Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm proud to speak to the address that was given by the Governor-General. It's the second address by a woman who is the Governor-General, in my time being in this place, meaning that this is my fifth election. When I was first elected, in 2013, the Governor-General was Dame Quentin Bryce. So it was quite fitting, I feel, that on this occasion my daughter, Daisy, and my son, Charlie, were here for the opening of this parliament and got to meet the second woman to be Governor-General of Australia and to hear the address.

There's a difference, though, between the first and the second addresses that were given by the Governors-General. It was wonderful to be able to hear the words from the Governor-General, speaking about the kind of government we are going to be, what our priorities are and what the purpose of this place is.

There was one word in her speech that I remember, that did not reflect the election in Bendigo, and that was the word kindness. During elections, it is quite often that people forget that word. They forget the word respect, they forget the word kindness, and it can become a bit of a game. But this went beyond that, and we've heard that from many people. The nastiness in this election, I have never seen in my entire life—and I grew up in Queensland. I'm a proud Victorian today, but I can remember campaigning during the Tampa years, and I can remember campaigning when we saw our country take a very different turn. But that was nothing compared to the nastiness and the division that occurred in this election—the way in which those opposite played out the culture wars in many electorates including in my own.

The Bendigo election was a brutal contest. There's no other way to put it. My opponents spent well over $2 million trying to buy the seat of Bendigo and flooded the town with outsiders. It started at Easter. Easter used to be quite sacred in Bendigo. People enjoyed it. They got involved in the festival. They participated in the parade. It used to be free of politics, but not this year. Swarms of yellow shirts swamped people, got in their way and pushed aggressively in people's faces, and, unfortunately, it was effective.

Divisions within our community were blown up. Things were fractured. Families were divided, communities were divided, sporting clubs were divided. A lot of it was based upon mis- and disinformation, and a lot of it on disrespect. One of the common things that those opposite did, when they came to my electorate, was stand up and repeat a mistruth over and over again that, in my time of being a federal member for Bendigo, particularly in the last three years—the first term of the Albanese Labor government—I had delivered nothing. This is wrong.

I will start with a bit of a list of what we did deliver in the last term of government, before I get on to what we plan to deliver in this term. Through the rPPP, $12 million for the Mount Alexander Shire Council and $1.2 for Bendigo TAFE. We delivered $800,000 for Golden Dragon Museum and $100,000 for Golden Dragon Museum; $5 million for the Bendigo Airport upgrade; $143 million for runway upgrades in Kyneton—critical for emergency services; over $3 million in Bushmaster vehicle contracts; $2 million in local sporting grants for upgrades, including for many female-friendly change rooms to accommodate participants; and HAFF projects, worth millions of dollars, to deliver much needed social and community housing to our area.

Through the Growing Regions Program, funding was delivered for Heathcote, for the Heathcote town precinct. There was funding for Bendigo Foodshare and $1.2 million for Forest Creek in Castlemaine, to restore this much loved waterway through the urban rivers program. There has been significant funding through Roads to Recovery. In fact, there was $50 million—a doubling of the Roads to Recovery funding to the councils in my local area over a five-year period. This includes $30 million to the City of Greater Bendigo alone. There's funding for roads through the Road Safety Program and funding for roads through the Black Spots Program. There's $4.3 million for a specialist dementia care unit and $3 million, through the Active Transport Fund, for the shire of Mount Alexander to link the growth corridor to the city centre.

This is just a sample of the funding that was delivered to my electorate alone in the last three years of government, dispelling the repeated mistruths of those opposite every time they came to town. They didn't care about the truth. They weren't honourable. They didn't stand up and admit when they had made a mistake. They just continued to push out the same mistruths over and over again, trying to convince people that I was not standing up for my electorate. It wasn't just the misinformation about projects—and I have to say I'm disappointed that, after the result, we are still here today in this place, and the member for Gippsland is still trying to push out this myth! He wasn't the only one that came into my electorate to try and buy the seat of Bendigo. There were so many frequent visitors from the National Party that I almost thought they might need an AEC form to enrol in the electorate of Bendigo. They spent so many nights in Bendigo before and during the election period. Whilst I wouldn't have welcomed their enrolment—because I'm sure they weren't putting a one next to my name—that just demonstrates the frequency of their visits.

Whilst we didn't have the invasion of blue shirts, we had the invasion of yellow shirts. People who were not from Bendigo came and swarmed every pre-poll station and every polling station, intimidating voters. They were booing voters who only took a Labor how-to-vote card. Never in my life have I seen another side of politics boo a voter for walking through with only one how-to-vote card! It begs the question: when do we cross the line between free and fair elections? Where is that line? I'd say that some of the things that we saw in Bendigo did cross that line. To this day, I'm still having people raise with me their voting experience.

