Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land upon which we meet today, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, and pay respects to elders past, present and emerging. First Nations people have cared for our precious land and waters for over 60,000 years. I'm proud to be part of an Australian government that knows that it is vital for healing and respect that we recognise First Nations people in our Constitution and implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart, that's working to deliver voice, treaty and truth. I also acknowledge the Bunurong and Wurundjeri people, who are the traditional owners of the beautiful land and waters in my electorate of Chisholm.

When we are in this chamber, we must always remember that we sit here not merely as individuals; we are here as proxies for our communities, to carry the torch for our communities, to champion our communities. We carry the hopes and the fears of our electorates into this place and are charged with ensuring that those fears are eased and those hopes are pursued.

I stand now in this chamber with the hopes and the fears of my community firmly in my mind. I think of Pat and John, who I met just near the Wattle Park shops and who invited me to sit with them on the sun-drenched deck at the back of their house on a beautiful autumn morning. They shared with me their fears for the future of their grandchildren if we do not act on climate change, if we do not do more to make our democratic systems accountable and make parliamentarians act with integrity. I am here because I want to give Pat and John, their grandchildren and everyone in my community hope that an Australian government will act to ensure the wellbeing of our planet and will restore faith in politics.

I stand in this chamber and think of Roger, a proud Australian of Chinese heritage, who worries that communities across the country have become divided, who is passionate about the need to ensure that everyone, no matter where they may have been born or their ancestors came from, is embraced and included in Australian society. I stand in this chamber to assure Roger that diversity is our nation's greatest strength, and I am proud of the rich multiculturalism in Chisholm.

Time spent in my community is time spent celebrating the contributions of the people who have made modern Australia and their cultures. The triumph of multiculturalism, of enterprise, of community is evident in our suburbs when tasting Chinese cuisine in Box Hill, shopping for spices at Sri Lankan grocery stores near Syndal Station, playing cricket in the park with local Indian families in Burwood and enjoying the bountiful supply of zucchinis and figs from Italian and Greek neighbours in Clayton.

I stand in this chamber and think of Angie, an 11-year-old girl from Mount Waverley, whose hope encouraged me. I remember, on a particularly long day in the middle of the campaign, opening a letter with neat, careful handwriting that read: 'I just wanted to say that I support you on your journey of good in this world. Even though I can't vote because I'm too young, can I help and support you?' It was signed, 'Angela, your supporter and proud young feminist.' Angie's letter was one of hope for the future, of a nation and a world that is more equal. Angie's words gave me encouragement when I needed it. Her optimism and her spirit will stay with me for as long as I am in this place, and I will strive every day to ensure her hope for a better future is realised through actions.

We come into this place because of the path that was laid in front of us by those who have come before us. My ancestors arrived in this country to seek a better life for themselves and their families. On my father's side, they came to Victoria in the 19th century, and I am proud of their contributions to civic life and my own. On delicate, ageing paper in the archives in my home state, the names of my ancestors can be found on the petition from 1891 to grant Victorian women the right to vote. I'm honoured to be a descendant of Mary and Edith Garland of North Melbourne, who joined with almost 30,000 others to petition the parliament that women should vote on equal terms with men.

An oft-quoted suffragist maxim is: courage calls to courage everywhere, and it is the courage of my forebears to forge change and foster equality that I draw courage from to leave a legacy for those who will come after me. More recently, my mother's family left an Italy brutalised by war for the hope of a better life promised by Australia. They worked hard jobs at a time when Australia was a markedly less multicultural place than it is now, contributing to the post-war reconstruction of our nation as they strove to settle in a strange place.

My nonno loved philosophy and politics. He loved opera, and his talents were considerable. He aspired to use them. It was not until Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister that he was able to when educational opportunities became accessible. He became a much-loved maths teacher at Emmaus in Burwood in my electorate, and this transformed his life, his family's life, my life. This story will be familiar to those who share the postwar migration journey, who experienced the transformation of hope into real opportunity from a Labor government. I want everyone in my community to be supported by their government to pursue their aspirations, just like my own family was. I will always look to open doors, to extend opportunity to my community, so that every single person is able to follow the ambitions they hold for themselves and their families.

My electorate was named for Caroline Chisholm, a remarkable figure through the 19th century who improved the lives of so many in the fledgling European settlements in Australia, especially through her support of women and girls as they forged new lives for themselves in this country. Caroline Chisholm was known as the immigrants' friend, and it is fitting that the electorate which is named for her is home to people who have recent connections to the migrant journey to Australia.

It has been said that Caroline Chisholm's favourite axiom was 'there must be a place for everybody'. This can be taken to mean that everyone has a future in Australia and everybody is valued for their contributions. This example is one I hope to follow—to respect everyone, to recognise the dignity of every person in my community, to work with the community to ensure that there is a place for everyone to learn, to work, to dream and pursue those dreams regardless of where they have come from or who they are. In Australia, everyone should be valued.

