Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say with absolute conviction that in Lalor we are building the Australia of the future, but we are not there yet. There is still work to be done. As Lalor and the city of Wyndham transition from a growth corridor to a maturing city, the needs of our community are also changing. Infrastructure, services, education and planning must keep pace. We must continue to build that future now. That is why I continue to advocate fiercely for roads, schools, child care, health services, aged care, education and public transport.

We have already seen incredible investment in Lalor under the Albanese Labor government. It's really important because it was past time for the Commonwealth to support this burgeoning part of the world after a decade of neglect from the former government and its three prime ministers who ignored our needs and left us supporting government with our contributions but with little in return. I speak of major infrastructure and transport. The former government made not a single contribution to a major infrastructure project in the electorate of Lalor in over a decade in office, despite commitments from me across three elections to start the Wyndham Ring Road. It is a priority for local government, it's a priority for state government and, pleasingly, now it has federal support to see it completed.

The Labor Party in opposition committed $57 million to the Ison Road Overpass in the 2016 and 2019 election campaigns, and, having won government in 2022, delivered 50 per cent of funding to see it built. I stand here proud to say that that section is complete. It is complete, and the state and local governments are now completing the road from the foot of the bridge to Wests Road. This is a transport corridor that will see the people in our growing community travel, rather than through the heart of Werribee, around the edge onto the M1.

The federal government has also honoured its commitment announced last year for $125 million to upgrade the main road and M1 interchange, and works are underway, with temporary lights being constructed now, as a priority, to see people exit the freeway safely on their way home from work. This is a problem that has occurred with our growth and with neglect from the former federal government, with them not finding it in their hearts or their purse to support our growing community. This has meant that, as the houses have come, people have used the existing roads to get to the freeway. They're crossing a rail line on an ancient part of the road to get through a new suburb again and onto the M1 freeway. This has meant that on the return journey we have people on the M1 exit and drive in the emergency lane for kilometres. Well, that stops now. It stopped with our election. It stopped when state government took our funds and started work immediately.

We've had a traffic light put on the road to create a break so that traffic can come off that freeway, and right now they are putting in the temporary lights so that we can get on with the complex work of seeing stage 1 of this ring road completed. I'm really pleased to say that this federal government is making its contribution with half the funding for that M1 main road interchange to be modernised and for the bridge to be widened there to make sure that people can move freely to and from work.

As well as that, this government is delivering $41.75 million to update the intersection of Ballan, McGrath and Greens roads on Ballan Road, again in partnership with the state Labor government. We're giving $13.2 million over five years via Roads to Recovery for local roads upgrades in Wyndham, including Sayers Road, Priorswood Drive, Warringa Crescent, Danube Drive and Ashton Crescent, and a further $2.3 million for local active transport infrastructure—walking and cycling paths—via the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program. This is really important work. It will see stage 1 complete of the Wyndham Ring Road. I was really pleased at the election to be able to announce $85 million to build a bridge to start stage 2 at the other end of this road to get a bridge over the Werribee River that will connect Tarneit and Wyndham Vale, that will join those two burgeoning communities and suburbs and reduce congestion across our city.

People don't understand that in growth corridors we talk about how long it takes to get to work. We talk about the trip on the major freeways. But in my community it can take 45 minutes to get to the freeway because we are crossing a city that used to take six minutes to cross and now, with traffic and more and more houses, can take 45 minutes. On a Saturday morning, with families coming from one side of the city of Wyndham to the other to take their kids to sport, is when most people feel the pinch most acutely, because that snarl can last for hours.

We've also made other commitments. I was pleased to attend the opening of the Galvin Park Sexton Pavilion. I made a commitment at the 2022 election to make a contribution of half a million dollars to the new Sexton Pavilion at Galvin Park. But we are doing more. We have federal backing for mental health and wellbeing services in local schools, including for reinstating the local GP training priorities for Wyndham. One of the most significant recent additions to our local health services has been the Werribee Medicare urgent care clinic. I was pleased during the campaign to be there with the Prime Minister. This service is already reducing pressure on the local emergency department. It provides fast, bulk-billed care for urgent but non-life-threatening conditions. It ensures families in the electorate of Lalor and in the city of Wyndham can access care when they need it, close to home and without the cost burden. The day during the campaign that I was there with the Prime Minister we did proudly say that already 20,000 patients had been through this urgent care clinic in my community. I know the difference that is making to the Mercy public hospital's emergency department as it waits for the state government to complete the new emergency department. It's on foot right now, being built as we speak. Health is important to the Labor government. The Albanese Labor government are not just delivering projects; we are delivering progress in health.

We are responding to the needs I hear every day. From parents desperate for local education options to young apprentices needing access to quality training to seniors seeking aged-care support, we are delivering in each of these areas. While we are talking about connections, let me highlight how we stay connected. I have been holding mobile offices in local community centres across my electorate. I've been pleased to see people take up the opportunity to come and tell me about their priorities and their concerns.

But there are two other things I want to talk about in this address in reply that I think are critical. One is the outer metropolitan ring road development. I highlight the plan for the E6 outer metropolitan ring road. While it may not all run directly through Lalor, its regional importance is unquestionable. We saw that highlighted recently with the M1 closed completely and traffic banked back from Geelong and Wyndham. That is hundreds of thousands of people not getting to their destination because we rely on one road. We need an alternative. That happened on 11 June this year and it has happened since where we have had a similar situation. It's important for the burgeoning west of Melbourne that this project see the light of day, that this project get started now. I would suggest strongly that it needs to start at the Wyndham end to make sure that our western suburbs communities have an alternative. Geelong and the west need an alternative to the M1.

There was something else that I wanted to talk about. When I became the member for Lalor, it was off the back of working in education, obviously, but also work as a community advocate, as a grassroots activist. One of the toughest jobs, when you're leading a campaign in a local community—against government, against business or whatever it's about—is to ensure that all the people who care deeply about it and who come together do so in an appropriate way. It is one of the most critical things. I was absolutely appalled a couple of weekends ago, when people involved in community activism came and visited my electorate—and some locals joined them—to talk about something that they feel is unfair. That is fair enough. But to come into the electorate of Lalor and stand in front of signs saying 'Ditch the bitch' is beyond the pale. Not in my electorate—not now, not ever.

This is the home, the seat, of former prime minister Julia Gillard. To bring those slurs into my community and to have people stand in front of those signs and re-create, knowingly or unknowingly, a scenario that my community completely rejects hinders the activists when it comes to people hearing their message, because all we saw was a re-creation of the misogyny that our community rejects. So, I call on those who were involved in this to think carefully. You cannot run community campaigns unless you can run yourselves, to be blunt—unless you can reflect and understand that your cause is damaged by that kind of behaviour.

I want to send that message strongly to those activists in my community who found themselves caught in a situation where they were near posters that carried those kinds of misogynistic messages. I don't care who the messages are for, and I don't care who wrote the signs. The misogyny is in the language, and it shouldn't have happened in my electorate. It shouldn't happen anywhere in the country. It shouldn't have happened. The things that it re-created happened out the front of this building. They shouldn't have happened then, they shouldn't be re-created in Victoria now, and they certainly shouldn't be visited upon my community.

To those activists: please, think about the way you're presenting yourselves. You're diminishing any argument you had. People have a right to protest; I firmly believe that. People have a right to demonstrate. People have a right to call upon government to change a policy. People have a right to do that in every community across the country. But people do not have a right to spread misogynistic slander and to ask other people to take that in their stride. I won't take it in mine, and I'll stand against it every time I see it.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's an incredible honour and privilege to be elected to the parliament again to represent the people of Wide Bay, my beautiful electorate that has so much to offer. It's always so humbling to come to this place. I remember the first time I arrived at the parliament, in 2016. I'd come from a little two-man police station—to this. It struck me: what an honour it is and also what an incredible country we live in that this place is available for us—all of us. Some of us come from a background like mine. I didn't finish school. I had to educate myself in my adult years and became a police officer. Some people who arrive here are captains of industry, or incredibly accomplished in academia. But we all put ourselves forward before our community, and our community make the decision on whether we are the right person to represent them, to serve their interests in the best way we can in this place. It is an amazing place to work. Sometimes it's a bit hard to explain it to the kids in the gallery when they watch question time and see the robust nature of it, but it's a demonstration of free speech and freedom. It's a symbol. In other countries, they just don't have that kind of freedom to speak to the government, to question the government, to hold the government to account, and we can do that here. It's something we need to protect and something I value deeply, and I value my time here, representing the people of Wide Bay.

