Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sport) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Fierravanti-Wells. When I decided to leave this wonderful chamber, I picked up my first speech and re-read it. I looked at what I had said and what I had committed to and the principles and ideals that I believed in. I believe, as all senators and all parliamen­tarians believe, that I have lived up to those ideals and to those commitments, and that is something I am very proud of.

In February this year, it was 20 years exactly since I joined the Labor Party. I was 20 when I joined and I am proud to have represented the party as an official and a senator for 16 years. My love for the party has not diminished one bit. It is a party that I love and believe in. It is a party I am eternally grateful to. I have been lucky and proud to serve in a Labor government led, first, by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and now Prime Minister Julia Gillard. This government has been an embodiment of Labor ideals and the Labor reformist tradition.

What we have been able to achieve for the Australian people in such a short period of time is extraordinary. We have only reached one-third the period of the Howard government and already we have introduced the country's first-ever Paid Parental Leave Scheme, a policy that I have long advocated for. We delivered the historic apology to the stolen generations, we ratified Kyoto, we delivered a massive investment in education reform and mental health reform. We doubled the road-funding budget and invested an extra $20 billion in housing and homelessness programs. We rolled out the most significant piece of infrastructure for national productivity, the national broadband network, and secured the separation of Telstra. And we have delivered major reforms to our tax system to share the great wealth of the mining boom by taxing mining companies fairly and using the proceeds to help fund new infrastructure, increase superannuation, and introduce tax breaks for small business.

But when it comes to delivering tough reforms, I am immensely proud of our government for delivering a price on carbon in the face of hysterical and ill-informed scare campaigns from the conservatives. As I have always said, including in my first speech to this place, the Labor way is to show courage, leadership and the political will to get the job done. The Labor Party has shown that courage and it will be to our eternal credit.

I have always advocated for a market based solution to global warming, and the experts agree that it is hands down the best way to reduce carbon pollution. I have the utmost praise for the Prime Minister in her strength and determination to put in place a price on carbon. Prime Minister Gillard is a remarkable person. She is an outstanding human being. She is tough, she is talented, and she is a friend. I will always be her humble servant.

I want to take this time not just to praise her as a Prime Minister but also to praise her as an education minister. I was lucky enough to serve with her when she was the education minister. I saw her vision for education, I saw her vision for schools, and it is something I truly believe in. I hope that both sides of parliament in future continue the reforms in education, empowering school principals so that they can make the decisions they need to make to get the best education for their children; ensuring the best and most talented teachers are rewarded financially; and looking at ideas such as charter schools in areas such as remote Indigenous communities and also in those very, very difficult-to-teach-in lower socioeconomic schools. Charter schools have worked overseas and they can work here, but only in the areas of extreme need.

I want to take this opportunity to put on record my support also for the Prime Minister in the way she has dealt with the global financial crisis, and also for the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The work that has been done saved the country from recession and kept 200,000 people in jobs. To the Treasurer, my friend Wayne Swan, I have only had three months to work with him as Assistant Treasurer, but I worked closely with him during the GFC. When the history books are written, his name will go down as one of the very best Treasurers Australia has ever had. If the only criticism commentators can come up with about the Treasurer is that he lacks sparkle, then Wayne Swan should wear that as a badge of honour. I want a Treasurer that can get the country through a crisis, a Treasurer that delivers high employment levels, strong economic growth, a solid investment pipeline, and low debt. That is Wayne Swan, and I pay tribute to him.

Minister Wong, the finance minister, who works with him and is a critical part of the economic team, has also done an outstanding job in this area, and I congratulate her for the work she has done. She is one of the most impressive ministers I have ever worked with. She upholds all the characteristics of past finance ministers, something that I and many of my ministerial colleagues have learnt when we have entered ERC and asked for program money. I pass on my best wishes to her for the future and also to her family.

Mr President, I leave the Australian parliament deeply proud of what Labor has been able to achieve in government particularly under very exceptional circumstances—first the global economic crisis, now a European sovereign debt crisis, and of course the difficulties of managing a minority government. As a Labor government we proved how strong our economic credentials are. As I said, we avoided the recession. We kept the economy strong as countries around us collapsed. Other countries believe we are the envy of the world. They cannot understand how we have been able to avoid some of the downturns and the social problems that they have experienced since the start of the crisis. Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was an extraordinary leader. He won the 2007 election and he brought us into government. I honour his legacy, particularly in two areas of policy I am incredibly passionate about that he put squarely on the political agenda: homelessness and affordable housing, and Closing the Gap and the apology to the stolen generation. The plight of the homeless is often one of those confronting social issues that all too many of us prefer to ignore or pretend is unfixable. People might say the problems are too complex to fix, but when I was the Minister for Social Housing and Homelessness I saw time and time again people's lives being turned around and turned around permanently.

I am extremely proud of what the government is doing in this area and also our record $2.2 billion investment in mental health. We know that there is a high coincidence between chronic mental illness and homelessness. Sadly, it is a very disastrous by-product of deinstitutional­isation. Deinstitutionalisation was a good thing, but when you say, 'Let's not lock people up in mental institutions, let's use community based care services,' you have to make sure that the services are there.

