Jess Teesdale
Bass · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“Today I rise to honour Professor Richard Scolyer ATO, a remarkable Australian and a deeply loved son of Tasmania. I didn't have the privilege of knowing Richard personally, but seeing how all of those who were able to interact with him throughout his life have reacted to his passing tells me that he was a truly great man.”
“Even as his work took him to Sydney, to hospitals, laboratories and research institutions across the world, he remained proudly connected to our beautiful state, proudly connected to home. That connection was seen clearly at Bridgnorth Football Club, a club tied to his family for generations. Richard was their no. 1 ticket holder.”
“Through his work with Professor Georgina Long and Melanoma Institute Australia, he helped to transform melanoma treatment. Advanced melanoma, once so often a death sentence, particularly in Tasmania, where we have the highest rates across the country, became survivable for many more people because of the work and the science that he helpe…”
“He shared that journey with honesty and generosity, not because that made it easier and not because it would take away the fear but because he knew that what he learnt from his treatment might help the next patient, the next family, hopefully even the next breakthrough. That is courage and that is service and that is love in action.”
“We are really proud that one of our own has managed to change the world, and may we honour him by continuing to back science, support medical research, care for each other and, as Richard would say, always giving it a crack. I commend this motion to the House.”
“Barriers such as limited transport, skills gaps, caring responsibilities, disability, health challenges or long periods out of the workforce can make it much harder for people in regional communities to find secure employment. Across Australia around 1.7 million people are not working but would like to be.”
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“We are really proud that one of our own has managed to change the world, and may we honour him by continuing to back science, support medical research, care for each other and, as Richard would say, always giving it a crack. I commend this motion to the House.”
“He shared that journey with honesty and generosity, not because that made it easier and not because it would take away the fear but because he knew that what he learnt from his treatment might help the next patient, the next family, hopefully even the next breakthrough. That is courage and that is service and that is love in action. Our thoughts, all of Tasmania's thoughts, are with Richard's wife, Dr Katie Nicholl; his children Emily, Mathew and Lucy, who were here yesterday in parliament; his parents Jenny and Maurice; his brother, Mark; his colleagues and everyone in northern Tasmania who had the privilege to know him not as just a national figure but simply as Richard.”
“Through his work with Professor Georgina Long and Melanoma Institute Australia, he helped to transform melanoma treatment. Advanced melanoma, once so often a death sentence, particularly in Tasmania, where we have the highest rates across the country, became survivable for many more people because of the work and the science that he helped to lead. Then in 2023, in the face of being diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive and incurable brain cancer, Richard did something extraordinary that I don't think many people could. He became a patient. He did not stop being a scientist. He became the world's first brain cancer patient to have pre-surgery combination immunotherapy, an experimental treatment based on the breakthroughs that he had helped to pioneer in melanoma.”
“Even as his work took him to Sydney, to hospitals, laboratories and research institutions across the world, he remained proudly connected to our beautiful state, proudly connected to home. That connection was seen clearly at Bridgnorth Football Club, a club tied to his family for generations. Richard was their no. 1 ticket holder. He loved that club. He loved the community and the community loved him back. Because, for all of his brilliance, what so many people remember about Richard is not only what he achieved but how he carried himself—curious, brave, generous and humble. We should all aim for such lofty heights as these. A person can change the world but still belong to a place, a school, a club, a family and to the people who knew them first. And Richard did change the world.”
“Today I rise to honour Professor Richard Scolyer ATO, a remarkable Australian and a deeply loved son of Tasmania. I didn't have the privilege of knowing Richard personally, but seeing how all of those who were able to interact with him throughout his life have reacted to his passing tells me that he was a truly great man. Many Australians knew Richard as one of the world's leading melanoma researchers. They knew him as the 2024 Joint Australian of the Year. They knew him as a cancer specialist who, when faced with his own devastating diagnosis, kept working, kept sharing and kept trying to help others. But before all of that, Richard was one of ours. He was born in Launceston, he grew up in Riverside, he attended Riverside High School and went on to study medicine at the University of Tasmania.”