Wide Bay is an incredibly diverse electorate. It's just under 15,000 square kilometres. It's not one of those giants out west like Maranoa or others that are huge, but it's big enough. To the east, I've got the amazing coastline, Fraser Island and the beaches of Rainbow Beach and Noosa down to Peregian and up to the north. I have the amazing manufacturing and services area of Maryborough and the agricultural areas of Murgon and Gympie, and I have the beautiful community of Cherbourg, which is a former Aboriginal mission and a beautiful place. I acknowledge the mayor, Bruce Simpson, who's doing an amazing job there, promoting Cherbourg. I look forward to working with him in the three years to come; there's a lot to do. We need to get him new council chambers. They haven't been delivered for so long. He's doing a good job, and I look forward to supporting him.

Noosa is an amazing place. It's at the other end of the spectrum, when it comes to Cherbourg and Noosa, but they're both as wonderful as each other, and they both appreciate each other. Indeed, quite often the Noosa surf club gets a bus and brings some of the young people from Cherbourg down to the coast to experience the skills and lifestyles of lifesaving, and that's amazing. That's the sort of egalitarian atmosphere that's in Wide Bay.

We're also an industrial and economic powerhouse. It doesn't matter where you go in the world, if you say 'Noosa', people know it, and that's because of the incredible tourism and biodiversity there. People come to enjoy the atmosphere and the events that they hold there. They are their own local government area, which was a fight that was taken up by the locals after they were amalgamated with other, larger councils. They fought hard. I must say that it was David Crisafulli, who was the local government minister in an LNP government, who separated the Noosa council and gave them their uniqueness back. It's great to see them doing what they do, and I'm looking forward to working with Mayor Frank Wilkie.

Gympie is my home town. It's where I've been since I was 15. I've watched it develop over the years, and it's an amazing place. It's changing. It's changing as the creep from the Sunshine Coast goes further north and west. Gympie is particularly changing because of the bypass that was delivered, the $1 billion section D bypass on the Bruce Highway. That was something that was planned but wasn't going to be delivered for quite some years. When I came to this place, I made it one of my absolute missions, as somebody who had stood on the highway as a policeman and a fatal accident investigator and experienced those horrors, to get that money and that funding to see that 30-kilometre greenfield section of road delivered. In the last term of government, it was finished, and Gympie is now bypassed. Those roads that were killer roads are now world-class roads.

I didn't get an invite to the opening of the billion-dollar upgrade that the Morrison government funded, but I don't care about that. I was so proud that that was opened. All that backslapping and ribbon cutting is not for me anyway. I just wanted it finished so people would not get killed. So it was a proud, proud day for me, because I know what went into it. I've got to acknowledge Michael McCormack and Barnaby Joyce, who really pushed hard and helped me to get that money. There was also the Tiaro Bypass that Michael McCormack dug deep to get me the money for, as well. That's going to be built, and it will also save lives. It's a bottleneck and a barrier to progress, but that will save lives as well. I'm glad that the new LNP state government are taking that seriously. I spoke to the transport minister, and he's taking it seriously. He's taking it as seriously as me, so that's a really good thing.

There have been so many things that we achieved in the years of government, our terms of government. I had 19 new mobile black spot towers delivered. I had millions of dollars of stimulus going into industries that create jobs, whether it be Nolan's meatworks in Gympie, which is the biggest employer in town, or the munitions factory. That is a new industry going into Maryborough with Rheinmetall and Rheinmetall NIOA, which is creating over 100 jobs brand new to the area and much needed. These are the things we did in coalition.

Unfortunately, whilst the Labor Party have come to Gympie to cut a few ribbons and do a few things like that, they haven't continued with the delivery that we did and fought for. It's been absent, and that's got to change. That highway going further north, that missing stretch between Gympie and Tiaro, needs to be fixed because that, now, will be the death zone. From Melbourne through to the end of section D, it's four lanes all the way, and it's a world-class highway. But what you find is that at the end of that road, where it ends—and this has happened as it's developed—becomes the next death zone. When people come off the four lanes onto the two lanes, undivided, that's where the fatalities happen, and that's what's happening now. We need to continue that on into an area where the density of traffic is far less than what it is. We have 11,000 movements a day at Tiaro.

A big focus for me has been supporting veterans. We only have the lucky country that we have because people have gone to serve this nation in war and have put themselves forward to be prepared to do that. That's an incredible sacrifice and an incredible thing that needs to be honoured. Once again, I've been very privileged and pleased to be able to deliver for our veterans where I can. Before the 2019 election, I made a commitment to fund a nearly half-million dollar veterans drop in centre in Murgon, a place where the veterans could go in and get counselling and the support that they need, as well the camaraderie and all of those things. We delivered that, and in the next election, as a priority and a commitment, I managed to get $1.8 million to upgrade the memorial in Memorial Park in Gympie, where, now, we have an amazing place to honour those people on Anzac Day and those special days that we acknowledge our servicemen and women. These are things that I hold close and are priorities for me. I made another commitment at this election for a veterans welfare centre in Gympie. Whilst we didn't win, and that's an election commitment that I'm going to find very hard to deliver not being in government, I will call on the government to consider delivering that, because we have got a big population of veterans in Gympie, and they deserve the best. As I said, they've put themselves forward; they've put themselves on the line, and we deserve to give them the gold standard when it comes to their life post service.

I'll just move onto the election. Elections are tough. They should be; that's a good thing. They are robust. We all feel it. We've all been through the wringer. We've all experienced things that we think are over the top and we've all experienced moments where we've thought: 'Wow! That's great. Democracy's a wonderful thing.' At other times we've felt other feelings. But to put a campaign forward, to execute a campaign properly, you need people around you, and I want to thank some of those people who supported me in my campaign. Ben Ellingsen, my campaign director; my campaign committee; all of the people who handed out fliers for me—as we all know, pre-poll is getting longer and longer and harder and harder to man, and I had very committed volunteers who stood there and did what they had to do to help me—I thank you so much.

I want to thank the state members of parliament who helped me. John Barounis is an incredible guy from Maryborough. I'm looking forward to working with John to fight for Maryborough's fair share and fix some of the problems that we have in Maryborough, some of the social issues. He will be relentless in his pursuit of that, and I really look forward to working with him. Tony Perrett, now the minister for agriculture, is the member for Gympie. He's another fine member of parliament who stood shoulder to shoulder with me. Deb Frecklington, from Nanango, is another great member and is now the Attorney-General of Queensland. It was great to have her support. I thank them all for their support.

Whilst it's good to reminisce about the things that we've achieved and we all promote those things, and that's the right thing to do to promote our community, they are all things in the past. We have to look to the future, and I look forward to working closely with my community and with elected members regardless of their political persuasion. Regardless of their views, I want to work constructively with them. I look forward to working with those people who are heading up industry in the area so that we can bring those opportunities to Wide Bay and Noosa and Maryborough. I look forward to listening to what they need. The world is changing rapidly, and what might have been relevant three or four years ago is not relevant now, so close engagement is important and that's what I intend to do.

I want to thank my family, my kids for their support through the campaign. It's not easy being the family of an elected member of parliament sometimes and I appreciate what they do for me. I couldn't do this without my wife, Sharon, or my kids and so I thank them. And, finally, I thank the people of Wide Bay for re-electing me to be their member in this sacred, democratic place.

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the eve of the recent election campaign, I met a public school teacher who teaches at a local primary public school. She was at a meeting with some fellow teachers who were meeting with me and the New South Wales Teachers Federation. This teacher was in tears. She was at wits' end and frustrated by the fact that she teaches kids in a range of age groups with disabilities yet the facilities she's teaching in are outdated, are old and, importantly, don't have air conditioning. That means during the hot summer months, when this classroom is under the flight path of planes associated with Sydney Airport, they can't open the windows and get proper ventilation. The toilets in the school were constructed in the 1970s and haven't changed. These are the conditions the teachers at a local public school were working under. Around the same time a well-known Sydney private school was opening a new Scottish-style baronial castle, built on the school grounds, that cost $60 million. I don't begrudge private schools providing better facilities for their students. Their parents pay hefty fees and deserve a quality education and facilities for their children. But when a local public school, which cannot knock back kids with disabilities, where the teachers are giving their all to try and provide those kids a decent education, can't fund air conditioning to keep teachers and students cool in summer, then something is drastically wrong with our education system—and there has been wrong.

The public education system in Australia has not been up to scratch for well over a decade now. The report by David Gonski on the deficiencies in our public education system was handed to the Gillard government in 2012. I was quite proud that during this election campaign the Albanese Labor government finally committed to properly funding our public schools. It has only taken 13 years, but finally we are getting there. It shouldn't take 13 years. Quality education should be a basic principle that Australian governments of all persuasions adhere to, because it's about providing opportunities for kids to get access to a decent education regardless of their background, regardless of where they live, regardless of their parents' income and regardless of any disabilities or learning deficiencies they have. But that has not been the case. The legacy of the previous coalition government was to underfund public schools. Labor is fixing that, and I was very proud that the Prime Minister and the education minister signed an agreement, during the election campaign, with the New South Wales government to finally properly fund public schools so schools like the one I mentioned earlier can finally get access to the facilities they deserve and the kids finally get access to the education they deserve.

