Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Before I begin my remarks, can I say how wonderful it is to see you, Deputy Speaker Mascarenhas, in that chair, chairing the Federation Chamber and making an incredible contribution not just to the parliament but also to the running of the parliament. You and I share an electorate border, the beautiful Swan River, and we've shared a friendship of some 20 years. It's great to see you there.

I begin by thanking the Governor-General for her remarks at the opening of this 48th Parliament. Her Excellency highlighted:

Our democracy is the golden thread that unites Australians across geography and generations.

I could not agree more. In my electorate of Perth, I see that golden thread in action in every community group, in every person who turns up to vote and in everyone who finds their unique way to have their voice heard. Democracy doesn't just happen in parliament; it happens in the values of the people of Australia and the people of Perth.

Her Excellency said:

The government is ready to return to the task—of building Australia's future.

That's what we were elected to do. That's the promise that we made to the Australian people when they chose to support us on 3 May. That spreads across a wide agenda, including helping Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn, strengthening Medicare, making medicines cheaper, making education and training more affordable by protecting the investments we've got by fully funding our public schools and making sure that free TAFE isn't just something that happens for a period of time but is there permanently for the future.

We made commitments in Perth, where you, Deputy Speaker Mascarenhas, and I attended Labor's launch. There was a launch in the electorate of Swan in 2022. They went one better in 2025 and launched in the electorate of Perth, where the Prime Minister stood up and made a commitment that we would make it easier for people to buy their first home—with just a five per cent deposit. We deliver on that in October this year. I don't know whether the Dockers will win the grand final on 27 September. That is for the players to determine in their excellent work. But what I do know is that, on 1 October, every first home buyer will be able to buy their own home with just a five per cent deposit.

I'm really excited to be part of that agenda, just as I am to be a part of the work that we're doing in making sure that we protect the penalty rates of some 2.9 million Australians. That's something that's currently being slightly held up by the opposition, but we are determined to get that done, because we know that working Australians work hard, deserve those penalty rates and deserve to have that money in their pocket.

Similarly, we continue to do the work that we committed to around making sure that Medicare is more accessible. It is a universal health system, but it's not always easy for people to get to the doctor or nurse that they need to talk to. That's why we committed to create 1800MEDICARE. You can simply pick up the phone and call 1800MEDICARE and get access to the health care that you need within minutes of realising that you might need some medical assistance. Not just that but 1800MEDICARE will be free, like so much of the Medicare system. You will not have to pay a cent. The first question you'll be asked when you call 1800MEDICARE will not be, 'What's your credit card number?' It will be, 'What is your Medicare card number?' if you've got time, or they'll get straight on to referring you to the appropriate services.

We said that we also wanted to build on the success of the excellent Medicare urgent care clinics, including the one on Rudloc Road in my electorate, by having Medicare mental health centres. I went down with the Labor candidate for Forrest, Tabitha Dowding, to announce that we would have that in Bunbury, a growing region with such huge potential when it comes to renewable energy and when it comes to the future of manufacturing in Western Australia and indeed the rest of Australia.

Just on that, when you come and have the privilege of giving an address-in-reply, you reflect on the fact that you are fortunate to get here, but not everyone you might campaign alongside does. So I want to pay a little tribute just to those from my party who stood in Western Australia for seats and may sometimes, through no fault of their own—I don't want to live in a country where everyone votes the same way, but some of them worked incredibly hard and gave up weeks and weeks of their time. But I just want to pay tribute to the Labor candidates who stood in WA. Tabitha Dowding ran an excellent campaign in Forrest, and I don't think it's the last we'll see of Tabitha. Jarrad Goold in Canning did an outstanding job. Jarrad had an interesting challenge in that he was running against a Liberal who didn't want to use any Liberal branding and was trying to pretend they were an Independent, but Jared did a great job, despite those odd circumstances. Darren Moir stood in O'Connor. He's a great farmer and did an excellent job there. My friend Karen Wheatland stood in the seat of Durack. City of Perth councillor Viktor Ko stood in the seat of Curtin, and Deep Singh stood for the Senate. It really is a contribution to democracy that people stand even if they know they may not succeed in getting into parliament. They stand because they want to make sure that, wherever people are in this country, people can choose to vote for a Labor candidate.