“My question is to the Minister for Housing. How is the Albanese Labor government helping more Australians build a future where their dream of homeownership can be achieved? Are there any risks to this work?”
“My question is to the Minister for Housing. What action is the Albanese Labor government taking to help first home buyers into a home of their own? What approaches will make this harder for young Australians to get into homeownership?”
“We can send a very clear message: our communities are not open for this kind of business. For Bass, this is not theoretical. It's on our streets. It's in our suburbs. It's affecting our small businesses. It's threatening public health. It's helping organised crime profit from addiction. This bill stands up to that. It protects public health, it backs legitimate businesses and it strengthens enforcement. It upholds the rule of law, and it says that Australia will not surrender decades of tobacco control success to criminal syndicates. I commend this bill to the House.”
“It would make smoking cheaper, make tobacco companies richer and risk condemning more Australians to smoking related disease and early death. The answer is not surrender. The answer is enforcement, disruption, prevention and support to quit. And that is what this government is doing. We're investing in the Australian Border Force, we're strengthening laws, we're improving national coordination and we're targeting money laundering. We're supporting people to quit smoking and vaping. Through this bill, we're making the illicit tobacco trade more dangerous and less profitable for the criminals behind it. No country will eliminate illicit tobacco entirely, but we can shrink it, we can disrupt it and we can make it harder to import, harder to distribute, harder to sell and much harder to profit from.”
“Shutting illegal shops is one of the fastest ways to choke the profits because, if criminals cannot sell the product, they cannot make the money and, if they cannot make the money, the business model starts to break. We also need to answer the argument that tobacco excise caused this problem and simply cutting it would solve it. The tobacco excise is not just a revenue measure; it's a public health measure. It exists because smoking imposes enormous costs on people who smoke, on their families and on the public health system. Yes, criminals are exploiting the price gap, but there's no serious argument that we should surrender Australia's health policy to organised crime. Cutting prices would not make transnational crime syndicates pack up and go home.”
“The bill also gives enforcement and intelligence agencies stronger tools to investigate and disrupt serious tobacco offences, because it's not a simple retail offending. You've got international supply chains, distribution networks, financial flows, criminal enablers and connections across jurisdictions. It means we cannot fix this problem at the border alone. We have to act pre border, stopping shipments and disrupting criminal supply before they reach Australia, we have to act at the border, where Border Force is already seizing record volumes, and we have to act post border in the warehouses, distribution networks and illegal shopfronts where the products are sold. The whole-of-supply-chain response is the only credible response.”
“It's damaged confidence in enforcement, in regulation and in the basic promise that, if you do the right thing, our system will back you. This bill is about restoring that confidence. This bill strengthens the legal framework in key areas and increases penalties for offences involving the importation, possession, buying, selling, supply, production and manufacture of illicit tobacco. For some offences, those penalties will reach up to 15 years imprisonment. If criminals are treating this trade as low risk and high profit, then the law must change that calculation. It expands proceeds-of-crime tools because, if we're serious about organised crime, we have to follow the money, we have to strip the profits and we have to make sure that criminals cannot build wealth from products that harm our communities.”
“When we talk about illegal tobacco, we're not just talking about today's crime, we're talking about tomorrow's cancer diagnosis, tomorrow's stroke, tomorrow's lung disease, tomorrow's pressure on Medicare and hospitals, and tomorrow's grief for families. There is also a basic fairness issue here. In Bass, I speak to small-business owners who do the right thing. They follow the law, they pay their taxes, and they comply with regulations. They absorb the cost of doing business properly and legally. Sometimes, next door or down the road, they see another shop selling illegal tobacco with fewer costs, fewer checks and, for too long, too few consequences. This is not a level playing field. It punishes honest businesses and rewards people prepared to ignore the law.”
