Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

In speaking to the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2016-2017 and related bills, I am reminded that one of the key issues we should all bear in mind as we discuss government priorities is the quality of life of our local residents and what we can do, as local members, to improve that quality of life. Of course, we cannot add more hours to the day, but we can take substantial steps, as members of parliament, to improve the quality of life and the logistics of life for our local residents.

I want to mention three issues on which I believe far more needs to be done at a federal level to improve the quality of life for my residents in Greenway. The first is aged care. We know that this government has made substantial cuts in the area of aged care, but it is important to recognise the way in which these cuts not only have a very real impact on people on the ground but also really do not bode well for the developments that are happening as we are living longer.

I had the opportunity this morning to discuss with Wendy Harmer on 702 ABC some particular issues to do with my electorate and the growing diversity in my area, where we have a very large population from the subcontinent. In fact, in the Blacktown local government area, which is one of the largest in Australia, the most common surname is not Smith or Jones: it is the Sikh or Punjabi name, Singh. What we have at the moment is a real crisis in managing the future, as many of these people are getting older and they will have the need for culturally-sensitive aged care.

Aged care comes in a number of different forms. You can have activities-based care, which is primarily focussed on getting older people out and about and connected to one another to network and to socialise. There is permanent accommodation. Sometimes that means higher-needs medical care than others. And there is respite care for families who are happy to have elderly parents live in their homes but who need a break every now and then.

One thing that I found very interesting in the last election, through speaking to people, doorknocking, phone calls and mobile offices—one of the clearest issues that came out—was not necessarily what was making the front page of the paper or the lead story of that day. The number of people who are not only caring for children but are finding themselves in a situation where they are also caring for elderly parents or elderly relatives, I think, really is something that is under the radar. The need to support these types of families, many of whom I see being completely exhausted and not knowing where to turn, is a significant challenge. So I particularly want to highlight the issue not only of addressing the large numbers of people who will require different amounts of care but specifically how we are going to assist people who come from different cultural backgrounds as they get older.

Azal Khan has a very interesting article in today's Blacktown Advocate where she talks about how aged care really needs a stronger cultural focus. In it she mentions an excellent local organisation I have had a lot to do with, the Sri Om Foundation, that provides centre based respite care. It started off initially with about five clients. Now it takes clients from just about every nationality on the subcontinent. I think the important thing to note is this: no two families are the same; everyone has different needs. If we are going to have a sustainable, cohesive policy in this area, it really needs to be one which is based on feedback from local communities about what people need, what kinds of services they require to access and it needs to be responsive to that. I am very pleased to see my colleague the member for Franklin, who has instigated an inquiry into making sure that our future aged care workforce is equipped with skills for different cultural needs, different linguistic needs.

One of the first things to go, I understand, if you have early onset dementia is your second language so that would include people who have lived in this country for a very long time and who would have become fluent in English. I have even heard of instances where these people have ended up reverting to their village dialects so there is virtually no-one who can understand them. Considering the number of people for whom it is projected will have dementia or related diseases in the next decade or so, this is a challenge that we simply cannot ignore. I am very grateful not only to my local media but also to our public broadcaster for bringing that to the attention of people. We actually had a number of talkback calls come in and every single one of them agreed with these principles and these views that I am articulating here.

The second issue I want to mention—and I know the member for Longman, being in the outer suburbs of Brisbane, would understand very well—is we talk a lot about investing in public transport but public transport has to be accessible. One of the biggest issues with accessibility for public transport in many parts of Western Sydney is the availability of commuter parking. Because if you cannot actually access public transport then it is virtually worthless or, if it is not worthless, it does have an impact on quality of life as I discussed earlier.

For many years I have been listening to local residents who live around Schofield Station in my electorate. We have a new suburb called The Ponds and we have a lot of new development going on around Schofield and Riverstone. The main station that most of these people use on the western line is Schofield Station. Unfortunately, whilst it is a relatively new-looking station, it does not have adequate car parking. We have a situation where, if you get to Schofield Station shortly after six am, you are virtually guaranteed of not getting a parking spot. So people are forced to park along Railway Parade, nearly all the way up to the Burdekin Road—local residents will know exactly what I am talking about. They are forced to park up unlit streets that are not surfaced virtually in semirural parts around the station, which is completely unacceptable when you consider the amount of traffic going through there and when you consider the amount of time it takes to walk from where they park to the station. So it is a significant safety issue for these people as well not only in terms of traffic but in terms of their own physical safety.

