Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Perth sent me to this place in 2022 to turn our local values into national results, and every day of this term that is exactly what I have done. My community believes in the opportunity that comes from a great education. The investments that we are making in education in Perth are making a difference now and well into the future. You can't walk through the Perth electorate without seeing the iconic ECU City Campus springing to life out of the ground. In 2023 I was honoured to be there for the sod-turning ceremony, and next year students will arrive to start or complete their education in everything from business and IT through to the performing arts. If those students are at that campus and they have a student loan, they will get 20 per cent off their student debt under a re-elected Albanese Labor government. It's the same story for student loans for anyone who's studying at Northbridge TAFE, East Perth TAFE, Mount Lawley TAFE or Leederville TAFE.

We're not just delivering for those in their tertiary studies. We're delivering for our littlest learners—investing in early childhood education centres such as Casa Mia Montessori School, Yokine Community Playgroup and others—through the delivery of our cheaper childcare policy and what we are doing in parliament this fortnight: delivering the legislation that will see the abolition of the unfair and unnecessary childcare subsidy activity test and making sure that three days of subsidised early childhood education is available for every child in Perth who needs it. Similarly, we have funded our local primary schools, delivering bespoke funding for schools like Osborne Primary School, Maylands Peninsula Primary School, St Paul's Catholic Primary School, Ashfield Primary School and Australian Islamic College Dianella. It was an honour to be there with the Minister for Education, the Prime Minister and Premier Roger Cook last year as we signed the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement for Western Australia to fully find our public schools across the great state.

Then it comes to the importance of the value of fairness, and there's nothing fairer than making sure people have access to health based on need rather than how much money they have in the bank. It's that value of fairness that we have delivered by opening the Morley urgent care clinic on Rudloc Road. More than 10,000 of my constituents have walked through the doors of that urgent care clinic to get the care that they need. At the same time, it's taking pressure off Royal Perth Hospital and St John of God Midland Public Hospital, amongst others. This term, we opened headspace Osborne Park to support young people in Perth who are managing their mental health and to give them the support they need and deserve. We have opened the Morley-Ellenbrook line, making sure that we delivered on a train line that had been promised by so many sides of politics for so long. It was opened by federal and state Labor governments, delivering on our commitment to deliver for public transport across Perth.

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