Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to finally be given the opportunity to contribute to this address-in-reply debate. And, although the federal election seems some time ago now, it's really important for me to state on the record how honoured I am to have been given the opportunity by my local constituents to represent them in this place for the seventh consecutive term. I represent a really wonderful community, and it really is a privilege for me to be their member. I want to thank them for their support over the years and, more importantly, their friendship. Friendship and support are very important, especially for those of us who are involved in this particular public office.

I'm probably going to leave all my thanks for later in the speech, but, continuing on the theme of support, friendship and community: in our communities—and I'm sure all members will agree—we come across some very good people, people who are dedicated to advocating for their community and helping it in whatever way they can. Such a person in my electorate of Calwell was Gary Lewis Jungwirth, who sadly passed away on 13 July this year. When we lose a person like that, our community is much poorer for it. He was a great man. He was gravely ill during the campaign and in the lead-up to it. Despite his very poor health, he made what I would describe as a heroic visit to the Craigieburn prepoll so that he could cast his vote one last time for me as his federal member and also for the Australian Labor Party.

Gary was born in 1951, and he dedicated his life to achieving human rights, social justice, lifelong learning and democracy. He did an incredible amount of work in Timor-Leste, assisting with community development there. He served, importantly, as a councillor on my local council, the Hume City Council, and he was mayor for two terms, firstly in 2000 and then later in 2006. In 2001, when I was elected to this place, Gary was the mayor. He introduced the first Hume City multiculturalism policy and then, immediately after that, the Hume Interfaith Network. He did so because he understood that there was a real need—for local government, in particular—to craft an adequate response to our culturally diverse community. He was very passionate about promoting and fostering social cohesion. In our community at that time, the post-September 11 period, there was a lot of upheaval and—I've spoken about this many times—a lot of stress on our local Muslim community. It was Gary's leadership, through the local council, that drove the multiculturalism policy and the interfaith network. By the way, the Hume Interfaith Network has stood the test of time, and, 17 or 18 years later, it has been a great example of how the various religious leaders, when they come together, can actually foster and develop social cohesion.

In 2007 Gary introduced the Social Justice Charter to the Hume City Council. We were the first council in Australia to have this charter. He was very proud of this, and so am I. This was a dream that Gary held. He was very committed to human rights being at the heart of civic life. Gary's legacy is cherished, and the impact of his work—as a councillor, in particular—continues and is evidenced today. We all strive—and I do too—to emulate him and to conduct our duties with the decency and compassion that Gary Jungwirth had. In order to honour Gary, I'd like to read something from him which is in the preamble of the Social Justice Charter:

Council recognises that every citizen of Hume City is entitled to aspire to a quality of life that allows them to freely realise their potential. This Charter goes 'beyond words' to promote a fair and just society through Council’s commitment to strive for social justice and to address the social, cultural, economic and other factors that impact on the aspirations of its citizens.

Gary Jungwirth was a fighter for human rights. He was a proud Labor man, he loved the Richmond Football Club and he's missed dearly in our electorate.

Sadly, earlier this month, on Saturday 9 November, our local community lost another champion and advocate. We were saddened and indeed shocked by the sudden death of the former senator here Mehmet Tillem, who was a constituent of mine and in many ways shared a common story with me. Mehmet was born in Tavas, Turkey, and he was two years old when he came to Australia with his parents in 1976. He was only 19 when he joined the Australian Labor Party, and he was the first Turkish-born member to come here into the Australian parliament, when he became a Victorian senator from 2013 to 2014.

Mehmet was a fierce advocate for his community, and in particular our local Turkish community, and the broader community mourns the loss of someone who chose political activism as the best way to help his community and to champion their causes. As I said, he was, like me and lots of others in our electorate, a child of migrant parents and, as such, we all share a common story.

John Eren, the state member in Victoria, who was also in the early stages of my political career a local constituent, paid tribute to Mehmet Tillem in the Victorian parliament. I want to quote from John's speech:

Mehmet left behind a legacy of dedication to those who need it most, and those values are what drew him to the Labor Party.

