Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm proud that I stood in front of my community asking them to send me back to this place on a platform of bringing people together. They endorsed that, and I'm so grateful to the people of Perth for endorsing that vision. It's a vision of bringing people together by acting on the Uluru Statement from the Heart, making sure that we finally get proper recognition of our first Australians in our Constitution. It's a vision of bringing people together when it comes to acting on climate change, making sure that we walk together towards that path to net zero by 2050. It's a vision of bringing people together when it comes to making sure that people can afford and access child care, making sure that they can access the jobs they need to provide for their families. It's a vision of bringing people together by restoring faith and integrity in government through a proper anticorruption commission. It's a vision of bringing people together on the challenges that we know we have as a country post COVID.

It's manufacturing. It's ensuring we have respect at work. It's making sure we invest in our TAFE. It's acting on the economic challenges in front of us. And it's bringing people together in some of the things I'm proud to have put to my community for their endorsement in the Perth electorate. One of these is our $50 million commitment to an Aboriginal cultural centre in the heart of the Perth electorate, making sure that we can tell the millions of stories that have been on this land for more than 60,000 years. I think this project could be the Sydney Opera House of the west coast, something of which we can all be proud.

Equally, it's bringing people together in terms of making sure that every Australian has access to the health care they need. On that front, I'm proud of our commitment to a Medicare urgent care clinic in the CBD, the heart of the Perth electorate. It's bringing people together in the places where we love to gather around our rivers. Indeed, the urban rivers platform for the Swan and Canning rivers is about making sure that we preserve these beautiful riverbanks for generations to come. It's our commitment to Bardon Park, to make sure that we continue to remove the weeds that have destroyed otherwise beautiful native bushland. It's our commitment to restoring the Maylands lakes. It's our commitment to a national trust site at Tranby House.

It's our commitment to Bassendean Oval, an oval that is well loved by the Perth community, making sure that it has the lights needed for players to be able to play into the night. With the former member for Hasluck, I had the joy of opening the women's change rooms at that site. That was only half the project. The other half of the project is making sure those players can play late into the evening.

Equally, I'm proud of the commitment we have. Bringing people together requires people getting to the jobs they do and the places they need to be, and that means investing in our bus infrastructure. On that note, I'll finish by saying how proud I am of the commitment to electric bus manufacturing in Perth for the future.