Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm delighted to speak in support of this bill, Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2022-2023, because this bill shows that Labor were really serious in the election about working with communities to build a better future for all Australians. I know that my community of Chisholm in Melbourne will benefit from the changes and commitments an Albanese Labor government is making in the budget in so many different ways. Whether you're a student, a young person, a parent, someone who relies on medicines, someone involved in a local sporting club or a resident who values community safety and infrastructure, our budget is delivering for you, your family and your neighbours in Chisholm.

I'm really thrilled that the commitments I made during the campaign election are funded in this budget. I said on many occasions when speaking in the community that one of the big tests of performance was delivering on the promises that I was making during my pitch, and I am so pleased that that's exactly what we've done, that every single project that I committed to during the election is in this budget. Not only do this bill and the budget mean there is vital funding for critical projects and programs but, more than that, and more fundamentally, they begin the work of restoring trust in politicians, in politics, in our institutions and in our democracy by our being accountable doing what we said we were going to do. I was horrified, as I am sure so many other people were, that trust and faith in democracy and the parliament were at rock bottom just before the election.

There is a lot of work to do. Every single day, when I would speak to people in my community, they were so disappointed and distrustful of government and institutions. I can't really blame them for feeling that way, because there had been a decade of inaction in my community. I am really delighted that I was given the opportunity to try and restore some of that trust and make sure that our democracy remains as robust as it always has been in Australia.

Beyond restoring accountability, faith and integrity in politics, what does this budget mean for the people Chisholm? It means that almost 7½ thousand families will now be able to access cheaper child care. During the election campaign—I remember this really well—I met little Hannah at a Goodstart centre in Box Hill, in our local area and spoke to Nicola Forrest and Jay Weatherill about their important work with the Thrive by Five campaign. This campaign emphasises just how critical the first five years of a child's life are in developing our youngest people and giving them the best start in life so they are set up for really great outcomes. Our commitment means cheaper child care, which means that more of our youngest community members will be able to get high-quality early years education.

I really want to acknowledge the extraordinary work that educators do across my electorate and, indeed, across every electorate in this country each day to teach and nurture children. This announcement means not just more money in the pockets of families to spend in our local community but also greater workforce participation by parents, and particularly women, who still tend to be the primary caregivers. This is good for our economy and fantastic for our community. Danielle Wood of the Grattan Institute was very clear at the Jobs and Skills Summit earlier this year when she made the astute comment:

I can't help reflect that if untapped women's workforce participation was a massive iron ore deposit, we would have governments falling over themselves to give subsidies to get it out of the ground.

Making child care cheaper is part of making progress on women's workforce participation.

I note that elsewhere in this place at this moment there is a debate underway on our Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill. That bill addresses the pervasive and awful fact that there is a 14.1 per cent pay gap between women and men, which means women are less likely to be the primary breadwinner in the family when families have to make those kinds of decisions. That bill also means that people working in early childhood education—those wonderful people who, as I acknowledged earlier, do so much to teach and nurture the youngest people in our community—will finally be able to get the pay that they deserve and that their work will be truly valued.

Doing what we said we were going to do is already a hallmark of the Albanese Labor government. On Friday I spent a sunny afternoon in the company of the Blackburn South Cricket Club and the Blackburn NewHope Football Club at Mirrabooka pavilion in Blackburn South, where we confirmed our commitment to giving the club $2 million towards a new pavilion. The precinct is sorely in need of upgrades. It was fantastic to have local councillors and the local Labor state member for Box Hill, Paul Hamer, there, with Paul announcing funding towards this project too. Our partnership will deliver an asset the community really needs, and I want to commend the efforts of both sporting clubs in the work that they have done in putting together plans and making the very strong case for this project at all levels of government.

We've also announced in the budget upgrades for the Mount Waverley Reserve. This is a terrific pavilion area. The Waverley Blues and Mount Waverley Cricket Club have worked so hard. They had a vision. They've taken me around their pavilion and the ground many times. Indeed, I had the great pleasure of introducing the now Deputy Prime Minister to the club during the election campaign when we made an announcement to fund upgrades. There's $4 million in this budget for facility and pavilion upgrades, and I'm so excited to get to work with the clubs, with council and with the community, especially ahead of the centenary celebrations of the clubs in a couple of years time.

