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

In rising today I want to reflect on a few things that have been happening this week in the Canberra bubble and in politics, but also more broadly, since this government was elected and in fact you could fairly say for the last decade. Politics today has become a very exclusive business and we see that when we are out in our electorates when people say to us, 'I don't want to talk to you. I'm not very political. I'm not engaged in politics.' I find that statement quite sad and heartbreaking—that people in our community do not want to engage with their local representatives, that they see it as what is going on in Canberra and that they do not have the confidence to be part of the discussion. When I say to them, 'Look, that's okay. What do you think about your local school? What's going on? Does your school have enough resources? Do you have enough teacher aids?', I find they very quickly get engaged in a conversation about education and the resources they would like to see for their local school. I then say, 'That's politics. Funding for our schools is a state-federal partnership. That's politics.' This week the government has released a white paper or a green paper, a discussion paper from the Prime Minister's own department, suggesting that school fees should be paid not just for private schools, not just for independent and Catholic schools but also for our public schools. For the first time students in our public schools would be forced to pay fees. That is politics.

Another example—it is not education—is that quite often work places can be a contested space of politics. What concerns me is the conversation this week and in previous months since this government was elected. It is not about workers' rights, it is not about ensuring that we have fare pay and conditions, it is not about ensuring that regardless of who they work for people working next to each other get the same pay; it has become this hatchet job and this hack on union leaders. It has become the naming and shaming of unions. It is not focused on workplace conditions, it is not focused on building good strong inclusive industries; it is focused on unions.

Another area that I find quite frustrating when I talk to local people and what has been flooding my social media in the last fortnight, if not year, is the way this government is using issues of national security for political gain. I do not say this lightly and it is not something that I usually talk about in this House, but when you have a photo opportunity with maps from ASIO, it is only for one purpose and that is to incite division and fear in our community. If this Prime Minister and government were serious about building strong inclusive and connected communities, if this government were serious about multiculturalism, if this government were serious about safety, it would not exploit these issues. It would work with ASIO and it would work with communities to resolve this. Instead, what we see is photo opportunity after photo opportunity. Australians expect every government, regardless of who is the Prime Minister to put the safety of Australians first, but it should not be politicised. It should be bipartisan and should be worked through, but what we see from this government is the opposite.

What I have tried to highlight in this adjournment speech today is how people in our community, through the way in which politics is being exploited, are being excluded from the conversation and are turning off. That does not make for a healthy democracy. On the rare occasion when people step up and want to engage, these people are attacked. I will finish with a few words to really support the work of a small business community in Bendigo, which took the unusual step of running full page adds in support of marriage equality. Good on them for having a voice on an issue that they passionately care about. What disappointed me in the debate about these businesses taking this stance was that they were criticised and attacked for getting involved in politics.

We want to encourage businesses, individuals and our communities to engage in the conversation. If we are serious about bursting the bubble of Canberra, then we encourage people to engage; we do not attack, we do not demonise and we do not use our agencies for political purposes.