Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

It is an honour once again to make an address-in-reply speech as the elected member for Chisholm. I am constantly amazed that I am still in this place. I stood for preselection in 1997 with the famous words to my husband, ‘It’s all right—I can’t win.’ Twelve years down the track I still marvel at the concept that what I thought was pie in the sky resulted in five election wins in a row.

Back in 1997 when I stood for preselection it was on the basis that nobody else wanted to and I was the last candidate standing. When I was advised that the then sitting member of the seat, Dr Michael Wooldridge, who was a minister in the Howard government and quite a well-respected and liked local member, had swapped seats I think my jaw hit the floor. I kept waiting for the phone call from the ALP head office to say, ‘You know how you were preselected unopposed? We have changed our minds.’ They have not, and I have been preselected unopposed ever since.

I want to thank very much at the outset the people of my electorate of Chisholm for the great faith they have shown in me over all these years—12 years as the federal member. It has been a delight, an honour and a joy, sometimes a disappointment, sometimes a frustration and often a struggle, but on the whole it has been an exercise that gives great joy to me as an individual, also knowing that we are giving back so much as well.

When you talk to people who volunteer—I am not sure that we could ever consider ourselves volunteers—they never say that it is about the thanks; it is always about the joy of giving and being involved. I think that is the way it is for members of parliament. When everybody asks, ‘Why did you enter parliament?’ you stand there and look at them and in some respects you think, ‘Yes, why did I do this to myself?’ But the reason mostly is—everybody, through the history of ages, has quoted this—‘to make the world a better place’. If we can leave this place saying that in our own little patch we have done something that will leave it a better place then that is a good thing.

One of the joys of having been here for so long was finally getting into government and being able to do some good things in my electorate. One of the absolute frustrations of being in opposition for nine years was going to many events but never actually being able to say, ‘We’re delivering. We’re doing. We’re here; we’re offering.’ One of the bizarre things about being in an inner metropolitan seat is that there is not often a lot of announcements, a lot of cutting of ribbons or other things that go on. For the nine years in opposition there was program money but there were no announcements: ‘We’re going to do this,’ or ‘We’re going to do that.’ It was incredibly frustrating and demoralising, especially when there were fantastic things that needed to be done within my seat. So one of the absolute joys and pleasures over the last three years has been going out and saying: ‘Hey, I’ve got something to deliver for you. I’m the one who is going to cut the ribbon and open something that the government has funded.’ Not that that is what the job is all about, but it is a reward for the many community groups and wonderful institutions in my electorate who have been tirelessly working towards the betterment of their facilities. So the last three years have been a culmination—seeing things happen and making promises for the future.

My seat of Chisholm, as I have said, is wall to wall suburbia—houses. It is where people live. Most people live in suburbs but we never talk about them, which I find quite bizarre. We talk about regions and the inner city but most people in Australia live in the ‘burbs’. They live in the suburbs. That is the kind of area that I represent. I am proud to do that. My constituency is an amazing group of individuals. It is a highly diverse mix of ethnicities, religions and ages. Although I have an ageing electorate there are also new people moving into the electorate. This year a lot of the primary schools are staggering enrolments in their prep years; they are not quite sure how they are going to accommodate them all. That is a bit of a shock for an area that has had an ageing population.

My electorate is also a highly expensive area to move into. Buying a house and bringing up a family in my neck of the woods is quite a challenge. That is why we have not seen a lot of baby growth in the area, but in the last couple of years this has changed. So the constituents are an interesting mix, including of a lot older ethnic groups—a large population of Greeks and Italians. There are many groups that are very committed to maintaining their cultural identity, and I am really proud to be part of that in my electorate. The maintenance of language, culture and distinction is something we should encourage, and I enjoy participating with all of those groups. Now we have the emerging Chinese and Indian groups who are moving into the electorate and making their mark within the business sector, where they are bringing prosperity.

Nobody gets into parliament alone, and I am going to thank people now so that I do not get to the end and forget them all. As always, there was a huge group of people who came out. Because this time around people were saying that my margin is now safe—I always find that quite entertaining—I did not see many people from state or head office. I will be honest: I did not see too many ministers. So it was really very much a local grassroots campaign, and I want to thank those people who spent tireless hours in the cold. It was so cold during this election—let’s never have a winter one again—but those people were there at train stations and they were there letterboxing and doorknocking in the misery. They were there manning the pre-poll for three weeks as the sleet and the rain came over them.

