Mr CHESTER (Gippsland) (10:47): I appreciate the opportunity to speak in relation to the Appropriation (Coronavirus Response) Bill (No. 1) 2021-2022 and the Appropriation (Coronavirus Response) Bill (No. 2) 2021-2022. The bills together propose appropriations of nearly $5.2 billion for one department and one agency—namely, the Department of Health and the National Recovery and Resilience Agency. Bill No. 1 proposes appropriations of $2.2 billion for the National Recovery and Resilience Agency for further pandemic leave disaster payments to ensure funding is available, should claims continue at the high levels consistent with the recent emerging demand. The remaining $935 million in bill No. 1 will be provided to the Department of Health for a range of measures that support the national vaccine program. Bill No. 2 seeks approval for appropriations of just over $2 billion to the Department of Health for expenses of a capital nature. I want to begin by extending an enormous thank you to every Australian who has contributed to keeping our community as safe as possible during this pandemic. I want to thank the health workers right throughout our nation—the nurses, the doctors, the emergency services staff. I want to thank our truck drivers, who kept supplies coming to communities, particularly in regional and remote areas like the ones you and I represent, Deputy Speaker Rob Mitchell. I want to thank the cleaners, the power station shiftworkers and the retail staff in essential stores. I want to thank our own electorate staff, who are often still going to the office and answering questions of a very personal nature from Australians seeking to travel—whether they're coming from overseas or seeking to visit sick or dying family members and friends in hospitals—and helping them facilitate those visits. And I want to thank the people in this place, the Parliament of Australia, who managed to keep this building operating during very testing times. Thank you for what you have been doing. We haven't got everything right during this pandemic, but Australians have done a remarkable job in the circumstances. There has been a terrible loss of life throughout our country, but it would have been much worse without the actions taken by all levels of government—and I stress 'all levels of government'—in partnership with our community. There's nowhere else I'd rather be than in Australia as we deal with a pandemic of this nature, and that is a mix of both good fortune and good management. We are blessed by the fact that we are an island, and that allowed for decisions to be made to reduce travel in the very early days of the pandemic to reduce the impact of the virus on our communities. We are blessed by the institutions of government. As much as Australians have a healthy disrespect for positions of authority, the institutions of government have held us in good stead throughout this entire pandemic. There are the structures of a civil society: a robust health system, despite failings in some areas, staffed by people who are determined to do their absolute best in the interests of their fellow Australians. And we have a largely conscientious and caring community. When the chips are down, Australians often rally to help others. They understand the need for a bit of personal sacrifice from time to time for the greater good of the community. So we have done incredibly well as a nation. But the really big question is: where do we go from here? How do we stay positive and how do we stay optimistic and hopeful for the future of Australia, and my region of Gippsland in particular, when just about everything that we came to expect as normal has been turned upside down during this pandemic? I think the simple answer is that it's not going to be easy. The pathway through to recovery and the next chapter in the Australian story are going to be challenging to write. It's tempting for some in our community to just give up and say it's all too hard, because right now there are a lot of people in our communities who are suffering enormously. The economic uncertainty, on top of the health related restrictions, is eroding people's confidence, and it's making it difficult for some of our fellow Australians to see the pathway forward for them. In my community, on top of the drought, we've had flooding, bushfires and severe storms, so the resilience of the community has been tested by the pandemic as well. I guess it's only human for people to feel disappointed and frustrated by the things that we've had to postpone or missed out on, or the way their lives have changed in a manner which is not how they expected only a couple of years ago. I was interested, Deputy Speaker Mitchell—and you'll like this one—that former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett wrote an article recently reflecting on the fact that we and he had high hopes for 2022 but that it hadn't started that well for many people. It is hard to remain optimistic when you have shops and businesses closing because they can't secure staff, due to the pandemic, or we have exhausted health workers and worries about the crisis in aged care and whether schools can stay safely opened as planned. This is not what any of us wanted for the start of 2022. But Mr Kennett wrote that we cannot shut down our lives and stop making plans for our own futures. We have to believe that better days are coming. I quote Mr Kennett: We must believe that collectively, together we will emerge with a greater respect for what we had. A slightly different society. Maybe some major challenges to address and overcome, and from which to learn and improve. We must believe in our capacity as a society to overcome the disruptions to our lives today, to rebuild, and to look after those who are less fortunate. There's an old saying that if you believe you can or believe you can't, either way you are right. It's up to us, those who are the more hopeful, the more optimistic, the more confident and the more fortunate even to be lending a helping hand right now to those who may be struggling either physically, mentally or financially. We have to believe in ourselves and each other as Australians. Now is the time for leaders in this place to find more common ground and to unite around the issues of critical importance to the future of Australia. Yesterday we heard the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition speak with incredible conviction about the need to raise the standards of performance in this place when it comes to the treatment of staff—in fact, when it comes to the treatment of all building occupants. I endorse both their speeches and the sentiments they expressed. But let's make sure that actually turns into action, that we demonstrate more respect for each other in this place. I'm concerned that MPs and senators don't receive enough training in areas like human resource management. It's like we somehow believe that we arrive at this place as a finished product with all of our learning done, when in fact we should all be capable of growth and learning new skills. I would suggest that anyone on either side of the chamber seeking an appointment to the executive should be required