The AEC had to have a welfare officer at the door to support people when they came through because of the level of intimidation that they experienced. Most candidates have one person handing out how-to-vote cards. Sometimes, at an early voting centre, it might be the candidate and two other volunteers to make sure you cover all the entrances, but are 20 really necessary? There were 20 people all there, standing in front of people, agitating people, engaging people in a way that is not free or fair. It starts to ask the question: have we crossed the line between what is free and fair? That's not to mention the waste involved in all the advertising, the failure to follow direction that was given by the AEC, the signs that weren't authorised properly and the signs that, in many cases, are still up today and haven't been taken down. We know the people who put those signs up were not local. They probably won't come back to Bendigo. They probably just came for the election. But now that they've all left, we're left to rebuild our town. We have to try and help rebuild the bridges, to help rebuild confidence and to dispel a lot of the misinformation and disinformation that was pushed out into my community via social media and local media, through their doorknocking campaign and through their whispering campaign.

Here are a few of the examples of the misinformation that I had to encounter: parliaments elected after 2004 do not get the parliamentary pension. A few people said to me: 'I thought I was doing you a favour voting against you. You'll get the pension.' That's what I got told. That level of misinformation doesn't do anybody any good. It's unfair and it's not true. When doorknocking in my electorate, I heard things like, 'You haven't delivered anything'—not true. When doorknocking I heard that it is my fault that crime has spiked—not true. Crime is an issue. Everybody has a responsibility. If you are a victim of a crime, you should call the police immediately. You should be given the support that you require.

In the lead-up to the federal election there was a very nasty, horrific incident at my local shopping centre. It shocked all of us; it shocked me. I quite often go to the marketplace with my kids after school. To think it became the scene of a horrific crime is unsettling. In words that followed that particular event, I strongly encouraged everybody, via the local media, if they witnessed this event, to talk to the police. I strongly encouraged everybody after this event, if they are the victim of a crime, to call the police. Victorian police are responsible.

I did say that I didn't think it was my place to call for a summit. How could I consciously pull police officers off the ground and away from their jobs into a summit when they have a job to do keeping people in my community safe? At the time, I thought that was quite reasonable, but it was weaponised. It was turned into a horrible video that was pushed out onto social media on the eve of the election. There were images of people with machetes. They were not from Bendigo. They had no place in that social media video, but they were put in my electorate. It was a nasty campaign, and, at the conclusion of the counting, I am pleased to say that I held on. The margin was 2,983 votes.

It is an incredibly diverse electorate. It is something that I think is the reason why I'm still here today. We have Rochester in the north and Tylden in the south. It is a huge part of central Victoria. It is now considered rural and regional, when you get your map from the Pharmacy Guild. We're no longer in the outer part of Melbourne; we're now in the regional part of Melbourne. We're that little red part of Victoria.

I want to acknowledge the communities that stuck with Labor. In the shire of Mount Alexander, the two-party preferred vote for Labor was up over 80 per cent. I acknowledge that and I want to say thank you. For some of the stronger working-class areas in Bendigo, like Long Gully central, parts of California Gully and Kangaroo Flat, I'll continue to stand with you and campaign for you. You understand the value and the importance of a Labor government. To all the other areas where we did have swings against Labor, I will still be your strong voice in this parliament, as I have been for the past five terms. It is the role. To the new areas of Rochester, now in my electorate, welcome to being represented by a Labor member. I am the first Labor member to represent your area in well over 50 years, and I am here to be your voice in this parliament.

By winning my fifth term, I will have equalled my predecessor in becoming the longest-serving MP in this place at the end of this term. To win five terms is no small feat when our parliament has only been here for 48 terms. I acknowledge, Deputy Speaker Georganas, that I've still got a long way to go to meet your standard as well as others in this place, but in a seat like Bendigo it is an achievement. It is an unusual seat that sometimes goes against the national grain, but I'm proud to say that we've held on, and Labor has now held the seat continuously for 28 years—and I hope for many more in the future.

The reason why I'm confident that Labor will continue to do well in seats like Bendigo is the agenda of our government. If I am being wrapped up, I will continue my remarks into what we will do in this term and into the future and how we'll continue to work hard for the people of Bendigo. Commitments on bulk-billing, cheaper medicines, batteries, the 20 per cent reduction in student debt, the freezing of the beer excise—they are all measures introduced by this government and committed to in the election not just for the people of Bendigo but for the region. The election commitments that were made by me for Bendigo included funding for skate parks, funding for Bendigo heritage attractions, funding for change rooms at the Truscott Reserve pavilion and North Bendigo Recreation Reserve, reimagining the Bendigo Creek and funding to develop the veterans and families hub in Bendigo. These are some of the election commitments that I made. I'll continue my remarks at a later stage.

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