Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to elders past and present.

I was honoured to attend the welcome to country ceremony prior to the opening of parliament on Tuesday, and to witness the wonderful first speech of the member for Barton yesterday. It is also important to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land that comprises my electorate of Bass. I acknowledge the connection the traditional owners of the land in north-eastern Tasmania have with their land and country, and I respect their continuing customs and traditions. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands now called Tasmania—their stories, their culture and their history must be acknowledged and respected. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present.

I wish to thank the very many people who have made it possible for me to stand here today in this extraordinary building as a member of parliament. I thank the chair of my campaign committee, Senator Helen Polley, who is in the chamber here today. I would particularly like to thank Elliott Bell for his long and dedicated service to my campaign. I also wish to extend my most heartfelt thanks to the amazing Amy Jenkins, who acted as field organiser for the campaign—a campaign which was won on the ground, with literally thousands of conversations with the electors of Bass about the matters that were important to those electors.

There are others too—Yvette, Fay, Victor, Jennifer, Susan, Lewis, Jane, Andrew, Jack, Greg, Rob, Elaine, Marian, Andrew, Phil and Astra, Adam and Coby, David, Woody, Marita and many more. I am sorry that I cannot use my allocated time here today to list everyone. Thank you also to my friend and mentor, Michelle O'Byrne, a former member for Bass in this federal parliament.

I wish to pay particular tribute to the teams of people who doorknocked, handed out how-to-vote cards and contributed in many varied ways to a successful campaign. To my comrades in the union movement, thank you once again. You provide for the empowerment of people who would otherwise be disenfranchised, particularly those who are in a low-paid or insecure work. To Tim Jacobson of HACSU, Jannette Armstrong of United Voice, Paul Griffin of the SDA and other unions: I thank you for putting your trust in me. Your members inspire me. They dedicate themselves to improving the lives of working people.

It is also important that I mention my friends at the MUA, the CFMEU, the Australian Maritime Officers Union, Rainbow Labor, the Tasmanian Left and the Bass Labor branches and affiliates, all of whom were energised by this campaign. I was proud to acknowledge the Labor movement on election night and I do so again today in this House.

I stand here today after having served 30 years as a legal practitioner in private practice, both as a commercial and a commercial litigation lawyer. I represented both individuals and corporate clients and, because of the nature of Tasmania, many family businesses. I understand the pressures of small business. I have lived and worked in my northern Tasmanian community for the whole of my working life. Small businesses do well when everyone does well.

One of the remarkable aspects of a small community like Tasmania is that whilst people might disagree on their politics they will put that aside if they have confidence in someone as a professional who can focus on the relevant issues in good faith. I look forward to representing all of those who voted for me and, most importantly, I send a message to those who did not vote for me. The role of a member is to represent the electors of a division and I will do my best to ensure that the residents of Bass receive representation in this place.

I thank the former member for Bass Andrew Nikolic for his service in this place. I commended him for his service to the electorate on election night and I do so again in this place. We must not forget that public service demands sacrifice, and sometimes that sacrifice goes unrewarded.

Bass is based around the city of Launceston and its greater urban area. It is described by the Electoral Commission as a provincial electorate and, in many respects, represents a microcosm of the larger Australian electorate. It has a manufacturing past, most notably based around textile production and the automotive industry, and a significant rural sector. Until the 1990s, there was a substantial industrial base at Inveresk railway workshops. It was a Labor government that invested funding to facilitate economic transition to address jobs lost when that industrial past was left behind with the closure of the rail yards.

Northern Tasmania's economy now rests, to a large degree, on education, health care and the rural sector, including viticulture, forestry and tourism. Much of the good work being done now in exploiting tourism and food and wine was identified in analysis undertaken in the mid to late 1990s under the auspices of the Northern Tasmanian Regional Development Plan. I was fortunate to serve in the organisation with Lance Barnard—another former member for Bass and, notably, a former Deputy Prime Minister in the first Whitlam ministry. Lance Barnard showed me that you did not need to raise your voice or bang on the table to win an argument. He also showed me that it is important to listen and allow people to say their piece—and then win them over.

