Louise Markus (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is indeed an honour to rise and speak today as the member for Macquarie. It is an incredible privilege to be elected once again to serve the people of Macquarie and I do not take my responsibility lightly. The electorate of Macquarie encompasses all of the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains, a little over 4,000 square kilometres. Both regions are unique and hold a special place in the history of this nation.

Both of these regions have also faced the tragedy and challenge of natural disaster. I often think that when Dorothea McKellar penned the words, 'I love a sunburnt country,' she was thinking of the electorate that I represent, the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains. Both droughts and flooding rains have impacted these areas over the years and recently it has been bushfires that have left our community devastated.

I cannot speak today without acknowledging the courage and the determination shown by our community over the past four months since the bushfires hit on 17 October. The impact of the bushfires has been enormous. More than 200 homes were lost, more than 200 homes were damaged, and businesses and livelihoods were seriously affected—some destroyed and some experiencing significant challenges.

I acknowledge the Australian spirit that is so strong amongst all members of our community. Our people have risen to the task, they have faced the challenges and they are committed to rebuilding for the future. I have stood with people outside their homes which were in ruins and I have visited evacuation centres. I also spent time with business leaders who wanted to dive in and do whatever they could to rebuild. I acknowledge the incredible resilience and the sense of community.

I would like also to acknowledge a few people especially for their efforts during this challenging time. I want to give a special mention to the Rural Fire Service Blue Mountains Superintendent David Jones, Hawkesbury Rural Fire Service Superintendent Karen Hodges, and Winmalee Rural Fire Service Captain Anthony Black. These are just a few examples of the remarkable men and women whom I am honoured to serve our community alongside. My thanks particularly go to the New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimons who showed incredible strength and character during this time. He is indeed well loved by those he leads.

I also thank everyone involved at the Recovery Centre and serving on the Recovery Committee of which I am honoured to be a part. I have never been more proud to represent such a strong and compassionate community. I know that we have only just begun the road to recovery but I am confident we will get there. Indeed, the first slabs have been laid and there are new homes beginning to be built as I speak.

As we look to the future, I am excited to begin work on delivering the commitments the coalition and I made during the last election. These are commitments I believe that will better the lives of families, individuals and businesses in both the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury. It is a wonderful position to now be in government, and I can assure the people of Macquarie that I will be delivering on all the promises made during the recent election period.

The environment is very important to my local community. Indeed, the people of the Blue Mountains City, as it is known by those who live within it, understand that it is nestled within the World Heritage listed area of the Greater Blue Mountains. The Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley is a significant river system that not only supplies water to Sydney but, indeed, also assists with all local agriculture.

During the election the Minister for the Environment, the honourable Greg Hunt, the member for Lindsay and I announced that the coalition would provide a total of $15 million towards a Cumberland conservation corridor in Greater Western Sydney. The funding is recognition of the importance of protecting the green areas within and around our cities particularly in Greater Western Sydney and the conservation value of the Cumberland Plain Woodlands. This will be a major boost for the conservation of the area and will provide a once-in-a-generation opportunity to establish a conservation corridor which will be preserved for future generations. As young families move into this region, they will be able to explore and enjoy our natural bush while also enjoying the lifestyle that the region offers.

Other initiatives which I am looking forward to rolling out in my electorate are the Green Army projects. The Blue Mountains Heritage Trail including the Prince Henry Cliff Walk will be one of the sites in our region to benefit under the coalition's Green Army. These projects will assist to provide young people with employment opportunities and will not only provide opportunities for training and a wage but will take direct action to improve the environment in local parklands and reserves. I just acknowledge all the Bushcare groups that work across the electorate on a weekly basis, many of them cleaning up creeks and waterways behind their homes, clearing land and, indeed, in the bushfire affected areas they are now working on restoration of the bush.

CCTV coverage for hotspots in both the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury is another commitment that will make a tangible difference to small business and residents in my area. I announced, with the Minister for Justice, $360,000 in funding to have CCTV cameras installed at a number of locations in the Blue Mountains which experience safety issues and graffiti: Blaxland, Wentworth Falls, Leura and Hazelbrook. The Hawkesbury region will also receive funding of $150,000 for CCTV cameras in Richmond. This is an area that is well known to police and locals, particularly around the park area and some of the shopping centre precinct, where they have had significant vandalism.

The coalition understands that the best way to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour is, wherever possible, to prevent it occurring in the first place. Our plan for safer streets will boost the efforts of the local community to address crime and antisocial behaviour by helping them to implement crime-fighting measures such as the installation of CCTV and, of course, better lighting.

I also had the privilege of working very closely with Blue Mountains, Lithgow and Oberon Tourism, and was able to announce $255,000 in funding, which will give this important regional tourism operator a critical boost after the recent fires that have hurt the industry. We recognise that tourism plays a huge role in the economy of the community of the Blue Mountains, and as the local member I am committed supporting operators like the BMLOT however I can. They provide significant employment for families, for individuals and particularly for our young people.

I also acknowledge the recent work of the Blue Mountains Economic Enterprise. They have contributed significantly towards the recovery after the bushfires. In fact, on Saturday, they held a building expo where at the point when I had visited—mid-afternoon—over 500 people from our community who were either impacted by fire or wanting to do refurbishment to their homes had walked through. BMEE are hoping to establish this as an annual event, with particular information given about fire protection, about protecting lives and about protecting people's homes and livelihoods into the future.

Although Macquarie sits on the doorstep of urban Sydney, there are many parts of the electorate that experience the same challenges as rural and regional Australia. One of these challenges is mobile phone coverage. I was pleased to host the Parliamentary Secretary for Communications, Mr Paul Fletcher—and I notice him sitting in the chamber today—in my electorate recently. Mr Fletcher and I convened a roundtable with community groups, stakeholders, local councillors, emergency service organisations and mobile service providers to discuss the coalition's $100 million Mobile Coverage Program.

