First Speeches

1. Andrew Leigh - ALP Member for Frazer

Editor's Note: Many of you will already be aware of Andrew Leigh not just because of his previous role as an economist at ANU but because of his extensive blogging - much of it on the subject of education, from the perspective of an economist.

He is also quite well known because of his writings on

• Myschool as the best way to bring about equity in educational outcomes
• What it would mean in Australia to have a vigorous approach to evidence based policy
• The idea of social capital as promoted by Robert Putman in his iconic book Bowling Alone - some of that flavor permeates this speech (Robert Putman: Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon and Shuster, New York 2000)

Key extracts

On social capital, diversity and community values

"Economists like me are trained to believe in markets as the best route to environmental protection. And I do. But I also know that smart policy will only succeed if there is a will for action - if we believe in our hearts that we cannot enjoy the good life without a healthy planet.

As vital as our natural environment are the social ties that bind us together. .....

During my time in this parliament, I will strive to strengthen community life not only in Canberra, but across Australia. In doing so, I hope to follow in the footsteps of my grandparents - people of modest means who believed that a life of serving others was a life well lived. My paternal grandfather, Keith Leigh, was a Methodist Minister who died of hypothermia while running up Mount Wellington in Hobart ...to raise money for overseas aid.

My mother's parents were a boilermaker and a teacher who lived by the credo that if there was a spare room in their house, it should be used by someone who needed the space. As a child, I remember eating at their home with Indigenous families and new migrants from Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, Chile, Cambodia and Sri Lanka.

That early experience informs my lifelong passion for Australia's multiculturalism. With a quarter of our population born overseas, Australia has a long tradition of welcoming new migrants into our midst. Earlier this year, I attended a prize-giving ceremony for an art competition run as part of Refugee Week. First prize went to a Karen Burmese woman who had woven a traditional crimson tunic. Because she didn't have a proper loom, the woman had taken the mattress off her bed, and fashioned a loom from her pine bed base. It is hard not to be overwhelmed by the courage and spirit of Australia's migrants.

My views on diversity and difference were also shaped by spending several years of my childhood in Malaysia and Indonesia. Sitting in my primary school in Banda Aceh, I learned what it feels like to be the only person in the room with white skin. And as I moved through seven different primary schools, I got a sense of how it feels to be an outsider, and the importance of making our institutions as inclusive as possible."

On evidence based policy

" ....picking my way through the snow drifts to attend Harvard seminars with Christopher Jencks, I came to appreciate the importance of rigorously testing your ideas, and the power of tools such as randomised policy trials (a topic about which members can be assured I will speak more during my time in this place)."

On education

"In the decades ahead, education will be the mainspring of Australia's economic success. Great childcare, schools, technical colleges and universities are the most effective way to raise productivity and living standards.

Improving education is also smart social policy. First-rate schooling is the best antipoverty vaccine we've yet invented. Great teachers can light a spark of vitality in children, a self-belief and passion for hard work, that will burn bright for the rest of their lives."

On equity and equity policy

"As an economist, much of my research has been devoted to the vast challenges of reducing poverty and disadvantage. I believe that rising inequality strains the social fabric. Too much inequality cleaves us one from another: occupying different suburbs, using different services, and losing our sense of shared purpose. Anyone who believes in egalitarianism as the animating spirit of the Australian settlement should recoil at this vision of our future.

But my research has also taught me that good intentions aren't enough. As a professor-turned-politician, one of my role models is the late great US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Moynihan was innately sceptical about every social policy solution presented to him. Indeed, his starting point was to expect that any given social policy would have no measureable effect. But these high standards didn't make him any less of an idealist, and Moynihan never lost his optimism and passion. What we need in Australian policy today is not more ideologues, convinced that their prescriptions are the answer, but modest reformers willing to try new solutions, and discover whether they actually deliver results."

