Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise today to speak on behalf of people in my electorate of Bonner who provide unwavering support and/or care for people with disabilities.

I am speaking today on behalf of people like Jody Florence from Carindale, a tireless advocate and volunteer for people with disabilities and the mother of a child with a disability; like Peter Connolly from Mount Gravatt, who has 40 years experience supporting people with an intellectual disability and who is father to Damien, a 45-year-old man with an intellectual disability; like Terry Forster, principal of the Mount Gravatt Special School, who is passionate about achieving systematic reform for disability support; like Kathy Stone, president of the P&C association of the Mount Gravatt Special School community, the parent of a child with a disability and someone who knows firsthand the demands placed upon families that love and care for these most disadvantaged and most often marginalised members of our society; and also like Kath Coory, a diligent worker in the disability community and mother of a daughter who attends Darling Point Special School in Manly.

These wonderful members of our community have shared with me their personal experience of what they consider to be a deeply flawed and inadequate system in Australia for people with disabilities. They have told me that there are insufficient funds and inadequate services to provide for the needs of people with disabilities and that, without a substantial change in direction, the situation will increasingly get worse.
In Queensland the problems for the disabled, their carers, their families and their supporters, they have warned me, are as acute as anywhere in Australia. Based on government figures, there are 5,000 to 6,000 people in my electorate of Bonner with a profound or severe disability. Peter Connolly tells me that the situation in Queensland is improving but that there is a long way to go, as progress has come from such a low base.

The level of support a person with a disability receives can depend on a number of factors: what state they live in; whether the disability is congenital or was acquired; and, if acquired, whether it was acquired in the workplace, in a motor vehicle accident or in some other context. The result is that many people with a disability are left without the assistance they need.

With an ageing population and a frayed patchwork of support for Australians with a disability, there is community consensus that we need to do better. There is a particular concern for people with severe disabilities, who need long-term care, and for those carers who are no longer able to provide constant care and support. As many of us in this House will be aware, a scheme for change, known as the National Disability Insurance Scheme, was presented to the federal government and then referred to the Productivity Commission for consideration. The idea of a national scheme that moves to support a system based on need rather than rationing is certainly worthy of examination. I, along with members of the coalition, support the referral of the concept of a national disability insurance scheme to the Productivity Commission for inquiry.

Australians with a disability should be supported properly regardless of how they acquired their disability. Peter Connolly believes that the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme includes a number of positive aspects, such as a lifetime approach to care and support for people with a disability, which would replace the current arrangements for funding specialist disability services. The proposed model would assess the risk of disability in the general population, calculate the costs of meeting the essential lifetime needs arising out of these disabilities and estimate the premium or contribution required from taxpayers to meet these needs. Instead of funding capped programs and services for people with disability to find and access the scheme, this would fund on the basis of each individual’s need, which would in turn drive the development of necessary care and support services.

However, while Jody Florence believes that these aspects are positive, she also believes that they are the most basic of requirements and that much more needs to be done. There is no doubt that there is strong interest from the disability sector in reforming this policy area. This is evidenced by the many people in Bonner whom I have referred to today. I will continue to engage with my community as to how the government can better deliver support on the basis of individual need, and I am looking forward to the Productivity Commission’s findings. I am confident that a support scheme based on individual need will be just the beginning of wide-ranging reforms in the area of disability support.

I rise today to encourage the Queensland government to work with the Brisbane City Council to ensure that plans to create a community hub on the old Wynnum Central State School will proceed. There is a real potential to preserve the precious green space and the heritage of the school site, which the state government is selling, by creating a civic centre and community park. I know from my conversations with Lord Mayor Campbell Newman that council had been working hard to get the proposal off the ground ever since Deputy Premier Paul Lucas approached them earlier this year about buying the site. The proposal had since stalled because the state government has, according to independent valuers, overvalued the land and will not budge on this inflated price. I urge the state government to remember that it is not about making a quick buck but about ensuring that the land stays in public hands, not those of private developers who may not be focused on retaining green space or providing community services on the site. I know that this proposal also comes with the support of the local councillor, local businesses and the Wynnum Chamber of Commerce. I welcome a happy outcome to this proposal.

