Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to congratulate you, Deputy Speaker Buchholz, in continuing on the Speaker's panel. Your knowledge and experience in this chamber is an asset to all of us. Your cooperation across the chamber when occasionally things don't go smoothly is appreciated.

I'm pleased to make this contribution on the Governor-General's address-in-reply. This is the fourth time after an election I've had an opportunity to do so, and I want to begin by sincerely thank the people of Shortland for giving me the honour and privilege of continuing to be their advocate in this house for them and their families. The trust they continue to place in me to be their voice is something I'm truly humbled by, and it remains and will ever remain the greatest privilege of my life to represent the 150,000 people who live in my community. This is my fourth term in the House of Representatives and I must say that so far it's a tremendous improvement to be speaking from this side of the House and I hope I continue to feel that privilege.

It's been some months since I've had the opportunity to update the House on what is happening in Shortland, and I'm thrilled to be able to use my contribution on the Governor-General's address-in-reply to provide a Shortland update. I will begin with the floods that have plagued our community over the last few months. Like much of New South Wales, the Central Coast and Hunter regions have been impacted over the past months by severe storms and subsequent flooding from them. Some communities in the electorate of my neighbour, the member for Hunter, have been particularly impacted by these natural disasters. I'd like to thank my colleague the Minister for Emergency Management, Senator Murray Watt, for swiftly including both the Central Coast and Lake Macquarie local government areas in eligibility for disaster payments for affected households. I also note the remarks of the Premier of New South Wales commending the Albanese government for the swiftness with which these decisions were made. At times of natural disasters, there is no place for party politics, and both the Commonwealth and New South Wales governments have worked collaboratively to address this terrible situation.

Unfortunately, we have been warned for many years now that more severe and frequent weather events are a consequence of climate change, and that's why I'm proud to be part of the Albanese Labor government, which takes climate change seriously and is implementing policies that will both reduce emissions and lower power prices.

I'm very proud of the ambitious commitments Labor made to the people of Shortland and I look forward to working on them to see them come to fruition. Labor's commitments included funding health services that had been cut by the previous Liberal government, including restoring our much-cherished GP Access After Hours service and classifying the region as a distribution priority area for GPs. It also included the Lake Macquarie Economic Development Package, which will unlock over $1.8 billion of economic benefits and help create over 12,000 jobs. This package includes $20 million for a much-needed permanent dredge for the Swansea Channel and extending the Newcastle grouting fund to the Lake Macquarie local government area. Sadly, the people of Lake Macquarie have been neglected for over a decade by the New South Wales government regarding a permanent dredge. The Albanese government will provide funding to Lake Macquarie City Council for the purchase of a dredge. I particularly want to acknowledge the advocacy of Phil Donoghoe and the Bring Blacksmiths Back group and thank them for their support.

Lake Macquarie is the largest saltwater lake in the Southern Hemisphere. It is one of the jewels of Australia and it is very under-utilised because of the issues around sand build-up blocking channels and causing boats to be stranded on sandbanks. So the provision of a permanent dredge will be a hit from both an economic point of view in terms of opening up the areas for tourism and helping with environmental factors so that we can enjoy this beautiful lake so much more. A part of our commitment is that we will be talking to Lake Macquarie City Council to allow the use of the dredge for neighbouring Central Coast lakes when it's not needed in Lake Macquarie.

The Albanese government will also co-invest with telecommunications companies to install mobile phone towers in some of Shortland's worst black spots, to cover areas such as Lake Munmorah, Budgewoi, Halekulani, Eleebana, Jewells and Redhead. Again, the refusal of the last federal government to provide this much-needed infrastructure was a sad indictment on them, and I'm proud that Labor is acting on the concerns of my constituents. The fact that my area was excluded from the Mobile Black Spot Program was a disgrace. The fact that half the funds from that pool of money was being returned to Treasury each year demonstrated that that program was not working effectively and was failing to meet the needs of constituents of mine in regional areas. I'm very anxious to see these services restored.

I'm also very keen to work hard and keep the pressure on Optus, Telstra and Vodafone to fulfil their commitments around improving mobile phone reception in the Windale-Mount Hutton area. It's a disgrace that, even after a tower was constructed at Lake Macquarie Square, the Mount Hutton shops, mobile phone reception is still poor. I accept that Optus are trying to do their best, but my constituents deserve to be able to use mobile phones when they are only 15 minutes from the seventh-largest city in the country and only a 90-minute drive from the largest city in Australia.

Another of our commitments it was $2.5 million to construct up to three digital television broadcast towers. Again, for a regional area in such close proximity to our global city to not have free-to-air digital television reception is just incomprehensible in the year 2022. Access to free-to-air television is essential not only for entertainment but also for accessing news and current affairs so that our citizens can make informed choices and exercise their democratic rights. So these commitments are very, very important.

Today I'm also pleased to report that the Albanese Labor government is already delivering on its health policy commitments made to the people of Shortland. Recently I was pleased to announce that the Hunter and Central Coast regions have been classified as distribution priority areas. This policy will have a significantly positive impact in addressing the GP crisis that is affecting my region. Finding a bulk-billing doctor is becoming even harder in Shortland, but this change will enable medical practices to now employ what are now called Commonwealth bonded doctors and doctors trained overseas. Incomprehensibly, both these sorts of doctors were prevented by the previous Liberal government from practising in my community. When this issue gets raised in the chamber, I note that there are some objections from some of the National Party MPs, saying that somehow my electorate getting access to GPs is to their disadvantage. That is not true. There are specific incentives for remote and rural areas. The last government prevented bonded doctors and overseas trained doctors working in my community, which meant that my region, which is very fast growing, was effectively being prohibited from getting access to very significant pools of general practitioners.

