Mr WILLIAMS (Hindmarsh) (10:18): I move the motion relating to the South Australian economy in the terms in which it appears on the Notice Paper:

That this House notes:

(1)   with concern that unemployment in South Australia is higher than the national average;

(2)   that South Australia has a talented workforce that deserves a government determined to:

   (a)   reduce taxes and regulation;

   (b)   grow the state’s economy, and

   (c)   liberate the people of South Australia to realise their destiny; and

(3)   that the Australian Government has a plan to build a stronger South Australian economy so that everyone can get ahead through abolishing the carbon tax, ending the waste, stopping the boats, and building the roads of the 21st century.

South Australia is my home. I have spent most of my life in South Australia and I am passionate about my state. Colonel William Light and the new settlers built the framework for a wonderful city surrounded by some of the best parklands and gardens. Everything about South Australia had a plan and a purpose. But not now.

In the postwar period South Australia, like pretty much all of Australia, was privileged to have a large influx of migrants—the '£10 Poms', the Greeks, the Italians and others from all over the globe. They came to South Australia to make a new start to escape the ravages of war-torn Europe. They came to our shores to live in an exciting new world that Tom Playford and others were creating. Former Liberal Premier of South Australia Tom Playford had a plan to invest in infrastructure, just as our current Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, has.

Up until the early 1980s, South Australia was larger than Western Australia as an economy. Adelaide was a thriving city that continued to be the home to many creative talents and commerce. We had many and several companies in the ASX 100 that had headquarters in South Australia, but now there are two. So what is the state Labor government doing, or what has it done, to fix the exodus of the South Australian companies or their failure to grow as quickly as other companies around Australia? It has decided that the best thing it can do is to give the businesses in South Australia the highest-taxing jurisdiction in the nation. I see no jobs plan in that.

South Australia needs and deserves a better government, a government that will reduce taxes. We are the highest-taxed state, and the state Labor government has been addicted to payroll tax, levies, the car park tax and high work cover. Just on the weekend, the members opposite would have seen in TheAdvertiser the Australian Industry Group, which looks after the manufacturing sector, say that the cost of doing business in South Australia is a significant issue. It wants to have a lower payroll tax and lower WorkCover levies.

Not surprisingly, since Labor got into power 12 years ago, manufacturing has declined and taxes have increased. There is a direct correlation there, and the members opposite know it. And they know that business creates jobs.

This is something that the state Liberal leader, Steven Marshall, has a great appreciation of, having worked in many businesses in South Australia. He knows how important it is to create an entrepreneurial culture and have a greater focus on exports. Steven Marshall has the drive and the energy to give South Australia a better future. State Liberals will reduce payroll tax. They will remove the car park tax and give businesses a better chance of employing people: more jobs and more incomes for families.

But the state Labor government has no ideas on how to tackle jobs and the jobs crisis engulfing South Australia. Over the last eight months, 25,000 full-time jobs have been lost. South Australia has the highest jobless rate in mainland Australia and the highest unemployment for 12 years. The only thing that Weatherill can do is control debt—or not control debt. And we have record levels of debt: debt, debt and more debt. The Premier and part-time Treasurer, Jay Weatherill, like the member for Lilley and the member for McMahon, has never delivered a surplus. It is just spend, spend, spend. It is the South Australian children who will have to cover the future payments on interest, the $2 million every single day that is going out of our economy—$2 million that could be spent on social infrastructure like schools, education and community projects. At a federal level, $10 billion a year could go to the same causes.

But Labor never consider this in the equation. They just like to spend, increase the interest repayments and get into more debt and more interest repayments. In South Australia, $2 million a day can go a long way to providing infrastructure. I thank the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, who is here, for joining the debate. He knows how important infrastructure is in South Australia to help our growing sectors of mining, resources and agriculture.

South Australia has had some great innovative companies over the years. It has had electronics companies at the high end, like Redarc and Codan, and food companies like San Remo pasta, Haigh's and Robern Menz. In the high-end section of creative industries we have Rising Sun Pictures, which does visual effects for Hollywood blockbusters. Philmac, in my electorate, is a leader in pipe fittings for the irrigation sector; and there is ASC, one of the largest defence projects in Australia, with the AWDs.

South Australians are a patriotic people and rallied behind Spring Gully when their business was threatened last year. This is a great example of how the power of the consumer can have a real, positive impact on a product. This is the message that I have been encouraging government, industry and residents in my electorate to keep in mind, and some people in the media in South Australia have got behind it as well. Leon Byner on FIVEaa, and The Advertiser, have been very active in promoting the benefits of supporting our local produce. But there are not enough companies and not enough employees, and many of our talented workforce have gone either interstate or overseas—30,000 during Labor's reign; a 30,000-person brain drain; 30,000 talented people interstate.

It is also the senior management of our larger corporates who are moving interstate: Hill's Holdings, Harris Scarfe and Adelaide Brighton. Our small business sector, which the member for Makin acknowledged when he spoke last week, was ignored—yes, it was ignored; ignored by the state Labor government and the federal Labor government. There were higher taxes and tougher conditions in doing business. This is what people said to me before the election, that they were facing some of the toughest conditions ever and that Labor and their taxes were not helping. People knew that, and the member for Makin knows that.

South Australia can recover; we need a change of government to give our economic future the best chance. Many regions, both locally and overseas—whether that be in the UK with the closure of coalmines or Germany in the Ruhr area—have faced similar challenges over many years. Newcastle and the Hunter Valley in New South faced a similar situation when the BHP steelworks closed in 1999, with more than 5,000 manufacturing jobs lost. In the 1990s their unemployment was above 10 per cent and reached 16 per cent at one stage.

But what did they do? They diversified their economy. They went into services and they looked at other areas. Like Adelaide, Newcastle has benefited from large defence contracts—most recently the Air Warfare Destroyer Program. This was announced in 2004 by the Howard Liberal government, the total value being over $8 billion. ASC Shipbuilding at Osborne was awarded the tender, and has Adelaide as its headquarters. It lists more than 25,000 people with the AWD alliance as part of that exciting project: high-end engineers and high-end manufacturing—a future for South Australia.

But now, our defence industry enters the potential 'valley of death' scenario. Why? Because the Howard government's commitment to AWDs was the last real investment decision made in shipbuilding by an Australian government. Labor talked the big talk, and Kevin Rudd committed to building submarines prior to the 2007 election. But six years later there have been no contracts and no definite plans. We are working as quickly as possible to rectify these problems from Labor's inaction, and to give certainty to South Australia's defence companies.

The coalition government has a plan to build a stronger economy, the new infrastructure that Jamie Briggs is working so hard to deliver: the North-South Corridor and $500 million committed for Darlington. I have been talking regularly to my federal colleagues about fast tracking the Torrens-to-Torrens project. Our commitments are part of billions of dollars nationally. We are reducing $1 billion in regulatory costs; the freighters, the industry groups, the resources and Business SA have all spoken to me about cutting red tape. I note in today's Advertiser that Liberal leader Steven Marshall committed to reducing red tape, saving $100 million a year. Another area in which we are helping small businesses—not ignoring them, helping them.

We are removing taxes, like the carbon tax and the mining tax, and I just want to touch on the minerals resource rent tax. It applies to iron ore, something that the Premier, Jay Weatherill, does not acknowledge. There are currently three operational iron ore mines in South Australia, with a further three approved under construction and 11 developing projects. The mining tax is not good for South Australia, and Weatherill needs to stand up to his Labor mates in Canberra and tell them to adhere to the wishes of the people at the last election and get rid of the mining tax.

The mining tax is a $1 billion hit on manufacturing. The carbon tax is a $4 billion hit on electricity. As stated by the South Australian Chamber of Mining and Energy last year:

SACOME welcomes the introduction of legislation to repeal the Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT), in line with the Liberal party's election commitment to abolish the damaging tax.

They go on to say:

The MRRT is an unfair tax, and discriminates against South Australia in particular due to our vast amounts of magnetite iron ore, …

The Premier just conveniently missed this. (Time expired)

The SPEAKER: Is the motion seconded?

Mr Pasin: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (10:29): I am not at all surprised that this motion has come before the House two weeks before the South Australian state election, because the South Australian Liberal opposition leader needs all the help he can get and the members here in the federal parliament are trying to do just that. Can I say in respect of the member for Hindmarsh's address that he has just presented to the House that it is full of political rhetoric and full of bland statements and aspirations but very light on facts.

I welcome the opportunity to speak to this motion, because I am happy to bring some facts to this debate. During Labor's first decade in office, between 2002 and 2010-11, the South Australian economy grew by 22.4 per cent. It did so at a time of great difficulty and it did so because we had a state Labor government that was focused on the state and focused on the things that were going to improve productivity in South Australia—and the things that it invested in are doing exactly that. I refer to things like the new medical health and research centre that was opened only last month, a magnificent facility that will not only create jobs but will be the focus of medical research not just for Australia but for many parts of the world, something that we can indeed be proud of. The new Royal Adelaide Hospital, which is currently underway, is also a sign of a government that is looking to the future, not the past, because the South Australian government understands the importance of a good health system to the everyday lives of the people of South Australia. More importantly, it is also about efficiencies, because if you operate from an old, tired and run-down facility, the medical costs to the consumers and to the state are much higher than if you have a better facility.

The extensions to the convention centre are already underway. I spoke to the manager of the convention centre in recent weeks, and the centre is booked out for months and months in advance. It is very important to bringing people to South Australia. The South Australian Labor government totally understands that, and that is why it is investing in expanding the facility to accommodate the growing demands for the use of it. We have seen the Adelaide Oval redeveloped. Again, not only will that bring more people into South Australia but it becomes an asset and a showpiece for local and international sporting events. It enables the South Australian government to boost the economic activity of the state, because it can attract international events, which you could not otherwise do.

I heard the member for Hindmarsh talking about South Road. It was the state Labor government that put on the agenda the improvements of the South Road from the Torrens Road to the River Torrens, opposed by those in this place and opposed by the Liberals in South Australia. They would have preferred to spend the money down south at Darlington, which they think it is more important, against the advice of the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure in South Australia. The people who know best have advised that the money should have been spent in the Torrens Road to River Torrens area, but, no, these folks knew better. What they knew better was where to spend money to hold seats that they were desperately in need of holding at the last federal election.

The state Labor government has also invested in the Northern Expressway and the new Superway, at the northern end of South Road—new roadworks which will improve productivity because they will save transport times. It is about having in place a government that understands what is needed if you want to improve efficiencies and productivity, enabling industries to operate much more viably and not only attracting new industries but keeping the ones that you have.

I want to talk a little bit about the issue of jobs. Just after the September election, Minister for Industry Macfarlane came out to visit GM Holden, because there was the discussion about its future. The member for Hindmarsh willingly came out, visited the plant, put on his fluoro vest and walked through the plant as though he was there to save Holden, along with Minister Macfarlane. What happened immediately after that visit? The Abbott government decided that it would turn its back on Holden. It did so by not only cutting $500 million of funding from the auto industry but also by saying to GMH and car makers in this country, 'There will be no further funding beyond 2017, and we're not going to make any decisions; we're going to handball the issue on to the Productivity Commission.' When they did that, where was the member for Hindmarsh? He became invisible. The fluoro vests suddenly disappeared. At least the member for Murray had the decency to come in and stand up for her community and her electorate.

The member for Hindmarsh went missing. He was happy to be seen when the cameras were there, but he was not prepared to stand up for GMH workers when the decisions were made. And he talks about jobs, yet the jobs that will be lost to South Australia as a result GMH not continuing in South Australia beyond 2017 will run into the thousands. There will be several hundred small businesses and their employees who will also be affected—because their futures and their livelihoods, depend on GMH. Nobody knows that better than the member for Wakefield—who is going to speak in a moment—and myself. We have been part of that community for decades. And can I say to the member for Hindmarsh: in terms of the unemployment figures, the northern parts of Adelaide needed GMH to continue if they were going to increase and sustain employment down there.

This does not stop with GMH. Before the election, members of the Liberal Party happily wore, 'I love the Murray' T-shirts and paraded themselves in front of this Parliament House. In South Australia, those opposite were happy to campaign on the fact that they were going to save the Murray River. But as soon as the election was over, where were they? They have turned their backs on $600 million of water buybacks which were critical to South Australia. They have turned their backs on the 450 gigalitres of additional water to put back into the river Murray, that we fought tooth and nail for. We did that because we understood the importance of restoring the flows to the Riverland fruit growers in South Australia, who had been doing it tough for a decade under drought and needed every drop of water they could get. If those growers are denied the water they desperately need, what does the member for Hindmarsh think that will do to productivity and to jobs in South Australia?

Those people are struggling to survive now—improving their productivity would mean jobs for the Riverland area and it would mean jobs for South Australia, because their produce goes to small-business people, wineries and the like. Yet members opposite were happy to campaign saying, 'We are going to save the Murray if you elect us', but then turn their backs on that as soon as they were elected. And—of all people—the member for Hindmarsh, who brings this motion into the House, has not said a word about the water buybacks or the 450 gigalitres of extra water that he knows we fought tooth and nail for. Premier Jay Weatherill led the charge in respect of ensuring that we got that additional 450 gigalitres.

Mr Briggs interjecting—

Mr ZAPPIA: I would just like to finish on this point: the member for Hindmarsh comes in here and talks about a government that is going to grow the economy and all the rest. Let me quote to him the headline of an article only this Friday on the front page of The Australian—not a paper that is supportive generally of Labor politics in this country. The headline says: 'Investment spending will fall: Worst slump in 20 years'. This is what they predict under the new Abbott government—the worst slump in 20 years. And you cannot keep blaming what has happened in the past for what is projected to occur in the future—that view is based on the policies of the government of the day and the policies it is espousing for the future. Investors make decisions based on those things. And what they expect is the worst slump in 20 years—that is what people in this country have to look forward to under an Abbott government, and that is what they will have to look forward to in South Australia under the Liberals—if they are lucky enough to win the next state election. That worries me, because there will be further jobs lost in the manufacturing sector and in the mining sector. According to the same article, manufacturing is already down by 20 per cent, and mining is expected to fall by another 25 per cent. Both industries are critical to the future of South Australia—as they have been critical to South Australia for the last three or four decades. We need to support our mining. We need to support our manufacturing. We are not going to support them by implementing policies that are already scaring investors away from South Australia.

This motion is nothing more than a political stunt. The South Australian government is doing the right thing: preparing for the future, investing in the future, and ensuring that South Australia has a viable future— (Time expired)

Mr PASIN (Barker) (10:39): I am disappointed to hear the member for Makin indicate that discussion about disturbingly high unemployment rates in South Australia is nothing more than political point-scoring. That is not the case. High unemployment rates in South Australia are a matter of grave concern.

I am a passionate South Australian: I hope I have made as much clear in the first short while of being in this place. I think, effectively, my priorities are: No. 1, South Australia; No. 2, South Australia; No. 3, South Australia. In fact I feel so much about my state that despite being a passionate advocate and supporter of the Essendon Football Club, deep down when Port Adelaide and the Crows are playing a part of me hopes that they do well. But I am embarrassed by the state of the South Australian economy and I am ashamed by the South Australian government.

In speaking to this, I thought I would get together a list of South Australian Labor state government's greatest hits. I am a fan of the greatest hits albums so I thought I would go through the list. I am grateful that we have the member for Wakefield and the member for Makin here to hear some of these. To be truthful, I am surprised that we have got northern suburb MPs arguing this case on behalf of 'Jay for SA'. I do note that there is a particularly nice ring to 'Don for later on'! When I first heard Jay for SA, I was in support of it because I thought it was Jay for South Africa and I was waiting in the departure lounge.

But let us get back to the greatest hits. Small and medium businesses in South Australia have surely the worst business conditions in mainland Australia. Payroll tax is off the charts. Maybe the member for Wakefield could listen to this: the youth unemployment rate in the northern suburbs in Adelaide is at 45 per cent. Regional South Australia, thankfully, has an unemployment rate of eight per cent.

Mr Champion: What is it in Murray Bridge then? Tell us what it is in Murray Bridge. What's the youth unemployment in Murray Bridge?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): Order! Member for Wakefield, you will have your turn shortly.

Mr PASIN: Kick him out! It would be cause for great acclamation! What about some of these other greatest hits? I am pleased to say that in my region unemployment on average in regional South Australia is at about eight per cent and in the south-east, 6½ per cent.

The jobless rate is of great concern. But Labor had a plan for this. The South Australian Strategic Plan proudly boasted that 100,000 jobs would be created in South Australia. What happened? Instead of creating 4,200 jobs a month, we lost 4,600 jobs a month. That sounds pretty important: you promise one thing but deliver another—and I am referring here perhaps to the carbon tax. But effectively, what has happened in South Australia is that we have transitioned 30,000 private-sector jobs to 20,000 public-sector jobs. That is the difficulty we enjoy in South Australia. We have a centralist state government that does not understand that it is private industry, private businesses, that create and support jobs.

It is not a surprise that we are losing these private-sector jobs. Economic conditions for running businesses in South Australia are the most difficult in the nation. Over a period of 12 years where CPI increased by 39 per cent, state taxes increased by—wait for it—92 per cent, gas bills by 136 per cent, electricity bills by 140 per cent and, not to be outdone, water bills by 227 per cent! Little wonder that businesses in South Australia, facing these imposts, are finding it difficult to create employment. I will not even go to the WorkCover rate, which is twice the national average.

What then? That is the bad news, but the darkest hour is of course always just before the dawn. The people of South Australia have an opportunity on 15 March to right the wrongs of the last 12 years and do what the Australian people did on 7 September and pass judgement on those that have delivered these greatest hits. South Australians want a South Australian government that understands that only a business-led recovery will deliver outcomes for South Australia. Steven Marshall and his team have a plan for that growth—lower taxes and less regulation. In my home town of Mount Gambier, I am pleased to say that Troy Bell from Mount Gambier will deliver that seat and help Steven Marshall deliver government.

Mr CHAMPION (Wakefield) (10:44): The member for Hindmarsh brings this motion to the House. It is always very interesting to see—the last time I saw the member for Hindmarsh roaming around this sort of rhetoric was down at Holden. He came through like a little meerkat, following the minister on his tour through Holden. Of course, we know what happened there. He toured the factory, disappeared for a while and then we never heard anything more until we saw Joe Hockey's daring of GM to leave.

The South Australians opposite talk a good game about the South Australian economy, but on that critical issue of Holden they all came down—Minister MacFarlane, the member for Hindmarsh and all these other people—and toured the factory, posed for pictures—

Mr Pasin: You wrote to them!

Mr CHAMPION: My friend knows that if there were a Labor government, Holden would have continued producing cars in South Australia.

But what happened was that the minister came down and toured the factory with a sort of crowd behind him—Liberal senators and the member for Hindmarsh—all touring the place. Then what did we get? 'Hockey dares GM to leave.' We know the subsequent chaos that was caused in the car industry and the automotive components industry with 50,000 jobs lost. That is what we are looking down the barrel of.

I notice that the language in part (c) of this motion says, in rather glorious terms:

(c) liberate the people of South Australia to realise their destiny; and …

'Liberate' them—in this case, as the deputy leader says, 'Liberate them from their jobs.'

We know that that is what the Liberal Party plans to do because Tony Abbott, when he announced the $100 million plan to help Holden's closure—that has now been stretched to Geelong, Altona and to the whole economy of western Melbourne—said:

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says many Holden workers will be "liberated" by the loss of their jobs at the carmaker.

So we see the same language used—quite extraordinary language, that you might be 'liberated' by losing your job.

We know that around the world there is a debate going on: growth versus austerity—whether we grow the economy or whether we cut it back. That is the great debate around the world. The rest of the world tried austerity first and now they are clinging to growth. In this country we grew. We decided to grow the economy and the Liberals now want to rescue us from that growth by cutting—by austerity. That is the debate around the world, but the Liberal Party are going to get it back to front. They are going to save us from a growing economy. Only in this sort of strange, weird world that the Liberal Party and the member for Hindmarsh create are workers liberated by losing their jobs or liberated by factory closures. Only in this world does cutting taxes produce more revenue and balanced budgets. Only in this weird world; it is sort of voodoo economics.

We know what the Liberal Party plan is for South Australia. It is the same plan they had in New South Wales and it is the same plan that they had in Queensland. It is the same plan they have for the nation, which is a secret commission for cuts. They do not have the courage to tell the South Australian people about the cuts. We had the member for Barker talking about 20,000 public sector jobs but not having the courage to use the figures of the former SA opposition leader, Isobel Redmond, and in a wave of honesty admit they were going to cut 20,000 public sector jobs. That is what he wants to do; that is what he is intimating. That is what the secret commission of cuts will do.

We know that they will hold back on infrastructure. Whatever they say, Torrens to Torrens is ready to go; instead they will hold back. We know that they will wreck our shipbuilding industry, and they will not go ahead with the Collins class submarine. You can see them slowly getting around it. They have a US Navy general in charge of reviewing current shipbuilding. We can see them backing away from the Collins class. And so the questions before the South Australian people are, 'Do you want to continue with a growing economy, with cranes over the horizon of Adelaide? With growth? Or do you want to see cutbacks? Do you want to see austerity? Do you want to see job losses? Do you want to see the resulting economic damage?' You only have to look to Queensland and you only have to look to this parliament to see their plans in action: jobs lost and economic growth collapsing.

Debate adjourned.

Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (10:49): I move:

That this House:

(1) notes:

(a) the United Nations Human Rights Council's Report of the detailed findings of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) released on 17 February 2014;

(b) the gravity, scale and nature of human rights violations and crimes against humanity which have been and are being committed systematically by the DPRK, including murder, enslavement, starvation, torture, rape and persecution on the grounds of race, religion and gender, and other inhumane acts;

(c) first hand testimony from DPRK refugees, escapees and asylum seekers;

(d) the political and security apparatus of the DPRK and the use of tactics including surveillance, selective distribution of food, fear, public executions and forced disappearances; and

(e) the crimes against humanity against non-DPRK citizens through international abduction and forced repatriation;

(2) recognises the significance of the public hearings held by the commission of inquiry, in informing the report;

(3) acknowledges the work of the Chair of the commission of inquiry, the Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG, and his important contribution to improved international understanding and capacity to respond to the state of human rights in the DPRK; and

(4) calls on the Government to take all available steps to:

(a) support the recommendations of the report;

(b) urge United Nations action on the findings of the report; and

(c) support efforts to hold those responsible for crimes accountable through the International Criminal Court.

I rise today to draw attention to the United Nations Human Rights Council's Report of the detailed findings of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The report is the outcome of 12 months' work since the UN's Human Rights Council established a commission to investigate the systematic and widespread violations of human rights in North Korea. While no-one with any interest in world affairs would be shocked to hear that the North Korean regime engages in systematic human rights abuses, this report was drafted with a view to ensuring that those responsible for these abuses will be held accountable. The report also provides a great degree of authority, through extensive evidence of crimes and through a greater level of detailed research and reporting than previous reports. As the commission's statement said on the report's release:

The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.

That a rigorous inquiry, with firsthand testimony, was carried out in a transparent way following due process, is a very important first step to ensure that the world is aware of what is taking place inside North Korea.

The extensive public hearings were a vital feature of the inquiry. The Commission of Inquiry conducted public hearings—in Seoul, Tokyo, London and Washington—during which almost 80 victims and witnesses of human rights violations, as well as experts, provided testimony on the human rights situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. An additional 240 victims and witnesses who feared reprisals for their testimony against family members who remain in North Korea were able to give evidence confidentially to the commission and its secretariat. Through these public hearings and interviews, the commission found that systematic, widespread and gross violations of human rights have been and are being committed in North Korea, based on state policies—that is, the policies of the government.

The report breaks down the human rights violations into a number of discrete categories, finding: widespread violations of the freedoms of thought, expression and religion; discrimination; violations of the freedom of movement and residence; violations of the right to food and the right to life; arbitrary detention, torture, executions and prison camps; and abductions and enforced disappearances, including even from other countries. The report focuses on the consideration of crimes against humanity committed against six groups of victims: inmates of political prison camps; inmates of the ordinary prison system, in particular, political prisoners among them; religious believers and others considered to introduce a subversive influence; persons who try to leave the country; starving populations; and people from other countries who became victims of international abductions and enforced disappearances.

The report finds that the political and security apparatus of the single-party DPRK regime is directly responsible for these crimes. The state bears responsibility for carrying out systematic and widespread attacks against anyone who is considered to pose a threat to the political system and leadership. It bears responsibility for leading a systematic and widespread attack against the general population by knowingly aggravating its starvation; sacrificing the lives of large numbers of innocent citizens in order to preserve the political system and its leadership; and for abducting and forcibly disappearing a large number of persons from other countries in a systematic and widespread manner in order to gain labour and skills. Recent reporting from North Korea serves as a sobering reminder of the priorities of the current regime. While a basketball celebrity is hosted by the government, 120,000 citizens are detained in labour camps as political prisoners by their own government. This represents approximately one in every 200 citizens of the DPRK. It is almost impossible to imagine numbers on that scale.

Based on the body of testimony and information received, the commission found that the DPRK authorities have committed and are committing crimes against humanity in the political prison camps, including extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape and other grave sexual violence and persecution on political, religious and gender grounds. Guards and security agents serving in the political prison camps are taught to consider inmates to be subhuman enemies, who no longer enjoy citizens' rights. Accordingly, they are instructed to treat inmates without pity.

According to the commission's findings, hundreds of thousands of inmates have been exterminated in political prison camps and other places over a span of more than five decades. In order to eliminate perceived political enemies over the course of three generations, entire groups of people, including families with their children, have perished in the prison camps because of who they were and not what they had personally done. Some of the most disturbing interviews I think have come from one member of a family, who has explained that it was the action of that one member of the family that was responsible for the whole family being taken into custody and taken to a prison camp. Sometimes that member of the family, or the family as a whole, was not even told what they had been accused of doing. The imprisonment of entire families on the principle of guilt by association has been a defining feature of the DPRK's political prison camps. There are many instances where whole families, including children, have been sent to prison camps for the wrongs committed by a family member, and the interviews with parents in particular explaining their feelings on being responsible for their children being taken into these camps are truly harrowing.

Even where families are spared prison camps they often remain subject to harsh official reprisals, including being removed from their jobs through associative guilt. Families of prisoners are also subject to heightened persecution and surveillance, as are families with members who are missing or who have defected. There are also cases of families being forcibly relocated due to a family member having been charged as a political dissident and sentenced to a political prison camp. These relocations are often to remote or isolated areas where mass starvation is common.

