Just as the internet is transforming media, retail and music, it will transform the way students learn, connect and get qualified. This will be challenging to our existing higher education institutions, but online learning has the potential to deliver higher quality, more affordable education to more people – if we get the policy settings right.…
Federal Member for Aston Alan Tudge MP has welcomed the Federal Government decision to restore the $107 million funding it cut from the Victorian healthcare system. The cuts, which included an $8.4 million cut to local health provider Eastern Health, had forced beds to close at local Knox facilities: the Angliss Hospital and Wantirna Health.…
In a speech in Parliament, Federal Member for Aston, Alan Tudge MP, has called on the government to act immediately to provide relief for Knox families struggling with the rising cost of living. The call comes as official ABS statistics shows that the cost of essential household items have skyrocketed since 2007. Electricity has risen…
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, Canberra: I would like to use the opportunity of this debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2012-2013 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2012-2013 to express my concern about rising cost-of-living pressures hitting residents in my electorate and across Australia, and to express my dismay that the government’s policies are making things worse. As…
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, Canberra: I rise to express my concern about the proposed cuts to the private health insurance rebate. Private health insurance is very important in my electorate—70 per cent of my residents take out private health insurance. I represent a very middle-class electorate. It is not overly wealthy; it is not overly poor. It…
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, Canberra: The Australian Education Bill 2012 is an extraordinary bill and this is an extraordinary debate, because we are discussing a bill which expressly says that it does not create rights or duties that are legally enforceable. I believe that this will be unique in Australian history: a discussion in this chamber of…
Federal Member for Aston, Alan Tudge MP, directly asked the Prime Minister in Question Time to explain how she could justify cutting hospital beds, including five from Wantirna Health, while still spending money on carbon tax ads. The Gillard Government recently cut $107 million from Victorian hospitals including $8.4 million from Eastern Health. The funding…
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, Canberra: If we were designing governments from a blank sheet of paper today and determining what should be our priorities to fund from the taxes collected from Australians, I think support for people with disabilities would be among the highest. Supporting people who, through no fault of their own, are born with or…
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, Canberra: Yesterday, as you would be aware, hundreds of thousands of Australians and hundreds of millions of people across the world celebrated the Chinese Lunar New Year—the Year of the Snake. This is a very special occasion for Chinese people everywhere. Yesterday and on Saturday I caught up with many Chinese Australians in…
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, Canberra: I rise in support of the Indigenous Recognition Bill before us today. It is appropriate that we debate this bill in the week of the annual Closing the Gap statement. In some regards it brings a symmetry to the debate. Yesterday’s statements by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition…