Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to acknowledge that my colleague the member for Melbourne Ports, who is in the chamber tonight, endorses my comments. I think everybody, including the Deputy Speaker, the member for Calwell, would agree. I extend to Jennie and Dennis my very best wishes.

There are two other women whom I became friends with in the last parliament and also miss. Sharryn Jackson was the Chair of the Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations, of which I was a member and where I got to know her very well. The committee produced a report on the inquiry into pay equity, a significant proportion of which addressed issues such as the need for paid parental leave in this country. It was a groundbreaking report in that it actually had some significant outcomes. That, I think, reflects the great commitment of the Labor government to progress that issue. Sharryn put endless hours and great commitment into the committee and that report. I of course am not biased by her name when saying that she was a wonderful person. I acknowledge sadly to the House that the ‘Sharon group’ on our side is now down to two when we were very happy to be up to three. I pass on my very best wishes to Sharryn Jackson. I miss her companionship.

The other person I came to know and be good friends with was Kerry Rea, the member for Bonner. Kerry had the dubious pleasure to be seated next to me in the House when the parliament commenced. As she was a Queenslander we had not run across each other at all, so it was a great honour to get to know Kerry. She had a long, distinguished and, I think, very rewarding career in local government before she came to this place and brought a lot of life experience to her position as member of parliament. I think she can take great pride in what she achieved in this place over her term. I will also miss her companionship in this new parliament.

As is traditional, I would like to thank my electorate for its confidence in returning me to the seat of Cunningham at the election. Having made comment on the Governor-General and the Prime Minister, I might mention that, when I first sought to represent my party through our preselection processes in the Illawarra in the early nineties, I quite regularly got questions like, ‘How would a woman represent a steelmaking, coalmining area?’ At that point the electorate had never being represented by a woman at the elected level.

Perhaps they did not know my generation, but that was a bit like a red rag to a bull; it just made me more determined to break through those attitudes. I am very pleased to say that I never encounter that now. Jennie George was elected prior to my election and we have had the state members, Noreen Hay and Lilea McMahon, elected to the state parliament. It is not an issue anymore. I think it is very encouraging, particularly to young women in the area, to see that these sorts of issues are not seen as questions—it is about your capacity to do the role. I must say that having grown up with four brothers, I never quite understood how you would not be able to hold your own anyway. So I thank the electorate for their support at the most recent election and I am committed to continuing to progress both the local interests of the electorate and the national interest, which is important to us locally as well.

I also had a redistribution and picked up some new areas. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to represent the suburbs of Waterfall and Heathcote from the old seat of Hughes, and also the areas of Maianbar and Bundeena from the old seat of Cook. People have been very warm. It is a bit confusing at first when there is a redistribution and people are a bit uncertain about why it has happened and who is going to represent them, but they have certainly been very open and warm to me in giving me an opportunity to get to know them. As I said to them, I am committed to ensuring that they get good and effective representation in this parliament.

The Governor-General outlined the program of this government for this term and it is an ambitious reform agenda. It covers a range of areas that I think already have well-laid foundations because of what was done in our previous term, and in the short period since the election I have already seen some progress on them, particularly in the area of parliamentary reform. We are all living the reality of that day to day as we come to terms with the new operation of the parliament, but I think they were good reforms.

There are reforms to the transparency and integrity of the parliamentary process, including areas such as political donations. They are important issues that we continue to progress. Importantly, there is the proposal to amend the Australian Constitution to recognise First Australians. I think many of us look forward to that succeeding. There will no doubt be a debate about the manner and form in which that will occur. I just hope that that debate, unlike so many in the early days of this government, is conducted in a constructive and positive way to see the goal realised.

We will also acknowledge the role of local government. Given how closely so many of us worked, particularly during the period of the global financial crisis, with our local government authorities and colleagues to have them play a role in keeping jobs sustained in local communities, we must make sure that we all understand how important and significant they are. I think that is important.

There is a raft of economic reforms, including returning the budget to surplus by 2012-13; the introduction of the minerals resource rent tax, which I spoke about in the matter of public importance before the House today; the convening of a tax summit in 2011; and the increase in the superannuation guarantee from nine to 12 per cent. Sometimes I think we forget to remind people that one reason for the great resilience of our financial system is the significant savings of over $1 trillion that exist through the superannuation scheme. That is an important backbone to the financial system in Australia, and to increase it from nine to 12 per cent is important not only for the individuals who will retire with a more meaningful retirement income but also for the nation’s savings.

