Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2019-2020, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2019-2020 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2019-2020, which provide appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the annual services of the government for the remainder of 2019-20. In particular, I want to direct my remarks to the growing needs of my electorate of Holt, which is situated in the rapidly growing suburbs in the outer south-east of Melbourne.

Prior to the 2019 election, the federal electorate of Holt was substantially redistributed. Areas like Endeavour Hills and Doveton and Hallam, which had been part of that seat for many, many years—in Endeavour Hills' case, for about 28 years—were taken out. Holt lost about 42,000 voters. What happened was that the seat was then redistributed and incorporated suburbs like Blind Bight, Botanic Ridge, Clyde, Clyde North, Cannons Creek, Junction Village and Devon Meadows; the established existing suburbs of Lynbrook, Lyndhurst and Narre Warren South; and the newer suburbs of Pearcedale, Tooradin and Warneet. It changed the complexion of the seat quite dramatically. It also continued the consolidation of the seat in the City of Casey, which is one of the fastest-growing areas in Australia. For example, at the end of 2017, the Casey City Council had a population of about 327,000 people. It's going to continue that very rapid growth, and over the next 20 years it's going to become bigger than the population of Canberra—that's one city council on the edge of the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. With this massively growing and rapidly growing community, there have become major challenges in social infrastructure and physical infrastructure. The area, notwithstanding the investment that's been made by the Andrews state Labor government, is struggling to keep up, and demands for new essential services continue to need to be addressed.

At the end of 2018, particularly given the investment that the Andrews government had made in the period between 2014 and 2018, I was very pleased to see that Daniel Andrews was re-elected, particularly given that he had delivered the biggest and most successful infrastructure build in the state's history. Over the next four years, I will continue to look forward to working with Daniel Andrews and the state member for Cranbourne, Pauline Richards, in particular, to assist them and to also watch them develop—to build new schools, new roads, new public transport infrastructure, which they have been doing in my constituency, as well as developing health facilities and increasing the spend on two local hospitals, which are Casey Hospital and Dandenong Hospital.

It's important to note that, whilst the Victorian state government has delivered over recent years, unfortunately, over the six years of the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison coalition government, the investment from the federal just doesn't match in any way, shape or form the investment that's been made. That counts given the growth and how it could benefit from the injection of federal government funding.

For our residents, one of the key priorities is to upgrade our roads in Holt given the rapid population growth; the suburb of Cranbourne East is the fastest-growing suburb this Australia. It's really quite amazing when you drive along Clyde Road toward Narre Warren just to see the massive growth of infrastructure and massive growth in housing estates. That's going to continue unabated notwithstanding some of the concerns about a slowing economy or an economy that some people say is at risk with the housing prices downturn. Given the population growth, there is continued impetus for people to come out and live in this area because there is affordable housing. But the affordable housing, unfortunately, is not being matched by roads, hospitals and other services to match that—and also cars.

Data recently collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics has revealed more than 100,000 extra cars and trucks have hit roads in Victoria in the past 12 months. In the first time in the state's history, the number of registered vehicles has surpassed five million vehicles. In 2014, 4.4 million vehicles were registered. Cars in particular have continued to dominate the figures as Melburnians in the city's outer suburbs are left with no other way to travel, even though there is obviously substantial investment being made by the state government in public transportation—rail in particular.

At the last federal election, in recognising that, the federal opposition had a plan to address this growing problem by investing more than $850 million to upgrade these congested roads, create new jobs and slash travel times for residents in these south-eastern suburbs. In Holt, what did that mean? It meant that an extra lane would be added in each direction to Narre Warren-Cranbourne Road in Cranbourne between Thompsons Road and the South Gippsland highway. In addition, Labor had a plan to contribute $65 million towards the completion and duplication of the 10.7-kilometre stretch of Thompsons Road which is a major east-west feeding road in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, between Frankston-Dandenong Road and Berwick-Cranbourne Road. I guess I hope that, in a spirit of bipartisanship, the Morrison government will be able to match this proposal, because it is important that they do co-invest with the state Labor government. I'll be writing to the Prime Minister to ask, in the spirit of bipartisanship, for that co-investment.

It's also important to note traffic congestion. My constituency, depending on which part you're in, is between 40 and 48 kilometres away from the city centre. There are a lot of people that work that need to drive into the city centre. We have a lot of tradespeople and a lot of construction workers, and they need cars. They need to drive their utes. They need to drive their trucks. They need to be able to drive from their work to their place of employment. So a proper investment in roads and rail is important. It's not just a political point I'm making; it's a point that improves the quality of life for our people and includes economic prosperity. For example, there's been some costing. Without a proper investment in roads and rail, the economic cost of congestion will triple to about $9 billion by 2031.

One of the key priorities on top of roads is broadband and telecommunications structure in Holt.