During the election campaign I was doorknocking in Chifley, where I met a woman who was telling me about her complex health needs. She was also telling me about the fact that she didn't visit the GP anymore; she only went to the public hospital when the situation was drastic. When I asked why she wasn't visiting the GP, she simply said she can't afford the co-payment. Unfortunately we've had many GPs in our community and across Australia that have been charging co-payments for people to visit. That undermines the universality of Medicare and the healthcare system, and the effect is that people don't go to the GP when they get sick, as this woman in Chifley outlined to me. They wait and wait and wait and get sicker and sicker and sicker until eventually it ends up being acute care in the public hospital system and, guess what, costs the taxpayer much more money. It doesn't make sense that we don't provide that universal primary health care upfront.

That is the reason why Medicare was established—to ensure that all Australians, regardless of your income, your background or where you live, get access to that primary health care that they deserve and to ensure that minor health problems don't become major health problems and result in acute care.

Thankfully, I'm proud to be a member of a government that is dealing with that issue of co-payments and properly funding bulk-billing in this country. Again, a legacy from the coalition government was that they froze the Medicare rebate for a number of years, which basically ensured that doctors had to charge co-payments to continue to survive. It shouldn't be that way. That undermines the universality of Medicare, and that is why the Albanese government is acting.

During our first term in government, we provided funding to ensure that children and pensioners got access to additional bulk-billing through a guarantee and increases in funding. We're now extending that to the rest of the population, with a massive increase in the incentive for bulk-billing to ensure that doctors, GPs in particular, and their practices bulk-bill their patients and everyone gets access to the health care they need when they need it.

We're very fortunate in my community to have a Medicare urgent care clinic in Maroubra. I was very proud when we opened this facility. As of last month, there had been close to 30,000 visits to the Medicare urgent care clinic, providing people with access to Medicare funded, bulk-billed, non-life-threatening care when and if required in the local community. It has been very popular. It is a wonderful initiative, and the community appreciates that. Again, during the election campaign Labor announced that we would fund additional Medicare urgent care clinics across the country to ensure that people get the access to health care that they deserve. And this week in the parliament we will reintroduce legislation delivering on the promise that we made to make medicines cheaper, reducing the cost of a PBS script to $25 and continuing the freezing of script prices for pensioners and seniors at $7.70.

During the election campaign I was fortunate to have the Minister for Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, come to the Children's Cancer Institute at the University of New South Wales in Randwick to make the announcement that the Albanese Labor government will continue to properly fund the Children's Cancer Institute to ensure that the groundbreaking research and clinical care at this institute will continue into the future.

Many Australians would not believe that Australia actually leads the world in the research and development of what is personalised medicine and personalised treatment, each treatment being unique and different, specified and tailored to the needs of the child. I'm very proud that Professor Michelle Haber and her team at the Children's Cancer Institute are in our electorate, and I'm very proud of the work that they are doing that will continue, thanks to the investment made by the Albanese Labor government.

Every election campaign, I get someone who comes up to me and says, 'I always vote Labor because Gough Whitlam gave me the opportunity of an education that I otherwise would not have got.' This year is the 50th anniversary of the dismissal of the Whitlam government. In shameful circumstances, a good government was cut short. But that legacy left by the Whitlam government around access to education still continues to this day, and we always get people saying, 'I vote Labor because Gough gave me the opportunity of an education when my family would never have been able to afford it.' It's in that vein and within that tradition that Labor continues such policies as fee-free TAFE, ensuring that anyone who wants to get a trade qualification in Australia can now do it free of charge, particularly given that we have skill shortages in a number of industries and we want to encourage more Australians to train for a trade and take up those opportunities.

We've introduced a prac payment to ensure people undertaking nursing, teaching and social work degrees, who have to have a break from their studies to undertake a practical placement, don't lose income during that period. It will ensure that they can meet their cost-of-living commitments. Importantly, legislation was introduced by the Minister for Education last week to dramatically cut student debts by 20 per cent and to increase the repayment threshold to $67,000 from $54,000. These are policies that make a difference to the cost of living of young Australians. They're very popular policies, and we're very proud of them.

The election campaign was delayed because of the effects of Cyclone Alfred. We all remember those images of locals coming together to sandbag and to get ready for the impending extreme weather that was coming during that difficult period for the Queensland community. It was a salient and sobering reminder of the threats of climate change and of the importance of governments taking this issue seriously, providing stronger action on climate change. Throughout the course of the last term I met so many Queenslanders, particularly in the north of Queensland, who simply cannot afford home insurance anymore; their homes are now uninsurable because of the risk of damage associated with climate change. Climate scientists were warning us of this 20 to 30 years ago. Yet you had the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments that completely ignored the advice and cut back on action on climate change. We remember the Abbott government getting rid of all the architecture that was established to reduce emissions in Australia. Well, Australians are now paying the price of that inaction. Thankfully, the Australian people rejected that notion when it was espoused by the former member for Dickson, Peter Dutton, during the election campaign. The Australian people voted for stronger action on climate change, and that is exactly what the Albanese government is delivering.

A few weeks ago I was fortunate to join local members from Greenpeace in my community. They do an annual whale survey along the outskirts of Cape Banks in my electorate. We did the survey at a place colloquially known as the 'humpback highway'. It's the place where whales are seen migrating from Antarctica to the north to have their babies, to calve; they return later on. Each year I go along for that census of whales. We're finding that each year the number of whales counted by volunteers on this particular day is increasing, and it's a wonderful sight to see. I see literally tens of whales every time I go to do this whale census with the local community. It's a salient reminder of the very precious nature of the coastline that I'm so fortunate and blessed to represent.

During the election campaign I was very proud to help launch the Gamay sea country plan of the Gamay Rangers, the local Indigenous rangers. The plan has been developed by the University of New South Wales, the Gamay Rangers, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the state and federal governments to ensure the protection of that precious resource, Gamay—or Botany Bay, as it's more regularly known—and the beautiful coastline along the Pacific Ocean. It's a very precious resource and something that's cherished by our local community. I pay tribute to Robert Cooley and all of the Gamay Rangers for their important work in putting this sea country plan together. The Gamay Rangers represents thousands of years of traditional care for country and for sea. The totem of the Bidjigal people, the local Indigenous community at La Perouse, is burriburri, the whale. The whale is sacred in their culture and their heritage, as represented by that migration. They were telling me on the weekend of a whale that came into Botany Bay with her calf just a few weeks ago to frolic and play around and of the delight that the local community had in seeing that representation of their community so visible in the precious Botany Bay. And it really hit home to me how important stronger action on climate change is and why I'm an advocate for ocean conservation.

I'm very proud that the Albanese government, in our first term, have delivered the largest network of marine reserves of any nation in the world, to protect that sea country and that biodiversity in our the oceans. We've signed the high seas biodiversity treaty and, over the coming months, we will implement that legislation in the parliament to ensure that we do our bit as a nation to protect our precious oceans and their marine reserves.

We introduced a number of policies that represent that stronger action on climate change. The net zero by 2050 architecture, believe it or not—as if they haven't learned any of the lessons from the election—is now under threat thanks to the National Party. We will keep that architecture in place, and all of the policies that sit under it to deliver it, such as new vehicle emission standards; massive investments in solar and battery technology; the household battery program, as the minister outlined in question time today, delivering large increases in the number of people investing in batteries; a pathway to net zero, a pathway to a transition to a greener, cleaner future for our kids; but, most importantly, a pathway to ensure that we protect those beautiful marine resources into the future.

I thank the people of Kingsford Smith for bestowing upon me the continuing honour of representing our wonderful community. I've lived in our community my entire life, and I'm very passionate about it, particularly the community organisations. I often say to people and people say to me, 'You're so lucky to represent that beautiful coastline, those wonderful beaches, Botany Bay and those green spaces.' I say, 'No, the best thing about the community I represented is the people, and the fact that we care for each other and we look after each other.' We are represented by many different community organisations: the local surf clubs, the local sporting clubs, the local multicultural community groups, the local churches and synagogues and the like. That's why I was very pleased to be able to provide commitments to upgrade the Maroubra Surf Life Saving Club, during the course of this term of government, to multicultural organisations, like St Spyridon Orthodox Church, the Coogee Synagogue, and the Eastern Suburbs Islamic Welfare Services to upgrade their important facilities, in recognition of the important work that they do in social harmony in our community.

I'm very fortunate to represent a multicultural community. I often express to that community that Australia's greatest strengths are our multiculturalism and our diversity, and we're starting to see that finally reflected in this, the 48th parliament. I want to pay tribute to the new members of parliament for their wonderful speeches, representing that multiculturalism and diversity. When you hear those people speak, it's very easy, I think, to come to the conclusion that Australia and our future is in good hands.