My connection with industrial Launceston and its future development was renewed when I was appointed to the board of the Inveresk Railyard Management Authority. With the UTas transformation project, some 16 years later Inveresk will again play a prominent role in the future of Launceston, Bass and Northern Tasmania.

I was also honoured to serve as a council member of the Tasmanian health organisation North, then responsible for public healthcare services in the north of Tasmania. I know the importance of Medicare in ensuring access to public health care and the role of federal funding to sustain our public healthcare system.

Whilst I have a background in legal practice, with experience in regional development and health governance, the focus of what I wish to speak about in the balance of my allotted time today is on the broad themes of disadvantage and inequality, framed as aspects of justice for my community and a better future for all. I wish to talk today about how the government's focus on budget repair disproportionately affects those who are in receipt of government benefits or on low income whilst notionally being employed. These effects are not just economic. But first I need to give some context for what I will talk about.

We often hear about the golden days of the 1950s and 1960s, prior to Thatcherism and neo-conservatism, when everybody got a fair go—unless, of course, you were Indigenous or female or affected by the White Australia policy. The truth, as we now know, is that those days are not something that could, or should, be reinstated. However the sense of community then present in our suburbs and regional towns may be at risk today in our present society in terms of what might now be described as 'social connectivity'. In those days, we probably thought about whether you 'belonged' to the community. This issue is particularly important today if you are in receipt of Newstart allowance or on a disability pension or under-employed. We now understand that rising inequality means a greater likelihood that the long-term unemployed and low-income earners are more likely to lack social support—the social connectivity to allow you to actively participate in today's community. This was the subject of academic discussion some years ago but is now framed in the context of, or discussion about, inequality.

The long-term unemployed suffer in many ways which are difficult to comprehend. One way, which is easily overlooked, is the fact that a person experiencing long-term unemployment is highly likely to lose their support networks, which are vital for their continued participation in community life. This is not readily obvious but it does become clear when you realise how low the payment is that we expect a recipient to survive on.

Low income by itself, if support networks are in place, may involve disadvantage. But my fond memories of university, despite the fact that I had little money, emphasise the many networks, particularly support networks, I enjoyed as a student. They sustained me. In contrast to this, unless those networks are already in place and very robust, a person who is in receipt of Newstart is unlikely to maintain strong connections with a support network, which may be very necessary to maintaining physical and emotional health. So, when we speak of disadvantage, in my experience we must think of multiple layers of disadvantage—and the very worst layer of disadvantage is the erosion of the support networks that are capable of keeping a person connected with a community.

How can a person who has parental responsibility, who may be on government benefits, who has an obligation to search for work and also the school or sporting obligations of a child or children, have any resources left to engage with community activities and maintain support networks? When we fail to progress any real increase in the very basic level of support to the most disadvantaged in our community, we are condemning those people to isolation and a potential threat to their health and emotional wellbeing.

I know that those agencies that are tasked with supporting the long-term unemployed understand the level of support that is required to not only locate employment but also keep that person in employment. This is a practical reflection of the isolation which comes from being excluded from society. I would like to see not just a practical increase in the level of benefits available for those who are on Newstart or a disability pension, or for that matter the aged pension, but also practical steps to support the maintenance of networks necessary to maintain the health and emotional wellbeing of the most disadvantaged in our society.

Community groups and welfare agencies have had multiple programs defunded or restricted. Too often the performance measures that service providers are assessed by in this space are financial rather than 'soft factors' such as customer satisfaction. And sporting groups speak about supporting 'grassroots sport'. But the practicality is that, in areas where there is extreme disadvantage, that must mean investment in hyper-local activities—that is, at the suburb level or even at the street level—to be of any practical benefit. In many respects some regional communities are doing better than suburban communities because of the local institutions which had been maintained, such as the local cricket, football or soccer club. A suburban community might lack that level of engagement, unless the local suburban football team has well and truly engaged with the local community.

