Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great privilege to speak today to the address-in-reply on the occasion of the formation of the 44th Parliament. I want to begin by thanking the people of Calwell for their generous support and endorsement of my candidacy in the federal election of 2013. In returning to the 44th Parliament, I begin my fifth term as the member for Calwell. I have always aimed to be the best possible representative for my community. It is a role that carries responsibilities which I take very seriously and, as such, I will always endeavour to place the interests of my community at the front and centre of my work. My electorate is as diverse as it is interesting. I have spoken many times in this place about the diversity and complexity of the communities in Melbourne's north.

In this parliament, I have the privilege of welcoming to the federal seat of Calwell, following the last Victorian redistribution, a very large new community to the north-west of Melbourne. I am pleased to be representing the people of Keilor, Keilor Village, Keilor Lodge, Taylors Lakes, Sydenham and a small portion of the suburb of Hillside. These communities are not entirely new additions to the federal seat of Calwell. They were part of my constituency when I first became the member for Calwell in 2001, but were lost in the redistribution that followed in my first term. The most recent redistribution has brought them back into Calwell and I certainly look forward to our re-acquaintance. I also look forward to the opportunity to serve them.

I would like to say goodbye to the good people of Sunbury and Bulla and to those constituents north of Craigieburn Road. It was an honour to have represented them and I trust they will continue to be well represented by your good self, Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, member for McEwen. I look forward to working with you as my neighbour to the north, as we advance the interests of Melbourne's north-western constituencies.

During the first term of the Rudd Labor government, the fast-growing suburb of Craigieburn, of which you and I share almost half each, received $9½ million from the Commonwealth government under the infrastructure funding at the time to build a new global learning centre. This was a significant contribution from the Rudd Labor government to a community which desperately needed a new library. I had the great pleasure of opening the Hume Global Learning Centre at Craigieburn a couple of years ago at which you, Deputy Speaker Mitchell, were also present.

I can report to the House that the suburb of Craigieburn now has a magnificent state-of-the-art library, a library for the 21st century, which is open to all the community. It is innovative and high tech. Most recently, it has also become the centre for the newly established multiversity, which is a new way of accessing higher education courses online, providing flexibility for training and life-long learning. Such a multiversity will provide great choices to all our constituents regardless of their age. My community has been transformed as a result of this infrastructure. It would not have been possible without the Infrastructure Australia programs established by the previous Labor government.

Despite the significant changes to the new boundaries of the federal seat of Calwell, I am pleased to say that it remains pretty much a dynamic and democratically diverse electorate, one whose residents—virtually all of them—have the same migrant story as my own. The people are from all corners of the globe. They range from newly arrived migrants, predominantly refugees fleeing war and persecution. I acknowledge the new and emerging Iraqi community, which is predominantly Chaldean Christian and Assyrian Christian. I take this opportunity to congratulate them on the fact that they have taken up citizenship in massive numbers. Deputy Speaker Mitchell, you and I have been to many citizenship ceremonies where a large number of people taking Australian citizenship are newly arrived from Iraq.

There are also the second and third generation Australians of Italian and Greek background or from Croatia, Serbia and Poland. Also, there are a very large number of Australians of Turkish background. All this makes Calwell home to the largest Muslim constituency in Victoria and second in the country. We have a lot of newer communities from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and Africa, and smaller communities from Myanmar, Nepal, the South Pacific Islands and New Zealand. And we have a lot of Australians of Irish, Scottish and English backgrounds. They are all part of the very rich fabric of this very multicultural part of Melbourne's north.

In recent times we have seen a steady influx of those who are escaping the hardships unleashed by the global financial crisis. Dealing with these constituents reminds us all—certainly me—of the very substantial impact the global financial crisis has had, especially in Europe, where a large number of my constituents come from. They retain very close ties to family in their countries of origin and they, too, feel their families' stress in those countries.

Calwell is the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. I pay my respects to their elders past and present and give thanks to this parliament for continuing the work of reconciliation with our first people, beginning with the apology to the stolen generation by the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. We are continuing in this parliament towards constitutional recognition of Indigenous people, for which I would like to congratulate Prime Minister Abbott, who has said that the government will, within 12 months, put forward for public consultation a draft constitutional amendment to recognise Indigenous people in the Constitution. I affirm to this House my support for such a process. In particular, I affirm the importance of bipartisanship in this very important process if we are to have a successful outcome.

As I stated, Calwell is demographically very diverse, reflecting the cultural and socioeconomic diversity of the broader Australian community. As different as we all may be in our community, either culturally, socially, linguistically or in our faith, we all share a common bond—that is, our contemporary Australian identity, an identity forged through our Australian citizenship and characterised by a dynamic multicultural inheritance. This uniquely Australian contemporary identity has been in the making since Federation. I would say it has been somewhat turbocharged by successive waves of migration since the great post Second World War immigration program of Arthur Calwell, working its way through to today's migrants, but almost always acknowledging that we have a contemporary multicultural identity with an ancient Indigenous inheritance. This is what being Australian is for my constituents and for me.

Bipartisanship on issues of the Australian identity is paramount to the cohesion and unity of the broader Australian community. I personally—and I know a lot of other colleagues also—do not wish to return to the days of previous parliaments where Australia's multiculturalism was used as a tool for political wedging by politicians who sought notoriety and fame on the back of what were essentially racist views. We did succeed in the 42nd and 43rd parliaments to bring about bipartisanship on multicultural Australia and it is absolutely imperative that we continue to uphold this as well as to work for bipartisanship on Indigenous Australia.

I want to note that in the media today there is a report that the anti-Islam Dutch member of parliament, Geert Wilders, who is the founder of the Freedom Party and whose presentation, incidentally, took place in my electorate in Melbourne, has announced his intention to return to Australia next year to help launch a new party defending Western values, which is to be known as the Australian Liberty Alliance. Geert Wilders is quoted in his YouTube address as saying:

Many of you are disappointed with current political parties and have had enough with politicians who sell out our Western civilisation.

I am a politician who was born in the country commonly referred to as the cradle of Western civilisation and I could not think of a more appalling affront to the values of our Western civilisation and democracy than the narrow extremist views of politicians such as Geert Wilders.

I watched in horror as the Golden Party—a political party that has become fairly notorious and which I believe has comparable values and espouses similar views to Geert Wilders's Freedom Party—in Greece push similar rhetoric. The result was devastating for Greek society. I do regret the support that Geert Wilders seems to have received from the Q Society, which is an Australian Islam-critical group as they are now being referred to. I would like to caution colleagues to be very careful about embracing such sentiment and rhetoric because it has ramifications. It certainly has ramifications with cohesion in the community.

I went into the election as a candidate for the Australian Labor Party. Our message to the electorate was one of delivering a fairer Australia where the hopes and aspirations of all of our citizens regardless of their creed, colour or station in life could be realised, an Australia which cared about the disadvantaged in our community, an Australia that supported its frail and elderly, and an Australia that provided an opportunity for employment to everybody: to men, to women and in particular to young people.

The Labor Party while in government translated these values and aspirations into a suite of reformist policies that we recommitted to during the election campaign of 2013. Of course we are absolutely focused on holding this government to account on the commitments it made during the federal election campaign to implement the social reform agenda of the former Labor government in relation to the disability support scheme and to the Gonski school reform package.

On 7 September last year my constituents voted amongst other things for these reforms. In fact, 64.5 per cent on a two party preferred basis voted for me as the Labor candidate. That for me was a resounding affirmation of the policies that I took forward on behalf of the Labor Party to the election. However, I wish to note that I intend to work for all of my constituents regardless of whether they voted for me or not and I intend to bring to the attention of this House their concerns and their aspirations. That is my prime responsibility as their member and I look forward to the opportunity and to the challenges.

My work in my electorate, as with all of us, brings us into regular contact with constituents and community groups. The hopes and aspirations that they have and that they convey to me are largely centred around their neighbourhoods, their families, the broader community and of course our country as a whole. My constituents are people who rely on governments to deliver good services and practical solutions for those things that matter most to them and to their families. In Calwell this involves lifting the burden of the cost of living, providing a decent education for their children and looking after their families and ageing parents. Importantly, more than anything, it involves the opportunity to have a job now and into the future. My electorate has been one that has been hit considerably by massive job losses, ranging from Ford and the car industry to now the announced Qantas job losses. The constituents in my electorate are particularly sensitive and vulnerable to and very concerned about job prospects and the availability of jobs for themselves and for their children.

My community is also a community that is involved in settling many new migrants, especially under the refugee humanitarian program. Although Australia has one of the best settlement service programs in the world—in fact, it is world's best practice—there is always scope for improvement. My very large and newly emerging Iraqi community is testament to the success of the settlement programs. But there is a continuing need for practical, well-funded services to address problem areas such as, in their case, difficulties with recognition of their degrees and qualifications and, indeed, no recognition of former work experience. For migrants, this stands as the single most common impediment to their prospects of participating in the job market, especially in areas that they have been trained for or educated in.

With a large number of first-generation migrants ageing in Calwell, government support and assistance for the care of the elderly, who have already contributed throughout their working lives to Australia's prosperity, is absolutely imperative. Older Australians deserve peace of mind, certainty and confidence. This is absolutely true and I am absolutely pleased to hear these words from the government. But they cannot be just words; they must be matched with practical, adequately-funded services. I am proud to say that the previous Labor government did have a comprehensive aged-care package. We implemented, amongst other things, the historic increase to the old age pension.

The current government needs to be fully aware that it cannot in all good conscience make cuts at the expense of older Australians. So, whatever it intends, in relation to the welfare review—and I acknowledge the Minister for Social Services in the chamber at the moment—I know it must be well intended. I hope that the government's response will reflect the difficulties and hardships of making ends meet for those people who are on welfare payments, because understanding and empathy with people's predicaments, coupled with a compassionate rather than a punitive response, is what my constituents value and expect from their government. I am sure the broader Australian community shares these sentiments.

This is why, I think, they voted for the Labor Party agenda on 7 September in the election. It is the reason that the talks of cutbacks, especially to vital services that build and assist community, as well as speculation around the budget audit process and its possible outcomes, has created a growing anxiety in my community. It should not come as a surprise to learn that people are anxious about austerity measures and about audits and cuts. And in particular I would like to note that there is a lot of angst around the proposed or mooted changes to the Medicare bulk-billing regime. Some 92 per cent of GP services in Calwell are bulk-billed, and the reason for that is that people are in a financial situation that effectively requires bulk-billing. So any changes there would be very difficult for people and families in my electorate.

So, whatever this new narrative espoused by the current government around 'the end of the age of entitlement' is, we have to be mindful that there will always be legitimate reasons that some people in our community will need assistance and support from government.

Unfortunately, I am running out of time, but in the time I have left I would like to make a point of noting in this House that the government's introduction of legislation to repeal the schoolkids bonus will be a significant blow to the thousands of low- and middle-income families in the federal seat of Calwell. In fact, in Calwell some 28,691 kids and their families received the schoolkids bonus. I can assure the House that the loss of this will hit those families in my electorate quite hard. I would really like the government to reconsider its position on that policy. With those final words, I would like to again thank the good people of Calwell for re-electing me. I look forward to working for them in the next term of this parliament.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too take a great deal of pride and pleasure in speaking today in response to the address by the Governor-General. I would like to commence by thanking the people of the Parkes electorate for returning me here for the third term, and by thanking the people who worked so hard—donated time and money—to help me be successful at the election.

I would like to start by thanking my campaign committee. I believe that I have the best campaign manager in Australia in Peter Bartley. He is methodical and he has attention to detail; the way he runs a campaign is something that is admired by many. No stone is left unturned. I believe the success of the campaign largely rests at Peter's feet. I also thank Warwick Knight, the Parkes electoral council chairman, Max Zell, Peter Tremble, Pauline and Trevor McAllister, Claudia Tremble, Sandy Walker and Doug McKay, who were the key people who worked on that campaign, plus the numerous other people who gave up many hours and days of time working in the campaign office. I also thank the campaign secretary, Brie Collie, who is very proficient in that job.

