Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When this address-in-reply contribution was interrupted some 2½ months ago I was in midstream talking about how the current Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was being led by the nose by that irascible senator, Senator Cory Bernardi, and section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act was being used as a political plaything in the coalition to advance various ideological and tactical interests. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I do understand, however, that the member for Moore has just tabled in the House of Representatives a report on section 18C from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, so I will not belabour the point by going back to that particular well. I will move onto another change in circumstances that we have experienced in the interim, between the start and the end of this speech—the election and swearing into office of a new US President.

The Australia-US alliance is a long one and one founded on shared values and interests. The United States has been a champion of the rules based international order that has emerged since the Second World War—an international order that has benefited Australia enormously. As a result of the intimate relationship between Australia and the US through ANZUS, Australian security and strategic policy has been closely entwined with that of the United States for many decades now. This is all to the good. This has been a relationship based on shared respect at multiple levels between the Australian and the American people, demonstrated by the fact that Australia is the only country in the world with a positive net migration flow from the United States. I should add that that migration includes my father's partner.

We have a close trade relationship—another marker of our relationship with the US. The US is one of our biggest trading partners, one of our biggest sources of foreign investment and one of our biggest destinations for overseas investment. There is also shared respect between our defence forces, who have served side by side in conflicts including the Second World War, the Korean conflict, Vietnam, Iraq and Desert Storm through to the second Iraq conflict in 2003, Afghanistan and more recently operations in Iraq and Syria. In Iraq today Australia is one of the largest coalition partners in the fight against ISIS. I saw this relationship firsthand in 2015 when I visited the MER as part of the ADF parliamentary program. I saw firsthand the practical intimacy and the genuine regard in which the ADF is held in the eyes of US armed forces. Australians like David Kilcullen have worked intimately with US forces at the highest levels, and notably the new US defence secretary James Mattis is a man who is well regarded by the ADF and mutually regards us extremely well also.

All of this is intended as a very warm prelude to an area where we have taken a different view to the United States in recent times. The recent executive order on immigration signed by President Trump, that imposes a temporary ban on entry to the United States from individuals with passports from seven nations, has caused much consternation in Australia and in my electorate. Melbourne's west is home to significant communities of Sudanese Australians, of Somali Australians, who have been very concerned about the impact that this ban may have on them and their friends and families. More broadly, Melbourne's west is home to a significant community of Muslim Australians who have been concerned about the characterisation of this executive order as a 'Muslim ban'. Thon Maker, an Australian born in what is now South Sudan and who sought refuge in our country a decade ago, is now a highly successful basketball player in the National Basketball Association in the US and has recently begun starting for the Milwaukee Bucks.

There was a period when it was very uncertain whether these dual passport holders would be caught by this immigration ban. It seems that this has now been clarified, and I do give credit to the foreign minister for her interventions on this front. However, I do want to make the point here that the way that this intervention has been characterised has been problematic—not by the foreign minister, by the executive order. Australia and America are both stronger for their diversity, and this is a view that Australia will robustly put within the context of the new US presidency.

As Bill Shorten said at the time of this executive order:

Australia has had a non-discriminatory immigration policy for more than four decades. It's made us stronger. We don’t just tolerate diversity, we embrace it. We are the home of the fair go for all. All races, all faiths, all cultures.

And:

Wherever possible, I want the United States to be able to go about its business without interference from Australia. And I would expect the reverse to be true. However, there are some issues where silence will be interpreted as agreement. For that reason, I need to say Mr Trump's ban on refugees based upon their religion or country is appalling and ought to be ended as soon as possible.

I share these views expressed by the opposition leader and take this opportunity to reiterate them in this chamber. I also take this opportunity, drawing on the close relationship between Australia and the United States over many decades, as a friend, to say that Islam is not the enemy of the United States. This is a view that President George W Bush expressed so eloquently in the wake of September 11 and in the lead-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Similarly, the people in the nations subject to this executive order are not the enemies of the United States. Many of them are the victims of the same repressive regimes that we have sought to work so closely with the United States in combating around the world.

For my constituents I also offer this message: ANZUS has served Australia very well over many decades. The nature of the Australia-US alliance has changed over this time; it has evolved and, as a mutual self-defence treaty, it necessarily has given us great freedom in how we decide how best to make use of this relationship, to make this relationship work for Australia's interests and for our shared interests with the United States. Given this, we should not be precipitate when Australia and the United States disagree. It is okay to disagree within the alliance—and I expect to do so frequently during the presidency of President Trump, to be frank. However, disagreements need not mean the end of the alliance. There are some in this building—particularly in the other place—who seem keen to rush to this conclusion, and I strongly suggest to them that Australia's security and strategic interests should not be used as political playthings in this place.

Labor expressed a different view from that of the United States in 2003 when we took a position of principled opposition to the US war on Iraq at that time. I believe Simon Crean deserves enormous credit for being very upfront with this—for travelling to Townsville to speak directly to the Australian troops who were being deployed to Iraq and to outline this principled position. But this did not mean that we questioned the future of the Australia-US alliance; we were acting independently within the context of a mutual self-defence treaty. Similarly, I have long argued for closer ties between Australia and our neighbours in South-East Asia. I genuinely believe that the Australian identity and Australia's strategic and security interests lie in an intimate, interwoven relationship with South-East Asian nations. Diaspora communities from South-East Asian nations in Australia are an enormous strategic asset for Australia and, as countries like Singapore have shown, small countries working collaboratively within this region are able to achieve enormous results through multilateral forums.