How is this relevant to the people of Bass? As at March 2016 there were 4,837 Newstart allowance recipients and 4,838 disability support pension recipients in Bass. There are also many who can only be described as underemployed, or who are in insecure employment, not represented in the official figures but reflected in levels of disadvantage. People on low incomes, whether within the allowance or pension system or not, are likely to find it difficult to find and stay in housing and seek medical help. They are more likely to be unwell or to be unemployed. The unemployment rate in Bass was approximately 7.4 per cent as at May 2015, according to ABS figures. The rate of poverty in Bass extends from 12.13 per cent in West Tamar municipality to 20.81 per cent in George Town. Thirty-three per cent of Tasmanian households depend upon income support payments as their main source of income. Low-income families have an average disposable income of $359 per week, compared to an average for all households of $1,224 per week. Thirteen per cent of Tasmanian households have an after-tax income of less than $281 per week.

I was fortunate to be able to campaign, over an extended period of time, within my electorate on the simple but positive themes of jobs, education and health. There is no doubt in my mind that these issues resonated across the communities I spoke to. It was reinforced in every conversation. The mantra of 'jobs and growth' at the centre of the government's campaign was contrasted with the very simple Labor message around well-paid jobs, protecting penalty rates, education in the form of 'Your Child. Our Future' and substantial investment in the University of Tasmania transformation project.

People in the electorate of Bass, particularly those on low incomes or in receipt of allowances or benefits, also well understood that only Labor would stand up to protect public health, Medicare and our public hospitals. Given the substantial research undertaken in the area of social determinants of health, northern Tasmania is at the centre of an unfortunate coincidence of low income; pockets of extreme disadvantage; greater incidence of chronic disease, including those likely to expose the health system to greater demand; and a federal and state government refusing to face the reality that the public health system could not sustain removal of funding.

The 2014 federal budget had an immediate impact upon me. I watched the delivery of the budget by the then Treasurer. I felt physically ill. I knew from my involvement in health governance that substantial cuts to acute hospital funding, particularly for chronic and multiple morbidities, would expose the health system to significant pressure. The advice that I received at that time was clear, if brief. Detailed financial analysis as to the budgetary position of a hospital with a budget of $350 million per annum, run on a financial knife edge to a break-even position every year, I found, can be reduced to a short summary. The summary was: it's bad—really bad.

That aside, my immediate concern was for those young unemployed, under the age of 30, as the government assumed that they would be able to survive without income for six months of every year. Either that or business and the community would be required to bear a burden to support an underclass of unsupported unemployed living in absolute poverty.

That budget was unfair, and the government which attempted to deliver that budget remains determined to deliver many of the programs and cuts announced in that budget despite a change of leader. That leadership claims a mandate, subsequent to the election on 2 July, for a program which still requires the disadvantaged, low-income earners and those on allowances and benefits to pay for the cost of budget repair whilst the government insists that trickle-down economics in the form of $50 billion of tax cuts will create jobs and growth. I was concerned and remain concerned about rising inequality and, it seems, the disregard for unemployed and low-income people and the marginalised within our communities, whether it is in northern Tasmania, elsewhere in regional Australia or in public housing in our large cities.

The plan Labor took to the election was based around a positive plan for the electorate and a positive plan for Australia based around investment in people, in education and in infrastructure—infrastructure like the NBN—and, importantly, in protecting our public healthcare system. I am proud to say that, in hundreds of conversations, particularly in areas which can only be described as disadvantaged, there was a general understanding and agreement with Labor's proposal to make additional investments in education as a driver of economic growth. There is correlation between lower educational attainment and health outcomes, and economist Saul Eslake has long campaigned to the business community within Tasmania that investment in the education and skills of our young people will drive better economic performance. I agree. This is something which provides a strong pathway to a positive future for Tasmania, which I am committed to work upon during my time here.

I thank the entire Labor leadership team—the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten; our deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek; Penny Wong; Chris Bowen; Mark Dreyfus; and others—for their wonderful support of me during the election campaign. This included specific policies announced for Bass including the commitment of $150 million towards the UTAS transformation project. This project benefits not just people within Bass but also the electorate of my good friend the member for Braddon, with the relocation of the Cradle Coast Campus. The aim of the project is to drive enrolment in UTAS's northern campus through new state-of-the-art facilities at Inveresk. Thus the railway workshops of Launceston's industrial past become essential to a future which involves transforming the lives of young Tasmanians through education and training.

