Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to speak to the address-in-reply motion on day 4 of the 42nd Parliament. It is an immense privilege to represent the people of Farrer in this place. To represent my constituents well and with energy is my No. 1 wish for the term of this parliament. I thank the people of Albury, Deniliquin, Broken Hill, Hay and Menindee for their trust. May I also thank the residents of the local government areas of Greater Hume, Corowa, Balranald, Wakool, Wentworth, Urana, Berrigan, Murray, Jerilderie and the unincorporated area of far west New South Wales. Thank you for the faith you have shown in re-electing me to this place to be your voice, in many cases so very far from where you live. As your local member I will do my best to bring your issues, your concerns and your fears to the attention of the government.

There will be big-picture items such as what is happening with water. There will also be important matters brought to me by people who have, in many cases, reached the end of the line and for whom the parliament is the place of last resort. Often these are the people in our society whom we rarely encounter in our everyday lives until they feel there is no-one else to turn to but their elected representative. I am sure many members of parliament would agree that the assistance we provide in these cases gives us the greatest sense of satisfaction—for example, helping a person in their 50s gain early access to their superannuation because of a terminal illness; cutting through the misunderstandings and red tape to help families and individuals receive emergency payments; finding a way for a Vietnam veteran to get tertiary studies paid for by the government of the nation that sent him to war; or negotiating an act of grace payment so that a separated father who inadvertently gave incorrect details to the Child Support Agency gets a refund. Often as I sit listening to these stories and knowing that I cannot help I feel disappointed and frustrated. I recall mentioning this to Bishop George Browning, recently retired as the Anglican Bishop of Canberra-Goulburn. He said to me, ‘You absorb their pain.’ It is true. By hearing, understanding and empathising, we do play a part. And, although we cannot always wave a magic wand there and then, as policy is developed over the years it is the marginalised that we often have in our thoughts—it is their hardships and stories and the anecdotes from their lives that come to mind. And, in thinking about how a particular proposal would affect them, we often test it in the real world better than a pile of position and discussion papers ever would.

I thank my office staff most sincerely for the part they play in providing a sympathetic and understanding face and voice to all who come to call. I also thank the liaison officers from all our government departments, especially Centrelink. We contact them with our constituents’ problems and they act on them swiftly and positively. I also thank the local staff of Telstra Country Wide. The relationship between governments, oppositions and Telstra is somewhat problematic. Indeed, it can be good one day and not so good the next. But our local contacts are always there to listen to complaints and try to fix them. I really appreciate this.

The electorate of Farrer has now doubled in size. It stretches from the edge of the Greater Hume Shire, east of Albury along the Murray to Wentworth and the South Australian border, up to Broken Hill and beyond to Tibooburra and Cameron’s Corner—nearly 200,000 square kilometres, influenced by three time zones, from the dog fence in the far north-west of New South Wales to Lake Hume, which is the largest water storage on the Murray River, at Albury, with six times the holding capacity of Sydney Harbour and 370 kilometres of shoreline. It is defined by the Murray River and the Darling River, by both irrigated and dryland agriculture and horticultures, by the important mining town of Broken Hill, by the regional city of Albury and by the smaller towns and villages in between.

People often express surprise at the size and shape of my electorate and what they perceive to be an impossible task in representing such a diverse community, across an area that is slightly more than three times the size of Tasmania and nearly nine-tenths the size of Victoria. I do not mind the size, the distances I travel or the fact that I seem to be constantly on the road or in the air. I have great affection for western New South Wales and a great passion for its people. I wish I could do more, see more and learn more, but there are not enough hours in the day. I appreciate that all federal electorates must contain the same number of voters, but country people are disadvantaged. It is one of the reasons why the PM’s new sitting timetable is flawed. A ‘Rudd day off’ in parliament on Fridays: government ministers shoot through, government backbenchers talk to empty benches and the opposition is not able to do its fundamental job of holding the government to account. For me, my time here is never wasted, but, if the Friday sitting day is going to be devoid of ministerial accountability and question time, I would prefer to spend it in my electorate.

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