Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to reply to the Governor-General’s speech, which was delivered on the first day of sitting of the Gillard Labor government in this 43rd Parliament. It was with honour and pride this morning that I was able to second the motion on the Governor-General’s speech. I wish to use this opportunity to reflect on the achievements of the Labor government over the past three years, given that many of the outcomes will come to fruition over the next period of government. These will be the outcomes from significant changes to our industrial sector, our education system, our economy and the election of our first female Prime Minister.

When the Australian Labor Party took up government, there were many items on the agenda. We set out to abolish Work Choices, the legislation which compelled me to run for office and the very thing which took away our workers’ rights. As representatives of working families, we knew that they deserved a fairer system of industrial law. On 19 March 2008, the Australian parliament passed the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008, which prevents employers from making Australian workplace agreements and introduced a no disadvantage test for new collective agreements. We passed the Fair Work Bill 2009 to ensure that Australians had fair, relevant and enforceable minimum terms and conditions which could not be pushed aside for individual employment agreements.

We have ensured that workers cannot be dismissed unfairly in workplaces of fewer than 100 employees, like they could under Work Choices, the initiative of the previous Howard coalition government. We introduced Fair Work Australia, an independent body to handle workplace issues such as a safety net for minimum wages and employment conditions, enterprise bargaining, industrial action, dispute resolution and the termination of employment. We also introduced the Fair Work Australia Ombudsman to promote harmonious and cooperative workplace relations and compliance by providing education, assistance and advice.

Prime Minister Gillard, who was then Minister for Workplace Relations, said in her second reading speech that these changes were exactly what the Australian public wanted. She said:

… Australians voted for a workplace relations system that delivers a fair go, the benefits of mateship at work, a decent safety net and a fair way of striking a bargain.

That is what this bill does.

We set out to say sorry to our Indigenous Australians. On 13 February 2008 Kevin Rudd, as Prime Minister, delivered the apology. For many years the treatment of our Indigenous Australians was pushed under the rug and no-one spoke about it. If no-one mentioned it then we could pretend it did not happen, but that was wrong. After years of silence it was time to end this denial and to acknowledge the ill-treatment received by our Indigenous Australians.

We set out to apologise to our forgotten Australians. On 16 November 2009 we acknowledged the hurt and suffering half a million children raised in institutions and orphanages had experienced. We said sorry.

During our first term we faced the biggest economic challenge of our time, the global financial crisis. It threatened our economy, our jobs, our working families, our businesses and our livelihoods. To keep Australia afloat, the Labor government introduced our $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan to stimulate the economy and to make sure Australians stayed employed. That economic initiative has become the envy of leaders of every country. That economic stimulus package targeted infrastructure, education, small business, social housing, defence housing, renewable energy, roads and, of course, our working families.

One of the major aspects of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan was the Building the Education Revolution. The $16.2 billion project was implemented to deliver 24,000 projects across Australia, to modernise our schools with 21st century facilities, to keep the local construction business afloat, to keep workers employed and to stimulate investment. Already many of those projects have been officially opened and are being utilised by enthusiastic students, grateful teachers and the wider community.

I have been privileged to visit many schools in Queensland and will continue to do so over the months to come. All the feedback I have received has been extremely positive. There have been comments from principals, teachers, parents, students and parents and citizens association members who are overwhelmed by the very existence of the initiatives. In fact, the most profound comments came from Dayboro State School Principal Mrs Glynnis Gartside, whose school received a multipurpose hall and a library resource centre. She said she had not seen anything like it before. At the opening of the BER facilities on 14 July she went on to say:

Firstly, we are happy. These new facilities, that we wouldn’t have even dared to dream of two years ago, are well built, appropriate to our needs and will serve the Dayboro community well into the future. Secondly, in my long career as a teacher with Education Queensland, this is my 39th year, I have never seen first class facilities like these made available to primary schools unless the pressure of growth or sheer decay of existing facilities has made it absolutely necessary. It just goes to show that if you stay around long enough anything can happen.

Schools now have multipurpose halls where, for the first time, they can fit the entire student body in a building for an assembly. They have new resource centres and libraries with innovative furniture, creating the perfect learning environment.

Benowa State School on the Gold Coast has a new I Centre, full of chairs which with the flick of a lever become desks. This allows classes to study in the library. And, if they are having a seminar or speeches, the I Centre instantly doubles the number of chairs. Through a door of the I Centre you enter a dance studio. A full of mirrors and a ballet bar greet you. It is extraordinary to see this type of facility available in a school. The wider community also benefits, with local groups able to utilise these new buildings.

