Trish Cook (Bullwinkel, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think I might need that lucky button, so you can pass it over! Hello, parliament. My name is Trish Cook. I'm from Noongar country of Perth, Western Australia, and I'm the very first member of the new federal electorate of Bullwinkel. Bullwinkel encompasses the lands of the Whadjuk and the Ballardong people of the Noongar nation, and today I speak on Ngunnawal and Ngambri lands. I offer my deepest respects to these First Nations people here, in the west and indeed all across this beautiful, peaceful country of Australia.

Speaker, one year ago, I sat in the visitors' gallery of the chamber, watching question time with curiosity and interest. I was here as part of my role as Deputy Shire President of the Shire of Mundaring, from the Perth Hills, where I'm deeply involved in the community as a volunteer as well as a councillor. For the previous three years, I had watched with gratitude as the Albanese Labor government steered Australia into a more secure, progressive society and reinstated the Labor values of fairness, equity, workers' rights, climate change action and public education—cornerstones of a healthy society that had been purposely neglected by the previous conservative government for over a decade. I had seen the Labor government over-deliver on their 2022 election commitment to provide 50 Medicare urgent care clinics around the country, impressively delivering 87 clinics. This improvement of accessible urgent health care reduces the pressure on emergency departments and the daily lists of general practice, both of which I have worked in. As I watched the frank exchanges and robust debates of the progressive legislation occurring in question time, I simply had the idea that I could be part of the democratic process at the federal level, with my eight years of service as a councillor in local government serving as the foundation.

As luck would have it, the new seat of Bullwinkel, some months earlier, had been created by the Australian Electoral Commission. Suddenly, here was a brand new electorate of Bullwinkel, which encompassed Darlington—my home of 17 years—and was named in honour of World War II nursing hero Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Bullwinkel. I took this optimistically as a sign of encouragement. I ignored my campaign naivety and threw my nurse's cap into the ring, and, to my delight, the Labor Party embraced my candidacy. I thank them for their incredible support and trust that they've shown in me.

I would like to acknowledge the wonderful and supportive Labor network that was afforded me during the campaign, and I would specifically like to thank my campaign director, Assistant Minister Patrick Gorman; WA Labor state secretary and now senator Ellie Whiteaker; Mark Reed and the WA Labor team; Helen Tuck and my branch members of Perth Labor Women; branch members of the amazing Kalamunda Zig Zag, Bassendean and Northam branches; my campaign manager, the remarkable and tireless Fiona Bennett; my friend and colleague 'fighter for Hasluck' Tania Lawrence; the WA federal Labor members; Premier Roger Cook and the WA state Labor members; the cabinet members, some of whom visited Bullwinkel and cheered me on; the President of the Senate, Sue Lines, who challenged and mentored me in her own netball-coach style; and the Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles. Both Sue and Richard walked alongside me as we doorknocked the people in the suburbs of High Wycombe and Wattle Grove in the Perth summer heat on several occasions. How grassroots can politics get!

Thank you also to the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who believed in me from our very first conversation, who supported my nomination and who made time for me on his many regular trips to WA. Thank you. And thank you to all the selfless donors, volunteers and the campaign team members who worked on the Labor Bullwinkel campaign, many who I now know and love and many more who I haven't even met yet.

So I come to this role of MP, with all of these incredible members of the class of 2025 here today, with enormous gratitude and a joyful sense of responsibility to represent the people of Bullwinkel and with the hope that my skills as a nurse and midwife—pragmatism, problem solving and compassion—will contribute to the workings of this chamber and as a local MP.

My life can be summed up in the following numbers. I'm blessed with three incredible siblings: Lorna Cook, exceptional nurse and innovative business owner, having co-founded chemo@home; Dr Diane Parker, self-proclaimed 'best teacher in Australia'; and my brother, Russell Cook, truck driver, mountain climber and corflute-sign erector. I have one life partner, Greg, whose compassion, integrity and high personal ethics have raised my own standards; one deeply thoughtful and gentle, kind daughter, Grace, who is here today; one loving, slightly unpredictable kelpie-cross, Coco, who is not here today; and one loving, stable extended family of sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews. Another number is 10, because I'm the 10th nurse to be in parliament; No. 4, because I'm the fourth midwife to be in parliament; and No. 6, my position on the softball diamond.

I come to this parliament as a nurse, a midwife, an occupational health and safety consultant, a small-business owner, a community volunteer, a shire councillor and a PhD candidate and now, of course, a legislator. The first half of my career was as a remote-area nurse and midwife in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions of my beautiful home state of WA. I had the privilege of caring for and working with people in remote Indigenous communities, such as Ardyaloon/One Arm Point, Djarindjin/Lombadina, Bidyadanga/La Grange and Looma. This is where I first witnessed the impact that access to fresh food, local employment, education and housing, and connection with country, connection to culture and other social connections can have on the health of the community. These factors are referred to as the social determinants of health and, not surprisingly, parallel the social determinants of justice and the social determinants of mental health. And it is improving these factors that brings true investment and gains in community health as well as in the justice system.

