Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure as the Labor member for Deakin to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009 and related bills and this budget—the first Labor budget since 1995. I welcome this budget because it is a good Labor budget. It is the type of budget that people in my electorate of Deakin, in Melbourne’s outer east, elected a Rudd Labor government on 24 November last year to deliver. This is a budget that delivers for working Australians and for the people in my electorate of Deakin. It delivers all that the Rudd government promised at the national level and all that was promised locally in Deakin. I am happy to detail those promises to the House.

Funding announcements made during the election campaign and delivered in this budget in my seat of Deakin include $200,000 to the Ringwood community centre to upgrade the centre’s facilities. This will include improvements to their multipurpose room, toilet facilities and renovations to the hall and kitchen areas. It is a facility that is used by various community groups, including the Italian senior citizens association, playgroups and many others.

There was a pledge in the budget to provide $150,000 towards boosting the capacity of the facilities at Croydon Little Athletics Centre, which services our local sporting community. The funding will improve the pavilion area, upgrade the change room and toilet facilities and increase disability access. This particular facility is used by over 700 children each week and is in dire need of extra facilities as it has not actually had enough done to it in recent years.

The Nunawading gymnastics club will benefit from $200,000 of Rudd government funding to upgrade ageing gymnasium facilities at Walker Park in Nunawading, improving both safety and access for our young gymnasts. The Glen Park Community Centre in Bayswater North is to receive a $500,000 upgrade from the Rudd government for facilities to be used by a range of local community groups. With funding now delivered, the centre has the potential to become a social community hub for the outer eastern suburbs, especially for the East Ringwood junior football club, who now call the oval home. The Rudd Labor government has already committed $80 million to fix the Springvale Road bottleneck—Victoria’s worst level crossing—and it will work cooperatively with the Victorian state government to fix this.

As part of this package, $2 million of funding is being provided in the 2008-09 budget for further planning works in addition to those already undertaken by Whitehorse council. $1.018 million has been delivered by the Rudd government to Whitehorse and Maroondah councils to keep our local roads maintained and safe through the federal government’s Roads to Recovery program. The Rudd Labor government is going to invest $600,000 to undertake water-recycling initiatives at Croydon Leisure Centre Pool and undertake upgrades and sanitation works at the nearby Croydon Memorial Pool.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

At the national and local level, there is no such thing as a non-core promise in this budget or from this Labor government. Unlike the previous Howard Liberal government, we keep our promises. So it is a good Labor budget that achieves a lot of things not just for now but also for Australia’s long-term future. This budget will go far towards tackling the many areas of chronic neglect left to us by the previous government.

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