Our commitment to restore the region's GP Access After Hours service is well underway. I can report to the House that the Department of Health and Aged Care is working with the Hunter Primary Care Network, which runs this vital service, to reverse the cuts. This service is the absolute bedrock of the Hunter community. It is a service that most, if not every family, in the Hunter have had cause to use. It provides bulk-billing doctors out of hours and it gives families peace of mind. It relieves massive pressure on our emergency departments, which are overstretched already. It's essential that this funding is restored. Importantly, when the Liberals cut funding to this service on Christmas Eve we saw an immediate jump in waiting times in our emergency departments. Some nights the waiting time went from 2½ hours to six hours, so this is an important commitment that we are delivering on.

Today I'd also like to acknowledge and pay tribute to my constituents who have been recognised in the Queen's Birthday honours list. Francis Kitcher was awarded an OAM for his services to tennis and rugby league. Janelle Shakespeare also received an OAM for her service to medical research institutions. Fiona Leatham was awarded the Public Service Medal for outstanding public service to the city of Newcastle during the COVID pandemic. James Wright received the Emergency Services Medal. On behalf of all the people of Shortland I pay tribute to these recipients for their dedication and service to our community.

One of the highlights of the year is the annual June Independence Day Dinner hosted by the Filipino-Australian Society of the Hunter Valley, which also marked the 41st anniversary of FASHVI and the 161st birthday of Philippine national hero Dr Rizal. I've been involved with FASHVI since my time as the member for Charlton. I have been proud to support their work. I thank Bob Bell, Rebecca MacDonald and their team for always making me and my wife, Keara, so welcome. I look forward to continuing to work with them in the years ahead.

After the election but before parliament resumed I was fortunate to attend the 75th anniversary for the Lakes United rugby league club. Lakes is one of the premier teams in the real NRL—the Newcastle rugby league competition—and it has produced many greats that have played not just locally but in the national rugby league and on the international stage. They include Paul Harragon, Brett Kimmorley and Adam Muir. It has a proud history. I'm so glad that the Albanese government will be providing funding to upgrade facilities at their home ground of Cahill Oval. I wish the Seagulls all the very best for their next 75 years.

Importantly, that funding will make sure that the club and the sport will be much more open to female rugby league players. I was at an event yesterday where the CEO of the NRL, Andrew Abdo, made the point that over the last few years the number of women and girls registered to play rugby league has exploded from 10,000 to 40,000. It is the fastest-growing part of rugby league, and it's something we should be doing everything to support.

I always have great confidence in our future because of the youth of Shortland. I take this opportunity to recognise two local sporting legends and sisters: Erika and Mikayla Enderby. Erika, who is 15, competed in the Junior World Orienteering Championships in Portugal in July. She started orienteering at the age of six and has received multiple state and Australian titles, alongside winning the women's 10 at the 2015 Oceania Orienteering Championships. Mikayla competed in the 18s division. This is an incredible achievement for the Enderby sisters. I wish them all the best in their future sporting endeavours. They are certainly two athletes to keep an eye on.

NAIDOC Week is a very special time of year for Australia. There was much to celebrate in Shortland. I take this opportunity to say how proud I am to be a member of the Albanese Labor government, which is implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart. The Prime Minister in a very powerful speech at the Garma festival outlined the way forward in establishing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

In June I visited Redhead Public School to participate in their NAIDOC Week celebrations. Over the last few years students and the Redhead community have been busy creating the Awabakal Learning Space, which features a yarning circle with native plants and Australian animal mosaics made by students in 2019. Kiel Crofts and Marley Smithfrom Bahtabah land council performed the smoking ceremony. I would like to thank Redhead Public School, their teachers, their student leaders and the broader school population for having me participate in such a special occasion.

While I can't recognise all the NAIDOC celebrations, I do want to highlight a few. The suburb of Windale is one of the most disadvantaged communities in the country, and it has a large Indigenous population. It is a special place and a wonderful community. Windale Public School's NAIDOC celebration included wise words from local elders, singing and dancing. Swansea Public School also recognised NAIDOC Week in a special way. In line with this year's NAIDOC theme, Swansea students are getting up, standing up and creating a better future for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. NAIDOC Week celebrations are central to us celebrating the fact that we live in a land with the oldest continuing civilisation on earth, and I take this opportunity to pay my respects to the Awabakal and Darkinjung people of my home region and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.

Over the weekend, it was a pleasure to be back at the Living Smart Festival at Speers Point Park. It was the first time in three years that this was able to be held, because of COVID. It was brilliant to see thousands of people attend this event focused on sustainable living. The ABC's gardening guru, Costa, was certainly popular with those who attended. On the second day, the event became the Living Together Festival, celebrating our community's diversity and the wonder that is multicultural Australia. This is a great festival, and I pay tribute to all the organisers of it, especially Lake Macquarie City Council. Some of the messages that I received at the stall—I was there from nine o'clock to 2 pm in the afternoon, when the festival closed for the day—were about the importance of Labor delivering on its election commitments, particularly around climate change, a national integrity commission and a mature, adult government that will think before it acts and not use megaphone diplomacy.

In the time remaining, I'd like to thank a few people who were instrumental in helping me get re-elected. First off, I'd like to thank my family. To my wife, Keara, and kids, Rachel and Mikey: thank you for all your support. I could not be here without you. One of the privileges of being a member of the House of Representatives and, at the moment, a minister is the requirement to be away from my community, my home, for so many weeks of the year. So I want to thank Keara, Michael and Rachel for your unstinting support, your belief in what we are doing here and your support for a progressive agenda for our nation to improve our country and the world. Thank you very much, Keara, Rachel and Michael.