I want to thank, in no particular order, Joy Banerji; Megan Berry; Kathleen Brasher; Peter Chandler; the magnificent Howard and Marie Hodgens, who have been there with me since day one; Anne Hyde; Dan Juleff, who appeared from nowhere this campaign and was just fantastic; and Allan Clausen, who has also been there for a very long time. I am eternally grateful to Wendy Dickenson, who managed to turn up in between her husband’s 101 medical appoints, and the magnificent George and Joan Edwards, who I am sad to say I will lose in this current redistribution. I am eternally grateful for their endless support. I would also like to thank Pat Gault and the magnificent Cyril and Jan Kennedy. Cyril must have been at the Oakleigh pre-poll every day. There was also Adele Mach and I want to thank Brenton Ward, who managed to turn up in between his nursing shifts. His wife is probably never going to speak to me again. I would also like to thank Andrew Kaighan, Raff Ciccone, Tony and Barbara Dwyer, Lorie and Dave Werner and Kerry Perrett. Lorie managed to come to my office even though she had just had a knee reconstructed, so thank you very much. I know I have left people out. I also want to thank very much Mary and Will Chiron, who I know are drafted constantly by their mother. I owe you big-time for the Saturdays you spent on pre-poll. To people like Conrad, who just appeared out of the blue, thank you very much for all the amazing work you did.

I thank all my state colleagues for their support and assistance throughout the campaign. At the moment, they are in their own battles to maintain their seats—and, in my neck of the woods, we have some very marginal seats. In particular, I thank Bob Stensholt, who was always there for me. He is an amazing campaigner and I thank him very much. I thank Ann Barker—‘Annie Oakley’—who is one of those stalwarts who have been there for a long time. I thank Maxine Morand, who is a terrific local member—and I hope people recognise that in two weeks time—and Hong Lim. The local members have done so much and we really act as a team, which is just terrific. Some people do not have the same sort of relationship with their local members. I am very lucky in the work that we all do together.

I would also like to thank my staff. I thank Joe for running a phenomenal campaign. He came in young and enthusiastic with all of these ideas—and of course we kept saying, ‘We’ve done it five times and this is how we do it.’ He persevered and ran a terrific campaign, and I am incredibly grateful. I thank Jason for answering 101 endearing queries from constituents. He has an electric-light mind. We have one of the most highly educated electorates in the country, so we get some really good theories. I thank Jason for his ability to do that. I thank Janet for doing everything and managing it in the midst of everything else. I am eternally grateful. I thank Rick for his assistance. He knows everything, but occasionally we let him know that he does not. To Sophie, Liana and David, I say a big thankyou for being on my staff but also for doing the extra yards and literally not having a weekend for many weeks. I had surgery just prior to the election and was not able to drive, so I am eternally grateful to everybody who picked me up and took me places as well—and I probably was not on my game, so I want to thank them all for picking up the pieces during that time. I particularly want to thank the lovely Lindy, who, unfortunately, I lost because of the changes in my circumstances. Her dedication throughout the campaign and in the harrowing 10 weeks of uncertainty afterwards is testimony to her amazing dedication not only to the ALP but also to me. I am eternally grateful for that.

It has been an amazing experience being the federal member for Chisholm. My electorate is home to three phenomenal educational institutions and they are the core of my electorate: Monash University, which is just about the largest university in the Southern Hemisphere and certainly the largest university in Australia; Box Hill TAFE—I always include TAFE in higher education and I am very pleased to see that the federal government has recognised TAFE as part of the higher education sector and not just as a poor second cousin; and also the city campus of Deakin University at Burwood. One thing we did last year and during the election campaign was to announce some terrific funding for these institutions. Last week I had the pleasure of opening the $2.8 million green hub skills centre at Box Hill TAFE, to which the federal government committed $2.7 million. This is a new facility to teach state-of-the-art technology to actually deal with what businesses want today. It has a new solar energy rooftop generation system and solar training facility—you can actually walk on the roof and work on this thing—a new rain harvesting system and a green plumbing training facility. Box Hill TAFE will be able to deliver in real time new skills and advantages that industry is crying out for. This facility also recognises the changing environment—people are saying with their feet and with their dollars that they recognise climate change is happening and they want to adapt their own homes to make them sustainable within their own environment. This is a terrific thing.

We have also announced another amazing facility at Box Hill TAFE—$15 million towards a new integrated technology hub, which will boost green skills and create an additional 3,103 student places. The hub will provide Box Hill TAFE with a facility to train graduates in a simulated workplace environment in the building, electronic and mechanical industries. As I said last week, Box Hill TAFE is taking over the suburb of Box Hill. It is an amazing institution that is recognised worldwide. It provides skills for now and into the future. This $15 million project will add enormously to the work that is being done there.

I had the pleasure of going to Monash University with the Prime Minister to open the $29 million Centre for Green Chemistry, which supports 700 jobs. Again, all of this money is going towards the creation of green skills and new jobs into the future. Green chemistry is an amazing initiative, and we should be talking more about it. The centre is up and running. It works in conjunction with business in the area and CSIRO to create technologies for now and the future. The $89.9 million towards the New Horizons Centre at the Monash medical STRIP again focuses on technologies, innovations and industries for the future. I am very much looking forward to the completion of that amazing facility.

Further funding of $16 million will go towards the redevelopment of the entire site at Gippsland TAFE. I have often spoken about Gippsland TAFE in this place. This TAFE teaches people how to be linesmen—going up poles and doing things like that—and, as my father said, it has not changed since he did his training there as a sparky centuries ago. So the whole development of this centre will be a great enhancement and will ensure that people are being trained in the here and now.

We have also undertaken some terrific local initiatives that will assist the community. On Saturday, I will be opening the new Wembley Park sports precinct, to which the federal government committed $2.3 million. This is a terrific project. Wembley Park hosts soccer. It is an absolute boom game in my neck of the woods, and having lots of Greeks and Italians probably contributes to that. Certainly Wembley Park had been getting fairly tired. The City of Whitehorse has been facilitating this project. We have seen the construction of a new soccer pavilion and new male and female toilets—which is terrific because females are really getting into soccer. Funding will allow for the provision of a new roof, installation signs and new fencing, along with the refurbishment of existing grandstands and change rooms. You can see already that this has had a great impact on the local community.

At the other end of my electorate in the city of Monash we have seen work nearing completion on the youth and community hub at Batesford Reserve. This project has been in the pipeline for years. It has been a terrific model and idea by council to consolidate a lot of the groups in the area who need space. We had the land but we did not have the money for building. So, when the federal government came along with $4 million towards this project, Monash council jumped at it and now we are going to see an amazing facility in an underprivileged area of my community. The services will include youth counselling and support, community health services and Monash Link. The community health facility will also be incorporated into neighbourhood programs of education and training, adult education, U3A and the tenants association. Everybody is coming into this hub. It is one spot where everyone can be together. The integration of services is a terrific model. I was there when the first stone was laid. I have not seen it since, but my state colleague the member Burwood assures me that it is a magnificent building, and I am very much looking forward to opening it.

In my electorate of Chisholm I have two very large public hospitals and quite a number of private hospitals. The Monash Medical Centre, which would be one of the largest hospitals going, has been the recipient of $3.1 million for a very innovative idea—the 23-hour care unit. It is being funded through the government’s Elective Surgery Waiting List Reduction Plan. The idea is that this 23-hour unit will be for small elective surgery, where you will be able to go in and out in one day. You are not allowed to be in the ward for longer than 23 hours. It will be for specific surgery that sometimes gets bumped off the list because it is not as important as other things. This innovative project will mean that many people who need vital surgery—some conditions can be life threatening and cause a lot of pain—will receive it. It has been an amazing thing and it is now up and running. I want to commend everyone at the Monash Medical Centre for the great work they have done. In the process, they also had to relocate their endoscopy suite, which I had the pleasure of opening earlier this year. The relocation of the endoscopy suite has ensured that the hospital can provide greater placement of services to the literally thousands of people who go through the Monash Medical Centre every day.

I have sat in the emergency waiting centre at Monash hospital on more than one occasion in the past with my father, so I can tell you that it is a hospital that is utilised.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Before the division I was talking about the wonderful things that we have been doing in my electorate. There are some things that still need to be addressed and done. I want to commend and thank the state government for its commitment to the rebuild of Box Hill Hospital, but I think there is more that could be done and I will be continuing to fight for federal funding towards that hospital. It is a very large hospital that services not only my constituency but large constituencies all across Victoria, going down to Gippsland, and the hospital even services parts of Tasmania. So I am committed to ensuring that Box Hill Hospital gets the full rebuild it needs.

I also want to recognise the great work that is being done on funding additional medical places in hospitals and also in the private sector. Epworth Eastern is doing great work to ensure that our trainee doctors and allied health people and nurses have placements. One of the issues we have nowadays is to ensure that there are enough places whereby people can get appropriate training and qualifications. I am thankful that we have funded additional money for that area.

I come to one of the other projects that are ongoing. It is of great concern to the community, and I continue to call upon the state and federal governments to look at ways of resolving it. It is the issue of the train line at Clayton Road and an urgent underpass. Some integrated unit is needed for that terrible situation. The train line is so close to the Monash Medical Centre hospital. We are going to see some tragedy occur in a very short time frame. In the morning the boom gates can be down for 50 minutes of an hour because of the volume of trains going through the area. This situation cannot continue and I call upon everybody to recognise this.

And in the last minute available to me, I want to also thank the people who really make it possible—that is, our families. Without their support and undivided care and attention we could not be here. Certainly in my situation, having come to this place and then having my children, without the love, care and support and the unending work that Steve, my husband, does behind the scenes, it just would not be possible. People ask me, ‘How do you do it?’ I say: ‘Don’t ask me. I leave my husband at home as a single parent for 20 weeks of the year!’ And he has done it for the entire lives of our children. To Maddy and John, thank you for your ongoing support and understanding. John wants me to become a regular mother one of these days, and probably I will, maybe some time in the near or distant future. I keep assuring him that he gets the best of both worlds, because occasionally I can take a lot of time off, so he should recognise this. I also want to thank my mother, but she should not have gone to Perth during the election, that was just uncalled for, and all my wonderful brothers and sisters.

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