Another assault on whole families is dealt to those persons with disabilities. These families are simply 'not allowed to live in Pyongyang' and are regularly relocated out of the capital. Immense hardship is also faced by families who have been separated between the north and the south before and during the Korean War. These families had little or no opportunity to see each other, exchange letters or speak over the telephone for more than six decades. At the end of 2013, the Unified Information Center for Separated Families had on its register of 'separated families', 129,264 persons, about 71½ thousand alive and close to 60,000 deceased.

I think that it is appropriate that the House acknowledge the work of the commission's chair, former High Court Justice Michael Kirby. Justice Kirby has long been a tireless advocate for human rights both here in Australia and abroad, and the United Nations could not have found a more qualified individual for this role. Justice Kirby was joined by Sonja Biserko from Serbia and Marzuki Darusman from Indonesia, and I would like to acknowledge their contributions to this important work also.

Also and most particularly, I acknowledge the bravery of witnesses, those who have been closest to the atrocities and hurt most by the crimes in question. Their brief contribution in coming forward and speaking out took phenomenal courage and strength, and without their will the investigation which made the report possible would not have occurred. For their sake and for the sake of all North Koreans, the international community must take action. Noting the report's finding that 'systemic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea', no-one can claim ignorance of the atrocities committed by the North Korean regime any longer. I call on the government to support the report's recommendations.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): Is the motion seconded?

Ms Brodtmann: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Mr SIMPKINS (Cowan) (10:59): I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. Certainly, it is true that the world did not need this report to know there is a problem in North Korea and that there has been a wide and terrible history of abuse of human rights in that country. Whenever you look at such a regime, an autocratic regime where rule is handed down son to son, a regime that is obscured by secrecy and isolation—a hallmark of everything they do—you can be certain that oppression and abuse of human rights will endure. This report has given substance to the depth of the realities surrounding the regime. There is a darkness that surrounds North Korea. The United Nations Human Rights Council's Report of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Koreaopens the regime to greater scrutiny.

It is regrettable that the North Korean government chose not to respond or participate in any way—regrettable and certainly predictable. It is a demonstration of exactly the problem—their general approach and their inability to defend their record of horrendous and disgraceful abuses of human rights. China could have contributed by providing access to those who have escaped from North Korea and I find it sad that China did not participate. It is also a shame that the Chinese government actually rejected even the existence of the commission. The participation of China would have created further opportunities to properly and accurately assess just how terrible the situation is in North Korea. I note that on 20 February during the human rights dialogue with China, Australia raised the issue with China and urged them to allow the UN High Commissioner for Refugees access to those who have crossed the border into China.

I pay tribute to the chair, the members and the secretariat of the commission for the efforts they put into the inquiry and the resulting report. One could imagine that it would have been fascinating to hear all the witnesses but, at the same time, it would have been a harrowing and challenging experience, given accounts of abuse, torture, murder and rape.

Australia applauds the commission of inquiry's efforts to uncover the deplorable human rights record of the North Korean government. The report has shown that, over many decades, North Korea has denied its people basic rights and freedoms, and subjected them to gross human rights violations. The Australian government has urged North Korea to implement the commission's recommendations, including on reunion of separated families, repatriation of abductees, repeal of laws allowing for arbitrary decisions by authorities and the death penalty. I note that in the commission's report, detailed factual and legal analysis has been provided and the Australian government will study these carefully ahead of its consideration at the 17 March Human Rights Council meeting. I welcome the commitment by the government to promote and advance the cause of human rights for North Koreans beyond the halls of Geneva. To that end, Australia will determine how we can use our membership of international bodies and work with others to give a greater profile to the report and to this cause.

On 20 February, Australia was among those who raised the report in the UN Security Council during the quarterly briefing on the North Korean sanctions committee, noting that it deserves the attention of council members. It should also be noted that the Australian government regularly raises its concerns on human rights in North Korea both bilaterally and multilaterally. It is also true that Australia's Seoul based ambassador raised North Korea's appalling record with their ministers in Pyongyang in November last year. Therefore, I consider that available steps have been taken by the Australian government to take action on this report.

In the remaining time available to me, I would like to examine some of the principal findings of the report. It is true to say that the excesses of the state are, I guess, tolerated, but, in fact, the report found that the human rights abuses form the basis of how that government runs the country and controls its people. That is a tragedy and there is no parallel to this across the world. Some people call it the hermit kingdom or a pariah state. That is absolutely the case.

The systems within North Korea are there to control the people completely. Look at systems such as the Songbun, a system of rigid levels of status in society. These systems amount to state determined discrimination. Everyone is classified on the basis of a social class that has been allocated based on their birth or the directions of the state. Songbun determines where people can live, their accommodation, their educational access and even who they can marry. While some aspects of that have been modified by increased economic activity and economic markets, the reality is that it is an insidious system where people are controlled based on how the state determines who they are. Not only are all those determinations under Songbun, what makes it even worse is that the distribution of food is determined based on the Songbun system of rigid class.

Yes, Pyongyang is looked after and food is sent to Pyongyang. Everyone knows of the famine of the 1990s, but there has also been a shortage of food in North Korea for the last generation.

Under the Songbun system , only people who are considered essential and people at the highest levels of society get access to food. The remainder of the population are discriminated against according to their standing in the Songbun system. They are restricted from moving around the country and their access to jobs is restricted. They are controlled and required to remain in their location even if there is a lack of food. This system oppresses the people of North Korea.

A few years ago I saw a documentary about North Korea. The daughter of one family, who was probably in late primary school, commented when there was a blackout in their apartment that it must have been the Americans interrupting their power supply—a completely ridiculous and illogical comment. This system, where the North Korean government controls information, prosecutes those who do not comply with their rules, rewards those who inform on others' political activities and indoctrinates North Koreans from birth and throughout their entire lives. Children being forced to accept only the state system, adults being forced to comply and people receiving food based upon their standing in the system—this is the terrible system of human rights abuses and the abuse of any form of government by the regime in North Korea.

It is good to see this report, Report of the detailed findings of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It highlights so much of what is wrong with North Korea. I advise everyone who has an interest in this area to have a close look at this fascinating but tragic report.

Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (11:09): Here are three stories from North Korea's prison camps. First, a story told by camp survivor Ms Jee Heon A:

... there was this pregnant woman ... The babies who were born were usually dead, but in this case the baby was born alive. The baby was crying as it was born, so we were curious, this was the first time we saw a baby being born. So we were watching this baby and we were so happy. But suddenly we heard the footsteps. The security agent ... told us to put the baby in the water upside down. So the mother was begging. 'I was told that I would not be able to have the baby, but I actually got lucky and got pregnant so please let me keep the baby, please forgive me.' But the agent kept beating this woman, the mother who just gave birth. And the baby, since it was just born, it was just crying. And the mother, with her shaking hands she picked up the baby and she put the baby face down in the water. The baby stopped crying and we saw this water bubble coming out of the mouth of the baby.

Second, an account told by Mr Jeong Kwang-il:

A man left his work unit to take some potatoes because he was extremely hungry. Fearing that the guards would try to consider this an attempted escape, he tried to hide. The guards chased tracker dogs after him. The dogs found and mauled the man until he was half dead. Then the guards shot the victim dead on the spot.

Third, an event recounted by Mr Shin Dong-hyuk. Mr Shin was 13 years old when he reported a conversation he overheard between his mother and brother in which they talked about escaping from the camp. As a result, his mother and brother were both executed. Along with all other inmates, Mr Shin had to watch the public execution of his mother and his brother.

I have only five minutes to speak about the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. But even if I had five hours I could not do justice to the depravity outlined in the pages the Report of the detailed findings of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. People were sent to prison camps for watching a foreign movie, for accidentally using a mobile phone, for accidentally spilling food on a picture of Kim Jong-il or for owning a Bible.

A third of the North Korean population malnourished; at least a third of children stunted; a million or more starved to death; mass rape; beatings; public executions; forced abortions of people who return from China, a practice that is driven by racist attitudes in North Korea towards the Chinese; the collective punishment of families; trafficking of women and girls—all this while the leadership build statues of themselves and import Mercedes and fine cognac.

This report will give you nightmares. It is the closest thing I have read to pure evil, yet it is the truth. The commission of inquiry has carried out its work with impeccable thoroughness. It has conducted extensive public hearings in Seoul, Tokyo, London and Washington. Regrettably, the Chinese government did not cooperate with the inquiry. It is a pity as China has much to gain from ending the abuses on its doorstep.

The inquiry was chaired by Michael Kirby, for whom I had the privilege to work as a judge's associate. Australia has no more powerful advocate of human rights than Michael Kirby. He has done our nation proud in this work—a report underpinned by the fundamental belief that all of us are of equal worth.

The North Korean prison camps have survived twice as long as Stalin's Soviet gulags and much longer than the Nazi concentration camps. The policies of North Korea are responsible for perhaps millions of deaths. The report demands action, yet too many seem to be looking away.

I urge the government to take strong action on this report. That includes arguing in the Security Council for targeted sanctions, using our seat on the Security Council as an opportunity; arguing in the General Assembly for better human rights monitoring of North Korea; supporting referral of the report to the International Criminal Court; and working with our friends in the Chinese government to see them take action that will benefit China. These acts will demand courage by Australia but to do them we must only believe one thing: that the newborn baby I described at the start of my speech was the moral equal of any of us. If we believe that, we cannot stay silent.

Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (11:14): I rise today to speak on this motion and to remind the House that Australia applauds the commission of inquiry's efforts to expose the deplorable human rights record of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea government. A United Nations panel led by retired High Court Judge Michael Kirby says that crimes against humanity have been committed in the DPRK. This report is the most authoritative account yet of human rights violations by North Korean authorities.

In UN resolution 22/13, adopted on 21 March 2013, the Human Rights Council established a commission of inquiry on human rights in the DPRK. The council mandated the commission to investigate the systemic, widespread and grave violations of human rights including in particular the following nine specific substantive areas: violations of the right to food; the full range of violations associated with prison camps; torture and inhumane treatment; discrimination, in particular the systemic denial and violation of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms; violations of the freedom of expression; violations of the right to life; violations of the freedom of movement; enforced disappearances; and arbitrary arrest and detention including in the form of abductions of nationals of other states. This is a non-exhaustive list.

Following the announcement of the commission's investigation, the Human Rights Council urged the North Korean government to cooperate fully with the investigation, to permit the commission's members unrestricted access to visit the country and to provide them with all information necessary to enable them to fulfil their mandate. Immediately after the adoption of resolution 22/13, the DPRK publically stated that it would 'totally reject and disregard' the inquiry. In a letter dated 10 May 2013, the DPRK government informed the president of the Human Rights Council that it 'totally and categorically rejects the commission of inquiry'.

Due to this unchanged lack of access to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the commission obtained firsthand testimony through hearings that were transparent, observed due process and protected victims and witnesses. More than 80 witnesses and experts testified publically and provided information of great specificity, detail and relevance, in ways that often required a significant degree of courage.

The commission found that in many instances the violations found crimes against humanity based on state policies. The commission found that there is an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association.

The state manufactures absolute obedience to the supreme leader, effectively to the exclusion of any thought independent of official ideology and state propaganda. Propaganda is further used by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to incite nationalistic hatred towards official enemies of the state including Japan, the United States of America, the Republic of Korea, and their nationals. Citizens are denied the right to access to information from independent sources. Discrimination is rooted in the Songbun system, which classifies people on the basis of state assigned social class and birth, and also included consideration of political opinions and religion.

In North Korea, the state imposes on citizens where they must live and work, violating their freedom of choice. Moreover, the forced assignment to a state designated place of residence and employment is heavily driven by discrimination based on Songbun. This has created a socioeconomically and physically segregated society where people considered politically loyal to the leadership can live and work in favourable locations whereas families of persons who are considered politically suspect are relegated to marginalised areas.

Unfortunately, justice for the crimes is a distant prospect—not least as North Korea's ally, China, is likely to block any referral to the International Criminal Court. However, Australia will continue to urge China to allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees access to independently assess North Korean border crossers.

The report recommends steps towards accountability as well as building international pressure on North Korea, whose parlous human rights record has drawn less censure at the UN than its nuclear and missile programs. Australia urges North Korea to implement the commission's recommendations. Australia will do its part to ensure this report resonates beyond Geneva. The Australian government regularly raises its concerns about human rights in the DPRK both bilaterally and in multilateral settings.

It is a long road to obtaining a positive outcome. However, it is important that Australia continues to add its voice to the international community to stop these human rights violations, and I commend this motion to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr NIKOLIC (Bass) (11:19): I move the motion relating to the Programme for International Student Assessment in the terms in which it appears on the Notice Paper:

That this House notes:

(1) with concern:

(a) the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 survey, which are the worst for Australia since testing began and show that Australia is falling further behind its regional neighbours on critical objective measures; and

(b) that, in spite of a 44 per cent increase in education funding by the Government during the last decade, student performance has declined, which indicates that there is much more to improving educational outcomes for our children than simply increasing funding;

(2) that the PISA 2012 survey has also revealed how critical teacher quality is to Australia's education system and to lifting student outcomes and how outcomes for students, regardless of which school they attend, are directly affected by the quality of the teaching they receive;

(3) that the Government's response to the PISA 2012 survey emphasises the critical importance of teacher quality to Australia's education system and to lifting student outcomes, coupled with a robust curriculum, expanding autonomy for principals, and encouraging more parental engagement; and

(4) the Government's consistent commitment to ensuring a fairer, needs based funding arrangement for schools nationally, to deliver better schools for Australian students.

Few issues are more important to the future of our country than the education of our children. Education is, figuratively, a nation's heart and soul. But it is also literally every nation's future. Australia is no exception. So the latest Programme for International Student Assessment or PISA results should be a cause for concern and a call to action.

The results are the worst for Australia since testing began and show that we are falling further behind our regional neighbours. If you look at the trend lines, we have decreased: from 15th to 19th in mathematical literacy; from 10th to 16th in scientific literacy; and from ninth to 14th in reading literacy. In my home state of Tasmania this issue is doubly important, given we have the lowest retention rates into years 11 and 12 in Australia. We also have the lowest adult literacy rates in the country, highlighting that those left behind in the classroom suffer those consequences into adulthood. We on this side of the House believe that all students deserve our support, regardless of the choice parents make for their education. Better educational results today support a smarter and more competitive nation tomorrow. But there is so much to be done.

Despite billions more for education during the last decade, education results have declined. During the last six years we have listened to grand promises about an education revolution and then an even grander-sounding 'education crusade'. But what have we gained from this six-year revolution and crusade?

We have seen overpriced school halls, overpromising of computers in schools and overblown rhetoric about 'catching up with Shanghai kids', yet student outcomes have declined.

Statistics over 10, 20 and 40 years are instructive. Ten years ago, eight per cent of year 3 children did not achieve minimum national benchmarks. A decade later in 2013, NAPLAN results revealed that this had jumped by 50 per cent, with almost 12 per cent of children in year 3 achieving a very low rating, or below, for reading. That is despite an almost 50 per cent funding increase.

In the last 20 years educational funding has doubled to $40 billion per year, yet our student results in national and international tests have fallen. Research from the member for Fraser confirms that over the last 40 years, despite an almost 260 per cent increase in school spending, literacy and numeracy outcomes have declined. Standards have not improved, despite more dollars, smaller class sizes, $16 billion in new buildings and a laptop spending spree. There is simply no logic in the arguments put forward by those opposite and highly politicised teachers unions that just more dollars is the answer. Labor's fistful of dollars approach to education clearly has more to do with politics and ideology than it does with evidence.

We have to start talking more about standards than dollars. We should be discussing how to help teachers whose own literacy skills impede their ability to teach reading effectively. The final report of the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy in 2005, for example, revealed that less than 10 per cent of compulsory units in primary teaching degrees were allocated to reading instruction. Then Minister for Education, Science and Training Brendan Nelson welcomed the inquiry's recommendations and said that we simply must prepare teachers better to teach reading as their key focus.

The inquiry's literature review found that quality of teaching has the largest impact on a child's learning to read. It is a factor of far greater importance than a child's background or their family circumstances. The inquiry found that, in the first three years of school and beyond if necessary, all children learn to read most effectively through an approach to reading that emphasises phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary knowledge and text comprehension. The report highlighted repeatedly that teacher quality was the most valuable resource in making a difference in classrooms.

What does that mean? Quite simply it means that scarce taxpayer dollars must be applied to the key factors that determine better educational outcomes: improving teacher quality, greater autonomy in decision-making by principals and parent-teacher organisations, parental engagement and a quality curriculum. I recall former Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth Peter Garrett talking about a 'decade of neglect' and how schools were failing our children. Those opposite were in government for six years, and state Labor governments have controlled public education in every state for most of the last decade. In my home state of Tasmania, for example, Labor has been in power for 16 long years and over half of Tasmania's $5 billion is spent on health and education, yet the state of our hospitals and educational outcomes is a distant last on national benchmarks.

Watching the Lateline television program on 19 February, I listened with a heavy heart as Dr Ben Jensen of the Grattan Institute suggested that the literacy crisis in Tasmania could become unmanageable in the next decade. I know the member for Franklin and other members here this morning will be worried about some of the statistics when we consider how our population is going with their reading, writing and progress in schools. At least half of Tasmania's population cannot read or write properly. More than half of the state's students fell below the national baseline for maths, compared to 42 per cent nationally. Forty-seven per cent failed the minimum standard of English, compared to 36 per cent nationally. This is despite Tasmania's teacher-student ratios being nine per cent higher than those on the mainland.

In his 1955 book Why Johnny Can't Read Rudolf Flesch pinpointed quality of instruction as the decisive factor in delivering better educational outcomes. He was right then and he is right now. We must attract high-quality teachers with a vocational commitment to their profession. That requires better selection, better entry standards and ensuring that the professional development of teachers continues throughout their career. Enough time must be devoted in core teaching units to prepare teachers to manage classes and to deliver effective reading instruction. This requires a change in emphasis within university faculties and government education departments. We need much more of a focus on academic rigour and core disciplines that improve literacy and numeracy and less of the left-wing, socially progressive fillers that currently dominate the national curriculum. We must put more emphasis on teaching students how to write effectively and to master the numeracy requirements they need in their everyday lives and future careers.

The current overcrowded, rigid curriculum must be streamlined. That is why the coalition has appointed Professor Ken Wiltshire and Dr Kevin Donnelly to review the national curriculum. Their recommendations to government in mid-2014 will help ensure that the national curriculum puts students first in the government's education policies.

Schools deserve greater independence from the authoritarian command-and-control model that those opposite champion. We need less control from governments, bureaucrats and unions and more from school boards and councils. In conjunction with the above, parents must accept their role in their children's learning and behaviour. This requires parents to do more at home to encourage a learning culture, discipline and cooperative social interaction.

Our collective actions, both federal and state, on education will either help Australian students grab future opportunities or consign them to languish in mediocrity, overtaken and bypassed by others who are better prepared and harder working, in all ways hungrier for a better life and quite willing to pay the price in sheer effort to attain it. This reality is accentuated by our national geography. We sit on the very doorstep of Asia during what pundits have already labelled the 'Asian century', but it might just as fittingly be labelled the 'hypercompetitive century' or, perhaps more positively, the 'education century'. The coalition will work tirelessly, must work tirelessly, to overturn bad education policy and improve existing policy. Our young people deserve nothing less. I commend the motion to the House.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Broadbent ): Is the motion seconded?

Mr Whiteley: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Ms MacTIERNAN (Perth) (11:30): I thank the member for Bass for raising this important issue—and much of what he has said I would agree with. People will perhaps recall that, in my maiden speech, I dealt with some of the failures of our education system, particularly in relation to the teaching of literacy. But I want to use the opportunity today in this debate to really talk about how, unfortunately, the Minister for Education has now got to a position where he is totally missing the most fundamental building block in this whole picture.

Ms Ryan: Hear, hear!

Ms MacTIERNAN: I note my friend the member for Lalor saying, 'Hear, hear!' I think there is a very, very strong case for ensuring that we put more money into areas of greatest need. I do agree across the board that money is not the complete answer in any way, shape or form and that we need a suite of reforms. But I say that the fundamental principle of Gonski is supported by international evidence that those states that do well heavily identify need and put money and locate additional resources to where there is the greatest need. Whilst money is not everything, it is certainly something and it is critical in areas where there are high levels of disadvantage.

I want to talk about what really makes the difference in these education systems. I agree that teacher quality is essential. Teacher quality is absolutely at the core of it—and any examination of the system tells us that. But one of the fundamental things that the Minister for Education is walking away from is ensuring that we actually have being brought into teacher education the intellectual ability to do the job.

I set out in the Federation Chamber the other day some appalling statistics. Around seven per cent of students going into teacher education have an ATAR of less than 50, around 16 per cent have an ATAR of less than 60 and around 27 per cent have an ATAR of less than 70. Initially, the Minister for Education, when he was the opposition education spokesperson, said that this was a significant issue. He made presentations to various forums, including the Sydney Institute, where he talked about the need for us to lift those standards and that, if we are actually going to have an education system that is characterised by rigour—the rigour that the member for Bass was talking about—we have to have personnel who are capable of reaching and delivering that rigour. If we are talking about ATAR performances and general performances that are not in that top 30 per cent, I think we are going to continue to struggle. If you look at what has happened around the world, we see precisely that.

What do they say most profoundly changed the performance of Finland? It was one of the lowest performers in the world, and within the space of around 15 years it became one of the highest achievers in literacy rates and the great achiever in PISA scores. They took a very strategic decision about who they were going to attract into teaching. They actually had a plethora of teacher-training organisations—little teacher-training colleges here and there around the country. They abolished all of them and put teacher training into a few elite universities, and only those people who could get into those elite universities were able to become teachers. Teaching then became a career that was prestigious. Finnish teachers are well paid but they are not paid massively more than teachers in other parts of the world. But, because teaching is seen as a career of choice, you get people really wanting to go into teaching, and that intellectual ability that you need to drive the rigour is there.

This whole debate, to which the Minister for Education, when he was in opposition, used to subscribe has now indeed gone somewhat backwards. He has put in place Vice-Chancellor Greg Craven—a man I know and personally like; a man I think is a very interesting person—of the Australian Catholic University, which is training around 8,000 students each year. It has an indicative ATAR score of 58 per cent for entry into their university.

I am very conscious that not all students get in under ATAR—and, indeed, a lot of students who have very low ATARs do a bridging course for their first semester and then go on to enter university—but I have to ask: have we got a bar that is set high enough? I want to talk about something that has been said by the Australian Catholic University—something that alarms me. The Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education said:

… ATAR cut-offs were an indication of supply and demand for a course, and that an individual's ATAR was no indication of how he or she would perform at university or in the workplace.

I totally understand that they are not the be-all and end-all, and any vice-chancellor of UWA will tell you that you would expect a kid that comes in from a government school with an ATAR of 85 to perform at the level of a kid from a private school with an ATAR of 90.

I get that there is a difference, but there has to be a minimum level which is acceptable. If we are wanting to attract people of ability and make sure that the people we are training to teach others are capable of a sufficient understanding to drive our system forward, to enable us to compete with those nations to our north, we have to be prepared to bite the bullet on this. We cannot let this issue be run by those universities that are providing mass entry level to teacher-training facilities who have a direct economic interest in keeping this wide open.

In 2011 we had a COAG agreement that we were going to make sure that anyone who got into teacher training was in the top 30 per cent of the population in terms of literacy and numeracy. This is being opposed by the Australian Catholic University—who have now been put in charge of overseeing teacher standards. Member for Bass, I know you are a very bright man and I hope that you can lead a party room challenge to the Minister for Education as he backtracks on this fundamental principle. It is not going to do us any good if we are lifting these standards and supposedly introducing more testing and harder curricula if we do not have people who are capable of doing that.

There is some very interesting evidence in the book The Smartest Kids in the World, particularly on the United States, where, in order to try to respond to this, they made the curriculum harder and made teachers do masters' degrees. What they found—because they had not addressed the fundamental principle of increasing the entry level into the teaching profession—is that all this has amounted to nought; that you have to get that fundamental building block right and make sure that people who go into teaching have the intellectual ability to drive the system forward.

Ms SUDMALIS (Gilmore) (11:40): The latest PISA results, published in 2013, show we had a 20-point drop in mathematical proficiency since 2003—and, dare I say, 16 of those points were dropped between 2006 and 2012. In 2003 only 14.9 per cent of students were below level 2 in maths; yet in 2012 there are 18.3 per cent. Nations like Vietnam, Turkey, Latvia, Japan and even Ireland have now out-performed us. With the billions of dollars poured into education during that period of time, extra school halls and laptops to every student in particular year groups, we as Australian taxpayers would expect to see an amazing growth in achievement levels for our children. Sadly that is not the case. There has been less than a one per cent improvement in maths performance. The final blow comes when you look at the literacy levels: only 15 per cent of our 15- to 19-year-olds, those at greatest risk of not getting a job, have achieved mid-level literacy compared to 25 per cent of their parents.

Money thrown into schools is not the answer. As an experienced teacher and involved in the supervision of practice teachers, I have seen exactly what effects some of the ridiculous money throwing and weird policy making have created. In 2011, students were supposed to be in schools up to the age of 17—in a widely announced and popular policy called 'earn or learn'. Did anyone at that time ask the classroom teachers just what this might mean to the teaching dynamic? I think not. I sat in classrooms that year as an assessment observer, watching teachers grapple with unnecessary discipline problems, as resentful students attended classes they were not suited for but had to attend because of their age.

The wonderful rollout of laptops was an unmitigated disaster—with no budget for repairs and maintenance, insurance for possible theft and spares for classroom use and no technology available to stop students using these for entertainment during class rather than as research tools. The following is a true story. A young practice teacher asked her students in year 9 to close their laptops for the next part of her lesson, but the young boys in the back of the class had them open and continued to play their games. At least with notebooks—and I mean the paper kind—you could see if they were closed or not and students learnt to write. It is no surprise that our numeracy and literacy achievement levels have declined. Many schools have a storeroom loaded with broken and damaged laptops, with no money to take them to the local tip—because they have to pay a carbon tax fee to dump them—and no extra budget in place to replace these assets, especially as the rate of technological advance has meant that many of these devices now have redundant or incompatible applications.