I'd also like to honour the Labor branch members. I would not be here without them. I am their proud delegate in this place. I'm proud to have been selected by the rank-and-file members of the Australian Labor Party. It was they who worked tirelessly to support me to win re-election, so I want to thank them for their hard work and their dedication during the campaign. For the first time in almost a decade, they now have a Labor member who is part of a Labor government, and I look forward to working with them over the next three years to deliver Labor's progressive agenda. I say to each of them that I value their guidance and counsel, and I know this will be forthcoming over this term of parliament.

I'd also like to thank the many volunteers who weren't members of the Labor Party who got so involved in the campaign, from doorknocking to phone banking to helping on street stalls. This was a community campaign that was critical and instrumental in us winning re-election, so I'm particularly proud of the grassroots campaign we ran. I want to thank my campaign manager, Lisa Piefke, and my volunteer coordinator, India Jones, for organising the most engaged and energised campaign I've been involved in.

I'd like to conclude my remarks by saying that the Albanese Labor government has a strong and progressive agenda, as exemplified in the Governor-General's address to open the parliament. It's incredibly important that we deliver on the commitments we've made. We've already done that, and we are working hard and smart to deliver on those commitments to fulfil the honour that the Australian people have given us by granting us the privilege of government. We intend to maintain that trust and deliver for all Australia. Thank you.

Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy to be here making my speech on the address-in-reply. I would like to congratulate all those who have made their maiden speeches today. It's a fantastic feeling to come in here and lay yourself bare, to be open, to tell people what it is you are about and what it is you want to do. It has been fantastic to see them here with their friends and families. I was here on the weekend watching all the visitors coming through Parliament House. I make these reflections because when I came in to parliament much of that wasn't the case. I came in during the middle of the pandemic. The gallery was almost as bare as it is now when I gave my maiden speech. I think about eight people were allowed in at the time. I think back upon that now and much has changed. It's great sign that Australia and our parliament is returning to a more normal state of affairs.

I am very privileged to have the chance to address the chamber today in what is still the first flush of this, the 47th parliament. I think it is appropriate in this speech to speak, firstly, as an Australian and to congratulate the Prime Minister and to wish him good health during his term in that role. First and foremost, I am an Australian and I hope this government succeeds and looks after the nation to the best of its capabilities. It is an honour to be here representing the people of Groom, who have placed their trust if me for a second time. I think it is very important to talk about what an honour it is to be here as their elected representative. It is quite a humbling experience when someone from your electorate comes to you and asks for your help and wants you to help them overcome some issue and you realise that that is entirely the job: helping people. It's fantastic when you get the opportunity to do that. So it is wonderful to be here in what is my second term reinvigorated and looking forward to the opportunity to do that more.

It may seem quite an obvious statement, but success in a federal election campaign is never guaranteed nor an easy feat, so I would very much like to thank those who stood beside me and supported me during the election campaign. Of course, I start with the party members of whom I always consider myself first and foremost to be one. It is a very strong party group we have in Groom. It is built upon the fantastic FDCs of Toowoomba North, Toowoomba South and Condamine. I am very grateful for the activity that they undertake to ensure that we continue to have strong support and good representation here. I'm truly humbled to be their representative.

I think back to the conditions in Toowoomba on the day of the election. It was probably one of the worst election campaign days since the 2016 Toowoomba South by-election for Dave Janetzki which some party members remind me of often. It started out cold, wet and miserable and it just got worse and worse as the day went on. But so many of our wonderful party faithful came out and were there on the ground doing the hard work of electioneering on that day. There are too many to thank, but I do want to thank particularly my FDC executive, Isaac Moody, Bronwyn Evans and Jim Curtis, for all their hard work, and the campaign manager, Bec Anderson, for her tireless efforts.

I would like to pay special tribute to Mr Alan Travers, who sadly passed away earlier this month after a battle with cancer. Alan and his wife, Louise, were key contributors to my campaign, standing out on the Toowoomba City prepoll in what can only be described as terrible conditions in between doctors appointments and mandated rest breaks. By the day of the election, Alan could really only speak in whispers, but he still managed to stay there, handing out hundreds of how-to-vote cards to Toowoomba residents. I want to make it very, very clear I don't take the support of people like Alan lightly, and I don't think anyone in this House does. When you have a party member who's there because they believe in something, they believe in values that drive them to contribute, they have a vision for Australia, they want to see you continue to improve on the path that you've been going down, you know they are not there just for you; they are there to support you and they want you to succeed, but they are there because they believe in something. It's fantastic to think that you could share that belief with someone like Alan, who was willing to contribute so much of his time in such a difficult period of his life. I very much thank Louise for everything she has done.

During this term I've also lost two other party members who contributed significantly and made a big difference to my time as a party member: Mr John Redmond and Mr Boyd Schuber. Boyd was the cheekiest how-to-vote card giver outer. Even if someone didn't want a card, they were going to get one from Boyd. He had a magic way of ensuring people walked in with one. It was almost a challenge to him, and I remember his contributions fondly.

I'd also, of course, like to thank my family. An election campaign is not something you can do without seeing the impacts on your family. My children saw very little of me, and my wife probably even less. I thank them for their contribution, and I acknowledge their full support. I'd also like to thank my staff, who continuously go above and beyond in supporting me. It's a fantastic thing to have good people around you.

I will also quickly mention that you don't come into politics expecting to find friends, but to find people with whom you can deal, whom you know you are working with truly towards the betterment of the nation, is very, very important. I've found many of those, and, given that he's here, I'll thank the member for Fraser for the collegiate way we've been able to work together so far on the economics committee. I hope that 'so far' is a very long far; I'm sure it will be.

