Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

In responding to Her Excellency the Governor-General’s speech, I would like to say how proud I am to represent the people of the Maribyrnong electorate, a very special electorate where 34 in every 100 of my voters were born overseas and 51 in every 100 of my voters speak a language other than English at home. I admire the efforts that migrants have made in Australia and the multicultural aspect of my electorate. The electorate of Maribyrnong, like many electorates in the west and the north-western suburbs of Melbourne, has benefited in recent years from a Labor government in Canberra and a Labor government in Victoria. I look at the Building the Education Revolution, the largest single infusion of new spending in schools in my area in many decades. I look at the primary schools where at last we are building facilities for children which are as good as the homes they live in. The importance to me of the education infrastructure investment we have seen is that for many years in colonial Australia, indeed right up until World War II, we were building schools which were better than the homes that Australian children lived in. That sent a message about the importance of education.

After World War II, with the explosion of our population and the suburbs, perhaps we lost our way in building schools which were as good as the homes people lived in, sending a message about the quality and importance of education. Now we have restored the balance. Looking at what the federal government and the state Labor government have done in my electorate, I also need to talk about the Sunshine Hospital within the Western Health network. Sunshine Hospital had experienced its spurts of growth under federal Labor governments. It was first established in the Whitlam area. Then we had periods of conservative administration in Canberra when nothing was done. I am pleased to say that, especially with the fine work of our Minister for Health and Ageing, who has the neighbouring electorate of Gellibrand, the Sunshine campus of the Western Hospital network has been receiving much overdue resources.

The big infrastructure projects have not only been in health and in schools. I must talk about what we are doing with the Maribyrnong defence land, first established as a defence facility at the start of World War I, building ammunition for our troops. It was the remount facility for our light horse serving in the Middle East and in Europe. For many years, the defence land served this nation in terms of ammunition and troop procurement. It has now ceased to have an active defence function.

We have negotiated an arrangement with the Victorian government that will see a balanced, sustainable community with significant economic, environmental and social benefits for Maribyrnong and Melbourne’s inner west. It is the largest pocket of undeveloped land so close to the GPO of Melbourne. The space of the Maribyrnong defence land is three times the size of the Vatican and there will be arrangements where much of the river’s environmental values and much of the open nature of the site and its heritage will be preserved, right back to the first Indigenous occupation of this land, to when it was a horse-training facility for its defence iteration, and now to provide marvellous quality housing for Melbournians and Victorians to live in very close to the city.

Unlocking the site has been a passion of mine for some time and I am pleased that as the federal member I was able to help pave the way back in 2007-08 for the site to be transferred to VicUrban, the Victorian government’s land development authority, to develop the site. VicUrban has undergone an extensive consultation process with the local community to secure input into, and broad community ownership of, a shared vision for the development of the site. Just last week, I was pleased to be involved with the state member for Footscray to help launch that shared vision. We hope to see over 2,000 people contribute to the consultation to develop this site. The Department of Defence has undertaken to appropriately prepare and securely clean the site. It is anticipated that 2,500 families will be able to move in and join the community values and the environmental and heritage benefits of this quite remarkable piece of land. This project demonstrates the partnerships that can be achieved between state and federal governments, local government and the community.

In talking about infrastructure and the contribution of this government to my special electorate of Maribyrnong, I should of course refer to roads and rail infrastructure. We see extra lanes being built on the Western Ring Road and a new regional rail link to free up congestion of the rail network. With regional rail, the federal and Victorian governments have announced plans to improve access to Sunshine and Footscray railway stations with improvements to local roads as part of the $4.3 billion regional rail link. We will see works that include the removal of two level crossings on Anderson Road in Sunshine as well the transformation of railway stations.

The regional rail project to which the Gillard government has contributed $3.2 billion includes new dedicated regional tracks from the west of Werribee to Deer Park and along the existing rail corridor from Sunshine to Southern Cross station. This will generally separate regional trains from metropolitan trains for the first time, giving Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat trains their own dedicated tracks through the metropolitan system. Key features for Sunshine station in my electorate will see the removal of the level crossings that I have referred to between Ballarat Road and Wright Street, a new footbridge and plaza entries at the station, a new platform and improvements to station safety and amenity.