Finally, I pay tribute to my family: my beautiful wife and our four children, who I love and respect. I'm very proud of what they do and what they achieve, as well. I thank them for providing me with the support to continue to represent the wonderful community of Kingsford Smith.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's an honour to give this speech, a reply to the Governor-General's speech. I'd just like to thank Her Excellency for not only her service to our nation but the way she very graciously hosted many of the family members of parliamentarians, last week at Government House, including my children. They were thrilled to have Her Excellency sign their copies of the Constitution. Of course, it's the Constitution that guides us in our governance and lawmaking in this place.

The Governor-General's speech was prepared by the government of the day and read by the Governor-General. Of course, there are different narratives of policy and ideology that come to this place through the different parties and the different people who our constituents sent here to represent them. Those ideas are about the best way to move our country forward. I think everyone would agree that we need a strong, prosperous country. We on this side would say that the ideas need to be based on the principles of reward for hard work and innovation, and equality of opportunity. I see policy areas where we seem to be in managed decline. It is imperative that we have a strong opposition and create that alternative vision for the nation because I believe history has shown that, if a country veers towards what I would call left-wing populism and is not facing reality, then everyone gets dragged down in the end.

I was first elected to this place in 2022. It was a great honour to be elected to represent the people of Nicholls as a member of the National Party. In my first speech to this place, I spoke about the themes of opportunity for regional people, particularly through education and through a growing and evolving regional economy. The electorate that I represent, Nicholls, is a wonderful part of northern Victoria. It's bordered to the north by the Murray River—I think the member for Aston might have grown up in Echuca. It goes through the Goulburn and Murray valleys, which are, of course, that wonderful area of agricultural production, and it heads down south towards Seymour and, newly, in this election, to Kilmore, which, as a result of a redistribution, came into the electorate.

The people have placed their trust in me again, for a second term. I suppose every member of this parliament is thinking to themselves: 'Why did I get re-elected? Why did I get given their trust to represent them again in this place?' My assessment would be that I've tried to be a very engaged local member. I have said in this place before that I am on a mission to do football and netball training with every club in my electorate. Of course it may be a bit of a stunt, but, in all seriousness, it does give you the opportunity to not just sit in your office and wait for people to come to you but go where people are congregating, find out what matters to them and make yourself available to them to speak to a member of parliament. If it's at the end of netball training, so be it. I've had many of those wonderful discussions with people at football and netball clubs.

I also think the people of Nicholls, given the history of the place, value the principles of hard work and seizing opportunity. They've tended, I think, to vote more for people on our side because of that sense of entrepreneurship—allowing the free market to work. There's reward for opportunity and, of course, the National Party's commitment to regional Australia. Some examples of this are the wonderful food manufacturing we have and the way that that's innovated and advanced. I've seen the fruit industry innovate and change over the time that I've been involved in agriculture. Of course, many people will know that because they might have done the 'peach challenge', and, if they haven't, they're always welcome to come and do it. Whilst that processed fruit product was ubiquitous in the 1930s through to the 1960s—it was what everyone had for desert—and it's still there, it's evolving now because the logistics, the ability to get fresh fruit to the market, has improved so much that a lot of the production which used to be for processing is now for fresh fruit products. I've also seen the dairy industry make great strides forward in terms of irrigation efficiency, traceability and increased production per cow. There have been technical advances in broadacre cropping using satellite GPS, global satellite positioning, and other technologies which have really improved our productivity. Also, the opening up of new markets has been very important to the people of Nicholls because it means more of our produce can be sent overseas—exported—earning tax dollars for Australia and keeping industries viable. The free trade agreements that were put together, by and large, by the previous coalition governments have assisted this.

I just want to make a couple of observations about my first term in parliament. I think this place works pretty well and I have found it to be a respectful place to work. There's necessary disagreement and there's a contest of ideas, and that contest should be robust. But I don't think it's a disrespectful environment. Sometimes I think the crossbench has a narrative that the parties-of-government system is broken and therefore they've got to come in and solve it—I haven't found that at all. I think parties of government are critical to the way our democracy works. I value the relationships I have made in this place, including with those opposite. It gives you a better understanding of the diversity of Australia. I encourage all the new members to do that—reach out and find out from people who are representing other parts of Australia what matters to them—because you can come into this place with blinkers.

As far as the Albanese government is concerned—and I spent a lot of the last term criticising the Albanese government—I think it is a government that's excellent at campaigning, but, as some of us have said, we would like to see them be a bit better at governing. There are some examples of that, but I don't want to be churlish. I do want to mention some positive actions of the Albanese government which we supported because we thought they were positive. I think the establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Commission and some reform around aged care and the way it's funded has been positive. But I think there still needs to be worked on aged-care regulation and how that affects regional aged-care facilities. I welcome also the finalisation—it has been going on for several governments but finalised with the Albanese government—of export protocols for Australian agricultural products to China and the lifting of some tariffs.

I also want to put on record my thanks to the then minister for emergency services, Murray Watt, for his office's assistance to me during the 2022 floods, which caused much damage in my electorate, particularly in Rochester. Rochester is now part of the electorate of Bendigo. I congratulate the member for Bendigo for retaining her seat, but I might make the point that there was a 10 per cent swing towards the Nationals and we nearly got it. Maybe next time.

The policy area I've been talking about the most—and it's critical to the economy of my region and I implore people to try and understand this—is the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This has been going on for a long time. I know that it was started by the Howard government, and I know that during the Rudd and Gillard governments there was some further development of it. I think that's actually when it was signed into law. I think that, in relation to this piece of legislation, no-one really got exactly what they wanted when this was first being negotiated. There were people who thought that huge amounts of irrigation water should be taken away from irrigators across the Murray-Darling Basin and there were people who thought that virtually zero water should be taken. We had to find a compromise somewhere. I thought before I came to this place that we had found a compromise. The collaboration between the member for Watson, who was the water minister at the time, and his successor, the now Leader of the Nationals and member for Maranoa, and many of the state Labor premiers and water ministers meant that I thought we had what could be executed as a policy and still keep the viability of the Murray-Darling Basin going as a food-producing region as well as providing some environmental water that was required. So I was incredibly disappointed with the way that the minister for water in the last term approached this and wanted to rip up a lot of the hard-fought-for negotiations that had been done and produce what I've found to be some irrational actions around removing even more water in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Over 2,000 gigalitres of water that was used to produce agricultural produce in my electorate had already been taken away, so it wasn't like there wasn't already water for the environment, but there was a dispute over a further 450 gigalitres. The agreement that I previously mentioned between the now Leader of the Nationals, who was the then water minister, and the Labor water ministers around the country was, 'We will put some definitions around the socioeconomic impact test, so we will say, "That water can't be taken away if it has a negative socioeconomic impact."' The minister for water's first act was to come in here and tear that socioeconomic impact test up. That means the society and the economy in my area will get damaged, and I think that's really disappointing.

Another disappointing thing about the first term of Labor—and we fought against this—was a thing called a biosecurity tax. It was a bit of a regrettable on-again, off-again distraction for the parliament when somebody in the government decided it would be a good idea for them to impose a levy—so a cost to businesses—to pay for the biosecurity arrangements of the overseas producers who import food into the country and who then compete with them. There was nothing level about that playing field. It was about as level as the pitch at Lord's. After significant lobbying and opposition from the Nationals, though, someone saw sense and withdrew the bill. But it indicates, I think, an attitude that business is a mechanism to tax rather than a creator of wealth, employment and opportunity, and I hope that changes.

We've still got some concerns about biosecurity in relation to US beef imports. There seems to be some confusion in the government about whether the No. 1 concern is biosecurity or a political fix with the United States. I hope that gets resolved. But Australia's biosecurity cannot be compromised in any way, shape or form. The traceability of beef coming in from the US, particularly from its neighbouring countries—where some beef may come in from Mexico or Canada—is critical. Obviously, we've got to get the biosecurity right, but I hope Australians continue to opt for the great-value and great-tasting Australian beef, whether it be from the Angus cattle that my friend Ross Read breeds and feeds on pasture at his farm near Tatura, or the Scotch fillet my friend the member for Gippsland favours at this new haunt that he's found, called the Kingo. It's a lot better than the American stuff.

Live exports was an issue I wasn't an expert in before coming into parliament. Of late it has been primarily a Western Australian issue. But, after visiting Western Australia as part of the backbench committee, I understood the importance of live exports to the ag industry over there. I then understood the potential impact of a ban on eastern state prices, and I think we're going to see that. What was also made very clear was the impracticality of the approach to just have more abattoirs in WA. Many people, including a vet who actually grew up in my region but lives in Fremantle now, called Holly Ludeman, explained to me the significant improvements in animal welfare standards—to the point that, when a ship that had spent some time out in the Indian Ocean was forced to come back due to security issues in Yemen, after they disembarked all the sheep, they were found to actually have gained weight.

