Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to take this opportunity, the first since I delivered my inaugural address in the House last month, to thank the people of Fraser for electing me as their representative in this place. Fraser is a welcoming community, notable for its remarkable diversity. It contains many substantial and established migrant communities—Vietnamese, Italian, Turkish, Maltese and Greek, just to name a few, complemented more recently by residents born in Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. It is a place where families from a multitude of national, ethnic and faith backgrounds live together in harmony and with a shared commitment to Australia and our common values. Fraser is an extraordinary testament to the integration of successive generations of migrants and is a robustly successful exemplar of Australian multiculturalism. Fraser's diversity extends from demography to geography and history.

Fraser has a long and proud tradition of manufacturing. It was home to our earliest large-scale manufacturing and it remains a major industrial region today. In 1907, the Sunshine Harvester Works was established at Braybrook Junction by industrialist HV McKay, producing innovative and affordable machinery that drove productivity growth in the Australian economy, which was then dependent on agriculture. It was Australia's largest manufacturing plant and dominated the area to such an extent that the entire locality was renamed in its honour. This enormous factory also took centre stage in one of the most celebrated events in the storied history of Australia's great labour movement. In 1907, Justice Henry Bournes Higgins, President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, set the first federally arbitrated wages standard in Australia. He used the Sunshine Harvester Works as a test case to determine the level of a fair and reasonable wage. The Harvester judgement had a lasting significance and impact, becoming the basis upon which Australia's minimum wage standard was set for the next 70 years.

Today, Sunshine is at the heart of a national employment and innovation cluster, with an optimistic future as the centrepiece of a transport superhub, a key interchange on the planned Melbourne Airport Rail Link and an economic precinct of national significance. From Sunshine, Ardeer and Cairnlea in the south, Fraser extends north to the important community, activity and economic centres of St Albans, Keilor and Taylors Lakes. This region is marked by the rugged beauty of river valleys and gorges, each proudly cared for by committed groups of passionate local residents. The Maribyrnong River, Jacksons Creek, Taylors Lakes and Kororoit Creek define the landscape of this area and have been home to the Kurung-Jang-Balluk and Marin-Balluk clans of the Wurundjeri people for millennia. Some of Melbourne's largest and most beautiful parklands can still be found there, including Organ Pipes National Park, Brimbank Park and Sydenham Park. Sydenham Park was recently shortlisted as a potential future home for women's football in Australia. I strongly commend this bid. I once again thank the people of Fraser for electing me to represent them in this place.