Steve Georganas
Adelaide · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“It reflects one of our most important national values. Health care should be available to everyone, not just to those who can afford it. Many people prioritise their health and paying their everyday essentials. That is a fact.”
“That means more than 172,000 occasions when individuals and families have been able to receive urgent medical care without needing to attend an emergency department or a public hospital and without needing to face out-of-pocket costs.”
“That is really important because that gives the confidence to those people that I spoke about earlier, those families that are doing it tough that may have previously considered whether they received the health care that they really required and was a necessity or whether they put food on the table.”
“People receive treatment earlier, chronic illnesses are managed more effectively, hospital admissions are reduced and pressure on our emergency departments is eased. Every dollar invested in effective primary care saves costs elsewhere in the system while delivering better health outcomes for Aussies.”
“I too rise to make a contribution, just as the member for Pearce just did, on the Health Insurance Amendment (Incentive Payments and Other Measures) Bill 2026. At its heart is Medicare.”
“In my home state alone, bulk-billing has risen to 80.4 per cent across the state, representing one of the strongest improvements in the country. We heard, the other day, other statistics around the country. They are all increasing, and this is a good thing. It means people are having to fork less out of their pocket when visiting a GP.”
The complete record
Every one of 587 lines we hold for Steve Georganas, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 3 of 12.
“I rise in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2026-2027 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027 because they're not simply legislative measures; these are commitments to fund new initiatives, to strengthen existing programs and to deliver real support for those who need it and where Australians need it the most. The measures in this budget are to help Australians in every way possible, especially the ones who have been missing out for a number of years. At the moment, this year, unexpectedly, there's a war in the Middle East. It's a war that no-one was expecting, it's a war that has put a stop to a lot of the world's oil trade, and it's pushing up prices. We have no control over it, and there'd be no control if the others were in government either.”
“In other words, they were wiping their hands completely. That's why we're in the mess that we're in today. I was very proud also on the weekend to see young couples, for the very first time, being able to bid at auctions to purchase a home that was completely out of their reach a few weeks ago because massive investors were coming in and outbidding them.”
“What we saw is what is possible when governments work together to deliver housing where Australians need it most, and that's why today I'm very proud to speak on this motion and to move this motion that the government is delivering a further $2 billion in investment in infrastructure to enable new housing, bringing total investment in housing to $6.3 billion. This investment is more than 50 times what was previously invested in in nearly over a decade. I recall clearly being in this very place on that side of the House and seeing people from the front bench asking the then coalition government about housing policy, and I recall clearly the answer coming back—look at Hansard if you want to—saying that it was not the job of the federal government, that it was something that the state Labor governments at the time were responsible for.”
“As I said, this is an $80 million project in my electorate for 208 homes, and importantly it stands as one of the first developments in the country. In fact, we visited with the Prime Minister back in May last year, before the election, when the foundations were being built for this project. It's important that we back these projects through the Housing Australia Future Fund as part of the government's $47 billion homes for Australians plan. What I saw on that visit was not just the construction site. We saw the progress from over a year ago to its final fruition, where we saw this young couple, Erin and Harry, getting their dream home and having a roof over their head and having the stability that every Australian deserves.”
“It was just incredible to see this young couple have the ability, through the Housing Australia Future Fund, to purchase at this price and to hear them talk about the joy and the stability that they had in their life. The government has provided, through HAFF, funding billions of dollars, five per cent deposit schemes, shared equity and a massive build that's taking place right now all around Australia to ensure that we have housing stock so people can access that important thing that I said: shelter and a roof over their head, which is the No. 1 issue when it comes to stability. Just in my electorate of Adelaide, for example, there are currently 918 new homes that are being built or have already been built. I'm very proud of it. Week by week, I visit many of these construction sites, and it is so important.”
“Earlier last week, the Prime Minister visited my electorate to see first-hand the progress that's being made in the construction area of housing in the suburb of Prospect. It's called Prospect Corner. This is an $80 million, 208 home, urban renewal project which is in Prospect. These are the type of projects that are making real differences to people's lives, real differences that are turning their lives around at that. At that site we saw a young couple, Erin and Harry, who had just purchased their first home using the affordable rental program to save up for that deposit and to get affordable housing in this area, which is close to transport and close to all the services.”