It is not a binary choice between ANZUS and working closely with South-East Asian nations. This is not an either-or decision; we can have both, and I encourage all members within this chamber—particularly within the other place—not to create a false dichotomy between Australia's strategic interests with the United States and with our allies in South-East Asia. That being said, it is important that, when we disagree with the United States on issues of principle like the so-called Muslim ban, we say so. Australia's second nearest northern neighbour is the largest Islamic country in the world. Malaysia, another Islamic country, is also a key strategic fellow traveller with Australia in our region. Characterising current geostrategic conflicts as the West against Islam hurts Australia's interests with these nations, and we should be explicit in calling this out.

However, as I say, this is not an either-or choice, and I encourage members to be reflective when disagreements arise between Australia and the US; to stand up for our principles, true, but not to throw the baby out with the bathwater; and to be consistent in the prosecution of Australian values at home and overseas but not to underestimate the importance and the enduring significance of the Australia-US alliance to Australia's strategic influence and our ability to secure our interests overseas.

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

I am very pleased tonight to make my contribution to the address-in-reply to the Governor-General's opening speech. While this has probably been a little more drawn out than in previous years, I do take this opportunity to take part in the debate.

About a month ago it was nine years since I made my first speech in this place in February 2008. I had cause to go back and reflect on some of the points I made in that first speech and look at where we are now. The electorate of Parkes is considerably different from what it was in 2008. After several redistributions, the electorate has moved from 107,000 square kilometres in size to 393,000 square kilometres, which is roughly half the land mass of New South Wales.

What has particularly changed in the last redistribution—and the electorate that I now proudly hold after the 2016 election—is that I have gained a large part of western New South Wales: the Central Darling Shire, the unincorporated areas of New South Wales and the City of Broken Hill, which is right on the western side of New South Wales. So I believe I am one of the few federal electorates that is in two time zones, Broken Hill being in central time. Because of that redistribution, I have lost the communities of the mid-western council: Mudgee, Gulgong and the Shire of Wellington as well as the southern half of Gwydir Shire, which includes the township of Bingara. That is difficult, as anyone here would know.

The role of being a federal member of parliament is all about relationships. You work very hard with your communities to build those relationships, to understand their hopes and aspirations and to get involved in the problems they come across—and then, because of a redistribution in boundaries, all of a sudden, those people move on and you are looking after another area. Even though there is a process in place the people are quite resentful. They feel that they are taken advantage of because they are chopped round and put in different areas.

I have also, in the redistribution, picked up the community of the Gunnedah Shire, which is on the eastern side of the boundary of the electorate of Parkes. I have been working very hard since the election to make connections with the new parts of my electorate. Indeed, before Christmas I opened an electorate office in Broken Hill, staffed by two very capable local people, and they are doing a great job out there for me in the Broken Hill office. I also believe I am the first federal member to have three electorate offices: one in Broken Hill, one in Moree and a main one in Dubbo. The nature of my electorate is that I am actually 4½ hours drive from my main office, one hour's drive from Moree and 13 hours drive from Broken Hill.

That does present problems, managing an area such as that. But the advantages of having an electorate like Parkes, with quite separate, diverse and independent communities, is that it is a great privilege to become involved with those communities. I suspect in a large metropolitan area it is hard to have that identity. I can tell you that all of my towns have that strong identity, no more so than Broken Hill. Broken Hill has a magnificent tradition going back to the early discovery, many years ago, of minerals by Charles Rasp. The culture and independence in that town is still very strong today.

I understand that as a member of the National Party, a conservative party, who does not live in Broken Hill it presents certain problems. I understand that the people of Broken Hill are suspicious of those who come from outside. But I want to promise the people of Broken Hill and western New South Wales—Wilcannia, Menindee, Tibooburra, Ivanhoe, White Cliffs and all those magnificent communities in the west—that I am going to work very hard to be their voice, in this place, in the Australian parliament. I take it as a great privilege and an honour—something that I do not take for granted. I am going to do my best to be their representative.

Likewise with Gunnedah, I did represent Gunnedah Shire in the first term of my government, of which I was a member. Subsequently, it had two terms—six years in New England; it is now back in Parkes—and I am very pleased to be reacquainting myself with the communities of Gunnedah and getting reconnected with the hopes and aspirations of that community. That has also been a great privilege.

The Parkes electorate is half of New South Wales with an economy underpinned by agriculture and mining. There is an assumption, I think—I am a member of the National Party, representing a very strong agricultural area—that all the issues I deal with are to do with agriculture. The reality is: I do have a strong agricultural area—I have an agricultural background, and there are some exciting things happening—but 85 per cent of the population of the Parkes electorate are not farmers. I represent nearly as many miners as I do farmers; and I actually represent more Aboriginal people than I do farmers.

I believe, after the Northern Territory, I represent more Aboriginal people in this parliament than anyone else, and that is also an honour that I take very seriously. It is a great privilege to represent Aboriginal communities, and I can tell you the work you do as a local member can only be effective when you have a relationship with those communities. With Aboriginal people, you have got to take the time to meet with people, talk with people and not just be another bloke in a suit who turns up every now and then, and blows in and blows out. I have still got work to do in some of the newer areas—Wilcannia, Menindee and places like that—but I can assure the Aboriginal people in those towns that I take this role very seriously.

Over the years, we have seen some great success stories come out of those western towns. Young Nathan Johnson is now in the third year of a fine arts degree at the University of Newcastle—and I first met Nathan as a student at Brewarrina high school. Great things are happening through the Clontarf Foundation, and we now have Clontarf, which is a wonderful organisation, across many of the communities in my electorate. Indeed Dubbo has three campuses of Clontarf, and they tell me this year that 300 boys in Dubbo are attending Clontarf on a regular basis and 58 Aboriginal boys this year will do their Higher School Certificate. Last year the cohort of Aboriginal boys in Dubbo who did the Higher School Certificate was the largest ever, and we have seen great success stories ticking through. We have got to make sure that that next follow-on goes and the potential that is harnessed by keeping these young people at school is carried on into further education and employment. We are starting to see that.