We've also announced funds for upgrades to the Box Hill City Oval, which is a really important ground in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It is a wonderful ground with wonderful people in the Box Hill Hawks and at the cricket club. Part of what our funding will provide for is women's change rooms. This is really important. We have some of the most elite female cricketers playing at this club. We have Meg Lanning calling this ground her home. I want to make sure, as do the clubs, that the facilities are fit for purpose for all the future Meg Lannings that I hope we'll see very soon.

People in this place are probably no strangers to the fact that I am very passionate about higher education. So I was so delighted to see in this budget a commitment to higher education through the funding of more university places. What does this mean for me and my community? It means that Monash University will have an additional 934 places, that the University of Divinity will have an additional 128 places and that Deakin University will have an additional 652 places. Education is really important to my community. People move into the area to give their kids the best start in life through accessing some of the excellent schools in the area. A lot of the students at the universities live not so far from where they grew up, so this is a really wonderful investment for families and young people in my community.

Labor went into this election saying that we would deliver a responsible budget that would rebuild the nation's capability for manufacturing at home with the National Reconstruction Fund. That is really important to my electorate, who want us to invest in advanced manufacturing in our community. This was clear to me every single day in the community during the campaign. It's an issue I care personally very strongly about and stand with my community to advocate for it.

But to truly unlock the economic opportunity and potential in the south-east and eastern suburbs of Melbourne, where my electorate is situated, we need to have better transport infrastructure. So I was delighted that I was able to announce during the election campaign and now confirm through this budget that we will be funding a business case for the trackless rapid transit system, which will connect parts of Melbourne that have never been connected easily by public transport. This means that the brand-new Heart Hospital that has just opened on Monash University's Clayton campus will now be connected, should this business case prove viable, to a an excellent, fast and efficient form of transport.

We've also invested $2.2 billion in the Suburban Rail Loop. This runs north to south in my electorate, and it means that the Monash and Deakin universities will be connected. It means that the nurses who live in Glen Waverley or Burwood and who work in Box Hill or Clayton at the two hospitals at either end of my electorate will more easily be able to get to work. We have a lot of healthcare workers in my electorate, and this infrastructure is going to go a long way to making their lives easier. Connecting Chisholm, connecting local jobs and making sure that our workforce can get around easily are really important.

We've also funded a headspace in Box Hill. I'm sure many people in this place know that there is huge demand for mental health services for young people, and, certainly, that's the case in my community. So I'm really pleased that we're getting to work providing this vital facility in the local area. It has been really well supported and advocated for by the Whitehorse City Council as well as by young people in my community who've written to me directly.

From 1 January next year the maximum copayment for scripts on the PBS, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, will drop to $30 per script. This is quite remarkable. It marks the first time in 75 years that the maximum cost of prescriptions will fall. This will be a huge help to Australians in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis inherited from the former Liberal government. This means that the around 20 per cent of residents in Chisholm with chronic long-term health conditions who are dependant on medications will have that pressure to find the money to pay for the medicine they need relieved. That is really important. At the heart of our campaign and at the heart of this budget is a desire to see politics mean something beyond the cynical spin we had unfortunately become used to seeing and hearing over the last few years.

One of the wonderful things that I get to do now as a member of this government is introduce the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Treasurer, my caucus colleagues, to my wonderful community. I was really delighted that last week, on 2 November, I had the great privilege of introducing the Treasurer of Australia to the hardworking and amazing Ashwood Chadstone Partnership Group to facilitate an important discussion around the housing accord, the $350 million investment in additional funding for housing. We discussed how we can build strong committees together and how important it is to invest in more housing for those in need.

The Ashwood Chadstone Partnership Group comprises a number of different organisations, including the Ashburton Ashwood Chadstone public tenants group. They work together with neighbourhood houses, with service providers and with representatives from all levels of government to make sure that we build strong neighbourhoods and resilient communities. I want to thank Natalie Rabey, who is the chair of that public tenants group for her instrumental role, not just on the day organising the event but also for her advocacy, which really stuck with the Treasurer.

For me, this is really what politics is about, what budgets are about. They are about investing in our communities, in the people who need that investment. They are about using the opportunity of government, of being a representative, to truly listen, to connect people and to work collaboratively to build a better future for everyone in Australia. This was a budget that respects our community. That is what this is really about—to not to take for granted the trust and faith that was placed on us, not just to spend money on services we need but to be responsible with taxpayers' money. That is exactly what our budget delivered, and I am so proud to be a member of a government that delivered such a strong budget.

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