Mr BURNELL (Spence) (13:08): It gives me great pleasure to make a contribution to this address-in-reply debate. Before I congratulate other people, Deputy Speaker Scrymgour, I want to congratulate you on your deputy speaker role. I think it is a significant tick of approval to the person that you are and the contribution you have made since joining this parliament in 2022 alongside me. Well done. I do want to extend my congratulations to the Speaker of the House, the member for Oxley. He has been a fantastic contributor in my time here and has really elevated the role of Speaker, in my view, since my election. I also want to extend that to the Deputy Speaker, Ms Sharon Claydon, a very dear friend and someone who has offered me quite a lot of advice over the last three years. To the Governor-General, on Her Excellency's fine address to this parliament last week: thank you for everything you've done since your appointment to the Governor-General position, but also I really want to extend very warm thanks for the way in which you engaged with my daughter last week during the reception after your address. She met Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, her political idol—but you came in at a very close second. So, I do say thank you for that. To the people of Spence, who have entrusted me for a second term: from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much for the great honour of being able to stand in this chamber and represent your needs on a day-to-day basis. It is by far and away the greatest privilege of my life. As a young boy growing up in Mildura, in country Victoria, I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would make it to this place. To have had three years as the member for Spence and then to be re-elected is such a privilege. As I'm sure every member in this place acknowledges, it is an absolute gift to have your name called to speak on behalf of your constituency. So, to every person who voted for me, thank you. And for those who didn't vote for me, there's still time! Hopefully at the 2028 election you might change your view and swing in behind me, and hopefully we can get that margin up over 50 per cent; that would make my day, for sure. But any day when I get called as the winner of the seat of Spence, I'll be very happy and eternally grateful and will always put my best foot forward to represent our community. So, thank you very much for that. Whilst I'm giving thanks, I do really want to say thank you to the union movement for having my back over the last three years—a big shout-out to the SDA, AWU, HSU and SA Unions and especially my union, the TWU. To Sam McIntosh and the team down at Chief Street in Brompton: thank you so much for everything you've helped with over the last three years. When I needed help, you guys were always there and really went that extra mile to make sure we got the job done. So I do want to say thank you. But I also want to acknowledge our great mate, my former boss and a great mentor to me—Ian Smith, the former secretary of the TWSA/NT branch. It's been just over 12 months since his passing. It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the contribution and impact that you've had on my life as well as the confidence you had in encouraging me to nominate for preselection and subsequently run as the candidate for Spence in 2022 and re-election this year. Thank you, mate. I'll be eternally grateful for everything you did for me. Then there are my amazing volunteers. There's not a person in this place who could say, hand on heart, that they got here by themselves. Yes, we get to do all the fancy stuff and turn up to things and get acknowledged for being the member or the candidate. But ultimately we don't get here without the hard, tireless work of hundreds of volunteers in our respective electorates, and mine is no different. I had hundreds of volunteers lining up to letterbox, to doorknock, to help at prepoll, to make phone calls and to help pack booth boxes—to do those little one per cent things that make such a difference for the candidate. There were more than 200 volunteers. There's not enough time on the clock to list everybody and do justice. But to each and every one of my branch members, to my community volunteers, to those who answered the call to come and help us to re-win this seat, I want to say thank you. We have had a thankyou barbecue, and I am so appreciative of the near-100 people who turned up to that. But, for those who didn't, I do want to say to you today: thank you from the bottom of my heart for every minute, every hour, every day you put in on the campaign. It made a huge difference, and I'll be eternally grateful for it. To Michael Atkinson, my campaign manager: mate, it was quite a journey. I learnt a bit about you, you learnt a bit about me, but ultimately we got a job done. I am extremely thankful for all of your guidance before, during and since the election. I look forward to our friendship growing over the coming years and will be eternally grateful for everything you have done. To my beautiful wife, Cassandra, thank you for giving me the opportunity to do this. I wouldn't be here if you hadn't supported me in 2022 to put my hand up. Everybody in here knows that it's a huge commitment not just from us but from our families. It takes a toll on them. We have to make sure that we look after our family when we're home. We can't get absorbed into this role and forget about things outside of it, because it's very easy to. Everybody wants a piece of us all of the time. It is so important that we put aside five minutes every day to make that phone call or tell our staff: 'No, I'm sorry. We're having Sunday as a family day.' That's what maintains our relationships. It's what keeps us grounded in this job so that we don't lose sight of what we're here to do. Mr Hill: He likes his family. Mr BURNELL: Thank you, Member for Bruce! My wife has been an absolute rock, and I always look forward to getting home and giving her a kiss and saying thank you, because this is a great honour, but I can't do it by myself. To my broader family, thank you. Like I said earlier, I had my daughter here last week for the opening ceremony. It is such a great thing to be able to take your family for a walk through these halls, behind the doors, not on a public gallery tour but as your family. You get to take them behind the doors and into your office. It's such a special thing to do. It's quite fitting that I stand in this position now. When I was elected, my seat was just