Valedictory Speech of Paul Fletcher MP
10 February 2025
Like just about everybody who gets to this place, my journey here was not entirely straightforward.
In 2007, Manuela, Gabriel and I were living in Surry Hills—a lovely part of Sydney but not very fruitful territory if you wanted to be a Liberal MP.
So we moved to Miranda, and I sought Liberal preselection for the seat of Cook, covering the Sutherland Shire of Sydney. As history records, I did not succeed.
But, just 18 months later, Dr Brendan Nelson announced he would be stepping down in Bradfield.
Manuela, Gabriel and I were now back in Surry Hills, living in a recently, and rather expensively, architecturally renovated terrace house with our family expanded by the happy arrival of Hugo, then around six months old.
So when I told Manuela that I was turning my attention from the southern suburbs of Sydney to the northern suburbs of Sydney she took a moment to gather her enthusiasm.
But very soon she was fully on board for this latest quest—and, if the Princes Highway heading south had been the boulevard of broken dreams, the Pacific Highway heading north turned out to be the yellow brick road.
Within a few short months I was standing in this chamber giving my maiden speech, as it happens, precisely 15 years and one day ago—although it feels like five minutes. In that speech, I said:
I want to be a voice for rational policymaking which recognises some basic realities—the reality that we are a small country in a large world which does not owe us a living; the reality that the prosperity we enjoy today is not guaranteed but needs continual work; the reality that our prosperity depends much more on the efforts of the private sector than the public sector; …
How would I assess my performance against the aim of being such a voice for rational policymaking? In the marking scale used when I was a student at Sydney University in the 1980s, I would not give myself a high distinction or even a distinction, but I think it's probably worth a credit.
I was lucky to work on some issues where I had relevant expertise. After the 2013 election I was made parliamentary secretary to the communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull. He asked me to take charge of the Mobile Black Spot Program, our election commitment to spend $100 million on better mobile phone coverage in rural and remote Australia.
I travelled all around the country, holding community meetings and visiting black spots, as we finalised the rules of the scheme and kicked it off.
A lot of people said to me, 'Telstra has the best network in regional and remote Australia,' so just give all the money to them. But I thought we could design a reverse-auction process to maximise the competitive pressure on the three telcos—Telstra, Optus and Vodafone—and in turn maximise the number of new base stations we would get for the money.
When the telcos lodged their bids, it was clear the strategy had worked. For this relatively modest sum, they collectively committed to build 499 new mobile base stations.
I drew several lessons from this experience. First, well-designed, competitive selection processes are a good way to get value for money for the taxpayer.
Second, you should aim to have government intervene just enough to get the outcome needed but no more. In this case, what was the smallest subsidy we could pay to get a telco to build a new mobile base station?
Third and most important, in politics we are often seeking to deliver emotionally important outcomes. But the more work you put into developing a rational and carefully designed policy, the better your chances of getting the outcome you seek.
Because of careful policy work, we didn't get 200 or 300 or 400 new base stations; we got 499. I am certain that for every one of those there are people alive today because a 000 call could be made and help obtained quickly after a farm accident or a car crash on a country road.
The emotional outcome — enormously important — is saving lives, as well as all the other benefits, such as being able to make or receive a phone call in areas where before this program it was impossible. But we got a much better outcome because of good policy design.
All too often in this place, the fact that the objective is important, that it is emotionally compelling, is the excuse for poor, ill-disciplined, wasteful policy design. As I will touch on later, I regard the National Disability Insurance Scheme as suffering from this problem.
I drew on these policy principles time after time as a minister. Working on the News Media Bargaining Code with Josh Frydenberg and Scott Morrison, we wanted just enough intervention to bring Google and Facebook to the negotiating table with Australian news media businesses.
The process we designed worked as intended, securing some $200 million in payments from the platforms, not only improving the profitability of Australian news media businesses but also leading to a lot more journalists being employed. It is a shame that the current government has not been able to continue our work effectively.
On the other hand, I am pleased that in other areas this government has continued directions I established. I welcome their support for the eSafety Commissioner, and I'm delighted to see Julie Inman Grant in the gallery today.
