Interview with Wayne Buscombe, SWR 99.9

WAYNE “BUSCO” BUSCOMBE, HOST: Lucky enough to be chatting to Michelle Rowland, not only our Minister for Communications – proud supporter of community radio stations just like SWR, but also our Federal Member for Greenway – out here always flying the flag for all things Sydney’s west.

Michelle, they’re calling it one of the most important days in our history. I’m talking, of course, about the Voice referendum, which is locked in coming on Saturday the 14 October. Hugely important day. No matter which way you may be voting or yet to decide, we need everyone to get as involved as possible.

 

MICHELLE ROWLAND, MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Indeed, and the referendum is fast approaching. It’s the 14 October and it is compulsory to vote. I’ve been out and about in the community chatting to people, giving them information. Prepoll will be open the week beforehand, then I expect we’ll have some information on the various polling booths very soon that we’ll get out to people.

This is really important. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a once-in-a-generation chance to bring our country together, to change it for the better, to vote for recognition and listening so we can get better results. I’d just like to point out that Indigenous Australians want the same thing for their children as we all do – we want them to stay healthy, do well at school, find a job and lead fulfilling lives. That’s why they’re asking us to say yes. Nothing extra – just an equal chance.

This referendum is over to the people. We all get one vote and all have an equal say. If you’re unsure you can find out more and go to aec.gov.au. The key thing I would like to point out is, of course, this is one of those votes where we’re not putting numbers in boxes – you need to write the word Yes or No in the box in response to the proposed alteration to the constitution. So just to be really clear: you need to write the word Yes or No.

 

BUSCO: Michelle, as you mentioned, the Australian Electoral Commission website – aec.gov.au – really important one to get across what you’re going to need to do on the day for the actual voting, or the pre-polling if you’re not going to be around. Another very important website in the lead-up to the Voice referendum is voice.gov.au. If you are in any way undecided, if you would like more information, there are booklets, there are toolkits, there are resources. It’s a fantastic source of information.

 

ROWLAND: It certainly is. I think that it’s important that people be informed. I think that one of the disappointing aspects of the No case. You know, we live in a democracy; every Australian can vote how they would like – but the notion that if you’re unsure or if you don’t have enough information for yourself, if you’ve got questions, you should just vote no – I just think is a false premise. There’s plenty of ways for people to find out more about what this question is. Plenty of ways to people to get themselves informed and to make a solid judgement. And I’d just encourage people to exercise their own judgement. We live in a democracy. I want this democracy to be even stronger with the addition of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice and recognition in our Constitution. As I said, it’s over to the people. Get yourself informed and make an informed choice.

 

BUSCO: Be ready to vote on that 14 October. Michelle, you are always out and about in our local community. In fact, right across Australia as our Federal Minister for Communications. So outside of the Voice referendum, what are some of the other real big key issues that are you seeing out on the frontlines on a daily basis?

 

ROWLAND: The key issue that’s on the top of people’s mind is cost of living. There’s no doubt that especially in a growth area like Blacktown and North-West Sydney, we’ve got so many people who are under mortgage stress. They’re trying their best, working hard every day. Inflation is still stubbornly high, although we expect it to continue to moderate. We know that interest rates are coming off historic lows, but there’s a lot of people whose mortgages are going to switch over in the near future.

We as a government a really alive to that. We are also doing everything we can in terms of providing cost of living relief in really practical ways that doesn’t add to inflation. We’ve got some of the youngest areas in the entire country, which is why cheaper child care, which started only recently, is really important. By having cheaper medicines, including new prescription requirements which are saving locals a great deal of money as well, boosting bulk billing, getting wages moving again, energy price relief, expanding paid parental leave, all these measures are really important. We understand that people are under the pump, and that’s why we’re making decisions every day in every portfolio, including mine, to make things a little bit easier.

 

BUSCO: Speaking of making things a little bit easier, Michelle – I know this one falls under your portfolio and it’s one that you’re very passionate about – you’ll love this one, the School Students Broadband Initiative. Tell us more.

