Andrew Leigh

With ACT ALP activists Liz Dawson, Gerry Lloyd and David Mathews

I was delighted to announce today that nominations for the 2012 National Volunteer Awards are now open. Head to www.notforprofit.gov.au/volunteering to nominate your favourite volunteer. More information is in the media release below.

[caption id="attachment_3408" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Collecting for the Canberra Blind Society"][/caption]

THE HON MARK BUTLER MP

Minister for Mental Health and Ageing

Minister for Social Inclusion

Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Mental Health Reform



DR ANDREW LEIGH MP

Member for Fraser



JOINT MEDIA RELEASE



16 October 2012

NATIONAL VOLUNTEER AWARDS NOW OPEN

Andrew Leigh MP, Member for Fraser, today announced applications for the 2012 National Volunteer Awards were now open.

Dr Leigh said the Awards recognise the contribution of over 6 million Australians who volunteer their time in communities across the country.

“At times of great economic prosperity, it is easy to forget just how much our economy and society relies on the generosity of its people.



“Volunteering has its own benefits, through meeting people and contributing to the community, but we don’t thank our volunteers often enough. These awards provide recognition for the time and effort donated by volunteers in Canberra’s north.

“Here on the north side of Canberra it is the contribution of volunteers through groups like Pegasus Riding School, Parkcare groups and school P & Cs that are the backbone of our community,” Dr Leigh said.

Minister for Ageing and Social Inclusion Mark Butler said the Awards recognise the contribution of over 6 million Australians who volunteer in communities across the country, including for the first time a seniors category, as recommended by the Advisory Panel on the Economic Potential of Senior Australians.

“I’m pleased to see the Awards will now include a Senior Volunteer category to specifically acknowledge the invaluable contribution older Australians make to our community.”

Dr Leigh said 2012 National Volunteer Awards will call on Australians to nominate exceptional volunteers in their community who donate their time to assist not-for-profit organisations.

Nominations close on 8 November 2012 with an award ceremony to be held later in the year to celebrate the achievements of local volunteering heroes.

Volunteer award categories include:

1. MP’s Volunteer of the Year


2. Junior Volunteer Award (17 and under)


3. Youth Volunteer Award (18-25)


4. Senior Volunteer Award (65 and over)


5. Business Volunteer Award


6. Education Award


7. Emergency Management Volunteer Award


8. Environment Award


9. Innovation in Volunteering Award (organisation or individual)

10. Long–term Commitment to Community Service Award.

For information on application procedures and closing dates, contact Andrew.Leigh.MP [at] aph.gov.au, call Andrew Leigh’s office on 6247 4396 or visit www.notforprofit.gov.au/volunteering

I spoke in parliament today about the late international relations scholar Coral Bell.

Coral Bell, 11 October 2012

I rise to speak about a great constituent of mine, Coral Bell, AO, who passed away on 26 September 2012. Coral Bell was a former academic at the Australian National University and one of the great international relations scholars in Australia. Her former ANU colleague Andrew Carr said, 'She was a landmark figure in Australia's international relations who was often the only woman in the room yet was always well heard and respected for her intelligence and character'. My friend Michael Fullilove, who has recently taken over as executive director of the Lowy Institute—and I congratulate him on that—called Dr Bell 'a giant of the Australian foreign policy scene'.

Dr Bell came to adulthood during the Second World War and, as Robert O'Neill noted in his obituary for her, knew from her own experience just how much was at stake when great powers went to war with each other with modern weapons. She understood the challenge of nuclear war and was part of a key group of Australian scholars working on key issues around understanding the Cold War. Her doctoral thesis, which formed the basis of her first book, was based on understanding how the United States was managing the Cold War. She returned to teach at the University of Sydney from 1961 to 1965, then to a readership at the London School of Economics and was a professor at the University of Sussex until 1972.

Dr Bell returned to work at the Australian National University from 1977 until 1988 and then continued to contribute to the field. She characterised the NATO alliance as 'always in disarray', an observation which I think contains more than a kernel of truth. Her paper The End of the Vasco da Gama Era, one of the Lowy Institute's first, is considered one of its best. Dr Bell was regarded as a conservative realist—not an international relations tradition with which a small 'l' liberal like me would associate—but she was nonetheless very much a conservative and not a neocon. In that capacity she was a strong critic of George W Bush's foreign and military policies and held the view that the United States had lost its sole superpower status and we were moving towards a world order where power would be shared among several major states.