Other communities—for instance, Boggabilla and Toomelah and right up on the Queensland border—were very proud last year to be major sponsors of the Macintyre Warriors. They went right to the grand final with their rugby league side and were beaten narrowly by Inverell in the final. They were undefeated until I actually went and watched them—I suspect that I might not be invited back, being bad luck. But it was great to be there on a Saturday afternoon in Boggabilla to see the entire community engaged in watching the footy—an alcohol-free event: the kids looking up to the older fellows as role models; and girls' league tag taking place. While in some circles, this might not seem a big achievement, for the people that have got in and organised this football club, it is a great result.

This year members of the Army, through their remote Indigenous communities program, are spending the year at Toomelah. Indeed, I think that in August, as part of a parliamentary exchange program, I will be part of a team that is going to go and spend a week at Toomelah with the Army, building infrastructure, engaging with the local community and building relationships in that town.

Again going back to my first speech, I recall I mentioned the importance of inland rail. I can say, nine years later, that we are getting to a point where we can point to a piece of equipment and say: they are constructing the Inland Rail. Two weeks ago we were able to identify the preferred route north of Moree through to Yelarbon, using the existing defunct Boggabilla rail line, going right through nearly to the border. It will cross over east of Goondiwindi, which will give Goondiwindi, which has a large inland grain terminal, access to the Port of Brisbane and, indeed, to any port in New South Wales. Inland Rail will mean that, for the first time, every capital city in Australia is linked by rail.

At the moment, the ARTC are undertaking community consultation in the area between Narromine and Narrabri. I understand that there are constituents of mine out there who have concerns, and obviously they have every right to be concerned. A railway line through an agricultural district is of great interest because of the effect it might have on access to farms, maybe dividing parts of properties, so the ARTC are working through those issues with people at the moment. This government is committed to this—and in particular I am committed to this—because it will be a steel Mississippi. It will give communities right throughout my electorate, in the 600 or 700 kilometres over which it will travel in my electorate, access to all the capital cities. There will be no reason why industry cannot relocate to western New South Wales and make use of an efficient rail network to deliver goods and services right around the country.

The other things that I am very proud of are the policies that are implemented when you are part of a government. You get to see the effect of them. When people do things that are maybe influenced by government policy they are probably not even thinking about the fact that there was a debate, that legislation was drawn up and that a considerable amount of effort went into that. As I drive around my electorate, I see grain silos, hay sheds, new fences and water systems that have all been facilitated through the agriculture white paper that Barnaby Joyce, as the minister, implemented. Accelerated depreciation, which allows farmers to write these things off their tax over three years, instead of 15 or 20 years, has been a great incentive. Not only have farmers had the advantage of having a more efficient water system, being able to store grain on-farm, and having better marketing options, but all those towns have had income generated by the cement companies, shed constructors, contract fencers and contractors who put in water supplies. It has generated a lot of activity, as has the instant asset write-off for equipment under $20,000. That goes right across the country, with small businesses and tradespeople buying toolboxes, electric saws, computers, stainless steel cooking benches for restaurants—a whole range of things. It has generated income which has made a difference to these small businesses.

In my electorate we are still dealing with some issues that are quite contentious and quite difficult. I represent a third of the Murray-Darling Basin, from the Border Rivers at the top, right down to the Lachlan in the Murrumbidgee area and right out to the Lower Darling below Lake Menindee. As you can imagine, issues that are affecting one community have an effect on another community. It does not matter where you stand in the river system. If you look upstream at the residents there, with a level of thought, and downstream in another way, you always think that the people upstream are taking your water and the people downstream are wasting your water. It does not matter where you stand.

So we need to get that balance right through the Basin Plan and balance up looking after the environment, which is incredibly important—I have some iconic environmental assets in my electorate: the Macquarie Marshes, the Gwydir Wetlands and places like that that are incredibly significant—with the importance of agricultural production. People say to me, 'Why are you growing cotton in the Murray-Darling Basin?' I will point to their shirt and say: 'That's a nice shirt. Where did that cotton come from? Do you realise that the kilogram of cotton that would go to make that shirt is now grown with a fraction of the water, a fraction of the diesel and a fraction of the chemicals that would have gone into that 20 years ago?' Those are the efficiencies of those irrigation systems, which are now progressing into citrus, corn and a whole range of other things. It is incredibly efficient. But we still have that balance.

I have my residents at Broken Hill and Menindee, who are concerned. They saw their lakes dry last year. They got up to 90 per cent with the rain that we had over the winter, but there is great concern out there, as water is released from those lakes to the orchards in Victoria and South Australia and also to the environmental assets, that they will be left high and dry once again. The water is incredibly important to the lifestyle and wellbeing of those communities in Broken Hill, Wilcannia and Menindee, those western towns.

So it is an incredible balance because of the variable nature of the rainfall, where it falls and the timeliness. In the last winter, I had half of my electorate under flood and half of my electorate under drought, and that is the nature of it. But we need to get this process to a conclusion. We need to make sure that people know where we stand, because my communities are reformed to death. They have had enough of it. We need to make sure that we are going to do some practical things. There was a huge ruckus before Christmas in South Australia, with the water minister in discussions with Barnaby Joyce about 450 gigalitres of upwater with a wet winter, which is going to be nearly impossible to deliver down the system without causing enormous grief and flooding to the river communities. We need to make sure that we can do things that are practical and possible to get the best economic, social and environmental outcome and not get caught up in the debates in this place about who cares about the environment the most because they are going to take the most water out.