I'd like to see the Albanese government focus a bit more on regional infrastructure. The roads are appalling in Victoria. I know that's mostly as a result of neglect by the state government, but we've all got to put pressure on state governments to make sure that we maintain our road network. It's not just annoying for passenger-car drivers; it's a critical problem for businesses, because they're telling me that the damage to their machinery on our roads when they hit potholes is significant. Part of the reason I wanted to come to parliament—apart from what I'd seen in my community—and run as a National Party candidate was the focus on infrastructure in regional areas that the Nationals had put forward, whether it be art museums, sporting facilities or really big game-changing pieces of infrastructure like the Echuca-Moama Bridge.

I'll make a few comments on energy. It seems to be a big issue around the parliament at the moment. The debate about climate change can be frustrating; it's so binary in this place. There are a couple of principles. Firstly, we need affordable, reliable power. It is the economy, and it underpins the wealth and jobs we have here in Australia. If we do not manage the energy grid properly and prices continue to skyrocket, as I fear they will, then industries will not just close down altogether and the emissions are gone—and I know that there are some activists who think that would be a good thing. The industries will just move offshore. Yes, Australia loses the emissions, but we lose all the economic activity. So that's really critical.

We want to reduce emissions and we want to be part of a global effort that the large emitters contribute to, but we don't want to damage our environment with renewables in inappropriate places, and there's a bit of that happening in my electorate and a lot of it happening in some of my colleagues' electorates. I think we need a range of technologies to help us get to whatever our emissions reduction targets are, and they've got to be realistic. I think that might be solar and wind, but only in the right location and only if they're viable. I think there's going to need to be a significant increase in gas exploration to supply industry, and I honestly believe that nuclear will have a part to play in the mix and that we should lift the moratorium sooner rather than later.

This all leads me to make this point: there's a concept in Australia at the moment where we ban things in Australia only to have them expanded or replicated overseas—but with less regulation so that the damage in other parts of the world is worse. Take the energy transition. We sell our coal, gas and other minerals, including uranium, but we ban them from being used in our own country. We ban the live export of sheep. The demand for live sheep doesn't reduce, particularly in the Middle Eastern countries, but the industry is taken over by countries like Sudan and South Africa, who don't have anywhere near the animal welfare standards that we have. We ban hardwood timber, but then, when we need hardwood timber, we import it from New Zealand or Indonesia.

The concept is that global demand doesn't shift. In many cases, our demand doesn't shift, but through regulation—which governments such as the Albanese governments seem to have an obsession with—we lock ourselves out of the economic opportunities for our own people, and there's also the fact that we will do some of these necessary things, like provide food for people, provide hardwood timber and provide energy, and we'll do it in a better way.

Finally, there's been a lot of commentary on both sides around social cohesion, and I think we understand that's not going in the right direction in Australia. Some things I'm seeing disturb me greatly. I'd just like to point out something that I said in my maiden speech. I said:

In addition, the electorate of Nicholls is, I believe, one of the most successful examples of multiculturalism in the world. People from all over have made their way to this region, often coming with nothing, and they have made extraordinary lives. My observation as a member of this community is that we seem to do better when we celebrate each other's different cultural identity but moreover—

the bigger thing is that we—

embrace each other's humanity, the humanity being a stronger bond between us than any divisions that tend to be amplified by race, gender, sexual orientation or religious view.

I suppose that there's that ideology about identity, or all coming together and striving for a similar goal, and that similar goal is an Australia where everyone has an opportunity and we look after everyone to get ahead, but the rewards for hard work are there, and no-one's locked out of aspiring towards those rewards if they're prepared to work, to access the education that's on offer, to take a risk and to become part of what has become one of the great societies in the history of the world.

It's going to be an interesting term for us. Obviously, there are fewer numbers on this side. We'll be a strong opposition. I wish everyone all the best this term for spirited debate, and, hopefully, we can move Australia forward.

Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Warimi. That's 'welcome' in the Indigenous language of the Dharug people, the traditional owners of the lands where Werriwa sits and that I call home. I acknowledge the Dharawal and the Cabrogal clan of the Dharug nation, who have looked after the land and waterways in Werriwa for more than 65,000 years. I acknowledge the Ngambri and Ngunnawal people in the lands in Canberra and all First Peoples all over Australia. I also acknowledge Richard Torning, another Lurnea High School graduate and a member of the Bayala Aboriginal Corporation. They are running courses in the Dharug language, and I did the course last year. I wasn't a great student, and I only have a smattering of words, but I really enjoyed the lessons and the history provided in the course. Thank you for keeping the traditions of our First Nations people alive and relevant. This is really important. There is so much more to do to better support our First Nations people by walking alongside them and finding ways to permanently close the gaps in education, health and wellbeing.

My community is also home to 150 distinct ethnic language groups. We live together in harmony, embracing the difference and enjoying the best of each group. This is the community I represent. When I was elected in 2016, I wanted to represent everyone, to ensure their voices were heard and that community was at the heart of every decision that governments make. I will still be that voice.

I was reminded recently this makes a difference to so many people. Mr Donald Thomas passed away recently, and, due to responsibilities last week, I was unable to attend his funeral. He and his wife were people of our community, opening their house to their children's friends, to their neighbours and to others, and were always ready to lend a hand if it was ever needed. I'm told he apparently liked to watch question time, especially if I was asking a question. He was so proud that a girl from Lurnea High School, the school that educated his children, was in this place. I am humbled by my election and representing my community, but hearing that this makes a difference to people does take my breath away. My heart goes out to Robyn, David, Kris, Peter and their families at Mr Thomas's passing.

My community has given me everything in my life, and I will spend my life giving everything for my community. It is my great honour to serve. I take none of this for granted. I have no illusions about who I answer to and how important the voters of Werriwa are.

I truly didn't think I'd be making this speech. Our campaign faced a massive spend, lies and dirty tactics. But the wonderful community of Werriwa—my home—saw through it all. I didn't know, before the election result was called, whether or not I'd be here today. Every election is a challenge, and if it isn't then you're not working hard enough! I was well aware of the media coverage and what they were saying about my chances of holding this seat—I was asked about it often enough. For the record, I really do welcome media focus on our local issues. I just wish it didn't take an election every three years for them to pay attention!

I thank every voter, especially those who took the time to provide encouragement and support at the early morning train station visits, when doorknocking and at polling places—and even when I was making those late-night shopping trips. Your words made so much difference.

While the behaviour of candidates is normally a matter for them, I feel I must address the behaviour of some during this campaign—not just because of unreasonable conduct, but because so many residents made a specific point of reaching out to me about it. I'm not easily intimidated, especially when I know the cause I fight for is on the side of the angels, but the constant lies, the other campaigns' people yelling and talking over the top of me at polling places, along with the constant barrage of social media negativity, went way too far. My children and grandchildren could see and hear the words that were directed to me and my campaign, and that is not okay. To hire a person to closely circle me at a polling booth is not okay. To have them hand out authorised Liberal Party material to influence voters, even though they protested they had nothing to do with the Liberal Party, is not okay. Voters being grabbed, pressured or having their how-to-vote cards taken out of their hands is not okay. Women were speaking to me, saying they were feeling unsafe and wanting to warn their friends to stay away. That is not okay.

It is completely unacceptable for anyone to feel unsafe when voting. Let's have a contest of ideas, but don't take how-to-vote cards out of voters' hands hoping that will sway them to vote for you. Let's explain the policies, give citizens something to inspire them. Don't reduce their participation in our great country to words of condescension. This is not us, and the results in Werriwa shouted that. In fact, the results Australia-wide tell us the story.

My community endured a barrage of corflutes peppering the area, and most have still not been removed. The thousands of posters of other candidates plastered on trees, telegraph poles and traffic lights did not endear you to our community; rather, it served to infuriate them. I know this because I was fielding the complaints. Residents quite rightly pointed out that the countless signs were illegally placed. Some were in hazardous positions that endangered council workers who had to remove them. Up until this campaign, candidates in our area respected other people's placement of posters, but this time posters were taken off private properties and replaced by the other candidate's. Owners were abused if they had the audacity to ask the volunteers not to do that.

Trespassing, intimidation and destroying property are not only against the law; they are just not right. I fear there were some under the belief that, because it's an election, it's okay to behave this way or they had to do everything possible to win. Let me be clear—and this is what the voters of Werriwa said—if that is the way you want to win, you don't deserve it. When you act like that, you bring everyone down, you make people disengage and you make people lose trust and lose faith.

To sum it up, this was an election like none I had ever experienced before. I believe that people take their cues from one another and from the examples set by their leaders. I believe this is true for other campaigns I've encountered in this election but also for our broader campaign achievements. The Prime Minister deserves credit and accolade for the campaign he led. I just want to add to the thousands of words spoken and written that in this prime minister we have a remarkable leader who cares. He cares about our country and he cares about its people. At times, when things have not gone so well for me, I've had the PM personally seek me out to offer his support and encouragement. This speaks volumes of the PM, and it is that quality above almost everything else that I think saw the Australian people get behind him.