 And

"To me, the Australian project is about encouraging economic growth, while ensuring that its benefits are shared across the community. It is about making sure that all Australians have great public services, regardless of ethnicity, income or postcode. And it is about recognising that governments have a role in expanding opportunities, because no child gets to choose the circumstances of their birth."

On Australia's role internationally

"Internationally, the Australian project should be one of principled engagement. Australia's influence overseas will always rely on the power of our values. A respect for universal human rights and a passion for raising living standards should always guide the work of our military and our diplomats, our aid workers and our trade negotiators. In the shadows of World War II, Australia helped create the United Nations - guided by a belief that all countries must be involved if we were to create a more peaceful and prosperous world. That ideal must continue to inform how we engage with the rest of the world.

Another important part of the Australian project has been democratic innovation. What we call the secret ballot is elsewhere termed 'the Australian ballot'. We introduced female suffrage a generation before many other nations. We made voting compulsory, recognising that with rights come responsibilities."

On politics

"... Australians have increasingly become disenchanted with their elected representatives. The problem has many sources: the rowdiness of Question Time, too much focus by the commentariat on tactics rather than ideas, and a tendency to oversimplify problems and oversell solutions. I hope to help rebuild a sense of trust between citizens and politicians.

It starts with respect, and a recognition that we can disagree without being disagreeable. Working as associate to Justice Michael Kirby taught me that intellect and compassion together are a powerful force for change. Admit that most choices are tough. Listen to others. Be flexible. And remember that the fire in your belly doesn't prevent you from wearing a smile on your face."

On Liberalism

Leigh sees liberalism as meaning that "...  governments have a role in protecting the rights of minorities, that freedom of speech applies for unpopular ideas as for popular ones, and that all of us stand equal beneath the Southern Cross. ...

Alfred Deakin [a member of the Liberal party] was one of the earliest Australian leaders to make the distinction between liberals and conservatives. Deakin argued that liberalism meant the destruction of class privileges, equality of political rights without reference to creed, and equality of legal rights without reference to wealth. Liberalism, Deakin said, meant a government that acted in the interests of the majority, with particular regard to the poorest in the community."

2. Adam Bandt - Greens Member for Melbourne

On environment and sustainability

"Our actions in heating the planet have led us to a very real climate emergency. In 2007, the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon said „This is an emergency, and for emergency situations we need emergency action‟. In recent congressional testimony in the US, the NASA climate scientist James Hansen warned that: "We have reached a point of planetary emergency... climate is nearing dangerous tipping points. Elements of a perfect storm, a global cataclysm, are assembled."

We would not get on an airplane if it had a 50% risk of crashing, or even a 15 or 5% risk. Yet these are precisely the kind of risks we seem prepared to take with the planet and all its inhabitants. Accepting the science means accepting the science, not what we would like the science to say. Their consensus is a heart-rending cry for urgent action, imploring us to cut greenhouse gas emissions massively within a decade, after which it may be too late. The scientists have spoken: it is now over to politics to craft solutions.

We will also be required to tackle head-on that brand of economics that prioritises endless growth over sustainability and that leads to economic crisis.

Imagine if we reacted to the financial crisis in the same way as the climate crisis, with global meetings deferred for years at a time.

Perhaps if the planet were a merchant bank, we might see the speedy, internationally coordinated and massive government activity we saw during the financial crisis. Keeping Australia out of recession and avoiding double digit unemployment is of course the right thing to do. I simply hope our institutions of government here and abroad will extend to the planet the same courtesy as they do to the finance sector. "

On equality

"... equality is more important now than ever. As neo-liberalism and the ideology of market dominance have defined the social and economic polices of successive governments led by each of the old parties, and sometimes ripped apart local communities, devastated small producers and prioritised free trade at the cost of fairness, so has the idea of full substantive equality receded from public life.