“I've seen a 14-year-old selling illegal cigarettes sourced from a local shop, not because she understood the criminal market behind it but because she was trying to make friends and earn some money on the side. I've seen students leave school grounds at lunchtime to vape in a car together, and, by the end of lunch, one of them was vomiting, dizzy and suffering from severe headaches. That is what this market does. It reaches young people before they can understand the risk. It turns addiction into something cheap, accessible and social, and it leaves families, schools and health services dealing with the consequences.”
“Plain packaging, advertising restrictions, health warnings, public education and excise have all helped to reduce smoking rates over time, and those policies worked because they made tobacco less attractive, less accessible and less normalised. This illegal market does the opposite. It makes it cheaper, easier to find, dodges health warnings, bypasses regulation and removes age checks. It puts unregulated nicotine products in the hands of people who never should have been sold them in the first place. This is especially dangerous for young people. A cheap cigarette or a black-market vape are products sold without proper checks. These can become the entry point to years of addiction, and I've seen that up close in my work as a teacher.”
“In 2022—older stats—12.4 per cent of Tasmanian adults were current daily smokers, compared to just 10.9 per cent nationally. We know that those numbers have increased in that time. It's a major cause of cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke. For us, that's not abstract. That's an ambulance called out in Scottsdale, it's a hospital bed in Launceston, and it's a family in George Town dealing with the consequence of preventable illness. Every time illegal tobacco becomes cheaper, easier to access or more visible, it makes quitting harder, it makes relapse easier, and it makes it easier for young people to start. It threatens decades of public-health work that has saved lives. Australia has been a world leader in tobacco control.”
“For us, it means more ambulance callouts, more GP appointments, more emergency presentations, more hospital beds, more surgery, more chemo, more palliative care and more families sitting beside someone they love facing news that could and should have been prevented. The Australian government estimates smoking kills more than 24,000 Australians each year. That's one person every 22 minutes. Around 20 per cent of Australia's cancer disease burden is actually due to smoking. Those are the costs that we don't put on the packet. It's carried by patients; it's carried by families; it's carried by nurses, doctors and paramedics; and it's carried by the taxpayer through our health system. In Tasmania, this is a crucial point.”
“They're reinvested into serious criminal activity, drug trafficking, money laundering, intimidation, violence and exploitation. When an illegal tobacco shops in a local community like mine, we should not see it as a quirky retail or issue a minor regulatory breach. We need to see it for what it is: a business model that relies on addiction, undermines public health, undercuts legitimate business and helps fund organised crime. I especially want to focus on the health harm, particularly with our local Assistant Minister For Health here. It's very important. It cannot be and is not being treated as just a revenue problem from our government. Tobacco remains one of the leading causes of preventable death and disease in Australia. Smoking causes cancer, chronic lung disease, cardiovascular disease and stroke.”
“They're operating in shopping strips next to legitimate businesses and in the heart of our communities. Recent reporting in the Examiner made clear the scale of the problem in northern Tasmania, with targeted operations led by Tasmania's Department of Health seizing nearly $119,000 worth of illicit tobacco products across the north. It's not a few packets under the counter; it's a substantial illegal market operating within our very community, and locals are right to ask why this has been allowed to continue. We need to be very clear about what illegal tobacco is and what it is not. It is not harmless, it is not low level and it is not victimless. It is organised crime in a shopfront, and the profits do not sit neatly inside the tobacco trade.”
“Organised crime groups are estimated to have made between $4.1 billion and $6.9 billion in profit from this trade, and it's not petty noncompliance. That is industrial-scale criminal activity. In 2024-25, the Australian Border Force seized 2.66 billion illicit cigarettes. Operation PRINTWALL has already detected more than a kilotonne of illicit tobacco across the broader continuum, including more than 87 tonnes seized in one week alone. That tells us two things. First, enforcement is working. Second, the size of the market we are up against is enormous. In Bass, people can see it. Across Launceston, in the CBD and surrounding suburbs, illegal tobacco and vape shops appear, disappear, rebrand and reappear again. Products that everyone knows are illegal are being sold in plain sight.”