While I now represent my community from the opposition benches, I promise to continue fighting for the wonderful local opportunities and projects I outlined in my maiden speech, whether it's Inland Rail, improved trade partnerships or building our local defence force. I can't reiterate enough how important Inland Rail will be to Toowoomba. This is what sets us up as a distribution hub for South-East Queensland. It's a critical piece of infrastructure that has been so long in the planning, and it has been fantastic to see the enabling works happening in Groom over the last couple of weeks on the site of InterLinkSQ. The project is now so close and the opportunities it will present are so close to our region. I commit myself fully to ensuring that we see the full benefit of those opportunities coming into Toowoomba. It's something I strongly believe will set us up for generations to come.

I also want to see us capitalise on the railway parklands project. I was successful working with the chamber of commerce, working with council, to achieve funding for it under the SEQ city deal. This is a crucial piece of infrastructure that will address two very key issues that Toowoomba faces. One is, of course, what so many places face, which is the housing crisis. This provides the options for medium-density housing right in the centre of Toowoomba's CBD. What that does is address the other issue we have, which is revitalising our CBD, providing vital foot traffic, something that our CBD was built on over 100 years ago and now needs care and attention again to ensure that those local stores have that work and that business coming through. So this is a vital project to see delivered, and I remain very much committed to that.

If anything, I'm motivated more than ever to fight for our community. Over my first term as the member for Groom I've been lucky enough to see and meet so many more people, community groups and businesses who have strengthened for me the vision of what our community wants and needs. Just last week I was at Oakey with one of these local community leaders who do so much good—Katerina Medland. She works with the Oakey PCYC, providing a place for Oakey kids to enjoy themselves. With fitness and mental health goals, it's fantastic. I linger on this point because Oakey is a part of my electorate that has a special place in my heart. It's a town that has faced and overcome a lot of challenges in recent times, be it with PFAS, the closure of the mine or the uncertainty around future of its defence base. It has faced these challenges and it's coming through; things are starting to turn around. It's been a very, very resilient town filled with very, very resilient people, and it's great to see that mine coming back. Whether it's over kindly-offered cups of tea after door-knocking or a quiet word after a community meeting, I've enjoyed listening to the hopes and needs of our community. I thank all those who offer me a cup of tea when I'm out door-knocking. It's a wonderful experience as a member when someone wants to invite you in and really lay out for you what they want and their vision for their local community. I'm very grateful for every one of those opportunities. As I led off with in my maiden speech, our region is a place of strong community values that is proud both of its ambitions for the future and of its history.

We saw some great figures come out today from the Toowoomba Regional Council about the strength of our local economy, and I think it's important to touch on that. There's $13.1 billion in planned infrastructure projects or major projects going on in our region, both private and public. We've seen this great flood of investment, and it follows on from previous investments, like the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing, which did so much for us. But where it leaves us is that the Toowoomba regional economy is the second-largest in Queensland outside of the metropolitan areas. We're growing, we're growing stronger and we're growing more and more diverse. Our top five industries are health care, mining, manufacturing, education and training, and construction. But what's fantastic is, following behind that, the growth of newer industries that maybe weren't so traditional in a regional setting. Our financial and insurance services are following hot on the heels of those other industries and are growing and expanding. Of course we've long had Heritage Bank, but we're seeing smaller institutions coming in and continuing to invest and grow, and it's absolutely fantastic.

But what this has solidified for me is the view that we have yet to really realise the benefits of the hub-and-spoke model that people talk about for regional service delivery. I think for a long time we've had this view of Toowoomba as being the hub and—unfortunately—during my time, quite frankly, I've seen that challenged. I was at a hospital visit at St Andrew's listening to staff there tell me that their radiologists who provide breast cancer screening all travel up from Brisbane each day. It's such a vital service and such an important thing for us to have in our community—and yet we're reliant upon people driving up and down from Brisbane. I think for me what the hub-and-spoke model means is that we have that latency—that we're the ones providing that out from Toowoomba. That's what the end of the golf swing looks like: when we're able to have that support and provide it out to the smaller communities around us. So I have an increased impetus to see us deliver on that model.

A large part of that will be in improving our health services, and I very much welcome the state government's forward commitment to funding a new Toowoomba hospital, and I acknowledge the tremendous advocacy for this that's come from the member for Toowoomba North, Trevor Watts, and the member for Toowoomba South, David Janetzki. This has been a long fight, and it's something that has been fully embraced—be it by the council, the chamber or TSBE. We've had every community group get behind this and it's a fantastic win to see for our region. But it's vital we put a firm date on the commencement of construction as soon as possible, and we need to see that happening now, because we know that the facilities we have are already past their use-by date.

The new hospital will not only service the existing needs of our region but also provide specialist staff and—as we're seeing increasingly—couple with the education sector to provide a new pathway for kids from the Toowoomba region who see a future in health care. Since I first started in this role, and I'm coming up to two years, a pathway has been created so that children can go through school, study medicine, train in a medical field, and then go on to practice—all within the Toowoomba region. That's a new development for us, and it's absolutely fantastic. For such a long time we've been known as the healthcare provider, not just for South West Queensland but also for northern New South Wales. We know that we can now address the issue of how we get medical professionals to come out to the region: we know that if they train in Toowoomba, they're more likely to stay in Toowoomba. That development is a great result of the work of the previous government. It's something we will see the benefits of, not immediately, but it will build and build and build. I look forward to watching that.

We're seeing a lot of other exciting new opportunities for kids emerging as well. I always pinch myself when I talk about Toowoomba becoming a centre of excellence for space engineering, for space research. Who would have thought that a town built on the dairy industry would be a place that now leads the conversation in Australia in this field? It's extraordinary. Yet, that's where we stand. And it's not just a one-off investment that has done this. There has been a lot of work by a lot of people who have come together over a long time. And, yes, there has been government support.

