Thursday, 20 September 2018

 Ms THOMSON (Footscray) (16:25): Thank you, Speaker, commonly called ‘Snitch’ by those who are on this side. I cannot compete with the tour de force that was the member for Narre Warren South’s contribution, but I will attempt to try to summarise 19 years in Parliament. I am not going to start off with my life in the party because we would be here until Christmas, but I do want to say that I am here by accident rather than by design.

For those of us who are members of the Labor Party, we all love our branch meetings, don’t we? Well, my first branch meeting consisted of fronting the Pascoe Vale-West Coburg branch of the ALP, at which there was a sensational turnout — about 35 members, which is quite a good turnout — of which three were under the age of 45 and one of those was me. When you are 18 years of age you are full of idealism and intent to change the world. They spent 2 hours talking about whether there should be one garbage collection per week or two. So I nearly did not survive the Labor Party, and I have to thank Young Labor for giving me the inspiration to keep going and to change the way our branch meetings worked. And that enabled me to be here today.

I joined the Labor Party because I believe government has a responsibility to provide opportunity and voice for those who, without government, would have no voice and limited opportunity, whether it is a worker at risk of exploitation, a consumer ripped off by a company or someone unemployed needing support to get back into employment. However, the major issue that drives me to be politically active, and one I raised in my inaugural speech, is education. I believed then, and I do now, that the government has a responsibility to provide the best possible education to our children, especially when their parents do not have the capacity to pay for it.

This is hard because it is about my dad. I also said my father taught me to challenge and to question, to fight passionately for what I believe to be right and to give back to my community. It is this commitment — and perhaps a good dose of chutzpah — that has given me the great honour of representing the people of what was then the Melbourne North Province and now Footscray as a proud Labor member in the Bracks, Brumby and now Andrews Labor governments.

I was elected on 18 September 1999 as part of a Steve Bracks Labor government and was sworn in as the Minister for Small Business and Minister for Consumer Affairs on 20 October. Steve got us around the cabinet table very early, and he said to us, ‘We have come here to govern for all Victorians, and you have to go out and reach every part of Victoria and let them know this’. So I, being a dutiful and very well disciplined minister, packed up my then chief of staff and one other staffer and decided to go on a two-day tour of Gippsland, stopping in every small town we could find along the way and meeting with small businesses.

Every speech would start the same way: ‘The Premier has said, and told all of us as ministers, that we are to go out and govern for all Victorians, and that is why I am here today’. Well, we got to our last stopping point, which was Warragul, and in the car on the way my chief of staff and my adviser, very supportively, were making fun of the fact that I would always start my introduction the same way. They mimicked me the whole way from where we were all the way to Warragul. Well, we got to Warragul and I was dutifully going to start with my usual starting point, but I could not because I kept bursting out laughing because of the way they had mimicked and mocked me in the car. That was the last time I ever started any of those proceedings in that way. So thank you, guys — thank you very much!

The Legislative Council was a baptism of fire, with 30 members of the coalition and 14 Labor members. Three of the four ministers were new to the Parliament: Candy Broad, Justin Madden and myself. Monica Gould was leader, and Gavin Jennings, also a new member, was deputy leader and cabinet secretary. The new opposition struggled to accept that they had lost government and were determined to make our lives difficult as hell. They did a pretty good job of it, and I think the current opposition in the Council is not much different to that which we experienced in 1999 and for that first term of the Bracks government.

I have great respect and sympathy for the hours worked by our legislative councillors. In our first term of government we put in a number of all-nighters and even more sittings that went on into the early hours of the morning — although I have learnt from the member for Brighton that there might have been other reasons as to why we sat late. I recall on one occasion arriving home around 7.30 in the morning to greet my son, who was leaving for school. The look on his face was of sheer astonishment, and he asked me if I was just getting home. The answer of course was yes.

Our families pay a high price for the work that we have chosen to do. Mine had the double whammy of having to grow up with two parents in politics. They had to put up with not only the long hours but the bad stories in the press, and I am grateful to be able to say now that I have two amazing adult children that I am so very proud of. I have been very lucky. I have had the support of a wonderful family, both mine and my in-laws, who have given me so much practical and emotional support throughout my time in politics and before. I could not have done this without them. And to the friends I have here in the gallery: thank you so much for all of the support that you have given me. They say you cannot make friends in politics, only shared interests — it is not true. Fun food faction, take note.