This important initiative will address an area of need that was long neglected by the former government. Two important criteria will be considered in identifying priority spots and, while the $100 million will go some way to tackling the black spots that we have, it will not go all the way at first—places that fall particularly along major transport routes and areas prone to natural disaster. My electorate faces both these challenges, and Mr Fletcher and I were also able to meet with Colo Heights Rural Fire Service volunteers about the issues that emergency services face as a result of lack of mobile coverage. While this was not necessarily promoted significantly in the recent bushfires, the Howes Swamp fire posed significant challenges to the Rural Fire Service of Colo Heights. It is imperative that we address the need for mobile phone coverage in communicating both to those potentially affected and to those volunteers who need to respond quickly. As I mentioned, although we are well aware that the Mobile Coverage Program will not be able to address all areas of need, I do look forward to working with my community to try to identify the key priority areas and to work towards solutions.

I also want to thank most sincerely all the people who have supported me over the years and, of course, leading up to the last election: the people of Macquarie and, throughout the campaign last year, my dedicated team. They all know who they are—if I listed everyone today we would be here for a very long time—but I want to thank each and every one of them.

Leading up to the election in September last year there was a sense in the community of the need for the mess to be cleaned up. People were deeply concerned about the growing debt and recently Labor's legacy to Australians has become very apparent: 200,000 more unemployed, a gross debt projected to rise to $667 billion, $123 billion in cumulative deficits, more than 50,000 illegal arrivals by boat and a crippling carbon tax. Leading up to that election people in my community and businesses in my community were saying to me consistently that they recognised we needed to take hold of the reins of government; we needed to reel in the debt, we needed to make some of the tough decisions that would remove the barriers to businesses and families prospering and we needed to position Australia for a future where we could grow.

I want to thank every one of the loyal and hard-working volunteers and my ministerial colleagues who visited and offered their support during that time and since. Altogether there was a volunteer base of around 500 people, which is an outstanding effort. There is a lot of ground to cover between the top of the Blue Mountains at Mount Victoria and the Hawkesbury. I am very grateful to each and every person who was involved, but they did that because they are committed to the future of our nation.

I especially want to thank the people of Macquarie for giving me this opportunity and placing their trust in me to represent them, to give voice to their concerns and to raise in this national parliament what is important to them. I will ensure that the people of Macquarie have a strong voice. Individuals, families and small business owners have dreams, aspirations and goals for their lives, for their communities, for the people they employ, for the people they work with, for their children and for their grandchildren.

Labor's legacy is as I have mentioned: 200,000 more unemployed, gross debt projected to rise, cumulative deficits and more than 50,000 illegal arrivals. As a coalition government we are getting on with the job of building a stronger economy so that everyone can get ahead. We are abolishing the carbon tax and ending the waste. I would like to repeat something I stated in my speech on election night: I believe now with the coalition government that people will be able to dream again, invest again, have confidence again and see their hopes and dreams become reality.

Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to uncharacteristically spend a significant part of my contribution to this address-in-reply debate on the last campaign in Werriwa. I do that on a number of bases. In high probability it was probably my last campaign. It was certainly the one in which I had the most difficulty holding my seat. It was the only time I really nearly lost my job in my whole career. It was a very well financed campaign by my opponent. My Liberal opponent had so much money that they put so much money on betting that I went out to three to one by election day. It was certainly a very spirited campaign.

I want to thank particularly my siblings and their families; my wife, Maureen; my immediate family; and state colleagues Andrew McDonald and Paul Lynch. I have never been beholden to institutions. I have received a minimal amount of money over my political career from the trade unions, but I want to thank the individuals from the CFMEU and the Finance Sector Union who worked for me in the campaign. I want to thank local councillors Anne Stanley and Anoulack Chanthivong. I have no doubt whatsoever that they have political careers in their immediate future. I want to thank Chris Gambian, the early campaign director; Paul Drayton from my old electorate who in 2007 lost his big toe through an accident on the campaign but was out there again this time; and John Sutton, a former official of the construction union. Then there are other people from my old electorate I would like to thank such as Ian Pandilovski, Alex Petrov and Mark Phillips. These people are representative of groups, so I will not go through every individual. There was tremendous support from a significant part of the Young Labor organisation and from those who identify with the struggle for democracy within the Labor Party.

My electorate has nowhere near as many people who were born overseas and from non-English-speaking backgrounds as my former electorate of Reid. There has been significant Bangladeshi population movement from their traditional suburbs of Malabar, Botany and Eastlakes out to my electorate. I want to thank Selima Begum and her husband Tariq and Masud Chowdry for their efforts on that. Selima has learned a lot in politics. Her father is a member of the Bangladeshi parliament. She certainly had experiences that were worthwhile to my campaign. Then there is Mal Fruean from the New Zealand Maori community and Seumanu Toailoa from the Samoan community.

Speaking of the local campaign, the Minister for Health yesterday said in an attempt at humour he was old style. Well, I am old style about my feeling about the separation of state, municipal and federal politics in elections. A few decades ago I went to the village of Kolsass near Innsbruck, where my stepson lives. I was appalled to find the use of council facilities to promote a single political party. The furniture of the village, its municipal band and other institutions were used to further one political party. I was also surprised to see political signs in the local Catholic Church. I have always believed in old-style politics and that you should not use public facilities for the purposes of campaigning. I have to say that the performance of the Liverpool City Council in this last campaign was appalling.

I will use the phrase the member for Berowra uses at many events to describe me, 'My friend and colleague.' In a conversation the member for Berowra said the last time that he had heard in Australian politics of federal members of parliament being denied the right to speak at citizen ceremonies was when the Labor-controlled Parramatta City Council did it 30 or 40 years ago. It is wrong if Labor does it and it is wrong if the Liberals do it. There is a role for federal members of parliament at citizenship ceremonies. I want to say that that typifies the way in which that council operated during the campaign, denying me and the member for Fowler the right to speak at those ceremonies. They constructed so-called rosters for who would speak so that we were equal to their local councillors.

I found it deplorable that a paid employee of the council was putting up party signs in work time. Also of concern was the Indian film night that was paid for by the public, the ratepayers. That was utilised as a political rally, with my colleague the member for Hughes speaking and promoting my opponent.

The council conducted a series of so-called anti-intermodal rallies. The intermodal near Liverpool was a decision of the Howard government that was supported by later Labor governments. The council pretended that they were going to somehow stop the intermodal and with ratepayers' money they organised rallies and said that there would be no politicians speaking there, yet the member for Hughes was allowed to address the rally as was my political opponent. They also falsely claimed that the arts centre, which they have long condemned as being a waste of money, was threatened by this intermodal and said that they should get compensation for it.

