Inaugural Speech
It is an honour to rise as an elected member of this Parliament and I am particularly proud to have been elected the member for Rockdale. It is an electorate as ethnically diverse as Australia itself, with the majority of its residents coming from non-English speaking backgrounds, the major groups being Arabic, Greek, Macedonian and Chinese. Whilst the constituency is a culturally diverse community there are issues of common concern to the people of my electorate, the major issues being planning and development and crime relating to car hoons, especially in Brighton-Le-Sands. Other issues of concern to the constituency include the protection and preservation of open space, the care of the Botany Bay foreshore, traffic, public transport and, I might add, the performance of Rockdale council. My priority as the local member will be to work as hard as I can to address these concerns.
The seat of Rockdale was first established in 1927. It ceased to exist due to boundary changes in the 1930s but was reborn in 1941, and has not looked back since. Five representatives have served as members for Rockdale: James Arkins from 1927 to 1930, former Minister John McGrath from 1941 to 1959, Brian Bannon from 1959 to 1986, former Premier Barrie Unsworth from 1986 to 1991, and my immediate predecessor, George Thompson, from 1991 until last month. I would like to thank George Thompson for his enormous support, help and encouragement in my bid to win the trust of the people of Rockdale. George is universally liked and much respected both within the electorate and in this Parliament. I would also like to thank the Hon. Barrie Unsworth for his encouragement and assistance.
Having been a political independent for most of my public life, I now belong to a party with strong and proud traditions, a party of profound depth, good counsel and support. I cherish this new belonging, and I reaffirm today my commitment to uphold Labor's traditions and to help achieve the aspirations of its members and of my colleagues in this place. I feel it is here I can best make my contribution to public service. Election to public office is one of the greatest privileges that democracy confers on its citizens. That privilege brings with it obligations. My paramount duty is to serve the people with my utmost skill and commitment. To achieve elected office matters little if one cannot say at the end, "I have done my very best and hope that that has made a real difference." I recall feeling the same intense sense of responsibility when I became Lord Mayor of Sydney, but left much relieved, knowing I had given it my best shot.
My personal story is typical of many whose families made their homes in this land of pioneers. Mr Speaker, I recall your comments yesterday. Arriving in 1949 and 1950 from northern Italy with four children, my parents, Cesare and Ida, had four more children of whom I was the first. They eked out a meagre living on a farm in Yenda, near Griffith. My mother died of cancer when I was 16, having travelled to a distant place, Rome, lured by a newspaper report of a cure for melanoma—an urge for cancer sufferers that I have come to know again.
The older five children fended for themselves and the younger three were sent to boarding schools. I consider myself to have been the luckiest. I was able to finish my schooling, win a scholarship and attend Sydney University. After two degrees and two jobs, by accident I found myself working in this place. In fact, I was at home for a period looking after my eldest boy, Oliver, when one day my wife came home at midday, caught me sitting on the couch in my pyjamas, with Oliver on my knees, watching Mike Walsh, and the next day she brought in an advertisement for me to get a job.
From August 1983 until August 1986 I worked with the Public Accounts Committee and its successive chairmen: the Hon. Michael Egan, MLC, the Hon. Robert Carr, MP, the Hon. John Aquilina, MP, and the Hon. John Murray. As fate would have it, these relationships, forged then, despite a brief cooling when I contested the seat of McKell in 1988, became a platform on which was built a strong relationship between the City of Sydney and the New South Wales Government from 1995 until the present. This was unquestionably a key factor in the success of the council in transforming central Sydney from a city that slipped into hibernation as night fell and its work force went home, to a living city—one in which not only hundreds of thousands work but many thousands also live and play. Let me take this opportunity to thank my colleague the Hon. Sandra Nori for defeating me in that election. A better turn she could not have done me.
My time as Lord Mayor of Sydney was stimulating, challenging and rewarding. I was privileged to participate in the Olympic bid, the Olympic Games themselves and other official visits, celebrations and world-class events, as well as the many tasks and challenges that faced the City of Sydney over the last decade. These experiences gave me many insights into how the city operates, how the Government operates and how local government operates. I took away with me an abiding conviction that the system of local government needs reform.
Such reform need not be revolutionary, but it must be sustained and comprehensive to drive this cumbersome system of local representation to better service delivery for its constituencies. I believe that many councils express poor performance characteristics, particularly in core services such as processing small development applications, urban design outcomes, public domain management and maintenance, poor infrastructure and poor community facilities. Some have degenerated into debating societies where the public interest is rarely expressed for fear it may offend narrow local interests. This is only a personal view, and it is not for me to pursue this avenue any further. I wish my colleague the Hon. Tony Kelly, MLC, well with his responsibilities in this area.
My entry into public life through the City of Sydney in April 1984, and into the mayoralty in 1991, was only possible because of the enormous support I received from my wife of 20 years, Judith Fleming. She saw my passion, and gave me every encouragement and help. My sons, Oliver and Jack, saw less of their dad than maybe they should have, but added their encouragement and support. They are fantastic boys, and I love them dearly, and I am thrilled that they are here today.
In making my transition to the State Parliament I must thank a number of people. Firstly I thank the Premier, whose sage counsel and gentle encouragement made me think about the possibility—much more, I might add, than his autographed tome The Ungovernable City by John Lindsay, inscribed with the words "Public Service, Frank". Thanks also to Paul Keating, the Hon. Michael Egan, Ministers Carl Scully and Craig Knowles, as well as the honourable member for Kogarah, the honourable member for Georges River and Graeme Wedderburn for their help and advice, and a special thank you to Minister Morris Iemma for all his help. In the end it was the Labor Party that made it all possible, at both administrative and local levels.
