Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We got the drought package today, and one has to look at government decision making in the light of comparisons. Unfortunately for the LNP, we have to compare their performance with the ALP. The ALP gave us $420 million and this mob gave us $280 million. So if we are comparing performance levels then I would have to be standing here praising the Labor Party, and God forbid that I would ever do that!

What the drought decision really says is, 'We will not be having agriculture in Australia.' We were given $280 million in loans. To put that in perspective I rang up the leader of the Cattle Crisis Council, and I asked, 'How many people have you got in serious trouble?' in a particular town. He said, 'About 50 per cent.' So 50 per cent is 60 cattlemen in one town and they have an average debt of $5 million. So the amount given today will fix up one town out of 400 towns in western Queensland. Small thanks.

This could be fixed up immediately within three seconds, but what has every government in Australian history done? They have simply set up a reconstruction board—a lairy name for putting four or five people in the Department of Agriculture here to one side and a couple of Treasury officials. Six people together in a room, they borrow some money at three per cent and they loan it out at two per cent. The one per cent is a deferred interest payment and it is picked up further down the track when these people come good.

I speak with authority because I was the minister in charge and responsible for the state bank in Queensland. We borrowed, in terms of today's money, about $1,000 million and we put it out there at two per cent interest. We borrowed it at three per cent and put it out at two per cent, and within five years we had made about $300 or $400 million of profit because the sugarcane farmers came good. The commercial interest rates went back up, which were then about 7½ or eight per cent. Of course, with those commercial interest rates we were able to pay back the deferred one per cent interest payment.

What this says is that we do not want agriculture in this country. Within seven years the country will be a net importer of food. I say that repeatedly in this place, and I do not think that anyone is the slightest bit interested in listening to me saying that. But anyone can go to the library, or to the Bureau of Statistics or to ABARE and get the figures. There is a 128 per cent increase in the last 10 years in imports and a 26 per cent increase in exports. You do not have to be Albert Einstein to work out that the graphs cross! Bye-bye agriculture!

The decision at SPC Ardmona reduces the wage levels there, I am told, to $30,000. Let us face facts: nobody in Australia is going to stay in a job for $30,000. It would be impossible to stay alive with $30,000 if you had a couple of kids. I think the result there is: bye-bye food processing in Australia. We already know that because they have announced it. I said in the election that within seven years there will be no motor vehicle manufacturing in Australia. I was wrong, wasn't I? Within seven months they said that there would be no motor vehicle manufacturing in Australia.

Few people here realise that the economy of Australia was carried for 25 years by the coal and aluminium industries, not the iron ore industry. Iron ore is a pretty recent phenomenon and is very big now. We now have amongst the highest electricity charges in the world—surprise, surprise!—because we corporatised the electricity industry and there are only three or four operators in the marketplace. They have put prices up 130 per cent in nine years in Queensland—and they went up 30 per cent last year. Aluminium is congealed electricity, so goodbye aluminium industry. That is one of the two industries that have carried the Australian economy. The aluminium and coal industries have provided nearly 20 per cent of our entire export earnings. Clearly, it is going, going, gone. The steel industry has had $70 million of profits this year, but three years ago the industry took two $1 billion losses two years in a row. So I would not be holding my breath about the steel industry.

What about petrol? The NRMA report was released yesterday. We are at nine per cent self-sufficiency now. The government is proposing that we double tax ethanol. That is rather fascinating. Imported oil from the Middle East gets taxed once at the bowser but Australian produced ethanol gets taxed twice: once at the point of production and again at the bowser. Ethanol gets hit twice. It would be good to have explained to me how the Sarina, Dalby and Manildra plants are going to pay 80c in the dollar tax when their competitors pay only 45c in the dollar tax. It will be rather interesting to hear the government explain that to us.

In five months the government has presided over effectively writing the death warrant on agriculture, on food processing, on the motor vehicle industry, on the steel industry, on the aluminium industry and on the petrol industry. You might think petrol is not important. When I left school as a young man at 17 I thought: 'Good on that John F Kennedy. He stood up to those dirty rotten Russians and we won't have any more wars.' That was when I was 17. When I was 18 they handed me a rifle. I had to give them two telephone numbers and I was on 24-hour call-up to go and fight a war in Indonesia—a war we were fighting to protect our oil pipeline. Every single year since 1964 we have been fighting a war to protect our oil pipeline, yet we have a government today—and the last government were just as bad, if not worse, if that is possible—that has decided we will not have a petrol industry at all or an ethanol industry either, so we will import all of our petrol. The rest of the world has thought they have to fight wars to protect their oil pipeline. Since 1964 till 2014 we have been fighting wars almost every single year.

Let us go back in history and have a look at the Second World War. Why did Japan go to war? Can anyone tell me why Japan went to war? Because the Americans cut off their oil supply. Where did it go? It immediately made a thrust down to Indonesia, and to protect the Indonesian periphery they had to take Australia. Where was the great battle that turned into the Second World War? Stalingrad. What is the significance of Stalingrad? It is the gateway to the oilfields. The Germans threw all of their resource might to make sure they could secure and get access to the oilfields. That is what wars are fought over.

The government here is so toweringly irresponsible. On both sides they have billy goat brains because they think we can run a country without any petrol whatsoever. I do not have my biofuels map with me that I carry around everywhere, but I have held it up here many times, so most of you have seen it. On that map every single country on Earth is coloured in. Every single country has ethanol. There is only one country on Earth outside of Africa that does not have ethanol and that is Australia. Once again I am sure that the rest of the world is wrong and we are the only clever dicks on the planet! We are the only clever people! Of course, the other possibility is that we are run by a bunch of billy goats and the rest of the world, who have seen fit every single year to fight a war to protect their oil pipeline, have it right. They desperately want to protect an indigenous source of supply.

Speaking on behalf of what is left of the ethanol industry in Australia, the ethanol industry can supply for you tomorrow very easily 55 per cent of your petrol needs and can increase food production because if we take the starch out of the grain then the grain is a much better quality food. So we can improve dramatically our food production by moving to ethanol, which is contrary to what the greenies say. I point out to any greenies listening that their patron saint Mr Al Gore on page 136 of An Inconvenient Truth says that the first solution to the CO2 problem and global warming is ethanol. We might have to build a few dams to get there, but that is not a great problem.

We live in a country where the cost of electricity now is reputed to be the highest in the world. We live in a country where the cost of petrol is 155c a litre while the cost in the United States—one of my friends just came back from there—is 79c a litre. The cost of petrol in Brazil when I was over there was 74c a litre, and I have been told it is still under 80c a litre. Those countries have ethanol. It would appear to me that America is now on about 20 per cent and Brazil is on about 55 per cent, but it is cheaper than petrol. You can buy ethanol much more cheaply than you can buy petrol, hence the cheap price of petrol in those countries.

The cost of a house in this country is the highest in the world. You people who sit in this parliament, who is responsible for this? Maybe penguins from Antarctica are responsible for our having the highest petrol prices in the world, the highest electricity prices on the world? I lie when I say the 'highest housing cost', because Hong Kong has the highest housing cost, but we are No. 2 in the world. Demographia puts out an annual report; anyone can read the report and find that out. How do you solve these problems? With petrol it is quite easy. You simply do what the Americans, the Brazilians, the Chinese, the Indians, the Japanese and every single country in Europe that signed up for 10 per cent ethanol did. We are a gifted nation: we can very easily produce that ethanol from sugar cane, we can very easily produce it from grain. We could do it tomorrow, and we can produce it for around 85c a litre, so we can sell it for under a dollar a litre.

Let me move to electricity. I can speak with great authority on all of these areas, and if I sound confident—sometimes people accuse me of being arrogant—and sometimes it is hard not to be, it is because when I was minister for electricity in the Queensland government, we had the cheapest electricity in the world. That was how we secured the aluminium industry for our country. We heard the last ALP speaker make reference, mockingly, to the Bjelke-Petersen government. Well hey, mate, you have only got a decent wage because of that man, because his government had the perspicacity to take one or two per cent of the coal that was mined in Queensland—they took it for free; they said, 'Thank you, Buster Brown, we're taking it for free'—so our electricity in Queensland was provided by free coal.

The brilliant and clever ALP government gave all of the gas away. I am sure the LNP are very upset because they were not there to give it away to their overseas corporate masters. They most certainly promised before the election there would be 'no gas drilling east of the Condamine'. That is an actual quote from the statement made by the now Premier of Queensland in front of a public meeting that Ray Hopper was also at. Ray could not live with the shame of his people being told a flagrant lie by the government he was associated with. They had not been there two months—no drilling east of the Condamine! You have got to look after your big corporate sponsors. When I played rugby league, we were told, 'You've got to look after your corporate sponsors'. Well that is a lesson that the Queensland parliament has learnt well.

We have some 23 or 25 sugar mills in Queensland. They produce around four megawatts of electricity. The modern sugar mill produces around 100 megawatts of electricity. If you took $1,000 million—I think you could get away with loaning it, but you might have to give it as a grant—and gave it to those sugar mills to convert them to the production of electricity, then you could produce electricity for just about zero. We are burning all of the sugar cane fibre after we have squeezed the sugar juice out, we burn the fibre to get rid of it. Ninety per cent of the energy is just burnt to get rid of it. By spending a little tiny bit of money, we can then get it for free because there is no wage content. The sugar mill with electricity production has the same manning levels as the sugar mill without electricity production.

We can have cheap petrol—America and Brazil have got it now; we can have cheap electricity. We have cheap electricity in Queensland, the cheapest in the world. It is how we got the aluminium industry to Queensland. These things can be done. The cost of housing—I pay the minister at the table, the member for Wentworth, Mr Turnbull, great tribute because he and an Oxford don put out a paper and they said the cost of housing is pretty simple really. Just take out the restrictions, the choke hold of the state and local government laws. Take that choke hold out and you can have cheap housing! Once again, I speak with authority because the local land court clerk of the court and I had control of—and it would be well for the honourable minister, instead of talking to the ALP, to listen to this little anecdote I am going to tell the House.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I am not interested in whether he listens or not, but Mr Turnbull should take note that in Charters Towers, where we had no restrictions, every time the land price went over $6,000, we would dump 15 or 20 blocks on the market. So once they removed restrictions—we kept the price at $6,000—when they abolished the mining act, which was a criminal stupidity, we lost control of the land and it went under the restrictive regime of the state government and the local councils. Under that restrictive regime, within six years we were up to $127,000 for a block of land in Charters Towers. We had gone from $6,000—which is absolute proof that what Mr Turnbull and the Oxford don's paper put forward was absolutely dead spot-on, and there was the proof of it.

I would like to speak about foreign ownership, but I do not have time. Suffice to say that some 15 years ago the six great mining companies of Australia were all Australian owned. Last week I had the very great honour of going to Fortescue Metals and looking over their operations for a day. They are still one big mining operation that is Australian owned. But the six great mining companies of Australia that were once all Australian owned are now all foreign owned. They account for 83 per cent of our metals. Almost the entire gas industry, around 90 per cent, is foreign owned. We are taking the water off inland Australia and giving it to the gas industry—what for? There are no jobs in the gas industry. Just build a pipeline and the gas is pumped out to the coast and away it goes.

The Australian flag will fly over a country that cannot make a motor car, that cannot make an electric motor, that cannot make a tyre. It will be a Third World technological backwater. It will fly over a country that is predominantly foreign owned—its resources, its land, its water. We have six rivers that we can develop for water in Australia. Two of them have been put under national parks—a piece of mindless stupidity; two of them have been given to the Chinese; and that leaves just two for Australia, neither of which are being developed, because the government will not allow them to be developed. (Time expired)

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While Bob is a hard act to follow, I will do my best. In my maiden speech to this House I said, 'The easiest thing in life is to sit on the sidelines and complain. It is much harder to stand up for what you believe in.' While I am sure that many of the class of 2010 would feel that the 43rd Australian Parliament was a baptism of fire, I am proud of what we achieved in the most challenging of circumstances. I am proud of our defence and advocacy of the ideals we hold dear in the pursuit of better government, in the pursuit of government that recognises there is no limit to what Australia can achieve, but only if we respect the limits of government as well as its potential.