I was also employed as a remote-area nurse-midwife in the mining towns of Pannawonica and Argyle and in other isolated corners of our state. Many times I had been the only clinician for hundreds of kilometres, and I relied heavily on the support of Aboriginal health workers, the tradies and truck drivers who doubled as the emergency response team, and, of course, the iconic Royal Flying Doctor Service. I have known the weight of responsibility when resources are thin on the ground. Later, my work in industry included construction sites, casinos, oil and gas production facilities at Karratha and Barrow Island, and some of the offshore oil and gas platforms in the north-west. It's not unusual for me to work FIFO to Canberra, having often caught aircraft and helicopters to work for many years.

It was during my time working as a nurse in industry that I obtained a grad diploma of occupational health and safety and also established and conducted a small business for 10 years, providing extraordinarily capable registered nurses to remote locations. I know the responsibility, the difficulties and the 24/7 nature of owning and running a small business. I extended my education to a Master of Occupational Health and Safety when my then young family did a yearlong stint in the Solomon Islands in 2007 as part of the AusAID and RAMSI mission, followed by four years in Kalgoorlie as a nurse-midwife. I also became a nurse educator, teaching the next generation of nurses at Kalgoorlie TAFE, Northam TAFE and, later, Edith Cowan University. In 2019 I was again inspired to take on tertiary studies, embarking on a PhD study. My thesis—which is just a few months off completion!—is a study on the patient experiences of receiving home based immunotherapy infusions for cancer and chronic diseases.

I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the role of my beautiful parents, who raised four children in state housing in Eden Hill, only 16 kilometres from where I now live. Both parents were involved in the community at grassroots level and instilled in us Labor values and a strong sense of fairness. My mother, Mary Josephine Morgan, came to Australia in 1947. She was 12 years of age when she arrived in Fremantle on board the SS Asturias in the first batch of some of the 10,000 children who were sent to Australia from the UK under the British child migrant scheme. She was part of the lost generation of children who were sent here from the UK to help repopulate a depleted white population after World War II. Despite being institutionalised, having a limited education and enduring the trauma of a life in an orphanage, she chose a career in nursing. She cared about people, and I proudly followed in her footsteps, becoming a nurse. In 2009, in this very chamber, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the child migrants, and, while my mother did not live to see the apology, I would like, in this chamber today, to acknowledge all the British child migrants and their contribution to Australia. I would especially like to acknowledge my aunty, Dilys Budd, nee Winter, who is in the gallery today for my parliamentary speech.

My father, Terence Joseph Cook, whose ancestor was transported to Australia as a convict from England and whose own father was a decorated World War I veteran, was a proud and courageous defender of his working-class roots. He first began advocating for people who were being exploited when he became the voice for the Polish migrant workers who were silenced by their language barrier when working on the Tasmanian hydroelectric scheme in the 1950s. That experience eventually led him to a career in the union movement and his position as state secretary for the Australasian Society of Engineers union. He was a lifelong member of the ALP and lived his life always adhering to Labor Party values. My dad looked after workers from outside the companies through his union work, and I looked after workers from inside the companies as a nurse. I know that he would be proud of me as I stand here today as a member of the Labor Party, a member of parliament and a member of the mighty United Workers Union.

I would like to extend my thanks to the United Workers Union in WA, who supported me throughout the campaign. In particular, I would like to acknowledge Carolyn Smith, Dom Rose, Emily Knowles, Matt Clarke and all the wonderful, dedicated delegates, officials and volunteers who worked on the Bullwinkel campaign. Thank you. I would also like to thank the TWU, RTBU, ASU, UnionsWA and the broad union movement. UWU represents over 150,000 workers in more than 45 industries and every day fights to protect and support those workers in industries such as aged care, early childhood education and ancillary staff in hospitals. These workers are often from the lowest-paid jobs and highly feminised workforces. I'm proud to be part of the Labor Party, who recognises the value of the care industry and has recently acted to increase wages for aged-care workers and early childhood educators.

Bullwinkel is the first electorate to be named after a nurse, and it's the 18th electorate to be named after a woman, but I don't want anyone to worry over there—there are still 88 electorates named after men. Bullwinkel is the fourth-largest electorate in WA, and it consists of the foothills, the hills and the rural portion of the western Wheatbelt. The localities of the foothills and the hills include a mix of newly established suburbs, historic villages, large state water catchment areas, national parks, orchards and residential homes. It's beautiful. The rural area of Bullwinkel consists of four historic Wheatbelt towns: Beverley, Toodyay, York and the largest of the four, Northam, home of WA hot air ballooning. As well as the townspeople, these rural communities include passionate farmers who produce our food and our agricultural exports. They see the ever-changing impact of climate change, and, while they have thankfully and recently got their barley markets back, they are still transitioning to the ban on live sheep export by sea.

All three areas of Bullwinkel—the foothills, hills and rural areas—boast amazing communities along with stunning natural but sensitive and bushfire-prone environments. I look forward to working closely with the nine local governments across Bullwinkel to deliver improvements in line with their community strategic plans as well as our Labor Party commitments—commitments of a Medicare urgent care clinic and childcare centre in Mundaring, a Medicare mental health centre in Kalamunda, telecommunications improvements and upgrades to the volunteer bushfire brigades. And I look forward to working with and assisting the farmers of Bullwinkel as they transition away from the live sheep export trade.

