Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm proud that the Albanese Labor government is delivering for the Northern Territory after only nine months in office, and if you take into account the summer break it's pretty good going. At the last budget, the government made good on its election commitments, across the Northern Territory, with funding allocated to much-needed projects, as promised. Almost $2.5 billion has been committed for NT infrastructure, with $740 million invested in sealing more of the Tanami and Central Arnhem roads to improve safety, travel times, freight efficiency, connectivity for those communities, flood immunity, safety, and social and economic development. There has been $440 million committed in equity financing for planned regional logistics hubs in Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs—right up the track of the Territory.

Territorians will also see $332 million go to a strategic roads package to bring better economic and social opportunities to remote and regional communities right across the Northern Territory. In my electorate of Solomon, we have announced $1.5 billion in federal equity financing for the Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct near Darwin. This project, which is focused on assisting emerging clean-energy industries, will also help our nation find new export opportunities for green hydrogen and critical minerals, and environmentally sustainable jobs. In Palmerston, $11.6 million will fund an Indigenous health facility for the Danila Dilba Health Service. This was one of my key priorities. If we're serious about closing the gap, we need to have culturally appropriate health services, which we know are proven to make a difference. Another big priority for me was a youth engagement hub. We no longer have the Youth Shack in the northern suburbs of my electorate, and $5 million will fund a brand-new, fit-for-purpose youth engagement hub co-designed with young people. We didn't forget about senior Territorians, with $1 million allocated to a men's shed that will be very centrally placed in the Marrara precinct. This joins a $3.6 million commitment to the Scott Palmer Services Centre, which I've spoken about many times in this place. It will support veterans and first responders that are either homeless or at risk of homelessness.

There is much more by way of us fulfilling our promises to my community, Territorians and those around the country where those promises were made. Whether it be for our businesses, our students, our young people, our fishers, our veterans, our first responders or our multicultural communities, the Albanese government is delivering for Darwin, for Palmerston—my electorate—and for the rest of the Northern Territory. I am so proud of Labor's big vision for our nation in this budget. Like those commitments that I just articulated, they are good for our nation. A stronger Northern Australia means more secure Australia.

I want to spend some time talking about a vital social and economic priority—that is, early childhood care and education. Labor's cheaper child care is a good example, among many others, of how Territorians benefit from the budget. The government is investing $4.7 billion over four years from 2022-23 to make early childhood education and care more affordable for Australian families. The government's reforms will mean that 96 per cent of Australian families with children in care will be better off, and that other four per cent will be no worse off. As all parents know, child care is one of the biggest budget-busters for working families. The national daily average cost of child care is $120 a day—that's huge, over $600 per week. It's a national story that reverberates across my electorate and the Territory as well. But in Darwin's CBD, care can jump up to $141 a day, or $700 a week—that's massive—and a fifth of the people in Darwin live in what is called a childcare desert, making it almost impossible to secure a spot. Nationally, 35 per cent of Australians live in a childcare desert such as this. That figure is 86 per cent for regional residents of the Northern Territory—meaning almost nine out of 10 people are struggling to afford child care.

In the Top End town of Katherine, ably represented by my friend the member for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour, six children compete for every available spot in care. Also in the electorate of the member for Lingiari, in the Barkly region, further south, 11 children vie for every spot. That becomes impossible for families. That's forcing these families to make tough decisions about their participation in the paid workforce, and that has a big impact on the national economy because we're in the middle of a worker shortage, as all honourable members know.

Further south, in Alice Springs, Benecia Acevedo had to wait 18 months to get her son, Xavier, into child care. That's despite joining a waiting list while he was still in the womb. Before he was even born, he was on a waitlist. She said:

I have been very lucky … I have friends who have deferred going back to work for up to three years.

Those parts of the country representing total childcare deserts, with less than 0.3 places per child, overwhelmingly cover regional areas of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia. As Hannah Matthews and Peter Hurley of the University of Victoria recently noted in The Conversation: 'Of the 1.1 million Australians with no access to centre based day care within a 25-minute drive, almost all are outside major cities.' This is a frustrating situation for these parents living in regional Australia and is, frankly, not acceptable. It's even less acceptable for women because we know women are disproportionately affected by a lack of access to childcare. It is still overwhelmingly women who decide not to return to work, because childcare costs are too high or they can't secure a spot for their children. This is an equity issue as well as an economic one. Women like Territorian Maddie Staff feel pressure to work, which makes child care a necessity, not a nice thing to have. She recently said in an ABC interview:

Realistically, I need to go back to work. I only have 12 weeks maternity leave and with rent prices and the cost of living in Katherine, it is just not feasible for me to be a stay-at-home mum.

In the worst case, she considered leaving the Territory entirely.

This knock-on economic effect of the childcare drought is felt in regional areas right across our nation, and it's contributing to our difficulties in facilitating keeping people in our regions, where they would otherwise prefer to be. It's holding back our regional economies both in the Northern Territory and nationally. That is why, from July 2023 this year, the Albanese Labour government, our government, will alleviate this pressure by lifting the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent for families with an income under $80,000 per annum and increasing subsidy rates for families earning less than $530,000 per annum. People might say that is a high figure, but, just like publicly available health care and publicly available schools, early childhood education is a part of what we should be providing to Australians. The government will keep the higher subsidy rate for families with multiple children aged five and under. Our plan for cheaper child care will make child care more affordable to around 1.26 million Australian families. No family will be worse off. As I said before, 96 per cent of families who use child care will be better off.

These are real benefits for Australian families, particularly with the cost-of-living pressures families are experiencing. A family on a combined income of $120,000 with one child in care will save $1,780 in the first year of this plan. Childcare costs have increased by 41 per cent over the previous eight years, and that's a burden to many Australian families already struggling to make ends meet. According to the ABS, last year 73,000 people who wanted to work didn't look for work, because they couldn't make childcare costs work for them and their families. That's unacceptable with the workforce shortages that we've got.

Cheaper child care supports parents and carers, especially women, to enter the workforce or increase their workforce participation. It creates opportunities for thousands of skilled workers currently locked out of our economy. To attract and retain these workers, our childcare plan also entitles providers to discount fees for early childhood education and care workers. I'm particularly proud that this reform provides additional support to First Nations children and families accessing early childhood education and care, which is a massive deal for families in the Northern Territory.

To help close the gap in educational outcomes for First Nations children, our plan provides for 36 hours of subsidised early education and care per fortnight. Nationally, currently only 4.3 per cent of children in early education and care identify as Indigenous, despite being 6.1 per cent of the population of children in those early years. That's not good enough. We need to do better. In the Territory that figure is of course much higher. These simple changes will benefit around 6,600 First Nations families, boosting the hours of subsidised care Indigenous children are eligible to access. This is important if we are going to close the gap. This is vital. In 2021, the percentage assessed as developmentally on track went backwards for the first time. We need to turn this around as soon as possible.

The Albanese government has also introduced reforms to help get more Indigenous children into early education. We know that access to high-quality early education and care can massively impact a child's readiness for school, and that's why our policy is good social policy and good economic policy. It's good for addressing youth unemployment, which is such a big issue across many parts of Northern Australia. Our policies are the right ones to set up Indigenous kids for a brighter future. As the Minister for Indigenous Australians, the member for Barton, said:

Getting Indigenous children into early education will benefit them for the rest of their lives. It will make a difference to Indigenous children across our country.

The government will also invest $10.2 million to establish the Early Childhood Care and Development Policy Partnership between the Australian and the state and territory governments and Indigenous representatives. The partnership will be co-chaired by the Secretariat of National and Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, or SNAICC, as it's abbreviated. They do a great job. It will help drive the development of community-led policies and programs that Indigenous families need for their children to thrive. Our plan is good for mums, it's good for all parents and it's good for First Australians. It provides cost-of-living relief as well as integrating more parents who want to do paid work into the workforce. This is a signature Labor reform, which the Australian people supported at the election and which the early childhood and care sector also supports.

I'm proud that at this election, won by this side of the House, the federal Labor Albanese government made clear funding commitments to the Territory that the Albanese government is already honouring only nine months into our term. Ours is a government that does what it says—that delivers for the Northern Territory. We get the Northern Territory, we care about it and we are delivering for it and for Australia.

With my remaining time I would also like to pay tribute to our heroes in the education sector. Last Friday, 10 February, I attended a mass to open the school year at the Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School in Palmerston. I'd like to acknowledge the school's principal, Stephen Versteegh, and its deputy principal, Rebecca Evans, who I think just may be the NT's first First Nations principal-and-deputy-principal team. It's quite remarkable—a real sign of progress. I would particularly like to highlight the amazing work of Margie Flynn, a staff member who has been with the Catholic education system in the Northern Territory for over 50 years. That's absolutely extraordinary. She's very active in the parishes and regularly visits the women's prison. Margaret went to school at St Mary's in Darwin, which in those days went to the equivalent of year 10. After finishing the last two years of boarding school in Adelaide, she trained as a teacher. She started at Bathurst Island, which is part of the Tiwi Islands, where she spent 10 years teaching. When Margaret came back to Darwin, she taught at St Mary's and the Holy Spirit Catholic Primary School in Casuarina and then spent 30 years at O'Loughlin Catholic College as well as working at the Catholic education office. She worked alongside the late, great Dr Michael Bowden OAM and his son, the long-time principal—until just recently—Rhett Bowden. He's now principal over on the Tiwi Islands.

Margie was a classroom teacher, a teacher-librarian and college chaplain. She served students and her fellow staff, with very few breaks, from 1969 through to December, just a few months ago. What a humbling example of a life of service Margie is for all of us! When I spoke with her at the mass to open the year at Sacred Heart in Palmerston, she said she was still going to continue to help out at O'Loughlin and on the Tiwi Islands. It's a great credit to her.

I have always respected teachers, and have reflected on one this week—one of our best teachers from Darwin, Henry Gray, who was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in the Australia Day honours list. One of my younger brothers is also a teacher, and I know the difference that he makes; I've heard that from parents themselves. He has worked in primary school education in Alice Springs, in Broome and in Nhulunbuy in Arnhem Land, and he is now making a difference to young Victorians in lower socioeconomic area schools.

I also know the difference that our children's teachers make. Our kids, Sally and Frankie, are doing pretty well in school. Their biggest teacher, though, is their mum, my wife, Kate. I thank her for that and for the love and guidance she provides to them, and also the rock that she is in our family when I spend such a long part of the year down here. I always love getting across to the kids' school when I can and thanking the teachers for the excellent work that they do. I encourage young Australians to get into teaching, because teachers have a massive role in bringing through our next generation of Australians as they face the challenges of the future.

Daily, I am in awe of the incredible talent, passion and determination of Territorians from all walks of life. It's my great honour to represent them and to keep delivering for them. We hold a special place in the life of our nation, being the capital of northern Australia and being at the fulcrum of the Indian and Pacific oceans—also, having, as we do, Timor-Leste, where I've spent a lot of time, and Indonesia as our close neighbours. It is a humbling role to represent our great city, which withstood serious enemy attacks in the Second World War and the incredible force of nature that Cyclone Tracy and other cyclones and natural disasters have been in the past—and will continue to be in the future.

We are the forward operating base for our nation. We've all looked forward to the release of the Defence strategic review, to see where we will take our relationships with our allies and security partners, and the role that Darwin will inevitably play when it comes to making sure that our region is peaceful into the future and is secure. That's the greatest role that we have as a government. As a member of the executive, I take that work very seriously and also in making sure that our veterans and first responders are looked after. I want to make sure that every Territorian has what they need to reach their full potential. As I've gone into some detail about just now, that includes making sure that our families are supported and that our kids have the best care and education possible so that they can reach their potential. A big role as part of that belongs to our teachers, and I salute them today. I thank the House for its time.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 17:24 to 17:48

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's great to have this opportunity in the address in reply to focus on a number of tremendous community organisations in the Banks electorate and to reflect on not only the responsibility we have as local members but also the opportunity to help people who are the very best of us. I want to start out with a project that's gone over many years. It genuinely has been a privilege to be involved in this project and hopefully play a role in its ultimate success. It's a very serious story and it's a very sad story, but it is something from which something positive has ultimately come, which I'll come to in a moment.

Nearly seven years ago now I met the Cusumano family. The Cusumano family experienced the most immense tragedy. In 1995 Angelo Cusumano was working at his video game store, The Gamesmen, located in Penshurst in my electorate, and whilst working in his store he was murdered. His son, Angelo Jr, was 13 at the time, and he witnessed his father's murder. One cannot possibly imagine the trauma that Angelo has been through.

In 2016, I became aware of an organisation called Grace's Place. Angelo, along with a number of other people who as children had family members become victims of homicide, had a very big idea. The idea was that children whose families had been the victims of homicide should have somewhere to go, someone to talk to, someone to support them, and somewhere to stay and get support and counselling. It had never been done anywhere in the world. Over time, I met a number of other people who were involved in the organisation, including Kathryn Szyszka, who was the sister of Anita Cobby. I also met Martha Jabour, who is the Executive Director of the Homicide Victims Support Group and a remarkable Australian who has provided incredible support to, sadly, dozens and dozens of families who have had one of their loved ones taken away by murder. When we met back in 2016, Angelo, his mother, Mary, Kathryn, Martha and a number of others outlined what they wanted to do, which was to build a residential facility where kids could go if their families had been victims of homicide. It was a very big idea and had never been done anywhere in the world.

To its great credit, Blacktown Council in Sydney donated some land, and that was the first step. But in order to build this facility we needed about $10 million, which is a lot of money. The idea I had was that what Angelo and the families were really advocating for was a mental health support facility, because that's what it was. I was able to get Greg Hunt, then the health minister, to come to the electorate and meet with Angelo, Mary, Martha and Kathryn, and it was a very emotional meeting where the families set out what Grace's Place would mean to them. Greg Hunt committed, pretty much in that meeting, to helping make Grace's Place happen. A little while after that, we got a commitment of $6 million from the federal government, the New South Wales government put in about $3 million, and at that point Grace's Place was going to happen.

Over the following years, the project occurred. We had COVID, weather delays and all of the issues that you confront with these big construction projects. In November I was able to attend the opening of Grace's Place, and to see the impact it had on the families—I've mentioned the families that I have mostly worked with, but there are many other families involved as well—and to see their pride at the opening of Grace's Place was a really special thing. I thank the person who took on my most recent role—Emma McBride, the member for Dobell and the Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention—who opened the facility. The New South Wales government was there, represented by the Attorney General, and the New South Wales government has done a wonderful job.

