Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my Bowman report, which I give annually on what has been achieved in the last year, it is ironic that I am doing it in the shadows of the State of Origin where most of my state and all of my electorate are focused elsewhere, but I will ensure that they do hear what has been achieved in the last 18 months. The themes for our last year have been child and youth, aged care and seniors and infrastructure.

To start with the NBN, there is a massive relief in my seat of Bowman, which has the worst quality and access to broadband in the country out of the 150 electorates nationally. We are delighted that, starting July, we are shovel ready in the two southern suburbs of Redland Bay and Mount Cotton for fibre-to-the-node to every one of those 6,400 homes. The remainder of my electorate will be covered by HFC coaxial pay TV, cable high speed broadband connections over the next 18 months with speeds of 200 to 300 megabits per second in off peak. We have an emphasis on Rickertt Road, and I commit tonight to devoting black spot funding applications for the expansion and improvement of the road outside my electorate, but it is a road used by half of my electorate. Rickertt Road and Green Camp Road must be fixed. In senior's issues we have worked very, very hard to connect supervisors of Work for the Dole projects to young people to see an exchange of skills, confidence and opportunity.

We have seen an Anzac Memorial built with Anzac funding that recognises those who served and recognises every battle Australian's have fought in. I am very glad that, since 2008, we have been working on a medal for those who lost their lives serving this country. Deputy Speaker Scott, we have spoken about that before. The Army was the final line of our armed services to approve a pin that remembers that service. It was something that was given up in 1945, very tragically, and it has now been restarted.

For young people in my electorate there is nothing more important that Imago. I have partnered with the Medicare Local, PHN, to ensure that every single child in the electorate is screened by their general practitioner at 18 months, when they are vaccinated, to check for vulnerability or for falling behind in milestones. We are ensuring that every childcare centre is credentialed to carry out a PEDS test to identify children falling behind. We are bringing allied health practitioners into childcare areas to deliver those services, hopefully using Medicare rebates to do it, and that is very, very novel and innovative.

We have the Redland Young Champions program, which has been independently funded to provide two $500 travel bursaries for children of all school ages who are engaging, not just in sport as the federal program does, but in artistic, intellectual, academic, or dramatic pursuits, and they can have their travel funded.

We are working very hard to use regional infrastructure money to fund a community learning centre on one of our remote islands off the coast to enable children with a disability to travel and fully self-contained accommodation. It provides a revenue model for those who will be running the service and the centre, which is a partnership, potentially, with the Quandamooka people on North Stradbroke Island. Most importantly are local jobs on an island that is finding it hard to retain them. We know that this week North Stradbroke Island risked losing 200 jobs with state Labor closing sand mining in just four years. It is almost impossible to dispose of an asset like a family home when you have that many people being pushed off the island through lack of work.

In Work for the Dole and unpaid work experience, it is in Redlands in the seat of Bowman that is being extraordinarily novel in pushing private sector opportunities. A business can take a young job seeker, who is fully insured, for 28 days. Obviously they are working for their welfare payment as part of a mutual obligation and a participation requirement. It is my goal to have 1,000 of those places, to have 1,000 small businesses in my electorate taking on a young Redlander and giving them a shot, not just at a future job but at confidence, at building their resume and at being shoulder to shoulder with real workers. It is the private sector, which is 98 per cent of our economy and 93 per cent of employment, that holds the future and the key for young people looking for work.

Lastly, Work for the Dole is partnering up in my electorate in an innovative way in what we intend to be a partnership with men's sheds. The men's sheds have come together with Volunteering Redlands and are exploring the possibility that the aged, the frail, those living alone and those unable to maintain their own homes, both inside and out. can call in a Work for the Dole team to provide work and construction with the dispensation of the department. Men's sheds, Work for the Dole teams and skilled supervisors will be working together to help the community in a concept that is referred to as Home Help. These issues have been our focus in Bowman over the last 18 months.

House adjourned at 20:00