I was very proud to have worked with both the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Queensland to fight to get Trailblazer funding under the last government. It's was an absolutely fantastic success story, because that funding wasn't given as a starting point for them to build space engineering as a new subject; it was topping up all the work that they had done. I thank Professor Peter Schubel and his team and staff for all the hard work they've done to build that up. We're already seeing that being supported by local industry. We've seen investment from Boeing, with the Loyal Wingman program coming into our region. Just the other day we heard that Virgin Orbit signed a contract to do their test launches out of the Wellcamp Airport, just down the road from UniSQ. This is a fantastic combination. We're seeing industry come in; we're seeing research. We know that this will work together. I guess the bit that excites me even more is that, when I think about the defence capabilities that have long been in our region—and, of course, space engineering and space research will have so much crossover with defence—I think about the opportunity that it provides us to grow and to build upon that hard work.

I thank very much and throw a quick shout-out to Trent Groves at Oakey for all he does for the local community and at Cabarlah. I note the member for Braddon is here with me, and I reflect upon his previous experience at 7SIG, and I thank the boys from the 7SIG rugby team for always finding five minutes of time to allow me to come and play with them. They're great contributors to our local community. It's such an important industry for us to grow and build upon.

If we can secure this specialised industry in Toowoomba, we can make our region a space and defence hub for the nation. That's where we can go. Of course, at its most basic level, the advancement of the Toowoomba region will rest on roads and water infrastructure. We need a second road to Highfields to support our western growth corridor. It is a part of Toowoomba that is growing at an exceptional rate. We need a proper fix for the Gore Highway, which seems to wash away every time it rains. Those incredible black soil fields that stretch out west of Toowoomba provide us with a challenge. We need a new dam to draw from to ensure our growth is never limited again, as it was during the millennium drought. It's important for us to focus on that, that we are in a competitive market. We need to grow and show that we are ready to grow and that we want to invest in growth if we want to continue to see that government investment.

My core role as a member will be to ensure we get our fair share. These important projects will remain front of mind of this government. It's important that, during my first term, what has crystallised very clearly is my vision for our region. I speak to the city of Toowoomba. The idea that we could provide inner-city living in a regional location is something we should aspire to, that we can go beyond just being a country town that has the things we need but becoming a city that has everything that you would want. That's where we can go to. It fills me with enthusiasm and excitement that this is a vision that is shared across our region. The stronger we can make Toowoomba, the stronger we can make that hub and the better our entire region will be.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was an absolute honour just a few months ago to be sworn in as the member for Kingston in the 47th Parliament for the sixth time. I am very, very grateful and humbled by the confidence that my local community has again placed in me to represent them in this place. I remain deeply committed to listening to the views and priorities of my community and making sure that they have a voice in this place, as I have done for almost the last 15 years.

The previous speaker spoke about the privilege it is to be invited into people's lives and homes, and I have to say that I continue, every day, to be absolutely astounded by the graciousness and kindness shown to me by so many people who want to raise concerns, wish me luck or give me encouragement in this role. Through the election campaign it was no different and I continued to really appreciate the hopes and dreams of so many of my electors being shared with me. I can commit to them that I will continue to make sure that their hopes and dreams are not only shared in this place but that I work every day to realise those hopes and dreams for them.

Not only was it an absolute privilege to be elected as the member for Kingston again, but also it was a huge privilege to be elected as part of the Albanese government. During the election campaign, there was a lot of angst and a lot of frustration about the chaotic years of the former government. What came back to me, time and time again, is that the people in my electorate—and, indeed, people around Australia—wanted a plan for the future. They wanted confidence that decision-making would be based on evidence and consultation and done in the best interests of the Australian people. So I am very, very pleased that I have been not only re-elected but re-elected as part of the Albanese Labor government.

Through the most recent election the Australian people have chosen a better future, because our government will stand up for working people. We do want to provide secure local jobs and support Australians living with the challenges of the cost of living, particularly in the areas of child care and of medicines. These were some of the key issues that were raised through the election campaign. But of course, in addition, things like health and education were also regularly raised with me, and I am so pleased that our government had some serious commitments in these areas that will be delivered to the Australian people.

I would like to particularly congratulate our now Prime Minister on his election victory. I think his leadership, during the three years but also during the election campaign and since becoming Prime Minister, has really reinforced to me what good leadership is. In good leadership, you make decisions based on the evidence before you, but for the greater good—not about yourself, but for others. And I think he's shown that. He takes advice, he listens, but he also makes decisions that are in the best interests of the Australian people.

I have to say that, in the last few months, as I've gone around my electorate, one saying has seemed to come up over and over again, and it is: 'It feels like the adults are back in charge.' That is what my electors are saying to me. I can tell them that I, certainly, along with the government, intend to continue to make thoughtful, thought-out policy that delivers for them.

Of course, it's been wonderful to share this new parliamentary term with so many new members of parliament. I would particularly like to make mention of the new member for Spence and the new member for Boothby, who have joined us in this place from South Australia.

But it was an absolute privilege for me—during the election campaign, and in the lead-up, I must say—to go round and visit so many of our wonderful candidates. I was always in awe of the passion, the commitment and the drive that each and every one of those candidates on our side of politics had. Sometimes you forget just how hard it can be to balance an election campaign when it's not your full-time job. You don't have incumbency and you don't have the resources, but you go door to door and person to person, changing hearts and minds. It was such a privilege to join so many of our candidates right across the country. Whether they won or lost, the passion was there, the commitment was there and the values were there. It was an absolute privilege for me to join them.

