Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm proud to be standing here as part of the Albanese government, who genuinely cares and delivers on its promises. I've seen firsthand how the Albanese government is having a positive impact on the lives of so many in my electorate and around the nation. All of us hear from our constituents, and I do the same in my electorate of Adelaide, who are feeling more settled having a government who actually shows that it cares. But we know that we still have a very long way to go. We know that the cost of living is affecting people, and that's why we're acting on it.

Just recently, I had a constituent who came to see me in my electorate office, to plead with me for assistance with NDIS home modifications. He has a son who has no arms—that was his disability—and was on a two-year waiting list for approval of urgent and necessary home modifications. Just imagine not having any arms, or the use of your arms, and not being able to access modifications through the NDIS for your home so you can live a reasonable life. One of the ways this government cares is that I was able to reach out for the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the Hon. Bill Shorten, who sets up connections with department people and us to discuss directly the issues we have with the NDIS. We were able to get results and to deliver for this family, after they were waiting for two years. I thank the family for bringing this to my attention, and I thank the minister, the Hon. Bill Shorten, for the hard work he is doing in this area. I'm very proud my constituent had a voice and felt he could reach out to me and ask for help. I'm very grateful that his son now has the required instruments in his house and is able to live largely independently; that is really important. And they're grateful as well to have a government that listens to them and is on their side, delivering.

That's why the 2023-24 budget commits more than $732 million over four years to improve the effectiveness and delivery of the NDIS for people with disability, and to improve its sustainability. It's also why $429.45 million is being delivered and invested to upskill the NDIA workforce, which is very important. That is why this Albanese Labor government's NDIS budget initiatives include $73.4 million to better support participants to manage their plan within budget so they can access their supports in a flexible way to better achieve their goals. The budget provides for assisting around 4,815 NDIS participants in my federal seat of Adelaide, who, like my constituent's son that I just spoke about, need our help to not only have a better life but have a better future that they can be proud of, and live in dignity. That is something we can all be proud of as well, because the life of every single Australian matters.

We can also be proud we've delivered the largest-ever increase to the bulk-billing incentive in the history of Medicare. We saw Medicare absolutely run down over the last 10 years: no increases, no incentives for bulk-billing—just a government that really didn't care. One of our core promises was to strengthen Medicare and ensure that Medicare becomes an integral part of our health system for every Australian, and we are doing that by increasing the bulk-billing incentive. Would you say there is more to do? Yes, there is a lot more to do. But providing this benefit of the bulk-billing increase will provide an immediate benefit to 78,277 Australians in Adelaide—which is a big number. We've halved the price of medicines, another achievement I'm proud of, making it cheaper for people on low incomes, on pensions, that require medicines on a regular basis. And we've invested billions into aged care. Keeping Australians safe is a commitment that we have made and we will keep. We will keep on working to achieve goals that make Australian lives better.

In the last couple of weeks, I had the Minister for Financial Services, the member for Whitlam, attend my electorate, and we ran a great forum with the minister. We called it 'Be scam aware'—be aware of the tremendous number of scams that are going around. I hosted the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services in the electorate. We had a great turnout. A great number of people attended, and we made sure that those who attended left with the tools that they need to protect themselves from scams.

I was pretty surprised, in a room of about 80 people, by the number of people who had been scammed, by up to $60,000—smart, intelligent, educated people. It is an area that I think needs a lot of attention to ensure that we are doing everything we can as governments but also to ensure that banks, insurance companies and other financial services—people that deal with our money on a day-to-day basis as part of their business—put in place measures that protect their customers' livelihoods and money. I was quite surprised by the number of people there who had been scammed or knew of someone who had been scammed, and we're not talking small amounts. Yes, there were some small amounts in there, but one chap spoke about losing $60,000 through some scam that had come through as a text message or something. I know we're all busy, and one of the messages was: 'We're all busy. We get hundreds of text messages per day. Just before you click, take a deep breath, let it go, read it and then click, or don't click at all, which is the safest way.'

Deputy Speaker, we know that we have a role to play in this area, which is why this government is delivering its commitment to disrupting illegal text scams with the establishment of an SMS sender ID registry. That was in the budget with investment of over $10 million. That means a register will be set up with all of these numbers, and then telcos will have the responsibility for banning them from sending out text messages or any form of message. So the government is investing in what matters, and we are investing in Australians.

My office has heard from constituents, primarily pensioners, who have expressed excitement about the 423,000 households in South Australia who are expected to be eligible for a $500 rebate because of the estimated $127.2 million for energy bill relief in 2023-24. This worthy contribution will be matched by the South Australian government.