The men and women who make up the great Australian Labor Party work tirelessly to see Labor governments elected. I pay tribute to them and thank them for the support they have given me over my entire time as a member of the Labor Party and as a member of Parliament — note I have not said how long for.

A great deal of time is spent by members opposite denigrating the trade union movement. To those members opposite, this is a message for you: I am a proud, card-carrying member of the Australian Workers Union and have been since 1999. It was a gift from Bill Shorten to me when I became a minister. Before that I was a member of the Australian Services Union. Without the trade unions workers are left vulnerable to exploitation and poor occupational health and safety practices. We see this today in areas where union membership and influence is limited. There is a legitimate role for trade unions, and that should be respected by everyone, not just by members on this side of the house. Just as we support business to grow and provide jobs, we should support the very important role of our unions.

In my inaugural speech I thanked a number of individuals who supported me in my journey here. I am not going to rename them, because if you are suffering from insomnia, you can read my inaugural speech and work out who they are. I have, however, not forgotten their support, nor will I ever.

I have had the great fortune to be in this Parliament to participate in some of the greatest debates on social policy, including debates on legislation based on inclusion, respect and addressing past wrongs, and legislation on racial and religious vilification. I want to thank the Jewish community — my community — for the leadership they showed in ensuring we introduced that into the Parliament. Rights for the LGBQI community, abortion law reform, voluntary assisted dying and the legislation we brought into this Parliament to fight the plight of family violence — these are not all but just some of the significant pieces of legislation that have come before this place during the time of the Bracks, Brumby and Andrews governments.

On Tuesday night I joined members of the class of 1999 for our annual dinner. Apart from just catching up — which we do and talk about how our lives are travelling — we talked about how close-knit the caucus of 1999 was. We were in a minority government, but we looked out for and cared for one another. We were disciplined and focused. We knew what we had to do, and we did it together. We could not have achieved that without the strong leadership of Steve Bracks, ministers who worked closely as a team and an extraordinary caucus that worked together and helped produce our 2002 election result.

I came across a quote from Bernadette Devlin, an Irish Catholic member of the House of Commons who was actually assassinated. She said:

My function in life is not to be a politician in Parliament: it is to get something done.

I hope I am judged as having done just that. I have been told by my former chief of staff that I have to insert the next bit. As Minister for Small Business, Minister for Consumer Affairs and Minister for Information and Communication Technology, there are many achievements that I am proud of. Some of the most significant of these include, as the Minister for Information and Communication Technology, working with industry to make Victoria the leading ICT state in Australia and greatly raising the international profile of our companies overseas; delivering Australia’s best overall communications contract for government, which enabled all Victorian government offices to be connected to high-speed broadband and, together with the current Leader of the House, ensuring that that broadband went out to 1600 government schools; delivering innovative ICT reforms, such as the retention of intellectual property for ICT companies so that they could actually increase their opportunity in business; and giving small ICT companies opportunities to win government contracts. We worked with the sector to ensure that we led the nation in addressing ICT skills shortages.

In consumer affairs we re-established Victoria as the nation’s leader in consumer protection. We implemented reforms in areas such as conveyancing, bodies corporate, fundraising and funerals. We advanced lemon laws and enhanced protection for tenants. I am so proud to see that we have now had another go at ensuring that we increase the rights of renters. I wish to acknowledge the work of the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation in that regard. We introduced the first retirement villages legislation act to ensure that we were protecting those most vulnerable in our retirement villages. I want to pay a special tribute to Michael Leighton at this point for raising with me a very important issue around the way our senior citizens were being treated in caravan parks.

As Minister for Small Business I had the opportunity to speak to thousands of small businesses. Listening to them we came up with the idea of establishing Australia’s first small business commissioner — a role that has now been replicated right across the country. We also rewrote the retail tenancy legislation that the member for Brighton was referring to before to ensure that there was more balance and fairness in the relationship between tenant and landlord. We put business impact statements into legislation, and we put ‘pay on time or pay commercial interest’ requirements on government departments.

None of these things would have been possible without the support of my extremely talented and hardworking ministerial staff and the many public servants in Multimedia Victoria, Consumer Affairs Victoria and Small Business Victoria, along with the stakeholders in each of these portfolios. I do need to single out my chief of staff, Rob Acton, who came out of his small business to work with me as my chief of staff for a short time and stayed for the duration. Shaun Thomas, Robert Larocca and Nicole Rich brought intelligence, diligence and a great sense of humour to work, at least on most days. You and the rest of the team, my media advisers, my very patient and supportive executive assistants — who would not let me touch my diary — and my department liaison officers made my job so much easier and so much fun. You made me look good. Thank you.

