Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Coulton, can I begin by recognising your 10-year service in this place as the member for Parkes, because this year marks my 10 years in the place as the member for Gippsland. As I look back on those years—and I'm sure you feel the same way, Deputy Speaker—I wonder where they've all gone. But as I reflected coming up here today, there have been plenty of good times in my electorate of Gippsland in that time, and some pretty tough times as well, and many achievements that I'm enormously proud of. The resilience of Gippslanders has shone through some of those very tough times. We endured the Black Saturday bushfires. We've seen floods and we've seen droughts. In some small way, my own resilience was tested prior to Christmas with the ministerial reshuffle.

I got into politics, as I know you did, Deputy Speaker, and I think all members did, to make a difference in my community. It was an enormous honour and privilege to serve in the cabinet. I regard the infrastructure and transport portfolio as the best portfolio to be involved in. Over the past two years I was very fortunate to be part of a project and some policy decisions which will change peoples' lives and will save peoples' lives across our nation. I'm proud of the work that my team did over that period of time and I'm sorry that we won't get to finish some of the jobs we started, but I'm very confident that the government will continue to deliver that extensive program of works that we've undertaken.

I'm looking forward to continuing to serve the people of Gippsland with all the passion I can muster and enthusiasm and determination for many years to come, perhaps for as long as they can put up with me. I do intend to continue to be an outspoken advocate in relation to road safety, and I'll be working to secure additional funding for regional roads, which I believe is part of the problem and certainly part of the solution to reducing road trauma in our regional communities. I'll certainly be very active in regional policy development, with a focus on helping young people achieve their full potential. I'll be working with the new minister, Minister John McVeigh—I congratulate him on his appointment—to make sure we're doing everything we can to help regional towns prosper into the future. We need better connectivity for Aboriginal towns and we need a fairer share of infrastructure investment to boost jobs and improve the prosperity of our regional communities. As a backbencher, I believe I'll also have more time to focus on two social policy areas that I'm particularly interested in and which concern me deeply. They are the use of illicit substances, such as ice, and the incidence of suicide in regional areas, particularly amongst young people and Defence Force veterans.

In making these few comments here this evening, I want to put on record my personal and professional thanks for the efforts of my staff and the department, particularly Mike Mrdak, the secretary of the department for the majority of the that time I was in the role, but also, in recent times, Steve Kennedy, for the work he did in support of me and my ministerial staff. Our staff in this building put in enormous hours. I was lucky to be served by so many hardworking professional people, mainly young people. They put in an enormous number of hours and I respect them and thank them for their efforts.

My focus tonight is to talk about the future and to recognise some of the achievements in my electorate of Gippsland over the past 10 years and also to reflect on where we're going as a region. I had a lot of time over the break to travel around Gippsland. It's only 35,000 square kilometres. I know that's a mere postage stamp compared with the electorate of Parkes! I had the chance to drive around and one of the things I couldn't help but notice was the amount of road works underway in my community. There's been some record road funding in Gippsland in recent times. We've worked very closely with the state government to see better, safer roads delivered in the region. The Princes Highway duplication project is one that I'm particularly proud of. It involved $260 million of funding—a mixture of state and federal funding. I believe in giving credit where it's due. It's one of those projects that have received funding from both sides of the chamber, from the Labor Party when it was in government and now the Liberal-Nationals in government, and also at state level from both Labor and coalition governments.

I also had the opportunity to see the progress on the $50 million worth of work underway on the Princes Highway East. I want to do a lot more work on the Princes Highway in my continuing role as the member for Gippsland, working with my colleagues the member for Eden-Monaro, the member for McMillan, the member for Wannon, the member for Corio, the member for Corangamite and the member for Barker, on the Princes Highway itself. It is Highway 1, but, on many parts of the highway between Sydney and Adelaide, the standard of the road surface itself would not rate it as highway 10. While it's not on the national network, I think there are real opportunities for us to work with the three states involved in lifting the standard of the Princes Highway as a great touring route in the region.

On the subject of previous achievements and looking towards the future, we're going to see the finalisation of the RAAF Base East Sale redevelopment in the coming months. In total, there's been $385 million allocated to it by the federal government, which will see RAAF Base East Sale become the home of Defence Force basic pilot training. That means that all pilots, whether they be in the Army, the Navy or the Air Force, will get their basic pilot training in East Sale before moving on to their postings somewhere else in Australia. That's something that we're very proud of. We have a rich heritage at East Sale with the RAAF base, but we also have a great future. The amount of work that's gone on at that base has been quite transformational. When I think about the time I've spent in the role, the investment in RAAF Base East Sale has been one of the biggest changes I've noticed in Gippsland.

I'm looking forward also to seeing projects start, after the best part of 12 months, through the Hazelwood power station response package that the federal government put together. In total, $43 million of federal funds have been allocated and we've already made announcements on a range of projects. Some of them have received matching funding from council or from the state government, but we need to get those works underway so that they can deliver the job outcomes that the local community's looking for. The Latrobe Performing Arts Centre is another project that we secured funding for in the last federal election period, and it's up to the local council to work with the state government to finally get those works underway.

I spoke just last week at the launch of the Gippsland Community Leadership Program and we reflected on some of the projects that have been funded in recent times and for which works have been underway in Gippsland. I know others will dispute this, but I believe I live in the greatest region of the best nation in the world. But I posed a question to the room: 'Is this as good as it gets for Gippsland?' Unanimously, around the room people had the view, 'No, it's not. We can do even better. We can make our region an even better place to live, an even better place to work, an even better place to raise a family and an even better place to visit.' At a time when it's easy to be cynical and to get caught in the media cycle of negativity, in this place, as leaders of our community, we need to be relentlessly optimistic and positive about the future of our great nation and of the communities we represent.

In the year that lies ahead, I'm very keen to see more collaboration at a federal level with state governments and with local governments to work very closely on projects we can agree on and get those projects happening, particularly in our regional areas. I want to see governments working more closely with the community and local businesses to deliver initiatives that will help them invest with confidence and to see our regional communities grow in the future. I believe one huge opportunity remains, particularly in the electorate of Gippsland, in investment in infrastructure to stimulate the visitor economy. For too long, we've talked about the potential of tourism in Victoria, particularly regional Victoria, but we haven't invested enough in the assets, particularly on public land, to make it more attractive for people to choose to spend their discretionary dollars in our regional communities. I'd love to see a commitment from the federal government, in partnership with states around the nation, to invest in the tourism product right throughout regional Australia. As we improve the connectivity of our regional towns through better road links, better rail links, more airports, better mobile phone connectivity and the rollout of the NBN, all that connectivity means that it's very easy for people to get about regional Australia. But we've got to make sure the infrastructure's in place to compete with other potential locations where people might choose to spend their holidays. So I'm very keen to see us working in a collaborative way with our state colleagues to achieve further investment in the visitor economy, because we know it will help to stimulate jobs in our regional areas.

As we start the new parliamentary year, Mr Deputy Speaker, I again want to recognise the work you've done in your electorate of Parkes and what a great friend and supporter you've been of me personally during the last 10 years. I won't share the stories of when we sat together in opposition in those early days in the House, but it's fair to say there were times when we had to keep each other awake! It's great to have you here as Deputy Speaker and as a friend, a colleague and a mentor in this place. I look forward to serving with you again for the next 12 months and wish all members well in the 2018 parliamentary year.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19: 30