John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity, Mr Deputy Speaker Slipper, to congratulate you on your election to high office. I know that you will acquit yourself very well in the new role as Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. I wish you all the best. I note that the speaker who will follow me this morning is the new member for Throsby. I wish him well in his representation of the people of Throsby. But I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge his predecessor, my very good friend the former member for Throsby, Ms Jennie George, who retired at the last election. Ms George will be very much missed in this place. She was a great local member and a great representative of her people. In fact, she was outstanding in the work that she did for the people of Throsby. I am very pleased to see that the new member for Throsby has just joined us here in the chamber. I want to mention the former member for Throsby’s leadership of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts. I was a member of that committee and her leadership of the inquiry and the report were one of her truly greatest achievements in this place.

Ms George was chair of the committee. The report Managing our coastal zone in a changing climate received both national and international acclaim. I like to refer to it as the ‘George report.’ During that inquiry there were about 28 public hearings. We received more than 100 written submissions. A clear message emerged from the report that arose out of that inquiry: a need for national leadership to manage our precious coastal zone in the light of climate change. Importantly, the report also outlined in its recommendations the way forward by providing a collaborative framework with state and local governments. It also outlined in its recommendations ways in which we can better engage our community in this endeavour.

I exhort every member of this place to read the George report, as we commit ourselves to tackling climate change. I take this opportunity, again, to welcome the newly elected member for Throsby, Stephen Jones. He is the former secretary of my union. I wish him all the best. He will certainly do a good job and he has big shoes to fill in following Jennie George.

I take this opportunity to recommit to my electorate of Reid that I will be prosecuting the need for our government to show leadership on climate change during this parliament. We must address this issue. We have to provide certainty for business and help build on the long-term competitiveness and growth of our economy. I look forward to continuing my contribution to an informed debate on this vital issue which affects everyone.

In speaking with many of my constituents there was a strong call for reforms that improve social inclusion and offer compassion to those most in need. That is very appropriate in the light of the canonisation yesterday in Rome of Australia’s first saint, Mary MacKillop of the Cross. It was a wonderful occasion and I am sure she would expect us to also attend to the needs of those most in need.

I would like to reflect on the comments of Her Excellency the Governor-General in her speech in relation to social inclusion. Our government will implement policies that make Australia not only stronger but also more inclusive. For my electorate of Reid this will include measures for those living with a disability. I look forward to the delivery of improvements in support for those who live with disability. My electorate hosts schools and organisations that assist with services for people living with physical and mental disabilities. Those families will be heartened that the Labor government will continue to improve those services. In particular, the government have committed to increasing the number of supported accommodation places. We also provide funding for early intervention services to assist children diagnosed with sight and hearing impairments, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome or fragile X syndrome.

In addition, the government will also give the Productivity Commission’s forthcoming report on the National Disability Insurance Scheme careful consideration. Many constituents will be awaiting this review with great interest. After visiting local schools catering for students with special needs and discussing the ways we can make their lives better with their teachers and families, I am very pleased that the Gillard government will make the long-term care and support needs of people with disability a national priority. The government will also finalise the National Disability Strategy through the Council of Australian Governments.

I know that the former Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services worked extremely hard in this role. In fact, during the election campaign I had the privilege of hosting the then Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services, the Hon. Bill Shorten. The parliamentary secretary helped launch Disabilities Awareness Week in my electorate and visited Lucas Gardens School. Lucas Gardens School provides an invaluable learning environment for children with severe mental and physical disabilities. Following a visit to the school Bill Shorten joined me at Livvi’s Place, which is a playground where Lucas Gardens students travel to enjoy the all-abilities facilities. Livvi’s Place is the result of the vision of Canada Bay Council, community leaders and the Touched by Olivia Foundation. John and Justine Perkins established the foundation in memory of their daughter Olivia, who died in infancy. They wanted to create a special place where children of all abilities could play together, and I congratulate them on their valuable work in the local community, which has brought so much joy to so many. It is incredible to think that this is the first all-abilities playground in my electorate, and it is considered one of the best in Australia. I hope that the model can be used in other electorates for the benefit of children with a disability and impress that it is such a wonderful concept and an even better reality for the community.

The social inclusion agenda will also include funding a package to help reduce the incidence of suicide, and other measures to improve the lives of Australians living with mental illness. Many of my constituents contacted me about their support for increased prevention and support services, and I look forward to the implementation of these services.

Another focus for the Labor government, as raised by Her Excellency, is education. Education lies at the heart of the government’s agenda to strengthen workforce participation and enhance our nation’s fairness and prosperity. Education is a cornerstone of our egalitarian society and is crucial to breaking down social divides, reducing crime and guiding our future leaders and innovators. For the benefit of my electorate I am particularly pleased that the government will build on the trade training centres program with a new national cadetship initiative to help young people develop trade skills and remain at school. The electorate of Reid boasts one of the largest trades training centres in Australia, made possible by an $11 million grant from the Labor government under the Trades Training Centres in Schools Program, combined with a further $12 million investment by the Catholic Education Office. The college currently hosts 135 students. Courses at the college include children’s services, furniture making, health services, information technology and construction and business services, to name but a few. The facilities match industry standards and student courses lead to nationally recognised vocational qualifications. At full capacity the college is expected to enrol 500 students.

Needless to say, I was alarmed and dismayed with the opposition’s announcement prior to the federal election that, if elected, they would cease trades training in schools. Thankfully, this did not occur. It is little wonder, however, that this would be an area of funding cuts for the opposition. In three years the Labor government have provided three times the number of trades training centres compared with the Howard government’s record over 11½ years. On average, the Howard government built only three technical colleges per state and territory. The Labor government have invested record amounts in skills training, and I am pleased that our vision remains firmly committed to trades training in the second term of the Labor government.

I assure my constituents, particularly the students enrolled and hoping to enrol at our local trades training centre, that our government will continue to invest in and support skills training in our country. Further, my electorate is known for its many fine government and non-government schools. It is an exciting time for education in Australia indeed. The government is committed to improving standards and quality, increasing transparency and modernising infrastructure. After meeting with school P&Cs and principals, I know that the possibilities created by our reforms provide new opportunities that many are eager to explore and I will endeavour to be a strong voice for my school communities during this time of transition.

I also note that the government will move to ensure that students have access to the Australian Baccalaureate. Some schools in my electorate already offer this to their senior students, as it provides a national educational credential of international standing. I am sure that the schools currently offering the Australian Baccalaureate will be pleased with this commitment, despite the introduction of a national curriculum.

In my capacity as the federal member for Lowe for 12 years I believe my community knows the value of working together for a common good. Through many local campaigns we achieved improvements to health services in the form of equipment, beds and an Medicare MRI licence for Concord Hospital and PBS listing of cancer treatments; an Aircraft Noise Ombudsman; we have saved local jobs from going offshore and established the Bernie Banton Centre, which is a centre of excellence for investigation and research into the causes of asbestos related diseases, particularly mesothelioma. It is a great monument to the late Bernie Banton, and I was very privileged last Friday night to be at the second annual dinner of the Bernie Banton Foundation. The CEO, Bernie’s widow, Karen Banton, has done an outstanding job in promoting the foundation, and much private money is being raised for such an excellent cause. I invite all members of this chamber to visit the Bernie Banton Centre at some future time. (Time expired)

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Before I call Mr Ewen Jones, I remind honourable members that this is his first speech. I therefore ask that the usual courtesies be extended to him.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was eight years old and we were travelling on our annual Christmas pilgrimage from my home town of Texas, in the south of Queensland, to my mother’s home town of Broadford, in Victoria, and back. I am the middle of three boys. We sat along the bench seat of the HR Holden sedan while mum and dad sat up front, mum dutifully telling my father how fast he was travelling and dad, doing 65 miles an hour, driving with his knees, constantly lighting and smoking cigarettes. The car was fully fitted with 460 air conditioning—that is, four windows down and 60 miles an hour. We were forced to detour through Sydney, as floods had cut inland roads. In our family a stop for fuel was like a pit stop at Bathurst. Dad got out and spoke to the attendant as the car was filled and the windscreen cleaned. Mum made sandwiches or cut cake from the boot. Meanwhile the three boys were told to go to the toilet, as we would not be making any more stops until we needed more fuel. On this day, on Parramatta Road, it was nearing 5 pm and the service station was about to close—yes, there was a time when service stations closed! I took longer than the others, and when I came to the door I found that it was locked. My immediate thoughts were that my brothers, Graham and Stuart, were responsible, so I made the usual threats about taking revenge or telling dad and mum. There was no answer.

