Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Seven continents, seven dwarfs, seven members of the S Club and this government's leaked talking points had seven priorities. I'm not going to allocate who would be Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, Dopey or Doc—that would be unparliamentary—but I'm going to outline that in those seven priorities there is no mention of health, no mention of defending Medicare and no mention of investing in our hospitals. There is no mention of the government's alleged No. 1 priority: the drought. Given the debate and the lectures we hear on a daily basis about the urgent need to act on the drought, it is astounding that in their own leaked talking points not one of their seven priorities is 'acting on the drought'. Seriously, I can't believe that they would say that the drought is not one of their seven priorities, but their own document shows that to be the case.

There's nothing about child care. Maybe that's because childcare fees have gone up 30 per cent since this government was elected. Some contest the truth of that, but I went and checked the figures. At the end of 2013, the hourly rate for child care was, on average, $7.50. Now, in 2019, the average hourly rate for childcare services is $9.95. That is a fact. It has gone up by $2.45 per hour on this government's watch. It's a terrible thing for the many families who struggle to make ends meet. The reality is that the government's package that the Prime Minister told us about hasn't actually done what it was designed to do: it hasn't delivered more affordable child care for many hundreds of thousands of families, including families in my electorate. And, of course, in those seven priorities, in those talking points, there's nothing about investing in schools, although that one didn't surprise me so much.

If the government want to talk about the sorts of priorities they could be investing in, let me give them a few things that Western Australians would love to see action on. One is investment in infrastructure. There is a huge need to bring forward infrastructure investment in Western Australia.

There is a huge need, in particular, to act on housing. When it comes to wiping housing debts, sometimes I think that Senator Cormann is the 13th senator for Tasmania, not a senator for Western Australia, because he does more for the Tasmanians to help with their housing challenges, in secret deals with senators who are doing the right thing in advocating for their states. I would love to see some action from this government on housing and homelessness in the state of Western Australia. There are some 14,000 people on the Western Australian public housing list, and there are estimates that some 600 people are sleeping rough in the Perth CBD every night. If we could come to some sort of arrangement for $343 million to wipe the housing debt—I've written to a number of ministers, and I'll continue to do so—that would be a great thing. We've heard from both sides about the need, at times, to act in a bipartisan way. This is one of those times. This isn't about political reward; this is about helping some of the most vulnerable in our community.

Speaking of infrastructure, I would love to see some action on the Perth City Deal. It's been announced twice, by two prime ministers—announced twice, done zero times, much like the number of dams that have actually been built. It was announced by former Prime Minister Turnbull. It's been announced under the Morrison government. I don't know where Malcolm Turnbull has gone, but maybe he took the Perth City Deal with him!

And then we come to investment in skills and training. The member for Dunkley and I have decided that it would've been much better to have Shaynna Blaze as the ambassador for skills and training!

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