I said in this place three years ago, 'Longman is an area not defined, in my mind, by its geographical borders but by the character of its people. They are a hardworking people bound by a common aspirational mindset.' It is incumbent upon us to see government as an enabler. We must seek to unlock the potential of the Australian people. Government cannot always prescribe solutions, but it can help create a society empowered with the sense of its own destiny. Or, as a wise colleague once put it, the best governments will be those that understand and accept the limits of their power, not those that seek to dictate from on high how business should run, how society should be structured, which companies should stand or fall or how individuals should run their own lives.

With the new parliament and a new government comes a new hope. As Her Excellency the Governor-General has recounted, at the opening of the first parliament in Canberra, the Duke of York said that a new parliament marked a new page of history. He said that the opening of the Australian parliament was an opportunity for the rededication of this Commonwealth to the great ideals of liberty, fairness, justice and the cause of peace.

While we stand on the shoulders of giants, modern politics presents new challenges. Many have argued that the politics of today seeks to play to cheap opportunism, a short-term election cycle and an even shorter and more diverse media cycle. We must collectively overcome any retreat to such conditions. We must use the grand opportunity of the nation's parliament to rise above the white noise and replenish its corridors with the dreams of greatness.

As the Prime Minister once said in this chamber, so much of what happens here passes people by; sometimes it even annoys them. But, he said, the parliament must lift people's spirits, make them feel more proud of our country and more conscious of our potential to more often be our best selves. Indeed, in the face of the relentless pressure of modern politics and its threat to drag all of us to cynicism and opportunism, we must respond with the recognition that politics should ultimately be about doing not what is popular but what is right. We are driven by purpose, not the blind pursuit of power for power's sake.

This coalition government is determined to build a robust and prosperous economy founded on prudent economic management. It is only through a strong economy that we can realise a premium social dividend. This government will guarantee Australia's future prosperity by focusing on our national strengths. We will bolster the economy through lower taxes, less regulatory burden and higher productivity. The ultimate policy objective of Australian legislators should be to ensure that the next generation inherits a nation with more opportunities than their own.

While future generations will arguably continue to see Australia as the lucky country, one uniquely placed in the heart of a globalised world between the dominant West and a rising Asia, we will face a myriad of challenges, including that of an ageing population, which will inevitably place a greater burden on government drawing from a smaller tax base. The unstoppable march of this demographic reality will hit home in concert with a potentially significant debt burden and the waning of the mining boom.

In response, our first policy focus should be raising the productive capacity of the economy. If more people are in better jobs earning higher real wages, they pay more tax. So we must build a vibrant, deregulated economy which is part of a liberalised trade environment. I am proud to be part of a government with an ambitious deregulation agenda driven by a whole-of-government approach. I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Prime Minister, ably assisted by the member for Kooyong, for taking personal responsibility for deregulating the economy. Increasing our nation's productivity requires us to recognise that it is private enterprise, not the government, that creates wealth and prosperity and employs people.

As well, we need to raise workforce participation by boosting immigration and the birth rate. In areas where the market is not best placed to do it, the government must take the lead in productive investment. That is why the coalition has such a strong infrastructure agenda, it is why we as a government have spoken up about opening up the north of Australia and it is why we should talk more about the possibilities of a sovereign wealth fund.

While the previous generation saw a massive increase in productivity with women entering the workforce, future generations will not enjoy the same demographic advantage. Undoubtedly, women entering the workforce triggered the biggest productivity gain of the past 30 years. For this generation, there is no equivalent labour force stimulus that lies untapped. Generation Y and successive generations will grow up with the majority of women in their number already in the workforce. Instead, we will have to take advantage of new technology and expand into new markets. Future generations will require constant upskilling and further training and will need to be willing to turn themselves into a more creative workforce to achieve productivity gains similar to those of the predecessor generation. In the meantime, landmark policies such as the Abbott government's Paid Parental Leave scheme have been designed to maintain women in the workforce. So, effectively, the Paid Parental Leave scheme is a productivity-increasing measure. As an economic driver, it should be construed as a workforce entitlement, not a welfare payment.

Another area of policy focus should be encouraging Australians wherever possible to secure their own long-term financial security. That is why as a government we need to ensure superannuants are getting the best possible deal, along with certainty. Unlike the previous, Labor, regime, the coalition will not be shifting the goalposts on superannuation. We must also be thinking about ways to support the next generation of Australians to pay for their education and afford a home. We must be inventive with approaches that encourage the social and economic development of the next wave of Australians so that they can secure their own financial security. Wherever possible, this should be done by incentivising the development of individual asset bases rather than relying on income assistance.

The stark fact in terms of Australia's ageing population is that our generation will be paying to support the retirement of the previous one on an unprecedented scale. The percentage of the population aged 75 and over is expected to increase from 6.4 per cent to over 14.4 per cent. While the values, attitudes and choices of baby boomers and generation Y might seem worlds apart, both sides must tackle this issue for our mutual benefit. That is because what we are really looking at is a demographic superbubble. When the baby boomers leave the workforce, they will take away not only their skills but their tax-paying capacity. According to demographer Bernard Salt:

… while the preceding generation produced 2.5 million retirees, we now have 4 million Australians on the brink of retirement about to draw on age pensions, pharmaceutical benefits and other government assistance.

Our current immigration rate is insufficient to compensate for this demographic shift. The annual permanent migrant intake of about 100,000 in the 1990s has increased by merely 90,000—growth nowhere near strong enough to fill the breach caused by the massive ebb to retirement. We cannot put our heads in the sand and postpone the conversation for another 30 years. As Peter Harris, the Chairman of the Productivity Commission, said:

The best time to develop policies that address the inescapable implications of demographic change is while the transition is in its infancy. It is a good time to start a debate and to float creative policy options.

There are very good reasons for making a start now on this key area of public policy. As the Productivity Commission has highlighted, if the pension age is not recalibrated and no other solution is found, taxes will need to rise by 21 per cent to pay for the ageing of the population. In fact, by the turn of the century, Australia will count more 100-year-olds than babies.

While there is no silver bullet, I believe the debate should focus on some key areas. While I have already outlined productivity-increasing measures and securing our own financial security as key drivers of our collective response to these challenges, we must also ask ourselves: what can we reasonably expect taxpayers and the government to provide to individuals? With a smaller revenue base and a greater demand on Treasury, we will have to make difficult decisions about what we as citizens expect our governments to provide. We either accept that they will do less or we anticipate paying significantly higher taxes.

While we respect and value the generations that have preceded us, who have worked hard all their lives and paid their taxes, the conundrum is, as the Treasurer has put it, that there is a:

… battle between the fiscal reality of paying for what you spend, set against the expectation of majority public opinion that each generation will receive the same or increased support from the state than their forebears.

We must do everything we can to appropriately prepare for these challenges ahead. As Australians who are living longer, we will retire later. While those currently on the cusp of retirement may not be so impacted, I fully expect that, even if the pension age is not raised in the immediate future, it will have reached 70 by the time my generation reaches retirement. It will also be imperative to do everything in our power to prevent Australians who want to remain in the workforce from being prematurely shut out of economic participation in our society.

Finally, as we look at our toolkit in meeting the challenges facing our nation, we must look to the wider world. As one of the world's leading trading nations, Australia depends on open and transparent international markets for jobs and economic growth. Our unique place between the established West and an ascendant Asia means we must take hold of the opportunities that liberalising trade present.

The coalition will strengthen our trading relationships and boost the national economy by fast-tracking free trade agreements with China, Indonesia, Japan, India, South Korea, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to ensure that Australia fully capitalises on broad export and investment opportunities—and particularly Asia's rapid economic growth and the consumerism of its rising middle class. The coalition will place economic diplomacy among the bedrock of its international policy objectives. This government is establishing a new $100 million Colombo Plan that will give Australian university students an opportunity to study in our region, to deepen our engagement with our neighbours. The Australian government understands our unique position in the world and stands prepared to take hold of the opportunities of a more globalised and interconnected world in the 21st century.

We have often been referred to as the lucky country. I take a different approach, I believe we should be a country prepared to make our own luck, a country not afraid to stand tall and proud of its place in the world. While the challenges that face our nation are significant, the opportunity to meet those challenges is there for the taking. Our greatest asset is not our resources buried in the ground but the Australian people themselves. I see it every day in my own community—the hardworking Australians prepared to take a chance, not afraid of risk and just having a go. It is this intrinsic aspirational mindset that makes our community and our nation great. It is my determination in this place and as part of the Australian government to do all that we can to foster this approach to life.

The electors of Longman have placed in me an enormous amount of trust, and it is my commitment to this great local community that I will continue to work tenaciously in this place and in my community to repay that trust. Each day we will stand in defence of the principles and virtues that have made our society the envy of the world—the principles of freedom of choice, of equality of opportunity and of fair reward for hard work. In my maiden speech in this place I said:

When we make the decision to stand for parliament, we all have some idea of the sort of Australia we want to see. For me, it is a country of high productivity, a modern, enterprise economy where barriers to opportunity are minimised; where small business is valued as much as big business; where taxpayers’ money is valued …

Those words ring as true to me today as they did then. We will build a strong, diversified economy with lower taxes that will deliver more jobs, higher real incomes and better services for Australian families.

While we inherit the challenges of Labor's legacy—a legacy that left 200,000 more unemployed and gross debt projected to rise to $667 billion, or $29,000 for every man, woman and child—we will action the people's mandate to us to clean up Labor's mess. We will be a government that will scrap unnecessary taxes, cut wasteful spending and reduce the tax burden on businesses so that they can prosper and grow. We will be a government that understands that opportunity is always better than subsidy. We will be a government that understands that all Australians should have freedom of choice. And we will be a government that rewards hard work instead of penalising it.

As I said, we are a country that should not see itself as the lucky country but rather be prepared to make our own luck. While we stand on the shoulders of giants, let us use this parliament to reach a little further, to deliver to the next generation of Australians a country with greater opportunity and greater prosperity.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate those new members of the parliament who have been elected for the first time, from both sides, including my neighbour the new member for Barton. Whatever your politics, I know that people come here with the best of intentions to act in the national interest, and I look forward to working in this parliament for that national interest.

When politicians move from the government benches into opposition, they normally ask themselves why they lost favour with voters. It is time to consider new policies and new ideas. It is a time which should be used, because it is valuable. If you do not do that, then you come into government without new ideas and without a plan for the nation. I believe that this government certainly had a plan to get into government, but they are showing that they do not have a plan to govern. Indeed, the very lack of legislation that is before this parliament—in its first sitting weeks we are seeing filibustering of debates that would normally take place in the Federation Chamber and no legislation before the parliament—says it all about their failure to use their time in opposition to develop an alternative vision for the nation. What they developed was just opposition.

In government we had developed a plan for infrastructure and transport, and we were continuing to implement it. Properly targeted investment in our ports, roads, railway lines and airports enhances the productive capacity of our economy. It allows exports of goods and services to move quickly, and that helps drive growth. Put simply, infrastructure equals jobs, and inadequate infrastructure is a handbrake on jobs growth and economic development.

I am very proud of Labor's infrastructure legacy. Over six years we made up for the previous coalition government's gross negligence by delivering the biggest and best-targeted infrastructure program in the history of the Commonwealth. We approached this in a planned, methodical manner. In the first weeks of the 2007 parliament, we started with the creation of Infrastructure Australia, an independent organisation that audited the nation's infrastructure needs and created our first infrastructure priority list. From there, we funded all 15 of the projects that were selected by IA for its infrastructure priority list. At the same time, we carefully moved through each of the critical sectors to the portfolio. We produced the nation's first ever aviation white paper. We also delivered the nation's first integrated long-term national port strategy. We delivered the national freight strategy.

Our focus was nation building, delivering the resources to facilitate export growth, to drive prosperity and to boost productivity. Jobs, exports, capacity building—that is the Labor legacy. Much of the legacy was delivered in the face of an obstructionist opposition that was never able to put aside its political interests long enough to consider the national interest.

You can sum up our achievements with a single statistic. When Labor took office, Australia was 20th out of the OECD list of 25 developed nations in terms of investment in infrastructure. Right now we are first, first in the last two years of OECD data for investment in infrastructure—very critical. And that comes off the very low base which we inherited in 2007. Public investment in infrastructure as a proportion of national income had plunged by almost 20 per cent from its level in the Keating era. There had been no investment in public transport in cities, despite the fact that urban congestion was worsening.