The same council has had a series of embarrassments since election day with their association with Matt Daniel, a council officer. It turns out he was bankrupt and was legally employed. He was a Liberal Party apparatchik and a close associate of my opponent. He was sacked by the council later because he was a bankrupt who had not declared it. This situation typifies the interference by these councillors in the campaign—that is, the use of council facilities, the use of ratepayers' money for political purposes.

During the campaign I did have a large number of anonymous and identified allegations against my opponent from Liberal Party members in Sutherland, and from nonparty sources. I chose not to utilise them, but I am pleased to say that the Sydney Morning Herald has been very assiduous in its exposes of my opponent and the council in Sutherland since election day. We had an ICAC investigation which, for lack of evidence, found them innocent. The situation is extremely disturbing. I hope the new minister for immigration does something about making sure that councils around this country respect the role of members of parliament at these ceremonies, which are people's introduction to this country, their enmeshment with our society and our values.

I also want to say it was pleasing to win against great odds. Both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party were fairly sure that I would lose Werriwa. As I said, the betting on election day was three to one. My opponent had enormous resources. I have never seen so much money spent in a campaign in that region. I was also quite amused to find, looking at some of my Labor colleagues' websites, the amount of money that they were able to have committed by the Labor Party to holding their seats. In Werriwa we held the seat despite minimal election promises; minimal millions of dollars were poured into that electorate. I am also pleased that not only did we succeed, despite the analysis of political pundits, but we also overcame an analysis of our campaign by anonymous critics within the Labor Party. They thought that by going to Crikey they could somehow affect election day results by saying that I was running an idiosyncratic, unscripted campaign and that therefore I would lose. We won because we had a locally based campaign, we were connected with the people and we were assiduous in our commitments in the electorate office. We very much appreciate the ethnic composition of the electorate and we are very much inclined to be involved with those people.

I want to turn to one aspect that is very important in our society—that is, the question of climate change and the need for governments to do something. In a recent article in the Guardian Weekly, Suzanne Goldenberg, on 3 January this year, exposed the manner in which large corporations—some of them pretending to believe in climate change, pretending to do something about it—have been funding an international campaign based in the United States to try to dispute the science. Suzanne Goldenberg, in that article, repeated the analysis of Robert Brulle of Drexel University in the magazine Climate Change. He went through the stated contributions to organisations that had been putting out material against the scientific world, against all evidence with regard to climate change, and determined that the amount of money expended was $1 billion. He said that was not the full extent of it. He said:

This is how wealthy individuals or corporations translate their economic power into political and cultural power.

The analysis was of 91 groups that put out material against climate change. Seventy-nine per cent were determined as charitable. They have a tax definition that they have a charitable purpose, but their whole exercise is to go out there and convince the public that this climate change is a big dream, all the scientists in the world are wrong, all the evidence is irrelevant, it is not happening—'don't believe your eyes'—and they are able to get tax deductions for this.

He determined that over the eight-year period 2003 to 2010, the amount of money devoted to this was $7 billion. Despite what those opposite say, this situation means I would put more stress on the remarks of Nicholas Stern, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, and President of the British Academy. He said recently:

… without triggering dangerous climate change—as without radical policies to cut emissions humanity will exceed the limit within 15 to 25 years …

He has estimated that 3.7 per cent centigrade extra global surface warming is likely by 2081 to 2100; a 63 centimetre sea rise, a 40 per cent rise in atmospheric CO2 has happened between 1750 and 2011. And 275 billion tonnes have been lost from the world's glaciers from 1993 to 1999. I repeat that: 275 billion tonnes lost from those glaciers from 1993 to 2009. The IPCC—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—has noted a 50 per cent chance of keeping to less to two degrees centigrade of warming. The International Atomic Energy Agency, an organisation that we cite with regard to examination of the threat of nuclear weapon development around the world, an internationally respected organisation, in the New Scientist of 6 July 2013 was quoted as saying that within three years electricity from solar and hydro will be greater than natural gas and will outstrip all by 2016. These are the things we should be emphasising. This is the direction in which we should be going. But we have a government that are in denial. Sometimes they say that they believe the science. Sometimes they say that we do not have to do anything. But when it comes to a debate between doing something and appealing to an electorate that is concerned about cost, they go for the easy line.

Going back to Nicholas Stern, in another article in the British Guardian Weekly on 21 February this year, he said:

Four of the five wettest years recorded in the UK have occurred from the year 2000 onwards. Over that same period, we have also had the seven warmest years.

That is not a coincidence.

He noted:

The lack of vision and political will from the leaders of many developed countries is not just harming their long-term competitiveness, but is also endangering efforts to create international co-operation and reach a new agreement that should be signed in Paris in December 2015.

If we look around the world, the evidence is manifest. Canadian Prime Minister Harper might want to exploit the mineral sands of Alberta; he might line up with our Prime Minister as a small minority in the world who partially deny. However, in the real practical policies of Canada, what do we see? We see Canada arguing with the United States about borders. These are two countries that have had no conflict between them since 1812, and yet they see the gradual disappearance of the Arctic ice shelf. That is the reality, despite the rhetoric from the Canadian government.

Talking of Canada, I have heard it said on occasion that the last Canadian elections were supposedly an endorsement of the same kinds of policies we have in Australia. In actual fact, in the last Canadian elections—it is a first-past-the-post system—four of the five political parties went to that election demanding climate change; but, because of the first-past-the-post system, a minority of the electorate voted for the current government and they got a massive majority in the parliament.

Look around the world. Look at Greenland, for example. The government changed because the previous Prime Minister was putting the emphasis on protection of the environment and not going down the road of exploitation of oil and gas. He was replaced by a woman who feels that Greenland's future lies with exploitation of these resources. However, the important point to note is that it is happening in Greenland. A decade ago, there would have been no speculation; no talk about gas and oil exploration. Greenland is where Viking settlements disappeared in the 11th or 12th century because of climate change. Now, that same country is able to be a major future force in regard to these energy sources.

