Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to order, I now call Senator Griff to make his first speech and ask that honourable senators observe the usual courtesies.

Stirling Griff (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President, and thank you to all in this chamber, to my colleagues, to the Clerk and her office, and of course to the attendants for the kind welcome and assistance given to me so far. It is an honour to be here and to give my first speech as South Australian senator 101 since Federation, which, given Senate school and the steep learning curve I have been on, is a most appropriate number.

That I am able to stand here today in this role in this place was never certain. That is why I would like to begin this speech by paying respect to my mother, Vilma, who as a 30-year-old found herself alone with a 2½-year-old Stirling to raise. She went to work to support the two of us in those early days when women were only paid half of what men earned for the same work. Without question and without fail, she was there for me through the good times and the bad. She did her best to give me the opportunities that have shaped me, and it is from her that I inherited my sense of fairness and responsibility. She could not be here today, but she is watching online. She is very much a tech-savvy 85-year-old. So, Mum, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

With her my story starts. We were not flush with funds during that time, and knowing things were tough for Mum I went looking for ways to help out. From a young age I became the man of the house and so started to look for ways to ease the burden for someone carrying so much. Those of you who know me as a retailer will understand the next five minutes of what I am about to say. I launched my first retail business in grade 4 while I was attending a public school in Glenelg. I sold crystal sets to my classmates. It was a fantastic first venture. I actually imported those crystal sets and then sold them to other kids. There were other things I sold during those years, but I am not actually game enough to tell you what they were!

Not long after, while still in primary school, I grew more ambitious and sold, for those of you who are a little bit older, kerosene door to door. I would buy a 44-gallon drum of kero wholesale and sell it for retail prices. What I would do was pour some of it into smaller cans and balance the cans on the handlebars of my purple dragster—I still miss that bike—as I rode around my neighborhood, smelling for the distinctive scent of a kero heater to make a sale. I actually smelt more of kero than the kero in the cans, I have to say. That was a very different time. A child today would never be allowed to do the same because it breaks so many laws, but, in any event, I would have been under the age of criminal responsibility—thankfully!

That is how my business education began. From there the next chapter of my life started when I turned 16 and left school to work at a bank. After that I moved into radio sales, then publishing and then advertising. In my late 20s I opened and ran a retail oriented marketing division of an international advertising agency in Melbourne and then did exactly the same in Adelaide. I built and ran a telemarketing and retail consulting business and developed business software products.

In the late nineties, I became Executive Director of the Retail Traders Association of South Australia, representing both small and large retailers. After that—thanks to my wife, Kristen—I actually mortgaged our home and risked pretty much everything to build my own retail businesses, not knowing whether they would succeed or fail. Eventually, I would open stores in Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria. In our stores we did things very differently, and to this day I am proud of the way we were able to mentor hundreds of young people and guide them into fulfilling careers.

So I come to this place not as someone who has moved through a union or political ranks, or as a lawyer, but as someone who, for over 40 years, built and operated both small and medium sized businesses, worked for large corporations, as well as small family owned businesses, and as someone who has directly employed and mentored many, many hundreds of people. My views are coloured by life experience and my politics are neutral. I am certainly not a political animal, nor a career politician—until now. I stand in this place as someone who can be trusted to deliver in the best interests of people and not politics.

I have been a Liberal supporter. In fact, I was one of the youngest members of the LCL when I rocked up there when I was about 12 years old—a long time ago—in Adelaide. I have been a Labor supporter and a Greens supporter. In fact, I have either been a member of or voted for candidates from all three parties at various times in my life. I am not locked to a set political ideology. I believe in freedom of thought and I am open to ideas from all sides and will base decisions I make in this place on the merits of what is presented to me. However, there is one exception. I am not open to fear and hate campaigns for political gain and control, whether it be demonizing refugees and asylum seekers, and particularly those who are now living—if you can call it that—in offshore detention centres, or the singling out of a particular race or religious belief and branding them to be 'un-Australian' and dangerous; or using this fear as an excuse to restrict civil liberties or even invade or justify interference in another country.

