Senator ALLISON(5.46 p.m.) —I stand to speak from a position of great privilege here today. The first and most obvious privilege is to be elected to the Senate. I have accepted that privilege knowing that it is a huge responsibility to act honourably, to be honest and to make good judgments for all Australians.

I come here from a privileged background. I have never known what it is to be unemployed. I left school at year 11, I walked into a job and I negotiated my conditions and I chose my own direction. I entered university as a mature age student and my degree in teaching was paid for by general revenue. Without my university education, I would not be here today. As much as any other factor, my teaching career has shaped my views on social justice and on the role of government.

I first taught in a school which took students who were not privileged: students with learning difficulties and behaviour problems; students whose fathers were in prison; students whose families had been murdered in front of their eyes; students whose first language was not English and whose culture at home was very different from the war zone of the schoolyard in inner Melbourne; students who were good with their hands but could not read properly, if at all; students who were disturbed; students who for various reasons had stopped learning at some time in primary school; and students whose parents had no reason to value learning.

This was a Catholic technical school, the last in Melbourne and now closed. It closed because educating such students is expensive. You cannot teach thirty-five 14-year-olds metalwork all at once, at least not these kids. You cannot teach these kids without support services for their teachers. You cannot teach these kids without occasionally providing them with textbooks. These are the kids who will grow up to be the most cynical about politicians, and you will not find them on a bus coming to Canberra to see how parliament works.

I am proud that I was educated in a state primary school and a state high school. If I achieve little more in my parliamentary career than to improve the lot of our education system, I will be satisfied.

I remind the Senate that a truly egalitarian, prosperous and healthy society is one which above all else does not discriminate against children because their parents are unwilling or unable to send them to a wealthy school. I hope that one day parents will choose public education because it is the best.

Funding for schools in Australia has dropped 25 per cent in real terms in the last 20 years. My commitment to Australian children is to argue for a reversal of this decline. I believe that a strong education system starts with a strong state education system. Parents and teachers are deeply worried about the decline, particularly in primary schooling. In Victoria I am ashamed to say that class sizes have actually risen in primary schools. Poor schools get poorer with the increasing dependence of schools on fundraising and sponsorship for the most basic education. Those least willing or able to court the corporate sector miss out as a result.

On a personal level, I can say that I am privileged to have a generous and supportive partner, a man who is principled and abhors injustice, someone who will not much like coming home to an empty house. My parents are proud, if a little surprised, that I am here today. What is an art teacher doing in a place like this? Party politics was never discussed at home when I was a child, but community politics and concern for themselves came naturally to my family's notion of its civic responsibilities.

Another reason why I am here is because of my passionate belief that women should share equally in decision making. I am immensely proud to be part of a strong team of women, so ably led by women, and I am proud to represent a political party which finds its female majority unremarkable.

I entered real politics as a councillor in Port Melbourne in 1992. For the first time in Port Melbourne's history there were more women in the chamber than men. The number of Victorian councils was reduced by almost two-thirds. In many metropolitan councils women had won 50 per cent of the seats. But more than 80 per cent of the state government appointed commissioners sent to replace elected councillors were men. Democracy was removed in Victoria so local government could be converted into businesses with customers and privatised services.

I have visited many country towns in Victoria over the past two years and I have watched in horror at the way in which rural communities have borne the brunt of government obsession with the dogma of the level playing field, the notion that the private sector necessarily does it better and the idea that all endeavour is improved but in a competitive environment.

Cooperation, community responsibility and public interest have been put aside in the name of privatisation—that panacea for ailing economies in which the Telstras of this world are transformed into core-focused, streamlined, private corporations, downsized and ready for competition. As a teacher, I know that some children respond well to competition, but I also know that every child cannot win. Some kids never win. Does this mean that we put them on the scrapheap of unemployment?

Winning the prize for being the first and only nation to remove protection for its primary products has not excited our farmers. Chicken producers fail to see the logic in GATT if it means we must import poultry from other countries where Newcastle disease is rampant. Our chicken meat industry is one of the most efficient in the world and free from this disease. So is our native bird population so far.

Primary producers have cause to be sceptical about promises of support for the bush. The rush to remove public utilities from country towns has been breathtaking. In rural Victoria, the state government has privatised or closed down electricity and gas utilities, schools, hospitals, railways and regional veterinary laboratories. A veterinary scientist at the height of her career is now on the treadmill of labour market programs, at least until they, too, are removed. She is retraining in computers and office administration. There is the teacher in the country who picks fruit because the literacy program in his school has been cut. I am always shocked at the way in which those with the training, the skills and the experience of some of our best are laid waste in the name of competition, restructure, downsizing and reform. I find it scandalous that we do not ask what happened to the work that they once did.

Victoria has been a model competition state. The state government forces councils to put to tender between 80 and 100 per cent of their services. Where once Victorian councils formed regional organisations and shared resources, they are now competitors bidding for one another's contracts. Absurd and anomalous situations are emerging, like the council staff business unit which wins a Meals on Wheels contract from a neighbouring council but loses its own tender for its own service. The big end of town in Melbourne and the larger regional centres are reaping the economic benefits of winning contracts at the expense of small councils and small business. The Victorian state government has such a strong commitment to competition that it has legislated to guarantee its success. Councils are forced to cut rates by 20 per cent and they have capped this rate for the foreseeable future. Competition, it seems, must be seen to be working, regardless of the consequences.

I raised the matter of competition policy because of the effect on rural economies—and it can be devastating, from what I have seen. Jobs go and families go and they are not replaced. There is a slow realisation that governments are acting on the supposition that the family farm has a limited future and is no longer competitive. I would argue that Australian cities are already too big and country towns already too small to sustain viable rural communities. We are told that the hope for the bush is in mining, woodchipping and tourism. We are told that reduction of the deficit and a complete overhaul of our system of industrial relations will lead to lower interest rates and make farmers more competitive.

Farmers have pushed their land to the limit already in order to be competitive. Many have gone over that limit with disastrous consequences. Dairy farmers are producing more milk, but the results of their flood irrigation and their fertilisers and the fact that their cows graze right up to the water's edge leads to waterways clogged up with silt and poisoned by algae. Farmers downstream have high water tables and paddocks laid waste by salt.

Landcare groups have mushroomed around Australia, but this awareness, this desire to reverse the degradation of once fertile land, has been a mixed blessing. Governments have seen the emergence of these groups as an opportunity to cut their own services. Extension workers in departments of agriculture, parks and management and salinity control have been made redundant. Meanwhile, landcare groups lose funding for their coordinators in favour of other newer groups with more lengthy and more inventive grant applications. The problems landcare groups seek to address were created over the last 100 years and they will not be solved by short-term fixes. They will not be solved, either, unless farming becomes viable. I am told that 80 per cent of farming income in Victoria is now earned off-farm and the average age of farmers is more than 60. These are statistics which suggest that rural communities are in crisis and, whilst this is the case, the land will not be restored.

Another major factor in shaping my views and leading me to the Australian Democrats has been the damage we in this country have wrought on the environment. Much of this has come about because of the notion that development and growth, no matter how insensitive, is fundamentally worthwhile. Bayside was a large industrial site on the seafront in the heart of working class Port Melbourne, where I come from. Its proposed transformation into a haven for those wealthy enough to have their yachts moored at their back garden was typical of the cargo cult mentality of development.

Developers and governments were prepared to overlook the pollution of the site, but locals could recall the days when the disposal of toxic waste directly onto the soil was commonplace. Bayside's proposed 40-storey office and hotel towers would have offered spectacular views across the bay. The streets would be private and the public would not have access to the foreshore. It would be a walled city—a modern cross between Dubrovnik and Venice—but the seven kilometres of canals would capture seawater loaded with nutrients from the nearby river mouth: a perfect environment for the growth of toxic blue-green algae. The arrogance with which the developer and the governments ignored local anger was enough to stir the dead. It was locals, not governments, which eventually forced a site clean-up, and their action, together with the recession we had to have, won out.

The battle against opportunism and greed can never really be said to be won. Our coast environment is precious. Not only will the next few years see an ever-increasing threat from ill conceived development; there will also be pressure to take more fish, to drill for oil and to regard the sea, like the land, as a limitless resource. The reluctance to protect the marine environment means the waters in our bays and ports are being strangled by weeds and pests introduced in ballast water. Governments have not acted on recommendations. They hold the view that the problem is too difficult and not important enough to increase the cost of shipping and not important enough for us to demand international action—too late, anyway. Whilst reports fill the shelves, more and more marine rabbits enter our waterways, finding environments in which they can thrive.

I enter this place with very high expectations. I want to see the natural world protected. I want to see full employment, an environmentally sustainable economy, justice and equity, cooperation and harmony, world peace and disarmament, true economic and constitutional independence and reconciliation with indigenous Australians.

I hope the Senate can be a place of genuine democracy, a place which might one day set aside the rhetoric and take a less partisan approach to decision making. I look forward to the day when women will cross the floor in solidarity and when the strength of argument regularly influences the vote. Madam President, I look forward to my term of office.

Honourable senators —Hear, hear!

The PRESIDENT —Before I call Senator Hogg, I remind senators that this is his first speech and I therefore ask that the usual courtesies be extended to him.