We have a situation where the Chinese are sending boats around Russia for a quicker link to Europe, exactly because they know it will become possible. That is the reality of what we see. Around the world you see changes in habitat; you see conjecture about the movement of diseases into areas where they were not before; you see discussion of sea rise on the islands in our Pacific region. People talk about refugees; we have seen nothing yet compared to what can possibly happen in the Pacific region with some of these low-lying islands. Yet we have a situation, in this country, where the government has basically said: 'It is going to cost people too much money. Let's appeal to the hip-pocket nerve. Let's not act. Let's pretend that we do not have to worry about our children and grandchildren. It is all going to disappear. It is not going to happen.' But the evidence is manifest.

Finally I want to turn to the question of the previous government's performance in regard to the economy and the denial of the international reality by those opposite. We had a situation—caused by speculation in the US housing market in particular—we had an international crisis. They would pretend that it did not happen. They would pretend there was no need for action. They would seek to say that, because there were a few wrong alignments in some schools and some suburbs of this country, we should not have had a massive school construction project which kept apprentices in employment, which kept the building materials sector going, which made sure that troubled building companies could survive. Let's look at the reality of what is happening around the world in regard to the alternatives they put forward.

They wanted austerity; they wanted inaction. I quote from an article by Susan Watkins in the London Review of Books to give an example of what their alternative would have given to Australia:

The Troika’s record of economic management has been abysmal. Greek GDP was forecast to fall by 5 per cent from 2009 to 2012; it dropped by 17 per cent and is still falling. Unemployment was supposed to peak at 15 per cent in 2012; it passed 25 per cent and is still rising. A V-shaped recovery was forecast for 2012, with Greek debt falling to sustainable levels; instead, the debt burden is larger than ever and the programme has been renewed.

… … …

The Greek economy has shrunk by a fifth, wages have fallen by 50 per cent and two-thirds of the young are out of work. In Spain, it is now commonplace for three generations to survive on a single salary or a grandparent’s pension; unemployment is running at 26 per cent, wages go unpaid and the rate for casual labour is down to €2 an hour. Italy has been in recession for the past two years, after a decade of economic stagnation, and 42 per cent of the young are without a job. In Portugal, tens of thousands of small family businesses, the backbone of the economy, have shut down; more than half of those out of work are not entitled to unemployment benefits. As in Ireland, the twentysomethings are looking for work abroad, a return to the patterns of emigration that helped lock their countries into conservatism and underdevelopment for so long.

That is the alternative that they would have us believe. They would say that it did not happen, that the government should not have gone into debt, that there should have been inaction, that we should not have worried about people lining up at Centrelink, that we should not have worried about young people's future, that we should not have worried about the possibility of them being attracted to drugs and antisocial practices through long-term unemployment.

This is a government that has opposed trade training centres in my electorate. This is a government that has sought to decry the previous government's emphasis on training youth and training people who are unemployed. This is an opposition that campaigned continuously for three years on the question of debt alone. What we see around the world, what we see in Europe, is the result of the alternatives that they put forward. I conclude there.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to rise and speak in this address-in-reply debate, which of course follows the speech of the Governor-General upon the opening of the 44th Parliament. At the outset I want to express my thanks to the voters of Bradfield for returning me to this place in the 44th Parliament.

I have now represented the electorate of Bradfield for a little over four years. In that time, I have contested three elections: a by-election and two general elections. And it is pleasing indeed to now be in government, after the challenging years of opposition, because government brings with it the opportunity to deliver some material outcomes to the people who elected me to this place.

In the time available to me, I want to talk about some of the key areas of impact that I believe the Abbott government will have for the people of Bradfield. I want to speak about our commitment to provide $405 million to help build the F3-M2 missing link, a vitally needed piece of infrastructure in Bradfield. I want to speak about our commitment to ensuring that private hospitals play a bigger role in delivering health services to local communities, and highlight the shining example of this in the Sydney Adventist Hospital located in my electorate of Bradfield. I want to speak about our commitment that there will be no unexpected detrimental changes to superannuation within the first term of the Abbott government, an issue of considerable concern to my constituents in Bradfield. I would also like to speak about our small business agenda, including reducing the red tape and compliance burden for small business and reducing the cost of doing business—matters which I know are of considerable concern to the businesspeople of Bradfield because they are raised with me on a regular basis.

Let me turn first to the F3-M2 missing link and the work of the Abbott government, in conjunction with the New South Wales Liberal-National government, to deliver this vitally needed piece of infrastructure. The F3 might have recently been renamed the M1 by the New South Wales government but this project continues to be widely described as the F3-M2 missing link. Whatever its name, it is a project that is vital for my electorate of Bradfield, to relieve the severely overloaded Pennant Hills Road and the overloaded Pacific Highway, to improve journey times for those travelling between Sydney and the Central Coast and, very importantly, to deliver safety and amenity benefits to local residents of Bradfield, particularly in suburbs that are affected by the extremely heavily trafficked Pennant Hills Road.

The F3-M2 missing link project builds on a considerable legacy of public policy work, including work initiated by the Howard government. The 2004 study by Sinclair Knight Merz identified air quality, alternative transport options and noise impacts as areas the community wanted to have scrutinised as the project was developed. Importantly, that study found that the F3-M2 missing link project, by removing stop-start conditions, is capable of delivering positive benefits, including reduced noise for 94 per cent of residents and improvements in air quality.

The Sinclair Knight Merz study was followed by the Pearlman review, commissioned by the Howard government, which recommended the route which is now largely to be followed should this project proceed. In 2013, a proposal developed by the private motorway operator Transurban Group, using the route recommended in the 2007 Pearlman review, was received by the New South Wales government under that government's unsolicited proposal process. I am pleased to say that the New South Wales government took that project seriously and moved to have it considered within its unsolicited proposal process. The project has now moved to an advanced stage, with community consultation now underway and final proposals by interested construction companies having been lodged with Transurban.

The project to date has been an outstanding example of cooperation between the New South Wales and federal governments and the private sector. I have mentioned that the federal government, the Abbott government, has committed to spend $405 million on this project. A similar amount has been committed by the New South Wales government. The total project budget is around $2.65 billion, with the balance to be contributed by Transurban and, of course, recovered through toll charges for those who use this roadway.