I also welcome the announcement by the Brumby government to fund grade separation of the Main Road-railway level crossing at St Albans. I have always supported the local community in trying to reduce congestion and to greatly improve safety at this very busy local intersection. These are invaluable projects for the western and north-western suburbs of Melbourne. To ensure that our area is one where families can happily and healthily grow and businesses can thrive, quality transport infrastructure upgrades are integral to community progress. I am pleased that work on the Western Ring Road is progressing well.

The 28-kilometre-long Western Ring Road extends from the junction of the Princes and West Gate freeways in  Laverton to Sydney Road in Fawkner. The ring road is part of the M80, which also incorporates the 10-kilometre-long Metropolitan Ring Road. This road carries up to 142,000 vehicles per day, with up to 16 per cent of these being commercial vehicles. There are a series of capacity and safety improvements being undertaken at key locations in the Western Ring Road by our government. Lane widening and safety improvement works on the Western Ring Road will enhance the capacity to improve traffic flow, improve reliability by mitigating weaving and diverging of traffic, maximise traffic flow, and reduce congestion. The Australian government is contributing $900 million to the Western Ring Road upgrade, with the Victorian government contributing $300 million.

There are some other local infrastructure initiatives that are very important to the people of Maribyrnong. One of these is the Milleara hub. Earlier in the year the Moonee Valley community celebrated the opening of a new $4.3 million Milleara Integrated Learning and Development Centre for Children, which will provide much-needed education, health and family services in the area around East Keilor and Avondale Heights. The federal Labor government provided over $2.8 million to the Moonee Valley Council for the new centre from the $1 billion Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program. Importantly, during the construction more than 70 tradespeople were supported, including 24 apprentices, and 23 new ongoing jobs would be created as a result of the finished centre.

The regional integration plan is a key part of our economic stimulus plan delivering local jobs in communities across Australia by building infrastructure for the long term. The project was the result of strong feedback from the community that a dedicated children’s health and learning centre was needed. Investing in the health of our children is the best investment we can make as a society and I am pleased the government supported this particular project.

But the list goes on of the contributions to infrastructure in my local area and electorate. The Gillard government has also partnered with the Essendon Football Club—the Bombers—to deliver a new sporting and community hub with state-of-the-art facilities designed to meet the needs of the Australian Paralympics Committee as well as the growing community demand.

The Gillard government is investing $6 million towards the $28.7 million project, which is expected to include a club administration centre that will incorporate the Australian Paralympics Committee’s Victorian administration. Training, medical and rehabilitation facilities for use by the club, the APC, Australian Paralympic athletes and teams. There will be a fully accessible indoor club and community facility for the Australian Paralympics Committee, the Essendon Football Club and the community to use. There will be a learning multimedia area which can be used by local schools and during club community programs, as well as additional car parking and upgrades of existing club facilities for club, APC and community use.

This renovation is going to provide the Essendon Football Club with state-of-the-art facilities and forges an alliance between an elite AFL football club and the Australian Paralympics Committee that will ensure that aspiring athletes with disabilities will achieve their dreams. And of course it is a valuable facility for the local community.

Sixty-five days after the appointment of the government, I should talk a little about the national perspective. It has been about 65 days since my appointment as Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation. This is a position of great responsibility and privilege. It is a portfolio that affects millions of Australians and represents a great opportunity to deliver further improvements that will increase the quality of life of all Australians and deliver us a sustainable economic future.

The Gillard government has developed strong and far-sighted policies on superannuation to simplify the system for working Australians and provide them with a secure retirement income. The key plank of our plan is to take the superannuation guarantee from nine to 12 per cent. I would encourage the opposition to come on board with a scheme which will ensure the adequacy of retirement income for millions of Australians.

