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

I gladly take this unplanned opportunity to make some contributions to the adjournment debate. I will start by wishing my wishing my son a very happy birthday today. I have missed Stavvie's birthday every year since I have been up in this parliament. He is 23 today, and I hope that he is now old enough to understand and forgive my absences. I look forward to seeing him this evening.

I am going to take the opportunity to speak about some of the events that I will be involved in in my electorate next week—events that, no doubt, I will come back to this parliament and report on. I will just mention that next week I will be having a meeting with our state member for Sunbury, and I will also be meeting with the government liaison people of the Melbourne airport. I often get briefs from the Melbourne airport about the state of affairs there. Both meetings will cover the same issues. Next week I hope to be raising issues that many of my constituents have raised with me over the course of the last couple of years as we have been in a consultation process with the community in regard to the third runway at the Melbourne airport. These are matters that are ongoing discussions with the airport and with all three levels of government. Insofar as my involvement is concerned, I am obviously very keen to be available to my constituents, who wish to raise their concerns with me. The Melbourne Airport is a central feature of the federal seat of Calwell. It is a major employer in our electorate. It employs some 12,000 people. It is poised for development and has certainly experienced huge developments in the time that I have been the member. The third runway is an issue for some members of the community, so I look forward to having further discussions with them, with the airport and with our state colleagues.

I also look forward to meeting next week with a young doctor in Melbourne who is doing some incredibly good work and research in dementia. He has a plan to raise dementia awareness and to bring it to the attention of the Australian parliament by organising a cycling tour to Canberra. I am very excited about meeting with him and having discussions about his planned cycling to Canberra, and certainly I will be reporting more to the House about this particular event as it comes to fruition.

I am also going to be attending, quite happily, Penola Catholic College next Friday. They will be doing the blessings of the opening of a trades training centre. This is a very important facility in my electorate, and I look forward to sharing the opening of this wonderful new building with my constituents.

Very importantly, I am also going to be meeting next week with some 21 constituents in Melbourne who will have, I anticipate, some very disturbing things to pass on to me as their federal member in regard to their experiences at a local training college. Although I do not want to say very much at this point in time, one of our local registered training organisations has come into the spotlight in recent times in relation to some of the experiences that some of my local constituents have had. Obviously, I will be speaking with them and intend to bring their stories to this parliament, because I think we all are aware that there are some serious problems. We hear about them.

Today's media talks about the collapse of four registered training colleges leaving thousands of students in the lurch and probably thousands of students with accrued debts. This is a serious issue that has become known to us through various media reports for some time. I am very keen to see what I can do to assist in helping not just the government but the policymakers in general to deal with an issue that I believe is pretty much out of control. It is not providing a service to people; it is actually landing them in a lot of trouble, leaving them in the lurch. As I said, after I have spoken to my constituents I intend to come back to this House and report on their circumstances.