Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity today to speak from this side of the House in the address-in-reply debate. Even though it is the fourth of these speeches in my career, the fourth time I have been returned to this place, there is something special about speaking this time around as a member of the government, the Rudd Labor government.

In some respects, this speech is a little bit like a first speech. Before the last election in 2007 there was a quite substantial electoral redistribution throughout Queensland, which made some significant changes to the electorate of Capricornia. The downside of such a redistribution is that Capricornia no longer includes a number of communities where I have really enjoyed working with community members on their various projects and helping them address some of the issues and problems that they have. I am thinking of communities like the great mining town of Blackwater. There are also Biloela, Moura and Theodore, among others. These are all communities south-west of the main town in Capricornia, Rockhampton, which have now been included in the new seat of Flynn, which is represented by my colleague Chris Trevor. I know that Chris is already working very hard. He has picked up the reins very quickly and is working hard with those communities and seeing some of the projects that I was working on with those communities come to fruition. I wish him all the best and I can assure those communities that they have a very good representative in this place.

The redistribution gave me some great new communities. The electorate now goes north into the very southern outskirts of Mackay. It includes communities like Sarina and Clairview and communities of the Pioneer Valley like Finch Hatton, Pleystowe, Gargett, Marian and Mirani. I was delighted to see those communities come into the boundaries of Capricornia. I was born and bred in Mackay and I am very familiar with those communities from my childhood up there. It is great to be back on my old home turf and I am honoured that they have supported me to return me here as their representative. I welcome them to the electorate of Capricornia and assure them that I will do my very best to give them good representation in this place.

Those communities have brought a major change to the electorate of Capricornia. People in this chamber have heard me talk many times about Capricornia’s substantial role in both the beef cattle industry and the coalmining industry. The communities to the south and west of Mackay are in one of Australia’s premier sugar-growing regions, so I am quickly finding my way around the sugar industry and I appreciate the assistance that I have had from representatives of both the growing and the milling communities.

It is now six months since the election of the Rudd government, and it is a good time to look back on the commitments that were made during the course of the campaign in Capricornia and measure what progress has been made on those commitments. When we look back at the campaign—not just the five weeks of the election campaign itself but throughout the last two years leading up to the 2007 election—we see that the No. 1 issue that really motivated people in the electorate of Capricornia was Work Choices. It was quite a shock to people in Capricornia, as indeed it was right around Australia, when that was introduced by the Howard government. Of course, there was no opportunity to debate the merits or otherwise of the previous government’s industrial relations plan before the last election; it was kept under wraps until the Senate majority emerged. People reacted very strongly once they had had a look at what Work Choices meant to them: the removal of protection from unfair dismissal and the introduction of AWAs, which we saw very quickly taking away hard-won entitlements and attacking people’s take-home wages.

In Capricornia people took to the streets and their workplaces and got very involved in the Your Rights at Work campaign. They worked very hard in the community, in their workplaces and, thankfully, on my campaign, to do their bit to end Work Choices and to defeat the Howard government. I want to say thank you to all those people who helped me in my campaign—I should more correctly say those who got involved at every level in the Your Rights at Work campaign. It was a tremendous effort throughout Capricornia and I really do appreciate the support that I got. I have to congratulate people for basically sticking up for their rights and for not copping what Work Choices meant to them, to their families, to their workplaces and of course to this nation and what we regard as some pretty core Australian values.

Looking at our very local campaign and some of the commitments that were made at the local level in Capricornia, you cannot go past health as a very important policy area in which people were looking to the Rudd Labor team to address some critical deficiencies from the previous Howard government. One of the most important commitments that we made in Capricornia was to grant a full-time licence for an MRI machine, with that licence being attached to an MRI machine at the Rockhampton Base Hospital. Going back into the history of this matter: at the 2004 election Labor promised that we would grant a licence for a full-time MRI machine at the Rockhampton hospital. It was a priority going back to that time. We were not successful in that election. The Howard government instead granted that full-time licence to a private sector operator, but the private sector operator put the MRI machine into a mobile unit that spends its time between Rockhampton, Gladstone and Bundaberg. In effect, Rockhampton, the major health hub in Central Queensland, only has access to an MRI machine on a part-time basis, and this is completely unacceptable.

Nicola Roxon joined me in making the commitment that, if elected, Labor would provide a full-time MRI licence for a machine to be located at the Rockhampton Base Hospital. The minute I made that announcement and it became public, quite a number of people, in conversation when I bumped into them at the shopping centre or down the street, told me about their own personal experiences. For example, they had been diagnosed with something or they were concerned about a particular health condition and the doctor had suggested that they get an MRI scan to make a correct diagnosis, and there they were, sitting around waiting for one week, two weeks or whatever it might be while this MRI machine made its way back up from Bundaberg or Gladstone. Meanwhile, they were sitting with a lump or something that they could not get identified. It was a very anxious time for people, and it is something that Labor has addressed. Discussions are underway already with Queensland Health about the implementation of this promise, and I am assured by the Commonwealth health department that we are very much ready to go with the issuing of that licence and our commitment to picking up the bill for the MRI services that will be provided when Queensland Health is in a position to get that machine up and going.