Lowy Institute board director Robert O'Neill noted in his obituary:

‘Her analytical legacy is this view of a world where US power and influence have slipped, and those of China, Europe, Russia, and India are rising to form a condominium.’

Dr Bell's recent publication A World Out of Balance: American Ascendancy and International Politics in the 21st Century highlighted the unique economic and security challenge this context presents for international affairs. Our understanding of international affairs has been enriched by this giant, Coral Bell, and those of us who seek to contribute to the ideas and policy debate in international relations stand on her shoulders.

Today Zed Seselja and Tony Abbott showed they don't understand how much public service cuts hurt Canberra. My media statement with my ACT Federal colleagues is below.

Senator the Hon Kate Lundy

Senator for the Australian Capital Territory



Gai Brodtmann MP

Member for Canberra

Andrew Leigh MP

Member for Fraser



MEDIA STATEMENT



PUBLIC SECTOR JOBS

In an article in today’s Canberra Times, Tony Abbott said “I accept that Canberra did it tough for a year or so, but … Canberra did very well under the Howard Government.”

This demonstrates that Mr Abbott doesn’t understand the pain inflicted on Canberra by the Howard Government’s savage public sector cuts.


During the 2010 federal election, the Liberals announced 12,000 local job cuts but since then their target has risen sharply to 20,000 jobs.



This is nothing new for the Liberal Party. Before the 1996 election, the Liberals said they would cut 2500 jobs. After winning office, more than 30,000 public servants lost their jobs.



Slashing public service jobs in Canberra will affect the entire ACT economy. In 1996-97, the impact of the Howard Government’s job cuts was to:

• Slash $25,000 from the price of the average Canberra home (in an era when house prices were much lower than they are today);
• Increase the ACT unemployment rate by 1 percentage points; and
• Increase personal bankruptcies in the ACT by around 100 bankruptcies per year.

Unlike the Liberals, we believe that a strong public service is essential to support the community and deliver critical government programs.

On top of job cuts, the Liberals have also indicated they will ‘outsource’ jobs currently done by the Australian Public Service to the States. This will mean additional job losses in the national capital.

Commonwealth public servants provide important advice on big issues affecting our whole nation.

Today we saw ACT Opposition Leader Zed Seselja stand alongside Tony Abbott while he made these statements.

We know Zed Seselja will never protect Canberra from the worst excesses of the Federal Liberals.

Parliament today passed my motion of apology to Peter Norman (with no dissenting voices). Here's the motion, with the third paragraph tweaked into a more general apology than originally drafted:

DR LEIGH: That this House:

(1) recognises the extraordinary athletic achievements of the late Peter Norman, who won the silver medal in the 200 metres sprint running event at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, in a time of 20.06 seconds, which still stands as the Australian record;

(2) acknowledges the bravery of Peter Norman in donning an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge on the podium, in solidarity with African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who gave the ‘black power’ salute;

(3) apologises to Peter Norman for the treatment he received upon his return to Australia, and the failure to fully recognise his inspirational role before his untimely death in 2006; and

(4) belatedly recognises the powerful role that Peter Norman played in furthering racial equality.

Here's my speech to parliament in moving the original motion. My additional remarks on the day the motion was passed are below.

Peter Norman, 11 October 2012

The apology to Peter Norman recognises a great Australian who stood with the black power protestors at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. This amendment simply broadens that apology in that it apologises to Peter Norman for the treatment that he received upon his return to Australia and for the failure to fully recognise his inspirational role before his untimely death in 2006.

I would like to thank members on both sides of the House who spoke in this debate. Thelma Norman, Peter's mum, was here in the gallery when we debated the motion and it meant a great deal to her. I have been in contact with Peter's sister, Elaine, and she has told me about the outpouring of public support that was received. A local school in Queensland got each of their students to go back and research the Peter Norman story to find out what it meant to them and to think about how each of them could be a Peter Norman in their own lives, how they could take a stand against racism and intolerance and make those snap decisions that come along with so little warning but that mark the character of an individual, as they marked Peter Norman's character.

I am grateful to those in this House and in the broader community for their support for this motion and I trust that the amendment to the motion, which provides a broad, community-wide apology to Peter Norman for his treatment upon his return from Mexico, will be accepted unanimously by this House as an apology posthumously to Peter Norman. It is something that I know will mean a great deal to Peter's family, friends and the huge family of supporters across Australia.

