VICHANSARD
Whole Speech
Member Selected - HUDSON

I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we stand here today, the Kulin nation, and pay my respects to their elders.

I am proud to stand in this chamber today as the new member for Bentleigh and as the third Labor member to represent the electorate in the Victorian Parliament. I congratulate the Premier on Labor's magnificent win in the state election. I thank my campaign team, headed by Cartha Maloney and Bill Kneebone. Without them I would not be here today.

The people of Bentleigh have placed their trust in me to be their elected representative. It is a huge

Bentleigh is an electorate which in recent years has changed dramatically. In the postwar period it was a major settlement area for returned servicemen and women, who left an indelible imprint on the electorate. They were modest people who served their country, worked hard and raised their families. Their community pride resulted in great local institutions such as the Moorabbin hospital, which was built because the community had a dream and helped to raise funds to make it a reality. These dreams were crushed when the accident and emergency department at the Moorabbin hospital closed under the Kennett government - a decision that still rankles with the community today.

When I surveyed the electorate as a candidate 46 per cent of the respondents nominated health as their no. 1 priority, and many, without prompting, raised the closure of the emergency department as something that concerned them. The Bracks government has recognised this and embarked on a series of initiatives that will improve health services in the community. They will also go a long way towards restoring the sense of local community ownership that my constituents are looking for. These include the first-ever ambulance station in Bentleigh, a new elective surgery ward and operating theatre at Moorabbin, and two new radiotherapy bunkers that will double the cancer treatment services available in the area.

In the last decade many of the old diggers have been replaced by new waves of young families and migrants, taking advantage of an established residential area and facilities close to the heart of Melbourne.

Their aspiration for improved schools and a safer community will be met through the major redevelopment of a number of schools in the area and the increased presence of uniformed police in our local police stations. I am excited about what these commitments mean for Bentleigh, and I will look forward to bringing them to fruition over the next four years.

I grew up in the nearby suburb of Chadstone, as part of the Holmesglen public housing estate. Waves of migrants came to Holmesglen and found their first homes in tin Nissan huts along Gardiner's Creek. My parents not only raised six children but were also active in the community. I do not know how they did it.

My mother instigated and ran a netball club for 25 years, while my father built school ovals and tennis courts and served on the school council. They showed me the importance of compassion, hard work, honesty, discipline and community. They were modest people but fiercely ambitious for their children.

They taught us that what counts is what you do, not who you are. So the measure for me will be what I am able to achieve in public life, not the position itself.

My parents have been the single most important influence in my life, and I am proud that my mother is here today to share this moment. I regret that my father was rushed to hospital and could not be here today.

I also know that I could not have come this far on my journey into public life without the love, support and advice of my wife, Marie, and I know I will continue to be indebted to her and our children, Pru, Dashiell, Elliot and Freya, for their tolerance and patience.

My own political values have been shaped by my family and by the years that I spent working in community organisations and in government.

My heroes were not only politicians like Gough Whitlam but people like Ronald Henderson, who through painstaking research gave us our first real picture of what poverty means in this country. Many of the social justice measures that we now take for granted had their genesis in Henderson's work.

My first job was working at the Brotherhood of St Laurence in an anti-poverty project in Fitzroy called the Action and Resource Centre for Low Income Families. Working with people like Connie Benn, David Scott and Hayden Raysmith I came to understand the grinding reality of poverty and its damaging impact on individuals and our society.

Poverty can be effectively tackled only when people are empowered to exercise greater control over their own lives. This is achieved when governments are prepared to tackle the barriers that lock many people into poverty.

For example, people must have the security that comes from a decent income and affordable housing. Without this they will struggle to access educational and employment opportunities or participate meaningfully in the broader community.

It is the first duty of governments to make sure everyone has a stake in society and can share fairly in its benefits. To ensure that this happens we must set goals and targets against which we can measure our progress and be held accountable for specific outcomes. This government had the courage to do this, not only in relation to education but in a wide range of areas of

I believe in a positive role for government, not for its own sake but as a means of ensuring that everyone, no matter what their circumstances, has equitable access to economic resources, to essential services and educational and employment opportunities. Our educational funding must recognise that some students will need more assistance if they are to effectively overcome the disadvantages that come from a deprived background.

The past century has seen tremendous gains in the health of our population, but the burden of disease and injury in Australia still falls much more heavily on the poorest people in our community, including our indigenous population. Our public health funding must recognise this fact if further health gains are to be made.

This is not a question of sacrificing economic objectives to social development. There is no reason why providing for people's social needs should not itself produce economic benefits - for example, providing social protection for unemployed people delivers economic returns in the form of increased stability, increased consumer demand and increased labour market flexibility. It is very hard to contemplate major structural adjustments if there is no safety net for affected workers.