That is probably one of the most difficult decisions that my electorate is facing. As a part of the nation that feeds the country and a large part of the world, we need to get this balance right and we need to understand the importance of production, the importance of the environment and the fact that these local communities have made a huge sacrifice with the water that has been taken. There is no greater stimulus to a river town than a megalitre of water. If you want to go for employment, wellbeing and social amenity, that water is incredibly important. So we will work through that.

As I start my 10th year in this place, it is interesting to look back at the changes and the things that do not change. I am deeply privileged and honoured to have this position and to represent half the land mass of New South Wales, from the edge of the Hunter Valley to South Australia and from Queensland to the Riverina—all those wonderful communities that are out there beavering away, working hard and raising families in an incredibly inclusive environment. It is a great privilege to be their representative in this place, and I look forward to doing it for some time yet.

Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member. I quite enjoyed that journey through your electorate.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once upon a time, the address-in-reply debate was about parliamentarians expressing our loyalty to the Queen and our thanks to the Governor-General, but more typically these days it is used by a government to set out its agenda for governing—or, in the case of this government, its lack of agenda for governing. The Liberals might be occupying the Treasury benches, but all members of parliament have a responsibility in setting the direction of this nation and showing leadership.

Today I want to pay tribute to the new members of parliament who have joined the 45th Parliament, because they are already playing a role, but over coming years they will play an increasingly important role in setting the agenda and the direction for our nation. It is an immense privilege to be elected to the House of Representatives to represent a community that we feel passionately about, but this privilege also comes with great responsibility. I can assure new members that, over time, the challenges will change—the local challenges, the national challenges and the international challenges will change—but those challenges will never diminish.

We face many challenges as a nation, but with those challenges come great opportunities too. Our task is to face those challenges resolutely, face them bravely and grasp those opportunities wisely for the benefit of the people who live in our electorates and for the benefit of our nation. We are in a unique position as members of the federal parliament to make real what we believe would really improve our country. We are almost uniquely placed to do that, and that comes with the responsibility of having a vision, being able to articulate that vision and—very, very importantly—being able to implement it, to make it real.

From our new members of parliament we saw a number of fabulous first speeches—maiden speeches, as they used to be called—and I want to focus a little bit on these first speeches of my colleagues because they show a group of people who really have a vision for our nation and the talent and the application to bring that vision to life. I want to start with a couple of people who have made not one first speech to this parliament but two.

The first, of course, is my colleague the member for Eden-Monaro, the shadow assistant minister for defence industry and support, the Hon. Dr Mike Kelly. There is a reason that this member of parliament broke the rule that Eden-Monaro is a bellwether seat. He was an extraordinary, extraordinarily diligent member of parliament when he was last elected and will be again this time and for however long he holds this seat, which I know will be a long time. He has made an enormous contribution to our nation through his active service and to the Australian parliament, and I am so delighted to welcome him back. He comes from generations of dairy farmers who really gave life to the dairy industry in the region that he represents. You can see the old photos of Mike's ancestors up on the Bega Cheese factory wall in their little historical section there. But he also comes from generations of people who fought for their country.

The other member of parliament who has given not one but two first speeches is of course Steve Georganas. Again, it is so wonderful to have Steve returned as the member for Hindmarsh. People voted for him because they know he will fight for jobs, for better health services, for investment in education and for the pensions. He has so many pensioners in his electorate. I went to a pensioners meeting with him last time I was in the seat, and many of them had not actually clocked the fact that there was some other guy representing them for one term. They still thought Steve was their member of parliament and were delighted to be able to vote for him again.

I also want to make special mention of my friend and colleague the member for Barton, the Hon. Linda Burney, who really is a unique embodiment of our Australian history. She spent the first decade of her life not counted as a citizen of this nation. She has experienced the destructive power of racism and exclusion but she has fought against racism and exclusion by fighting for something much more powerful—for tolerance, for inclusion, for recognition. Seeing her sung into the parliament by her sisters and seeing the work that she is doing with Senators Malarndirri McCarthy and Pat Dodson in enlivening our Indigenous cultures here in the parliament and in the Labor Party has been really fantastic.

We have new members for Bass, Braddon and Lyons, and it is a great thing to see three such terrific new members, in Ross Hart, Justine Keay and Brian Mitchell, replacing those infamously negative three amigos. We know that the north of Tasmania, in particular, has really done it tough, with cuts to community services and welfare organisations, underemployment at a huge scale, unemployment, of course, and, sadly, a state and a federal government who are leaving Tasmanians really to face these problems on their own. These new members of parliament will stand up for jobs, for services and for the people they represent—not like the last three members, who were just apologists for a string of Liberal Party cuts.

We also have a terrific new cohort from Queensland—new members for Oxley, Longman and Herbert. The new member for Oxley, Milton Dick, spoke so knowledgeably and thoughtfully about multiculturalism and, in particular, the very significant Vietnamese community that he represents in his electorate of Oxley. He talked about multiculturalism not just as a great social strength in Australia but as, increasingly, a terrific economic asset for this nation. The member for Longman, Susan Lamb, spoke about education and lifelong learning and told her compelling personal story. She sees education and lifelong learning in her own life, in the lives of her children and in her community as being the key to a lifetime of opportunity and success for ourselves, for our children, for their children and for generations to come. The member for Herbert is proof positive that none of us should ever take a single vote for granted. Cathy O'Toole is living proof of that. She has worked in the mental health sector and she has made it her business, since coming to this parliament, to fight for better resources and better supports for her community, particularly for mental health services in that community.

In the Northern Territory we have got the wonderful member for Solomon, Luke Gosling, who has served his country in so many ways—like you, Mr Deputy Speaker Hastie, as a member of the ADF but in other ways too, in the community, both in Australia and overseas. I know Luke will continue to make a very strong contribution, through our parliament, to his constituents and to our region.

