Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm on a House of Representatives committee looking at this—with its deputy chair, who is in the Chamber—and there is a real bipartisan willingness, I think, to acknowledge the significant problem and that work needs to be done going forward. We've handed down an interim report, which I know the minister will look at. I urge the government to reconsider direct investment in fixing and building social housing, as one of the things out of that.

Everyone knows that I talk about women's health a lot; in particular, breast cancer because of my personal experience. We know that coming out of this pandemic there is going to be a greater burden on our health system because of the number of people who haven't accessed treatment and testing, who haven't even gone to their local GP, because either the services haven't been available or they've been scared to go because of COVID. The Breast Cancer Network Australia is really concerned about the number of women who in the next 12 months will find themselves diagnosed with a breast cancer that should have been caught earlier, and the need for more services, such as palliative care. I urge the government to look at that and the Minister for Health to look at that as well.

I urge the government to rethink its position on universities. I know this is a politically contested space, but I'm the daughter of a university lecturer who, after he was a public school teacher, was head of the school of education at Charles Sturt University in country New South Wales, and my father wouldn't forgive me if I didn't take this opportunity to say that people like my father are very concerned about the equity of children from poorer communities. He's concerned they won't be able to go to university, because they face leaving with a massive debt. It was a long time ago now, but I know that friends of mine at Kooringal High School in Wagga Wagga didn't do their chosen subjects because their parents couldn't afford to support them. I can't imagine what they would think now if they were facing, for example, a $58,000 debt on leaving university.

We know we have a shortage at the moment, unbelievably, of nurses, welders, bricklayers, engineers and hairdressers in this country. We urgently need skilling up in those areas. We urgently need some reforms to our democracy and our processes—the Uluru Statement from the Heart and an Indigenous voice to parliament. I would ask the government to look at reforms such as four-year terms. Australia needs to become a republic. And, of course, there are the fledgling green shoots of improved trust in politicians and government that we've seen during the COVID crisis, because governments have taken decisions based on experts, scientists and medical advice, not for political interests in the majority of instances and broadly. We need to tender those green shoots. We need to fertilise them. We need to help them grow into trees. Integrity commissions and parliamentary standards are important, and I ask the government to look at them as well.

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