Of course success is a team effort, and, in this respect, the Albanese Labor government has one of the most talented ministries ever. It's united, purposeful and hard working. To each minister who responded to my calls, who provided advice or helped me in anyway: thank you, and I extend this thankyou to their staff as well. But especially thank you to Senators Watt and Ayres for your doorknocking. It was great, and thank you to the members for McMahon, Blaxland, Sydney, Dobell, Shortland and Macarthur in this place. It's been a great honour to serve in the Albanese government, and I look forward to continuing in the 48th Parliament.

I'm extremely excited about what we will be delivering for our electorate over the next three years, because of what we've delivered already and what the Australian people have given us the mandate to deliver for them now. We've delivered tax cuts for every taxpayer. We've already saved over $1,400 for Werriwa's taxpayers. We're providing further energy bill relief for every household, and, as a reminder to everyone listening, if you don't see it on your quarterly energy bill, make sure you check with your energy provider. I'm proud that a re-elected Albanese government will see a cut of 20 per cent to HECS debts. Legislation has already been tabled in the parliament that will help over 25,000 Werriwa are residents, and one resident who's very close to me will have her debt reduced by $20,000.

We've made health a priority, reducing the price of prescription medications, freezing the concession rate for prescription medications and introducing 60-day prescriptions. After a lot of hard work and support from the Werriwa community, there will be a Medicare urgent care clinic opening in the Green Valley area as well as a Medicare mental healthcare facility. Both are urgently needed and testify that only Labor can be trusted with Medicare, and I'm working to see that they happen as soon as possible. I've heard far too many stories from residents about the challenges of finding an out-of-hours medical care doctor that bulk-bills. It's my hope that the Medicare urgent care clinic will give residents the access to care and ease the pressure on the overburdened hospitals.

Cleaning up after the inaction of 10 years of liberal government, state and federal, has seen massive investments by this government. There is a Labor commitment of a billion dollars to address the mess that is Fifteenth Avenue as well as $1 billion to secure the future rail corridor between Leppington and Bradfield with Western Sydney airport. In education, Labor is delivering full funding to New South Wales public schools and free TAFE, and I've been proud to witness a massive amount of investment in upgrades for local schools. Schools like Ashcroft High School, James Busby High School, James Meehan High School, Miller Technology High School, Al-Faisal College, Heckenberg Public School and Hoxton Park High School—and the list goes on—have all received funding.

And then there's a myriad of community, religious and sporting groups that Labor has pledged to assist. I look forward to delivering for each of them. Some of the organisations that have benefited or will benefit from park and facility upgrades include Southern Districts Soccer Football Association, the Edmondson Park Malayalee Club, Middleton Rural Fire Brigade, Kemps Creek United Soccer Club, Liverpool Meals on Wheels and Liverpool Olympic Football Club.

If there's something to take from this election result, it's a vote for solutions and a vote against obstruction. I would ask that many take heed of that advice, whether you're a senator who has blocked important legislation or a local council that has been allocated federal funding for infrastructure that remains unspent for more than four years. Listen to what the people are saying and what they are crying out for.

This is why I want to make time in this speech to speak about something deeply important for many in my electorate. It is an issue that many have spoken to me about. Throughout the world there are so many conflicts. Innocent people are being displaced and having dignity removed. Everyone in my community is touched by these events. They are distressed; they cannot sleep. Their concerns pervade everything they do. I've heard from so many about their desperation. I wrote this part of the speech more than two months ago. At that time, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas seemed possible, even imminent. Sadly the situation is now so much worse than it has ever been. Israel and Netanyahu must stop. There is no excuse for killing innocent people, starving children or shooting people just trying to feed their families. The horrors are real and abhorrent. Palestinians deserve to be able to live in their homeland in peace with prosperity. There is no event which excuses what is happening. Shooting people just trying to feed their families is unconscionable. There must be a ceasefire now. There must be agreement, a solution which sees the Palestinian people able to live peacefully and well in their homeland.

My community already hosts too many that have been displaced and traumatised by war. Our community has Mandeans, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Bosnians, Serbians, Uighurs and so many more. It is time to stop. While I continue with this speech, I want to make it clear to my community that this issue remains at the forefront of my mind and close to my heart.

Close to my heart as well are those who supported me. I was supported by so many, and in reality I don't have time to mention everyone here. But there are a few people I would like to thank. To Paul Lynch, the retired state member for Liverpool, who letterboxed our message about health care to thousands and thousands and has always believed in me, even when I didn't: thank you for the encouragement. I am ever so grateful. To others, like Chris Hayes, who was a former member for Werriwa in this place and my state colleagues Chris Minns, Anoulack Chanthivong, Nathan Hagarty, Charishma Kaliyanda, Lynda Voltz, Cameron Murphy, Mark Buttigieg, Anthony D'Adam and Julia Finn: thank you for your support. Also, to the Liverpool Councillors Dr Berry Green, Ethan Monaghan, Sam Karnib and Mira Ibrahim: thank you. My thanks also goes out to Jo and Matilda, who helped me so much on prepoll. Thank you to the member for Fairfield, Guy Zangari. Without your support on election day, I'm not sure how I would have got through it.

The union movement came out to support me in Werriwa in spades, and I particularly thank Gerard Hayes, Bernie Smith, David Bliss, Phil Chadwick and Henry Rajendra from the New South Wales Teachers Federations, USU, HSU and the SDA and their delegates, as well as Graeme Kelly. My gratitude goes to the inspiring young activists of Young Labor, left and right, who flew into my electorate to deliver our positive message and who are very much worthy of a special mention. They assisted me doorknocking in blistering heat, pouring rain and cold. I know our party will grow in strength with their future leadership. Thank you, all, especially Adam, Imogen and Luke. Thanks also to the New South Wales party leadership, Dom Ofner and David Dobson.

I also need to mention my campaign team—Shannen, James and the fantastic Loretta Fletcher. Loretta is a marvel in a marginal seat campaign. She makes sure the basics are done right and on time. Finally I also mention my exceptional staff. They are the ones who make sure the people of Werriwa are so well supported. Their care and tenacity to help everyone makes so much of a difference every day. Thank you, Natalina, Aaron, Alex, Daniel, Ingrid, Liam and Stella.

Everyone knows I have two beautiful and talented grandchildren, Meaghan and Horatio. This victory is for them and all our future leaders. It means that they will receive equity in education, receive equity in health care and be able to afford university or go to TAFE. There will be homes for them to make their lives in and they will be able to see the promises of what our wonderful world has in store. This is a victory for the true believers and, in the words of Werriwa's greatest representative, we 'maintained our rage and enthusiasm' and we will govern for all Australians. That is because Labor governments care, and I'm proud to serve in the second Albanese Labor government in this 48th Parliament.

Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise to speak in reply to the Governor-General's speech. We should all be very, very proud to be here, because we have been sent here by the Australian people. Whilst it's somewhat confronting sitting on this side with the numbers that Labor has, I congratulate all members, whether newly elected or re-elected into this place, because we, as I said, have been sent here by our constituents to act on their behalf in the best interests of our communities. This is my third term, and I would have to say the win for the 2025 election is the sweetest victory of them all. I am incredibly proud to have been elected for a third time.

I've never had an easy election—in 2019 I had a very formidable competitor in Rob Oakeshott, who had stood in this place previously. I was new and I didn't have name recognition; he was well known throughout the electorate of Cowper and throughout Lyne. In the last two elections, I faced a very well funded Climate 200 teal candidate, where, on both occasions, they spent three to four times the amount that we had. But I think—or I hope—the result was reflected in the work that I've done over the past six years, particularly the work which I call my 'mobile offices', which quite often consist of sitting in small town pubs or community halls and meeting two, three or four people over the space of two hours but having hundreds of people seeing me in those areas and saying: 'Well, at least he's out there having a crack. At least he's out there listening.' That's our job. Our job is to listen to our communities and come back here to advocate on their behalf.

I've had careers as a police officer and as a lawyer but, I have to say, these last six years have been the most rewarding of my working career. I love getting out and talking to our constituents, and I love working and trying to get those solutions for those people. But regional MPs sometimes have a much different job than those in metropolitan or city areas. Those in city areas take for granted, I think, services like roads, water, sewerage, day care, child care and aged care, whereas in the regions we have to fight for those. We have to make sure that the government of the day give us that funding and provide that infrastructure for our people to have those basic services. Sometimes those not in the know, or those not from regional and rural areas, say it's a First World problem. It's not a First World problem. Those people in regional and rural areas are the people that put the food on the table and put the fibre on your back. They're the small and medium businesses that support Australia's economy—not local economies but Australia's economy. Those people in small and medium businesses are the people who pay the taxes to ensure that you have the infrastructure in city areas, to ensure that you have the schools and to ensure that you have the hospitals. And yet so often they are forgotten, so often the funding doesn't flow to regional and rural areas and, unfortunately, so often when governments change that funding is swept away. We saw that in 2022 when the funding for the Wrights Road roundabout was swept away, when the funding for the veterans centre was swept away and when good projects such as Argyle Street or the Valla urban growth area were rejected. We could have seen 1,200 homes built. So often we do not see equity between the cities, the metropolitan areas and the regional areas. That is why I am proud to be here. I'm proud to fight for our regional people.