I soon became desperate. I was truly locked in there and the service station had closed. Dad had bundled everyone into the car and took off into the Parramatta Road traffic. ‘Dad,’ called my brother. ‘Hang on, mate, I’m driving here,’ said my father. ‘Dad,’ was the call from the back seat, repeated as my father’s tone darkened at my brothers’ constant refrain. ‘Dad, Ewen’s not here.’ I had been left behind at the service station. I was only there for a short time; my family returned before the owners had left the site. This story is now a play in five parts played by my family for all who visit us. But this event has affected me in ways I am only now coming to understand. It has been a driving force of my life and has helped me to find what I believe is important and helped me formulate the way I have lived my life. No-one will be left behind while I have the ability to help. I can only imagine what it is like for someone who has fallen completely through the cracks. I have the advantage here over others in that at all times during my life I have known that, above all else, my family loves me, no matter what.

I have always played team sports and believe in the team dynamic. From the 4st 7lb Texas State School Rugby League side through to my last game as a 30-year-old for the mighty Westpac Rugby Club, I have made the team my highest priority. In a team, if the weakest player has a great game, you will win. It is not important that you have star players. Even Bradman had to have someone at the other end so he could score. A team is the sum, and in many cases greater than the sum, of all its parts. And every part matters. That, in essence, is what I bring to this House and what I hope to provide for my electorate of Herbert in the truly great city of Townsville, and to the whole of North Queensland. What I hope to do is provide a helping hand to those who need it. But a key belief of mine is that it is those very people who need the assistance who already have the answers for which we seek.

To the people of Townsville I say the biggest thankyou. The people of Townsville walk with a straight back and look the world in the eye. They are proud, quiet people. They are a can-do people who get things done. Townsville people are innovative and hard working. They are prepared to have a go. The people of Townsville do not live in fear of the future because they know that they will play a major role in shaping that future. I promise Townsville that I will work for you and the betterment of all without fear or favour. I will do the right thing by my community. When I got to Townsville, we were two cities, divided by an act of state parliament. We are now one combined city of some 180,000 people, and growing. We have a truly diversified economy and we are home to the Crocs NBL and Fire WNBL teams. We are home to the Fury in the A-League and we are home to the mighty North Queensland Cowboys NRL side.

We are proud of our university and we are a proud garrison city. Our university is an exciting place to be. We are producing great people and research. We have green energy projects which could transform our society and the way we deal with climate change in a positive and direct way. But my mission will not be complete if we do not secure the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine for all the people in the world who live and work in a tropical environment. We must ensure that this vital research facility, which will deal with drug-resistant tuberculosis and dengue fever along with issues of Indigenous health and food production, is placed in the most significant tropical university in the world—James Cook University. If North Queensland is not going to be left behind when it comes to development of our resources and the protection of our first Australians, this must happen.

Our men and women of the Australian Defence Force do our city proud. We have taken them into the heart of our culture and they have reciprocated by making us the preferred transfer option for just about every branch of the service. You should come to Townsville for Anzac Day. After you have done the dawn parade on Magnetic Island, it is back to the mainland. You will see half the city line our beautiful Strand as the other half marches past proudly. We as a city look forward to welcoming the men and women of 3RAR and the new LHD vessels in the very near future. But we must never take the ADF’s presence in Townsville for granted. Townsville knows very well the inherent risks faced by our service men and women, whether they be on the battlefield in Afghanistan or when they drive through the gates at Lavarack Barracks and the RAAF base in Garbutt, because ours are the troops who are on constant alert, deployment trained and ready. And we must never assume that the men and women from the services are being looked after properly when they have retired. These people have served their nation with distinction and those who qualify for the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Scheme, or DFRDB, pension should have it applied to the same indices as other retirement pensions offered by the government. It is only right and fair that these brave men and women are not left behind.

Mr Speaker, I found the election campaign truly exciting. I found the effort to get elected the most engaging thing I have ever done professionally. On a day-to-day basis I came to realise that, although I had been a contributing member of my city for some 16 years, there were so many layers to our society, the work that really goes on, and the people who are doing a mighty job for us all. It is here where my belief that the answers are in front of us, in the community, took a key hold on my platform. From the team at North Queensland Community Transport to the residents of Palm Island, I came to see people who have the answers to what needs to be done but struggle with the red tape. There are people who want to develop business opportunities but need support with compliance and start-up capital. There are people like Randal Ross from Red Dust Healing who want to get people off welfare payments by helping them understand from where they have come so that they can find a starting point to get their lives back on track.

When I started this campaign I sought out Gracelyn Smallwood. Gracelyn is a midwife at the Townsville General Hospital. She is a lecturer at James Cook University. She is a PhD student. She is a mother, grandmother, and auntie to most of Townsville. She is an Aboriginal elder. I had never met her prior to my preselection. I said to her that I needed perspective. I have come from a family where my parents have always worked. I have always worked and my children have watched me get up, shave, and go to work every day of their lives. In our Indigenous communities, there are generations of people who have never seen a parent go to work. I said to Gracelyn, ‘How can I possibly know what it is like on the other side of that fence?’ To her credit, we spoke, and we will continue to speak, and I will continue to learn from her and others in my community.

There is a belief in my community that there is enough money in the system for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, that there is enough money in the system to house them and that there is enough money for the education of their children but it is just that it does not get through to the people who need it the most. My community is telling me that there is a consultant class of government and non-government people taking too much on the way through. They need two things: the opportunity to do it themselves and the understanding that some will fail. My community is no different to any other and I take it as my solemn pledge that I will not leave anyone behind. We are one team. If you spend time with the people on Palm Island or with the people of BARK, Brothers Act of Random Kindness, you will see a genuine belief that real outcomes are there to be had. They need a hand and they need us to give them the whip handle.

We need to give Indigenous people opportunities to decide their own destinies. To that end, we must be supportive of their exploring of small business opportunities—not enterprises that are meaningless, but real businesses employing real people and providing real futures. Again, as with all new businesses, there are dangers lurking, especially where inexperience plays a part. In my community, the North Queensland Small Business Development Centre offers a path to follow for all those who have as little as a good idea. They can help out with cash flow predictions, business plans and with banks and solicitors. But more than that, they can provide ongoing support with compliance and help to avoid other pitfalls that cause small businesses to fail everywhere. The NQSBDC is proactive and entrepreneurial in its outlook and I will be doing everything I can to support its growth in my region. It is important that, if we are to be helpful, we are there for the long run. We must ensure that no-one gets left behind.

I stand here and proclaim my support for small business. It is a cliche but it is true that small business is the engine room of our economy and it is what makes us a great nation. But we are strangling this sector. From all levels of government, this sector is being abused as a cash cow and de facto tax collector. It must stop. Too many businesses have made the decision not to expand or simply cannot afford to expand because the cost of compliance and regulation is just too great. Good government should provide a simple format and rules under which all can prosper—not hobble them out of existence.