One of the gifts of the last 100 years of life in Australia is that we live a lot longer than we ever did before, as the member for Berowra is aware. I will of course continue to work week in and week out to continue Labor’s strong record in developing a superannuation system that will improve the retirement savings of all of our citizens, build the nation’s prosperity and strengthen our financial security.

As the parliamentary year draws to a close, it is with some passion, and indeed some regret, that I no longer have the immediate responsibility for disability services, but I recognise the privilege I had in the first term of government to work with people with disabilities and their carers. I believe the government has made some advances in its first term. I do believe that we made disability an area of political priority, but there is certainly much that has to be done before people with disability and their carers are treated as equal citizens in this country.

I knew only a passing amount about disability when I was elected as the member of parliament for Maribyrnong, but my eyes have been opened since to the second-class existence that people with disability live. Imagine if we put two million people—which is approximately the number of full-time carers and people with profound or severe disabilities—in a city and built a wall around them. Then we said to these people that we had exiled in this city that from birth to death and at every point in between that they would get second-class outcomes. If we said to the parents of a child who in the early months of life is not developing as hoped or expected, ‘You will find it difficult to get advice and diagnosis; then the waiting time for early intervention services will be long; when you search for a preschool or child care or primary school you will again have a very invidious and very isolating process of finding support. And again you will find it hard when you need to find the money to support you to get physiotherapy, occupational therapy and paediatric assistance’.

Effectively we say to people with disability that when you go to secondary school, you will find it difficult to get adequate integration support; when you leave school, it will not be clear how you will find a job; you will experience higher unemployment rates; you will have lower levels of home ownership and greater levels of income insecurity; you will be discriminated against when you catch aeroplanes or trains; and the media will ignore your issues. If we did this to two million people picked at random and exiled them, you would have a riot, a revolution. But this is what we do to people with disability every day.

I should acknowledge that, in the work that has to be done to improve the situation I have just described, people with disability are fortunate to have the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, and her team, and now Senator Jan McLucas, working to deliver real improvements to their lives. I particularly look forward to the Productivity Commission’s study into a long-term care and support scheme. The report will be released next year and will help provide us with a road map of how we can ensure equal treatment for people with disability and their carers in our very lucky country. I know the government will treat the report with the seriousness it deserves.

Finally, I would like to express my ongoing support for the people affected by the Victorian bushfires of 2009 and for those involved in the reconstruction of the bushfire hit areas. I had the opportunity to coordinate the federal government’s role in bushfire reconstruction. We have seen good examples of the different levels of government working together with local communities to ensure that government assists rather than hinders people in their very difficult personal and financial reconstruction and recovery.

Rebuilding is a long process and there is still a long way to go, but I salute and recognise the determination of literally thousands of individuals and families to make the best of what was a tragic disaster completely beyond the dimensions of anything we had previously experienced in this country. The Australian government stood side by side with Australian people through this time of difficulty and that work continues.

Whether looking at the electorate of Maribyrnong or at the nation as a whole, the role of the government is to encourage quality jobs and to provide quality services, such as transport, health and education, so that families and communities can thrive. I believe that the Gillard and Brumby Labor governments have delivered a strong economy responsibly. Both governments have made record investments in my home area of the western suburbs of Melbourne—upgrades to hospitals, schools and transport, as I have mentioned. In the months and years ahead, I hope to be able to continue to help deliver for local communities, to help build on the pride that so many take in their local community, to keep serving people with disability and their carers and to improve the financial security in retirement of millions of Australians.

One of the most important decisions on the near horizon for voters in our community is the Victorian state election on 27 November. The responsible and competent record of the Brumby government through the GFC has, along with the federal government, helped us into the calmer waters of today. Given the state government’s carefully costed, yet far-sighted, vision and agenda for the times ahead, I would urge Maribyrnong voters to return them at the end of this month. As a minister and a local member, I look forward to hearing the concerns of the Maribyrnong community in the new year and helping build an even better and stronger community than we have today.

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