We as a nation must invest in education—there is no argument from any person in government or parent or educator—but the discussion point is: where is the best investment dollar? Experienced teachers will tell you, especially if asked, that in-service and training in this changing and dynamic profession is critical. Stop dumping every social problem at the feet of teachers and expecting them to implement solutions with little or no training. Our outstanding teachers are facing so many different issues in the classroom: students with behavioural problems or learning difficulties; having fully integrated and inclusive classrooms, which is recognised as being of social benefit but stretches their personal resources; and test regimes which at times have inappropriate community expectations. It is time to address the real mechanism of better educational outcomes for our nation.

It is essential to have core curriculum subjects. We are a highly mobile nation and moving from school to school is hard enough but from state to state is very difficult. Most importantly, student outcomes have a direct relationship with teacher quality. If a teacher has the qualifications, the tools of their craft, support from the school admin structure and the ability to put different professional strategies in place, the students will achieve. The OECD 2013 report adds that increased student achievement is gained by: parental involvement; principals who act as communication leaders with both parents and teachers; classrooms conducive to learning; good teacher-student relationships; and quality teachers. This is the philosophy behind our initiative Students First.

Additional research on 'effective schools' suggests a strong relationship between the quality of an orderly learning environment, teacher quality and student performance. Our teachers are the greatest asset for educational improvement. Now is the time to invest in them, talk and consult with them. It is important to get their views—they are in the classrooms. The best source of information is from the teachers—not representative groups, but those still facing a class every day and taking care of the nurturing and education of our children. Quality teaching is the mechanism to improve student outcomes.

Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (11:45): I thank the member for Bass for raising education in this place and keeping it on the agenda. Having been a school principal, I have a deep understanding of the ins and outs of school funding. It is fair to say that when I talk about education funding reform I am, to use the words of the Prime Minister, sticking to my knitting. On both sides of the House we are, at least on the face of it, in broad agreement that urgent reform of the education system is required—as we have just heard from our previous speakers—although I am a little puzzled that money is actually being identified as the problem.

The coalition's pre-election pledge that 'every single school in Australia will receive, dollar for dollar, the same federal funding over the next four years whether there is a Liberal or Labor government' seemed unequivocal. But it is now apparent again here today that this was just a cynical ploy by the LNP to gain power. Let us be clear: by breaking this promise on the Gonski reforms, those opposite are willingly and stupidly stealing from our nation's potential. The member for Bass makes the point that education funding has increased by 40 per cent with no apparent improvement in educational outcomes as a justification for going back on a promise. This is at best naive and at worst deliberately cherry picking stats to bend a predetermined narrative.

The most compelling figures coming from PISA are around inequity. It is the ball and chain that is holding this country back in education performance, and to say otherwise is disingenuous. The Gonski report followed intensive consultation across the education sector. It asked teachers, principals, academics, politicians, economists and private and public schools—all stakeholders had a say, and all were listened to. The Better Schools Plan that came from this report was wide-ranging and addressed the issues identified for improvement, some of which we have heard mentioned today by those opposite.

For the first time ever across Australia, state schools, Catholic schools and independent schools agreed on a way forward. The politics were removed in most states. The work was done and the way was clear. Now we see a slinking away from these commitments. Last week in Senate estimates we heard the proof of it. It was revealed that the states have clearly been released from their pre-election education funding commitments. These funding commitments were one of the structural pillars that held up the Gonski reforms. With states now free to slash their education funding, the government has reduced Gonski to ruins. In its place? The member for Bass makes the point that schools need greater autonomy, which of course was in Gonski. He might be surprised to find out that Victoria did just that under the Kennett government many years ago, and it was called Schools of the Future. Victorian schools are well down this path. It worked well for a few schools in the initial years, but it made life very difficult for many others.

The minister might want to talk to leaders and parents who lived the experience of being thrown into a competitive environment where autonomy ruled but support for schools to make the transition was minimal. He might also want to ponder what impact autonomy without support might have on equity, because there is a real danger, as was seen in the first years in Victoria, that inequity could be further embedded. Some schools had parents well equipped to take a school forward in partnership with a principal, while others did not. I might also add that, having lived this experience myself, I saw an enormous amount of money moved from classrooms to marketing campaigns in the early years, sometimes indiscriminately. He might be further surprised to find that, in a tale of two states, while Victoria travelled this road, New South Wales did not and still centrally control their schools. After 20 years, there is little or nothing between the two states in terms of educational outcomes. Giving schools greater autonomy is not the magic bullet it is claimed it to be. It will not do the work that the Gonski report set out to deliver.

Education is the cornerstone of democracy and it is the single most effective way of breaking intergenerational disadvantage. We can only conclude that this government does not want to break intergenerational disadvantage. I call on the government to honour its promise and put in place the Gonski measures, as intended by the former Labor government and all who signed up to it.

Mr WHITELEY (Braddon) (11:49): It is a great opportunity to speak on this motion concerning the results of the PISA 2012 survey, which sadly show that Australia has delivered the worst outcomes for us as a nation since testing began. I heard the previous speaker talk a lot about academics, school principals—as she herself is—the unions and teachers themselves. That is all good, but today I want to stand here as the representative for Braddon and ask what the parents of our children think and, more importantly, what the employers in my electorate are saying about the current education system.

We have survey of 65 countries, where 15,000 students—that is not a bad sample, I would have thought—from 775 schools were randomly picked to do a survey crossing mathematics, science and reading. The reality here is that, when it comes to mathematics, we are ranked 19th out of those 65 countries; when it comes to science, 16th; and reading, 13th. As I said before, these are the worst rankings that this country has produced since the testing began.

Sadly for our country, the average student in China is now two full years ahead of the average Australian student when it comes to science and 18 months ahead when it comes to mathematics and reading. These are our trading partners, these are our competitors and these are the people that are setting the pace across the globe. We hear so much from state education ministers and state premiers—as is the case in Tasmania at the moment, which I will get to in a moment—when they announce so boldly, proudly and enthusiastically that 'we have spent a record amount of money in education—how good are we?'

And yet standards have declined significantly. Parents tell me that every single day, and employers absolutely tell me that they are not getting from the education system the potential employees that they need. Funding is increasing but performances and standards are falling. Something is not right; something is fundamentally wrong.

When it comes to Tasmania, we have amongst the largest falls in educational outcomes of any state. We are the worst performing in Australia, second only to the Northern Territory. In all three categories my state of Tasmania is the worst ranked state. What a dismal performance, something that I am far from proud of. I would hope that in my time in this place, together with, hopefully, a new minister for education in the state of Tasmania, we can work together to increase those standards significantly. We have a lot of work to do and there will be a great deal of time required to deliver it, but we have had 16 years of a Tasmanian Labor government where we have failed our young people when it comes to education. It should be noted that the last four years were in fact with an education minister from the Greens coalition side of the equation when it came to the handing out of portfolios. Not only are Tasmanian children more likely to have below-average results in maths, science and reading but they are far less likely to remain at school for years 11 and 12. Retention and completion rates are the worst in the country, just 67 per cent of children going on to year 11 and 47 per cent going on to complete year 12.

There is much work to be done. The work can be done with a diligent new Liberal state government, hopefully, being elected on 15 March where we will provide an additional $45 million over four years towards extending 21 high schools in the state to year 12 in the first term of a new government. There is much work to be done but we are committed together, federal and state, to deliver better outcomes.

Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (11:54): I thought I would start with a quiz: 'Joe had three test scores, 78, 76 and 74, while Mary had scores of 72, 82 and 74. How did Joe's average compare with Mary's?' You are not responding immediately, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am sure that the answer you have in your head, as other members do, is that both Joe and Mary have the same average. This question was asked on successive tests in Australia from 1964 to 2003. In 1964 88 per cent of students answered correctly; in 2003 just 68 per cent answered correctly. A fifth of students who were able to answer it in the 1960s could not answer it in the early 2000s.

Behind this motion are a truth and a falsehood. I want to focus on the truth first, that Australian literacy and numeracy performance has failed to rise over a very long run, a much longer time frame than even discussed in the motion. Work that Chris Ryan and I published in the journal Education Finance and Policy found a small but statistically significant fall in numeracy from 1964 to 2003 and in both literacy and numeracy from 1975 to 1998. Work that Chris Ryan published in the Economics of Education Review last year looked at the change in PISA scores from 2000 to 2012. It found that mathematical literacy fell at the top of the distribution and reading and literacy fell throughout it. It found that declines in school performance were most marked in private schools. Work that Chris Ryan and I have done on teacher aptitude, which was referred to by the mover of the motion, also found declines in literacy and numeracy of new teachers relative to those within the same class. From 1983 to 2003 the share of teachers in the top fifth of their class halved and the share of teachers in the bottom half of their class doubled.

That is the fundamental truth of this motion, but the falsehood is that money does not matter. To see that falsehood we know you need only look at the previous Liberal Party speaker's speech, where he finished by pledging an increase in funding on behalf of the Tasmanian Liberals in the next election. Money is not a guarantee of better outcomes but it is a necessary condition for better schools. That is why under Labor in government we not only brought down the Gonski review but also put in place national partnerships which see literacy and numeracy coaches in so many of Canberra's most disadvantaged schools. We put in place the My School website which those opposite had talked about for many years but had never been able to deliver. And we put in place unprecedented investment in school infrastructure, which has improved educational outcomes. For example, at Amaroo school in my electorate classroom partitions allow team teaching and allow teachers to share skills.

So nothing in the research body supports a broken funding system, a system which was always designed to be a temporary arrangement in the early 2000s but which was backed by the now education minister as recently as a year ago. The education minister has in the past described the Gonski report as 'conski', and it appears to me that he has not made his way through it. That is indicated by the strong focus on school reform that you see within the Gonski report itself. Chapter 5, Building Momentum for Change, includes sections focusing on the great teaching profession, empowered schools, developing and sustaining innovation and engaged parents. We need to focus on this suite of school reforms alongside fixing a broken funding system.

As Amanda Ripley notes in her new book, The Smartest Kids in the World, making education systems work is a confluence of factors. It requires great teachers, engaged parents and a funding system which supports school reform. All of those things were in place under the former government, and I am disappointed to see that the opposition is allowing states to take money out of schools as fast as the federal government puts it in, rather than making a guarantee that no school will be worse off under the National Plan for School Improvement.

Debate interrupted.

Ms MACKLIN (Jagajaga) (13:30): I draw the House's attention to the inspirational story of Katherine Marshall and her family who live in my electorate. Katherine is 23 years old and has been fighting an extremely rare immune disease, atypical haemolytic uraemia syndrome or aHUS, since 2010. When I first met the Marshall family in 2012, Katherine was consigned to a life at home, besieged by constant fatigue and endless trips to the hospital.

Her family and physicians drew my urgent attention to Soliris, a drug produced by Alexion Pharmaceuticals. Alexion has been gracious in providing a compassionate access supply of Soliris to Katherine. The effect on Katherine was immediate and positive. In her father's, Gary's, words: 'She is a totally different girl now.'

Since then, the Marshall family have advocated for other aHUS sufferers, many of whom do not have compassionate access. They have established a support group and attracted national media about the need for aHUS sufferers to be covered for Soliris under the Life Saving Drugs Program. This support group has run a national petition calling on parliamentarians to support funding for Soliris through the Life Saving Drugs Program for sufferers of aHUS. More than 22,000 Australians signed the petition, which was tabled in the House earlier today. I want to commend their energy, compassion and sacrifice and to support their efforts in making sure that not only Katherine but other sufferers get access to Soliris.

Mr PASIN (Barker) (13:32): I seek leave to provide to the House a petition calling for the federal government to grant an MRI licence for use in Mount Gambier. On Tuesday, 18 February, I had the great privilege of welcoming the federal Minister for Health to my home town of Mount Gambier, marking the first visit to Barker by a member of federal cabinet since last year's federal election. The visit included a well-attended public health forum at which about 80 local community members participated in a question and answer session with the minister. At the conclusion of the forum, Liberal candidate for Mount Gambier Troy Bell presented to me and the minister the petition that I have just provided to the House, calling on the federal government to grant an MRI licence to Mount Gambier. In recent months Mr Bell has collected some 3,500 signatures for the petition, and I congratulate him for his efforts. If given the privilege, he will make an exceptional representative for the people of Mount Gambier.

The minister's visit showed that members of the federal government, including members of cabinet, are keen to be as accessible as possible to members of the community. We are very grateful to the Minister for Health for spending time in Barker and participating in what is a vital ongoing discussion about the future of health in regional Australia. I was elected on the platform of supporting our health system in the electorate of Barker to ensure we meet current and future challenges and I am proud to be a member of the federal government because, through the diligence being shown by the Minister for Health, we are overseeing better investment and better healthcare outcomes for all regional Australians.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): The member for Barker said he was presenting a petition; Member for Barker, were you seeking leave?

Mr PASIN: I do seek leave.

Ms Macklin: I do not want to be difficult—because it is obviously a very important matter; I have just had a quick look at it—but, normally, it should go to the Petitions Committee. So maybe, Member for Barker, you would like to speak to them about it, but I am sure, once it goes through that process, it will be okay.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank the member for Jagajaga. Member for Barker, it will be forwarded to the Petitions Committee.

Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (13:34): Yesterday I had the great privilege of attending the inaugural Aboriginal markets and workshops at the historic Bare Island in our community. The markets are an initiative of the First Hand Solutions Aboriginal Corporation to raise funds for Aboriginal community youth programs and to revive La Perouse as a historic Aboriginal tourist destination.

Hundreds of locals and tourists joined local Bidjigal elders for a traditional smoking ceremony and dance performance to open the markets. Patrons then entered the historic island fort where the markets are situated. There were a number of stalls for people to visit. One of the stallholders was Laddie Timbery, whose family have been selling artefacts at the Loop at La Perouse for 188 years—surely one of the oldest businesses in Australia.

Workshops included spear making, basket weaving and shell design. There was plenty for the kids to do, with reptiles provided by the famous local Cann family—George Cann and his son John were once the local snake men; they provided plenty of entertainment for the kids. The markets are on the first Sunday of every month at Bare Island from 9 am to 4 pm, and I encourage any visitors to Sydney to get down and visit this historic, significant event. I congratulate Peter Cooley, Sarah Martin and the board and volunteers of First Hand Solutions.

Mr HUTCHINSON (Lyons) (13:35): Ivan Heazlewood, from Heazlewood's Lane at Whitemore in the north of my electorate of Lyons, has been an innovator in many agricultural fields, including cattle breeding and seed production. But it has been his work in maintaining and developing the stud British sheep breeds in Tasmania that sets this third-generation Whitemore farmer above the rest. His efforts were acknowledged when Mr Heazlewood, now in his 90th year, was made a Member of the Order of Australia on Australia Day this year.

Mr Heazlewood has served as a committee member of the Tasmanian branch of the Australian society of breeders of British sheep since 1960. He says that his passion for sheep and the people associated with the animals comes from being part of a family that has been breeding and showing sheep—including English Leicesters, Border Leicesters and Poll Dorsets—for more than 140 years. He has earned life membership of the Australian sheep breeders association, English Leicester Association and the Australian society of British sheep breeders as well as many others. He has been an industry leader in other areas, including serving as chairman of the Tasmanian pea growers, cereals and small seed and Tasmanian ryegrass marketing association.

Mr Heazlewood has become well known nationally for his writings on the animals and people associated with his beloved British sheep breeds. His two main publications have been Old sheep for new pastures, published in 1992, and From the sheep pen, published in 2012. From the sheep pen was a compilation of the best of many short articles he had written over more than 20 years for the Australian British sheep breeders society's publications several times a year. He is officially retired but still takes responsibility for nine lambs which he is preparing for a showing career.

Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (13:37): Last week I had the opportunity to again visit the very impressive Iramoo Primary School, in Wyndham Vale, named after the Wurundjeri people's word for the stretch of land upon which my electorate is situated. I was there to stand with Principal Moira Findlay and congratulate the newly announced school leadership team. It included school captains Tevita Sopu and Courtney Wenlock as well as vice-captains Jacob Bowen and Lisa Gill. I was there to wish them well in their roles.

It was great to see family and friends attending. One mother, Lesieli Sopu, was particularly proud, as her three boys, Tevita, Andrew and Isikeli, were appointed school captain, house captain and flag raiser. The smile on her face made my week.

The flag ceremony at Iramoo Primary School is treated with great respect, and the flag raiser role is an important one. Along with the blue ensign, the school will variously raise the Torres Strait Islander flag, the Aboriginal flag and the Victorian state flag. I really enjoyed the national anthem played by the band and sung—both verses—by the student body. I was also able to visit the grade 5 literacy group, who were working on narratives and sizzling starts.

It is a great privilege to visit local schools to encourage students in their civics and citizenship and to acknowledge great leaders, already, in grade 6.

Mr LAMING (Bowman) (13:38): In commending the work of BoysTown in my electorate, I want to acknowledge the thousands of young people who have gone through that program already and in particular their work in south-eastern Brisbane, which, in my state of Queensland, is probably the area of greatest need. For the young people who live in Bowman in particular who have led lives that many of us in this chamber cannot even imagine—complex, difficult lives—and who are looking for some direction, motivation and confidence, BoysTown is often the only option. For those kids who are dropping out of school, we know that retaining them can make a massive difference in those years between the ages of, say, 12 and 18 and can get them back on track with training and work.

John Perry does an amazing job in the area, as does Kate McKell, who looks after much of their work. It was an honour to run into the Hon. John McKell there as well when the young guys doing the Youth Connections work cooked me a delicious cake—which I think would have even inspired my wife to try a little harder! The cream cake was sensational. My staff were there and enjoyed the hospitality.

I want to say, in conclusion, thank you to BoysTown and to John Perry. I encourage you in your work to inspire more people to become mentors, because only through mentors, everyday people in the community who reach out and help young people, can we create a bridge for that difficult stage in life and on to a successful adulthood.

Mr GRAY (Brand) (13:40): I rise to thank Mr Ed Killesteyn for many years of distinguished service, recently to the AEC but also to the great institution of the Australian Public Service. In my time as Special Minister of State I was continually impressed by Mr Killesteyn's integrity and impartiality. I regret that during his final months in office others were not able to recognise those qualities too.

I know that the additional scrutiny placed on the AEC following the WA election result created a high degree of stress for Mr Killesteyn and his colleagues. Things were said publicly which probity and protocol prevented Mr Killesteyn from answering. I commend Mr Killesteyn on his impartial and dignified stance, and I commend him on the role that he played in ensuring openness and transparency throughout a difficult post-election period. I hail his courage in creating a proper process to resolve the impasse through the Court of Disputed Returns.

I expected that Mr Killesteyn would retire from the AEC within this term as commissioner, and I would be disappointed if he felt that his decision to resign was not his own. Mr Killesteyn's many years of impeccable service will not be forgotten by those who worked with him and by Australians who benefit from a sound Public Service and the quiet, competent, impartial work of men and women like him. Mr Killesteyn's family and loved ones will have felt the pain of the last few months. I regret this pain, and I wish him and his loved ones well.

Domestically and internationally, the AEC grew under the leadership of Mr Killesteyn. It was innovative, efficient and effective. In Africa, Asia and in the Pacific, the AEC spread its wings. This is a tribute to Mr Killesteyn's sense of responsibility, service and democracy. I wish Mr Killesteyn and the terrific employees of the AEC every success in the future.

Mr WHITELEY (Braddon) (13:41): Last week I was talking about gold medals for award-winning cheese in my electorate of Braddon. Wait; there is more! Last weekend, Braddon's golden girl, Amy Cure—I am so proud—won gold at the track-cycling world championships in Colombia. This is Amy's maiden senior world title. This was her third podium appearance in three days after Amy also took out bronze in both the team and the individual pursuit events.

I first met Amy when she was a bright, bubbly little girl, when I would visit her family church. It was fairly evident to me at that time that she was a determined little individual. Amy's cycling career began in May 2005 when Amy and her sister Sarah joined a cycling group in Ulverstone and later became members of the Mersey Valley Devonport Cycling Club. Amy and Sarah shared an equal talent and commitment to the sport of cycling. Sadly, Sarah's sporting career was shot down through serious accidents and subsequent injuries.

In 2006 Amy began training with Darryn Pugh, and she has also been working really hard in preparation for the Commonwealth Games. Proud parents Graeme and Delwyn have been dedicated and passionate about Amy's potential, and they can stand proud and tall today. Amy has a huge career ahead of her, spending most of her time now riding in Europe, and in July I am sure she will join the Australian team to prepare for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Glasgow had better look out: Braddon's Amy is on her way! Amy, on behalf of a proud region: we are awe of your achievement.

Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (13:43): In Parramatta just over one in four people, about 26 per cent, of those enrolled in an educational institution are attending a tertiary or a technical institute. That is well above the national average of 21.6 per cent. In fact, across Parramatta, 14,000 people attend a tertiary or a technical institution. Two hundred and thirty-eight of those 14,000 students attend the newest kid on the block, Evocca College, which opened its new building, its new home in Parramatta, on Friday.

To call Evocca the new kid on the block is perhaps unfair. It does have campuses all across Australia, and it is in fact one of the few nationally accredited registered training organisations that is qualified to offer VET FEE-HELP. As a great new addition to Parramatta that sits alongside a number of other very good training colleges and of course our quite wonderful Granville TAFE, it is very welcome in the electorate of Parramatta.

I thank Auntie Donna for a great welcome to country to welcome them to our home in Parramatta; Vickie Sweeney, who is the branch manager, who gave us all a very warm welcome; and of course Roger Byrne, from the local chamber of commerce, who attended as well. But particularly I say thank you to the many students of Evocca College who turned up that day to say hello and to see the official opening of a great addition to Parramatta.

Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (13:44): I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the many volunteers in my electorate of Ryan. As a driving force in our community, these volunteers work without thought of reward or recognition. Today I wish to acknowledge two recipients of the Ryan Community Service Award.

Mr Les Schroder has long been involved in the Ryan community through the Brisbane West Crime Stoppers organisation, from its establishment; the Indooroopilly Neighbourhood Watch group; the Kenmore Community Consultative Committee; and the Kenmore 91 Probus Club, along with many other community organisations. Mr Schroder is a dedicated, hardworking individual who never seeks accolades and indeed was shocked when he received his award at the annual Crime Stoppers Thank You Day, another event for which he was a driving force and organiser.

Another worthy constituent I wish to recognise is Mr Richard Francis. Mr Francis is a hardworking member of the Ryan community through his involvement in the Men's Shed, playing a major role in the establishment of Shed West, Kenmore, which aims to provide a safe, welcoming and creative environment for men to pursue a wide range of interests and activities, from woodworking to computing. Also an active and valued member of the Probus Club of Brisbane West, Richard is another striking example of the hardworking community members in the electorate of Ryan whom I am honoured to represent.

Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (13:46): Today all of Australia has found out what we Canberrans have always known—Canberra is Australia's most liveable city. The results of Auspoll's annual survey My city: the people's verdict were released today, and Canberra has come out on top. The survey asked over 5,000 Australians in every capital city, as well as Wollongong and Newcastle, to rank their city against a set of 17 attributes. Canberra shone when it came to plentiful outdoor recreational spaces, a clean city with low pollution, a safe city and a city with access to good health care, good schools and good universities. Today I invite all those Australians outside of Canberra to come and experience Canberra for yourselves. This really is a great place to live, and Canberrans are rightfully proud of our beloved city.

The report also highlights that housing affordability remains an issue for Canberra, and the Property Council has called on the ACT government to think more creatively about how to increase the supply of homes. My electorate office is in Tuggeranong, where at the moment we have a number of empty office buildings in the town centre. One way we could be more creative in terms of housing supply is to look at how commercial space can be turned into residential space. In the case of Tuggeranong, this would not only increase the supply of affordable housing but enliven the Tuggeranong town centre. I look forward to taking up this issue with the ACT government.

Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (13:47): I rise today to congratulate the Banks recipients in the Local Sporting Champions grants program, which allows for $500 grants towards participation in a state, national or international sporting championship. In particular, I would like to congratulate a number of young people who have been successful in my electorate: Matthew Dufty of Peakhurst, who represented the New South Wales CCC at the National Touch League championships; Kate Gallagher of Penshurst, who represented Santa Sabina College at the Australian Volleyball Schools Cup; Chloe Plazanin of Peakhurst, a gymnast who trains at Oatley RSL Youth Club and competed at the Sport Aerobics Nationals; Jason Un of Padstow, who competed at the Australian Junior Table Tennis Championships; Deborah Greenbaum of Blakehurst, who competed at the Australian Aerobic Gymnastics Championships; Emma Jackson of Revesby, who represented NSW in baton twirling at the national championships; and Isabella Yan of Allawah, who competed in the Australian Figure Skating Championships. All these young people bring great credit to themselves, to their families and to Banks more generally. I would also like to thank my assessment panel for assisting in making these funding decisions: Ray Barbi, Linda Free, John Meredith and Christine Butters. Their assistance in selecting these winners was a great help to me and I thank them for it.

Ms ROWLAND (Greenway) (13:49): On Oscars Day, I rise today to mention the outstanding work of my constituent, Lalor Park father of three Chris Cooper, who has been recognised by the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Scientific and Technical Awards, held on 15 February in Beverly Hills. This means that—as far as I am aware at this time of the day—unlike Cate Blanchett and Leonardo DiCaprio, Chris has already taken home an award this year. Chris was in a category of winners for which the award and citation from the academy read as follows:

… for the development, prototyping and promotion of technologies and workflows for deep compositing.

Their contributions include early advancements in key deep compositing features such as layer and holdout-order independence, spatial and intra-element color correction, post-render depth of field, and precise blending of complex layer edges.