When I started a petition to get more commuter parking in this area, I can honestly say that it was the fastest returned and most endorsed petition that I have conducted as the member for Greenway. I brought this to the attention of our shadow minister, the member for Grayndler, and we examined the opportunities, noting that federal Labor had in the past, for example, funded commuter parking at stations such as Penrith. I was delighted when, during the campaign, Mr Albanese was able to come out to Schofields Station and examine the situation for himself firsthand so he could see exactly what I was talking about. He committed that a Shorten Labor government would provide $5 million towards kickstarting a substantial increase in commuter parking at this station.

I was, however, quite astounded to see that my Liberal opponent did not think that this was much of an issue at all. She said, as reported in the Rouse Hill Times, on 18 May 2016:

The residents that I have been speaking with have been far more interested in the Turnbull Liberal team's plan to support the growth of local small businesses, so that they have more opportunity to work locally and avoid the need to commute.

Well, I would love to have everyone avoid the need to commute, but when you have hundreds of people needing to get outside their area every day and needing to get to their jobs, most often in Parramatta or in the CBD area, simply ignoring the issue will not make the problem go away. When she said that she had been speaking to these people, I do not know who she had been speaking to. She certainly was not speaking to anyone who was actually using Schofields Station. I note that some time later—in July—the state member, when announcing a substantially smaller grant of $2.75 million from the New South Wales government, recognised the need for additional parking at Schofields Station. It is quite astounding that on the one hand we have elements of the Liberal Party saying that there is nothing to see here and that there is no problem but on the other hand we have a significantly smaller amount of money being allocated by the New South Wales state government.

I welcome any money that is going towards this issue, but clearly what is lacking here, in addressing issues of quality of life, is a coherent plan. Again, I point out that we were the only party going into the last election with a coherent plan in this area. I am looking at the policy statement of 19 June from the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow minister, Mr Albanese. The plan was to:

…invest $120 million in a Park and Ride Access Fund to boost car parking capacities at high use train stations, and make funding available for new stations where demand growth is expected.

I will contend that there are few areas where you will get bigger demand growth than in the north-west of Sydney and, particularly, around Schofields Station and those emerging areas such as The Ponds.

I want to mention a significant issue that goes to not only quality of life for residents in my area but also the quality of life of people trying to operate their small businesses—that is, the appalling state of broadband access in many parts of my electorate. I commend the Blacktown Advocate for its edition of 14 September. It did a case study of a family in Blacktown, the Terzic family, who enjoy the benefits of being connected to Labor's fibre-to-the-premises network. Blacktown was one of the sites of the first Sydney metro rollout. They have been connected to the network since August 2014. They said:

It gives us all more time to be able to get all our jobs done and to enjoy our interests and hobbies online.

That is from having high-speed broadband delivered by the highest quality infrastructure.

If you go down the road a few minutes and arrive at Sarah El-Akkad's house in Acacia Gardens, her internet is so slow that she is forced to use her mobile phone most of the time. As we know, using mobile data is an incredibly expensive process. Sarah is quoted:

"It's hard for me because uni courses now depend so much on the internet. You need to be able to constantly check emails because they might need to let you know if the time has changed for an exam."

She is one of many Acacia Gardens residents frustrated by national broadband network delays.

All that would be fine if they actually had some relief in sight, but, as I have mentioned in this chamber on a number of occasions, Acacia Gardens is in this broadband black hole. For some reason, there are parts of Acacia Gardens that are too far away from the exchange to be serviced. They have not been prioritised under this government's NBN and they do not even show up on the rollout map. There is a three-year construction schedule for the NBN that has Acacia Gardens and some neighbouring areas, including Kings Park and Parklea, at least two years away from having the NBN turned on. And what NBN is it? It is a second-rate, copper based network, with fibre-to-the-node delivery, thanks to this Prime Minister. By the time they actually get this, in two years, not only will they have an inferior product; it will be obsolete. So there is absolutely no relief in sight for the residents in these suburbs.

If you want to talk about small businesses like my opponent wanted to at the last election, you have got to give them the tools they need. The number of small businesses I have in my area who are so frustrated, who have had to decide: 'I don't know if it's worth going on in this current venture anymore'—it is appalling to think that people have to make these sorts of decisions because they do not have access to basic infrastructure. Contrast that with Labor's fibre-to-the-premises model. I have used on many occasions the example of the Good Egg Studio in Riverstone, part of the site of the first Sydney metro rollout, where business is booming because they have Labor's real NBN. These are all issues of quality of life that this government is failing to address and needs to address.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:17

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