Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We're all familiar with the term 'outer suburban'; 'peri-urban' is another matter. Peri-urban areas are where town and country meet and interests intersect. If you're living in an outer suburban or peri-urban community, you may be enjoying green spaces and an absence of traffic jams. But you'll also face challenges. Commuting to work might be a problem.

The Albanese Labor government's commitment to rail and road projects gives the gift of time to individuals and families. In my electorate of Hasluck, the people of outer suburban Ellenbrook now have a railway line giving them fast access to the city. The Ellenbrook station has a five-star Green Star design review rating with 200 solar panels, 10 electric vehicle charging bays and a 12-stand bus interchange. Next to the station, the federal and state Labor governments have combined to commit $42 million to the creation of a pool and leisure centre. That's joy, exercise and companionship for thousands for years ahead.

Good health matters to all of us and it should not depend on the income of your parents or your postcode. Recently, a new urgent care clinic was opened in Midland, the place where the Swan River and Helena River meet and has been the home of the Noongar people for at least 39,000 years and most certainly more. To this day, the City of Swan in which Midland is located has a large proportion of Indigenous Australians in the Perth metropolitan area. This area was known as the Midland junction, the place where the roads of WA's north and what is still called the 'eastern states' meet and where the Midland railway workshops brought in workers from across the state and across the oceans. It most certainly has its own identity and I am delighted that it is now the home of my electorate office.

Now Midland has a fully bulk-billed urgent care clinic, changing 10,000 lives and more since it opened last December. It is open seven days per week and that includes after-hours care, providing the kinds of services that the Liberals did not even bother about. Midland is also the proud home at the North Metropolitan TAFE and, in the last few months, Minister Giles and I have visited it twice just to view this remarkable centre for skills training. We have met with local people given new chances for successful futures via the fee-free TAFE places, of which more than half a million have already been made available across Australia, and the Albanese Labor government wants to add a further 100,000 free places each year. Again the Liberals oppose this; it does not make sense. The new opportunities created by fee-free TAFE include training in the skills we so vitally need in the building and construction sector.

Many in the outer suburban and peri urban areas are paying mortgages. The electorate of Hasluck has the fifth-largest percentage of mortgagees of any electorate in the country. The people opposite, who did not bother to even have portfolios of housing or homelessness, presented the Albanese Labor government with a serious housing problem when we came to office but we set to work. The $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund is essential to the creation of ongoing secure, coalition-proof funding for social and affordable homes.

I should point out that, while doing this, we have delivered two budget surpluses and paid down the Liberal debt. We have helped bring down inflation from the 6.1 per cent we inherited to the 2.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2024 and lower again today. These are figures which matter everywhere. The fact that we have achieved them while supporting wage rises—also opposed by the Liberals, of course—is a testament to the care and thoughtfulness of our management of Australia's finances.

Other matters are more particular to people who live in peri urban and outer suburban areas. I am talking about the importance of improvements in NBN and mobile phone coverage and improvements in emergency management, and fire and flood preparedness. The new electorate of Bullwinkel in the Perth Hills and foothills is dear to my heart—quite literally. Although I first went to school in what is now part of the new electorate of Hasluck, I later went to live in what is now part of Bullwinkel, and still live there. The funding of $40.9 million to 47 new mobile solutions announced in October is vital for people living in these areas where fires can and do disrupt lives. In fact, I lost my own home. I understand those fears and I am fighting for those concerns.

I want to commend the work done by the Albanese Labor government. It is serious work that has already improved hundreds of peri urban and outer suburban areas across the nation and many thousands of peri urban and outer suburban lives. There is more to do and we are ready to do it for all Australians everywhere.