Now, Grace's Place is up and running. It is such a sad thing that there is a need for Grace's Place, but the sad reality is that there is a need. Through the incredible vision, compassion and hard work of the families, Grace's Place now exists, and what we hope is that in time this idea will be put in place elsewhere, and potentially in other countries. This is a world-first facility, and it's going to provide a lot of support to a lot of children. The person who is going to be most responsible for the leadership of Grace's Place is Martha Jabour, who for decades has been an absolute rock for families, particularly in New South Wales, who have been through this most awful circumstance. To Martha, Angelo, Mary, Kathryn and all of the families who have been involved, it's a wonderful thing that you've done. I think that many people would struggle to lift themselves, to stick at it and to work for years and years and years on such a project. Angelo has spoken publicly about how working on the project makes him constantly talk about and confront the issues that he remembers from when he was 13 years old. To have the strength to do that is just unbelievable, and I'm very pleased to have played a small part. Long may Grace's Place help young people in our nation.

I want to highlight a number of community organisations in the Banks electorate who in the past 12 months have been doing wonderful, wonderful things. I'm fortunate to have a tremendously diverse electorate—we're one of the most multicultural electorates in Australia. We have people from all backgrounds, walks of life, faiths, sexualities—all walks of life—and it's wonderful to be able to acknowledge some of them today. Tony Lee runs a great organisation called ELITE Table Tennis. My electorate has one of the biggest table tennis communities in Australia. Some years ago we hosted the national tournament at Hurstville. Tony does a terrific job with ELITE Table Tennis. It was great, before Christmas, to go down to Blakehurst High School and present awards to some of the kids that have excelled at ELITE Table Tennis this year. I thank Tony for everything he does at ELITE Table Tennis.

We have a very artistic electorate, and there are a great number of groups that celebrate the arts, be that in painting, music, dance or a range of different things. One of the great organisations is called Creative Arts, based in Hurstville. Rhondda Yiao runs Creative Arts, and does a terrific job. The quality of some of the artwork is incredible. I have zero artistic capacity, so when I see the work that some of these kids are doing—as young as five or six, right up to the HSC students who produce really thought-provoking and beautiful work—it is quite remarkable. It was terrific to get down there in November to see Rhondda and to acknowledge the success of Creative Arts. It has been a tough time for small businesses in the arts sector over the last couple of years with COVID, and it was good to see that so many of the kids were back on the premises.

Community radio is a very important part of our community, and in my new role as shadow communications minister I look forward to working with the community radio sector. Recently, I visited Connect FM, formerly known as 2BACR, which is based in Padstow in my electorate and which services the broader Bankstown-Canterbury community. Connect FM is absolutely central to so many people in our community—there are multicultural programs and great music programs, and even shows that specialise in things like motorsport and various other sporting activities. I thank Julie-Anne Munns and George Sinnis for their hospitality on the day—it was terrific to visit Connect FM and I thank them for their terrific work.

In the Banks electorate we are very fortunate to have our own writers group in Oatley. Oatley has a proud history in Australian literature, and a number of prominent Australian writers have been from Oatley, so it's fitting that Oatley has its own writers group. Late last year they published an anthology of short stories, generally with a theme around crime and mystery, so to speak. It was terrific to attend the launch event for the publication. It was good to see Bill Keats and Fiona Johnston from Oatley Writers' Group in the anthology. I particularly want to the editor, Helen Armstrong, who basically edited the entire anthology. It's a great group and we had some really interesting conversations about writing. It's a wonderful skill to have. The calibre of the stories in the anthology is fantastic, and I really appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the book on that day.

VIEW clubs exist all around Australia, and they're associated with the Smith Family. In particular, VIEW clubs support young people, particularly girls, in education. There's a social element to VIEW clubs; that's a lot of fun for the members, and it's great to see the camaraderie and friendship that people form at VIEW clubs. But there's a serious purpose too, because VIEW clubs support the education of girls, and there are few activities that are more noble than that. It was really good to attend the Lugarno VIEW Club Christmas lunch this year, held at the Lantern Club at Roselands. Val Colyer, the president, was there in fine form, entertaining everyone, as always. It was great to learn more about the Smith Family's relationship with VIEW clubs on that day. I should acknowledge, as well, that in addition to the Lugarno VIEW Club we have the East Hills VIEW Club, which meets at the Revesby Workers' Club. To the VIEW Clubs of Australia: thank you for what you do and thank you for the support you provide to the education of girls.

Sing Australia has been providing musical joy to the Banks community for a very long time now. For many years, John and Toni Darcy have been the driving force behind Sing Australia at Peakhurst, recently joined by Sue Allison, who has recently taken on the role of president. She is doing a fantastic job. Sing Australia does a big concert every year in the hall at Peakhurst South Primary School. This year it was great to see everyone back in full voice. For obvious reasons, for the last couple of years it wasn't really possible to hold big concerts and singing events. But this year it was, and it was a really joyful night. There would have been at least a couple of hundred people there. The choir itself would have had at least 70 participants on the night. It was nice to be able to sing along to the limited extent that I have the ability to do so! Thank you to Sing Australia and thank you to John and Toni—wonderful people. Thank you to Sue, as well, for your leadership and for everything you do in the community.

The men's shed movement has made a lot of difference to the lives of many men around Australia and it has also made a big difference to the people who help. I'm very fortunate to have a number of men's sheds in my electorate, and none is more active than the East Hills Men's Shed. I have to say that they have one of the best locations you could possibly get for a men's shed: it's in the Georges River National Park, down at the bottom of The River Road in Revesby. It's a former parks and wildlife shed in which heavy equipment and other things were stored. That means it's a really big shed. The equipment that the gentlemen from East Hills Men's Shed have in there is fantastic and allows them to do so many good things. They help schools and create different things to support people in their homes. They recently did some work creating ramps near the house of a family which has a child with special needs. They've done iPad holders for the schools and they've built community gardens at our schools. They do so many great things. Brian Barrett, who has been the President for a number of years, is doing a fantastic job. The Christmas party was a typically enjoyable and relaxed function, and I want to thank Brian and everyone involved in the East Hills Men's Shed.

The abacus is a very ancient piece of technology. In the Banks electorate, we're fortunate to have one of Australia's—in fact, I suspect it may be Australia's only—leading exponent of the craft of the abacus. The Elias Abacus and Mental Arithmetic Centre, based in Penshurst, is brilliantly led by Victor Yu. Every year, the kids from Elias Abacus compete in international competitions. These have been based all around the world. Of course, with COVID in the last couple of years, those have been virtual. Victor and the team are really looking forward to those happening on premises in the future, where hundreds of thousands of kids from around the world gather and show their skills with the abacus.

The kids from Elias Abacus school have won gold medal after gold medal at these international competitions. It's a wonderful thing, not only because of the arithmetic skills that one learns from the abacus but also because of the great cultural resonance of the abacus, an ancient device and something that helps many of the kids at Elias Abacus to learn more about their cultural heritage and to have fun at the same time. So to Victor and everyone at Elias Abacus, thanks so much for what you do.

