Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak today in reply to the Governor-General's address. In doing so, I want to honour the people of Indi who have granted me the utmost privilege of representing them again in this parliament. Each time I rise when the Speaker says, 'The member for Indi has the call,' I feel this responsibility deeply. It's a responsibility I don't take for granted.

The people of Indi elected me first in 2019 and in 2022—again this year because they wanted their representative to act with respect, integrity and accountability to the community and to the nation. This is the Indi way of doing politics. The electorate of Indi covers a vast 29,000 square kilometres, and I travel right across this region. I meet people where they're at, in their home towns, and I represent the unique needs of these diverse Indi communities. I listen to the challenges people are facing in their lives—the problems that they turn to their members of parliament to help solve. A key part of my job is to bring these voices to the federal parliament. But I don't use this platform just to describe problems. I work with my community to find solutions together and bring them to the parliament and to the government, and my work has a history of having local impact and national influence.

The people of Indi demanded better transparency and integrity in our government. That's why I campaigned for a national anticorruption commission in my first term—a campaign that was won with the start of the National Anti-Corruption Commission two years ago. I'm proud of my work in the last parliament representing Indi as Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Anti-Corruption Commission, and this term I can assure you that I will continue to advocate for the transparency of the National Anti-Corruption Commission's decision-making, because the work of integrity is never done. It's why I'll continue to champion the establishment of an independent whistleblower protection authority to provide real safeguards and provide support for those who take the personal risk of exposing corruption and misconduct. Without them, and without broader reforms to end things like pork-barrelling and clamp down on the lobbyist free-for-all in Canberra, our integrity framework remains unfinished business.

When the people of Indi told me they're struggling to purchase and rent homes, I campaigned for a fund to build the critical enabling infrastructure—the pipes, the poles, the pavements—needed to open up housing supply. I was pleased to see the government adopt my policy under the Housing Support Program, but their commitment of $500,000 is just not enough. I will continue to advocate for this important investment and demand that a fair share be allocated to regional Australia.

When I heard Indi farmers tell me they wanted to take climate action but needed the support about how to do it, I successfully secured $76.4 million in the 2023-24 federal budget to establish a network of sustainable agriculture facilitators, or SAFs. This policy delivers tangible support for farmers to adopt climate-smart agricultural practices.

My constituents tell me they want to access cleaner, cheaper energy, so in 2022, and again in 2023, I introduced a Cheaper Home Batteries Bill to include batteries in the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme. Home batteries help households and community groups take control of their energy and receive maximum benefit from their rooftop solar. Over time, we will see this benefit extended to all consumers by reducing overall pressure on the grid. This election campaign, I was very pleased indeed to see the Labor government finally listen to me and take up this idea, right down to the very title of my bill.

These are policies and laws that benefit the people of Indi, but they benefit the whole nation too. I'm the first to say that we haven't solved all of the problems. Significant challenges remain for my constituents: accessible and affordable health care, housing, child care and aged care. The cost of living is still a challenge for so many households, as is reliable and secure energy, especially as we continue to transition towards net zero. These are big challenges, but I'm confident that the cooperative, consultative and evidence based work that I do with my community means that we can bring solutions to address these very big challenges.

Access to health care is one of the biggest issues right across the electorate. This election campaign was no different to any other that I have participated in. From Corryong and Wodonga in the north of Indi through to Alexandra and Kinglake in the south, I heard time and time again about the need for better investment in our health care in the regions. Regional Australians have poorer health and die younger than metropolitan Australians. That's a fact, and it's simply unacceptable that in 2025 rural Australians continue to suffer poorer health outcomes because of their postcode.

One of the biggest concerns I hear from the people in the north of my electorate is the desperate need for a greenfield single-site hospital on the border in Albury-Wodonga. Albury Wodonga Health is the largest health service between Sydney and Melbourne. It's the only cross-border health service in the country, and it's stretched across two separate hospital campuses. As the border region grows, so too does the need to increase our access to high-quality health care close to home. I'm committed to working constructively with all levels of government—the Victorian and New South Wales governments and the Commonwealth government—and to come together. We need to come together and collaborate on this project.