“Today I rise in strong support of the Combatting Illicit Tobacco Bill 2026. This bill is about public health, community safety and the rule of law, but it's also something very practical. It's reversing the equation for criminals. Right now, organised crime sees illicit tobacco as high profit and low risk. This bill is about making it higher risk, lower profit and harder to operate at every stage of the supply chain. The scale of this market should shock every member of the House, and the official numbers are moving fast. The ITEC Commissioner's 2024-25 report put illicit tobacco at 50 to 60 per cent of the tobacco market, but the more recent ABS estimates suggest that the problem has grown significantly higher in that short a time.”
“We don't have many of those in Tasmania. There aren't many trains. But, each year, at Christmas time, we have a Christmas train. It is the highlight for a lot of people. This house actually looks over that rail yard. By this Christmas, that house might have a family inside, and they may have kids who are waiting for the Christmas train to go past. That is what Labor is doing. We are building homes for people to love, to live in and to grow in for the future, and we are very proud of that.”
“Last week I was entirely pleased to be able to go and visit a site where 49 new homes have come out of the ground. Prior to the election last year, I turned the sod there with Minister Clare O'Neil. Most of these houses are due to be complete by Christmas this year. The site itself has a wonderful vibe. It's a community feel. We've got one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom homes, none of which are the same design, so they're all unique and they're all purposeful. One of the homes has four bedrooms and the biggest yard I've ever seen. I cannot wait for a family to love this home and to be in here with their kids as their kids grow up, watching their kids play in the backyard as they're in that big living space and that beautiful new kitchen. There's another home which actually looks out over a railway.”
“They mean that our community can continue to do the work that they love and support their families at the same time. Since we came to government, the national minimum wage has increased by more than $12,000 a year. I've heard the challenges to that, but the people I've talked to are pleased. They are happy. They needed this. That is what we have worked towards. It's a meaningful difference for my families because, if people work hard, they deserve fair pay. These reforms are about building a system that works for communities like mine in Bass, a system that recognises the barriers that people face, supports them into meaningful work and delivers on that basic right: the dignity of work.”
“It provides realistic support and realistic goals for people moving forward. These reforms are backed by more than $312 million in the budget. I listened to the previous speaker, who didn't mention employment services to try and help people into work. They referred to Labor as not understanding what the employment services market requires. But we're providing the money. We're backing it with $312 million in the budget. These once-in-a-generation changes recognise the realities of regional communities like mine. Alongside these reforms, we continue to support fair wages. It really matters in Bass, where workers are employed in retail, aged care, hospitality and other award-reliant industries. So those increases in wages really do mean a lot to us.”
“We are ending the one-size-fits-all approach and introducing three service streams so that support is matched to how close someone is to that labour market. For people who are job ready, it means faster and more direct pathways into employment. For people facing greater barriers, it means more intensive and personalised support to build confidence, skills and capacity. We're improving mutual obligations so that they are actually meaningful and support people into work rather than requiring compliance for its own sake. We're strengthening the assessment so barriers are identified early and people are connected with the right supports from day one. We're introducing the employment goal plans, giving people real ownership over their pathway into work, aligned with local opportunities, including in Bass.”
“In a diverse regional electorate like Bass, that doesn't work. You can't do it. The needs of a young person entering the workforce in Launceston for the first time are very different to someone retraining after years in a waning industry or someone living in a more remote part of the electorate without access to reliable transport. Yet, too often over the past few decades, they have been treated as the same. The result was continuously poor job matches, businesses struggling to retain staff and people cycling back through the system instead of moving forward. That's why our Albanese Labor government is delivering the most significant reform to employment services in 30 years. At the heart of these reforms is a simple principle: the right support for the right person at the right time.”
“Barriers such as limited transport, skills gaps, caring responsibilities, disability, health challenges or long periods out of the workforce can make it much harder for people in regional communities to find secure employment. Across Australia around 1.7 million people are not working but would like to be. This is a huge pool of untapped potential for us, and that is where employment services need to be making a positive impact. At their best, they should do one thing really well: help get people into suitable and meaningful jobs. But that requires more than matching a person to the next vacancy. It requires tailored support that understands their circumstances and goals as well as a really good understanding of the local labour market. For too long, our system has been built on a one-size-fits-all approach.”
