Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

My electorate of Forrest is a beautiful part of Australia and a wonderful place to live, to work, to invest, to raise a family and to retire. It is also one of the most diverse electorates in Australia, with mining and resource manufacturing, agriculture and horticulture, forestry and fisheries, tourism, building construction and significant civil works companies in the logistics space and also in retail and hospitality.

As I start my speech, I just want to acknowledge the work that's ongoing in my electorate by our voluntary and professional emergency services people. They do an extraordinary amount of work. Right at this moment, throughout my electorate and other parts of Western Australia, there has been a great need for the work of our voluntary and professional emergency services, from the floods that we've seen in the north to a range of bushfires right throughout our part of the world, including my own electorate of Forrest. So I want to say a special thankyou to those people.

And it's not just those people. When there is a bushfire, and it affects a neighbour, often it's our local farmers with their own fire units on the back of their utes who will front up for their neighbour. This is how the small regional communities and the farming sector work together and constantly contribute to the community. So I want to acknowledge and thank them for that. I've seen a fair bit of it, with the significant lightning storm in our part of the world.

In government we had a very effective and clear regional, rural and remote set of programs that delivered real, sound results, not just in Forrest but right around regional Australia. One very strongly supported program, particularly by local governments—it is the one that they have been seeking most—was the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program. The City of Bunbury was able to put the funding that they received towards a fantastic skate park for young people in the city itself. It is so popular, but it wouldn't have been done without those funds. We supported a sports precinct in Dunsborough and the pump track in Egan Park in Donnybrook. These are just a few examples of how this fund was used by local governments to provide wonderful infrastructure for local communities and things that the community really needed and wanted.

It is the same with the Building Better Regions Fund for the Apple Fun Park in Donnybrook, which is visited by people from right around the state and even international visitors. It's a great place for families to stop at. The South Bunbury Football Club saw a benefit out of this with their improvement of Hands Oval. In the aged-care sector, we supported the Armstrong Village in Dunsborough itself.

The Bridges Renewal Program has been really important in rural, regional and remote Australia, particularly for small councils that have an extraordinary amount of road and a huge number of bridges, often key export and logistics connections. They really benefited from and needed this funding.

The road Black Spot funding program has been so important in rural and regional Australia. And in the telecommunications space I was so proud of the first Mobile Black Spot Program, because there wasn't such a program previously. We were able to get so many of these on the ground in rural, regional and remote areas, and that is so important in our part of the world. That's what we heard back so often from right around Australia.

We funded key infrastructure from enablers around the Busselton Margaret River Airport and the Busselton Jetty. It's the longest jetty in the Southern Hemisphere; I encourage you to go and have a visit. It has a beautiful underwater observatory at the other end. There is a significant 80 per cent federal government investment for the Bunbury Outer Ring Road. This is also about linking the Busselton Margaret River Airport with the greater southern region and the south-west for freight and logistics—a really important task—as well as servicing and linking the port of Bunbury to gain all the access that's needed.

Equally important was the funding we put into dualling the Bussell Highway from Capel to Busselton. For anyone who travels that highway regularly—from people completing all the heavy freight tasks to the massive number of tourists who come through our region, heading further south for holidays and weekends—it's really critical to road safety.

We supported aged-care facilities in those areas where aged care is really difficult and challenging and often very expensive to provide, especially investing in infrastructure, when often it's a community group engaged in this, whether in Harvey, in Donnybrook or in Dunsborough, as I mentioned. I was able to secure a designated migration agreement for our area, given that we'd key shortages for many years. This is something that was very useful to business and individual small businesses.

Another plan that I was really happy with was the first-ever National Plan for Endometriosis, for those one in 10 women who are affected by this condition, and the significant funding we put in to research in the pelvic pain space and to the plan itself, as well as more education for schools and programs to run. I will continue to have an absolute focus on the ongoing investment that will be needed in the National Plan for Endometriosis and for pelvic pain education and pelvic pain clinics. I really want to see one of those in the south-west of WA.