During my campaign the people to whom I spoke in my community told me that if the amount of tax being paid is about right—and I do reiterate, if—then the collection must be simplified. We are too small a country to have small business paying tax to three levels of government. Where the accountant and solicitor should be real business partners giving guidance to the business owner toward growth and opportunity, they have had their roles reduced to that of compliance officers and tax collectors. We need a system that will allow small business to pay its fair share and then government should get out of its way so it can go about its business. Too often, opportunities have been missed to provide real reform for this most valuable section of our economy, and they must be supported. They will not be left behind.

We are facing difficult times in my community. We keep on hearing about how well we are going and how proud we should be. I am here to tell you that people in my community are feeling real pain. They are the reason I cannot support, and actively campaigned against, an emissions trading scheme. What the government would have you believe is that the big mining companies will be paying the tax. In truth, it is always those least able to afford it who will have to pay, as this is a great big tax on everything. It is not the big end of town, such as BHP, Rio Tinto, and Xstrata, that feels the pain of this great big tax on everything. It will be the owners of the engineering works who provide employment to boilermakers and fitters in my community. It will be the charter airlines who provide employment for ground and support staff in my community. It is the local real estate agent who provides employment to the property managers who look after the rent roll in my community. It will be the sole trader who drives the pie van up and down Enterprise Street at the Bohle who feels this tax. It will be ordinary families—working class families—who are already struggling now to make ends meet. At every turn my community is being asked to pay more tax, all the while being told how good they have it. I will hold the government to account for every measure that will damage the fabric of my community. No one and no small business will be left behind while I have a say.

We must look at ways to get the very best possible value for every public dollar. An example of this would be the positron emission tomography, or PET, scanner for Townsville. Both sides of this House promised this vital piece of equipment during the campaign, but it was in the delivery method that the difference lay. I was proud to campaign for a scanner to be placed at Queensland X-Ray’s site in Hyde Park, some 10 minutes from the Townsville General Hospital. Here we have a private entity prepared to pay half the purchase cost of the scanner and all the installation cost of the scanner and bulk bill every public patient needing this treatment. They would be able to do 17 scans per day as opposed to Queensland Health’s expectation of three per day. Currently, around 500 PET scans per year are done on people from North Queensland alone. These individuals are being flown to Brisbane and put up in accommodation 1,400 kilometres away from home and family while they wait for their turn. This is the time at which the need for family is at its highest.

The cost of the government’s plan is somewhere between $6 million and $9 million. The cost to the taxpayer under the Qld X-Ray plan is $2.5million. The government’s plan was originally to install one at the Townsville General Hospital sometime after 2014. To their credit that has now been brought forward to the end of 2012. However, Qld X-Ray can have theirs up and running within six months of getting the go-ahead. So, if the government had chosen on 22 August to support this method, it would mean that this vital piece of equipment could have been operating by January 2011. So, with our program, we have lower cost to the taxpayer, better service and it will be operating sooner. With the government’s program, we have higher cost to the taxpayer, less service delivery and it will be operational later. Which one would you choose?

I congratulate the government on following the coalition’s commitment to the Copperstring Project. This vital project will see my city, my region, my state and my country tap into the most significant renewable energy development in our history. From solar to geothermal, from ethanol to wind and hydrogeneration, this project is capable of providing huge benefits to the whole country. We will also develop and maximise the return on arable land and mining projects. I urge all in this House to ensure that this project is given every chance of success.

Everyone who helped me since I was preselected has my deep personal thanks. I would like to make special mention of a few people. To Senator Ian Macdonald: I thank you for your unwavering support and your confidence in me as a candidate. To the retired member for Herbert, Peter Lindsay: the example you have shown in holding a marginal seat across five elections and retiring at a time of your choosing does not pass me without notice. To have had you as campaign director was of great benefit to me and the team. To Clayton Hinds: thank you for coming on board when you did. You made a crucial difference in the early days. To David Kippin, Max Tomlinson, Russell Bugler, John Hathaway, Matthew Crossley and Marty, I say: thank you for your support and all the work you did.

To the leadership of the LNP, particularly Bruce McIver and James McGrath, I say thank you. To the parliamentary leadership, especially Tony Abbott, Julie Bishop, Joe Hockey, Ian Macfarlane, Steve Ciobo, Peter Dutton, Greg Hunt, David Johnson and Nigel Scullion, I say, thank you so much. The effort you people put into my campaign with return visits and the interest you took in me personally will never be forgotten.

To the membership of Townsville’s LNP branches, the Young LNP and all those volunteers, I say thank you. To my mate Frank Probert, who stood every day for me at pre-poll as well as at very information booth possible: you are a champion. To John Dwyer: I am working every day and one day hope to be half as good as you think I am. To Peg and Melinda, a special thank you. To my mates Richo, Pat, John, Russell, Pauly, PC, Bill, Luke, Jeff, Tim and Tony, I say: thank you for never allowing me the luxury of getting a big head.

To my children—Emma, Abbie and Andrew—I love you very much. Your efforts for me will never be repaid—and good job, as I gave you the gift of life itself, so I win.

To my wife, Linda: I owe you so much. You have made me a happy person and you have had the courage and passion to push me to achieve.

To Benny and Carmen and all my Italian connection, I say: thank you for welcoming my daughters and me into your family.

To my parents, Allen and Hilary: thank you for all you have done for me all your life and will do into the future. Your example of doing without so that others can have will stay with me always.

To my brothers, Graeme and Stewart, and their families: I am a long way away from you living in Townsville, but I know that I have your love and support. I would also like to state for the Hansard that I am the best golfer in the family.

Mr Speaker, I stand here ready to do the right thing by my electorate, my city, my region, my state and my country. I am here for my people and my community, and I promise that no one will be left behind.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Before I call Ms Brodtmann, I remind honourable members that this is her first speech. I therefore ask that the usual courtesies be extended to her.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and congratulations on your recent appointment.

Without Canberra there would be no Australia. To borrow the words of Sir Henry Parkes: ‘The crimson thread of kinship runs through us all.’ Those threads are drawn together in this city. They run from every corner of this nation, and the knot that binds them is this House. But it could have been very different: 112 years ago, a four-state referendum on federation foundered in New South Wales. Although a majority said yes, support in New South Wales fell below the votes necessary for a mandate. Six months later, George Reid won amendments to the Constitution that dragged his state over the line. One was that the federal capital would be in New South Wales, no closer than 100 miles from Sydney. Many years and many more arguments would pass before the new federation settled on a capital, and a city to house a nation was built on Limestone Plains—a land that had been home to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people for thousands of generations. Today I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land and pay my respects to their elders past and present.

All of us are proud to be Australian. I hope that in my time here I might convince more Australians to be proud of our national capital. Without it, we would still be a collection of quaint, inward-looking colonies bickering over what divides us, not a federation focusing on what unites us.

Like so many of my constituents, I was not born here. More than 20 years ago I chose to live in Canberra, and I am a fierce defender of my home. As a city built to house a government, it has many critics, but Canberra is as Australian as the bushland that surrounds and intertwines it. Australians know and love the bush and know its dangers. The 2003 bushfires that tore through the suburbs of my electorate, killed four people and destroyed 500 homes showed the courage and strength of our community and reminded Australia that the bush capital was their capital and that we are part of them.

My electorate is home to people from every part of Australia and every part of the world, who directly or indirectly work to serve the nation. Canberra is home to the most highly educated population in the country, but it is also home to people battling disadvantage and disability. Canberra is home to a community with a heart that provides shelter to refugees and the homeless, food to women seeking refuge and support to the infirm.