There are so many people I need to thank for sending me back here to continue the work that we have done over the past six years. Before I recognise those people, I would like to just speak of the community projects that I took to the last election. We all know if you're not successful in a campaign then those election promises fall flat. Whilst it's difficult for me to say to those proponents, 'I'm sorry; we didn't get into government,' it's all the more difficult for them because they are such good community projects. They are such good organisations that you wish you could cut a check for them. You wish you could just go to the minister's door and say: 'Come on. This is a great project. It doesn't matter that it's in the regions. It doesn't matter that it's on the Nationals side of the ledger or the coalition side of the ledger. Have a look at it. Sign it. It's a good thing.'

I would like to acknowledge ShoreTrack in Macksville, who do so much great work with young people. They describe the work that they do as 'engaging with youth at risk of being at risk'. They get those young people who are out of school or not engaging with school and give them life skills. They do that on the smell of an oily rag. Fatty and Jill, I will continue to advocate on your behalf. I will continue to meet with the minister to fight for that funding to ensure that you are still in our communities for our young people, making sure that they have a life. They are predominantly young men. I know there are some young women in there, but they are predominantly young men. If we can give young men and women hope for the future then it is worth every single cent.

There's the Kempsey Family Day Care centre, our local veterans and families hubs, Sawtell pool and Bellingen Shire's Sewering Coastal Villages project. The mayor in Bellingen and the community have been advocating for this. Steve Allan, the mayor, and I have sat down on numerous occasions. I say to that community that I will continue to fight because you shouldn't still have pits in your backyards that overflow when it floods. When it floods that raw sewerage goes into your waterways and affects your primary production on pastures and the oysters in the river. We shouldn't be facing that in 2025 in regional villages. There's the Tuffins Lane sporting fields, the Coffs Coast tourism information facility, RISE Coffs Harbour and the Thrumster high-performance football centre. I will continue to advocate on their behalf.

I would like to thank all of my branches: Port Macquarie, the Macleay Valley, Nambucca, Dorrigo, Bellingen and Coffs Harbour. The work that you did over the past six months leading up to this election was just incredible. We knew it was going to be difficult. We were being told that I was going to get wiped out. We were told that in 2022 and we were told that in 2019, but here we stand in 2025, and I'm grateful for all the work that you did. Some of you spent literally hundreds of hours over the election period manning campaign offices, doorknocking letterbox dropping and basically supporting me—literally hundreds of hours. Then coming to the pre-poll and on the day of the election we had some horrible weather. In wind, rain and sleet—we probably didn't have sleet—you stood out there in the horrible weather, and you did it for the greater cause. You did it because of what you believe in. Thank you to all the members. Thank you to all the branches—not just for the last six months but for the past six years. We don't always agree on everything—we're like a family; we won't always agree on everything—but if anyone from outside comes in we will fight ferociously to protect each other, and that's what we do.

Some 700 of my volunteers and supporters came out during this campaign and said, 'Pat, do you need some help?' Again, you stood out there for hundreds of hours, you worked with me and you worked in the campaign office to make sure that the Nationals—most of the volunteers and supporters were not members. You were there because you believed in what we believe in and believed in me—that I would come down here and advocate on your behalf. Thank you to the volunteers and to the members.

To the federal and New South Wales Nationals head offices: thanks for your direction, your drive, your patience and your passion for every seat that ran candidates. It's like herding cats, and I appreciate that. I wouldn't do the job. It is extremely difficult, but we do appreciate the work that you do working with every single candidate. This was a big election. It wasn't the result that we thought, overall, we would have, but we've seen it in the past. John Howard had a majority of 93 or 94 seats. This is democracy, and it's why I stood up at the very beginning and congratulated everybody, because everybody deserves to be here. With democracy, swings and roundabouts and the pendulum, it will change because you believe, and we'll continue to work to do the job.

I would like to thank my staff, who have been incredible. All of them bar one has been with me since the beginning, and I think that speaks volumes about how we work together. We love each other, we rib each other and they let me think that I run the show. They worked as hard if not harder than I did during the last election. I know every single one of them has got my back. Liz Newberry, Matt Field, Jodi Blackmore, Amanda Donald, Jennifer Dowd and Amy Johnston, thank you very much for everything that you do for me and continue to do for me. We are a successful office because we treat each other with respect and we work well together.

I love my community. I love Cowper. I grew up in Kempsey. I'm a country boy, and I understand country values. We saw that again just recently, with the floods that we saw not only through Cowper but also through the electorate of Lyne. Since 2019 we've seen the catastrophic Black Summer fires followed by the unprecedented one-in-1,000 year floods followed by another set of floods followed by more fires and then floods again. Throw COVID in between them. At one stage we were handing out grants for fires, floods and COVID at the very same time. Every single time, my community has stepped up and stepped out to help each other, and this time was no different. You had organisations in Kempsey. IGA was flooded, probably to chest height, and there were new owners there. Everybody pitched in to clean up, and any goods that weren't damaged were handed out to the community. The owners gave them away at their own expense. Rather than just crying about it—which they did do; it was devastating for them—they handed out all the remaining stock, which was substantial. They were doing drops around Kempsey to ensure that people who couldn't get to Coles and Woolworths, because they were flooded in at the time, had food for a week. It was simply incredible.

Tunstead Oysters in Port Macquarie got wiped out in the floods. It will take three years for them to germinate their oysters again so that they can grow and make a profit. Their crew were out in their tinnies the very day of the flood, saving people from flooded homes. For the next week and a half they were transporting people from Port Macquarie over to the north shore. Again, it was at their own expense in fuel and time. It was just an incredible effort. There were also people going over and helping people on the north shore literally shovel mud and faeces out of their homes. People who didn't know the homeowners just turned up with shovels and Gernis. This is what my community does, and that's why I love it. I'm not demeaning city or metropolitan communities; I just don't think you see that unless you are in rural or regional areas. I'm sure city areas have that good community support, but, having spent the best part of my life in Cowper, in the electorate, I know that community spirit and I know that it will always be there. Whether it's for five years, 10 years or 50 years, when I'm no longer here, that community spirit will endure.

Finally, I'll very quickly touch on the huge privilege that I have been given with the shadow portfolios of shadow Assistant Treasurer and shadow minister for financial services. I'm sure they didn't look at my HSC maths results before they gave them to me! It is an enormous privilege to serve in those roles. The National Party has not had an economic portfolio since, I think, the days of Black Jack McEwen, back in the 1950s. I've said this to the dozens of industry representatives and stakeholders I've met with already, here in Canberra and in Melbourne and Sydney: 'Economics is not my background—my background's in law—but I will work constructively with you. I've got my feet under the desk, and I will continue to work with you.' What I will also continue to do is to try to work constructively with the government. I've met with Minister Mulino, and we've had very productive, constructive and—I think—good conversations about what will go ahead. I look forward to working productively with him to ensure that our country is successful.

I intend to look at my portfolios through the lens of regional and rural Australia because I think the focus has been on city areas and city agendas for far too long. Considering that the regions around Australia provide so much—the agricultural industry alone contributes $100 billion to our economy—they deserve the respect of a lens being placed on our economic portfolios and policies to ensure that they are as productive as they can possibly be.

I am very pleased to be back here. I will continue to work extremely hard for my community. And I'm glad I have 40 seconds left, because I forgot to thank my family—my wife, Ilona, and my two boys, Hugh and Hamish. We hear that saying, 'I'm a volunteer, but you are conscripts.' Thank you for putting up with me. Thank you for putting up with our lifestyle. I know I have missed many birthdays and many celebrations, I come home tired and cranky, and you put up with me. So thank you. Of course, you know that I love you, and we will continue to ride this crazy ride for the next few years.

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

I'm proud to speak to the address that was given by the Governor-General. It's the second address by a woman who is the Governor-General, in my time being in this place, meaning that this is my fifth election. When I was first elected, in 2013, the Governor-General was Dame Quentin Bryce. So it was quite fitting, I feel, that on this occasion my daughter, Daisy, and my son, Charlie, were here for the opening of this parliament and got to meet the second woman to be Governor-General of Australia and to hear the address.

There's a difference, though, between the first and the second addresses that were given by the Governors-General. It was wonderful to be able to hear the words from the Governor-General, speaking about the kind of government we are going to be, what our priorities are and what the purpose of this place is.