I welcome the more sensible approach to extending the NBN fibre rollout. Instead of building fibre to every home, now there is fibre built down the middle of the street, with the connection to the customer's home done only when the customer orders a high-speed broadband service — a much more efficient use of taxpayers' capital.
I'm pleased that the changes I made to Australian content rules for free-to-air television have not been reversed. These rules required commercial TV networks to show multiple hours of specified content, including drama and children's content, each week. But not many people watched it, and much of this content was low-cost, low-production-value material produced solely to meet the quota.
The changes I made aligned with what I saw as the broader strategic goal for the Australian screen production sector — how to make shows that would sell globally, including to the global streaming services.
So we needed to remove perverse incentives to create content that was not globally saleable. We also needed to give better financial support for the production of television content, including streaming, so we increased the producer offset for television from 20 per cent to 30 per cent.
The Screen Producers Association strongly opposed these changes, but I believe they were a positive for the screen sector. And while there are ups and downs from year to year, over the past few years we've seen a clear upward trend in Australian screen production.
One of my most challenging times as Communications Minister was the 2019-20 bushfires. On the worst day, around 150 mobile base stations were off the air across New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. No mobile coverage means no EFTPOS and no capacity to call or text for help.
It was a reminder of something we too often overlook: the sustainability of the physical telecommunications networks which underpin the internet and, in turn, the digital economy. These networks are built and maintained by Telstra, Optus, TPG, NBN and the rest of our telco sector. In many places these networks are vulnerable, with little or no network redundancy.
This is an economic issue as well as a network design issue. The margins made by the telcos in building and operating networks are modest, while the global tech firms which write over those networks are making supernormal returns. This disparity presents a growing risk, in my view, and needs policy attention.
The issues in Communications were interesting and important. Equally fascinating were the issues in cities and urban infrastructure, a portfolio in which I served under various names from 2015 until 2018 and then again for nearly 18 months from late 2020, when it was added to my continuing responsibilities for Communications and the Arts.
The high point, undoubtedly, was working on the Western Sydney Airport. When Malcolm Turnbull asked me to take responsibility for this project, I set out to learn as much as I could about airports in general and this project in particular.
I visited Changi Airport in Singapore; Incheon in Korea; Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton in Britain; Schiphol in the Netherlands; and Dallas-Fort Worth in the US, in each case meeting the chief executive and other members of the executive team. All of them were extremely generous with their time and insights. This was a policy nerd's dream trip.
I also spent many months engaging with the Sydney Airport Corporation. This company held a legally binding right of first refusal to develop the Western Sydney airport but, in the end, decided not to take up that right.
We were well prepared for that scenario and announced almost immediately that the Commonwealth would establish a special-purpose company, WSA Co, to build the airport, with funding of $5.3 billion.
This will not just be a new airport; it is the core of a new western parkland city, a new third city for the Sydney basin. It will have parks and recreational space. It will have a 23-kilometre-long metro rail line, with six stations running north to south, as the spine of the new city. It will have medium- and high-density housing around the stations. Because of the airport and the businesses the airport will attract, there will be jobs locally for people who live in that housing. This is urban policy, economic policy, transport policy and environmental policy all coming together.
None of this would have happened without the leadership of Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister, the key role that Lucy Turnbull played as chair of the Greater Sydney Commission and the strong backing for this vision from New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian and her government. I worked particularly closely with the New South Wales Minister for Western Sydney, Stuart Ayres.
Stuart and I worked closely with the eight councils who had joined with the Commonwealth and New South Wales governments in the Western Sydney City Deal. I was impressed with the way the councils stepped up to think about what was best not just for their area but for the whole of Western Sydney. I acknowledge the advocacy of key Western Sydney leaders like David Borger.
Anybody who has had the chance to drive down The Northern Road and look at the massive Western Sydney Airport site and how well developed that project is would agree with me that this is going to have a very big impact for our city and our nation.
In years to come, I believe Western Sydney Airport and the associated policy framework, including the Western Sydney City Deal, will be seen as a template for urban policymaking in Australia. It's important for a host of reasons, including the huge challenge of housing affordability.
