Inaugural Speech

Iwan WALTERS (Greenvale) (15:18): I am deeply grateful to the residents of Greenvale for the opportunity to represent them here and to contribute to this debate. I acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people, traditional owners of the land over which the district of Greenvale’s boundaries have been drawn. I pay respect to their elders and to the continuous history and enduring presence of Indigenous people and culture throughout the 60 square kilometres of the electorate. The newly created district of Greenvale takes its name from the eponymous reservoir and suburb in Melbourne’s north and includes other communities, such as Craigieburn, Roxburgh Park, Attwood, Westmeadows, Meadow Heights and the important industrial precinct of Somerton.

Prior to the advent of residential development in the 1980s, Greenvale was a rural farming area. Originally called Yuroke, the area became Greenvale in 1868 with the establishment of the first public school and post office. In an instance of history repeating itself, most of the electorate was, until recently, contained within the Yuroke district and represented by the Minister for Community Sport and Minister for Suburban Development. Thank you, Minister, for your support and your outstanding advocacy for our community. Your legacy of delivery is evident everywhere you turn throughout the electorate, from new schools, more trains and better bus services to upgraded roads and fantastic new sporting and recreation facilities. Meadow Heights and parts of Roxburgh Park were formerly part of the Broadmeadows district, and I thank former member Frank McGuire for his passionate representation of those communities and for being so generous with his time and advice.

The new district is characterised by an extraordinary physical diversity. Thanks to the preservation of the natural environment in Woodlands Historic Park and the Sunbury green wedge, the electorate’s west retains much of its original character despite the incremental outward growth of Melbourne and the nearby presence of our international airport. Waterways, including the Moonee Ponds, Yuroke, Aitken and Merri creeks, trace out Greenvale’s borders, and at the district’s heart lies Greenvale Reservoir, providing water to western Melbourne since the 1970s. Where there is water there is life, and while the reservoir feeds the taps of modern Melbourne, the creeks that ring Greenvale were important parts of the world’s oldest living culture, rich in the plant and wildlife resources upon which Indigenous populations depended.

In preserved environments like Woodlands Park there is an abundance of evidence describing the life of Indigenous communities which moved through the area, from scarred trees to occupation sites. Across Greenvale Creek, in the east of Woodlands, is another site of profound importance for many Indigenous Victorians today, the Weeroona Aboriginal Cemetery. It is a beautiful and lightly wooded area where kangaroos graze amid the last resting places of local Indigenous people and those whose remains have finally been repatriated from museums around the world. It adds a particular poignancy to the term ‘traditional ownership’ and emphasises the enduring connection of Victoria’s Indigenous people with the lands we all represent.

The varied physical environment of Greenvale, from the grasslands of the green wedge to the growing suburbs, whose streets emerge like etchings on a page week by week, is matched only by its richly diverse human geography. The communities that comprise the electorate are truly multicultural. Nearly 45 per cent of Greenvale’s residents were born overseas, over 80 per cent profess a faith, and 60 per cent of the community speaks a language other than English at home. These are not abstract statistics; they explain the essence of our community in Greenvale, which reflects Victoria’s broader multicultural tradition at its best.

I recently had the pleasure to see 147 local residents become Australian citizens, surrounded by proud family and friends. All were visibly enthused to formally join our country and to contribute their talents and their cultural inheritance, which will become part of our national story. For some who became citizens that day, the mere expression of often intertwined history, language, values, faith and identity once resulted in unjust repression and tyranny – the prompts for their journey to our country as refugees. The experiences that led them to join our nation give a particular salience to the principles that underpin debates in this place: our shared commitment to democracy; to the rule of law; to freedom of speech, religion and association; and to a society in which all people are equal and valued.