“I'm quite proud to be standing here today to speak about a very important motion, and that is the motion to tell the government that what we're doing is in the right direction, delivering a further $2 billion of investment in infrastructure to enable new housing. I do so because, when we think of a person's life, one of the most stable things in anyone's life is having a roof over your head. First, there's the need to be able to sustain yourself through food and, secondly, is shelter. That gives you stability. If you don't have that shelter and that roof over your head, then getting a job, having a stable family et cetera can be very difficult. Therefore, I'm very proud of Labor's position and Labor's policy on housing.”
“I move: That this House notes that: (1) the Government is delivering a further $2 billion of investment in infrastructure to enable new housing, and that this brings the Government's total investments in housing-enabling infrastructure to $6.3 billion; (2) this total investment is more than 50 times what the Opposition invested in housing-enabling infrastructure after over almost a decade in office; (3) this new funding lifts the Government's housing investment to $47 billion; and (4) the Government is delivering 55,000 social and affordable homes, nearly 150 times what the Opposition built during its time in Government.”
“It should protect families, protect consumers and not frustrate them; support essential services such as our telecommunications industry and not undermine them; and ensure that no organisation providing critical communications infrastructure can treat reliability and safety as optional. I'd like to congratulate the minister, who's in the room with us, for this good bill. I commend this bill to the House.”
“We require these reforms, because under stronger powers and stronger penalties, the regulator is better positioned to respond quickly when issues do arise—when telecommunications services cause harm. When industry code becomes directly enforceable, providers have a stronger incentive to comply, and consumers have a clearer pathway for protection. When infringement notices can be issued more effectively, poor practices will get addressed faster. There's proof in the pudding for that. When there's a registration scheme for carriage service providers, it becomes harder for dodgy operators to sit in the shadows of the market and sell their wares to unsuspecting consumers. Ultimately, it will be easier to identify who they are through this bill. This is what good regulation should do.”
“Imagine if you had a parent or grandparents in an aged-care facility and you just couldn't get through. Staff were also reported to experience frequent call dropouts and disconnections, including when transferring calls. For an aged-care home, this is not an inconvenience; it's a risk. This is the sort of stuff that we're giving powers to ACMA to be able to investigate. I know it's currently being looked at, and we're hoping for a resolution very soon. When families can't reach their loved ones in an aged-care facility, anxiety rises. When staff can't rely on the phones to coordinate their carers for shifts et cetera, that brings difficulties. When nurse call systems are unreliable, the stakes are not financial—they are human. We will be able to stamp this out through this new regulation and through this bill.”
“In correspondence, the general manager wrote to me—I asked him to put it in writing—and described ongoing issues with the facility's phone and nurse call system. This was a system that a particular provider had connected. Systems are not optional in an aged-care home. They're fundamental to safety, communication and care. The facility paid a substantial amount to this provider for the system to work. Originally scheduled to be completed in a short timeframe, there were problems. Though the aged-care home kept on paying, it was still not functioning to an acceptable level. Despite that, the provider began charging fees, and, during a particularly concerning period, families reported that they couldn't reach or struggled to reach the facility by phone, causing distress and complaints.”
“This goes back a number of years, and I know that practice has been wiped out, but this is the type of stuff that we're trying to wipe out of this industry. It's about that and, obviously, about what people pay to ensure that they receive those services. It's about trust, it's about fairness, and it's about protecting Australians in a world that's increasingly connected. This bill matters because behind every industry code and every regulatory power is a real person that's affected. Sometimes, whole communities can be affected, as they depend on a service that simply has to work. In another story, I was contacted about some serious concerns at the Ridleyton Greek Home for the Aged, which is in the western suburbs of my electorate.”