Canberra is home to the Prime Minister, the Governor-General and diplomats from every part of the globe. Canberra is home to children who love learning and love to sing, such as the boys and girls of Charles Conder and Gordon primary schools, Malkara School, Holy Family Primary School and Canberra Girls Grammar School—children liberated by state-of-the-art buildings and technology that will help them gain new skills and make better music thanks to the Gillard government. Canberra is home to places that preserve and share our history and culture, and it is home to this Parliament House—this people’s house. I want to thank the people of Canberra in the Tuggeranong Valley, Weston Creek, Woden, the inner south, Oaks Estate and Tharwa for putting your faith in me. As long as I am here I will listen to you and I will advocate for you. I will strive to represent you well as Annette Ellis did.

Many of the people in my electorate are public servants. Some here like to join the chorus of those who ridicule Canberra and denigrate bureaucrats, but why would you scorn people who dedicate their lives to public service? I was a public servant once and was honoured to work for my country. Let me tell you of another public servant: my friend Liz O’Neill. Liz worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She worked to help keep the peace in Bougainville and to provide some comfort to the families in the morgues of Bali in 2002 and again in 2005. In 2004 she was blown off her feet by the bomb that exploded outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta. In 2007 she died in the service of her country when her plane ran off the runway at Jogjakarta.

Some credit George Orwell with saying that ‘we sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.’ It is a tribute to those public servants called soldiers. But we also sleep soundly in our beds because invisible heroes ensure our national interests are protected abroad. Others protect our borders. Some make sure our cities and towns are safe. Others make sure our food is clean and keep our lights on. Some help the sick, the aged, the disadvantaged and the disabled. Others ensure our children’s toys are safe and our story is kept alive. Public service should be lauded, not derided, and as long as I am in this place I will defend the women and men in the Australian Public Service, because public servants are, after all, servants of democracy.

But Canberra today is more than what has been dubbed a ‘government theme park’. About half of its workforce is in the private sector in small, medium and microbusinesses; light industries; animation and the arts; law; and advocacy. I want to see business and industry continue to grow and thrive in Canberra, liberated by broadband. This year is the 100th anniversary of the drawing of the borders of the ACT, and in many ways Canberra is far from complete. I hope to live to see this territory’s horizons expand beyond anything the surveyors could have imagined. I hope to help Canberra grow and flourish so we have the skills and population we need to maintain the lifestyle we love while still providing the services and infrastructure for tomorrow. I hope to play a role in helping to draw those future borders that live now only in our dreams and aspirations.

Many of you probably do not know that the borders of my electorate stretch to Norfolk Island. We are all familiar with the island’s rich and unique history and patois, but most would not know it is in need of reform, and I welcome the Gillard government’s reform to its governance and financial management to improve economic stability and equity. I hope that the best years for Norfolk Island and Canberra lie ahead and I am honoured to have been chosen to represent these very different parts of our nation here in this House.

But I have not come alone. I carry the dreams, the work and the sacrifice of others, and I will never forget them. There is my grandmother, Enid Anderson, and my great-grandmother, Ada Huggins. In the language of the day, both were in service. My great-grandmother worked as a domestic in Victoria’s Western District. She supported 13 children on her own in a house with dirt floors. I never met Ada, but I will never forget her. My grandmother worked three jobs and her abiding fear was that the state would take her children because she was poor. My grandmother died nine months after I was born. She was just 54. I was too young to know Enid, but I will never forget her. I was 11 when my father left my mother, and then my own future did not look that bright. My mother, Faye Anderson, also worked hard. Her sacrifice and love would see all three of her daughters go to university, but her hard work alone would not have got us there. She needed the help of giants—and she got it. My sisters and I went through a world-class public school system, and when I got to university it was free. The giants that built that system were people like you and, above all, the women and men of the Labor Party. They had been building it since my great-grandmother was a child. I never met most of them, but I will never forget them.

Because of the Labor Party I escaped a cycle of disadvantage, and there are millions more like me. My life is testimony to the truth that education is the great transformer. That is why we desperately need the Gillard government’s education revolution; without it, the opportunities, choices and options of future generations and our future are diminished. My sisters and I had a great public education that set us up for life. That is why I am a strong defender of government schools and a staunch advocate of access to education and support through it, whatever your background. Education is the great empowerer, particularly when it encourages a quest for broad and continuous learning. Education builds self-esteem and confidence, and a great education cannot happen without great teachers—teachers like Chris Mithen, who at Springview Primary School sowed my love of learning, a love that flourished at Dawnvale High School through teachers who encouraged us to be bold, to believe in ourselves and to strive for excellence.

But a quality secondary education is not one that only prepares a person for university. A quality education is multidimensional. It lays the foundation for a successful future in a vocation or trade. It lays the foundation for a quality life and a better quality of life. I want to see a return to an understanding of the dignity of work that values every job well done, because each job, no matter what it is, adds to the common good.

History shows us that if work is to be dignified workers need advocates, because workers rights did not fall from the sky. History shows that, without unions, workers were broken in what William Blake called dark satanic mills. He understood that change would not come without a fight, and the best weapon in the fight for workers rights is the trade union. This is why I am proud that the Labor Party was born in the fires of the union movement and fashioned on its anvils. It is something we should never seek to hide and something we should be proud of. Since I left high school, unions have protected me at work and this year worked to get me into this House. I am particularly grateful to the CFMEU, the NUW, the USU, the SDA and the CPSU.

I will never forget what the unions have done for this country and as long as I am here I will staunchly defend your right to defend your members. But, as a former small business owner, I will also remind my union friends that getting the balance right is extremely important. Australia is a wealthy country. It has room to pay its workers a decent wage and to provide them with decent conditions while at the same time rewarding risk and enterprise. So I will also strive to continue to make it simpler and easier for people to operate and succeed in business. That means continuing with the Gillard government’s improvements to the tax system. That means continuing with the Gillard government’s improvements to the superannuation system to make it simpler and more flexible so people are genuinely empowered to choose what is best for their retirement and to reap the rewards of their years of hard work. To me, Labor values mean that hard work should be fairly rewarded and that good government sets sensible boundaries for the rogues, not an obstacle course for the decent.

There is a proper role for government and a proper role for the private sector. There is such a thing as too much government. I saw it in my year in India when I was posted there in the mid-nineties. India then was very different from the emerging powerhouse of today. Then, I saw an economy hampered by too much government intervention and protectionism and an economy hampered by not enough social service, infrastructure and innovation. The India of the mid-nineties also exposed me to incredibly confronting poverty. But that also proved the truth of Victor Frankl’s words that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. Despite their poverty, beggars wrapped in loincloths still prayed thanks when they showered under a train station water pump. India reminded me like nothing before or since that no life is cheap and that everyone has hopes and dreams and deserves to be treated with dignity and humanity. It also showed me that, without innovation and decent social services and infrastructure, a society can operate at only a fraction of its capacity. India is rising, and Australia should do everything in its power to engage, collaborate and cooperate in its rise. It is a great nation and will be a greater one.

My time as a diplomat confirmed my belief that if we are to flourish as a nation we need to be outward looking and generous, we must be committed to free trade and engage in dialogue with all nations and that in an interconnected world we cannot be indifferent to what happens beyond our borders. A peaceful, prosperous Australian future hangs on a peaceful and prosperous future for our region and our world. That will not happen by accident. It will be built on good governance—an agreed set of enforceable rules—on trade, on self-determination and on defence. That starts with diplomacy, and hopefully dialogue will always triumph, but diplomacy also demands a strong and modern defence force because sometimes we have to defend our freedom and that of our friends.