In layperson's terms, that means: a visual effects software program that allows image pixels to contain multiple samples of data instead of the traditional single sample, resulting in what has been described as a more accurate simulated field. This was employed in features such as Baz Luhrmann's Australia and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. After graduating from the UTS, Chris worked on TV commercials and then moved into the film sector, where he has worked on hits including The Matrix Reloaded, Moulin Rouge and Happy Feet 1 and 2. As a former Chair of Screen NSW, I maintain a key interest in this sector, and Chris's work is an example of the high-skilled jobs of the future we should all be fostering in this country. I extend my congratulations to Chris and his family. (Time expired)

Ms LANDRY (Capricornia) (13:50): We have heard a lot about the drought in the past week and the government's $320 million relief package. This drought is a shocking natural weather disaster that has hit 70 per cent of Queensland. I want to pay tribute to a dedicated and down-to-earth group of people who have made an extraordinary effort to reach out to those affected. The Country Women's Association have proven to be the guardian angels of the bush during this drought across the country. In Queensland, the QCWA, under the direction of State President Robyn McFarlane, from my electorate of Capricornia, have been operating the CWA Public Rural Crisis Fund. They have been providing money for vouchers for food and other necessities to those in rural communities who desperately need a hand. The vouchers are spent at stores in local rural towns in drought areas, to not only support farmers and rural workers but also support small business, who are also struggling as a result of the dry. The QCWA gets many phone calls to the state office. One example was a woman who could not afford to pay the registration of the farm ute that was needed to bring in feed for starving stock. Her family was in despair. Other families cannot afford to pay their phone bills, which is a necessity in such isolated areas. Australia should be proud that we have the CWA, and today, in Australia's parliament, I salute and honour these women and all of our country women who are lending a hand in the drought.

Ms PARKE (Fremantle) (13:52): I take this opportunity to recognise the Amanda Young Foundation and the important work being undertaken by this organisation in the fight against the deadly meningococcal disease, particularly in my home state of Western Australia. The foundation was formed in 1998 by parents Barry and Lorraine Young following the tragic death of their daughter, Amanda, who contracted the disease after a rowing event in 1997 at the age of 18. Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of meeting Barry and Lorraine at the Meningococcal Australia breakfast held here at Parliament House.

Meningococcal disease is an extremely deadly and contagious disease caused by bacteria which develops in the throat and nose and can be easily spread by activities such as sneezing, coughing, and sharing food or drink. The Amanda Young Foundation is a non-profit community organisation dedicated to reducing deaths in WA while also supporting survivors of the disease. The foundation is also committed to supporting the development of young people into WA's future leaders. The foundation organises an annual camp for year 11 school students across the state to support and encourage the development of leadership skills as well as numerous awards to high school and university students. The foundation hosts a number of fundraising events, including an annual ball, which this year will be held on 17 May. These events fund the foundation's work, including awareness raising about meningococcal disease.

Let us remember Amanda Young and all those who have lost their lives to this terrible disease. Let us also remember the critical role the Commonwealth has in investing in disease prevention and treatment.

Mr BROADBENT (McMillan) (13:53): I predict that the name Martin Ferguson will be well used in this House over the next 12 months if not longer. It will be the most used name of a former member that this House has ever recorded in Hansard. I say that at the time when he has made some comments after the coalition introduced a raft of changes to the fair work laws to parliament on Thursday to tighten right of entry rules for unions, to allow employees to trade penalty rates for more flexible hours, to close so-called strike-first talk-later loopholes, et cetera. Everybody knows what he said.

On the weekend I was at the Warragul show with the local mayor, who said he had to go to Yarragon and plead with businesses to remain open. They say they cannot because of the penalty rates on Sundays. This means that the young people in the electorates of regional members are not getting an opportunity to get their first job. There would not be one person in this room who did not have a first job somewhere, whether it was delivering newspapers or cutting swedes or hay. Only the older gentlemen in the room would know what I am talking about, because it is now all done by machines. It is important that we give our children in regional areas the opportunity to get their first job. We have to do something about penalty rates to do that. I say again that Martin Ferguson will have his name used in this place for the next two years. (Time expired)

Mrs McNAMARA (Dobell) (13:55): Yesterday I joined with volunteers from the Berkeley Vale Scout Group for Clean Up Australia Day. For the past 20 years Australians have devoted more than 24 million hours towards the environment through Clean Up Australia Day and collected over 200,000 tonnes of rubbish. This year I lent a hand cleaning up the foreshore of the magnificent Tuggerah Lake at a clean-up site organised by scout patrol leader Kate Sanderson.

Kate is 14 years old and belongs to the 1st Berkeley Vale Scout Group. Kate has achieved her Grey Wolf Award, which is the highest award in the Cub Scout section, and is now working towards her Scout Medallion. As part of organising the clean-up site, Kate coordinated other scout members to assist her. Kate will also return to the site over the next three months with her own scout patrol to ensure that there is continued environmental improvement. I was honoured to have been invited by Kate and the Scouts to lend a hand on Clean Up Australia Day. The 54 Clean Up Australia Day sites across Dobell demonstrate our community's commitment to our local environment.

This government is serious about assisting local environmental groups who are working to deliver practical improvements to our local environment. Our Green Army program will be Australia's largest ever environmental workforce, building to 15,000 participants by 2018 and capable of delivering 1,500 on ground environmental projects. The Green Army will recruit young people aged 17 to 24 years who are interested in protecting their local environment while gaining hands-on practical skills and experience. I congratulate and thank Kate, the Berkeley Vale Scout Group and all volunteers across my electorate who volunteered their time on Clean Up Australia Day.

Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (13:56): The member for Canberra and I have long known that this is Australia's most livable city, but a new report from the Property Council has provided statistical evidence to back up that fundamental truth.

Opposition members interjecting—

Dr LEIGH: I appreciate the calls of support I received from my own side on this. Canberra is a city that enjoys greater levels of sporting participation and greater levels of community activity. Canberrans are more likely to volunteer their time, more likely to donate their money and more likely to be part of a community group that gives back to their society.

Canberra is a city where you do not have to burn a litre of petrol to buy a litre of milk. People can enjoy the experience of suburban living without the traffic congestion that is difficult in some of our other cities. A typical Sydneysider with a full-time job spends 13 days a year sitting in their car. A typical Canberran with a full-time job spends just eight days a year sitting in their car.

This city is one which I believe all members of parliament should be proud. It is not just another city; it is our nation's capital. I encourage my colleagues on both sides of parliament to feel a sense of pride in our nation's capital with the school groups and community members who visit us here.

Mr NIKOLIC (Bass) (13:58): I rise to pay tribute to Harold Stanley Payne, who died in Launceston on 17 February aged 87. Stan was a wonderful, cultured man who loved literature and poetry and bestowed his enthusiasm on several generations of Tasmanian teachers. Stan was born in Cardiff and was fiercely proud of his Welsh heritage and loved the music of the valleys. He joined the Royal Army Educational Corps towards the end of World War II and helped prepare fighting men and women for demobilisation into civilian life.

He met Barbara Luck on a beach in France, little knowing that their marriage would lead them back to Barbara's home of Tasmania. As well as teaching, Stan supported his wife in her community work, most notably as the Mayor of Launceston. Stan was a proud constitutional monarchist and was in his element when Her Majesty visited Launceston in 1981.

He and Barbara had four children: Anna, Richard, Rachel and Sarah. They were proud grandparents of nine and great-grandparents of two. He was a compassionate carer for his wife in her final years. Stan was an ornament to our community and, although increasingly frail physically, Stan had a sharp mind right up to the end. I corresponded with him as recently as December and respected his old-school charm, coupled with a perceptive view of current affairs. Owing to parliamentary sittings, I could not attend Stan's funeral, but I know many did, including several generations of educators. I express my sincere condolences to Stan's family.

The SPEAKER: In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.

Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (15:09): by leave—I move:

That, in accordance with the provisions of section 10 of the Archives Act 1983, this House appoints Mrs Prentice as a member of the National Archives of Australia Advisory Council for a period of three years.

Question agreed to.

Mr ALEXANDER (Bennelong) (15:12): I rise to speak to the Address-in-Reply to Her Excellency the Governor-General. It is an honour to speak again on this matter. My previous address-in-reply was my first speech in this place in October 2010, and I congratulate the new member for Griffith and all my new colleagues who have given their first speech during this debate.

Following the custom adopted by many of my colleagues, I will use this opportunity to provide the parliament with an update on some of the programs I have implemented in Bennelong and also a short review following the results of last September's federal election. In my first speech I said:

Opportunity is the first essential ingredient to achieve success.

… … …

To realise our country’s full potential, every Australian must have the opportunity to compete and earn just reward for their effort and success.

I remain grateful for the opportunities provided to me throughout my life. In this role, as legislators, we are endowed with an important task of ensuring those less fortunate than ourselves are also provided opportunities to succeed in life. It is, therefore, most appropriate that the first local program I will talk about, and also the one I am most proud of, is the Bennelong Gardens Project.

As patron to the disability services organisation Achieve Australia, and also as an ambassador for Lifeline, I developed this project as a way to empower those in our community suffering from debilitating health issues, to give them the opportunity to take ownership over a local venture, with the aim to build it into a rewarding and profitable exercise. The Bennelong Gardens project seeks to utilise unused public land to establish commercial market gardens operated and owned by people with disabilities. Retirees are also invited to participate as a way to facilitate active recreation and social engagement, and to give a new sense of purpose to their lives. For their continuous support of the Bennelong Gardens project, I thank Michael Trail of Social Ventures Australia, Anne Bryce and Sunita Menezes of Achieve Australia, Tristan Harris of Harris Farms, Patrick Soars from Australian Native Landscapes, Sue Dennett of Karonga schools and Martin Wren from Nova Employment. We look forward to receiving support from the New South Wales state government in the form of approving sites that we have identified. No pressure—yesterday would have been just fine!

I entered this parliament on the back of many years as a small business operator, following my father's lifetime of experience in this most difficult but most rewarding of sectors. While distributing ANZAC brochures to local businesses in 2012 in some of our 20 villages, there was a tale of woe being repeated by nearly every business owner. The complaint was: 'These are the toughest times we have ever had to endure.' The dominance of the major retail players had left many in despair, contemplating capitulation. Shortly after my election in 2010, I commenced the Bennelong Village Business initiative, or BVB. This was designed to help local business owners by providing a platform for a collective approach to marketing the unique services they provide to the community. Inspired by Prime Minister Abbott's direct action philosophy, we formed Bennelong Village Businesses to gain a collective power to negotiate on the part of some 350 traders in 20 villages. The first result was a 33 per cent discount for advertising in our local paper, John Booth's The WeeklyTimes. Then more assistance came from Boehringer Ingelheim with marketing and design of our brochures, which were letterbox-dropped throughout the community.

In 2012 I moved a motion in this place for which I was grateful to receive bipartisan support. The motion formally recognised the significant contribution that Australian Chinese have made to our nation's modern multicultural society. The motion noted the strong history of Chinese migration to Australia throughout the past 200 years, and the vibrant festivities and events hosted by the Bennelong Chinese community and enjoyed by people from all cultures in the region. Over the past month, I have been fortunate to attend many community events as part of the lunar New Year, with our strong and vital Chinese and Korean communities coming together to treat us to a magnificent program of celebrations as we farewelled the Year of the Snake and welcomed the Year of the Horse.

One of the local events I developed in early 2011 has become a growing annual celebration. This is the Bennelong Cup Table Tennis competition, which grew out of the Bennelong Schools Table Tennis Program. This program was developed to engage students from a variety of cultural backgrounds through the sport of table tennis. Hyundai generously agreed to sponsor the provision of table-tennis tables and equipment to all 40 schools in the electorate of Bennelong, which has one of the largest Chinese communities in Australia. The Bennelong Cup has become an annual event and sees top table-tennis players from China, Korea, Japan and Australia compete to promote social engagement through their sport.

In September last year, I received a strong vote of support from the people of Bennelong. The support I received from across my electorate is a product of both my ongoing work as a local member and the strong national leadership of Prime Minister Abbott, who leads a united and focused team. Former member for Bennelong and Prime Minister John Howard once said, 'All politics is local.' The people of Bennelong have elected me and this government with a mandate to govern in the best interests of our nation—to provide a safe and secure Australia, to return to the levels of hope, reward and opportunities that we grew accustomed to during the Howard era.

I commit to the good people of Bennelong, from Ermingon to Chatswood West, from North Epping to Meadowbank, from Carlingford to Gladesville and from Eastwood to East Ryde, to continue to serve as a representative for the entire electorate, to work hard for you, for your businesses and for your families. We will face many challenges over the coming years as our economy is put back on track. By working together, we will develop a stronger community and a better future for our next generation.

As every member in this place will agree, elections are gruelling tests of our dedication to the task and to our community whilst trying to balance the needs of our families and those close to us. I was very fortunate to receive an abundance of assistance and tireless dedication from a large team of campaign workers. I have thanked each and every one of them personally but wish to reiterate my appreciation to them on the parliamentary record.

Mr MITCHELL (McEwen—Second Deputy Speaker) (15:20): It is a pleasure to speak in the address-in-reply debate. Back in November 2013, the Governor-General gave her speech for the new government in this parliament. It has now been five long months since that election. Since then, we have seen from the coalition what can only be described as one of the most catastrophic starts to a new government in political history. We have a government that has spent three years opposing everything but standing for nothing. Australian voters are now experiencing a bit of buyer's regret as this government has shown it is not the government Australian people voted for. The honeymoon period that new governments should expect is long since over.

I start by talking about the electorate of McEwen, which I have been re-elected to represent. It is an honour to be standing here, having been given the trust of the many communities who make up the seat of McEwen, and to be the first Labor member to retain McEwen in 25 years since the late, great Peter Cleeland. There are quite a few people who I need to personally thank with regard to my election campaign. Firstly, to my ever-supportive family, Lisa, Rachael, Mum and Dad, Glenda, Sharyn, Meagan, Jessica, Elly, David, Geoff, Belinda, Brooke and Jaya—and I note that, at 16 years old, it was Brooke's first election campaign and she did a fantastic job: your constant support and understanding throughout this period was amazing. I could not have done this without you. To my staff during the election, Josh, Jeni, Gareth, Chris and Hailey: your hard work around the clock, your camaraderie, your intelligence and your humour were invaluable. I also pay tribute to the Labor branch members of McEwen: the ever-reliable Carmel and her wonderful family, who answered Mum's call seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and Santo, Tom, Jon, Gurri, Casey, Stephen, Rex, Pam, Spiro, Stephen, Phil and of course Big Andy, who always made sure the table was empty when he finished.

I would like to especially thank the 300-plus volunteers who helped out during the election campaign and on election day. They took time out of their own lives to help us, to help the cause, and I am truly grateful. I will continue to work tirelessly for the communities of McEwen, ensuring that the trust and the faith they have again placed in me will be entirely justified. The people of McEwen re-elected me as their voice, and I will ensure that that voice is heard.

On 7 September 2013 a shadow was cast over this great country of ours. The Abbott government came into power and, with that, all the futures, hopes and dreams, not to mention the livelihoods of millions of Australians, came into doubt. That fear has become a reality for many families. The coalition government causes great concern for many Australians, particularly those in the seat of McEwen. They are concerned for their jobs, the environment and, more recently, our standing on the international stage. It would be easy to dismiss those concerns if they were not so consistent and happening right across the nation.

We have seen a government come into power on the strength of a few negative three-word slogans but, in reality, they are very far from doing what they promised—which I will talk more about later on. Even in the first few months since coming to power, the Abbott government have delivered nothing but a long line of broken promises and policy backflips. Unfortunately for the people of Australia, we now have a Prime Minister who is opposed to the fair go for all and helping those in our community who are most in need.

For the people of McEwen, their needs are inherent, varied and significant. McEwen is a disparate electorate. Since its creation in 1984, McEwen has straddled the two major political parties. It has always been a very marginal seat due to the wide-ranging demographics. In fact, McEwen has always been one of the most marginal seats in Australia. While it is a predominantly rural electorate in size, containing areas like Kilmore and Seymour, it also contains some of the fastest-growing municipalities in Victoria such as Craigieburn, Sunbury and Mernda. We have a community of over 104,000 people who, under Labor, have seen considerable investment in health care, education, jobs, communications, infrastructure and community facilities. One important point to mention here is that investment of this scale was never delivered during 14 years of continuous Liberal representation.

In the 3½ years that I have been the member for McEwen, Labor has provided almost $30 million in funding for hospitals, health clinics and local health practices. A major example of this is the $9.2million Wallan superclinic, which opened its doors in December 2013. This clinic was one the new government wanted scrapped. With a lack of all-round health services available to those in and around Wallan, the Wallan superclinic now provides a range of health services, such as improved access to general practice consultations, nursing, dietetics, podiatry, speech pathology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, paediatric, mental health and counselling services. We also invested $4.95 million towards the Macedon Ranges Community Health Facility in Gisborne, under the HHF regional priority round. This was actually opposed by the new government but, now that it is being rolled out, they are suddenly all too keen to claim the glory by getting their picture taken during sod-turning ceremonies. The question is: will they acknowledge that, without a Labor government, the community would not have seen this facility delivered?

We implemented the Building the Education Revolution initiative across all schools in all parts of the electorate. This program delivered crucial and much-wanted science and learning centres, language and learning centres, classrooms, libraries and sporting facilities, along with a hydrotherapy pool for children and those in the wider community with special needs. These investments in jobs, investments in education and investments in our communities have delivered facilities and opportunities for regional communities that no other government before us had ever delivered.

I recall having parents, teachers and members of the wider community tell me of the excitement in watching new facilities being built at their schools for the first time in 30 years. Parents and families had come and spent their weekends participating in working bees to further enhance existing buildings, lifting them towards the standards that the BER buildings had delivered. I was particularly pleased to deliver the $11 million trade training centre across the McEwen electorate. This TTC is a prime example of how public, Catholic and independent schools can collaborate, with their focus being the aspirations of their students and delivering opportunities for country kids—opportunities that they could never receive under Liberal and National governments.

Labor spent hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade roads and infrastructure across McEwen—a prime example being the $525 million spent on the M80 Ring Road upgrade. There is also the $400 million Post Entry Quarantine facility to go ahead in McEwen, which will give us a new and more advanced quarantine facility for this nation—not to mention the hundreds of new jobs that will be delivered.

I look forward to delivering more and more enhanced services in this term of office, but this will also involve the ongoing task of holding this government accountable for the promises they made to the people of McEwen during the 2013 election campaign. This will be no mean feat since, as mentioned, the government have already demonstrated their ability to break promises and undertake extraordinary tactics to turn their backs on the people of Australia. During the election last year, the Liberal Party made dozens of promises to the people of McEwen. Out of the 14 local funding promises for infrastructure, transport and community projects, not one of these promises has been delivered. The community is rightly concerned these promises will not be kept, as they join a long list of Liberal promises never delivered. I have made numerous attempts to contact several members of the Abbott government in order to expedite their funding commitments. To date, I have been inundated with the sound of silence. When not being ignored by the Abbott government, I have received a blatant refusal to follow through on their election promises to the people of McEwen.

Mr Abbott and the Liberals are pulling the plug on the National Broadband Network fibre rollout in my electorate, affecting many communities, like Lancefield, Romsey, Sunbury, Craigieburn, Whittlesea, Eden Park, Wollert, Wallan and Kilmore. The result of this decision is enormous. We will become the electorate of the haves and have-nots, and we have already seen people moving away from the electorate purely because they cannot get broadband access. Children in these areas will not have access to educational resources. Businesses will not have the same connectivity to customers and wholesalers alike. And, without government funding to expand mobile phone coverage in the same areas, communication to and from these communities will be even less. The Abbott government has a responsibility to these communities to ensure they have access to an NBN. I will not rest until every town in McEwen is connected, as it should be, by a national broadband network—not the hotchpotch set-up being touted by this government.

As mentioned earlier, McEwen is one of the fastest-growing electorates in Victoria, and being a rural based electorate means it has constant issues with mobile phone connectivity. It contains three of Australia's major transport routes: the Hume Highway, the Northern Highway and the Calder Highway. As we witnessed with the fires that ravaged our electorate three weeks ago, in an area that is very prone to bushfires and that survived the worst fires in this nation's history, mobile phone reception can mean the difference between life and death. The residents of McEwen rightly want improved mobile phone coverage addressed as a matter of priority.

During the election campaign the Abbott government announced a $100 million investment to expand the mobile coverage footprint and increase competition in regional Australia. The coalition also promised an extra $80 million to expand the mobile network along major transport routes, in small communities and in locations prone to natural disasters. But, even though we have more than met the criteria to receive funding to help address this problem, repeated requests that I and communities have made to government have fallen on deaf ears. In fact, to date, we have not received the courtesy of a reply or a response from the government on whether they will even consider these requests. I know that they hear me loud and clear but, in typical form, they are ignoring the real needs of real Australians.

In Seymour, in the north-east of McEwen, is the Vietnam Veterans Commemorative Walk, which was developed in honour of the 62,100 personnel who were part of the Australia's Vietnam War effort. Local community members, RSLs and organisations rallied together and created funding for the walk. After years of dedicated hard work by the community, the commemorative walk was unveiled to much emotion and much honour. This walk has enjoyed bipartisan support at the state level, was supported by the Mitchell Shire at the local level and was supported by Labor at the federal level. Unfortunately, in recent months, local serial vandals have desecrated the commemorative walk. These crimes could easily be prevented by enhanced security at the site. Security would have been provided under round 5 of RDAF if the Abbott government had not ripped the funding away. To be clear, it is only the Abbott government that continues not to support this iconic project. For less than the price of one of Mr Abbott's 'women of calibre' $75,000 paid parental leave bonuses, we could have a safe and secure Vietnam Veterans Commemorative Walk—an iconic destination for our much-loved Vietnam vets, their families and tourists alike. That is a kick in the teeth for the local community and the brave returned soldiers.

The government's complete disregard for working Australians can be no more evident than in the loss of thousands of jobs in manufacturing. Since the Abbott government was elected on that sad day in September 2013, over 10,000 direct jobs have been lost in the manufacturing sector. Due to the government's complete ignorance of what manufacturing means to Australia, Ford, Holden and Toyota have decided to shut down their manufacturing arms in Australia. The ramifications of these closures cannot be measured in just numbers. Yes, we have the number of almost 45,000 direct jobs lost. Yes, we have the number of 150,000 indirect jobs lost. Yes, we have the shocking fact that under the Abbott government there is one job lost every three minutes. That is 150,000 people who have been, in the words of the Prime Minister, 'liberated' under this government.

What is the real cost to our community? Around 10,000 people in McEwen work in manufacturing. What about those local businesses who provided supplies to the companies now shutting up shop? What about the families whose standard of living relies on salaries earned in these jobs? What about the emotional and psychological effects on those workers and their families? The costs of these cannot be measured, but hardworking Australians will bear the brunt, with thanks to the Abbott government's policies. To add insult to injury, Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey have the gall to try and blame the workers for the demise of manufacturing.

It is in the Liberal Party's DNA to ensure that they hurt the lowest paid workers in this country. Their sly move to remove penalty rates, overtime, shift work allowance and public holiday pay is simply their way of reintroducing around-the-clock work and lengthening the working day—well, while we're at it, Mr Abbott, why don't we just remove weekends all together? They are creating a huge rising unemployment problem, which will force a race to the bottom on wages and conditions. This simply is the government bringing back Work Choices by stealth.

I firmly believe that Australian workers deserve penalty rates for working extended or unsocial hours. The seat of McEwen represents over 37,000 people who work in industries affected by unsociable hours, such as retail, health care, social work and hospitality, and of course the 10,000-plus who work in manufacturing. While I am mentioning it, a big shout out to the Victorian paramedics in the Code Red campaign for fighting the chaotic and dysfunctional Napthine government to try and get a fair day's pay for the work that they do. The idea that you should have to trade family and home time for nothing is not the Labor way. Whether it is about being able to go to a suburban footy game, see a play, do the kids' sporting circuit or, as many of us know, reduce the backlog of backyard chores when you get home, penalty rates are best protected through a modern award system.

Unlike those opposite, Labor will always stick up for workers' rights and will not trade them away like economic commodities. And we do not believe that 'any boss is better than no boss', as the Prime Minister once said. As the member for McEwen, as a member of the Labor party and as a member of the local community, I will ensure that everyone gets a fair go. In 1996 I attended Labor's campaign launch, and these words of Paul Keating rang true:

We will not adopt the fantastic hypocrisy of modern conservatism which preaches the values of families and communities, while conducting a direct assault on them through reduced wages and conditions and job security.

Those words were true then; those words are true now. This also includes access to Medicare without having to pay a tax simply for being sick. Universal health care is a right, not a privilege. For the thousands of families who are struggling to make ends meet, the additional costs of having a sick child or children could be crippling. It sickens me that the Prime Minister is more than happy to sneakily introduce this sick tax, leaving families having to choose between putting food on the table or taking their sick child to the doctor. My message, our message, to you, Mr Abbott, is: keep your hands off Medicare.

It is Labor governments that built this nation. Medicare, superannuation and, of course, the National Disability Insurance Scheme are some of our proudest achievements. It is Labor governments that built the infrastructure and social capacity that make this country great. It is those opposite who want to tear it down or sell it off. The big question for Australians is what will be left of our great nation once the conservative, morally bankrupt, Tea Party politicians on the other side have torn down and sold off the nation's silverware. Where will that leave us? In conclusion, I would like to reiterate how honoured I am to be re-elected. The Abbott government had best be prepared for a fight if they want to continue to keep turning their backs on the people of McEwen.

Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Minister for Communications) (15:37): I thank Her Excellency the Governor-General for outlining the direction and priorities of our new government: cutting taxes, reducing regulation, redefining the role of government and investing in 21st century broadband, roads and hospitals. If there is a single philosophical thread weaving all of these reforms together, surely it is this: that we on our side of politics believe that the role of government is to enable citizens to do their best, whereas our opponents on the Labor side believe that government's role is to tell citizens what is best. The stark difference that we see again and again through every policy area bears out the importance and the significance of this distinction and the failures of the 'government knows best' approach which were so apparent in the last six years of Labor government. A touchstone of all of that is freedom, a belief in the individual, a belief that citizens, individuals, private businesses, are best able to chart their own destiny.

We see this very clearly in my own portfolio of communications. The rise of the internet, which became commercial, I suppose, 20 years ago and has gathered more and more momentum and more and more coverage, has revolutionised the communications world and the media world. Our laws and regulations and assumptions were all based around a series of platforms: newspapers, magazines, licensed broadcasters in radio and television, subscription television whether on cable or satellite. These great platforms were the only means by which people could communicate to the mass. They were the gatekeepers and they posed huge barriers to competition. Then the internet came along and devastated all of that. It provided a very cost-effective platform for advertising and so undermined significantly, materially, the business model of newspapers, particularly those like the big metropolitan broadsheets of yesteryear which depended on classified advertising. It takes on subscription television. People now can buy the programs, download the programs they want to watch when they want to watch them, from the internet. They do not have to buy a bundled package. Netflix arises to take on all of the cable TV companies in the United States and it has many imitators around the world. So these are revolutionary times.