But it does not stop there. Chevallum State School on the Sunshine Coast were finally able to get the multipurpose hall in which they wanted to put a fully functional kitchen. The school has been involved in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden national program, where students grow, harvest and cook their own food. This initiative hopes to educate students on how to prepare and eat healthy foods and to tackle the levels of childhood obesity.

About 9,500 schools have benefited from this initiative, which has not only given schools new halls and libraries but also given students the opportunity to keep active and play sport in wet weather while being sheltered from the elements. It has been disappointing, however, to hear from those opposite, who have called these fantastic facilities ‘glorified garden sheds’. Rather, I have witnessed rooms full of computers, new halls open to community groups and the opportunity for our future generations to move forward with 21st century facilities.

We have also developed a national curriculum which is currently being tested around the country. The program, which is being delivered online, will ensure that children who move interstate are not disadvantaged. It currently focuses on English, maths, science and history, and the new phase will concentrate on languages, geography and the arts.

Another initiative of National Building and Jobs Plan was the boost to the First Home Owner Grant. The scheme helped 250,000 Australians break into the housing market and buy their own homes. The first home owner boost provided an additional $7,000 to the already existing $7,000 first home owners grant, and those who chose to purchase or build a brand new home received $14,000 on top of the grant. This has supported thousands of jobs in the housing supply industry, including electricians, plumbers, builders and tradespersons.

Strong economic management is another achievement the Labor government can add to its belt, with the economic stimulus package keeping Australia strong. We have the lowest debt and deficit of all major advanced economies. We have the lowest unemployment rate of all major advanced economies. We were the only major advanced economy to avoid recession and we maintained our AAA credit rating. If the Labor government had not been decisive in our action during the global financial crisis, about 200,000 jobs would have been lost. That is 200,000 working families that would have been affected. Instead, more than 350,000 jobs have been created in the past year. Interest rates are still lower than they were when John Howard left office, and we have delivered tax cuts for our working families and low-income earners: someone who earns $50,000 a year is now paying $1,750 less than in 2007.

During our first term we overhauled the pension system to make it adequate for more than four million Australians who depend on their social security benefits. We looked after pensioners with significant increases, along with indexation resulting in contemporary amounts of about $115 a fortnight for singles and $97 a fortnight for couples on the age pension.

Our working families will also benefit from Australia’s first paid parental leave scheme, which was passed in the Senate earlier this year and comes into effect on 1 January 2011. I was honoured to be part of the inquiry into the scheme and to hear from the witnesses about the benefits of this particular scheme. Primary carers who meet the paid parental leave work-test case before the baby is born, have an income of less than $150,000 a year and meet residency requirements will be eligible for 18 weeks leave paid at the national minimum wage, currently $569.90. This leave can be taken at the same time, before or after employer provided maternity leave. The Paid Parental Leave scheme enables a woman to stay connected to the workforce. Continuing ties with the employee also provides a benefit to the employer, who will be able to retain skilled staff. It gives mothers time to stay home with the baby to improve child development outcomes, it helps support breastfeeding and it gives mothers a reasonable period to recover from childbirth. To benefit new fathers, the Gillard government will also move to implement paid paternity leave of two weeks at the national minimum wage, to allow both parents quality time at home after the birth of their child.

In a few short years, the Labor government has added many achievements to its name, and it will work to build on those foundations to make a difference in this nation. Already we are preparing to tackle one of the biggest issues and one that affects every single person in this country: health. Our National Health and Hospitals Network aims to deliver better hospitals and health care for all Australians, including those who live in remote areas. If implemented, it will be the biggest reform to the healthcare system since the introduction of Medicare. It will be funded nationally and run locally.

The Commonwealth will fund 60 per cent of every public hospital service provided to public patients; 60 per cent of recurrent expenditure on research and training functions undertaken in public hospitals; 60 per cent of block funding paid against a COAG-agreed funding model, including for agreed functions, services and community service obligations required to support small regional and rural public hospitals; and 60 per cent of capital expenditure, on a ‘user cost of capital’ basis where possible. The Commonwealth will also take on full policy and funding responsibility for primary health care and aged care.

These reforms will allow for more training places for doctors and nurses, improve waiting times in emergency departments and ensure elective surgeries are performed within recommended access times. On 20 April 2010 the Council of Australian Governments, COAG—with the exception of the Western Australian government—agreed to support the National Health and Hospitals Network.

