Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This last week I actually preceded the member for Parkes on almost every speech. It is a pleasure to now follow him. He made some important remarks in his contribution in relation to his community, which has the difficult challenges that many Indigenous communities face around Australia. It is a little unfortunate that it took him 12 minutes to get to what will be his main purpose of this term in parliament. He spent the first 12 minutes as a climate sceptic, arguing something that no reputable scientist anywhere in Australia would argue. But I am glad that he eventually did get to what is a very important issue not just in his electorate but in electorates around Australia.

The Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2010-2011 and cognate bill contain a number of key and important appropriations. One of them is the $10.1 million to introduce the fair entitlements guarantee. It is important to spend a little bit of time on this issue, because Australians will remember what the Howard government tried to do in relation to workers entitlements through the Work Choices legislation. This is not some dry, academic argument. This government has repealed the legislation and put in place fair work procedures and legislation so that workers throughout this country will not be exploited. Part of that is about ensuring that there is sufficient money for those people who are, unfortunately, made redundant. It is also important, because those opposite are continually going back to Work Choices. I am sure those people out in the electorate will not believe that, because the defining issue of the 2007 election was killing off Work Choices. We heard the Leader of the Opposition say that it is ‘dead, buried and cremated’ in the last election campaign, but that has not stopped those opposite from raising all those issues in Work Choices and from wanting to bring them back and revisit them on the Australian people.

It is incumbent on all of us here to remind the Australian electorate that, while the Leader of the Opposition may have said that Work Choices is dead, that is not the way he is behaving. You need only look at a recent article by the member for Mayo, who makes it abundantly clear that from his perspective the very things that Work Choices was designed to do need to be reintroduced. The member for Mayo is one of the brighter members of the opposition. It is unfortunate for him; he should be on the front bench. But he must have voted for the wrong person in the leadership struggles of those opposite, so he sits on the back bench. He usually makes some sense, but this article is very badly written. What he is saying is economically wrong. But what is important is to remind the Australian people of what the article is saying: we need to bring back the essential issues of Work Choices.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Before the suspension, I was talking about how important it is that we remind the Australian public that, while the Leader of the Opposition may say that Work Choices is dead, that is not reflected in the behaviour of those opposite. Under these appropriation bills, $10.1 million has been allocated for the introduction of the fair entitlements guarantee. It continues this government’s determination to make sure that workers are properly looked after and that they are not exploited, as was the case under the previous government.

One of the big areas of expenditure that this government committed to back in 2007, and continues to pay for in my electorate, is the rehabilitation of the beautiful Tuggerah Lakes. Tuggerah Lakes has been described as the jewel in the crown of the Central Coast; it is a beautiful lake system that sits in the heart of my electorate. Unfortunately, there are some issues that challenge the health of the lakes. One of those is climate change, which I will come back to, and another is the development that has occurred there over many years. This government took the decision that we needed to invest in ensuring that these lakes were properly looked after and committed $20 million over five years. That was matched by the local council, which also put in $20 million. So there is a $40 million program of spending over five years on Tuggerah Lakes to try to make sure that we can bring it back, perhaps not to its absolute pristine condition, because of the development there, but certainly improve it so that the marine life that was once so abundant can continue to thrive and so that the people who live in my electorate can swim, boat and enjoy all types of recreational activities on Tuggerah Lakes.

Work that has been done locally by the council has included, in some areas, replanting salt marsh to help filter the various run-offs that go into the lakes and reducing the weed that has grown in the lakes. I am incredibly proud that this government has put into action our commitment to make sure that we look after Australia’s beautiful environment, in particular the beautiful Tuggerah Lakes, which, as I said, have been described as the jewel in the crown of the Central Coast. That is an important bit of expenditure.

It is also important to put on record that the Wyong Shire Council has done a superb job in managing this money and doing this work. In fact, it has done such a good job that it underspent the money that was allocated. The original budget for the work was around $20 million and the council came in $2.2 million under budget. The federal government recognised that important environmental work was being done, so we said, ‘Let us look at what else we can do to improve those lakes.’ As a result, that $2.2 million has gone back to Wyong Shire Council to do further work on the beautiful Tuggerah Lakes.

