had another view. Today those entry-level vehicles are high-powered vehicles. We see too many young people losing their lives, too many neighbourhoods compromised by bad driving behaviour, albeit in passing. It is a small minority, but it is enough to cause a real impact, to have a detrimental impact, on people’s quality of life and the quality of their neighbourhoods.

We had a commitment to fund movement activated CCTV systems which you could mount on a power pole or sit on the back parcel deck of a car to capture some of this conduct so that the vehicle confiscation laws would actually have some evidence to push off from. That was a very important initiative but one that we have heard nothing about.

Other initiatives included the revitalisation package for the Seaford RSL car park, the area around the foreshore and the lifesaving precinct, which would have provided a chance to enjoy the Seaford-Edithvale wetlands through all seasons, through the re-establishment of the pathways. These were important local projects, along with the Eric Bell Reserve redevelopment and upgrade project in Frankston North and support for the Langwarrin footy club and the community basketball stadium in Mornington. These were local issues that the local community, I felt, embraced.

The trend in voting patterns away from—dare I say—my kind was less obvious in my electorate. I think that was perhaps because these local projects mattered. Having said that, I also add that, for those like me who are advocates of Tip O’Neill’s motto ‘all politics is local’, Tip was away from my electorate during this election campaign. The national mood certainly was embraced by many of the local voters and that was evidenced by a very low-profile, almost stealth-like campaign by my Labor opponent. But, still, we persist and we work on.

I would like to add some further comments about the challenges ahead. We have heard much about a broadband agenda. We have seen little about the detail of it from the Labor Party. We saw yesterday a bill introduced into the House that will allow a stripping of the Communications Fund, the very future-proofing tool that regional and rural Australians are concerned about. We are going to see those taxpayer resources drawn away from where there is clearly an underservicing and a difficulty in providing commercially funded broadband services. They are to be made available for the metropolitan area, where there is no such problem. The logic of that astounds me, but this is what seems to be moving forward. I will talk more about that at another time.

I want to pay tribute to those that I had the good fortune of working with as a minister. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs is a remarkable organisation. It carries an extraordinarily special duty to a very special group of Australians who have served our nation and given all that they have. It was an honour and a privilege to be the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, to work closely with Mark Sullivan and his department team and with the ex-service community, many of whom are often vilified by some characters that offer much in the way of commentary but very little in the way of constructive agendas for the future. I wish all those in Veterans’ Affairs the best future. Alan Griffin, the new Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, is already benefiting from the momentum that we created, but I hope that he also has a sense of the challenges that are ahead.

To the serving men and women of the Australian Defence Force: my role in assisting the humans in the ADF was a great honour and a privilege. Our people are our greatest capability. We can buy aircraft and ships and all the kit under the sun, but it is our people that make those items of technology, that implement doctrine, that use their creativity, their judgement and their personalities to bring about the military and strategic objectives that they are tasked to carry out. To Angus Houston and all of the service chiefs, to Nick Warner, to the defence enterprise—all of the civilians and uniformed personnel who work at Russell and at many installations across the country: I salute you. You are a remarkable bunch of people. I admire what you do, and it was an incredible honour to work closely with you.

To the people of Dunkley I pay my highest compliment and pass on my sincere thanks. To be rehired by you, a group of people I have grown up with, is an honour. Your challenges, ambitions, hopes for the future and moments of reflection run through my veins as well. I hope I honour the trust and support you have placed in me for a fifth time. I hope I represent you with vigour and advocate your interests well in this place.

I should apologise because it seems as though I will need to be here on a Friday. I do not shirk from that role; I am happy to be a contributor in parliament any time. But parliament ‘lite’, as it is proposed on a Friday, is a bad move. When I come here and talk about the grievances of my community, I expect the people who are in a position to remedy them to be here as well. Rostered days off, or Rudd days off, are not good for our parliament. Parliament is valued. It should be respected. If being removed from this place for one hour is an important sanction for bad behaviour and being removed for 24 hours is a bigger sanction, not being required to turn up at all is an insult. (Time expired)

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