“She came running back to me and said, 'It's someone from the government—the NDIS.' I thought, 'That's strange,' because I knew at the time there was a scam going around, or providers were trying to get extra business by claiming that the NDIS was coming to your area and, if you signed up, they would become your provider. I quickly went out and said to this chap: 'With absolute confidence, I know that the NDIS is not doorknocking. Where are you from?' We dug a bit deeper and found he was just a door-to-door salesman. The provider was using salespeople to increase their sales in, I think, an unethical way by not actually explaining who they were and where they were from. There was a stop put to that very quickly.”
“It also increases transparency by establishing a registration system for carriage service providers, ensuring bad actors and bad providers in the system cannot operate unchecked, because too often, as I said earlier, we've seen that Australians have been exposed to unreliable providers, misleading practices or services that fail when they are needed most. I'll give you a small example of a provider that was trying to gain business in a particular area in my electorate—it was in the western suburbs of Adelaide, where my son and his wife reside. I went over to visit the grandchildren that day, there was a knock on the door, and my daughter-in-law went to the door.”
“That is a message to providers that perhaps have been doing the wrong thing or are not quite up to scratch with the services they provide for the money that's being given to them by the consumer, to actually have a really hard think about it. It really sends a message. It modernises the penalty framework so the Federal Court can impose fines that reflect the scale of wrongdoing, including up to $10 million, three times the benefit gained or up to 30 per cent of a company turnover. The bill goes further. It strengthens enforcement by allowing ACMA to act quickly and decisively, including issuing infringement notices and ensuring industry codes are not just guidelines but enforceable standards.”
“It ensures that the Australian Communications and Media Authority, better known as ACMA, our telecommunications regulator, has those tools at its fingertips, has the authority at its fingertips and has the strength that it needs to protect consumers and hold the industry to account, because, without real consequences, standards mean very little. We've seen it in the past. That's why this legislation is significant reform. It increases the penalties for breaches of industry codes and standards, not by a small margin—not just by a token margin, as we've seen in the past—but dramatically, from $250,000 to $10 million.”
“But when that trust is broken—and many of us, in our electorate offices, see it on a regular basis, where people have paid for a particular provider to offer a particular service and, for whatever reason, it's a dead area where the internet drops out and their phones drop out—we see it, and we see the frustration that goes with that. Well, there is now a responsibility, and we give that responsibility to the authorities to be able to investigate and to ensure that the providers are doing the right things by the consumer, because, as I said, when that trust is broken, when consumers are misled, overcharged or exposed, it's everyday Australians who pay that price. That's why this bill is providing the strong action that is required. The bill recognises the truth that a modern economy demands a modern regulator with real powers to act.”
“It's how families stay in touch and how businesses are connected to the business world and operate. And, of course, particularly for regional and remote communities and communities that are isolated in other ways, it's their only connectivity that connects them to modern Australia. So you can see how important it is to ensure that everyone in Australia has connectivity, is connected to their telecommunications provider and has the services that they pay for. As with every other service, you pay for a particular service and you require that service to give you the goods that you've paid for. In this case, it's telecommunications. Every Australian, as I said, relies on it, and, because of that, every Australian deserves a system that's fair, accountable and built on trust.”
“It gives me great pleasure to speak on the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025, an important bill, because these are reforms that are designed to ensure that the Australian Communications and Media Authority is not just a regulator in name or a toothless tiger. This is about empowering it so that it's an effective protector of consumers, and that's why this is a good bill. When you look at telecommunications in this country, no longer is telecommunications about wires and connecting a landline to a house or to a business. There's far more that goes into it nowadays. Our connectivity is reliant on a whole range of things, from the internet to the providers ensuring that we have connections so we can stay in touch with our families.”
“He'll be remembered by the Greek community, and we'll be doing condolence motions at the World Hellenic Inter-Parliamentary Association. I had a couple of emails from a former congressman in the US who knew Peter and who found out about his death; he sent me an email saying how sad it was. There were people in Athens who heard about it, through his connections. It shows what sort of a person he was. He made connections with politicians from all around the world through this organisation. May he rest in peace. He will always be remembered.”