I spoke in parliament today about good economic management and the importance of Oppositions - ACT and Federal - producing properly costed policies.

Matter of Public Importance, 10 October 2012

It is a pleasure to rise to speak in a debate on the strength of the Australian economy and the right policy settings. Any discussion about where the Australian economy is headed needs to recognise that we are in the midst of one of the biggest terms of trade shocks in Australia's history. In the history of the Australian economy, when a terms of trade shock has come along—whether it was in the 1930s, 1950s or the 1970s—it has blown the place up. Yet, despite a massive increase in the terms of trade—a massive increase in the ratio of export prices to import prices—the Australian economy, this time, has remained strong. Unemployment has stayed at 5-point-something and inflation has stayed low.

Importantly, while the Australian economy is undergoing significant structural adjustment unemployment has not only stayed low, the dispersion of unemployment has also stayed low. But it is still correct that the world is a dangerous place for anyone trying to run an economy well. The IMF yesterday cut its forecast for world output this year to 3.3 per cent, down from the 3. 5 per cent announced in July.

All of us can name important risks, whether it is the Chinese housing market or the need for the Eurozone countries to better manage their fiscal burden. In this environment the Australian government continues to properly cost our policies through the usual budget processes and the mid-year updates. At the last election our policy costings were found to be spot on—no surprise, given that they were prepared by Treasury. Of course, that is more than can be said for the coalition's costings, which were done by a private accounting firm and were out by a cool $11 billion.

The problem with the coalition's costings now is that, while they have said yes to every special interest, they have said no to every tough decision. They said no to the mining tax but yes to the superannuation increase that is funded by it. They said no to the carbon price but yes to the tax cuts and the benefit increases funded by it. When we make hard decisions to means test policies like family tax benefit part B, the baby bonus and the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate, they cry foul about class envy. But it is through tough decisions like this that we made $100 billion in savings over recent budgets.

Bernard Keane went back to look at the veracity of some of the economic predictions made by those opposite. He noted that when the condensate excise exemption was removed in 2008, Senator Johnston called it 'one of the greatest assaults on the living standards of Western Australians I have ever seen in the history of Federation'. Shortly afterwards Woodside unveiled a record profit, up 70 per cent on the previous year. When in 2008 our government lifted the luxury car tax, Senator Fifield called it 'the politics of envy and class warfare'. Bernard Keane pointed out that SUV sales have risen 40 per cent over the past four years. And you will hear those opposite rail against Australia's debt levels—a modest 10 per cent and falling—but you will never hear them admit that taking on that debt saved 200,000 jobs in the global financial crisis.

Here in the ACT it looks as though the local Liberal Party are a carbon copy of their federal colleagues. On 20 October Canberra voters will go to the polls to choose a new government. With newly elected Liberal governments around the country having run, and won, on negative anti-Labor messaging—like the Federal opposition is attempting to do—it is no surprise that the Canberra Liberals are being negative to the last. They are leaving all Canberrans asking what policies they have come up with in the last four years—and the answer seems to be not much. The Canberra Liberals signature policies include promises to reintroduce lightweight plastic bags, despite the fact that they supported a ban on the bags in 2004; to provide a greenwaste bin at no cost, although it has been costed at $19 million a year; and to scrap the nurse-led walk-in clinic that has provided free healthcare to tens of thousands of Canberrans.

But since this MPI is on costings let us discuss the apparent inability of the Canberra Liberals to provide voters with proper costings for their small set of policies. Let us take health. At first the Liberals health spokesperson said their health plan would cost $6.9 billion over four years. And then on 1 October it became a $6.9 billion plan over five years, when the opposition leader intervened. And in the third version it became $6.2 billion over five years. As the website www.realzed.com points out, at best this indicates a massive $800 million cut to public health services. They have not been able to articulate how much money, nor how it will be spent. They have not even said how many beds they will fund—or defund, as they did when they were last in government.

And then there is education. In their education policy the Canberra Liberals omitted to fund the Canberra Institute of Technology. Confronted by Treasurer Andrew Barr over their plan to rip over $100 million out of the vocational education system, the Liberal Treasury spokesman refused to say why vocational education had been omitted from their policies or how much a Liberal government would give the CIT. As Bill Clinton said recently, it is just math.