During the election there would have been, I suspect, somewhere around 1,000 people who helped to work towards getting the Nationals and me elected in the seat of Parkes. With 98 individual polling stations, that is no mean feat. I can proudly say that, of the 98 polling stations, I won 96. With the prepoll now running for two weeks, it is an enormous strain to resource those booths. I really would like the Electoral Commission to look at the reasoning behind running a prepoll for two weeks—why we need it. I think 30 per cent of the residents of Parkes are either prepolled or postal voted. So, not only was there no scrutiny, no reasons given; anyone who wants to walk in can prepoll. On election day there are 13 polling booths in Dubbo itself, and many of those had low numbers because people had been voting for the last couple of weeks. I really think a couple of things need to happen: either reduce the time for prepoll or look at some rationalisation of polling booths.

Thanks to the campaign that was run, I am very proud to say that more people voted for me in the Parkes electorate than for any other seat in Australia. I am here today with 72.3 per cent of the two-party vote, and it is something I am very proud of. Some of the journalists in the media up there seem to think that having a safe seat is somehow a bad thing, but that is not a decision made by me; that is a decision made by the people who live in the electorate, the people who voted for me, which was a clear majority. Anyone who says that having a safe seat is a bad thing is casting aspersions on the residents of the Parkes electorate.

Apart from having a good campaign team and volunteers, my re-election had a lot to do with the staff who work for me. They are very professional, caring and competent staff. They know that every issue that comes into my office is the single most important issue for the person who brought it in, and they treat each one with a prompt, professional and caring manner. As many of us in this place know, quite often we deal with issues that are of a very personal nature and sometimes a very emotional nature. The way that the constituents of Parkes are treated by the staff in the Dubbo and Moree office is very much appreciated by them and very much appreciated by me. I would like to mention my staff by name. Evelyn Barber is the office manager and she deals with migration and the like. I am the fourth federal member she has worked for. Brie Colley is my political adviser and my main confidante with matters that go on in this place. Cate Bailey is my diary manager, and she has a fan club all over the third of New South Wales that makes up the Parkes electorate through her dealings with them. Erica Tudor works in Dubbo and is very efficient around the office and she deals with issues regarding telecommunications, the NBN and the like. Julia Steele now works part-time, a couple of days a week, because she got married last year. For a young person she is incredibly perceptive and she is someone whose advice I take. Linda Woodbridge, whose past life as a Salvation Army officer adds another dimension to the services that we can deliver, is very much noticed by those who deal with my office, and her love and commitment to the Aboriginal community in the Parkes electorate is greatly appreciated. Finally, Cathy Heidrich is a newcomer to the team who is now working as a whip's clerk here in Canberra. The connection between my role here as a member of parliament and the electorate is very much appreciated.

There was a need for a change of government, and the people of Parkes were definitely telling me that. On election day they certainly went in to express their disappointment in the previous government. There is a lot of talk here about the rhetoric and three-word slogans and whatever, but these people witnessed the incompetence of the previous government with their own eyes. Many of them witnessed it with their own hip pockets, unfortunately. Through programs that may have had the best intentions but were absolutely hopeless in their implementation, many of my constituents were left with a bitter taste in their mouths and some of them have been left financially bereft. I have people in my electorate who, through the BER program, are still owed money because of the collapse of Reed Constructions and also the collapse of a subcontractor in the Dubbo area. I am talking about people like Chris Catterall, a builder at Moree, who is still owed $642,000 for the BER program and has no sign of getting that back.

No-one can argue about the need for public housing, but because the public housing project in Moree was a federal program and it did not have any scrutiny, the 60 units that were built are now being evacuated. They were exempt from council supervision and they were built on the blacksoil plains at Moree with insufficient foundations put in, so they are sinking into the black soil. The drainage is cracking. An Aboriginal lady has commented that she cannot sleep in her bedroom because it reeks of urine. Now there is the expense of housing those people for the months it is going to take to repair the damage, and indeed I understand the repair bill is going to exceed the original cost of construction. It is just incompetence in management.

With the pink batts program we had house insulation companies that got into severe financial problems because every shyster and snake oil salesman got themselves into the program. Not only did they rip off the mainly elderly people in my electorate by not installing the batts correctly but the legitimate contractors could not compete and got into trouble.

The carbon tax was a focus of the election but it was very real for the people in my electorate. I have heard members from the opposition proudly say that our emissions have dropped because of the carbon tax, but I can tell you why they have dropped. They have dropped because the pensioners in the western towns of New South Wales are not running their air conditioners in the summertime, despite the fact that it gets up to 50 degrees, because they cannot pay the bills. They have dropped because a cement plant at Kandos, that has been there for over 100 years—it was in the Parkes electorate and is now in the electorate of Hunter—closed down the very week that the carbon tax was announced. Now the cement for projects in the Parkes electorate—the wind farms and things like that that are going ahead—comes through Sydney Harbour from an overseas country and is trucked up over the mountains. The people of Parkes could see the lunacy of that, and they clearly had had enough of that form of mismanagement.

The previous government really did not stop to take into account the things that really mattered. For the whole six years, no federal money went into mobile phone coverage. I represent 257,000 square kilometres—over a third of New South Wales—and nearly half the land mass of my electorate has no coverage at all. It is not just the remote areas around Bourke and places like that; in villages like Goolma and areas a few kilometres out of Mudgee—which is a growing and bustling community—there is no phone coverage. When 53 homes were lost at Coonabarabran because of the fires, the alerts could not go out to the fire brigade because many of the people who were as close as five kilometres from Coonabarabran have no mobile phone coverage.

It is not as if there were not provision made. Over $2½ billion was set aside by the Howard government for rural telecommunications infrastructure. I can remember sitting in this place in 2008 while then Prime Minister Rudd removed that money for regional telecommunications under the pretext of the global financial crisis. That was money that was set aside to provide for the people of the bush but was rolled into things like the $900 cash handouts—the handouts that led to the Boggabilla Town and Country Club taking $50,000 out of their poker machines in a week. That money could have put up phone towers but it was squandered. The people of the Parkes electorate saw that.

The people of the Parkes electorate realise that there is a need for water reform. They have lived that water reform for years. But we had the craziness of the government going and purchasing Toorale Station, where the water comes from the Warrego River—an ephemeral stream which only runs when there is flooding in Queensland. When they purchased Toorale Station for, I think, $27 million, they took away 10 per cent of the income of the Bourke Shire. They just removed it for no environmental gain. The great irony of Toorale Station is that the only wetland that is now sustaining wildlife, birds and the like is the infrastructure from the old cotton farms at Toorale. I seriously think that our government needs to look at returning Toorale back into production. There has been no environmental gain from that and it has been devastating to the communities of Bourke. That is why the people of the Parkes electorate turned their back on the former government. It was not because of the campaign and it certainly was not because of the debate in this place. It was because they could see that the issues that affected them daily were attributed to the previous government.

There are great opportunities now with the change of government. People are not looking for a press conference every day. They are not looking for wars to be waged on the price of groceries through GroceryWatch. They are not looking for revolutions in education. They just want stable, sensible government. I have to say that in the last couple of weeks they saw what it means to have a sensible government in Canberra. I talk about the issue of drought and the fact that the Prime Minister came to western New South Wales, to my area, and he listened to the people of the Parkes electorate out at Bourke and the surrounding areas explain the situation to him—without grand speeches, without emotion and without playing policies—in plain language from the bush that he understood and we got a package that is sensible for the economic times that we are in. There were some complaints from the opposition agriculture spokesman that it was not timely. But we have seen what happens when programs have been rushed out in a hurried way, and we were better to be another week or two getting this program in place and having it done properly.

I look forward to implementing programs like the Green Army program. I have been working with Moree council already on a Green Army program in places like Toomelah, Boggabilla and Boobera Lagoon—the resting place of the Rainbow Serpent—where the Aboriginal young people will get their first taste of regular employment. While people may sneer at work for the dole, I can tell you that from my past experience as a local government mayor back in 2004 and 2005 when the previous work for the dole program was there, people appreciate having a reason to get out of bed in the morning. If the adults in the house are out doing meaningful work during the day, maybe they will be asleep at night and the children in that house will be able to get a good night's sleep so they can go to school during the day.

People might talk about the rights of people to be able to work, but I think that is a false statement. The rights that matter to me are the rights of those children. Those children, who are living in dysfunctional homes because there is no direction, there are no jobs in that home and there is alcohol and drug abuse, have a right over all else. The Green Army project, work for the dole and the fact that there is a mutual obligation in that, if you are able-bodied and you are of a working age, you are obliged to go and do something will make a difference. I am looking forward to helping my colleagues implement that.

We have already had the announcement from the Deputy Prime Minister about finishing the bypass at Moree—a missing link in the Newell Highway; the main link between Melbourne and Brisbane that has been languishing for some years. It was left half completed because of the inefficiency and ineptness of the former New South Wales Labor government and it will now be completed. Money has already been contributed to the inland rail—a steel Mississippi, linking Melbourne to Brisbane, right through western New South Wales, through Queensland and through the food bowl of Victoria. You will be able to put a container of grain from Moree on the train and have the choice to take it to any one of three or four ports, taking hundreds of semitrailers off the Newell Highway. The freight that goes from Melbourne to Brisbane will come on a train at high speed—saving energy and saving emissions. I believe that that steel Mississippi through western New South Wales will be the impetus for real growth and industry returning to inland New South Wales. I welcome the appointment of my predecessor, John Anderson, to that project's implementation committee, and I look forward to going to Moree with the Deputy Prime Minister on Friday to attend the forum on the inland rail.

I look forward to working with our colleagues to identify spots where we can roll out the Black Spot Program. I look forward to the implementation of a broadband network suitable to the people in the bush. The program now duplicates high-speed broadband in metropolitan areas, yet some people in the bush do not even have the basic service of a phone. Most of my constituents were never going to get fibre to the home because they do not live in a metropolitan area. We need to get a program suitable to the bush.

It is a great privilege to be the member for Parkes. It is an area that I love. My wife, Robyn, and I live every day for it. We travel in it continually. I never wake up without a great feeling of joy that I am going to work in this job, and it is a great privilege to be here on behalf of the people of Parkes. I thank the people of Parkes for allowing me the privilege to be here. I thank my staff. I particularly thank my wife, Robyn, who is at my side all the time. If I went under a bus, I think the people of Parkes would choose her in a heartbeat! I pay tribute to the Governor-General and wish her well in her retirement.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 25 October 2010 I stood in this place for the first time to deliver my maiden speech. Our maiden speeches to the parliament act as yardsticks of our aspirations and aims. They deserve to be reviewed regularly so that we can recall the priorities with which we came to this place. Over the last 3½ years I have had parts of my speech quoted to me, and I have also on occasion myself revisited it. During my maiden speech I thanked the people of McPherson for the trust they had put in me to represent their interests both on the Gold Coast and here in this place. I thank them again today for the support they have given me and for re-electing me as their representative in federal parliament. I have never taken the trust and support of the people of McPherson for granted, and each and every day I do my best to represent them and the electorate and to achieve good outcomes nationally and for the Gold Coast.

As an incoming government we face many challenges. We come to government after a period of political instability and division. We come here saddled with the biggest national debt in our nation's history and with a sluggish economy. But we also come here with great resolve, great hope and great determination to deliver better government for the people of Australia. I look forward to working in the coalition team to bring about positive change and to explaining the tough decisions we will have to make. Australia was not served well by the previous government, which did not make the tough choices, which weakened border protection to appease special interest groups and which bickered amongst itself while spending ever larger amounts of taxpayer funds—most of which were wasted on poor policies which did not deliver. On this side of the House we are determined to do much better. In my maiden speech three years ago I spoke about three specific issues—infrastructure, business and veterans—and I will speak about these three issues again today as well as a couple more.