 

ROWLAND: What I found during COVID, and I’m sure many of your listeners experienced this too, we got to see a real digital divide between kids who had the internet at home and those who didn’t. I heard from parents who said they would park outside McDonalds during lockdown times just to get the free Wi‑Fi to be able to download their kids’ learning for the day. We can’t let that happen. We can’t have that sort of digital gap between the haves and the have-nots in our society.

We went to the election promising that we would give one year’s free internet to any household with school children who didn’t have the internet at home for any reason. We offered this to up to 30,000 households right across Australia. I’m very pleased to say that that launch is proceeding apace. We’ve got 3,000 people already connected. We’ve got about 20,000 people who’ve been issued with vouchers to get their free connection. I’m very grateful to the sponsoring community organisations, like the Smith Family and local schools who have been involved in this. There’s a lot of really good charitable institutions who do work, really good work, with our local families. You can get in touch with them and find out how you can get free internet for a year, and I think this will make a really big difference to people’s lives, especially kids.

 

BUSCO: What a fantastic initiative. The School Students Broadband Initiative. If you would like more information on that, contact your participating school or your local – as Michelle said, your local charity or community organisation. Michelle, I know this is coming up this afternoon for you and it’s something you’re really excited about – the Greenway Careers Day is happening later this afternoon in your electorate.

 

ROWLAND: We are, we’re having a fantastic little afternoon at 4.30. It will run from 4.30 to about 6pm. And, you know, when I was at school – which was some time ago now – just going and seeing a careers adviser was something that you probably just did as a one-off. We know today that people don’t have a job for life; people’s jobs are changing, there’s careers that weren’t even invented with I was at school.

We really want to encourage people to think about how they can be entrepreneurs, how they can make some meaningful connections. I’m really fortunate that we’ve got great some people who are just coming to share their experiences and to listen to people. Some of the people we’ve got are D’Leanne Lewis. Some people might remember her from Luxe Listings, from Blacktown to the Boardroom. She’s the Australian residential salesperson of the year and principal of Laing and Simmons National.

We’ve got Heimy Molina, who was a finalist of the 2023 7NEWS Young Achiever Awards. She’s a graduate engineer and she’s currently working on Sydney Metro Northwest. We’ve got Michael Chaaya, who happens to be, of all things, my husband as well. He grew up in Mount Druitt and is now a partner at a national law firm and also an adjunct professor of law at Western Sydney University.

Just hearing about the experiences of these people, the tips they can give, and I’ll tell you, one of the best parts of my job is getting out and about and meeting young people. They’re smart, they’re driven, they’re motivated. I just thought this would be a great opportunity at this time of the year to get some insights from some people who I think can really add value to people’s decision-making about what they want to do in life, where they want to go and how to make it happen.

 

BUSCO: The Greenway Careers Day will be later this afternoon in Blacktown. You can get all the details of that, just get off to the event website or get on Michelle Rowland’s Facebook page and you can get all the details for that one there. It’s going to be a fantastic afternoon.

Before I let you go, Michelle, let’s stay on education – this one more for school leavers who might be still up in the air about what they’re going to do with their career. We just celebrated National TAFE Day in early September. I know when your government was elected you promised 180,000 fee-free TAFE places. You are most certainly delivering.

 

ROWLAND: Absolutely. We went to the election promising 180,000 fee-free TAFE places. We’ve got there six months earlier than anticipated, and nearly 35,000 places more than we expected. It’s a recurring theme that I get as I move about in our community, there’s so many people who’ve been through TAFE, that have kids or grandkids who are going through TAFE, who are TAFE teachers. I just think it’s so essential to recognise that TAFE is one of those real learning centres of excellence. We have a magnificent TAFE system in New South Wales and right across Australia. We should be making the most of it. It’s great to see so many people taking up these fee-free TAFE places. This will really make a difference in terms of filling the skill shortages gaps we’ve got now and also for jobs in the future.

 

BUSCO: Some very impressive numbers around that. More than 214,000 Aussies have now are enrolled in one of the Albanese Government’s fee-free TAFE places. Sixty per cent of enrolees are women and more than 23 per cent of enrolees are jobseekers, which is a win as well.

Big thank you to Michelle Rowland, our Federal Minister for Communications and also our Federal Member for Greenway, her electorate here in Sydney’s West, where she’s always proudly flying the flag. This has been another community update on SWR 99.9.