Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In talking to these appropriation bills can I start by mentioning something that I was not going to raise today but which arises from the speech of the honourable member for Franklin. Late last year in the main chamber I referred to Iraq as a four-letter word that we did not often hear, and I thank yet again the honourable member for Franklin, in his consistent way, for raising that particular issue of silence as well as the chilling statistics to demonstrate what continues to happen in Iraq. The fact is that at no stage was there an exit strategy. As the honourable member for Franklin outlined, the winning of the war was a simple thing—what an unfair contest the military might of the coalition, especially the United States, versus the Iraqi forces, whether based on intelligence that was flawed or intelligence that was deliberately not interpreted in the right way, was.

But at that time many of us said that the great challenge was not that aspect; the great challenge was winning peace. I have seen nothing in the years since that convince me that those that are the great minds of the coalition of the willing have learnt anything or understand that aspect. I conclude my reference to Iraq by saying one thing: I am sick and tired of the likes of the foreign minister in question time haranguing the opposition for having an alternative view. There is this fixation that we were happy to see Saddam continue unchecked.

What really galls me is this assumption that in the United States or the United Kingdom the government view is the only view expressed. I do not know where Alexander has been when he has been listening to the US congress, but the foreign minister should listen carefully. There is a large body of opinion that believes the US administration is on the wrong trail. As I have said often, if I were a member of the British Labour Party caucus, all along the journey I would have been a member of the substantial minority which, on every occasion the Blair government has escalated its involvement, has opposed involvement. This nonsense that in some way an opinion that is in disagreement with the governments of these three countries is disloyal or lacking in reality is too dismissive of something that is now a very complex question that the global community really has to look at with much greater care than it does at the moment.

It is my intention today to make reference to a study that was released this week and which has been mentioned around this place—that is, the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index. The interpretation of this body of work in the popular press talks about electorates being the happiest or the saddest. I stress that in what is a fairly technical and academic paper the researchers attempted to look at relative personal wellbeing throughout the electorates on the basis of certain criteria. It was most appropriate that an article in the Herald Sun article yesterday described how the researchers went out to the electorate of Gorton—which the Herald Sun has interpreted, by using this index, as being the saddest of the Victorian electorates—and talked to a Kings Park mum, Lilyana Mukevska. She had just given birth to a son in Sunshine Hospital and she was ecstatic with life. She is quoted as saying:

‘My family is fantastic. They make you laugh and share their points of view.’

The seat of Scullin, in the Victorian context, is listed as the fifth saddest. I would think that I could find plenty of my constituents who are happy with their lot but would like to see it better. When we look at this index of wellbeing we should extract the components that have been used to build it up. I would acknowledge that the people I represent have a great deal of stress in the challenges of their daily life, which they contest with a cheery heart, and need our understanding and assistance. They do not need a government that makes life tougher. They do not need a government that puts in place policies that do not give them a chance to improve their lot and reach their hopes and aspirations.

As I have often said in this place, government policy at a national level should understand the regional impacts. For instance, when the new legislation on sole parent pensions and disability pensions is put in place on 1 July, the government should understand that in electorates like mine and the electorate of the member for Holt, who is present in the Main Committee chamber—two electorates that are mentioned among those five electorates—it is going to make things worse. It is going to affect the ability of the large number of people affected by this legislation to progress.

The thing that characterises most of the electorates mentioned in this article is that they are outer urban electorates where the pressures go to things like the amount of time that people have to expend to go about their business—the distance to work, the distance to child care and other important services. This is another area on which the federal government has walked away. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage said unanimously in its Sustainable Cities report that the federal government should be looking at the ways in which it involves itself in the outer urban areas of our major cities to invest in public transport. What do we get when that is put to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services? We get: public transport is a state issue. The people on the outer urban fringe do not want to be told whose responsibility it is; they want to be involved in the solutions. I think solutions will only be achieved when there is cooperation from all spheres of government, the private sector and the community.

The federal government, in its collection of petrol excise and in the way it can show leadership, should be involved in this matter. If it is all right for the federal government to be involved in the provision of roads by whipping out all sorts of programs that it uses as pork-barrelling exercises for marginal seats—RONIs and things like that—why can it not be involved in a shared way in public transport? In addressing the needs of the time-poor residents of my electorate, that would be one way the government could have an effect.

There are other burgeoning factors such as the cost of health. According to the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index, the electorate of Scullin gets a low score on health and standard of living. It does not help that we have a continuing increase in family medical bills and a government that is driven by trying to get people to go into private health insurance when over the last five years the cost of private insurance has risen by 40 per cent. Over Christmas, it grew a further seven per cent. What do we see? We see a scheme that subsidises private insurance without any recognition of what might be happening in the outcomes of the provision of health services.

