Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

According to Plato, the beginning is the most important part of the work. In that spirit, Deputy Speaker Goodenough, we are both beginning in this 47th parliament, albeit in very different roles. I congratulate you on your role as a Deputy Speaker of the House.

It is an honour and a privilege to stand here before the parliament of our great country as the representative of the people of Hughes. The swings and roundabouts of life are borne out through my return to Canberra in winter following my recent election. Sixteen years ago, in May 2006, my husband, Michael, and I were flown by emergency air ambulance to Canberra Hospital, where our twins, James and Nicholas, arrived 13 weeks early, weighing one kilo, two pound two; and 930 grams, two pounds in the old system, respectively. At the time, we had no idea what lay ahead. Very premature babies often face significant challenges throughout their lives. We remain eternally grateful for the care the boys received at the neonatal intensive care unit within the Canberra Hospital and the support given to Michael and me over the many months we were living down here. I should add that, looking at our tall and broad sons today, nobody would presume the challenging start to their lives.

While I'm slightly overwhelmed, I'm also overjoyed to look up and see so many good friends in the gallery. I am reminded of the many good friends who travelled to Canberra during that cold winter of 2006 to support us, as well as the two best grandmothers in the world: my mum, Jan, and my late mother-in-law, Barbara.

The electorate of Hughes was named after William Morris 'Billy' Hughes, the seventh Prime Minister of Australia. Hughes served in the first Australian parliament in 1901 and remained there for a record 51 years and seven months. Billy Hughes may have been small in stature, but on any measure he lived an extraordinarily large life. Hughes's passions and positions led him to be expelled from three political parties and to play a leading role in forming three other parties. As a loyal member of the Liberal Party of Australia, these are not things I desire or intend to emulate. As a wartime leader, Hughes divided opinion during the First World War. He was viewed either as a great patriot and 'little digger' by returned servicemen or as an opportunistic warmonger who pushed for conscription. However, to use the modern vernacular, Hughes was a conviction politician with his advocacy for compulsory military service. At the Paris Peace Conference, as the leader of a country of little more than five million people, Hughes famously defied the great powers by standing up for Australia, ensuring that we would be independently represented and protected. Having been given the privilege of serving the Hughes electorate following the federal election, I will advocate for and represent the people of Hughes and Australia as tenaciously as my electorate's namesake.

I acknowledge the two most recent members who represented the electorate of Hughes in this House. Craig Kelly served from 2010 until the election this year. Preceding him was my friend and supporter, the Hon. Danna Vale, who became the first female to hold this seat when she was elected in the Howard landslide of 1996. Danna was also the first female to hold the veterans' affairs portfolio. This is especially fitting in the Hughes electorate, as the Hughes electorate contains the Holsworthy military barracks, one of Australia's major defence establishments. Hughes is proudly home to the Royal National Park, which spans 16,000 hectares and includes popular attractions Wattamolla Beach, Honeymoon Track, Wedding Cake Rock and the Figure Eight Pools.

Like many within the Hughes electorate—almost 80 per cent, according to the most recent census—I was born in Australia, as were my parents and grandparents. I did not trouble the Liberal Party or the Australian Electoral Commission with section 44 constitutional issues when I nominated to run in the seat. My parents chose Cronulla to raise my sister, Jacqui, and me. I was a third-generation student at St George Girls High School, Kogarah, following in the footsteps of my mum and nanna. This was unusual in a public selective school where the values of old girls' traditions and alumni are not as customary as within the independent school system. I attended between 1983 and 1988, during a time when selective high schools, under a state Labor government, did not enjoy the popularity and support they do today. Regarded as elitist, there were many attempts to close down this model of providing an environment to nurture and support those who are academically gifted. I acknowledge my close friends Alex Wilson, nee Halyard; Jenni Maher, nee Jens; Carolyn Rider, nee Harries; and Trish Moore, with whom I travelled the traumas and triumphs of our school years. The friendship of our group of five has survived and flourished through weddings, divorces, children, parents' deaths, careers, businesses and the highs and lows of our post-schooling life.

I studied law after high school and specialised in planning, government and environmental law. At the time, this was not a jurisdiction that was particularly well known or sought after by junior lawyers. For me, it was a decision, probably unconsciously propelled by my property-loving father. As an aside, whilst most children of my generation were taken to parks and the zoo, my formative years were spent at real estate agents and looking at various properties around Sydney with dad. He never once attended a sporting match or taught me to throw a softball; instead, he instilled in me a strong interest in and love for property. Most of my legal career was spent in private sector law firms, including as a partner of national law firm Piper Alderman. During this period, I worked for local government clients as well as major property developers, and on some of the major sites around New South Wales. In 2013, fed up with a long commute and with a desire to become more involved in my boys' schooling, I joined Hurstville City Council as its inaugural general counsel. I also laboured under the very false impression that legal practice within local government would be less stressful and less busy than in the private sector. Instead, it simply paid much less.