Witnessing the joy of families when they took their pledge of citizenship reminded me of the excitement I felt when I became an Australian with my family a quarter of a century ago. Then, as now, I am filled with gratitude to have become a Victorian and an Australian and for all of the opportunities being part of this state and this country has afforded me. I am also eternally grateful for the risks and sacrifices my parents made in bringing four children around the world and then adding one more for good measure. Thanks, Mum and Dad, for your constant support and love. Your commitment to justice and the demonstration of your principles through your contributions to public health and community in so many ways, especially to L’Arche and people with a disability, have inspired all of your children and shaped my commitment to public service.

Education and its enabling role in connecting people with jobs and opportunity has been core to my purpose in life and in each of the roles I held before coming to this place. I became a teacher because of my commitment to Victoria’s public education system, the public good it represents and the broad benefits it delivers. I loved being in the classroom, learning from committed colleagues and contributing to the learning and growth of my students. Along the way I gained a much better understanding of relationships between government policy, frontline service delivery and socio-economic outcomes. I am so grateful for the generous and collegial support of many, including Jim, Rodney and Peter. It increased my impact with students, and I am delighted that one of them can be here today in his first week as a graduate doctor 10 years on.

I had the opportunity to become a teacher because of reforming Labor governments – in this place under Premier John Brumby and in Canberra, where then education minister and later Prime Minister Gillard gave expression to her vision of a country where every child could receive a great education. As a teacher in rural Victoria and part of a small community, I saw firsthand that talent and ability are not defined by postcode or geography but that opportunities to realise them too often could be. I am proud to be joining a government which has made it a central mission to confront that challenge. Tens of billions of dollars have helped build the Education State, not just through world-class infrastructure in every Victorian school but in growing the capacity of school leaders and teachers to focus on the interventions that yield the greatest impact with their students. Our investment in education is positioning Victoria for future success through its impact on workforce participation and the productivity of that workforce. These are the long-run generators of economic growth and higher living standards.

One of the great privileges of an election campaign is the chance to pitch up, unsolicited, to thousands of homes, to chat with residents about the issues of importance to them and to listen. Several issues were recurrent across Greenvale: schools, roads and jobs. Productivity reform is often perceived as an abstraction, but it is really about the improvements to services and infrastructure that people across Greenvale told me matter most to them – upgrading Mickleham Road so it can serve 21st century suburbs while saving time and lives; delivering this government’s record investment in our schools so that every student, regardless of their background or the school their parents chose for them, receives great teaching in first-rate buildings, including at the new Greenvale Secondary College; working with business and enabling them to grow and create jobs while equipping Victorians with the skills and training they need to access those jobs and thrive at every stage of life. These are not arcane concepts; they matter enormously to people’s lived experience of community, and they are part of this government’s record of delivery. Incremental productivity improvements are key drivers of better living standards, and that is why I will work every day for the people of Greenvale to continue delivering the services and reforms that matter most to them.

The Andrews government’s Education State reforms, including the introduction of free kinder, are not just about providing foundational building blocks upon which life chances can depend; they are transformational economic and productivity reforms. But this government also understands the importance of lifelong learning. Training and TAFE are the keys to stronger productivity, enablers of higher participation in the labour market and the basis of a fairer economy, which can deliver improved standards of living for the people we all represent. Across two parliaments and now into a third, the Andrews government has rebuilt TAFE as the engine of new jobs in our economy and contributed to a genuine parity of esteem within our tertiary system. Because of these reforms and our investment in productivity-enhancing infrastructure across our state, Victoria’s prospects for growth are strong. The structural and technological changes which have driven growth in recent decades and which are likely to spur the next wave, however, leave some Victorians concerned the disruption associated with this change may not benefit them. That is why there is an economic and a moral imperative to this government’s investment in TAFE and training.