I am doubly proud that this commitment was made prior to the formal launch of the campaign and that the Tasmanian Labor team and visiting shadow ministers hammered the government on their commitment to this vital project throughout a long winter campaign until the government finally relented and committed to the project. There is no doubt that this project—with $150 million of federal money, $75 million of state money and $75 million of university funding—will provide important jobs in construction, as an infrastructure project, and will also, in the long term, play a significant part in the revitalisation of the CBD of Launceston as well as driving better education and job outcomes for young Tasmanians.

I am also strongly committed to continuing my advocacy for improved sewerage infrastructure discharging to the Tamar River. There has been significant private and public investment in tourism infrastructure in Launceston in addition to vital federal funding for flood protection. However, Launceston's sewerage system carries the distinction of being one of the very few remaining combined sewerage and stormwater systems in the world, because when it was originally commenced in the 19th century it was state-of-the-art for the time.

Labor made a commitment of $75 million towards TasWater's $250 million sewerage infrastructure project on the basis that the project could not be further delayed. The burden of such a large project would rest on ratepayers and municipal councils within Tasmania without federal government contribution. This echoes the commitment made by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to supply sewerage infrastructure to Western Sydney. Labor has the vision to build and invest. It is significant that Infrastructure Australia has assessed the project as within its top priority projects.

I wish to say some words about the Labor Party that I know and love. Labor stands for people. Labor recognises that we live in communities and the fact that we are not simply consumers in an economy, with overriding individual self-interest. We believe that there is public good in investing in the future. That is why we invested and we campaigned on the transformative power of the investment in education in driving economic growth, particularly in a state of below average income and poor education and health outcomes. Talk of present debt being a burden on our children ignores the obligation we have to invest wisely for our children and the wise investments that have been made by taxpayers past. At a local level, people understood that investing in education meant that the child next door or the child over the road would receive the best education and that would be a public benefit—a public good. Similarly, people understand that paying taxes sustains public education, a universal public Medicare system and public infrastructure. This is the Labor way: putting people first.

Finally: my family. I have my dear wife, Annie, and my son, Pete, in the gallery here today. Pete is studying architecture and design at UTAS's Inveresk campus. He is the future for young Tasmanians. To my family: thank you for indulging me in the long hours of my legal career, hours when I should have been with you both. I regret that I was not there when I should have been.

To my mum and dad: thank you once again for investing your love and values in me. I know you will be keen to see and hear about this week's events when I see you next. I know that your interests will now be capably looked after by the member for Lyons. If not, I am sure you will let me know!

To my sister, Sue, and brother-in-law, Kip, also in the gallery today: thank you for your love and support. I know you have had a difficult couple of years. It has been fantastic to have you here this week.

Finally, to the people of Bass: I will do my best to serve my community; a community I grew up in and a community that has sustained multiple generations of my family. I am deeply humbled that you chose me to serve.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Health And Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That standing order 43 be suspended until the conclusion of the speech on the Address-in-Reply by the member for Eden-Monaro.

Question agreed to.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Eden-Monaro.

Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Now, where was I before I was rudely interrupted?

Firstly, Mr Speaker, congratulations on your reappointment. I think I speak for the nation when I say what great relief and joy we had when you were initially appointed, in the circumstances, and I do not think we have had any cause for regret since that time. Thank you for all you have done to restore sanity to the House and good luck with the rest of this term; I know it will not be easy.

It is wonderful to be here as, now, a member of two classes. Hopefully that gives me the opportunity to learn more and to make many more friends.

An opposition member: You have needed more classes.

It is often said to me that I need more classes. It is wonderful to see, reflecting on the first speeches we have heard, what a massive infusion of talent we have had into this House.

I listened to the member for Perth talk about his experiences with asbestos victims. That was a very formative experience in my career too after I left university. I will never forget reading some of the records that were revealed in some of those processes where American executives in asbestos companies had for many years hidden the results of X-rays on their workers and what they were suffering in terms of the damage from asbestos. One conversation in particular stuck out to me. It was a discussion whereby they were arguing about whether those records should be revealed to the workers. One of these executives vigorously argued that that should not be the case. The response to that from one of the other executives was: 'What are you proposing—that we work our workers to death?' The response to that from the other executive from Johns Manville was: 'We find it's cheaper that way.' Nothing brought home to me more effectively how important the trade union movement is. Effectively, the justice that has been achieved and the reforms in work safety that have been achieved have been achieved through that great movement.

Listening to many of these other comments, I realise too what an enrichment we have had in this House by the infusion of our Indigenous representatives. It really is adding to the quality of this place and adding tremendous new perspectives.

There are others who we will be hearing from. In particular, I look forward to hearing from the member for Wills, whom I served with in Iraq 10 years ago. It is where he met his wife Lydia, who is definitely the better half. She is a very intelligent and strong woman. It is wonderful to be here 10 years later serving in the House together, to bring that experience to bear along with people like Anne Aly, who has tremendous background in the counterterrorism struggle that we are engaged in at the moment.

It is coincidental that I speak today after we have heard from the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition on security matters. I am very proud to have picked up responsibility as the shadow assistant minister for defence industry and support. In the last couple of years I have been working on security matters for our leader, and I would like to echo his comments from this morning in relation to the bipartisan spirit with which we cooperated with the former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, who I worked a lot with behind the scenes to ensure that bipartisan approach. I will say on the public record that I greatly respected Peta Credlin as a strong, intelligent woman. It seems that some have problems with strong, intelligent women. I am glad to say that on this side of the House that is not a problem. I wish her well. I am very pleased to see the security team that has been appointed on this side of the House. I do believe that we will continue in that very important spirit of bipartisanship in what is an essential aspect of the federal government's responsibility. We on this side of the House certainly take that very seriously.

That brings me to the circumstances in which the election was fought. We have representation now in this parliament that seems to hark back to the days between the two world wars, between the First World War and the Depression, when people reached out to ideologies that seemed to provide simple answers. It brings to mind the old saying that for every complex problem there is an answer that is simple, clear and wrong. To those who are reaching out for simple answers I would say that some of the ideas and approaches put forward by some of the people who have entered this building will not provide greater security. In fact, in some aspects they will endanger that security if they go uncontested. So I am grateful for the opportunity to be back in this House to be able to do that contesting.

I will say also that I really hope to engage in a constructive dialogue with the Minister for Defence Industry, but I do warn him that I will challenge vigorously and in detail any attempts to misrepresent the record of the Labor Party and Labor governments on security and defence industry. There has been some of that and I intend to contest it.

That brings me to the primary reason for my being here, which is to represent the people of Eden-Monaro. I think there are many reasons why I was returned to this place to do that representation. There were generic issues, which we have commented on, in relation to health matters. I think it would be a grave mistake for the government to believe that text messages were the issue for the people of our communities. People were fearful of lived experience and the disappointments and the approach of the death by a thousand cuts to Medicare and health measures that have been occurring in recent times. I had farmers and other people on the phone to me in tears in anticipation of the extra imposts of the changes that were in prospect for Medicare. They did not need text messages or me to tell them about those threats. Those concerns are real and they need to be addressed. We have ongoing health issues in places like Pambula hospital, Tumut and Yass, and I have to advocate for their benefit in this place.

We also of course have the education issue. Nowhere is that more important than in rural and regional Australia. The great promise of the Gonski program was not the dollars but the programs that the program funds, in particular the rural and regional loadings, the loadings for our Indigenous kids and disabled kids. The early days of the program were having such an impact in my region in schools like Bega public and Eden public, where we have large populations of Indigenous kids. The dramatic improvements that it was delivering show why we need to go the full Gonski, as they say, and I hope to continue to advocate for that and to see it brought to fruition.

A very important issue for us—right up there in the top three issues in our region—was renewable energy and climate change. In all the polls you will see that our region understands that issue deeply. We are probably the canary in the cage in the mine in many ways, because we are really more vulnerable than other areas of Australia. We have a billion-dollar skiing industry, and to see the contraction of the snow available for that industry over the years has been deeply distressing. Obviously, if we do not take urgent action that industry will be under threat. The Sapphire Coast is at risk from sea level rises and salination. We have fruitgrowers on the south-west slopes who rely on dependable and predictable rain patterns and who cannot afford to be placed in the circumstances they were in that recent terrible drought.

