Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I want to talk about my electorate of Page, about what a wonderful electorate it is, the whole 16,091 square kilometres of it, and the people, some 137,000-odd at the last census, that is, two per cent of the population of New South Wales, and just how wonderful some of the people are. I do so on what is the second anniversary of my having the privilege and pleasure of being elected to represent the people of Page. It has been two years since the general election when I was elected as part of the Rudd Labor government. I am very proud to be a member of the government and I am very proud to be the local representative in Page. I have worked hard over the past two years and made some good progress in key areas. I know there is still progress to make—there has been a lot that has not been done in Page over a long period.

I am making progress in the key areas of education, roads, bypasses, preschools—there are about 37 community preschools in my electorate—in health with the Grafton Base Hospital redevelopment and with the Integrated Cancer Care Centre at Lismore Base Hospital. There is a lot more that I want to do in health and the reforms will go some way towards tackling longstanding problems in health. I am making progress in small business matters, community services and housing and also in smaller community projects—I am just being a committed and consistent advocate for our area. That is what most people want at a local level, particularly in Page. I am also tackling a number of projects which I am driving, supporting, being involved in and advocating for—things like the agri-tourism project. Currently research is being done by the bureau of rural research in certain areas around Australia—thankfully, Northern Rivers is one of them—looking at what can be done to help landholders, particularly farmers, develop the agri-tourism market. Also I am involved locally in a football project. That is a project in which I have taken a lead, along with Craig Foster, who would be known to some of you—he comes from Lismore—and Southern Cross University and others, working with the vision, the goal, of having an Asia-Pacific centre for football in our area, to respond to local needs and also to the broader Asia-Pacific. That is a project we are currently working up with the Football Federation of Australia and Northern New South Wales Football.

We are fortunate also to have the Southern Cross University, which covers five electorates in New South Wales from Port Macquarie, to Coffs Harbour, through Grafton to Lismore and Tweed Heads, and there is a new campus under construction at the Gold Coast Airport precinct, which should be open in February. Last week’s local newspapers—Northern Star, Tweed Daily News and Coffs Coast Advocateran good articles detailing the value of the Southern Cross University to the North Coast, the Tweed and the smaller Gold Coast region. The value is some $483 million and the breakdown is as follows: $292 million to Northern Rivers region, $67 million to Coffs Coast and $125 million to Tweed and Gold Coast areas. The newly appointed Vice-Chancellor, Peter Lee, was quoted in the Northern Star as saying:

We are based in Lismore and remain the heart of a multi-campus university.

It was the Southern Cross University’s Regional Futures Institute which prepared the report, which is a first and reflects the combined efforts of many in the university community and more broadly. There are 1,873 jobs which arise out of the university with new projects yet to come. (Time expired)