Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If taxing gas exports makes me part of the radical left, I'm all in.

Last week the Prime Minister continued to deliver on his legacy of universal childhood education and care by ripping away in-home care from our farmers, shift and emergency workers, and families with complex needs. In-home care is a lifeline for families who cannot use centre based care. These people are putting food on our tables, keeping us safe in emergencies and often battling illness. What do Labor do? They ignore years of reports saying in-home care is underfunded. They ignore the sector crying out for a lifeline as wage increases come into effect. They claim they don't have the data showing families will be facing out-of-pocket costs of $1,600 per week. Well, all the data you need is right here. Ellen, a mum of three living in remote Queensland, says they're looking down the barrel of having to say goodbye to an educator who has completely transformed their family and provided a safe environment for them to be country kids. That certainly is a legacy you're leaving, Prime Minister, but it's not one to be proud of. We call on you to properly and urgently fund in-home care.

I recently visited the River Nile School in Melbourne, an independent publicly funded school supporting young refugee and asylum seeker women, many of whom have experienced disrupted education. What they're doing works. Their wraparound model brings together teachers, health professionals and culturally safe support so students can rebuild with confidence and thrive. Imagine what would be possible if this model were expanded—how many more young refugees and asylum seekers now calling Australia home could get the support they need, not just to catch up but to succeed and thrive in our communities. Thank you for hosting me, and thank you to the young women for sharing their exciting hopes and aspirations for the future.

I want to give a shout-out to the Bass Coast community, where I spent a couple of nights recently. It's really clear what their community needs. It's not short of youth leadership, with progressive, caring people like youth mental health worker Sophie Thorn and Councillor Mat Morgan fighting for a safe climate future. It's not short on wonderful fish-and-chip shops or farmers markets. It's short on state and federal funding. The Wonthaggi pool is in its 40s and in desperate need of repair. The Phillip Island footy club is busting at the seams. The last remnant coastal woodlands in the area, the Western Port Woodlands, are still being destroyed for sand mining when they should be protected and turned into a national park.

As a Victorian senator, I have the privilege of travelling around the regions and speaking to locals, but every time I step out of Melbourne I see a Labor government that doesn't care, a coalition that's about to go extinct like the Inverloch dinosaurs, and people looking for new political leadership that isn't beholden to billionaires and big corporations. Well, the Greens stand by you. Water is for our farms, not data centres. Reliable public transport networks aren't a luxury and shouldn't be treated as a luxury. Your hospitals and schools are just as important as those in the city, and you deserve better leadership

Finally, I want to recognise the panel members, including the brave parent that I heard from this afternoon, at an event to recognise the childhood dementia health and care crisis. One in every 2,900 babies is born with a condition that causes childhood dementia. Hearing about Ethan, who lives with this condition, put a face and a name to this statistic, and I think there was a real shortage of tissues in that room as we heard those stories from his father, who explained that some of these children are reaching their peak development at age three and then start to rapidly decline after that. He talked about the fact that they can't have legacy conversations in his household about why the sky is blue or create those long-term memories, and it was truly harrowing. They've thrown out their board games because their children no longer have the capacity to engage in those games. He shared what was just a harrowing story about how when he's out with his children, one of whom is 12 but has the mental capacity of a three-year-old, they're getting reprimanded by other parents for their children's behaviour. As a parent of young children myself, I just want to send my unconditional love and support.

There is so much that we can do and should be doing to support the parents of children with childhood dementia, half of whom, sadly, die before the age of 10. I call on this government to actually listen to those with lived experience of this disease, to develop a consistent model of care, to fund vital therapies and access to resources for health professionals, and to bring childhood dementia out of the shadows