That said, our generosity should also focus inwards, but we can only afford to be generous if we are strong and stable and have a growing economy, an economy with the right level of regulation, the right level of support and assistance and the right level of freedom. We can only afford to improve our environment and maintain biodiversity if people have jobs and pay tax. We can only afford to provide better social, health and education services if we are prosperous, because a prosperous economy allows us to be generous in every way. As a former board member of the Gift of Life Foundation, I would like to thank the government for introducing major reforms to lift the rate of organ and tissue donation in Australia. The government’s reforms now strongly encourage Australians to be generous with that most precious of gifts, the gift of life.

While on donations, I cannot finish today without mentioning the names of just a few of the people who have given me so much. Thank you to my campaign team, particularly to my rock Gail Morgan, Narelle Lacetti and Simon Tatts. Thank you to my Labor Party family and to my friends who worked hard in so many ways in the freezing Canberra winter to secure my election. Thank you to the Uhlmann family for always cheering from the sidelines, particularly Kate Foy. Thank you to Heather and Elwyn Henman and to Viv and Ray Waterford for being there during the tough times. Thank you to my sisters, Meg and Amy, for their merciless honesty and boundless loyalty. Thank you to my mum, Fay Anderson, for her tenacity and love that liberated me to this life. Finally, thank you to my husband, Chris Uhlmann. Thank you for introducing me to the shades of grey in life, for broadening and deepening my spiritual and moral understanding and for reminding me each day that decency must prevail, whatever the circumstances.

I would like to dedicate this speech to the women and men who have shaped my life but could not be here today, particularly Mary Uhlmann, who died during the campaign after a long battle with pain and suffering. May you all rest in peace. I would not be here today without you and I will strive to make you proud.

Words can only stretch so far and they fail when I try to express the honour and the terror of being here today. I have dreamed of being here. I admire anyone who takes up the challenge of politics and who honestly tries to improve the lives of his or her people, no matter what political lights they follow. Though it is not fashionable to say it, I believe politics is or should be an honourable profession. In the end, it is about improving people’s lives and at its best politics is about building a better community and a better nation.

I am not a blind partisan and have many friends of all political dispositions, but I am Labor to my bootstraps. We are in a battle of ideas and I believe it is desperately important that we win. When we win our prosperity is shared. When we win children get the chance of a world-class education. When we win Australia gets a country that supports the weak; a nation that uses its wealth to help the poor. When we win individuals are encouraged to excel but never at the expense of the common good. When we win workers get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. When we win we fight for jobs and the environment. When we win our nation is outward looking and engaged with our allies and the forums of the world. When we win we demand from each the best they are able to give and offer to each the chance to be the best they can be.

The Labor Party is great because of the strength of its ideas and the courage of the giants who have filled its ranks through the ages. We should be proud of all that Labor has achieved and never be timid about our beliefs, no matter how slim the margin, no matter how fraught the fight. As long as I am here, I will fight for all Canberrans and I fight in solidarity with my party, because as long as Labor is strong Australia will be a great nation.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I commence my remarks in response to the Governor-General’s speech by congratulating the members for Canberra and Herbert for their first contributions. It is interesting for those of us who have been here a little longer than they have to think about how we felt when we first arrived in this place. I remember standing here on behalf of the nearly 100,000 constituents in my electorate and feeling great honour in being their voice in this great chamber. Congratulations to them both. As the Governor-General made her speech in the other place, I was thinking about how, even after my seventh occasion of winning the confidence of the people of the division of Mallee, that sense of honour and privilege at the opportunity to speak on behalf of such a large number of people still remains.

I was impressed that the Governor-General’s first remarks went towards parliamentary reform. I was thrilled, Mr Speaker, to hear those words spoken on the subject of the reform that is needed in this place, and especially in reference to question time. I congratulate you, sir, on your first week of question time. I did note that without being prompted by the member for Mallee or anybody else you actually drew the attention of somebody who was not addressing their remarks to the chair. I know you understand how I feel about that because, as you would know, it is the only point of order I have ever raised in this place. And there was a reason for that point of order: in any proper meeting you might be at, remarks are addressed through the chair because it is less confrontational, less provocative and less rancorous.

I will be looking forward to the new rules being applied because the hardest thing I have found in all the time I have been here is trying to justify to the school groups that I have invited to the gallery the behaviour that they witness in this place, particularly in regard to question time. There is no explanation for it. In meeting them afterwards or a few weeks later in their classroom they say to me, ‘Mr Forrest, I am not allowed to behave like that in the classroom.’ Neither should they. I usually respond to them by saying, ‘When you see me do it, it is time for you to write me a letter and tell me I have been here too long.’ So in that first week of question time when the foreign minister responded to a question and sat down after four minutes I turned to Mr Oakeshott, the member for Lyne, and said, ‘Well done!’ I will be gratefully encouraged, Mr Speaker, if you continue to enforce that because it will be the single most important measure in making the chamber less disorderly and will therefore enhance its stature. The member for Canberra already made reference to the need for members in this place to be well regarded. Improvement in behaviour will contribute more than anything else towards that.

I was particularly overwhelmed on the evening of 21 August to find such a massive endorsement of me in the division of Mallee. I was greatly humbled. I was amazed that even more votes could be gleaned in the strongly conservative electorate that is Mallee, but people said to me throughout the campaign that they respected my position because I did not play any of the silly games. Brinkmanship and partisanship is so much wasted energy. I might not like the party who has enough members to make a government. I might not like their policy approach on a whole range of issues—and in fact some of those issues are adversely impacting upon my constituency—but I have to accept the reality that they are an elected government. Even in this case where there is such a fragile margin I have to accept the reality that those ministers of the Crown are now appointed and that I will need their cooperation in order to deliver the aspirations I have for my constituency.

The Governor-General also focused very much on the need for a stronger economy, and she made the point that this was to be achieved by government actions. To be frank, that may well be true, and governments set the overarching fiscal parameters. But the pleasant reality I notice in my own constituency is that the greatest contributor to our regional economy will be the profits generated from rainfall outcomes. To stand, as I have, in canola crops up to my chin in the northern Mallee is something I have not seen in the nearly 18 years I have been the member. What we now need is arrangements in place whereby the farming community can take advantage of this—so that they are not disadvantaged by taxation pressure and so that whatever dividends return to them after seven or eight years of very meagre incomes do not adversely impact their future viability. The determined resilience of the people in my electorate makes me proud to be in this place in order to represent them.

The Governor-General then went on to the need for infrastructure investment, particularly in regard to the parlous state of the water supply we have seen right around the nation. The irrigators in my constituency are currently beside themselves in regard to the implications of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s plan. I just hope that the water minister, the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, the Hon. Tony Burke, and the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government, the Hon. Simon Crean, will listen to my remarks here. As the only civil engineer in the whole place, I have spent most of my time arguing for the need to invest in the plumbing of Australia’s antiquated irrigation arrangements. Some of them are as old as 150 years. Most of them were instigated by the governments of the day after the first big war and the second big war. They are already obsolete and inefficient.

I championed the cause of one particular water supply scheme—the need to pipe the Wimmera-Mallee. It is a huge part of western Victoria, covering one-third of the state’s supply from storages in the Grampian Mountains by open channel all the way north to Ouyen in the northern Mallee. Although an engineering achievement of its time before the turn of the century—it took 67 years to build the Wimmera-Mallee, including all the storages and supply—to now have it completely piped with a partnership funding arrangement between the Commonwealth government, state government and the local community is an achievement that I am immensely proud of. It serves the purpose of demonstrating what the nation has to do. To say we are purchasing water from alleged voluntary sellers is just a misnomer. The great bulk of my irrigators have got to the stage where they may be considered voluntary but it is the only option they have in order to redeem some of their equity in their lives’ investment. Often it is a second- or third-generation life investment. It is not fair to describe them as willing sellers.