We've got a very strong rugby league community in the Banks electorate, spread across both Bankstown and St George. The East Hills Bulldogs are really important. I note that the member for Hinkler has picked up on the Bulldogs, and he's right to, because the East Hills Bulldogs have actually been around for longer than the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and have a very close relationship with the club. There have been many players over the years who have come up from East Hills and have ultimately gone on to represent the senior NRL club.

East Hills Rugby League Football Club is very fortunate to have Rowan Brown as its president. Rowan is very passionate about league and, at the risk of embarrassing him, he runs a very substantial and successful business. For someone of his skills and capacity and, frankly, for someone who is as busy as he is to take the time out in a volunteer capacity to run the East Hills Bulldogs is a great testament to Rowan. Just before Christmas, I attended the awards day at the East Hills Hotel, and it was really nice to be able to acknowledge the success of the players during the year.

Marist Catholic College Penshurst is certainly one of the fastest growing and largest schools in the Banks electorate. A number of years ago, the school made the decision to—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 18:07 to 18:18

Marist Catholic College Penshurst is one of the fastest-growing and largest schools anywhere in the Banks electorate, and some years ago the school made a couple of big decisions. One was to become a co-ed school—it previously was a boys-only school—and the other was to go from a school that stopped at year 10 to one that went up to years 11 and 12. On top of that, it opened a brand-new campus at South Hurstville.

As you can see, there's been a lot happening at Marist Penshurst, which for many years was led by Principal Ray Martin. Mr Martin has recently moved to another school, and Connie Frino, who has been at the school for many years, has now taken on the role of principal. I want to acknowledge their great contribution and also Robert Shashati, from the P&F, who very graciously hosted me when I visited back in November. To everyone at Marist Penshurst: thanks for your great contribution to our community.

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

I'd like to begin by making some observations about some community groups in Fraser that are led by youth and are producing great benefits for other youth, who are often in a very vulnerable situation.

The first organisation that I'd like to make mention of is the Tigrayan Youth Association. There are approximately 5,000 members of the Tigrayan community in Victoria and many of those individuals live in Fraser. Last November, I attended the Tigrayan exhibition at Parliament House in Canberra. It was a very deeply moving experience, in which there was photographic evidence and a range of cultural artefacts that paid tribute to the suffering of many individuals and communities in Tigray. They indicated not just the incredible suffering of people in that part of the world due to a long and ongoing civil war but the fact that so many people in my electorate and the community around Melbourne's north-west are suffering as well. This is, in part, because so many people either know of what their relatives and friends are going through in Tigray or, often, don't know what people are going through or whether they are okay. It's a very deeply disturbing situation.

The Tigrayan Youth Association organised a three-day event, in my electorate, which showcased the vibrant culture of that part of the world. It was a very uplifting event. It included a performance showing courtship all the way through to marriage, universal experiences, and it was very moving and at times amusing. It included shared stories from their elders in a documentary called Tarek Time. It also included a soccer tournament and a wellness seminar.

Despite the stress that so many people in that community are feeling, it was incredible to see the positivity with which those young people came together. As with any event of its size, it would have taken many countless hours of volunteers and people on the committee of the Tigrayan Youth Association to successfully bring that event to fruition. What struck me was that so many young people were taking the initiative to help people in my electorate, the Fraser community, but, more broadly, across Melbourne. I'm sure that people back in their homeland are benefiting also from the positive efforts that young people in my electorate are undertaking. That's one example.

Another example is Endeavour Youth Australia. I congratulate the efforts of the entire organisation and the committee that puts in so much time. But I single out Mohamed Semra, who was a nominee for the Victorian Young Australian of the Year and also received the Victoria Young Voltaire Human Rights Award.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 18:23 to 18:33

So, I was speaking about Mohamed Semra and his role in Endeavour Youth Australia. Mohamed Semra is somebody who became famous in 2015 when a video that he had created went viral. It was a video of himself and a number of his friends, all of African descent, I might say, who were denied entry into an Apple store, presumably because they were under suspicion, notwithstanding the fact that there was no evidence. The video in fact went so viral that Apple's CEO Tim Cook apologised and called it unacceptable. And stores around the world, starting in Australia, engaged in retraining as a result of the consciousness-raising exercise that Mohamed had led. This was, according to Mohamed, an everyday experience, but he used his initiative to make it a positive, and he created a network where a lot of his friends, and people that he then became associated with, became advocates against racism, particularly towards young African-Australians.

The organisation that he then helped to create and put so much energy into now undertakes so many positive activities, such as activities in schools to help young people deal with the unconscious biases that so often affect them. They also create sporting events, and, indeed, I was recently at a futsal tournament, which Endeavour Youth Australia had helped to organise. It was a wonderful event, an incredibly vibrant event. As I was presenting the winning women's team with the trophy, I said to those in attendance that it felt like it was the final of the World Cup, given that it had gone into extra time. A very, very exciting overtime led to a deserving winner, but both teams certainly deserved a trophy. It was a remarkable feat of athleticism, fair play and competitiveness.

It was a really positive day, where a couple of dozen teams of young girls and boys, from right around Melbourne's west, competed, and it was an example to me, again, of young people taking the initiative and creating something very positive. I know, from having talked to people at that event and at other events that the organisation has organised, that it has provided a lot of support for kids who often find themselves very isolated.

I also wanted to talk about the National Reconstruction Fund and to talk about, in particular, the ways in which it's going to affect and benefit the communities of Melbourne's west and north, communities that have historically relied so much on manufacturing. I think it's worth noting the broader context which motivated the creation of the National Reconstruction Fund. It's one of the principal election commitments in the economic space that we took to the last election, and which was so resoundingly supported by the community. If you look at Australia's economic history over recent decades, there has been a long-term decline in manufacturing as a share of GDP. This is something which a number of advanced economies have experienced, but it's certainly one of the important pieces of context.

The other piece of context that I think is relevant is that, like a lot of advanced economies, Australia has seen a hollowing out, in a number of sectors, of jobs with what you might call 'middle skills'. This has created a gap in secure, well-paid jobs that used to exist decades ago in our economy, but which are increasingly not there. I would say that another trend and very important motivator for the National Reconstruction Fund—it's another long-term trend that the Australian economy has experienced—is that we are much better at basic research. We are much better at the early-stage aspects of research than we are at commercialisation. This has meant that we've lost a lot of opportunities in the manufacturing sector, in particular, for businesses that have a great idea and that have innovated, to take it from a small venture to the next level, to the level where it's on a global scale, where it's exporting and where it's creating hundreds or thousands of jobs. We have some examples of companies that have managed to bridge that divide—CSL, Cochlear and there are others—but, when you look right across manufacturing, it has remained an issue that we have struggled to deal with.

Then there are some shorter-term issues that, in opposition, we grappled with from a policy perspective, but which also contributed to the rationale for the National Reconstruction Fund. One issue was that supply chains were hit very hard by COVID, and it made Australia, but also a lot of other small and medium economies, think hard about their economic resilience. There were many products that we weren't able to produce for ourselves at short notice. There was some greater flexibility over the medium term, but there were a number of things that we couldn't produce for ourselves at short notice, which highlighted the vulnerability that our economy felt.