I second this motion. In an open and transparent democracy the public deserves to know the rate of failure of all inspections carried out to date and this government must be held to account. I support this motion because it is in the national interest but also because there is a great deal of anxiety amongst homeowners in my electorate of Bonner. Homeowners in Bonner have made numerous representations to me concerned about whether or not they are living in a house with significant safety defects. In addition a number of homeowners in Bonner have asbestos or a risk of asbestos in their roof but had foil insulation installed. These homeowners have a well-founded concern about safety but are feeling left high and dry in relation to these issues. They have been told that they must remove the asbestos from their roof before their house can be further inspected or the insulation removed. This is likely to be at an incredible cost and many of these homeowners are senior citizens.

The government’s Home Insulation Program cost taxpayers $2.5 billion and from its inception it has been an outrageous failure of policy and implementation. As we all know now, and it is confirmed by the Auditor-General, this program was linked to at least 207 fires and the tragic deaths of four insulation installers. As we all know now this government rejected all attempts to warn them of the issues associated with this program and all attempts to shed light on what was really going on with fraudulent claims. This government preferred to put the safety of the public and the accountability of government below their own self-preservation.

While the government now is conducting safety inspections of houses fitted with insulation, in October the Auditor-General’s report found that there had been 29 per cent failure rate-that is, nearly one in three jobs done under the government program were dodgy or dangerous. The Auditor-General found a one in three failure rate but this government has decided that it will only inspect one in five houses at risk. That is not good enough. The most striking issue is that the one in three failure rate discovered by the Auditor-General is based only on a small sample of nearly 14,000 homes. One hundred thousand safety inspections have been carried out now, so it is time to stop hiding the truth.

Anecdotally, I understand that the rate of failure and the number of dodgy jobs is now much higher than one in three. In fact at one inspection that was carried out on Friday of last week an old Queenslander house with non-foil insulation was found to have failed Australian standards in three areas. Firstly, the depth of insulation was too low. Then there was not enough adequate clearance of cellulose around the downlights. Finally, the cellulose was not restrained around the cavity. They were all failures of Australian standards. The inspector said that almost all houses he had inspected did not meet the Australian standards and in 100 per cent of cases he had found the specific issue of cellulose not being restrained around the cavity.

So it is time for the government to come clean. Importantly, this motion also seeks to uncover the number of asbestos related problems. As I mentioned, homeowners with asbestos in their roofs are being left high and dry. It is outrageous for residents to be told that they must remove the asbestos from their roofs before any further inspection can take place or the insulation can be removed. Residents are well aware that the government had no problem in allowing the insulation to be installed in roofs with asbestos in the first place without appropriate oversight, so they must do whatever is necessary to assist these homeowners to rectify the issue that now exists. In the words of Mr Barry Reardon from my electorate of Bonner:

The government has been responsible for getting us into this mess. It has a responsibility to get us out of it.

It is unacceptable for this government to claim that the extent of failures should be withheld because its release could cause unnecessary apprehension. What is causing unnecessary apprehension in the electorate is the lack of information for the public to make informed choices with, particularly in relation to whether or not to remove or remediate the insulation installed under this program. I urge all members of this House to support this motion. It is in the public interest to do so.

I rise to speak about Wynnum Family Day Care and its innovative program and website, HubWorks. HubWorks is a web based childcare management system that allows parents and educators easy access to information directly relevant to their children’s participation in care, including such features as attendance, vacancies and online payment. It has taken two years of hard work and thousands of dollars, but it has all paid off with Cathy Bavage and her team at Wynnum Family Day Care now piloting and building this system for the whole of Australia. Cathy Bavage has also been nominated to head up a national focus group, with leaders from each state to commit to a further two years of expansion into the national framework and other government and community needs.

I want to congratulate Cathy and her team on their insight and courage in having such a strong vision for the future and in pushing the boundaries of what is traditionally a very big cottage industry to bring forth faster, safer and more reliable information sharing. I am confident that, before long, HubWorks will become the world leader in childcare communication.

It is with regret that I rise today to expose Labor’s unconscionable treatment of a very valuable community group in my electorate of Bonner, the Bulimba Creek catchment group. This Labor government has refused to honour a promise made by the former minister for the environment, the Hon. Peter Garrett, during the 2010 election campaign to deliver $58,000 to rehabilitate the vulnerable flying fox colony at Aquarium Passage, Hemmant.