“Work is about more than a pay packet. It provides economic security, and it also builds confidence, connection and belonging. That is something we understand deeply in Bass. Across northern Tasmania, from Launceston to George Town, Scottsdale and Beaconsfield, work and jobs underpin our communities and sustain our local economy. But employment in regional Australia is not always straightforward. In Bass I regularly speak to local employers across agriculture, manufacturing, health care and tourism who are crying out for workers. At the same time, there are people in my community who want to work but face real barriers to getting and keeping a job.”
“That will help 9,253 small businesses in Bass alone, and that certainty really does matter. These businesses in Bass should be able to plan ahead with confidence, invest in new equipment, upgrade their technology, purchase their vehicles or tools and grow their operations. We need to make sure these measures are permanent. They reduce compliance costs and improve cash flow. And we need to make sure that small businesses continue to invest and hire in our local economy. When they invest, our whole region benefits. The budget's also about making sure people are earning more and keeping more of what they earn. We've got the working Australians tax offset—goodness me, there are a lot of words there!—and the $1,000 instant tax deduction.”
“Our region succeeds because our local people back themselves and they back each other, and we back them too. Of course, agriculture is absolutely the heart of the story. From dairy and cropping to fisheries and exports, our farmers and producers are central to our economy and our identity. We also know the last decade has been challenging. Global inflation, supply chain disruptions, workforce shortages and rising international costs are putting real pressure on our households and our businesses alike, including our farmers. Our Labor budget responds to these pressures with practical measures that support growth, resilience and opportunity. For our local businesses, one of the most important measures that they keep talking to me about is making the $20,000 instant asset write-off permanent.”
“At the start of this MPI, the Labor Party was compared to jellyfish. Perhaps it's the continuously regenerating immortal jellyfish that they compare us to. But I ask the party and I ask the chamber what is the expected lifespan of the National Party? Do we think it might be like the immortal jellyfish, or might it be much shorter? This budget delivers for my local community in Bass. It is about supporting local businesses. It helps working families with the cost of living, it strengthens our health care and it builds a stronger regional economy for northern Tasmania. Bass is a community built on hard work. From small-business owners to tradies, manufacturers, farmers, tourism operators, health workers, hospitality staff, we have it all in Bass.”
“No-one pretends that the aged-care system can be fixed overnight, but we should recognise that progress is being made. We have more beds, more home care, more dementia support, more nurses, better pay for workers and real investments, particularly for my electorate of Bass. Every Australian deserves to feel safe, supported and respected. Every family deserves confidence that their loved one is receiving high-quality care. Every aged-care worker deserves to be valued. That is what the people of Bass deserve, and that is absolutely what we are working towards.”
“We're working towards making that more realistic. From 1 October, our personal care services will be fully funded by the Commonwealth for people who need that support. These are not luxuries, and we know this; they're basic human needs. They go directly to dignity. The new Aged Care Act places the rights of older Australians at the very centre of that system. We've strengthened the quality standards and transparency. We've ensured there are more nurses in aged-care homes, increased the care minutes and backed aged-care workers with significant pay rises. It's the aged-care workers who do essential work, and for far too long that work was very much undervalued. They were overlooked. They were poorly treated. There is so much more that we need to do, but we're working on it now.”
“These are not infrastructure projects to me; these are rooms where families will visit, they're places where people with complex needs will receive more appropriate care, and they're practical investments in dignity, safety and comfort. Too many families know the heartbreak of dementia. They know how hard it can be to keep someone safe and they know that love alone is not always enough. Families need specialist care. They need services that understand dementia and respond with patience, with skill and with compassion. I look forward to those rooms opening in the very near future. When we look at aged care, we know it's not just about residential care. For many older Australians, the strongest wish is simple: they want to stay at home, in their own bed, in their own chair, in their own garden, with their own community.”