Even if you've never visited the suburbs of Chisholm, you might have encountered them for it was in Box Hill in the late 19th century that artists, including Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts and Charles Conder, set up camp on a bit of land on David Houston's dairy farm. They painted en plein air there and in surrounding suburbs in my electorate, producing some of the most famous examples of Australian impressionism—the paintings Lost, Down on His Luck and The Artists' Camp. Tom Roberts's Australian pastorals on the land in my electorate show his study of light and shade, and those efforts are evident in his most magnificent work that hangs in the corridors here—Opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. And it is the greatest honour to be a member of the 47th Parliament and of a Labor government.

Whilst Chisholm might look a bit different now, the remarkable contribution to cultural life continues in my electorate through the groups that meet at the beautiful Box Hill Community Arts Centre, through the talented locals who show their art at the Track Gallery in Mount Waverley or take classes at Amaroo Neighbourhood Centre, and through the Monash Gallery of Art housed in a spectacular Seidler space in Wheelers Hill. Our electorate is the place the Skyhooks and the Living End had their start and the place where Maton guitars are manufactured. Our electorate is the place my own very first ballet concerts were performed, at the Alexander Theatre—my small contribution to the cultural history of our community.

The arts enrich us, and I am proud of the place my community has in our nation's cultural history and I am sure in our nation's cultural future. I am thrilled to be a part of a government—a Labor government—that will deliver the first cultural policy our country has seen in almost a decade.

Like the arts, education transforms and enriches our lives. I'm proud of the extraordinary contribution my community makes in developing skills, in providing educational opportunities and in fostering the ideas that will keep this nation smart, strong and successful. We are home to two universities—Monash and Deakin—several TAFE campuses and excellent schools. People want to be a part of our community because of the value we place on education, because of the chance a good education offers to build a good life and contribute to a robust democracy. All levels of education are important, from the earliest years onwards. Everyone should have access to the finest educational opportunities at all stages of life.

I am forever grateful for the education—the keys to the kingdom—I've received in this country and for the teachers who cultivated my curiosity, like Mrs Kennedy, my English and history teacher and now one of my constituents. It was so lovely receiving correspondence from her during my campaign and it reminded me that the course of my life may have been very different if it were not for teachers like her. I received my undergraduate education at Monash University, and as I now move through the campus as the elected representative for that part of Melbourne I reflect on my own journey through Australia's higher education system. I studied the humanities and social sciences because critical thinking, the capacity to analyse and to have empathy, matters in a healthy society. I was encouraged in my studies by accomplished academics and was so very lucky to be awarded a scholarship to study a PhD at the University of Sydney.

I hope to bring the skills that I was taught there to this place. I'm passionate about ensuring we have a robust higher education system that values intellectual curiosity and supports people to think, to experiment and to create new ideas, systems and solutions. Intellectual curiosity and the pursuit of ideas have been maligned by some, but I'm hopeful and ambitious for Australia and know that the courage to follow the thread of a new idea to imagine possibilities that improve our lives is to be valued, supported and funded. Researchers and teachers must be offered security in their work, time and space to think and to develop their minds and those of scholars that come after them. If we are not intellectually curious, if we do not protect the independence of research and truly nurture scholarship and academia, society stands still, moribund from a poverty of ideas that demeans us all.

My electorate is home to the CSIRO and to the Australian Synchrotron, and the power of ideas in these institutions to change our lives, to save our lives and to discover previously unknown mysteries of the universe, as well as enrich our minds and our spirits, is immense. I'm not afraid of ideas. I'm not afraid of imagining new possibilities for what our society could be like, spurred on by the chance to contribute to a better, fairer country. The process of learning never ends. It gives me great joy to learn from my community and my colleagues, to hear different perspectives and to listen to novel ideas. It's something I look forward to each day.

The craft of a skilled trade too must be valued, supported and funded. The Holmesglen campuses in my community are exemplars of innovative teaching and excellence in teaching, with the world-class Victorian Tunnelling Centre in Chadstone a source of enormous pride, giving so many in our suburbs remarkable skills, the skills that mean they can build the projects that will define our cities in the future. Whether there's a dream to be a poet, a plumber or a politician the chance should be given for these to be realised. Everyone has contributions to make, and it is our role in government to embrace and support these.

I believe in good government. Governments should lead with vision for the kind of society we want to be, of the types of industries we want to build and of the good, secure jobs we can create. Too many people in our country are left without the sorts of jobs they can count on, that they can build a life on. In almost every industry there are people sitting every day waiting at the end of a mobile phone to find their fate, to know if they have a job and a wage that day. This is a national problem. Our communities are starved when people cannot make the important commitment to their local footy club, neighbourhood house or art group, because they do not have certainty about their hours of work or their income.