I am eager to see the F3-M2 missing link built because I believe it will deliver profound benefits to the communities that I represent. On the latest information available to me—and I emphasise that the project has still not reached a stage where these matters have been definitively finalised—the project is likely to involve two separate tunnels running under Pennant Hills Road, each wide enough to take three lanes, although initially the road will be configured as two lanes each way. This will give sufficient capacity for 100,000 vehicles per year. As a reference point, today Pennant Hills Road carries 60,000 vehicles per year—so, significant additional capacity will be available through the F3-M2 missing link. The other expected benefit of this two-lane configuration, notwithstanding the width of the tunnels, is that it will allow the road to have an 80-kilometre-per-hour speed limit. Again, that remains to be finally determined, but that is the latest information available to me.

A point I wish to emphasise is that, even if residents of affected suburbs like Thornleigh, Normanhurst and Wahroonga do not wish to use this road themselves but wish to continue using Pennant Hills Road, they will have the capacity to do that. Unlike the poorly conceived approach taken by the New South Wales Labor government when it came to, for example, the Lane Cove Tunnel, there is not going to be a contract which will mandate the reduction of lanes on Pennant Hills Road. That is the first important point.

The second important point is that, even if local residents choose not to use this road, it is very clear from the stated position of, amongst other things, peak bodies for the trucking industry that the B-doubles and other trucks which today are very heavy users of Pennant Hills Road can be expected to use the new expressway, the new tunnels and to pay the toll for doing so. The reason they will do that is enlightened commercial self-interest. This road will save many minutes of journey time. For people running a commercial trucking business, saved time is worth money. The toll will be a good deal for them because, through paying it, they will receive a materially reduced journey time. In turn, that will be good news for the people of Wahroonga, Normanhurst and Thornleigh, because the extremely busy Pennant Hills Road, today carrying large numbers of B-doubles and other trucks, is likely to become considerably less busy. That will materially improve the amenity of residents in those areas, it will materially improve the sense of community in those areas and it will be a lifestyle improvement for these important areas of my electorate of Bradfield.

I am pleased that the New South Wales government and the Abbott government are coming together on this important project. I look forward to further stages of the approval process being worked through so that construction can get underway. I want to particularly acknowledge the work of the Deputy Prime Minister, who in opposition made the time to come to visit Pennant Hills Road. He joined with me and the member for Berowra to make a visit to Pennant Hills Road to understand the nature of the congestion and the impact on community amenity there. The support that he has shown on this very important project is something that I want to acknowledge and express my gratitude for.

Let me turn next to the question of health policy and the role that the coalition sees for private hospitals in the provision of health services. In that context, I want to refer specifically to the Sydney Adventist Hospital. This is one of the largest, most successful and most important private hospitals in Australia. It has a range of facilities and capabilities in every respect similar to a major public teaching hospital. Indeed, it is a teaching hospital, as I will go on to talk about. It is also a hospital with an emergency room. It is a hospital with specialised facilities in a whole range of areas. There is a major new cancer facility being built. The San, as the Sydney Adventist Hospital is affectionately known, is a major institution in the electorate of Bradfield and a major provider of health care to the people not just of Bradfield but of the entire surrounding northern and north-western areas of Sydney.

I am pleased to note that the Minister for Health has visited this hospital twice within the last 12 months. In March last year, when we were in opposition and he was the shadow minister, Peter Dutton joined with me in a visit to the San to meet with the management, to tour the hospital's facilities and to discuss key issues of importance in relation to the hospital's activities and the major growth program that the hospital is now on, including, as I have mentioned, the very substantial cancer centre which is in the process of being constructed. As health minister later last year, in November, he came to the San again, to officially open its state-of-the-art clinical education centre, a joint project with funding not just from the San itself but also from both federal and state governments. It is a major centre which will provide integrated teaching not just for medical students but also for nursing students and a whole range of allied health professions, including physiotherapy and many other areas. This centre is a powerful demonstration of the very important role that private hospitals can play in the training and education of our medical professionals. It is also a demonstration of the nature of the services that a major private hospital can provide to its local community and to the broader community. Minister Dutton said in his speech at the opening of the clinical training centre:

Australia is facing a critical shortage of doctors, nurses and other health professions and attracting new people into the health system is crucial. To do this we must continue to find new and innovative ways to train and retain health care professionals and this Centre at Adventist Hospital is a great example of best practice.

I think there is a broader point which could be made. The previous Labor government had an ideological hostility to the private healthcare system. By contrast, the Abbott government wants to work with the private hospital system to deliver more choice and greater access to health services across Australia. In my view, the San at Wahroonga, in my electorate of Bradfield, is a fine example of the very deep and rich contribution which a private hospital can make in serving the community. It is a contribution which has been of profound benefit to the people of Bradfield and of northern Sydney and is a model deserving of replication around Australia.

I would like to turn to a third area of interest to my constituents in Bradfield, which is the commitment made by the coalition at the 2013 election that there would be no unexpected detrimental changes to superannuation within our first term of government. The previous Labor government generated continuing change and uncertainty in Australia's superannuation system, which produced many complaints to me by my constituents in Bradfield. Let me remind the House of just some of Labor's series of tax increases in superannuation. Over the five-year period, Labor increased taxes on superannuation by more than $8 million, predominantly targeting low- and middle-income earners. These changes included a $3.3 billion cut to super co-contribution benefits for low-income earners, reducing the co-contribution benefit from $1,500 to $500. At the same time, Labor steadily reduced contribution caps for those over age 50, from $100,000 to $50,000 and then $25,000. That hits people just at the stage of life when—having, hopefully, paid off the house and got the kids either totally or largely off their hands—they are turning their minds to maximising their savings for their retirement years. Labor's changes to the contribution cap hit hard at just the time when people are looking to maximise their contributions. We had many claims that this problem was going to be fixed, and indeed the previous Labor government promised it would reintroduce or increase concessional caps up to a level of $50,000. In fact, it managed to get only as high as $35,000 and only for those aged over 60.

Another promise which Labor made was never to tax super payments for the over 60s, but then Labor last year sought to introduce precisely such a tax, which I am pleased to say the Abbott government has moved quickly to cancel. The key point is this: times have changed. We are in a new era of stability for the superannuation sector, and that will be very welcome indeed to my constituents in Bradfield. The coalition is committed to Australia's three-pillar retirement system: an age pension as a safety net, a compulsory system of retirement savings through superannuation and incentives for voluntary saving.