Also related to COVID, but probably also a trend that has accelerated after COVID, is what you might call the decoupling or the derisking of supply chains around the world, where different kinds of products with particularly complicated supply chains are now seeing different supply chains emerge, so that there isn't a single supply chain and risk factor there, particularly with some products in light of global international relations concerns or security concerns. That's another trend which has made it even more imperative for Australia to think about the resilience of our supply chains and why the National Reconstruction Fund is so important.

The other issue that I think is critical is that we are at a junction, as an economy, where it is critical that we do better when it comes to value add. Some people talk about this in terms of the complexity of our economy and, in particular, our manufacturing sector—our manufacturing sector or our advanced manufacturing sector. I think about it also in terms of productivity growth. What I would like to see is the National Reconstruction Fund help to drive productivity growth in the manufacturing sector in particular, and more broadly. Paul Krugman once said, 'Productivity isn't everything, but in the long run it's almost everything.' I look at the National Reconstruction Fund in that context as well.

There are a range of rationales and policy underpinnings of the National Reconstruction Fund. We have manufacturing in need of more support. We have manufacturing not doing as much as it could, both for our economy and our society when it comes to commercialisation. And, post-COVID, we have a real need to boost the resilience of our economy—both from an economic perspective but also from a national security perspective. This will add to our resilience but—I am confident—it will also add to our productively growth over the long run, which is so important to wages growth and so important to our standard of living.

The National Reconstruction Fund is being debated in this building right at this moment, and we have a situation where the opposition and the Greens are threatening to not support this. I want to speak about the importance of this for Fraser. Indeed, there are a number of businesses in Fraser that, to me, highlight the importance of this and highlight why it's important for everyday workers and why it's so important for giving them greater opportunities in the workplace.

One example is Luus Industries, which I visited in June 2022, shortly after the election, with Senator Tim Ayres, the Assistant Minister for Manufacturing. This is a company that's been around for about 25 years. I think this year might be their 25th anniversary. It employs 65 people in my electorate. It manufactures professional industrial kitchen equipment for restaurants and hotels right around the country. It has gone through significant growth in recent years. It uses very innovative manufacturing and design, and is an example of a company that does make very high-end and high-quality industrial kitchen equipment, but is also involved in the design. So it's that end-to-end manufacturing that it embodies. I might say that, when I did visit that company, celebrity chef Adam Liaw was there as part of the Australia Made campaign and managed to cook something at very short notice, which was very dramatic and made it onto television. Luus Industries is an example of a company that has done so well, and it is an example of a company where one wonders how much blue sky there is. If it were to be given assistance through the National Reconstruction Fund, how much more could be achieved?

Another one in the advanced manufacturing space is Bell Environmental, which I visited in February 2021, with the now Minister for Industry and Science. This is a company based in North Sunshine. It originally started as a small pump service business in 1964. It's been around for a long time and has a very, very strong and proven track record. It's about to celebrate its 60th anniversary next year. It's a designer and manufacturer of emergency response vehicles, such as SES vehicles and fire trucks. With the closure of manufacturing plants like Ford, Bell Environmental has taken on many manufacturing workers across Melbourne's west and is an example of how companies like Bell, manufacturing in the advanced manufacturing space, can give people the opportunity as Australia moves up the value chain.

These are two examples of companies that fit within the remit of the National Reconstruction Fund. If you look at the priority areas of the National Reconstruction Fund, you see renewables and low emissions technologies; medical science; transport; value-add in agricultural, forestry and fisheries; value-add in resources; defence capability; and enabling capabilities. It demonstrates how much potential there is for this fund. Enabling companies to grow, giving them access to capital where it otherwise might not have arisen, gives you a sense of how much potential there is for this to produce benefits right across the economy, in particular in an electorate like mine, where there are opportunities for jobs right across the skills spectrum and the opportunity for people to learn skills on the job and to have career progression.

Manufacturing has always been important in the electorate of Fraser, in the community that it represents. Indeed, my electorate office is located in the historic suburb of Sunshine, where the key Harvester High Court decision on a living wage was prompted by the Sunshine Harvester Works in 1906. That manufacturing plant was one of the largest manufacturing plants in Australia at the time and was a world-leading manufacturer of that type of equipment. The High Court decision, of course, laid the foundations of a lot of the thinking and policy around a basic living wage and what it meant to have a decent industrial relations system, which has remained in this country, fortunately, for decades since that time. It remains one of the underpinnings of why, for people who have low-skill or low-wage jobs, our industrial relations system provides them with a decent living standard and decent, secure conditions at work. We must always remember that we need to put act those key humane, fair underpinnings of our system.

A Harvester Oration occurs every year. It was actually started by my colleague Tim Watts, the member for Gellibrand, when the Harvester site was in his seat. Boundary changes have since meant that it's now in Fraser, but we jointly host that each year. I was very pleased that Senator Katy Gallagher was able to deliver the Harvester Oration this year. She gave an absolutely wonderful speech about gender inequality and also spoke about some of the key priorities this government has in industrial relations, harking back to the Harvester decision and how some of its key tenets of fairness remain so important today.

The Harvester Oration has been around for a few years now, and I note that earlier deliverers of the oration include Anthony Albanese, now the Prime Minister, of course; and Bill Kelty; and Wayne Swan. So it has a storied past, and we were very lucky to have Katy Gallagher deliver that this year. It's been eight months of this government, and we have prioritised much-needed industrial relations reforms, which have delivered really important protections for people in giving them more secure work.

The National Reconstruction Fund, as I said, is something that I think is timely for the manufacturing sector and all of the related areas that the National Reconstruction Fund will touch: manufacturing but also our defence industry, our clean tech industry—all of these different parts of our economy will benefit from this fund. It is very timely in terms of both the long-term trends that our economy is experiencing with the need for us to do better at commercialisation and offering people opportunities right up and down the skills profile and also to build a more resilient post COVID economy. So I'll be very glad to see that initiative pass both chambers, hopefully, this week.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise tonight as we give our 20-minute orations about a whole range of issues that apparently are the address-in-reply. The first thing I'd like to say, just being here, is something I brought up in my maiden speech back in the Senate—back in 2005. That was a long time ago. Why on earth don't we have electronic voting in this parliament? Why are we still in the Dark Ages? They're talking about changing the Constitution, but they won't change the most basic thing. When we walk into the chamber we should be able to vote electronically. You could do it on your phone, look up at the screen and go: 'Oh yeah, that's me, the member for New England, Barnaby Joyce. I'm with the ayes.' Or: 'I'm with the noes. That's what I'm supposed to be. Thank you very much; out I go.' If you make a mistake, you can say: 'Oh, that's not what I want. I'll clear it, change it and put it back where—'

In the United States they have electronic voting, and their democracy seems to work alright. In the United Kingdom they walk in through a gate, and that seems to work alright. But we go through this process. Why? I'm sitting here in the Federation Chamber, they shut it down, everybody goes down there and it's about eight minutes—it's absolutely absurd. The day will come when I leave here, and I hope that we've somehow managed to make our way into the 21st century. Having two people as whips—this is an absurdity. If someone has got a huge objection about their vote because they think it was wrong, I'm sure they could bring it up just like they can now.