I know the ache of insecure work. It has been the dominant form of employment I've experienced. The feeling that everything might dissolve in a moment sticks with me now as it has throughout my working life. The experience of insecure work in academia, in cultural institutions and for some of Australia's largest employers has defined my relation to the world as one where everything is precarious and could slip away suddenly, and I do not want this to be the case for anybody else. I feel a real sadness and an anger when I think that precarity may be the experience more commonly felt than security in work for a growing number of people in this country. One of the reasons I was so motivated to be here is that I can do my best to ensure that everyone can forge a life for themselves and their families built on security, opportunity and ambition. Until we rid our society of the scourge of unnecessary insecure work too many people will be left behind, unable to live the lives they want to live and should be able to live in a country like Australia.

I am proud to be part of a government that is committed to improving people's lives through making sure we have good, secure jobs so that a better future is possible. I thank the Australian Labor Party for their support, and I know that in government under the compassionate, clever, and courageous leadership of our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, we will deliver a better future for all in our nation.

The Australian Labor Party in government has always led the way in dreaming and realising what is needed to live a good life. This is in no small part also due to the bravery, the imagination, the struggle and the sacrifice of working people coming together in the trade union movement. Ordinary working people coming together through their unions and demanding their ambitions for a good life be supported by opportunity and equity is responsible for so much that we value in this country. We celebrate a superannuation system that means no-one should be left in poverty in retirement. We build our communities around the weekend, a time we can come together and enjoy our leisure time with the people and pastimes we adore. We enjoy these standards because of the union members who had a vision and who fought for and won these achievements.

It has been a great honour to have served with brave and kind people in the trade union movement in my working life. I thank union members, delegates and leaders from trade unions across the movement for their support of my campaign. The power of working in a collective is tremendous, and together we achieve great things. I'm so grateful to the United Workers Union members, delegates and leaders for their support and for the contribution they make every single day to a better, fairer Australia. Thanks to Tim Kennedy, Jo Schofield and Gary Bullock for their leadership and vision.

I had the privilege to work at the oldest continuous trades and labour council in the world, the Victorian Trades Hall Council—the 'workers' parliament'—as assistant secretary. I thank the staff, leaders and affiliated unions at the hall for their friendship, especially Luke Hilakari, Wil Stracke and Amanda Threlfall. There is a neat thread through history and place between the workers' parliament and the suburbs of Chisholm. It was at the Trades Hall School of Design that Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin learned how to sketch, to paint—to be artists—long before that significant summer in 1855 when they came to Box Hill and created the works that have become a defining part of Australian culture. It reminds me: 'Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses, too.'

Standing here is an honour I never imagined and one that could never be achieved alone. I'm here because of the wonderful local supporters and true believers who dedicated their time to my campaign. Thank you. I'm here because of the steady focus of my campaign team: Jo Briskey, Callum Drake, Grace Flanagan, Bofeng Wu, Owen Wrangle, Phillip Danh, Jennifer Yang, Tara Cuneen, Josh Bruni, Peter Chandler, Matt Merry and Michael Watson. Thanks, too, to members here—especially the member for Bendigo, Lisa Chesters, and the member for Bruce, Julian Hill—and to Senator Grogan and Senator Walsh for their support. I'm delighted that you are now my parliamentary colleagues.

I'm here because of my family—the sacrifices made for me, the values instilled in me and the belief they have in me. Thank you to my family, and in particular my mother, Pam; my father, John; my sister, Olivia; and my brother, David. I'm thinking of the future, too, and what I owe to younger generations in my country, my community and my own family. To Mackinley and Bonnie: know that I will always work my hardest to make sure the future is bright for you and your generation.

I thank my friends for their patience and understanding of the commitment I have made to Chisholm and for all their support. I'm standing here today because of the trust of my community. I acknowledge my predecessor, Gladys Liu, who was the member for Chisholm for three years. Thanks must go to Anna Burke, who represented Chisholm for 18 years, for her wisdom, her kindness and her support. I'm thankful to my team—Nadia Montague, Liz De La Motte, Ghariza Sujak, Naiyu Wang and Grayson Lowe—for sharing with me a dedication to serving our community.

The first Labor woman elected to this place was Joan Child, and the modern boundaries of Chisholm include some of the suburbs she represented as the member for Henty. In her first speech, Joan reminded her peers:

The basis of election to a seat in Parliament is service to people. We are really public servants. The people made our election possible. They made it possible for us to take our seats in this House. That should be remembered, but it is all too often forgotten.

I will not forget. I will not forget Pat and John and the fears that they shared of what would happen if we refused to act on climate change or restore faith in politics through an integrity commission. I will not forget Roger, and will demonstrate how I remember him in uniting our diverse community, repairing the wounds of division. I will not forget Angie and her bright, hopeful letter, her wish to see more good in the world.

I carry the hopes and fears, the dreams and the disappointments of my community in this chamber. The voters of Chisholm have my deepest, sincerest thanks. But they deserve more than my gratitude. They deserve a representative who will never forget them, who will fight for them and who will show up when life is tough, not just when things are easy. I will do everything in my power to make you proud.

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