Being an inner-city electorate, Adelaide is home to a very high volume of rental properties, and we know that rents are going up and that we have a rental crisis at the moment. For example, when I first became a member in 2004, rarely would we have people coming in to speak to us about homelessness or saying that they were on the cusp of becoming homeless. We're now seeing people regularly. Every week, two or three people who are on the cusp of becoming homeless or have just become homeless will pass through the office, and we're not talking about people who perhaps have never worked; we're talking about the working poor.

If there's something that is a crisis and needs all of our attention, it is homelessness and the ability for people to put a roof over their heads, whether it be by rent or by purchasing. I think we have to work hard on this as much as we can to create extra housing and rental assistance and assist those emergency shelters who do such a great job in my electorate. The Hutt Street Centre, for example, houses hundreds of people every night, and their numbers are swelling. They're finding it difficult to actually sustain their business model, because of the great numbers that turn up. So somehow we have to find a way to assist these agencies, who are doing a tremendous job at the moment, in dealing with numbers that they've never seen before.

The government has put some measures in place to secure our country's housing future, and it's investing billions of dollars in new support to help people through these difficult times. I'm not saying it will be the end, but it's a start, and we should work on that start as a foundation to build on it. The government will support an additional $2 billion in financing for more social and affordable rental housing by increasing the guaranteed liabilities of Housing Australia. This boost from $5.5 billion to $7.5 billion, effective from 1 July, will enable Housing Australia to continue to support the development of social and affordable rental homes by providing lower cost and longer term finance to community housing providers.

It's important to have a good mix of housing. It gives the people who are building them an incentive to build them while, at the same time, ensuring that we have social housing, and affordable housing and rental properties in a great mix. One of the greatest examples I've seen of this is from the Dunston era—that great Labor Premier of South Australia—when they developed West Lakes.

West Lakes has some very high-end properties, but amongst those very high-end properties was a mixture of what were old housing trusts houses and community housing. It's one of the best developments I've seen in Australia. It had a good mix that allowed people to rent low-income rental properties and allowed people to purchase high-end properties, thus giving those developers an incentive to go in there and actually build. And it had low-cost housing as well. They were all in the one mix. It was done fantastically. And if you haven't seen West Lakes—it's not in my electorate; it was in my old electorate of Hindmarsh—I'd encourage you to have a look at how it was done in the late seventies. What a great model it was from the great Premier Don Dunstan.

The funding boost for housing that I was talking about earlier is the government 's commitment to deliver more social and affordable rental homes. We've delivered a record-breaking increase in rental assistance, as we all heard in the budget, and this is an increase that hasn't been improved for over 30 years. This ensures that in my electorate 8,355 households will benefit from a 15 per cent boost to the maximum rates of Commonwealth rent assistance.

The Albanese Labor government has also delivered on this and will continue to deliver for all Australians. I'm proud that my electorate in Adelaide will be home to an innovative cultural precinct, with the support of the government, which is providing $39 million as part of the Adelaide City Deal. One of the aims of the cultural precinct is to house our First Nations peoples artefacts. They're all over the place in Australia at the moment—in warehouses, in basements. It will all be documented and housed in this one space. It's very important for First Nations people, but it's also important for all of us as these artefacts are part of our history and part of Australia's history.

We're working not only to improve the lives of Australians to give them a better future, but we're also committed to delivering a quality of life that all can enjoy. Being an Australian is about being part of a community that delivers much more. I know in my electorate that cultural diversity is huge. Last time I looked, we had something like 180 different languages spoken in my electorate. Everything from Arabic to Chinese, to different dialects of Indian, Greek, Italian et cetera. One of the driving forces behind these communities is entrepreneurship. You can see it. They start up little businesses. In the northern part of my electorate, on Prospect Road, you see Afghan supermarkets and restaurants, barbers, insurance brokers. You can see them thriving on Prospect Road, and they've rejuvenated the whole area. It's really great to have an electorate that is growing in eateries, restaurants and many other small businesses. With these areas thriving, the arts, sports and culture then start to thrive.

The government is restoring a national vision for our cities, delivering the first comprehensive national urban policy in over a decade. We're investing $350 million to support suburban communities by improving productivity, sustainability and liveability. I am proud that businesses in my electorate will also be supported as we move to a better future for the federal seat of Adelaide and all of South Australia.

The government is saying it's going to support up to 270,000 small businesses in SA. And I'll point out that many of these small businesses are within my electorate. I have the CBD and all the inner-city suburbs around the CBD in my electorate. This will be delivered through a turnover of up to $10 million by temporarily increasing the instant asset write-off threshold to $20,000. Eligible assets will need to be first used or installed and ready for use between 1 July 2023 and 30 June 2024. And there is much, much more that we're doing. I'm proud to be part of this Albanese Labor government.

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