Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Once upon a time, the address-in-reply debate was about parliamentarians expressing our loyalty to the Queen and our thanks to the Governor-General, but more typically these days it is used by a government to set out its agenda for governing—or, in the case of this government, its lack of agenda for governing. The Liberals might be occupying the Treasury benches, but all members of parliament have a responsibility in setting the direction of this nation and showing leadership.

Today I want to pay tribute to the new members of parliament who have joined the 45th Parliament, because they are already playing a role, but over coming years they will play an increasingly important role in setting the agenda and the direction for our nation. It is an immense privilege to be elected to the House of Representatives to represent a community that we feel passionately about, but this privilege also comes with great responsibility. I can assure new members that, over time, the challenges will change—the local challenges, the national challenges and the international challenges will change—but those challenges will never diminish.

We face many challenges as a nation, but with those challenges come great opportunities too. Our task is to face those challenges resolutely, face them bravely and grasp those opportunities wisely for the benefit of the people who live in our electorates and for the benefit of our nation. We are in a unique position as members of the federal parliament to make real what we believe would really improve our country. We are almost uniquely placed to do that, and that comes with the responsibility of having a vision, being able to articulate that vision and—very, very importantly—being able to implement it, to make it real.

From our new members of parliament we saw a number of fabulous first speeches—maiden speeches, as they used to be called—and I want to focus a little bit on these first speeches of my colleagues because they show a group of people who really have a vision for our nation and the talent and the application to bring that vision to life. I want to start with a couple of people who have made not one first speech to this parliament but two.

The first, of course, is my colleague the member for Eden-Monaro, the shadow assistant minister for defence industry and support, the Hon. Dr Mike Kelly. There is a reason that this member of parliament broke the rule that Eden-Monaro is a bellwether seat. He was an extraordinary, extraordinarily diligent member of parliament when he was last elected and will be again this time and for however long he holds this seat, which I know will be a long time. He has made an enormous contribution to our nation through his active service and to the Australian parliament, and I am so delighted to welcome him back. He comes from generations of dairy farmers who really gave life to the dairy industry in the region that he represents. You can see the old photos of Mike's ancestors up on the Bega Cheese factory wall in their little historical section there. But he also comes from generations of people who fought for their country.

The other member of parliament who has given not one but two first speeches is of course Steve Georganas. Again, it is so wonderful to have Steve returned as the member for Hindmarsh. People voted for him because they know he will fight for jobs, for better health services, for investment in education and for the pensions. He has so many pensioners in his electorate. I went to a pensioners meeting with him last time I was in the seat, and many of them had not actually clocked the fact that there was some other guy representing them for one term. They still thought Steve was their member of parliament and were delighted to be able to vote for him again.

I also want to make special mention of my friend and colleague the member for Barton, the Hon. Linda Burney, who really is a unique embodiment of our Australian history. She spent the first decade of her life not counted as a citizen of this nation. She has experienced the destructive power of racism and exclusion but she has fought against racism and exclusion by fighting for something much more powerful—for tolerance, for inclusion, for recognition. Seeing her sung into the parliament by her sisters and seeing the work that she is doing with Senators Malarndirri McCarthy and Pat Dodson in enlivening our Indigenous cultures here in the parliament and in the Labor Party has been really fantastic.

We have new members for Bass, Braddon and Lyons, and it is a great thing to see three such terrific new members, in Ross Hart, Justine Keay and Brian Mitchell, replacing those infamously negative three amigos. We know that the north of Tasmania, in particular, has really done it tough, with cuts to community services and welfare organisations, underemployment at a huge scale, unemployment, of course, and, sadly, a state and a federal government who are leaving Tasmanians really to face these problems on their own. These new members of parliament will stand up for jobs, for services and for the people they represent—not like the last three members, who were just apologists for a string of Liberal Party cuts.

We also have a terrific new cohort from Queensland—new members for Oxley, Longman and Herbert. The new member for Oxley, Milton Dick, spoke so knowledgeably and thoughtfully about multiculturalism and, in particular, the very significant Vietnamese community that he represents in his electorate of Oxley. He talked about multiculturalism not just as a great social strength in Australia but as, increasingly, a terrific economic asset for this nation. The member for Longman, Susan Lamb, spoke about education and lifelong learning and told her compelling personal story. She sees education and lifelong learning in her own life, in the lives of her children and in her community as being the key to a lifetime of opportunity and success for ourselves, for our children, for their children and for generations to come. The member for Herbert is proof positive that none of us should ever take a single vote for granted. Cathy O'Toole is living proof of that. She has worked in the mental health sector and she has made it her business, since coming to this parliament, to fight for better resources and better supports for her community, particularly for mental health services in that community.

In the Northern Territory we have got the wonderful member for Solomon, Luke Gosling, who has served his country in so many ways—like you, Mr Deputy Speaker Hastie, as a member of the ADF but in other ways too, in the community, both in Australia and overseas. I know Luke will continue to make a very strong contribution, through our parliament, to his constituents and to our region.

Our new colleagues from Western Australia are the members for Fremantle, Burt, Cowan, Perth and Brand. We have a wonderful new member for Fremantle in Josh Wilson, who believes that our work as parliamentarians is fundamentally about the custody and stewardship of the things that we share: public health and education, public transport, fair and safe working conditions and our environment. Our member for Burt, Matt Keogh, is committed to fighting for an affordable and accessible justice system, to correct the injustices that he has seen in his professional life, to protect against infringement of the rights of his community. He will use his legal experience, including experience of volunteering with domestic violence support services, to work for better outcomes for victims of domestic violence. Our wonderful member for Cowan, Anne Aly, is someone who represents a very typically Australian story in many ways. Her parents made a life-changing decision to leave Egypt and arrived at the Bonegilla Migrant Camp in Albury-Wodonga in 1969. Their daughter Anne has become an internationally renowned Australian academic and is the recipient of the prestigious Australian Security Medal. She was the only Australian invited to present at the White House at President Obama's summit, where she talked about how to deal with violent extremism.