If we can deliver new planned cities like this, with a combination of medium- and high-density housing, extensive parklands and local economic activity delivering local jobs, we have a powerful policy tool to bring a growing supply of affordable housing in areas which offer good quality of life.
Part of the solution to housing affordability, I believe, comes with delivering better public transport connections, particularly rail, between our big cities and surrounding regions. This lets people buy homes in more affordable areas while remaining plugged into the economy and jobs markets of our big cities.
We did significant planning work between the Commonwealth and state governments on what we called 'faster rail'. In the 2022 budget we announced funding for three rail corridors from the federal government: $1 billion for a corridor between Sydney and Newcastle; $1.1 billion for a corridor between Brisbane and the Gold Coast; and $1.6 billion for a corridor between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. I want to acknowledge the two members for the Sunshine Coast seats, with whom I worked very, very closely on securing that announcement and the 'on again, off again, but ultimately on again'—as best as can be determined—commitment from the current government.
On the 90-kilometre corridor from Brisbane to the Gold Coast, our funding was targeted to a 19-kilometre segment between two stations roughly halfway along the corridor. This would double capacity from two tracks to four and realign and straighten the tracks.
Why should you care? Because having a stretch of four tracks means you can run more express trains and all-stops trains. It gives benefits along the whole corridor, allowing faster, more frequent and reliable services. It's not a coincidence that that was also what the funding for the Newcastle-to-Sydney corridor was dedicated to, similarly increasing from two tracks to four.
This might not be as exciting as very fast trains, but it's targeted, it's cost-effective is and it will deliver tangible benefits within a few years. It was a privilege to work on these issues.
It was also a privilege to be the Commonwealth Arts Minister. This brought some extraordinary experiences, such as visiting the set of Thor: Love and Thunder in Sydney and giving then 11-year-old Hugo the chance to meet Chris Hemsworth and Taika Waititi, who were both extremely charming, I must say.
Equally special was the day I spent visiting artists in four Indigenous communities in the APY Lands in the north of South Australia. Travelling with then South Australian Premier and Arts Minister Steven Marshall, I met some remarkable Australians, including Robert Fielding and Betty Kuntiwa Pumani, winner of the 2017 Wynne Prize.
There is no more distinctive feature of brand Australia than Indigenous art. As Arts Minister, I spoke very deliberately of wanting to build the market for Indigenous art. I visited Desert Mob in Alice Springs, Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair and the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair. These are important marketplaces where very talented artists can earn an economic return and buyers can purchase remarkable works.
When COVID came along, almost immediately performances were cancelled, venues were closed and artists and crews lost their gigs. I felt a tremendous sense of responsibility. Could we devise policy settings to help sustain the arts sector and get it going again once COVID was over?
We could. I want to acknowledge the strong support of Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg. The Morrison government provided unprecedented support to the creative and cultural sectors, with more than $10 billion in wages and cashflow support under programs like JobKeeper.
Our $200 million RISE fund supported 541 projects, created more than 213,000 jobs and stimulated a two-year pipeline of events, with an estimated total audience of many millions of people.
We managed to get money into art forms that had been underfunded for a long time and money into suburban and regional Australia, which normally do not see a very big share of the Commonwealth arts funding.
Left-leaning journalists at the ABC and the Sydney Morning Herald — I acknowledge that phrase is a tautology — take it as an article of faith that the arts sector receives support stronger support under Labor than the Coalition. Let me give you this fact. In 2021-22, under the Morrison government, there was record Commonwealth government funding to the arts of more than $1 billion.
I want to say in particular to those Coalition supporters in the arts sector: yours can seem a lonely and dangerous existence, I know, but I know you are there and actually in quite surprising numbers in some places.
After all, artists, theatres and bands are businesses. Today we think of Shakespeare as a genius playwright, but he was also an entrepreneur, taking risks, employing people and building a business. I reckon old Will would have understood the solid policy case for giving small businesses with a turnover of less than $10 million a capped tax deduction of up to $20,000 for business related meal and entertainment expenses.
In communications, arts and infrastructure I was lucky to have had some prior interest and exposure, but when new Prime Minister Scott Morrison asked me to become Social Services Minister in August 2018 I was coming into a portfolio about which I knew little.