Mr Howard and Mr Abbott had also withdrawn $2 billion from the federal roads budget which had been outlined by the previous Keating government. Bulk carriers were forced to line up the days outside Newcastle port and other ports. It was not enough for Mr Howard and Mr Abbott to simply ignore the responsibilities. Their strategy was to blame state governments or previous governments if anyone dared to complain about poor roads, rail lines and ports. On nation building, the former Howard government was negligent. That leads to a reduction in growth.

Australia is one of the world's great trading nations. We depend on the export of oil, gas, coal, iron ore, agricultural products and processed goods for our prosperity. What kind of government ignores this? A coalition government. The negligence of Mr Howard and Mr Abbott sliced almost one percentage point off the economic growth which would have been achieved with adequate investment. The record is even worse when you consider that the Howard government ruled at the height of a mining boom which had driven government tax receipts to their highest levels in decades.

In 2005-06, tax revenues as a percentage of GDP stood at 24.2 per cent, having sat at around 24 per cent of the previous few years off the back of the mining boom. By 2008-09, when Labor was in government, the global financial crisis had reduced government revenues to 21 per cent of GDP and they fell further to 20 per cent in 2010-11. So Mr Howard, despite collecting the highest levels of tax, left an infrastructure deficit.

Labor, on the other hand, faced the biggest economic challenge since the Great Depression. We turned together around, kept Australia with growth and ensured that jobs were protected. Our $60 billion Nation Building Program covering roads, rail and ports, has cleared many bottlenecks and helped Australia maintain export growth, despite the global financial crisis. Almost two-thirds of this investment was in rural and regional communities. Between 2008-09 and 2013-14, federal spending on roads, train lines and public transport infrastructure increased from $132 per person in Australia to $225 for every Australian. Total annual spending on roads, railways, electricity generators and water storage facilities is now 42 per cent higher than in the last full year of the Howard government.

Labor also reformed tax arrangements to make it easier and more attractive for private companies and superannuation funds to invest in infrastructure, changes that we expect will facilitate investment of an extra $25 billion in investment projects in coming years. Critical to this turnaround was the creation of Infrastructure Australia and the national priority list. The 15 projects that were funded and recommended as priorities by Infrastructure Australia included the Cross River Rail project in Brisbane, the Pacific Highway upgrades in New South Wales, Victoria's Regional Rail Link and the Hunter Expressway. In the case of the Brisbane Cross River Rail project, just like the Melbourne Metro, its funding is now under threat.

Labor doubled the roads budget. We invested $46.5 billion to build or upgrade 7,500 kilometres of road, the biggest investment since the creation of the national road network nearly 40 years ago. That is equivalent to rebuilding one kilometre in every four kilometres of the national highway in only two terms.

On the Pacific Highway, we invested $7.9 billion in six years, while the previous coalition government invested $1.3 billion over 12 years. Projects such as the Bulahdelah bypass, the Kempsey bypass and the Ballina bypass were all promised, funded, built and opened by Labor. Further north, on the Bruce Highway, we invested $5.7 billion over six years, more than four times the amount committed by the previous Howard government over a similar period.

When in opposition, the infrastructure minister, Warren Truss, often described the Cooroy to Curra section of the Bruce Highway as the most dangerous section of road in the country: in spite of the fact that it was in his seat and he had been the transport minister. He can thank Labor for the fact that one section of the upgrade has been completed and opened and that in the next section work is under way.

The fact is, we did not just talk; we acted and we invested. We invested in the Hume Highway, finally fulfilling the completion of the road between Australia's largest two cities, Sydney to Melbourne. The Hunter Expressway was talked about for decades. It has been delivered by Labor and is due to be opened. By the time we left office, we had completed 137 major road projects, with 67 under way. We also fixed 1,944 notorious traffic black spots and installed 95 new rest stops and 46 new truck parking bays around the nation.

Labor increased rail funding by 10 times compared to the investment of our predecessors, who, once again, talked a good game about the importance of freight rail but did nothing. We invested $3.4 billion over six years, allowing the rebuilding of more than a third of the national freight network. Our investments included 235 kilometres of new track, plus rebuilding 3,800 kilometres of existing track.

This had a big impact. By 2016, the average transit time between Brisbane and Melbourne will be seven hours shorter than it was in 2005 and the journey from the east coast to the west coast will be nine hours shorter, thanks to our investment. That is already seeing major companies like Australia Post and Woolworths transfer freight from road onto rail, therefore improving productivity and getting a better outcome for the environment and a better outcome for road safety.

In the cities we tackled urban congestion. We committed more to urban public transport than all previous governments combined from federation right through to 2007. Now, the new government have said that they will walk away from any involvement in urban public transport, as they are walking away from engagement with all of our cities. We established the Major Cities Unit, which has already been abolished as one of the first actions of the Abbott government. In Senate estimates just this week, we hear that the Urban Policy Forum—experts in the private sector and in the community brought together to provide advice on urban policy development—has not met since the change of government and is unlikely to ever meet. A government that is a truly national government cannot not engage in our cities. That is a responsibility a national government has.

Labor's deregulation of the aviation industry has delivered lower airfares with prices now five times more affordable than they were two decades ago. In the same period, the number of people travelling each year has tripled. We produced the nation's first aviation white paper, carefully setting the blueprint for the industry's future for decades ahead. People fly more often but they also fly safer. Labor rolled out the latest security technology at the nation's airports. We banned noisy, older aircraft from major airports and strengthened the independent safety regulator's oversight of the industry. Importantly, Labor also invested more than $260 million into regional and remote aviation, including new and upgraded airports. That is five times more than the Howard government invested over the same period.

Regional communities now have better aviation facilities and this has opened them up to domestic tourism as well as international tourism like never before. Labor also progressed the planning for the second Sydney airport, which our predecessors had walked away from after they came to office in 1996. On shipping, Labor reinvigorated our nation's dwindling fleet by creating tax incentives for investment, updating regulations and ensuring the Australian Maritime Safety Authority became the national regulator of all commercial vessels. We strengthened security around the nation's ports as well as at our oil and gas facilities, and legislated to make sure that oil companies are financially accountable for damage caused by spills to the environment. We also ensured that Australian shipping companies could remain competitive with foreign flagged vessels by requiring foreign ships working our coastal domestic trade routes to pay Australian level wages.

I noticed during the election campaign that Mr Abbott included in his platform a claim that he wanted to be known as the infrastructure Prime Minister. Well, you cannot begin by trying to unpick and destroy the National Broadband Network if you are serious about infrastructure. Rather than deliver world-class fibre based broadband to all, Mr Abbott offers a second-rate copper based alternative. Labor's NBN would have revolutionised health and education services in this country. This would have been an economic game-changer, allowing Australian businesses, particularly small business and service providers, to plug into the world. The coalition opposed the NBN and are rolling out a second rate 'fraudband' alternative. Abolishing the NBN is short-sighted and is not in that national interest.

The problem here is that the Prime Minister has no agenda beyond opposing anything that is associated with the previous Labor government. The hard work was not done in developing an alternative policy. Properly targeted spending on infrastructure is not profligate; it is nation building, an investment in the future and a central task of government. The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics has estimated that every single dollar spent on the former government's Nation Building Program returned $2.65 in benefits to the national economy, a critical investment and a major distinction between Labor and the coalition. I believe very clearly that if we are going to continue to prosper, we need to continue to invest in infrastructure in our regions, our cities, our roads, our rail lines and our ports.

Recently, we learnt that Toyota plans to cease manufacturing cars in Australia from 2017. There has been no response about what will happen in terms of an appropriate response from government to that announcement. Here is one response for the government: how about not removing the $3 billion that has been allocated in the 2013 budget for the Melbourne Metro? At its peak, the Regional Rail Link in Victoria was employing 3,500 people as well contributing significant productivity benefits in the future. Better public transport takes cars off the road, makes life easier for commuters and, just as importantly, makes a difference in terms of the movement of freight. That is why we accepted Infrastructure Australia's advice and allocated investment in the budget to the Melbourne Metro and other projects like the Cross River Rail project. Importantly, these two projects would also make a significant contribution to the debate about how to get superannuation funds into infrastructure. The structure of the process that we put up would allow for that to occur.

We also need to defend Infrastructure Australia and its role as an independent adviser to the government. The current legislation before the Senate would allow for classes of infrastructure like public transport to be ruled out of examination by Infrastructure Australia and would also allow the minister to intervene to prevent business cases being presented. Given the failure to present business cases for some of the big-ticket items that the coalition say they will fund, it is not surprising that they are removing the transparency that is so critical.

If we are going to support jobs we need to invest in infrastructure, both large and small. The decision by the new government to remove funding for community infrastructure through the Regional Development Australia Fund is short-sighted and will cost jobs and infrastructure in local communities. This approach suggests that if Labor were for it, it must be bad. They have said some investment decisions that were fully included in the budget were not decisions but promises of a political party, but that is not correct. I believe that as members of the opposition we need to make sure that we continue to hold the government to account. We will be developing alternative policies because we need to do something other than just oppose.

We need to build a nation for the good of all. We need to make sure that we get serious about infrastructure and continue to work on those issues. We cannot allow negativity and partisan politics to undermine our nation's future. We cannot allow the shrill, rationalist economists to hector this parliament into ignoring the national interest. I believe this is critical. The government need to start acting like a government and not just as an opposition, as we saw yet again today. Today the government attempted to disrupt the parliament as if they had not changed their actions from two years ago. From my side, I will continue to play a constructive role and put forward policies. I believe we can be proud of our record. It is important that the government not undermine that record by short-sighted policies.

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

First, I would like to thank all those who so diligently helped me during the election campaign. I will not name those who helped me, because inevitably someone will be forgotten and that is not my desire. I thank everyone who helped me, particularly the people of Tangney for electing me with a record margin for the seat of Tangney. I see that not only as testament to the amount of work I have put in to the electorate but also as testament to the standing of the Liberal Party more generally.

Tonight I will talk about our science crisis, climate change and energy including—horror of horrors—the N-word: nuclear, as in power. You could say I have a unique background in this parliament. In this chamber and the other chamber I am the only research scientist who has worked in the research industry. This gives me a different mindset, a different way of thinking. This way of thinking gets back to analysis of data and trend analysis. I have led in debates on subjects such as climate change, carbon tax and the emissions trading scheme when they were not popular. I have led on nuclear debates. If you look at the Hansard, prior to my speech in March 2005 there was no mention of the word 'nuclear'. I have also been highly critical of the joint strike fighter since 2005. We would have joint strike fighters in service, right now, if Defence had been believed back in 2005.

In Australia science is in crisis. We need to look at a holistic solution. Professor Geoff Masters, chief executive of the Australian Council for Educational Research, in a media release describes the PISA results as 'disappointing'. Indeed, the trends in the International Mathematics and Science Study of 2011 show that between 1995 and 2011, with the exception of an improvement in year 4 mathematics performances, Australian students' performances in mathematics and science stagnated. During the same period, a number of other countries either dramatically improved their performances—including Singapore, Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei—or showed steady improvements in performance—including Korea and the United States. Professor Masters said:

It is difficult to see how Australia will be in the top five countries by 2025 if we continue on our current path. We need to look carefully at what improving countries are doing to see what lessons there are for Australia.

I have been looking at this issue and consulting widely. For secondary schools, I very much support the review of the curriculum as announced by Minister Pyne.

I would like to broach a few issues concerning improving science. Some of them will probably prove quite controversial, including the first one I mention—that is, subject-matter expertise is more important than a teaching diploma. In other words, if we have the option of having people who have worked in the field as engineers or in the hard sciences wanting to teach, we should not bog them down by saying they need to do a full year's teacher-training diploma in order to teach. We should expedite the process and make it very quick. Perhaps we should have mentors, but we should get those people teaching. In other words, we need to fast-track them.