I would like to offer special thanks to Eric Roozendaal, Mark Arbib, Michelle Chambers, Chris Minns, Angela Koutoulas, Shaoquett Moselmane, Leceister Ramsey, Doug McClelland, Nikhil Rughani, Mary Yiakoulis, Phil Lang, Janelle Saffin, MLC, Tony Dupesovski, George Clark, Danny Koutoulas, Bill Saravinovski, Robert McClelland and many branch members too numerous to mention here. They not only generously accepted my candidature but also gave tireless assistance with the campaign.
New Year's Eve at the turn of the millennium is a night that will linger in my memory. At the celebration that night I met a young woman who subsequently became my partner. Hephzibah Tintner was born in Perth and raised in Melbourne. Hephzibah's career as a ballerina, actor and opera director took her to the artistic capitals of the world, but she was just as at home here in Sydney where she came to start a new life. On 26 April 2000 she was diagnosed with cancer. After a journey through the hospitals and treatments available in this State, she died on 21 June 2001 at the age of 30 years. She was a fit, young vegetarian non-smoker, let alone a hugely talented, gifted and lovely human being. Such a waste of life can have an immense impact on those left behind. I note Christopher Reeve's comments during the New South Wales Premier's Forum on Spinal Cord Injury and Conditions, which was held in Sydney on 27 January. He said: I often wonder why it takes a direct emotional connection for our elected officials and prominent members of society before they are willing to help us.
There may be truth in that, but the same could also be said of all aspects of human achievement. People are driven by those things that touch us deeply as individuals, but we should not be limited to acting passionately on those things alone. The whole area of science and medical research will receive my highest level of commitment. I began to get involved in the fight against cancer by starting a cancer foundation to assist the Sydney Cancer Centre at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. It is a sad reality that experiences with cancer in our society are now almost universal. The cancer shadow falls in every street, every school and every workplace. Seventy-eight per cent of people have a friend or relative with cancer. Every year over 29,000 people in this State are diagnosed with cancer.
Every year over 12,000 people succumb to it. The United States loses 560,000 people to cancer every year. Despite declaring war on cancer in 1971 under the Nixon sponsored National Cancer Act and allocating large public and private endowments to the struggle, 32 years on the great superpower has not conquered cancer. In this country our struggle with this disease is brilliant in part, always conscientious and universally competent, but while united in our common goal, the efforts of our finest scientific minds in the field of medical research are stretched in many directions.
The research effort requires better co-ordination, better targeting of resources, and more of them. But now the cancer strategy in this State has been given a new prominence through this Government's commitment to the creation of a New South Wales Cancer Institute. This commitment is backed by financial resources, so an opportunity has been created and the challenge has been laid down. Now I urge our scientific and medical research communities to seize the opportunity that is before us. Researchers, clinicians, carers and support groups alike can now bring their collective experience and knowledge to bear on what is a noble task.
I believe that with the engagement of all stakeholder groups we can enhance cancer prevention, increase cancer survival, and improve the quality of life for those affected. But I would also like to take this opportunity to strike a note of caution: I do not want to be a prophet of false hope. While our scientists venture upon the frontiers of medical discovery, our progress is often measured in years and decades, not in months. My aim is to make government a catalyst—an agent that encourages and nurtures good science and good outcomes for patients, families and survivors. This is a bipartisan cause for which we must all surely be united. I am motivated simply by merit-based innovation and reform that will deliver the greatest good for the greatest number in the quickest possible way. (Extension of time agreed to.]
There are many other areas of medical research to which the same must apply. I want to highlight the Government's BioFirst and biotechnology initiatives and to test which of the many areas of need would most benefit from greater government involvement, patronage or support. Areas such as mental health, immunology, diabetes, spinal injuries and heart disease are among the many medical research areas competing for resources.
I wish to take a little time today to pay tribute to some of those unsung heroes who toil quietly in laboratories and research centres looking for the means to save and prolong the lives of people with serious illness. All of them are ordinary Australians doing extraordinary work. They form part of a long list of Australian unsung heroes who are always there to support us in times of need. They are our nurses, firefighters, teachers, police and carers in homes, nursing homes and hospices. To this list can be added many others—the workers who are running our power stations and treatment plants, and our sewerage facilities like those that I visited at Bondi and Malabar last week. We must never forget or fail to recognise their contribution.
Good public administration has many challenges that go beyond the political demands of public policymaking. As I have already learned in public life, there is a danger that public administrators fall captive to the monocultures of expertise that seek to advance their particular agenda in isolation from, and sometimes at the expense of, the broader community interest. These fiefdoms of influence, or silos of knowledge as I call them, are valuable repositories of expertise and skill which we must draw on, but we must never become subservient. We must work diligently to deliver the collective values of the community.
The population pressures on Sydney and the coastal strip of New South Wales present many challenges for a Government concerned with being environmentally responsible. I know what this means in the areas of energy and water supply. We want our water to be affordable, plentiful and clean, but we do not want any environmentally harmful consequences—moreover, when our land is subjected to drought time and time again. We want cheap and abundant power with large peak capacity for hot days and cold nights. But our addiction to comfortable living comes at an environmental price. Much has been achieved through electricity reform. Our prices are the lowest in mainland Australia, with electricity users in New South Wales saving $1.7 billion since 1995. Significant environmental and economic challenges remain though in the supply of these core services. I look forward to being part of a Government that meets these challenges.
I stand here as a Member of Parliament representing the people of Rockdale. I also stand here as a Minister of the Crown serving the people of New South Wales. I consider these responsibilities an enormous privilege. They are a call to greater effort. I will do my best. I thank honourable members.