In the last parliament I brought the Wodonga and Albury mayors to Canberra for a meeting with both the Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Health and the federal Minister for Health, to make the case for federal funding for a greenfield hospital. I handed the Prime Minister a letter signed by more than 200 doctors—200!—from the Albury-Wodonga region, explaining the duplication of services across the border as inefficient, inadequate and unsafe. The community is calling for a greenfield hospital. Doctors and health professionals are calling for a greenfield hospital. And I'm joining them in this call. In this parliament I will keep fighting for a single-site hospital at Albury-Wodonga.

I've done the work to make it possible for the Commonwealth to come to the table on this. During the recent election I campaigned for a $2 billion building rural hospitals infrastructure fund. I had my policy reviewed and costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office. The Commonwealth government funds hospital infrastructure. This is a fact. The problem is, it's not done transparently, fairly or equitably. Recently the government announced $200 million as an election commitment for infrastructure for a Perth hospital. Yet a letter from Minister Butler to the Victoria and New South Wales health ministers, who were requesting federal funding for Albury-Wodonga Health, said there were no current Australian government grant opportunities available to support public hospital infrastructure development at Albury-Wodonga Health. Think about that.

My building rural hospitals fund would provide hospitals like Albury-Wodonga Health and small regional health services, like those in Bright, in Mansfield and in Alexandra, with a fair, transparent and competitive opportunity to apply for the funding they need. Our rural health infrastructure is falling behind that of our metropolitan counterparts, and rural Australians are paying the price with their lives. That is why I've done the work here for the government to close the gap on healthcare outcomes in the bush.

But it's not just infrastructure that Indi's healthcare system needs. As a former nurse and midwife and then rural health researcher, I know just how critically important it is to have an exceptional health workforce—doctors, nurses, psychologists, all the allied health professions—in the regions. In Indi we don't have enough health professionals to care for the needs of our community. During the election campaign I consistently heard about long waitlists to see health professionals and about people spending too much and travelling too far to access necessary health care. We need to do everything we can to support the growth of our healthcare workforce, and nowhere more than in rural, regional and remote Australia.

We know that students who live and train in rural and regional Australia are more likely to stay and practice in rural, regional and remote Australia. But we must do more to support them to do so. While undertaking mandatory clinical placements, many students report significant hardship, including loss of income, housing insecurity and the need to pay double rents. Some simply can't afford to do this and are forced to stop their studies. What a waste.

I welcome the government introducing the Commonwealth Prac Payment scheme for Australians studying teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work to get the support they need while on practical placement. This is good. However—and it's a big 'however'—this policy leaves behind students who are studying medicine and all of the other allied health professions. In this parliament I will continue to put pressure on the government to extend practical payments to include students who are studying medicine and the allied health degrees. We are in dire need of excellent health professionals in rural Australia. It's our responsibility to act and help them get their degrees and provide the services we so desperately need.

My constituents in Indi care deeply about our natural environment. I often hear that the natural beauty of our region is one of the reasons people move here. My constituents tell me they love to explore the bushland, the mountains and the rivers so close to where we call home. They also care deeply about the preservation and regeneration of Indi's natural spaces and unique flora and fauna. This includes the magnificent snow gums in the alpine High Country, covered in snow right now; grass-tree orchards in the Warby Ranges; and the native orchids in the Chiltern-Mount Pilot National Park. These are loved, these are visited and these are cared for by local people. My constituents first sent me to this place in 2019 to protect our beautiful and unique natural environment, and they've re-elected me twice more to push for stronger action on climate change to care for our precious environment and for ourselves.

We need to strengthen our environmental laws, and I'll continue to call for comprehensive reforms in the 48th Parliament, including for the inclusion of communities in decision-making—not just businesses and environmental groups. It is important that the public has a clear line of sight on all environmental decisions, like whether the large-scale renewable energy or fossil fuel projects should be approved. We need to make laws that lock in transparency, and we can't leave that to chance—or, worse, vested interests and lobbyists. I will keep fighting for this; I'll keep fighting for this hard in the 48th Parliament.