What is striking about the Canberra Liberals' refusal to detail policies, and their slipshod costings, is how closely it echoes their federal counterparts. A good opposition do not just say what they stand against, they also say what they stand for. It is not good enough for the Seselja opposition to play fuzzy games over what they would do if elected. ACT voters have a right to make a real choice. Frankly, ACT voters deserve better than the Leader of the Opposition and the member for North Sydney's mini-me's: Zed Seselja and Brendan Smyth.

In other states we have seen Liberal Premiers promising no change before election day and then delivering radical cuts afterwards. In New South Wales Barry O'Farrell slashed 800 TAFE jobs and cut 15,000 public servants over two budgets. In Victoria Ted Baillieu has cut firefighting services and some 5,500 public servants are facing job losses. In Queensland Campbell Newman has cut 14,000 public sector workers after telling them before the election that they had nothing to fear from him. Premier Newman has also cut Breastscreen Queensland and the Premier's Literary Awards.

If the Canberra Liberals will not tell us some policies, and cannot cost others, the only thing Canberra voters can judge them by is what their colleagues are doing in other states—and it is not pretty. Federally the opposition leader's plans to cut 20,000 Canberra public servants are met with a deafening silence from the ACT Liberals. When the member for Canning said in this place in one of these debates that public servants 'feed on others' there was not a murmur of criticism from Senator Humphries and the ACT Liberals.

It is very clear that the federal coalition cannot meet their $70 billion costings gap without some radical cuts. Seventy billion dollars is equivalent to stopping Medicare payments for two years or stopping the pension for four years. The coalition say that their policies are ready to go. In fact, in one interview the member for Goldstein said he had already designed the covers. He had the covers done but he will not release the policies. Australians are entitled to ask: if the coalition's policies are so good, why don't they release them?

I think history might provide some of the answers. I have before me the ‘Liberal and National Parties' Public Administration Policy’ for 1996. It says: 'Our plans to reduce departmental running costs by two per cent will involve not replacing a proportion of those who leave—up to 2,500 positions over the first term of a coalition government, a process of natural attrition with no forced redundancies.' But of course what happened was far from that. There were 30,000 public servants who got the sack after the election of the Howard government. What is particularly telling about this document is that it says on the back that it was printed and authorised by A. Robb. That is right, the member for Goldstein was behind a document that said the Howard government would axe 2,500 public servants when it went on to axe 30,000. If they say they are getting rid of 20,000 public servants now, imagine what they will really do.

The Australian economy is the 12th largest economy in the world; we have just risen three places. Our Treasurer has been awarded the Euromoney Finance Minister of the Year award—an award those opposite would be praising if Peter Costello had won it; but because Keating and Swan won it, they trash it.

We put a price on carbon pollution. We are linking our scheme with existing schemes in Europe and elsewhere. We have a AAA credit rating from all three major credit agencies—the first time that has ever happened. Yes, we have challenges but it is all the more reason for Liberals - ACT and federal - to put properly costed policies on the table.

I spoke in parliament today about dental health, and the government's proposal to replace an inefficient and expensive scheme with a more targeted and effective one.

Dental Benefits Amendment Bill, 10 October 2012

I rise today to speak on the Dental Benefits Amendment Bill 2012. In this context it is worth noting that human beings are the only species that smile to signal happiness. It is an evolutionary quirk that is unique. It is an integral part of being human. All of us in this place, whatever our political stripes, trade on those smiles. It would be a strange-looking political website and an odd-looking corflute that did not have a picture of us beaming happily at our constituents. That smile is such an integral part of human relations. But just imagine if the sight of your teeth made people recoil from you. Imagine the isolation, the sense of embarrassment and the erosion of self-esteem.

There are many things that divide us in this place, but I think we can all agree that the importance of healthy teeth is one that can unite us. I wrote in June last year in the Australian Financial Review on the relationship between teeth, economics and poverty. There has been plenty of speculation in the literature on the relationship between dental health and earnings, but few studies have actually managed to demonstrate causality. There is a new paper out though titled 'The economic value of teeth' by Columbia University researchers Sherry Glied and Matthew Neidell. They looked at the effect of fluoridation in the United States. Fluoridation was primarily driven not by the quality of people's teeth but by local politics. We see that very much in the differences in fluoridation rates across Australia, with Queensland holding out for so long on fluoridation to the detriment of the teeth of Queenslanders.