The name of Bullwinkel carries significant historical weight and a powerful legacy. As the inaugural member, there are a few things I'd like to tell you about the remarkable Lieutenant Colonel Matron Vivian Bullwinkel. In 1942, Vivian was one of 65 Australian nurses who fled Singapore in response to the Japanese invasion in World War II. After surviving a bombing at sea of the Vyner Brooke ship, she and her colleagues surrendered only to face atrocity. Vivian was the sole survivor of the infamous Banka Island massacre, whereby she and 21 of her fellow nurses were assaulted, marched out into the ocean and machine-gunned down. After surviving this war crime, she was forced to surrender several weeks later and endured three years of unimaginable hardship, suffering as a prisoner of war alongside 65 other Australian Army nurses. Vivian was only 26 years of age at this time, only a few years older than my own daughter. I cannot imagine the hardship of parents sending their daughters and sons off to a foreign country to fight for democracy and I thank them for their incredible sacrifices and services.

Not only did Vivienne survive World War II but afterwards she went on to testify against the Japanese at the war crimes tribunal in Tokyo. She spent the rest of her life advocating for her fellow nurses wanting to tell their story, not wanting them to be forgotten. She retired at 60 years of age, married and moved to Perth, where she lived for a further 24 years. In 1992, Vivienne bravely returned to Bangka beach, accompanied by WA Labor Senator Pat Giles—No. 2 nurse, incidentally—to open a memorial dedicated to her comrades on the beach.

One of her comrades who died in the terrible massacre was Sister Alma Beard of the Wheatbelt town of Toodyay in the electorate of Bullwinkel. Alma is remembered and honoured by her local community and relatives still residing in the region, including with a statue in her honour at the Toodyay medical centre. I acknowledge the ultimate sacrifice of Alma, who was only 29.

In addition to a distinguished military career, Vivienne had a remarkable career in the nursing profession, and there are just two things I'd like to share with you about Vivienne Bullwinkel's nursing history. First, in 1960, Vivienne became matron of Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital in Victoria, which has since closed, in 1996. Can you imagine a whole hospital dedicated to infectious diseases? A whole COVID ward, sure—but a whole hospital? And the reason, of course, why we don't now have infectious diseases hospitals in this country is the unarguable benefits of vaccination, and I take this opportunity to thank the Australian government for providing the free, comprehensive National Immunisation Program, which covers 19 vaccine-preventable diseases for all Australians across all age groups.

I have administered vaccinations for the past 40 years and agree with the position statement of the Australian College of Nursing and the Australian Medical Association that vaccination is the No. 1 best health dollar spend in this country. I'm so privileged to see the mass reduction of typhoid, diphtheria, polio, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, mumps, rubella, meningococcal and HPV in my lifetime. I'm sure Vivienne and the other past nurses would also be amazed by and grateful for vaccinations, as was my own father, who suffered from diphtheria as a child. Let us not forget what lies dormant and kept at bay by immunisation and high herd immunity levels. We need to continue to build trust and understanding about vaccinations, especially given the rise of misinformation and declining immunisation rates in some areas.

The second thing is that Vivienne was president of the Australian College of Nursing, and she's remembered as one of the most influential people within the Australian nursing profession. Vivienne helped elevate the standard of Australian nurses by transferring training of nurses from hospital based training to the tertiary trained profession that it is today, equal to other allied health professions. At the time of my training, young trainee hospital trained nurses worked in a role that was considered a vocation, where men were doctors and women were expected to do the role of the carer for the love of it, and, of course, the wages and conditions reflected that attitude. I know, having completed hospital base training as a nurse and midwife at St John of God Subiaco Hospital in the eighties, followed by a university degree of Bachelor of Health Science in the nineties.

Nursing remains a highly feminised workforce, and the Labor government's recent commitment to paid prac recognises the contribution of students, mostly women, who juggle study, clinical practice, part-time jobs and family, all while learning to care for us, and I note that this policy has been extended to student teachers and social workers, both equally deserving of financial support.

I have come full circle, from my training in the corridors of a hospital to the corridors of this House. The professions of nursing and politics both require great commitment, honesty and a great sense of wanting to help people and communities. As a nurse-midwife, I have cared and advocated for patients when they drew their first and last breaths and everything in between. As a volunteer I've cared and advocated for my wonderful and supportive community of Darlington by leading projects such as the local skate park extension, the construction of a pump track, a well-loved and well-used community garden and the environmental restoration of our local wetlands and a native-bush triangle area. As a shire councillor for the shire of Mundaring for eight years, I have supported community projects such as the construction of the Boya Public Library and the Mundaring Arena. And, as a federal Labor member, I pledge to care and advocate for the fair and equitable allocation of resources to target the social determinants of health, the factors which will improve life for those in Bullwinkel and for all Australians.

See this speech in context