We have all been very concerned especially about the damage to the newspaper business, not because any of us I hope are so naive as to be filled with a particular affection for newspapers or journalists as a group or proprietors as a group or shareholders of newspapers—all businesses have to deal with the travails of the world and adapt to them. But newspapers and journalists have a very fundamental role to play in our democracy, or I should say journalism does. The work that journalists do in a free media is just as important as any work that we do here in this chamber or in the other place as legislators or that the judiciary do or that the Public Service do in running the country. We cannot be a democracy without a free media. So the concern naturally was that as the resources were drained away from those newspapers which had been the big foundations of journalism so the quality of our democracy would diminish as the quality of journalism and the number of journalists, the resources available to journalism, were diminished too. That has been a matter of very real concern.

What we have also seen with the arrival of the internet is an opening up of competition on a scale that would have previously been unimaginable. If you think back 20 or 30 years, the idea of there being new newspapers to compete with The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Daily Telegraph or the Melbourne Herald Sun was fanciful. Every now and then some rich person would try and start their own newspaper to take on one of the established ones but it was generally a very unsuccessful effort. I am thinking of Lang Hancock in Perth and Robert Holmes a Court for a period. But what the internet has done is lowered the cost of entry into the media market. So at the same time as we have been lamenting the demise of the great beasts of the media jungle we have seen more competition than ever. We have seen The Guardian Online, we have seen The Mail Online. Out here we have seen the paper I launched on Friday, Morry Schwartz's The Saturday Paper, and so many others—a host of them, too many to name.

We had never had more competition and more diversity in our media world than we have today. Yet it is remarkable that under the previous government their obsession was with the technological constructs of the past. They said, 'Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has the majority share of metropolitan daily newspaper circulation.' So it has had, for nearly 30 years since a Labor government enabled Mr Murdoch to buy the Herald and Weekly Times group. But that share of the total media and information pie represented by newspapers is getting smaller and smaller as more and more competitors come onto the scene. Yet it was precisely at that time—when a media landscape that had been frozen for decades suddenly started to thaw and was open to so much competition—that the Labor government wanted to constrain freedom and regulate the media in a way it had never been regulated before in peacetime.

So there is a fundamental difference between the way I am approaching this portfolio of communications and, indeed, the way the government is approaching this area and the way its Labor predecessor did. Labor believed that the arrival of the internet required more regulation and less freedom. We say that the arrival of the internet enables much more competition and therefore more freedom, and that therefore there is a need for less regulation not more. You could not have a starker difference between our government and its predecessor, and the difference is that we believe in freedom.

I note in passing that some commentators on the conservative or the right-wing side of the political debate have criticised me for launching Morry Schwartz's new paper The Saturday Paper on Friday. They apparently would like me to be—just as Senator Conroy was the minister for left-wing communications or the minister for communications that agree with the Labor Party—the minister for right-wing communications or communications that agree with the Liberal Party. And that is not the case. I am the Minister for Communications. I am the minister that seeks to ensure that we have the freest and most diverse media we can possibly manage. I am the minister that wants to take away the barriers to competition wherever I can so that as many voices can speak out as possible, and whether they are left or right is of no concern to me in my capacity as the Minister for Communications. As the member for Wentworth seeking re-election I may be disappointed if the anti-Liberal forces in the media call for me not to be elected; fair enough—that will be distressing at election time. But, in my ministerial capacity and in my role as the custodian of this vital portfolio in the government, my job is to stand up for freedom. Those who think that this Liberal minister should be like Senator Conroy and seek to persecute or suborn or bully those that do not agree with him have got it completely wrong; they are wrong in principle and they are wrong in practice. Everybody has a vested interest in freedom—everybody. Whether you are on the right or on the left, you have a vital, vested interest in freedom. As I said in one brief comment on the weekend to one of these critics, mangling Bill Clinton: 'It's the democracy, stupid!' It's the democracy—that is what we are committed to.

You see another example of the Labor Party's big-government obsession in their approach to broadband. The fundamental failure and mistake of the previous government—and it was a fundamental one and one that is impossible to reverse at this juncture, regrettably—was to be mad enough, genuinely mad enough, to imagine that the government was the right agency to build a new telecommunications network. It was back to the days of the postmaster-general. Every other comparable country in the world, in approaching the challenge of getting broadband services upgraded, has done this: they have encouraged the private sector to do the job. They have provided judicious subsidies to ensure that people in remote or regional areas got their services upgraded where it otherwise would not be commercial to do so. The virtue of that is that it ensured that the government was up for a certain amount of money—a sum certain. And all of the execution, the construction risk and the business risk was left with the private sector. An excellent example of that—you do not have to look very far—is what John Key did in New Zealand, or, indeed, what the British have done in the UK. There is a very long list.

The craziness of the previous government's policy was, right from the jump, in having the hubris, in defiance of experience both in Australia and everywhere else in the world, to imagine that the government was the best party to do the job. So in Australia, in the socialist paradise of Senator Conroy and Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, we had a situation where the execution and business risk of this vast project was entirely vested in the government—in the taxpayer, in other words. And the only people that got the cheques, that got the certainty, were in fact the telephone companies, Telstra and Optus, who sold their assets to the government—an extraordinary fundamental failure. So it is no surprise that the project has run late and it has run over budget. Indeed, as Ziggy Switkowski observed just last week, so far the NBN Co has invested $6.4 billion of taxpayers' money and, in its fibre rollout, passed less than two per cent of the country.

The challenge that we have is that we are not in a position to turn back the clock. We are not in a position to undo all of the mistakes the Labor Party has made. So what we have to do is to mitigate the madness and to try to complete the project as quickly and cheaply and hence as affordably as possible. As I said in question time, one of the consequences of the Labor Party's approach of course would have been, had it been persevered with, that broadband prices would have been up to 80 per cent higher. There is no magic in that; there is nothing unusual in that: if you have a massively expensive, overcapitalised government monopoly with no competition to keep it honest, you are going to get very high prices. You do not get cheap prices by overcapitalising a business, especially if it is a monopoly.

I noticed earlier the member for McEwen speaking about his electorate and saying that people had been moving away because of lack of broadband. He should really raise that with his colleagues, because in six years of Labor virtually nothing was done. There was the best part of two million premises without access to broadband in 2007, and there has only been a tiny chip into that in the intervening six years. And then, I might say, with a chutzpah that is quite epic, he went on to complain that there were mobile phone black spots in his electorate. No doubt there are, and that is one of the reasons why the coalition government, the Abbott government, has allocated $100 million to address them—or to address as many as we can with that sum of money. But it is worth noting that in six years of the Labor government not one cent was spent to fix mobile black spots.

It is the same point about regional and remote broadband subsidies. It is the same point that you have areas where there is no mobile phone reception. As we all know, this is by far the biggest complaint—as you would know in particular, Deputy Speaker Scott, from your electorate of Maranoa—and by far the biggest telecommunications concern in rural and regional Australia. In those areas, of course, because of the small population, it is not necessarily economic for the telcos to make the investment, so there is a role for government, but in six years not one cent was spent by Labor on upgrading or addressing mobile phone black spots. But, to date, $6.4 billion has been invested in passing less than two per cent of premises in Australia.

I have spoken earlier about the other critical issue, but it bears repeating. It is this issue of affordability. It is no good having the best broadband technology in the world, which enables a household of six to engage in simultaneous high-definition interactive cybergaming across the world—there is no point having that—if battlers cannot afford it.

Mr Husic interjecting—

Mr TURNBULL: The member for Chifley is interjecting away there because he does not like to know the truth. The truth is that there are many people in his electorate who cannot afford broadband today, and he in his hubris has turned his back on them and supported a broadband policy that will make broadband less affordable than it is today. Forty-one per cent of the least well off households, the lowest income households, the households with the lowest 20 per cent of income in Australia, do not have access to the internet at home. Four per cent of the top 20 per cent do. What do you reckon the difference is? I think it is all about affordability, don't you? You do not have to be a rocket scientist to work that out. And yet, there was Labor—in a manner calculated, inevitably—determined to make broadband less affordable than it already is. That was the inevitable consequence, as night follows day. If you overcapitalise a business and you render it immune from competition, that will result in higher prices. There is no alternative.

And that is the critical objective of our government when it comes to the NBN: to get this project finished, to ensure that people everywhere have access to very fast broadband, using the mix of technologies—in common with all of the other major developed countries: the United States, the UK, Germany, Belgium, France; take your pick—that will ensure that we have a broadband network that is built nearly four years sooner and $32 billion less expensively and, above all, to make it more affordable.

Labor's arrogant indifference to the position of the people that they claim to represent, the least well off Australians, is truly chilling. It really is truly chilling. Labor's policy would result in average broadband prices increasing by $43 a month, increasing by up to 80 per cent a month. That is the fact. They can run around, wave their arms and talk about gigabits and gigabytes. They can do all of that. They can talk about all these things, which most of them do not understand. And yet the bottom line is this, and we all know it, whether we are in big business or little business: you give the Labor Party a project like this to manage and they will make a hash of it. You overcapitalise a government monopoly and you will get higher prices, and the consequence is that a vital service which has been unaffordable for many to date will become unaffordable to many more in the future.

Ms PARKE (Fremantle) (15:57): In this debate on the address-in-reply, I would like to make some comments about Australia's investment in its future, specifically its investment in the protection of our environment and biodiversity and its investment in the clean and sustainable industries that should be the basis of economic activity in the decades ahead. Like many people, I am concerned that under this government Australia will turn away from the fundamental understanding that our environment is not something to be considered simply as a resource to be tapped or churned but is in fact the foundation of our future wellbeing in every aspect: social, physical and emotional, as well as economic.

On this point I note the submission the Australian Conservation Foundation has made in relation to the 2014-15 federal government budget. That submission includes reference to the observation from Treasury's Intergenerational report from 2011 that 'few countries have incorporated the potential impact of policies related to environmental issues into the long-term fiscal projections'. Needless to say, Australia is not one of those few countries.

I am concerned that under this government we are already seeing a rapid retreat from the significant gains made by the Labor government when it comes to tackling climate change, improving marine conservation, improving environmental regulation as a whole and supporting renewable energy and energy efficiency. There seems little doubt that the government's role as the custodian of our shared environmental wealth and as the way finder on what should be our path to sustainable economic and social wellbeing is in the process of being abdicated by the coalition. This abdication is occurring across the spectrum of government responsibility. It is occurring when it comes to environmental regulation. It is occurring on the expenditure side when it comes to government support and investment. And it is occurring on the revenue side when it comes to the price on carbon, the introduction of an emissions trading scheme and the receipt of a fair contribution from the profits of resources companies.

Australians understand that if you want to invest in a burgeoning sustainability sector the funds have to exist to make that investment, just as public investment was once made in the creation of our existing stationary energy and distribution infrastructure. Australians understand that if you want to minimise the costs associated with climate change there needs to be structural reform to ensure that carbon emitters are responsible for the costs they have produced.

Why price carbon? The answer is from a first-year economics principle. Pricing the externality is the most efficient way to reduce the externality. As Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, put it last week, externality has a cost. We can either deal with that cost by putting a price on it and allowing the market and companies to innovate to reduce emissions in the most efficient way for their business, or we can allow the externality to not be priced and emissions to continue. In the latter scenario, the cost will be borne by the government, the taxpayer and, ultimately, all of the community.

People want effective action. They want it to be achieved at least cost and they want it to be paid for by a fair and effective mechanism. The whole rationale of an emissions trading scheme is that the burden of addressing the impact of carbon pollution falls on the polluters, with a corresponding market impetus for business and households alike to reduce carbon emissions.

The Abbott government's Direct Action policy has three massive flaws: firstly, it is quite possible they will not achieve the reduction target of five per cent on 2000 levels by 2020 to which we have committed. In other words, it will fail its basic purpose. Secondly, it will be paid for by the taxpayer, with no contribution from the polluters themselves and no encouragement for polluters to reduce their emissions other than in the form of payments from the taxpayer to do so. And thirdly, it is a matter of common agreement that Direct Action is the most expensive way to seek a reduction in carbon emissions. Prime Minister Abbott has already indicated that if the Direct Action policy costs grow beyond his expectations, which everyone predicts they will, then the target itself will be moderated.

It is instructive to remember the environmental, social and economic task we are engaged in here. The existing reduction targets that form the basis of our commitment are designed to limit the average temperature increase to two degrees over the course of this century. To give a sense of how two degrees of warming—while significant and harmful in itself—is possible to manage while a higher temperature rise is not, I refer to a comment by Professor John Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, on the difference between two degrees and four degrees of warming. He says:

The difference is human civilisation. A 4 degree C temperature increase probably means a global [population] carrying capacity below 1 billion people.

It is a sobering statement. I am grateful to have encountered it in John Wiseman's excellent essay Climate change: reconnecting politics with reality from the collection Pushing our Luck: ideas for Australian progress.

At this point, it is relevant to note that last week the Climate Change Authority provided its latest update, which recommends that Australia target a minimum 15 per cent reduction. Labor provided for the need to go higher than five per cent. It seems overwhelmingly clear that much higher reductions are essential and should have been committed to before now. It was nearly two years ago that the World Bank, in its Turn Down the Heat report, stated that:

Even with the current mitigation commitments and pledges fully implemented, there is roughly a 20 percent likelihood of exceeding 4°C by 2100. If they are not met, a warming of 4°C could occur as early as the 2060s.

That is why we need to keep the gravity of this issue front and centre of the national policy conversation in Australia.

The former Labor government was both clear and courageous in establishing a mechanism that properly attributed the cost of carbon pollution and properly derived the revenue necessary to support Australia's shift from a high-carbon to a low-carbon economy—from a traditional hydrocarbon energy production profile to a 21st century traditional and renewable energy mix. Unfortunately, the current government is abandoning that project, and I am concerned that the forthcoming budget will be a document of irresponsibility and neglect on that front.

As I said earlier, acting in the long-term interest of the Australian environment—and indeed the global environment, if you consider our oceans and our climate—requires sound economic management. In fact, such action epitomises sound economic management. Spending money to save the environment is not largesse—it is sensible and prudent action. It is taking out insurance for our children and their children. It is easy to cut these programs now. Trim $650 million from the Murray Darling Basin Plan over the forward estimates and perhaps it inflates your budget bottom line. But what is the long-term cost of this?

Consider for a moment what the science is telling us about the impacts of climate change. If no action is taken there will be a cost to government across a range of budgetary areas—roads and infrastructure, health and environment to name just a few. What will this do for the budget bottom line? Pricing carbon allows us to deal with this challenge now while also allowing our economy to grow. It decouples economic growth from pollution. Australia has recorded uninterrupted growth for 22 years and yet last financial year was the first time this occurred without a corresponding increase in pollution.

Many stakeholders with an active advocacy role in this space show the kind of balance and responsibility needed to achieve change: that is, they are prepared to look at where the revenue will come from in order to underwrite the investments needed. The budget submission I mentioned earlier, from the Australian Conservation Foundation, is a perfect example. That submission identifies savings that are nearly ten times the investments that ACF would like to see made in Australia's sustainable future. Of course, that is possible because the creation and encouragement of greater sustainability is not just about policy settings that fund renewable energy, green infrastructure or water resource research. Greater sustainability and resilience can also be pursued or achieved by ensuring that outmoded or unjustified concessions do not persist in relation to activities or practices that run counter to the principles of a sustainable economy.

Almost two years ago the now Treasurer, standing in London, boldly declared the end of the age of entitlement. The largesse of government would come to an end, he said, and Australians, both households and businesses, would need to stand on their own two feet. We were told companies should not look for government subsidies or support. Yet at the same time, they propose to spend billions of taxpayers' dollars subsiding polluters through a faux climate policy, which no expert believes will meet the emissions reductions targets. The viability gap between clean energy and dirty, which was closing but will now yawn wide again, will continue to be defined as much by the outrageous subsidies for hydrocarbon production and consumption as by the withdrawal of support for renewables and energy efficiency.

As the ACF submission points out it is hard to understand, let alone justify, why special and favourable depreciation rules for oil and gas assets were reintroduced in the early 2000s, after they had been removed as a trade-off for the substantial lowering of the company tax rate. The existing fuel tax credit scheme, which cost $6 billion in 2013-14, is currently the government's 14th most expensive program, costing more than federal government spending on schools. The ACF makes the case for reducing and better targeting this massive concession, with savings of two-thirds by 2016-17. There are aviation fuel concessions and counterproductive exemptions to fossil fuel producers through the Energy Security Fund that could also add up to $2 billion to the budget bottom line. It is common sense that, if you want to encourage a diversified and low-emission energy production profile, you go about that task by supporting renewable energy innovation and/or by ensuring that fossil fuel production and consumption is not unduly buoyed by unwarranted and counterproductive—or, if you like, countersustainable—concessions and subsidies.

On that basis, I urge the government to approach the forthcoming budget with the following in mind: first, that Australia's future wellbeing depends at least as much on the health of our environment as on sustainable economic growth; second, that addressing climate change by reducing carbon emissions at a much faster rate is essential and it is urgent; third, that the investment needed to improve resilience and sustainability should be funded from revenue derived by the application of a fair impost on carbon pollution and resource extraction; and, fourth and finally, that progress towards a low-carbon Australia and an Australia that is a leader in renewable energy production and innovation can be hastened by ensuring a level playing field without undue subsidies or concessions for fossil fuels.

I return to the wise words of Mr Wiseman, from the essay I referred to earlier:

The economic growth debate is … best framed not in terms of 'growth' versus 'degrowth' but as a shift in priorities from limitless growth in the consumption of energy and resources to improvement in important social and ecological priorities. In Prosperity without growth: Economics for a finite planet, UK economist Tim Jackson makes a compelling argument that our ability to 'decouple' conventional economic growth from ecological destruction is highly questionable and that our focus must be on a redefinition of prosperity— a vision 'in which it is possible for human beings to flourish, to achieve greater social cohesion, to find higher levels of wellbeing and yet still to reduce their material impact on the environment.'

I know that kind of reframing represents a big change. I know it represents a shift from the current state of play, in which we remain fixed on the idea that growth can and should continue indefinitely—however much basic logic tells us it cannot be so. In a brilliant book entitled A Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright notes the lessons of the past:

That the health of land and water—and of woods, which are the keepers of water—can be the only lasting basis for any civilization's survival and success … If civilisation is to survive it must live on the interest, not the capital of nature.

He goes on to say:

Capitalism lures us onward like the mechanical hare before the greyhounds, insisting that the economy is infinite and sharing therefore is irrelevant. Just enough greyhounds catch a real hare now and then to keep the others running till they drop. In the past, it was only the poor who lost this game, now it is the planet …

Things are moving so fast that inaction itself is one of the biggest mistakes. The 10,000-year experiment of the settled life will stand or fall by what we do, and don't do, now. The reform that is needed is not anti-capitalist, anti-American, or even deep environmentalist; it is simply the transition from short-term to long-term thinking. From recklessness and excess to moderation and the precautionary principle.

The great advantage we have, our best chance for avoiding the fate of past societies, is that we know about those past societies. We can see how and why they went wrong. Homo sapiens has the information to know itself for what it is: an Ice Age hunter only half-evolved towards intelligence; clever but seldom wise.

We are now at the stage when the Easter Islanders could still have halted the senseless cutting and carving, could have gathered the last trees' seeds to plant out of reach of the rats. We have the tools and the means to share resources, clean up pollution, dispense basic health care and birth control, set economic limits in line with natural ones.

If we don't do these things now, while we prosper, we will never be able to do them when times get hard. Our fate will twist out of our hands.

On behalf of my community in Fremantle and communities throughout Australia, I want to be one of the many people who are prepared to have this conversation and to argue the merits of taking a radically different, massively important shift in perspective.

Ms O'DWYER (Higgins) (16:12): I rise to speak on this address-in-reply. First, I want to acknowledge the great honour and trust that the people of Higgins have placed in me to be their representative, to represent their issues both big and small. It is an honour that I have been granted three times now and I am very, very conscious of the great responsibility that comes with this incredible honour.

The key function and task of our government will be to repair the nation's balance sheet so we again live within our means, as we did during the previous coalition government, the Howard-Costello years. We need to be able to turn the deficits into surpluses and to start repaying the debt so that our children and their children do not inherit a parlous economic situation where they are restricted in the services that are provided to them as a result of the financial mismanagement of their forebears.

One of the critical tasks for us in repairing the national balance sheet will be to encourage business to grow, invest and employ. One of the critical aspects here is to ensure that we have the right productivity-enhancing infrastructure available to us. This brings me to the first point that I wish to raise in the House today—that is, railway crossings in my seat of Higgins and the state of Victoria.

While historically Melbourne has benefited from thoughtful planning, there remain 172 level crossings within the metropolitan area, as compared to eight within Sydney. Many of these crossings are positioned on Melbourne's busiest roads, adjacent to major arterials such as the Monash Freeway and the Dandenong Road-Princes Highway. These level crossings cause substantial delays to motorists, road based freight and road based public transport—15 to 40 minutes during peak times—while, at the same time, limiting growth in rail based public transport due to capacity constraints.

The Dandenong railway line currently serves over a million people in south-eastern Melbourne and is considered a key area for future population growth; it also serves industrial and commercial sites through to Dandenong and thereafter the proposed deepwater port of Hastings. Along the Dandenong rail corridor, within Higgins and bordering Chisholm and Hotham, the hands-down, single largest issue facing constituents on a daily basis is level crossings. It influences key decisions: where people will shop, where they will send their children to school and how they will access work.

The 2012 RACV Redspot survey ranks three Higgins level crossings in Victoria's top 10 worst sites for congestion. They are Murrumbeena Road, Murrumbeena, at No. 1; Koornang Road, Carnegie, at No. 4; and Burke Road, Glen Iris, at No. 5. Key stakeholders, including the RACV and the Committee for Melbourne, share the view with me that planning and investment, both public and private, are now required to ensure south-eastern Melbourne continues to grow.

In June 2013, I tabled a petition with 1,151 signatures which drew the attention of the House to the severe congestion caused by the regular closure of the level crossings along the Dandenong railway line and I asked at that time that parliament give greater priority to their removal. In total, there are 21 railway stations and nine level crossings in the electorate of Higgins. They are along the Dandenong railway line; Grange Road, Carnegie; Koornang Road, Carnegie; Murrumbeena Road, Murrumbeena; Poath Road, Hughesdale; along the Glen Waverley line; Glenferrie Road, Kooyong; Toorak Road, Kooyong; Tooronga Road, Malvern; Burke Road, Glen Iris; and High Street, Glen Iris.

The Victorian government's 2011 Infrastructure Australia submission, resubmitted in 2012 for the Nation Building Program, notes that the catchment area of this rail corridor contributed $92 billion in 2007-08, accounting for roughly half of Melbourne's GDP or nine per cent nationally. The Victorian government has sought support from Infrastructure Australia and the previous Commonwealth government for $30 million to enable initial planning and development work for the Dandenong rail upgrade, including the removal of its 12 level crossings, which would have the potential to lift rail passenger capacity by nearly 100 per cent—that is, 11,000 people per hour—and significantly reduce road congestion, as well as $16 million to enable planning for a broad-ranging level-crossing removal program across Melbourne.

In total the Victorian government is spending just over $418 million, but received nothing from the Commonwealth in the 2011-12 and 2012-13 federal budgets for level-crossing removal. I congratulate my state colleagues for focusing on this issue, after the failure of previous Labor governments that squandered the surpluses that they inherited and the GST windfalls that they also inherited—which they did not invest in this productivity-enhancing infrastructure. The Victorian coalition government is in the process of removing 12 level crossings, which is the largest number of level-crossing removals by any Victorian government in the state's history. In particular, I am pleased that the state has commenced planning for the removal of crossings at Burke Road, Glen Iris and Murrumbeena Road, Murrumbeena, both of which are within Higgins. The removal of a level crossing can cost up to $200 million. However, the need for varied solutions to level-crossing removals depends upon site opportunity and constraints as well as the need to explore private sector investment. There is also broad agreement as to the nature of this problem and the need for action. How these projects are to be funded remains less clear. There are varied funding options that should be considered, including private sector involvement—for example, in the development of air rights where appropriate. Importantly, though, the removal of level crossings is as much about road congestion as it is about rail. For this reason, I believe that it is important that Victoria receive its fair share of the infrastructure dollar provided federally through Infrastructure Australia.

The second issue which I wish to raise in the House this afternoon, in the time available to me, also relates to our economy and jobs. It is about job participation and increasing the participation of women, in particular, in the workforce. We know through the reports released by the Grattan Institute that if we can increase female participation in the workplace up to the same level as some of our OECD competitor countries, such as Canada and Germany, we will have an economic gain of up to $25 billion. What is standing in the way of this?

Affordable and flexible child care that is accessible to families is one of the key complaints I hear from constituents in my electorate of Higgins. Higgins is a much sought after area in which to care for and raise children. However, the previous Labor government made it more difficult to get affordable child care and local families are paying the price of the previous Labor government's legacy. Recent Department of Education figures indicate that childcare fees rose an average $70 per week over the six years of the former Labor government. On average, child care now costs over $3,000 a year more than it did before Labor came to power. There can be no doubt about the very real impact that this is having on family budgets. The June quarter 2013 Child care and early learning in summary report comes on the back of a recent review which found new regulations introduced by Labor added $2,000 in operating costs per child per year for an average sized long day care centre.

After speaking with childcare providers in Higgins, many have told me that the extra burden of regulation is unnecessarily forcing up costs and taking valuable time away from looking after the children. These costs are passed on to parents, many of whom query whether it is worth going back to work at all. However, it is not just formal long day care child care that has fared badly under the previous Labor government. I have visited many kindergartens and occasional-care centres in Higgins and spoken at length with families, staff and management regarding the increase in mandatory regulation that impacts directly on staffing, fees and access for families.

I have previously tabled a petition in the parliament with regard to the reduction in Take A Break occasional-care funding and hosted a forum with the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, in his former role as shadow parliamentary secretary for supporting families, the Hon. Jamie Briggs MP. All this has assisted to inform our understanding of the difficulties faced by the early learning sector and the very urgent need for change.

While our government has already started the process of reducing red tape, these new figures with respect to childcare fees back our decision to task the Productivity Commission to find a way to deliver more affordable, accessible child care in Higgins. All options are on the table and helping women stay in the workforce, or get back into the workforce, is something everyone in this House should support.

