Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commence my contribution to this debate by thanking the people of Shortland for the confidence they have placed in me. I thank them very much for supporting me in the last federal election. I make a commitment to them that I will serve them and respect the great privilege and honour they have placed upon me.

I also thank many other people for helping me in my re-election. I thank all the members of the ALP who worked tirelessly. They made an enormous commitment because they believe in what the Labor Party stands for. They ask nothing more than to have a Labor government and a Labor member of parliament representing them in Canberra. I do appreciate the effort of each and every one of them in working towards having myself and the Gillard government re-elected.

I cannot ignore the contribution of my family. They made an enormous contribution to my campaign and made enormous sacrifices, particularly when there was some illness in the family at the time of the campaign. They still put in big-time and helped have me re-elected. I sometimes wonder why they do that. The families of each and every member of parliament make enormous sacrifices in having us here. We are quite often absent from many family functions and we are often not there to provide the support that is the usual expectation within a family. Overall, I want to put on the record my appreciation for my family and particularly my husband Lindsay.

We had a fantastic campaign team. I would like to acknowledge their contributions as well. Chad Griffith, who stepped into the breach when illness hit; he really was the spearhead of our campaign. He worked very hard and put his life on hold just to be my campaign manager. I thank Chad very much for his contribution. Don and Maggie Bowman—if anyone in this parliament wants to know how to conduct a postal vote campaign then Don and Maggie are the ones to go to. We had a fantastic formula and I thank Don and Maggie for their tireless work and the contributions they made to my campaign.

I also want to mention three other people. Paul Daley, who, I think, I totally exhausted with letterboxing. One day he just could not come out in the afternoon. He has worked tirelessly for me over a number of years in campaigns, along with John Goverd and Kevin McFadden and many other workers. I would just like to particularly single out those people.

I thank very much the people who worked on my booths. I thank the people who worked on pre-poll for the time that they put aside to do that. I thank the people who had my signs in their yards, and I particularly thank those who constantly had them removed and had to have them replaced. I thank Graeme Hamilton and Beryl Bridgefoot for the help that they gave me on street stalls for a number of months and I also thank members of the ALP from North Lakes who helped out as well. I thank my wonderful, wonderful staff for the enormous contribution that they made to my campaign. Kay Fraser would get up early in the morning before she started work and go out and letterbox. It was the same with Mark, Chris, Vicky and Kathy Tudor. I really appreciate the enormous effort that they put in. Thanks also go to Jan, Catherine and Melanie, who worked in the office during the campaign and took many phone calls, and we all know the number of calls that come in during an election campaign.

So I thank my staff and everyone who was involved with the campaign. These are all dedicated people who help me represent them in this parliament because they believe in what the ALP stands for. Some of those values are fairness, equity, inclusiveness and a society free from discrimination. They are the values that drive me as an individual and are the values that drew me to the Labor Party in my early years. I believe we should have a society in which every member is valued, where every child that is born has the same opportunity. Unfortunately, it does not work like that, but I believe that this government has as its goal to try and bring that to fruition. It will not happen in one term, it will not happen in two terms, but it is a goal to work towards. When there are two babies in a hospital, their futures are nearly determined the day they born. I think it is the role of government to help address that inequality and create a system where they have the same opportunities as each other.

Before I move on, I would like to make one other point. One of the things that I find most gratifying as a member, on election day or even after the election, is when you meet with a constituent and they come up to you and say, ‘I voted for you.’ When they say that, they are not saying, ‘I voted for you, so give me this.’ It is as if they have given you one of the greatest gifts that they could give you. I think that goes towards what democracy is about. As a democratic society people have that right to vote, and when they cast it for us in this place we are very privileged.

Shortland is a very environmentally sensitive coastal electorate, and as such climate change is a very important issue within the electorate. Rising sea levels could see the majority of the electorate go under water. Therefore it is really important for this government to address the issue of climate change. During this next term of parliament we must really work on this issue. I implore members of the opposition to acknowledge the fact that climate change does exist and I encourage them to work with the government to put a price on carbon and put in place other policies and laws that will ensure that electorates like Shortland, including many held by members on the other side, are not decimated as a result of climate change.

The demographics of the Shortland electorate are quite interesting. It is an older electorate; according to the 2006 census, it is the 11th oldest electorate in the country. Because it is an older electorate, health is a very important issue. With an ageing population, you need to make sure that you have proper health infrastructure in place—that there are sufficient numbers of doctors, that there is access to hospitals and that the support services are there on the ground for people as they get older. The Gillard government has put in place health and hospital reforms that will very much benefit the people of Shortland.

We have had a chronic doctor shortage for a very long time in Shortland. When the Howard government were in power, I stood up time and again here in the parliament to raise the need for more GPs and a much larger, stronger health workforce. Unfortunately, those words fell on deaf ears. Under the health and hospital reforms and measures that have been put in put in place by the Gillard government and the Minister for Health and Ageing, there are more doctors being trained, there are more nurses being trained, there are more allied health professionals being trained and there is more money going into our public hospitals. There has been a mindset to actually address the issues that surround health and ensure that we have a hospital and health system that can cope with our needs in the 21st century.

Education is an issue that is very important to all members on this side of the parliament. In the Shortland electorate, the Building the Education Revolution has provided much-needed resources, upgrades and capital works in schools. I have listened to members on the other side speak disparagingly about the program in the House and I can only say that the schools in my electorate have embraced it. The opposition call it the ‘school halls program’. Yes, there have been some school halls built within the Shortland electorate; but there have also been many classrooms built and a multitude of other capital works projects that have taken place through the Building the Education Revolution program. I will share with the House the fact that, at the beginning of the 42nd Parliament, I visited Gwandalan Public School, and the principal and the president—

See this speech in context