In our new configuration, chance has replaced equal entitlement, opportunity has replaced equal right. And worse, we now don't even blink at treating some people as less equal than others. There are so many exceptions to the principle of full equality that the exception is becoming the rule. We all have the right to get married, unless your partner is of the same gender. We pride ourselves on our great sovereign nation, and then excise parts of it as being „not really Australia‟ for the purposes of migration. We say human rights are indivisible, and then suspend them for indigenous Australians."

On compassion

'.. I join those who want to put compassion back on the agenda. If you ask most Australians, they will have a positive story to tell of a co-worker, friend or extended family member who came to this country as a refugee, or whose parents or grandparents did. Yet instead of seeking to fan this positive sentiment, politics has tended to play to the worst in us.

If fear and suspicion are the organising principles of our approach to our fellow human beings from other places, then we are condemning ourselves to revisiting this issue election after election and setting ourselves up for an isolationist and dark future.

Ironically, it is usually those who want the fewest barriers for money to move across borders who want to build the strongest walls to stop people doing the same. But when we lock asylum seekers and refugees up indefinitely, in city and desert prisons, we have more than enough evidence that we destroy their lives and the lives of their families.

And there is a palpable hypocrisy in saying the threat is so dire that we must send our soldiers to fight in places like Afghanistan, and yet when people flee that threat we close the door on them.''

3. Deborah O'Neill - ALP Member for Robertson (and member of the Australian College of Educators)

On education

"As a person who has dedicated her life to the teaching profession, I am also delighted to be able to work for a leader and a party that understands the transformative power of education. So thank you, Prime Minister, for today's opportunity, and for the hope you embody for the people of my electorate on the New South Wales Central Coast.

Beyond family and place, my enduring love, my passion, is education. I love its power to transform the lives of those who embrace it. Education enriches and fulfils those who share it and those who receive it. It is a great source of inspiration to me that it is an educator, Mother Mary MacKillop, who will become Australia's first saint later this year. Mother Mary established an orphanage and school at Kincumber.

I fell under the thrall of education at the age of four. Listening to the Kindergarten of the Air,

We all know how vital the early childhood years are in developing a disposition for learning and a disposition towards schooling. This is an ongoing challenge for all Australian parents, carers, teachers, elders and community leaders: to link kids with learning.

The School of the Air may have been overtaken by TV, video and the iPad, but it is now clearer than ever that technology plays a vital part in making quality educational experiences accessible to those who want to learn but are confined by age, by disability or simply by the tyranny of distance from people and the options to select for learning that excites them. That is why, as an educator, the possibilities of stable, high-quality, high speed internet access where we live, through the National Broadband Network, is a policy of which I am very proud. In my own story, learning happens both inside and outside classrooms. It is my belief that learning happens both inside and outside programs and formal curricula.

Learning is a natural phenomenon-it is part of our everyday life-and, when formal education meets a learner at the point where their interest lies, learning is a joyful experience of growth that benefits the individual, the community and our national productive capacity. I acknowledge my professional colleagues, my fellow teachers and the work all teachers do in schools. But I am mindful that not all students find school such a positive or enabling experience. That is why we need to continue to adapt and change how we offer education. We need initiatives such as trade training centres and a full range of learning content and learning sites to ensure all students, whatever their age, are able to discover and develop their talents.

I personally thank Miss Walker of St Anthony's, Girraween, my first class teacher, who opened up new worlds to me by teaching me how to read. It has been a real source of joy to read each night of my life by dim light and discover other times, other worlds and other people's stories. I bring all of that reading with me and deeply understand the importance of basic literacy for all. I also must thank my high school teachers, the Good Samaritans at St Patrick's College in Campbelltown. Mrs Writer introduced me to Shakespeare through Julius Caesar, while Mrs Yule revealed the beauty of poetry to me in a single lesson on Donne. Miss Milne gave me words to understand literature and language. Mrs Sneddon and Mrs Malone, who arranged theatre and concerts, opened my ears to orchestral music and my eyes to new ideas that have nurtured in me a deep love of music and the arts. I also want to thank Sister Magdalena for being a powerful model of compassion.

