Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start with a big congratulations to members of my community. Since earlier this year, the residents of the Kingborough and Huon Valley communities have been lobbying to overturn the government's very callous decision and very nasty decision to close the local Centrelink and Medicare office in Kingston. The residents alerted me to this in January of this year. We had a petition, and we also called a public meeting. I was very pleased that, on Friday of last week, we heard that the new Minister for Human Services had done a backflip on the appalling decision made by the former minister. The former minister, of course, made a decision before Christmas to shut this Centrelink office and kept it quiet. I have spoken about this issue in this place up since 11 January, when we found out. We then started a community campaign. So the residents deserve a big congratulations for standing up against this government's proposal to close their Centrelink office. It is a big win for the local community.

But the residents at the public meeting that we had on Sunday, which still went ahead despite the government's backflip and which was attended by over 300 community members, still expressed concern that they do not believe the government will continue to deliver the services that the local community needs. They also expressed concern that they want better services, not less services, from the current government. They have asked me to write to the new minister and get an appointment to raise their local issues, which, of course, I have now done.

But they have also been raising with me, over the weekend and this week, their concerns about some of the misleading claims that appear on Senator Eric Abetz's Facebook page. In particular, Senator Abetz says that the Liberal government have decided not to proceed with Labor's scheduled closure of the Kingston Centrelink office—Labor's scheduled closure! Labor opened the Kingston office in 2011 and 2013—

An honourable member: Old Eric!

It was Eric's government—this Liberal government—that made the decision before Christmas to shut this office and it is his government that have done a backflip, only due to community pressure. I congratulate the local residents for standing up against this government. The people of southern Tasmania are, quite frankly, getting sick of the government ignoring them and not doing anything to better service the local communities there. The issues that they want me to raise with the new minister about the services they want in their local communities are quite extensive. They want to ensure that the privacy issues associated with the co-location that is going to occur from June onwards with Service Tasmania are dealt with. People are dealing with sensitive private matters when they go to Centrelink and Medicare and they want to ensure their privacy is protected when dealing with government.