One of the reasons so many people did was that this is a government that, after a decade of inaction, took housing seriously. We stood there saying that the idea that you want to own your first home should not be out of reach for any Australian. We put a huge focus on first home buyers, and we saw that through our Help to Buy scheme, which is going to help some 40,000 people over the next four years. We saw that in the agenda we took of building 1.2 million homes in the next five years. Those opposite said: 'That sounds hard. Why try?' We say, 'It's worth trying to do the hard things to make sure you deliver for the people who sent us here.'

And we do this all against the backdrop of huge global uncertainty. We don't know where some world events will go. We know that we've had huge inflation challenges coming in from overseas. We know that there's more we can do when it comes to building economic resilience and supporting Australians' prosperity here at home, recognising that part of that is about how we engage constructively in the affairs of our region. It's also about recognising how we show to people here in Australia that our engagement with the world helps us at home. The Prime Minister, when he was in Western Australia a number of times, brought out the fact that one in four jobs in Australia rely upon trade. We did excellent work, and I want to commend all ministers involved, especially the trade minister, in removing some of those impediments to trade, especially the work that was done to support some of the industries like barley, crayfish and wine in Western Australia. We'll continue to do that work to expand Western Australia's and Australia's trade relationships, making sure that we have an economy that does provide those additional opportunities that come from our engagement with the world.

Deputy Speaker Payne, I want to talk about something that I know is close to your heart, which is the importance of our public service workforce. You are an excellent advocate for standing up for public servants and the important work they do, whether it be clearing backlogs, preparing us for natural disasters or providing support for people at times where they may have lost everything and the only thing they want is for a public servant to pick up the phone and give them some financial assistance so they can get back on their feet. We've got an outstanding public service in this country, much of it—but not all of it—here in the nation's great capital. I was really proud to stand with you and Labor colleagues across the country, including the Minister for the Public Service, in advocating for the important work the Public Service does.

It was deeply disappointing to see—and I hope we don't see it in another election campaign any time soon—the mean, nasty, inappropriate attacks on the Public Service that came from the Liberal Party as they sought to campaign their way into office. The Australian people rejected their attacks on work from home. They rejected their attacks on the Public Service. They rejected the idea that the Liberal Party and the National Party have put out there that somehow it's acceptable that veterans were waiting months, if not years, for their packages. That was the proposition that was put by those on the opposite side. I was proud to stand against the plan put forward by the now leader of the opposition and others to cut 41,000 jobs from the Public Service. If we were standing here now and that plan had gone through, it would have resulted in chaos. It would have resulted in huge blowouts in wait times and terrible-quality policy advice. It would have been deeply destructive across the country, and not just here in Canberra. Thousands of Commonwealth public servants come into my electorate every day, working at home affairs, the tax office and Services Australia, doing excellent work supporting their fellow Australians across the country. It would have been a wrecking ball across the country for the services Australians rely upon.

One of the other highlights of the recent election campaign was the number of times we were able to welcome the Prime Minister to the great state of Western Australia. We welcomed him for the campaign launch in my seat of Perth and, over the course of the last term of government, Western Australia welcomed the Prime Minister 35 times. I got to stand with him during the campaign to announce a massive investment in the Perth ferry network, which is currently just from Perth to South Perth and back—lovely trip, great if you want to go to the zoo—but we know that we can do more. Let's start doing the work to bring it up to Claisebrook, bring it up to Maylands, get it over to the Optus Stadium and give Perth the ferry network that the Swan River rightly deserves.

I mentioned the candidates that didn't quite make it to this place despite their excellent campaigning efforts. I do want to say, there are three great new Western Australians in this parliament. First is my friend Trish Cook, who had a very long wait for the results on the seat of Bullwinkel. At the time, when she was being asked, 'How do you feel, waiting for this?' she replied: 'I'm a midwife; I'm used to long waits. I don't mind at all.' As a result, we now have our tenth nurse in the parliament. It's great to have the member for Bullwinkel here. Equally, we have Tom French joining us. Both a lawyer and a sparky, he brings a full spectrum of skills, and it will be very handy having him in the parliament. I know he'll make a great contribution to building Australia's future. There's also my friend Senator Ellie Whitaker, who spent most of 2025 campaigning for others as party secretary but has also joined us, which is great to see.

One of the things you couldn't avoid during the federal election campaign was the debate around the GST. When I was first elected to this place, I said, 'Every Western Australian is sick of debating the GST.' I still believe that. The reason I believe it is that I think we finally have a set of policy settings that appropriately recognise the interests of every part of the Commonwealth, and the No Worse Off Guarantee that our government has extended has meant we can keep the GST debate off the front pages, allowing us to focus on the serious challenges Australia faces. It will also implement the 2026 Productivity Commission review, as was agreed between the McGowan-Cook government in 2018.