The other health initiative was one put forward by the Capricornia Division of General Practice. It is a very innovative project named the Capricornia Primary Health Advanced Community Care initiative. It is very much designed to avoid the need for people to go into hospital. The idea is that someone going to their GP who would otherwise be admitted to hospital as a last resort will be able to contact this organisation, which will be run by the division of GPs. It will involve a database of services that are available out in the community to support those people who would otherwise have no option but to be admitted to hospital. This is really about harnessing the resources that are already in the community to take some of the pressure off our public hospital system. Again, this is already underway. Meetings have been held between the Commonwealth and state health departments and the other stakeholders in this and I am confident that that local initiative for people to avoid going into hospital and to get the care they need in their own homes will get underway soon.

The other big issue that has been a mainstay of my speeches in this place for pretty much the whole time I have been here is of course roads. Anyone in a regional electorate would spend a fair bit of time talking about roads and lobbying for funding for roads. I can see that you endorse my words, Deputy Speaker Sidebottom. Some are more successful than others with funding, you would have to say. Nonetheless, I did welcome the $2.2 billion that was announced for the Bruce Highway in Queensland. Yes, funding does go to places other than Tasmania at times. This $2.2 billion for the Bruce Highway includes a significant proportion for the Central Queensland section between Childers and Sarina. It means things like an extra 40 overtaking lanes between Childers and Sarina, which will be very welcome, and a great deal of widening and strengthening work to increase the safety and efficiency of the road.

There are three main projects that I will be pushing very hard to be given some priority. One is a significant upgrade of the main street of Sarina. The Bruce Highway actually goes right through the main part of the town and there was $10 million announced to straighten up that road and make that southern approach to Sarina a bit safer and for it to work better as a main street. Another important one, which I think work is already underway on to implement, is the duplication of the road between Bakers Creek, just south of Mackay, and Farrelly’s Lane, which is the entrance to the fast-growing industrial area at Paget. That is going to be a really important one because the traffic on that road between Sarina and Mackay and out to the mining towns is growing exponentially.

The other important one is a $5 million commitment to fund a major scoping study looking at how you take road and rail traffic over the Yeppen flood plain at the southern entrance to Rockhampton. That is something that has really needed to be looked at for many years, and the increased activity in the mining towns to the west of Rockhampton and right through the Central Queensland region has meant that it is becoming even more pressing. I was very pleased to get those commitments.

Some other local promises picked up in the budget last week were for three sporting facilities: two in Rockhampton and one in the mining town of Dysart. One of those commitments is for the redevelopment of the Hegvold Stadium, which is the home of basketball in Rockhampton. The stadium has already been given great support by the state government and also by Rockhampton Basketball, and the federal government will be kicking in to help that project on its way. Similarly, we will be providing some funding for an upgrade of the Kele Park softball facility in Rockhampton. The other great project is a multipurpose sport and recreation centre in the mining town of Dysart. This is a great project, bringing together support from the state and federal governments and also from BMA, which is the main mining company operating out at Dysart. That facility is seen as a really important part of increasing the attractiveness of Dysart as a place for people to live. The mining companies, like everyone, are finding it harder and harder to fill their workforce needs. The things that help attract and retain staff in communities like Dysart are very important.

Speaking of coal, one of the other things that was announced during the election by the Labor side was the $500 million Clean Coal Fund. I notice the former Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources sitting in the chamber. I know he joins me in being a very keen supporter of the coal industry as a representative of a major proportion of the coal industry in Queensland. Of course, the future of that industry is very near and dear to my heart and to the people of Capricornia, who understand the importance of its contribution to our economic base in Central Queensland. Labor’s $500 million Clean Coal Fund is very much about securing the future of the industry. The aim of the fund is also to leverage funds from industry as we look towards developing and implementing technologies that will allow us to continue using coal for our energy needs in a carbon constrained future.

Finally, I want to talk about Labor’s commitment to building a national broadband network. Apart from Work Choices, I would say the next most commonly raised issue in my electorate over the last couple of years has been the question of people’s access to broadband and its affordability. It is not something that is confined to rural communities. In fact, the issue was most prevalent in fast-growing urban areas of my electorate like Rockhampton and the Capricorn Coast—more so even than in the rural and more remote parts of the electorate. I am very pleased to know that with the election of the Rudd Labor government there is a commitment to the rollout of a national broadband network so that people can have that access, particularly in the areas of education and its applications in health and in business. This issue is something that has held us back. Australia has a dreadful record if you look at international comparisons on speed of broadband and access to broadband, so this is an important step in overcoming that shortfall.

As I said, I went to the election with those quite specific local promises and I was very pleased to see in the budget two weeks ago that those commitments have been honoured. I can go back to my electorate and assure people that the things that we said we would do—the abolition of AWAs, the abolition of Work Choices, the MRI machine, the primary healthcare initiative and the sporting facilities I mentioned—are all there in the budget and that we are delivering on our promises for the people of Central Queensland and Capricornia.

In conclusion, I want to again say thank you to the people who have once again given me their support. I will be working hard to represent them and will be enjoying my time in government after all these years in opposition. I intend to make that work for the people who put me here.

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