Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Strap yourselves in folks, because the electorate of Macnamara is such a wonderful electorate, and am I going to take you on a journey around Macnamara! Am I going to take you on a journey around the place where I live, that I grew up in and that I love so much. On the weekend Macnamara was absolutely alive, with the Midsumma Pride March going straight through the heart of St Kilda. It was a very glittery, fun and wonderful event, where thousands and thousands of people flocked to Fitzroy Street, which is the nightlife capital of St Kilda. I'm sure the honourable member has haunted those parts in his time, back in the day.

An honourable member: Steady on!

The pride march in St Kilda really is everything that makes it wonderful. It's exciting. It's fun. It's very welcoming. It's very inclusive, but it also has a really serious point behind it—this year is 30 years since the beginning of the pride marches. The original pride march took place because LGBTIQ Australians were facing vilification. They were facing stigma, and people wanted to have a public demonstration of pride and of coming together to say: 'We are proud of who we are. We're proud of our community, and we want to celebrate our diversity and what makes us who we are.' I was proud to join them. I've marched every single year for probably the last 10 years. I should really count back to when the first time was. It is such a special time in St Kilda, and I really love it. I really thank the Midsumma Festival committee and crew for putting on such a great festival, and I know all the restaurants and small businesses, all the cafes and the bars, up and down Fitzroy Street were absolutely chockers. This is one of those events that brings a lot of people to our electorate.

I actually think that the timing of the pride march was really important this year, with the opposition's recent flurry of election commitments including the uncosted long-lunch policy that will potentially cost Australian taxpayers $10 billion for businesses to get tax deductions on their long lunches. Another policy that the Leader of the Opposition threw out there without much thought or consideration, as he often does, was his policy to cut the DEI staff in the Public Service. Let's take a moment and actually understand what that means for not only the potentially thousands of jobs—I'm not sure of the exact number of Public Service jobs that the Leader of the Opposition wants to cut. But having diversity and equality inclusion in the public sector isn't just about ensuring that the Public Service is thinking about its workforce and being an example of the sort of workplace that we want to set in Australia; it's also about making sure that our Public Service actually looks like and thinks like the Australian people. It's about making sure that people from different faith backgrounds, people from different ethnic backgrounds, people with different genders, people from a whole different mixture of life experiences, people with a disability and First Nations people—a whole range of different people who bring their own expertise and their own life experience—are able to provide frank and fearless advice to the government.

This policy is straight out of a very conservative playbook that we're seeing right around the world in Western countries right now, and I would say that Australia doesn't need these sorts of culture wars. We need a strong Public Service and a diverse Public Service. We need to make sure our Public Service respects and takes their own work seriously and we need to make sure that people have an opportunity to serve in our Public Service from all different walks of life. Canberra can be an isolated place, and we want to make sure people come to the Australian Public Service with a whole raft of experiences, backgrounds and wisdom to create and craft a better government.

I also want to talk about one of the projects that I've got going on in my electorate, which is the Windsor Community Children's Centre. This is a community childcare centre in a new part of my electorate. Windsor was previously part of the Macnamara electorate, but then we handed Windsor to the electorate of Higgins. Now I'm very pleased that the Australian Electoral Commission has brought Windsor back into the electorate of Macnamara. It's such a wonderful part of Melbourne. It's diverse. It's full of great small businesses and cafes, and to go down Chapel Street in Windsor is to experience some of the best hospitality, food and restaurants in Melbourne. This childcare centre is also an outstanding childcare centre. It has an exceeding rating and is one of the few exceeding early education centres. It provides high-quality care, and the community-run parents organisation that runs this community centre is just extraordinary. The staff are extraordinary and dedicated to their work. They are hardworking early educators and they deserve to be supported.

But, right now, Swinburne University of Technology were given the land that the childcare centre is on for free by the Victorian government, and they are choosing to rezone that land to make a profit. Let's just stop and think about that for a second. The university was given a piece of land for free. They are the custodians of an early education centre. I would've thought that Swinburne would value that they are getting market rate from the community childcare centre, and yet they are squeezing them out to try and sell the land off to the highest bidder and redevelop it so that they can get every dollar out of this site. The approach that they are taking is a very, very poor reflection on Swinburne. They don't need to go down that road. They can stop everything, and they can work with us to try and ensure that the future of the Windsor Community Children's Centre is secure.

We are also doing a whole lot of other work around Macnamara. I was very pleased to welcome the minister for infrastructure to Macnamara to announce as part of our Thriving Suburbs Program that we are going to partner with the City of Port Phillip and the Victorian government to upgrade the next part of the St Kilda pier. Over summer, you may have seen images of the St Kilda pier in Melbourne absolutely chockers. It has been redeveloped, and there is a fantastic swimming area. There is a big amphitheatre around it. If you haven't been to Melbourne recently and you want to come on a hot day and go for a walk, go to the St Kilda pier; it is much cooler than I am! It's a great place, and you'll love it. It has a great atmosphere and there are so many people everywhere. Also, if you come to the pier at the right time, you can see some of our beautiful little penguins as well.

We are going to be working with the council on the extension of the pier leading into the foreshore, upgrading that area so it's a far more seamless and beautiful part of St Kilda. We'll be complementing the state government's work to redevelop the pier. It's another example of us working with other layers of government, getting the right projects, getting buy-in and upgrading our beautiful part of Melbourne.

The last local project that I want to mention and that we're delivering for the people of Macnamara, also part of our Thriving Suburbs Program, is our partnership with the City of Melbourne. We have a new lord mayor of the City of Melbourne, and I congratulate Lord Mayor Reece on his recent election. This project is something he and I have been speaking about and working collaboratively on for a long period of time. If you come down into Southbank, heading towards the city, on the northern side of City Road there is currently a big undercroft which is basically just an old taxi rank. It's quite poorly lit, and it's a bit of an eyesore and a concrete jungle. We are going to completely change and refresh that whole area. We're going to put in basketball courts, an open space, park benches and a little recreational area. It's going to be there for the people of Southbank and anyone coming to visit our beautiful gateway into the city and our arts precinct to come and enjoy. This is a really good project. It's another example of partnering and getting things done with local government. The lord mayor and I have been out there many times to look at the different options and to work with other layers of government, and I'm really pleased that we are getting this done for the people of Southbank so there is more open space for them. I might even go down there and have a few shots on the new basketball courts when it's built.