There are a lot of things I'd like to cover, but I'll just touch on a few things that make me really proud of the work this government is doing. The first is the partnership we've got when it comes to the Collie Battery Energy Storage System. This is significant investment in battery storage. I've been down there to see it myself. It's going to make a huge difference to the stability of the WA grid, but it's also making a huge difference in reducing WA's emissions.

In the last term, I had the joy of riding on the Perth-based Morley-Ellenbrook train line. I'm looking forward to further investments in METRONET that will get more people into our CBD, supporting the businesses of Perth.

The other one that is great for everyone who is young or young at heart is Labor's $100 million commitment to invest in the future of Scitech. Scitech is the Questacon of the west. It's a fantastic science education facility that has serviced generations of Western Australians and inspired them to go on to careers in the resources industry, science, technology and so much more. However, its home at City West is looking pretty shabby these days. It's time for a new forever home for Scitech. The Albanese government will be there in partnership with the state government to get that done.

Similarly, we will be there when it comes to the urban forest project turning what was a tip, or a dump, in Bayswater into a new urban forest next to the Eric Singleton Bird Sanctuary, making sure we've got the urban forest and the urban tree canopy we rightly need.

At the same time, down the road in Hyde Park, a park that is loved by my community, we've seen a huge removal of trees because of the horrific impact of the shot-hole borer, which is killing trees throughout the Perth metropolitan area. I must say I hope it never comes to this beautiful part of the country on the east coast. We're partnering with the Mayor of the City of Vincent, Alison Xamon, with a significant investment in the replanting of Hyde Park.

In my final moments, I want to quickly thank some—and I can't do all—of those who I've been fortunate to have support me to continue to serve in this place. Firstly, I want to thank my family. My wife, Jess, has gone through four elections with me. Every election is its own unique challenge. The incredible support that she provides both humbles me and makes me feel incredibly loved, and I'm really glad that she's been with me for all those elections. As a result, at the end of this sitting fortnight, we will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.

I want to thank our children, Leo and Ruby, who both enthusiastically demanded their own mini campaign shirts and enthusiastically sat at the front when the member for Sydney came over and launched the campaign. They only interjected around seven times during her speech, but it was great to have their support.

To my family—to my mum and dad, Wendy and Ron, who were there at prepoll in Morley pretty much every day, and to my brother Joey: I'm very grateful for your support. My mother-in-law, Diane, handed out at an election for the very first time. I'm really grateful for that support, as I am to my brother-in-law Andrew.

I want to say thank you to the team that I work with: Daniel Sutherland, Anna Churack, Kiani Mannon-Bakaj, Raz Abdullah, Kelly Ovens, Marissa Williams, Shai Macpherson, Martina Ucnikova, Katelyn Stubberfield, Rukshan De Alwis, Matilda McCagh and Harry Saunders. They all made an outstanding contribution and were fantastic campaigners. People are very proud, and rightly proud, of the results that they achieved.

One of the other joys if you're in this place long enough is to see your staff make big life decisions, and we got to welcome Baby George. Congratulations to Martina for adding Baby George to the broader office family, and, similarly, congratulations to Daniel Sutherland for adding Baby Daphne to the broader office family. Those were two really exciting and nice moments. It's always good to have a campaign baby in tow. I'd also like to say a special thankyou to Marissa Williams, who left my office at the conclusion of the term to spend more time with her two excellent and lovely children, Jude and Henry. Marissa has done an incredible amount of service, not just to me but to the Labor team in Western Australia, and I wish her the very best.

I'd like to thank equally the campaign committee who were there to tell me the hard truths and to make sure I stayed on message and kept my diary of commitments and everything else. Thank you to Ali Vaughan, Bob Kucera, Jimmy Murphy, Marije van Hemert, Megan Anwyl, Rachael Roberts and Steven Graves, and thanks to Marije for bringing along Baby Iris from time to time.

I'll finish my comments there. It is an absolute honour to serve in this place alongside so many talented members. We had an excellent contribution of members before the election. We added to that at the election, while retaining everyone who wanted to recontest their seat on our side of the place. That is a unique outcome in Australian electoral history, and it is one that I'm proud to have played a very small part in achieving. I'm looking forward to the work of the 48th Parliament.

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