We need to pay hard sciences and maths teachers more, simply reflecting market reality. There is a greater demand for people in the hard sciences and maths, so we need to pay them more to get good students to do teaching. This is even, potentially, at the expense of class size. I would rather see an expert teacher teaching a larger class than a teacher who is struggling with the subject matter themselves teaching a smaller class.

In terms of tertiary education, we have got to stop student feedback being a metric of teacher quality. Difficult courses will be much harder to make popular with students than easier ones. We need to make sure that the quality of the teaching is actually reflected by measuring the output—the quality of students' results—rather than a popularity contest. Students in the hard sciences and maths should also take courses in entrepreneurship, intellectual property and patents.

In tertiary research we need to get rid of an act enacted just last year, and that is the Defence Trade Controls Act, or the DTCA, and put in a much less onerous agenda around the alignment of our legislation with the US ITARs, or the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. With it the way it is at the moment we are going to punish our research sector when this act takes effect next year. We must not make Defence the arbiters of what can and what cannot be independently researched in Australia.

I believe we should also be looking to the research sector, and this includes restrictive contracts that are drawn up between CSIRO and the universities. Indeed, I was on the advisory board of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Antimatter Matter Studies, and we really wanted to bring CSIRO in as one of the partners without research. But the provisions that CSIRO sought to put on us as far as IP was concerned was so onerous that it was far better just to leave CSIRO out, which is a tragedy.

We need to ensure that the Australian Research Council, the ARC, provides more funding for risky research rather than what I would call 'backfill' research, which is research that is far less risky, where you put in a bid for your research proposal knowing what you are going to get at the end.

We need to increase the diversity of the research undertaken under the ARC by having overseas experts act as referees for some research proposals where there is inadequate expertise to do this in Australia. At the moment there are subject areas where we have got one or two researchers doing very good work but we are unable to get people to referee research proposals from these people because we lack that expertise in Australia. We need to ensure that those research areas do not completely wither and die simply for lack of available referees in Australia.

We also need to fund more cross- and multidisciplinary research. I would put it to you that the ARC centres of excellence are an excellent model for this. The ARC centres of excellence are about multiple organisations working together in a multidisciplinary sense. It also enables funding to be granted for longer periods of time so scientists are not madly filling out research proposal after research proposal, which is a waste of time and of the scientists' expertise. Rather, get rid of that bureaucratese, if you will.

In my view, we need to remove any research priority on politically hot topics such as, for example, climate change. The reason I say this is that I had a very senior scientist admit to me in discussions—I am not going to say who it was or what the organisation was; I do not want to identify this person—that a certain area of research was nonsense and was never going to work, and he said, 'But I couldn't have said that 12 months ago because we had research that we were undertaking in that area.' Science is not supposed to be about convenient definitions and conveniences as far as funding is concerned; science is supposed to be about a search for truth.

The research proposals that get through the ARC at the moment are only funded to about 80 per cent of the level requested. There is a huge problem, obviously, with this, because if you are funded to 80 per cent of what you requested, to do a piece of work straight away, it changes the bounds of the work that you are going to undertake, because you can only undertake 80 per cent of it. We need to fully fund the proposals that are approved and, preferably, like the United States, not only fully fund but also actually provide contingency funding as well. This would enable that research to be done as agreed, so there are no excuses after the fact for research that is not undertaken.

We should also specify what I call 'linkage' grants, which are grants that are there specifically to link industry with science. We should specify a minimum percentage of linkage grants that need to be new linkages with industry, which would then force further outreach between research and industry. The problem at the moment is that it is all too convenient just to go back to the industry partners you are familiar with.

In my view, we need to gradually remove the outside funding requirement for the CSIRO. I remember when the so-called 30 per centers came in in the late eighties. It was done for a very good reason: to make CSIRO more responsive and more applicable to industry. The problem is that it actually distorted things, where far more than 30 per cent of the effort went into chasing that 30 per cent of funding. In addition to that, the level of research done in those 30 per centers equated very often to what was equivalent to Mr Fixit jobs rather than real research. We need to introduce a scheme similar to the United States' Small Business Innovation Research program to encourage innovation. This will allow a lot of spinoff companies to begin very easily. We need to expedite IP processes, and we need to ensure that the CSIRO and the universities are aware that intellectual property is a perishable commodity and that it becomes less valuable over time. Rather than trying to squeeze absolutely the nth degree out of it with lengthy processes to try and maximise that IP—in which time people are less likely to pay for it anyway because there will be alternatives out there—expedite the process and get the IP signed off as quickly as possible.

As far as climate change and the carbon tax is concerned, the carbon tax is a $9 billion a year hit on jobs. Unemployment already is 110,000 higher now than it was in July 2012, when the carbon tax was introduced. The carbon tax, even by the former government's own figures, is a giant handbrake on the economy. Labor's own figures state that by mid-century our economy will be cumulatively $1 trillion smaller with the carbon tax than without it—and all of this with no defined reduction in global average temperatures. There is a complete disconnect with the whole mechanism with carbon dioxide and global average temperatures—which is what it is supposed to be all about.

I welcome the review of the Renewable Energy Target that was announced by the Minister for Industry and the Minister for the Environment. Judith Sloane has pointed out that the RET by 2020 will increase electricity prices by 40 to 45 per cent. In my view, get rid of the RET, honour the contracts that have already been signed and let the market decide on a completely level playing field. The show stopper for renewables, quite frankly, in terms of baseload power, is storage. So, we should look at the cheap end of the innovation pipeline—that is, research. Instead of forcing uneconomic energy solutions on the market, we should try to get a solution where we can gain benefit from the IP. RETs and their equivalent damage economies. You only need look at Spain where they embarked on a massive renewable program to see the effects of this.

In terms of climate change we have cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. Indeed, we saw Professor Chris Turney get stuck in his own experiment, yet he still has no doubts about 'the science'. There is no 'the science': science is a process; it is not a noun. The simple fact is: if, back in 1995, I had made a prediction of future global average temperatures and I had said, 'Next year and every year afterwards is going to be the same as this year,' I would have been far closer to what has eventuated than the IPCC projections and predictions of that time. There has been a lack of warming for well over 10 years, contrary to model projections. Quite frankly, there is a lot of bad science that goes on in this. For instance, you have people with a certain paradigm that they accept; when you give them contrary data and evidence they look at ways to explain that data and evidence in terms of the paradigm they accept, rather than questioning that paradigm.

Appeals to authority and consensus show weakness in argument. For instance, when was the last time you heard 'The consensus of the world's scientists is that the earth orbits the sun'? Indeed, Newton's equations of motion were seen as a complete solution to mechanics for a period of nearly 200 years, until Lorentz transformed it and Einstein's theory of relativity. It is ironic that the Bureau of Meteorology said that last year was the hottest year on record. They do not talk about any sort of adjustments that they make to the data—and that is something I will be asking questions on. Furthermore, what about the 1890s and early 1900s where it was very warm and in all probability quite a bit warmer than last year. The Bureau of Met says, 'Well, that temperature data is unreliable.' But here is the catch: the IPCC has temperature data going back to 1850. Even if you accept that the rest of the world's temperature measurements were reliable, and it is a big call considering it was 1871 when you had Stanley saying, 'Dr Livingstone, I presume.' You can imagine the temperature measurements in Africa at that time. Even if all of those other measurements were accurate, you have this massive section of the globe called Australasia where, by the Bureau of Met's own acknowledgement, the records are unreliable.

In terms of nuclear power, we talk about baseload solutions. Japan is in the process of re-opening many nuclear power stations. Germany has failed comprehensively with renewables, but it has refused to expand its nuclear power industry. Guess where it is going? It is going back to more coal fired power. At present the only way to generate baseload in Australia, apart from coal and gas, is nuclear. Renewables do not cut it—sorry, they just don't. They do not cut it economically and they do not cut it in terms of reliability. Nuclear is economically competitive; it was marginally uncompetitive when Switkowsky did his review back in 2006-7, but we have seen electricity prices rise to reflect the reality of the market as far as gas and coal fired power is concerned. Nuclear is very much in the picture. It is in the picture in the US; in fact, it is the cheapest method of generating power in the US and similarly in South Africa. Quite frankly, in Australia we need to seize that opportunity. Burying our heads in the sand and saying, 'No nuclear. Terrible technology,' et cetera does not help. It is the safest method of generating power out there by far and, obviously, for Australia there would be scientific benefits as well in terms of training more nuclear engineers, more nuclear physicists. There are areas where we are screaming out for more engineers. Particularly with the car industry going, where are engineers going to be employed? Nuclear energy is a very good start.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate. I begin just by thanking electors for returning me here. It is always good to be re-elected, I have got to say. I have all the people of Salisbury, Elizabeth, the Adelaide Plains, Clare and Gilbert valleys, Barossa and all the wheat-belt towns like Kapunda, where I grew up, Balaclava, Owen and Hamley Bridge and a whole lot in between to thank for that, and I thank them sincerely. I also want to put on the record my thanks to Eamon Burke and Glenn Armstrong who managed my campaign, and of course my long-suffering electorate staff members: Mat Werfel, Rob Klose, Nimfa Farrell, and Caleb Flight—who has just become a father for the first time—Susan Cunningham and Awar Chibikwa. It is terrific to have all of my staff continuing with me and helping me along what it is a difficult path in political life. I would also like to thank all the volunteers that assisted me during the campaign. There are always too many to thank in one speech and it is, of course, easier to give a blanket thank you for fear of missing anybody out.

I have also got to thank my opponent Tom Zorich. Tom and I do go a way back, both as supporters of the Central District footy club. Tom was a former president of the Central District footy club and I know that he will be active in the local area and is always concerned with the local area. While we had our political differences, I wish him all the best.

The big issue in the campaign and in my electorate at the moment is of course the exit of Holden from car manufacturing in Australia and with them the exit of the components industry and the jobs crisis that will eventually hit South Australia. It is a slow-motion wrecking ball. You can be tempted to think that Holden has made their announcement and there does not seem to be much impact yet. But that is because we are yet to feel the true impact of the redundancies, the loss of economic activity and the slow wind-down. We see that not just in Elizabeth but also in Geelong and Altona and in places like that—anywhere where there is a components industry. Fifty thousand jobs are going, all intimately connected with one another.

We have seen this government abandon SPC. Fortunately, the Victorian government took up the role that would normally be played by federal government. And we now see that Qantas, in order to get any assistance at all, are basically being told to declare war yet again on their workforce, as they have done once before. It always startles me to see the government take this approach. My theory is that we will see the end of the national carrier, and of course it is the people in the regions who will suffer most of all from the process.

The economy of northern Adelaide is the manufacturing heartland traditionally, where both the jobs and the export driver of the whole of Adelaide have been located. I fear for that economy's integrity as we go forward, particularly from 2017 when a lot of the construction that is currently happening around South Australia will stop. We have the spectre of both a state and federal Liberal government potentially and I think that would bring a startling halt to infrastructure development in South Australia. We would have a jobs crisis in Holden, in infrastructure and in our shipbuilding as well, potentially dumping a lot of good, hardworking blue-collar workers out into the labour market all at one time and really changing the economic circumstances that South Australia has fought so hard to get—that is, economic diversification.

Clearly, we do need to be very careful about assessing the fears and the circumstances that we are in and there is the issue of confidence. I do not want to alarm people. We need people to be aware and we need action because of that awareness, but as Mr Stanley Chapley who owns the Munno Para shopping centres where my office is based has warned, talking down the north's economy could lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. We do need to be very careful of that. The north has weathered many storms in the past and it is interesting when we look at this debate whether we have clear analysis, awareness and action or whether we have hysteria.

I notice that there is an advertisement in the Bunyip today targeting Tony Piccolo. It is quoting a youth unemployment rate for northern Adelaide with the sorts of hysterics that the Liberal Party threw at me during the election, and recently threw at me with Senator Sean Edwards in the Senate making speeches there and releasing press releases about what I might do about youth unemployment, forgetting entirely that Tony Abbott is the Prime Minister, that the Liberal Party are in government, that they have chased Holden out of the country and, with that a whole components industry. One would not think that that is a good way of going about things.