I only did the job for nine months. I learned a lot in a short time. I lived in constant fear that a journalist would start an interview with the question, 'Minister, what is the JobSeeker payment for single adults under 55?' Since you ask, it's $778 a fortnight.
The portfolio included the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We need to acknowledge reality. The costs of this scheme are running wildly out of control and the governance and controls are deeply unsatisfactory.
I referred earlier to the tendency in this place to use high emotional importance as the excuse for poor, ill-disciplined, wasteful policy design. This is what I believe has happened with the NDIS.
Its advocates promised that, by spending more money on people with disability, the scheme would increase their capacity to work and to make a productive contribution and, in turn, it would generate economic benefits. That is a very worthwhile goal, but there is little evidence that it is happening.
We need a well-designed, well-targeted, efficient scheme to support people with a disability, but what we have is very far from that, and every Australian taxpayer is being hit with a big and rising annual bill. There is a lot of work needed to fix this.
Something else our nation would benefit from, in my view, is a scheme under which older Australians can use some of their superannuation balance to purchase an annuity from the Commonwealth. Recently I was interested to see the Grattan Institute advocating for such a scheme. Just to be clear, my view is it should be a choice. I would strongly oppose compulsion.
Another policy in another portfolio I think we should adopt is a system of per kilometre road-user charging for electric vehicles. I advocated for this unsuccessfully as Urban Infrastructure Minister, pointing out in one speech that, under our current fuel-excise system, somebody driving an old Holden Commodore is effectively paying 4.5c a kilometre through fuel excise to use our roads, but, if you drive a Tesla, you're paying nothing.
In other words, we have a fairness problem, but we also have a problem that, as the share of electric vehicles rises, revenue from the fuel excise will drop. Today this is a revenue stream in net terms of some $11 billion or $12 billion, which is money we rely on to pay for building new roads and maintaining existing roads.
In my view, it would be fair and sensible to impose a federal per kilometre charge on electric vehicles set at a rate derived from the average effective rate per kilometre paid by users of petrol and diesel vehicles through the fuel excise system.
Today electric vehicles are relatively expensive, and they're bought by more affluent Australians, so such a charge is unlikely to discourage electric vehicle sales. Rather than undermining the transition to electric vehicles, I see this as a policy measure which supports this inevitable and desirable transition by getting our road-funding arrangements set up for a world in which more and more vehicles are electric. It's one of a number of things I think we need to do, along with rolling out better and more comprehensive charging infrastructure.
As for those who would criticise this as a new tax, my answer is, on the contrary, it's about updating an existing tax to deal with technological change. Liberals want to see the lowest possible taxes charged fairly across the broadest possible tax base. If most Australians have no choice but to pay a tax but a small minority avoid it by buying an expensive vehicle using the latest technology, then we have a problem with the design of the tax and we need to fix it.
When you're a Minister, you regard Parliament as an annoying constraint on your work. You have to answer all those pesky questions and, when you have a bill, you have to get it through the chamber. But, in this term, as Manager of Opposition Business, I've had to pay a lot more attention to the workings of the parliament. I want to thank and acknowledge you, Mr Speaker. Working collaboratively with you was an unexpected pleasure, but I have formed some clear views about how this place works and how it could improve.
Our voting process in the chamber is inefficient. It should be electronic. In my view, once the Speaker says, 'Ring the bells for four minutes,' after members have come in and the doors are locked, members would hold up a smartcard or their phone to a reader. The vote would be captured and electronically tallied, and it could all be done in a minute or two.
Having question time at 2 pm is inefficient. So much time is spent across this building every day preparing for possible questions in ministers' offices and working out questions to ask in other offices. It should be at 11 am with the standing orders providing for it to conclude automatically by 12:30 pm at the latest. This would free up lunchtime for meetings and events, and it would reduce the amount of the day committed to fairly unproductive short-term work in preparing for question time.
Three-year terms are inefficient. To move to four-year terms should be a no-brainer. Under our current system, within about a year and a half, you start to hit the pause button on doing anything significant because your first consideration is how it might play in the next election.
You might conclude from some of these comments that you are listening to a grumpy, splenetic man leaving the parliament disgruntled that his greatness has not been recognised and spraying around a collection of uncharitable observations as a parting gesture. On the contrary, as I leave this place I am not disgruntled at all; rather, I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity to serve in parliament and as a cabinet minister.