The study found that if you grew up drinking fluoridated water you are more likely to have all of your teeth as an adult. So using that natural experiment the researchers then went on to look at the relationship between good teeth and high earnings. They found that women who drank fluoridated water in childhood earned more than women who did not, and the positive effect of fluoridation was concentrated among those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. The effect was large. The estimate is that losing one tooth cost the typical woman three per cent of her hourly wage, and you can imagine how that adds up. Four teeth means 12 per cent of your hourly wage. Now you are talking about an effect that is starting to be of the magnitude of gender discrimination.

The study looked into why it is that bad teeth mean low earnings and concluded that it was largely due to people being discriminated against by employers and unable to work in those customer service occupations. I will talk later in my speech about some of the personal stories from my electorate of individuals whose poor teeth have impacted them in the labour market. Those bad teeth are probably one channel through which physical beauty affects wages. This suggests that, if you care about reducing earnings inequality and raising the earnings of low-wage workers in Australia, a key thing you can do that is improve dental care.

But the historic trend has been in the opposite direction. The University of Sydney's Edmund FitzGerald looked at whether people had visited a dentist in the previous 12 months. He found that, among teens from affluent households, the share who saw a dentist has stayed steady at about three-quarters of the population since the 1970s. But, when you look among the poorest teens, the share who had seen a dentist dropped from 56 per cent in 1977 to 33 per cent in 2005.

Another disturbing demographic trend was noted by the Brotherhood of St Laurence in their 2011 report End the decay. They cited data out of the Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health showing that children in low-socioeconomic areas have 70 per cent more decay in their teeth than those from affluent areas. It showed that children from poorer families with oral health issues go on to be adults with bad oral health—and, as I have discussed, unless treated bad oral health leads to serious employment and economic consequences.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in another one of their terrific reports, their Child dental health survey, highlighted the following facts: the oral health of children has been declining since the mid-1990s; almost 20,000 children under the age of 10 are hospitalised each year due to avoidable dental issues; by the age of 15, 60 per cent of children have tooth decay. While untreated decay and fillings are similar across income ranges, there are substantial differences in the number of teeth—if you earn more than $60,000, on average you will have seven more teeth than Australia's poorest people, those who earn less than $20,000; 45 per cent of 12-year-olds have decay in their permanent teeth; and in 2007 just under half of children aged six who attended school dental services had a history of decay in their baby teeth.

End the decay cited the research of Stephen Leeder and Lesley Russell, who found that the total direct costs and lost productivity in Australia from poor dental health were in the order of $2 billion annually and every year there are a million lost workdays in Australia due to oral health issues. Data from the United States estimates that, for every 100 employed persons, 148 work hours a year are lost due to dental problems. In an Australian workforce of more than a million people, with an average full-time weekly wage of $1,340, that implies a productivity cost of more than $650 million per year. So each of these reports has shown that poor dental health is not just an equity issue and not just a health issue but also an economic issue.

In 2009 the Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health found substantial disparity across public dental patients, who were three times more likely to have fewer than 21 teeth compared with the national average. For other conditions such as decay and periodontal pockets, the most disadvantaged suffered at twice the rate of the general population. All this highlights the human aspect of good oral health, and this government is taking action to address this. The government has been trying to shut down the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme since 2007 because we want to replace it with more effective policies.

The Dental Benefits Act currently provides dental checks for 12 to 18 year olds under the Medicare Teen Dental Plan. This bill will extend eligibility for children to receive dental services to those aged from 2 to 17. The Child Dental Benefits Schedule replaces the Medicare Teen Dental Plan, from 1 January 2014. It includes a schedule of basic dental prevention and treatment services up to $1,000 a child over a two-year period. For over three million Australian children going to the dentist will now just be like seeing a GP. You will be able to present your Medicare card and get basic dental work done. That can be done at private dental clinics or through public dental services. As well as the existing check-up, it will now be possible to get a descale and clean, fissure sealants and basic restorative work, importantly, including fillings.

There will be more services and more dentists where they are needed most, outside the capital cities and in large regional centres, such as the one you, Deputy Speaker, represent. We are putting in place $225 million for dental infrastructure to support expanded services and an additional $1.3 billion towards state-run public dental programs. And we are requiring states to maintain the existing level of dental funding, because we do not want them to take out their money as we put in additional resources for this needed group. That will fund 1.4 million additional services for adults on low incomes, including pensioners, concession card holders and those with special needs.

