Hansard debates

Ms CUPPER (Mildura) (12:07:08): Thank you for the honour of presenting my inaugural speech in the chamber today. My name is Alison Cupper and I represent the district of Mildura. Back home I am known as 'Ali’, and occasionally 'that girl’. I am the daughter of a science teacher and a machine operator, the granddaughter of blockies and builders, and the great-granddaughter of soldier settlers, wheat farmers, miners and dairy farmers. I attended Irymple South Primary School, Irymple Secondary College and Mildura Senior College. I have degrees in law, international politics and social work. I have worked as a lawyer, a family law mediator, a lecturer and a child protection practitioner. I have served as a councillor and deputy mayor of Mildura Rural City Council. I am married to Ben, who is in the gallery today. We have a little boy, Jed, aged 20 months, who is not in the gallery today—for everybody’s sake. Like many Mallee families, politics in the Cupper family has been an awkward topic. In the words of Run-DMC, 'It’s tricky’. Mum came from a strong Labor family and the Cuppers were staunch Country Party supporters, but blood is thicker than water, so when their granddaughter ran for her first state election, they put me a solid second. Across the Mallee the alliance to the Country Party made sense. People saw it as a party for regional interests, and that was that. You did not question it. You did not rock the boat. It was okay to have a different political view as long as you kept your head down and did not talk about it. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but it was rare for a man to challenge the status quo, let alone a woman—and let alone a young woman. My first state election was as a Labor candidate. In 2010 Labor preselection in Mildura was not particularly competitive. The discussion was along the lines of, 'You do it’. 'No, you do it’. 'I don’t want to do it. Why don’t you?’. My only comment was that the candidate should be local, and the response came, 'I move that Ali does it’. I have an impulsive streak, so I complied. The next day an elder statesman of the community invited me for a one-on-one chat. I expected some encouraging words. His opening line was it was a shame I wasn’t a bloke. He said people in Mildura would not vote for a woman. A slightly more optimistic mentor later told me it was not impossible, but that it would take the community at least 10 years to accept a progressive female. Eight years later here I am, two years ahead of schedule. I left the ALP in 2012. There are many points of difference between Labor and the coalition, but in relation to our two most significant and symbolic issues, the hospital and the train, the big parties unfortunately moved in lock step. I have been an Independent ever since. Our history is rich and complex. In 1887 George and William Chaffey committed to the development of Mildura as an irrigation colony. The Chaffeys possessed an entrepreneurial spirit and a vision of communities in which education, family life and civic participation were encouraged and supported. Democratic management of water was a fundamental value. In 1891 the first of the Mallee towns was established at Hopetoun. The stories of the Mallee pioneers are phenomenal. Even the babies were tough. My nan tells a story of the old bush nursing hospitals where after a dust storm the babies had to be dusted in their cradles. Prior to the arrival of any of our European ancestors, for more than 60 000 years the Mildura electorate was the sovereign territory of a rich network of Indigenous tribes, from the Ladji Ladji in the north to the Wergaia in the south. I have heard it said that if you want to break a race of people, you do three things: you take aware their land, their language and their children. The Aboriginal people of our electorate were subjected to all three brutalities, yet they have survived. There have been casualties. Trauma like that is not easily overcome and will take generations to mend. But positive progress is happening at an amazing rate, and with the next wave of Indigenous leaders at the helm—young people like Indi Clarke, Angela Prior, Simone Spencer, April Goldring and Nada Aldobasic—I believe and I hope that meaningful reconciliation will be achieved in our lifetimes. Regardless of our ancestry or our geographic location across our electorate, we are united by our isolation. That isolation has given rise to a shared agenda that has grown communities that come together to solve problems, to look after their own and to work hard to ensure that their kids have a better life than their parents. Organisations like the Christie Centre, Arts Mildura, Ouyen Inc. and the Sunraysia Mallee Ethnic Communities Council exemplify that spirit, punching above their weight and bringing extraordinary dynamism to our community. Programs like Food Next Door, the Burundian community garden and the Australian Advocacy and Politics Summer School show they can do amazing things with very little. Advocacy groups like Mildura Hospital Conversation, the NorthWest Rail Alliance, Southern Mallee Matters and the water warriors of the former First Mildura Irrigation Trust remind us that, when push comes to shove, beneath our pioneering stoicism lies a capacity for fierce activism. In agriculture we are growing