What Schumpeter called ‘creative destruction’ does bring great reward for some and smaller gains for many, but the downside risks have too often not been shared equitably. As the economic history of Melbourne’s north shows, the effects of economic change, global integration and technological shifts include loss, uncertainty and trauma – not just cheaper consumer goods. In past decades those impacted by change too often experienced redundancy, leading to long-term unemployment with traumatic and scarring effects on people and their community. Support, upskilling and training were patchy at best, and comparable jobs were hard to come by. For those who found work, it may have been in service industries offering lower rates of pay with irregular hours and poorer conditions, contributing to structural increases in underemployment. Just pointing to headline increases in growth or even per capita improvements in income and purchasing power does not mean much to households that lose livelihoods, opportunities and futures as part of a transition. A Rawlsian veil of ignorance informs our perspective on managing catastrophic harm in other realms and led to Labor’s creation of large risk-pooling mechanisms, including our social security system, Medicare and the NDIS. Yet when it comes to damage wrought on families and communities by structural forces over which they have got no control, it can be met with a shrug of the shoulders or an odd sense that nothing should interfere with the vagaries of a market that will sort the so-called lifters from the leaners.

Instead, as a social democrat I believe it is a role of government to help smooth risk and protect individuals from the buffeting impacts of structural change. I believe in the power of markets to increase living standards and prosperity, but for markets to deliver optimal outcomes for citizens and society they must be functioning, fair and effectively regulated. The untrammelled market does not magically provide skills and capabilities. A belief in a better approach – one that values individuals, invests in communities and provides them with the opportunities they need to thrive across their lives – is why I am proud to be a member of the Australian Labor Party, humbled to be part of this government and part of this caucus, and honoured to represent the people of Greenvale, for whom I will work every day to deliver those opportunities.

To Ella and the magnificent Greenvale campaign team: thank you for your unstinting hard work and logistical brilliance and for being with me on doorsteps in all weather. I am so glad so many of you can be here today. Thank you to the literally hundreds of volunteers and local Labor members who supported our Greenvale campaign and helped me speak with voters across pre-poll and on election day. You are Labor’s heart, and I deeply appreciate your solidarity – not just with me but, much more importantly, with our collective movement and the values we hold. I am grateful beyond words.

Thank you to Liam Moloney, Jack, Tilly, Liam Hickey, Hannah, Mark, Alice, Dan, Sean, Tom, Seamus, Yannick, Daniel, the O’Kane clan and all the friends who have always been there to challenge, spar and generally support. To family here, around Australia and overseas, and to the beloved members who have left us: I love our idiosyncratic team, the connections we forged with this country and the close bonds we share with each other. Thank you Catryn and Peter, Tomos and Kate, Megan and Justin, David, all of my wonderful nieces and nephews, and Ann, Rob, Pat and Jill.

I am grateful to the mighty labour movement for its support and its tireless effort to ensure a fair deal and a just economy that delivers for all. Thank you in particular to Michael Donovan, state secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, assistant state secretary to the SDA Mauro Moretta, Dean D’Angelo and all of the trade unionists who work hard to secure fair pay and conditions for the essential workers in retail and distribution, who keep our economy moving and society fed and clothed – so many of whom live and work in Greenvale and across Melbourne’s north.

Thank you to my caucus colleagues, and especially my northern Labor neighbours in this house and Sheena Watt in the other place, for your collegiality and shared commitment to our region. Thanks to Maria Vamvakinou, who represents us in Canberra with vigour, passion and a deep knowledge of community. Thank you to both the Deputy Leader of the Government in the other place and the Minister for Corrections; your commitment to Labor values and impactful policy reforms is inspiring. Thank you to my federal Labor colleague Daniel Mulino. I have learned so much from your dedicated and principled public service, intelligence and policy rigour. I am also grateful for the counsel and friendship of Hasan Erdogan, Chris Campbell and Debbie Dalmau.

Finally, and not lastly, thank you Row for your love, partnership and endless support and for accommodating the many extra challenges that I manage to create for our shared life with incredible forbearance. The commitment you have to your patients at the Royal Children’s and Peter Mac and their families is astonishing and inspiring. So too is your ceaseless love and care for your own family and friends. The most meaningful undertaking I could ever give to my constituents is to seek to work as hard as you do and with as much care, empathy and grace. Thanks, too, for saying yes. I love you and respect you, and I am excited about the future. I thank the house.