As I have said constantly, fix the plumbing and there will be real water savings achieved on a massive scale. For example, the piping of the Wimmera-Mallee, both in the north and right across the south, all completed saves enough water every year to fill Olympic swimming pools placed end to end from Melbourne all the way to Darwin and back again. It is a huge amount of water that is saved. There are irrigation systems in place right through New South Wales and the Victorian side of the Murray Valley that supply hundreds of kilometres of earthen channel with massive evaporation, massive seepage, and creating additional salinisation to boot that deserve investment. That is a big challenge. I am just hoping that with the status of the numbers in the chamber today we will get some real attention to an engineering fix.

When the Romans built a new city the first thing they secured was their water supply to give them security of supply in the event of siege from any of Rome’s enemies of the day but also to secure the viability of that city. The first thing they did was to provide an assured water supply. Their engineering achievements are still visible today. Huge aqueducts were built by military engineers in those days. They did not become civil engineers until the end of the Roman Empire when instead of working for the military they moved towards working in the civic areas. They became civil engineers. Tunnels through the rock to supply water is a staple of virtually the whole of the Murray-Darling Basin.

The second thing I would like to say is that my growers—and some of this is because they have a suspicious view of the agenda—to some extent resent the criticism they often hear that they are the problem. They are not. In the past 20 years irrigators along the Murray Valley, particularly in regard to horticulture, have already made a huge sacrificial contribution. When I was a young graduate the issue was salinity. I was born and raised in the soldier settlement district of Red Cliffs where my father and uncles could not spray their citrus in the daytime. They had to wait until the evening because of the high salinity of the water being supplied to them through the river. That is where I have come from. I have seen immense, positive changes, but that contribution has come because irrigators have been prepared to sacrifice some of the surplus water they do not need and all they are asking for is some consideration.

They also say to me that they are part of the solution and they are not the issue. I say to the Australian nation and those ministers who now will be responsible for making a decision on whether the authority’s plan is acceptable in its current form that new cities and provincial communities were created because of government investment. Swan Hill and Tresco were First World War soldier settlement districts. Robinvale was a First World War and Second World War soldier settlement district. Red Cliffs, the hometown of my youth, was too. They were all created by government investment. Governments have a responsibility to ensure that the prosperity that has been created continues so that we have inland provincial centres of great economic strength.

I will say how disappointed I was when I read a copy of the authority’s report to find the economic impacts of their proposals completely underdone. I do not accept their defence that their focus was on the environment because that was the way the legislation directed them. I expect an independent authority to do its homework, and to say that the removal of 3,000 gigalitres of water from the Murray-Darling Basin would result in only 800 jobs lost is completely unacceptable. A rough guide would be that every gigalitre of water lost to irrigation represents approximately 30 jobs spread across the whole local economy. Therefore the figure for that level of water is more like 80,000 jobs, not 800. I will be looking forward to seeing the authority do its homework better. In fact, I am pleased to see that the government has accepted this point. I heard the honourable minister for regional Australia on my local radio last week. To paraphrase, he said he had got the message on that matter.

One thing that irrigators in my electorate resent is the assumption that they do not care about the environment of the Murray River. That is completely unfair. Many of us live on it. In fact, I live on the river, and when I have visitors from Melbourne or other places around Australia they look out at the river and say, ‘We thought it was dry.’ It is the most carefully and judiciously managed river in the whole world, and people travel internationally to find out how we achieve such good management of the Murray-Darling river system. It once boasted the most secure water supply system in the world, and the events of the last five or six years have proved just how callous and misguided that assumption is.

Another thing irrigators in my electorate say to me is that they resent governments—any government of any colour—purchasing water in what is supposed to be a commercial water market. I am not on any particular government’s case here, because the government that I was part of engaged in this activity. It is a complete distortion of the market when governments move in to buy water in that way with the huge cheque-book that they have. It distorts the market, and it is not fair. It is done by both sides of politics, and I am alarmed at the current circumstances out on the southern end of the Mallee division around the Horsham district with the piping of the Wimmera-Mallee supply system and the lack of water people there have had in the last seven or eight years. The Wimmera irrigation district has not had any water at all, and there are about 30,000 megalitres of water available, but either the irrigators in those areas who have that allocation have to sell it on for the benefit of the environment or we need another $30 million or $40 million to rehabilitate the irrigation district.

Those irrigators who are associated with the Horsham irrigation district have come to the point where they decided that perhaps their best option is to redeem this asset and put the capital to better use. So they offered it to the federal government. They started at $1,800 per megalitre and they were refused; the department said that this was not considered value for money. So they rejigged their offer and progressively came down. The last offer was $1,100, and they are now considering coming down to $900 per megalitre. This is completely unfair. There is no buyer except the federal government. It is not a market at all. A sum of $950 million went into the piping of the Wimmera-Mallee to save the amount of water that has been saved. It was an investment that two governments—the state and the federal governments—and a community were prepared to make and they put the value of that water at $7,000 to $8,000 per megalitre. That is what a community, including the federal government in Canberra, local governments and local water authorities considered was the value of having environmental water for the Wimmera River, the Glenelg River and those very dry terminal lakes all the way up to Lake Hindmarsh and Albacutya, yet here is a government saying that compensation of $1,100 per megalitre to irrigators does not represent value for money. I find that argument completely obtuse.

I am pleased to see that the authority has scheduled one of its consultation meetings in Horsham on, I think, 11 November. I will be pleased to see that issue brought to the authority’s attention by the large number of irrigators associated with that supply system. There is a lot of work to be done, and I am saying to the Hon. Simon Crean and the Hon. Tony Burke: for goodness sake listen to the engineers, because there are viable and realistic and economic engineering solutions to the challenges of the Murray-Darling Basin, even to the extent of flooding wetlands. This can be done in an engineering way, and to some extent that has been experimented with in the last three or four years in the Hattah Lakes by pumping the lower level of the river water and supplying the lakes that way. But that would not be a substitute for the big flood, which we may or may not get, that is needed once in a hundred years so that the wetlands get the drink they so desperately need. So there are engineering solutions. I was pleased to see that the Governor-General’s speech highlighted that as a major area of government activity. I will be looking forward to having some say in that, and I argue that irrigators are not, as alleged, the problem but very much an important part of the solution.

I finish my remarks by going back to where I started—that is, the behaviour of this chamber. I hope that this week and next week we see much the same behaviour as we saw in our first week after the swearing-in, because we are on display. Even as I speak, there are schoolchildren in the gallery, and we need to consider what they will think of adults if this place erupts and they see adults behaving in the same way that I have seen members behave all throughout the time that I have been here. I will be looking forward to that reform being implemented, and I place that responsibility in your hands, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I congratulate the Speaker on his re-election to the position, the Deputy Speaker on his election to that position and, of course, you, Mr Second Deputy Speaker Scott, on your re-election to your position. You always undertake that role with great dignity, a great sense of purpose and an understanding of the importance of the parliament. The member for Mallee, another person who always takes his role very seriously, put very well his concerns about his own electorate. His was a very well-considered speech on the concerns about that river system, a large part of which—along with its people, who have to tackle the very large tasks ahead of them—he represents. I have also enjoyed being reinstated to the Speaker’s panel, a role I held in the last parliament. I enjoyed being in the chair this morning for the first time in this parliament. I first held a Deputy Speaker’s position when I was elected to the Tasmanian house of assembly many years ago.