Reforms like these are critical as we transition to renewable energy—a goal I support. But I am concerned at the damage done to regional communities from the poor consultation—and bad behaviour, frankly—of some renewable energy companies. Communities deserve to be engaged early and meaningfully in the development of energy projects happening in their area, and right now this is not consistently happening. In 2023, I took my concerns to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy to set up an independent community engagement review, and I was very happy to work with Senator Pocock on this endeavour. This review, undertaken by former Australian Energy Infrastructure commissioner Andrew Dyer, made nine recommendations to improve community engagement and consultation on renewable energy projects. I successfully argued for some of these recommendations to be funded in the 2024-25 federal budget. I will continue to advocate for the people of Indi in ways that are appropriate as their federal member, to work to improve the systems for all regional Australia and to also ensure regional communities meaningfully benefit—long-term benefit, long-term legacy and regional development—from their renewable energy transition.

As with their renewable energy plans, if the government fail to take a strong regional lens to their housing plans, they will be failing our growing regions. We experience the housing crisis just as those in the cities do, and, for too many people in my electorate, finding an affordable home or secure rental feels like a complete impossibility. This is why the Housing Australia Future Fund, and similar investment programs delivered through Housing Australia, must guarantee—guarantee!—funding for regional communities. We represent 30 per cent of the population, so we should receive 30 per cent of housing funding, and I will continue to prosecute the case for this. Addressing the housing crisis will require sustained commitment from all levels of government—not for a single year, not for a single election cycle, but over many years and many election cycles. This government has taken important first steps with investments in social and affordable housing, critical enabling infrastructure and planning reform at the state and local level. But the work cannot stop there. Australians will expect results over the next three years, and so will I.

During the recent election, I highlighted that while the government has conducted significant work to address the affordability of early childhood education and care, the major issues in my electorate relate to accessibility. We know that childcare deserts exist right across regional Australia, occurring at more than double the rate that they do in major cities—yes, double the rate. In north-east Victoria there are three children for every childcare place. This means that many children miss out on all the benefits of child care and parents are unable to work to their full capacity, meaning that our whole community misses out on their skills. I'm working with communities in my electorate to prepare for the Building Early Education Fund, or the BEEF, which, if delivered well, can make a meaningful difference in childcare deserts like those in my electorate. But, frankly, this fund is too small, and more funding will be needed to meaningfully increase availability across regional and outer-urban Australia.

Like long day care, outside school hours care is another key pillar of education in small rural communities. That's why, in 2024, I fought hard for eight local providers when they had long-term funding under the Community Child Care Fund withdrawn. These providers are the only services in their areas and are mostly based in small rural primary schools. The funding cut meant some services were at risk of closing. Last year, hundreds of providers across Australia were found to be in need of this funding, but the funding pool was just too small.

During the election campaign, I argued that this could be solved if the Community Child Care Fund was a demand-driven grant, not a competitive grant. If we want young families to come and stay in the regions and grow our communities, we must have available child care. Thriving communities also rely on reliable internet and phone connections to run businesses and healthcare services and to simply stay connected when there's an emergency.

In the election, I put forward a costed policy to ensure all mobile phone towers in areas of high fire and disaster risk are equipped with battery backup. This is crucial, because, when mobile phone towers and internet systems fail, entire towns can become cut off. During emergencies, like fires or floods, that can cost lives. By requiring all towers in high-risk areas to have at least 24 hours of backup, we will increase our resilience and keep businesses and communities online even when the power goes out.

I hear from my constituents and Indi's nine local governments about how our roads are disintegrating before our very eyes and how we simply do not have the funding to fix them. To solve this, I want to see the return of the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program. This program provided untied funding for local governments to invest in the maintenance and upgrade of their local roads, of which they have thousands of kilometres to look after. Through my work as a member of the Regional Development Infrastructure and Transport Committee, I know that untied funding is vital for small rural councils. The nine local governments in my electorate frequently raise the need to reinstate this funding. I am glad to support them, and this government should do so. I was pleased to see the coalition make the same commitment during the election, and now I call on the government to step up to the plate and do the same.

This 48th parliament is a big opportunity for this place to come together and solve some of the big problems that Australians face. I want to be clear that I come into this parliament with the spirit of collaboration, with the spirit of bringing solutions to difficult problems, and with the community of Indi firmly in my mind every time I stand to speak in this place.

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