Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Tonight I want to raise concerns I have about the way in which the government has failed to address concerns of residents in the electorate of Gorton. I too am concerned about the paucity of funding provided to families in the electorate of Gorton in recent times. It is unfortunate that the Howard government concerns itself with its own hide and not with those in need of support, encouragement and resources. It is most upsetting for me and for others that this 11-year-old, weary government focuses upon the marginal seats rather than the marginalised in our community. I rise tonight to express my disappointment on behalf of the residents in my electorate at being ignored by the Howard government over this long, 11-year period.

This government has provided little or no support for the infrastructure needs of my electorate. Gorton is a fast-growing electorate in Victoria—indeed, it is the fastest-growing electorate in Victoria. When it was constructed nominally by the Australian Electoral Commission in 2002 it was designated on electorate numbers of 80,000 voters. Since then the number of voters in the electorate has grown to more than 107,000. By any stretch of the imagination that is a very fast growing area of Melbourne. Unfortunately, whilst there has been a massive exponential growth in the population of the area, there has not been growth in infrastructure commensurate with that growth.

I have seen that in the failure of the government to respond to concerns with respect to the Medicare office. In fact, I would like to dwell on the Medicare office proposal. There were more than 4,000 signatories to the petition tabled in this place wishing to have a Medicare office. We are one of very few electorates in Victoria that have not been provided with a Medicare office.

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