Additionally, to tackle health concerns at a local level, the Labor government established the GP superclinic program to strengthen primary health care. We promised 36 new GP superclinics in our 2007 election commitment and we will be delivering another 23. Another 425 existing clinics will be expanded. One of these clinics was built in my duty electorate of Dickson and opened in January this year—two months ahead of schedule. Local residents now have better access to healthcare services thanks to the Strathpine GP Superclinic, which is in the heart of Strathpine, just five minutes from my office.

The Strathpine GP Superclinic provides primary health care and allied health services all under the same roof, and all Medicare rebateable services are bulkbilled. Along with general practitioners, the clinic offers a physiotherapist, chiropractor, dietician and diabetes educator, psychologist, audiologist, exercise physiologist and podiatrist. It also has fully trained nurses, including an Indigenous health nurse to help close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health and life expectancy. The GP superclinic’s health professionals work in multidisciplinary teams to provide patients with integrated, patient centred care. The clinic has a focus on providing preventative and chronic disease management services. It will also help to train and expand the future health workforce and it is working with the University of Queensland to provide clinical experience to medical, nursing and allied health students.

About 100,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed each year, which is why the Labor government is committed to better treatment, prevention and research of this insidious disease. We have already invested $2.3 billion to fight cancer, including providing $526 million in infrastructure funding to build two integrated cancer centres in Sydney and Melbourne that will provide state-of-the-art cancer treatment combined with cutting-edge research and establishing a network of 20 new and enhanced regional cancer centres across Australia as part of a $560 million investment to improve access to vital cancer services, including radiotherapy and chemotherapy, much closer to home. We are upgrading BreastScreen Australia’s national network to state-of-the-art digital mammography equipment to screen women for breast cancer; investing $70 million to expand the Garvan St Vincent’s Cancer Centre in Sydney, which will focus on research excellence in cancer care; and supporting up to two dedicated prostate cancer research centres in Melbourne and Brisbane and a children’s cancer centre in Adelaide. We are also funding the McGrath Foundation with $12 million to train, recruit and employ 44 breast cancer nurses and providing financial support for women who require external breast prostheses as a result of breast cancer.

Since taking office the Labor Government have increased funding to the Australian health system by 50 per cent. We will have doubled the amount of GP training places to 1,200 a year by 2014. We are funding 1,000 new training places for nurses every year. We are investing in more hospital beds. We have upgraded more than 35 emergency departments in public hospitals. We have provided more than 850,000 dental checks under the Medicare Teen Dental Plan. We have increased aged-care places by more than 10,000, including 838 new transition care places to help more than 6,200 older Australians leave hospitals sooner each year. This is just a glimpse of our health achievements and we hope to grow and build on these over the next three years for the betterment of all Australians.

Another key achievement of the Labor government and one which is in the midst of being rolled out is the National Broadband Network. We have established the National Broadband Network Company to invest and deliver the $43 billion initiative to deliver faster broadband to 90 per cent of homes and workplaces. The new network will be built on fibre, supplemented by next generation wireless and satellite technology. Australians will experience faster internet of 100 mbps, with the network having a fibre-optic cable connection directly to people’s homes and businesses. This is 100 times faster than speeds many people currently use. The NBN will reach out to those who cannot currently access the internet and will allow an extra 35,000 existing premises attain high-speed broadband. This initiative will not only upgrade our internet infrastructure but will support employment for 25,000 people over the eight years of the project. Stage 1 of the NBN has already been rolled out in Scottsdale, Smithton and Midway Point in Tasmania.

The Labor government has accomplished much since it came into power in November 2007. It will continue to do this and is now preparing to take Australia forward. With a strong economy and a debt which is set to be paid back three years ahead of schedule, a plan for health reform and a boost to internet infrastructure, Australia’s future is prosperous and in good hands.

In conclusion, the writs have now been returned from the Australian Electoral Commission to the Governor-General clearly demonstrating a victory on a two-party preferred outcome to the Australian Labor Party. Of course forming government would not have been possible without the support of Independents Mr Wilkie, Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor and Greens MP Mr Bandt. As a government, we have our first elected female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. One good thing about those four people I mentioned that helped to form government is they are committed to maintaining their agreement—an agreement that shall not be broken and ripped up like the example that was provided just yesterday when the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott, tore up an agreement that was about delivering an outcome.