My electorate has a high migrant population, many of whom came here in the post-war migration and worked successfully in the large manufacturing concerns that surrounded the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Some moved from inner urban areas such as Carlton and Collingwood and typically bought a fibro shack down at Dromana or Rye. Now they find that, because of the way the market is working, the value of their simple shack down at Dromana, just based on the value of the land, has become exorbitantly high. How does this affect them? It affects them as pensioners—pensioners who were denied the access to occupational superannuation during their working life—because of the way that it affects the assets test. I do not decry the assets test. It was a way in which we made the distribution of government assistance fair. Mr Deputy Speaker, in a previous life, you knew the agony that Labor governments went through in implementing that policy, but it was correct. What I say now is that we should recognise that as a device to distribute economic resources fairly there are aberrations in the way in which it is now impacting on the lifestyle decisions of some pensioners in a disproportionate way. Typically we have people being denied benefit because, in their simple lifestyle, something that was of relatively low value has increased. They are denied the enjoyment of that in retirement because at the end of the day, to survive, their only option is to divest themselves of that investment and put it in another form of investment so that they can get an ongoing income.

Another anomaly is that some of them kept their workers cottages in inner Melbourne and used them for rental purposes, and when the asset value and income from these rentals were in a relatively fair proportion they could survive. Now, regrettably, even though the asset value has gone up, the return on income has not gone up in the same way, and therefore the impact of the way in which the income and assets test actually impinges on them has become greater.

This is a policy that needs some refining. We need to be creative in the way in which we can ensure that those people can enjoy life—they do not want an increased lifestyle; they want to pursue a lifestyle commensurate with what they had expected when they retired. We should be able to twig that, especially when we have the scandal about the way family payments have developed unchecked, without putting in place income tests, let alone someone ever thinking that they should be asset tested. Now we see the wealthy being given the same benefit or, in fact, a larger benefit than the poor. Under this draconian legislation, which will come into place on 1 July, we see single mothers expected to work for what adds up to about $3 an hour.

When I talk about these pressures that affect the wellbeing of the people I represent, I would also like to recognise that in our area things that are positive continue to happen. Some of them are small; some of them are large. They might be an organisation such as Churinga, operated by St John of God, an adult training support service that has asked local MPs to display the artwork of the people who use their service. I proudly display the colourful and vibrant artwork of three members of the Churinga community. That is the way you get the community involved and vibrant. It is projects like NARTT—the Northern Assessment, Referral and Treatment Team—which is a cooperative between non-government organisations, the local community health centre and the police that actively endeavours to intervene, especially in the area of drugs. NARTT acknowledges that drugs are entwined with domestic violence and crime, and it intervenes with proper counselling and help to ensure that the people who are finding the stresses that lead them to this type of antisocial behaviour do not just directly go to courts but are given an opportunity to be involved in programs that will keep them out of courts.

The final positive thing I want to mention is the work of organisations like NorthLink/NIETL and the Northern ACC. These are organisations that have blossomed under policies of Labor governments at state and federal levels. On Friday, I participated in a briefing session sponsored by NorthLink/NIETL and the Northern Area Consultative Committee, which local, federal and state members attended. My colleague the honourable member for Batman, Martin Ferguson, was there and so were state members such as Peter Batchelor and Jenny Mikakos, Lily D’Ambrosio and Danielle Green. Other members’ offices were represented—two federal members and three state members. At this meeting they put to us aspects of importance in economic development and job creation in the north. For instance, one of the great opportunities that is arising for the north is the location of the National Biosecurity Centre at La Trobe University. This will see the amalgamation of four or five state department of primary industries sites on the one site. It is going to provide some 450 science based jobs and it is recognition that in the north we have the opportunity to display the skills that are required for a centre such as this. It also enables us to display the cooperation that we can see between a tertiary institution like La Trobe University and the local community.

It is also important because this is the second annual gathering where local members have come together with these organisations to campaign on things of benefit to the north. Last year, in January, we successfully had a meeting that led to a concerted effort to ensure that the wholesale market was relocated to Epping. This was a successful campaign. As I said then, what it saw was the cooperation that was required between the people who represent the north in promoting the north.

In the two minutes that I have left, I want to refer to the debate that is going on in the main chamber at the moment with regard to the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial responsibility for approval of RU486) Bill 2005 [2006]. It is unlikely that I will get an opportunity to speak in that debate. As I have said to those constituents that I have been able to get back to who have put their views to me, I will be supporting the bill. I thank all those constituents who have given of their time and opinion. I have treated each of their contributions seriously and they have helped me in the consideration of my position. As I have said to those that I have spoken to, simply put, much of the public debate about this bill has complicated the issue. This is a simple decision for us as legislators to decide how we believe a drug that can be used for lawful means should be best studied for its safety and efficacy.

I believe that there is nothing about RU486 that means that it should be treated in any different way to other drugs that are made available to the Australian community. The Therapeutic Goods Administration is put in place by the legislation and regulation of this parliament. It is given criteria for its work. These people are the experts. We rely on these people for all other groupings of drugs and there is nothing I can see that would give me reason to believe that we should put it separately.

I do not come to this position on the basis of any beliefs of the present Minister for Health and Ageing. The fact is that a minister for health that might be pro-choice might be the decision maker. But it is an anomaly that we have a drug or a grouping of drugs that should be set aside for special treatment. I believe that the TGA is best placed to ensure the safety and efficacy of a drug that can be used for a legal reason. (Time expired)

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