Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night and this morning I was pleased to vote for the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, which will make a big difference in my local community. We're talking about 30,000 new social and affordable houses in the first five years. It will also have 4,000 homes for women and children who are impacted by domestic and family violence. For nearly quarter of a century before I came to this place, I practised in family law and dealt with women and children who were suffering and experiencing family violence. So that particular commitment is near and dear to my heart.

There's also the $30 million we're committing to build houses and to fund specialist services for veterans. That came about very much from the work I did as shadow minister for veterans' affairs. One in 10 people sleeping rough or homeless last night was a veteran. We honour them with medals; we should honour them with houses. We need to support them, and I'm very pleased that this particular legislation passed the House of Representatives last night and this morning.

Tomorrow morning I will be at the Future of Health conference in Springfield, and I want to thank the Springfield City Group for having the vision to put that particular conference on. The Ipswich and West Moreton region is the fastest-growing health district in Queensland, and has very high rates of mental illness. That's why, as the federal MP, I've been advocating for more services to meet the needs of our local community. I was pleased to announce that the Albanese government would deliver a $14 million Head to Health Adult Mental Health Centre in Ipswich, with the Darling Downs & West Moreton PHM to fund and establish this facility. We're going to do that. Since the election we have committed $1 million to support youth mental health services at Ipswich headspace, which I was proud to open 10 years ago, by the way, with the current minister. I'm looking forward to seeing the federal Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, the Hon. Emma McBride, in Ipswich tomorrow. She will be the keynote speaker at that particular conference.

I've been advocating for a better deal for local businesses, farmers and residents in Ipswich and the Somerset region for a very long time, and also in the Karana Downs region, which came into my electorate a couple of elections ago. I'm very pleased to see that during the election campaign Labor committed to fix the NBN and to get rid of the coalition's ageing copper network, which has held our community back with slow and unreliable broadband. We're investing $2.4 billion to expand the NBN with full-fibre upgrades to 1.5 million Australian premises—with over 660,000 in regional communities like my electorate. That's why I'm so pleased this week to see that the latest tranche of one million premises will be eligible for full-fibre upgrades to access gigabyte speeds of 20 by 2025. That will be 3,200 homes and businesses across the Ipswich suburbs of North Ipswich, Pine Mountain, Karalee, Yamanto, Collingwood Park and Springfield, and rural towns like Rosewood and Lowood—and also the Karana Downs region, in the Brisbane area, which is in my electorate as well. So I'm very pleased to see the Albanese Labor government fixing the NBN for our local community.

One thing I am supporting in that Karana Downs region is the Queensland government's application under the Disaster Ready Fund for a Karana Downs community hub, as recommended by the former governor Paul de Jersey. The need for community hubs is as a result of natural disasters and floods. That report came about because it was commissioned by the Brisbane City Council. I know that this Karana Downs hub has the support of the local councillor, Greg Adermann, an LNP member, and also of the local LNP state MP, Dr Christian Rowan. I've been working with them in a bipartisan way, and I thank the office of the Deputy Premier of Queensland for the tremendous cooperation I've had from them, and I also thank the local Karana Downs and Mount Crosby community. I look forward to that application, and I urge the Minister for Emergency Management, the Hon. Murray Watt, to support that particular application. It would be located at Mount Crosby State School, which would be upgraded as a result of that application, which I hope will be successful.

I also thank Senator Watt for the commitment we made together of $4 million, including $1.5 million under the Disaster Ready Fund, for the Ipswich Show Society. The showgrounds are the main evacuation centre in Ipswich. We've experienced floods and fires in my electorate, so this is particularly important and is a great initiative of the Albanese Labor government.

I also support the funding that we are providing for flood research: $50,000 from the federal government, $50,000 from the state government and $20,000 from the Ipswich City Council. We need to work out how our community is impacted by floods and improve flood resilience in Ipswich.

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 12:31