to undergo additional training and demonstrate competencies in a wide range of skills, particularly when it comes to staff and human resource management. From my 13 years in this place, I'm sad to say that the biggest bullies and the serial offenders in degrading colleagues are on the blue carpet, whether they are staff or ministers. It happens amongst staff as well as amongst ministers. Thankfully, those bullies are in the minority. But they exist, and they've existed throughout my entire time in this building. Their enormous sense of self-entitlement should be called out more often. I believe that the staff turnover rate should be closely monitored, and any office experiencing a higher-than-average turnover rate should be subjected to additional scrutiny. It's a first sign that something is wrong in that office. There are members and senators in this place who can't retain staff, and the question has to be asked: Why? Why are staff leaving? And why do they avoid working for certain individuals in this building? Having said all that, my personal experience in the building with staff in my own office and staff in the parliament has been incredibly and overwhelmingly positive. The people I just referred to, the narcissists and the bullies, are a small minority amongst a large number of people who gather in this building throughout the year, who are desperate to achieve great things with our nation and who, by and large, do it with a great sense of decency and respect for themselves and each other. As I said earlier, now is the time for leadership in this place to unite our country. The politics of division are repugnant to most Australians. They want us to demonstrate maturity, to build consensus where possible and to actually get stuff done on the ground throughout Australia. I'm hoping that all levels of government have made a New Year's resolution to actually get stuff done in 2022 and develop a greater sense of urgency across the bureaucracy around delivering projects on the ground. In fairness, COVID has undoubtedly added to the complexity of the recovery from things like the bushfires. But it's also been an excuse often used by city based bureaucrats to buy time as they've failed to meet their own deadlines in communities like mine. My community of East Gippsland, which just commemorated two years since the Black Summer bushfires, was the most heavily impacted Victorian region. Less than 20 per cent of burnt private homes have been replaced, and we still have critical assets on public land, such as bridges, accommodation and community walking paths, that have not been restored by the state government. In numerous cases we've seen examples where projects for which funding has been jointly announced by all levels of government have not actually made it to the construction stage yet, and new funding programs have been delayed by the bureaucracy, with the lame excuse that the communities aren't ready for the money yet. I agree that disaster-hit regions, after an event like the Black Summer bushfires, will recover at a different pace. But my communities were ready to start work on these projects months ago. I haven't met a single bushfire impacted community across Gippsland that has told me to slow down the delivery of recovery funding. It's time for leaders in our community to work together and demonstrate a belief in the future of Gippsland and its people. We can do that at a very local level by practical action, by simply getting stuff done in our own communities. I'm a huge believer in the capacity of Australians to help themselves if given the freedom to do so, if governments get out of the way and allow community groups to get stuck in and support each other during these difficult times. For me as an elected representative, getting stuff done in the community means working with state and local governments, and the community, to deliver the projects that we've been promised. It means focusing on the things that actually matter in people's lives—their jobs, schools, health services, aged care, child care, transport and telecommunications—and not being distracted by irrelevant or partisan issues. For others in my community, it might mean doing your best as a student. It might mean working hard as an employee or business owner to achieve your full potential and achieve outcomes for your family and your community. It might mean volunteering to join a community group or sporting organisation and becoming involved in something that interests you in the Gippsland region. Or it could mean what I described before: self-help action on the ground. It might mean taking simple action to help make your community a better place, by picking up a bag of rubbish in your street, mowing the lawn for an elderly neighbour or talking positively to a young family member about their own future. When we find ourselves overwhelmed by global events and everything just seems too hard, we need to encourage those who are struggling in our community to take simple and practical action at a local level. Getting stuff done in our own communities can help to give us the belief that we can recover from the pandemic, recover from natural disasters and keep going as a region and as a nation. It is hard for many people right now to feel optimistic and hopeful when the challenges seem so huge to them, but every day, in my community of Gippsland, I see people doing their little bit to make a difference in their own way. I take enormous comfort from the strength of others and from the knowledge that previous generations overcame incredible adversity to build the community that I love today. This week many parliamentarians joined me, the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader at the last post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial, where we heard the story of just one of the 102,000 Australians who gave their lives to deliver the freedoms and the security that our nation enjoys today. We need to understand that, while we are being challenged in 2022 and the enormity of the recovery is daunting for many Australians, previous generations overcame incredible adversity in the past. If you think about the World War II veterans who are still with us today, they were born in the aftermath of the Spanish flu and they grew up during the Great Depression. They served during World War II, and they lost mates, but they somehow found the strength to build the greatest nation in the world in the decades following that event. Now, as they approach the end of their lives, they are an example to us in this place of how we can overcome great adversity. But we all need to believe that we can do it and that we can do it together, so I take the opportunity in this place today to extend my best wishes to everyone in Gippsland for the year ahead. I extend those best wishes to everyone in this place, on both sides of the chamber. I wish you well in the electoral challenges ahead, I wish you well in your electorates, and I encourage you to take my best wishes in the spirit in which they are intended. Go well and be kind to each other and enjoy the opportunity to meet Australians and help them achieve their full potential.