Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Only a Labor government will protect Medicare and the NDIS. Only a Labor government will fully fund public schooling, because we know a good quality education for all is important to our future prosperity as a country and to the future of those children. Only a Labor government will support and grow tertiary education with fee-free TAFE, cuts to HECS debts and paid pracs, because we know that we need a skilled workforce to protect the quality of life we expect as an Australian community. Only a Labor government has delivered two back-to-back surplus budgets after a decade of deficit after deficit drove up our national debt, and, at the same time it has been delivering surpluses, this government has also brought down inflation.

When we came into government in 2022, inflation was at 6.1 per cent and rising. Now it's at 2.4 and falling, and as a result we've had two cuts to interest rates. We achieved the miracle of keeping unemployment rates down while inflation came down as well. We know that the last three years were just a start. After a lost decade of flat wages, climate denialism, lost opportunities, poor international relationships and deficits, what the Albanese Labor government achieved in the last three years is just the start. There is still a lot of work to be done, and it's great to be back in parliament.

I spent the last three years of the 47th Parliament in Canberra representing my constituents in committees, in decisions and in the House. Back home, I attended community events, met with countless individuals, doorknocked, and advocated to ministers and departments. I'm always honoured that people choose to share their stories and experiences with me, trust me with their personal details and trust me to advocate for them. At an electorate level, some of the issues that have been talked about for years and years are finally underway.

Having worked in the health sector for many years, I do have a particular interest in ensuring that we have access to top-quality health services. Flinders Medical Centre in my electorate is a major tertiary hospital, serving southern Adelaide and the electorates of Boothby, Kingston, Mayo and Barker. It was opened in 1976, almost 50 years ago, and medical standards and hospital standards have changed quite a lot since then. The population in southern Adelaide has significantly grown. In 2022, I was very pleased to be able to commit $200 million of federal money, matched by the state government, for a redevelopment and expansion of Flinders Medical Centre and repatriation hospital. This development will see an additional 150 beds. It includes a geriatric evaluation management unit to provide focused attention on older people coming in through the ED. The Margaret Tobin in-patient mental health service will be expanded by an additional 12 beds, and there will be a new emergency department, new theatres and new ophthalmology facilities.

We've also seen additional MRI licences, a very popular urgent care clinic providing bulk-billed urgent walk-in services and an endometriosis clinic, which is changing the lives of women who've lived for years with chronic pain. A kids hub, which will be opened any day now, will provide mental health services to kids and families. And, on top of all this, there's a four per cent increase in bulk-billing rates and cheaper medicines, including 60-day prescriptions.

In the 48th Parliament, I look forward to delivering a Medicare mental health clinic and a very exciting project in conjunction with Flinders University. This project will mean an additional 1,300 nurses and allied health workers being graduated every year, an additional 10,000 allied health appointments in student led clinics and the project will work with the adjacent Flinders Medical Centre to reduce their outpatient lists. They will help older people stuck in hospital beds to recondition so they can return home, and provide free or low-cost appointments for members of the community.

We've also had a fair bit of major infrastructure work in Boothby. The long-term North-South Corridor project continues, and we are now at the ground-breaking stage. There will be three large tunnel-boring machines and two smaller ones in operation. At the moment we're building the capsules where the tunnel-boring machines will be built, and the entire project is expected to be completed by 2031. We have the Majors Road on-off ramp for the Southern Expressway being built. This was something that the former state Liberal member campaigned heavily on, but when he was elected as part of the former SA Liberal government, he didn't do it. And then when we announced we were doing it he campaigned against it. This will take commuter traffic off Brighton Road in Boothby, so we're eagerly looking forward to its completion later this year.

We have three new tram overpasses being built on Marion, Cross and Morphett Roads at the moment. They form part of campaign promises from both sides of politics in the 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2022 elections. It took the election of an SA Labor government and a Labor federal government in 2022 to actually get these projects underway. The boom gates will go next month, and the project will be completed by January next year, including an upgrade of the existing South Road tram overpass. These boom gates are down for 20 minutes every hour, so the impact on traffic flow will be amazing.

In the 2025 pre-election federal budget this government committed $525 million to the greater Adelaide bypass. This is an enormously big deal in South Australia, and it's something I've been involved in since 2012. Currently, Adelaide is the only capital city in the country that does not have a freight bypass. Heavy vehicles making their way from Victoria to WA, or the other way, or heading to Outer Harbour or to distribution centres north of the city have to make the treacherous trip down the very steep South Eastern Freeway, which we hope they do in low gear, otherwise we end up with major crashes and fatalities at the intersection at the bottom. They then have to make their way through heavy suburban traffic and multiple traffic lights, either along Cross Road in Boothby to South Road or Portrush Road in Sturt. Either way it's slow, it's often dangerous and it costs freight drivers in time and fuel.

The freight bypass is another much promised project, with the former Liberal state and federal governments promising it in 2018 and then cancelling the project in 2020. This Labor federal government has now put 50 per cent of the money in the budget and the SA government has submitted a plan to Infrastructure Australia. We are closer than we have ever been to seeing this come to fruition.

As the Prime Minister promised, our first piece of legislation introduced in the 48th Parliament is to reduce student debts by 20 per cent. Along with paid prac payments for nursing, midwifery, social work and teaching students and the $10,000 completion payments for apprentices in building trades, this builds on our commitment to ease cost-of-living pressures on young people and help them build the skills they need for a bright future in high-paying, secure jobs—and also build our skilled workforce in Australia. Every business I speak to tells me about the shortage of skilled workers and how it's limiting their productivity and activity. Every young person I speak to talks about the barriers to getting ahead. Enabling young Australians to get well-paid, secure jobs while also addressing the skills shortage is a win-win.

Before I came to this place, I worked for many years in the housing and homelessness sectors. In this country, we have a 40-year backlog of social and affordable housing. Only this government has, pardon the pun, concrete plans to address the shortage. We are rolling out $43 billion in housing initiatives, and it's been an absolute pleasure to be at sod-turning and topping-off ceremonies, to visit construction sites and see the progress and, most excitingly, to be at the opening of completed housing developments, talking to the new tenants about how life changing it is to have a secure basis for them and their families. Make no mistake: this 40-year backlog was never going to be fixed in the last three years. It takes a while to build houses on scale, or an apartment block, but we are well on the way.

My friends in the community housing sector are ecstatic about the Housing Australia Future Fund, which was under threat from those opposite in the last election. The HAFF allows community housing to have certainty to build large-scale affordable housing this year while also getting approval for another developer to start next year and access the land to start a development plan for yet another development in following years. Only with this steady pipeline of social and affordable housing will we be able to turn around this housing shortage which is making finding a rental property, let alone a property to purchase, so difficult for the next generation.

I'll end where I began—with thanks and gratitude for the people of Boothby, the volunteers of my campaign, the staff in my office who diligently serve the people of Boothby, my colleagues in the chamber and the cabinet, and the Prime Minister, for the leadership and for not shying away from these big, sticky problems like reconciliation and Indigenous disadvantage, climate change, a fair go for all, gender, equity, health, education, the skill shortage and housing. Labor is the party to make the big changes that make everyone's lives better. Labor is the party of Medicare, affordable tertiary education, superannuation and the NDIS, and we're the party that will tackle the new generation of changes needed to deliver a better future for all Australians. Ngaityalya.

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