Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in continuation on the address-in-reply. When I left off, I was talking about the cost of living and how Australians are really feeling it and have been doing it tough. That's why this government, the Albanese Labor government, is helping by making child care more affordable. The rising cost of child care has put a lot of pressure on families and is continuing to drag on economic participation and productivity. We know that a lot of parents may choose not to go to work, because it's just not economically viable for them because of the cost of child care. This is a key election commitment that will reduce the cost of child care for more than a million families. I have been speaking to parents in my electorate who have been saying that this will ensure that their home purse-strings will be lightened by this because they will be able to participate in the workforce or work that extra day or extra few hours that will make the difference.

We are also instructing the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to design a price regulation mechanism to drive down out-of-pocket costs. The ultimate goal is to add affordable child care to the list of universal services alongside Medicare, the NDIS and superannuation, which Australians cherish and which are all Labor reforms. This is what Labor governments do best.

Another area that this government is acting on is a fair go at work. The nature of work has changed enormously over the years, with the gig economy, increased casualisation and stagnant or declining wages. We saw under the former government declining wages—absolutely stagnant wages—with the lowest wage growth in the history of this nation. All that means is that workers today face much more precarious working conditions than they did in the past decade. So not only are we supporting an increase in the minimum wage—one of our first acts when we formed government in May last year was to write to the Fair Work Commission—but we will seek to ensure that Australia's laws catch up to this reality and protect people from exploitation and unsafe working conditions. This Labor government will aim to make secure work an objective of the Fair Work Act and legislate to make wage theft a crime.

We on this side of the chamber take manufacturing seriously. The government will seek to rebuild Australia's proud manufacturing industry through a commitment to a future made in Australia. This is particularly important for my home state of South Australia, which was a manufacturing state. We had everything from Chrysler and Mitsubishi to General Motors Holden—all gone now. This manufacturing gave good, solid work to people for many, many years. It provided them with income. It provided for their families. It was solid work. It was consistent work. But unfortunately in 2013, when the Liberal Abbott government came to power, we saw how they treated General Motors Holden, just with the speeches made in this place. I remember very well how the then Treasurer, Mr Hockey, got up and basically goaded GMH. The following day, there was a front-page article in the Advertiser in South Australia saying, 'We're shutting our doors.' That speech had a lot to do with it. We had a company in South Australia manufacturing vehicles—one of only 13 places in the world where it was done from design to showroom. It was done in South Australia, and we've lost all that.

That's why we're taking manufacturing seriously. It's very important to my home state, and we need to ensure that the investment in skills does not go to waste. We need to ensure that all those skills in car manufacturing and other manufacturing do not go to waste and that future submarines are built in Australia—and we're seeing work already being done down there. We also need to support and foster our wonderful space industry. I'm very proud to have the Australian Space Discovery Centre right in the middle of my electorate, in Lot Fourteen in Adelaide. It's providing, already, great research and great jobs. I'm glad that the Minister for Defence Industry is here in the room. We've visited it a few times together, down at Lot Fourteen, and seen some of the great work that's being done in conjunction with Defence and the University of Adelaide. We've visited some incredible companies based in SA that were attracted to our state because of the investment commitment that we have shown to this industry.

So I truly welcome this Labor government's proposed $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund to grow and diversify Australia's industrial base. The fund will take, as its mission, supporting new and emerging industries. It will help our economy transition to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and create secure, well-paid jobs for Australian workers, driving regional economic development and building on our sovereign capability.

I am also proud of the achievements in my electorate of Adelaide. I spoke briefly about some of them. We've been able to assist many schools and organisations in my electorate. I am really pleased about the Challa Gardens Primary School, St George College and Richmond Primary School being successful in receiving funding commitments, which are being rolled out currently. Each of these schools were successful in their applications for funding as part of the $440 million the government is investing in local schools around Australia. Challa Gardens Primary School will receive $50,000 towards the establishment of an outdoor learning area. This funding will be used for the construction of a veranda to connect the school buildings. St George College has been allocated $50,000 towards their classroom upgrade project, and Richmond Primary School has been allocated a combined $40,000. Ten thousand dollars of this investment is for the establishment of an outdoor learning area, specifically for the purchase of settings on the southern side of the school, and the remaining $30,000 is for upgrading of laptops and a charge, store and secure station. I was down there before the last federal election, and they showed me where they would go in the current facilities that they have. They are due for upgrading, so I'm very pleased that Richmond Primary School will be receiving this grant. I'm certain that the children attending the three schools that I've just mentioned will enjoy these new facilities.