Since the election, I've also been extremely humbled and proud to be appointed as Minister for Social Services. The portfolio of Social Services touches everyone's life in every corner of this country. When I got briefed about all the programs and payments, I found every single payment and program touched my community. That is the extent of the portfolio of Social Services. And every one of those programs has, I think, a very important mission, and that is to make a difference in disadvantage—to try and shift the dial when it comes to disadvantage to make sure that everyone in society gets a fair go and, of course, gets the opportunity to live a fulfilling life and participate in their community. So I take it as a huge privilege, and I'm very humbled that I am able now to contribute as the minister in this portfolio.

It has been a busy time since I've been in this portfolio. We have three pieces of legislation already in the parliament and another piece of legislation to be introduced this week. All of these things are incredibly important to delivering on our election commitments and making sure that we're supporting people when they need it. I would also note in my speech that there's a lot of work to do in my portfolio. There is a lot of work to do, and there are a lot of things that need careful attention. I really look forward to delivering on those as well, particularly the Draft National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children. The previous 10-year plan came to an end in July this year, and I've certainly made it an absolute priority to make sure that we're getting on with the job of delivering that and bringing the country together to drive investment across the Commonwealth, states and territories in a way that makes a difference.

In addition, we have also delivered on our commitment to have a Jobs and Skills Summit, making sure that we are looking at some of the barriers to workforce participation. I would like to thank everyone that participated in the Jobs and Skills Summit. I'm a bit biased—I think that the panel that I convened was probably the best. That's not because I convened it, I might say, but because we had the lived experience of those that have faced barriers in the workforce: those that are carers, those that have been in out-of-home care, those that have been discriminated against because of their ethnicity and those that have a disability and have had artificial barriers. I think it was really powerful for everyone in that room to hear about those barriers and think about what we can do. Of course, we have already announced that we will introduce an extra work incentive bonus to support pensioners to take up more work. We've also announced that we will enter into a memorandum of understanding with the Business Council of Australia to look at how we drive some of those barriers away so that those living with a disability who want to work are able to fully participate.

In addition, we also looked at how we would support people with a disability in the visitor economy through the Visitor Economy Disability Pilot. This is a really important area, where many would recognise there are huge skills shortages, and there are those living with a disability that want to participate in these types of jobs and are looking at how we drive that.

We've also announced that we want to provide a framework to support employers become better places of work for those with caring responsibilities. Very clearly, at the Jobs and Skills Summit, we heard that there are people with caring responsibilities that do want to work. It gives them a feeling of purpose, in addition to their caring responsibilities. At times it makes them feel like they're contributing in a range of different ways, and making sure that happens is critically important.

We've been delivering on our election commitments, in my portfolio, but we've been delivering right across the election commitments. I would say this election was a significant call to arms for action on climate change. I mentioned this is my sixth term. I feel like I have been having this false debate about whether or not climate change is real. We on this side of the House have recognised it for a long time. In fact—I've said this many times in this place—I learnt about how climate change works at school. That shows how long this debate has been going on! But the fact that we have now had a resolution of this issue, that this government has a plan in place to deliver on what it said it would do to tackle climate change but also make sure that we see the jobs benefit that comes with it, is so important.

In my local area, and it always comes back to local politics, I look forward to delivering on a number of local commitments that I made during the election, particularly the investment in Flinders hospital. Flinders hospital is an important tertiary hospital that services my electorate. I might be a bit biased—I was born there—but it is a very important hospital and we are looking at how we invest in that hospital, along with making sure that we have an urgent care clinic that will support our community.

This was, at times, ridiculed by those opposite. In my electorate it was incredibly warmly welcomed, because people understood that you don't want everyone that needs to see a doctor having to turn up at the emergency department. Indeed, in the lead-up to the election campaign that was me: my son broke his arm. We tried not to go to the hospital. We tried to go to the GP clinic. Unfortunately, they couldn't do an X-ray of his arm. So after trying a number of options we had to go back up to the tertiary hospital and be added to the waiting list. His arm was broken, and he was quickly attended to after a wait. But we should have other healthcare options in our community.

We made commitments to ensure there was an on-off exit ramp onto Majors Road, critical in connecting the southern suburbs, particularly Hallett Cove, Trott Park, Sheidow Park and Flagstaff Hill, onto the Southern Expressway to make sure there's easy access both further into the south and to the north. We made commitments to Christies Beach High School and the All Saints primary school. These were really important to support them deliver a great education. There is our investment in the urban rivers of Pedler Creek conservation park, Serpentine Creek, Panalatinga and the Fountain Valley Reserve, important investments in our local urban environment. And there is investment in our playgroups, being very clear that the informal learning, as children move to formal learning, is critically important. Supporting parents and children around play is so important, and our investment in playgroups was widely welcomed.

As always—and we've heard it in first speeches, and I've said it many times in my addresses-in-reply—you don't get there on your own. We don't get their on our own. We are there on the backs of so many people who put so much hard work into our campaigns. There are so many people who once again bought into the Labor campaign for Kingston, so many people who worked so hard.

I wanted to single out a particular person to start off with: Jordan Mumford, who was my campaign manager. He is an exceptional young man who has a very bright future. He took on my campaign with gusto, with ideas, started to talk to me about direct messaging and tree messaging, SMS trees and a whole range of things. He brought modern into the Kingston campaign. Of course there are Ella Shaw, Kylie and Alastair Douglas, Caelin, Bonny, Nathan, Dante and Alex who also worked very hard. We had over 300 volunteers who contributed to the campaign with so much community support I can't name all 300 here right now, but I would like to recognise John Spur, Marc McEwen, Jeanette Forstein, Bill and Maxine Watson, Jim Phillips, Naomi Piper, John Gorsey, Bill Patterson, Vic Phyllis, Phil and Joe Giles, Jordan Fell, Chrissy Sales, Peter Czebowski, Fiona Broadbent, Della Price and John Nailor. They were really critically important and helped out so much.