We know that in the northern areas we have had a problem with youth unemployment going back at least to my childhood and probably beyond, possibly going right back to the 1970s when the textiles industry and the car industry began to shrink. So throwing numbers around and using political advertisements and pointing the finger at one another, is not particularly productive. It is a sort of game you can play, I suppose, but I do not think that it helps anybody. If people care to do a search, there are press releases from ministers and shadow ministers of both parties where basically you could transpose the scripts or the figures.

What we really need is less finger-pointing, particularly by the government, and more action. That is my great fear: we have had this terrible crisis and we have had a government that is issuing ultimatums to companies—playing chicken with multinational companies—basically daring them to leave. These are matters that I have brought up many times in this House. But where is the replacement plan for the regions that are devastated by these big economic shifts that have been brought on by the government—brought on by the government, accelerated by the government and cheered on by the government? Where is the replacement plan?

It disturbs me, frankly, that when I talk to people around the place—important people who have ideas about what we might do with our local economy and how we might diversify and transform it—that the government is only just starting to take hearings on this. You would have thought that if they had had some advice about the car industry or if they had had an intention about the car industry—and they have been in government for six months now, so they have had plenty of time to think about it—there should have been, one would imagine, in an incoming government brief, something for them to have a bit of a think about what kind of jobs plan they were going to have to fix this up. You would have thought they would have started having preliminary discussions with councils about economic diversification to strengthen local economies in the anticipation of this crisis that they, the government, have brought on.

To help the government, I am happy to outline some projects in the local area which may assist them. The City of Playford has a number of them, the first being the Playford Regional Sports Precinct. This incorporates the Central Districts Football Club, which I mentioned before, and also, potentially, a school oval for Kaurna Plains and the Fremont-Elizabeth City High School. It also incorporates a number of playing fields stretching all the way from the Philip Highway up to Main North Road.

This sports precinct would be all about encouraging youth and other people to get involved in sports and recreation, not just as a leisure pursuit but, of course, as a career and a job as well. It is not just a big infrastructure spend, in terms of jobs—and that is a direct spinoff from that—but there are plans for ongoing traineeships and bringing sports organisations to headquarter in Elizabeth and the like, with the relocation of netball and tennis there. They are all important things; it is an important local infrastructure project. The council has done all the planning and it is ready to go, so there should be no barrier to the government getting on board with that project.

The important thing about the tennis courts now is that the Lyell McEwin Hospital is in the electorate—and it is probably one of the biggest employers outside of Defence and automotive. That hospital was, of course, named after Sir Lyell McEwin, a minister in the Playford government, back in the good old days when you could name a hospital after yourself. The tennis courts are directly behind the Lyell McEwin Hospital. If we can relocate the tennis courts then all of that land can be used for a health precinct. I think there is a great opportunity there to have medical training, research institutes and a health economy built at Lyell McEwin Hospital. That would trigger development in an adjacent shopping centre and in the local area. So you would have a big jobs spinoff by the creation of a sports precinct and a health precinct.

I think that one of the good things that we could do—and I hope that there would be some bipartisan support for this—would be to put a soldier recovery centre at that health precinct. I think we will have in the future many veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and other issues, and they should know that there is a place that is friendly with the military and open to their experience as veterans, but somewhere they can access as civilians. I think that would be a very good thing to pursue and to think about. I notice Minister Robert busily looking at his briefs at the table, but he may get a letter from me about such matters and I hope he would treat it seriously.

I have had a number of dealings with Mr Craig Hampson, who is a veteran, a survivor of an IED blast. He has now been discharged from the military and is getting on with his life. We want to make sure that people like Craig Hampson, who have served our country diligently and with bravery, get the best possible treatment. Despite the events of today, I think that we do have to be mindful that the ADF has had a very busy time, operationally, and we have many veterans who have served in Iraq, East Timor or Afghanistan on multiple deployments. We need to be serious about their treatment when they get home.

In terms of economic development, we also need to put back in place some of the projects that have been lost for one reason or another. Again, it is one of those areas where we can probably point the finger at one another, but in my opinion bringing back on the Adelaide to Gawler rail line electrification is a very important project for jobs and a very important project for South Australia. We hope that the government would consider it. Even if they do not want to be in public transport and rail, the state government has indicated that they are prepared to take it to Salisbury. It does not make much sense to have electric trains going to Salisbury and not then to Gawler. That federal funding that was ripped away by this government needs to be put back into the system.

The South Australian government, of course, delayed the project, and I think that was unfortunate. But we need to get that project back on track. It makes sense, because it would create hundreds of construction jobs at a time when South Australia will need construction jobs. We should also look, I think, in parallel at building the Northern Connector. It is a very important road that will connect the Northern Expressway up with the South Road Superway. That is very important to get freight to the port and to the Barossa Valley quickly. It would be a major economic contributor and obviously would have a big impact in terms of the infrastructure spend. Most importantly, it would get the freight trains out of Salisbury—the very fast moving trains that go through the centre of Salisbury now would be diverted and would be able to go through at great speed on tracks that are not in urban areas.

I think there are great opportunities there and great opportunities for synergy. It would also allow intermodal projects to develop around the Penfield area. When we were last in government we provided a $7 million grant to SCT to build the Penfield rail freight centre. It is going to create between 300 and 350 jobs, and about 50 jobs in construction on top of that. I got a project update from SCT the other day. There is really important work going on out there. Electrical conduits have now been installed. For the container pad the civil works have commenced. There are rail track activities. They have purchased the necessary rail componentry for the project. There is early work to facilitate the construction of the container park and the stormwater infrastructure has largely been put in.

That is a very important project. We gave funding for that probably nine months ago now and you can see it now developing. Those jobs will start to come online and compensate for some of the job losses. That is a very important project. If we have the Northern Connector going, we will see the development of intermodals up and down that line. There is another one at Balco at Bowmans up near Balaclava. That is a very important project that I give my support to. It is important to create some safe places to store hazardous goods, like fertiliser, far away from urban centres where they are now stored. The state government is supporting that project and has given them a grant to facilitate the growth of that idea.

There are also a lot of opportunities in horticulture development. That requires basically two things: water and power infrastructure to the Adelaide Plains. When in government we began important projects in water, particularly waterproofing Gawler and creating similar aquifer projects to those that exist in Salisbury and Elizabeth. Basically, it is water for industrial and council use and linking in with the Barossa irrigation scheme. It is particularly important to get all the schemes linked. If we can do that, that will provide water security up and down the whole of northern Adelaide, into the Barossa Valley and potentially for horticultural development on the Adelaide Plains. Developing the Adelaide Plains and bringing Bolivar water to those areas are critical for the creation of wealth. That will create a lot of jobs that can be utilised by school leavers, mature-age workers, migrants and the like. Actually very large numbers of jobs can be created in the horticulture industry, particularly in modern, sophisticated glasshouses.

So there is tremendous opportunity there. It does not have to be a partisan thing. When we come to developing the economic diversification plans to overcome some of the unfortunate and terrible actions regarding the automotive industry we should be bipartisan in the creation of jobs. I hope South Australia does not face a jobs cliff in 2017, 2018 or 2019. I hope the government acts with some urgency and starts to plan for jobs growth for northern Adelaide, knowing that it is the jobs, exports and economic wealth generator for the whole state of South Australia.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to begin my address-in-reply speech by thanking the people of Forrest for re-electing me as their local member. I will continue to work with them and for them both here in Canberra and within the electorate itself. I would like to thank those who did so much to help me throughout the campaign. I would also like to congratulate and welcome all of my fellow coalition members, especially those new to this place. I see the member for Hume is here, and I welcome him. The coalition has come to government at a critical time for Australia's future when a safe pair of hands is essential for our long-term sustainability. The shifting of world economics is far from over and this will occupy much of the government's time over the next few years.

I want to touch on a particular issue. As well as working on various standing and parliamentary committees, I am co-convener of the Parliamentary Friends of Primary Producers and co-convener of the Parliamentary End of Life Care Friends Group, which I want to talk about today. This is a really sensitive issue that is very difficult to talk about. Every single one of us over the age of 18 needs to plan ahead. Planning ahead involves thinking about your future and putting things in place so that your choices will be known and acted on if you cannot express those choices yourself at some time in the future. I know this is incredibly sensitive and is really difficult to bring up in conversation, particularly with those you love the most. They find it difficult as well as you. I hope that over time this conversation we have with our families will become a normal part of life. I encourage members to think about this.

We actually need to talk about planning ahead with our families and we need to talk about our own advanced care planning. Advanced care planning is not euthanasia. It is about you and me making decisions about our future and about our personal choices. It is actually about taking control of our own healthcare wishes and choices. It is the process of individuals discussing and making decisions about future health care, medical treatment options, lifestyle and even finances. You need to think about these things. Why? Just think what you would do if you became very sick, had a dreadful major accident or developed dementia and you simply could not express your choices—you could not talk to your doctor or your family—and you could not manage your own treatment, health care, lifestyle or finances. Now we all know that, unfortunately, accidents happen every day in one form or another and so this is for that particular day when you cannot talk about your choice of where you want to be, who you want around you and you cannot make people aware of just what it is you want and how you want it.

Advanced care planning and planning ahead is the process to help you have your say in how decisions are made for you when you can no longer speak for yourself, to plan your medical and personal care well ahead of the time that you might actually need it—you hope that you won't need it until a very advanced age, but you just do not know—so that, if at any time throughout your life you become too unwell or unable to make decisions for yourself, your wishes, as far as it is practicable, can still be respected by your healthcare team, your family and your carers. This gives both you and them the chance to prepare for the future. With an advanced care plan you can actually stay in control of the decisions that affect your care, even when you are not well enough to say so. I think we should all have an advanced care plan once we are over 18 years of age, because none of us knows what is ahead. Accident and illness can strike at any time throughout our lives, and no-one is guaranteed tomorrow.

I met in this place a wonderful young woman with dementia who is 28 years of age, which really brought it home to me how important planning ahead is and how it will give you and your family peace of mind now and throughout your life. There will be a process in place. You will have told your family what your wishes are. This is really especially important, and I encourage people who might find themselves in this position to do it now. It is important for people who have a chronic or life-limiting health condition, for people who are entering residential care facilities, and for people who have a condition that may lead to a loss of capacity to make decisions in the future, such as dementia. It is also important for those who believe their family may have different views or beliefs to their own, and that is something that happens throughout your life. This type of plan gives you control and immense confidence that your wishes will be respected. It takes the pressure off you, it takes the pressure off your family, and it gives your family and carers a very clear direction. They know what you want, how you want it and they understand why you want it.

If for whatever reason you are unable to understand or communicate your wishes and decisions about medical treatment and end-of-life care, remember that if you do not do it, then others will and that it is often your family members. They will decide things for you. They will have no choice but to make decisions on your behalf and hope that they get it right. For those of you who have been through this with your own loved ones, you will know how hard it is for families to make decisions following a major accident or after the diagnosis of serious or debilitating illness. It is incredibly stressful, and I know it well, and it hurts those involved. It is actually an emotional rollercoaster trying to decide what is the right decision, what is the best decision. What would your loved one want? What is possible and what is the right thing for the person that you need to provide that care for? What I do know is that often the guilt and grief from making these decisions stay with family members for the rest of their lives. They will worry constantly that they may not be doing what you really want done. So if you have not discussed your wishes and decisions with your family, your friends or others, and have not written down something to guide them, they will not know what you want them to do. This is the reason to have the conversation with your family and those involved in your health care; this is the reason to write down your wishes in an advanced care plan—that is, to save your family the stress and pressure if there is an emergency or a debilitating illness. It enables you to stay in control of your care. You can revise or change your plan whenever you choose. It is only going to be used if you are unable to make decisions or to communicate on your own behalf. So as you move throughout your life, you can just change it. It would be a practical plan that your family, your doctor and your healthcare team are guided by when the time comes—if it comes—and hopefully not for a long time.