It was only possible because of the Liberal Party, and the committed and dedicated volunteer members of the party in Bradfield and all across Australia. Our democracy is a precious and fragile thing. People who commit their time and energy and often money in being a member of a political party make an absolutely vital contribution to that democracy.
I cannot mention everybody in Bradfield who helped me but I do want to acknowledge my three FEC Presidents Alister Henskens, Carolyn Cameron and Jon Stewart; and to mention just a few others Nick Campbell, Jimmy Chen, Namoi Dougall, Penny George-Farlow, Ros and Geoff Jarrett, Robyn and Roger Kerr, Charles and Belinda Khong, Brett and Vicki Kvisle, Simon and Alicia Lennon, Michael Li and Michelle Lam-Li, Alan and Lyndy Lipman, Jenny Powell, Victoria Qiu, the late and much missed Geoff Selig and Jane Selig, Les and Lorraine Taylor, Barbara and Gary Ward, Jan and Tony Ward, James and Leanne Winter and Di Woods. I have missed out many others and I apologise but I certainly recognised and appreciated your support.
My Liberal Party involvement goes back to 1981 when I joined the Young Liberals and 1983 when I joined the Sydney University Liberal Club. I retain close friends dating back to those days, including Stephen Coutts, Patrick Fair, Don Harwin, Marise Payne and Michael Photios, all of whom helped me very considerably as I sought out a seat in Parliament.
For those engaged in careful decoding, yes, all are self proclaimed moderate Liberals, as am I. So too are other good friends who helped me on my journey, including Matthew Abbott, David Begg, Simon Birmingham, Scott Briggs, John Brodgen, Matt Cross, Matt Daniel, Jason Falinski, Joe Hockey, Matt Kean, Brendan Lyon, Natalie Ward, Sam Witheridge and Trent Zimmerman.
I may be a moderate but I am a strong believer in the importance of diversity of opinion in our party room. The Liberal Party is at its best when both our conservative and our small-l liberal traditions are respected.
Most Liberal Party members and overwhelmingly our voters have zero interest in factions and arcane internal ideological squabbles. They simply want to see a strong, capable, sensible centre right government which is careful with their money, which works to build a stronger economy and which keeps a careful eye on our national security.
I am very proud of our Coalition parliamentary team and the discipline and focus we have shown over this term, under Peter Dutton’s leadership. We are a real prospect for government, which two and a half years ago seemed most unlikely.
My parliamentary career was only possible because the people of Bradfield saw fit to place their trust in me for six successive elections. Politicians as a class are not held in terribly high regard by the Australian people, but they tend to make an exception for their own local MP. I have been treated with courtesy and kindness, and I thank the people of Bradfield for that. Over recent weeks as I have gone about the electorate I have been very touched by the number of people who have come up to me to wish me well for the future.
And it was only possible because of the love and support from my family. I am so pleased that my wife Manuela, my stepson Gabriel and my son Hugo are joining me at Parliament House today. I have put them through a lot and I am very grateful.
As I often say when Manuela joins me at political events, she is the human face of the operation. But as well as being a wonderful wife and mum, she is also a very talented jewellery designer and accomplished businesswoman, with her store, Zappacosta Jewels, having operated successfully in the Strand Arcade in Sydney for over twenty years. I am very proud of what she has achieved.
When it comes to gratitude to family members, I also want to mention my mum Mary, my sister Sam, her husband Andrew and sons Tim and Nic. All of them have handed out at numerous elections and helped in countless other ways.
I am grateful to all my personal friends and supporters who have helped out on campaigns - including, softly be it said, some who are not Liberal voters but still came along to put on the t-shirt and hand out for me.
I am grateful to the many people and organisations who made political donations in support of campaigns in Bradfield and beyond
I am grateful to the four leaders I have served under: Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton. All gave me opportunities to contribute.
I am grateful to the many wonderful colleagues I have worked with in the Coalition party room over more than fifteen years, and I also want to acknowledge and express thanks for friendships with people across the parliament, of every political stripe.
I'm grateful to all who served as my staff in my electorate office and in my ministerial and shadow ministerial offices, quite a few of whom are here today. I can't mention everybody, but, in my electorate office, Jackie Barnes and Jacquie Parker were key in earlier and later years respectively. As chiefs of staff at various stages, Luke Coleman, Alex Waldren, Boronia Morrison, Ryan Bloxsom and Brooke Curtin led my office very capably. I was pleased to have a number of ministerial staffers with deep sector experience, like Emma McDonald. I want to particularly mention the wise, unflappable and often extremely amusing Imre Salusinszky.
Let me close by speaking about why I am optimistic for Australia and our future. This sentiment can feel rather unfashionable at the moment, but I think we live in a remarkable country with a very bright future. We should give ourselves more credit than we do for our remarkable national achievement in building the most successful, multi-ethnic, multiracial, multicultural, multireligious nation in the world.
The electorate of Bradfield is a microcosm of Australia. Almost 25 per cent of its residents report being of Chinese heritage, another four per cent are Indian, three per cent are Korean—and many other backgrounds as well. I should acknowledge our Armenian community, our South African community, our Jewish community and there are plenty of others that I'm forgetting in that quick list.
What I see in our schools, in Scouts and Guides groups, in sporting clubs and in so many other institutions is a no-nonsense, lets-get-on-with-it attitude to make everyone feel welcome and included regardless of who they are or where they come from.
It's not mandated by governments or decreed by bureaucrats. It is the ordinary practice of millions of Australians — building relationships and making friendships, and thereby overcoming the suspicion and mistrust that all too easily can arise between people of different backgrounds.
I'm optimistic about Australia's future because I believe we will keep attracting smart, motivated, energetic people from around the world. Our focus on skilled migration for many decades has served Australia very well.
I am also optimistic about technology. When I reflect on the unbelievable changes just in my own lifetime, to me the evidence of scientific and technological advancement improving our lives is absolutely compelling.
There is a strand of thinking on the far left which hankers for some kind of pretechnological state of grace and purity. It is delusional. How anyone can maintain this belief the first time they have a serious dental issue requiring treatment is entirely beyond me.
Do I think all applications of technology are positive? Of course not. But consider the internet—it has transformed the way we live, work, meet our partners, entertain ourselves, do business and a hundred other things besides.
Is there a lot of pointless, stupid stuff on TikTok and social media generally? Of course there is. But the phenomenal amount of practical, useful information available to any one of us is, in my view, absolutely something to celebrate.
'What about artificial intelligence?' I hear you say. 'It's going to take our jobs.' As the expression goes, predictions are hard, especially about the future, but we can see a clear patterns from every previous wave of new technology. There has been alarm that it would destroy jobs. Instead, it has changed jobs and created new jobs while increasing prosperity.
'What about global warming?' you ask. 'Aren't we all doomed?' Let me be clear—I absolutely believe that we're seeing an increase in the parts per million of carbon, that there's a link to the burning of fossil fuels and that we need to phase out fossil fuels, and of course net zero is the clear commitment of the Liberal and National parties.
But I'm an optimist that the human race will get this job done, and science and technology will be the way that we will do it. I have to say, I'm even more optimistic now, after spending 2½ years as shadow minister for science, visiting supersmart scientists, researchers and businesspeople all around the country.
Once you've had a few decades on this planet, you've heard plenty of examples of seriously scary things that are about to destroy us. When I was a school and university debater, it was the coming ice age. Later it was peak oil. Then there was the Y2K bug—remember that? It was going to bring the entire global economy to its knees because computers had been programmed with only a two-digit field for the date back in the sixties and seventies, and, once the date flipped over from 31 December 1999 to 1 January 2000, everything would suddenly stop working, chaos would descend and zombies would walk the earth. It didn't happen.
Of course, there are things that it's rational to be concerned about, but to be rationally concerned about risks and threats is one thing; to plunge from that into despair is not the right response. I believe the right mindset for our nation and indeed for our world, to use the title of an impressive recent book, is rational optimism.
Let me conclude. It has been a privilege to serve in this place for 15 years. It is time for renewal. Thank you. It has been great. Keep in touch.