Our new colleagues from Western Australia are the members for Fremantle, Burt, Cowan, Perth and Brand. We have a wonderful new member for Fremantle in Josh Wilson, who believes that our work as parliamentarians is fundamentally about the custody and stewardship of the things that we share: public health and education, public transport, fair and safe working conditions and our environment. Our member for Burt, Matt Keogh, is committed to fighting for an affordable and accessible justice system, to correct the injustices that he has seen in his professional life, to protect against infringement of the rights of his community. He will use his legal experience, including experience of volunteering with domestic violence support services, to work for better outcomes for victims of domestic violence. Our wonderful member for Cowan, Anne Aly, is someone who represents a very typically Australian story in many ways. Her parents made a life-changing decision to leave Egypt and arrived at the Bonegilla Migrant Camp in Albury-Wodonga in 1969. Their daughter Anne has become an internationally renowned Australian academic and is the recipient of the prestigious Australian Security Medal. She was the only Australian invited to present at the White House at President Obama's summit, where she talked about how to deal with violent extremism.

Our member for Perth, Tim Hammond, spent much of his career holding powerful and well-resourced organised interests to account on behalf of vulnerable individuals and vulnerable communities—people like victims of asbestos. It is fantastic to have on our team someone who stood up for the victims of asbestos rather than for the companies that sold this deadly product.

Our member for Brand, Madeleine King, will be working to make Australia a confident, progressive and enterprising nation by supporting better access to quality education. Madeleine has such big shoes to fill—so many Labor Party stalwarts have held the seat of Brand—but I know Madeleine can do it.

In my own state of New South Wales there are the seats of Lindsay, Macarthur, Macquarie, Paterson, Werriwa and, of course, Dobell. The member for Lindsay, Emma Husar, gave such a moving account of her family's experience of domestic violence during her first speech. How important it is to have members of parliament who are prepared to bear witness—to talk in this parliament about their own troubles, to show that they are able to identify and empathise with the challenges that ordinary Australians face. Emma has been so brave and has become such a beacon to so many people by standing up and having the confidence to be an advocate for ending the national crisis we have in domestic violence. I know that we are all committed to supporting Emma and her campaign. It is a campaign that all of us share.

There is our member for Macarthur, Mike Freelander. I am not sure if you remember, Mr Deputy Speaker, but during our new member for Macarthur's first speech a baby cried out in the gallery and Mike Freelander said, 'I like that sound.' Mike likes that sound because he has cared for the children of Macarthur for over 30 years as a paediatrician. He has joined our team in the federal parliament because he is so committed to protecting and building Medicare, and he is already bringing his firsthand experience of our health system into our policy development processes, working in particular on our policies on very young children and their first thousand days of development.

Our member for Macquarie, Susan Templeman, had a couple of goes before she got to this parliament. In fact, if we look far enough back in her history, some people will remember that she was reporting on Canberra—she was a reporter before joining us now as a newsmaker. Susan Templeman said she had to run because she could not sit by and see Australia become a backward-looking or defensive society, losing its interest in issues like the republic or reconciliation with our First Australians. She was worried that we were moving away from inclusion and distancing ourselves from Asia, and so that motivation to see an outward-looking, modern Australia has propelled her to Canberra, where I am sure she will make a huge impact.

Our member for Paterson, Meryl Swanson, told such a terrific story about the miner's lamp that she had with her on the floor of the parliament when she made her first speech. She spoke also, of course, about the changing economy in the area that she represents—the growing opportunities for newer, cleaner industries including renewable energies, automated vehicles, robotics and other leading-edge environmental ideas. But the member for Paterson was very clear that she sees it as critical that it is a Labor government that helps communities to transition. We do not leave people to deal with these huge changes on their own. We know, when we have the car industry closing in South Australia and Victoria, when we see the huge changes that are happening in our economy, that it takes a Labor government to help people to transition to the new opportunities that arise for them.

The member for Werriwa, Anne Stanley, talked about the struggle that her family would have faced, without Medicare, through her mother's experience with multiple sclerosis—the hospitalisations, the medical tests that were required. For Anne, fighting to protect Medicare is not just political; it is deeply personal.

I have known our member for Dobell, Emma McBride, for many years now and I have seen the way that her community love the work she has done in the local health system for more than 20 years—in mental health for 15 years and in her local community hospital in Wyong for the last decade. I have visited that hospital with the member for Dobell and I have seen how well known and how knowledgeable she is about the local challenges facing her community. But it is not just health that drives Emma; it is also the strain that she has seen on local infrastructure and services, and the fact that she knows that a Labor government would prioritise investment in these local services.

In Victoria we have new members for Wills and Bruce, who are both people I have known for a very long time. I thought the first speech from the member for Bruce, Julian Hill, was an incredible first speech that spoke eloquently about the challenge of growing inequality in our country and in our world. It was wonderful to have Julian lay out so eloquently the fight that he will engage in to act against poverty and the stark and indefensible growing gap between the richest and poorest Australians and the richest and poorest around the world. The personal experience of our member for Wills, Peter Khalil, again speaks of the sacrifice of millions of migrants, who, as he says:

… helped to build Australia—not just its physical environment but the diversity of its culture, the generosity of its peoples and the depths of its humanity.

Our new parliamentarians are a more diverse group than we have ever had before. I know that; I made more than 80 electorate visits during the election campaign and I met all of these members many times, as well as many of our candidates who were unsuccessful. There were many worthy people who did not make it into our federal parliament. But those who did mean that almost half of our parliamentarians on the Labor side are now women. That is a fantastic achievement, and an achievement we have managed because we set targets, we laid out strategies to meet those targets and we went for them. We also have, of course, a larger number of Indigenous members and senators than we have had in the past, and that is something I am very proud of as well.