When I looked at this I drew on some information funded by the department of health and ageing, Palliative Care Australia and Alzheimer's Australia for information on how to plan ahead and write an advanced care plan. If it was me, I would start with it as a work in progress. I think we really need to think about this, and it is a tough one to do. I would put a piece of paper on my fridge or on my benchtop and I would think about the plan as I went along throughout the days, and I would add to it as I thought about it over time. Alzheimer's Australia's Start2Talk plan focuses on these six simple steps. No 1: start to think about your future; get an understanding of your health conditions and how these might affect you in the future. No. 2: sort out your financial issues and organise someone who can manage your affairs if you cannot do this at some time. No. 3: choose who will speak for you. Make sure it is someone of your choice who will make decisions about your lifestyle and health care if you cannot do it. No. 4: express your health and care wishes. Consider writing down your values and wishes in an advanced care plan, and make sure you give copies to your GP and to anyone who may be called on to make a decision on your behalf in the future. No 5: just talk about this. Discuss your plans and talk to the people who may end up making decisions for you, about your values and wishes regarding the types of care and interventions you would want for yourself towards the end of your life whenever that is. And No. 6: review these wishes and plans by discussing these over time because your wishes may change as your health and lifestyle change.

There are worksheets and resources available on Alzheimer's Australia's Start2Talk website, but when I look at the Department of Health's and Palliative Care Australia's information, the advice is similar on how to write an advanced care plan. This can often be referred to in other states as an advanced care directive or a statement of choices. Again, it is important to check the name given to this document in your own state or territory, and the procedures you need to follow in your state. The general information provided said the same thing: think about the values and beliefs that are important to your life; think about your current health, possible future health issues and possible kinds of outcomes—quite a similar process; talk to your family, your friends, your doctor and the people you trust about your wishes, and choose someone to be your substitute decision maker, general or enduring power of attorney, or enduring guardian, depending on your state's legal requirements. Check these legal requirements where you live. The Public Trustee or Office of the Public Advocate can help with this information. But you need to ask yourself when you do this for yourself: am I confident that this person will make decisions based on what I would want? Make sure this person is one you can trust; a person who will listen very carefully to what you want your values and your future care to be, and who will follow your wishes to the very best of their ability. Make sure this person will take the process and your wishes as seriously as if they were their own wishes. And write them down. There are specific documents you can use, and I know there are some people who also include things like whether they want to be an organ donor or not. One important piece of advice is: once you have thought about it, discussed it and written it down, give copies to your family as well as to your doctor, and your local hospital perhaps, and to anyone you think needs to have one—so that they know what to do. There is no point in having a plan and going through all of that process, if people do not know about. You need to let them know. Don't leave it locked away somewhere 'safe'—because they will never find it. These plans are in addition to your will.

I know how difficult it is to have these kinds of conversations. I know that when I first said to my daughter: 'I need to have a talk to you about what I want, when either I cannot speak myself or I am at the end of my life', her first reaction was, 'Hey, mum, I don't want to think about that yet.' But when I explained why, she understood that this was important for her as well, and that this would give her peace of mind, because wherever possible she would be doing the things that she knew I wanted done—no guesswork, no agonising over the where or the how. What was even more interesting was when I then turned around and asked her—she is over 18—what she would want me to do if she was not well enough to speak for herself. I said that she needs to make the same sort of plan. Up until then, it was something she had never thought about. She is young, and none of us think we are going to need to deal with this until we are really old—but that is not how it is. Accidents and illnesses happen daily, and we all hope it is not us. But it is somebody. We all need to be prepared. So please, think about planning ahead. Think about an advanced care plan or directive. Take the pressure off yourself and your family.

I want to talk briefly about the fact that the coalition led the world in prioritising dementia. Our Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, then health minister, committed $320 million to help fund the dementia initiative, making dementia a national health priority. The coalition's fight against dementia involves a commitment of $200 million over five years. Already, we have some of the world's best neurologists and scientists committed to improving treatment, providing early interventions and ultimately, we hope, arresting dementia. This commitment will greatly enhance those efforts. This dementia funding will prioritise additional funding for research and projects in health and aged care, working with the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council, and boosting the numbers of Early Career Research Fellowships, Postgraduate Scholarships, Career Development Scholarships, and future fellowships for dementia researchers. These are great opportunities for our future scientists to improve the capacity and dementia research. The funding is there.

Now, in a sense, why dementia? I lost my own mother to complications caused by Alzheimer's dementia. It is a dreadful disease for the person and for their family—as it was for that great young woman I met. There is, as I said, the shock and horror of the diagnosis. For my mother, there were her desperate efforts to retain her dignity despite what was happening to her, and her confusion—despite what this disease did to such a capable and intelligent person. One of the other things that I would encourage others to do is something like what my sister and I did: we went to a workshop to understand how to deal with this disease and how best to help our mother We needed to know what she wanted. So, when she was able to talk, I asked her: 'Tell us what you want; tell us how best we can help you at this time.' And she certainly did that.

This is probably the toughest discussion you will have, and it is the toughest discussion your family will have—but, as I said earlier, please have the conversation. Please start the conversation about what you would want. I will be encouraging as many people as I can, irrespective of their age or their stage of life. It is so important to make these sorts of plans. And irrespective of the situation in which we find ourselves, we all owe it to our families and friends to make it easy for them. If you do have a major accident, or if you are diagnosed with a terrible illness or condition, sometimes—and we know this is the case with some of the cancers—the diagnosis comes not long before you pass away. There is so much to deal with, and so much emotion, it is really difficult for the person to think straight at that time. But if they have this sort of plan in place, it takes the pressure off. They can concentrate on dealing with the illness itself, on dealing with how they are feeling, and on dealing with their family's feelings. All of us—if it were us at that time—would agree: the one thing we would want to do is take the pressure off those whom we love most. We will know what we are going through ourselves, and we will see it is having the same impact on them. And often, families will feel helpless; they will know they cannot help in practical terms; and they may know it is a terminal condition. In that situation, this type of plan helps everybody. You will know that your family will do the things you want done. It certainly will help them—even after you have gone—because they will know that everything they have done is what you had wanted. They will have done their very best for you: they will know what it was you wanted, and they will have done their best to deliver that. That could well be the most important reason of all. I welcome all of the new members to this place.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise and speak in this place in the address-in-reply. I thank the people of the electorate of Kingston for returning me to this parliament for a third term. I am truly humbled by the confidence and trust that the residents of the southern suburbs have placed in me. The seat of Kingston is in outer metropolitan Adelaide, a wonderful location to live, work and raise a family, with beautiful beaches and some of the best wineries on our doorstep and with a strongly connected community. I am truly honoured to be their representative here in Canberra and will continue to work hard and fight for them in this place. Over the last six years as the member for Kingston I have fought to improve the quality of life of people living in the southern Adelaide region, and I will continue to fiercely do this.

As in many outer metro areas throughout Australia, services and infrastructure in Kingston are stretched and in need of improving. People look to government to help with those challenges. One area which is extremely important to the residents in my electorate is access to fast, affordable broadband. Australia's copper network has been outdated for some time, and it no longer caters for the needs of the community. Indeed, in some areas in my electorate, people cannot access any form of broadband due to insufficient infrastructure.

Areas in southern Adelaide were some of the first to be connected to the National Broadband Network. People in those areas are enjoying the economic and social benefits that a decent internet connection facilitates. I get regular endorsement of Labor's fibre-to-the-home NBN from people in my electorate, including older people, younger people, students, small business owners, and mums and dads. However, with the election of the Abbott government and the cancellation of the NBN, the government is creating a digital divide in our community between those who have access to 21st century infrastructure and those who do not. In some places, one side of the street has a fibre connection installed while the other side does not. This is not equitable and is incredibly short-sighted.

The coalition is creating so much uncertainty amongst local residents and small businesses when it comes to internet connection. Uncertainty around this access is affecting those who live in my electorate, including Imelda and Peter, who are in the process of establishing their business from their home in Silver Sands. This area was earmarked for the next stage of construction of fibre to the home, and they were excited about the opportunities that this would bring. Imelda stated that she has had experience of speeds in the nearby town of Willunga, which has already been connected to the NBN, and she was looking forward to establishing her business at home. However, it seems that Silver Sands has disappeared from the NBN map with no explanation. No solution has been offered by this government to the connection problems experienced by people such as Imelda and Peter. This not an isolated story; it is repeated right across my electorate. Unfortunately, under the previous coalition government, my electors had to put up with 18 failed broadband plans. It is time for a solution from this government. I will be fighting and calling for a solution every time I am in here, because people in my electorate need accessible broadband.

Accessible, affordable health care is also of incredible importance to those in my community. During the six years of the previous government, the Labor government, we saw an enormous investment in health in the southern suburbs of Adelaide. The Labor government understood the growing needs and challenges of the healthcare system, particularly in outer metropolitan areas. I am proud of the investments in expanded GP practices and after-hours GP access programs; the extensions to training programs; the investment in the Noarlunga GP superclinic; the investment in mental health initiatives, such as the headspace at Noarlunga; and, importantly, the investments in primary healthcare organisations such as the southern Medicare local.

It is, therefore, extremely concerning that, where we saw bulk-billing increase to 83 per cent under the previous Labor government, those investments are under threat. A $6 co-payment is hanging over the heads of all my electors. That has not been ruled out by the Liberal Party. It would put further cost-of-living pressures on families in my electorate and would put primary health care out of reach for many people. Decent health care is a human right, and there is a responsibility on government to ensure that people right around the country, including in my electorate, can access affordable health care when they need it, not just when they can afford it.

I am concerned about the Liberal government's plans to cut in the area of health care. Unfortunately, the Treasurer is hiding behind his Commission of Audit report, which is on his desk but has not been released to the people of Australia. It is time to for the Treasurer to come clean. What cuts are on the table when it comes to health? How will the report affect my local electors? They were not told this before the election. The bad news from this government seems to only be coming after the election.

I am also very passionate about Australia's health workforce—about ensuring that our nation is prepared to meet the challenges of providing a skilled workforce for the future. The previous Labor government worked hard to undo the damage of the Howard government. We invested in clinical training and uncapped GP training places to help ensure we were addressing the challenges of an ageing population and the complexities around chronic illnesses. Investing in prevention—about which there has been some debate in this place—is the only way that we can decrease the cost burden on the healthcare system. Stopping people from getting sick is our big challenge. It is now, more than ever, time to train and prepare our health workforce—whether that be our doctors, our nurses, our allied health professionals or our care workers. The government must not take their hands off the wheel like they did the last time they were in government. They must follow Labor's groundwork when it comes to training our health workforce.

I am also really proud that over the last six years the Labor government invested in infrastructure, including the Seaford rail extension in my electorate. This now means that southern Adelaide is home to one of the longest rail bridges in the world. But that is not the only good thing about this important project. The Labor government understood the importance of supporting and investing in both road and rail infrastructure in outer metropolitan areas such as southern Adelaide. After 30 years of this rail corridor being earmarked for an extension, we now have it built and, as of last Sunday, electric trains are running on it, connecting the Seaford area to the wider Adelaide region with fast, affordable public transport. With the electrification of the line, locals will be able to get into the CBD faster than they would if they were to get into their car and drive through peak hour traffic. The construction, as I said, is now complete and supported 400 jobs.

This was one of the projects that the then opposition said was a waste of money. Well, it is not a waste money to my electorate. I will be fighting for an extension to Aldinga as the important next step, and I am so pleased that the state Labor government has announced that it will buy the land to make sure that that corridor to Aldinga is there. I will certainly be calling on this government, as well as whoever forms government in the state, to fund this rail extension further, to Aldinga. It is critically important to my electorate.

It is disappointing that we have a Prime Minister who says he is an infrastructure Prime Minister but who, from my electorate's perspective, has only cut money from infrastructure. The Tonsley rail duplication and transport hub was already going ahead. Workers were already on the ground. The money that was provided under Labor's May budget has been cut, because the Prime Minister does not believe in investing in urban rail. This project will have significant benefits for people in the northern part of my electorate, giving them the ability to park and ride into the city on a faster, efficient service so that they can access the CBD and wider Adelaide. It is a travesty that this has been cut, and it shows a short-sighted government who will not commit to rail infrastructure and who seem to dismiss urban rail as something that they are not to get involved in. In fact, I think the Prime Minister likened it to knitting. I am not sure why he did that, but it is infrastructure that is desperately needed in communities, and I will fight for it in this place.

