Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak to the address-in-reply at the start of the 43rd Parliament in the year 2010. As we come towards the end of the sitting year I would like to take this opportunity to provide a snapshot of my electorate and into the heart of rural Australia. The electorate of Farrer has grown since I became the member in 2001 and it now occupies some 250,000 square kilometres, an area roughly the size of New Zealand. Your electorate, Madam Deputy Speaker Livermore, may be larger but not many are. You are shaking your head, so not many are. As rural members of parliament we share, I know, a love of rural Australia and an understanding of some of the important differences about what makes our constituents tick and what drives our communities compared to the communities in the city and on the coast. Both types of Australia are equally important to the success of this nation.

In Farrer, events that have taken place in my electorate over the last two weeks have revealed the state of the nation as it applies to the people that I represent. Like many areas, the prospect of a royal wedding was greeted with great enthusiasm even from those of us who acknowledge that one day, inevitably, we will be a republic. It was a great good-news story and I was delighted to hear the Prime Minister open yesterday’s question time with congratulations to Kate and William.

Rather paradoxically, this parliament has been urged to get in touch with its feelings towards same-sex marriage. I note simply on that subject that there was no legislation on the table before the parliament affecting the current status of the Marriage Act, but rather a proposal that we as local members get in touch with our constituents on this subject. It is a somewhat penetrating glimpse of the obvious to ask local members to refer to their constituents for their views. My constituents are continually in touch with me as I travel the electorate and if I do not run into them then they certainly email me. If they have got something to say, they say it. We will, of course, as a parliament discuss issues around the recognition of same-sex couples, as we have many other critical social matters over the last few years.

According to Roy Morgan Research, in my electorate of Farrer 29 per cent of Australians say that homosexuality is immoral. I vigorously disagree with that assessment in terms of rights and the recognition same-sex couples should have. I am always suspicious of statistics, but perhaps the research indicates that we need to work harder to convince some who are not as comfortable with the idea of same-sex relationships. We in the Liberal and National parties—I certainly speak for the Liberal Party—are committed to equal rights under the law for same-sex couples.

For my children, it is almost a no-brainer. When you compare my class of 1979 and my daughter’s class of 2010, you see that attitudes towards homosexuality, towards gays and lesbians, have changed dramatically. I take pride in our society recognising that change, but there are still young men and women in our small country towns who are, quite honestly, tortured, distressed and very worried about societal attitudes to their sexuality—something that they feel they do not personally have control over. So there is more work to be done in our rural areas. Our communities need to embrace the differences between every child and, as they grow through adolescence, every type of relationship.

The drought that has defined so much of inland New South Wales has finally broken. For the first time in seven or eight years, no part of New South Wales is in drought. I am absolutely delighted that the dust, crop losses and low water allocations are coming to an end for most of my constituents. But this is, of course, a country of droughts and flooding rains, and we have seen some pretty horrendous flooding rains in the towns near Albury, in the central and mid Murray and up into the Riverina—represented by my colleague the member for Riverina—in the last few weeks. I must convey my distress on behalf of those who have been affected, particularly those who were growing the crop to break the drought, to break the long run of bad luck, and have had it absolutely washed away. We will not know until harvest time, in another month, exactly how bad the damage is, but I was disheartened to hear from somebody who drove between Lockhart and Boree Creek—two of the badly affected areas—that all they could smell along the trip was rotting crops. I do not know how much more some of the farmers can take. We are resilient, persistent and tough, but this has been an enormous shock.

If banks and lending authorities can do more to assist, including stepping back and letting people ride out just one more year, I would certainly appreciate it. I do thank the state agencies who have come forward and done so much. I am not happy that we still do not have an exceptional circumstances declaration for floods worked up, but there is more work to be done. I would like to see that come to fruition, for some real help for flood affected farmers.

