Ms LIVERMORE (8:33 PM) —I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people of Capricornia for seeing fit to re-elect me as their federal member. I sincerely appreciate the confidence that my constituents have shown in me by allowing me to continue to serve them. I would also like to take this opportunity to guarantee that the confidence the voters of Capricornia have placed in me will not be taken for granted. I will continue to work hard for them and to bring their issues into this chamber.

Tonight's speech feels a little bit like a de facto first speech because, as of 9 October, my electorate of Capricornia changed dramatically from that to which I was first elected in 1998. When I was first elected, Capricornia extended from the beautiful Capricorn coast to the outback town of Winton, the home of Waltzing Matilda, and beyond. The redistribution has almost halved the geographic size of my electorate and has removed much of the outback which I was so proud to serve. Today's Capricornia now extends west only to the town of Clermont and takes in areas to the south-west, including Mount Morgan, Duaringa, Woorabinda and Banana shires. The redistribution of my electorate leaves me with mixed feelings: sadness at the loss of so many beautiful places and wonderful people in towns like Winton, Longreach, Aramac, Barcaldine, Jericho and Alpha, and renewed motivation as I get to discover and make connections with the newly acquired areas.

Over the past six years it has been a pleasure to make my regular trips to Longreach and the other communities of the central west that are no longer part of my electorate and talk to the residents, face to face, about their issues and their lives. Throughout this time, these people have been struggling through the worst drought they have ever seen, yet they remain determined and committed to life in the bush. I am going to miss these areas on a personal level as well, as they hold a special place in my heart. It was in Barcaldine where I was married to my partner, Craig, and it often feels like a second home to us. These areas also hold great historical and cultural value for Australia—whether they be the birthplace of Qantas or the Australian Labor Party or the site of the penning of Waltzing Matilda. It can easily be seen how much I love these places and why I am saddened to be losing them. In particular, I am saddened by the loss of my Longreach electorate office and my staff member in that office, Kelly Wood. In order to better represent the people of the far central west, I opened the first federal member's office in Longreach. I know this was greatly appreciated by everyone in the central west, and I trust that The Nationals' new member for the area will maintain the office I opened and continue to provide that level of service to the people around Longreach and the central west.

Of course, there is another, more positive, side to the redistribution. I am happy to have picked up some new areas that are all interesting, dynamic places filled with people with initiative and a commitment to building on the strengths of our region. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the new areas to Capricornia: the shires of Duaringa, Mount Morgan, Woorabinda and Banana. These diverse and wonderful areas will add to the distinct charm of Capricornia and enhance the already strong presence of mining and primary industries in the electorate. Each of the new areas to come into Capricornia is a region of economic and environmental significance, and I am pleased to have them as part of the electorate that I represent. They are a good fit with the other areas of central Queensland that I have represented for the past six years. Together they form a region of growing significance to our nation across a range of activities—industrial, educational and cultural.

Duaringa Shire, taken from the electorate of Maranoa, includes the towns of Duaringa, Blackwater, Dingo, Bluff and Bauhinia. Blackwater is known as the coal capital of Queensland and makes a substantial contribution to Australia's mineral export earnings. Duaringa shire is a strong mining, beef and cropping area which has an abundance of natural beauty and incredible places including the Blackdown Tableland National Park, which is home to hundreds of species of native plants and wildlife as well as examples of Indigenous art.

Mount Morgan is a grand old town, with a history going back over 140 years. In its heyday it was the richest goldmine in Australia. Today, the town is a tourist destination for people from all over Australia who want to catch a glimpse of the past and enjoy the friendly small-town hospitality for which Mount Morgan is renowned. Banana Shire also moves to Capricornia from the electorate of Wide Bay, incorporating the towns of Biloela, Theodore, Baralaba, Moura and more. Banana Shire contains some of the largest commodity production areas in Central Queensland, contributing some $123 million annually to Queensland's economy.

Woorabinda is an Indigenous community of around 1,600 people located about 170 kilometres south-west of Rockhampton. The people of Woorabinda have strong family and community ties to Rockhampton. I have helped many of its residents on an individual basis in the past; I now look forward to working with the community as a whole to achieve its collective goals. Capricornia has an interesting past and a bright future, which makes it a great place to live, work and watch your family grow. When I talk to local leaders, businesspeople and those involved in the organisations that are the lifeblood of our Central Queensland communities, I hear that there is no shortage of challenges that we have to overcome but also that there are plenty of opportunities to work towards.

What we really need in Central Queensland, and what I have been calling for ever since I got to this place, is a genuine partnership between our region and the federal government. We need a federal government that is truly committed to understanding and working with our region to achieve our full potential. Among other things, that means providing important infrastructure, like the roads to Shoalwater Bay. It means assisting Central Queensland University to build on its capacity to provide top-class educational opportunities to our local students. It also means improving access to essential services, such as health services. Instead, this government has continually implemented policies that work against Central Queensland and, indeed, against rural and regional Australia more generally.

One example of this is the government's policy on the pricing for rescue and firefighting services at airports. Under the new pricing structure released by Airservices Australia earlier this year, airlines wanting to run services to Rockhampton Airport, which is already the second most expensive airport to land at in Australia, will cop a doubling of landing fees over the next five years. The fee to land an aircraft at Rockhampton Airport will increase to almost $20 per landed tonne, while the same aircraft landing in Sydney or Melbourne will cost less than $2 per landed tonne. Apparently, the Minister for Transport and Regional Services and Leader of The Nationals thinks it is good policy for the people of Central Queensland, every time they catch a flight from Rockhampton Airport, to subsidise travellers from Sydney and Melbourne.

The government might think that the election result is a resounding endorsement of their policies, but I can assure them that there are many areas in which the Howard government continues to fail to respond to the needs and aspirations of the people of rural and regional areas like Central Queensland. For example, the people of Capricornia certainly did not vote for the Howard government agenda on Telstra. Interestingly, the coalition candidates in Capricornia did not seem to like the Howard government's agenda on Telstra either. They certainly did not spend any time talking about it in the campaign. Instead, they spent the campaign pretending that it was not in fact government policy to sell the remaining publicly-owned share of Telstra. And for good reason—quite simply, the people of Central Queensland do not want Telstra privatised and they have voted that way in the last three elections. They understand, even if this government does not, that a privatised Telstra will mean a reduction in services and jobs in our part of the country.

I was advised that on Friday, 12 November the small community of Mount Chalmers, some 40 kilometres from Rockhampton, lost its telephone service. When advised of this problem, Telstra's response was that they were aware of the problem, as more than 100 telephone services in the area were out of commission. However, as no-one in the area had a `diagnosed life threatening illness' everything was okay because services were expected to be resumed by 6.00 p.m. on Wednesday the 17th. So Telstra believes the residents of this small community can do without telephone services for five days. You have to ask yourself what the response would be if people living on the North Shore of Sydney were told the same thing by Telstra. You might well say that if there is a real emergency the residents can use their mobile phones. But there is no mobile phone service at Mount Chalmers. Apparently, this is what the Howard government considers `up to scratch' when it comes to regional phone services.

I would have thought that The Nationals members in the Howard government would understand that this is taipan country, that farm accidents do occur, that children do fall out of trees and into dams, that illness can strike at any moment and that the most important item in a rural home at the time of an emergency is a working telephone. We are taught at school how Flynn and the pedal radio made it much safer for people to live in rural Australia because his pedal radio provided instant communication in the event of an emergency. Well, here we are in 2004 with the Howard government hell-bent on the full privatisation of Telstra without ensuring that services in regional and rural Australia are at an acceptable level. You would have to say that the people of Mount Chalmers would have been safer 75 years ago with a pedal radio than with the non-existent Telstra service of last week. I appeal to our Nationals colleagues in this place to do what your constituents in rural Australia are asking of you. Stop the sale of Telstra. Stop withdrawing services from rural and regional areas and start standing up for the regions you purport to represent in this place.

To even suggest that Telstra services in regional and rural Australia are up to city standards is an arrogant disregard for the truth. The Nationals must listen, as I have done, to the people in my electorate and they must stop the further sale of Telstra. As I was talking about the Flying Doctor, it is appropriate that I mention the chronic shortage of doctors in rural and regional Australia. I am sure that those members of The Nationals who are listening to their electorate will know that what I am saying is not just rhetoric. They know that every small town and regional centre is crying out for more medical staff. I have a constant stream of people coming into my office who feel that their lives are at risk because they are on waiting lists due to the shortage of medical professionals in our regional and rural centres.

Just last Sunday night, a constituent of mine fell and badly hurt her leg. As is the way with so many country people, she did not ring for an ambulance because she did not want to occupy them when they might be needed for something more serious. So she made her own way to the local base hospital. She arrived at 11.00 p.m. and left at 3.00 a.m. the following day. Her four-hour experience at the accident and emergency ward has had a profound effect on her. With only one doctor on duty, this woman tells me that two people died, a baby was born in the car park—which I can attest to because it was on the front page of the local paper—and a number of other patients were treated for a variety of other injuries. This is clearly not an unusual night in a regional or rural hospital.

For too long the Howard government has simply ignored the medical needs of our rural people. I guess they hope that foreign doctors will plug the gaps and the people of regional and rural Australia will just accept a second-class health system or one that sees them flying off to Brisbane for everything they need. Those gaps are now gaping holes and, whereas there was a time once when only young people left the country to find work in our cities, we are now seeing older Australians leaving regional and rural centres to live in our capital cities because they understand that the health services provided in our cities are far superior to what is available to them in the bush. In many cases these people leave behind homes and families and communities where they have spent most of their lives and move to capital cities where they have no social contact and become an increasing burden on the already overstretched public system. I fear this trend will continue and even increase as the Howard government continues to ignore the health requirements of our ageing citizens living in our regional areas.

It surprises me that we do not hear more from The Nationals opposite about this. They claim to represent that 36 per cent of the population which lives in rural Australia, so they must know the statistics—that the 36 per cent of Australians who live in rural Australia die younger and at a higher rate in every age bracket than Australians in our cities. This situation is not helped by the shortage of medical services in rural Australia. The truth is that this government has allowed rural medical services to run down to such an extent that they have now reached a critical level. I understand that the issues are complex, but surely the government is capable of taking one step at a time.

My challenge to the government is to take just that first step by way of ensuring that the doctors who work and live in rural Australia are appropriately recognised. At the moment rural and remote practice is not recognised, and I am saying that it should be badged as a specialist area. I believe this one simple step would get more doctors into rural practice. At the moment it is difficult, and, indeed, some think risky, for young doctors to get the skills they need to feel confident about working in the bush. Existing programs are fragmented and obviously not working. Rural doctors need to feel valued, not only by their community but also by their colleagues in the medical profession and by the wider community. I think it is time that the government seriously considers having those doctors working in the bush recognised as rural and remote practice specialists.

On the topic of health services, I would like to mention a commitment that was made by the Labor Party to the people of Central Queensland during the election campaign and urge the government to follow suit now that they are the ones responsible for the health of my constituents. I am referring to Labor's pledge to fund a Medicare eligible MRI machine at the Rockhampton Base Hospital. This announcement was widely welcomed and the service is still much needed by the Central Queensland community. The government is in receipt of two applications from my region—one from Queensland Health seeking to install a Medicare eligible machine at the Rockhampton Base Hospital and one from a private operator, Central Queensland Medical Imaging.

Labor's policy is that MRI services should be available through our public hospitals, and that, of course, remains my preference. However, the bottom line is that we need this service in Central Queensland, so the private applicant has my support for the submission it made to the government if that is the only way we are going to see an improvement in people's access to this important health service in my region. The submissions have been with the government for some months now, so the government should get on and make its decision about the placement of the 20 additional MRI services that the minister announced back in June. Rockhampton has been identified by both the Commonwealth and the Queensland governments as a high priority regional centre, so the need for the service has already been clearly established. I am calling on the government to just get on with it and make its decision, and I believe that they should announce Rockhampton as one of the recipients of those Medicare eligible MRI machines.

In closing, we have heard quite a lot of comment in the last couple of weeks stemming from the allegations that were made by the member for New England about just who this government seem to think they are working for in this country. I would like to let the government know that I am here working for the people of Capricornia and I expect as a Labor member that the government will take the needs of my constituents just as seriously as those of members sitting on the other side of the chamber.