I start with infrastructure—specifically, transport infrastructure. In my view, the Gold Coast has not properly come to terms with its transport infrastructure needs, because answering the question for whom we need to provide services is a real balancing act. The Gold Coast is unique in that it has a population of around 527,000 people and a population which is estimated to be growing at a rate of around 1,500 people per month due to interstate migration, yet we are visited by over 11 million tourists each year. Just think of that—there are around half a million local residents on the Gold Coast, but we are visited by over 20 times that number of tourists every year. Tourism expenditure on the Gold Coast is a whopping $12.1 million per day. Our regional economy is worth an impressive $18.2 billion annually, and this figure has doubled over the last decade.

We have a relatively small resident population base, so it is clear that tourism is the lifeblood of our local economy. It is also clear that we need to ensure that we are meeting the needs of tourists, because without tourists many of our city's businesses would struggle if not fail. It is important to remember that many of the businesses involved in the tourist trade are not large international or national chains but small businesses. Accommodation providers, restaurants, cafes, specialty stores, surfboard shapers and local tourism operators are all largely run by dedicated individuals who put in the hard work both to provide a quality service to visitors and to put food on the table for their families.

So we know that much of our city is reliant on tourists and the tourism dollar and that we should be doing all we can to encourage tourists to visit the Gold Coast and, preferably, to return each year. But in meeting the needs of tourists we must be careful to ensure that we do not neglect the needs of our residents. We should be identifying opportunities for transport to provide a service to both residents and tourists where possible. The southern Gold Coast in particular seems to be a distant end of the line for public transport which becomes less well-serviced the further south you go from Brisbane. The Gold Coast has specific transport issues which are different to those of most cities because, unlike other cities, the Gold Coast does not have a central business district with roads leading directly to and from the outer suburbs. The Gold Coast is a long coastal strip made up of individual villages which have grown over time to join together. This fact is particularly evident on the southern Gold Coast around the Tugun, Bilinga and Kirra areas.

The Gold Coast is constructed along three main thoroughfares: firstly, the M1, which links the Pacific Motorway south of the Queensland-New South Wales border to Brisbane; secondly, the Gold Coast Highway, which runs the length of the Gold Coast coastline from the border to Labrador; and, thirdly, Bermuda Street, Bundall Road and Ferry Road, all of which run through the centre of the M1 and the Gold Coast Highway, largely from Burleigh and Reedy Creek to Southport. The Gold Coast Highway and the road whose name I will simplify by referring to it as Bermuda Street cater primarily to local traffic, both resident and tourist. The M1 is the main route for freight vehicles and traffic heading to and from Brisbane and the surrounding areas. It caters to over 100,000 vehicles each day. It is also important for commuters to Brisbane and for residents in enabling them to get to and from where they need to be in the most direct and timely fashion.

There is a long history to the M1. In 2007 the Howard government committed to providing over $400 million worth of funds to upgrade the M1, with the section between Tugun and Nerang identified as a priority area. This commitment was matched by the Rudd government. However, after Labor took office in 2007 the priorities were downgraded and the priority areas became those north of the Gold Coast. Despite this, though, some progress has been made over the last couple of years. In particular, the upgrade between Worongary and Mudgeeraba has been completed six months ahead of schedule and the upgrade further south is proceeding. This is the priority to complete, and I will be working closely with the Deputy Prime Minister to deliver the upgrades in the shortest possible time frames.

The other transport options that deserve further consideration are the extension of the heavy rail from Varsity further south to the airport and the extension of the light rail. We already know that to extend the heavy and light rail comes with a multibillion dollar price tag. So the issue becomes, how do we meet the current and future needs of residents and tourists, who we know wish to stay within one kilometre of the beach? This is where we need to look at the existing bus network and supplement it with a rapid bus that will operate north from the airport to connect with the heavy rail at Varsity and also provide rapid transport to Burleigh Heads, Broadbeach and Surfers Paradise. Clearly, the existing network needs to be maintained to service local areas, so the rapid bus system would be in addition to, and not instead of, existing services. The last thing that I want to see happen, with the Commonwealth Games fast approaching, is that visitors fly into Brisbane and commute south to the Games venues, with the result that the Gold Coast misses out on an enormous option to boost the local economy.

Meeting the Gold Coast's transport infrastructure needs is crucial to maintaining local economic growth and all levels of government need to work together to this end. The Gold Coast is not just a tourism mecca—it is also one of our nation's fastest growing large cities, with a five-year annual average growth rate of 3.2 per cent, compared with 1.8 per cent population growth for Australia. I recommit myself today to working with my colleagues at the state and local government level to work for better infrastructure on the Gold Coast. While we are better placed, with coalition governments at all levels, we also have state and federal governments that are trying to pay back massive debts left by Labor. We desperately need to balance the books in order to ensure our ongoing economic stability, so spending must be done wisely and with purpose.

Let me turn now to business and particularly small business. I spoke earlier about the types of small businesses that make up the Gold Coast economy. We have a huge concentration of mum-and-dad small businesses. These are the types of businesses that are most hard-hit when the economy is sluggish and consumer confidence is down. These are the types of businesses that really do it tough when the government fails to create a robust economy, especially on the Gold Coast, where we rely on many inter- and intrastate visitors. The family holiday is often something that gets cut or scaled back when family budgets are stretched. And family budgets were certainly stretched under the previous government, with record hikes in electricity and gas bills due to the carbon tax and other creeping taxes that add to the cost of living. The best thing any government can do for business is create the thriving, stable economy that is needed. That is something we are very determined to do. As part of our plan we will cut red tape by about $1 billion a year, freeing small businesses and our communities from this burden. I certainly look forward to 'Repeal Day' later this month when we get a chance in this place to vote to get rid of some of the 21,000 new regulations that Labor put in place during their term. Red tape is a constant source of frustration and an ongoing business cost, so I am pleased we are moving swiftly to start cutting it.

I am also very pleased that, as promised, we have elevated the position of small business minister to cabinet and located it within the Treasury department. This is a clear reflection of the value and importance that the coalition places on the role of small business as central to our economy. I note that the Minister for Small Business has owned and run his own small business, just as I and many other members of this place have, and I know he is a passionate advocate for small business. I look forward to working with him over the coming term and introducing him to some of the hardworking local small businesses on the Gold Coast.

I think it is also worth mentioning the role that our local chambers of commerce play in organising, networking and advocating on behalf of businesses. I am very fortunate in my electorate to have several very active chambers of commerce. To the members, and particularly the executive, of the Gold Coast Central Chamber of Commerce, the Southern Gold Coast Chambers of Commerce, the Creek to Creek Chamber and the Mudgeeraba Chamber of Commerce—I thank you for your time and dedication in representing the interests of small business. I look forward to continuing to work with you over the coming term. I will, of course, also continue to work closely with the Small Business Association of Australia, an organisation that advocates strongly for small business.

The third issue that I would like to speak about today is our veteran community, and I take this opportunity to say how much I have appreciated the opportunity to work closely with our veteran community over the last three years. I mentioned in my maiden speech that my father was a World War II veteran who served in the RAAF. He later went on to be a strong advocate for veterans as national secretary-treasurer of the Australian Federation of Totally and Permanently Incapacitated Ex-Servicemen and Women, the TPIs. He was a warrior for his country and for veterans' rights, and I have vowed to continue his work in supporting the veteran community in any way I can. As we approach the Centenary of Anzac I am sure there will be many more opportunities for closer engagement. Already I have received several applications under the Centenary of Anzac Grants Program, and over the coming weeks and months my committee and I will be working to ensure the best outcome for the electorate.

I also look forward to delivering our promise, in our first budget, to implement fair indexation of military superannuation. All DFRB and DFRDB military superannuants aged 55 and over will have their pensions indexed in the same way the age pension is indexed, rather than just based on the CPI as it currently is. It is only fair that we deliver this equity measure as a reflection of the value we place on those who have served in our nation's military. We have to remain vigilant and ensure that the legacy of our veterans continues to be recognised.

There has been some speculation, as part of the debate on our national curriculum, that elements of our military history have been 'crowded out' of the school curriculum. The review of the national curriculum is very important, and I welcome it, as a way of giving parents and educators more say in what should be taught. The curriculum needs to be focused on the students and the skills they need to succeed, not on the latest fashionable ideology.

I am also hopeful that as a part of the ongoing debate we can put a focus back on the value and importance of maths and science. Unfortunately, Australian graduation rates in the mathematical sciences are only half the OECD average for men and one-third for women. More than 30 per cent of secondary maths classes are taught by staff not trained as maths teachers. As someone who had a love of maths and science and went on to become an engineer—which was certainly not a career path that many women chose at that time—it really saddens me to see how the teaching of maths and science in our schools has declined. Once again, the coalition's focus on teacher training and providing more flexibility, particularly through our independent public schools initiative, will, I hope, allow us to address this decline, which has resulted in a skills shortage which is only likely to worsen in the years ahead. I have certainly seen how it can work with Varsity College in my electorate, which became an independent public school this year and at the same time established a specialist program for maths and science.

I am very certain that my own background in engineering, as one of only two qualified engineers in this parliament, means that I bring a unique perspective to this place. Engineering is an important profession and, due to the lack of students studying maths and science, one in which Australia has a very real shortage. The work of engineers really forms the link between scientific discoveries and how we apply them to improve our quality of life. Our advancement as a society really depends on encouraging more people into the disciplines of maths, science and engineering, and it is certainly something I will continue to do in this place over the coming term.

I also have the unique opportunity to put some of my knowledge of engineering and project management to use as chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Public Works. I was very honoured to be asked to take on the chairmanship of a committee that oversees spending on public works. In 2012 the committee examined projects worth a combined total of over $3.2 billion. I look forward to working diligently and effectively to ensure that public works spending is well placed and accounted for.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people of McPherson for having confidence in me and re-electing me for a second term as their federal member. To the members of the Liberal National Party who have supported me and campaigned so hard for a coalition government, I say thank you. To the Liberal National Party president, Bruce McIver, and the executive and staff of the Liberal National Party: thank you for your continued support and assistance, particularly during the election campaign. My thanks also go to the McPherson FDC executive: chairman Peter McKean and his wife, Lesley McKean; vice-chairman Keith Maitland; treasurer John Leff and his wife, Esther Leff, and secretary Ben Naday. I cannot thank you enough for your tireless campaigning over such a long period of time. To the literally hundreds of campaign volunteers who helped me in so many different ways: thank you. I could not have done it without you. To Wendy Perrins, Nola Mattei, Bruce and Muriel Duncan, Janelle Manders, Hamish Douglas and Natalie Douglas, I say thank you. To our booth captains, scrutineers and booth workers: thank you. I could not have done it without you. To my staff, for their professionalism and their willingness to go that extra mile, I say thank you. To my patron senator, Senator the Hon. Brett Mason: thank you for your support and encouragement and for launching my campaign. To Madam Speaker, who helped me enormously during my first term, I say thank you.

To my sister, Ann, who once again made the trip back to help with the campaign and spent so many hours on pre-poll: how lucky am I to have you as my sister. To my mother, Moya Weir: what can I say to the person who never wants to be the centre of attention but makes such an enormous contribution? Thank you just does not seem to be enough. To my father, William Weir OAM: I wish you were here today and every day. To my husband, Chris: I just do not know how you do everything that you do. I never have to ask for your support; it is always there. I hope you know how much I appreciate you. As they were in my first speech, my final words today are to my three daughters: Emma, who is 18, Jane, who is 13—almost 14—and Kate, who is 10. Girls, you are such special people, with a wonderful feature ahead of you, and I am so very proud of you. Thank you for letting me be a part of your lives. I thank the House.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on this address-in-reply to the Governor-General's address, and I start my speech by recognising the Governor-General's contribution as Governor-General of Australia and the way that she has conducted herself in such a dignified manner throughout her term, not only across Australia but in many other parts of the world. She has done that with great dignity, and I know from my own constituency that she is highly respected. She also fulfilled the role of Governor of Queensland prior to being appointed Governor-General of Australia, so for many years now she has had a very important vice-regal role. I say to Her Excellency the Governor-General and to her husband, Michael, who was always there with her: thank you for what you have done. You have always carried out the role with your own charm, and that has, I think, always been admired in so many parts of my electorate. I have been in a number of small communities in my electorate where you have not only taken the time to visit those communities and perhaps open a particular building or other structure but also been prepared to spend the night. That is another feature and quality that I will long remember, and I know my constituents will always be grateful for the attention that you have given to so many people in rural Queensland, including my electorate, and to those very many small communities where you have ensured you have made time to be with them.