The same is true of labour market programs. I have always thought that the conservatives miss the point about these. They are not principally about job creation, rather they are designed to give disadvantaged workers the opportunity to gain much-needed work experience, confidence and skills so that they can compete more effectively in the labour market.

With Australia's economy undergoing structural change, new opportunities have been created. However, at the same time there are new inequalities. While in the last decade new jobs have been created in the information technology and service industries, there has been a collapse in traditional manufacturing jobs in the old industrial suburbs. In the past 20 years the gap between the wealthiest and poorest sections of our community has steadily widened, a gap that has principally been driven by market forces. During that time it has only been the real increases in social security payments achieved by Brian Howe as social security minister in the Hawke government that have prevented poverty from getting worse. I would like to acknowledge the enormous debt I owe to Brian Howe as a political mentor and friend. In my view he is one of the great ministers we have had in this country since Federation, and even today the benefits of his reforms are felt by everyone who has to rely on social security as their principal source of income. It is a privilege to have him present to hear this speech.

It is also true that you cannot have a decent social security system without decent wages. The fortunes of those who depend on social security are bound up with the level of wages paid to those in the work force, particularly at the bottom end. People cannot work their way out of poverty unless we tackle poverty traps that are inherent in poor wages and conditions, as well as poorly constructed income tests. These can only be improved through the work of unions and I am proud to be a union member.

One of my more chilling experiences was to speak at the Dallas Brooks Hall at a rally for injured workers to support those whose workers compensation entitlements had been unilaterally cut by the Kennett government. These people were being thrown onto social security payments at a moment's notice. As I spoke I felt the waves of fear and distress wash over me from the crowd. It is an experience I will never forget. Fundamental rights are a critical part of social justice, and I promise to stand up for them at every opportunity.

It is the task of Labor governments to ensure that no matter what else we do, we work to improve the position of people at the bottom of the heap. Increasingly, high concentrations of disadvantage can be found in particular suburbs and regions hard-hit by structural change, creating further barriers to social and economic participation.

In my years in the community sector, including six as director of the Victorian Council of Social Service, I had the privilege of working with a myriad of individuals and organisations that are the critical building blocks for a cohesive and inclusive society. Government can seem distant and inaccessible to many people and community organisations are often the mediating structures through which people gain access to services and participate in decisions that affect their lives.

Community organisations shine the torch on areas of need that are often overlooked or ignored by governments. They are crucial advocates for people's rights. The very best of them also connect people to each other and provide a vehicle for empowering people to take control of their own lives. Victoria is lucky to have a vibrant and healthy community sector and I am indebted to it for what it has taught me about people and community.

In a globalised world the quality of our cities, the health of our urban environment, their degree of social harmony and their economic activity will be the major factors determining whether Victoria continues to prosper. In a world of mobile capital, people prefer to visit, study and invest in cities that are pleasant places to live and have good infrastructure.

In Melbourne this is evident in the huge explosion of our service industries, in the increasing attraction of Melbourne to world-class scientists and the growing number of students from the Asia-Pacific area.

Likewise, people do not want to live or invest in cities that are riddled with crime, choked with traffic or have a poorly trained work force. We will not be able to compete internationally if traffic congestion imposes huge costs on business or freight cannot be moved efficiently around our ports. We will not maintain our quality of life unless public transport as well as roads and freeways are part of the long-term solution. I look forward to working on the government's commitment to increase public transport's share of motorised trips within Melbourne to 20 per cent by 2020. It is crucial to the future liveability of the city. Our infrastructure program over the next 10 years will largely determine our future success.

The Bracks government has recognised this with the development of its greenhouse strategy, Melbourne 2030, and the huge increase in expenditure on infrastructure projects over the last three years. These initiatives will be among the lasting legacies of the Bracks government.

However, our cities will not be attractive places to visit and do business unless we also renew those areas in which there are high levels of social disadvantage and high concentrations of public housing and unemployment. Nor can we leave people on the fringe without access to services, transport or jobs. We cannot afford to forget these areas and the people who reside within them.

The same is also true of our natural environment. We will not be able to sustain our cities or the rural areas around them unless we tackle greenhouse gas emissions, air quality, the level of water consumption and the disposal of our wastes.

Economic, environment and social policy must be inextricably linked. When I first went to work for Brian Howe in Canberra he told me to be humble about social policy, not because he did not see it as important, but because too often it is seen as subservient to economic policy by opinion leaders and decision makers in this country. In Brian's view, you only made headway with patience, good research and carefully constructed policy, not hubris or rhetoric. This was the hallmark of his public life. It is an approach I hope to emulate during my time in this Parliament.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Delahunty) - In calling the honourable member for Swan Hill I advise the house that this is his inaugural speech, so I ask that honourable members extend the courtesies and traditions of the house to the honourable member.

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