Earlier this year I sent out a letter to dentists in my electorate asking for their support with the Dental Support Program. It is a program run by the Salvation Army to help low-income Canberrans who sought food assistance and have untreated dental problems. Evaluation of that program has shown that clients who received treatment through the program reported increased confidence and self-esteem in employment and social situations. I wanted to call on my local dental community to put in pro bono hours to support those who would not normally seek out a dentist. Some dentists already do that important pro bono work, but I wanted to reach out to all dentists in my electorate and ask them for a few hours of their time. This initiative came from Liz Dawson, who is an extraordinary Canberran and a tireless worker for the Canberra community. She has worked for the Salvation Army and through the Common Ground project, for which her advocacy yesterday extended to bailing up the Prime Minister at a Canberra breakfast. She brings tenacity and passion to her advocacy for those from less fortunate circumstances. I remember Liz telling me about a client who came to her four years ago who had only one tooth in her top jaw. Liz's work ensured that the woman got the dental care she needed, dental care that in some cases can be life changing.

The Prevention and Population Health branch of the department of health has linked poor dental health to inadequate nutrition, diet related ill health, cardiovascular disease and some cancers. Individuals who are using illicit drugs sometimes say they first started doing so just in order to take away the pain of their aching teeth.

Malcolm Gladwell, in an extraordinary New Yorker article, described the process of tooth decay—see if this makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. He writes that the cavity blossoms as it enters the dentin. When it hits the centre of the tooth an insistent throbbing begins and the tooth turns brown. Left unchecked the tooth eventually becomes soft enough that the dentist can reach into a cavity with a hand instrument and scoop out the decay.

While Australia has a strong health care system, it is much less effective for those with dental health problems. If we had our time again it would have been the right decision, I think, to bring dental care into the Medicare system. But that is a horse that I believe has bolted. Now, the challenge for us in this place is to improve the quality of dental care for the neediest.

Before we means tested the private health insurance rebate, Australia had the absurd situation of where high-income Australians, like those of us who serve in this place, had our health care and dental care subsidised to the tune of 30 per cent. Millionaires were receiving a 30 per cent subsidy on their dental care, but low-income Australians could not get to the dentist. We are starting to change that by putting in place targeted reforms—not the untargeted Chronic Disease Dental Scheme that now costs about as much per month as it was originally projected to cost per year, but a scheme that is directed to those most in need.

I remember the dentist who came into my electorate office. I asked him how he felt about the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme. He told me it had to go. He told me the story of a patient who had been referred to him by a doctor on the basis that the patient, who was very well-off, was undergoing some dental work and the  doctor thought this scheme could help him meet the costs. The dentist was outraged by this and went to the doctor and asked, 'Why are you referring patients who are not needy to me?' The doctor said, 'Well, that's not your business. I sign the form; you do the work.' That is the kind of scheme that the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme was: a scheme that did not go to the neediest. What we are doing with this bill is in the spirit of what we are doing with our multibillion dollar mental health package, with the National Disability Insurance Scheme: recognising that healthcare to be more holistic than it has traditionally been.

Our oral health as children is the best predictor of our oral health as adults. And because dental decay among children has been on the rise, we need to do something about it. One in five of the lowest-income earners in Australia have not been to the dentist in the last five years. Some of them may never have been to the dentist. By replacing the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme with the Child Dental Benefit Schedule we are addressing the cost overruns, the over-servicing, the rorting and the administrative problems associated with the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme. It will make sure that we have better dental health for low- and middle-income families, particularly children. I commend the bill to the House.

I spoke in parliament yesterday about the recent laying of National Broadband Network cables in Palmerston, and the benefits of the NBN for health, education and business.

Benefits of the National Broadband Network, 9 October 2012

Last week Senator Kate Lundy and I attended the laying of the distribution fibre cable in Palmerston, in my electorate of Fraser. NBN Co. forecast that construction should be complete in the central business district of Gungahlin and nearby suburbs by the end of the year. Homes and businesses in Gungahlin are now one step closer to connecting to the National Broadband Network and being able to access faster, more affordable and more reliable broadband. This will not only boost internet speeds but also strengthen the local community.

One example of where the NBN is strengthening community is in the lives of those suffering from a chronic health condition. In New South Wales, Hunter Nursing is using the National Broadband Network to remotely monitor the health of patients suffering from one or more chronic diseases. A trial of 50 high-risk patients using an in-patient home device with an online interface enabled them to have their health monitored in their own home by health professionals. Through high-speed broadband, patients and carers were able to use their device to access monitoring equipment and communicate with health professionals via video-conferencing and email. The benefit of this was that patients enjoyed one-to-one care in the comfort of their own homes. They could monitor their own health status and they could maintain their independence.