I turn to another issue which has been very significant in my electorate of Higgins—that is, community safety. Higgins is an electorate comprised of urban villages. Within those villages, law and order is definitely an issue of concern. In the western suburbs of Prahran, Windsor and South Yarra, which are home to the Chapel Street nightclub precinct, security issues do arise where entertainment and residential areas intersect.

I was particularly pleased when the Prime Minister, the Hon. Tony Abbott, then Leader of the Opposition, and the then Premier, Premier Baillieu, visited Higgins in August of 2012 to see firsthand the concerns of residents and to announce that federal funding for CCTV cameras in the local Chapel Street precinct was part of our $50 million funding for the coalition's Plan for Safer Streets. I was also very pleased to have the support of Inspector Adrian White from the Prahran Police Station, Oskar Cebergs from Chapel Street precinct, Justin Zakis, President, Lara Barry Residents Association, as well as local residents.

In total, $100,000 has been secured to increase security measures in this busy precinct and I am working with local government to ensure its smooth implementation. In addition, following a long and productive dialogue with residents, local businesses and traders in the south-eastern part of my electorate, it became clear that measures to improve security of persons and property would be welcome in the Carnegie area, a popular family-friendly cosmopolitan suburb. As a result, I was able to secure an additional $100,000 for Koornang Road, Carnegie, which has been warmly welcomed by the Carnegie traders and local businesses, along with residents.

While no-one would argue that CCTV and increased lighting will eradicate crime and anti-social behaviour, I believe they will form a deterrent and, if crime occurs, assist Victoria Police in apprehending those responsible.

Since these announcements the Ashburton traders have also expressed some interest in having closed-circuit television cameras in their High Street shopping strip and I am working with them to ascertain whether any future options exist for increased security measures there.

I now turn to an issue which is incredibly close to my heart, a very special organisation in my electorate of Higgins. This organisation does good work not only for those who reside in Higgins but also for those from throughout Victoria. It is aptly named Very Special Kids. It is an eight-bed children's hospice that provides planned and emergency end-of-life care, as well as flexible family support programs, including respite for families with children with life-threatening illnesses.

The organisation was established in 1985 after two local families recognised there was a need to support other families experiencing the loss and grief associated with having a child diagnosed with a life-threatening condition. Throughout this period, it has been championed by the founder and patron, Sister Margaret Noone, AM, and grown under the careful stewardship of a committed and talented board. Very Special Kids is not only Australia's oldest and largest children's hospice but also the only children's hospice in Australia to receive no federal government funding. The other two hospices—Bear Cottage in New South Wales and Hummingbird House in Queensland—receive substantial support from the Commonwealth government.

All Very Special Kids services are offered free-of-charge to families. It has an operating budget of just over $5.6 million per annum, 70 per cent of which is generated through philanthropy, with the remaining 30 per cent provided by the state government. However, in order to increase the occupancy of existing facilities and to increase the services to families in Melbourne and in rural and regional Victoria, Very Special Kids is actively seeking greater government support. The work Very Special Kids undertakes is truly important and difficult. In many ways, it is an organisation with which no family would wish to become familiar, yet so many Victorians are very grateful for the services and support they provide at the most difficult and challenging of times.

Very Special Kids has a very special CEO, Susan Hosking, and it is an organisation for which I have the utmost respect. I intend to do everything that I can humanly do to ensure it receives the support it needs to continue to provide its amazing services, not just to my constituents but to all Victorian families.

In the time remaining, I would like to raise the issue many people raised with me at the mobile office meetings I have held throughout the electorate during my four years as a member of parliament, an issue which I know will be challenging for this government—housing affordability. Higgins is very diverse in nature, with high-density inner-city living in the west and family-friendly suburbs in the east, all within a commutable distance of the Melbourne central business district. Despite some perceptions, it is very diverse in its demography. A third of Higgins residents were born outside Australia. While undoubtedly some people have significant means, Higgins also has a high percentage of people who live in rented accommodation, including nearly 1,000 who live in state housing dwellings. While the median weekly household income is $1,741, the median monthly mortgage repayment is $2,393; and the median price of a home in Carnegie is just under a million dollars at $935,000.

In addition, there are many residents in my electorate between the ages of 20 and 44—higher than the national average. This means that housing affordability remains a real concern for many homebuyers in my electorate. Higgins is a fantastic place to live and raise a family and, not surprisingly, when those children grow up they also wish to live in Higgins, close to their friends and family. I believe that there are things that we can examine, in this place, that can make it easier for people to have confidence in the current marketplace for residential property and to ensure that there is no distortion of the market for residential property.

Finally, it is indeed a great honour to be the member for Higgins and to represent the people of Higgins. I would like to thank all of those people who supported my campaign—in particular all of the volunteers who gave freely of their time. Ours is not a party that is of the union movement; it is a grassroots organisation and people need to give of their time in order for a campaign to be run. I would like to place on record my thanks to all those volunteers, over 800 of them, who helped out with the Higgins campaign, along with the wonderful Liberal Party members in my electorate led by Mark Stretton. I would also like to thank my staff, who every day do a tremendous job for me; my family, who support me no matter what; and especially my husband, Jon, who is on this wonderful journey with me. I look forward to being able to continue my engagement with the constituents of Higgins representing their issues. I have had, over the last four years, more than 200 mobile office meetings and more than 70 community forums. I pledge that in this term of parliament I will continue that very high engagement.

Mr BUTLER (Port Adelaide) (16:32): It is a pleasure to participate in the address-in-reply debate. I congratulate so many of the members on their addresses, particularly all of the new members who have experienced the privilege, first, of being elected to this place and then, usually in front of their family, friends and new colleagues, giving their first speech. It is a wonderful opportunity for all the new members on both sides of the House.

This address-in-reply is an opportunity for all members to reply to the new government's agenda, as was outlined in Her Excellency's speech in the other place. Usually members of the opposition, the government or the crossbench confront a detailed plan, from the new or re-elected government, of what it plans to do over the course of the ensuing three years to build the nation: to build the nation's prosperity, to build opportunity for its citizens, and to build social and physical infrastructure and the like.

The challenge we have in giving our addresses-in-reply is that the government has outlined precious little by way of a new plan. The limits of the plan outlined by this new government are really defined by what the new government intends to dismantle or to cut, rather than what it intends to build. In policy areas that are particularly close to my heart, the government has outlined very little by way of new plans. I want to address a few of those plans, contrast them with what we were able to achieve over the last few years in government and pose some questions about what this government might intend to do by way of dismantling that.

The first area I would like to address is the area of mental health. This is an area of very longstanding neglect, frankly, by governments of all political persuasions, at state and Commonwealth levels, over many years. All of us supported a process of deinstitutionalisation that would see people living with mental illness who, for many years, had been confined to hospitals for their entire lives often brought out into the community—taken out of the institutions and allowed to live their lives in the community in different Australian cities and regional areas. That was a fantastic policy.

The difficulty was that the quid pro quo, the follow-up from that policy, was supposed to be greater investment in community based mental health services so that those Australians would be able to receive good levels of support, find employment and stable housing, ensure they had strong peer and family relationships and take up all of the opportunities that Australian citizens have in front of them. As I said, governments of all political persuasions—particularly at state level, given that states have had responsibility for this policy area generally—

failed in delivering that quid pro quo. This led, firstly and most importantly, to very significant disability and profound disadvantage for hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens and their families. It also eventually led to a very significant level of community unease about the degree to which we were letting down those fellow citizens.

This unease really found its shape in Patrick McGorry being made the Australian of the Year in 2010. That year, with a whole range of other supports, Professor McGorry was able to shine a spotlight onto those issues associated with mental health at a national level that they simply had not had shone on them before. It did not happen overnight. A whole range of great organisations and individuals had done extraordinary work in previous years—beyondblue, along with many individuals, had done fantastic work. But Professor McGorry was able, in an election year, to bring a spotlight to these community failures for which we all bore responsibility.

For the first time in Australian political history the two alternative Prime Ministers, the current Prime Minister and former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, actually talked about mental health in a federal political campaign. It was a wonderful thing. I commend the Liberal Party for bringing a very substantial mental health policy to that 2010 campaign. Ultimately, when we formed government, I was made the first ever mental health minister at a national level. I then undertook a range of direct consultations all around the country—in regional areas and in capital cities—with consumers, people living with mental illness, their family members and their carers about what it was they wanted from a mental health reform package.

In 2011 we were able to deliver the largest-ever mental health reform package in Commonwealth history. It covered a whole range of different age cohorts, a whole range of different needs—many of them medical and many of them non-medical—many of them related to housing and employment and other social supports. We brought in a whole range of reforms, building on previous years, to deliver youth-specific mental health services, through the headspace model in particular, that had been started under the previous Howard government. We built upon that over the past few years. There were also services to deal with the first episodes of psychosis, which are often experienced by young people in their late teens or their early twenties—a model particularly pioneered by Professor McGorry.

We were able to bring into place new services to support families with very young children experiencing mental health difficulties. It is not often understood that fully 25 per cent of all mental health disorders emerge before the age of 12, often even before the age of five. Early intervention to support those kids, and particularly to support their families, is critically important if those kids are to be able to get back on the rails and embrace all of the opportunities that Australia has to offer—schooling, post-school education and training, and then adult lives. So again those were very wonderful reforms we were able to bring into place.

We were also able to respond to the requests that carers and consumers gave to me, as I was travelling around the country, for much better integration between the different types of services that people living with severe and persistent mental illness need. Often they are not just medical services; they relate to their need to find stable housing, to find avenues into employment and to be able to build good peer and family relationships. Those sorts of living skills, as well, were all brought together into a program known as Partners in Recovery.

I hope that this new government will continue with a range of those reforms, as we did with the range of reforms that came under the Howard government—and I will talk soon about headspace—but we have heard very little from the Liberal Party since their 2010 election policy. I hope that we will hear more into the future.

Another area on which the new government has said precious little is the area of aged care. I know from talking to members across the chamber, whether it is in this chamber or outside, everyone understands how critical a policy area aged care is; both because of the growing demand that we are going to see in the system in the future as the population ages, but also because there are emerging differences in the preferences that older Australians have for their aged-care services. There are some new needs that are emerging, and I talk particularly about the growing prevalence of dementia.

We inherited, when we came to government in 2007, a position that had not changed much in the 11 years of the Howard government, not for want of trying. Prime Minister Howard had tried on two occasions to get substantial reform of the aged-care system through—in 1997 and in 2004—and he was not successful. So we inherited a system that was largely put in place, firstly, by the Hawke government in the mid-1980s, and then reformed by the Keating government in the early 1990s to bring in some Commonwealth funded home-care arrangements.

We had put in place a Productivity Commission inquiry that took place at the same time they were inquiring into a national disability insurance scheme, and we received a report from the Productivity Commission at about the same time they published the NDIS report as well. Both reports are excellent and pay great tribute to the social policy expertise of the Productivity Commission.

At the same time, it is important to recognise that the aged-care sector had become much better organised, in terms of dealing with its own internal differences and then presenting a united front to parliamentarians and the community about what they wanted from aged-care reform. A lot of the difficulty that Prime Minister Howard got into in 1997 and 2004 reflected the fact that the aged-care sector itself was not united about what it wanted from reform. I think people in the parliament and people in the community were entitled to say: 'Well, if the aged-care sector cannot say what they want, why should we take a leap of faith into that unknown?' They learnt from that; they formed the National Aged Care Alliance, and they were able to work through their differences and present two important documents—first the NACA blueprint and then the NACA vision—about what they wanted from aged-care reform. NACA covered aged-care providers; the big church and charitable providers; private sector for-profit providers; the big consumer groups, like the Council on the Ageing, Alzheimer's Australia, Legacy and many others; aged-care staff; clinicians; and pretty much anyone with an interest in the aged-care sector. These were very good reports and they certainly assisted me and other government members in responding to the Productivity Commission report.

After we received the report, I talked to literally thousands of older Australians in dozens of forums around the country, in capital cities and in many regional communities as well, to hear from them what they wanted from aged-care reform. Many of these were general forums where people came along. A number of them were specific forums for people living with dementia and their families, and they were incredibly powerful opportunities for me to hear from them about the failures of so many different elements of our health system—the hospital sector, the primary care sector and the aged-care sector—to respond to and support the particular needs of the tens and tens of thousands of Australians who are living with dementia now.

We came up with a comprehensive package to respond to the Productivity Commission report in the 2012 budget. It really does transform the nature of our aged-care system. It starts to bring to the centre of the system the need for people to live in their own home for as long as possible. If there was a single message I heard from older Australians during that period, it was that they did not want the aged-care system to be about nursing homes—although they wanted to know there was a good nursing home system there to fall back on if they needed it—they wanted aged care to be focused on supporting them to stay in their own home for as long as possible and, if at all possible, for the remainder of their lives. Our package significantly lifts the number of home-care packages and home support packages that older Australians are able to receive in their own home.

We also brought a new level of transparency and robustness to the way in which the residential care or nursing home sector works, particularly around the question of what accommodation charges some older Australians will have to pay to get into those nursing homes. We heard terrible stories about people being charged arbitrary figures that would run into the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars as bonds to enter aged-care facilities, with no requirement on the provider at all to justify why a figure of $500,000 or $600,000 or $700,000 or even $800,000 needed to be paid to gain entry to an aged-care facility. We have brought much more robustness. I understand the government will keep in place the Aged Care Financing Authority, which puts providers to proof about what they are charging older Australians and why. I think that will very significantly lift the confidence that older Australians and their families have in the residential care sector.

I am particularly proud of the elements of the reform package that respond to the needs of people living with dementia. I want to pay particular tribute to Alzheimer's Australia. This is an organisation that has been providing wonderful support for many, many years to Australians affected by this condition. It lifted its game incredibly with a public campaign that caught people's attention in this parliament and across the Australian community—across the cities, across the regions. It really captured the imagination of so many Australians about the need to come to grips with what I think will be one of the two major epidemics for Australia in the 21st century, and that is dementia.

The numbers of people living with dementia, if we do not find a cure for this condition, will double every 20 years, reaching a million people by 2050 or so. As I said earlier in my address, neither our health system nor our aged-care system is well equipped to deal with those particular needs. To be frank, and without apology, the elements of the reform package that we adopted in this area largely come from the Fight Dementia Campaign that Alzheimer's Australia developed and talked about to parliamentarians across both sides of this chamber in the months leading up to the budget in 2012. I hope that the new government will support those elements of the aged-care reform package. I commend the new government for taking to the election campaign we just had a policy to provide additional funding for research into Alzheimer's. I think that is an important step in building on our reforms in this area, but again I cannot stress enough how important it is to shine a spotlight on the need of the health and aged-care sectors to respond to the needs of people living with Alzheimer's.

One element of the reform package where I think the government and the opposition part company is around issues associated with our workforce. The one change that we have seen to the reform package from the new government is to take $1.1 billion out of a program that was intended to start to lift the wages of aged-care workers. This is a very significant challenge, party politics aside. Aged-care providers are already having difficulty attracting and then retaining quality aged-care staff because of the low wages that they are paid. We currently have 350,000 workers in the aged-care sector. We are going to need about a million aged-care workers by 2050, to the point where one in 20 workers in Australia will be an aged-care worker. If we do not lift their wages, we simply will not get there. The position that we outlined in the reform package around wages reflected exactly the position that the aged-care sector had entirely signed up to in the National Aged Care Alliance blueprint. I am very disappointed that the new government has decided to turn its back on that element and particularly disappointed because I have not heard anything from the new government about what it intends to do to improve recruitment and retention of staff performing some of the most important work that our community has.

In the few minutes I have left, I want to say a few things about the wonderful community that I have the privilege of representing. This is my third election as the member for Port Adelaide. My two predecessors, Mick Young and Rod Sawford, both achieved seven elections, so I am a very long way short of those two very significant members for Port Adelaide. But it really is a privilege to serve the community. The community is made up of a number of different bits: the traditional port of Adelaide; the Lefevre Peninsula; the north-western suburbs, where I live; and then, beyond the salt pans, the northern suburbs, which have wonderful traditions and a wonderful culture. This is a community that is deeply tribal and has very high expectations—I know, from going to street corner meetings, shopping centres and footy clubs—of its members of parliament, whether they be members of this parliament or of the state parliament. I am acutely conscious every day I go to work of the high expectations that my community has of me.

They have achieved very big benefits from the last six years of the Rudd and Gillard governments. I have seen, from the time I started going to high schools in the area—because my kids are still at primary school I had not been to a high school since I was at high school—the capital upgrades that have been achieved over the last few years. When I started going to the high schools in my community, some of them only had one computer for every eight children. The changes that they have seen in the last several years have been extraordinary. There are trades training centres and community infrastructure. We saw part of the Rudd government's response to the global financial crisis bring new sporting and community facilities that are being used every day and every week. We have seen Water Proofing the West, which is a wonderful stormwater-recycling project. I know that those opposite do not see a role for the Commonwealth in urban stormwater, but this has been a wonderful project to do urban stormwater-recycling in that area.

In closing, I want to thank the vast number of supporters that we all need if we are going to get to this position and be a member of the federal parliament. Party members and party supporters again came out in force through the whole of the last three years, which were often very difficult years for members of the Labor Party, I can tell you. They came out time and time again, including in the election campaign, and supported me. For that, I am extremely grateful. They will now be working hard again, in the state election campaign over the next couple of weeks. There were so many other volunteers—not party members and not even people who would consider themselves ongoing party supporters—who also were willing to come out and give me support: well-wishers who would just say a good word to you in the shopping centre or at the footy club and make you lift your step when you might be feeling a bit exhausted. I had extraordinary officers, headed by Karen Grogan in the ministerial office and Julie Duncan in the electoral office, for whom again I am incredibly grateful. But without family and without friends—particularly without my wife, Suzanne, and my children, Ellie and Isaac—to come home to every now and then, when we have finally left and I can get back to Adelaide, this would not be worth doing. It is a wonderful privilege to be a member of this parliament. It is a wonderful privilege to represent Port Adelaide, and I am looking forward to the next three years.

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (16:52): 'The Murrumbidgee's winding waters light the lives of Wagga's sturdy breed. Like hope eternal its waters bright flow on as our undying creed.' There is a message for all of us in the opening lines to the school song of St Michael's Regional High School at Wagga Wagga. The school served the Catholic and wider community well from 1873 until its closure in 2003. It was a boys school, and it was my school, from 1977 to 1980. I loved almost every minute of it. Whether or not you attended what was a Christian Brothers institution, there is some resonance of St Michael's song to those who live along the mighty Murrumbidgee or who rely on its life-giving water. Riverina people are a sturdy breed. They have had to be in the past; they will certainly have to be in the future.

Murrumbidgee, from the language of the original custodians of the land, the Wiradjuri people, means 'big water'. The intrepid explorer, Captain Charles Sturt, after whom the Wagga Wagga campus of that remarkable university takes its name, went on his epic journey of discovery along the Murrumbidgee in 1830. Sturt and his party were often forced to carry their whaleboat on their shoulders rather than the easier and preferable option of rowing it down the river. That is because the river back then sometimes did not run—and sometimes it flooded. The greenies and the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists will probably dispute that, but it is true.

Whilst it is important that South Australia's water supply is secure and that the river environment is given due consideration, it is also imperative that the farmers and irrigation communities of the Riverina be allowed to continue what they have done on behalf of the nation for more than 100 years. The original Murray-Darling Basin Plan was stopped in its tracks in late 2010 by the loud and united voice of those marvellous people of Griffith and the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. They rallied in their thousands. They burnt copies of the daft draft. They forced the government to change course. People power won the day. Common sense won over rank stupidity.

On Thursday last week the New South Wales government, having held out for a better and fairer deal, finally signed the agreement with the Commonwealth. The plan is not perfect. No agreement on water would ever receive wholehearted endorsement by all stakeholders. Mark Twain is attributed as saying that whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over, and he was right of course.

I will always defend the rights of family farmers to have access to water to grow the fibre and food to clothe and feed our people and many others besides. When I came to this place in my first term I said my motto is that I shall not be silent when I ought to speak. Throughout my first term in this place that principle was tested many times, but I am proud to say that I stuck with it. I am proud of what I was able to achieve for the Wagga Wagga and Griffith base hospitals.

Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, which was first opened in 1963, has long been waiting for an upgrade. Successive New South Wales governments promised funding would come, but it was not until the New South Wales coalition came to government that the New South Wales state government started taking the project seriously. I am proud that the 2011-12 federal budget found $55.1 million for Wagga Wagga Base Hospital and the project is not only well underway but ahead of schedule.

Had it not been for a chance run-in at the Brisbane airport with Nicola Roxon, the former health minister, within weeks of the May 2011 budget, Wagga Wagga might well have missed out again. The minister was until that time mistakenly of the view that the project had been fully funded by the state government. Minister Roxon was willing to listen to my lobbying and found the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital the necessary funds. I am pleased to say that construction of the hospital is well underway. She also listened to my plea to give Ungarie flood assistance after Humbug Creek almost swept the village away on 4 March 2012.

I am also proud of the health funding boosts to the communities of Griffith and Hillston in the west and north-west of my Riverina electorate. The $11.3 million in funding in the 2012-13 budget for the Griffith community hospital was described by one of its chief proponents, John Casella, as 'good health, good for education and a real boost for our area', which has been hard hit in recent years. It was a delight of mine to inform the then Mayor of Griffith City Council, Mike Neville, of the project's success. He told me the news was 'just fantastic'. My good friend Adrian Piccoli, the member for Murrumbidgee in New South Wales and education minister, said it was 'the best political news he had ever heard'. This funding was complemented by the announcement that the multipurpose service at Hillston was also funded to the tune of $6 million.

The productive farming areas of Griffith and Hillston were both placed under considerable pressure as a result of uncertainty with future water availability at the time and the health announcements in those two areas were greeted with delight and surprise. As I have stressed in this place before, it is incumbent upon all of us never to forget the people who send us here and to stand up for them in this place always. For me, standing up for the people and being a voice for those who do not have one is why I ran for parliament in the first place and it is what drives me to come into this place again and again determined to represent the Riverina, a Federation seat, to the very best of my ability.

There is no denying that the 43rd Parliament was a roller-coaster ride for all in this place. It was the first minority government since that of John Curtin in 1941. It was a government that brought with it some of the worst debt, some of the biggest broken promises and a carbon tax that the Prime Minister promised would never be part of a government she led. Amongst this the Murray-Darling Basin Plan discussions were raging. Throughout the purpose-built irrigation areas in my electorate, which are rich with many cultures and have an abundance of produce upon which this nation relies, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan caused much angst. I will never forget the day I went to Griffith to attend the largest public rally. It was Thursday, 15 December 2011. At the Yoogali Club on Mackay Avenue in Griffith there were 14,000 passionate people there to fight for their water rights and their future.

It was a bad plan and the irrigators, the growers, the producers and the small business people all knew it. They knew what a devastating impact a bad plan such as that would have had on the purpose-built irrigation communities throughout the basin. There with me was my good friend and Nationals colleague Senator Fiona Nash, who is now the Assistant Minister for Health, and the opposition leader and now Prime Minister. They were there to listen, to care and to stand up for what was right. The then water minister, Tony Burke, the member for Watson, was there too. While we will never agree on the Basin Plan or on water rights, I do acknowledge that it took guts for him to turn up and, in the mist of all that passion and angst, stand and tell the then government's story.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was a threat to the people of my electorate and the basin. When I ran for parliament in 2010 I made it clear that I would be their voice in parliament, and I followed through on that, moving a motion to disallow the passage of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan through parliament. It was important to me and to the people of my electorate that I kept my word. Whatever the disallowance motion may have meant in this place—and my motion to disallow was defeated 95 to five—it meant a lot to the irrigators and producers of the Riverina to have a local member stand up for them, cross the floor and do what was right. Moving the disallowance motion has also meant that I as the local member can walk along Banna Avenue, Griffith's main street, and the main streets of many irrigation areas in my electorate and look farmers and people in the eye and tell them I did my best and I helped bring about a promise to cap buybacks at 1,500 gigalitres. The confirmation of this from my colleague Senator Simon Birmingham means that certainty has come to the irrigators of my electorate and they can plan their harvest with renewed confidence.

I am proud to be serving the government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, Senator Mathias Cormann. I am relishing the challenge of my portfolio responsibilities. I thank Rachel Thompson, Brett Chant, Julianne Hyland and Carl Fitzpatrick for their work in my office in this role.

In the context of everything that government does, it is not surprising that from time to time the design or administration of Commonwealth regulation results in inequitable, unintentional or anomalous outcomes. That is why we have discretionary compensation mechanisms—act of grace payments and the scope to waive debts owed to the Commonwealth—for which I have responsibility. It is my hope that with fewer and better-designed regulations and a risk based approach to their administration we will see better outcomes for citizens and less need to resort to discretionary measures such as act of grace payments.

The Productivity Commission noted last year that those regulators with the best relationship with small businesses were those that took a risk based approach to regulation. The Commonwealth has come a long way in improving its approach to risk management since Comcover was established in 1998, but there is still much more to be done. One of my priorities is to promote a more mature approach to risk management within the Commonwealth, an approach that encourages officials to place risk management at the heart of everything that they do. This will apply as much to my own responsibilities in managing the administration of non-defence property portfolio as to anywhere else.

The reforms of the Hawke-Keating era were a response to a fundamental problem: the world had changed but government processes had not. Decades on, we face the same challenge. International trade and commerce, advances in technology, medical breakthroughs—all of these and more are changing the way Australians do business and the way we live. When faced with this challenge, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government committed the fiscal equivalent of mortgaging the house to buy ice cream, as someone put it to me last week. The pleasure of short-term consumption has melted away, leaving us with a bucket load of debt. It is a big bucket, too.

Unlike those who preceded us, we are up to this challenge. The Commission of Audit is a crucial step in the process of considering the role of government. What is the government doing that people could reasonably be expected to do for themselves? Are the things we are spending money on worth the taxes needed to pay for them? Where is the government getting in the way of innovation and enterprise? What we need are reforms that will lift productivity and living standards into the future. Crucial to this process will be bipartisan support, the kind of bipartisan support that Hawke and Keating were able to rely on in pushing through their reform agenda. My invitation to those opposite is to work with us or risk being on the wrong side of history.