global partnerships and export markets based on a well-earned reputation for premium-quality citrus, fruit, grain and other crops. Places like Robinvale are economic powerhouses and multicultural melting pots. In education we are blessed with dedicated teachers and school leaders who overcome our isolation to deliver a great education to our kids. In health and human services we have an army of dedicated professionals who are working every day to reduce the impact of disadvantage and isolation. The Mallee child protection unit (CPU) deserves a special mention, and perhaps the only downside of this extraordinary privilege of being elected to Parliament has been having to leave this team. It was a privilege to work with leaders like Teresa Cavallo and Hilary Makepeace. The Mallee CPU does extraordinary work under enormous pressure. On a daily basis they make decisions of colossal gravity for children—decisions that will have a profound impact on those kids’ lives today and intergenerationally. Those workers are heroes of our community. We are made of tough stuff in the Mallee. We know how to look after ourselves, and we do not need the government to do everything for us. We just need it to get the big things right. At a bare minimum that means essential services on par with the rest of the state. It means having a passenger rail connection. It means having decent freight rail infrastructure. It means having safe roads, and it means decent health care. It means GPs in our small towns, and it means a publicly managed public hospital. I have a busy list of interests and priorities. I want rate reform. I would like to see more climate change action along with solar development in the right places in our community. I would like support for autism employment, for animal welfare and for a more activist approach to the Murray-Darling Basin crisis. But at the top of my list is health care. Health care is an essential service. It is a matter of life and death. Free, accessible and reliable health care cannot be taken for granted. An experience in America taught me this lesson. Thanks to the vision and passion of two men, Eric Federing and Don DeBats, I had the honour of serving as an intern in the office of Congressman James Clyburn of the sixth district of South Carolina on Capitol Hill in 2003 as part of my American studies in politics. My work was fairly menial, mainly answering the phone and opening letters, but I did not care. I was just thrilled and fascinated to be there. Some of the more glamorous highlights included catching a 3-second glance of Colin Powell from a distance and being touched on the back by Nancy Pelosi when she was trying to get me out of her way—so don’t be jealous, I was kind of a big deal! But the most vivid memory was answering the phone one day to a distressed father who needed to talk about his twin girls, who were 16 years old. He said they were severely anorexic and if they did not get help soon, they would go into cardiac arrest. There was a specialist inpatient clinic, which was the family’s last hope. This dad had medical insurance and he thought they were covered, but the insurance company had advised that anorexia was technically a mental condition, not a physical one, and therefore was not covered. The family would have to pay the full cost for both children. They simply could not afford it. He said, 'I’m already working three jobs. I can’t work any harder’. He had called his congressman because he did not know what else to do. I did not know what to tell him, so I put him on hold and asked a colleague for advice. I expected her to suggest an agency referral of some sort, but instead she said, 'Tell him you are praying for him’. So I went back to my desk in my office on Capitol Hill, the most powerful place in the world, and picked up the phone to tell a panicked father in South Carolina that I was praying for him. I actually pulled my Medicare card out of my wallet and held it for a moment. At the end of the day, when someone you love is in dire peril all that matters is health care. It is my opinion that it is a universal human right and the first obligation of government. In Mildura we have Medicare, of course—the federal government makes no distinction there—but we do not have a publicly managed hospital. This makes us unique in the state. No other MP in this chamber has a privatised public hospital in their electorate, and as far as I know none of you is asking for one. If you are diagnosed with cancer in Mildura, your chance of dying from the disease is 9 per cent higher than elsewhere in the state. An isolated community needs the best model of hospital care not the one that no-one else wants. My cousin Ilona Legin spent the last years of her life battling bowel cancer. She had been in a variety of hospitals in Melbourne and other regional areas in that time for short-term emergency stays. She said that our hospital felt different; it was palpable. She praised the staff, her oncology nurses and the hospital-based GP, but she said they needed rollerskates to cover all of their responsibilities. Staff were stretched thin. It was almost as if management was trying to maximise the bottom line. All management needed to do was meet the clinical standards of the contract of service—nothing more. Every dollar saved on patient care