The parliament is now undertaking some reform, and it is good that experienced members can play a role in that regard. In this parliament we need to make sure that we have good mediators and good people in the chair to keep the parliament in order. As the member for Mallee has said, the way in which we operate reflects on the parliament and on the members of parliament. He uses the analogy of the children in the galleries seeing how the parliament is performing, and rightfully so. I hope the reform of the parliament works very well. I am very pleased to see extra money going into the committee system and to see committees being properly funded and resourced. That will be a great asset for them and for the work that many members are involved in.

I take the opportunity to thank the member for Chisholm for the work that she did as the Deputy Speaker in the last parliament. She always held a high standard and kept the direction of parliament. Of course, the reason she was not chosen to undertake this role again did not have anything to do with the way that she carried out her work in the last parliament. Other arrangements were made in the way that parties play a role in the Speaker’s position. I thank her for the work that she has done and recognise it.

I was very honoured to be returned to the seat of Lyons for another term, with an increased majority. That is always a pleasurable thing to have occur. Three colleagues from the Labor Party and an Independent were also successful in Tasmania and I congratulate them on their return or their new role in this chamber. I thank the people of Lyons for renewing my contract and giving me the impetus to go on and work for regional Tasmania and, indeed, regional Australia, on which I focus a lot of the work that I do here through my committee membership. I believe that regional Australia is the poor cousin of urban areas and has been so for a long time, under various governments.

These new arrangements, with Independents keeping an eye on the bottom line as such, may allow the regions to properly benefit from mainstream programs, where before they had to rely on government organisations like Telstra and on Australia Post’s community service obligations to get equivalent services. In a sense those organisations have been corporatised and privatised and those obligations no longer apply, and the regions have become a lot poorer for it, with services dropping back. The last government had started to push to provide better and more equal services to rural and regional areas. It built up school infrastructure, gave local government funds to improve sports and community facilities and remodelled health programs. I think those who hold the balance of power are looking to Labor to continue this trend and deliver those programs further.

I believe that the coalition got things very wrong, especially in Tasmania during the last election campaign. They were unable to convince voters that they would be able to improve their standard of living or help them in times of hardship. The coalition took the electors for granted. They ran a negative campaign and really gave no credit for the work that had been done in communities right around the state. In the process they lost ground in every House of Representatives seat and they also lost a senator.

We live in interesting times. We have a completely new parliament and I guess its make-up reflects the changing views of the Australian people. We have to take this on board and work with other elected members and their communities to build on our system of democracy. It will be different. It will be a change of practice. It certainly will test us in many ways. We started by continuing the ‘welcome to country’ at the opening of each session of parliament. I am glad that the Speaker has chosen to take that one step further by having it at the beginning of each morning’s proceedings in the chamber. I think that represents a modernising of the Australian parliament.

There is much to achieve. I believe the bones are within the agreement, with the Prime Minister having negotiated with the Independents to establish a basis for stable and efficient government. We now have a binding commitment to regional Australia and within that there is a promise to complete the National Broadband Network extensions, to deliver on regional health investment, to implement regional educational investment and to continue the upgrade and redevelopment of regional infrastructure.

Tasmania as a whole is considered a region of Australia. It is isolated from mainland Australia, and all of its infrastructure, by a stretch of water. This was recognised in earlier times by the Freight Equalisation Scheme. We are deprived of many other programs because of the difficulties of transport and distance. The tyranny of distance still survives and, although we tend to dismiss it somewhat in Tasmania, it is still a very real disincentive for investment to settle with us and stay with us for a long time. There seem to be times when the businesses and the jobs go elsewhere. We need incentives for capital to stay in the state so that we can provide decent services, proper infrastructure and access to first-class health and education schemes.

I guess we in Tasmania have had to be unique to be competitive—and we have certainly done that in many ways. We have had to address niche markets in innovative ways to keep our industries and products to the fore. For a small state we have a pretty big roar. If Tasmania decides to exercise its roar, it can have a bit of clout. But it needs to be for the betterment of the state, not for the indulgence of a few. The broadband rollout can help us with the question of distance—as it can with regions all around Australia. It will allow people to access the expertise of the cities in whatever field it is required. The fact that the rollout started in Tasmania has given us an opportunity to test out its promise first. The opportunities include providing access to whole new approaches in health and education using the resources of the internet and other communications. Tasmania is known for its resources—whether it be forestry, mining, agriculture, fishing or viticulture—its history and, of course, its tourism industry. Its magnificent scenery is a great asset for us. Yet many areas are struggling at the moment because of the changes in the world economy. To keep Tasmania working we need to restructure many of our traditional industries and encourage new ones to replace the old practices and the old uses.

Forestry is one industry that has had to reinvent itself several times since the 1970s. Forestry is an important part of the Australian economy but it is currently in the process of change. We must understand that it is necessary to secure the viability of forestry-dependent communities and to create well-paid, highly-skilled jobs that value-add to this natural resource. So I believe we should be supporting the efforts of the forestry unions, the federal and state governments and the industry, environment and community groups that are working to restructure an industry that has been much maligned in the past. We realise there are many points of view but, providing there is a basic understanding of the worth of the industry, there should be some common goals to be found. I believe the common goals should include a restructure or transition process that is fair and just for workers, their families, their communities and thus all Tasmanians.

Health is another area that has been the subject of many a discussion and argument in Tasmania. Tasmania has a small population of half a million people who are scattered right over the state; we are completely decentralised. As technology improves to deliver better health outcomes, its costs have restricted it to fewer and fewer regional areas. In the old days we had primary-care providers with a fair amount of equipment in many of our small towns. But, because of diagnostic processes and specialised treatment, we now rely on very expensive machines which we can only hope to provide in one or two areas. Our regional communities are therefore feeling very vulnerable and they believe they are missing out by not having a regional hospital nearby as was the case in the past.

Of course, the whole concept of health delivery has changed enormously. I believe that the new approach of providing regional health infrastructure by supporting groups of general practitioners to come together and work in superclinics or in large centres with other health professionals, and the upgrading of our main regional hospitals, will be a great help for our scattered communities. What we need is for primary care upfront to be well resourced and to have electronic access to all the innovation we see going on in major hospitals. I hope the National Broadband Network will be of great significance in delivering much of the technology for primary health outcomes in those areas.

We need the help of medical practitioners to undertake these reforms and to assist in making them happen. We need to make their jobs easier by providing infrastructure, by giving them help in running their practices and by giving them opportunities to find locums and other assistance so that they can attend conferences and additional training as well as take some leave from time to time. Most doctors find the move to a regional area difficult, especially if they are married with a young family. If their job becomes a 24/7 job it is very difficult; there is very little backup and they feel that they cannot get away. This is a very big disincentive to work in a regional setting.

We need to provide more flexible arrangements. Allowing for nurse practitioners to provide backup and to undertake some of the basic work of doctors would allow more freedom and give the profession a chance to reap the benefits of being in a regional and rural lifestyle with a better living environment and access to education, which should be on a par with any city. However, we have to make sure that Tasmania’s education system is up to the same standard as every other state on the mainland. We need to work very hard in that area.

We are indeed living in very different times, but I see change as positive and that we can have a better life if we can make our processes work for us and not be barriers to change. We need to work hard at that. I have lived most of my life in the country and I know what country people have faced and will face in the future. We are seeing some of that in Australia today. Primary industries have kept Australia moving forward and they still play that massive role in providing for the needs of all Australians so that they can prosper. Land management becomes a big issue and resolving some of those issues will be an important process as we go forward in working out which way we want to use our land and for what: how far urban infringement encroaches and what land we want to use for growing our food.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my staff Jess, Craig, Leeann, Eve, Marg and Dee for their help in the last parliament and for keeping me sane during the campaign. I would like to thank all my campaign workers and my campaign manager, Peter Kearney, and his wife Di, who managed to spend most of the campaign in Fiji because of the election timing, but who nevertheless contributed to the planning and effectiveness of the campaign. I would also like to thank those other tireless campaigners Richard Bolst, Chris Hinds, Grant Courtney, Marty Clifford, Blinky, Brian Harper and his wife, Anne, and their friend Ron. I want also to thank my old friend Danial Rochford, who appeared in the state at a timely moment and offered his help; he has a great skill base. There were others who came in when asked to help and my thanks to Jason Campbell and Kerry Armstrong, who had no hesitation in giving their time and effort.