Ann Maree Battersby, one of the nurses who participated in the trial, commented:

'It gives [patients] increased security; they feel they have access to the nurse without having the nurse physically visit them in their home.'

Sally Bradley, granddaughter and carer for one of the patients in the trial, said:

‘The main benefit for us is in letting my grandmother still live at home and maintain her independence.’

This kind of innovative application of technology assists those living with chronic illness in the Fraser electorate. The Gillard government has provided over $1 million to the ACT Gallagher government to ensure that NBN services are available in the Gungahlin community as soon as the rollout is complete.

In July this year I was pleased to announce the Gillard government had already provided $360,000 to the ACT government for NBN services that would put people in touch with local government. When the project comes online Gungahlin residents will be able to engage with ACT Legislative Assembly members and government officials via interactive video platforms. The project will also provide the necessary infrastructure for new online services and forums as the NBN is rolled out.

Personally I am also excited about the opportunities the NBN opens up in education. Superfast broadband will enable students to video link with schools overseas, share classroom experiences and learn other languages in real time. For students using facilities in the Gungahlin library the NBN will mean the quality is similar to watching a DVD. I am an optimist who believes in the power of innovation and technology to meet today's challenges and to seize tomorrow's opportunities.

In today's AFR, I have a piece on inequality and superannuation.

Superannuation Inequity Needs Redressing, Australian Financial Review, 10 October 2012

Wealth in Australia is more unequally distributed than incomes. That’s largely because those of us on higher incomes are able to save more than disadvantaged Australians. This becomes a wedge over the course of a lifetime. By the time rich and poor people reach retirement, those at the top of the distribution have contributed more, and earned more returns on their contributions.

Since the Commonwealth began paying pensions in 1909, a central purpose of retirement incomes policy has been to prevent poverty among the elderly. When the Keating Government introduced universal superannuation in 1992, the boost was primarily for low and middle-income earners, since many high-wage workers already had more than 9 per cent of their wage directed into superannuation. Similarly, the Gillard Government’s decision to boost contributions to 12 per cent will have its greatest benefit for low-wage workers.

In an article for this paper yesterday, Senator Mathias Cormann made the unfortunate decision to continue the Opposition’s scare campaign on superannuation. This is a pity, since the issues aren’t inherently ideological. It was President George W. Bush who sought to establish ‘private accounts’ for the US Social Security system, a system similar to Australian superannuation. In other countries, conservatives have supported retirement savings schemes that focus on looking after the poorest.

Underpinning superannuation policy is strong economic evidence that myopia causes most of us to save less than we need in retirement. But as Brian Toohey has noted in a series of columns for this newspaper, superannuation policy needs to become more equitable. One of the policies to achieve this – championed by Minister Bill Shorten – is the Low-Income Superannuation Contribution, which cuts contributions tax to zero for workers earning up to $37,000 and puts the money into their super instead.

Another reform is the creation of MySuper default products. In shaping superannuation in the 1990s, policymakers focused on giving workers as much choice as possible. Yet two decades of experience – and advances in behavioural economics – has taught us that the typical worker ends up in the default fund and the default investment plan. MySuper ensures that default plans are good plans, and that a smaller share of workers’ earnings ends up in management fees. The Government is currently looking at the process by which superannuation funds are named in modern awards.

Boosting superannuation for low-income workers isn’t just a good way of reducing wealth inequality; it’s also one of the most important reforms for reducing gender inequity. Although women’s wages are four-fifths of those of men, women’s superannuation payouts average one-third of men’s (a gap that particularly hurts single women). Two-thirds of those who benefit from the Low-Income Superannuation Contribution are women.

Like me, Senator Cormann enjoys the benefit of a parliamentary scheme that contributes 15 per cent of our incomes into superannuation.  Yet the Coalition opposed the increase in superannuation contributions from 9 to 12 per cent. What’s good for the pollie should be good for the voters.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser, and his website is www.andrewleigh.com.

I appeared on Lateline on 5 October 2012, speaking about the increasingly scratchy tone of debate in Australian politics; the way that Labor policies such as paid parental leave, equal pay and superannuation have helped women; the strength of the Australian economy; and Labor's decision to replace a badly-targeted dental policy with a better one. A transcript is here.http://www.youtube.com/v/BL1NS8OvKKs?version=3&hl=en_GB