We also supported so many new medications—almost one a day in our time in government, and there were over 2,000 listed on the PBS. What a difference that has made to people's lives. In my part of the world, too, I have no doubt that the university department of rural health that we secured to help workforce training will become a key part of meeting the ongoing need in what is one of the fastest-growing areas and an area where people choose to retire. But I think an enduring legacy for all Australians was our investment and creation of the Medical Research Future Fund. All you have to do is look at where the funding in that has been allocated to universities right around Australia, for a wealth of research, such as into chronic disease and so many other conditions and issues. This is an enduring legacy that I am very proud that our government delivered for this nation, and it will deliver benefits right around Australia and, I suggest, globally as well.

In regional education we had much to do when we came into government, especially around youth allowance and access to this allowance for young people from rural and regional areas. We'd seen what the previous government had done in that space, especially around the lack of access to youth allowance for young people from inner-regional areas. In WA we still have a lack of teachers, particularly in rural, regional and remote areas. Both of these are important matters, particularly around teaching and access to teachers and what the education sector is dealing with.

One of the things that has had effects more broadly, not just in my part of the world, has been the changes Labor made in relation to the sourcing of general practitioners. The Distribution Priority Area identifies areas where there are shortages of doctors, especially GPs, and where international medical graduates have to work in a DPA to be eligible for Medicare. The changes have seen those area boundaries expand to include outer metro areas, which of course, when we've got shortages of GPs, puts more pressure on regional areas in trying to compete with outer metro areas for GPs. And gee that makes it hard—even harder than it normally is.

I also want to touch on some of the great work we did around cybersafety and the various laws we introduced around online safety and image-based abuse. Members would know that I've spent a lot of my time in this parliament and in the community focused on cybersafety, particularly for young people. I've provided sessions and presentations for young people in schools in the community and in business. We established the Office of the eSafety Commissioner. It's a global leader, and I'm really proud of that.

But I want to see more people accessing the services and supports that are available through the Office of the eSafety Commissioner. And I would have to say that in all my years of doing this work I have seen a marked deterioration in the mental and emotional health and wellbeing of young people through what's going on online. I struggle to find the time to deal with all of the issues that come from this. I see so many young people affected. Recent information from the eSafety Commissioner shows, for instance, that 30 per cent of young teens have been contacted online by a stranger, and that's beside the basic bullying, body image issues and also the challenge for them in this space of simply managing to get enough sleep. They're often gaming for many hours during the night. One principal, when I asked him what was affecting the mental health and wellbeing of his students the most, held up a mobile phone and said, 'My young people are simply not getting enough sleep, and it's affecting how they manage everything else in their lives.' Whether it's relationships, school or the challenges that young people have to manage, if they're not getting enough sleep, everything is so much harder. Even adults find the same thing. I have a challenge for anybody watching. My challenge to you is this: what are you going to do to be your very best self online all of the time? Because that's what's needed from all of us. All of us need to be our best selves online all of the time.

When I look at the challenges currently existing and emerging in my part of the south-west of WA, like so much of rural and regional Australia, it's struggling with the shortages of workers and accommodation. The current rental availability in WA is about 0.6 per cent—I think that's right. We've got so many businesses, small businesses as well as larger ones, including aged-care providers, who've had to buy homes simply to house their workers, if they can get them, or provide their own on- or off-site accommodation. That goes right down to vegetable growers, who've had to invest significantly. Simply, they need the workforce and they need somewhere to house them, so they're investing in this space. I know that that problem exists whether you are the lithium producer Albemarle, in the Kemerton light industrial area, or in agriculture or horticulture or a small business in the hospitality sector. There's a real shortage of workers and tradespeople with what's happening in our south-west.

