Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today as the member for Chifley. I was enormously humbled to be elected the first time in that capacity to represent communities I've grown up in and care about, and every single election where I've been given the opportunity to represent the community again means a great deal. There are a lot of communities in our part of the world, and in my part of Western Sydney, where it is hard to get the voices of people in our area heard. Some of the communities do it tough, but they're very proud communities of people that know, if they have the chance, they can show what they're made of, show what they can do and improve the quality of life in neighbourhoods across Chifley. I've always seen myself as being a part of that—being a servant of the people of the area that I represent and being able to represent their views, their ambitions and their aspirations in this parliament. When you take into account the number of people that have actually been elected to the House of Representatives relative to the size of the population, it's a small group of people. I mention that because it emphasises, in my mind—and I'm sure in the minds of others, like the member for Robertson, who's here today, and like yourself, Deputy Speaker Ananda-Rajah—that it's a massive honour. Having the chance to be able to represent our communities and, in doing so, having the huge honour of being able to form a government, being able to give effect, in a much greater sense, to what people want is huge.

In my neck of the woods, in particular through the course of the last term of parliament, we were hit hard by COVID, as were a lot of others. But there were communities in Western Sydney where the failure of decision-making at a federal level hurt hard and those failures triggered the lockdown. It's something that is hugely impactful on me when I consider that 60 per cent of the deaths throughout the course of 2021 were felt in Western and south-western Sydney during lockdown, through that delta wave. We needed the vaccines that weren't there. As we got out of it, we needed RATs to be able to get back to work. People were prevented from being able to continue in their livelihoods. It enforced or emphasised to us the massive value in investing in health care. But there are a lot of communities in our area that are under particular pressure in getting access to primary health care in a way that will help them do exactly what they want to do in their lives, exactly as others are able to. It's either in the outer suburbs or in regional Australia—places away from the capital cities—where this is an even bigger challenge.

There are a number of things that I wanted to canvass in my contribution to the Governor-General's opening speech, but health care in particular was the big one that I wanted to kick off with. We've gone through the seismic event of the pandemic. We said that there were lessons to be learned. It's now time to do just that. We've seen that Medicare is under huge pressure. This didn't just happen overnight. There has essentially been an underinvestment in primary care and in recognising and respecting the role of general practitioners in communities. That's particularly so in my area. I look at my communities—from Lethbridge Park, Bidwill, Whalan, Tregear and Mount Druitt—and people who really need to be able to see a doctor are not doing so on the basis that they're making a calculation about whether or not they can afford to.

We are rightly proud as a country of Medicare providing universal access, but that universal access is under huge pressure. I'm seeing that in parts of Western Sydney where people are being asked for the first time to pay to see a doctor. That is a symptom of neglect that has been there—a failure to keep pace with what is going through. And it's doctors and GPs saying to me—I certainly understand this from the doctors I speak with in my area—that they're under huge pressure. Their costs have gone up as inflation has soared, and Medicare hasn't kept pace with that. It's impacting on their ability to provide health care at that point in time when it matters most and where it could be hugely beneficial from a preventative aspect, as well, for being able to identify issues that might cause longer term health problems for individuals in my area—for people in the communities I represent.

We need a strong Medicare system and, again, I come back to this point: being in government, where you can make a difference, is a huge honour. We have seen our colleague the Minister for Health, Mark Butler, take this issue on board. Importantly, he recognises what we need to do to invest in Medicare. There's a lot of work to do there, but I'm sure that he's determined to make a difference. If we don't have improvement in community care in particular, with people able to see their GP in their local area and get the type of advice and support they need at the time that they need it most, then it does have consequences. For example: at Blacktown and Mount Druitt hospitals, we see what happens if people can't go to a GP—they turn up at the emergency departments. It's enormously upsetting to know that Blacktown and Mount Druitt have the worst treatment response times for emergency patients in Sydney. In the last year there were instances where there wasn't enough space for some patients wanting treatment at Blacktown's emergency department. I've heard several times that we have quality health services in New South Wales; but patients are needing to camp outside the hospital. Some patients needing emergency treatment had to wait on the footpath until midnight.

