Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

It is customary in an address-in-reply to talk about the federal election, to thank people who helped in the campaign and to talk about present policy settings and the future direction of our nation, and I will do so in this speech. In September 2013 the people in my rural and regional South-East Queensland electorate of Blair voted for me as their federal representative for a third time. There was a substantial swing against Labor across the country and for a second election in a row in my home state of Queensland. Against the odds, we held on in Blair with a small swing against us in 2010. This time, against the trend, Blair swung to Labor, resulting in an increase of over one per cent in the two-party preferred vote, the final margin being 5.3 per cent.

It is an enormous privilege for a working-class boy from Ipswich to be elected here three times. I am honoured to have the support of the people of Blair and I will not let them down. I went into this campaign, my fourth, as I always do, with a Labor Party membership ticket in one hand and a union ticket in the other. Labor achieved this result in Blair because the people of Ipswich and Somerset decided. It was the federal Labor government that helped them with their cost-of-living pressures, jobs, roads, schools, health and community infrastructure, and it was the federal Labor government that stuck with them through the trials and tribulations of the floods of 2011 and 2013, and they remembered.

In the three years leading up to the September election, I held 325 mobile offices, from shopping centres to shows, from roadsides to rural events. The feedback I heard from people again and again was about issues related to what they wanted: jobs, schools, roads, community infrastructure and health funding. Locally, the former federal Labor government, after years of coalition neglect, delivered everything from the Ipswich Motorway Dinmore-to-Darra section to the Blacksoil Interchange upgrade, to upgrades in schools and health services and community infrastructure projects, from Springfield to Somerset. We reminded people constantly of what the federal Labor government had done and would continue to do in their suburbs and country towns.

I could not have achieved this great result without the support of so many volunteers—some of the most dedicated and determined people I know—such as Dot Hogan, who single-handedly canvassed over 9,000 constituents. In fact, Dot spoke to so many people that her name became quite well recognised, with people telling me they had talked to Dot so they no longer needed to talk to me! Janet Butler is another good friend and supporter of mine and of the Australian Labor Party. She lives in the rural Somerset region and attended many shows, mobile offices and events. She phone-canvassed thousands of people and gave us one of the best and most impressive election night cakes I have ever seen! Somerset has booths that were once in Joh Bjelke-Petersen's state seat and had never been won by Labor. We polled solidly in those traditionally conservative areas, and I attribute much of our success there to the work done by Janet and the Somerset branch of the Labor Party.

Brian Hall is a local long-term Labor Party member who gives his support to many voluntary organisations. Brian is a remarkable man, whose humility hides a wealth of knowledge, wisdom and common sense. He managed to organise and oversee the erection of signs at over 400 sites in Blair, many of them with more than one sign installed. I want to thank also the former member for Forde, Brett Raguse, and Rosewood Labor Party branch members Steve Franklin and Al McMillan, who erected many signs in their area. Lucas Bird, Kaitlyn Clancy and a public servant known as John worked hard putting up many signs. John knows who I am talking about.

Many local people helped on my campaign, including Greg Turner, my mobile office offsider, and Peggy Frankish, who has had a difficult year, losing her husband and fighting a serious illness of her own, but who still gives freely of her time to give me support. We had help from wonderful people such as the former Mayor of Ipswich Des Freeman and his terrific wife, Colleen; Tracey Clark; Ron Careless; Margaret Doran; Rhonda Nolan; Shaun Nancarrow; Jacinta Benson; Allistair Smith; Doug DeWitt; Janet Patterson; and Steve Leese, just to name a few. There were so many people that I could go on naming them for the rest of the day.

The Blair campaign was all about returning to a 'grassroots' strategy. I thank Chris Forrester, whom I described in The Australian newspaper on 13 September 2013 as follows:

Chris is the best in the business, he is a brilliant campaigner. It is all about talking with people, engaging in transactional politics in serving like a local councillor and getting things done, rather than as a party politician …

I thank the following unions for their wonderful support: the Services Union, my union; the Plumbers Union; the Queensland Teachers' Union; the CFMEU; and, particularly, the SDA for their terrific support in the campaign.

Peter Johnstone kindly agreed once again to act as my campaign director, and he did not let me down. His sage personal and political advice has held me in good stead for many years and I am proud to call him my friend. The Blair electorate office is staffed with terrific staff. Wonderful people such as Jenny Howard and Kylie Stoneman have been with me since I was first elected in late 2007. Both of them are seasoned campaigners and have been involved in many elections locally in Ipswich. I thank them for the work they have done. They complement each other and provide an efficient, professional and friendly workplace.

