Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

On the eve of the recent election campaign, I met a public school teacher who teaches at a local primary public school. She was at a meeting with some fellow teachers who were meeting with me and the New South Wales Teachers Federation. This teacher was in tears. She was at wits' end and frustrated by the fact that she teaches kids in a range of age groups with disabilities yet the facilities she's teaching in are outdated, are old and, importantly, don't have air conditioning. That means during the hot summer months, when this classroom is under the flight path of planes associated with Sydney Airport, they can't open the windows and get proper ventilation. The toilets in the school were constructed in the 1970s and haven't changed. These are the conditions the teachers at a local public school were working under. Around the same time a well-known Sydney private school was opening a new Scottish-style baronial castle, built on the school grounds, that cost $60 million. I don't begrudge private schools providing better facilities for their students. Their parents pay hefty fees and deserve a quality education and facilities for their children. But when a local public school, which cannot knock back kids with disabilities, where the teachers are giving their all to try and provide those kids a decent education, can't fund air conditioning to keep teachers and students cool in summer, then something is drastically wrong with our education system—and there has been wrong.

The public education system in Australia has not been up to scratch for well over a decade now. The report by David Gonski on the deficiencies in our public education system was handed to the Gillard government in 2012. I was quite proud that during this election campaign the Albanese Labor government finally committed to properly funding our public schools. It has only taken 13 years, but finally we are getting there. It shouldn't take 13 years. Quality education should be a basic principle that Australian governments of all persuasions adhere to, because it's about providing opportunities for kids to get access to a decent education regardless of their background, regardless of where they live, regardless of their parents' income and regardless of any disabilities or learning deficiencies they have. But that has not been the case. The legacy of the previous coalition government was to underfund public schools. Labor is fixing that, and I was very proud that the Prime Minister and the education minister signed an agreement, during the election campaign, with the New South Wales government to finally properly fund public schools so schools like the one I mentioned earlier can finally get access to the facilities they deserve and the kids finally get access to the education they deserve.

During the election campaign I was doorknocking in Chifley, where I met a woman who was telling me about her complex health needs. She was also telling me about the fact that she didn't visit the GP anymore; she only went to the public hospital when the situation was drastic. When I asked why she wasn't visiting the GP, she simply said she can't afford the co-payment. Unfortunately we've had many GPs in our community and across Australia that have been charging co-payments for people to visit. That undermines the universality of Medicare and the healthcare system, and the effect is that people don't go to the GP when they get sick, as this woman in Chifley outlined to me. They wait and wait and wait and get sicker and sicker and sicker until eventually it ends up being acute care in the public hospital system and, guess what, costs the taxpayer much more money. It doesn't make sense that we don't provide that universal primary health care upfront.

That is the reason why Medicare was established—to ensure that all Australians, regardless of your income, your background or where you live, get access to that primary health care that they deserve and to ensure that minor health problems don't become major health problems and result in acute care.

Thankfully, I'm proud to be a member of a government that is dealing with that issue of co-payments and properly funding bulk-billing in this country. Again, a legacy from the coalition government was that they froze the Medicare rebate for a number of years, which basically ensured that doctors had to charge co-payments to continue to survive. It shouldn't be that way. That undermines the universality of Medicare, and that is why the Albanese government is acting.

During our first term in government, we provided funding to ensure that children and pensioners got access to additional bulk-billing through a guarantee and increases in funding. We're now extending that to the rest of the population, with a massive increase in the incentive for bulk-billing to ensure that doctors, GPs in particular, and their practices bulk-bill their patients and everyone gets access to the health care they need when they need it.

We're very fortunate in my community to have a Medicare urgent care clinic in Maroubra. I was very proud when we opened this facility. As of last month, there had been close to 30,000 visits to the Medicare urgent care clinic, providing people with access to Medicare funded, bulk-billed, non-life-threatening care when and if required in the local community. It has been very popular. It is a wonderful initiative, and the community appreciates that. Again, during the election campaign Labor announced that we would fund additional Medicare urgent care clinics across the country to ensure that people get the access to health care that they deserve. And this week in the parliament we will reintroduce legislation delivering on the promise that we made to make medicines cheaper, reducing the cost of a PBS script to $25 and continuing the freezing of script prices for pensioners and seniors at $7.70.

During the election campaign I was fortunate to have the Minister for Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, come to the Children's Cancer Institute at the University of New South Wales in Randwick to make the announcement that the Albanese Labor government will continue to properly fund the Children's Cancer Institute to ensure that the groundbreaking research and clinical care at this institute will continue into the future.

Many Australians would not believe that Australia actually leads the world in the research and development of what is personalised medicine and personalised treatment, each treatment being unique and different, specified and tailored to the needs of the child. I'm very proud that Professor Michelle Haber and her team at the Children's Cancer Institute are in our electorate, and I'm very proud of the work that they are doing that will continue, thanks to the investment made by the Albanese Labor government.

Every election campaign, I get someone who comes up to me and says, 'I always vote Labor because Gough Whitlam gave me the opportunity of an education that I otherwise would not have got.' This year is the 50th anniversary of the dismissal of the Whitlam government. In shameful circumstances, a good government was cut short. But that legacy left by the Whitlam government around access to education still continues to this day, and we always get people saying, 'I vote Labor because Gough gave me the opportunity of an education when my family would never have been able to afford it.' It's in that vein and within that tradition that Labor continues such policies as fee-free TAFE, ensuring that anyone who wants to get a trade qualification in Australia can now do it free of charge, particularly given that we have skill shortages in a number of industries and we want to encourage more Australians to train for a trade and take up those opportunities.