Now, let's go back to more mundane matters. It was a great honour, obviously, from the people of New England, who I serve and who I love, for me to get the great opportunity to be returned in New England. We got a two per cent swing to us from the previous election. As a person who grew up there and lives there, and as my family is there and all my children were born there, it's about having a plan for what you want to do for the area. Our plan, unfortunately, does not really align with the Labor Party's, the Greens' or the teals' plans. I've brought that up in this chamber just recently when discussing the Labor Party candidate, Laura Hughes. The promises that the Labor Party made—and there were several locked in, regardless of who won the election—they reneged on. You can't trust them. You can't believe them. So when they tell you about such things as the Voice, and that there's nothing to worry about, borrow from what they've actually done. Be very, very worried. When they say, 'Trust us about the Voice,' say, 'Yeah, like we had to trust you about the $275 electricity cuts.' And now there's this perverse, ridiculous scenario where they say, 'We're going to promise you that, at some time in the future, power prices will still be rising, but they won't rise as much.' What on earth does that mean? That is something for Peter Pan, that speech!

I was down below and we had the member for McMahon. I can understand why he loves solar mirrors. I understand why this guy loves mirrors.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ah! It was just mirrors.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He loves mirrors! It's amazing. They've got all this virtuous stuff, but do you know where they don't want a wind tower? They don't want a wind tower in the centre of McMahon.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or Manly!

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They don't want it in Manly, as the member for Hinkler said. They would work absolutely perfectly in Middle Head. You could make your virtue signal to everyone on the ferries as they're coming across. They would say: 'There are the virtuous people of the seat of Warringah, and there's their small wind farm. There are only three or four towers there—there they are!' You could have a couple on North Head. That'd be a real virtue. But, of course, it's not virtue they're selling—it's hypocrisy, because they want the pain for someone else.

You know what the member for McMahon said? 'Well, we're building more Marinus Links to bring power across from Tasmania, and that's why we're pro-renewable.' You know where the power comes from in Tasmania? It's not from solar or from wind. It's from hydroelectricity. And I've got no problems with that. It's just that the Labor Party doesn't believe in building dams. In fact, regarding all the money that I, the member for Hinkler and others in the Nationals went out and fought for—and got—the first decision Labor made was to get rid of that money for dams. What the member for McMahon—that very colourful, well-dressed, handsomeyoung fellow down there—said is that there's a form of renewables that works, and it is hydroelectricity. But, because they're held captive by the Greens, the Labor Party does not build dams that actually generate hydro.

Now, if you want to build hydroelectric dams then go ahead with Hells Gate and Urannah. Go ahead with Dungowan. Put a hydro plant on every dam around Australia—knock yourself out! It's true: it's a great source of power. This is part of a culture change that myself, the member for Hinkler and others are trying to bring about—to try to get a sense of reality back into what we're doing. The reason we need baseload power at 50 hertz—whether you believe in global warming or don't believe in global warming, sort of believe it, kind of believe in it or are emphatic about it, you had better believe in physics—is that if you do not have the grid at 50 hertz it collapses. If it's too high, it collapses. If it's too low, it collapses. As vastly more proficient people than me in this have said, it's like balancing the electricity pencil on the tip of your finger. It has to have constant pressure on each side to keep it there. What renewables do is jump up and down on either side of the pencil and the pencil falls off.

It's not only that: what we also see in New England of course—and we have a vision for New England and that's how we vote—was about the New England Highway, which is the corridor of commerce bringing people from Sydney up to South-East Queensland. Remember that from the top of New England, the top of my seat, I can see the glow of the lights of Brisbane. The seat next to me in the north-east goes into the suburbs of Brisbane. So the New England Highway is a great connector, and one big part of the New England Highway is the Tenterfield bypass. We've done Bolivia Hill—we did that in government. But Tenterfield: at 40 kilometres an hour, a truck with flammable liquid crashed just down the road from my office. If that had blown up people would have died. We have to get these trucks out of Tenterfield so that we can make sure that the New England Highway can continue with a speed of at least 80 kilometres an hour all through its length: that's our goal.

We've done the Scone bypass, the Bolivia Hill realignment and we're working towards it, but if the Tenterfield bypass is delayed then that's actually a delay on commerce. It's one of the big connectors between the City of Sydney and that huge city called South-East Queensland—it's one big city, to be quite frank. So we've got to work on that.

We also have a vision in the New England to have veterinary, pest, plant and animal chemicals—the regulatory capacity for those. That's one of the reasons that we brought the APVMA up to Armidale—so it could become a centre of excellence. We were starting a school of international regulatory science there and actually bringing people from all around the world. People in Thailand and Indonesia aren't dopey; they say, 'If it works for you, it works for us.' If we have one centre that does all of this together then we can basically have a bulk-booking on the regulation of chemicals. Armidale was the perfect place to do it because there's the University of New England and the rural science students, and it does all the monitoring for the sugarcane in Queensland and a lot of that. There's sugarcane to the north and in the Northern Rivers; there's the cattle industry and the wool industry; and the cotton industry out at Narrabri. There's the wheat industry and the grain industry. All those industries are there and so the people who actually regulate these chemicals don't live in a silo in Canberra but could actually live where the farmers live. That's very, very important to get that proper cross-fertilisation of ideas. We were starting the process of doing something that was going to be really substantial for the City of Armidale and also incredibly good for Australia, but the Labor Party knocked that on the head. No, they don't believe in that. I don't know where their vision is but they don't believe in that vision.

The Labor Party also talks about wanting high-paying manufacturing jobs, and that's a great idea. Don't we all? One of the great opportunities for high-paying jobs is for us to go into the small modular reactor industry, where all the other parts of the globe are going except us. Except us! Argentina, Canada, the United States, China, Japan, Scandinavia, Czechoslovakia, the United Kingdom, France, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, but not us—not us! So we're going to get left behind on these jobs, that really will pay well. People always try this puerile debate, saying, 'Do you want a small modular reactor in your area?' Well, yes, I do. Honestly, with 16 metres high and 14 metres wide, you could have it on the family's plates.

It would be a lot better than the wind towers they're putting up. We're going to have more structures, over 230 metres high, around the town of Walcha, a town of 2,000 people, than the Sydney CBD. How popular do you think that idea is? For every one of those wind towers, going to environmental things, there's one raptor death per year. If there were 520 wind towers around Walcha, there would be 520 eagle deaths a year. That's on the environmental part, but that's just where you want to look. It is a ridiculous form of technology, which is going to be outdated so soon. Do you know who's responsible for pulling those wind towers down? It ain't the state government. It's not the federal government. It's not the people who put them up. It's the person who owns the land: the farmer. The cost quoted to me of pulling down one wind tower was between $500,000 and $700,000. It's much cheaper to put them up than to pull them down—you need specialised cranes for specialised outcomes.

But that's not something that we hear from the member for McMahon or the minister for the environment. We don't hear him talking about this problem. We don't hear him talking about the fact that this is creating so much friction in regional areas. And this is why he is such a great asset for us, because I can tell you that the member for McMahon is hellishly unpopular, in the way that he is egotistical and seems not have a discerning understanding of the other side of the argument.

Under our new Labor government, we've also managed to lose so many other things that were great for New England: vital projects applied for in round 6 of the Building Better Regions Fund, which have been scrapped altogether: an aquatic centre for Inverell; funding for the New England Regional Art Museum's Howard Hinton display; Oxley lookout; Oxley skywalk; and Tamworth town pool. All these things have been lost. Apparently, when you get something in a regional area, it's pork-barrelling. I just listened to the television, and they were talking about $750 million or something in Sydney for a new fish market. Good luck and God bless them. That's a lot of money for a building that sells fish.