Fear is a powerful tool, but one I personally find abhorrent and destructive. This is a truth deeply rooted in my family's history. Half of my family came from Ireland—I think the families of the majority of people here came from Ireland as well—and the other half from Lithuania. Those who left Lithuania did so during a time when the country was part of Russia. They were Jewish and from a small village named Zidik. They belonged to a people targeted for their faith and targeted for their ethnicity, and as a community they endured pogroms and forced exile under Russian rule during World War I.

In 1941, during World War II, the whole community met its end in Nazi mass graves. My ancestors survived only because they left, and made Australia their home. There they met the Irish side of my family, who as children grew up playing with Ned Kelly's sister Kate. Maybe there is another interesting angle I could have added, but I don't think I can do so at this point. Each contributed to the diverse fabric of our society, just as those who find their way to Australia by plane or by boat can do, if given the chance.

One fanatic or a handful of fanatics does not equal an entire people, and using fear and suspicion to divide, to single people out for simply being, is cowardly and self-serving. Fear is not a responsible way to govern, or to grow a movement. My hope is that all in this chamber will join me in rejecting fear as a weapon of mass manipulation.

The Australia I want to live in does not rule by fear but is one that builds a better tomorrow. This is an Australia that nurtures its young and teaches them the real-world skills needed to make their way in the world. It supports families from school to retirement and cares for our elderly, who must be respected for the contribution they have made to our communities.

This is an Australia that ends predatory gambling, which lures people with the promise of easy money, where our children are no longer exposed to gambling advertisements during sports broadcasts and where our government actually introduces essential, recommended reforms, including the $1 bets that make poker machines much less addictive. If we are to put an end to problem gambling we need social media sites to operate on an opt-in basis for serving gambling ads, rather than bombarding users with hard-to-resist offers. For the 400,000 Australians who struggle with problem gambling or who are at risk of developing a full-blown gambling addiction, and with $23 billion lost to gambling each year, the government has a duty of care to its citizens, not to its donors. With the highest per capita gambling losses in the world, this is a massive drain on our collective wellbeing and one that can, quite frankly, be avoided.

I want to see an Australia which builds an education system that delivers for our young people, a system that is measured on employability and not simply by NAPLAN or ATAR ratings. An ideal system would ensure students leave school job-ready and would provide a real, substantial career path for those who choose not to pursue university. I want to see these young people equipped to fill the shortages in the trades and professions our communities need, identified through real, very real, partnerships with industry.

The 2015-16 figures from the Department of Employment show just how urgently this is needed. In the last financial year, 38 percent of apprenticeship vacancies were unfilled. For every vacancy there was an average of 22 applicants, but an average of only 2.4 applicants were considered suitable by employers for the role. Think about that for a moment. Our young people are graduating from school without the basic skills needed to even apply for entry level apprenticeships.

Even those who complete university fall into a similar trap. Too often, a student's decision to study at university is not based on a real understanding of their future career or their personal strengths. Instead, it is based on their perception of a future career, or the need to just do something or, more than likely, the need to get their parents off their back. I believe pre-university internships will help students make the right choice and very much lessen the drain on the higher education public purse. Key to this, of course, is ensuring educational institutions more accurately match course demand with available jobs and, in the case of many universities, not load up the cost and availability of specific degrees when the prospect of future employment is limited. Australia already has too many law graduates, for example, who instead of becoming solicitors end up as baristas. Nick didn't help me with that one, by the way.

If we are failing our young, we are also failing our elderly. Too often those who contributed to their communities end their working lives relying on government support that, in some cases, reduces them to living below the poverty line or making them wait for important surgery or an ACAT assessment or spend months waiting to find a home or residential care provider that is able to support them.

