Matt Gregg (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the traditional owners of my electorate, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging, as I do the traditional owners of this place, the Ngunnawal people.

I rise today not with self-importance but with a sense of duty. To be elected to this House by the people of Deakin is a profound honour—one I will never take for granted. This is not a platform for ego but a call to serve. First, I want to thank those who made this moment possible. I'm grateful to the people of Deakin for placing their trust in me and in the Labor Party. Every day, I will strive to honour that trust and to do my bit to help build a better, fairer future for our community and for Australia as a whole.

My presence in this chamber follows an amazing grassroots campaign powered by incredible volunteers and supporters, including campaign manager Michael McGoldrick, field coordinator Donna McKinnon, our dedicated local campaign committee and other wonderful volunteers. They were the heart of the effort that brought me here today. We had no war chest. We had no paid staff. We operated out of a decommissioned motel bar. Their conviction, courage and shared purpose made this victory possible. They gave us their days, their nights and their weekends for something bigger than any of us individually. They made this happen. Special thanks to those who helped us—particularly me—sharpen our phone banking skills. For me, as someone who's not naturally inclined to interrupt people at dinnertime, it did take some practice, but it was worth it in the end. Still, give me a street stall, a doorknock or a market day any day of the week.

Our opponents had all the phone boxes and billboards in the area, but we had hundreds of local residents and businesses allow us to put up our little campaign signs in front of their premises, which I think is a gesture far more powerful than any paid ad. Our campaign wasn't about handing out branded shopping bags, not just because we couldn't afford them but because our strategy was to get out into the community and talk to people about what matters to them. It was about listening with curiosity, sincerity, empathy and respect, including for those who held different views from our own.

We were, of course, bolstered by Labor's suite of positive, well-thought-out policies that responded to the concerns of people in our electorate and painted a positive path forward. Thank you to the Labor Party more broadly, including those in this room, that contributed to those policies. I'd also like to thank the Prime Minister for believing in our effort and coming down to Deakin many, many times when the media was really asking, 'Why bother?' Not only did his visits have a direct impact but he reminded our local campaign that perseverance and authenticity still matter and that staying focused on people, not the noise, can still cut through.

I extend that appreciation to the Deputy Prime Minister, to the Treasurer, to Senator Raff Ciccone and to ministers including Senator Penny Wong and the members for Hotham, Ballarat, Scullin and Fraser. Thank you for lending your voices, your time and your belief in our case. It really made all the difference.

I'm also appreciative of the support I received from Michael Donovan and the SDA across two campaigns and his tireless work representing some of the country's youngest and most vulnerable workers. Thank you. I also want to thank the Victorian Society of Labor Lawyers and acknowledge my former colleagues at Slater & Gordon, especially the extraordinary women who continued to support and mentor me over many years. It made me a stronger advocate and I think even a better person. So, thank you. That culture of intellectual rigour, constructive debate and mutual respect shaped me. It provided a template for the kind of working environment I want to create in this new chapter of my life.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank my family. Without them, I wouldn't be here today. I particularly want to pay tribute to my mum, who's in the chamber today and whose love and support have been unwavering. She taught me to think critically, to speak up and to never walk past a problem I could help fix. For most of my formative years she raised my brother and me as a single mum, juggling work as a full-time schoolteacher, with the trials and tribulations of raising two fairly rambunctious young men. Because of her, I became a lawyer and my brother a carpenter, just as we dreamed of when we were eight and 10 years old—with probably a little bit more imagination than realism but no shortage of belief that if we worked hard enough we could achieve it. She also inspired me to follow in her footsteps and become a schoolteacher, a career that has been the highlight of my working life and from which I've learnt so much.

For my mum and stepdad, politics wasn't their natural world, but they made it theirs for me. They rolled up their sleeves for two campaigns and did it out of love, putting countless hours into our campaign, and that support is something I will always carry with me.

My involvement in the Labor Party began in 2010, volunteering for former Labor member for Deakin Mike Symon—knocking on doors, putting up bunting at 2.30 in the morning and all those other jobs normally given to 18- to 25-year-olds during a campaign, happily leaving the argy-bargy to others. I never imagined that one day it would be my face on those campaign posters. But over time I realised I couldn't stay on the sidelines. In 2022 I put up my hand to contest the seat of Deakin for the first time, achieving a narrow defeat. But I learned more from that narrow defeat than I could have ever learned from an easy win. I tried again in 2025, with the support of local branch members, and this time we made it.

What drove me to hand out flyers in 2010 and what drives me now is a belief in the power of public service and in the idea that politics can still be a force for good, that it can be measured not just by slogans and headlines but by real, tangible improvements in people's lives. We live in a time that demands a seriousness of purpose. The challenges before us—economic, social, environmental and geopolitical—are complex and fast moving. At times the temptation can be to retreat—to become reactive, performative and paralysed. But we have to resist that. Our job in this place is to rise to the moment, to face complexity with clarity, to govern not for the next news cycle but for the next generation. We must continue to address the big challenges of our time—education, productivity, the provision of care, and environmental sustainability—with long-term resolve.

