Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I agree with the member for Lindsay. Her community have been let down. They do not have the infrastructure they need for a growing community. They don't have the schools, the hospitals or the transport. But, instead of blaming migrants, I say to the member for Lindsay: turn to your former state colleagues and the former premier of New South Wales, Dominic Perrottet, and ask them why they couldn't deliver on infrastructure, why they couldn't build schools in these growing suburbs and why they failed to provide public infrastructure to these growing suburbs in your community. Don't blame the migrants; blame the Liberal Party.

I am glad to be speaking on this matter of public importance, because it is important. It's just a shame that this is the only tune that those opposite know how to whistle. I've seen this before. It's called 'blame the migrants'. When you need to get a headline before a budget week, blame the migrants. When you are behind in the polls, blame the migrants. When you need to distract from your own incompetencies, blame the migrants.

When you've got the member for Dickson as your leader, it's no wonder you return to this tired and terrible tune. When he was home affairs minister he blamed African gangs. When he was immigration minister he said it was a mistake to let Lebanese refugees into Australia. 'Blame the migrants' was a bad tune then, and it's a bad tune now. I'll give you two reasons why. The numbers contradict your stance. If we had stayed with the migration intake numbers that you had when you were in government, today we would have more than half a million people more in this country. Think on that for a minute. Under those opposite, a bigger Australia.

The second reason—and this is a reason that all of those sitting opposite should listen to—is that Australia is a multicultural success story. There is no better example of that than my electorate of Reid. We are a community enriched by our diversity and we, on this side of the House, embrace multicultural Australia. You only need to look at the members on this side of the House: the members for Swan, Holt, Tangney, Cowan, Higgins—the member for Higgins is with me today—Wills, Chifley, Hindmarsh and the list goes on. It is a government that truly reflects the diversity of our community. That's not something those opposite can say. That's probably why we have this utterly disgraceful matter of public importance today.

I welcome a discussion on infrastructure from those opposite. I'm very happy to take you to the problems in the electorate of Reid. I want to give you one example. Wentworth Point is one of the most densely populated suburbs in Sydney. But, under the Liberals, at the federal, state and local government levels, they were utterly let down. If you ask any resident in Wentworth Point what the major issue is, it's the intersection of Hill Road and Bennelong Parkway. It's dangerous and traffic banks up every day. So, before the last election, I committed $8.5 million to fixing that intersection. I'm happy to report construction has already started to fix that black spot. And that's what governments are supposed to do. They're supposed to make a commitment, then they're supposed to fund it and then they're supposed to deliver on it. That's unlike those opposite, who, when it comes to infrastructure, are very much like the Daily Mailall headline and no substance. I'm probably being a bit unfair to the Daily Mail there.

I welcome, too, a discussion on health. We on this side of the House will always be better on health than those opposite. We created Medicare, we strengthened Medicare and in this budget we have boosted Medicare. We've given it the biggest boost it has seen since Paul Keating was Prime Minister. We have tripled bulk-billing incentives to make it easier and more affordable for people to see a GP. We've halved the cost of medication for people with chronic illness and we're funding the biggest pay rise for aged-care workers to ensure our oldest Australians are well cared for in their final years. Let's compare that to your track record. You tried to trash Medicare, and when the now Leader of the Opposition was the health minister, he wanted to undermine universal access to health care. He was so bad, a poll of doctors said he was the worst health minister in Australia.

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