We've introduced a prac payment to ensure people undertaking nursing, teaching and social work degrees, who have to have a break from their studies to undertake a practical placement, don't lose income during that period. It will ensure that they can meet their cost-of-living commitments. Importantly, legislation was introduced by the Minister for Education last week to dramatically cut student debts by 20 per cent and to increase the repayment threshold to $67,000 from $54,000. These are policies that make a difference to the cost of living of young Australians. They're very popular policies, and we're very proud of them.

The election campaign was delayed because of the effects of Cyclone Alfred. We all remember those images of locals coming together to sandbag and to get ready for the impending extreme weather that was coming during that difficult period for the Queensland community. It was a salient and sobering reminder of the threats of climate change and of the importance of governments taking this issue seriously, providing stronger action on climate change. Throughout the course of the last term I met so many Queenslanders, particularly in the north of Queensland, who simply cannot afford home insurance anymore; their homes are now uninsurable because of the risk of damage associated with climate change. Climate scientists were warning us of this 20 to 30 years ago. Yet you had the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments that completely ignored the advice and cut back on action on climate change. We remember the Abbott government getting rid of all the architecture that was established to reduce emissions in Australia. Well, Australians are now paying the price of that inaction. Thankfully, the Australian people rejected that notion when it was espoused by the former member for Dickson, Peter Dutton, during the election campaign. The Australian people voted for stronger action on climate change, and that is exactly what the Albanese government is delivering.

A few weeks ago I was fortunate to join local members from Greenpeace in my community. They do an annual whale survey along the outskirts of Cape Banks in my electorate. We did the survey at a place colloquially known as the 'humpback highway'. It's the place where whales are seen migrating from Antarctica to the north to have their babies, to calve; they return later on. Each year I go along for that census of whales. We're finding that each year the number of whales counted by volunteers on this particular day is increasing, and it's a wonderful sight to see. I see literally tens of whales every time I go to do this whale census with the local community. It's a salient reminder of the very precious nature of the coastline that I'm so fortunate and blessed to represent.

During the election campaign I was very proud to help launch the Gamay sea country plan of the Gamay Rangers, the local Indigenous rangers. The plan has been developed by the University of New South Wales, the Gamay Rangers, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the state and federal governments to ensure the protection of that precious resource, Gamay—or Botany Bay, as it's more regularly known—and the beautiful coastline along the Pacific Ocean. It's a very precious resource and something that's cherished by our local community. I pay tribute to Robert Cooley and all of the Gamay Rangers for their important work in putting this sea country plan together. The Gamay Rangers represents thousands of years of traditional care for country and for sea. The totem of the Bidjigal people, the local Indigenous community at La Perouse, is burriburri, the whale. The whale is sacred in their culture and their heritage, as represented by that migration. They were telling me on the weekend of a whale that came into Botany Bay with her calf just a few weeks ago to frolic and play around and of the delight that the local community had in seeing that representation of their community so visible in the precious Botany Bay. And it really hit home to me how important stronger action on climate change is and why I'm an advocate for ocean conservation.

I'm very proud that the Albanese government, in our first term, have delivered the largest network of marine reserves of any nation in the world, to protect that sea country and that biodiversity in our the oceans. We've signed the high seas biodiversity treaty and, over the coming months, we will implement that legislation in the parliament to ensure that we do our bit as a nation to protect our precious oceans and their marine reserves.

We introduced a number of policies that represent that stronger action on climate change. The net zero by 2050 architecture, believe it or not—as if they haven't learned any of the lessons from the election—is now under threat thanks to the National Party. We will keep that architecture in place, and all of the policies that sit under it to deliver it, such as new vehicle emission standards; massive investments in solar and battery technology; the household battery program, as the minister outlined in question time today, delivering large increases in the number of people investing in batteries; a pathway to net zero, a pathway to a transition to a greener, cleaner future for our kids; but, most importantly, a pathway to ensure that we protect those beautiful marine resources into the future.

I thank the people of Kingsford Smith for bestowing upon me the continuing honour of representing our wonderful community. I've lived in our community my entire life, and I'm very passionate about it, particularly the community organisations. I often say to people and people say to me, 'You're so lucky to represent that beautiful coastline, those wonderful beaches, Botany Bay and those green spaces.' I say, 'No, the best thing about the community I represented is the people, and the fact that we care for each other and we look after each other.' We are represented by many different community organisations: the local surf clubs, the local sporting clubs, the local multicultural community groups, the local churches and synagogues and the like. That's why I was very pleased to be able to provide commitments to upgrade the Maroubra Surf Life Saving Club, during the course of this term of government, to multicultural organisations, like St Spyridon Orthodox Church, the Coogee Synagogue, and the Eastern Suburbs Islamic Welfare Services to upgrade their important facilities, in recognition of the important work that they do in social harmony in our community.

I'm very fortunate to represent a multicultural community. I often express to that community that Australia's greatest strengths are our multiculturalism and our diversity, and we're starting to see that finally reflected in this, the 48th parliament. I want to pay tribute to the new members of parliament for their wonderful speeches, representing that multiculturalism and diversity. When you hear those people speak, it's very easy, I think, to come to the conclusion that Australia and our future is in good hands.

Finally, I pay tribute to my family: my beautiful wife and our four children, who I love and respect. I'm very proud of what they do and what they achieve, as well. I thank them for providing me with the support to continue to represent the wonderful community of Kingsford Smith.

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