Fiona Nash, Senator for New South Wales
First Speech - 18/08/2005
Senator NASH (New South Wales) (5.01
pm)—Thank you, Mr President. I am incredibly
humbled and honoured to take up
my position as a Nationals senator for New
South Wales. The role of a senator is one of
great responsibility. To serve the people of
this great country is a privilege, and I am
determined to fulfil the role to the best of my
ability. We are incredibly fortunate to live in
Australia—a land of peace; a land of democracy;
a land of beauty; a land of opportunity;
and a land where hope, determination and hard work mean that we can shape our future
and build the paths on which we want to
walk, both as individuals and as a people.
Australia is a nation that recognises its
place in the world. As Australians, we recognise
our responsibility to contribute to improving
circumstances in the world. We do
not shrink from that responsibility. It often
takes great courage to stand up as individuals,
as it takes great courage for us to stand
up as a nation for the things in which we believe—
democracy; the freedom of the individual;
the right to free speech; the right to
live without fear; the opportunity to pursue
those ideals in which we believe without fear
or favour; and the right to live together in
happiness, harmony and safety. We should
never forget how fortunate we are to live in
this wonderful country of ours and how fortunate
we are that we call ourselves Australians.
Australia is a nation of great economic
strength and stability. I applaud the coalition
government for delivering a strong and dynamic
economy for all Australians. But for
this nation to reach its full potential, I believe
we must ensure we are a nation that encourages
intellectual growth and rigour. We applaud
economic success in this nation, but
we also need to mature in our capacity to
applaud intellectual achievement. Without
intellectual contribution and respect for that
contribution, I do not believe we can reach
our real potential. Economic prosperity is the
core of Australia’s growth. Ensuring intellectual
prosperity will allow our country to
grow and develop even further.
Australia is a young nation. In many ways
we are a blank page on which we can write
our own future. When creating that future, let
us all be optimistic, ambitious and prepared
to take risks. I believe we must ensure that
those who have vision for this nation are allowed
to prosper and grow. We do not have
the philosophical history of many other nations—
nations that were home to the likes of
Aristotle, Plato and Descartes. Australia is a
place that has the excitement and opportunity
that being a young and fledgling society
brings. A young society, I believe, should
encourage the development of ideas, philosophy
and vision from everyone in the
community.
My role as a senator for The Nationals is
as a champion of the bush. While I represent
the people of New South Wales, my focus
will be on those who live outside our major
cities—those people in our rural and regional
communities, whose set of circumstances
and lifestyle are often markedly different
from those who live in our urban areas. My
role is to be an advocate for them and to ensure
that we bridge the divide that we so often
see between city and country. Make no
mistake: I am not one who sees the negatives
in our rural and regional communities. I focus
on the positives—the many great and
abiding things that combine to make those
communities such wonderful places to live.
But we need to recognise the potential social
dislocation that may occur if we allow the
divide between city and country to become a
chasm.
We are fortunate to be blessed with a nation
of stability. Our society is multicultural
in nature. Although that sometimes brings
complex challenges, I believe that we are a
people who in the main are imbued with the
essence of what it is to be Australian. We
must appreciate the stability of this country
as we compare ourselves with those countries
around the world that are less fortunate.
We cannot allow the peace and stability of
our nation to be eroded by the tearing of the
fabric of our society.
In 1999 the former Nationals leader and
Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson, talked about the possibility of Australia becoming
two nations. He said:
The sense of alienation, of being left behind, of
no longer being recognised and respected for the
contribution to the nation being made, is deep and
palpable in much of rural and regional Australia
today.
While there are areas and industries that are doing
very well, there are many that are not.
This issue must be addressed by all of us who
collectively make up Australia, if we are to be a
whole nation, because we can and must do everything
we can to draw alongside those facing great
challenge.
Although those comments were made six
years ago, they still hold true today. As a
wife, mother and farmer from a rural area
and as a senator for The Nationals, I am concerned
about the divide between city and
country.
Over the past decades, rural Australia has
been affected by a revolution in technology,
in much the same way, it must be said, that
the Industrial Revolution affected British
society. The shift we have seen away from
dependence on manual labour, with advances
in technology, has resulted in a significant
demographic change in our regions. The
population drift away from our smaller
towns has impacted greatly on our rural
communities, while our coastal communities
feel the pressure of booming populations.
That population decline has changed the balance
in our rural communities, and the critical
mass needed for the sustainable delivery
of services and infrastructure has ceased to
exist in many areas. I believe the challenge
for our communities and government is to
work together and find opportunity in
change.