I want to also thank my electorate for re-electing me for the ninth time to this place. I always say you do not fatten a pig on market day, so your campaign goes on from the moment you are re-elected until the time of the next election. You do not do that without wonderful staff. I must say thank you to my staff because they are always fielding the calls that perhaps I cannot receive. Given that my electorate is some 43 per cent of the land mass of Queensland, it is not possible always to give personal attention to my constituents. Often the way I am able to talk with many of the people is over the telephone when I receive a call to the office saying that they would like to talk to me about a particular issue that is of concern to them. But my staff are always there, and they always look after not only my best interests but also the best interests of my constituents and of course the policy of the Liberal National Party in Queensland.

My campaign team are extraordinary. I think there are some 180 polling places in the electorate, pre-poll booths, postal votes and all of those things that have to be addressed in that very short space of time between when the election is called and polling day. We had a wonderful campaign team. They were always out there and had people at those pre-poll booths, and there were many throughout Maranoa, including one right out on the far western boundary of the electorate, out at Birdsville.

Why was it at Birdsville? Election day was in fact the day of the Birdsville races, the Birdsville Cup, and the Electoral Commission and the returning officer for the division of Maranoa were well aware that there would be some 5,000 to 6,000 people who, as they do, would turn up from many parts of Queensland—in fact, from many parts of Australia—during the week leading up to the races. So they established a pre-poll booth at Birdsville prior to the race day, and they were open for the week commencing on the Monday. I think they had something like 3,000 to 4,000 people from many parts of Australia pre-polling in the lead-up to the race day.

So I thank the returning officer and those people at the divisional returning office for the seat of Maranoa, based in Dalby. We know what has happened in Western Australia, but the staff there and across the electorate have been magnificent. They often do not get recognised, but I just want to recognise them here this afternoon. I thank them for the wonderful effort that they put in not only during the election time but throughout the year, making sure that enrolments are correct; making sure that, for those who enrol during that period between when the election is called and the close of rolls, it is accurate; and making sure that people who seek to be enrolled in the division of Maranoa because they have located there have had the opportunity and it happens, so that, when it comes to voting day, they are not denied the opportunity to vote, because they are in fact enrolled in the division of Maranoa.

During the lead-up to the campaign I developed, in conjunction with my coalition partners the now Prime Minister, the now Deputy Prime Minister and the leadership team, policy initiatives that were important to the seat of Maranoa and important to the communities across the electorate. One of those that I want to now pursue—and I know that the Deputy Prime Minister is well aware of it—is the continuation of the upgrade of the Warrego Highway. We committed some $500 million of additional funding to the Warrego Highway to upgrade it, and it is absolutely important because it is that major thoroughfare from the south-east corner of Brisbane right out through to western Queensland and on through to Darwin on the Landsborough Highway. Why is it important? We have had unprecedented growth in the resources sector in the electorate of Maranoa, and it just was not coping with the massive infrastructure build that was occurring as a result of the development of the coal seam gas industry in Maranoa.

The other one was our commitment to the second range crossing at Toowoomba, a vital piece of infrastructure because right now I think that something like 2,000 to 3,000 trucks a day—the member for Groom may correct me; it may be more—have to go through the city of Toowoomba across the range to get into Brisbane and to travel into the west. We just have to get those trucks out of Toowoomba and onto this second range crossing. It would not only speed up transport; it would reduce costs for the transport sector, and of course it would bring the south-east corner of Queensland much closer to the Darling Downs and to the Maranoa region.

The other one is a road that is important. We all know that the Prime Minister has said repeatedly that he wants to be known as the infrastructure Prime Minister, and these are clear examples of our commitment to road infrastructure. This one is the Killarney to Woodenbong road. It connects the very south-east corner of the electorate of Maranoa, Killarney, just east of Warwick, down into the Northern Rivers in the seat of Page, in New South Wales. It is a very critical road. It is a road; it is not a highway. It is carrying a lot of traffic now, but, once again, it cannot cope with the increased traffic that is feeding from that region of the Northern Rivers of New South Wales into the Darling Downs and vice versa.

The other point about the Killarney to Woodenbong road and the money we need there is that it is another strategic road. In fact, it was the only road across the Great Dividing Range that remained open when we had the massive deluge that affected the Lockyer Valley through to Kingaroy. The D'Aguilar Highway, the range crossing at Toowoomba and the Cunninghams Gap road were all closed. There was no way that traffic could go between the Darling Downs and into the south-east corner. The member for Blair, whom I see at the table, would be well aware of it. All those access roads were cut off.

I remember when they were cut off for several days because of the massive deluge that just scoured out those major crossings. I remember going to my own home town of Roma, into the supermarket. You could not get food and you could not get petrol. I went to try and fill up with diesel, and there was no diesel in town. When you go into a supermarket and there is nothing on the shelves, you say, 'How long will this go on before we have to perhaps fly food in—before we have to fly fuel in?'

Luckily, we were able to get one of the roads open enough to start to bring important supplies in, but it demonstrated to us—to the federal and state levels of government and to local government as well—the strategic importance of having alternate routes across the Great Dividing Range when natural disasters such as floods like that occur. They do occur in this country, and they will occur again in the future. We need to have a relief valve, you might say. In this case, I am pushing the development of the Killarney to Woodenbong road as one of those opportunities that, whilst there is a lot of work and it would need a lot of money spent on it, could be that very relief valve, should another event occur such as it has in the past.

I would hope that, if it does occur—and let us hope we do not have tragedies like we had with the loss of life with those massive deluges—perhaps the upgrade that has occurred will not see it close as it has in the past, such as the one at Toowoomba or the one going up to Kingaroy or Cunninghams Gap. But we must be prepared for things such as that. It was the Killarney to Woodenbong road that gave us that opportunity to continue to bring supplies in. Although it was not used much, it was there in the case of an emergency.

The other one is Eight Mile crossing, where the New England Highway meets the Cunninghams Gap Highway just north of Warwick. There have been too many deaths at that Eight Mile crossing. It is still a dangerous intersection. Road traffic authorities have reduced the speed of traffic moving through there. That is a very positive step. It was 80 kilometres per hour, but has now been reduced to 60. I question whether even that is enough. I think it still needs more signage. We made a commitment during the campaign that we would give that a priority for black spot funding. That will require the state government, through the local government in the area, to apply for black spot funding. We will do whatever we can to find the solution to improve the safety at Eight Mile.

The other road I wanted to touch on is the Outback Way. That is the link from Winton through Boulia out into the Northern Territory and right through across to the other side of Australia, to Western Australia. It is called the Outback Way. There is a group of wonderful people from Western Australia through to Queensland who have been promoting this road for many, many years. I am supporting it and I know that the money that we made a commitment to during the election campaign will be announced very shortly. I certainly look forward to that. It is a strategic link between west and east. It will be important to the beef industry. It will be important for tourism. It will open up an area of Australia that has been neglected for too long because the road access was nothing more than a bush track. I certainly look forward to that announcement. It is a step in the right direction. It is not going to build the entire road across the centre of Australia, but it will start at Boulia in Queensland and head to the Northern Territory border. It will take the combined efforts of the Queensland, federal, Northern Territory and Western Australia governments. They have agreed to start the process of the upgrade of what is called the Donohue Highway.

I am also committed to ensuring we roll out a communications budget. We committed some $100 million to a mobile phone black spot program. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-Green government did not spend one dollar addressing mobile phone black spots. Yet when we were in government under the leadership of John Howard, we spent some $143 million addressing mobile phone black spots. There has been a deficit for seven years when nothing was done to address mobile phone black spots. I am certainly looking forward to seeing that money roll out. There are a number of black spots where we have called for expressions of interest from many councils. One I wanted to mention was at Eromanga. They have a shovel-ready project now. They are going to have skin in the game. They have got money that they are going to put up from the Royalties for the Region programs. It has been provided by the state government. They have money from resource companies and I believe they will possibly be putting up some of their own council money. That demonstrates that these small communities know the value of mobile phones. It is important not just for tourism but in many cases for emergencies where there is no other telecommunications link.

The other one is the rollout of our high-speed internet. Our policy leading into the election was that we would build from the least serviced areas to the areas to those that are probably well serviced today. One of the initiatives in our policy was that we would be prepared to provide co-funding of up to 50 per cent of optical fibre backhaul. That is very important in my electorate because I have the Barcoo Shire and the Diamantina Shire in the far west of my region, right out on the edge of the Simpson Desert and the Northern Territory and below Longreach. They are connected via a single channel microwave radio link. They are prepared to put in some $5.5 million of their own local government money. They have got $5.25 million from the state government from the Royalties for the Region program which brings them up to $10 million. They have called for tenders already to roll out the optic fibre backhaul to connect these communities to the mainframe, to the optic fibre network out of Longreach and Boulia to bring them into our networks. The importance of that cannot be underestimated in this place. The access to good backhaul means telemedicine, education, tourism and extending mobile phone coverage into these areas. It is shovel-ready but it needs another $10 million. I am certain we will be pursuing that under our policy with the communications minister as we go through this term. I know that will see some of the council members and those pursuing that down here in the next little while. I am certainly letting the minister know that we have a shovel ready project now. We have completed the review of the NBN. I want to see this rolled out.

The other issue we have already announced is the natural disaster drought package. The Labor Party walked away from the exceptional circumstances drought policy and put in what was called an agricultural restructuring package. There was no transition from having a policy to address drought through to restructuring of agriculture. That is what we have done. There will be some out there who say that it is still not enough. But I have got to say that, in these times of budget constraint, it is a lot of money. I will be out in Charleville in Western Queensland next week to meet some of the pastoralists and graziers out there. I want to gauge how they are accessing this. Is it working? Is the Queensland Rural Adjustment Authority delivering this well or are there still problems? I will be out there listening to them next week.

The real problem started when the Labor Party unilaterally cut the live export of cattle into Indonesia, cutting off the beef industry overnight. They had no market to go to. That has had the effect of devaluing the capital value of assets. It has meant that many cattle had to come into the domestic market in the eastern states and down into the eastern part of my electorate. It also put greater pressure on the existing markets. If I could quote the figures from the Roma sales last calendar year, the average sale price of cattle in the Roma saleyards was 30 per cent less than the previous year. That gives you some idea of the impact that that decision of the Labor government had on the beef industry. This has had a dramatic effect on the beef industry, on the pastoralists, because it devalued their properties, which meant they had greater debts. On top of that, this natural disaster, drought, has impacted on their ability to even be in production in order to manage their debts.

I just want to touch on the issue of the sustainability of my electorate, particularly in parts of the Surat coal seam gas area. I think that we all have to take a warning from what was mentioned only yesterday at the ABARES Outlook conference. The warning is from the National Australia Bank chief economist, Alan Oster, who said that he expects mining investment to halve from eight per cent of gross domestic product to four per cent and result in the loss of 100,000 jobs over the next 12 to 18 months.

In my constituency in the coal seam gas area we have had some of the greatest growth, with new wealth and new opportunities we have not seen since closer land settlement. But now we have got to address a situation where demand is being met and construction is nearly complete and we move from construction to production. Not all those jobs are associated with the Surat Basin, but I am just saying that that is a warning that we should listen to and heed. We want to make sure that we have got a plan as to how we deal with the reduction in numbers and make sure that other industries that will be developed can take up some of that loss of jobs that is going to occur across Australia from the mining industry as it moves from construction to production—and this is not just in my own area of Maranoa in the Surat Basin.

The Prime Minister has visited my electorate twice since the election and I thank him for that. I have had the Deputy Prime Minister in twice as well and I thank him for that, and I think that he will be with me next week in the electorate. Both of them show a great interest in rural and regional Australia. I will not have a bar of some of the people who say that they are not interested in rural and regional Australia—they are. There have been two visits by the Prime Minister in what might be considered a safe electorate, showing real commitment to the people of rural and regional Australia, and I thank him for that.

Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must say that I did enjoy listening to Bruce, my neighbour from Maranoa. This is my second term. I came in with the Deputy Speaker in 2010 and it has been a great experience for me. It has been a better experience for me looking after the electorate of Flynn, which is quite a large electorate. It is not as big as Maranoa but is a very diverse electorate indeed.

At the last election it consisted of 105 polling booths and I could not really start to mention by name the number of people who helped me, staff included, to get to where I am today—settling into my second term in the government. But I would like to single out one person, Donny Holt, who perhaps manned those 105 polling booths! He is the only one I will mention apart from my immediate family: Shirley, my partner, and Ben and Amber, my son and daughter.

Flynn covers a large area—133 square kilometres—more than twice the size of Tasmania. It is bordered by Hinkler, Wide Bay, Maranoa and Capricornia. It is approximately 800 kilometres from the south-east corner, which is down near Kingaroy and Wondai, to the north-west corner, Capella, a distance that takes about nine hours to drive. From east to west it is 500 kilometres and that takes me about six hours from one side to the other. Of course, as you know, you always have a lot of stops in between and it takes you quite a while to get from one end to the other end.

Flynn was named after John Flynn, the founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. We have approximately 129 schools, 26 hospitals, 51 Anzac Day sub-branches, 24 agricultural shows—and I actually attend the first show for the season this weekend and I go to Proston which is in the south-west corner of the electorate. I have three coal-fired power stations—at Gladstone, Callide and Stanwell. Gladstone is the biggest part of the electorate. It takes in lots of towns: Agnes Water, Banana, Biloela, Biggenden, Blackwater, Boyne Island, Calliope, Duaringa, Eidsvold—it sounds like I have been everywhere!—Emerald, Gayndah, Gracemere, Miriam Vale, Monto, Mount Morgan, Moura, Mundubbera, Perry, Sapphire, Tannum Sands, Taroom, Theodore, Wondai and Woorabinda—and I think I have missed out a few there too! It includes eight regional councils: Bundaberg—or part thereof—Central Highlands based at Emerald, Gladstone, North Burnett, Rockhampton—partially, including Mount Morgan and Gracemere—South Burnett, which is mainly Wondai and Proston. There is the Banana Shire, which is Biloela and Moura and Theodore et cetera, and the Woorabinda Aboriginal Council.

We produce a lot of commodities in Flynn. The big money-spinners are coal and gas. We have gold and sapphires. There are the beef cattle of Queensland. We have aluminium and we have grain, wide open orchards and citrus, cotton and timber. The Port of Gladstone is the major export facility for Australia.

As for our beef industry, we are proud to present every three years an international beef convention in Rockhampton. This attracts visitors from all over the world. As the member for Maranoa has just stated, the beef industry has been hard hit by the banning of the live cattle export and that has had many repercussions for the industry. On top of that is the drought, which has not helped, and at the moment a lot of the Flynn and Maranoa areas are in desperate need of good solid rain. This will not bring instant relief to the farmers. Even with this rain, it will be a good 18 months before cash can return to the industry.

On dairying, there are about 29 dairy farmers left in Flynn and these guys are struggling. The demand for milk in Queensland has been increasing by seven per cent per annum. Our farmers are in a real battle with the processors and the big stores like Woolworths and Coles, and it is all over 10c a litre. If they were to get another 10c a litre, it would make things much more bearable and keep those existing dairy farmers in business. At the moment, they are dropping out at an alarming rate.

We have a very strong citrus industry. We have the largest mandarin farm in the Southern Hemisphere at 2PH farms at Emerald. There are also huge citrus plantations in Mundubbera, Gayndah and Gin Gin, and at Eversley Farm at Wallaville, where there is a very big planting. We have good grain crops—wheat, sorghum, sunflower and chickpea et cetera. Capella, Emerald, Comet, Gindi, Springsure, Bauhinia Downs, Moura and Biloela along the Dawson River form a productive food bowl.

We have large piggeries around Mulgildie, Wondai and Proston. The fishing industry has been facing cutbacks and regulations. We do import a lot of fish, which I find amazing. We also import a lot of pork products; sometimes up 80 per cent for pork and 70 to 75 per cent for fish. This staggers me. We are quite capable of producing all our pork products and all our fish products.

The aluminium industry is based in Gladstone, with bauxite coming from North Queensland. The industry is facing some hard times. The renewable energy target is affecting the industry. The Chinese are building aluminium refineries quicker than we can pour a cup of tea. It is very important that the aluminium industry in Gladstone is maintained. It is one of the few manufacturing giants left in Australia. In Gladstone, the industry employs 6,000 people, directly and indirectly. Australia cannot afford to lose this industry.

We have sugar cane, fruit, vegetables and macadamia nuts in the Bundaberg region. Around Theodore, we produce high-quality, low-cost cotton. Cotton is an up-and-down crop because prices fluctuate but, fortunately, this year the cotton price is very good. We have to hope and pray the cotton does come off and we do not get persistent rain that will keep mildew in the cotton. They need sunny clear days to get the cotton off. But the cotton crops I have seen are beautiful.

The coal industry is big in Central Queensland, but of late we have seen the price of coking coal and thermal coal plummet to very low levels. The large coalminers and the overseas investors in coal are in the Bowen Basin. Prices have retracted and we hope that one day the coal price will rebound and the 6,000 jobs that have been lost in my area alone will be returned. Coal is a godsend for our area. It supplies plenty of good-paying jobs. There are huge international companies working in the Bowen Basin—BHP Billiton; Anglo American Coal; Caledon Resources; Ensham; Mitsui, a Japanese company that is very much involved; Glencore, a new company that has taken over all the Xstrata mines; and Yancoal is another group at Yarrabee.

On gas, we are just seeing the last stages of the three plants that are being built on Curtis Island. It is a $60 billion investment. You have to see the size of the industry to take it all in. I have taken people to Gladstone to see it because it is amazing. The gas comes from Maranoa—major pipelines from Maranoa to Gladstone, some 500 kilometres. That is a sight to see. The member for Riverina will be with me next Wednesday and we will open an oil products refinery, a $55 million investment by guys who have another plant at Wagga Wagga. They have finished their plant at Yarwun, outside Gladstone. It will be a great pleasure to see this plant open up. It will process the used oil from engines, take all the impurities out and turn it back to pure oil, and then burn off the residue in the cement plant alongside.

The issues around roads are endless. There is always a need to spend plenty of money on any road in my electorate. We must remember that we had major floods in 2008, 2010 and 2012-13 that caused untold damage to the roads. Both state and federal governments have provided some money to do repair work. I will talk more about that tomorrow, detailing the list of roads we have fixed, improving the Bruce Highway and other associated roads in the arterial system around Gladstone.

There is certainly a skills shortage in rural areas and Flynn is no exception. There is a lack of aged-care facilities. Small retailers are finding it very hard to exist. I think the IR laws and regulations need to be tweaked, especially when it comes to weekend work. When you go to most rural country towns, no coffee shops or cafes are open on weekends the way they used to be open in the good old days. When people are prepared to work and employers are prepared to give them jobs, why can they not work on the weekend? It would suit university students and young people and would give them a grounding for their future life. I cannot justify the fact that when people want to work for, say, time and a quarter, an employer has to pay time and a half, double time or triple time. That is just out of the question.

Commodity prices are still low in a lot of areas. Our dollar remains relatively high. It has dropped by five per cent in the last few months but needs to drop further. Aluminium prices are very low thanks to the Chinese overproducing. These things might turn around in the next five to 10 years because we are the country with the most bauxite. We hold 25 per cent of the world's bauxite and it is good quality stuff, as is our coal. At the moment, our cement industry still has to compete on the global market. This is why the carbon tax is such an obnoxious tax. I cannot see how anyone can support it—anyone at all. It has to go and it has to go quickly because it is the No. 1 enemy when it comes to jobs.

The floods in those four to five years have really affected insurance for homes in towns like Emerald, Bundaberg, Mundubbera and Gayndah. Theodore was the first town in Australia to be totally evacuated and the insurance premiums these people are being asked to pay are so high they just cannot insure. Gladstone is a town of 60,000. The region covers Gladstone, Tannum Sands, Boyne Island, Calliope and Mount Larcom. We have a TAFE college and we have the Central Queensland University campus; that is Rockhampton based but its facilities reach out to Emerald, Mackay, Bundaberg and Gladstone. We have well-developed infrastructure and services. Through our good port we transfer aluminium, cement and coal. We hope in future to export live cattle, which would be a big boost for our industry. Graziers in the area are getting the same price now they got 10 years ago for their beasts because of lack of competition. If we could introduce live cattle exports from Gladstone to places like China and Korea, that would strengthen the cattle industry no end.

We have a huge and developing LNG industry, as I mentioned before. This will come on line in nine to 10 months. Once that industry gets going and we start exporting to Asia, the whole of Queensland and Gladstone, and the Maranoa area, will benefit from those sales because they will be huge. The Gladstone power station is the largest power station in Queensland. Because of power prices and main usage occurring between January and March, the Boyne smelter cuts back so many cells that it affects the price of electricity in Queensland by 24 per cent. That is how much electricity they use. They could not afford to buy Queensland electricity for three months during the period of high usage, so they cut back. The price dropped by 24 per cent. We are really fighting an uphill battle with electricity prices, and the carbon tax is a big component of that. We need to get back to having cheap power and cheap water. That will get the towns, no matter where they are in Australia, back to a competitive edge. The carbon tax has to go.

The Central Highlands is a very interesting rural producing area. It lies on the Nogoa River just south of the Tropic of Capricorn, with towns like Blackwater, Bluff, Dingo, Capella, Tieri, Springsure, Rolleston and Comet. The region extends from the Arcadia Valley in the south to the Peak Ranges in the north. Industries include mining, agriculture, grain, cotton and tourism. The gemfields are an interesting place to go. I quite often take a lot of my visitors to the gemfields. They are absolutely amazed. The gemfields have been going for many years and the standard of housing might not be the best in a lot of areas—there is a bit of a shanty town—but it is what the people love. For over 100 years, the many millions of dollars of sapphires pulled out of the ground at Rubyvale, Sapphire and Anakie have been sold to Thai buyers.

There is natural beauty in Carnarvon Gorge, on the Blackdown Tablelands and Peak Downs. Fairbairn Dam is a big dam supplying most of the area—the coalmines, the towns, the cotton crops et cetera.

Just off Gladstone—I should not admit this—there is a lovely island called Heron Island that is better known to international tourists than it is to the locals, which is amazing. You would be surprised how many locals have not been to Heron Island. It is the best kept secret. There are turtle research laboratories and beautiful underwater diving and snorkelling there. You could not get better in the world. International travellers come to Gladstone and take a short ride in a helicopter or in a hovercraft out to Heron Island. It is well worth seeing. The banana shire has a lot of things going for it especially towns like Moura and Taroom. Major industries include beef and coal.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to follow my friend and colleague the member for Flynn as he spoke passionately about his electorate and some of the great things around Gladstone. I have been to Heron Island and remember my experience fondly. It is a beautiful part of the world he represents.

I will first of all thank the men and women, boys and girls but especially the voters of the northern Gold Coast seat of Fadden for once again entrusting me with their vote and their representation in this House of Representatives of the Australian parliament now for a third term. It is an honour to represent them and I look forward to working as hard as I can to represent their hopes and dreams, their aspirations and their challenges in this great place of democracy. It is certainly an honour also to be a member of the government as the Prime Minister's Assistant Minister for Defence.

I think it is appropriate that I start my address in reply to Her Excellency the Governor-General on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen of Australia. It is important also to recognise Fadden school leaders. The world runs because leaders step up and do what they are asked to do. Leadership can be a lonely path. I have got hundreds and hundreds of new school leaders who, like me, will be working very hard to represent not just their schools but also their communities, their families and all of the northern Gold Coast. I know these new school leaders will do us exceptionally proud as we hope to see them serve our country proudly. I believe that each and every one of them will do a great job. I know that their schools and families are proud of them.

Make no mistake, these young leaders of our schools today represent 100 per cent of the future of our nation. Their exciting leadership journeys have just begun. I look forward to seeing, one day, one of those young leaders, if not more of them, taking a role in this House. As parliament begins and we debate the great issues of our nation, let me say to these young leaders: leadership means speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves; it means asking the tough questions and asking them when others will not; it means difficult decisions and making them when others will not; and it means realising that the popular choices are rarely right and that the right choices are rarely popular.

Everyday leadership begins with the 'I will' challenge: I will achieve things; I will take ownership when things go wrong; and I will look to give credit when things go right. Leaders should mentor, they should encourage, they should lend support and they should care for the less fortunate. We say to these young leaders on the Gold Coast: people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. It is more about others than about self. If these young leaders of the Gold Coast, these extraordinary young men and women, can grow into all that we proclaim in this place then I think the nation can be proud of them. Right now they are learning what it means to sacrifice their time and their talents to do what is right. They are learning to be role models and to lead by example. They are learning to inspire and be creative. They are learning to have a go.

John Quincy Adams once said: if your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. Let all of us, especially in this place, remember that as we get down to business in this parliament and as our schools get down to the business of educating the next generation of future leaders. Congratulations to our Fadden school leaders. I shall be watching their leadership with enormous interest, and I will table the names of my school leaders so that their names can fill the halls of this place, their potential can be recognised and their journey can be watched.

As we praise our school leaders, it is also important to recognise that, in my part of the world, the northern Gold Coast, we are indeed in paradise. It is a beautiful area with great potential, from the waterways of the broadwater as it touches the hinterland and reaches into Mount Tambourine to the great suburbs where many of our more senior Australians have decided to live and the more family areas where people are having a go. With SeaWorld, Whitewater World, Wet'n'Wild, Movie World and the RM Williams show, we are the theme park capital of the country. There is an enormous amount the northern Gold Coast has got going for it, and it is a great pleasure to represent it.

During the last two terms it has been my pleasure to do a range of initiatives and to achieve a range of goals for the area. We have been running for the last five years our Fadden Seniors' Expo, which is a one-stop shop for senior Australians to come along and receive information about the services that are on offer and what they can expect. The former opposition leader, now the Prime Minister, has been twice. The then shadow minister for seniors, now our esteemed Speaker, has been three times. The former deputy leader of the opposition, now the Foreign Minister, has come along. Over 10,000 individual seniors have been through our Seniors' Forum with 12,000 sausages cooked by community groups including Lions and Rotary; 50,000 bottles of water; well over 300 exhibitors; thousands of muffins; and I am sure well over 5,000 pieces of fruit consumed. We try and provide not only a free lunch and morning tea but an avenue to connect in friendship, to learn about services and to enjoy our latter years.

It has been my pleasure over many years to run our Fadden Volunteer Awards recognising the hundreds and hundreds of the great unsung heroes in our community: those people who are the glue that keep the community together; those people who have over 300 times donated blood; those people who have spent 60 years of their life advocating for road safety; and those people who have served the likes of St Vincent's, the Red Cross or the Salvos for over half a century. These hundreds of local volunteers in our community do an outstanding job, and the Fadden volunteer awards are all about recognising that.

It has been a pleasure to give over 100 local sporting grants to recognise wonderful young people who are reaching, and trying to reach, their maximum potential in sport. Each received a $500 grant. I have signed over 5,000 birthday and congratulatory cards, and as many anniversary cards, and other terms, to say: 'Well done. Thank you for your help and community'. I have been proud to provide $70,000 to the local Men's Shed at Labrador for the great work they do in reaching out. They reach out not only to the men in their community, but also, on school days on certain afternoons, they bring in marginalised students from the community and engage with them, involve them and assist them.

It was a pleasure to give $45,000 to the local Labrador cricket club, which is on an iconic piece of ground that, frankly, needed a fence. For those of us who enjoy a good game of backyard cricket—it is a good game because the backyard stops the ball from getting out, except for every now and then when that mighty stroke puts it through the neighbour's window. The Labrador cricket club does not have a fence, and getting the ball from the local trees and swamp is particularly painful. All politics is local; we are going to build them a fence.

It has been great to give thousands and thousands of dollars to Australian Business Week, and I will continue this year to be the major platinum sponsor for Australian Business Week, which is about taking a program into schools to teach them business principles, financial principles—this year it is all about manufacturing.

It is great to give thousands of dollars to various P&C committees for their fetes. I think last year it was $1,000 to support Biggera Waters P&C fete. There was money for the scout group Easter raffles and for the Livingstone Christian College spring fairs. It was fabulous to buy a vehicle—worth over $9,000—for New Life Food Barn. They run a food bank that provides food parcels free—or for about five or 10 bucks—for families that cannot afford it. They wanted to deliver to more senior Australians and other families that could not get down to the food bank, but they did not have a refrigerated vehicle. So we all dug deep and bought them a refrigerated vehicle. Now they can increase their food parcels from a couple a week to hundreds and hundreds of food parcels a week to Australians in the northern Gold Coast who are not able to travel to get their food parcels.

Like all things, if there are community groups that do not have shade on weekends, we are more than happy to provide marquees—as we did for the Pacific Pines Netball Club, for the migrant centre, and for the Ugandans in Queensland—to assist with their community activities.

It has been a joy over the last few years to preside over ceremonies for 300 people becoming citizens. I enjoy running the northern Gold Coast citizenship ceremony with the Helensvale Lions, who do an absolutely amazing job. They do all of the work pulling it together, all of the work with the community, all of the work liaising with the department of immigration. And they allow me the opportunity to run it on the day as the presiding officer, only because of the magnificent work that the Helensvale Lions Club does. It is the biggest citizenship ceremony now in the Gold Coast, which is the nation's sixth-largest city, which is really quite phenomenal.

I want to thank some people who were instrumental in terms of the last election; the election where the Abbott government got a resounding victory and where the Labor Party reached its lowest primary vote in—goodness!—almost 100 years. So many people were involved. I thank those who manned booths: Peter Grant; Glenn Snowdon; Horace Wright; Robert Schweizer; Peter Stinchcombe; Bev Gordon; Kyle Shapland; Bill McMahon; Pam McMahon; Natalie Davis; Richard Towsen; Neil Lennie; David Callard; Elena Gold; Mark Tull; Rick Martos; Michael Mills; Rae Mills; Geoff Rossman; Kerry Knight; Phil Hunniford; David Huth; Dominque Lummus; Howard Ellems; Grant Kemble; Phil Lovell; Peter Corcoron; Allan Smith, who is also the FDC chair and did a fabulous job; Adam Brereton; Jane Stackpool and her husband, Allan Blaikie, who did an amazing job out on the western side of the electorate; Greg Zipf; Ross Linton-Smith; De Aneel Nihal; Ross Clement; Deryl McConaghy; Con Pandelakis; Gunter Pfitzer; Jan Monument; Craig Monument; Mark Hatton; Paul Shelley; and Karen Robertson. They went out of their way to assist during the campaign. They worked hard and they assisted with another great victory on the northern Gold Coast.

I thank the fabulous team at New Life Food Barn who also came around and fed and watered volunteers and those working on the day. We intentionally packed enough food and enough water for every single volunteer from every single political party at every single booth. Whether you were with the Liberal-National Party, the Labor Party, the Greens, the Katter Party or Clive Palmer, you were fed and you were watered by our team, because democracy is important. We want people to come out. We want them to participate in democracy, and it was a great pleasure to feed them all, the whole lot. It was great to see New Life Food Barn—that every day feeds the homeless and the hungry and the disadvantaged—and to be able to pay them well-and-truly over market price because I wanted that money to go back into the services they do. That was intentional. I wanted them to feed everyone and to send the message that that is what we do in Australia.

I thank: Peter Campbell and Kay Hobson, who were instrumental in getting out and about and making things happen. And there were over 400 other supporters I want to thank; volunteers who worked day in, day out, believing in us as a government and believing that there is a better way of governing our nation.

As the Assistant Minister for Defence, my job now is to work with the Minister for Defence and the Prime Minister to ensure our Defence force is capable of achieving a disproportionate strategic combat effect on the battlefield. The first priority of any government is national security. It pains me to say that the last six years of Labor saw that first priority relegated down. During the latter years of the last government, into the campaign, we produced a book, The Little Book of Labor's Defence Backflips,just to highlight the sheer difference between what the last government brought and what this government brings. I was proud to do the Defence launch with the now Prime Minister and the now Minister for Defence with the Aviation Brigade down at Luscombe Field at Holsworthy, as we stood there and nailed our colours to the wall. We, as a political party seeking government, said that we would not cut Defence expenditure; that any savings we found in Defence we would reinvest in Defence, and we would take the budget back to two per cent of GDP by 2022. What that means in dollar terms is that we will put up to $25 billion back in, to take the budget back to two per cent of GDP, because right now it is 1.58 per cent of GDP, the lowest level since 1938, and the former Labor government ripped out $25 billion.

The last Labor government said that they would give budget certainty but they reduced the level of GDP spend to 1938 levels. They said they would have a completely committed and funded white paper, but the funding for their white paper in 2009 was 1½ pages and their white paper in 2013 was, generously, a joke! We will have a properly funded white paper delivered by March 2015. We will have a force structure review properly attached to the 2015 white paper. The Labor government's last white paper had no force structure review attached to it. It had no approved Defence Capability Plan. In fact, the Defence Capability Plan right now is the one from 2009, because Labor could not even get around to endorsing one in 2013.

We will ensure that we will get that funding guarantee back up to two per cent of GDP. We will ensure that what we put in place is properly costed and properly funded. We will ensure a generous military superannuation system and we will index DFRDB pensions to the level of male total average weekly earnings or, indeed, the new living cost index. The Labor government indicated that they would do that in 2007 and delivered nothing. We will deliver it. We will deliver indexation for our veterans. We will do it in the first half of this year. It will be budgeted for. It will be in the May budget. It will start on 1 July.

We have not only announced but also implemented the coalition's commitment for free Australian Defence Force health care. As of 1 January this year any out-of-pocket costs for Medicare for any dependent spouse or other dependants, be they children or an aunt or an uncle who is classified as a dependant, will be paid for by the system. There will also be $400 per dependant per year to spend on ancillary health care—podiatry, physiotherapy, chiropractic and dentistry—and you can pool it. If you are serving member—for example, a female sergeant in one of our regiments—and you are married with, say, three kids, the four of you can pool that $400 and that gives you $1,600 to get little Johnny's teeth fixed.

In 2007 Labor promised to build 12 health centres, which they never did. They then promised a trial in terms of providing health services on bases. The trial went forever. In their last budget they cut $50 million out of the program. We promised it and we have delivered it. It is live right now. People were receiving the benefit on day one, 1 January. Navy Health as the provider is doing a fabulous job.

We committed to giving Australian industry the opportunity to compete for project work as much as possible. Unfortunately, something like 5,000 local Australian jobs in small to medium enterprises have disappeared over the last six years because the previous government simply ripped money out of defence and has left us with a procurement bow wave that we will have to deal with. The problems in procurement that have been left for us are an unmitigated disaster.

We take the defence of our nation seriously. When we make commitments in terms of the defence budget we will keep them. When we make commitments in terms of Australian Defence Force health care we have already implemented them. When we make commitments in terms of properly indexing DFRDB we will legislate for that in the coming months to allow it to be in the budget and to allow it to start on 1 July. When we make commitments that we have backed up subsequently for defence industry and giving defence industry a level playing field we mean it. When we spoke about Operation Sovereign Borders and committed a single chain of command through Minister Morrison through to a joint agency task force headed by a three-star, and when we said that we would force assign military assets to achieve the effect we wanted in the North of Australia, we did it. We committed those assets and kept them committed there to achieve the strategic effect which today, I think, is 76 days with no successful people-smuggling ventures. We will continue to keep our commitments in terms of defence.

It is a great privilege for all of us to be here in the House of Representatives, and I know every member here in the House—all 150—count it as a privilege and seek to serve their constituencies as best as possible. I am no different from others. I seek to do my very best here to represent my constituents to the best of my ability and to represent the government as a minister to the best of my ability.

I once again thank the constituents of the northern Gold Coast for their hard work, their commitment and their faith in me. I certainly will not let them down.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the assistant minister. Is the assistant minister seeking leave to table some documents?

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do, and I have, and I have done.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You haven't, but I will grant leave.

Leave granted.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the address be agreed to. I call the honourable Minister for the Environment.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a real pleasure to be able to present the address-in-reply in your presence. I want to start from perhaps a slightly different place than one would ordinarily imagine in a speech such as this. I want to begin with four personal goals for the term of government. We each come to this place as representatives of an electorate, and we each come with a focus on what we can do under the Constitution for those whom we represent. I want to begin with a focus on assistance for, firstly, vision-impaired children; secondly, children of parents with a mental illness; thirdly, overcoming Indigenous blindness; and, fourthly, adult literacy. Then I want to present my plan for the electorate of Flinders.

I begin with a real tribute to success. Over the last half decade, I have had the great joy and privilege of working with Alan Lachman and his wife, Maria. Alan and Maria approached me about the fact that their beautiful daughter Francesca, who has profound blindness, did not have access to specialist teaching care. They had returned from living in Europe and were surprised and distressed that there was no equivalent teaching facility in Victoria for vision-impaired children. They believe that each parent should have the choice to mainstream their child or, where necessary, to have specialist teaching. So they set about on what seemed to be an impossible task, and that was to establish an individual school for vision impairment. There are 80 specialist schools in Victoria but not one of these is dedicated to the needs of children with vision impairment or profound blindness. It seems an extraordinary gap in the system—and it is.

It has been one of the great privileges of my time as a parliamentarian to work with Alan and Maria and the team they established in creating The Insight Foundation. Prior to the coalition government's victory in the Victorian election I worked with my state colleague, the Hon. Martin Dixon, and he pledged $2½ million for assistance to The Insight Foundation. They were successful in attaining government and those funds were allocated. Prior to the current election, I worked with the member for La Trobe, Jason Wood, and, in particular, with Senator Mitch Fifield, who is now the relevant minister with a great personal interest in and passion for those with differing degree of disability and challenge. We were able to secure, with the grace of the now Prime Minister, $1½ million for Insight. These two grants together have allowed Insight to become a school. There is now a school for the blind in Victoria—a school for those who are vision impaired. It has been an absolute joy, thrill and labour of love and it has been challenging and painful in many, many ways—but what an outcome! If there is nothing else that is achieved in my time in parliament, that alone will have made it worthwhile to have been here.

I wanted to update the House on where we were at and the goals going forward. I spoke with Alan Lachman just before commencing this address. The school has been operating since early last year. It has been doing it in difficult digs. The families, students and teachers have all put up with substandard accommodation as they have been working on the construction. But we are now less than four weeks away from a new permanent, purpose-built, bespoke facility on the grounds of the Monash's Berwick campus. Monash University, to their eternal credit, has joined with Insight and provided the land. I believe that is being done at a peppercorn rent rate. I hope that is a correct statement to the House, but I understand it is. They have also offered the services of some of their professorial and other staff to work in building the strength and quality of the teaching program. So it is not just the physical space. It is not just the buildings; it is not just the school. It is the capacity to make this Insight centre for education an Australian leader—indeed, a world leader—in education for these absolutely magnificent children.

So where are we at now? We have a specialist primary school offering an expanded core curriculum—braille; orientation and mobility; social interaction; independent living; recreation and leisure; career education; assistive technology; sensory efficiency; self-determination; extracurricular activities; and therapies. There has also been engagement with the Hugh Williamson Foundation. That is to assist mainstream enrolled students of all ages and incorporates four programs: Insight support skills—offering students at mainstream schools extra support and assistance; parent support; early learning, for those aged nought to six; and life transition, which is all about providing assistance for children moving from Insight to mainstream secondary, and from secondary to work. I hope that at some stage we can further expand the facilities available to Insight.

This has been a great dream, driven by two parents—and many, many other parents whom I have encountered along my way—who have created something real, magnificent and important and borne out of a deep sense of love for their daughter Francesca. It has been one of the great honours of my parliamentary career to have in some small way assisted the establishment, development and funding of the Insight school for vision-impaired children.

Going forward, there is a second great task that I wish to pursue over the course of this term which builds on the work from my last term in office, and that is to assist those children of parents with a mental illness. For the first time, last term I acknowledged that I came from a home where my mother had suffered mental illness. She had bipolar and schizophrenia. On the scale of things, it was nowhere near as bad as that faced by many families, but it was significant and for her it was deeply traumatic. I had a happy childhood—I do not want to any way seek to derogate from that—and I was given enormous support, love and care from both my father, who passed in the last year, and my mother. My mother struggled with mental illness for many of her last years. When this was made known I was asked to become a patron of the Satellite Foundation.

The Satellite Foundation is a Victorian based organisation dedicated to assisting the children of mental health sufferers. They are a wonderful group of people. They are really first class. They provide an absolutely critical service in helping the children of mental health sufferers cope with, understand and make their own way forward from very difficult family circumstances—as I say, far more difficult than any circumstance which was faced in my own upbringing. In particular, Satellite deals with stigma, shame and prejudice through peer group activities, which I have been part of, have attended and observed and through which I have engaged with many of the teenagers, in particular, but also younger children of parents with significant mental illness. The support offered by the Satellite Foundation represents a lifeline to these teenagers and children. They can be isolated and confused. Many times the cared-for becomes the carer. The support of the Satellite Foundation means that that these children and teenagers can be given a path so that it is not inevitable that they suffer anxiety, stress or depression and can make their own way forward. The Satellite Foundation has found success with the support of board members who juggle full-time work and parenting responsibilities.

I want to achieve bipartisan support for working with the Satellite Foundation to establish a national program for the children of mental health patients. We could do this across the table in good faith, with nobody seeking to achieve any personal advancement from it and in the recognition that at our best as a parliament we are able to work together. There are many good examples of such bipartisanship. I welcome the announcement by the Minister for Health of the terms of reference for the review of mental health services and programs. My goal for the review is to in some small way ensure that there is a line of funding to assist organisations such as the Satellite Foundation to help the children of mental health victims. It would be a worthy outcome. But it is personal; I am not in any way professing that the finding of such funding is a policy outcome guaranteed by the government. But the finding of such funding is incumbent upon me in my role as a member of parliament.

The third personal objective for this term of government I want to achieve is the eradication of blindness among Indigenous youth. There are so many challenges for young Indigenous Australians—whether it be eliminating substance abuse or improving educational attainment and economic conditions—but Indigenous blindness in Australia is to an extent unavoidable. Having worked with Professor Hugh Taylor, who is the Harold Mitchell Chair of Indigenous Eye Health at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne, I would like to work towards eradicating avoidable Indigenous blindness by the end of this decade. It may be that we have to extend the achievement of this goal to 2025, but my understanding is that there are 1,400 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are needlessly vision-impaired from diabetes—which is a disease we can address—and 3,000 Indigenous people who have lost their vision as a result of avoidable cataract blindness. This last figure is 12 times the national average. Professor Taylor believes that 94 per cent of vision loss among Indigenous Australians is avoidable, so my personal goal is to have the eradication of avoidable Indigenous blindness included among the outcomes in the next assessment of Closing the Gap. I think that, by 2025, as a nation and as a people and—above all else—as a community we can legitimately aim to eradicate avoidable Indigenous blindness. There are many other issues in Indigenous Australia, but we can potentially control this one.

The fourth and final personal objective for this term of government I want to achieve is the improvement of the rate of adult literacy, particularly within the electorate of Flinders in the Mornington Peninsula and Western Port. Functional literacy is a silent problem, and there is a great deal of shame and stigma associated with it. Functional literacy can be a result of family background, of educational background, of issues such as dyslexia or of growing up in a non-English-speaking background either here in Australia or overseas. The most recent Australian adult literacy statistics were released in October last year. They show that 12.6 per cent of adults in Australia attain only level 1 or below in literacy proficiency. That means they have only the most basic grasp of reading and writing. This makes their lives hugely difficult: it affects their work; it affects their social life; it affects their ability to read; and it affects their sense of self. This 12.6 per cent of adults in Australia needs our help, so one thing I would like to develop over is a renewed focus on adult literacy within the parliament. Improving adult literacy is both a state and national goal—in its essence it is an Australian goal. I believe that we should work both across the chamber here and between the Commonwealth and the states for an adult literacy compact building on what is already in place.

The four goals I have spoken about represent the real work I want to do in this parliament—beyond, of course, the work I do in my fortuitous role as a minister of the Crown with responsibility for the environment and, in particular, the great joy of the work I do in representing my electorate.

I will now set out briefly some of my goals for my electorate. I want to make sure that we protect and maintain the long-held green wedges which are part and parcel of the Mornington Peninsula. I worked with the community there on protecting Arthurs Seat and Red Hill from the construction of a tip, and it was very satisfying. I am working with the Mount Martha football and cricket clubs on an upgrade of facilities for them, and the life saving club is about to commence a program of tearing down their old clubhouse and building a new one. Many people have been involved in finding the funds to do so. The same goes for the long-held goal of an aquatic centre for Rosebud, something I believe in. I believe that the overwhelming majority of people on the Southern Peninsula support it and we will just keep going until that is done. We want to keep going on the Point Nepean task of a national centre for coastal climate or equivalent activity, protecting Shoreham and working on the environmental outcomes through the Green Army for Mt Martha, the Southern Peninsula foreshore, for the Red Hill biolink and the Mornington Peninsula war on weeds.

In terms of Western Port, we will just keep going until there is a 24-hour police station at Somerville, which will also serve the people of Baxter and Pearcedale. We want to work with Tyabb and Pearcedale on the same task of protecting against inappropriate development and also to ensure that there are more jobs, investment and technical training for Hastings and Somerville, protecting the unique character of Flinders and Shoreham and ensuring that the fire station project in Crib Point is done. I am delighted that the residential project in Hastings for those with disabilities has been completed.

In terms of Phillip Island and Bass Coast and the nearby areas in Cardinia, the Kooweerup bypass is underway. We want to work to ensure there is adequate flood protection for Koowerup, Bayles and Lang Lang. On Phillip Island we just have to keep going until hospital facilities in terms of a progressive upgrade are in place. We have $2.5 million ready to co-invest with the state and we are having productive discussions with the state.

The new schooling model which the Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, announced maybe allows us to work towards a secondary school link to one of the primary schools through the independent schools model on Phillip Island. Similarly we are going to work for additional police facilities in Grantville and reticulated gas for Phillip Island and the Bass Coast. These are tough challenges but they are achievable. I do not want to overpromise, I want to set the goal and the task and the target.

Against that background, it is always a privilege to stand at the dispatch box in this parliament, not just because we can speak but because we can represent our community. I end by returning to the beginning: one of the great privileges of my time has been to work with people such as Alan and Maria Lachman, to see the way in which two inspired parents can unite a community, can create a legacy and establish a school born of the deepest feelings of love and support for their magnificent daughter, Francesca, and to establish something such as the Insight school for the vision impaired. I thank the House for the opportunity. I thank the electors of Flinders for the opportunity and I look to people such as Alan and Maria when I say they represent the very best of Australia.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the opportunity to associate myself with the words of the previous speaker, the member for Flinders, in an accurate assessment that it is truly a privilege to stand in this place. I am humbled to be re-elected by my electorate to return to this place for a second term. What motivates me is the fact that if this was not my address-in-reply speech and it was a speech I was giving because I had lost my seat and I was coming back for a valedictory, would I be able to sleep at night knowing that I had given my all during my term? Would I be able to sleep at night knowing that I had helped as many people as I could during my term? I know that the effort that one goes through during the election cycle is a journey one does not take on one's own. You take the journey with your staff, with your family, with the mountain of volunteers who assist you to get back here so that you can stand in this chamber, debate issues that are relevant to your electorate and hopefully, just hopefully, influence the direction of the nation.

