Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, it is good of you to come into the House to hear the humble member for Sturt make his contribution to the address-in-reply debate tonight. I look forward to feedback on my speech, perhaps at a later occasion when we might be chatting about the parliament over a cup of tea.

There is no doubt that the opening remarks that I would like to make in the address-in-reply debate are to thank the electorate of Sturt for re-electing me for the sixth time to the House of Representatives. In the Howard government, I had the privilege to serve as a minister and as a parliamentary secretary over four years. But it is a truism of politics that service at the electorate level is the most important privilege that is afforded a member of parliament.

If you are not a member of parliament, you cannot have those other opportunities to serve in higher office. Every three years or less, I face the opponents that Labor puts up against me, and every other time and again this time I am grateful that the electors of Sturt have chosen to re-elect me. Perhaps on this occasion it was not quite by the comfortable margin that I have enjoyed in the past. I won by 1,711 votes. Some of the members of this House who are busily congratulating their colleague were active in campaigning against me, which is a great shame. I thought there was a bit of camaraderie in this place but, unfortunately, at election time the Minister for Youth and Minister for Sport and others could not wait to get their talons into my electorate to try to remove me from it. But we fought the good fight and, fortunately for the electors of Sturt and for me, we were re-elected. I am very grateful for their support.

Often when you are a minister or a parliamentary secretary, you get given opportunities to do large things. When I was the Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing, I was responsible for the mental health package, which was one of the more important tasks that I did as a member of the executive of the last government. It was worth about $1.9 billion. I think it is fair to say it has made and will continue to make a great difference to people in Australia who are suffering from a mental illness, not least because we opened up the Medicare safety net to psychologists—I note the member for Kingston, who has just spoken, talked about her role in psychology—and I think that has made a huge difference to those people in Australia who are suffering from a mental illness.

At a more micro level, every task that each person in my electorate asks me to do for them as their local member is critically important. Each one needs to be given the absolute attention that one can bring to it as a member of parliament. Over the last 15 years that I have served in this House, I hope that I have helped many of the constituents in my electorate, and I look forward to continuing to help them over the next three years.

During the election I did lay down a seven-point plan for improving the electorate of Sturt in particular. I wish to touch on that tonight in the address-in-reply debate. For many years one of the hoary chestnuts of politics in South Australia has been the Britannia roundabout. This is not just any kind of roundabout; this is a historic roundabout just outside my electorate but in fact servicing my electorate and which used to be in my electorate. It has been a difficult area for traffic in South Australia and Sturt for a very long time. It is rated the most significant traffic red spot in South Australia by the Royal Automobile Association of South Australia, with in excess of 100 car collisions annually. For a very long time I have been campaigning and calling on the state government in South Australia to take the necessary action to improve the Britannia roundabout. This roundabout is not on the national highway and as a consequence misses out on the funds that the Commonwealth could bring to try and assist in fixing the Britannia roundabout. I have asked on many occasions the state government, circulated petitions, held public meetings and supported the Britannia roundabout action group. I have asked the state government to take the necessary steps to make it a safe place for the commuters, for the drivers of South Australia and Adelaide from my electorate into the city.

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