Sue West, Madonna Oliver and Eliza Atkins—the self-described 'Shayngels'—kept me fully informed about what I was supposed to be doing, particularly in my role as parliamentary secretary. Sue has recently left my employ due to family commitments and will be—and already is—sadly missed. Janice Cumming joined our team a few years ago and has a wealth of experience working in electorate offices. Janice regularly receives chocolates and flowers from grateful constituents, and we are pleased with her generous and warm manner. We love her, not just for her work but for the fact that she shares those chocolates with us, which we really appreciate! Fairly new to the team are Nick Hughes and Wayne Gaddes. Apart from their valuable professional skills, they are great campaigners in Ipswich.

Last but by no means least, I acknowledge the support of my family: my wife, Carolyn, and my two daughters, Alex and Jacqui. I thank them for their love and support over many years. I also thank them for their votes, by the way! None of us could do the job we do without the support of our family. I also want to thank my mum, Joy, and her husband of many years, Rob. They worked alongside me in the campaign and stood beside me on cold winter mornings at railway stations, handing out flyers to commuters catching the train from Ipswich to Brisbane. And of course I thank my brothers, Regan and Darrin, who along with others staffed the Kilcoy booths again. We call them the Kilcoy kids.

Over the past three years, I have made many good friends throughout the region and met some truly amazing people. I have enjoyed visiting local schools, workplaces, community groups, homes and sporting games. Continually, I have been touched by the hospitality and friendship I have encountered as the local federal member.

The Blair electorate covers 6,400 square kilometres in South-East Queensland. It is a regional and rural seat. It is based on central and rural Ipswich—about 70 per cent of the city is in my electorate—and the rural area looked after by the Somerset Regional Council. I have travelled my electorate on many occasions. It has to be home to the best jam, coffee and produce in the country, certainly at country shows and particularly at the Fernvale markets.

Without political opponents, there would be no need for elections. I would like to formally acknowledge my political opponents and thank them for their contribution to and participation in our great democracy. I thank the Australian Electoral Commission for the work they have done locally. We change governments in this country with ballots not bullets and we campaign with words not warfare. We should always cherish our democracy.

There is much to be done in Ipswich and in the Somerset region. Sadly, many projects which were budgeted for by the former Labor government have been stripped away. TheCourier-Mail reports that $15 million has been taken away from the Ipswich City Council and no cash for Springfield—the Brisbane Lions have to look elsewhere. The sports hub would have been a wonderful relocation site for the Brisbane Lions AFL team close by my electorate in Oxley and would have benefitted my electorate tremendously. There was also to be $349,00 for the upgrade of Willowbank Raceway, a $219,000 upgrade to the Lowood pool, additional funding of $100,000 for Ipswich Hospice Care, $250,000 for Ipswich Rugby League and $132,000 to Riverview Neighbourhood House—all taken away by the current coalition government. Even more egregious, outrageous and disgraceful is the $2 million they have taken, which we budgeted for, for the upgrade to St Joseph's Catholic Primary School flood evacuation and recovery centre. This will leave 30,000 Ipswich residents without a proper flood evacuation centre, having experienced flood as recently as 2011.

I am pleased to see some projects have not been cut by those opposite. These include the Toogoolawah Condensery Arts and Cultural Precinct and Kilcoy Futures project and Kilcoy showground upgrades. Thank goodness they have survived the cuts. Improving infrastructure and services has always been a priority for me. I will agitate, irritate and even annoy people to get funding for these types of projects and for my electorate.

During the election campaign, my LNP opponent publicly declared that, if elected, the Liberal-National Party would match the commitment of the federal Labor party to provide $279 million to upgrade the final stage of the Ipswich Motorway from Darra to Rocklea—mostly located in the electorate of Moreton but used by tens of thousands of my constituents every day. It came as a bit of a shock to people locally and certainly to me that the fiscal budget impact of federal coalition policies, released just prior to the federal election, states at 7.9.13 that a mere $65 million has been allocated to this vital piece of community infrastructure across the forward estimates. The LNP was disingenuous on this issue. Their state colleagues Campbell Newman and co, who should learn the lesson of the Redcliffe by-election on the weekend, opposed the final stage of the Ipswich Motorway upgrade from Darra to Rocklea and will not put a brass razoo towards it.

The Prime Minister has freely admitted that his policies will hurt people. Well, Prime Minister, that is an understatement because I can tell you that in my Blair electorate alone, around 15,900 eligible families will miss out on the schoolkids bonus, which helps them with cost-of-living pressures, to buy school uniforms, books and IT for their kids. We will see 46,300 people lose years of super savings. Around 20,900 people, mostly women, will lose up to $500 every year because the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have slashed the low-income superannuation contribution. And that is just the beginning.

