FEDERAL ELECTION

Ms BREUER (Giles) (15:52): I think many of us are looking forward to the election at the weekend, just wishing the weekend would get here a bit quicker. I am very hopeful that we will have a change of government—however, we will see—because I really want to change some of the inequities that exist in our society and I believe that, with a federal Labor government, we will have an opportunity to do that.

People say there is no difference between the parties and the policies, but I argue very strongly about that; they are wrong. There are fundamental differences between our parties, and one of the reasons I am very proud to be a member of the Labor Party is because of our social justice basis and the way that we deal with issues in that area. A good example of that is in my area as it relates to refugees and what has happened over the past few years.

I am looking forward to a federal Labor government because I believe that we will be able to work far more closely with some of those federal ministers if they are Labor ministers. Areas of particular concern to me in country regions are education and health. I think that we have been ignored for too long and I believe that, with a federal Labor government, we would be able to work much more closely with them and resolve some of those inequities in our country.

I raced home from parliament the other night to watch All Saints, which is one of my favourite programs on television. My nephew was watching television and I asked him, 'Aren't you watching All Saints?' He said that he was watching something else. So, I said I would watch it. He called out to me and said, 'What are you watching All Saints for? It's nothing like real life.’ I said that it is like real life. He said, ‘No, it's not. None of the doctors are black and they can all speak English.’

I am not sure how that sounds, but it is a truth in our country regions. We are having so much trouble attracting health professionals, whether they be doctors, nurses or other health practitioners, to our country regions. It is very difficult to attract them and, consequently, most of our doctors—in fact, in my region, virtually all of our doctors—are overseas trained. I certainly do not question their qualifications or experience and the work that they do, but it is interesting that in a country of this size we are not able to attract our own doctors into those areas.

The other area that I have major concerns about, of course, is the area of education, and I am very pleased to say that currently I believe my schools in Whyalla are not facing the situation that they faced for many, many years in attracting teachers. One of the reasons for this is because of the country teaching scholarships that have been offered over the last couple of years by this state government. Apparently it has worked extremely well, and there is a young woman that I know very well who is looking for a job in Whyalla, and for the first time ever there do not seem to be terribly many vacancies there in the teaching field, which is very, very interesting, and it is the country scholarships that have done this.

However, I will get back to my favourite point that I have made over the years, for many, many years, and, again, I am hopeful that with a federal Labor government we might be able to resolve some of this: we need to introduce teaching into the campus of the University of South Australia at Whyalla, so that country parents can be confident that their children can get a teaching degree and teach out in our country regions. This is vital. It is becoming more and more difficult for country parents to be able to afford to send their children to university in Adelaide. With the sorts of means testing on Austudy, most parents do not qualify for that, because I think it cuts out at $28,000. If you earn more than $28,000 you are not eligible for Austudy. Parents just cannot afford to send their children to Adelaide, and the only place that you can do teaching is in Adelaide.

This is very wrong. We have a campus at Whyalla, with excellent resources. We have resources in the community, the mentors, etc., and we could be offering teaching at a Whyalla campus. I have struggled for this for a long time, and I am hopeful that with a federal Labor government we may be able to do something about this. I think there are some things in process at the moment, but it seems to be taking an inordinate amount of time.

I am told money accounts for some of the issues, but the university was able to spend a considerable amount of money on upgrading the facilities there at the Whyalla campus. I would far rather have seen that money go into teaching and setting up teaching. They do not have to set up a whole new school there. Nowadays with modern technology it can be run from Adelaide but operate in our country centres. We would not only be accessing local people; we would be accessing people from all over regional South Australia and the remote parts of South Australia. They could come there, because it is much cheaper to live in Whyalla than it is to live in metropolitan Adelaide.