There was one word in her speech that I remember, that did not reflect the election in Bendigo, and that was the word kindness. During elections, it is quite often that people forget that word. They forget the word respect, they forget the word kindness, and it can become a bit of a game. But this went beyond that, and we've heard that from many people. The nastiness in this election, I have never seen in my entire life—and I grew up in Queensland. I'm a proud Victorian today, but I can remember campaigning during the Tampa years, and I can remember campaigning when we saw our country take a very different turn. But that was nothing compared to the nastiness and the division that occurred in this election—the way in which those opposite played out the culture wars in many electorates including in my own.

The Bendigo election was a brutal contest. There's no other way to put it. My opponents spent well over $2 million trying to buy the seat of Bendigo and flooded the town with outsiders. It started at Easter. Easter used to be quite sacred in Bendigo. People enjoyed it. They got involved in the festival. They participated in the parade. It used to be free of politics, but not this year. Swarms of yellow shirts swamped people, got in their way and pushed aggressively in people's faces, and, unfortunately, it was effective.

Divisions within our community were blown up. Things were fractured. Families were divided, communities were divided, sporting clubs were divided. A lot of it was based upon mis- and disinformation, and a lot of it on disrespect. One of the common things that those opposite did, when they came to my electorate, was stand up and repeat a mistruth over and over again that, in my time of being a federal member for Bendigo, particularly in the last three years—the first term of the Albanese Labor government—I had delivered nothing. This is wrong.

I will start with a bit of a list of what we did deliver in the last term of government, before I get on to what we plan to deliver in this term. Through the rPPP, $12 million for the Mount Alexander Shire Council and $1.2 for Bendigo TAFE. We delivered $800,000 for Golden Dragon Museum and $100,000 for Golden Dragon Museum; $5 million for the Bendigo Airport upgrade; $143 million for runway upgrades in Kyneton—critical for emergency services; over $3 million in Bushmaster vehicle contracts; $2 million in local sporting grants for upgrades, including for many female-friendly change rooms to accommodate participants; and HAFF projects, worth millions of dollars, to deliver much needed social and community housing to our area.

Through the Growing Regions Program, funding was delivered for Heathcote, for the Heathcote town precinct. There was funding for Bendigo Foodshare and $1.2 million for Forest Creek in Castlemaine, to restore this much loved waterway through the urban rivers program. There has been significant funding through Roads to Recovery. In fact, there was $50 million—a doubling of the Roads to Recovery funding to the councils in my local area over a five-year period. This includes $30 million to the City of Greater Bendigo alone. There's funding for roads through the Road Safety Program and funding for roads through the Black Spots Program. There's $4.3 million for a specialist dementia care unit and $3 million, through the Active Transport Fund, for the shire of Mount Alexander to link the growth corridor to the city centre.

This is just a sample of the funding that was delivered to my electorate alone in the last three years of government, dispelling the repeated mistruths of those opposite every time they came to town. They didn't care about the truth. They weren't honourable. They didn't stand up and admit when they had made a mistake. They just continued to push out the same mistruths over and over again, trying to convince people that I was not standing up for my electorate. It wasn't just the misinformation about projects—and I have to say I'm disappointed that, after the result, we are still here today in this place, and the member for Gippsland is still trying to push out this myth! He wasn't the only one that came into my electorate to try and buy the seat of Bendigo. There were so many frequent visitors from the National Party that I almost thought they might need an AEC form to enrol in the electorate of Bendigo. They spent so many nights in Bendigo before and during the election period. Whilst I wouldn't have welcomed their enrolment—because I'm sure they weren't putting a one next to my name—that just demonstrates the frequency of their visits.

Whilst we didn't have the invasion of blue shirts, we had the invasion of yellow shirts. People who were not from Bendigo came and swarmed every pre-poll station and every polling station, intimidating voters. They were booing voters who only took a Labor how-to-vote card. Never in my life have I seen another side of politics boo a voter for walking through with only one how-to-vote card! It begs the question: when do we cross the line between free and fair elections? Where is that line? I'd say that some of the things that we saw in Bendigo did cross that line. To this day, I'm still having people raise with me their voting experience.

The AEC had to have a welfare officer at the door to support people when they came through because of the level of intimidation that they experienced. Most candidates have one person handing out how-to-vote cards. Sometimes, at an early voting centre, it might be the candidate and two other volunteers to make sure you cover all the entrances, but are 20 really necessary? There were 20 people all there, standing in front of people, agitating people, engaging people in a way that is not free or fair. It starts to ask the question: have we crossed the line between what is free and fair? That's not to mention the waste involved in all the advertising, the failure to follow direction that was given by the AEC, the signs that weren't authorised properly and the signs that, in many cases, are still up today and haven't been taken down. We know the people who put those signs up were not local. They probably won't come back to Bendigo. They probably just came for the election. But now that they've all left, we're left to rebuild our town. We have to try and help rebuild the bridges, to help rebuild confidence and to dispel a lot of the misinformation and disinformation that was pushed out into my community via social media and local media, through their doorknocking campaign and through their whispering campaign.

Here are a few of the examples of the misinformation that I had to encounter: parliaments elected after 2004 do not get the parliamentary pension. A few people said to me: 'I thought I was doing you a favour voting against you. You'll get the pension.' That's what I got told. That level of misinformation doesn't do anybody any good. It's unfair and it's not true. When doorknocking in my electorate, I heard things like, 'You haven't delivered anything'—not true. When doorknocking I heard that it is my fault that crime has spiked—not true. Crime is an issue. Everybody has a responsibility. If you are a victim of a crime, you should call the police immediately. You should be given the support that you require.

In the lead-up to the federal election there was a very nasty, horrific incident at my local shopping centre. It shocked all of us; it shocked me. I quite often go to the marketplace with my kids after school. To think it became the scene of a horrific crime is unsettling. In words that followed that particular event, I strongly encouraged everybody, via the local media, if they witnessed this event, to talk to the police. I strongly encouraged everybody after this event, if they are the victim of a crime, to call the police. Victorian police are responsible.

I did say that I didn't think it was my place to call for a summit. How could I consciously pull police officers off the ground and away from their jobs into a summit when they have a job to do keeping people in my community safe? At the time, I thought that was quite reasonable, but it was weaponised. It was turned into a horrible video that was pushed out onto social media on the eve of the election. There were images of people with machetes. They were not from Bendigo. They had no place in that social media video, but they were put in my electorate. It was a nasty campaign, and, at the conclusion of the counting, I am pleased to say that I held on. The margin was 2,983 votes.

It is an incredibly diverse electorate. It is something that I think is the reason why I'm still here today. We have Rochester in the north and Tylden in the south. It is a huge part of central Victoria. It is now considered rural and regional, when you get your map from the Pharmacy Guild. We're no longer in the outer part of Melbourne; we're now in the regional part of Melbourne. We're that little red part of Victoria.

I want to acknowledge the communities that stuck with Labor. In the shire of Mount Alexander, the two-party preferred vote for Labor was up over 80 per cent. I acknowledge that and I want to say thank you. For some of the stronger working-class areas in Bendigo, like Long Gully central, parts of California Gully and Kangaroo Flat, I'll continue to stand with you and campaign for you. You understand the value and the importance of a Labor government. To all the other areas where we did have swings against Labor, I will still be your strong voice in this parliament, as I have been for the past five terms. It is the role. To the new areas of Rochester, now in my electorate, welcome to being represented by a Labor member. I am the first Labor member to represent your area in well over 50 years, and I am here to be your voice in this parliament.

By winning my fifth term, I will have equalled my predecessor in becoming the longest-serving MP in this place at the end of this term. To win five terms is no small feat when our parliament has only been here for 48 terms. I acknowledge, Deputy Speaker Georganas, that I've still got a long way to go to meet your standard as well as others in this place, but in a seat like Bendigo it is an achievement. It is an unusual seat that sometimes goes against the national grain, but I'm proud to say that we've held on, and Labor has now held the seat continuously for 28 years—and I hope for many more in the future.

The reason why I'm confident that Labor will continue to do well in seats like Bendigo is the agenda of our government. If I am being wrapped up, I will continue my remarks into what we will do in this term and into the future and how we'll continue to work hard for the people of Bendigo. Commitments on bulk-billing, cheaper medicines, batteries, the 20 per cent reduction in student debt, the freezing of the beer excise—they are all measures introduced by this government and committed to in the election not just for the people of Bendigo but for the region. The election commitments that were made by me for Bendigo included funding for skate parks, funding for Bendigo heritage attractions, funding for change rooms at the Truscott Reserve pavilion and North Bendigo Recreation Reserve, reimagining the Bendigo Creek and funding to develop the veterans and families hub in Bendigo. These are some of the election commitments that I made. I'll continue my remarks at a later stage.