I do want to take this opportunity to extend once again my sympathies to Mehmet's wife Ferda; to his son, who he was very devoted to, Mikail; to his parents, Ramazan and Fatma; to his sister Derya and brother Zafer; and his extended family and friends and also to the broader community.

I've been through three redistributions since I was first elected to this place. They've been disruptive; however, they do reflect the enormous growth that has taken place in Melbourne's northern outer metro centres since I was elected in 2001. And, because of this growth, which continues by the way, we've had to redistribute our populations. As a result I have now lost the suburbs of Taylors Lakes, Calder Park, Keilor, Keilor Lodge, Keilor Downs, Keilor North and Sydenham. I want to bid those former constituents farewell and say to them that they are very much in the good care of the member for Fraser, Daniel Mulino.

I, of course, have reclaimed the outer metro suburbs of Kalkallo, Yuroke, Mickleham and parts of Oakland Junction and of course Craigieburn, which now includes those massive growth corridors of Mickleham, Mount Ridley, Kalkallo and Merrifields and I look forward to representing them and reconnecting with them. Certainly Craigieburn I shared with the member for McEwen—and my apologies to the member for McEwen for retaking Craigieburn from him. The growth in Craigieburn in the last 15 years has been absolutely phenomenal and, when you talk about the growth of Melbourne as a city and its outer metro region, you only have to look to the north and west of Melbourne to see just how phenomenal that growth is.

I recall during the election campaign the Treasurer and the member for Kooyong made an election promise, which really surprised and excited me, that a returned coalition government would upgrade the Craigieburn train station in a bid to curb congestion in Melbourne's growth area. I certainly look forward to that promise being implemented in the term of this government.

As I said, the northern region has grown rapidly and it continues to do so. Research shows, that by 2031, which really isn't that far away, over 300,000 people will move into Melbourne's north. Combining that with the current population that stands at a million, by 2013, 1.3 million people are set to live in Melbourne's north and that will make this region's population larger than Adelaide's. The challenges associated with such growth are enormous. Services and infrastructure for Melbourne's north for the existing and new populations should be this government's priority. When we talk about infrastructure, we have to talk about targeted infrastructure where it is most needed and required in order to ease congestion and make the lives of people who live in the outer suburbs—in the case of Melbourne—far more comfortable and make the rest of Melbourne accessible to them.

The other surprise was a letter that was sent by Minister Tudge at the time—another pre-election promise for a city deal for Melbourne's north and west; another commitment that we are very happy to hear about. Better services, facilities and infrastructure in Melbourne's north and west are long been overdue. I just want to say here today on record that I do hope that Minister Tudge is serious about the government's City Deals. Our people locally believe very strongly in this and, on their behalf, I say that the City Deals need to happen and need to happen soon. I certainly look forward to working alongside the minister to deliver on this.

One initiative conceptualised by NORTH Link that I heartily support and will, of course, lobby the minister for is, within the city deal, the establishment and growth of a food and beverages precinct in Melbourne's north. NORTH Link is a business network and regional economic development advocacy group representing Melbourne's northern suburbs. It does a wonderful job and is right onto this city deal. When we look at the 400 or so food businesses in Melbourne's north—many of which are located in my electorate of Calwell and in the seat of Scullin—we can see this is a strong growth industry. That has led to the creation of the Melbourne's North Food Group, a food-manufacturing corridor that has helped in many ways to replace all the jobs lost with the demise of the car-manufacturing industry and the car component industry, which was a large provider of jobs in my electorate and in the northern suburbs. The food-manufacturing sector has enormous potential for growth, with over 7,000 jobs expected over the next 10 years.