Before this government was elected, they did not tell the people of Australia about the many cuts of programs they were going to make. It is not just cuts in infrastructure; it is also cuts to smaller investments, in local sporting clubs and organisations, investments that would build healthier, more connected communities. In my electorate, already we have seen a cut of money to the Sammy D Foundation, who are looking at prevention of alcohol fuelled violence. We have seen cuts to clean tech grants which were supporting industry to move to cleaner energy. We have seen a cut to the upgrade to Bice oval, an important local sporting area, and a cut to the money that was going to facilitate planning for the Aldinga town square. These cuts will have a negative impact on both the social fabric of our community and the productivity of our local economy. Once again, I will be in here fighting to get these cuts reversed. I call on the Prime Minister and the government to reverse these cuts.

Families in my electorate support—and have regularly communicated this to me—the fundamental concept that, no matter where your child attends school, they deserve an excellent education. Everyone that I speak to knows how important it is to invest in our children's future. Therefore, providing funding to the students who need it the most is a critically important value. This is a strongly held belief in my community, and I agree it is the right thing to do—to ensure that we have an equitable society but, more importantly, that all our children are given the opportunity to succeed. I think even the Liberal Party and the National Party recognise the overwhelming support for that. Indeed, at the election they promised that they were on a unity ticket with Labor. Now we see them breaking their promise. Even the member for Boothby had signs up saying, 'We will match, dollar for dollar, the funding for every school; no school will miss out.' They knew it was a belief that was held by the community very strongly that we should invest in education and in a needs based system. Unfortunately we see the coalition walking away from this promise, saying one thing before the election and doing a very different thing after the election. I will be watching with great interest to ensure that the coalition keep their promise of matching, dollar for dollar, the funding for every school that was promised under Labor.

I was proud to go to the election with the position that Labor believed in co-investing with private enterprise to spur innovation and protect jobs. The news about Holden and Toyota leaving this country will impact the local manufacturing base in my electorate in a serious way. Significant components manufacturing exists in the southern suburbs of Adelaide. As a result of this news, it is extremely vulnerable. We need a government who will act and not sit on their hands. Where is their plan for jobs? We see nothing. Day after day Labor is in here calling the Prime Minister for a plan. We have seen some money announced for Holden. It is not enough. It is not enough to restructure South Australia's economy and Adelaide's economy. Sixty million dollars just does not cut it. We do not know where that money is. I call on the government. We need to support workers who have lost their jobs and we need to support the components manufacturers to diversify their businesses and connect with global supply chains. And we need regional readjustment. I will continue to fight for jobs for my constituents in this place, to demand action from this government to ensure that this very bad news about Holden and Toyota—and a number of other announcements—will not destroy economic productivity and economic benefit in my local electorate. Voters in my electorate are rightly concerned about their future, their jobs and their families. They want access to good education and services, and I will hold this government to account.

I offer my congratulations to my fellow South Australian Labor team, both those who were successful and those who were not at the most recent general election. It is wonderful to have returning with me to the 44th Parliament the member for Wakefield, the member for Adelaide, the member for Makin, the member for Port Adelaide and Senator Penny Wong. It is great to have South Australians back in this parliament fighting for Labor values and for South Australia.

It was unfortunate that two candidates were not successfully returned. Steve Georganas, former member for Hindmarsh, was an extremely hard-working member who was always standing up for his constituents in this place. His work in the health and ageing policy space demonstrated the focus on the issues that mattered to his constituents and he will be missed from this place. I also want to place on record my sadness and disappointment that Senator Don Farrell will not be returning to this place after June. I have known Don for many years and he is a decent person, a skilled advocate, a thoughtful and considered parliamentarian and a consensus builder. His passion for South Australia is boundless and his achievements in government are considerable. His exit will be a huge loss for the Senate and it is extremely unfortunate for South Australia that he will not be able to make a contribution in the South Australian parliament.

The result in Kingston that Labor received was an endorsement of our investment in health, education, jobs, infrastructure and the NDIS and a rejection of Tony Abbott's negative scare campaign. However, communicating our message and our vision takes a lot of work and there are many people I would like to thank for lending a hand. I would like to thank all the Labor Party supporters, as well as the community supporters who worked so hard standing at the polling booths all day. Without you we would not have had this result. For the first time since the seat was created, it did it not change hands with a change of government.

I would like to thank the Kingston FEC, including Phil and Jo Giles, John Gauci, Andrew and Lorrae Clarke, Vicki Williams, Thad Taylor, Peter Kitson, Ella Keegan-Treloar, Joy Parry, John Drew, as well as the many others branch member who have worked hard continuously to support me since becoming a candidate in 2006. I would like to thank my campaign team, including Tom Carrick-Smith, Peter Bouzalas, Sarah Huy, Jayson Bailey, Dustin Platt, Guy Wilcock, Gemma Paech and Micheal Bezuidenhout, all who volunteered their time, often while working or studying as well.

A big thank you also goes to my staff, who put so much work in at the election and continuously over the last six years. They never lose sight of what is important, and that is representing and delivering for people who need us. Thanks to Emmanuel Cusack, who has worked for me since 2007, and to Ellen Calam, since 2009. Thanks also to Daniel Nikoloski, Rebekah Huppatz, Connie Blefari, Sam Hamilton and Antony Coles, who went above and beyond what they needed to do during the election. They were great support.

I would like to make special mention of Mary Portsmouth, who retired after this election having worked for me for the last six years. Mary has been a stalwart of the Labor movement, has worked on shop floors, in factories, and in retail and aged care, always standing up for others in her workplace. She will be missed by many constituents. I wish her well in her extensive travel plans. Replacing her is Ethne Lange, who has joined our team and is able to step into Mary's big shoes.

I would like to thank my crack campaign manager, Josh Peak, for his energy, passion, drive, ideas and vision. He ensured that our campaign was run extremely well, stayed on message and was very well organised. The Labor Party and the Labor movement is and will be extremely well served with people like Josh at its heart. I have no doubt he will be in this place some day.

To those in the union movement who supported me, including Peter Malanalskis, Bob Donnelly and John Camillo, thank you so much for your support. To both the national and state ALP offices, including George Wright and Reggie Martin and their teams, thank you so much, as well as all the hard-working Labor staffers throughout our organisation.

I would like to thank my mum and dad, who help every election getting posters up and pulling them down and setting up booths, and to my in-laws, Wendy and David Walker, who have been roped in to help out as well. Thanks to my wonderful husband, Tim. Tim is a conscript to political activism, but despite that, he stayed up for 48 hours before polling day, setting up booths and pulling down corflutes.

Finally to the voters of Kingston, I will endeavour to serve you whether or not you voted for me. I will be a strong voice here in this parliament or whenever you need me to be your advocate. For those voters who did put their faith in me, I will not let you down.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to be back here representing the electorate of Swan for the third time. Back in 2007, with a startling victory in Western Australia where we thought we might have reached a high-water mark, I managed to win the seat by the enormous number of 164 votes. At the time it took three weeks to decide. That particular vote was increased to just over 4,000 in the 2010 election and now we are up to over 10,000 votes—confirmation that the people of Swan have confidence in me and in the Abbott government and a display of displeasure toward the previous Labor government who had affected voters' capacity and lifestyle.

The desire to change the government was obvious. In Western Australia we had 12 out of 15 seats. To the people of Western Australia I say you have made a wise choice. You have finally put a government back in which would have loved to have come in like the Rudd government in 2007 with a $20 billion surplus on the books. But I fear we have been left with a very large anchor and it is going to take some time for this government to right the wrongs, which we are determined to do.

Representing the seat of Swan is an honour and a privilege. Over the past six years it has been fantastic to mix in with a group of diverse people in the electorate. I have enjoyed representing their needs and desires in this place and being out and about in the electorate, learning what it is about and seeing their hopes and dreams for a better government come to fruition in 2013.

I would like to comment on the campaign. Since 1998, the seat of Swan has been an anti-bellwether seat, and this is the first time since 1998 it has been held by the government of the day. I can only put that down to the hard work by the people in my electorate and the motivation of my campaign team, the division, the over 600 people who manned the booths on election day, the over 300 people who put yard signs on properties and all the people who helped arrange that. I make special mention of Jesse Jacobs, who helped arrange all those yard signs throughout the electorate. He did a fantastic job along with all the other volunteers. There are many people I could thank. They are all appreciated and I will thank them when I see them. Most of them have come to meetings since the election and have been thanked for the amount of work they put in to make sure we kept Swan and brought in the Abbott government.

There is one particular person I would like to thank—my campaign manager, my wife. She had never run a campaign before. She did a fantastic job. Cheryle probably worked harder than the candidate and did a great job in putting together templates for future use—

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Maybe she should be the candidate.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I am sure I am going to get a reward when I get home for mentioning her in this speech. The professionalism, organisation and dedication that she brought to the campaign from her previous working life was second to none. Senator Alan Eggleston, who helped us on the campaign, also said he had not seen a more professional campaign than what Cheryle put together. It looks as though we are in for it again in close to a month's time. The WA Senate election has been announced and Western Australia will go back to the polls. I am sure that the division of Swan will be up for the fight and we will make sure that we return the same result that we had in the 2013 election.

We put forward positive local plans during the election. One of the main differences between our campaign and the campaigns of our opponents is that we outlined a positive plan for the future of the electorate of Swan. Others engaged in negative advertising and negative campaigning, with flyers being dropped into areas where they thought they could get a swing. The flyers were negative about me and my family. We made sure that we did not stoop down into the gutter and the match that negative campaigning. We ran a positive campaign and let the people of Swan know that that was what we were about. We wanted to win the election based on positivity not negativity.

I was keen to make sure that we provided a positive plan for people and that they understood it, because that is what the people of Swan deserve. To be elected as a member of parliament is to be elected as a leader in the community in which you serve. In my view, in this position you must have a plan for the area—not a headline, not a vision or an intangible dream that can never be achieved but a plan that can be delivered. At this election as in 2007 and in 2010, I saw it as my job to put forward a plan, articulate it to my community and seek their endorsement for its implementation over the next three years.

My plan for Swan is a five-point plan. The first part has a focus on delivering community infrastructure to meet our future needs. In particular, we focused on two areas: providing $45,000 for a feasibility study for a new regional aquatic centre in the Manning-Karawara precinct, and bringing the West Coast Eagles to the Lathlain oval in order to secure world-class sporting infrastructure for our community. Members from the 42nd and 43rd Parliaments will be aware of the importance which I place, as a member of parliament, on community infrastructure, facilities that not only provide important services—whether they be health, childcare or sporting facilities—but provide spaces where people in the local area can come together and interact. This is the basis of a strong community.

I publicly proposed the relocation of the West Coast Eagles AFL club to Lathlain oval three years ago, prior to the 2010 election, following the Liberal-National state government's announcement of its intention to build Perth's new stadium in the suburb of Burswood, adjacent to Lathlain in my electorate of Swan. I felt at the time the benefits from the creation of a wold-class sporting facility in the heart of the electorate of Swan would be enormous. Lathlain oval is home to the Perth Football Club, a WAFL club I have had a long involvement with, having run their junior development program whilst I was a director on the board. I am currently still a patron of the club.

I have seen my son Jarrad go through the ranks from under-14 development squads to playing in the AFL in 2011 and 2012, and now back to the Perth Football Club as a senior player. Many of his mates from the district have shared the PFC journey with him. The PFC is now ably led by Vince Pendal, who has over the years steadfastly protected the large tract of land at Lathlain oval from attempts at subdivision and attempts at pinching car-park space. The PFC has been keen to see the land retained for sporting use for the benefit of the community. I have been a keen advocate of the land being used to its full potential, to create a centre for sporting development for the whole community to use. I saw that the new stadium at Burswood provided this possibility, which was one of the reasons I was such a strong supporter of the Barnett plan.

After proposing this idea, I worked carefully behind the scenes with the West Coast Eagles to further develop and advocate for the idea. Over time, it went from a proposal to five options to a preferred option and then to a detailed concept plan, announced the day before the federal election. This will be a $60 million development, a world-class precinct with a David Wirrpanda Foundation, a cafe, a museum and an indoor swimming pool, with the community not shut out but welcomed in. The Eagles want to ensure they are inclusive of the community and not exclusive. There are many opportunities for schools from all suburbs of Perth to visit this fantastic development. The Eagles plan to make sure they involve as many people from the community of Lathlain, in my electorate.