According to the South-East Queensland infrastructure plan and program, we need $134 billion investment in infrastructure. South-East Queensland will grow from 2.8 million people in 2006 to 4.4 million by 2031. Sadly, we are seeing locally the consequences of what coalition governments have done and I expect will do. The front page of The Queensland Times on the weekend said that the Ipswich unemployment rate—and that covers up to Esk in most of my electorate—now is 11.5 per cent. That is a 2.1 per cent increase since December last year and a staggering 7.3 per cent higher than in 2008. State Labor MP for Bundamba Jo-Ann Miller clearly laid the blame on the Queensland LNP government, saying that it ripped out funds and jobs from the area in the last two years. I agree with her, but under this government we have seen nothing that will reduce the unemployment rate in Ipswich.

When we were in government, when the global financial crisis hit this country, what we saw from those opposite was inertia, idleness and ignorance. We even heard members across the chamber who denied that the global final crisis impacted our regions, our country and world wide. We kept jobs going. We provided stimulus funding, which kept the economy going. We kept people in jobs, we kept inflation low, we kept growth going and we had one of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios in the OECD. We lowered the tax to GDP ratio from the time the big-spending Howard government got in to the time we left office. And not just that: we left the legacy of a AAA credit rating. That is what we did when we were in government. So far from those opposite we have seen 63,000 jobs lost—so much for the million jobs that were going to be created.

In our electorate of Blair, we had to endure the failings of the Howard government and we are seeing them repeated here by this government. We have seen it with the National Broadband Network, with 1,000 local towns—Minden, Kilcoy, Toogoolawah, Lowood, Esk and Fernvale—getting fibre to the premises under a Labor government but nothing under the coalition government. They call it the NBN. What the coalition are doing is not the NBN at all, and they will leave areas like these without adequate fast and affordable broadband. LNP members in my home state who represent regional and rural areas should hang their heads in shame.

In addition to my responsibilities as a local member, I am pleased to have been appointed to the shadow cabinet as shadow minister for Indigenous affairs and shadow minister for ageing. I thank my caucus colleagues for the opportunity to serve in this way and the Leader of the Opposition for appointing me. The former federal Labor government made a huge investment in Indigenous affairs. We had the Closing the Gap strategy and we put a huge amount of effort into that. Sadly, there is a lot more work to be done. Work is needed in a whole range of areas by 2031 before we will see many of the targets being achieved. Since the coalition came to government, the Prime Minister rolled the area into his department and we have seen slashing, cutting and burning across Indigenous affairs.

We have seen $13 million taken from Indigenous legal services, ATSILS. I have spoken to Shane Duffy, CEO in Queensland and involved nationally at the leadership level, about the impact of that. The government have made no commitment and have backed away from the targets in regard to incarceration rates. If you are an Indigenous young adult, you are 25 times more likely to be incarcerated than a non-Indigenous young adult. An Indigenous man or woman is 15 times more likely to be incarcerated than a non-Indigenous person. That is shameful. We have to do more. We have a bipartisan commitment from both sides of politics, but we are seeing that those opposite are not taking the same approach that they said they would take. They are not the government that they said they would be on Indigenous affairs. We have seen $15 million cut from the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, the peak representative body for Indigenous people across the country. Bringing in a paternalistic, ministerial advisory council is not the way to go. They should be funding the peak body that represents Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The former Labor government budgeted for that funding and those opposite are tearing it away. The consequences are that jobs will be lost in the congress. That should never be allowed to happen.

We have seen nothing about disability targets and nothing about higher education targets in Closing the Gap from those opposite. On the sixth report, we saw that they produced a 16-page pamphlet. We produced 150 pages of data and analysis when we were last in government in terms of Closing the Gap. I am not confident at all that the expectations raised by those opposite will actually be achieved. We have seen the Prime Minister comment on recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Constitution. My concern is that it will be preambular and symbolic. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across this country want substantive change to the Constitution that recognises their land, their culture and that they were the first people of this country. I hope those opposite do not back away from that.

In terms of ageing, we saw what those opposite really think of the aged-care sector on the last day of parliament last year. It took them 32 minutes in this place to get rid of $1.1 billion in relation to the workforce supplement, funding that we had provided for. It was agreed within the sector—the aged-care providers, the not-for-profit sector, the for-profit sector and the unions—to roll out funding to increase workforce numbers across the sector and to reduce the disparity in funding, salaries and entitlements between the health system and the aged-care sector. If you are a nurse, you are more likely to earn $300 or $400 more a week, say, in my electorate at the Ipswich general hospital than at the Nowlanvil Aged Care Facility. That is just one example. We provided that as part of the Living Longer Living Better package. Central to that package that those opposite said that they would support was the workforce supplement, but they have taken it away. It is an easy save for them. I call on them to do the right thing and reinstate it. The sector wants it and the government should do the right thing. This is important as the ageing tsunami hits this country. I call on those opposite to do the right thing. Two weeks before Christmas, the coalition, the Grinch, took that money away from the aged-care sector.

There is much that I will bring to this parliament and there is much more that I can say about these sectors. I want to keep the government accountable. They have made many promises in the area of Indigenous affairs and ageing, and they should do the right thing by both sectors.

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