“At a point of time, there was a Filipino crew that was in town, in Adelaide, who hadn't been paid and had no food on board. The ship was embargoed and had to stay in port until all these measures were in place. I remember that, during this particular campaign, the media was reporting it as 'a ship of shame'—so Peter's great work resonated in the community. Peter also had some sadness in his life. He lost his son Matthew, who became a state MP. I went to a couple of conferences in Athens with Matthew over the years. Peter will be remembered by everyone that worked with him and had dealings with him. He'll be remembered here in this place. As the Greek Australian media has reported this week, there have been articles on him pretty much every week since he passed away.”
“He would have been one of the rarities in this place, yet he prevailed and became a cabinet minister—the Minister for Transport, the Minister for Aviation, the Minister for Resources, the Minister for Housing and Aged Care and even the assistant Treasurer and the minister assisting the Prime Minister as well. But when you look at everything, one thing that stands out is his inquiry report S hips of shame . As I said earlier, shipping was in his blood. Some great work came out of that. Living in Newcastle, one of the largest ports in Australia, you would see ships that would come and go stranded, sailors that hadn't been paid, ships that weren't fit for humans to live on board et cetera. Yet, through his international connections, Peter was able to ensure there were measures in place when things took place.”
“He lobbied the government at the time to assist and played an active role in the fundraising. There are a number of speeches that he made in Hansard promoting and pushing and lobbying for the memorial. In fact, they started the fundraising in 1987 and they completed it in 1988 during the commemoration of the Battle of Crete in May, which is coming up next week. Peter was at the opening, and spoke at that opening, of the Hellenic Memorial on Anzac Parade. He played an active role within the Greek community across the nation. He was someone we all looked up to. When Peter came into the parliament, it would have been a very different parliament in those days. You can just imagine—a majority of men, all white and Anglo-Saxon.”
“We were all very proud of him. I remember my parents talking about him continuously. Even though they were in Adelaide and had never met him, they knew about him. You can imagine migrant workers who had come here with no English, no language, no skills—to have one of their own as a cabinet minister was a huge thing. It was actually a huge message to the community that Australia accepts you and Australia will give you every opportunity, just like it did for Peter Morris. He was very good at ensuring that he understood that he was the member for Newcastle but also a role model for Greek migrants all around Australia. He played a very active role within the Greek community in Newcastle but also nationally. He lobbied very hard for the Hellenic Memorial at the end of Anzac Parade on the left-hand side as you go up to the War Memorial.”
“Some of our colleagues from other nations didn't quite understand the constitutional need for good by-laws of an organisation. I know that our Australian colleagues—Senator Bolkus; Peter Morris; Demetri Dollis, who was the deputy leader of the Labor Party in Victoria at the time; and Theo Theophanous—worked very hard to make sure that it was modelled very similar to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. In fact, this year we're celebrating 30 years with a conference in Athens. Michael McCormack and I will be attending. I've already spoken to my executive board over there to ensure that we have condolence motions for Peter Morris and, of course, for another comrade and colleague who passed away earlier, Nick Bolkus. So there will be an Australian presence there this year. Peter, as I said, stayed close to his Hellenic roots.”
“Peter stayed connected to his Greek roots and heritage. He had close ties with the Greek community in Newcastle but also all across Australia and internationally. Peter was part of the World Hellenic Inter-Parliamentary Association, which I'm very privileged to be the vice-president internationally of at the moment, and Michael McCormack is a member. Peter was part of the inaugural group in 1996 that formed this association in Athens with fellow congressmen and senators from the US, Europe, South Africa and South America. At the time when they were forming the World Hellenic Inter-Parliamentary Association, the Australians, including Peter, were very, very keen and adamant that we have a constitution and by-laws. They were modelled on the CPA, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.”
