Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

Despite it being almost seven o'clock on a Monday, I am super delighted to be back here in parliament, as I know those opposite are and I know those on this side are as well. Let me say welcome back to everybody here for the first week of parliament sitting. It's almost like being back at school, isn't it? I'm particularly excited for the year ahead and for the year that has been, where we've been able to deliver on the government's commitments made during the election campaign.

The member for Petrie spoke about that absolute honour and that dedication to representing your electorate. I'm also honoured, as I know most people here are, to be representing my electorate. I'm particularly honoured to be representing the electorate of Cowan. It is such a diverse and vibrant community full of such caring and hardworking people who put their unique talents to use to really help one another and lift each other up. It's something that I see every day as a local member.

I'm also very proud to be part of the Albanese government, a government that is delivering for the people of Cowan and for the broader Australian community through a range of initiatives. Through my ministerial portfolios of early education and care and youth I'm really proud and excited by the future and by the change that we can deliver for families, for early childhood educators, for children and for young people in Cowan and right across Australia in electorates like Dobell and Petrie.

Let me start with last Thursday, because that's what I can recall, given that it was only a few days ago now. Last Thursday, I joined with the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health in the suburb of Morley in the electorate of Cowan. I know the member for Moore knows the suburb of Morley well, he being one of my neighbours in Western Australia. We were there—the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health along with my state colleague the Western Australian Minister for Health and member for Morley, Amber-Jade Sanderson MLA—to announce the opening of expressions of interest for urgent care clinics, including one in the north-eastern community of Morley.

These urgent care clinics will take this growing pressure off our hospital emergency departments. We know that a lot of people show up at the emergency department of a hospital for things that can be treated outside of the emergency department. A broken arm, a broken foot or ankle, a cut of some sort—they can be treated outside of emergency departments, but right now, our hospitals and our emergency departments are under this incredible pressure from the number of people who present there because they have nowhere else to go. When I visited this centre in Morley, I said to them: 'Where do Morley residents go? Where do people from Morley and the surrounding suburbs go when they have to present at emergency?' Many of them travel what is roughly around 30 kilometres to go to Fiona Stanley Hospital, which is in the southern suburbs of Perth. So I'm very excited about potentially having an urgent care clinic in Morley taking that pressure off our emergency departments.

Like many parents in this place, I've done that midnight run to the hospital with a child. In the case of my son, who had chronic asthma, that midnight run was often with him turning blue and having to be put on a nebulizer. So I know what it's going to mean for parents, carers and older citizens in the Cowan community that they will be able to access these urgent care clinics that will be open right up till 10 pm, rather than have to go to the emergency department and sometimes have to wait up to eight hours before they're triaged. So I'm really proud of the Albanese government for recognising, first, that there is an issue here but also for recognising that there is a fix, a solution, and that solution is through the funding of bulk-billing urgent care clinics.

On a fairly regular basis I have what we call 'Meet your members'. Other members here might call them 'open offices'. We do them in the park, and I have sometimes up to 40 residents come and have a chat with me.

Yes, they can get pretty big! Most recently, I had one gentleman come to one of my Meet your members sessions who was a self-funded retiree. I was really happy to be able to tell him that the Albanese government had frozen the social security deeming rates at their current level until 30 June 2024, and he was really happy to get that information too.

It's great to be here, as I said at the beginning of my contribution. It's even greater when you can go into your electorate and have a conversation with someone who you have changed and had an impact on becaus e of the actions that happen in this place. We're three hours ahead of Perth and four hours away on an aeroplane, but it reminds you that what we do in this place matters for real; it matters to the everyday lives of Australians.

I'm also looking forward t o the Albanese government's investment of more than $1.2 million into Cowan to improve community and road safety as part of the $100 million Black Spot Program. I say this with hope and sadness. Under this program, the intersection of Girrawheen Avenue and Marangaroo Drive in Girrawheen will be upgraded to improve the location's safety. I have driven through that intersection many, many times. It's not too far from where I live, actually. I have to say that it's well beyond time that this intersection was given the attention to make it safe for residents and people driving on those roads.

The investment, along with around $700,000 from the City of Wanneroo, is really due to the tireless efforts and advocacy of people like Linda Femia. Linda is a constituent of Cowan. She has been campaigning for the intersection to be redeveloped after her son, Nicholas, aged just 21, was tragically killed at that intersection. From 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2020, there have been a shocking 50 crashes at that intersection. That number tragically includes the fatal crash in which Nicholas passed. I am proud to have worked with the City of Wanneroo to support Linda's efforts to increase local safety for the Cowan community. I look forward to the day when we don't count the number of crashes or the number of fatalities in Girrawheen.

The Albanese government is delivering for constituents in Cowan. We're investing $2 million to help Greenwood College build new facilities for its swimming pool. I visited Greenwood College, and t he change rooms for the swimming pool are literally almost a kilometre away—you get changed, and then you get exercise while you go to exercise. So I'm really proud to be able to say that we've committed money to help them build new change facilities for t heir swimming pool. This means they'll be able to run more summer swimming programs and also extend the use of the pool to local community groups. That will have a huge impact throughout Cowan.

We're also giving $1.6 million for the construction of a Vietnamese cultural and community centre in Girrawheen. The member for Moore and I attended the Tet festival in Girrawheen this weekend. It was great to see that construction has begun and they've really started working towards that cultural centre. The Vietnamese community in my electorate, the electorate of the member for Moore and, indeed, the member for Pearce's electorate is just such a wonderful asset to our community. They are hardworking and dedicated. They have such empathy and compassion and do such great community work. I know that the member for Moore and the member for Pearce would join me in congratulating the Vietnamese community in the Perth northern suburbs for their hard work and ability to secure, finally, a cultural building for them.