The local volunteer Hemmant-Tingalpa conservation group, supported by B4C, applied for a Care for Country grant, which was submitted under the Community Action Grants program, in April 2010. They were subsequently contacted by the previous member for Bonner and the minister for the environment, Peter Garrett, on 11 August, prior to the federal election.

A meeting took place at which Minister Garrett made a verbal commitment to deliver the Care for Country grant of $58,000. This promise was covered by the Wynnun Herald, which shows Minister Garrett proudly posing for a photo at the time of the announcement.

However, on 22 October 2010, B4C received a letter from Australian Government Land and Coasts department informing them that their Care for Country grant application had been rejected and placed on a reserve list. Bizarrely, the letter also stated:

Your proposal was not among those recommended for funding at this stage.

Well, that is not what Minister Garrett promised. What an outrageous backflip. B4C is a group that faithfully serves the community and the environment. And like many other community organisations, they trusted what this Labor government said they would deliver if re-elected to govern. This broken promise will gravely impact on B4C’s capability in staffing, staging and preparing the works planned for that site.

If the Gillard government thought that rehabilitation of this flying fox colony was a worthy protect during the election, then I ask them to provide the people of Bonner with an explanation as to what has changed in the three months since the election. Clearly what has not changed is Labor’s inability to honour the promises that they make to the community. Labor cannot play politics with community groups. I ask this government to honour its commitment to the B4C and, if they do not, every representative of this government should hang their head in shame.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate about our nation’s involvement in Afghanistan. I think it is a timely debate and right that we justify our Afghanistan commitment to this parliament given that last month marked the ninth anniversary of Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan and we have seen a number of changes over that period. Last week, on 11 November, Australians commemorated Remembrance Day in honour of those who have died or suffered for Australia’s cause in all wars and armed conflicts. As I participated in commemorative services in my electorate of Bonner, the observation of two minutes silence-one minute for those who returned and one minute for those who did not-touched a chord for many gathered there. I believe that a third minute of silence could also be observed to acknowledge those currently serving and defending our nation in various theatres around the world.

In line with those commemorations, I would like to start by outlining my support and admiration for Australia’s Defence Force personnel. I pay tribute to those thousands of men and women who serve and have served in Australia’s Defence Force, at times in very dangerous and hostile environments. In particular, I acknowledge the 21 Australian soldiers who have lost their lives in Australia’s service in Afghanistan. I salute the ultimate sacrifice those soldiers made in defence of Australia’s national security. I also acknowledge the 152 soldiers who have been injured during Australia’s mission in Afghanistan. I honour your service to date and I know that many of you have continued or will continue to serve our great nation upon your recovery. I also support and admire the families and loved ones of our Defence Force personnel. I understand the concerns that many families of serving personnel have when their loved ones are serving overseas and I empathise with the enduring anguish of the loved ones of those soldiers who have lost their lives.

In assessing Australia’s commitment in Afghanistan over the last nine years and indeed our future commitment, it is important to remember that our mission, and the sacrifices that have been made, is in defence of Australia’s national security. Australia’s national security is articulated through the achievement of a number of objectives, the first of which is freedom from attack or the threat of attack-that is, our capacity to protect our citizens and interests at home and abroad. Our national security was put at risk when terrorists attacked the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001. In that attack, 10 Australians lost their lives. Our national security was again significantly put at risk when 88 Australians were killed in the first Bali bombings. Similarly, the death of eight other Australians in subsequent terrorist attacks in London, Kuta Bali, Jimbaran Beach and Jakarta continued this sad trend.

Our troops are committed to Afghanistan because all these attacks have been proven to be linked in some way back to the freedom of action that terrorist forces enjoyed in Afghanistan. We must remove these safe havens for extreme terror groups capable of extending their influence into Australia’s region and thereby further impacting on our national interests.

However, our mission is twofold. While we must remove safe havens for terrorist groups, we must also engage with the society that has proved to be, often unwillingly, a breeding ground for terrorist groups and assist the building of a stable Afghan state through a combination of military, policy and civilian effort. This is one of the most fundamental aspects of Australia’s mission and one that I support wholeheartedly. I appreciate that progress in this strategy will be very gradual and that advances will be achieved day by day, village by village. It is a slow process, but one that we must follow through so that it will lead to the successful restoration of normality in a country where normality has been a foreign concept for the past 30 years.

I know that there are some voices advocating immediate or near-future withdrawal, but I believe that this is not in any way a viable option. It is not viable for Australia’s national interest and it is not viable for Afghanistan’s security and stability. The irony of this alternate strategy is that an incomplete mission in Afghanistan will see the resurgence of the Taliban, a repressive regime that has operated off the back of the heroin trade. It is highly corruptible and is known as one of the worst human rights violators of recent times. An incomplete mission in Afghanistan also has the potential to send the message to other terrorist organisations which cooperate with and look up to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, particularly in our South-East Asian region, that we are not serious about defeating terrorism and protecting our national security.

The coalition has never taken this commitment lightly. I support Australia’s commitment in Afghanistan and I support the work we are doing, through our alliance with the United States of America and under the auspices of the United Nations, to defeat terrorism at its source, deny terrorist organisations a training ground and support a democratically elected government to ensure that Afghanistan can never again become a haven for terrorism.

I rise to speak in support of the National Broadband Network Financial Transparency Bill 2010 introduced by the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull. I support this bill because the residents of my electorate of Bonner support access to fast, affordable broadband. Availability of and access to broadband services is arguably one of the most contentious and frustrating issues for the residents of Bonner. Many residents-especially those who live in the suburbs of Mackenzie, Wakerley, Gumdale, Ransome, and parts of Wynnum-Manly and Carindale-do not have access to any broadband, let alone faster broadband. The majority of those households do not care about the politics of the situation; all they want is to be able to access the internet reliably, quickly and, most importantly, at a reasonable and competitive price. What they do not want is to wait for up to eight years for technology and service that may be well out of date and, at the same time, is likely to contribute significantly to Australia’s debt burden.

That is why I support this bill, which requires the publication of a 10-year business case for the NBN and, even more importantly, refers the NBN project to the Productivity Commission for a thorough cost-benefit analysis. As others on this side of the chamber have noted, this is not a delaying tactic or an attempt to hold back the NBN. It is simply an attempt to establish the facts and allow an impartial body to assess whether or not this investment-the largest investment of taxpayers’ funds in infrastructure in our history-is a good idea.

I know that there is growing pressure amongst the business community for the government to undertake a thorough cost-benefit analysis of the NBN project. But, closer to home, my constituents constantly remind me that every dollar that this government spends belongs to the taxpayers of Australia. The coalition is beholden to the community to act as responsible guardians for every cent of taxpayers’ money, given that the government has repeatedly refused to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of this NBN project. This government has even refused to refer the NBN to its own, newly-created, specialist infrastructure agency, Infrastructure Australia. The organisation created by this Labor government, and tasked with developing a blueprint for modernising the nation’s transport, water, energy and communications infrastructure, has been refused the ability to scrutinise the biggest infrastructure investment in our nation’s history.

The Productivity Commission is strictly nonpartisan, and is the best possible organisation to ask what the implications of this project are going to be. It is staffed by experts who understand economics but also understand the importance of factoring in non-financial costs and benefits, such as spillovers from and the social consequences of various policy choices. It is astonishing to the coalition and, particularly, to the residents of Bonner that a government is proposing to spend so much money with so little consideration or analysis-particularly when this is against the backdrop of the waste and inefficiency that has been the hallmark of other Labor projects like the home insulation debacle, the green loans scheme, and the Building the Education Revolution school halls fiasco.

An encouraging example of a broadband project that has undertaken a cost-benefit analysis can be found in my home town of Brisbane, where the Lord Mayor of Brisbane and the Brisbane City Council are working with international technology firm i3 Asia-Pacific to facilitate the rollout of a fibre-optic network that has the potential to deliver broadband faster and more effectively than the NBN. I am looking forward to working with the lord mayor to ensure that this exciting alternative proposal is given the full support that it deserves.

Nevertheless, this government’s NBN is going to be an eight-year, $43-billion project. Surely it deserves a rigorous cost-benefit analysis. It would be morally reprehensible and beyond financial recklessness for this parliament not to pass legislation for this government to allow the Productivity Commission-an independent and expert source of advice on economic and regulatory issues-to make an assessment of this investment. The public deserves to know that their money has been well spent. Our economy cannot afford another BER debacle.