Additional reforms include the development of national standards for occupational health and safety, and the simplification of tax returns, which are already underway. Most significantly, and I will only touch on this because I have spoken on it on many occasions already, there is the rollout of the National Broadband Network with its capacity to transform our communities and regional economies.

There is also a raft of measures addressing costs of living, including increasing the frequency of the payment of the childcare rebate in order to make it a more financially manageable situation for families. There is also the thing that we all celebrate with great joy, the implementation of the historic Paid Parental Leave scheme from 1 January 2011—it is well and truly time that Australia caught up on that. Other measures include extending the education tax rebate, including one that I cheered loudly when I heard it during the election campaign: increasing family support for teenagers who are enrolled in school and vocational education. It is constantly raised with me that sometimes the most expensive years are the post-16 years, when you are still supporting your young people through education, and that the need for financial support for families during these years is the least recognised. So I certainly welcome that.

We also continue our reform agenda in education and training. In particular, we are developing more national consistency across our education system so there will be more transparency in the reporting process. Of course, key to that is the development of the national curriculum, the My School website extension into increasing transparency measures and a range of measures to support young people to actually stay on and complete their schooling. Only recently, the new member for Throsby, Stephen Jones, and I announced more than $3 million for trades training centres across three of our high schools that are in a consortium together. They are thrilled and you can see how significant that was to them. I take the opportunity in talking about that announcement to acknowledge that, while Stephen does not address the same gender issue that Jennie George did as my colleague, he is a wonderful addition to the team and has worked in great partnership. I look forward to, jointly with him, achieving a lot for both of our electorates. That scheme has been very welcome and it is one area where I could not believe the Leader of the Opposition’s targeting of cuts in the education sector. As a former teacher I may be biased, but I think there is no greater investment that you can make, particularly in the high-school years when young people can get disengaged. It is very difficult to re-engage them.

Health and disability was a major area of reform in our last term, and that continues. I am working with local GPs at the moment to look at things like the development of the GP infrastructure grants that are available to upgrade GP clinics to provide an expanded range of services. We are also looking at the GP after hours hotline and meeting with local groups to talk about the rollout of mental health services across our electorate as part of the national reform in that area.

We also have the National Health and Hospitals Network program continuing. In my state of New South Wales the call has gone out for the local networks and the chairs of those have just been announced by the state government. Of course, we also have the Productivity Commission looking at a national disability insurance scheme—another big area of reform in terms of both health and income support for vulnerable people. There is a great deal to be done there as well.

I am particularly pleased with our commitment on regional development and I want to recognise the new Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government, the Hon. Simon Crean, who is a passionate advocate for the importance of regions and their role in setting their futures. Indeed, he came to Wollongong for the Regional Development Australia Illawarra Branch annual conference, where all the key players and stakeholders in our region come together and, in a democratic way, determine the priorities for our region and how we will work on them. I have had a great deal of feedback already about the minister’s speech at the conference. People were really encouraged and enthused by his genuine commitment to regional development, and that message is important to keeping up their commitment and energy for the task. So I thank the RDA and all the key stakeholders who participated and the minister.

And then, of course, there is climate change. I believe that climate change is an opportunity for Australia—and I come from a mining and steelmaking town. I believe that climate change gives us the capacity to develop the technologies, the knowledge and the skills that the rest of the world will be seeking in the not-too-distant future to transform their own economies to a lower reliance on carbon. For us to get in ahead of the game is an opportunity, not a problem. It means that our innovative and clever tradespeople, researchers, inventors and manufacturing industry, which have done so well in transforming into competitive industries that are at the cutting edge, will have the opportunity—because the carbon pricing system that has been put in place will give the investment incentive—to become world leaders. I think that in 20 years time, if not sooner, we will be looking back and saying that these industries were established from that reform and they created the solid ground for the future.

I want to finish up by acknowledging that the work in my electorate goes on, as it always does for all of us. No member ever retires from this place saying, and certainly my colleague Jennie George reflected on this, ‘I’ve done everything; we’ve solved all the problems; my electorate and region are now well established; the job is done,’ and then handing a comfy sinecure to their successor. The task always continues. There are always new challenges. Our area in the Illawarra is no different. The new member for Throsby, Stephen Jones, and I are enthused about that. We have great confidence in our community pulling together to find solutions, creating opportunities, taking advantage of times and events, having faith in our young people and working together until the end of this term—which I am sure will be a full term given the stability of this new government—and then we will be able to say these are our achievements and we will continue on with the task ahead in partnership with the community, as is the case with all members, to not only achieve outcomes for those we are currently most concerned about but also lay good foundations for the next generation. I look forward to those challenges during this parliament.

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