We have many reasons to be fearful of exaggerated climate change through further temperature rises. But, more than that, our region saw the massive opportunity that the response to climate change presented. One of the things I am tremendously proud of is the great body of policy work that was done by our team during the last few years. The central piece of that for me is the Climate Change Action Plan. It is a magnificent, 41-page document that does not just comprehensively address the issue of climate change but presents a program for economic reform that will help drive the new economy that we need. There was nowhere that the benefit of that investment was landing more profoundly than Eden-Monaro. During the time that I was a member, from 2007 to 2013, we saw over $1 billion of investment in renewable energy projects alone, leaving aside subsidiary industry and investment. It was the largest single source of private investment we have ever seen in Eden-Monaro. We have every single available renewable energy resource in our region and we are close to the grid, so the opportunities for us are enormous. We are also home of course to the big granddaddy of renewable energy, Snowy Hydro. I will send this shot across the bow of the government, because we have seen these ideas perpetuated or floated from time to time, most recently in articles in The Financial Review: we will never sit still for any attempts to privatise the Snowy Hydro scheme. It was tried by the Howard government in 2006 but widespread community reaction prevented it happening then. We will not let it happen, ever.

I am proud to stand side by side with my mates and colleagues in the ETU, who are sound men and women of integrity, fortitude and courage. They highlighted the dangers of privatisation to us: there would be job losses in the electricity industry and there would be price rises and issues that would arise from the security of our grid. We are seeing all of that playing out. So I am proud to stand with them in this fight and to keep that battle going.

But there are so many issues in our region that our union brothers and sisters are fighting that are so important to my community—for example, penalty rates. There are our high levels of underemployment in our region, where we have people who may only have two or three days of work a week and need those penalty rates of the weekend in order to put food on the table. You would need to put yourself in their position to understand the importance of penalty rates. There are our forestry and construction workers who just want to come home in one piece at night—what can possibly be wrong with that ideal?

Our public servants have suffered from terrible impositions over the last few years, as members here who represent this area know and a great many of them live in Eden-Monaro and Queanbeyan. The government is suffering itself from its inability to deliver even its own policies in that process. It has been grossly inefficient because we are seeing the hiring of consultants, adding cost to federal budgets, without the efficiency result coming from that. It has a terrible effect on our region. We depend a lot on the holiday-makers driving from Canberra and Queanbeyan, and that has put a big hole in our economy.

I want to also highlight in particular a group who are very close to my heart. They are all around us in this building. The cleaners in this building have suffered terrible impositions under the changes that have been made by this government. It is extremely hard to get by and support their families on the wages that they are asked to survive on—it is unconscionable. I would like to reach out to all members in this House to address this issue, because it is just unsustainable. I am proud to stand side by side with United Voice to keep fighting that battle as well. If the cleaners are around, do not ignore them. They are not shadows and they are not ghosts; they are real people. I am proud to say that many of the people who work in this House live in Queanbeyan, so we have a big stake in this building.

I must say too that the forced mergers in New South Wales were a big issue as well. This is a process that is deeply flawed and badly executed. I think many of my fellow colleagues across the other side of the chamber, who have seen this playing out, feel the same way that I do about how this has been handled and some of them have spoken out. The people of Tumbarumba are still not happy and will not accept this forced merger process—it will not stand for them. They have commissioned me to take that fight up with Minister Toole, and I will do that.

They are not alone: the people of Bombala are equally distressed at what has happened. These were councils that were in the black and met the Fit for the Future criteria, but were nevertheless forced to merge. It is this syndrome of people in Sydney thinking, 'We know what's best and we'll just draw big red lines with crayons on maps in country New South Wales without any consideration for the community of interest, the traditions and the geography.'

Particularly if you look at my region—we are now bigger than 66 countries in the world and we have a bloody great mountain range in the middle, with a lot of snow and ice during this time of year—there are significant issues about how we relate to each other. The government is Sydney simply ignored all of that. It is not good enough and we need to come back and have a look at how that has been done. Of course, a lot of infrastructure issues impact on our region. I call on my colleagues on the other side to work with me to deliver the Barton Highway duplication. The New South Wales government also needs to see the importance of this as an investment in the southern New South Wales economy and the huge potential that we have there now.