The incidence of mental illness and the high rate of suicide in regional Australia remains one of the least understood health crises facing our nation. Although the reasons why suicide is higher in rural and remote areas are not fully understood, we do know that suicide is roughly 30 per cent higher in regional and remote Australia. That is a huge challenge for our times. Indigenous Australians, young men under 24 years of age, men aged over 60 and farmers are particular population sub-groups considered to be at risk when it comes to suicide. Mental illness and suicide are felt especially severely in rural areas, where people are overrepresented in the statistics. There is nobody living in a country town today who has not been personally touched by suicide. How sad is that? It is the silent epidemic of our time. Minister Nash has done an outstanding job for rural health since she was appointed Assistant Minister for Health, and I commend her ongoing stewardship of this important portfolio.

As most would appreciate, life in the Australian bush can be harsh. It can mean hard work in often difficult environments. Farming and related industries can often be at the mercy of unpredictable weather. We are a land of flooding rains and long droughts. An entire year of production could be wiped out in the blink of an eye. External market forces and unfavourable currency can also put additional pressures on farming communities and families.

Even in the face of those adversities, it is difficult to reconcile higher rates of suicide in rural communities when these same communities consistently report higher levels of social cohesion than in major cities. People in rural areas are close-knit. They are friends; they are mates. People feel safer, there is more volunteerism and the social connections are greater in the bush. Wagga Wagga, my hometown, was recently judged the most family friendly city in Australia. These are the enduring strengths of our regions and these are also the very protective factors that can help fight the effects of depression and mental illness; yet the actual experience in the bush could not be more different.

Although the evidence from the millennium drought indicates that there was no increase in farmer suicides between 2001 and 2007 due to the drought, we know that there was a concerted effort by all governments to provide counselling and mental health services targeted towards various at-risk groups in drought prone areas during this difficult period. People from the bush are made of tough stuff, and when things start to become difficult they often try to tough it out, to not seek help, to fix their own problems. The fear of failure is a particularly strong motivator in the bush. It is this attitude, particularly among men, which makes it harder to identify when someone might be under more stress than normal, suffering from depression or perhaps even contemplating taking their own life. Despite widespread public awareness and education campaigns over many years, the stigma and shame associated with mental illness still exist to this day.

A lack of adequate services in rural and remote areas might account for some of the rural-specific suicide rate, and I know that all sides of this chamber have a commitment to providing services wherever they are needed. Indeed, I remain hopeful that this government will be able to deliver a headspace youth mental health centre in the Murrumbidgee, as I know many in my community would like to see. But dealing with mental illness is not just purely a health or psychological condition that requires medical help. While services do exist, we recognise that not every person suffering from mental illness will access them. Every community, therefore, has a responsibility to ensure that we are looking out for each other, that as resilient as we are no person can carry their burdens alone for too long. We do need to build resilience and to promote positivity.

The time has come for us as a community to shine a light on this unyielding tragedy that unfolds every week in households, farms and towns across our nation. We need to be able to discuss suicide and depression without the shame and stigma. Families need to be frank and honest with each other about the welfare of a family member, if they are concerned. Friends need to be extra vigilant about what their peers are going through. My message to rural communities is that there is no shame in raising mental health issues, there is no shame in being concerned for one another and there is certainly no shame in seeking help if and when we need it. Every person lost to suicide is an unnecessary and avoidable loss, and everyone has a role to play when it comes to suicide prevention.

I am humbled to have been returned as the federal member for Riverina and to have the opportunity to continue working for the people of the Riverina in the new Abbott-Truss government. I am thankful to the people of the Riverina for placing their faith and trust in me to be their voice again. My 2013 campaign director, Wes Fang of Wagga Wagga, is a loyal friend and confidant. Wes—the father of two young boys and he is expecting the arrival of another child in the coming weeks—worked tirelessly, day and night, for the campaign. There was nothing which was too much work for Wes. He spent hours stuffing envelopes, putting up corflutes, coordinating with the campaign committee and organising campaign events, all with a young family at home. Wes did all this in the midst of starting a small business, caring for his terminally ill father, Tom—may he rest in peace—and building a new home. I am very grateful to Wes for his hard work and dedication. I would like to publicly thank Wes and wish him and his wife, Nat Snyman, and their boys, Caspar and Atticus, all the best for the new arrival on the way.

My campaign committee was full of hardworking local volunteers—decent, compassionate and determined country people who did what was needed to get the job done. For many on my campaign committee elections are a familiar get-together of friends doing what the campaign needs, often late at night, packing booth boxes and distributing corflutes around the 61,435 square kilometres of the Riverina electorate. They did their job, because on election day we won every one of the more than 100 polling booths in the Riverina. Despite the cold and late nights, these volunteers got stuck in and did the job—as country people always do.

I thank Richard and Gretchen Sleeman of San Isidore whose constant help and support saw every booth across an electorate the size of Tasmania manned, with corflutes distributed, minutes taken at meetings and campaign coordination assured. There was no stopping Gretchen Sleeman—she is such a spirited community-minded person who worked day and night to make sure The Nationals had someone at every booth. Richard, amongst his commitments with many other organisations, made sure corflutes were ready, booth boxes were packed and people were informed. I thank them both immensely.

My indefatigable campaign committee had many people from many communities who would meet weekly to work through what the campaign needed. In addition to the people mentioned, there were the Hon. Rick Bull of Holbrook, Anna and John Dennis of Collingullie, Councillor Pam Halliburton and Margaret Hill of Junee, Barney Hyams of Batlow, Dominic Hopkinson, my wife Catherine, Zac Lederhose, Joanne McLennan, Barbara Parnell, Ange Smit, Robert and Lesley Vennell, and Anabel Williams—all of Wagga Wagga. They are all hard workers, they are all friends and I thank them very much.

I wish to also thank my wonderful predecessor Kay Hull for her ongoing and unwavering support, Ben Franklin for all that he has done and continues to do on behalf of the NSW Nationals, and Temora mayor Councillor Rick Firman for his counsel, his friendship and, at times, his humour.

I thank my staff in Wagga Wagga and Griffith who work hard every day to serve the people of the Riverina—not just those who vote Nationals but all the people of the Riverina. In Wagga Wagga Anabel Williams, Melissa Irvine, Anna Duggan, Dom Hopkinson, Kerrianne Malone, Ange Smit, Marney Johnstone, Helena Adamcewicz, Georgie Hutchinson and Jess Glynn have all worked for me at some point during my first term and I thank them for their efforts.

In Griffith, I thank Doris Bertollo, a stalwart of the Riverina electorate office who has worked in that role in Griffith for more than 25 years. After having worked for both Noel Hicks and Kay Hull before me, there is nothing Doris does not know about the Riverina or the immigration portfolio. Jess, Ange, Kerrianne and Anabel have all had a baby within the past 18 months or are due within the coming weeks—I am not quite sure what that says about my electorate office. I wish them and their families all the best with their new arrivals.

I am blessed with a loving and supportive family. My wife, Catherine, and I have spent 27 years together—she has put up with a lot—building a life for ourselves and our three lovely children. To see Georgina, Alexander and Nicholas grow into strong, intelligent, purposeful adults has been one of the great joys of our life together. So I am especially keen to ensure that government does what it can to help support families. If we have strong families we have stronger and more resilient communities. We should recognise the role of the family unit in providing people with a sense of belonging and as the foundation for people within communities to be socially connected with each other.

In closing, I restate my full commitment to serving the people of the Riverina. It is a wonderful electorate that stretches from the eastern side of Mount Kosciuszko—as Simon Crean described it, the high point of Australian politics—right through to many kilometres past Roto, which is past Hillston, the last big community. I do not take my responsibilities lightly and I will always fight for the interests of the people of the Riverina. I am extremely pleased that I am part of the Abbott-Truss government—not only do we have to fix the budget issues but also we are setting about putting Australia onto a sound economic footing so that we can meet the challenges of the future. There will be many challenges—challenges with water, challenges with border security and challenges for the economy—but we are up to the task. The Australian people gave us the mandate to carry out our reform agenda and we will do that with purpose, dedication and maturity.

Ms KATE ELLIS (Adelaide) (17:12): I begin my contribution to this address-in-reply debate by thanking the very good people of Adelaide for returning me to this place once more, and I put on the record my gratitude for their support and for the faith they have placed in me. Of course that is something that none of us should take lightly, and we know that it is our job to work each and every day to make sure we repay their faith in us. Whilst this address-in-reply debate is an opportunity for the government to outline what they seek to achieve over the course of this parliament, it is also an opportunity for each and every one of us to outline our priorities and the key issues we will be seeking to pursue. My absolute No. 1 priority is to stand up strongly for the people of Adelaide. For almost 10 years now I have come to this place and tried to make sure that I represent honestly and forcefully their views and their opinions, and I look forward to continuing to do that over the course of the next three years.

Before talking about some of the issues and some of the views that the people of Adelaide have asked that I bring forward to this place, I would like to thank a few people for assisting me to be here. Of course there is the Adelaide community. I have now run in four federal election campaigns, and never before have I seen the kind of support from local community members that we saw during the course of the last campaign. It was remarkable to have people who had not come through the ranks of the Labor Party or any political party, but who were working out in the community, ringing the office and saying they wanted to help. We had people dropping off supplies to feed our volunteers. One remarkable community member, having heard me on radio, knew that I was unwell and the next day they brought a get-well pack, which included honey and lemon and all sorts of remedies, to get me through.

Ms Collins: Did it work?

Ms KATE ELLIS: I am here, Julie, so it must have been highly effective. To all of these people, I say thank you. I would also like to thank my amazing staff, who worked day and night throughout the campaign, as they do throughout the term to ensure that we can carry on in this role. One of the consequences that is sadly inevitable in moving from government to opposition is that you do downsize those staff considerably, but we have a saying, 'Once a member of team Ellis, always member of team Ellis.' I know that they will always be there and I will always show my gratitude for having the absolute best staff members, best campaign committee members and best support that anyone could ask for. To all of them, I say thank you.

Now the job is to make sure that we stand up strongly for the people of Adelaide. Sadly, there is already evidence that there is going to be much to stand up against. I am really proud that we have managed to deliver record levels of investment and results to the Adelaide community over the last few years, but we have seen in the early stages of this Abbott government that they are a North Shore Sydney government who have never shown any interest whatsoever in South Australia or, particularly, in fighting for South Australian jobs. Already, just months in, we have seen the Holden closure and the thousands of local families who will be affected by that.

I will also place on the record today my thoughts for the Qantas workers who were delivered the incredibly bad news of 5,000 job cuts just last week. I know that many of those Qantas workers are residents of the seat of Adelaide. I have visited and spoken to them about their concerns about a lack of job security. I would like to say that I will absolutely use this parliament to ensure that we pursue a plan to get them back to work and to turn around the statistics which we have now seen showing that, since this government was elected, there has been one job lost every three minutes. That is unacceptable to my local community and it is unacceptable for our nation.

We have seen an emphasis by the Prime Minister, by the Treasurer and by others on Sydney, particularly North Shore Sydney. It is my job to make sure that South Australia is not overlooked. It is my job to make sure that the residents of Adelaide are not overlooked, and there are many key issues which are at stake. At the last election we already saw a number of issues to which we pledged funds for the Adelaide community which have so far not been matched and honoured by the government. I talk about things like the Women & Children's Hospital Foundation's funding for a feasibility study to look into increasing their research capacity, something that I would think that every South Australian should stand up and fight for and support.

Also in the local community there are things like new lighting and upgrades to the club facilities at the Broadview Football Club. This is a club that has gone through hard times. This is a club that has worked through those hard times and has massively expanded to see that the Broadview Football Club is now offering sport, entertainment and a community hub, and it has huge numbers of junior players coming through. We want to make sure that we are not turning away people who are engaging in a healthy pursuit on the weekends because the facilities are not there to support them. It is shameful that the incoming health and sports minister has said that they will not be matching just $120,000 for the Broadview Football Club.

One of the areas of my electorate for which I have a particular soft spot is Kilburn. The good people of Kilburn have worked long and hard and have too often have been overlooked by governments of all persuasions at all levels. These are people who have worked hard, have largely have come through public housing, have too much pollution in their area and have a lack of community facilities. Yet, when Kilburn Primary School was closed down several years ago, I launched a campaign to ensure that that space would be used for the local community, that there would not be more heavy industry moving into the area and that we would have a place where the community could come together. I was so incredibly proud to be able to announce $1 million in funding to build a sporting complex at the Kilburn Primary School site. It would be the new home of the West Adelaide Football Club, but, perhaps more importantly, it would also be open to community use.

Kilburn is one of the areas in the community that I represent where the demographics have changed hugely. They have an ever-growing Afghan community, who are pretty handy on the soccer field, I have to say, but are looking for a place to train and to play. There are also members of the Sudanese community moving into the area who are very keen to ensure that there is some place provided for sporting facilities and a facility where people can meet one another and come together as a community regardless of their background. Sadly, the Abbott government have failed to match this commitment too.

The situation of the Victoria Park grandstand is perhaps the most shocking. An area has been redeveloped around Victoria Park so that it can host a number of different community and sporting events. We pledged $62,000 for disability access at that grandstand. That is something that I would expect every member of this parliament would support, but, shockingly, $62,000 has now been ripped off of them so that this disability access will not be able to go ahead and so that these community events will not be able to be attended by all members of our community. It is on issues like these and so many more that it will be my role to stand up for the Adelaide community.

One issue that I particularly want to touch on, noting the minister who is at the table today—Minister Briggs—is the issue of the South Road upgrade. The assistant minister may know that this is a particular pet project. It is a big project. It is an incredibly important project for both Adelaide and South Australia. It is a project that was estimated to cost $896 million to upgrade South Road between Torrens Road and the River Torrens. It is a project which the former Labor federal government struck a deal with the state government on a fifty-fifty funding commitment so that this project could commence. This project did actually commence. There have been properties that have already been acquired. There was work that had already commenced. There is a site office that is up and running that had conducted community consultations. There was actually work happening on the ground to ensure that this became a very long overdue reality.

Even this year alone, it is an issue that I can say I have heard about at countless street corner meetings—that the residents are absolutely furious. Not only has this project now been brought to a stop but the residents in the local area actually received a flyer in their letterboxes during the election campaign saying, 'If you vote for the Liberal Party we will upgrade South Road to the western suburbs.' This was to the very residents who had fought for the Torrens to Torrens upgrade—not just for years but for decades—only to then learn that indeed the progress on that project would be stopped.

But I am hoping that there will soon be good news on this front. This is where I look towards the assistant minister. I was delighted on the weekend when I read The Weekend Australian—which does not always bring me delight, I should say! But I was particularly delighted to read this article, 'Tony Abbott eyes $5 billion for new road funding'. I note that the assistant minister said:

Infrastructure is already a major commitment of the federal government and I think you’ll see an even greater commitment, because there is a great need to lift our national productivity.

Now, I do not always agree with the assistant minister sitting at the table—

Mr Briggs: You never do!

Ms KATE ELLIS: But on this particular occasion, I say to him that if he wants to prove the point that this is not a government that is only focused on North Shore Sydney, that this is not a government that has absolutely and totally overlooked South Australia, then there is no reason why this funding, which is apparently on its way, will not ensure that the Torrens to Torrens road upgrade of South Road gets back underway and that we see this project delivered for the community that I am so proud to represent.

We know that the economic case stacks up. We know that there is far more policy rationale for doing this than the Darlington upgrade, which politics has persuaded the government to prioritise instead. We know that it is long overdue and we know that it will not just benefit South Road; it will not just benefit those who are using it as a corridor—the trucks and the like—but it will actually benefit the whole area. All the studies have shown that it will decrease massively the amount of traffic which is utilising Churchill Road and a number of other areas.

So whether it is on fighting for the South Road upgrade or whether it is on fighting for the funding which the Abbott government has already stripped away from the Adelaide community, I am delighted to be here to fight for those residents and to make sure that we continue to see real results.

Of course, I have been given a task on top of just looking after the people of Adelaide, and that is to serve as Labor's shadow minister for education and early childhood. They are two areas that I am deeply passionate about; in fact, the area of education was the very area which inspired me to look towards politics, knowing that education has the power to transform individual lives more than any other area of investment. It is a job that I take on with quite a sense of responsibility because I am incredibly proud of the huge amount of progress that we made in the education area under the Rudd and Gillard governments.

This was an area that was transformed. We saw new policies come into place: a national curriculum, which had been talked about for so long, finally became a reality; we could shine a light on school performance through national testing and making results available through accountability at a school level; and, importantly, we undertook the biggest review of the Australian school education system in over 40 years, under the panel led by David Gonski. Throughout that process, we had those opposite saying: 'There is no problem. There is no equity issue in Australian schools. There is nothing to see here; the funding model is not broken.' But, of course, the Australian public knew better. The Australian public sees the overwhelming evidence that there is far too big a gap between those schools which are high performing and those schools which are struggling, that this is a gap which is increasing.

There is far too big a gap between the performance of a student who is enrolled at a metropolitan school and one who happens to live in country Australia. There are far too many huge equity gaps in the Australian education system, and the Australian public know that, because whether you are a student, a teacher or a parent you see each and every day what is happening in our school system.

We saw on almost the eve of the election those opposite finally recognising that this was a critically important issue to the Australian public. So what did they do? They had a total reversal of policy, where they came out and declared that they had seen the light—they, too, agreed that we needed to see these school reforms. And in what has already been shown to be absolutely the biggest fraud committed on the Australian public, we now see that that was just not the case. They stood up—and not just on one occasion but time and time again—like the now Prime Minister, talking about how he was on a 'unity ticket' with Labor when it came to school funding, and the now education minister, saying:

You can vote Liberal or Labor and you'll get exactly the same amount of funding for your school.

He said, 'Well, we've said that we will adopt the new school funding model from 1 January next year for the next four years. So, it yes, we've accepted that there is a new school funding model.' The Prime Minister also said:

So, we will honour the agreements that Labor has entered into. We will match the offers that Labor has made.

The minister also said, 'Funding will be the same under the coalition as under the Labor Party.'

What is truly shameful from this government is that they stood at polling booths around Australia saying this. They had posters, 'Your school will receive the same amount of funding under Liberal or Labor.' But we already know that that is absolutely not true, and it was a sham that they tried to pull on the Australian public. It is our job on this side of the House to say: 'We will not give up on these reforms. We know that our school system is too important to let those opposite just throw away all of the progress that has been made.' But what we will also do is to point out, each and every day, to those who still come in here crying about broken promises on carbon tax, that every pamphlet they sent out to their communities and every sign in a polling booth about school funding has been shown to be utterly false in the most disgusting attempt to trick the Australian public that I think we have probably ever seen.

We now know that there is a huge difference in the amount of funding that schools will get under this government. What we were talking about under Labor's Gonski reforms would see $14.65 billion in additional funding flowing to Australian schools. Under the model put forward by those opposite, that figure is just $2.8 billion. Worse than that, those opposite, who claimed that there would be 'no difference in the amount of funding that your school would get', have then come in and said, 'Actually, we're going to throw away all of the conditions that were placed on state governments.' Even though our reforms had finally changed a system that saw too many state governments cutting funding to schools, not keeping up with indexation and not making co-contributions for additional federal funds, those opposite have come in and said, 'Yes, we'll send out a no-strings-attached blank cheque to the state governments but we will do absolutely nothing to stop them from cutting from their school education budgets the same amount in additional money that they're getting—or, indeed, more.' The government have said that they will do nothing to require state governments to put in co-contributions for the dollars in federal funding that they have received, which shows that there is absolutely no way that any member of the government, any of those opposite, can repeat the promises that they made at polling booths on election day. We have seen it from the Prime Minister. We have seen it from the education minister. They can no longer say, 'Your school will receive the same amount of funding under us,' as the school would have under the Labor Party, because they know that it was a sham the entire time.

We also heard that there would be no cuts to education, yet we have seen $1 billion stripped from the trade-training centres program—because, at a time when we are losing jobs, at a time when we are seeing youth unemployment, those opposite think it is a smart idea to cut the very programs that were put in place to skill young Australians. And now there are alarm bells ringing about the Youth Connections program, a program that was put in place to help young Australians who are at risk of being disengaged and falling out of our education or employment systems to stay engaged. There are huge question marks about whether those opposite are just going to cut another program.

I say to all members of this House: it is our responsibility to fight against the youth unemployment figures that we are seeing in this nation. Now, I do not claim that there is one silver bullet that is going to turn that around—and those opposite are being dishonest if they claim that there is—but I do say that you do not keep a single young person in employment by cutting the programs that are already in place to try and support them. There is absolutely no rationale for that. On this cut and on a range of other cuts, I am proud to be here in the parliament representing the very good voters of Adelaide, and I pledge to work my hardest each and every day to do just that.

Mr BRIGGS (Mayo—Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (17:32): It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and it is the privilege of all of us who are elected to this place that we get the opportunity to do so. I should say, as the member for Adelaide leaves the chamber, that she should be very happy with the new government's decision in respect of South Road, because we will, as the Prime Minister said in October last year, deliver a north-south corridor in South Australia and help build the productive capacity of our state within a decade. We have said time and time again that we will do both the Darlington and the Torrens-to-Torrens projects because they are both important projects.

As I said at the start, it is an absolute honour and privilege to be in this place. This is the third occasion I have had the opportunity to make this address. Actually, technically, it is the second, because the first time, as I was the child of a by-election, my maiden speech was on a bill. But it is a real privilege to be here again, and I thank the people of Mayo for delivering a very solid result for me and the Liberal Party on 7 September. I can report to the House that we had a swing to the Liberal Party of 5.22 per cent in my electorate, which puts me into the semi-marginal area of 62½ per cent, so I am very pleased with that. I did not quite get to Alexander Downer's best result in Mayo, but we will keep working away at that.

We only lost at one booth, which was at Bridgewater, by seven votes, and we know that Tim Burvill, who was in charge of that booth, was responsible for that! And I wish him a happy birthday for tomorrow. We had some great results in the new areas of McLaren Vale, McLaren Flat and Willunga, which we had inherited from—and she will not thank me for saying this—the member for Kingston, who had lost those areas in a redistribution. The member for Kingston is actually a very hardworking member and much underrated in this place, in my view, and I think that was one of the reasons that we had an 11.4 per cent swing in McLaren Vale, a 15.3 per cent swing in McLaren Flat and an 11.7 per cent swing in Willunga.

So it was a great result and it was a result based on, I think, a lot of hard work on issues that were important to my electorate. The first and overwhelming issue was that people wanted to change the government, and they did. That was terrific because that gave us the opportunity to implement our plan for Australia, to ensure that we are stronger and more prosperous than we would have been down the path the Labor Party was taking us.

But locally there were some important issues as well which I would like to deal with. Firstly, the most contentious issue in my electorate in the last three years was certainly the former government's decision to break an election promise following the 2010 election and put a detention facility at Inverbrackie without consulting the community first, breaking a commitment not to have more onshore detention facilities. That decision caused a lot of community resentment, a lot of community anger, around Woodside and Oakbank, and those parts of the Adelaide Hills, particularly the fact that they had never been consulted. They had never been asked by the former government whether this was something they would support. It was a commitment of ours at the election, a commitment that will be fulfilled in the very near future, that we will close that facility's operations because it is not an appropriate way to deal with the border security issue that the minister for immigration is so magnificently handling. So we look forward to that announcement. There have been some people, particularly some Adelaide Hills councillors who are certainly not of the Liberal persuasion, or even of the Labor persuasion, who constantly make claims that the centre retains community support and therefore should remain open.

The now minister for immigration and I put a very clear proposition to the electorate prior to the last election that we would close it if we won the election. The swing towards the Liberal Party in the booths most related to this centre, at Woodside and Oakbank—great Australians—was nine per cent in Woodside and nine per cent in Oakbank. Those members of the Adelaide Hills Council—who really should focus on delivering services to those of us who pay rates rather than focusing on federal politics and continuing to make these false claims—should look to what their voters actually said. There will be an opportunity in November when the council elections come up for those voters to send exactly the same message to some of those councillors.

An issue which I have fought for consistently since being pre-selected and since being elected to this place and which I will continually advocate for—and be proudly standing there when we have turned the first sod, as, ironically, the minister responsible—is the second interchange at Bald Hills Road off the South Eastern Freeway to cater for the growth in Mount Barker. Alexander Downer, when he was the member for Mayo, made a commitment in the 2007 election campaign that the federal government would contribute funding towards it. Mark Goldsworthy, the state member for Kavel, said the same in 2006 and 2010 and is saying the same in 2014. I made that commitment in the by-election in 2008 and 2010 and in 2013 we committed $16 million towards the project. I am happy to report to the House that, after being ignored for four years, the state Labor government, who opened up all the land around Mount Barker for development but failed to invest in the infrastructure, and Minister Koutsantonis, to his credit—and I do not think I have ever used those words in the same sentence before—have announced at the last minute that the Labor Party, if they are re-elected in a week and a half's time, which I truly hope does not happen, will fund the project.

So the people of Mount Barker and the people of Mayo know that, no matter who wins the state election, this project will be delivered. I will proudly be standing there later this year when we turn that first sod and we make sure that this project is delivered cheaply, efficiently and quickly, in line with our agenda to deliver more infrastructure to make Australia more prosperous and more productive. This is a very important piece of infrastructure. It will help alleviate the concerns of residents about the increased growth in our region after the state Labor Party decided to open up our region for that growth without investing in the necessary infrastructure. This is a small step to ensuring that the increased number of people who are living in Mount Barker and its surrounds have access to the freeway in a safe and efficient way. At the moment there is one exit to the freeway from Adelaide Road and it has become a constant bottleneck as the community has grown. It is not safe. We are in a bushfire zone in the Adelaide Hills, and one exit from a major town is far from safe. Having a second exit and entrance will make the town more efficient and much move liveable for the residents of Mount Barker. It is a huge win.

While there has been some misreporting in the local papers about what was offered by the state government, it is a proud achievement that I am extraordinarily proud to be part of. We have committed to this project and we will see this project through. I very much look forward to this road being built. Hopefully, after the 2016 election, if I am returned—I do intend to nominate again—I will be able to stand here and say that it is now delivered, open and operating, unless something gets dramatically in the way of that. That is, I think, the No. 1 commitment that I have pursued.