Let me turn, in the final part of my remarks today, to the area of small business, which is vital in my electorate of Bradfield, as it is to the entire Australian economy.

There is no policy area, I venture to suggest, where the difference between the Liberal and the Labor parties is more profound than small business. To the extent that Labor politicians have any experience of business, it typically comes from negotiating as union officials with larger businesses. More broadly, our political opponents regard business with suspicion—they want to tax and regulate business rather than encourage it. To the extent that they have any familiarity at all with business, as I have mentioned, it is from negotiating with large business rather than any experience at all of carrying out the activities of a small business. You could count on the fingers of one hand the number of Labor parliamentarians who have actual business experience.

By contrast, the coalition believes that business is critical to our nation's prosperity. We believe business people should be congratulated and not harassed for what they do. That is why a major priority for the Abbott government will be to improve the business environment to make it easier for all types of businesses, but particularly small business, to get on with serving customers and generating a fair return. In my electorate of Bradfield there is a broad range of small businesses—according to recent data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics there are some 16,765 businesses. Interestingly, just over 10,000 of these are non-employing businesses—that is, in the main they are sole traders. At the other end of the spectrum, 2.2 per cent of businesses employ more than 20 people in the electorate of Bradfield. These statistics show just how important small businesses are to our economy in the electorate of Bradfield.

Last year as part of the Shop Small campaign I was pleased to join with my state colleague the member for Hornsby, Matt Kean, Peter Vickers of the Ku-ring-gai Chamber of Commerce and the Mayor of Hornsby, Steve Russell, to visit Flower Infusion in Wahroonga, just one of the many fine small businesses serving important community needs in the electorate of Bradfield. The Abbott government knows that small business is the engine room of our economy. We want to double the growth rate and create an additional 30,000 new businesses across Australia each year. To achieve this we have a multistranded agenda, led by our energetic Minister for Small Business, Bruce Billson, that includes scrapping the carbon tax, cutting red tape by $1 billion a year and establishing a root-and-branch review of competition laws.

Let me conclude by reminding the House that the Abbott government has come to office with a strong, positive agenda for the nation. I can say that it is an agenda which is also strongly positive for the people of Bradfield. It is an agenda I am proud of. I am confident we will deliver significant benefits for my constituents and I look forward to working as part of the Abbott government to deliver on this agenda.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to commence my contribution to this debate by thanking the people of Shortland for placing their trust in me and re-electing me to this parliament. I wake up every morning and consider the great responsibility they have placed on me. I take that responsibility very seriously and my decisions are very much motivated by what is best for the people I represent. I would also like to thank the people who worked for me in the election; they worked tirelessly. I would particularly like to thank my campaign director, Chad Griffith, for his organisation of my campaign and for the work he put in. My family were very supportive, as were my wonderful electorate staff, who have to put up with me every time I walk in and say, 'I have an idea, a new plan for something we can do!' I would like to thank each and every one of those people who have contributed to me being in this place and I say to them that I will do everything in my power to represent the electorate of Shortland very strongly. Unfortunately, since the last election I have moved from being a member of the government to being a member of the opposition.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well deserved!

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I notice the member for Paterson does not share my feelings there. I believe the current government was elected on a platform of 'Vote for us simply because we're not the ALP.' That means that the people of Australia now have a government that has the agenda of an opposition, that we have two opposition leaders in this country and that we do not have a Prime Minister. We are in a situation where we have a government in power which has no policy, no vision and no plan for Australia. That is very sad, because it will have enormous implications for our nation in future. It is vital that when a government comes to power it has a plan, a direction, a goal that it wants to achieve. This government has none of those.

I am standing in this parliament today speaking in the address-in-reply debate. There is virtually no legislation waiting to be debated in this House. It is an absolute disgrace. The newly elected government should have a plethora of legislation which it wants to introduce, be debated and be made law, but unfortunately we have a government which has the appropriations legislation waiting to be debated, the address-in-reply and one other piece of legislation on primary industry. At the end of the previous government's time, we still had over 650 pieces of legislation that we had not got through and that was in a really difficult hung parliament. Here we are today with a newly elected government that is bereft of ideas, bereft of policies and bereft of legislation. It is very sad because of the implications this has for Australia, for us as a nation and for the people we represent in this parliament.

Since the election, probably the most notable feature of the Abbott government has been the enormous numbers of job losses. We no longer have a car industry in this country. There are the job losses at Holden and Toyota, job losses in Western Australia and job losses last week in the aluminium industry. The response of the Abbott government has been to do nothing. It would not act when issues came up about SPC Ardmona, despite the fact that the local member implored the Prime Minister to step in and help. It was left to the Victorian government to step up to the mark, because our Australian government did not have the vision to protect Australian jobs. There has not been one act by this government that will give the people of Australia any confidence that their jobs will be protected. Australian jobs are going overseas and we have a government that are not prepared to stand up for Australian workers in this place. They have no plan when it comes to jobs. They have no plan when it comes to any aspect of their legislative program.

But if they have any plan at all to address job losses, it is to cut the pay and conditions of workers. This government really do not have much time for workers. There have been job losses in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and in other areas. I must put on the record that I am very worried about what will happen this week in relation to Qantas. I will be interested to see the response from the government of this country, because every day we see job losses and they have no answer, no solution and no plan. If they have any response whatsoever, it will be to attack the conditions of workers. We constantly hear Minister Abetz talking about how workers in Australia are overpaid. The Prime Minister tried to blame the pay and conditions of the workers at SPC Ardmona, saying that the decision to seek assistance from government was based on the pay and conditions of workers. That was disproved, and the Prime Minister should hang his head in shame. He should have come up with a solution to protect the jobs of those workers. Instead, he tried to blame the workers and blame them for their penalty rates because they get paid a decent wage. It seems to me that those on the other side of this House would like to see a situation where average Australian workers are paid a subsistence income. I do not know if they realise this, but that will have a detrimental effect on all sectors of the economy.

