August 2024 - Payne's Parliamentary Proceedings

27 August 2024

The first sitting weeks of the spring session saw several pieces of key legislation passed. Our Government remains laser-focussed on bringing down the cost of living for Australians.

The Albanese Labor Government has announced a 15 per cent wage increase for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) workers over the next two years. I joined Minister for Finance and Women Senator Katy Gallagher at Kirinari Early Childhood Centre at UC to talk to Early Childhood educators and workers about what this pay increase means for them.

To help with cost of living pressures on families, ECEC services won’t be able to increase their fees by more than 4.4 per cent over the next year to be eligible for the pay increase. This pay increase is much deserved and long overdue. ECEC educators play such an important role in our society, educating our youngest children to set them up for life and enabling parents to balance work and parenting.

Our parliamentary sitting fortnight began with National Science Week. To celebrate, I joined Minister for Science Ed Husic and Chief Scientist Cathy Foley to launch Australia’s new National Science Statement and Priorities at the ANU School of Chemistry.

While we also visited Samsara Eco, which is a Canberra startup creating groundbreaking technologies to infinitely recycle previously un-recyclable plastics. The world has produced over 10 billion tonnes of plastic waste and this technology will help to ensure we can re-use it all.

Samsara Eco has even worked with Lululemon to create a line of recycled activewear available to purchase now. You can learn more about Samsara Eco here and listen to my speech about them here.

I am supporting ACT Scientist of the Year, Dr Bjorn Sturmberg, to provide copies of his children’s book Amy’s Balancing Act to all primary schools in the Canberra electorate. This book was written to help our youngest Australians to learn about the transition to renewable energy. I attended St Joseph’s Primary School in O’Connor with Dr Sturmberg for a special reading of Amy’s Balancing Act. Thank you to all the students for their excellent questions.

Our Government also introduced the Universities Accord bill, which will wipe $3 billion in HECS debt, introduced Australia’s first paid prac payment and expanded fee-free uni-ready courses. These are game changing higher education reforms. Our government is committed to building a better, fairer education system. I look forward to speaking on this legislation in the next sitting period.

I also had the House Standing Committee on Economics public hearing with the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia. I took the opportunity to ask RBA Governor Michelle Bullock about the impact of rising interest rates in the community and the economy, and continued access to cash. Other members of the committee also questioned the Governor about interest rates.

With my co-chairs, I hosted a Parliamentary Friends of Maternal Health panel with Maternal Health Matters on Improving Outcomes for First Nations Mothers and Babies in Australia. We heard from Professor Helen McLachlan, Aunty Gina Bundle OAM and Ms Kelsey Muhl about the Victorian program Baggarrook Yurrongi which is positively changing the care experience and birth outcomes for First Nations mothers and babies. The importance of culturally appropriate care and support cannot be understated in this special time for First Nations families, and for its positive lifelong impacts on babies and mothers.

I also had the honour of MCing the Emily’s List National Oration. This year’s Orator was Sharon Claydon MP, the Member for Newcastle and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. She spoke about the work that has been done over many years in our party and Parliament to achieve gender equality, and the work that still needs to be done.

To wrap up the week, I took Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Josh Wilson, to one of our great Canberra businesses, Mountain Strong, which has recently received an Energy Efficiency Grant from the Government. This grant will allow Duncan to lower his business’ energy use and improve its energy efficiency. Over 2,000 businesses across the country have received this grant that will make a difference to them right now, through reducing their energy costs, but also in the long term by reducing their emissions.

In a final personal note, last week our team bid farewell to my office manager Karen, who is retiring after a long and dedicated career with the Australian Labor Party. Karen worked for 22 years for former Labor leader Kim Beazley, six years for Anthony Albanese and the last five years here in my Canberra Electorate office. Many of you who have been in contact with my office over the last few years will have interacted with Karen, and we will miss having her on the team! You can watch my speech about Karen here.

This fortnight I was happy to speak on the following topics:

As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to my office if there is anything we can help you with. You can contact us by phone at 6247 8475 or by email at [email protected]

Kind regards,

Alicia