Ms GERICK (3:55 PM) —Mr Deputy Speaker Nehl, it is rather daunting to stand in this place for the first time to represent the people of Canning. Let me begin by congratulating you and, through you, the Speaker on being elected. I was particularly pleased by the Speaker's comments that he intended to ensure that high standards are achieved in this chamber. I am sure that we are all dismayed by the low regard parliamentarians are held in by many of our constituents. There is no doubt that this is in part due to the behaviour they see televised from this place on a regular basis.

I grew up in Wiluna, a small and isolated community in the desert country of the northern goldfields in Western Australia. An old drover who used to bring cattle down the Canning Stock Route told me when I was a child that if you were looking for dead or dying animals you looked for where the eagles were circling and that was the place to go. Let me tell the Prime Minister and his remaining colleagues that the eagles are circling in Canning and in many other parts of Australia over the unpopular and dead policies of the GST and privatisation.

I expect we will hear much talk of a mandate over the next few weeks. The electors of Canning have given me a clear and unambiguous mandate to oppose the GST and to halt the spreading tide of privatisation which is depriving my constituents of services and jobs. Mr Deputy Speaker, I can assure you that they will not find me wanting.

The federal seat of Canning was created in 1949. I am the third member of the Australian Labor Party to represent this seat since it was created. Previous Australian Labor Party members for Canning include Wendy Fatin and George Gear. They have set a very high standard for me to follow. They have a reputation in the electorate of being hardworking local members who really cared about their communities.

During the time they represented Canning, the resources and facilities were increased and improved. These included, to name just a few, during George Gear's time, ensuring that the Amaroo Retirement Village in Gosnells received their first allocation of nursing home beds, the development and massive improvement of the pedestrian mall in Armadale, funding to resurface the oval in Mundijong and the building of the new Armadale Sportsman's Club where I was pleased recently to attend the presentation night for the junior football league. It was great to see so many young people being rewarded for their participation in sport and to see that they so obviously enjoyed being part of a team.

Since the election of the federal and state coalition governments, Canning has had a continual reduction of services. These include the closure of the Medicare office in Maddington, the closure of SkillShares, the closure of the Armadale Centrelink office and the downgrading of Centrelink in Pinjarra. This means that people are forced to travel some considerable distances to get the services they need. In the case of Pinjarra, the closest services are in Mandurah, a centre to which there is no linking public transport system available.

A local Shire of Murray councillor told me that to the people of Pinjarra a bus is a large vehicle with lots of wheels that always goes somewhere else. Mind you, since the election of Liberal governments it is rare to see a bus at all, especially in the semirural parts of my electorate.

During the campaign I met a young married couple. They were both unemployed, and they had two children. The husband, who was receiving unemployment benefits, was engaged in studies to improve his chances of getting a job. Because no training services were available locally he had to travel into the city each day. New rules imposed by the Western Australian government meant that this unemployed person was unable to use his travel concession card, which was costing him and his family, already struggling to make ends meet on unemployment benefits, an extra $50 a fortnight. The government talks about the assistance it gives to genuine job seekers, but in my electorate the reality is that those who are doing their best to find work in the face of the government's disastrous jobs policy find only government obstacles put in their way.

It is the duty of all governments to encourage and assist people into work, not to put up barriers. All the government's rhetoric about its concern for families rings hollow to this family and to many like it who are coming to realise that this is a government for the rich, not for them. In Canning, we do not expect more than our fair share, but we are entitled to demand what all Australian citizens have a right to: access to an efficient public health care system; access to education and training, leading to greater opportunities; and access to free assistance in finding employment.

For the past eight years I have owned City Business College, which is involved in the training of mature students in programs designed to lead to employment. I know first-hand the problems and frustrations of those struggling to find their places in the work force and in the world. It is tragic dealing with a person who believes that there is no hope for their future.

Some time ago I had a young woman of 18, who was classified long-term unemployed, who had been to the college, completed a course and had been working for about three months, come back to the college to thank the staff for their help. She said that she had not believed that someone like her could ever have a job. As a country, we are doing something very wrong if we rob people of belief in themselves and their hope for the future.

Dealing with the terrible results of unemployment and the insecurity of those in work who are afraid that they will lose their job is a priority of the Australian Labor Party. We on this side believe that it is vital to give people the skills they need to find work, it is vital to provide an efficient service to help people find work and it is vital to create a society where people do not live in fear of losing their work. Most importantly, we believe it is the responsibility of government to follow economic policies which have as their highest priority the provision of jobs for all of our citizens who want to work.