Now I turn to their broken promises. It has only been six months since the election and there is a plethora of broken promises. Before the election the Prime Minister said that there will be no Work Choices legislation, but all we have heard about since the election are ways to implement Work Choices type reforms to the industrial relations system. It is obvious that this government are being mean and tricky and are looking at alternative ways to bring in changes to the pay and conditions of workers. I am afraid they have no commitment whatsoever to ensuring that Work Choices type legislation does not re-enter this parliament, perhaps in a different form but with exactly the same results. I have news for those on the government benches: people in the community understand the hidden agenda. I go out to shopping centres with my mobile offices and I talk to people. They constantly come up to me and express their fear about exactly that—the fact that the pay and conditions of workers are being eroded. I have had workers say to me that they do not know how they will survive if their penalty rates are taken away. It is the penalty rates that allow them to make the payments on their houses. But those on the other side of this House do not understand how difficult it is for some people to actually make ends meet.

One of the issues I discussed freely and frequently in the lead-up to the last election was the cost of living. The candidate that ran against me at the election talked about the cost of living, as did I. But the thing is that he did not really understand how the cost of living impacts on people's lives. He did not really understand, as the members opposite do not understand, that people have to make decisions about whether they get the medicine for their child or put food on the table. It is like that in the real world, and people are making those types of decisions each and every day.

Another broken promise is in relation to education. The Minister for Education said, 'We have a unity ticket with the Labor Party on Gonski.' You only have to look at his tricky little sidesteps since the last election to see just how much of a unity ticket actually existed at the time of the last election. And there is the ABC: 'There will be no cuts to the ABC.' There is a review into the ABC taking place at the moment looking at how efficient and effective it is. There has been a chorus line of members on the other side of this parliament making statements outside this parliament on how the ABC's funding needs to be cut and the ABC needs to have its editorial comments curtailed. One of the strengths of the ABC is that it is critical of both sides of politics. It is an independent voice and it is important that both sides of politics can take criticism. We do not want media controlled by one person giving out one message. Freedom of the press is a right and the press have the right to criticise the government and the opposition. I implore the government not to interfere in the independence of the ABC and not to cut its funding, because the ABC is vitally important to democracy.

Health is an area of great concern to me, a particular interest of mine. The Shortland electorate is an older electorate, and the provision of affordable health care is important to the people I represent. It is not a wealthy electorate. A significant number of people rely on a pension for the basics of life. It is important to them that they can go to a doctor and be covered by Medicare. When the Prime Minister was the Minister for Health and Ageing, bulk-billing rates in the Shortland electorate were around 60 per cent. Now they are over 80 per cent and the Prime Minister is talking about introducing a GP tax, a tax on people when they see a GP. It is not good enough and it will not benefit the overall health of the Australian population.

Currently, people of this generation are dying when they are about 85, and each generation is living longer than the previous generation did. But we are approaching a stage where the next generation may live for a shorter time than their parents did. If we erode the health system, that will contribute to this scenario. There are also issues around diabetes, obesity and lifestyle that play an important part in that. When we have the Assistant Minister for Health, Senator Nash, and her staff removing from the internet the five-star health rating information, a tool to inform people about the food they are eating, we can see that this government has no real commitment to the good health of Australian people.

Much is said about the economy. When this government came to power, Australia had a AAA rating from every rating agency. That was only enjoyed by a handful of other countries and never came to fruition under a coalition government. We have been bombarded by the current Treasurer talking about the age of entitlement and how the age of entitlement has finished. However, that does not appear to apply to members and supporters of the Liberal Party. For instance, those appointed to conduct government reviews have strong connections to the Liberal Party. If you look at the terms of reference of the reviews, you will see that they are designed to deliver a certain outcome.

Returning to the age of entitlement, if you are a Liberal Party who formerly sat in this House or the Senate, it seems you have a special entitlement to represent Australia in the United States, as Senator Minchin is, or in the UK, as Mr Downer is. However, if you are a pensioner, you do not have much of an entitlement. Yesterday, the Prime Minister refused to rule out making cuts to the pension. I thought that was very interesting.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about Kim Beasley?

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, Kim Beazley did get an overseas appointment. But during Labor's time in government 18 members of the Liberal and National parties were appointed to overseas positions, whereas this government is pulling people back from overseas and getting involved in partisan politics. That is not the way to deal with these appointments.

It looks like pensioners are under attack and Medicare is under attack. Families have lost the Schoolkids Bonus. We are having the Commission of Audit, which is really a commission of cuts. There is talk of attacks on welfare, attacks on basic health services, attacks on education and attacks on families. Of course, there are attacks on unions—spin and cover-up. Australia's international reputation has been significantly affected by our relationship with Indonesia and some of the overseas appearances by the Prime Minister. Add to that Manus Island. What has happened on Manus Island and the cover-up of it are absolutely appalling. I think it is time for the minister to stand up and take some responsibility instead of covering up and just trying to spin his way out of trouble. It is not what a government should be doing.

This is a government of ideologues that is driven by a desire to implement an ultraconservative agenda which will lead to social and economic inequities. It wants to cut taxes and cut welfare. It is going to have an enormous impact on Australia as a nation. We need to be a globally competitive nation with an educated workforce. We are a country that can share the wealth with everybody. It does not have to be a country where one group of people have everything and another group of people do not. We need in Australia an inclusive society. Everybody should enjoy the wealth of this country. I call on the government to pursue that.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in this address-in-reply, the first item of business for the 44th Parliament, and in doing so thank the people of Casey for their support and endorsement at the election on 7 September last year. The electorate of Casey underwent a redistribution between the 43rd and 44th parliaments. In political terms that reduced the Liberal margin in Casey from a little over four per cent to about 1.9 per cent. The electorate increased in size basically threefold, taking in all of the Yarra Valley—the towns of Steels Creek, Yarra Glen, Healesville—and all of the towns along the Warburton Highway, just to name a few. It meant that the campaign was a very different campaign to previous campaigns in the smaller electorate of Casey.

The result that we received on election day saw a swing of more than five per cent to the Liberal Party in the electorate of Casey. I was humbled by that result. It represented a strong level of support for the policies that we enunciated prior to the election at a national level and some of the local commitments to build a stronger and safer community in the electorate of Casey. I thank all those people who voted for the coalition in the 2013 election, some of them for the very first time after witnessing what had been obviously the most dysfunctional and chaotic government in their lifetime.