What we do in regional areas is turn on the news every night and, because it always comes out of Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne, we see all the things that Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth get. But we don't see the things that Tamworth, Armidale, Orange and, many times, Newcastle get. When we go in to bat for them, the only thing they come back to us with is that delivering for regional areas is pork-barrelling. No, that's us trying to get a fair share.

If you take the capital infrastructure per square kilometre in an urban environment such as Sydney and compare it to the public capital infrastructure in an environment such as—I don't know—Tennant Creek, Sydney wins. Stand on a big building, and you'll see multiple public hospitals, multiple high schools and public trains—they've got the whole lot. That's why now, and in the past—and it's great to see the member for Lingiari here—we're going to fight for things for Tennant Creek, Katherine and Alice Springs. Do you know what they said? They said it's pork-barrelling. Well, it's not. It's trying to bring fairness, and it's trying to bring equivalence. Yes, you ruffle feathers when you do it because you've got to. Otherwise, you just don't get anything.

There's one good thing that I'm happy we are continuing along with, and—it's a classic one—that's the Outback Way, through Boulia, Alice and Laverton. It's a very important piece of infrastructure. I'll tell you about what people said on my own side. They were screaming at me, saying: 'What on earth do we want this for? Why are you getting this? No-one lives there.' And I said, 'No-one ever will unless we build this infrastructure to get this road sealed.' I also said, 'By the way, people do live there—just not many people.' People do live in Boulia, people do live in Laverton, people do live in Alice and people do live in these areas. The way we bring a full economic opportunity for them is to have sealed roads so the tourists go through, so the critical minerals can go out, so we can keep Mount Isa going with the capacity to process critical minerals there and so we can give people opportunities.

But we can't get any opportunities unless we seal the road. A third sealed road across Australia is not a bad idea! It's taken us long enough just to do two of them. The third one is not a bad idea. It's great to see the member for Lingiari here. I hope that's something we keep firing up—and get ready for the same pushback I got on that, with them saying, 'We'll just kick it into the long grass for a while and wait a little longer.' No, no, no, it's happening. It's got to happen. These are the sorts of things that make our nation stronger.

A few people got Australia Day awards, and I think it's really important to acknowledge them. Anzac Day, which I know the member for Herbert is very aware of, is to represent those who have paid the supreme sacrifice and served our nation in a military context. It's incredibly important. Australia Day is incredibly important for those who do it in a civil context, that they get proper recognition. They might not have gone to war or worn the uniform but they've spent so much of their lives working for others. One of the reasons to go to Australia Day is to recognise these people and to and say thank you. They do stuff, for no payment, just because they think it makes Australia a better place.

Robbie Sefton AM is one. You see her in town. She works for so many—she's been with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Smarter Regions CRCs, High Performance Soils, Watertrust Australia, headspace and on the panel for independent assessment of the Murray-Darling Basin. She's done so many things, and every time you see Robbie she's such a pleasant, happy person who just seems to do these jobs and then take on the next task, and does that as well.

There's Kevin Clifton. He's done a lot of work. Kevin's a strong Rotary member. His work around Tamworth has been—whether it's the Tamworth South Public School or anything else, he's always there. He's a former principal, and he's done so much strong work for his local area. Dr Phil Hungerford does emergency medicine. He's a great doctor, well respected, and he's well earned his award. Wilfred MacBeth, down at Quirindi, earned an award for the work he's done in so many community music activities, entertainment and at a retirement village in Quirindi. He planted over 3,000 trees for wildlife corridors. Janette Berman was awarded. She's in education at the University of Melbourne and the University of New England. Deni McKenzie was awarded for her services around, especially, Uralla and Armidale, Armidale Care for Seniors, Climate Action Armidale, Progressive Cinema and McCrossins Mill.

I'm not saying for a second that all these people would vote for me, but I'll tell you what: they've done so much for their communities and they need to be recognised. These people have done all these things by just working for their communities. They all have their beliefs, in where Australia is supposed to go, and they put their shoulder to the wheel and they work for us.

Rosemary Curtis was awarded for her work with the Indigenous community of Glen Innes. I had a yarn to Rosemary. She's been so good, involved in Pathfinders, National Parks, the NAIDOC Week committee, the Glen Innes local Aboriginal Lands Council, and was an Aboriginal community liaison officer. She worked at the Glen Innes High School. Rosemary is one of these people, in the community of Glen Innes, where they see their job as advancing the prospects and the future of the Aboriginal people in her area. In that area, they refer to themselves as Aboriginal. They always pull me up and say, 'It's A day, not I day.'

We've got Judith Ward who has done so much work, especially in education. And there's Preston Campbell. He and I went up to the Territory for a bit, with people tied up with the king browns. He's a good fella, a Tingha boy. The work he's doing with Aboriginal communities—he's never forgotten where he came from, in Tingha. He's just a good bloke, and to recognise the work that he's done is so important.

That's, for me, Australia Day, to say to these people, 'Thank you.' We should do that. In life, there are some people who just chuck papers out the window of a car. I don't know why they do it, but they do it. There are some people who just complain about people who chuck papers out the window of a car, and they don't really help much. Then you've got the marvellous people who make Australia strong, the ones who stop the car, get out, pick the papers up and make the place look better. That is what we recognise in these awards.

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to make my contribution to the debate on the address-in-reply, which is in response to the election result. Though it has taken many months to get to my turn, as this debate is one that most people want to speak on, it is nonetheless an important speech to make and I'm very pleased to have the opportunity. The address-in-reply debate is the one in which the new members of the parliament give their very first speeches, and I acknowledge the wonderful speeches by many of my new colleagues elected this term, including the new member for Lingiari, who is here in the chamber. What an amazing range of perspectives, aspirations, and great ideas and values we heard from the new class of 2022 in those speeches!

In the election last year, the Australian people made it very clear that they wanted a change. They wanted a government that was committed to listening to and addressing the needs of the Australian people, and to working for a better future. That is why many of us joined the Labor Party—it's certainly why I joined the Labor Party. I wanted to be part of the movement that has made the differences for the people of Australia, the governments that have done the reforms and the hard work that deliver opportunities for Australians. Already, since the election in May last year, we have made so much progress in that direction on many of the things that we took to the election. Just before coming to make this speech, we passed through the House our legislation on starting the Housing Australia Future Fund, because we know that housing is so central to the health, dignity and prosperity of Australians, and that so many Australians—not least my constituents here in Canberra—are struggling with housing costs at the moment. We have made medicines cheaper for many Australians who are struggling to afford these essentials. We have delivered 10 days of paid domestic violence leave. We have made recommendations that have led to an increase in the minimum wage and also an increase for aged-care workers that was much-needed. We have begin much-overdue climate action, which is something that I know is absolutely top of the list for the people of Canberra, and one of the most important things that we need to address. I'm incredibly proud of the things that we have so far achieved and that we will continue to achieve and work on in this government. There was also the establishment of a National Anti-Corruption Commission, which I know is so important. So many people at the moment are concerned about accountability and the integrity of parliament and politicians, so it is a really important change.

