Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Not yet, Senator Ludlam!

As other senators will appreciate, Western Australia is a vast place, with many Western Australians living in regional areas. Of course, some of these communities are quite remote, and it is a constant challenge to find new ways of ensuring that those living in remote areas are    able to experience some of the exciting things that are happening across our vast state. It is also important to ensure that young people living in regional and remote parts of Western Australia have access to as many opportunities as possible so that their comparative geographical isolation is not a barrier to the development of their future careers.

That is why I was exceptionally pleased that the University of Western Australia chose to use 2013, which was that university's centenary year, to reach out to Western Australia's regions through an innovative program called UWA Gives Back. UWA Gives Back was born of the recognition that institutions such as our universities cannot survive in isolation, particularly in WA. They can only continue to thrive with the support of local communities, and maintaining that support means ensuring the university's activities are relevant and have a meaning for local people. This requires continuous engagement with local community organisations and school students across regional WA so they can see how UWA's research and community outreach programs are contributing to Western's Australia's development and growth.

UWA Gives Back was an initiative that brought the whole university together. The student guild, the metropolitan and regional campuses and every faculty making up those campuses contributed to the program. The university's staff and students went out into regional Western Australia and explained research happening at UWA and how it can benefit the people of Western Australia. They demonstrated to high school students the benefits of tertiary study and encouraged them to consider enrolment at the university. Importantly, students became involved in local projects, including agriculture, urban planning, arts productions and teaching programs, demonstrating that, far from being a remote institution, UWA is working actively within regional communities.

I was fortunate to be able to witness firsthand the benefits of the UWA Gives Back program when I attended the launch of the initiative in Albany at the end of September last year. As I would hope all senators are now keenly aware, 2014 will be a very significant year in Albany, as the community there prepares for the commemorations of the Centenary of Anzac. The significance of this event for the Albany community was clearly acknowledged by UWA during its centenary year last year. As part of the UWA Gives Back initiative, 50 students from both the university's Albany campus and its main campus in Perth have been lending their efforts to help restore Albany's royal forts war museum and assisted in the development of walk trails around the memorial park cemetery.

UWA students also worked with the City of Albany to create a smartphone app to be used during the Anzac commemorations. The app will enable tourists to learn more about Albany's historic buildings and landmarks and a range of other information that will be helpful to the many tourists expected to attend the Anzac events being held in Albany this November. The student volunteers also undertook conservation work with the UWA Albany based Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management at the King River, contributing to the conservation of the Great Southern region's spectacular natural environment.

This is a commendable initiative. It was a pleasure to attend the official launch in Albany last September. Of course, the impact of UWA Gives Back spreads far more widely than just Albany and its surroundings. For example, students from UWA's Faculty of Science travelled to the mid-west for Astrofest and inspired the locals of Mount Magnet with an inflatable planetarium night sky tours, glow-in-the-dark water rockets and an astrophotography exhibition. The mid-west is becoming a global hub for astronomy, with part of the Square Kilometre Array being built there and several new radio telescopes coming online in the Murchison. In a two-week tour of Carnamah, Morawa, Meekatharra, Mount Magnet, Kalbarri and Jurien, staff from the UWA based International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research worked to connect local communities with the night sky, helping to bring science to life for Western Australian school students.

The Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences concentrated on the Goldfields, running a minimedical school and demonstrating how telehealth videoconferencing technology works in practice. In the Pilbara, UWA's Business School presented a showcase to local communities. In the Kimberley, the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics engaged with school, community, alumni and industry groups in Derby, Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek, Wyndham, Kununurra and Broome, demonstrating the impact that developments in engineering, computing and mathematics have on our daily lives and the benefits that developing technology will bring to remote and regional communities.

Perhaps the most visually spectacular element of UWA Gives Back occurred last November with the dramatic tale of Geraldton's future, as portrayed through the eyes of artists and local high school students, being projected onto the CBH silo at the port in Geraldton with a soundtrack simulcast on local radio. The Luminous Dreams project was developed by the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts at UWA and the Australian Urban Design Research Centre and supported by the City of Greater Geraldton.

I congratulate the University of Western Australia's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Johnson, as well as the Manager of the UWA Guild Volunteer Hub, Mr Adan Date, and the many UWA students who gave and continue to give generously of their time to support these important programs and events for regional communities across WA. I also extend my appreciation to Mr Adnan Visram, Ms Denisse Fierro Arcos, Mr Bryan Howells and Ms Rosie Jeanes for their tremendous effort in supporting the initiative.

This regional renaissance is being accompanied by other exciting developments in the Perth metropolitan area. I very pleased to note that Perth's rapid development received very positive coverage in last Thursday's edition of The New York Times. While I do not often agree with some of that newspaper's editorial content, The New York Times very strongly endorsed the way in which Perth has set itself up for the 21st century. I encourage all senators, particularly those from the eastern states, to check the full article for themselves. As a proud Western Australian it was very pleasing to read comments such as these:

The capital of Western Australia, where some 1.8 of the state’s two million residents live, left this New Yorker mesmerized: Could a city really be so easy, breezy, green and pristine—so positively livable? I’d thought Williamsburg was hipster heaven; it pales beside Perth.

…   …   …

A state investment program pours millions into new infrastructure and big projects, including a 15,500-seat futuristic arena that opened in 2012; a $750 million airport terminal is also now in the works. Australians once joked that “WA” stood not for “Western Australia” but “wait awhile”—a jab at the laid-back west-coast lifestyle, not as up-to-the-minute as Melbourne or Sydney—but that now has a new connotation: If you think Perth is getting trendy, wait till you see what it’s becoming.

Many of us in Western Australia have long understood that our city held enormous potential as an international destination. It seems our faith is now being repaid. Just last year we saw Perth entering the top 10 list of the world's most liveable cities, as ranked by The Economistmagazine. That said, Western Australians know that we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. We need to continue building infrastructure so that our transport, education and health systems keep pace with the phenomenal population growth that Western Australia has been experiencing over recent times. We can only do that if we get the budget back under control and get rid of taxes and charges that act as barriers to employment growth by penalising industry.

In September last year Western Australians sent at very clear message to those in this place. WA recorded the highest Liberal Party primary vote of any jurisdiction in Australia. Of the 15 House of Representatives seats in Western Australia, 12 are now held by the Liberal Party. I would have thought that such an emphatic result would have given the Labor Party and the Greens a very clear insight into the views of Western Australians. They want the boats to stop. They want Labor's job-destroying carbon tax gone. They want the mining tax, a tax which hurts Western Australia more than any other part of Australia, to be repealed. Yet it seems senators opposite continue not hear the message.

Through the vagaries of circumstances which no-one particularly welcomed, Western Australians will return to the polls on 5 April to choose six senators for their state. The people of Western Australian will be confronted with a very clear and stark choice. Western Australians can vote for Labor and their Green allies, who continue to support the carbon and mining taxes in this place and fight at every turn this government's efforts to stop the boats with policies that, demonstrably, are working, or they can support a Liberal Senate team that has a clear plan to get the budget back on— (Time expired)