We know that a timely response by hospitals is, in some cases, critical for survival, so residents in our part of Western Sydney being told to wait at the back of the line is simply not good enough. We need to make sure that all parts of the health system are working in a way that avoids that wait. When we get to that point, it's not an issue of thinking it's just a problem at that hospital; there's something underlying that situation, and it needs to be dealt with. From my point of view, as a member in this place, making sure that we have all the pieces locked into place which deliver affordable and accessible health care for people at the time they needed most is hugely important.

I want to thank the doctors and GPs in my area, along with everyone who works with them, delivering the support that they need, in their practices and medical centres. I have started representing the concerns of those GPs about getting the support they need in their practices—and also for getting doctors. We have shortages in GP numbers, and that's playing out in our part of the world.

The other area I wanted to touch on is education. The big thing for people in our area is recognising the value of education in changing their lives and opening up opportunities. We have a very young population, with a lot of students in schools—particularly, if I may say so, in government schools. At the end of the year, I always enjoy going to the presentation assemblies to see how they're going. We need to make massive investments in this and to work with state governments in terms of what will happen with long-term schooling support. In my area, we need to make sure we see a lift in investment in the school-resourcing standard. I know, from talking with principals in my area—for instance, I have spoken with principals out in parts of Doonside—that additional investment saw a transformation in results in maths. It meant they could provide one-on-one student support outside classrooms.

I also know that with the access to technology through the course of the pandemic and lockdowns, there were schools in my area where year 12 students performed their best relative to other generations. This defied expectations that the lockdown would affect them. But it was largely leveraged off them getting access to laptops and mobile coverage. We could see where that wasn't available and learning couldn't occur during lockdown: we could see the results for those who didn't have that access. We could see the impact of not having that technology in year 10 performance. So ensuring that investment is there is really important.

I'm very proud, as I'm sure a lot of my colleagues are, that we have committed to vocational education, making sure that TAFE gets the backing it needs. One of the great things is that we've backed in the value of TAFE and have been talking it up. For too long it has been seen as the poor cousin. It's not that; it's very important in delivering the skills that businesses need and in opening up a career for people which they'll want to throw themselves into.

Our government is committed to close to 500,000 TAFE fee-free places. That's a big deal for people in our area, providing skills that businesses need and—I again come back to this point—opening up careers for people. That means a great deal. On top of that, the commitment that we've made to invest in more university places—the existence of Western Sydney University and Australian Catholic University opening up campuses, to their great credit, in Blacktown as well—is making sure that people from underrepresented groups have access to university education. It is something I'm enormously proud of that is being done by our government. I look forward to championing that as well.

Infrastructure is another huge issue. Our part of the world is expected to welcome nearly 200,000 new residents in outer suburbs. While there are some state governments that love to cheer on the opening of huge tracts of land, believing this will deal with housing supply—and they take the stamp duty that comes with that and pocket that very nicely—there seems to be a difference between the speed at which they take the stamp duty and the speed of turning that into investment in infrastructure. In our part of the world, with major roadways like Richmond Road, leading into Marsden Park, there is a huge frustration by people that we haven't got things right linking in infrastructure. People can't believe that you could have all these new homes appear and the infrastructure not keep pace with what people would expect to occur.

We as a government certainly committed to working with the New South Wales government on, for instance, different stages of Richmond Road, and we committed money to ensure that was available for planning and designing work to happen. But, as residents rightly say in my neck of the woods, a plan's great, but you can't drive on it. They're right. You can talk that talk, but you have to be able to drive that road, frankly. I understand the design work has been done to improve bottlenecks and pinch points on major roadways in my area such as Richmond Road, and yet we have to wait for a state election for a decision to be made about investment, which is, frankly, hugely disappointing and outrageous. People shouldn't be tethered to an election to see whether or not they'll get the infrastructure they need to make their lives easier so they're not stuck in traffic and they can get to and from work quickly, and so, importantly, business in my area can open up. It's not just homes that are opened up to provide a workforce that has to travel all the way into Sydney—in many cases it is over an hour in a car to get there. We should be able to do better.

On that point, the provision of proper public transport so people don't feel like they have to rely on a car is also important. For example, the extension of the north-west metro from, currently, Tallawong station to St Mary's, plus fixing roadways and opening up the M9, will not just mean it is easier for residents to move around their neighbourhood; it will also, importantly, open up economic activity and opportunity for new jobs and industries in our part of the world.