There's $750,000 for the Noranda Sporting Complex women's change rooms. That will be great. Let me tell you that I visited those change rooms, and it's not a nice place to get changed if you're a woman or a girl playing sports there. There's also $750,000 for Lightning Park in Noranda to upgrade the undercover facilities so that families can go and watch their children play sports and support the players comfortably. This is all testimony to the fact that the Albanese government is working hard for the people of Cowan, and I'm in such a privileged position to be able to deliver those initiatives for the people of Cowan. I look forward to seeing the Cowan community thrive even more than it already is, through these initiatives but also through the passion, the hard work, the dedication and the commitment to community of all the people in Cowan.

I want to also talk a little bit about my Early Childhood Education portfolio and my Youth portfolio while I can. I've visited many early learning centres and I must say that one of the best things about being the Minister for Early Childhood Education is babies, because I love babies and I'm waiting on grandchildren. I know I have to say that in every single speech, and hopefully the message will get through to my sons eventually! Just on a side note, I've had my two nieces get married and my stepdaughter is engaged to be married next year, so the race is on for all the children to see who's going to give me a grandchild first.

It's such a wonderful thing to visit children and watch them play and watch them learn through play. It really does inspire you and give you hope. For me, it really energises me. I could be dead tired and have had a 14-hour day, but I'll walk into an early learning centre and suddenly I'm ready to play and sing and dance with those little ones. The other privilege of these visits is talking to early childhood educators, who have demonstrated to me an unlimited amount of passion, dedication and commitment to the wellbeing of future generations of young Australians. I cannot speak highly enough in commending early childhood educators and early childhood teachers on the work that they do in helping to raise and educating the next generations of Australians. As a matter of fact, when I was at Morley Medical Practice I met a mother, Ainslie, and her adorable six-month-old, Loki. We started chatting and she said to me that Loki was born quite small and had a bit of a developmental delay but that he had started crawling at such a young age. As I spoke to Ainslie, she said that much of that credit was due to the fact that he attended an early childhood learning centre for three days a week, and that his educators at the early learning centre were just incredible with him. She could not speak more highly of Loki's early childhood educators and teachers and the benefit that he was getting from being in an early learning centre. I want to see every child in Australia have that opportunity and that benefit, and I want to make sure that no child born into any form of disadvantage should carry that disadvantage through their lives.

Finally, in the short time that I have left, I want to speak about what the Albanese government is doing in the Youth portfolio, because it doesn't often get a run and I'd like to put on record our commitment to young people. We made a commitment in the election campaign to re-establish the office for youth and develop a youth engagement strategy. We have delivered on that commitment, as we have delivered on so many other commitments to Australians. In the Youth portfolio we're investing $10½ million to ensure that young people are able to meaningfully engage on policies and programs that impact on them. That funding has already re-established the federal office for youth—which was abolished under the previous government—which will harmonise youth policy across government.

We've established our youth steering committee of 15 diverse and fabulous young Australians to support the development of our youth engagement model. When people say that young people are disengaged and take this deficit model towards the youth of Australia, let me tell you that, when we put our expression of interest out for a 15-person youth steering committee, we had over 1,200 applications from right across Australia—from rural and regional youth, from youth with lived experience of mental health issues, from youth who are carers and from young people who were refugees. From right across the breadth and depth of Australia, 1,200 young people put up their hands and said, 'We want to be part of the youth steering committee. We want to help the government. We want to have a say in the policies, procedures and legislation that impact on us. We want you to hear us.' And, indeed, we have heard them and we are listening to them.

Work is underway now to establish five cross-portfolio youth advisory groups that will work directly with the government and government agencies on policy and program development, as well as on our youth engagement strategy. In 2023, those advisory groups are in the areas of a First Nations youth advisory group; a youth advisory group for mental health and wellbeing—these are issues that young people said are important to them and where they wanted to have an advisory group—a youth advisory group for the promotion of science, technology, engineering and maths; a youth advisory group for climate change and conference of the parties; and a youth advisory group for safe and supported young people. These youth advisory groups mean that young people will be involved in the decisions that affect their lives and their futures, as they should be.

I have been incredibly impressed by the young people whom I have met, and let me tell you, Deputy Speaker Buchholz, young people have such an infinite amount of ingenuity, intelligence, wisdom—yes, wisdom—and energy, and we need to harness that. Instead of continually taking a deficit model or looking at youth in a negative way, let's start engaging with youth in a positive way. Let's recognise the positive things that young people have and the positive things that young people can contribute and let's encourage them down that positive pathway.

I used to run a youth not-for-profit before I entered this place, and when people asked me, 'What is it that you do with young people who are vulnerable to violence and radicalisation?' the answer was very simple, because it's not rocket science at all. If you give young people options, if you give them choice, if you give them a positive pathway and encourage them down that positive pathway, you can make a difference to their lives, and they can make a difference to other people's lives, and that's what I see young people doing every day. They are choosing a positive option, taking the positive pathway and making a difference to lives.

So it has indeed been an extraordinarily busy eight months for the Albanese government; I think we all feel that. But we all feel that, and we all feel that because we do not want to waste a day in delivering change for the Australian community. We've passed landmark legislation that's making a genuine difference to people's lives. When you go out there and you talk to your constituents, you can see it. At the 2022 election we said we'd deliver for Australia. We said we'd deliver a range of things, and I'm proud to stand here at this dispatch box and say that the Albanese Labor government is doing just that.

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