As you well know, Deputy Speaker Kelly, all of us come to this place having had unbelievable levels of support from people within our electorates. I want to particularly thank those members of the Liberal Party of Australia in Casey who have always done so much to support me and to support our cause. They were led by Fran Henderson, the chair of the Casey FEC; vice-presidents Bryan McCarthy and Annette Stone; the secretary, Fiona Ogilvy-O'Donnell; the treasurer, Jill Hutchison; Rex McConachy; and the extended campaign team of Jim and Gwen Dixon, Peter Manders, Matt Mills, Steve McArthur, Mark Verschuur, and Ian Wood. All of these people did so much in the lead-up and throughout the election campaign to get the Liberal message out.

There is so much that has to be done in an election campaign. All of us in this House rely on the support of people who believe in the democratic process and who believe in our respective causes. I want to particularly mention Rex McConachy who looked after the campaign rooms and who, together with Jim Dixon and Peter Manders, had the unenviable task of erecting signs over the 2½ thousand square kilometres of the Yarra Valley throughout the campaign. We were joined on regular weekend campaign runs by another large group of volunteers: Byron Hodkinson; Brent Crockford; Liam Barry; Sam Campbell; Daniel Harrison; Josh Reimer; Andrew Hallam; Jodie Twidale; Max Lamb; Andrew Moore; Scott and Stephanie Marshall; and last but certainly not least a former member for Casey—and, I know, an old friend of the Chief Government Whip—Peter Faulkner, the member for Casey between 1975 and 1983, who still to this day, despite a very active business life, takes time off to help in the election. He has the difficult job, as the Chief Government Whip would appreciate, of driving me around the polling booths on election day. It is something that he likes to do and something that he has done at every one of my elections since 2001. So a particular thanks to the former member for Casey, Peter Falconer.

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I introduced him to Laurie Bennett. He has been doing it for 40 years.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There we go. The election, of course, was about a number of key national issues. In Casey the message I got consistently—and this was reflected in the result—was that the carbon tax had to go. This is a message that the people of Casey endorsed. It is a message that those opposite refuse to hear. But, like all members on this side of the House, we were elected with a mandate to axe Labor's tax. It is a tax that is doing so much damage to so many businesses and households in the Casey electorate.

The Casey electorate is a mixture of outer suburban and rural areas. It has some of the best and most innovative food producers, but food producers are paying higher and higher electricity bills that put them at a cost and competition disadvantage with their competitors overseas. Time and time again this message was delivered by us and endorsed by the electorate. The electorate also want to see the budget repaired. They know this is difficult but intuitively they know that Labor's way of debt and deficit cannot go on forever. They want to see red tape reduced —red tape that is strangling the small and medium businesses our community depends so much on for jobs and for the local economy.

During the period before the election I took the then Leader of the Opposition and now Prime Minister to Garden City Plastics, which is a great example of a business hurt by Labor's carbon tax and still feeling that pain today. They are Australia's premium plastic pot manufacturer. The carbon tax adds massively to their electricity bill. They do not sell individual plastic pots. By the nature of their business they sell by the thousand, by the 10,000, so they tender for contracts and their main competition is foreign. The carbon tax is making them less competitive. It is upping their cost structure and acting as a reverse tariff, but that is something that Labor refuses to see. They are waiting to see the tax axed. Two days before the election I took the now Prime Minister to Aussie Growers Fruits in Silvan, an innovative food production firm that has a number of labels in our supermarkets. Again, it is a firm that is bearing the burden of that jacked up electricity price that makes their business harder and harder. This could not have been a clearer message during the election campaign.

Before polling day, Labor acknowledged that the carbon tax was a big campaign issue. Having seen the result, they are determined to ignore it. The businesses and the households of Casey want to see the carbon tax axed. They want to see their electricity bills come down. They want to see their businesses become more competitive so they can provide greater opportunity to people wanting jobs, wanting to expand, wanting to do more in the local community.

During the election campaign I also advocated policies for a stronger local economy and a stronger and safer community. I announced: four practical Green Army projects to restore the local environment; a number of sporting projects to strengthen our sporting clubs, who play such a great role in the community and for the community; and, for a safer community, more closed circuit television cameras. Many years ago during the Howard government I was pleased to see some of the first federally funded CCTV cameras in the electorate of Casey—in Croydon, in Lilydale and in Mount Evelyn—and with the community I have seen firsthand the great effect they have in cutting down on crime. So I was pleased to announce that if our government were elected we would extend the camera network at Lilydale and we would introduce one in Healesville and in Yarra Junction. I was also pleased to be able to pledge funding to the Metec Driver Training Centre—a not-for-profit driver training centre right in the heart of the Yarra Valley—to upgrade their facilities so that they can more effectively teach young drivers safe driving before they get their licence.

I was very pleased to be able to announce that an Abbott government would fund a key tourism project in the Yarra Valley: the restoration of a historic railway between Yarra Glen and Healesville. This had been identified by the community and all of the small business community as a vital project to build the local economy and to build tourism in that region. Indeed, in June the former government, under the former minister for regional Australia, the member for Ballarat, announced that it was going to fund this project. It announced that on 7 June. On that day it announced two other projects to be funded, one in the electorate of McEwen and the other in the electorate of Deakin. But by the time the election was called, amazingly for those in the Yarra Valley, both of the contracts in McEwen and Deakin had been signed off but the project in the Yarra Valley had been left on the minister's desk—clearly, a decision by Labor to forget its promise and to betray the people of the Yarra Valley.

I was very pleased to be able to make the pledge that if we were elected we would honour the full amount of money for that railway, and indeed we will. I am very much looking forward to that project proceeding. It will build jobs and build tourism in the heart of the Yarra Valley, an area that was so affected by the Black Saturday fires five years ago. Lives were affected, as we know, and the local economy was also affected. This is a project that, once up and running, people will look back on as a key driver of the local economy.

Let me conclude by again thanking all of the electors of the electorate of Casey. To those who supported me nearly six months ago at the election on 7 September I say thank you and I will not let you down. For those who did not support me I say I will do my very best for all the electors of Casey to represent them here in the parliament and to represent policies that will build the strongest community there in the Yarra Valley.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) 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.