In 2016, the then Baird government legislated its council amalgamation policy, and I became the first director of legal service and general counsel of Georges River Council. I worked under the administration of John Rayner and the CEO, Gail Connolly, two of the most capable and competent local government operators within our state. I cannot express how much I learnt under the leadership of Gail, who, now that she's no longer my boss, is a close friend. She presided over an executive team that was 75 per cent female, a first in local government and, sadly, unusual in the private and public sectors in 2022.

I am extraordinarily proud that I practised for most of my 26-year legal career in the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales. I acknowledge the significant impact the Hon. Justice Sandra Duggan SC had on me both professionally and personally. We first worked together in the Abbott Tout local government and planning group in the mid-1990s. At her swearing-in ceremony as a judge of the court, Her Honour made reference to the truth of the statement, 'You cannot be what you cannot see.' In that context, she was referring to her reality: that it took her five years of legal practice to see her first female barrister. For Her Honour and for many of our solicitors and barristers alike, the apparent barriers to ambitions collapsed with the historic appointment of the Hon. Mahla Pearlman as the first female judge of the court. With her appointment, she became its Chief Judge and the first female head of any jurisdiction in Australia.

My political ideology is driven by what I consider to be the best elements of liberal and conservative traditions espoused by Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill. Edmund Burke, father of modern conservatism, was, throughout his parliamentary career, also an acknowledged champion of liberty. He supported trade liberalisation, due process and constitutional protections while being critical of the overbearing state and its influence. John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist, advocated for the harm principle, an expression of the idea that the right to self-determination is not unlimited. An action which results in doing harm to another is not only wrong but wrong enough that the state should intervene to prevent that harm from occurring. However, his most important contribution was his advocacy for mandatory and widespread education for all citizens. This included the most disadvantaged and poor as a way to provide a fair start in what he called the 'race of life' for all people, so that everyone would have the opportunity to prosper.

Eighty years ago, when forming the Liberal Party, Robert Menzies spoke of the forgotten people, middle Australia, described as 'salary earners, shopkeepers, skilled artisans, professional men and women, farmers and so on. These are, in the political economic sense, the middle class'. In 2022, it is the Hughes electorate that embodies these values for which I stand. Our largest employer is the construction industry. These are skilled tradies, most of whom are simultaneously small-business owners. This is why I'm committed to liberalism, the rights of the individual, support for individual enterprise and governments facilitating an environment where individuals, families and businesses can thrive. My vision is to achieve what Menzies termed civilised capitalism, unleashing the power of the individual and their enterprise, while always providing a safety net for those who, despite their best efforts, are unable to cope.

In this 47th Parliament, my immediate objective within this House is to work within my party and under the leadership of Peter Dutton to hold this government to account. In the longer term, I intend to participate in the rebuilding of the Liberal Party within Hughes, within New South Wales and within Australia. This means embracing our females. I do not accept that the Labor Party is the natural or only home for Australian women. It was our Liberal founder who specifically spoke about the need for women within the party and as members of parliament. Furthermore, my role in rebuilding the Liberal Party will be in developing policy relevant to Australians within the Liberal brand of a strong economy and a fair society.

During the campaign and since being elected, housing affordability has been one of the key issues confronting people in Hughes and in Australia more broadly. This is not just a financial issue; it is a social issue and a political issue. The average median house price in the Hughes electorate is $1.5 million. We need to facilitate an environment where we as a country deliver broader housing choices, including greater choice for the 30 per cent of Australians who will always rent. Furthermore, we must develop a system that provides security of tenure, such as longer term leases, particularly for our most vulnerable, many of whom are often Australia's children. I will use the skills, expertise and experience I gained throughout my legal career to develop policies for the better planning and development of our cities, rolling out of infrastructure and provision of better housing and employment opportunities for Australians.

This year we celebrate 100 years of female suffrage in New South Wales. As a newly elected female Liberal, it is appropriate, and probably not unexpected, that I intended to support, mentor and empower women within Hughes and the wider community. This means addressing issues related to women's pay disparity and women's security. From my discussions and meetings with women support groups and our local police, it is clear that family and domestic violence is one of the leading concerns within the Hughes electorate. Federal governments can assist state and local governments to better resource refuges and provide for women fleeing violent men. As a mother of sons, I've always been conscious of the need to be a role model for them and to teach them how to treat women and to not be afraid of or threatened by women. Just as we teach our girls about the behaviour to which they are entitled and disentitled, we need to educate our boys about their treatment of women.

This 47th Parliament will be considering climate change. It is one of the leading contemporary issues facing our country and our world. It is important, though, to remember that when we are talking about climate change it is not just about the climate. It is about the environment. It is about the local environment—the parks, the waterways, the green spaces and biodiversity. The environment was a key issue that the people of Hughes stated as a concern during the recent election campaign. My approach to addressing this is through traditional conservative pathways. We can and should use the markets to incentivise small businesses to innovate and embrace high-tech manufacturing.