Our member for Perth, Tim Hammond, spent much of his career holding powerful and well-resourced organised interests to account on behalf of vulnerable individuals and vulnerable communities—people like victims of asbestos. It is fantastic to have on our team someone who stood up for the victims of asbestos rather than for the companies that sold this deadly product.

Our member for Brand, Madeleine King, will be working to make Australia a confident, progressive and enterprising nation by supporting better access to quality education. Madeleine has such big shoes to fill—so many Labor Party stalwarts have held the seat of Brand—but I know Madeleine can do it.

In my own state of New South Wales there are the seats of Lindsay, Macarthur, Macquarie, Paterson, Werriwa and, of course, Dobell. The member for Lindsay, Emma Husar, gave such a moving account of her family's experience of domestic violence during her first speech. How important it is to have members of parliament who are prepared to bear witness—to talk in this parliament about their own troubles, to show that they are able to identify and empathise with the challenges that ordinary Australians face. Emma has been so brave and has become such a beacon to so many people by standing up and having the confidence to be an advocate for ending the national crisis we have in domestic violence. I know that we are all committed to supporting Emma and her campaign. It is a campaign that all of us share.

There is our member for Macarthur, Mike Freelander. I am not sure if you remember, Mr Deputy Speaker, but during our new member for Macarthur's first speech a baby cried out in the gallery and Mike Freelander said, 'I like that sound.' Mike likes that sound because he has cared for the children of Macarthur for over 30 years as a paediatrician. He has joined our team in the federal parliament because he is so committed to protecting and building Medicare, and he is already bringing his firsthand experience of our health system into our policy development processes, working in particular on our policies on very young children and their first thousand days of development.

Our member for Macquarie, Susan Templeman, had a couple of goes before she got to this parliament. In fact, if we look far enough back in her history, some people will remember that she was reporting on Canberra—she was a reporter before joining us now as a newsmaker. Susan Templeman said she had to run because she could not sit by and see Australia become a backward-looking or defensive society, losing its interest in issues like the republic or reconciliation with our First Australians. She was worried that we were moving away from inclusion and distancing ourselves from Asia, and so that motivation to see an outward-looking, modern Australia has propelled her to Canberra, where I am sure she will make a huge impact.

Our member for Paterson, Meryl Swanson, told such a terrific story about the miner's lamp that she had with her on the floor of the parliament when she made her first speech. She spoke also, of course, about the changing economy in the area that she represents—the growing opportunities for newer, cleaner industries including renewable energies, automated vehicles, robotics and other leading-edge environmental ideas. But the member for Paterson was very clear that she sees it as critical that it is a Labor government that helps communities to transition. We do not leave people to deal with these huge changes on their own. We know, when we have the car industry closing in South Australia and Victoria, when we see the huge changes that are happening in our economy, that it takes a Labor government to help people to transition to the new opportunities that arise for them.

The member for Werriwa, Anne Stanley, talked about the struggle that her family would have faced, without Medicare, through her mother's experience with multiple sclerosis—the hospitalisations, the medical tests that were required. For Anne, fighting to protect Medicare is not just political; it is deeply personal.

I have known our member for Dobell, Emma McBride, for many years now and I have seen the way that her community love the work she has done in the local health system for more than 20 years—in mental health for 15 years and in her local community hospital in Wyong for the last decade. I have visited that hospital with the member for Dobell and I have seen how well known and how knowledgeable she is about the local challenges facing her community. But it is not just health that drives Emma; it is also the strain that she has seen on local infrastructure and services, and the fact that she knows that a Labor government would prioritise investment in these local services.

In Victoria we have new members for Wills and Bruce, who are both people I have known for a very long time. I thought the first speech from the member for Bruce, Julian Hill, was an incredible first speech that spoke eloquently about the challenge of growing inequality in our country and in our world. It was wonderful to have Julian lay out so eloquently the fight that he will engage in to act against poverty and the stark and indefensible growing gap between the richest and poorest Australians and the richest and poorest around the world. The personal experience of our member for Wills, Peter Khalil, again speaks of the sacrifice of millions of migrants, who, as he says:

… helped to build Australia—not just its physical environment but the diversity of its culture, the generosity of its peoples and the depths of its humanity.

Our new parliamentarians are a more diverse group than we have ever had before. I know that; I made more than 80 electorate visits during the election campaign and I met all of these members many times, as well as many of our candidates who were unsuccessful. There were many worthy people who did not make it into our federal parliament. But those who did mean that almost half of our parliamentarians on the Labor side are now women. That is a fantastic achievement, and an achievement we have managed because we set targets, we laid out strategies to meet those targets and we went for them. We also have, of course, a larger number of Indigenous members and senators than we have had in the past, and that is something I am very proud of as well.

Each of the members of parliament that have joined us in this 45th Parliament took the opportunity to thank their constituents and to acknowledge what a privilege it is to serve. And that is not just true of the newbies; I think that each one of us feels that, and this address-in-reply is an opportunity for every one of us to thank our electorate for placing in us the trust that they do, for electing or re-electing us to the parliament. It is absolutely vital that we take every opportunity we have in this place to make life better for the people who have put their faith in us. I know that is what our new MPs will do. It is what I endeavour to do every single day, and I am grateful for the continuing opportunity that my constituents have given me to allow me to do that.

We have a strong team, a united team, and because we have a strong and united team I am convinced that we will have the opportunity to continue to deliver for the people of Australia, particularly should we be re-elected.

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