Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to congratulate you, Senator Lines, on your ascension to the role of Deputy President. I am sure you will do your party and the Senate proud. We have particularly noticed the change in demeanour during question time as you put forward a bipartisan approach, which obviously our President and Deputy President need to have so that all senators within the chamber can be assured of your consistent approach in the application of the standing orders so that we can debate appropriately here.

It gives me great pleasure to rise today to give my contribution in the debate on the address-in-reply to our Governor-General's address at the start of the 45th Parliament. And what a day that was. We had gun salutes, we had the Governor-General, we had the House of Reps coming and going, we had new senators sworn in. And how different our chamber looks as a result of the people's choice for Senate elections this particular parliament. But it gave me great joy. It is incredibly humbling to be re-elected as part of the coalition team as the Nationals senator for the great state of Victoria, where I think it is fair to say we had a ripper result. Victoria has returned five coalition senators, which is an incredible result. We are very excited to see Senator Jane Hume get our No. 5 result and to see Ministers Fifield and Ryan returned, as well as to see Senator Paterson, who is already making such a strong contribution to the chamber and to the parliament in the time he has been here, returned. I obviously am the one National in that coalition team, and we work very cohesively across the state of Victoria to ensure that the needs and interests of not only those who live in Melbourne but those who live outside the capital city are represented in this place.

Victoria has had a strong manufacturing base in terms of its industries over its history, and it started out as a fantastic mining state, with the gold rush. But today our major industries—we are a huge exporter in agriculture, particularly fruit and horticulture from the Goulburn Valley, but we are definitely the powerhouse for the dairy industry and the export of that product to the ports and the communities around the world. It is fair to say that through the election campaign, campaigning in regional Victoria as I was, we heard quite a lot—and fairly so—from the dairy industry and their representatives about the crisis, particularly with the decision by Murray Goulburn and the subsequent decision by Fonterra not only to drop the milk price but to actually seek to claw back some of that in the forward year, which caused some significant angst and a lot of issues for our dairy farming community in the north-east and the west.

We are also a state that prides itself on delivering high-quality international education to so many young people, particularly, from our region. It is one of our greatest exports as a state, and I think it is an area that we can continue to grow in. I look forward to getting more of those young people from around the world studying at those institutions, not just in Melbourne but out into our regional capitals as well, and experiencing some of the cultural activities that are sometimes different between the urban and the rural experience in Victoria.

I think it is fair to say when we look back on the election campaign that the Nationals in Australia had a fantastic campaign right throughout the country. We were able to see all of our members returned, despite a swing away from the government during the election. Members like Michelle Landry and like Kevin Hogan, on very thin margins in their seats, showed the worth of being connected to your local community, of representing those views in this place and of having a very sharp understanding of how to translate, if you like, sometimes the macro complex conversations we have here into language and policy initiatives that everybody can understand and appreciate and see value in, and that is why they were returned. So well done to the National Party team.

We said goodbye to a couple of great Nats. Bruce Scott, the former member for Maranoa and Deputy Speaker in the other place, is no longer with us, but I am sure he and his wife, Joan, who gave so much to public life, will continue that contribution in Queensland and internationally as we go forward. We wish them all the very best.

We also had all our senators returned. Senator O'Sullivan, from Queensland, who now chairs the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, is a great advocate for issues around rural and regional Australia and is not afraid to make his opinion on any issue very fairly and squarely felt and heard. I congratulate Senator John Williams, from New South Wales, on his election to the office of Nationals whip here in the Senate. I am very excited about it because he is actually a great whip. He has that wonderful capacity to be across the detail of legislation. He is connected and communicating with us regularly so that we are where we are supposed to be, when we are supposed to be there, but he also has a great approach to pastoral care, which I think is so important for whips in this place. Obviously, there is Senator Canavan—what can I say? What a rise he has had to the cabinet. He is an absolutely worthy candidate to sit there in his new portfolio as Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, which he cares deeply about and has a great contribution to make towards. Congratulations to Matt on his re-election.