“It matters whether there's a suitable place close to home, it matters whether a family can visit without driving for hours, and it matters whether someone can stay connected to their community and the people that they love. This investment is reaching Bass directly. At Respect Group's Fred French facility in Launceston we've invested $2.84 million to convert an unused wing into an 11-bed memory support unit, at Calvary Sandhill in Launceston we're investing $1.75 million to create a 12-bed memory support unit, and at Southern Cross Care in Low Head—a stunning location—we are investing $666,000 to refurbish four unused staff villas, which will bring those spaces back into service.”
“For too long, Australia's aged-care system did not live up to that promise. It was criminally neglected. Too many families experienced long waits, too many older Australians did not get support early enough, and too many workers carried a system that did not actually value them. That's why this reform really matters. Our government, the Albanese Labor government, has made aged-care reform a priority. We're investing $3.7 billion to deliver more aged-care beds, more home-care support and better care. It's not just a box-ticking exercise. We know that there is much more work to do, but we are working on it. In Bass, it's the access that matters in particular.”
“I rise today to speak about aged care, but more importantly about dignity. We don't see aged care as just a line in a budget; we see it as being about people. It's about the person who has lived in the same home for 40 years and who wants to stay there a little longer. It's about the daughter trying to organise care for her mum while watching someone she loves become more vulnerable. It's about the aged-care worker who notices when something's not quite right and offers comfort in moments of real vulnerability. Across Bass, families, carers, older Australians and aged-care workers continuously tell me the same thing. They want older people to be safe, respected and supported where and when they need it. That's not too much to ask. It's the most basic promise we should make as a country.”
“They didn't lack the ambition, they didn't lack the ability, it was simply that they couldn't afford to leave home. So think about that. That's a future doctor, a talented young person with skills and determination who will serve our community long term who we could have lost due to geography and cost. Instead, they're studying medicine in Northern Tasmania, and they want to stay there. We are making sure an individual's future is determined by their potential and not their postcode. A person's ambition should not be limited by cost or by lack of educational opportunities, because when we invest in education we invest in people. And when we invest in people, we're investing in Australia's future.”
“I had people actually choosing between completing their study and paying the bills, and that's not OK. We have not forgotten regional Australia. We've not forgotten regional students. Challenge has never been the problem for them; it's been access, distance and cost. That's why the study hubs are being bringing tertiary education closer to where people live. We're investing in those regional pathways. This semester our government has started end-to-end medical training right in the heart of Launceston for the first time ever, and I've met some of the students undertaking this course. One conversation has stayed with me. A student told me that if this opportunity did not exist in Launceston, they never would have applied to study medicine.”
“It's the assistant teacher who can speak a child's language, the therapist who can support a child who's falling behind and that meal that can help a kid focus in class. This is why our Better and Fairer Schools Agreement matters. Nationally, it's an additional $20 billion for public schools over the next decade. The same principle will be applied beyond school. We know that too many Australians have often been told that university was available to them but they graduated carrying a debt that continued to grow year after year. We've taken action on that. More than 20 per cent has been taken off our debt, which has benefited 10,500 people in Bass, which is huge. We've made the repayments fairer and we're supporting students undertaking placements in teaching nursing, midwifery and social work through the prac placement.”
“It was the assistant teachers who spoke Yolngu Matha and helped us to better support our students and understand them. It was access to psychologists, speech and occupational therapists so we could actually meet those needs. It was funding for breakfast, recess and lunch. It was staff to prepare those meals. It was being able to fly in an electrician and a plumber when things broke down, because, even though our principal tried her very best, you can't solve every infrastructure problem in a remote community with a wrench and a determined attitude. None of these are luxuries. They're the basic building blocks of a quality education, and that's what this money is actually for. It's not just a line in a budget.”