Making these kinds of interactions available to all students is so important, for teaching is much more than books and exams, results and certificates. Teachers prepare us for life in the community. I see schools as critical sites in which our citizens practise our democratic capacity-our capacity to get along with one another. We need to practise ways of being a good citizen in our time, our country, our region and our world. We need to think and learn about our beliefs and our values as citizens in a democracy. This is such an important field that I think deserves much greater emphasis.

Values education is in fact the field of my doctoral studies, and one in which Australia has some world leaders. One of them is Professor Terry Lovat, my mentor from the University of Newcastle, where I work on the Central Coast campus. I have recently spent my time there as a lecturer in the School of Education. I thank you, Professor Lovat, for being here today. I thank my lecturers and tutors at Sydney university, the University of New England, the Australian Catholic University and Deakin University and my colleagues and students at the University of Newcastle for their inspiration and humanity. I mention Professor Keith Crawford, as a wonderful writing and teaching partner."

On infrastructure

''Our educational infrastructure is such an important part of our future. The renewal of our school buildings in Robertson is a sign of good economic management. Indeed investment in infrastructure, in every sense, is so important for our region. Our infrastructure deficit on the Central Coast is a major structural impediment to economic growth that impacts on the quality of life of our residents and visitors every day.

Our $20 million investment in advancing fast rail, and the increased role for Infrastructure Australia that will drive that development, testifies to Labor's commitment to the regions outside major cities.

 We live in a global village with business, health and learning opportunities that have the capacity to radically improve our lives through stable, high-quality digital connection with others outside our region. In Robertson, as in other regional areas across our great nation, we have a population that is in love with where we live. But we need high-quality jobs to ensure that our children can plan for future lives where we live. Currently, so many of our young people, our young parents and our experienced workers can only find work or seek out professional challenge by leaving the coast. Some coasties leave permanently; others commute daily. Such a loss of capacity in our region has too great a cost both socially and economically. It is my view that the NBN and the opportunities that it offers to large businesses and service providers to relocate physical capital to the regions is the opportunity of our lifetime to re-envision the possibility for lives in regional Australia."

4. Wyatt Roy - Liberal Member for Longman

On service delivery/social policy

"... we took to the last election a great policy to establish local hospital boards.  This would have given individuals who face health problems on a day to day basis a direct say in how health services are provided locally into the future.  It would have empowered local communities.  In terms of sustainable development, a Coalition government would have worked in partnership with local community groups - at a grassroots level - to establish a standing Green Army.

These are just two examples of initiatives which would represent true people power, as opposed to a bureaucratic, top-down, approach. Someone once said to me, governments don't have any money of their own; they only have the people's money, held in trust."

On voluntary student fees in Higher Education

''...  freedom of association should also apply to those enrolled at university.  It should not be a condition of pursuing academic study that people are made to join an organisation which is essentially political in nature.  And it is ironic that, where all political parties in this place accept that there should be no closed shops in the workplace, that there are still some in this place who are happy to apply that compulsion to universities, even if they do that by stealth."

On inclusivity

''Above all, we accept that there are many opportunities available to everyone, not defined by the economic or social circumstances of our background.  That is not the case in many other countries.  This openness, sense of equality and birthright to participate in the political processes of this nation is a constant reminder to me, at a personal level, of the privileges of being an Australian.  

A little over 14 million people voted on 21 August and I remind the House that more than 2.6 million of them were young Australians aged between 18 and 30. Many of these people are not so much disengaged from politics, they feel disenfranchised and excluded.   The political parties of Australia - all political parties - have to offer more.  They have to re-engage. Every decision we take - every vote that occurs here - affects someone.  Politics should not be something that people avoid; it should be something that people own." 

On Indigenous policy

"Mal Brough (Liberal predecessor in same electorate) shook established orthodoxies, and made us realise how much successive governments had failed in their duty.  Politics is often about doing not what is popular, but what is right.  I believe that Mal Brough deserves lasting recognition for understanding that and taking a principled decision.

During the campaign I developed close relationships with the local Indigenous community.  I am deeply impressed by their concerns for the predicaments young Aboriginal men and women find themselves in.   These Indigenous leaders are wonderful people who support not only their own communities, but the community at large.  I look forward to working in partnership at a local, grassroots level, to find practical solutions to very real problems.  Solutions that bypass an often intrusive and often disruptive bureaucracy, perhaps guided by good intentions but unable to deliver effective policy outcomes."

5. Kenneth Wyatt - Liberal Member for Hasluck

On Indigenous matters - not in speech order

"My mother was one of the stolen generation and spent her childhood years in Roelands Mission near Bunbury in Western Australia.

We all have vivid recollections of the way things were, but as children we did not comprehend the significance of many actions until much later, when we were more capable of understanding the reality of life my mother experienced while she was in Roelands Mission and later as a domestic worker. My parents substantiated this when I was much older and the missing pieces were gained through reading the numerous entries, correspondence and field officer's reports in my mother's native welfare department file. It gave us an inkling of the challenges that she faced as a child and later as an adolescent woman when she was sent out to work. The letters from her parents or the entries made about parental contact over a period of time clearly established the fact that her parents had not relinquished their parental rights.

It is with deep and mixed emotion that I, as an Aboriginal man with Noongar, Yamitji and Wongi heritage, stand before you and the members of the House of Representatives as an equal. I want to reflect these feelings and sentiments so eloquently put by the two previous Aboriginal senators, Neville Bonner and Aden Ridgeway, in their maiden speeches.

In Senator Neville Bonner's powerful first speech on 8 September 1971, he encapsulated the feelings that I am experiencing today. Equally, Senator Aden Ridgeway, in his speech 28 years after Senator Neville Bonner's speech, also outlined the enormity of the task that I assume as a mantle of responsibility to represent the people of Hasluck and advocate for Indigenous Australians. Regretfully, 39 years later, I stand here and the same principles and ideals still apply. Not a great deal has changed significantly.

I hope that all governments continue to embrace new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed, where enduring approaches need to change and where the future we all influence is based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the agencies of government need to jettison the old mindsets that embody Indigenous Australians as passive recipients of government programs and services, and to instead truly regard people as equals and allow them to be equal partners in developing their solutions. Governments must allow information to be shared so that an informed consent decision-making process is enabled. If change is to occur and become embedded and sustained then all must be equal and active partners in all facets of planning, implementation and accountability, and I would equally apply this to all Australians that we represent."

On social policy

"There is no 'one size fits all' solution to deal with any social issue. Rather, we should look at the individual needs of the person, the family and the community. For example, the needs of Gosnells residents differ from the needs of Kalamunda residents in my electorate. I want no less for the electors of Hasluck, the people of Western Australia and Australian society as we become immersed within a global economy. I want to achieve changes and outcomes, as I am sure that you all equally desire, that are inclusive because if we do not achieve those changes then we have failed those who have elected us."

On education (Kenneth has teaching qualifications)

"I have been a battler for most of my life but I have always driven myself to be successful in order to achieve my dreams. I used education as the way to change my life to get to where I am now and I believe that a quality education is the key to success for any young Australian. I have always been inspired by Nelson Mandela, who reinforced the importance of education with these words:

Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of a farm worker can become the president of a great nation.

As the son of a railway ganger and a domestic worker who was a part of the stolen generation, I am here before you today in this chamber because of the influence of education and my year 1 teacher, Miss Abernethy. Her unfailing faith in my ability to succeed and serve Australian society resonated on the day of the election when she turned up to hand out how-to-vote cards for me in Maddington. This ongoing support 50 years after I was in her class has been particularly humbling.

This is why I have always believed and promoted the fact that education and access to the knowledge society involves lifelong learning. An education in Corrigin, a rural town in Western Australia, has not been a barrier to my achievements. The local Rotary Club, the Country Women's Association and a local businessman, Dean Rundle, combined their efforts to ensure I completed my secondary schooling. They met all of the costs associated with my schooling and travel and provided pocket money. They indicated to my parents that they had great faith in the pathway and journey and that I had the opportunity to travel if I was given the right support. I attended Swanleigh Residential College in Swan View to complete my leaving certificate and I graduated as a primary school teacher from Mount Lawley Teachers College.

My career led me to leadership roles in education and health both in Western Australia and in New South Wales.

...we need to design education and training systems that are a means through which Australian societies better prepare future generations to invent a better tomorrow for themselves and their children. The opportunity to address this issue has been lost over recent times and we need to redress the current situation so that we develop Australia's workforce with the skills required for the future. As leaders, we need to be the pathfinders and use our influence at the right times, for the right reasons and for the good of all not the few. We need to continue to search for the best answers and not the familiar ones because they offer the path of least resistance. We need to achieve a legacy of better outcomes for the children of the future and work for the benefit of others and not for personal gain. For all of us as pathfinders, we need to take our ideas and aspirations, act on them, see them through to success and not give up when the quest gets challenging, and remember at all times that we are all our children's future.

I am passionate about and strongly committed to working towards achieving better outcomes and opportunities for the residents of Hasluck, Indigenous Australians and Australian society marked by justice, legitimacy, integrity and a commitment to supporting these essential virtues. Equally, I strongly believe that we need to provide a lifelong educational pathway that positions our young people to succeed in an ever-changing world where the quick pace of the global and technological society will be ever-present in their lives; provide for our seniors, veterans and those living in poverty, who require practical solutions to their specific needs; and provide strong and visionary leadership that forges our place in the global community as a nation of people led by many, not the few."

On seniors

"Whilst I was campaigning and meeting people at their front doors, I was affected by the number of ordinary Australians who struggle from day to day and in particular the number of seniors, retirees and veterans struggling to make ends meet. I find this an anomaly because the wealth, prosperity and facilities that we take for granted were established and provided through the hard work and sacrifices of our elderly. Additionally, our freedom, the liberties we enjoy and the democratic processes we have today are because of our veterans and the sacrifices that they made for us. I do not want to celebrate a day or week dedicated to seniors and veterans, but instead want to work with members of this House to find real solutions that will enable them to enjoy a comfortable retirement and be financially secure. Elders within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies are revered and respected, and hold a special place-they do not go away but remain as wisdom-givers and guides in our future. The same concept has to be applied to all seniors and retirees, and the support they require should be accorded to them."

6. Michelle Rowland - ALP MP for Greenway

On education

"....irrespective of one's country of birth, or suburb of origin, every parent essentially holds the same desire: that their children should have a life better than they themselves had. The starting point for this is that parents demand the best educational opportunities for their children. As someone who was born in Blacktown and whose parents selflessly pursued that goal for me, I have always believed in education as the great enabler. It is the key to fulfilling employment, economic opportunity, the joy of teamwork and collegiality.

Education drives a virtuous cycle, with the capacity to overcome the misery of intergenerational unemployment, poverty and crime. It is from this that my belief in an overarching policy objective that your postcode should not dictate your future and an obligation to generate ideas and live a life which promotes equality of opportunity.

I commit that I will be a passionate advocate for the best educational infrastructure and resources for all our schools. I will strive to maximise access to trades training and higher education to achieve a society where we all benefit from the learnings of children and adults alike.

Growing up in Greenway, I personally witnessed the power of education to effect change. My husband grew up in a public housing area of Mount Druitt. Like many people from diverse ethnic backgrounds who live in Greenway, he could not speak English when he started school. He attended the local public school in Shalvey until year 12. Thanks to his personal determination, supportive family and dedicated teachers, he was accepted into the University of Sydney and he earned first-class honours in economics and law.

