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

There we go: we are onto that too. Australian greyhounds, in particular those being sent to Macao, are basically sent over there to be mistreated. They are not even euthanased in a humane way. There is no record of the greyhounds that leave this country. I think that as a parliament we need to address that.

Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—

'A passport system', Joel says. I will be watching. I will not be here but I will be watching—and you know I tweet!

The next issue is health. A passion of mine in this parliament has been health, and it is great to see Steve Irons here because we have both been involved in the health committee over a very long period of time and we have co-chaired a lot of parliamentary friendship groups, such as Parliamentary Friends of Seniors and Ageing and Parliamentary Friends of Rare Diseases, and I know that he is just as passionate about health as I am. I believe that the government is really letting people down. Thank you for your work on the health committee and thank you for working with me, Steve. But I need to make some pretty strong comments about government action in the area of health.

Access to health should be based on a person's need. It should not be based on whether or not a person can afford it. We cannot afford to have a health system here in Australia like the health system that exists in the US. I feel like I have made this speech before, talking about this! And I have made many speeches on health! But going back to the Howard government: under the Howard government, bulk-billing rates fell to 60 per cent, and they came up to 82 per cent when Labor was in government. Now they are on the decline again; we are transferring the cost—we are putting in place a GP rebate, but we are getting the GPs to collect it—and putting in place extra charges and costs for all people who go and see doctors.

We have Catherine King, who is a fantastic shadow health minister. I know she is across it. And the only way Australians can stop these health changes coming into play is by voting Labor.

On education: education is fundamental to everything. If you do not have access to a good education, you do not have access to a quality of life that those of us who are afforded a good education have. To have a system where some people are denied that access to the highest quality of education is unacceptable. Gonski needs to be fully funded. It needs to be put in place to help the most disadvantaged students in schools in Australia. So, once again, it is another job—and we have got Amanda here, who I know is well and truly up to the task.

As to the NBN—well! Pat will be taking up the fight on the NBN. And the rollout in our area has been abysmal. In my office, in the first week that the NBN was rolled out we had 200 people who lodged complaints because they had lost their phone line, they had lost their computer—and on and on it went. Some two months later, they were still without a phone or without a computer. So I am very confident that Pat will take up that issue.

On climate change: I think climate change might be a dirty word at the moment—is it? Does it exist or does it not exist? On this side of the House, we are committed—absolutely committed—to turning it around. The challenge is for those on the other side to match our commitment, because it is of vital importance to not just Australia but the whole of the world. I was in the Pacific recently at the Pacific women's forum. At that forum, the women voted to have climate change as the agenda item for next year's Pacific women's forum. So that is putting it on the agenda and saying how important it is.

As to domestic violence: how can we address domestic violence when funding has been cut? It is so important. You cannot have a situation where two women in Australia are being killed every day. Once again, I know that we on this side are committed to seeing that that is well and truly addressed.

One of my favourites has always been a republic and that is something I am going to work on once I leave this place. Australia needs to be a republic. We need to have our own Australian head of state.

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