over here and I sat beside—I believe they were my first seat buddy—the former member for Dunkley, Peta Murphy. I subsequently now sit behind the new member for Dunkley, Jodie Belyea. Unfortunately, in the 47th Parliament, we said goodbye to some good people. Peta Murphy was one of those good people. She was a shining light for many colleagues in this place, both on this side and on the other side of the chamber. I know the member for Gippsland was a very good friend. It was very unfortunate that we had to say goodbye to her. But, in her own way, she made sure that she imparted something extremely special to every single person in this place. I absolutely benefited from every single contribution she made in her seat. It has made me a better speaker. It has given me a lot more confidence. It would be remiss of me not to say thank you. But we also said goodbye to our good friend Senator Linda White, a class colleague of the class of 2022. She, unfortunately, did not have enough time in this place to make the contribution that she was destined to make, but in the time that she did have she wasted not a minute. Not a minute did she waste. She ensured that her fingerprints were left in this place for eternity. She should be extremely proud of that contribution. It's also a reminder to every single person elected in this place and the other that we don't have time to waste, that when we come to Canberra we're here to do a job. We're here to represent our constituents. We're here to represent our state, if you're a senator. We're here to represent the people of Australia and make decisions that will put them in a better place. That is ultimately the responsibility bestowed on each and every single one of us. I choose not to waste a minute of my time here, because it is too valuable, because we don't know when we won't get the chance to have our name called and speak on behalf of our communities. I don't say that just because of the two people I have spoken about. I say that because of the 33 people that didn't make it back to this place. Some of them did not have the opportunity to give a valedictory and yet made significant contributions to this House. They probably did not envisage that their time was going to be called at the last election. It is incumbent on us as elected members of this House to make the most of every single day that we have got, because the next election might be when, unfortunately, you don't get to come back. I say that in jest to all the excited new members of the 48th Parliament. I watch in envy the contributions that you've already made—the amazing first speeches, so many amazing first speeches, not just on our side of the House but also on the other side. It was an absolute pleasure to sit in this chamber and hear what your story is about you as a person and the contribution that you look forward to making to this place and to our country. You should all be very, very proud of the speeches that you have given so far. To the Australian Electoral Commission, especially the divisional returning officer Laurence Staiff, who was the overseer for my election: thank you very much to you, to your entire team both at the headquarters and at each of the prepolling locations, and to the staff that you're responsible for on election day. Your team went above and beyond to make sure that not just me but all eight candidates were informed of what was going on and also that the voter experience in our electorate was not like some of the others that we've heard about across the country. That takes good leadership, and it starts with your role, so I want to say thank you, because it is about making sure that voters are encouraged to come back and fulfil their democratic obligation at each and every single election. Thank you very much. Over the last three years, we have had such a fantastic opportunity to deliver so many great outcomes for our community. I'm going to start with what is probably my most favourite policy front. No, it's not defence, Member for Lalor! It's education because education has the capacity to unlock the door to opportunity, lift people up and give them a chance at a great life. I remember when we got the Australian Universities Accord:interim report. Inside that paperwork, for those who actually took the time to read it, there was a piece that said that regional university study hubs and suburban university study hubs connecting outer metropolitan, regional and rural students to the opportunities of higher education make it more attainable. I looked at it, and I said, 'That's exactly what my electorate needs—exactly what my electorate needs.' I want to say a huge thankyou to the City of Playford for partnering up with Flinders University and the University of Adelaide and sitting down to have the conversations to make sure we got the right proposal before the selection committee to give ourselves the best chance of delivering a study hub right in the heart of our electorate. We were successful in getting that. The interim hub has been opened. In the not-too-distant future, we will be opening its forever home at the TAFE campus in Elizabeth, and it will change the educational outcomes for thousands of young people in my electorate. It'll change the educational outcomes for thousands of adult-entry students in my electorate. That is what Labor governments are elected to do: to create opportunity for those who haven't had it in the past and to change the outcomes. We did it through fee-free TAFE. During the election campaign, I had the skills minister come down. We went for a walk through the wet room, played around with a bit of builders' mud and tried our hand at bricklaying. I'd never done bricklaying before in my life, but I did lay a better brick than the good minister! He'll probably come in here and say that's not the case. What we saw was the young people who were doing a fantastic job of getting their skills and their trade certifications so that they can contribute to the housing construction needs of today and tomorrow to provide the houses for those who need them most in our community and communities across the country. That's the power of education and something that I will be forever grateful of our government. I could go on forever, but I want to close off by saying to my community: thank you so much for the greatest privilege of my life to give back to our community, to represent our community with a strong voice and to fight for what's right each and every single day. For that, I thank the House. Debate adjourned.