Each of the members of parliament that have joined us in this 45th Parliament took the opportunity to thank their constituents and to acknowledge what a privilege it is to serve. And that is not just true of the newbies; I think that each one of us feels that, and this address-in-reply is an opportunity for every one of us to thank our electorate for placing in us the trust that they do, for electing or re-electing us to the parliament. It is absolutely vital that we take every opportunity we have in this place to make life better for the people who have put their faith in us. I know that is what our new MPs will do. It is what I endeavour to do every single day, and I am grateful for the continuing opportunity that my constituents have given me to allow me to do that.

We have a strong team, a united team, and because we have a strong and united team I am convinced that we will have the opportunity to continue to deliver for the people of Australia, particularly should we be re-elected.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, in this address-in-reply I would like to reaffirm that it was a privilege to return to the House of Representatives with the new 45th Parliament of Australia, having once again been re-elected in July as the federal member for Capricornia. During last year's election campaign, the coalition committed an unprecedented $330 million in infrastructure and other funding that will benefit the people of Capricornia and surrounding parts of Central Queensland. Shortly, I will outline this funding as part of our economic plan for jobs, order and growth in Capricornia.

Before that, this area of Central Queensland is both the gateway and the farm gate to northern Australia, and we are arguably Queensland's most important mining, agriculture and Defence training location. Recently we have been through a difficult time as the needs of Defence, national security and agriculture clashed. I refer to plans by Australian Defence to expand facilities at the Shoalwater Bay military training ground. I am pleased to report that there has been a good outcome on this issue for landholders in this area.

By way of background: Shoalwater Bay is north of Rockhampton and is located in the Shire of Livingstone. Singapore is one of the many countries that train at Shoalwater Bay with our Australian troops. In the middle of last year, under the joint Australia-Singapore Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, Singapore pledged to invest $2.25 billion in Queensland based military training sites at Shoalwater Bay and Townsville. However, late last year, as Australian Defence leaders began further outlining their plan to expand the Shoalwater Bay facility, it emerged that military might require additional surrounding farmland. Some farm owners struck a deal and willingly sold their properties at a large profit. However, during the course of this process fears were raised about the prospect of Defence enforcing legislation to compulsorily acquire farmland as a last resort. For the past two months, this has caused great anxiety, uncertainty and anger amongst the landholders, seafood sector, workers and small business in that district. Families like the Geddeses Couti-Outi Station feared their historic family property would be consumed by Defence.

Last year I met with stakeholders and I promised that I would sensibly and firmly push behind the scenes to ensure that their concerns over the possibility of forced land sales were heard at the highest levels of the federal government. I was in constant contact with the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence. I had the defence minister come to Rockhampton to meet with the stakeholders. Several weeks ago I took the Deputy Prime Minister out to Couti-Outi Station to talk with a group of farmers, small business and workers representing the entire district. On the first Monday back in Canberra the member for Flynn and I met with the Prime Minister and defence minister for further robust talks. We met gain with the Prime Minister, the defence minister and the Deputy Prime Minister and, as a result, on the first day of parliament this year I welcomed a pledge from the Prime Minister that no landholder in the Shoalwater Bay district would be forced to sell their property to Defence.

This has come as a big relief to local landholders. Farmers who do not want to sell voluntarily will still be able to approach and talk to Defence themselves, but the government has confirmed that Defence will only purchase land from willing sellers around the Shoalwater Bay training area. This successful outcome for local landholders demonstrates my strong representation to lobby behind the scenes as appropriate for a desirable outcome for the local district.

So what about other elements of investment in Capricornia? I mentioned before that, over the coming years, the federal Liberal-National coalition has committed an unprecedented $330 million in infrastructure and other funding that will benefit the people of Capricornia. One key part of this pledge is water infrastructure. Projects like Rookwood Weir near Rockhampton must go ahead to create long-term jobs. We will cooperate with the state and private enterprise to help get it off the ground as soon as possible. Other projects, like a feasibility study for Urannah Dam, near Mackay, and water infrastructure for Clermont were also vital to secure a future for the region.

Unlike Labor, the Turnbull-Joyce government promised to chip in $130 million to cover 50 per cent of the cost of building Rookwood Weir near Rockhampton. On top of this, the Commonwealth will pay a further $2 million to ensure that the state government can complete the final business case required for the project to proceed. The Turnbull-Joyce coalition further committed $225,000 to secure water infrastructure for Clermont and Theresa Creek Dam and $3 million towards a feasibility study for Urannah Dam, near Mackay, benefitting an area from Eungella to Collinsville and the northern tropics.

It is clear from the federal coalition's commitment to Capricornia that we want to move ahead with water projects in northern Australia. But when it comes to Rookwood Weir near Rockhampton, the Queensland state Labor Party is holding us back. Despite a federal commitment of $132 million, the current Queensland Labor government, led by Annastacia Palaszczuk, is leading a go-slow on supplying the business case to us. This is despite the fact that in 2006 Labor Premier Peter Beattie promised to have Rookwood Weir built by 2011. It is the same year that Annastacia Palaszczuk, the current Labor Premier, was elected to parliament. Essentially, she was elected on a Labor promise to all Queenslanders to have Rookwood Weir built by 2011.

So, where is Rookwood Weir? And why, 10 years after that Labor promise and five years after Labor said it would be finished, are they still dawdling over their business case? This is why Labor is bad for Central Queensland. The longer they stall the business case then the longer they stall water security and the potential for 2,100 new jobs. I am now hearing rumours that the consultants hired by the state government to complete this business case may already be demonstrating a negative bent away from Rookwood Weir. If this is substantiated, then that attitude is unacceptable.