The second commitment that I have pursued is the swimming pool on the south coast—the Fleurieu aquatic centre. It is an issue which has raised some controversy in recent times. I committed to this project when I first ran in the by-election and I committed again in 2010. In this election we took the correct position to ensure that we were not making commitments that we could not fund, and there was some question about the commitment. But, given the decision the Deputy Prime Minister and I made to allow the uncontracted rounds 2, 3 and 4 of the RDA funds to be spent, the Fleurieu aquatic centre will also go ahead, and we look forward in the very, very near future to signing that contract and getting that project underway for the people of the south coast.

Kangaroo Island, a beautiful part of my electorate, is an area that has great opportunity. It also has some challenges—as do many island communities across our country—because of the cost of freight and the cost of getting to the island. It is the jewel in the crown of South Australia and also of our country. About 60 per cent of overseas tourists who visit South Australia do so for the specific purpose of visiting KI. Our plan to abolish the carbon tax and to take regulatory pressure off business will help KI prosper, but we will also work very closely with the Mayor of Kangaroo Island, Jayne Bates—who does an outstanding job—to see what we can do in addition to ensure that the infrastructure needs are met on Kangaroo Island so that they can take advantage of all their strengths.

One issue that is bedevilling them—an issue that I have long had concerns about—is the blue gum forests. The MIS program from some time ago shows that when governments intervene to try to create industries and markets, it inevitably has consequences which are long and painful. There is no better example than the locked up productive land on Kangaroo Island, which could be farmed and used for much better purposes. It is destroying the community of Parndana, and we do need to try to find a solution to this. It is not easy but it needs to happen because Kangaroo Island is a jewel in our crown. Because of the fertile soils and the climate, food production on the island is a real strength, and the blue gums are inhibiting that. It came from bad policy. It is still bad and getting worse and we need to fix it.

Another very proud achievement—and something which was the issue of my by-election—is in respect of the Murray-Darling Basin. It is something that I—as someone who grew up on the river, in Mildura, and who has been involved in this issue for a very long time—passionately believe we needed to address. When I was in John Howard's office, there was the groundbreaking plan to address the crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin. It has taken too long to get to this point where we can come to an agreement that we need to ensure that we can be as productive as possible in the basin but that we have a healthy basin. It is a terrific achievement of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, Simon Birmingham, to finally bring all the parties together—all the states—last week to sign up to the intergovernmental agreement and put those reforms in place, which will ensure that the deal that was done during the last term of parliament is locked away and achieved. I must mention Henry Jones, who is suffering from some health issues at the moment. He is a fisherman at Clayton and has fought day in and day out for years for this result. He will see the result and, I think, sit back with an element of pride. He deserves to have an element of pride, because he worked so hard, as did so many South Australians. It is a great achievement, particularly for Senator Birmingham, and I congratulate him on what he has done in that respect.

One of the commitments I made in the preselection for Mayo back in 2008 was that I would introduce a mobile electorate office to get around my electorate. It is a large electorate with diverse communities—the communities of Yankalilla, Victor Harbor and the Lower Lakes, out north to the Eden Valley and Springton, right through to the Adelaide Hills, where I live and continually show that I cannot ride a bike properly, and Kangaroo Island. So it is not easy for constituents to get to my office in Mount Barker, so I committed that we would get out and get around. During the last term I visited over 160 communities with my mobile electorate office, providing the opportunity for local residents to come and see me to raise issues. As I am sure all members of parliament in this place know, even if people do not always agree with you—or, indeed, often agree with you—they appreciate the opportunity to raise issues about Australia, politics, the economy, their jobs, their health care, their education and what have you. The fact that they get the chance to talk to their local member and that we live in a country where we can advertise that we will be somewhere and we have no fear of advertising that and we are not held up in our office constantly is another example, I think, of what a wonderful country we have. People are nearly always polite and respectful even if they are not always in full agreement, and we will do our best to convince those who do not necessarily agree with our perspective. I think getting around is an important thing that we do in my electorate, and I will continue to do it as much as I can—obviously with the additional responsibilities.

Following the election, it was a privilege, an honour and a shock to get a phone call from the Prime Minister inviting me to join the executive of the government. It is a humbling thing to be part of a ministry and to be one of the leaders of the government in driving our agenda through. I am constantly aware that this is a job which is not a right; it is an absolute privilege. We need to work at it every day to ensure that we are doing as well as we can to achieve the aims of the government. In infrastructure, as I said very early, we have bold plans. We have hard and difficult decisions to make to ensure we get our plans done, but we will get them done. We will invest in building our productive capacity. We will invest in ensuring that Australia can do better than we are doing today and that small business, medium business and large business can compete as well as they possibly can. We do not believe in government by chequebook; we believe in government giving all Australians the opportunity to achieve their best. I think the Prime Minister has been outstanding in delivering this message since we came to government. I think that, as time goes on, he will be seen as one of our best prime ministers. He has all the capacity to deliver for Australia. Australians respect Tony Abbott because he is a good man with strong values and strong beliefs and he will pursue those for the good of our country. I fundamentally believe that.

In conclusion, I should acknowledge a few people. We would not be here without volunteers. They are the geniuses of us all, and without them we would not be elected. David Hall is first among equals in that respect. He goes out of his way. He lives in Victor Harbor and runs a manufacturing business which is doing better every day, and he travels and gives up his own time, often with very little thanks. He is a great man, and I thank him so much for what he has done. We would not have been able to do it without Marg Westmore, and my state counterpart Mark Goldsworthy could not do it without Marg Westmore either. She is a treasure extraordinaire. I acknowledge Richard Munro, who ran the campaign and was the genius behind the Briggs Bus, an innovation which will continue—that will be back in a campaign; don't you worry about that—and Bryan Reid for all he has done as well. There are many others whom I do not have the opportunity to thank in the time remaining. I do want to acknowledge Brian Dohse, though. He sadly passed away the day after I had my thank-you drinks in December. He was a great man and we will remember Brian for a long time to come.

I must thank my staff—because that is what they have written on my piece of paper! They were terrific. I had no changes in my staff in the whole of the last three years. I think it is a really important part of a political office to ensure that you have a consistent group, and I thank them very much for what they have done. They have a bigger task now with more people on board. Laura, Amy, David, Amelia and Rhiannon—and I am going to forget someone now—are terrific people and they have done a great amount of work for me. So with those remarks I again thank the people of Mayo for re-electing me to this place. Avril is the other one, and she will kill me for that! I seek leave to continue my remarks at another time.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Mr CHRISTENSEN (Dawson—The Nationals Deputy Whip) (21:00): Many reckless pieces of legislation were brought before this place under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor-Greens alliance, but perhaps none were more reckless or more damaging to Australian families than their Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill 2011. That law redefined family violence to mean just about anything, and encouraged vindictive parents to make fraudulent claims to remove other parents from families. The Labor minister at the time claimed that no-one would make such false claims. Yet in a submission to the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs inquiry relating to the 2011 bill, Professor Patrick Parkinson from the University of Sydney referenced a paper called ‘Domestic Violence: Views of Queensland Magistrates’ when he said:

A … survey of 38 Queensland magistrates found that 74% agreed with the proposition that protection orders are used in Family Court proceedings as a tactic to aid a parent’s case and to deprive their partner of contact with their children.

Fast forward a year after the law came into effect, and we have this article from The Sydney Morning Herald of 6 July 2013, the headline of which said it all: 'False … claims are the new court weapon, retiring judge says'. Justice David Collier was retiring from the Parramatta Family Court after 14 years on the bench and spoke about mothers who, he said, directed false allegations of abuse against former partners. He said:

When you have heard the evidence, you realise that this is a person who's so determined to win that he or she will say anything. I'm satisfied that a number of people who have appeared before me have known that it is one of the ways of completely shutting husbands out of the child's life.

It's a horrible weapon.

The consequences of such allegations can be extreme. A former colleague of mine and of others in this place, the former member for Hume, Alby Schultz, spoke with some of the victims of family law who were treated most unfairly and, unable to see light at the end of the tunnel, ended up taking their own lives. In his retirement speech, Alby had this to say:

… in 2005 I produced a booklet based on three years of hard research about the Child Support Agency and its relentless, unjustifiable anti-male culture, which culminated in the suicide of a number of my young constituents. Confronting the very serious issue of male suicide caused by the gender biased CSA was treated as a politically sensitive no-go area by many politicians, which I embraced as a challenge on behalf of 4,000 families and individuals across the country.

Like the member for Hume, I too have had my share of constituents who feel they have reached the end of their tether. One example is a constituent whose ex-partner moved from their mining town home to the coast. When he followed so he could continue to spend time with his son, he could no longer find a job that paid as well as one of those mining jobs out west. But the CSA deemed that he was 'capable' of earning the much higher wage, so they forced him to make child support payments as if he was actually receiving that income. That situation was just not sustainable for him, so he had no choice but to move back to the remote west, giving up access to his son, so he could pay exorbitant amounts of money to keep his ex-partner in luxury on the coast. The CSA, through its actions, denied this father his right to have meaningful access to his child and, through its actions, denied the child its right to a meaningful relationship with its father.

In another example, a Mackay man had court orders in place that specifically precluded his ex-partner from moving to another town. In breach of those court orders, his ex-partner moved to an undisclosed location in another town, depriving him of his right to see his children. To rub salt into that wound, his ex-partner then requested a change of assessment from the CSA because, in their view, the ex-partner was no longer looking after his children. Despite knowing that the ex-partner was in breach of court orders and that the father's care time had been reduced against his will, the CSA still increased the amount of child support he had to pay to his ex-partner.

Family law and child support is a very messy area and there are no winners. But, under the current system, some of the losers are needlessly being turned into massive losers—even to the extent of losing their children, and their life. When constituents come to me with family law and child support issues, they almost always end their story with the phrase: 'How is that fair?' Well, it is not fair. The system is broken and the system needs to be fixed. It can be made fairer. We can do something to restore the balance in this area so that fathers can be fathers and that children can have a relationship with their fathers. There will never be winners in family law; there will never be winners in child support. But the least that we can do in this place is to make it fair for all parties.

Mr LAURIE FERGUSON (Werriwa) (21:05): Tomorrow at the Holy Trinity Church in Minto in my electorate there will be a joyous recognition of a wonderful Australian. I speak of Brisbane-born Sister Kerry Macdermott who, for 30 years, has lived in the community of Werriwa, formerly in Minto and more recently in Macquarie Fields, both of which are fairly deprived areas. She actually saw Minto change very considerably with housing department redevelopment. In that time, Sister Macdermott has particularly emphasised a role with Indigenous Australians. She worked at a settlement near Uluru for a number of years, and still each year raises money to send back Christmas presents to the children in that locality. She also worked at Redfern with the legendary Mum Shirl and Father Ted Kennedy.

Her activities in the Werriwa electorate have included a central role in the establishment of the Winga Myamly Reconciliation Group. Each year she is the driving force in the memorial service for the Appin massacre of 1816, which of course is getting very close to its 200-year anniversary, when at least 14 Indigenous Australians were either shot or driven over cliffs—that is, at least, the number of bodies found; obviously, the numbers over the precipice would have added to that number. She is also a regular attendant at the Sorry Day service at Minto. She makes sure that a local Aboriginal art and craft market occurs. Typical of her interest in that policy area and in helping Indigenous Australians was the fact that she travelled with local Indigenous community residents down here to hear the historic apology by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

She has lived in the community as a member of the Catholic order of Our Lady's Nurses for the Poor, more commonly known as the 'Brown Sisters'. She lived for 30 of the 50-year celebration she will be having tomorrow with fellow sister Patricia Murphy. Typical of the realities they faced in this deprived community was the first evening they arrived, in December 1984. Two bedraggled St Vincent de Paul workers came to them with a woman in her 30s who had nowhere to live that night. That first night, putting her up in their house, was the beginning of a reality of very strong commitment and connection to the community. There are many tales of people who were at the end of their tether. There was, for instance, a single parent with two children who, with the sisters' help, are in now a situation where one child has started to own their own maintenance business and the other is just about to complete secondary schooling with a school based traineeship. This would not have occurred without the fact that the sisters lived in the area and that they contributed so much to the community.

Sister Kerry is also an accomplished poet. She is especially pleased that her work has been published in the Koori Mail on a number of occasions. This is a woman who is endlessly active. She has very pronounced organisational skills. The cooperation of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in these events is extremely encouraging. My area has a very prominent Indigenous health centre. It typifies a fairly high Indigenous population. As I say, it is people like her who really make you believe in humanity. She is little acknowledged—she is never going to get the Order of Australia—but is out there every day of the week working for Indigenous and poorer Australians. She has played a good role in regard to the questions of the housing redevelopment that is occurring throughout the electorate, most recently at Claymore. On moving to this electorate, I found that it was very traditional with my predecessor, Mr Chris Hayes, that she dropped into the office with a cake every month or so.

I am pleased to say that on this important day tomorrow, while I cannot be there, two of my staff, Linda Perrett and Vicki Meadows, who are very close to her, will be in attendance. I salute her effort. It is what Australia is made of. She has played a tremendous role for the 30 years she has been in our area, and before that, with Indigenous Australians.

Mr IRONS (Swan) (21:10): I rise this evening to conclude my remarks on the address-in-reply to the Governor-General's speech. I ran out of time during my speech. Where I left off, I was discussing our positive local campaign that we put forward to the people of Swan at the election. As I said, we wanted to win the election on positivity, not negativity. I had just reached the fifth part of our five-point local plan.

Madam Speaker, you will not be surprised to hear that the fifth point is continued representation in Canberra for my constituents who are affected by aircraft noise. This remains an issue in the electorate of Swan and has been a particular issue since the previous government changed the flight paths back in 2008 with very minimal community consultation. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, including a Senate inquiry, which I will not go back over in my speech today due to the lack of time. However, I do want to make one point, and that is this. In the last parliament the Labor Party confirmed that they were the only party that is opposed to taking any sort of action on aircraft noise in Perth when they voted against the private member's legislation called the aircraft noise insulation (Perth Airport) amendment bill 2011, a bill that some may have referred to as the Moylan-Irons bill.

The Liberal Party, the National Party, the Greens party and the Independents were all in support of this bill, leaving only the Labor Party opposed. For months this legislation was delayed until a last-minute deal stitched up by the member for Grayndler saw a key Independent who had previously indicated support abstain from the vote, and it was lost by one. That member was Mr Windsor, who held the seat of New England. I am just letting my constituents know who the abstaining member was. Also, the other Independents who failed to meet their commitment were the member for Denison; the member for Lyne, Mr Oakeshott; and the member for Kennedy, Mr Katter. I hope my constituents are aware of those gentlemen not supporting the Moylan-Irons aircraft noise bill. The people of Swan live by an airport, but that does not mean flight paths should be changed without consultation. My constituents can be assured that as their local member I will continue to stand up for them in this parliament.

Just as we had a positive local plan, the coalition took a positive plan to the election, a plan of hope, reward and opportunity, a plan to stop the boats and the tragedies at sea. We promised to ease the cost-of-living pressures, a major issue out in the west, by repealing the carbon tax and repealing the mining tax, an anti-WA tax, to allow growth in my home state of WA. We put forward our plan to repair the budget, and I cannot tell you how many times during the campaign I was told by constituents that they were voting Liberal because they trusted us to sort out the budget mess. But, more than this, we promised to put the adults back in charge of this country—an end to the childish internal wars of the Labor Party that took up the complete focus of the previous government. And we are already delivering on those commitments.

Finally, I turn to my ongoing work in a couple of broader areas. I take this opportunity to state my continued commitment to representing the forgotten Australians and former child migrants, particularly as the work of the royal commission continues. The progress made over the years since the federal apology in 2009 has been significant, and the royal commission is continuing that healing process, but there is of course more to be done. As a patron of CLAN and FACT, I know I have a role to play in that process, as does the member for Kingston, who is a patron of CLAN as well. I ask all members to be aware of the special circumstances of the forgotten Australians during their constituency work over the next three years. Many have complex situations. I recently helped one such former ward of the state finalise his immigration status.

Secondly, I recommit myself to the work of the Standing Committee on Health, now in my role as the chair. The member for Kingston, who is here, is the deputy chair of that committee.

Mr McCormack: What a combination!

Mr IRONS: It is a combination, I know! During the previous five years, I have been privileged to serve on the committee as deputy chair, and we have conducted many worthwhile bipartisan inquiries. Unfortunately the previous government responded to only one of the seven reports requiring a response. As the chair, I will seek to do better.

Hopefully, in the time I have left I can convey that this is an exciting time for the electorate of Swan. Every corner you look around, there is something going on. There is development, large-scale projects and local enthusiasm. It is a great honour to be elected to represent the people of Swan as their federal member. I pledge to continue to deliver, and get results, for the people of Swan going forward. I am often told by constituents that I am well-known for my focus on local issues and my record of delivery. I look forward to the coming Senate election and hopefully to returning three Liberal senators to this place on 5 April.

Ms RISHWORTH (Kingston) (21:15): I rise today to speak about the importance of Commonwealth funded financial counselling services within my electorate of Kingston. Federal funding enables local organisations in my electorate, such as Anglicare and UnitingCommunities, to provide essential services to people experiencing financial difficulty. I believe this funding is essential to helping those facing extreme financial hardship.

The Commonwealth Financial Counselling program was introduced by Labor in 1990 in response to an overwhelming demand from individuals and families seeking financial assistance. The program was aimed at assisting those most at risk of financial exclusion and disadvantage. The first increase in funding to this program came when Labor was returned to government. We recognised that the existing funding was inadequate to support the demand for services. We strengthened the program in 2008 by increasing funding for financial counselling services, increasing the funding from $2.5 million to over $20 million per annum. This enabled local organisations to continue to provide services desperately needed for the local community.

I am calling on the Abbott government today to commit to continue to provide funding for these essential services. There is huge uncertainty about the ongoing federal funding for this program. Local organisations have contacted me with their concerns because they have not been told whether or not the Abbott government intends to continue with Labor's commitment to providing this essential funding.

Debbie is one of those financial counsellors in my electorate who provides essential financial counselling services to people in need. Debbie is concerned that the financial service providers may not know until just a few weeks before their contract expires whether funding will continue. This has placed stress and pressure on both the staff and clients, who are faced with uncertainty into the future. Financial counselling is so important for my local community. People often seek free advice when they feel they have no other options left to them. Like Debbie, I am concerned that if the Abbott government chooses to cut this essential funding, many people and families in my electorate will not have access to the services they desperately need.

Financial counsellors like Debbie help people experiencing financial difficulty make informed choices by providing free and, importantly, independent and confidential support and advice. Financial counsellors provide support right across many areas, whether it is negotiating with creditors, advocacy, budgeting or referrals, just to name a few.

I understand that circumstances like sickness, family breakdowns, unemployment and overcommitting on credit can lead to financial difficulty and the need for this assistance. Financial difficulty can have a severe impact on one's physical and mental health and place a strain on relationships. Providing this support is really essential to preventing further issues. Financial counsellors also play a critical role in preventing people from getting into further financial difficulty. I know the work that happens in my electorate really does shine a spotlight on some of the common traps people can get into, warning people of these traps. As many people would know—and I have spoken about it in this place before—one of these is the large retail stores that offer interest-free deals for large household items. With these interest-free deals, people often get a store or credit card. There is no obligation. They get told they do not have to make a payment for 24 or 48 months; they have this interest-free period. But of course, after that time expires, huge interest rates apply. Some are even up to 30 per cent. There are a lot of difficulties people can find themselves in with these and other such schemes. These include miscalculating or forgetting when the interest-free period runs out because there is no legal obligation to remind the buyer of when the interest-free period is to run out; paying only minimum repayments, which sometimes is not enough to pay off the full purchase price before the interest-free period runs out; not realising that some contracts do not allow you to make early or extra repayments; and not understanding the additional fees such as establishment fees, monthly service fees and late payment fees that actually arise.

Interest-free deals may be an attractive option for people experiencing financial difficulty. However, financial counsellors are in a good position to alert and educate people about some of the potential pitfalls that can happen. As we go into the next financial year, I call on the Abbott government to continue their ongoing funding for financial counselling services to provide certainty for this important program and ensure that the local organisations that support those in need are also supported.

Mr COULTON (Parkes—The Nationals Chief Whip) (21:20): I would like to speak tonight on mobile phone coverage and, in particular, mobile phone black spots. It has been a great frustration to me in the 6½ years I have been a member in this place that up until now there has not been one cent spent on mobile phone black spots. I can still remember sitting in this place in 2008 while the then Labor government raided the $2½ million that had been put away for the regional telecommunications infrastructure program. The Labor government took that money and squandered it on $900 payments and other such things. They left my community languishing without any mobile phone coverage.

Mobile phone coverage is not a luxury. It is something that many people take for granted. Indeed, we are getting to be a two-class society for those who are missing out on being connected. I would like to mention a couple of locations in my electorate. The village of Goolma is a reasonably densely populated area on a major road between Mudgee, Dubbo and Wellington. It has absolutely no coverage at all. These people are in danger of not being able to get assistance with road accidents. There was a bushfire there last year and one of the brigade vice captains could not be contacted because the SMS alert that goes out does not work if you do not have mobile phone coverage.

The village of Wanaaring is at the other end of my electorate, 200 kilometres west of Bourke, where the electorates of Parkes and Farrer meet. There is no way a commercial case could ever be made to put up a tower at Wanaaring. But, tragically, a gentleman died there last year because he had no ability to call for help after he had had a turn and fallen off a windmill. We need to look at places such as that. During the Coonabarabran bushfires, in which 53 homes were burnt, not only could the brigade members not be contacted but many of the evacuation SMSs that went out were not received. Those messages went out on the Telstra network. Many of the people in Coonabarabran either did not have any mobile coverage at all or were on the Baradine Optus exchange, which did not carry the SMS alerts. Communications are now taken for granted. When people send out a text, they assume someone gets it. In many cases, they do not.

I was at Condobolin last week. There are coverage needs between Condobolin and the Tottenham area, which, Madam Speaker, you know so well. The machinery is now satellite guided and it is monitored remotely. It might be monitored in Wagga Wagga, in America or somewhere in Belgium. But, if that machine is operating in an area that does not have mobile coverage, the mechanics cannot make an assessment of what needs to be done because they need that signal. We have machinery worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that cannot be used because something as simple as mobile phone reception, which you would think you could take for granted, is not there.

There is help on the way, although I have to admit it is just a start. There is $100 million that has been set aside by the coalition for the Black Spot Programme. This will be a start towards some of these communities getting towers up. Another black spot is Copeton Dam. It is on the edge of my electorate, in the north-eastern corner, where my electorate meets that of the member for New England. At times such as long weekends, Christmas and Easter, there are close to 10,000 people at Copeton Dam. If there is an accident or an emergency on the dam, there is no way to call for help.

Mobile coverage is not a luxury. The discussion that we have been having in this place for the last few years about broadband, fibre-optic cable, fibre to the premises and so on is really irrelevant to people in these black spots. If they do not have a phone service, they become more and more isolated from the society that they live in.

Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (21:25): I meet a wide range of people as a local MP. I would like to share the story of one of them with you. Nancy Pittman Outten, now living in Rosewood, formerly of Raceview, is a constituent who has a daughter diagnosed with auditory processing disorder. Now 13 years old, Holly Pittman Outten has just started high school at Rosewood State High School. Nancy and her husband, Gary, first became aware that things were not quite right with Holly when she started prep. Nancy talks about how, at a Hungry Jack's birthday party for Holly, Holly became withdrawn and overwhelmed by all the noise and activity, despite being very excited about the party in the lead-up.

Later, Holly's prep teacher pointed out that Holly had low muscle tone and some problems with fine motor skills and suggested that she repeat prep before embarking on grade 1. Nancy admits to having felt frustrated with the teacher because she was not ready to hear a report like that, and neither was Gary. I think every parent can relate to or empathise with the struggle Nancy and Gary had in the early years of Holly's childhood. Nancy spoke to me of her frustration in trying to get the help she knew Holly needed. She spoke of the struggle they had getting Holly to do her homework. And she spoke of the day-to-day difficulties of parenting a child with an undiagnosed learning disorder.

I am told that auditory processing disorder is not easy to detect and diagnose. In 1954, the first real research into the disorder was carried out, but it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that research into the disorder was done in any depth. A simple definition of auditory processing disorder is 'what we do with what we hear'. I am informed that the experience of auditory processing disorder may include: distraction; high sensitivity to loud or sudden noise; difficulty spelling, reading and/or writing; poor comprehension; and disorganisation and forgetfulness. These are apparently just some of the symptoms of this disorder.

Eventually, Nancy and Gary heard about auditory processing disorder when Holly was about seven years of age. They had not heard of it before, and the all-knowing, all-powerful Google told them, they thought, that it was dyslexia. Auditory processing disorder is formally diagnosed and assessed by an audiologist. I would like to read you a comment made by Nancy at the time of Holly's diagnosis:

The audiology report confirmed Holly has auditory processing disorder. Everything that was stored away in the back of my mind came flooding forward: can't remember spelling words; can't follow multiple instructions; reluctant to participate in class discussions; unable to do the work; doesn't understand money; being overwhelmed at her birthday party—everything I'd noticed or been told about Holly now had a reason behind it.

It is clear from Nancy's comment that Holly's diagnosis was something of a light-bulb moment for Nancy and for Gary. However, the struggles continue for Holly, Nancy, Gary and their family.

Nancy told me how connecting and communicating with other parents of children with auditory processing disorder through Facebook helped her to deal with the disorder. This turned out to be no ordinary support group. This group of parents, from right across the world, decided to pool their resources and recount their own stories in a book with a view to helping other parents and sufferers of auditory processing disorder. The book, Same Journey Different Paths,was published last year and gives a comprehensive and helpful overview to anyone interested in the disorder. Because auditory processing disorder varies in severity and symptoms, the reader will get a broad outlook and is bound to find help and advice from at least one of the contributor's stories.

As Nancy and her family discovered, half the battle was finding out what was actually wrong with Holly. They knew things were not as they should be but were floundering in the dark in terms of what was actually going on with her. I am an advocate of people who are proactive—of people who, when they see that something needs to be done, get in and do it. I see this trait in a lot of parents I meet in the electorate of Blair. People who have a child who is ill or who is living with disability are some of the most remarkable people I have ever encountered. I commend these parents, and I commend Nancy on her tenacity, courage and determination. I wish her, Gary and the whole family, especially Holly, well.

Debate interrupted.

House adjourned at 9 :30 pm

Monday, 3 March 2014

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ) took the chair at 10:30.