Mayo By-Election

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (15:53): I rise today to speak on the importance of this Saturday, particularly here in South Australia in the seat of Mayo. We have five by-elections federally occurring across the country and one here in South Australia, being in the seat of Mayo. I think it is something that should be seen as a privilege and a great opportunity for the members of Mayo to cast their vote. Certainly, one of the things that makes our country great is that the members of the community get to choose someone to represent them.

I have had much pleasure in the last few weeks working alongside the candidate for Mayo for the Liberal Party, Georgina Downer. I have got to know Georgina more and more over time and have enormous respect for her. She is an amazing woman and an amazing candidate. Her ability to understand issues broad and wide is a credit to her.

Certainly, some of the issues that she has been questioned on are not her natural space, particularly some of the stuff that I have been helping her with in the agricultural space. She certainly does not have a background in that at all, but with some very brief conversations she gets a very quick understanding and grasp of situations. I thank Georgina for her efforts during the campaign to this point and would like to wish her best of luck on Saturday in the election.

I think, come Saturday night, if Georgina Downer is elected, she will make a very effective member for the community. She is someone who can make it to the executive level of government and sit in cabinet and help make decisions for this country. I believe one day she could even go further and lead the cabinet. I really think she has the potential to one day be the Prime Minister of this country—she is certainly that good.

The sad thing about this is why we are actually going to this election and that is because of the citizenship issue where some members of the federal parliament who were elected at the last election did not do what was required to make sure that their citizenship was in order. Unfortunately, Georgina's major opponent in this race, Rebekha Sharkie, had not done so and failed to make sure that her citizenship was in order. This has caused a very great expense to the community to put this election on. It is costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to run this election. I think people need to be aware of that.

I also think it is great that we have seen fully costed commitments by the Liberal Coalition Turnbull government in the electorate. These are commitments that are locked in, guaranteed to be delivered to the electorate. They are not election promises. The government is in power and it can deliver and will deliver. One of the things that I was really pleased to be part of during this campaign was the commitment to the steamranger tourism railway. That is a great community volunteer-run organisation. They do a fantastic job in keeping the trains running between Mount Barker and Victor Harbor and make a lot of people happy, keeping steam trains going.

There are different trains that are still in need of repair to get them back up and functioning. The engine 520 certainly needs a lot of repair and they are looking to do what they can to get up and running but require lots of funds to do so. The $200,000 that has been committed here will hopefully go a long way to actually getting the track repaired in a few locations to make sure that it keeps running. In contrast, the commitments made by Rebekha Sharkie total more than $700 million, with no guarantee of any of them being delivered, and she is actually using her claim to hold the balance of power to try to do this. She does not hold the balance of power and she cannot deliver.