“If you look at the history of the island of Symi, the majority of people, before migration to Australia, were actually seafarers. You can see where Peter Morris got this interest in seafaring and shipping; it was obviously in his blood from his father's side of the family. Even today, some of Greece's richest shipping tycoons come from that particular island. That's not to say that Peter was a tycoon, but obviously he had a keen interest, as many from that island do. His mother was Ethel Thomas, who was a Novocastrian. His parents obviously met and set up a house in Newcastle, and Peter grew up in the confines of a fish-and-chip shop, as many Greek migrant kids of his era and my era did. His early life would have been around the small business of his father's in Newcastle, which had a very large Greek migrant population at the time.”
“We've just heard some great words from the member for Macquarie, the member for Riverina and the member for Newcastle, and from the Prime Minister yesterday and the Leader of the Opposition, about the life of Peter Morris. I can't claim to have known him that well, but I met him on a number of occasions and spoken to him many times on the telephone. When he used to visit Adelaide, he would always drop into my former boss's electorate office—Senator Nick Bolkus's office. They were quite pally and friendly, and I got to meet him through working at Nick's office back then. Peter was the son of a Greek migrant. His father, Agapitos Montiadis, migrated to Australia and to Newcastle from the island of Symi, which is north of the island of Rhodes on the eastern Aegean Sea, just off the Turkish coast.”
“Since last July, parents who are welcoming children into the world through birth or adoption have had super paid on that leave, and around 180,000 parents each year benefit from this change. Because around 95 per cent of paid parental leave is received by women, this reform goes directly to where the need is greatest. It also recognises that caring should never come at the cost of security and that fairness cannot stop there. Low-income workers deserve superannuation tax concessions that actually benefit them. Therefore, the reforms that have been brought in by this government are very important, and they secure superannuation for the future— (Time expired)”
“The introduction, for example, of clearer reporting frameworks and best-practice principles gives Australians the information, guidance and product choices they need to retire with. They need that information so they can retire in confidence. They know what they're putting in place. Transparency drives better outcomes. It challenges the trustees to innovate in the interests of members, not margins. A fair superannuation system must do more than grow balances; it must close those gaps. The gender superannuation gap remains one of the most persistent and unfair inequities in our economy, and that is why paying superannuation on government funded paid parental leave matters so deeply.”
“No matter what we on this side of the House do to strengthen superannuation, to make it better and to make it fairer, it has been opposed continuously from the other side, and I don't understand why, because superannuation is no different than receiving your wage. Superannuation—the 12 per cent or whatever it is that the employer agrees to pay the employee—is about money in return for work done. It's not a gift. It's not a promise. It's not something that's done just out of their goodwill. It is for the work that's been done by that worker. It's not something that we should take for granted and should not have laws in place for to strengthen it and ensure that everyone gets that superannuation. As I said, it's not an abstract. This is money that's paid later in life and provides security later on in life.”
“Superannuation, through the superannuation guarantee levy, ensures that money is put aside from the beginning of your working life right through to the end of your working life, ensuring that there's a sum there to help you retire with. That's what it was about, and if that's about ideology then, yes, I'll cop that: it is about ideology. It's about giving working people a better retirement than they had before superannuation came in. In every way, this superannuation journey, from the late eighties, when the Hawke-Keating government brought it in, has been constantly opposed by the opposition.”
“Over the past few years, meaningful steps have been taken by this government to strengthen it, to ensure that it's fair and to ensure that superannuation delivers on that foundational purpose of providing income for Australians in retirement, not just for the fortunate few that perhaps many years ago could afford superannuation or had the privileges of superannuation. I have been listening to those opposite. Just recently the member for McPherson spoke about an ideology that we have. Yes, we certainly do have an ideology. We believe that working people should be able to retire in dignity, and that's what superannuation was all about. It was about putting in place a mechanism for people who previously could not put money aside for whatever reason. Maybe they were low-income workers. Maybe there was a whole range of reasons.”
“Superannuation is not just a financial mechanism; it is a promise when an Australian starts work that, after a lifetime of work, they can retire with some security and peace of mind. That is the goal of superannuation, and at its best, superannuation reflects the values of fairness, responsibility and opportunity. It's important to strengthen that system to make sure that it works for everyone—not only for a section of the community but for everyone. It's one of the most important challenges that we face, and one of the most important pieces of legislation that was brought in by the Hawke-Keating government.”