was a dollar in the pocket of shareholders. Some might assume that that makes no difference, and that was exactly how they justified the experiment 20 years ago, but privatising a public hospital does make a discernible difference. When Ilona questioned the results of her chemo regime, the medical team acknowledged that they had made an error. Rather than having her on the strongest dose of chemo in the lead-up to her surgery to remove the tumour that was threatening her life, for months they had been administering a weaker dose. She had detected that something was amiss. The surgery that was scheduled for January 2012 was cancelled, and by December that year she was dead—at 31. We cannot say definitively whether extra resourcing at the hospital would have provided that extra level of vigilance or ensured that her treatment was appropriate and would have saved or extended her life, but what we can say is this: in 2012 a panel of esteemed, experienced local doctors spoke publicly against the privatised model, stating that it had caused a steady decline in care since its commencement. When Ilona relayed her story on the Facebook page of her local MP it was deleted. When a petition was given to the then health minister he took it and then refused to give it to our local member for tabling in the lower house. He also refused to give it back. Ramsay shareholders make a profit of around $2.5 million from our hospital every year, and at the same time the company accepts community donations of pillows for its under-resourced emergency department—not a good look for a company that insists it never cuts corners on patient care. This is not the company’s fault. It is allowed to make money. It is the government’s fault for putting them in charge. We are told that government data shows there are no safety issues at our hospital, but research from the UK shows that some of the worst healthcare disasters have happened under the radar amid great-looking data. It is a dangerous game to ignore patients and doctors. This year the contract for the management of Mildura Base Hospital is up for renewal and a community campaign is underway to ensure that our hospital is returned to public management in line with everyone else’s public hospital in Victoria. I hope to work constructively with the government to ensure that the voice of our community is heard and acted upon. We are Victorians too, but when it comes to our hospital we are being treated like second-class citizens. For years we did it quietly. Now we are going to make some noise. It is a privilege to have been elected to represent the district of Mildura in this Parliament. I have the additional honour of being the district’s first female MP. My deepest appreciation goes to all those people across Sunraysia and the Mallee who gave me their vote and placed their trust in me, and my thanks and respect go to all of those who did not vote for me but have been generous and genuine in their congratulations and offers of support. Regardless of how we voted, we are united by love for our communities and a shared commitment to a better future. I hope that love and commitment will be clear in my work as a member of this Parliament. I want to acknowledge my dad, Graeme—although we clash at times, I have always idolised him; my sister Lizzie—although we clash often, she is one of the most important people in my life; my mum, Jude—I would not be here without her and my propensity for rebellion comes from her fiery Scottish-Italian genes; my brother Paul, who has had a profound impact on my understanding of life and humanity; and my nan Rosa Cupper, who turned 90 two days ago, who has loved me unconditionally through challenging times and differences of opinion. Most of all I want to acknowledge my ever-patient and loving husband, Ben, and our bright, busy, headstrong little boy, Jed, who inspires me every day. I want to thank my talented and loyal friends Chris Hobart, Chris Blackie, Stephen Parr, Stuart Walsh, Kieran Mangan and Gen Danenberg; my deputy, James Price; my fierce female friends and mentors Jenny Gibbons, Paula Bruce, Helen Healy, Bernadette Edmanson, Natalie Mensforth and Fiona Hilton-Wood; my formidable campaign team, in particular Krystyna Schweitzer, Ian Skennerton, Brady Glenn, Julie Calaby, Lyn McMahon, David Jackman, Pat, Gav and Emma Martin, and Shane, Maxine, Chris and Nick Smith; my great mates and supporters Cr Mark Eckel, Steve Tittensor, Clem Blake, Chris Brown, Luke Hudson and Christian Mitchell; and dear friends we have lost along the way—the late Greg Snowdon, the late Graeme O’Neill and the late Pat Tittensor. I want to thank my extended family—my brother-in-law Sven; my parents-in-law, Bruce and Kerry Gross, aka Grandma and Grandpa; and Jed’s honorary Nanny and Poppy, Sue and Graeme Legin, who are in the gallery today. And the Sunraysia Trades and Labour Council, particularly Bob Bruce, Bronwyn Hogg and Arthur Edge. They do important work in tough territory and have provided me with invaluable encouragement and support. I would like to acknowledge my predecessor, Peter Crisp, who served our electorate with dedication for more than a decade. And finally I would like to acknowledge Ilona Legin, the most courageous activist I have ever known. This speech is dedicated to you. Thank you. Members applauded.