Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to rise to reply to the Governor-General’s address. I was elected in 2013, and at the time my election I spoke about being a strong local voice. I hope, like you, Acting Deputy Speaker Wicks, that I have demonstrated that, by being a part of the Liberal Party, I can not only be part of a great party but also be a strong local voice for my community, identifying the issues that matter, going out and fighting like there is no tomorrow and delivering in spades for my electorate.

I am so proud to represent the federal electorate of Corangamite. It is a wonderful part of the world, with 7½ thousand square kilometres of magnificent coastline; wonderful parts of Geelong all the way through to Colac, with 188 kilometres of coastline, including the Great Ocean Road; and amazing agricultural areas, small country towns and an incredible national park stretching all the way up to Ballarat.

I grew up in Geelong. I love my town. I love my electorate. When I go out into my community and represent the people of Corangamite I do it with a fierce passion. I do it with a fierce sense of wanting to make a difference and I do it because I am absolutely determined that we deserve the very best. I do believe that under the Turnbull government we are delivering in spades for regional Australia, and I am incredibly proud of some of our initiatives.

I hope that the people of Corangamite recognise that I have indeed been willing to go in and fight for them on the issues that matter. I hope that they have seen that I demonstrated that over the terrible Wye River Christmas Day bushfires, which of course caused so much devastation in 2015 in Wye River and Separation Creek. I am incredibly proud that the federal government, through the Natural Disaster Recovery and Relief Arrangements—the NDRRA—has put so much investment into that community. That community has gone through so much. When a group of home owners came to me to say, 'We are being treated very badly by AAMI insurance, and many, many months after that fire we still do not have our insurance policies resolved', I was so pleased to go in and fight for them to hold AAMI insurance to account, to say that this is not good enough, to take their claims to the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, Kelly O'Dwyer, and to institute, with the great support of the minister, an ASIC inquiry into the conduct of AAMI insurance, which is still ongoing.

I hope that the people of Corangamite will see that from the very beginning, when I first was preselected as the Liberal candidate back in 2009, I fought tooth and nail for the Princess Highway duplication project. I narrowly missed out on being elected in 2010, but I continued that fight. Now, with great pride, we are injecting more than half a billion dollars into that road. The duplication of the Waurn Ponds to Winchelsea section has now been completed—and, boy oh boy, the people of Winchelsea and the township of Winchelsea are absolutely sparkling as a result of the investment in that road—and the next section between Winchelsea and Colac is now well underway. I am so proud, and I say, 'Shame', to the Grattan Institute, which said that this was a road to nowhere. This is a road to somewhere very special. It takes people down to places like Colac right through to south-western Victorian to Warrnambool and beyond, and, of course, to the magnificent Great Ocean Road.

I am so incredibly proud because I think that this really does symbolise so much of why people across Australia backed our government at the last election. I am very proud to stand up for rural and regional Australia. I reflect on the member for Indi's contribution, and can I say that much can be achieved by being a member of this government and by being member of our great Liberal Party.

In contrast to Labor, which did not spend one dollar on mobile blackspots, we are now tackling blackspots across the nation, with a $220 million investment. Eighteen mobile base stations have been committed in the Corangamite electorate. A number are up and running. One in Carlisle River is just about to be turned on. Much more hard work is required to get them all up and running, but it does demonstrate that, whether you live in a large regional city or a tiny town, your voice matters. We have not seen that same approach from the Labor Party.

We have taken the same approach to the NBN—a more equitable NBN than was proposed by Labor and one which significantly subsidises rural and regional communities. I am very proud that right across the electorate the NBN is being rolled out and making a real difference.

Another very important issue in Corangamite is rail. It is extraordinary—and this has been a project that has been on the radar for many years, including when my mum was the member for Geelong in the 1990s—that the Labor Party at a state level had very few infrastructure projects in the pipeline. We know that Daniel Andrews cancelled the East West Link contract after saying there was no contract. That was clearly untrue and a terrible untruth. It was one of the most economically reckless decisions in Victorian history. It cost Victorian taxpayers a staggering $1.2 billion, and now we have a poor cousin of that project, the Western Distributor, which is only half of the western link of the East West Link, and we desperately need that full western road link into Melbourne. It is a complete nightmare travelling from Geelong to Melbourne at the moment.