Increasingly, too, we're asking people to go on and take on university education that puts them into careers where they can do much better than their parents, and it's exactly what their parents wanted. Most of us who are parents will say we want our kids to do better than we did. If the type of economic activities present in our outer suburbs doesn't ensure that people with those qualifications and training can be there, the gravitational pull to go closer to the city occurs because they can't earn the same salaries. In my mobile offices I've had people approach me and say: 'I have gone on. I've done my undergraduate degree. I've done my postdoc.' They've had huge investment in their own skills but do not have the jobs locally to use them. We need that talent to stay in our area to drive economic development. I think the big challenge longer term is to get the infrastructure right so we can see the type of firms come in that changes the nature of neighbourhoods and deal with some of the chronic unemployment we've had. If we get that right, some of the economic development that would occur will be close to areas where some of the highest and most persistent levels of unemployment have been—in suburbs, for example, around Shalvey, where we could easily get them access to one of the biggest employment estates. The Sydney Business Park out at Marsden Park is actually the second biggest creator of jobs in Sydney. We could make that happen and connect people to jobs, and I think that is hugely important, because of the type of work that's there—the manufacturing and capability we're encouraging through things like the National Reconstruction Fund, where we're thinking about areas where people can make a big contribution. There are a lot of great manufacturing firms in Chifley that would benefit from that extra support. And talking this up and talking about the need for businesses to work together is huge.

The other thing I think is important longer term for our area is getting the planning right around the Marsden Park area. That CBD in the Blacktown Council area, which is the biggest council in New South Wales, will open up a new CBD, and we can do it free of the colonial footprint that has dominated the design of so many cities in Western Sydney. We do need to get that right. Infrastructure is another thing I will continue to advocate for, for our people in our part of Western Sydney, because it's not just about freeing people from traffic jams but also about opening up opportunity and having a much better quality of life longer term.

The other big thing for people in this term but specifically this year will be the decision we make around the Voice. I'm proud to say that I represent one of the largest urban communities of Aboriginal Australians in the country, around the postcode 2770, and there are terrific organisations in our area that are doing really important work. They recognise the value and the importance of being recognised in our Constitution and being able to have a say on things that affect them—as I'm often being told, 'nothing about us without us'. That is emphasised quite a bit. I think that is the right way to go. We represent people who want to be able to have a say on things that impact them. In terms of First Nations people, we should be able to get this right, and I think we can. So, it is something I look forward to working with communities in our area on, to make sure that we do the right thing, that we put in a positive decision and that we encourage a voice to emerge in our area.

In concluding, I want to reflect on the fact that, as we all know, not only do we get here with the support of people who vote for us, but also there are a lot of people who devote a lot of their own time, and I'm very humbled and enormously appreciative of what people have done to volunteer on my campaign or work with me as the member for Chifley. There were a lot of volunteers from my FEC—in particular, my FEC president, Gayle Barbagallo, as well as the secretary, and a lot of others who contributed. There are so many, so that once you start it becomes a bit tricky to name everyone. But certainly within the branch, within the FEC and the branches in my area—the people who helped out in my mobile offices at the train stations that I visit and all the community events that I went to through the course of the term, even though we had the disruption of COVID-19—it did mean a great deal. I'm very grateful for their continued support in helping me to do my job of trying to make sure I won and was able to hear firsthand from communities about the things they think are important to them and that they need me to lean into and to be able to feed back to them as to what is going on and how we can work together to improve that.

There was also a very close team, both in my electorate office and in my shadow ministerial team, whose names I want to put on the record: Akano Amuda, Katie Booth, Kate Boyd, Brad Bunting, Amanda Feuerborn and Nicholas Petkovic, and also Melanie Bridge, who was with me, and then she and her husband welcomed their first child. I just want to say to Mel that I'm looking forward to her rejoining us at some point. Again, a lot of work has been done to perform a job that has meant a great deal to me so that I am able to have the opportunity to represent people I care a great deal about, who deserve the support and ability to achieve the things they want to achieve in their lives. I think parliament and in particular politics can make a difference if it's done right, and I'm very grateful for the chance to yet again represent those communities as the member for Chifley.

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