Building a better Australia for our elderly means we should not be cutting the Aged Care Funding Instrument, which will potentially strip between $6,000 and $18,000 a year away from individual nursing home residents with complex and serious healthcare needs. And while the model in its present form is without a doubt being rorted by some operators, with funding often diverted to non-resident-care areas, the planned blanket cuts will overwhelmingly punish the majority of operators who are doing the right thing. These cuts will not save money. They are simply a cost-shifting exercise from the Commonwealth to state governments, which will result in more aged-care facilities being unable to treat complex healthcare patients, because payments have been slashed. Many in the aged-care sector will be relegated to the state hospital system, where costs are about five times as high each day.

If we are to build a better Australia for all we must not let our economy be hollowed out. A strong economy is a complex economy, capable of harnessing the creative power of the people it supports and driving real innovation that leads to growth. That means Australia must continue to make things.

Every year, the federal government alone spends $60 billion on goods and services, with $8 billion going directly overseas. Even the crockery used in the members' dining room, which carries the Commonwealth's crest, was made overseas. We must accept that the government has a role to play in the economy, and that begins with procurement policies across all levels of government. In the future, I want governments to buy Australian-made first. We are needlessly exporting billions of dollars in jobs and missing out on all the economic activity that comes with buying local.

It is also time for government to once more take responsibility for providing and running essential utilities such as electricity, water and gas and, in the case of the federal government, the NBN. Some might say that these services should not be a core function of government and that they are better managed by private enterprise. That, absolutely, is not the view of the public. The public will continue to hold governments of all persuasions to account for the performance of what they see as core human needs.

Whilst privatisation over the years has given billions to governments that have not managed their budgets well, it has been a disaster for everyday Australians. We have seen an increase in costs and often a reduction in service levels and, importantly, maintenance. The recent statewide power blackout in South Australia that left 1.6 million people in the dark could well be just one example. It is time to reverse the trend of governments, and particularly state governments, absolving themselves of responsibility and bring utilities back into public hands.

As an aside, I also must mention that the first time that I met Nick was around 20 years ago when I was running the Retailers Association and Nick was a new member of the SA parliament. At that time he was actually holding up the privatisation of SA's electricity assets. Absolutely everybody was attacking him at the time apart from my association. Back then I was the only business leader that supported Nick in his opposition to privatisation, so you can understand why I feel so strongly about this issue.

Finally, I want to see electoral reforms that ensure truth in advertising and political parties very much included in privacy laws, spam laws and other provisions. Why should a political party be exempt from laws that apply to everyone else? The creeping role of dark money in politics is a threat to Australian democracy, and to combat it we need more timely disclosure of donations and a substantial lowering of disclosure amounts.

My belief is that we should actually look to the UK model, where TV political advertising, as an example, is banned and only a small number of party political broadcasts are permitted. Such a model, rolled out into all media, would create a more level playing field and limit the donations arms race, which everybody in this room follows.

These are just some of the policy objectives I will be pursuing in my role as an NXT senator for South Australia. With that, I also want to acknowledge Nick Xenophon—he hates me saying that. You are a good friend, Nick, and it is an honour to sit alongside you and Skye on these benches. I would not be standing here today without Nick, whose relentless advocacy for South Australia won the support of the 231,000 people who voted for NXT at the recent election.

Together with my colleagues Skye Kakoschke-Moore and the member for Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie, I will do all in my power to ensure the government continues to invest in South Australia's future and to ensure that our state is very much a significant contributor to Australia's future prosperity.

As no-one gets elected alone, I would like to say thank you to all of our candidates and the over 2,000 volunteers who worked tirelessly throughout the campaign. A special thank you goes to Rachel Pace, our party campaign coordinator. Rachel, we could not have done it without you.

Finally, I would like to pay tribute to my beautiful wife, Kristin, from whom I draw my strength, and to my amazing kids, Cassie, Asher, Natan and Teya. You are the reason I am here. Your love and support is only matched by my love of being on this journey with you.

To all in this chamber tonight, I believe that together we can do great things for our communities and to build a better Australia. It is not going to be easy and it is likely we will not agree all of the time, but I am up for the challenge.