 I know there are scores of young people in Western Sydney today who have the same, if not greater, capacity to succeed. But even now we too often leave the prospects of young people to chance-the chance that they may be taken under the wing of a supportive teacher at a formative time in their life, the possibility that their family can afford all the educational resources they need.

In today's labour market, a global market, we cannot let luck determine the educational and career prospects of our children. I believe these things because I was taught the importance of both hard work and earning my own good fortune by giving back to the community around me. My education at St Bernadette's Lalor Park and later at Our Lady of Mercy College Parramatta taught me to be an agent of change. My teachers encouraged me to be a woman of action as well as opinion, a lesson which has guided my life.

The past few months have also taught me about the suffering of families in Greenway who have a child with a learning or development disorder. Until I encountered these families on the campaign trail, I did not fully appreciate the meaning of the term 'special needs child'. I remember especially one mother in Quakers Hill, who ran down the street to catch up with me while I was doorknocking. She passionately wanted me to know what it means to love and care for a child whose emotions will switch from placid to violent without warning. I could do only one thing: I listened."

On ICT and communications

"My university studies subsequently took me into the law. During my 10 years as a lawyer at Gilbert and Tobin in Sydney I specialised in telecommunications regulation, competition, privacy and broadcasting laws. I was extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to work with senior partners who are recognised as world leaders in their fields. I worked with some of the largest companies in Australia and the world. This exposed me to the realities and the challenges of the corporate environment.

I am also grateful to Gilbert and Tobin for giving me the opportunity to work on projects around the world that nurtured my personal belief in the power of information technology to deliver just social outcomes. These included designing the regulatory environment for the high-speed broadband network in Malaysia; improving telecommunications access in remote areas of Cambodia; working in Ramallah to help establish an independent regulator and promote investment in the sector; universal service delivery in rural Sri Lanka; and infrastructure development for underserved regions of China.

It is therefore with a degree of practical expertise and responsiveness to the residents of west and north-west Sydney that I embrace the development of Australia's National Broadband Network. Labor's NBN plan will transform the way in which people communicate and work, enhance living standards, create better access to education and health services and deliver real choice, consistent with the role of Labor governments as catalysts for economic and social change. As a former telco regulatory lawyer, I need to emphasise the importance of the NBN as a piece of fundamental infrastructure reform-something that is often overlooked in the public debate.

Let us be clear: the wholesale only, open access infrastructure of the NBN will transform the very structure of the telco sector. By separating the network layer from the services layer, the NBN will facilitate effective competition and choice for all Australians, regardless of where they live or work. It will do this by treating the network-the ducts, the poles, the fibre cables and the electronics that constitute the NBN-as it should be: a national piece of utility infrastructure. One only needs to look at the continued growth of fixed bandwidth-a rate of 20 to 30 percent each year-to realise that Australia's existing telco infrastructure will shortly pass its use-by date.

In 10 or 20 years our children will look back on the current debate about the NBN and will be shocked by the short-sightedness of some of the views expressed about the NBN today, particularly the commentary that is fixated on the download path: the false assumption that the NBN is merely a matter of faster emails or web-surfing. The reality is the NBN is not about the download. It is all about the upload. It is about a whole new category of enhanced services and applications that can only be achieved on a high-speed broadband platform that requires speeds only fibre technology can give-services and applications that have not even been invented yet. We have a glimpse today of what some of those applications will be, and they are positive. In the area of health, they include online medical consultations, remote diagnosis of electronic medical images and in-home monitoring of elderly people and sufferers of chronic disease.

The need for a nation to invest in a truly national broadband network is no longer the exception; it is the rule. Other countries, both within our region and beyond, understand the importance of high-speed broadband for economic growth. They understand the technical limitations of copper and wireless networks and the critical role of national government in making high-speed broadband a reality. These are not countries which adopted the adage of Sir William Preece, the chief engineer of the British Post Office, who in 1876 reportedly said:

The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.

...I believe the NBN to be critical to the development of future generations of highly educated and inclusive citizens."