One of the disturbing parts of being in a major growth corridor not so far away from Melbourne is that, in some cases, in some parts of my electorate people can't get access to mobile phone coverage. We're encouraging people to shift out to these outer suburbs. That there are so many young families not being able to get mobile phone coverage in this day and age is astonishing and disturbing. We need new mobile phone towers and we need them sooner rather than later. I know that there is a complex process, where a company might approach a local council and seek to sort of position them. But when you have got areas where a woman trying to ring Cranbourne Police Station because someone is attempting to break into her home doesn't have a landline because the NBN wasn't installed and she can't get mobile phone access, it's pretty concerning. It's pretty concerning in this day and age, as I have said, that in a modern suburb with all this modern housing that you cannot have access to a phone. I think that's really disturbing. People say there are black spot funding opportunities—that's for sure—but there are still substantial and important areas in my constituency where you cannot access mobile phone services. That is incredibly important, and I'll be continuing to push the government and work with the government to ensure the people in those areas get those services.

I'm also looking forward to ensuring that my electorate receives appropriate federal funding and support for the two local hospitals that I mentioned, Casey Hospital and Dandenong Hospital. Both are located just outside of my constituency. We really do need, given the population growth, to invest more in hospitals and in mental health locally. For example, Casey Hospital does not have an MRI. That hospital is based in my friend and colleague's electorate, La Trobe. During the federal election, the federal government announced that there would be an MRI licence granted to St John of God but that's not in Casey Hospital.

Casey Hospital is a public hospital. I'm aware of the situation where the wife of a serving police officer was assaulted on the Packham line. It was suspected she had a brain bleed. She was taken by ambulance from Pakenham to Casey Hospital but there was no MRI, so in that emergency situation, she had to be transported to another hospital where there was an MRI. If people are familiar with Casey Hospital, the state government has made enormous investments because of the physical growth in that area. With the hundreds of thousands of people who have been coming into this area, Casey Hospital has turned into a major regional hospital but it doesn't have an MRI.

I will just counsel the federal government, again putting this forward as a suggestion, that it's crazy that a hospital of this size, which is just about to open an seven- or eight-storey facility to expand the services being offered, doesn't have an MRI. As I understand it, there are no plans for an MRI and I don't think that's appropriate; I don't think that's satisfactory. People in our region, in Holt and in those areas, deserve an MRI. They pay their taxes. I do think it's a service they do need and they deserve and I'll be working to ensure that they do get that.

During the last election, I was at the Casey Hospital with our former Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, where we made a $22.4 million investment commitment to meet that rapidly rising demand for services not only to take the pressure off the hospital's emergency department because it is a busy hospital but also to create extra beds for a mental health facility. We do have a problem, given the growth rate, of adequately providing services for people with mental health challenges. Labor's plan would have been to ensure our people in the region with severe mental health challenges could access improved models of care in acute and high-dependency beds. That commitment of $22.4 million was made not just to meet the rapidly rising demand of services in the emergency ward but also for the acute and high-dependency bed services. I will again be asking, respectfully, that the Morrison government look at that because it is something that we absolutely need.

The other thing in talking about mental health is youth mental health. I commend the Morrison government on the commitments that they are making. I know that the Minister for Health has a commitment to youth mental health. I have worked with Professor Pat McGorry over a number of years on the issue. We had, in 2011 and 2012, a suicide cluster of young people in the south-eastern suburbs, and it was a horrible period of time for our community. Professor McGorry and Orygen Youth Health worked with us to bring that to the attention of the then-Gillard government, and we got an investment for two headspaces—the Narre Warren headspace and the Dandenong headspace. They've since been supplemented with the early youth psychosis service that is provided by Professor Simon Stafrace and the Alfred clinical psychiatric service. However, even though it is good that we have two headspaces, we need an additional headspace.

The other thing I'd like to point out—and I could go on and on—is the concerning feedback that I'm getting about the issue of youth migrant mental health. We know that there are some priority areas that have been put forward by Professor McGorry and those who offer the headspace service in terms of at-risk-youth demographics, but one of the things that have been concerning me is some of the stories about young people from migrant backgrounds—and we have a lot in my area—who are disinclined to access these services because they're not friendly. There is a story that I'd prefer not to go into, where one person of a particular cultural group turned up and she almost felt turned away from headspace. That young woman will not go back, and that is not satisfactory. We really need to be making sure that there are standard levels of clinical care that can be provided, and we need to encourage young people of migrant backgrounds to not be reticent about using these services, because in many situations they are most in need of the services.

I'm running short of time. I've given some indication of some of the priorities for the next term in Holt and some of the requests we'll be making of the Morrison government. But, in particular, in terms of youth mental health, this is an investment in our future, and we need to be paying more attention to putting more resources into providing appropriate levels of care for young people in my area.

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