In other areas of Capricornia, community sport is also an important social and economic element. That is why the Turnbull-Joyce government also delivered $14 million in sports and health infrastructure in Capricornia. Sport contributes a valuable part of the social fabric of our local communities, and by enhancing local facilities sporting groups can attract state and national competition. This injects further money into small business in our local economy. Investment in sport is part of our $330 million water, jobs and growth plan for Capricornia.

Let me recap, and provide an outline of figures covering what we will achieve over the coming three years. As I mentioned, the Turnbull-Joyce government has committed $130 million towards Rookwood Weir, which would lead to 2,100 jobs. Plus there is $2 million for the state to finish the final business case for Rookwood Weir. There is $225,000 to secure water for Clermont and $3 million towards a feasibility study for Urannah Dam near Mackay. We have also committed $30 million to a Bowen Basin jobs-and-investment package. This is to help with training, following the earlier coal downturn and includes infrastructure grants and grants for small businesses to expand into new areas of expertise.

In other areas of the community, we are providing $10 million to kickstart a Mackay Regional Sports Precinct, located at CQU's Ooralea campus in Mackay. There is $75 million to help kickstart the Walkerston heavy vehicle bypass—or the Bowen Basin Service Link—in Capricornia, west of Mackay, to rid Walkerston of heavy vehicles and dangerous loads entering the Peak Downs Highway.

There is $1.5 million for Emu Park's Hartley Street Sports Reserve, stages 2 and 4; $1.5 million for the stage 1 Pilbeam Walkway up to Mount Archer in Rockhampton; $600,000 for the Rockhampton Hockey Association for a second artificial turf; and $7 million towards Rockhampton Hospital car park. At the time of this pledge, this was the only funding on the table for this project. State Labor had no money in their budget and had to scramble to find funding—the biggest issue in Rockhampton and they continued to ignore it.

We are also fixing mobile phone blackspots. New priorities include Yeppoon, Emu Park, Clermont and Sarina Range near Koumala. Other areas where coverage has either already been improved or is soon to be fixed include Clarke Creek, Gargett, Marlborough and Mount Chalmers Road near Yeppoon.

We have committed $50,000 for solar panels at Rockhampton's women's domestic violence shelter, $220,000 to kickstart repairs to the battered Putney beachfront on Great Keppel Island—this project is underway; $350,000 for the Sarina BMX track facilities; $250,000 for Sarina's Field of Dreams project, Mackay Regional Council; $60 million for a four-lane highway from Gracemere to Rockhampton to ease dangerous congestion of freight trucks, cattle trucks and commuters; and $98.6 million to create four lanes on the Bruce Highway north of Rockhampton for a safer and more efficient entry point to the city's northern outskirts. We are committing $3 million to support Beef Australia 2018, which provides a $40 million direct injection into the Central Queensland economy and hundreds of millions of dollars into our global beef trade. There is $350,000 put towards widening the intersection on Bondoola Road near Yeppoon to allow for better access of B-double road trains involved in the timber sector and other industries. There is also $90,000 to install solar power and solar battery storage at several community organisations. Under the scheme the Central Queensland Aboriginal corporation in Rockhampton, the Dreamtime Cultural Centre in Rockhampton, Emu Park State Emergency Service, the Marlborough State Emergency Service, Sarina Bowls Club and Sarina Surf Lifesaving Club will each receive $15,000. We also encourage a $400 million investment in two new solar farms at Moranbah and Clermont to generate power and jobs.

One of the saddest facts about Central Queensland and North Rockhampton in particular is that it has the highest rate of domestic violence outside Brisbane. One of the highlights of my political career was to successfully lobby for a permanent Federal Court circuit judge in Rockhampton, also servicing Mackay, Gladstone, Emerald and Central Queensland. This will help families struggling in Family Court and domestic violence matters, among the most vulnerable in our community. I would like to thank Senator George Brandis for his assistance with this.

On top of this, the federal government's free trade deals with China, Japan, Singapore and Korea have helped cement confidence in our CQ Beef export sector, one of the factors helping to deliver record beef prices in Central Queensland. This has encouraged investors to consider new ventures such more abattoirs in Capricornia that will create more future jobs. We also support the expansion of coalmining. We approved all environmental factors under strict Commonwealth conditions to pave the way for Adani coalmine 160 kilometres west of Clermont in Capricornia. Sadly, green activists who are bedfellows of the Labor Party have tried to stall this project and the thousands of jobs it would create.

In the past few years I have also been able to secure federal funding for other local infrastructure, either completed, underway or in the pipeline. There is $190 million to build future CQ defence projects under the Australian defence white paper, $10 million for the Yeppoon beachfront, $7 million towards the development of Rockhampton's riverbank precinct, $2.3 million towards a new Capricorn rescue chopper hangar, $300,000 for Rockhampton's new Meals on Wheels kitchen and $3 million for 16 Green Army projects for young people who have been doing a great job repairing community recreation sites in the electorate.

Further to this, after much lobbying, the Turnbull-Joyce government is spending $166 million to fix up the notoriously dangerous Eton Range on Peak Downs Highway west of Walkerston. Our coalition government is also providing $35 million to replace four country bridges in the Isaac shire on the Peak Downs Highway. Speaking of major road projects, last term the Deputy Prime Minister officially opened the $136 million stage 2 Yeppen South project on the Bruce Highway on the southern outskirts of Rockhampton. Finally, as we look ahead into the future, I want to recognise that a key issue facing families in Capricornia is labour hire or casualisation of the workforce. As we see a dramatic change in the way our resources and mining companies operate in a downturn, we are seeing people removed as permanent staff to be made casual staff where they have no access to sick leave, holiday leave or essential family leave. This is causing families to break apart. It means people turn up to work sick, because they do not have an income. It takes away the leisure time spent with children. This is an issue that I will certainly be talking more about in the future.