In 2006 I moved to the seat of Footscray, a beautiful, diverse electorate that celebrates multiculturalism and inclusion. It is an exciting and rapidly changing place that requires a government sensitive to the needs of the whole community. I have to say that I have met some amazing and beautiful people. I want to single out Mehmet, who is here today, from the Turkish community who has been an incredible delight to work with, and Jasvinder Sidhu, who engaged me in the issue of family violence within the Indian community and for whom I hope we have made a little bit of a difference.

Our days in opposition were dark days — none of us liked them. They were dark days for my electorate. There was little that the then government spent on my electorate, and the planning decisions that were made by the now Leader of the Opposition have led to huge towers being constructed that will overshadow the Maribyrnong River and put thousands of people on an effectively isolated island that will be difficult to get in and out of.

Those years in opposition were hard, but they enabled us to develop a plan in partnership with the Maribyrnong City Council, Victoria University and school communities to create an Australian first: the Footscray Learning Precinct. This precinct will provide lifelong learning from birth right through to the University of the Third Age. Regardless of your age it will provide the education you need when you need it. This would not have been possible without the support of the then deputy opposition leader and now Deputy Premier, who has championed this precinct as an iconic project of the Education State and has provided the funds to make it a reality.

Not only has he funded that but he has funded a whole host of my schools as well. Sunshine College, which missed out when the Liberals came into government, has now got its money. Dinjerra Primary School, a school that is filled with a whole lot of kids with refugee backgrounds from many, many countries, has now got its money. There is also Sunshine Special Development School and Glengala Primary School, and the list goes on and on. A big thankyou to this government and to this minister.

To the Minister for Health, my favourite constituent, a big thankyou for the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital. It will make a big difference to the lives of women and children in the west. Thank you to the Premier and to the Minister for Health for the commitment to the rebuilding of Footscray Hospital. I know that the people of the west will show their gratitude.

The West Gate Tunnel — 9000 trucks off the streets in the inner west — much called for, and now bans will be placed on Buckley Street and Moore Street, and residents will be able to sleep at night.

In my electorate office I have the constant support of Clive Bracey, who has been with me since 2006 — such patience, such endurance — along with Chris Owner, Kaitlin Ferris, Katherine Munt and Nomi Kaltman, who have all gone on to bigger and better things. Add to this Sara, James, Angela and Adam. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication.

To the parliamentary staff, to Bridget and to the team, to everyone in the library, to Karen and the team in Strangers Corridor whom I have given a hard time to over many years — I am not hard to please — to the library staff, to everyone, a big thankyou. To Hansard, who always make us sound better than we actually are, a big thankyou. I am very sorry that there are no more Olympic doughnuts for me to give out, but the doughnut man left and he did not pass on his recipe. To those of you who have chosen not to recontest, I wish you well in the next phase of your lives.

Premier, thank you for your leadership. It was your commitment, sheer hard work and confidence that brought us back to the government benches in just one term. There has not been another government that has done more in four years than the one that you lead, not just in infrastructure but also in social policy, equity and in your personal commitment to deal with the issue of family violence. It has been a pleasure to work with you in areas of trade and a great pride to see the opening of our office in Tel Aviv. Shimon Peres said:

A politician and a government should be judged by one way only: on the record of what you do or did, not on what you say.

Premier, if the Victorian people judge this government on these principles, we will win a much-deserved second term. I wish to thank you for your support and friendship and wish you and Catherine all the best for the future. To my caucus colleagues — God, struth, you’re all here — to be in this place is a privilege that many seek but few get. Make the most of every moment and make every moment count. Good luck to those recontesting — not that you need it. I know you will put in the effort that is needed to win, and I hope to see all your faces back on these benches with a few more added.

To Katie Hall, who is to be my successor, I wish you every luck. I know that you will continue the tradition of good Labor representation in the seat of Footscray. To Melissa Horne, who is the candidate for Williamstown, thank you for being my campaign director for two of my elections, and all the best in your endeavours to become the member for Williamstown. That brings me to the member for Williamstown. No one could ask for a better neighbour than Wade Noonan. We worked together as a tag team covering the issues of the inner west. He is a friend that I respect and admire, and I look forward to spending more time with him enjoying a few drinks — thank you to his mum for encouraging him to do that — in our retirement. I leave this place knowing that there are many talented and dedicated Labor members who will serve the people of Victoria well, and I wish you every success.

Honourable members applauded.