Again, I am proud to have been part of a Labor government that has given the greatest ever boost to homelessness funding in federal history, $5 billion, and to have set strong ambitious targets to reduce homelessness—a strategy and a plan that is working. We are getting results. I saw this firsthand as the minister. We are making progress and I urge all parliamentarians in this chamber and in the other place to continue the work on homelessness. Make it a bipartisan issue. We can break the cycle.

When we talk about the issue, though, it is not just about more money. I know a lot of people say to just put more money into it. It is not about more money. We need to change the way we approach housing in this country. We have major problems around affordable housing. During the GFC we introduced some extremely good programs, some great programs—the government's National Rental Affordability Scheme and the Social Housing Initiative. I know the Labor government will continue to support those schemes, but we need to do more. We need real reform of the social housing, affordable housing sector. I hope that the next round of funding to the states under the NAHA, the National Affordable Housing Agreement, is dramatically different. We need strong targets to measure actual progress in outcomes and growth in the housing stock but also to measure what we can do to factor in new homes for people who are homeless.

We need to move away from a monopoly over social housing by inefficient state bureaucracies. We need to encourage more community housing and we need a regulatory system for housing providers, including state governments. Putting up roadblocks in the way of a better social and affordable housing system makes me incredibly angry, because it is poorer Australians that suffer as a result. I know that the advisory council that I set up headed by former FaHCSIA secretary Jeff Harmer has the talent, the vision and the knowhow and will work with the government to reform social and affordable housing.

There are lots of models; there are lots of ways. One of the ones that I think we should seriously consider is the Defence Housing Association model. It has achieved great success for that sector in increasing housing stock but also has been a credible investment vehicle for mums and dads. I think there are major possibilities for that scheme to be moved across to affordable housing to assist with aged housing and also social housing. It needs to be looked at. I know that this is something that the government will continue and I hope all senators sign up to it.

When I entered the parliament I said in my first speech that the only way to achieve real results for Indigenous Australians was to empower them through education and training and to break the cycle of welfare dependency. I was lucky enough to serve as minister responsible for Indigenous employment for 2½ years, first as Minister for Employment Participation and then as the Minister for Indigenous Employment and Economic Development in the newly created portfolio. During that time I worked closely with Indigenous people and organisations and the private sector to do exactly what I set out to do: empowering Indigenous Australians through education and training and breaking the cycle. We have come a long way in a short period of time.

Together with Indigenous business leaders, I set up the Australian Indigenous Minority Supply Council, or AIMSC, which connects Indigenous suppliers or businesses with government and corporate purchasers. In its first two years of operation, AIMSC facilitated $21.7 million in contracts between small businesses and suppliers. That is $21.7 million in revenue for Indigenous small business, which is phenomenal. It is going to help a lot of businesses.

I also worked closely with Penny Wong and then Minister for Finance and Deregulation Lindsay Tanner to implement the Indigenous business opportunities policy as well as exemptions to mandatory procurement procedures for Indigenous small and medium enterprises. It is the growth of Indigenous businesses that will break the cycle of welfare dependency and mean long-term economic development for Indigenous Australians, because not only do they create wealth for individuals but also it means more Indigenous jobs and we are seeing it every day.

When I travelled out to remote Indigenous communities throughout the country I was struck by the unique unemployment challenges those communities face because of their remoteness, because of the lack of markets. I began to see that the government's unemployment service, Job Services Australia, was not working as it should in remote Australia. We needed to do better; we needed to change the model. That is why I began the process of reform to establish a new remote employment services system—a system that is tailored to the circumstances of individual communities and their job seekers, a system that is flexible and responsive, a system that will deliver better results for Indigenous job seekers. I look forward to being outside the Senate to see this new system put in place over the coming years and to see the positive changes it will bring in those communities, helping not just job seekers but Indigenous leaders and Indigenous communities to help themselves. That is what they want to do. They want to break the welfare cycle more than anybody. We need to give them the tools to do that, but governments cannot do it alone and, when governments are leading it, often we fail. We need Indigenous communities to lead the way and this system is set up so that they can do just that.

But the work I am most proud of in the Indigenous employment portfolio is around schools. The best way, the only way, to make the shifts we need to in Indigenous employment is through the school system. We are investing huge resources to do just that. One of my favourite programs is the Learn Earn Legend! program. It is about keeping kids at school to year 12. We know that if a child stays on and gets an education it is going to give them the best chance of getting a job, getting employment. If they get a job, they become a role model, a legend for their own community, and that is what we need: role models. If the parents have not worked or been to school, what is the incentive for anyone in a family to go to school? That is what Learn Earn Legend! is about. This is a program that is working. This is not training for training's sake. This program is achieving results in the schools in working with business. We bring business into the school gate, we bring sporting groups into the school gate, we set up partnerships for training—real-life work experience during the week—and we are getting conversion rates.

The Titan program has 85 per cent conversion from school to employment or further education. It is working—it is working now—and in 10 years time we will wake up and see Indigenous lawyers, doctors, politicians, teachers, police officers and welfare workers, and we will wonder where this most talented generation came from. The work is being done right now, and that is something that I will never forget. I thank all the workers in FaHCSIA and in DEEWR, and of course Jenny Macklin—who without doubt is the best ever minister for Indigenous affairs in the country's history—for the work she has done.

Without doubt, one of the best jobs in the country is that of Minister for Sport.