“We've also invested in the workforce through a 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators, and we're strengthening safety and accountability across the sector. But that opportunity cannot stop when that kid leaves child care and first walks through the school gates, so we're delivering the biggest new investment in Australian public education ever. For too long public schools were left short of the funding they needed. I remember working in Ramingining, a remote community in Arnhem Land, during a period when remote public schools were losing funding dramatically. I bought puzzles. I bought learning resources to help fill the classroom. But it was not just those hands-on manipulatives and resources that teachers desperately needed.”
“We've recognised that education is not something that happens for a few years at the beginning of a person's life. Education is a lifelong journey. For perhaps the first time in Australia's history, we're investing right across that journey, and that's a big reform agenda. It is ambitious. We know that some of the most important learning a child will ever do happens in the first five years. They are absolutely integral. That's why we're building a universal early education system. Through our three-day guarantee, every child can access three days of subsidised early childhood education and care every week. A local Bass family recently told me that this policy has saved them hundreds of dollars a week. That is the difference that affordable childcare can make.”
“In 14 years of teaching, I never once met a child who dreamed of failing. I never met a student who wanted to struggle with reading or a young person who genuinely aspired to be unemployed. I met students with enormous potential, and here is the truth I witnessed in every classroom I've ever stood in: talent is universal, but opportunity is not. I've always believed that education is one of the most powerful things the government can invest in but, for too long, governments have treated education as a collection of separate systems—child care over there, schools over here, TAFE somewhere else if it's being supported at all and universities somewhere else again. What I'm proud of is that this government has taken a different approach.”
“I want to acknowledge RSL Tasmania; the Launceston RSL; and the staff, volunteers and advocates who helped make this hub a reality, because this hub is a reminder that service does not end when a uniform comes off. Sometimes it simply changes shape, and in Launceston veterans have once again stepped forward to serve their community. For generations, Legacy has quietly done extraordinary work within our communities, supporting the families, partners, children and loved ones of veterans, making sure that people are not left to carry hardship alone. Their work is practical, but it's also deeply human. To every volunteer support worker, every single person who has ever been involved with Legacy, particularly at Launceston Legacy—Sonya, Terry and Brian—thank you so much for everything that you do to support our community.”
“Veterans and volunteers gave their time, rolled up their sleeves and got to work, choosing to do much of the work themselves so more funding could be better allocated to supporting veterans and their families rather than to contractors. They renovated rooms, painted walls and created beautiful artwork to design a space that already feels welcoming and safe. They saw a need in their community and they came together to meet it. We know that the strongest communities are built when people step forward to support one another, and veterans have once again stepped forward to support their communities. And now it's our turn to stand beside them. Tasmania has more veterans per capita than anywhere else in Australia, and supporting veterans is not simply important here; it's part of who we are.”
“Last week, Minister Keogh assisted in officially opening the Launceston VeteranHub. This was far more than just officially opening a building. It marked an important step for a space that's already supporting veterans and their families across northern Tasmania. For many veterans, navigating support services can be difficult. Whether it's accessing compensation, finding housing, seeking employment support, improving their wellbeing or simply needing someone who understands what they're going through, support should be easy to find and even easier to access, and that is exactly what this VeteranHub does. What struck me most about the project is that it was not simply built for veterans; it was predominantly built by veterans.”
“We have resilient communities, we have skilled workers, we have strong industries and we have people who care deeply about where they live. This budget backs that potential. It provides cost-of-living relief, strengthens health care and gives more young people a fair chance of homeownership. It invests in the future of Northern Tasmania. More importantly, it recognises something that I believe in strongly: regional communities cannot be left behind. They must be supported, strengthened and given every opportunity to thrive.”
“It will provide less stress, better health outcomes and mental health support for those people. Mental health is something that remains equally important to us. Access to support should not depend on your postcode, and we know that this is key particularly in regional communities. We'll also continue investment in skills and training through programs like free TAFE, because we know that our communities need skilled workers. Skilled workers create stronger communities. We're investing in local facilities and community infrastructure, too. It's those places where families meet and children can play sport, make friends and grow together. Strong communities don't happen by accident; they're built over time. Bass is a region with enormous potential.”