In Deakin I see these challenges play out every day. At our local footy clubs I hear about players who have had to move hours away, not because they wanted an opportunity to play on the field or wanted higher pay but because they couldn't afford a place to live in our part of the world. These aren't isolated stories by any stretch of the imagination. For most of my lifetime, the past 30 years, that great Australian dream—the chance to live, work, raise a family and contribute to the community you love—has become increasingly impossible to realise. That dream has been a defining aspect of Deakin for a very long time—families calling our suburbs home from generation to generation. When you go to football clubs and other societies you see the same familiar surnames on the walls and in the old photos. But that is starting to fade away. It's an erosion of that sense of community and security that we came to take for granted. It's an erosion that is fast becoming one of the great social and economic tests of our time. That is why I'm so supportive of and excited about the government's bold and necessary efforts to address housing supply and affordability—because, when people can't live where they feel like they belong, community itself begins to fray.

I also believe that Australia must remain a place that makes things. We cannot manufacture everything all the time—we're part of the global economy—but we must be capable of responding to shocks, of pivoting, of innovating. With the right policy settings, we can foster a modern manufacturing sector that's smart, agile and resilient—a sector where entrepreneurs and small businesses can access capital, support and cutting-edge technology through manufacturing hubs and industry programs so they can test new ideas in a supportive ecosystem whilst also continuing to open pathways to allow more people to participate in these opportunities through skills, training and lifelong learning.

That brings me to education, a subject that's very close to my heart. Not only am I the proud product of public education; I've taught in public schools, specialist schools, in the country and at a university, and what I know without any shadow of a doubt is that education changes lives. It builds confidence. It builds capacity. It opens opportunities. Every child in Deakin, every child in Australia, deserves access to world-class education, no matter their postcode or background. Every adult deserve the opportunity to continue learning and growing throughout their life, and every teacher deserves the respect and resources to do the job well. That's why I'm proud to become part of a government that has put every Australian public school on a path to full and fair funding.

Recently, I have heard deep concerns by members of my community about the impact that social media is having on health and wellbeing and on civil discourse. Teachers see it in the classroom. Some of the toughest teachers I have ever worked with have felt they needed to leave the profession, harassed with misogynistic and other antisocial behaviours like never before, which were inspired by, let's say, bad actors publishing their ill-conceived thoughts on social media. Young people themselves feel it in their own sense of self-worth. They know something is wrong.

We must continue to meet the challenges posed by social media and the landscape it has created, not with panic but with serious, thoughtful action. Our goal should be a digital world build on dignity, confidence and inclusion, where harmful content is sidelined rather than mainstreamed. Adults who wish to engage in that content within the bounds of the law may do so, but it should not define or diminish the experience of everyone else, everywhere, all the time. The relentless push for user engagement, exploiting vulnerabilities in the human brain—particularly those of our young people—to keep us logged in so they can sell more ads has to be tempered by a genuine obligation to protect individuals from unreasonable harm, just as we expect of any other industry or workplace. Commendable work has already been done in this place, but protecting our young people and upholding reasonable community standards will require continued vigilance and a sustained, principled response.

Deakin is a vibrant and diverse electorate. We're home to an incredibly broad array of sporting clubs, volunteer associations, inclusion organisations, conservation and history societies, Dungeons & Dragons competitions, choirs, places of worship, theatres and many other clubs. Ours is a community that is active, generous and engaged, where there is truly something for everyone. It also has strong and vibrant diaspora communities whose stories are woven into our social fabric. These are communities for whom events thousands of kilometres away are not abstract; they're deeply personal. These connections remind us that Australia's global engagement matters. We must remain committed to principled international engagement and to being a trustworthy and constructive partner promoting peace, mutual understanding, prosperity and sustainability within a rules-based global order. At home, fairness must remain our guiding principle defining our reforms and shaping our national identity.

So much of what we do in this place is shaped by culture, not just rules, and you can see that from a cursory look at our Constitution. The culture of politics can either lift people or wear them down. We need to keep asking, 'What kind of culture are we building here?' The Australian people deserve a politics that reflects their better instincts, that doesn't insult their intelligence or play on fears but speaks to their hopes. I will do everything I can to contribute to that kind of politics, not because it's easy but because it's necessary.

Before I close, I will make a short reflection. My great-great-uncle Jack turned 106 last week. Born in 1919, he has witnessed the Great Depression, World War II and, in what we now call the Deakin electorate, the transformation from orchards and clay pits to many of the suburbs we now call home. His perspective reminds me that change is constant and our communities have always navigated it. The question is whether that change is fair, whether it's inclusive and future focused, and whether we're making decisions that serve both the present and the generations still to come. That's the kind of change I believe in—change that builds rather than divides, strengthens our communities and leaves future generations with a society they can thrive in, not just inherit. That's my commitment: not to be perfect but to be principled; not to win every argument but to bring good faith and a constructive approach to each one; not to chase headlines but to work diligently for the people of Deakin and for the country we all share.

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