Many businesses, of all sizes, are paying extraordinary wages just to retain or attract workers. One hire company in Bunbury recently said to me that they're currently paying their heavy-vehicle mechanic $162,000 to keep him there, as opposed to him going into the mining sector in the north. The challenge for the business comes when the hire company—we know what's happening with cost of living and issues of inflation across business—can't actually increase their equipment hire rates to reflect those extra costs of wages and other matters. That puts that business in a very difficult ongoing position. Many hospitality and tourism operators have struggled to get staff. During COVID we saw this happening really badly. Some small to medium enterprises shut their doors. A lot of our small-business people are absolutely exhausted because they've carried the load themselves and filled the gap throughout COVID. Even now, it's ongoing for them. Some cannot afford to open on days that attract penalty rates, particularly if there are two in one weekly pay cycle. They are personally exhausted and frustrated. They're dealing with constant inflation and increased input costs, and their customers are often unwilling, or unable, to pay higher prices for items. Some of them are actually changing what they're putting on their menus so that they can afford to stay in business and the people who come to those premises can afford to pay for what they're selling.

As we know, for many local people, cost of living is a critical issue and they are making tough decisions right now. With those 800,000 people who have mortgages that are moving off fixed interest rates and onto variable interest rates, that will continue to be a focus for those individuals and families. Interest rates will also be a focus for small business. Often small-business owners have to mortgage their house or anything else that they've got just to get into small business. Each incremental increase is a cost to the business, and it depends how the bank prices that risk on that business as to the cost to the business.

There could well be further risks ahead for businesses and industries. We don't want to see the South West being overlooked for federal government investment. There are great concerns in my part of the world around the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal and how Labor applies the safeguard mechanism. There are ongoing challenges for the building and construction sector, including the increase in inflation and input costs from the time of signing a fixed-price contract to the completion of the construction, and the potential loss. The businesses most at risk in this space are small to medium, privately owned businesses—not listed companies.

I don't want to see those local businesses lost, because they're so often the ones that underpin our regional economy. They're the ones who train local people and local tradespeople who will stay in our regional communities and be wonderful. For a start sometimes these tradespeople get to a point where they start their own business. We saw a record number of apprentices come along in our time and take up the opportunities that we offered them. We want to see those young people be able to go into their own business in time and be able to train others, in the same way they've had that opportunity. That increased risk on private, unlisted companies and smaller companies—which is what we have in rural, regional and remote parts of Australia—is something that is of real concern for me in what's ahead.

I want to continue to promote the agricultural sector and the quality that we see from our farmers and our agriculture sector. In my part of the world in the South West—and as people know, I'm a very proud dairy farmer—we, and much of Australia, produce some of the best quality food and fibre in the world. I'm extraordinarily proud of the work that our farmers do, and I want to encourage every one of them.

I know for some young people trying to get into farming and trying to get into, say, the dairy industry, there are real challenges in finding a financial institution and an opportunity, because of what's required to get your foot in the door. I want to encourage great young people. Our farmers compete in a global export environment and they do it very well because often we're seeing they are low-cost producers. They have to be simply to compete, given that there is a high cost to doing business in Australia. That applies even in the farming sector, where we're expected to produce more, basically, with less land, less water and less fertiliser on one of the driest continents on earth.

I also want to focus on the importance of the South West irrigation system in my part of the world. It is a critical piece of regional infrastructure. I think it could be the only gravity-fed irrigation system that we have, certainly in WA in this way. With the dams in the hills and the way that the cooperative has piped the northern section of this so it's fully enclosed, there are no channel losses. It's very efficient. No energy is required for this water to get to the farms where it's used for irrigation for all sorts of purposes as well as, in part, some industrial and other fit-for-purpose uses. It is a fantastic system.

There's a second section in the Collie River irrigation district that desperately needs to be piped as well. Pump piping and even some desalination is needed for Wellington Dam, which provides this water. I sought support for this from the previous government and I'll be staying on this issue because this South West irrigation system and its great quality of water underpins not just much of the agriculture and food production but also much of the economy of the South West. Any of us who are from the primary sector, like me, tend to see water as more valuable than gold because, in the slogan of Harvey Water and South West irrigation, where water flows food grows. We've got a task. There's a global shortage of food ahead. We're in a prime position because we're great producers of quality product, and we need to be able to continue to be so.

Debate adjourned.

Ordered that the resumption of the debate be made an ord er of the day for a later hour.

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