Our deputy leader, Senator Fiona Nash, has been such a trailblazer when it comes to female representation in the Senate and in the National Party. She supports both Michelle and I incredibly, as well as other women, particularly in New South Wales. She has been championing fifty-fifty representation between men and women in her home state's organisation and I wish her all the very best with that. Her performance during the election in the regional development portfolio was fantastic. She was everywhere. Our leader is Nigel Scullion, from the Country Liberal Party. He does absolutely brilliant work in the Indigenous affairs portfolio. He is a strong Nat and a deep thinker—you would not think it, but he actually is. We have a great team here and I am looking forward to growing that over coming years.

Going to the National Party's result in Victoria during the election, we saw the return of another cabinet minister, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Darren Chester, from Gippsland. Darren has a deep passion for road safety and ensuring that our commitment to infrastructure is rolled out in an equitable way and that the regions also receive a fair lick of that commitment. He has been great in that portfolio. He also gave significant support to other candidates, particularly in Victoria, and I know Damian Drum will attest to Darren's assistance throughout his own campaign in Murray. Before I finish on Minister Chester, I do not know how it is possible to increase your margin in a place like Gippsland, but he managed to do it. So well done to Minister Chester. Indeed, Andrew Broad, in the great seat of Mallee, another cornerstone of the Victorian National Party heartland, also held his seat. Mallee is very different from Gippsland. They are probably two extremes of electorates in my state, but Andrew also was able to increase his vote, so well done to him.

We ran in four other seats in the state of Victoria. We ran in Bendigo, Ballarat and McEwen—bearing in mind we had not run in Ballarat at a federal election for over three decades. We had a great candidate there, Paul Tatchell, who was the Mayor of Moorabool Shire and is a great local advocate and local champion for that area, particularly around Ballan. It was through my interactions with Paul that I was able to meet with the Ballan Country Fire Authority volunteers during the election campaign. They called a few different brigades together and we were able to discuss their concerns about the state Labor government's decision to bully their own ministers, bully the CFA board and bully the former CEO of the CFA, Lucinda Nolan.

So, it was great to actually get that on-the-ground knowledge from those CFA brigades about their view of the EBA being put forward—how it would affect emergency service provision in regional Victoria particularly. And I think more damaging for them was what it did to the relationships between them and the paid firefighter group. These are two groups who are fundamental to the provision of emergency services in my home state, and it is imperative that they are able to work together cohesively and collectively, and this particular issue is incredibly divisive for the culture of the firefighting organisations and their capacity to work together in times of stress.

In Bendigo we ran Andy Maddison, a stock and station agent and a very strong advocate for typical National Party values. He was very well received, and I am sure he is looking forward to staying involved and having his say over future election campaigns. And in the seat of McEwen we ran Andrew—his name will come to me! He runs a stock feed store in—sorry, Madam Deputy President; it is a place starting with T, just down from Yea and Seymour. He and his young wife have just opened that business. He has left a corporate job in Melbourne and returned to the country—Tallarook!—to start in small business, and he is doing a fantastic job there and really bringing forward the conversations around the National Party, again around the CFA, again around regional development, and I am sure he will stay involved.

But the great story for the Nationals, other than winning back the seat of Murray after 20 years of its being in Liberal Party hands, was running in the seat of Indi, where Marty Corboy was our candidate. He is a father of seven and working in the family business. He spent the last year doorknocking Wodonga and being a very strong advocate for small business and for National Party values in that seat. It was tough. It always is tough to fight against Independents, such as Cathy McGowan, who solidified her hold on that seat. And I know that the Liberal Party's candidate, Sophie Mirabella, who had been a long-term occupant of that seat, similarly fought a very hard campaign. But Marty chose to go to the people with a positive face and a positive message for the coalition voters, and he was roundly rewarded with an 18 per cent primary vote. So, well done to Marty—and to all our volunteers right across that seat. It stretches from Wodonga down to Benalla and up into the Alpine National Park, and really he did some miles during that campaign.