The issues that I have been advocating for 10 years are starting to come to fruition, in terms of the opening up of the Port of Eden for committed commercial use and also for greater tourism through the extension of the wharf and the bringing in of large cruisers, boosting our tourism. There will soon be the opening of the Canberra international airport, which will also provide not only extra tourists from that source but an opportunity to get our wonderful high-quality produce from this region onto plates in that region and take advantage of that.

From as far afield as the cherries of Young to the beautiful fruit from the Batlow growers to our abalone oysters and wonderful seafood from the coast to our beef, sheepmeat and our superfine Merino wool, this is a huge opportunity for us and we need to work together as a region to exploit the full potential of that. The Barton Highway is an important piece of inland infrastructure to help make that real. I need not only this federal government but also the state government to realise that it is not just about commuters to Canberra from New South Wales: it is a broader regional economic investment.

We also have tremendous social and economic issues around jobs. I will now pursue a strategic economic plan for our region, where I hope to bring together all my colleagues from all parties—right across the divide at state and federal level—to take advantage of those issues that I have just mentioned and also to do our best to get a proper rollout of the NBN and make the most use of it. I have certainly seen a lot of potential demonstrated in our region. One significant example is Jane Cay and her business Birdsnest down in Cooma. It started out as a simple shop in Cooma and now occupies an entire block of the town, employing 110 people on very magnificent, flexible workplace arrangements. It employs largely women, working around their lives as wives of farmers, mothers and whatnot. It is a tremendous example of what is possible in rural and regional areas and the potential that the NBN will further open up.

There is a lot for me to do and I am very eager to get on with it. One of the most important things that has led to me being here is that the community has spoken loud and clear that they must have community based representation. In these last few years, we have seen a break in our tradition of having members of both sides who are part of our community. That just did not happen in the last couple of years. I know there are a lot of relieved Liberal Party members in Eden-Monaro who are happy to see the change. Obviously, it is now my responsibility to meet those expectations from all those people who said to me that they were voting Labor for the first time.

I also want to thank all those people in the branches in our region. They are just magnificent people. I thank my fantastic campaign electoral office staff, Riley, and Robbie Rynehart, our campaign manager. He is a magnificent bloke who has stuck with me through a lot of ups and downs. I thank Linda Colman, Radmila Noveska, Sarah Niall, Jil and Brian Brown. Brian is a really good bloke for an artilleryman, but I have never held that against him!

There are so many others. There were thousands of people out there volunteering for us, from the Young Labor troops across the border here in the ACT to all our proud union members and trades men and women. I would love to pay tribute to Steve Butler, Graham Kelly, Jarrod Dwyer, Bernie Smith and all those wonderful people who stood beside us shoulder to shoulder. It was an inspiring experience because they all believed in what we believe in in terms of the future of this country. It was an inspiring experience for me.

But primarily I must thank my wife and my son. My wife has been with me through all my character-building years of 20 years in the Army through Somalia, Bosnia, Timor and a year in Iraq and then the sedate experience that I have had here with its high level of security in a marginal seat. She has been there all along. I would like to say that it is a partnership of equals, but I know that that is a lie. It reminds me of the phrase that 'behind every successful man is a surprised woman'. Thank you for your support. And I thank my son as well. We are really proud of him with his ideals.

I would like to conclude with this observation. One of my guiding principles is a dictum by first century scholar Rabbi Tarfon, who said: 'We are not obliged to complete the work of perfecting the world, but we are not permitted to resile from it.' My view is that I am here to be a part of a continuum of the movement to improve the human condition and that is why I am proud to be part of the labour movement. I want to be here to move that ball forward and be a part of that human chain of progress, which is not immutable and is not inevitable. It requires a lot of passion, sacrifice, leadership and discipline to build it brick by brick with blood, sweat and tears. I am immensely proud particularly to be standing shoulder to shoulder with these men and women in that endeavour. Thank you for having me back.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Eden-Monaro and I welcome back a fellow member of the class of 2007. The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.