My electorate of Adelaide also has many deserving sporting and community clubs. I was pleased to support a number of social groups, community clubs and sporting clubs in my electorate to receive funding to help them undertake much-needed upgrades for their communities. These included the Adelaide Omonia Cobras Football Club and the Adelaide Bowling Club. The Adelaide Bowling Club is one of the oldest in South Australia. In fact, its first premises were on the site where today's South Australian Government House is. When they built Government House and expanded its land, they had to move, and they're now on the eastern Park Lands. The Cobras football club plan to build a new electronic scoreboard which will have video and audio broadcasting capabilities. They also need perimeter fencing at their soccer precinct at Weigall Oval in order to be able to go to the next level in the competition.

They're a great club. They have juniors from under 8s to under 10s right through to seniors first division football, which are doing quite well. They're a great community club that works to promote football but also reaches out to the community to get kids to participate. We know how important it is for kids to participate in sport. It's wonderful to go down there on training nights and see families with kids of all ages participating.

The Adelaide Bowling Club, South Australia's oldest lawn bowls club, is in dire need of new kitchen facilities to meet the club's growing needs. One of the best aspects of my work as a member of parliament is to assist and help such deserving clubs in my electorate, which all of us try to do. I'm very pleased to support these funding requests.

My electorate will also benefit from a significant funding injection in the health space—$77 million will go towards comprehensive cancer centres in my electorate. These cancer centres will be co-located at the Australian Bragg Centre for Proton Therapy and Research and the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institution. These cancer centres are expected to result in 2,000 cancer cases prevented, diagnosed early and treated in South Australia annually. The centre will also assist patients from the NT. This is fantastic news for South Australians and our world-class research and medical services.

In addition, one of the 50 urgent care clinics that were announced will be located in the electorate of Adelaide. These urgent care clinics will take the pressure off emergency departments. In 2020-21, 47 per cent of presentations in emergency departments were classified as semi-urgent or not urgent. People end up going to emergency departments because they often do not have an alternative. The urgent care clinic that will be in my electorate will provide an alternative so that people can access the urgent care they need. Urgent care clinics will provide a place where people can get timely and appropriate care and take the pressure off our emergency departments.

We have also announced an additional 1,645 university places for South Australians to train as teachers, nurses and engineers. This corresponds to an investment of $48 million in South Australian universities, the majority of which are located in the electorate of Adelaide, including the University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide. This represents a real commitment to education and training and also addresses the skills shortages our economy is currently facing.

Finally, the Albanese Labor government has invested $200 million into an upgrade at the intersection of Marion Road and Cross Road, which is also the intersection between three electorates, the electorate of Boothby, the electorate of Hindmarsh and my electorate of Adelaide. I'm pleased that the member for Boothby is here. She will have much more to say about this in the future. The project will see grade separation of the tram level crossing and the widening of the Anzac Highway-Marion Road intersection. This is a significant project that has been called on by the people of the federal seat of Adelaide, the federal seat of Boothby and the federal seat of Hindmarsh for many, many years. I'm very pleased that it will improve congestion and safety for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.

There's a lot to do for this Labor government. We have a long way to go. We are doing everything we can to take the cost-of-living pressures off families. Today we saw paid parental leave. We've put child care in place. These are things that will really have an effect on families. On 1 January, we lowered the cost of medicines—a real drop in the price—which will affect people's pockets in a good way. You will see many more things coming out of this Labor government, because it's only Labor governments that really help and support working families and assist people in having a future to pay their bills, to pay their mortgages, to send their kids to school and to ensure they have a good health service. These are the things that Australians are crying out for; these are the things that we will be doing.

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