Furthermore, it is important to encourage and embrace cutting-edge technology. In that context I specifically mention SunDrive solar, located in the Hughes electorate. It is a solar technology start-up company that was founded in 2015 as a small PhD project in a garage. It is now producing some of the most efficient solar cells in the world. SunDrive has developed a new breed of solar cells that are more efficient, free of precious metals and less prone to degradation. All of that means cheaper solar panels and less environmental impact. I was fortunate to visit SunDrive during the election campaign. It is now gearing up to start high-tech manufacturing all within the Hughes electorate. This operation is an example of the best way to combat the challenges of climate change and address environmental issues under the cloak of both conservatism and liberalism.

As His Excellency said on Tuesday:

Acting on Climate Change is a priority for the Government—and an opportunity for Australia. Embracing the transition to clean energy will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

How do we transition to new technologies and a new economy while still maintaining affordable and reliable energy to Australian households and businesses? As coal was essential to the Industrial Revolution in Britain and Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, to propel us into modernity we now need to move into the next economy without total reliance on coal. This can only be done through hybrid models of renewable energy and must include nuclear.

Hughes has the only nuclear reactor in Australia. Because of that, I am committed to approaching how we can utilise the technology and innovation developed at Australia's Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, ANSTO, with nuclear medicine to answer our energy questions. Whilst my 15-year-old self, with a bedroom full of Midnight Oil posters and records, would be shuddering, the nuclear of 2022 is a very different thing to the nuclear of the past. Going into the future, as we develop an energy policy that will produce sufficient base load power, the research already undertaken and the development of innovative solutions at ANTSO should then become part of our national solution to our current energy crisis.

The last major platform I wish to address is education. I've been involved in my sons' education, from preschool, as president of the Gymea Community Preschool board, through to primary school, where I was the P&C president and vice president for six years. When I made my pitch for P&C president, I quoted Nelson Mandela's immortal words:

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

We need a national curriculum that is relevant, is empowering and builds in our children a lifelong love of learning. We need a TAFE and university system that is first-class, leads the world and provides students with job-readiness skills. We also need to recall the words of Plato, a proponent of women's education:

If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.

This was stated in 376 BC.

In conclusion, I recently campaigned to deliver a fresh start for Hughes. The campaign was short, intense and grassroots. I thank my team, headed by Chris Downy and Cameron Walters, and managed by Max Bail and Haris Strangas, with Cameron Mort, Greg Barker, David Morris, Tony Walker and Steve Nikolovski forming the remainder of the executive team. I had many Young Liberals, Liberal Party members and non-party friends who assisted at pre-poll with letterboxing, doorknocking and social media, and ran booths for me. It was a team effort, and we got there against what seemed like insurmountable odds when I was endorsed only the day before the election was announced.

I thank my now federal colleagues Andrew Bragg, Marise Payne, Simon Birmingham, Angus Taylor and Paul Fletcher, who provided tremendous support throughout the campaign, and two no longer in this House: Josh Frydenberg and Jason Falinski. I thank my state colleagues and MPs: Lee Evans, member for Heathcote; New South Wales Attorney-General, Mark Speakman; and our Premier, Dominic Perrottet. To Ned Mannoun, the rockstar Mayor of Liverpool City Council: thank you for opening doors into the multicultural community within Hughes which were not open to me at the beginning of the election campaign.

There are a couple of others who need to be singled out for their mentoring, for their support, for refusing to give up on me and for ensuring that I remained in the race. To Michael Douglas, David Begg and Natalie Ward: thank you. To four staunch members of the New South Wales Liberal Party state executive who remained unwavering in seeking a democratic preselection process—Matthew Camenzuli, as well as my good friends Sally Betts, Sammy Elmir and Matt Hana—thank you for your courage. To my lifelong friends with whom I grew up in South Cronulla, Aruna Nair and Michelina Blasco: thank you for being here. We've been through everything in life together.

My staff have been instrumental in keeping me sane, establishing my office and knowing what to do on the many occasions when I have not known what to do. Jacob Sich, my chief of staff, thank you for staying one step ahead of me and for everything else you've done. Jessica Plater, Louise Eddy, Angus Ellisdon-Morris and Charles Swindon—you're the best staff ever. 'Thank you' seems inadequate—also, for your assistance with this speech. If there is disappointment, the fault is in the delivery rather than the content.

Last, although certainly not least important—my parents, Jan and Rob, without whom I wouldn't be here. My father instilled the highest of work ethics; my mum instilled a love of history and sport, as well as the mantra 'just be kind'.

My sons, James and Nicholas, have taught me so much, given me so much support throughout the campaign and continue to be my main reason for being in this House. Boys, for you and your generation, I am here to address issues so that, when you and your generation are running our country and our world, you'll be able to address your contemporary issues with confidence, compassion and competence. Boys, please remember to look after Tilly when I'm in Canberra.

To my husband, Michael—my rock, my partner in crime—thank you. Last year, in March, I turned to you and said, 'I have a question for you.' You said, 'Yes.' I said, 'You don't know the question.' You said: 'You want to run in Hughes. Go and do it. Go and win it. And don't worry about the boys; they have a father.'

To the people of Hughes, thank you. You have given me the best job in the world. I will always strive to be worthy of the faith and trust that you have placed in me.

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