We all have, if we have been in this place for awhile, some amazing staff, and my electorate office staff—and I've said this not just at election time but every day—put the people of Kingston first. They give the people care, give them support, give them help sometimes at their most difficult. And so I would like to acknowledge my electorate staff, particularly Esme Langie, Jordan O'Reilly, Grace Langville, Connor Watson, Alison Taylor—and, of course, in the portfolio area, I had some amazing support from Tara Ferte, Gemma Slevig and Owen Torpey, who worked incredibly hard to make sure that we had the platform in early childhood to convince the Australian people about.

I would also like to thank my good friend Josh Peak—and I'm so pleased that he is in the gallery right now—from the SDA union. He is the secretary of the South Australian-NT union. And I thank Sonia Romeo. Both of them are stalwarts of the union movement. Josh has brought a level of enthusiasm and inspiration to the retail union, and it's hard for most people to keep up. He has been an incredible supporter. He was an old campaigner many years ago but now is a great supporter, and I thank him and his union for that support along with Ian Smith, from the TWU; Peter Lamps, from the AWU; Nick Townsend, from the CWU; John Adley, from the ETU; Jason Hall, from the FSU; and Jamie Newlyn, from the MUA. In my final moments, I would like to say that the Labor movement has an industrial wing. We don't shy away from that. We believe that the rights of working people deserve a voice in this place, and I'm proud to have had the support of those unions.

Finally, the party machinery is so critically important. To people that work behind the scenes I would like to say a big thank you: Reggie Martin, who was the then state secretary of the ALP in South Australia and then passed it over to Aemon Burke, who has a huge future ahead of him driving the ALP in South Australia; Paul Erickson and, of course, Peter Malinauskas and the SA Labor team. As a newly elected government, our Premier was very supportive of the election of an Albanese government, because he knew you could do things better together.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an honour and a privilege to be re-elected to the federal parliament for a fifth term, and I thank the people of the Riverina for bestowing upon me that great privilege. I will certainly not let you down. I've worked hard over four terms to ensure that the trust and the faith that you've placed in me is rewarded, and I will certainly do my very best, albeit in opposition. But you can still achieve things from opposition. I'm just glad that when I was the Deputy Prime Minister, for three and a bit years, my door was always open to every member of parliament. I've got a good relationship with most if not all members on the government benches and look forward to working with them and, of course, my colleagues on this side, to build a better Australia. At the end of the day, that's what we're all here to do. Sometimes we do it in a very bipartisan way, and sometimes not. But every member of this place, all 151 members of the House of Representatives are sent here by their communities to do a job. People in Australia want, need, expect and deserve those members they send to Canberra to do the job on their behalf. And I will earnestly and honestly represent them as best I can, as I've always done.

On election night, just before the election was called, I made this comment to the wonderful volunteers who served the National Party so well: 'I also want to thank tonight those many, many volunteers of the National Party, those yellow-shirted warriors who have stood out, in two weeks of pre-poll, in some circumstances from 8 am to 8 pm. They've handed out on cold cement, they've handed out on early mornings and chilly mornings, and they've handed out in the dark of night—and they've done it because they believe in the National Party. They believe in what the National Party represents and they know that the National Party delivers. And I'm very proud and very, very humbled by the fact that those National Party people always turn up and they are always behind me and they are always magnificent people. We have some people with health issues and other things, but they've still managed to find the time to turn up—for 12 hours today in some cases—and hand out for the National Party, and I owe them a debt of gratitude. Not only that, at pre-poll they've also handed out across the 84 booths across the Riverina and Central West. We've had every single booth supported by National Party people handing out, and giving people that choice to maintain the National Party representation here in the Riverina. And I have to say, as the member for Riverina now going into a fifth term, I'm very humbled by the fact that I have people who are so keen, so dedicated and so committed to the National Party cause. And that is one of the reasons why we keep getting re-elected. But we also keep getting re-elected because people believe in the National Party.'

I mentioned the National Party there a lot. But also I do want to thank the other candidates who stood and represented their parties, and in one case an Independent, for putting their hands up too, because it takes courage to put your hand up for election. It takes courage to put your name on a ballot paper. And this is what democracy is about. It is about giving people choice. I'm just glad that the people of the Riverina have reaffirmed their faith in me and, as I say, I will do the very best job for them. I also want to thank my family, my wife Catherine, my wife of almost 36 years, for being alongside me for all of those 36 years, including the 12 years I've been a member for parliament, and to thank our children, Georgina—who's about to get married in a couple of months time—Alexander and Nicholas for also being very supportive. You cannot do this job unless you have backing of your loved ones. I'm very thankful and grateful for the support they have always shown me.

The government that did not win office at the May election was, I believe, a good government. I know it was a good government. And we did a lot of good things for Australia and Australians. Yes, the electorates across the nation decided on something else. They went for the Labor Party, and good luck to the Labor Party. That is democracy. We decide our elections without violence and without people getting hurt, and that has to be seen as a good thing. But I note that the media has been in a rush to gush about the new government. I wish the Prime Minister well in his role. He's been a long time in the waiting to fulfil this lifelong ambition he has had to be in the Lodge. I do hope in one sense that he succeeds, because his success means Australia's success and, certainly, we want our nation to succeed. No matter what partisan beliefs we have, we do want our nation to succeed.

