Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment and Water (Senate)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight, I am absolutely delighted to be able to introduce to the Senate five fantastic women who have been pre-selected by the Labor Party as our WA Labor candidates in Liberal-held marginal seats in Western Australia.

My good friend Melissa Teede is Labor's candidate for the seat of Canning. She has deep connections to the seat of Canning and the whole region, starting her career as a teacher in Armadale. Melissa has spent many years working in the TAFE sector and in schools right across Western Australia. But more recently, and very relevantly to the challenges for the people of Canning, she has been working as the CEO of the Peel Development Commission. Through this work, I know firsthand her strategic vision for and commitment to the region—what it will take to deliver jobs and a future for the communities in Mandurah and around the Peel region, many of which are quite disadvantaged and really need strategic economic insight and commitment to get the settings right for the region.

Melissa spent many years of her life as a single parent, and I've spoken to her about her experiences with and the importance of affordable, quality education: schools, TAFE and university. She's talked to me many times about the importance of a good education to her community and to our nation's future. She's talked to me about the fact that it was Labor's commitment to higher education that meant she was able to fulfil her dream of becoming a teacher—indeed, doing that at the same time as raising a daughter of her own, on her own.

Another wonderful candidate, whose name will be no surprise to you, Mr Acting Deputy President Williams, is Hannah Beazley. Hannah Beazley is Labor's candidate in Swan, where she grew up. She has worked in policy and education, and she has owned her own small business. She has young children, like me, and she knows firsthand what it means for ordinary families to strive to get by. She is following in the footsteps of the remarkable Hon. Kim Beazley, who, as we know, was a former member for Swan and a former leader of our great party.

What some people might not know about Hannah in terms of her extraordinary resilience as a person is that she had a significant health scare in her early 20s, and she was only able to access new life-saving drugs because of Medicare and the PBS. She believes that access to health care should not be dependent on your credit card, but on your Medicare card.

I'm also pleased to introduce to you this evening Melita Markey, Labor's candidate for Stirling. She is a proud member of the Stirling community and loves volunteering at Stirling's local sporting clubs. Also important—and this is an issue close to my own heart—is her work at the Asbestos Diseases Society of Australia, where she is their chief operating officer. Melita is someone who works tirelessly day in, day out for victims of asbestos disease and their families.

I'd also like to introduce to you tonight Lauren Palmer, Labor's candidate in Hasluck. She is a remarkable young woman who has been a tireless advocate for workers and has been working with the Maritime Union for some time now. She has demonstrated her passion and commitment for lifting the rights of workers, for workers' safety and for access to education for all.

I'm delighted that I have now begun to get to know the wonderful Kim Travers, who will be Labor's candidate in Pearce. She is a decorated police officer, who has had an extremely long and successful career serving the Western Australian community. She's led major drug investigations, but, significantly, she's also spent time as the chief investigator with the United Nations in East Timor. In speaking to Kim, you really get the sense from her—whether you're talking about domestic violence, drug use in communities or marginalised Indigenous communities—that she really has a wealth of knowledge about communities and justice, and an incredible capacity to bring people together to tackle really hard problems.

So, these five remarkable women are joining the WA team, along with Anne Aly, Matt Keogh, Josh Wilson, Madeleine King, Senator Glenn Sterle, Senator Sue Lines, my good friend Senator Patrick Dodson and, of course, me. We will be standing together to take the fight up to Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberal government. We will be out and about talking to the people of Western Australia about the things that really matter to them: health, education and jobs.

What's really apparent to me in my home state of WA is that the Liberal Party is not out and about in our local communities talking about these things. We're the ones listening and hearing it on the ground in our communities. What we hear about is a complete absence of Malcolm Turnbull in the state. Instead, he's too busy over here—

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Excuse me, Senator Pratt, that's the second time now. Refer to people by their correct titles, please.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment and Water (Senate)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for drawing me to order, Mr Acting Deputy President. Our Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, can be seen instead to be too busy talking here in the eastern states about corporate tax cuts to the big end of town—too busy looking after his friends over east, too busy cutting penalty rates for working people and too busy ignoring the ordinary needs of Australians.

It's also a government that's ignored the needs of Western Australia for too long. The government has been too slow to act on giving Western Australia its fair share of the GST. You've been able to see that debate take place in this place today—their absolute confusion and defensiveness about where they want to take this policy. They are too busy talking about Tasmania, South Australia and other places around the country, and have not spent enough time talking to Western Australia and putting real money on the table. WA is not getting its fair share of the GST. People in WA know it, I know it and Bill Shorten knows it.

I'm delighted that the Leader of the Opposition has said he will invest $1.6 billion in a fair share for a WA fund. That will bring Western Australia's share of the GST up to an equivalent of 70c in the dollar. This is what our state needs. We have an incredibly fragile state budget and we need this investment in job-creating infrastructure to bring more jobs to the people of WA, yet we still hear silence from our Prime Minister and from the federal Liberal government. The Prime Minister has barely been to Western Australia, let alone made any commitments for our fair share. A clear choice that is emerging for our state in WA—and one that will become a key political theme of the year ahead—is that only a future Labor government will be prepared to deliver to Western Australia and give us a fair go. I'm looking forward to getting out and about and campaigning with our new candidates to talk to our community about these important issues.