In this address-in-reply debate, I also want to reflect personally on my re-election as the member for Canberra, and to thank everyone who put their trust in me to represent them in this place. This is not something that I take for granted or take lightly; that responsibility weighs very heavily on me, and I want to continue to make my very best effort to listen to the things that matter to you, and to advocate for our city and our community in this place. As part of that, I have established the Canberra Forum, which is a deliberative democracy panel—an Australian first, actually—run by democracyCo. In this model, 40 randomly selected Canberrans are debating a range of issues, and I have committed to bring their recommendations on the topics they choose into this place, and to advocate in the parliament and in our Labor caucus. At the point we're at, the issues that they are looking at are climate change, issues around equity of access to services and issues around community voices being heard in politics. Ill refine those topics further, but I'm so proud to represent a community for whom these things are so top of mind—very altruistic issues that affect not just our local community but our nation and our world. I'll be very proud to continue to advocate on those sorts of issues in this place.

I also want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who supported my campaign: my wonderful staff, Karen, Hamish, Mick, Radmila and Andrew, for all the work they did, and also all the Labor members and other volunteers who gave their time so generously to support the campaign in the seat of Canberra. The conversations they had were very important in gaining people's support. It is those conversations all around the country that change governments and change the country. So, thank you to all those volunteers who supported Labor out there.

Your first speech to the parliament is definitely a very important one and one that you may have thought about your whole life, in one sense. I sort of see it as an opportunity for the member to talk about the things that have driven them to be in this place and the things they are committed to advocating on. Also, in writing mine, I saw it very much as a promise to my electorate of the things that I would always advocate on as well as a promise to myself that those are the things I will never see as less important as long as I have the great privilege and opportunity to be in this place. So, I want to take this opportunity to restate my commitment on some of those issues.

Issues that were key to my speech were climate action, and I've been proud to advocate and am now very proud to be a part of a government that is actually delivering on that action. I have spent so many speeches in the last term crying out for action on climate change, which my constituents are so very active on. I thank them for all their advocacy as well.

But the issues that really drove me to want to be in parliament are issues around social justice and poverty and inequality. My background is an economist who began in analysing poverty and inequality at NATSEM, the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, looking at the impacts on households and individuals of policy, particularly social security policy and tax policy. I've also always been a very active volunteer in the community space in Canberra and when I lived in Sydney, and I've spent a lot of time talking with people who were experiencing disadvantage in our community. Something that is very important to me and that I always want to be talking about in this place is the importance of our social security system and the fact that it is the most powerful tool that governments have for addressing poverty and inequality—that when we have an adequate social safety net it says so much about our society.

We claim that we are an egalitarian society, and mostly we are. I would say that Australians do want to see everyone getting a fair go, and they don't like to see people suffering because of bad luck, because they don't have a job or because, for whatever reason, they are doing it tough. And I think Australians want to see governments supporting people in our community who can't always support themselves through work. When the COVID pandemic began we saw a very powerful example of this. Through the coronavirus supplement, income support payments, including JobSeeker, were increased, and we saw poverty actually go down as we entered our first recession in decades. Where we would have expected poverty to explode as a result, we actually saw poverty go down and, anecdotally, we saw the difference it made to people's lives as they could do things they hadn't been able to do for a very long time, like buy healthy foods, like go and get a haircut or new clothes, or whatever it was. Since then, we have not seen a significant permanent increase to that payment, and poverty persists in Australia at significant levels.

Around one in eight people in Australia are in poverty, including around one in six children. I think that, as a nation, this is something we can do more to address. This is something that Australians want to get behind. But it has taken many years, and we have not seen the action we need to increase the unemployment benefit. I think it's safe to say that various campaigns have been going on to increase the unemployment benefit—formerly Newstart, now JobSeeker—for at least 20 years or, certainly, as long as I have been in the social policy space. We know that this is one of the most powerful things that a government can do to get people out of poverty.

I talked about former prime minister Bob Hawke in my first speech. He did many wonderful things for this country that are celebrated, but his commitment that by 1990 no Australian child would live in poverty is something that is often ridiculed. What is less known is that a bunch of changes that he then made to the social security system and to child support actually reduced child poverty by around 80 per cent. Such is the power of the social security system.

Under the Gillard government, Labor also very proudly increased the age pension and lifted around a million pensioners out of poverty. This is a wonderful thing. I think it's important to note as well that people on low incomes actually spend the greatest proportion of their incomes, so, when we invest in giving these people on income support payments an increase such as with the coronavirus supplement, that money goes straight back into the economy because they are buying their essentials.

I want to note as well, as someone who does have a background in poverty analysis, that there is a lot of discussion about poverty. Poverty essentially has two meanings. In the sense of the lived experience of poverty, poverty is going without. Poverty is being failed by our system. Poverty, as one person put it to me, is choosing between baby food and tampons. But often what we're talking about in poverty is poverty lines and rates that are decided based on the distribution of income more broadly, and I think the meaning of that can be lost a little bit. It's not necessarily the best measure of what people need to have a decent standard of living. It is a reflection of the broader distribution of incomes—normally half of the median or average income for a particular type of household such as a single person, a couple or a couple with children.

It's not as simple as saying—well, frankly I feel it is as simple as saying that we don't want Australians to be living in poverty. I think that is something that most in the community would agree with. It's not as simple as saying that the rate should be at the poverty line, because the poverty line is a somewhat arbitrary measure. These are things that really need to be looked at with regard to a range of things such as the minimum wage and other social security payments. For example, there's long been the pension. The age pension is for someone who is likely to be on that payment for life, whereas an unemployment benefit is essentially meant to be for people in between jobs, so there is a rationale for why that might be a higher payment than a short-term payment.

We also have a problem if people are spending many years on the JobSeeker payment. It is supposed to be a payment to cover a gap in between jobs. We do have relatively low unemployment at the moment, and, therefore, some people on the payment might have particular barriers as to why they're finding it very, very hard to find a job. Based on that, I feel that we should probably look at whether that is in fact the best payment for them, or perhaps they should be on a more permanent or a different type of payment. I also feel that people in the community are concerned about mutual obligations for people receiving a JobSeeker payment which are too punitive and can make it difficult for them to get to the objective of finding a job.

I think that these are discussions that we as a nation need to have, about whether we are happy for one in eight Australians, and one in six children, to live in poverty, or whether these are things that we really want to see addressed as a priority. As I say, this is something my constituents raise with me a lot, too. Particularly in Canberra, there's a view that Canberra is a relatively well-off place, which is true. We do have high average-incomes and low unemployment. But it makes it a very difficult place to be poor. When I talk to the community services in my electorate, it's clear that the demand on them is absolutely increasing, and they're seeing new groups of people seeking that support that they haven't seen before.

These community groups run by the generous donations and volunteer time of community members are, in many ways, filling a gap in the social safety net. Something that really sticks in my mind was when I was told by someone at a local service at St John's Care—who do incredible work here in Canberra—that sometimes the best thing they can give someone is money to register their car so that they can continue sleeping in it. I think that we can do a lot better than that. I hope, as a nation, we can do a lot better than that, here in our nation's capital and around the country.

That is not an isolated story. I hear many stories like that from these hardworking community organisations. I do hope that as a nation we continue a discussion about poverty, about inequality and about what governments can do about these things, and, personally, I commit to continuing to talk about these issues as long as I'm in this place.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:28