But we also want to make sure that the government does what it says it's going to do. We also want to make sure that the legacy of the last government is not trashed by the Labor Party, who have shown a wont to talk about the trillion dollars of debt. The debt that has been incurred enabled the nation to keep people safe, to keep people alive and to keep people in jobs in the worst pandemic in 100 years. It was a global pandemic. This wasn't just an Australian thing. This wasn't just something that had just occurred in our area of the globe, in our corner of the world. This was something which beset the whole world.

I was at those meetings with the then Treasurer, the former member for Kooyong—and I'm so, so sad that he is no longer in the parliament—the then Prime Minister and the then health minister, who did such an outstanding job. I wish the previous member for Flinders all the very best in his future endeavours. There was also the then defence minister, now opposition leader, the then foreign affairs minister, Senator Marise Payne and others from time to time. Those meetings were to work out a framework around what we were going to do when the Chief Medical Officer and the chief of defence looked across at us from around that table with the National Security Committee and spelled out the disaster that COVID-19 had the potential to be. I well remember the rapid action of the then Prime Minister, the member for Cook, to close the borders to China. I well remember the swift action that we all took to ensure that our nation was kept safe.

These were not easy times. Whilst now we're still having COVID deaths, you don't see them reported on the news on a nightly basis. Let's remember that we were reporting on cases, not deaths, and only a handful of them in those early stages when other nations with very good health systems were reporting on deaths. Let's take the United States of America, for example, where they were burying people in almost mass graves on Manhattan island. They were going to all sorts of measures. The morgues in Italy, another country with a good health system, were filled to overflowing. They were using churches and there were coffins stacked upon one another because they couldn't bury the people who were dying from COVID quickly enough.

Those images, which were being beamed into living rooms across Australia and across the world, made for some panic. We all remember how everybody thought they needed 10 rolls of toilet paper every time they went to the toilet. We remember how people were reacting. I won't tell you I'm a folder, not a scruncher! The parliament needed to know that, didn't it? But, indeed, these were panicked times. People were hoarding food. People were going to extraordinary lengths. I can remember well how a fire-ravaged supermarket at Batlow was stripped bare by people on a bus who turned up and took every single item on the shelves. Legislation had to be put in place. The same happened at Parkes, but the Batlow community had been ravaged by fire, which made it worse. We had to put emergency legislation in place to stop those food stores and vital protein from leaving our shores.

This was something that we hadn't seen in 100 years. Action needed to be taken. The Treasurer formed JobKeeper. JobKeeper saved at least millions of jobs. There's no question how many businesses it saved. How many businesses would now have their doors shut and employees out on the street but for that JobKeeper assistance which was provided? The figure is 700,000 jobs saved through that measure alone, let alone the indirect jobs which also would have doubtlessly gone to hundreds of thousands, hence my 'millions' figure. This was a time of crisis, and the government acted responsibly, it acted quickly and it acted practically. It saved jobs and saved people's lives and livelihoods.

I know there was a lot of criticism at the time of the number of people in aged care who were lost, yet now the number of deaths in aged care would far exceed those which occurred at that heightened time of crisis. I know how much criticism there was of the supposed slow rollout of the vaccines. That's not the case. The vaccines were on order, but it was felt at the time that Europe, where the vaccines were made, wanted to keep their own store of the manufactured vaccines because people were dying in Europe in the order of tens of thousands each week. We felt as a government that that was probably necessary—that they needed them at the time perhaps more than Australia did, given the fact that our case rates—not our death rates but our case rates—were being controlled.

Of course, we've come a long way since 1 March 2020, when James Kwan was the first who died from COVID. We've now lost many thousands of people, 14,500, but nowhere near the order of what was first being suggested—upwards of 50,000 to 55,000. There were food queues and jobless queues in the order of what we saw when the Spanish flu occurred after World War I, when the soldiers started coming back in 1919 and 1920. We thought we were going to go down the same sorry path in 2020 and 2021, but we didn't, because of the Morrison government's quick action to save people—to protect their jobs and to save their lives.

Some of the things that we did were quite extraordinary. There was a record high number of trade apprentices—220,000—and one in four homes had rooftop solar. I know those opposite decry our climate action policies, but we had one in four homes with rooftop solar—the highest rate in the world. We had a 20 per cent reduction in emissions since 2005. So we were not only meeting but beating the targets and the promises that we made in Paris all those years ago. We not only met them but beat them. That is what a responsible government does. But we did that without costing tens of thousands of jobs in the mining industry and without putting power prices for farmers up, far in excess of what they would expect to be able to do. Our farmers are the world's best environmentalists. I see the member for Parkes in the chamber supporting my remarks, and I'm sure that, when he decides that his parliamentary career is over, he will return to the farm at Warialda and do a darn good job, just like every other farmer in this nation. We thank him and every other farmer for growing the world's best food and fibre and for being the world's best environmentalists, because they are.

When it comes to what we did and our response to COVID-19, I have to say that the world-recognised Johns Hopkins GHS index ranked us No. 2. Australia was ranked No. 2 in the world for pandemic preparedness. That is something that we should be proud of. That is something we should be extolling. Every member of this place should say, 'I had a hand in doing that,' but what we hear from those opposite all too often is the old line from the talking points about a trillion dollars worth of Liberal debt. Well, that's not true. What we did was make sure that we kept people's jobs, and we made sure that we ensured people's lives. I was very proud to be a member of those important meetings as Deputy Prime Minister of this country and to help make some of those decisions which saved people's lives and saved people's jobs.

More than that, we had more than half a million people on the NDIS. Now, when we came to government nine years ago—yes, I will give Julia Gillard and the Labor government credit for the NDIS, but did they put a cent towards it? No. Did we? Yes. We not only backed it but also made sure Australia's most vulnerable were being looked after, because that's what a responsible coalition government does.

Debate interrupted.