As the local member in my part of the world, I can never get away from the issue of water. As I have said many times, the electorate of Farrer is defined by water. It contains most of the New South Wales Murray River—except for the far reaches of the upper Murray—plus the lower Darling River and the Menindee Lakes. Therefore, it contains a substantial part of the southern Murray-Darling Basin. Let there be no mistake—wherever I have been travelling in the last few weeks, the primary concern, the primary worry and the primary suspicion concerns this government’s mishandling of the Murray Darling Basin Authority’s Basin Plan to claw back water from the region’s food bowl and agricultural sector for what can only be described as excessive environmental gain. I am sick of those of us who stand up for irrigated agriculture being characterised as environmental vandals. There is no doubt that we can have a balance, that we can look after the interests of productive farming and the interests of the environment side by side and have healthy rivers, healthy wetlands and a strong, productive environment that supports a strong, productive agricultural sector. It is not necessary to close farms to open wetlands.

We have now had two parliamentary inquiries, and the Murray Darling Basin Authority has been forced to undertake an additional socioeconomic study, because of genuine concern from the coalition and the basin communities about consultation and how this process is being run. As I did the other day, I remind the government that this is a message they could have received directly if they had attended any of the sessions across the basin. If they had attended, they might have heard the voice of at least one of my constituents. For example, Joe Cottam from Berrigan has penned his thoughts. In part, he writes:

In thirty seven years in Berrigan I have seen this area boom with rice and grain production, cattle, sheep and dairy industries. Then an enormous decline due to drought, water cutback, local red gum forest industry (now a National Park) caused shut down of sawmills and further loss of employment in the area!

All our businesses have been hanging on waiting for the drought to break. If a proposed 37% water cut happens the drought will continue and many businesses will just close.

The Murray Darling Basin inquiry has to get a balance of Social, Financial and Environmental outcomes!

Rand Wilson, of the local Finley Chamber of Commerce, says:

I have lived in the Basin for almost fifty years, I have worked in the Basin. I have farmed in the Basin and have operated a retail business in the Basin and I have taken a particular interest in the history and development of the area in which I live.

With the benefit of this fifty years affinity with the area I call home I can assure you that if adopted, the plan, as set out in the Guide for the proposed Basin Plan, has the potential of returning the economy of this area to that of the 1930’s.

Yet another submission to the MDBA’s current but seemingly short-circuited Basin Plan consultation from Kerry Hawker, from the Murray Valley, states:

I am one of the tens of thousands of people who have been overlooked by the Plan. Hardworking families who have invested their life savings in the rural towns across the Basin.

I fear that one day my children and grand children will not be able to buy food grown and produced in Australia —it will be imported.

We’ve forgotten what it is like to lend a mate a helping hand.

This is what makes us Australian —not kicking rural people in the guts after a severe drought.

Madam Deputy Speaker Livermore, like you I am a member, for the purposes of the inquiry, of the parliament’s Regional Australia and Regional Development Committee, chaired by the member for New England. We know the committee has work to do. I am delighted that in December and January I and other members of the committee will be travelling through the Murray-Darling Basin. We will not complete all of our visits in that time because our consultation will be real and genuine, but we will be starting to look at some of the areas directly affected and we will start to make our assessment as a committee independent of the Murray Darling Basin Authority.

As members of parliament, we will make our assessment of the real, human cost of the proposed cuts to water allocations. It is absolutely vital that we work together across this parliament, that we acknowledge those who want to see a healthy river system and the continuation of irrigated agriculture and that we find way. I know that there is a way. The previous, coalition, government allocated $5.9 billion to a fund set aside as part of our $10 billion water plan to replumb rural Australia. This funding was to be used to help farmers become more productive with less water. We all know that we face a future with less water. This $5.9 billion fund was to replumb rural Australia.

Imagine my disgust when earlier this week in the Senate, in answer to a question on notice, it was revealed that a mere $450 million of this over $5 billion fund had actually been spent for the purpose for which it was allocated, and at no stage did the government say they were taking this money off the table because they had other uses for it. No, the money is presumably still sitting there with that tag attached to it, but I am not confident that this government are going to use it for the purpose that was originally intended. I would encourage the government, in the steps they take in concert with the Basin Plan—because it is the water minister that has the final decision—to recognise that you cannot make the adjustments without giving sufficient assistance to communities. I do not mean compensation or structural adjustment. Those allocations are great for the short term and for those who receive them, but they do not help communities remain sustainable in the long term.