Mr President, we should never underestimate
the importance of rural society to the
stability of Australia. Primary production
creates real wealth for this nation. We feed
the nation. We clothe the nation. And we
export about $25½ billion a year worth of
farm products that contribute significantly to
our strong economic growth. The farm sector
itself accounts for 3.2 per cent of Australia’s
GDP but its true importance becomes clear
when you include the industries that support
agriculture and the industries that depend on
it. The farm sector supports 1.6 million jobs,
or 17 per cent of the labour force. And, Mr
President, 781,000 of those jobs are in our
major cities. Many of the men and women
who work in cafes and restaurants, the
truckies and the waterside workers and the
hospitality workers in the bars, clubs and
pubs across Australia owe their jobs to the
agricultural sector—a sector that produces
many of the things that people in the city
take for granted.
John Anderson was right to raise his concerns
about the divide between city and
country. We need to ensure that the imbalance
is recognised and addressed, and government
has a role to play in ensuring that
that happens. This is not to advocate a handout
mentality for rural and regional communities—
far from it. I am advocating policies
that ensure that there is fair and equitable
opportunity for all Australians regardless of
where we live. As legislators, we must always
be aware of the consequences of our
actions, of how the decisions we make affect
the 20 million people who live in this nation.
As Atticus says in To Kill a Mockingbird:
If you can learn a simple trick Scout, you’ll get
along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You
never really understand a person until you consider
things from his point of view—until you
climb into his skin and walk around in it.
We must be able to ‘put ourselves in another
man’s skin’ to ensure we make decisions in
the best interests of those we represent.
The constituency that The Nationals
represents has changed dramatically over the
years. We represent those seven million people
outside our capital cities: people from the coast, regional towns, and rural and remote
parts of this great nation—small business
people, workers, battlers and achievers who
are all under the wing of The Nationals because
we deliver them a strong voice in this
building. We are the only party in the federal
parliament that exists solely to champion the
cause of rural and regional people.
It is important to note that it is The Nationals
who represent the poorest electorates
in the country. It is often those communities
who need the greatest support, and The Nationals
make no apology for fighting as hard
as we possibly can for them and making decisions
accordingly. I will never be distracted
by city interests, and I will be completely
focused on having the best interests of our
rural and regional communities at heart.
Mr President, there are many issues that
affect the lives of those in our rural and regional
communities. As a wife and mother in
a regional community who has spent time in
the work force, I am keenly aware of how
difficult it can be to strike a balance when
you are a working family. We see, in many
instances these days, families where both
parents are working and trying to juggle the
competing demands of work and family.
That juggle can be particularly difficult in
the regions, where families are often affected
by the tyranny of distance and a lack of services.
We need to address issues like child
care availability, in-home care for children,
the provision of adequate medical services
and education facilities, flexible workplaces
and a recognition of the changing nature of
society—all of which will contribute to getting
the balance right between work and family.
I would also like to take the opportunity to
acknowledge the increasing role that grandparents
play in the lives of their grandchildren,
and certainly I would have found my
role in politics much more difficult if I did
not have the wonderful support of my children’s
grandparents, Joy Morton and Rob
and Dorothy Nash.
Mr President, there is no doubt that the issue
of health is a priority for people in our
rural and regional communities, indeed for
people right across Australia. Ensuring we
have enough health professionals in our regions
is an ongoing challenge and one we
must continue to address. Encouraging rural
students to attend university to study not
only medicine but also other health vocations
is something we must continue to do. And it
is important that we recognise that general
practitioners in rural areas are actually performing
a specialised form of medicine in
itself, and we need to make policy reflecting
that.
I would like to take this opportunity to
raise the issue of Indigenous health and the
health related problems that we see in those
communities. The life expectancy for Indigenous
people is reported as 56 years for
males and 63 years for females, compared to
76 years and 82 years for Australian males
and females generally. To say that another
way, an Aboriginal boy born today has only a
45 per cent chance of living to age 65 and an
Aboriginal girl a 54 per cent chance. Despite
the enormous gains in medical expertise of
the last 20 years, their health remains at an
unacceptable level. Regardless of our background,
we are all entitled in this nation to
the best health outcomes possible.
Mr President, I am acutely aware of the
lack of support services provided for those
who suffer mental illness and also the difficulties
faced by their families and carers.
There is not enough support in country areas
for people suffering from social and economic
stresses, and this can in turn lead to
mental health illness and problems. There are
fewer mental health services being provided
in the regions as compared to the cities, and we need to address this. There needs to be
greater acknowledgement of the problems
being faced in this area and the effects on
people and families and indeed whole communities.
The high level of unresolved mental
health issues is unacceptable and we need
to accept that there are significant problems
and look to find some solutions.
As a champion of the bush I will always
seek to find ways to improve the viability of
our rural communities. One such way is the
development of a sustainable domestic biofuels
industry. For many years I have been,
and I will continue to be, a passionate advocate
for a domestic ethanol industry. There is
no doubt that the development of an ethanol
industry would create jobs and opportunities
in our regions. I will do all I can to support
industries that will deliver real benefits to
rural and regional Australia. An ethanol industry
would provide significant environmental
and health benefits and would reduce
our reliance on fossil fuel. It would give
grain and sugar farmers another market, and
it would develop business opportunities in
our regions.
The government currently has in place a
policy target of 350 million litres of biofuel
production by 2010. The effect of vehicle
emissions, particularly in our cities, cannot
be ignored. Given that the introduction of
ethanol into our fuel mix would lower vehicle
emission pollutants, it stands to reason
that it is simply commonsense that, for the
improved health of Australians, we as legislators
support the development of an ethanol
industry in this nation. Indeed, the AMA recently
put forward their view to the Prime
Minister’s Biofuels Taskforce that they
strongly support the use of ethanol in our
fuel mix as part of the solution to improving
the health outcomes of Australians.
Many countries around the world pursue
the use of ethanol—indeed, they not only use
it but actively embrace it. In the United
States alone, last year 13 billion litres of
ethanol was used. The list of countries using
ethanol is ever growing, including the US,
Brazil, Thailand, the Philippines, India,
China, Japan, Colombia and the EU. Governments
in all of those nations have recognised
the importance of this industry. Australia
is lagging behind, and it is not good
enough.
I would like to acknowledge the support
that The Nationals leader, Mark Vaile, has
shown for this innovative industry for many
years and congratulate him for his vision
with regard to the development of the biofuel
industry. To date, the four major oil companies
have done very little to embrace the use
of ethanol, to the detriment of this nation. I
believe the time has come, for the benefit of
all Australians, for a mandatory target to be
put in place to ensure that the 2010 biofuels
target is met.
There is no doubt that the issue of telecommunications
is a vital one not only for
our rural and regional communities but for
all Australians. Earlier this year I chaired The
Nationals Page Research Centre’s inquiry
into regional telecommunications. I would
like to acknowledge Troy Whitford, the centre’s
executive director, for the comprehensive
work he did in preparing the report. I
believe the telecommunications package put
forward yesterday by the government addresses
those issues of competition, service
delivery and infrastructure funding that the
Page Research Centre identified earlier this
year. One of the most important aspects of
the package is the requirement for operational
separation of Telstra, which will allow
greater transparency and competition and
will ultimately deliver better services to the
bush.
In spite of what some might say, just saying,
‘Don’t sell Telstra,’ or ‘Do sell Telstra,’ will not fix services in the bush. What will
fix services is ensuring competition, ensuring
that business can invest in telecommunications
in the regions and ensuring that there is
ongoing government funding to assist in the
event of market failure. We need to ensure
that a solid platform is in place to deliver the
technology that will take us into the future.
The Copper Age was 5,300 years ago, and
that is where copper belongs. We need to
embrace optic fibre, wireless and satellite so
that we have the right mix of infrastructure
to take us into the future.
The Nationals led the debate on the need
for comparable levels of telecommunications
services, pricing and infrastructure to be provided
across the country. Through the hard
work of The Nationals, especially Mark
Vaile, and John Anderson before him, we
have again delivered for rural and regional
communities through the $3.1 billion regional
telecommunications plan announced
yesterday.
There are so many people I would like to
thank, but there just is not time to thank them
all. They know who they are, those people
who are so special and who have helped me
so much on my political journey. There are a
few people, though, I would especially like
to thank. Kay Martin, Kel Harpley, Ian
McColl and Owen Parker, I thank you all so
much for your belief in me and your unwavering
support. Ian Armstrong, thank you for
your wise and very honest advice and your
friendship for many years now. I cannot let
the moment pass without acknowledging the
role you are playing in making the road over
the Blue Mountains in New South Wales a
reality. You have my total support for that.
To two people I would not be here without,
Michael Priebe and Kris Henderson: what a
road we have travelled. Thank you both so
much. I would also like to thank my mother,
Joy, who is an inspiration, my sisters, Sara
and Trudy, and my boys, Will and Henry,
who are not just wonderful children; they are
my great mates. Finally, to my husband,
David, whose unfailing support and belief in
me has made it possible for me to walk the
path of political life: thank you so very, very
much.
Australia’s economic strength not only
enables us to take our place on the world
stage as a strong and viable nation; it is what
enables government to deliver for those who
need support. Without a strong productive
sector in this nation, there is no capacity for
government to deliver the necessary health,
education and social requirements of our
society. It is quite a moment to stand here
and deliver my first speech. I am incredibly
proud to be in this place, and I am committed
to doing all I can in my role as a senator to
ensure a strong and prosperous future for our
rural and regional communities—indeed, a
strong and prosperous future for all Australians.
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