The coalition has been a great supporter of the proposal. I will continue to work behind the scenes to bring this project to fruition for the benefit of the community. As I mentioned, it would not have been possible without the state government's bold move to relocate football to a multipurpose stadium at Burswood. There was a hiccup at the last state election, as the then member for Victoria Park and the Labor Party said that if they won the election they would keep the existing stadium, which is probably not suitable and not up to current AFL standards. After having numerous photos taken with the Premier and the local parliamentary secretary in charge of stadium procedures, the then member for Victoria Park back-flipped at the election and supported his leader by saying we should keep the stadium at Subiaco, despite saying for the previous six months that the stadium would be moved to Burswood. Again, we saw politics of opportunity being used by the Labor Party. We still had to seize the moment as a community and I was pleased to help bring to fruition this plan for the Eagles to come to Lathlain.

The second piece of community infrastructure we included in our positive plan for the electorate was a Liberal commitment of $45,000 for a feasibility study for a new regional aquatic centre in the Manning-Karawara precinct. This commitment is part of a local issues campaign I started in 2011 after hearing about the issue from one of my constituents. We ran a survey in the area and had responses from more than 1,000 people, with 98.7 per cent in favour of an aquatic centre. It was a local campaign worth pursuing. The local council did not have it in the corporate plan. One response I received from the town office was that to proceed with the centre a feasibility study would need to be done. The coalition came to the fore and committed $45,000 for the study. Last night the council had a meeting and the motion to accept the $45,000 was carried five to three, with some initial proponents who had objected to the idea of this community facility voting to accept the coalition's money. We look forward to having the study done.

The Manning-Karawara part of my electorate of Swan is a burgeoning area within the City of South Perth, adjacent to Curtin University, WA's largest university, yet neither Curtin University nor the City of South Perth operates public aquatic facilities. We ran a community survey, and so did the City of South Perth. Both demonstrated that an aquatic centre was a priority for the community and a year later I held a public meeting with the member for Bennelong. The member for Bennelong was good enough to present to the people of my electorate the successful sports mall model he had used prior to entering parliament. This model uses public-private partnerships, permitted under WA law. Strong interest was indicated by Curtin University, Western Australia Water Polo and a host of other organisations. In the meantime, the City of Canning had closed its aquatic facilities in Bentley and opened a brand-new complex in Cannington, increasing the need for facilities in the area surrounding South Perth. The $45,000 commitment by the coalition will provide an opportunity for the community to take this proposal to the next level.

This type of community infrastructure fits the present and future growth needs of this area and will complement the exciting Curtin proposal along with the planned medical school, which I fully support. The member for Pearce spoke last night in the adjournment debate about his support for the medical school and I know the member for Hasluck has also spoken in this place on his support for that school. Along with the Eagles' move to Lathlain, this has the potential to provide a new axis for sporting excellence in the electorate of Swan. I am proud that the Liberal Party made a commitment at the election that will help take this to the next level. I have made sure this funding has been offered to the City of South Perth on behalf of my constituents.

The electorate of Swan, as I mentioned in my maiden speech, takes its name from the rivers which form its boundary on virtually three sides. There was a redistribution in 2008 which added three suburbs to the south of the Canning River, yet the river and the wetlands it feeds remain the dominant environmental features of the electorate. As a result, the continuous improvement of our river system is an environmental imperative in the electorate of Swan, one I have spent much time working on during the previous six years, particularly with the environmental groups in the Canning River Regional Park—the Wilson Wetlands Action Group, the CRRP Volunteers and, of course, SERCUL.

I am proud that, through consultation with the groups and active engagement of coalition ministers with the wetlands and the river, we managed to secure a unique commitment from the coalition. That commitment is $1 million for the Swan-Canning River Recovery Program focused on the Canning Wetlands. This is a recommitment of the 2010 funding. The funding is to be targeted at the management of weeds, specifically hydrocotyle. Revegetation and education programs will also be targeted, and will be directed by a group of volunteers. There has been recent press coverage in the electorate about the expansion of hydrocotyle. It needs to be dealt with, and I am glad we have made that commitment and will support volunteer groups.

The commitment is about local action on the ground to improve the environment in the electorate of Swan. It is not a grand scheme to overhaul river management, as some academics have mistaken it to be. It is about getting real results by tapping into the expertise of our local environmental volunteers who know how to build on the excellent work they have already started. I would particularly like to thank the Minister for the Environment and the Assistant Minister for the Environment, who are great believers in this project having visited the wetlands in my electorate and backed this commitment twice, in 2010 and 2013. I further note that for the last two federal elections the Liberal Party has been the only party to commit to a project in the Canning River Wetlands. The Greens and Labor have been silent. Now, with a coalition government, it finally can be delivered and I look forward to being a part of the process, along with the volunteer groups.

Part 3 of the local plan we put forward covers support for the delivery of local road upgrades including the $1 billion Gateway WA project, to be delivered without a mining tax which destroys jobs and raises very little revenue. Gateway WA is about securing the future of industry and jobs in my electorate of Swan, particularly within the Kewdale-Welshpool transport hub, the area where I first started my own business 26 years ago. The road upgrades at key intersections will improve the links between the hub and the major roads—the Tonkin, Roe and Great Eastern highways—and the airport. Specifically, this includes: the Tonkin-Leach highways intersection upgrade; the provision of a diamond type interchange at Horrie Miller Drive-Kewdale Road-Tonkin Highway; the upgrade of the Roe Highway-Tonkin Highway interchange; and grade separation of the Leach Highway-Abernethy Road intersection.

I take the view that no industry's future is guaranteed and if we want great sectors like the transport and freight hub in my electorate to continue connecting Western Australia and producing jobs, we need to create the conditions under which it can thrive. That is why I was proud to be able to announce in 2010, and again in 2013, that the coalition would deliver the Gateway WA project, in partnership with the WA government, without the mining tax. Removing the link to the mining tax is particularly important to secure the delivery of this project. The Labor Party's disastrous decision to link Gateway WA to mining tax revenue put the project at significant risk of non-delivery because the mining tax did not raise any money.

With the election of a coalition government I am confident we can deliver Gateway WA and with this build on our successful upgrade of the Great Eastern Highway and a number of local roads in Welshpool, Lathlain and Carlisle, which have been done in recent times.

The fourth part of my local plan was crime prevention, a major issue for the electorate of Swan, specifically through a commitment to continue the work I have been undertaking to improve security at shopping centres with funding to be made available for the installation of CCTV cameras around the perimeter of Belmont Forum and Belmont Village. My community expects to be able to live in a safe and secure environment, and I am working all the time on local crime prevention initiatives in my electorate of Swan. I have had a particular focus on Belmont with the CCTV commitments secured in 2007 from John Howard. I see the member for Gorton is here. The Labor Party, I must admit, did continue that commitment that John Howard had made and the member for Gorton came and announced the opening of that commitment on CCTVs. Our 2013 $100,000 commitment at Belmont forum builds on that legacy. I believe in the targeted roll-out of CCTV in the electorate of Swan because, quite simply, it gets results.

In the short time I have left I will explain that since January 2013 48 incidents involving closed-circuit television have been given to the police. There have been 20 positive results where offenders have been identified and prosecuted, 24 have been filed pending further information coming to light and four are still under investigation.

It is a privilege to be elected again and I look forward to finishing the rest of my speech sometime in the future. Thank you to the people of Swan and Western Australia for re-electing me.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I start my contribution by recording my gratitude to the electors of Gorton for returning me so emphatically in September last year. This is my fifth term, and my fourth term as the member for Gorton. It is a great honour and privilege to represent this most vibrant and growing north-west constituency in what I would argue is the best city in this country.

I would also like to record my thanks to the many Labor Party members and supporters who undertook the work of doorknocking, letterboxing, staffing polling booths on election day and pre-poll. Without their help, without their support, the result may not have been fundamentally different but certainly the margin of the result would have been. I thank them very much for their assistance.

I would also like to thank my campaign manager, Colin Robertson, who has been my campaign manager for a number of elections and has been a staff member. He has moved on to new things. He did a great job and I would acknowledge his efforts not only in that role but in his role in my electorate office for 10 years. While I am doing that I would also like to pay tribute to Mr Sean Payne, who spent almost as much time in my office. He has also recently departed the office. I wish them both the very best for the future.

While I am on my feet thanking people I would like to also acknowledge those who contributed to my efforts as minister for six years—all of my staff. There are too many to mention but I would like to pay particular tribute to my chiefs of staff, Julie Ligeti and Yvette Nash and all of the others who did such great work to assist me for the government and, of course, ultimately for this nation. I thank them one and all.

I thank again my partner, Jodi. The last 18 months has been a very difficult time for us. Any time I found the going tough in my role as a minister or in government—and indeed there were some times—I only had to think about Jodi's indefatigable fight against a debilitating illness to be inspired and motivated. So I thank her for that and, of course, I continued to, with her, hope to ensure that she will recover fully from that challenge.

The address by the Governor-General on behalf of the government spoke of 'more jobs, higher wages and the funding of better services'. Let us look at jobs. That speech did contain the government's commitment to deliver one million new jobs in five years. So almost six months after the election we should really consider how this commitment is travelling. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has indicated that in that time there has been a net job loss of 63,000 full-time jobs. When compared with the net addition of part-time jobs growth, there is a net loss overall of 7,000 jobs. In other words, instead of being 100,000 additional jobs, we have fewer jobs than when this government was elected, and the jobs that are emerging are part-time jobs, substantiating the concerns of many economists and others that underemployment is growing.

We should also consider the participation rate. The participation rate—that is, eligible workers looking for work—has fallen to its lowest since April 2006. That means that this government is presiding over a lower participation rate than at any time during or after the global financial crisis. That is a concern, and it should be a concern to the government. The other thing to note is that these results have yet to factor in the decisions by Holden and Toyota to leave Australia for good. They do not take into account the closure of Forge Group and the huge job losses at Alcoa, Rio Tinto, Qantas and other big companies. We have yet to hear from Qantas about the further job losses—and I am advised that may well happen tomorrow morning—on top of the 1,000 job losses they already foreshadowed some weeks ago, but the prospects are bleak. The unemployment rate of six per cent is the highest for 10 years and has also not taken into account the thousands of job losses that will follow the end of the car manufacturing industry, particularly in the car component parts sector, with approximately 55,000 jobs. So it is an inauspicious start for this government and its so-called promises to deliver on jobs.

I want to make it very clear that it is not the case that the opposition is of the view that every job lost under the Abbott government is the government's fault. But there is no excuse for not having a considered plan—not having a plan to mitigate job losses, not having a plan to save jobs and not having a plan to transition workers from those jobs that are going into emerging jobs or new jobs. That is the question the opposition has put time and time again to this government: where is the jobs plan for Holden workers? Where is the jobs plan for Alcoa workers, Toyota workers, Electrolux workers or the workers who were employed in alumina plants at Gove? What effort, energy or industry of this government is being deployed to look after these hardworking Australians?

The Prime Minister talks of liberating these workers from assembly lines for better jobs, but where are these better jobs and what are the government doing to put in place a transition from old to new, a pathway from joblessness to jobs? The opposition has yet to see where the government are fighting hard for these workers. The government have given up too easily on these companies. We saw the Treasurer goad Holden into leaving our shores. The government have given up too easily on these companies, they have given up too easily on this work and they have given up too easily on these workers.

I note that today, finally, the government has responded to the opposition's call to improve support for our farmers who are confronted with a very bad drought. We await the detail, but we are pleased the government has finally decided to respond to that challenge. I know you, Deputy Speaker Scott, would be one of many in this House who would welcome that decision. But it begs the question: why is there so little support for our manufacturing workers? The misery of joblessness, of the sense that you have been thrown on the scrap heap, is as devastating for our fellow Australians in Melbourne's west, in North Adelaide or indeed in Nullumbuy as the plight of farmers struggling with drought. The fluctuations in the weather that the Minister for Agriculture refers to are no more devastating to farmers than the fluctuations of our dollar value, which has led to the pressure on the manufacturing sector, which has led also to or contributed to job losses in that sector. This is of concern to me and to the opposition and I think we should do everything we can to help those workers.

Debate interrupted.