“Then we have the Goodwood Community Centre under the auspices of the Unley council. It's a little bit separate but offers a variety of activities, social groups and cafes. It also houses the Greek Pensioners Society, which meets every so often, with 100 to 150 people. They have this massive cook-up of lunch. Many ministers have come through there with me when I've been taking them through the electorate, and I've got to say they all leave very well fed. Deputy Speaker, if you're ever in my electorate, please come along. The Fullarton Park Community Centre is a magnificent centre in my electorate that offers a whole range of events and art exhibitions. There's the Kilburn Community Centre and, of course, the Glandore Community Centre, which houses Coast FM, a voluntary radio station. So community centres play a very important role.”
“What makes this even more remarkable is that these centres are driven by people—by people that are involved in the community and by staff and volunteers who work tirelessly and selflessly, not just providing those emergency services that I spoke about but every day in communities—everything from cooking classes to kinder gyms to mums drop-in centres and parents drop-in sporting clubs, a whole range of things. I've seen it when I move around my electorate and see the many different community centres—for example, Payinthi, the Prospect community centre, which is a great drop-in centre. It is also housed next to the library, so people can go in, do research and meet with other like-minded people. The Unley Community Centre, which I spoke about, has a variety of activities—social groups, cafes focusing on seniors and community connections.”
“When we look at the floods and fires, we constantly see community centres housing people through emergency housing, feeding people and just being the centre where they will get the information of where they can get services from or being where, perhaps, Centrelink turns up for extra payments et cetera for those people who are in crisis. In many communities, especially outside the major hubs, they are the only places providing relief and emergency support.”
“Another one is the Unley Community Centre, and, again, they were granted over nearly $2 million so they can actually get some infrastructure in place and be able to house their community centre, but also, importantly, they have an Unley community museum which allows the public from the area to exhibit certain historical items. It gets the community involved. It was great news that we announced that funding, and, in fact, we went to the first sod turning not that long ago. This is a way of supporting and ensuring that community centres are viable and that they have the proper infrastructure in place, and this Labor government is certainly focused in that area. When there's a crisis in some places—maybe not so much in city electorates like mine, but out in the regions—community centres are the go-to place, and we've seen it.”
“As a member of parliament, I've used many, many community hubs and neighbourhood houses and community centres for forums for informing people—for example, informing people after the budget of what's in the budget for pensioners or informing people what's in the budget for health. We've done many of these forums over the years, usually in a particular community centre in my electorate. One of the great community centres in my electorate is the fantastic Western Youth Centre, which operates as a community centre. It has everything from kinder-gym to sporting clubs, people using the facilities, drop-in centres and a whole range of things, and we just announced $7.3 million in funding at the last election for the upgrade of this centre, because it provides such a vital role in the community.”
“Neighbourhood and community centres are very vital parts of our communities. Often, you will see that neighbourhood and community centres, when there's an issue in the area or surrounding that area, are usually used as meeting hubs to raise issues or to have public meetings or to get the neighbourhood, the suburb and the community informed about particular issues. They play an important role in our electorates. Across Australia, particularly in our regions, local neighbourhood houses and community centres provide essential social services to people who might otherwise have nowhere to turn, with information hubs and with community meetings informing people.”
“It's about identifying the kids that are falling behind or need that support early on and ensuring that they get that support that's required to keep them right through to completion dates. It also includes small-group tutoring to help students to catch up and keep up, and it includes reforms that recognise one critical truth—student success depends on teacher wellbeing. We need to respect teachers, and we need to ensure that teachers have the resources that they require. (Time expired)”
“It's the most significant new investment in public education ever made by an Australian government—$16.5 billion over the next decade and a further $50 billion in the decade after that. That's a commitment that is putting money where it's required. Those schools that I mentioned in my electorate desperately need that money to be able to educate those kids and turn their lives around and do all that they can for them. But this agreement is not simply about money, as I said. It comes with clear targets for attendance, for literacy, for numeracy and for students finishing high school. That completion rate is so important. It comes with practical, evidence based reforms to help achieve those goals. That includes phonics and numeracy checks to identify children who need early support.”