Another area that this government is committed to locally in my electorate is rebuilding the surf clubs. The Central Coast is an area with 15 surf clubs—nine of those in the electorate of Robertson and six of them in the electorate of Dobell. There are two different approaches that the two local councils have taken. The Gosford City Council have looked after their surf clubs. They charged a levy and they rebuilt all of their surf clubs, whereas the Wyong Shire council chose not to do this. We had a situation where the surf clubs at Soldiers Beach and Shelly Beach were literally falling down. Surf lifesaving is so iconic in Australia and, in an area like mine where we get thousands and thousands of visitors every year, the surf lifesaving movement, of which I am a part, does so much to make sure that they are able to swim and enjoy the beautiful beaches that we have on our east coast in safety. That was under some threat in my area because these surf clubs were literally falling down and surf lifesavers—volunteers and full-timers—were unable to properly do their work because of a lack of infrastructure.

This government stepped up to the plate. Unlike the previous government that did nothing in relation to these surf clubs, we said, ‘We need to invest in them. These are community assets that can be better used.’ We are right at this moment part of the way through rebuilding the Soldiers Beach surf club, which is expected to be completed in October and ready for the new season, and the Shelly Beach surf club, which is expected to be finished at the start of November and again be ready for the new surf season. It is tremendous work that is being done, a great investment by this government in our local communities.

Our beaches have taken rather a hammering over the last few years and I want to spend a little bit of time on some of the quite kooky notions that the previous speaker, the member for Parkes, was putting about climate change. He might not understand it but, in my electorate where our beaches are being continually washed away and where we have pressure on our environment on the lake, we on the Central Coast understand that climate change is real. You know what? This is not something that we are just saying for political reasons. It is not something that is being made up because we just have a hunch that it might be happening. The scientific community says that we need to act in relation to climate change.

The member for Parkes seemed to claim that we had two choices in relation to this: to go back to the caves—I think that was his term—and to put a tax on civilisation or, his alternative, to do nothing. There is another alternative, the alternative that we are being urged to do by the scientific community, the alternative that this government is determined to make sure happens—and that is to put a price on carbon to make sure that we address the issues of climate change so that our children and our grandchildren are going to be in a world where they are not going to be subject to the extreme weather changes that come about through climate change and man-made pollution. This is a very important issue. This is something you cannot put off. Those on the other side seem to have one policy response only. It does not matter what the issue is, their policy response is, ‘Let’s do nothing because doing nothing is a lot easier for us and doing something is a difficult thing.’

It has always been Labor governments that have had to come up with reform and make the big changes and make sure they put in place infrastructure. We have always had to make the hard decisions. Those opposite, though, have exceeded themselves at the moment with this current Leader of the Opposition, who has only one response and that is no. It does not matter whether it is investing in the NBN, investing in our schools, saving jobs through the stimulus package or saving our environment, the only answer that he has is, ‘No, I am going to oppose it and I have no alternatives to that.’ The Australian people expect more. The people of Dobell expect more. They expect a government, like this government, to act in relation to climate change and to put in place infrastructure that is greatly needed.

This appropriations bill also commits $20 million to a study on the high-speed rail network. One of the busiest parts of any highway in Australia is the stretch between Sydney and Newcastle which goes right through my electorate. At the last election we committed $20 million for a study on a high-speed rail link, with the initial part of that to be between Sydney and Newcastle. This appropriation bill goes to that. It is anticipated that the study will be finished by July of this year. Again, this government is putting money into infrastructure, making important changes that are needed and demanded by the community.

You look at what we are trying to do with this important infrastructure and you look at what the opposition is proposing. As I said, it does not matter whether it is about saving our economy. We all remember the debate here in which those opposite opposed the stimulus package. Now we look at how Australia is viewed around the world as the economic miracle, the country that got through the global financial crisis without a recession, the country that got through the global financial crisis and kept unemployment at moderate levels. These are things that those opposite seem to have completely forgotten. They are one-trick ponies and their one trick is to oppose everything; they do not have anything constructive to say. My advice to those opposite is: if you do not want to do anything, get out of the way and let us get on with doing what the Australian people want us to do—and that is to invest in infrastructure. That is what this bill is about and I commend it to the House.

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