In the meantime, Capricornia has a great future, and I am proud to be part of a coalition government that is taking a keen interest and delivering for our region. I would also like to thank all the people who supported me in winning the seat of Capricornia for the second time: my staff, my family, the enormous number of volunteers who helped us. It certainly is not a job that one person does; it is a team effort, and I truly thank all of those people.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How fortuitous for me to be following the member for Capricornia and the contribution she just made to this place. Sadly, I will not have the opportunity to canvass all my own issues, if I respond to everything she said. However, I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker Goodenough, there was a fair bit of licence involved in all of it.

I am just going to focus on one issue that she raised—that is, the expansion, or proposed expansion, of the Shoalwater Bay training area. The member for Capricornia, I noted, while canvassing this issue, was very, very careful not to share with her constituents and this place one thing—that is, when she first knew about the proposed expansion and therefore land acquisitions, whether they be compulsory or non-compulsory, she did not mind standing alongside ministers well before the election campaign to announce that $2 billion would be invested between her region and the hinterland beyond Townsville. But what she and her ministers did not tell her constituents is that that investment would necessitate very significant land acquisitions—that is, the acquisition of prime agricultural land in her region.

It beggars belief that anyone, including the member for Capricornia, believes that the Singaporeans could spend a billion dollars in Shoalwater Bay—and I know it well as former Defence minister—without coming to the conclusion that it must by definition include land acquisitions. The member for Capricornia, I will put to this place, knew well and truly before the election that Defence would be chasing land acquisitions in her electorate but she chose to keep that a secret from her constituents. I put it to this place that the member for Capricornia was elected on a fraud. She was elected by concealing from her constituents those land acquisitions.

I will say this: the fact that those land acquisitions are not now necessarily compulsory does not change all that much. We welcome it and we congratulate the landholders who took the fight up to this government. By the admission of the member for Capricornia, this is prime agricultural land, the withdrawal of which will take up to 60,000 head of cattle out of the beef supply chain at a time when we can least afford it.

The Singaporeans when they come to train here—and we welcome our relationship, the joint training exercise and everything they do here in Australia—do not go into Rockhampton to do their shopping. They do not go in for a beer, a hamburger or for their supplies. Nor would we expect them to. But guess what farmers do? Farmers regularly do. They come for their groceries. They come for their hardware. They come for their furnishings. They come to the motor mechanic to have their car serviced. They have the motor mechanic come to the farm, if necessary. The Singaporeans will not be doing any of that so, regardless of whether the acquisitions are compulsory or non-compulsory, the acquisition of that land will have a very significant impact on the economy around Rockhampton. That is something else the member for Capricornia chose not to canvass in her contribution this evening. She needs to explain how her economy will not be adversely affected by the acquisition of so much prime agricultural land and the withdrawal, therefore, of so many cattle et cetera out of the regional economy. If she is going to come in here and talk about what has happened in her constituency over the course of the last year, or indeed over the last parliamentary term, she should be honest with her constituents about when she knew about those acquisitions. Again, it defies credibility that she only suddenly learnt of the acquisitions after the election. It also defies credibility that the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources—no less the Deputy Chair of the National Security Committee of the cabinet and no less the Deputy Prime Minister of the country—did not know of the land acquisitions until after the election. I suspect no-one in Rockhampton, or its surrounds, believes that.

On a happier note, come Thursday I will have represented the Hunter electorate in this place for 21 years. What a great honour and privilege it has been to represent what I would argue is the best region in the world. That is a proposition that is not without credibility. Everyone knows that we make the world's finest wines and our vineyards are just wonderful. We are one of the three top thoroughbred breeding clusters in the world: Newmarket, Kentucky and the Hunter Valley. Go to Randwick in Sydney on any Saturday and 70 to 80 per cent of the thoroughbreds running there will have been born and bred in the Hunter Valley. We have beaches to match any locality not just in Australia but also in the world. We hold world-class concerts. When I was young, if I wanted to see a band or an entertainer, we went to Sydney. Now Sydney—I am happy to report—comes to us. We have the largest coastal saltwater lagoon in the country in the form of Lake Macquarie, and, of course, we have the wonderful Port Stephens—so water sports are in the Hunter in abundance, not only for residents but also for visitors to the region.

I am not taking credit, but I believe, I think with some validity, that the Hunter region is a better, wealthier place than it was when I was elected 21 years ago. It has gone through a very significant transformation in that time. I am intrigued by those—usually those with an anti-coal agenda—who still say that we lack economic diversity. We always strive for more economic diversity, and we must continue to do so, but we are far more economically diverse than we were 21 years ago. Our unemployment rate, although too high and indeed climbing—and it has been climbing since the election of the Abbott government and now Turnbull government—is infinitely lower than it was when I was elected 21 years ago.

Coal continues to be a critical player in the Hunter economy and it will continue to be so for many decades to come. Coalmining has brought wealth to many families who would not have dreamed of that level of opportunity without it. It has created many knock-on jobs in manufacturing et cetera, and it has helped us to leverage economic diversity, because the wealth coal brings and the demand coal brings help to justify and to make more economically feasible other projects. The Hunter Expressway is a perfect example. The $1.7 billion Hunter Expressway, planned, paid for and constructed by a Labor government, would not have been feasible without the traffic generated by coalmining. It is a really good example of a project that probably would not have passed muster on any cost-benefit analysis without coalmining. The Hunter Expressway, having been leveraged by coalmining, now presents new economic opportunities which will bring more economic diversity into the future, and that is a very good thing. By the way, coalmining is not within our top five employers as an employment category. But it is still very, very significant and very, very important and, again, it drives other jobs in construction and manufacturing et cetera. When coalmining is strong—

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 6.30 pm the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 192B. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.