Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's always fascinating to listen to the member for Barker or, as we like to think of him, the numbers man for the member for Hume. The member for Barker is up and about. He might have a busy couple of weeks coming up as the member for Hume's numbers man. He might be rolling the sleeves up and making a few phone calls to some of his colleagues. I know the Leader of the Opposition's team must have been absolutely thrilled that the member for Barker was the member for Hume's numbers man. That would have been one of the first signs that maybe they were going to have a successful campaign.

Let's move onto more important things. I'm so proud to be part of this motion led by the member for Banks, who is an outstanding new member of this place and one who is going to make a huge contribution to this parliament and serve the people of the community I know he loves and respects. And I know and he feels grateful to be here in this place.

It has been six months since the election. When you think about the job that the Australian people asked us to do, it was all of the simple things that would make a meaningful difference to the lives of the people that we are privileged to represent—all of the simple things that would help Australians with the cost of living, with getting through the day and helping their families and communities get through and do in this amazing country of ours.

I was speaking to thousands of people in the lead-up to the election, asking them simple questions like: 'What matters to you? What do you care about? What's really on your agenda?' I remember speaking to hundreds of young people at university, people with student debt, and the thing that came back was, 'Look, 20 per cent off HECS—that sounds pretty good.' It wasn't everything but it was meaningful, and it was the first piece of legislation that we brought into this place. Over the next few weeks, students are going to be receiving text messages with the amount coming off their HECS. That is a fantastic legacy and one that is going to save people thousands of dollars in student debt.

Of course, there was another big policy that kept coming back. When I spoke to so many young couples in my electorate, the thing that they said time and time again was, 'Look, we'd just love to be able to buy our own home.' In Macnamara, we have such a high percentage of people who are renters, and we know that the big barrier of getting into the housing market is saving up enough money to buy a deposit. That's why the five per cent deposits and two per cent deposits for single parents are so important. We want people to be paying off their own mortgage, not somebody else's, and I know that this policy is going to help thousands of people get into homeownership.

Then, as the year finishes, we'll also be opening up our shared-equity scheme, our Help to Buy Scheme that's going to help people get into the market with around 70 per cent of the total cost of the price of the home, which is another fantastic investment—one that happens in states across the country and one that, obviously, those opposite were very quick to criticise. They're very quick to criticise the Home Guarantee Scheme, very quick to criticise any effort to help Australians get into the housing market. If you want to see a reflection of just how out of touch those opposite are, you just have to listen to their commentary saying that the Help to Buy Scheme or the Home Guarantee Scheme is all about the sons and daughters of billionaires. It's just ridiculous. We, on this side of the House, are proud to do our bit to help ensure that people are able to get into the housing market.

Also, I spoke about it last week, but I went to Elsternwick Medical Centre, one of the big medical centres just on the border of Macnamara and Goldstein which, thanks to our investments in Medicare, has now become 100 per cent bulk-billed. We opened up a headspace in South Melbourne. The headspace in Elsternwick has also had a revamp. We are investing in free, local, high-quality healthcare services, and you only have to look all around the electorate of Macnamara to see that coming to fruition. The community is answering with their feet. Almost 80,000 consultations happened last year, and we're expecting even more, with 100 per cent of them being bulk-billed at the Elsternwick Medical Centre.

Obviously, there are a number of local commitments, as well, that we are getting busy on in Macnamara. We are redoing the South Melbourne Town Hall for the Australian National Academy of Music. We are restoring the See Yup Temple in South Melbourne. We're investing in the Jewish arts quarter. We're investing in JOY Media, an amazing community radio station for the LGBTIQ community. There is so much going on, and it's been an extremely busy six months, but the work is just getting started. When the Australian people at the election spoke, they said, 'We want a government that is focused on the things that make a difference to the lives of us in our communities,' and that's exactly the work that we are doing.

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