There is the concept of a megahub to be built on 51 acres of land earmarked adjacent to the Melbourne wholesale market. If anyone's been to the Melbourne wholesale market, they'll know that it is a very big and important piece of infrastructure in Melbourne's north. Adjacent to that market, the megahub will provide support and services to an industry that we should be investing in, especially since we've seen such a huge influx of migrants from the refugee and humanitarian program, in combination with highly skilled migrants. We need to create jobs that both the highly skilled migrants and the lower skilled migrants actually can get employment with so that they can establish themselves and take charge of their own destiny. We don't want to be growing our suburbs and settling people in areas where there are no jobs for them, because we all know where that will end, and it won't end very well. Most people will be committed to unemployment for long periods of time, as is already the case in my electorate with a large number of my refugee cohort. The need to create employment is often a challenge, and it has to be addressed, but in this case we have potential, through the growth of our food manufacturing, to provide genuine, real jobs to people so that they can settle with their families and become self-reliant.

I've said this many times before, but there is no denying the contribution made by the postwar migrants to this country, in this case to the food that we eat. That is nowhere more so than in my home state of Victoria, although it is no doubt also so in New South Wales and in Canberra—Canberra's culinary palate has grown as well. But it is nowhere more so than in Victoria. Think about the panini filled with prosciutto and bocconcini that are a common lunch option. I won't go through all the other options, because you might all start to feel that we should stop for lunch! We have a fine tradition of enjoying European foods, but this fine tradition is potentially a little bit under threat at the moment—another little surprise—due to the recent negotiations that have been taking place between Australia and the European Union as we work towards a European free trade agreement. There are things called 'geographic indications' which have emerged as a bit of a problem—they might actually be a big problem if we don't resolve the issue—for our local food-manufacturing industry. The peak dairy farmer groups, the United Dairyfarmers of Victoria and the Australian Dairy Farmers, supported by industry service body Dairy Australia had a series of events across Victoria aimed at giving farmers the information they need to lobby the federal government, as it progresses through these negotiations, to inform them that a ban on the naming of common cheeses will impact on local SMEs involved in the production of these products. In their joint statement they urged farmers to fight back against the European Union's demand, in the proposed free trade agreement between Australia and the 28 EU countries, that Australia restricts the use of the names of common cheeses. I'm familiar with this, because it's happened in Europe on other occasions. It's now happening here in Australia.

I was contacted by Chris James, the executive director of NORTH Link, and Tony Coppola, the deputy executive director of NORTH Link, who raised these concerns with me directly on behalf of the 400 food and beverages businesses in Melbourne's north. Their concerns about the negotiations with the European Union and how they will impact on the Australian cheese business were raised. In their letter to me they said: 'This issue is of great concern to our Melbourne's North Food Group partner businesses. Implementing GIs will force Australian cheese exporters to change product names and rebrand, resulting in significant financial expenses and an uncertain future.'

Also, the Australian Dairy Industry Council has warned that locally produced cheese varieties with a production value of $180 million, and export sales averaging $55 million each year, could face extinction if the EU succeeds in forcing Australia to accept and implement strict labelling rules. Melbourne's north is home to many cheese producers, and the inclusion of GIs will place hundreds of jobs in the region at stake. So, as a matter of urgency—they've asked me to lobby and I'm making it known in the chamber today—we ask our government to consider the ramifications GIs will have and to strongly contest the inclusion of GIs in the trade agreement.

The free trade agreement will affect SMEs and it will have a detrimental effect on our cheese industry. Melbourne's north has lots of cheese producers. Geographical indications will place hundreds of jobs at stake. One company in particular, Alba Cheese Manufacturing in Tullamarine, expects to suffer significantly if it is no longer able to name cheeses by their current names. For the record, I'm talking about feta, parmesan, mozzarella, bocconcini and others. John Bongiorno, the operations manager of Alba, contacted me and asked me to raise his concerns. Alba is a great family business. It employs a number of our local people, and they are extremely proud of their Italian heritage, which has allowed them to recreate the cheeses that most of us take for granted and now know by their common household names. The inclusion of these geographical indicators on businesses such as Alba is detrimental. The cost alone for these businesses to rebrand and remarket their products will be significant and it may lead to their demise. More importantly, it will lead potentially to a loss of jobs in my electorate. As I've said from the beginning, in a region such as ours, where jobs are required, where lots of growth is already happening, where there is a lot of potential and we look to the future with optimism, we would hate to see such a setback affect our cheese companies.

Sitting suspended from 12:58 to 16:04

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