The electorate of Wright was named after a poet, Judith Wright. My electorate is approximately 7,500-8,000 square kilometres and borders at the top the Toowoomba range. It encompasses some of the most picturesque, beautiful landscape, ranging from horticulture to the Gold Coast hinterlands. It borders up to the New South Wales border, with reference to geography. We border up to Blair in the north and Forde, MacPherson and Moncrieff in the east. It is really a picturesque electorate and I am truly blessed to be able to be the electorate of Wright's representative. It is an extremely diverse electorate: vegetable growing, dairy, beef, tourism and new areas under housing, a developing area such as Yarrabilba, where there is expected to be no less than 50,000 people residing in that community over the coming years. That is an entire state electorate in its own right. In addition to Yarrabilba there are Flagstone and the Bromelton industrial park—all positive influences that are changing the dynamics daily within our electorate.

The return trip to the parliament for a second term is not made on your own. Yes, you may be the face on the billboard, but behind that campaign there is an enormous amount of work that gets done by extremely generous volunteers. I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge some of those in my FDC, my federal executive. The chairman, Rod Venz, is a dairy farmer, a man who is grounded in the electorate, a man who spent most of his professional career as a high school teacher and principal working in regional and remote parts of Queensland. The advice, the mentorship, the steady comments when he would pick the phone up and advise you helped to make me the man that I am, so I acknowledge Rod for his contribution. He and all volunteers give their time freely. Deputy chair Alan Fry is located strategically in the Lockyer Valley, so we have our executive come from different sectors of the FDC, so we get true representation. Alan's discipline and sense of community are outstanding. He is an Englishman, and before coming to Australia he was a high-ranking officer in Scotland Yard, where he sat below the Commissioner of Police and above ranked officers; I think he was either the second or third in charge of Scotland Yard. Those skills also were of enormous advantage—the discipline, the structure and the regimented way in which he assisted with the campaign.

Our secretary, Lynne Bell, from up on Tamborine Mountain—what a wonderful asset she was. You need a diligent set of hands on the books. To you, Lynne, and your husband: I appreciate your contribution as well. My trusty treasurer, Alice Warby, who is on my staff and is also the zone president of the women's association for our party in Queensland, has been a stalwart of the party for so many years. Thanklessly she goes about offering an enormous number of hours for the betterment of the party, and recently she was acknowledged for her contribution by the party when she was the recipient of a life membership. This is the calibre of personnel that I have working collectively with me. I am so blessed and I am humbled.

Once we get past our executive, we have a number of branches throughout our electorate, and I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the Beaudesert SEC executive chairman, Glenn Abbott, and his commitment. Glenn is one of the area's predominant horticultural farmers, growing a range of products including beetroots, carrots and onions, but always found time in the middle of planting to get to our meetings and to lead his community. The hardworking branches in Wright include the Fassifern branch, the Lockyer branch, the Tamborine branch, the Christmas Creek-Rathdowney branch, the Beaudesert branch, the Jimboomba-Woodhill branch and, of course, the Beaudesert women's. I acknowledge all of their support.

In addition, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the regional chairs. My area is so diverse that it falls over two regions. I thank James Kennett from the Gold Coast for his contribution and the way that he went about diligently working through the campaign. To the west is a wonderful man by the name of Pat Weir. Pat, I take this opportunity to acknowledge your recent preselection for the state seat of Condamine, which you will contest at the next Queensland state election. I acknowledge what you do and the area that you represent, and I know that there are many people in my electorate that join with me in congratulating you on the fantastic result that you achieved recently at that preselection.

I would like to thank my campaign team, led by none other than Greg Birkbeck, a personal friend of mine. It is as if you cannot work on my staff unless we all share the same birthday. Greg and I share the same birthday, 27 March. I am sure that I would not be here without his support and leadership. I acknowledge the many hundreds of booth workers that come to help out on the day, particularly those who come before the euphoria of the election, when people are able to get enthused—those true diehards who come out and stand at pre-polling centres for the weeks beforehand and those who scrutineer late on polling day. I acknowledge their commitment and all of those who assisted me to be here.

I would like to thank my staff, who like to refer to themselves as Team Buchholz. I am truly blessed. We sometimes see the staff of members in this House acting like a carousel, as staff rotation can be quite high. I wear as a badge of honour the fact that I have taken the same team as when I first entered this place through to today. Those people are Greg Birkbeck, Alice Warby, Ruth Doyle, Hannah Robinson and Jo Dempsey. It is a team effort. As I said earlier, my face is on the billboard but it is the team effort, along with the efforts of those aforementioned, that really owns the right to be able to say that we have an LNP member representing the seat of Wright.

The families of all members in this place make an enormous sacrifice, because it is our families that sacrifice the time that they would normally spend with us so that we can spend it with our communities. I take this opportunity to acknowledge my beautiful wife, Lynn, and my daughter, Grace, who only this week started her first year of university, where she will be studying environmental science in Toowoomba. She will go great guns, because she has her mum's looks and her dad's—well, not much! She is all mum! Mum is a cracker of a—she is all mum! Any skills that my daughter picks up are as a result of my beautiful wife.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was some fast footwork!

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. Big thanks go to the LNP state president, Bruce McIver, who is an absolute standout. Bruce is a personal friend of mine. Thank you for what you do in shaping our organisation and the discipline that you bring to the job. You are truly an inspirational leader. I am sure there will be a resolution put at the next state conference to double your salary next year! To Brad Henderson, our state executive director: thank you for the leadership that you showed during our campaign. From a federal perspective, without Brian Loughnane and the overall macrocampaign I do not think we would have secured the numbers we did on this side of the House.

I have to get out of the habit of calling Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, 'brother' or 'mate'. It is a humbling experience to be able to refer to him now as 'Prime Minister'. His discipline through the campaign was exemplary, and I was honoured when he rang me to ask me to take on the position of Government Whip. That phone call was one that I was not expecting, and the progression path for a relatively new member was evidence that I was not expecting it. But I do appreciate the opportunity that he has given me, and my commitment is that I will act with due diligence and offer as much as I can to make sure I fulfil the duties of the whip.

But, moving closer to the reply speech in trying to find issues and what you achieve for your electorate, I will recap on some of the heartache that we had to endure during the first three years. I was only four months into the job, and Lockyer Valley, on the western side of my electorate, was hit with a devastating flood, an unprecedented amount of water that went through in such a short amount of time. The devastating impacts that it had on that electorate, those scars, will be seen and felt in the electorate for many decades to come. It was a one-in-150-year flood. We lost an enormous number of lives in that period.

I recall, as a new member, not really knowing where my parameters as a member were. I am sure that sometimes I approved stuff well outside my pay grade under the auspices that if I did not do it nobody else would, and as a result our community hastily started its rebuilding phase. We had an enormous number of insurance issues to deal with after the floods. In the relationships that I built with insurance companies, there were insurance companies that were excellent to deal with. There were insurance companies that, through the rest of my life, I will have an opinion on, which I have shared in this House before. From my light, the best form of marketing for an insurance company is to pay the client out. For those that decided to sneak out the back door because of fine print: you do not have any respect from me.

Can I acknowledge in my community those enormous contributions made by our service organisations, which I am so proud to be associated with either indirectly or directly. They are the people from our Rotary clubs, our Lions clubs and our Red Cross. In regional Australia and regional Queensland, they are so instrumental in our communities. They are the blood of our community service. When you find communities that have those strong organisations, you will often find vibrant communities, and you will find that we do not leave our weak behind; we take them with us.

On my RSL clubs: we did an overview of how many RSL clubs we have in our electorate and how long it would take me to attend every dawn service in my electorate. For me to attend every dawn service in my electorate, I would need to be returned to this parliament eight consecutive times, and it would only be after the 26th year of consecutive service in this House that I could then return to the place where I attended my first dawn service.

We have an enormous number of schools. I know they are under state auspices, but I do work closely with my schools because I believe that the job of a federal member is to encourage and lead the next generation coming through. In our school leaders program, where we offer certificates for both our senior leaders and our junior leaders, it is encouraging to see the next wave of talent coming through the electorate.

An ongoing issue for us in the electorate is without a doubt the plight of our dairy farmers and the pain which they endure with reference to the retailers' price-down structure for a dollar for milk. The cost-of-production price in the electorate is just over 50c. A recent survey was conducted by the Queensland dairy organisation, and it was found that just on 80 per cent of our dairy farmers, when they received their monthly milk cheque, could not pay their expenses for the month. The long-term future financial viability of this industry is truly in question.

As a member of parliament I gave solemn commitments that I would fight for a better price at the farm gate. I have given speeches this week in this parliament doing exactly that. I have met with ministers with reference to mandatory codes of conduct. I speak, if not on a daily basis, on a weekly basis with the Queensland dairy organisation, and most definitely on a daily basis to different dairy organisations. I will continue to fight not only for our dairy sector but for our horticultural sector, for our beef industry and for anyone that is suffering, for a better price for their product at the farm gate.

Can I acknowledge the contributions of our chambers of commerce through the electorate and what they do with reference to working collectively with the business groups to enhance profitability.

Additionally, I acknowledge the chaplaincies in our schools and our church leaders. The church leaders in our community are so important because they are the moral compass for our community. Without faith—you do not necessarily have to attend church, but it is the moral compass of a community which assists in where its trajectory is. Recently, St Mary's in Beaudesert had a horrific fire where they lost their administration building. I know that as a community they will rally once again and they will rebuild. It will be an arduous task, but they will rebuild. My thoughts and prayers go to that community.

I would like to acknowledge my local mayors. I have four shires that are encompassed. The mayors are Steve Jones, from the Lockyer Valley Regional Council, who was in the House this morning; Mayor John Brent, from the Scenic Rim Regional Council, who was also in the House today and who also plays a role with AUSVEG; Mayor Tom Tate, of the Gold Coast, where my electorate takes in parts of Mudgeeraba; and Pam Parker, from Logan City Council, who was down here last week. The relationship I have with my mayors is outstanding. They are wonderful people. If we are truly going to make a difference in these communities, we need to understand what the priorities are for a local government and help them help themselves through infrastructure, funding or planning. It is our responsibility as federal members to make sure that we deliver on those commitments.

I would like to also share with the parliament the impact that the carbon tax is having on businesses throughout my electorate. Not one of my business houses has been able to escape the clutches of the carbon tax. We will continue in this House to fight on a daily basis to have that ridiculous piece of legislation repealed so that that financial burden can be lifted off their energy prices. And basically everything they touch has hidden in it somewhere a secret carbon tax component.

I would like to thank the many ministers, too many to mention, who have taken the time to travel to my beautiful electorate.

I would also like to thank our media. We have 13 media outlets throughout my electorate. Some are friendly; some are not so friendly, but they are all honest. To each of our media outlets in the electorate: thank you for the way that you have worked and cooperated with me. In times of hardship, you have been there. When you have thought I have got a little bit too big for my boots, you have snapped me back into gear. The fourth estate is a valuable part of our community, and we should never forget you.

I gave a commitment when I was first elected that I would stand up and represent the voice of the silent majority. Unfortunately, the voice of the silent majority is becoming greater and greater. I have always advocated that the electorate of Wright is the weathervane for our nation. I thank you for the House's indulgence.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I imagine the member has concluded his remarks. If he has not he will have leave to continue his remarks when the debate is resumed.

Debate interrupted.