Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to be able to make a contribution to the senators' statements debate. Typically I take the opportunity to talk about some great things that are happening in Tasmania at this point in the week, but yesterday something happened that I felt compelled to make a comment on. It was around why people come to this place—the parliament—why people seek election and why they seek to serve the Australian people. And of course it is because we seek to do the best thing for our country, for our community, for our constituency. In doing so, we work constructively with people from all political persuasions. We often reach out across the aisle, as they say, to achieve a good outcome for the people we represent. In saying that, I want to acknowledge Senator Carol Brown, who on many an occasion I've had cause to work with on things for Tasmanian people. We've not always succeeded, and we have come close a couple of times. Hopefully, we'll have some great successes into the future. But it is exactly what we're here for. As Tasmanians first and foremost—yes, Senator Brown is a Labor senator, and I will forgive her for that. I'm a Liberal senator and she forgives me—for the record. We work together on many things that benefit our state and that is the good thing about this place, which is why I have to talk about this issue.

Yesterday I was listening to the MPI and a contribution made by another Tasmanian colleague, and that was a contribution made by Senator Polley. I have a lot of time for Senator Polley. I'm sure she does some good things in our state, though I'd like to know what they are. Really what I take issue with was her recounting of events around the efforts and the hard work of the member for Bass, Mrs Bridget Archer. The MPI was on the NDIS and funding for the NDIS. It's a very serious issue and something everyone in this place takes seriously. We have different points of view, but it's something that shouldn't be used as an opportunity to score cheap political points when there are serious matters back out in our electorates.

Yesterday Senator Polley made a contribution to that debate, reading out a speech scoring those cheap political points against Mrs Archer, a member of the other place who does not have the capacity, or the opportunity, to march into this chamber and correct the record so I thought I'd take it upon myself. The contribution yesterday referred to an organisation called New Horizons, an organisation based in northern Tasmania, in Launceston, in the electorate of Bass, which does great work, and an organisation we need to acknowledge.

The point is that this organisation, which provides support for people with a disability, is seeking funding. There was a grant round where they were unsuccessful. The contribution—while being accurate to that set of facts—was misleading in that it claimed that Mrs Archer, the member for Bass, had done nothing to assist this organisation. Have they got the outcome they were after? No. But to suggest that Mrs Archer, the member for Bass, has done nothing to assist this organisation is purely misleading.

Even the CEO of New Horizons, Ms Belinda Kitto, publicly acknowledged the good and hard work of Mrs Archer in trying to secure a good outcome for this organisation and for the people that it supports. Mrs Archer has been driven the whole time to get the right outcome for this group. So when I heard Senator Polley making these remarks I was most disappointed.

Back to my original point. Why do we come here? We come here to get a better outcome for our communities. We come here to stand up for our communities. We come here to do that by working constructively with one another, be that the government, the opposition or the crossbench. We all have a common aim.

So I ask Senator Polley: how often have you picked up the phone to Mrs Archer to work on issues? How often have you reached out to say, 'How can I help you do what you need to do? Is there something I could be doing, a role I could be playing?' Have you offered to work with Mrs Archer on this issue, or any other, for the people of Bass, for the people of Tasmania? I'd hazard a guess and I'd say no. On that basis, when will Senator Polley stop with the pointless political pointscoring that goes on and work constructively with the member for Bass, Mrs Archer, in achieving good outcomes for the people of Bass and the people of Tasmania? That's the job that we are all sent here to do and that's the job I would love to see Senator Polley doing.

I thought I'd touch base with Mrs Archer before I made this contribution. She confirmed for me that she'd be very happy to work with Senator Polley on any of these issues. I hope that Senator Polley does take that advice and accept that invitation.

Ms Archer is happy to be judged on her record at the next election. We're eight months in, since the last election on 18 May last year, and already Ms Archer, the member for Bass, has delivered a number of things for her electorate of Bass in Northern Tasmania, including the funding for a headspace—$630,000. She secured funding of $25 million for health services in that community, including a mental health hub and the Kings Meadows clinic; delivered the timber link funding to support a sustainable deal in Northern Tasmania; and helped get the Launceston City Deal extended—or in fact doubled—to include the northern suburbs hub and the Albert Hall upgrades. She's been able to deliver funding for the George Town Regent Square redevelopment, which was much needed, and of course the George Town Mountain Bike Trail. So, as I say, Ms Archer is very, very happy to be judged on her record, and she will stand in front of the people of Bass in a couple of years time and put her record forward. I just hope that, in that time, Senator Polley takes that invitation and does work with her.

On to more positive things: the wonderful things coming out of the state of Tasmania. I want to talk briefly about innovation. Already this week, we've talked about the wine industry—how resilient and how innovative it is—and how wonderful our premium wines are in this country. I want to pay tribute to two vineyard operators in southern Tasmania: Robert and Anthea Patterson, who run Hartzview Vineyard. It is a fantastic establishment, and I urge anyone who's tuned in to this debate to head on down and grab a bottle of their fortified wine. It is fantastic stuff. I raise this couple and their business because of the work they did in innovation, in working with the issue of smoke taint, and seeing what can be done, what learnings there are to be able to salvage what happens to a vineyard after a fire occurs and smoke hovers in and around the grapes, causing smoke taint.

Robert and Anthea have been working with a number of researchers on how best to be able to utilise that resource, the fruit that has been affected by smoke taint—and there have been some positive results. It points to the innovation that we see in our primary production sector in Tasmania, in a small community just south of Hobart. When these sorts of things are invested in, we will see a return on investment—predominantly in the form of jobs. If we can find a way to utilise a fruit that otherwise would have been discarded after a bushfire event and smoke taint occurs, then we will see a greater utilisation of a resource and we won't see picking seasons completely lost just because of smoke taint.

I also want to pay tribute to the operators of another company, Marinova, based on the eastern shore of Hobart, out near the Hobart Airport. Marinova was founded in 2003, focusing on research and development in the manufacture of high-purity fucoidan, which is a seaweed compound—for want of a better explanation. It's a sustainable, high-purity compound that is used in a number of pharmaceutical applications. This is something that has been developed in Tasmania by Tasmanians. They were recently recognised, in 2019, as an export market leader as the Australian organic industry award winner, which recognises excellence in organic industries. These fucoidan compounds occur naturally in the cell walls of brown seaweeds. To be able to develop a process which extracts these compounds and to be able to utilise them in pharmaceutical applications is Tasmanian innovation at its best. These are people who have found a new way of extracting something from a natural resource that most of us would look at and say, 'Well, what would you do with that?' As a result, they've created jobs and they've created investment.

It's these sorts of companies, these sorts of people, in our regional communities in the state of Tasmania—that I know Senator Brown is a proud representative of as well—that we like to see and we like to support. So I commend these organisations, these people, for the work that they do, and for the effort they put in for the people they employ and the communities they're a part of.