I would also like to take the opportunity to remember my old friend and campaigner Tom Greenwood, who was with me during the last few campaigns but, sadly, not at this one as he passed away last year. We missed him very much this time as he put much humour into the campaigns. He used to drive me and certainly he was my sounding board. Tom, campaigning without you was just not the same. My thanks to all the people in Lyons who trusted me with their vote. I will continue to strive to give the service that I have given in the past and will endeavour to do what I can within this parliament to give representation to that broad cross-section of people who make up the Lyons electorate.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to discuss a number of issues that are impacting my electorate and the wider Australian nation. The member for Lyons might be interested to know that health care and GPs are factors that I will also deal with in my speech. In fact, firstly, I will turn to the availability of doctors and GPs in my electorate and issues relating to medical treatment and dentistry more generally. Over the past two years eight medical clinics have closed in Tangney, leaving a massive gap in vital primary healthcare services for my local community. My office is regularly approached by constituents struggling to find a GP close to home. Medical clinics that are open for business are often full and no longer able to take new patients. Ironically, some have found my office because of signage which reads ‘Dr Dennis Jensen’. Here they are able to convey their concerns to a good doctor but one who, unfortunately for them, is without medical expertise. The clinics that have closed are both fully private and bulk-billing clinics. Bulk-billing practitioners that I have spoken to say that they love practising in Tangney and do not wish to close but the rising cost of providing healthcare services means that current Medicare funding no longer allows them to remain viable. My electorate has the world-class Fiona Stanley Hospital under construction, and this should address some of the long-term healthcare needs of the electorate. But Fiona Stanley Hospital is still a number of years away from completion and, in the near future, many people will struggle to find good local health care.

I believe the problem is the rising cost of doing business in Western Australia. Bulk-bill payments no longer cover rising rent, labour and running costs facing clinics. The situation needs to be addressed either with a funding increase for bulk-billing clinics or with a tax exemption for clinics that offer bulk-billed services. This will only be a stopgap measure, though. Governments of both persuasions have presented well-meaning increases to health funding, but asking the government to continue to subsidise health care in greater and greater amounts is not a long-term solution. As the American situation demonstrates, simply pumping more money into health is a race to the bottom unless service access and service prices are addressed.

One solution that must be considered is creating greater competition in the primary health services industry. Removing impediments to the number of new graduates in medicine and dentistry will increase competition in the health marketplace. It has come to my attention that members of the Australian Dental Association and the Australian Medical Association also hold positions on university entrance boards. I have been informed these organisations, and prominent members within these organisations, influence the number of students offered university places in medicine and dentistry. The serious restraint of trade must be rectified. Operating in a similar manner to that of medieval guilds centuries ago, looking after the best interests of their members alone, ignores the far greater social obligation of medical practitioners. How can competitive market forces put downward pressure on prices if the major medical associations are running a monopolistic chop shop which dictates how many graduates can qualify and serve the community as practitioners?

The information that has come to me is specific to the University of Western Australia and certain course convenors who restrict the number of graduates to enter the course as a way of not flooding the market and keeping profits at reasonably high levels. I also spoke with a dentist from the UK who was earning as much in two days in Australia as she was in a week in the UK. She told me that what dentists charge in Australia is both exorbitant and opportunistic with established dentists not having to compete with new graduates as a well-organised ‘professional understanding.’

I understand that there are real socioeconomic factors that make the price of medical and dental care significantly cheaper in most of South-East Asia than in Australia, but in the UK these socioeconomic factors are not significantly different. In the West Australian on Wednesday, 29 September a dentist wrote in expressing his concerns over the monopoly situation in health care, calling the AMA a powerful professional body whose opinion is not challenged often. He went on to describe the situation in dentistry, saying:

The same thing is happening in dentistry.

It is the most tightly protected monopoly of all professions with dentists continuing to refuse any reform which may lessen their position of power, despite the fact that on their watch dental disease has remained the most prevalent health problem in Australia today, even though 90 percent could easily be prevented.

If dentists themselves recognise a lack of competition, it is obviously up to the parliament to legislate against the measures of monopolistic behaviour. Restraint of trade in this instance is different to a traditional monopoly, but the outcome is the same—rising costs and a greater market share.

While members of these university entrance committees might not be acting illegally, restricting competition has a much greater flow-on effect. Rising prices are a sure sign that a lack of competition exists in the marketplace. In this instance, if members of the ADA are protecting their privileged position by restricting competition to keep profits high, this situation needs to be addressed by parliament. We may have the highest quality dentists in the world, but what good is that if the majority cannot afford medical treatment, resulting in a low standard of oral hygiene in the Australian community? Neither the AMA nor the ADA or their members should be determining the final number of graduates in their chosen field.

I also wish to speak about the government’s climate change committee or, rather, the committee for predetermined outcomes. Firstly, where is my invitation? In this ‘new paradigm’ parliament, surely all members should be given the opportunity to participate. Obviously, it will depend on our leadership team as to whether we attend, but that is a moot point. We have not even been invited to join unless we completely agree with the predetermined outcome. I think my views on climate change are fairly well known and I have a great interest in the way that Australia goes about abating emissions.

Again I ask: why wasn’t I invited to this bipartisan commission? Since I am not invited I have a few comments for those about to enter the commission. Do you even know what you are signing up for? You want a commission whose members are committed to a price on carbon to build consensus on a carbon price. Isn’t that a self-defeating purpose? Sounds like you are just preaching to the converted. But wait, I thought you were trying to convince people who are not yet members of the church of global warming about the benefits of a price on carbon—so-called consensus building—or is this commission, as I suspect, being used to tread water for political expediency until the Senate changes its make-up next year? I make this statement to the commission: you want Australia to be a leader on carbon abatement but what do you call a leader with no followers? Just a guy taking a walk.

It is clear you are not going to be examining all the options. It has been stated that only two options will be investigated. An ETS is not considered viable by Labor given their position of abandoning their CPRS. There is no impetus for a scheme that lacks a globally adopted framework for implementation and accountability. That leaves the foregone conclusion of a tax on carbon. The simple fact is that the markets are actually, in a global sense, now factoring a price on carbon dioxide out. Take the Chicago Carbon Exchange, the premier trading place for carbon. After peaking at about US$7.50 a tonne, it is now down to US5c, hardly a ringing endorsement of the argument that the market has factored in a price for carbon. Rather, the global market is factoring it out.

Why have a commission? You have the consensus you need: everyone on your commission believes in a price on carbon. Just go ahead and legislate it now, I dare you. Or you could step back and consider all the options. Invite someone like me to the commission, someone who actually understands scientifically the best way to abate emissions. Even the IPCC’s own authors are now changing their minds on a carbon price approach. IPCC author Richard Tol—an IPCC convening, principal, lead and contributing author—in his work An analysis of mitigation as a response to climate change wrote:

The impact of climate change is rather uncertain. Available estimates suggest that the welfare loss induced by Climate Change in the year 2100 is in the same order as losing a few percent of income.

That is, a century worth of climate change is about as bad as losing two years of economic growth. The impact on climate policy is better understood. A clever and gradual abatement policy can substantially reduce emissions.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The member for Tangney will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.