I have to say we are very proud of the $3 billion we have committed to the first state government willing to build the East West Link. We have a very strong commitment to that project from the state Liberal opposition under the leadership of Matthew Guy, in contrast to the terrible decision made by Daniel Andrews.

Of course, this was a project that was previously supported by both sides of politics, so again what we have seen from the Labor Party is a very unprincipled decision where the likes of the Leader of the Opposition and former Prime Minister Julia Gillard—and I include the member for Corio—were not willing and did not display the guts to stand up to Daniel Andrews and say, 'We need this infrastructure in Victoria.' Similarly, the Regional Rail Link is, regrettably, a project that is simply not doing the job. The Regional Rail Link was meant to make travel between Geelong and Melbourne so much faster, and what we have seen in the Regional Rail Link is, I think, a monumental failure. It is now servicing the suburbs in western Melbourne—places like Tarneit and Wyndham Vale—and the people of Geelong and Corangamite are being left behind.

I was very pleased under the leadership of the Prime Minister to make a commitment of $1 million to duplicate the rail between South Geelong and Waurn Ponds, and yet we have seen no action from state Labor in progressing that project. Where is the business plan? Where is the feasibility study to get these projects moving? We as a region have so much potential. Geelong, Torquay, Ocean Grove, Colac and everywhere in between—it is such a wonderful place to live, to work and to raise a family, and yet we are seeing major challenges in the development of vital infrastructure to support the growth in our community.

It is a reflection on the state Labor government that it took a campaign led by me as the federal member doorknocking week after week, month after month to get the duplication of the rail track through Geelong onto the state government's agenda, and now I am again calling on the state to get on with the job of doing that work and progressing that duplication.

Another great achievement of this government in Corangamite is the way that we have led the way in funding the upgrade of the Great Ocean Road. Before I was elected I was absolutely delighted to make a commitment of $25 million from the Commonwealth matched by $25 million from the former Liberal State government, and we were able to deliver a $50 million upgrade of the Great Ocean Road, making a real difference to places like Anglesea and Lorne with the upgrades they received. The Boggaley Creek Bridge was upgraded, as was the Separation Creek Bridge. Now I have been holding a number of summits with communities. I held a summit in Lorne and another one in Apollo Bay, reaching out to the community because we have now committed another $25 million, which was matched by the state after lobbying for that matching funding for some six months. All in all, there is $100 million in an upgrade program in what is an incredibly important, iconic road not just in our region, not just in Australia but internationally. We have absolutely led the way, in circumstances where the previous federal Labor member, Darren Cheeseman, and his government at the time had not supported any federal investment in one of Australia's most important and iconic roads. The road is an incredible memorial to the men—returned soldiers—who built it, starting in 1919.

You and I are regional members, Madam Deputy Speaker Wicks. I am aware of the way in which you, as the member for Robertson, have delivered for your community. It is not because of Liberal policy; it is because you identified the needs in your community. You have the $72.5 million Central Coast Medical School and Research Institute, with $32 million coming from the federal government, and the new ATO office, which will deliver 600 new jobs into Gosford by the end of the year. Along with what we are doing in Corangamite, this did not happen because of Liberal policy; this happened because we regional members took our jobs very seriously. We identified the issues, the needs and the priorities in our electorates and we went out and we fought. That is absolutely fundamental to my job. Each and every day, Madam Deputy Speaker, like you, I am going out fighting for jobs, infrastructure and the environment in my community.

One of our hallmarks is the way in which, despite our challenges in manufacturing, we can see a greater and more diversified economy in Geelong. A number of years ago, we secured the Advanced Manufacturing Industry Growth Centre based in Geelong, at Waurn Ponds, at Deakin University, which is an extraordinary university doing amazing things and leading the way in showing how a university can work with industry to forge new opportunities, groundbreaking research and new jobs. Perhaps the best example of that is Carbon Revolution, which started off as a university project. A group of students got together to test a lightweight vehicle for a race, and they decided that their vehicle would be more lightweight if they used carbon fibre wheels. From that, now we have an incredible business in Carbon Revolution, which built a new factory, supported by $5 million from our government—not the Labor Party, as the member for Corio wrongly and very dishonestly states—funded by a $15 million contribution to the Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund. This company is leading the way globally in developing these lightweight wheels, and it has just raised $50 million to develop even further. We are proudly a very strong advanced manufacturing growth centre.

I will not hear any discussion about the failure of auto manufacturing. Ford sadly has ended its manufacturing in Australia, but it still has some 500 people working in Geelong and at the Lara proving ground—500 employees, engineering and designing cars for Ford's global market. And just yesterday I met with the chair of Chemring, another incredible company, which has flown under the radar to a large degree. It is making flares for the defence industry, including flares for the F35 project. Some 100 people are working out at Chemring's Lara factory. There are so many wonderful advanced manufacturers in our region, supported by our belief and our investment in advanced manufacturing, not just through the Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund and our $155 million Growth Fund but also our Geelong Region Job Connections program, underpinned by other very important investments like the establishment of an Australian Bureau of Statistics centre of excellence on the waterfront. In so many ways, I am incredibly proud of the way in which our government is continuing to invest in our region.

The National Disability Insurance Agency headquarters is under construction—a $120-million building under construction. Even the state government's WorkSafe building, also under construction, has been underpinned by a low-interest loan of $68 million from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. So, again, the Commonwealth is playing a very significant role in the development of that building.

In these closing minutes of my address today, I want to make a few observations about the big fights that are yet to be had. We are so proud of what we have delivered right across the economy, standing up for communities big and small: the NBN; mobile base stations; supporting Avalon Airport to become an international airport; supporting the dairy industry and farmers; and focusing on energy security and job security, and on national security, which is resonating in places like Torquay, Ocean Grove and Geelong because of the real issues and concerns about community safety, which I feel we are seeing really becoming an alarming issue under the current state government.

One of my big objectives is to secure a City Deal for our region, and I am delighted with the support that we have received from the likes of G21, which is a great organisation bringing together our five regional councils. It was my great honour to organise a meeting with the Prime Minister and G21 last week here in Canberra. Together, we are working to try and bring a City Deal to our region, which brings state government, local government and the federal government together, along with other major institutions like Deakin, and industry, to form an agreement, with one vision and one plan, to make sure we can continue to drive investment in our region.

Fixing the regional rail link is an absolute priority. We must see significant movement from the state in fixing the regional rail link and getting on with regional rail. It is so vitally important.

Another big focus for a City Deal, I believe, is tourism. We saw a complete lack of interest from the previous federal Labor government when it came to supporting tourism in our region. Let us not forget that the Great Ocean Road is the centrepiece of a $2.1 billion regional tourism economy, and we need to keep that investment going. I am very pleased that I am working with a group of people—and I will have more to say in the coming weeks about a very significant project to continue to drive tourism investment and to increase the yield.

So we see a City Deal as being very important. As part of that, like what the state Liberal government did in the 1990s when my mother was the member for Geelong, I think that an independent planning authority to drive and fast-track that investor confidence and development is very important, which obviously mimics what has occurred with the likes of the Townsville City Deal.

I will finish by saying: I am very conscious of some of the social challenges in our community, Madam Deputy Speaker Claydon—and I welcome you to the chair, and recognise you as the deputy chair of our House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs; we have just announced an inquiry into family violence law reform, and I am very cognisant of the real issue that this is in the community, along with issues like ice addiction and other challenges for families.

So I am incredibly proud to be the member for Corangamite and to have been re-elected. I will continue to stand up and fight for my community at every opportunity.

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