We have to remember that we are looking at a unique environment but it is not an environment in its original state. The Murray and Murrumbidgee have been permanently altered by the Snowy Mountains Scheme, which I think was completed in 1974. There were 16 dams built in the Snowy Mountains along with 225 kilometres of tunnels and aqueducts; power stations; pumping stations; and 23 locks, weirs and barrages on the Murray River. It is a permanently altered, regulated river. So our aim should not be to restore it to something that it might once have been before humans came but to maintain it as a healthy working river. As I said, I think that we can find a way, and I look forward to that.

I will move back to more local issues in Farrer. Two weeks ago it was my pleasure to attend the opening of a new home for the Flying Fruit Fly Circus at Albury, built with the support of Commonwealth and local government funding. I acknowledge the attendance on the day of the Minister for the Arts and Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government Simon Crean. I think that he was spending a week in rural Australia and I hope that he heard the messages about the needs of regions, which extend far beyond water and the arts, important though those things are. Those needs extend to hospitals, health and education.

I have long been a supporter of the Flying Fruit Fly Circus. It is Australia’s only full-time circus-training institute for children. For 30 years the ‘Fruities’ have played an important role in the development of contemporary circus in Australia. Today the Flying Fruit Fly Circus graduates are working, teaching and performing in many new and emerging professional companies here and abroad. Other graduates are just as happily working in mainstream business due to the opportunities that being connected to the circus has created for them.

The Flying Fruit Fly Circus is a school, and in the last two weeks it has also been my pleasure to visit no fewer than five schools in the electorate, on a tour I did of the mid-Murray. It is always terrific to spend time in primary schools and see the new infrastructure. I did share some of the parents’ disappointment that the Building the Education Revolution, for the money, did not create the additions to the schools that they would have liked. All the same, I recognise the great spirit and the great enthusiasm that is with our teachers and our parents in our communities. The schools are often very small and there is a huge fundraising task for a dedicated band of parents. Boy, do they rise to the task, each and every time! I saw the Stephanie Alexander supported kitchen garden at the Barooga Primary School. There was an allocation of money to that school but what the parents raised as well is phenomenal. The school will have a really well-developed garden, a great kitchen and it will teach children vital skills for the future.

Another key issue in Broken Hill in my electorate concerns the government’s proposal to land a GP superclinic in the city. I, along with the parliamentary secretary for primary health care, met with local medical community groups to engage in a real dialogue with the sector. We canvassed the views of 30 representatives from one of 11 communities where the government has chosen not to engage in community consultation. I put on the record today, for the benefit of the health minister, that what Broken Hill tells us it wants is a community-government coordinated approach so that its medical fraternity can maintain continuity of care, build on an existing system, improve facilities and attract quality staff to the bush. There is real concern in Broken Hill that a GP superclinic will threaten this and existing private practice expansion plans. I hope that the Minister for Health and Ageing will engage in a constructive dialogue with me as the local member and with the medical community so that we use what we have, we build on what we have and we recognise the contributions that local GPs have made, putting their own money and their own investments at risk in their private practices. I hope that we build on all that for the future.

Like every member in this House, I could not do my job without the support of my staff in my Canberra office, in my Broken Hill office and in my Albury office. Everything they do they do in the name of the local member and in the spirit of public service. I thank them for that because the hours which electorate staff work are often long, sometimes unexciting and sometimes unrewarding, although I like to think that the rewards do come. We all share in those rewards when we have a breakthrough, a win, when we solve what may seem, in the big picture, a small problem in a moment of time, in an ordinary life, but it makes such a difference to those who get the benefit of our help. As an electorate office, we are a place of last resort. We relish the challenge and love to help where we can.

After nearly 10 years in this place, can I say what a privilege it is to be the local member for Farrer in an electorate which has grown more than twice in size since I was first elected. I mentioned earlier that my youngest daughter is completing year 12—she finished her last exam yesterday. So now my three fabulous children, aged 22, 20 and 18, are moving out into the world. When you come to this place with children aged 8, 10 and 12 you certainly look forward to this day. I am not just saying that it gets any easier, but the role of being a parent to adult children allows us more time and freedom, when we can do our jobs in Parliament House without the constant concern about what is happening back home. I think that Main Committee for its indulgence today.

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