“I'm sure if I asked each and every one in this place a question about how a teacher has changed their life, they would all have a story about a particular teacher. In my case, I had two great teachers. I may not be standing here today if it weren't for them. One was Rod Sawford, who was the federal Labor member for Port Adelaide. He was my primary school teacher, and I stayed in touch with him for many years. The other one was John Trainer, who became speaker in the state parliament after being a schoolteacher and someone that actually helped me in my political career. So teachers have a special role as well, and we need to support them. This is why this Better and Fairer Schools Agreement matters so deeply.”
“If you give someone the decency of a good education, you turn their lives around. One way of perhaps changing the generational cycle of poverty is by giving someone education, by changing the entire community by giving a community education and by changing the whole nation and the direction it's taking by giving them an equal opportunity to education. That is so important. As members of parliament, we have responsibilities for health and for the security of the nation, but education is right up there and should be up there, because it changes the nation, it changes people's lives and it turns around people's lives. We also have some very good educators, teachers who are undervalued, teachers who give their all, where they try to create the opportunity that might otherwise not exist.”
“These are some of the schools that actually needed funding. When I would visit these schools, I would see the shortfalls. What we have done since being in government is ensure that schools are appropriately funded. This particular government has not only seen the funding of schools and the signing of agreements to ensure that all this will take place—and it will take time, of course—but also ensured that there are goals attached to the funding—in other words, retention rates and teachers being able to ensure that children are completing what's required to go on to the next grade. This is all about creating opportunities where there otherwise might not be any. We know that, if you want to make change in someone's life, all the research points towards education.”
“I rise to speak in support of this motion. I do so because of the history of the last 20-odd years, which has seen the actual defunding of schools. It has taken two lots of Labor governments—the Gillard government and this particular government—to increase the funding for public schools. We saw a system under the Howard government that fully funded private schools but totally ignored public schools, and schools in my electorate suffered. They suffered immensely—schools like Woodville Gardens School; Cowandilla Primary School, my own junior primary school that I attended; Sturt Street Community School; Gilles Street Primary School; Challa Gardens Primary School; Parkside Primary School; Plympton Primary School; Torrensville Primary School; and Blair Athol North Birth-Year 6 School.”
“Housing in this nation should not be a privilege. It is a foundation for a decent life. Making sure that every Australian has a fair chance at a safe and secure home is not just an economic responsibility; it's a moral one. It is our duty, all of us, to ensure that we do everything we can to ensure that there is housing for Australians. We are a First World country. We should not be in this situation, but, because of the inaction of governments over the years, we are.”
“Already construction has started on more than 570,000 homes, and there is no slowing down. This takes planning. It takes coordination. And it takes leadership. But, most of all, it takes listening to the communities—including about what's needed and where the at-risk are. The at-risk are renters and first home buyers. They are the people who simply want a fair chance. While building homes is critical, so too is helping people afford them—that is so important. Already, hundreds of thousands of Australians have been supported into their own homes—people who might still be waiting on the sidelines otherwise. Home is not just a building. It's stability for a child going to school. It is dignity for an older Australian who's worked all their lives. It is confidence for a young couple starting life together.”
“Just in the past month, I've had the privilege of attending two sod turning ceremonies in my electorate, moments that represent hope turning into reality. One was in Kilburn, where 29 new homes are being built for older women, a group now recognised as the fastest growing cohort at risk of homelessness in Australia. It's so important to see projects like this come to fruition. The other was in Bowden, delivering 24 social housing apartments and six affordable homes right in the heart of a thriving, connected suburb, close to amenities et cetera. And that's only the beginning. We've seen the HAFF coming into fruition, and I've visited many of these projects to see the construction that's taking place. Across the country, ambition is meeting action at a scale. The goal is bold: 1.2 million new homes.”