This is not done by making it increasingly difficult to gain access to training and cutting staff numbers at Centrelink offices. Policies which strip our communities of services endanger our social fabric by creating unnecessary stress and hardship for individual Australians and their families. My supporters all rejected the callous and uncaring approach to these issues taken by the Howard government in its first term. Some of them were the so-called `Howard battlers' at the 1996 election. They are still battlers, but they are `Howard's' no more.

No-one has a chance of succeeding in politics without those supporters, and a strong support of families, friends and colleagues. My special thanks goes to my mother and to my brother Alan, who are both here today and who have given me unstinting love and support. Without them I would not have the great honour of representing the people of Canning today. My thanks also go to the former members for Armadale, Bob Pearce and Kay Hallahan, and to the current member, Alannah MacTiernan, for their political guidance, encouragement and friendship since I joined the Australian Labor Party.

I would also like to thank Senator Peter Cook, Paul Browning, Veronica Jeffery, my campaign team and the many volunteers, especially Len Harvey, who spent many hours working on the campaign. I also need to thank my college staff—Frances Cain, Kasey Evans and Natalie Swain—who kept my business going while I was out on the hustings. I also thank my students who put up with a tutor who was a tad distracted at times. My thanks go also to the state members of parliament and their staffs who worked so hard during the campaign. All of them have helped ensure that the Australian Labor Party won the seat of Canning.

The federal seat of Canning is an outer metropolitan-rural seat in Western Australia. It is named after Alfred Canning, who was a surveyor in the state of Western Australia early this century. He was responsible for the rabbit proof fence and the Canning stock route, which ends near Wiluna and traverses the country in which I was born and raised.

Growing up in Wiluna taught me from an early age the very best characteristics of what it is to be an Australian, and this played a large part in my decision to join the Australian Labor Party. Seeing my family put into practice the strong belief in a fair go for everyone and helping those in need gave me the example of what I believe it means to be a member of the Australian Labor Party. It is about creating a world where everyone has opportunities for development and advancement. Those who are having difficult times should be helped up, not kept down, or, as is often the case now, pushed beyond their personal and financial resources. In Wiluna everyone had a vital role to play and was conscious that their contribution was necessary to the success of community activities. There was a sense of being needed, belonging and knowing that their contribution counted.

One of the major influences on my life was my father, who died when I was in my teens. My father believed that everyone had a duty to help those who needed it but without making a fuss about doing it. Everyone deserved a fair go, and if times were tough then help was given until they were on their feet again. This is the compassion and commitment we need to rebuild the communities which are under pressure today—all the more so with the withdrawal of vital services. Being part of a small country town means that I know that every person and every service is essential. To remove just one service or take away one job has a huge impact on the community. Rural towns need to be built up, not torn down.

Last week I was in Pinjarra visiting Bedingfeld Park, which is an aged care facility which desperately needs nursing home beds. While there, I met Mr Easton who told me that it had been a very difficult decision for him to leave his home and to move into Bedingfeld. However, he had made that choice and did so wanting it to be his final move. If nursing home beds are not allocated to Pinjarra, it means that Mr Easton and many others like him face the trauma of having to leave their families and the area where they have spent their lives at the stage of their life where they deserve to be respected and cared for in their local community. We owe Mr Easton and each senior citizen the right to live and to be cared for close to home, for the many years of hard work they spent establishing in our country and, in many cases, fighting to ensure our freedom.

The electorate of Canning covers nearly 3,000 square kilometres. It includes both urban and rural areas. There are areas of great beauty and value, including the stramatolites in Lake Clifton which are the best and oldest examples of stramatolites in the world. The heritage country includes some of the finest walk trails, tourism and recreation facilities in the metropolitan area.

There are threats to the environment in some areas, particularly the proposed mining of mineral sands in the shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale, where residents are very concerned that if mining goes ahead their lifestyle will be completely destroyed. This is a battle that has gone on for over 10 years and means that residents are always on the alert, feeling under threat, and cannot fully enjoy the charm of where they have chosen to live. There are many industries which provide jobs and benefits to the residents of Canning, including mining in Pinjarra, forestry in Dwellingup, orchards and small to medium light industrial areas in the suburban areas. But the major provider of employment in Canning is small business.

As a small business person, I understand the problems that those in small business experience. I believe that many people do not understand the long, hard hours worked, in many cases for little return, by many small business owners. To add to all the natural difficulties, it seemed to me that there was an ever increasing demand for me to spend time complying with new rules and regulations. The thought for most small business owners of having to spend half a day a week preparing paperwork for a GST is unbearable, not to mention that most businesses will have to spend at least $5,000 to get the necessary computer programs to do the paperwork. Understandably, many small businesses remain unconvinced about the benefits of a GST, either to themselves or to the community, and do not trust the government's hell-bent approach in the absence of the provision of comprehensive information about the impact of a GST on their businesses and the community at large.

One of the major concerns of the residents of the Armadale region is the proposed privatisation of the Armadale Kelmscott Memorial Hospital. This hospital was built as a memorial to those who served in the First and Second World Wars. The local residents worked to raise the initial money to help purchase the land and have continued to work over the years to improve the services. I recently helped organise a public meeting, which over 1,000 people attended, to oppose the privatisation of the hospital. The overwhelming majority of those present believed that we deserve a publicly owned health service and that it was unreasonable to consider the privatisation of the hospital. I, with the local state member, Alannah MacTiernan, will continue to fight to have a first-class publicly owned hospital that is available to all members of the community.

I am very pleased to be part of the Labor team, which has returned so many women to this 39th Parliament. I have been lucky to be part of a generation that has not suffered the discrimination of previous generations of women. My family always expected that with work and dedication we would achieve whatever we wanted. The fact that I was a female was not a consideration. My electorate office team consists of three capable, young, enthusiastic and committed women who will further advance the role of women in politics.

I was lucky to be part of a generation that grew up in a time of optimism. I was at school in a time when going to year 12 was taken for granted, followed by further study, which was affordable by all. This is hardly the case today, with governments making further education difficult and costly to obtain for many of our young people. It is hard to see how the community benefits from this apparent desire to return to the times of previous generations when only the children of the wealthy were able to go on to study and receive qualifications which could lead to a career. For my peer group it was taken for granted that at the end of study work would be available, and this would be a job for life.

The generations that are now reaching adulthood are faced with problems that did not exist in my youth. We are faced with an ever increasing number of young people who are deciding to take their own lives because the choice to live is too difficult. It must be a priority for the government to put in place education programs to help young people cope with the problems they are facing.

I recently went to the Armadale Drug Arm Group, which is a non-profit organisation which helps mainly young people with drug dependency problems, and the Armadale Youth Accommodation Group, which provides emergency accommodation for young people who have nowhere to live. These groups do a marvellous job of providing the services and support that young people need. It is perhaps difficult for those of us who come from strong families to understand that not all people have the certainty of a family support basis, and it is up to a caring government to provide a safety net, if it is needed.

While I am very concerned about those Australians who are doing it unnecessarily tough at the moment, I believe Australia is a country which enjoys many advantages—the vision of an Australia where the spirit of a fair go and mateship can be rekindled if the priority of the government is the greatest good for the greatest number, where all people have access to a free education system and where a first-class public health system is not an impossible dream.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of being a candidate, and now the member, for the seat of Canning has been the opportunity to meet so many marvellous volunteers and community groups who do so much good work in keeping with a tradition of an Australia that cares—the home help groups in Armadale and Gosnells, which are helping our senior citizens stay in their homes for as long as possible, and the community centres, which provide programs for children and families. Having visited these centres, one cannot help but believe that optimism is not misplaced. If we concentrate on these positive values, we will be helping to build strong and vibrant communities.

I appreciate the faith the people of Canning have put in me and the Australian Labor Party. My team and I will work hard to ensure that everyone is fairly represented and to improve the facilities and resources in the area. Over the next three years I look forward to being part of a Beazley team working to improve the conditions of workers and their families in Australia. It is of great concern to those of us on our side to see the government continually trying to take away the working conditions that previous generations of workers had fought so hard to achieve. They seem to believe that workers should have few rights and should be grateful for any work under any conditions. I believe that the last thing we want to see happen in Australia is the development of a class of the working poor. The jobs we create must be real jobs with real wages so that people can meet their responsibilities.

In three years time I look forward to being a member of a Beazley government, one which has a great Western Australian as a leader and one which will strive to recreate the climate for a decent society where opportunities are increased rather than diminished. Until then, I will strive to provide the first-class representation that the electors of Canning deserve and to voice in this parliament, the heart of our Australian democracy, the concerns of my people.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jenkins) —Before I call the honourable member for Moore, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech. I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies.