Farrer MP Sussan Ley pushes to 'sublet' childcare places

Politics - Childcare
The current member for Farrer is The Hon Sussan Ley MP. Farrer is the Federal Australian electorate in which Broken Hill sits.

Ms Ley is a member of the current Abbott Government. I had the pleasure of meeting Ms Ley briefly at Parliament House in Canberra last year (2013). See blog post about my meeting here - 8 June 2013, Broken Hill, Sussan Ley and the Canberra connection -

http://www.ilovebrokenhill.com/2013/06/broken-hill-sussan-ley-and-canberra.html

The Hon Sussan Ley MP

Fast forward to this week. I was interested to read an article in the major daily Victorian/Melbourne newspaper 'The Age' on 26 July 2014 p 21 News section, that Ms Ley was keen to support some of the proposed recommendations from the Productivity Commission, in particular the idea of 'subletting' childcare places.

As I don't have children, understanding details about arranging childcare isn't my strong suit.

However, if you do have children, childcare is a huge issue.

I didn't realise that if you took your child out of childcare, temporarily, say for example you're having another child, or want to travel, and you therefore don't need the place for a while, there was a reasonably significant fee to hold the position open.

Another example that Ms Ley cited, "was a fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) worker, who may wish to take their child out of childcare for an ad hoc week to spend time with them", so it would make sense that they could do so without a significant financial penalty.

The Productivity Commission recommends the removal of regulatory requirements to allow parents to temporarily return their childcare places if they are not being used.

Sounds a great idea to me.

The Commission handed down a 900 page draft report into childcare and early childhood learning last Tuesday 22 July 2014. The broad aim being to create a more flexible and accessible sector.

A number of recommendations were made, and the final report is due by the end of October 2014.

The government did not wish to fully respond to the report until the report is finalised.

Whether it's Broken Hill or anywhere else in Australia, accessible and affordable childcare is a hot topic for discussion. It is critical for families to enable parents to work.

I hope there are many positive changes for the better as a result of this Productivity Commission report and the recommendations they make.

Cheers, Jane Deany

Judith Ireland and Rachel Browne are the authors of 'The Age' article were I sourced my information.

Community Development Grant of $500,000 to Lifeline Broken Hill

It was great to receive the media release announcing a $500,000 Community Development Grant is to be given to Lifeline Broken Hill.

The Hon Sussan Ley MP, Federal Member for Farrer (the Federal seat in which Broken Hill resides) is visiting Broken Hill and will present the cheque for $500,000 to Scott Hammond, the CEO of Lifeline Broken Hill today, Wednesday 9 July 2014 at 10am.

Where - Lifeline Broken Hill, 194 Argent Street.

The Hon Sussan Ley MP
image courtesy Steve Block

The major funding grant will help Lifeline develop its local Community Neighbourhood Centre and Workshop. Over 2,000 people access Lifeline Broken Hill's face to face service annually, and is part of over 26,000 information and referral contacts which are made each year.

...$500,000 Community Development Grant for Lifeline Broken Hill ...

The Lifeline Broken Hill team also provides training to over 300 frontline workers and an additional 200+ community members.

It is such a fantastic worthy cause, and I'm glad the Federal Government is supporting Lifeline's wonderful and extremely important work.

My family have been touched by suicide, so I fully appreciate just how crucial every dollar that goes to support Lifeline is.

If you need crisis support please call Lifeline 13 11 14.

Lifeline provides 'crisis support and suicide prevention services'.

If life is in danger call 000.

Jane Deany

Sussan Ley hits the road to visit Broken Hill Tuesday 21 January 2014

Here is a press release about The Hon Sussan Ley MP, Member for Farrer's (the Federal electorate which includes Broken Hill) road trip this week around her electorate. She will travel 1,000 kms by road instead of flying to each location which is her usual means of getting around her huge electorate of almost 250,000kms.

You can also get updates of her movements through her Twitter account @sussanley

Where Australia's 2 greatest rivers meet - Darling on the left, Murray on the right. Finally a cool morning pic.twitter.com/OneTIsUDOo
— Sussan Ley (@sussanley) January 19, 2014

'15 January 2014

Media Release

For immediate release

Farrer Flier hits the road

Local MP and pilot, Sussan Ley, has shelved plans for her regular fly-in visit

to remote areas of Farrer, to instead take on a challenging 1000km road trip.

A combination of the summer’s extreme weather conditions and plans for a series of ‘town hall’ style constituent meetings will see Ms Ley hit the road next week (20-24 January 2014).   

“I am keen to discuss all current issues, particularly the impact of the extended

dry on an increasing number of our local producers and graziers”.

“There are a number of important initiatives the new government is rolling out this year which I also want to outline; from communications and health, child and aged care to improving transport links.”

“Additionally, work is now underway to refine the Murray Darling Basin Plan which aims to deliver a fairer balance for all those accessing this great river system”, Ms Ley concluded.

Farrer residents are welcome to drop in to the following venues,

or call 1300 303 203* to arrange a personal appointment time.

(*toll free within the electorate).

Monday 20 Jan   Wentworth       Shire Office                 10.30am  - 12.30pm

Tuesday 21 Jan    Broken Hill      Electorate Office            4.00pm   -  5.30pm

Wednesday 22 Jan  Packsaddle  Roadhouse                    11.00am - 12.00pm

            Tibooburra              Albert Hall                         1.30pm   -  3.30pm

Thursday 23 Jan    White Cliffs own Hall                          12.00pm -  2.00pm

Friday 24 Jan      Menindee           Rural Transaction Ctr     1.00pm -  3.00pm'

Sounds like a great opportunity to hear what's going on first hand, and make up your own mind what to think about it.

I hope people make the most of this opportunity.

Safe travelling Sussan, that's a lot of driving and a busy schedule, cheers, Jane Deany

Farrer's Sussan Ley newly appointed Assistant Minister for Education

The Hon. Sussan Ley MP

Politics
Congratulations are once again in order to The Hon. Sussan Ley MP who was honoured with being included in Prime Minister Elect Tony Abbott's newly elected LNP Coalition Government's cabinet, which Mr Abbott announced on Monday.

Ms Ley has been elevated to one of the eleven members of the outer ministry, in the role of Assistant Minister for Education.

South Australian Federal Member for Sturt, The Hon. Christopher Pine MP is the newly appointed Minister for Education.  Mr Pine is also the new Leader of the House.

I congratulate Ms Ley on her new responsibilities and wish her well in her new role. Naturally, congratulations and best wishes are also in order to Mr Pine and all the newly appointed MPs.

Ms Ley is the Member for Farrer (the Federal electorate which includes Broken Hill).

For more information about Ms Ley, please see her website www.sussanley.com . I wrote a post about her re-election on 8 September 2013, please see link to that post here.

For further information about Tony Abbot's first ministry, see link here sourced via a link from ABC Australia's website www.abc.net.au, which re-directs to www.scribd.com website page.

Best wishes to all new MPs, cheers, Jane Deany

Congratulations Sussan Ley re-elected for Farrer - 7 September 2013

Sussan Ley, Federal member for Farrer

Politics - Federal Election 2013
Congratulations The Hon. Sussan Ley MP, representing the Liberal Party of Australia, on winning the seat of Farrer again, and this time gaining a seat in the newly elected (on 7 September 2013) Coalition Government of Australia. It was a decisive victory for Ms Ley. It indicates a strong vote of confidence in the work Ms Ley has already been doing for the electorate since she was first elected to parliament in the seat of Farrer in 2001.

At that time Broken Hill was not part of the division of Farrer it was instead in the division of Parkes. However the electoral boundaries changed due to a redistribution prior to the 2007 Federal election, which saw Farrer grow in land area to just under 200,000 square kilometres, and the boundary change to take in Broken Hill.

Once again in late 2009, due to another redistribution that saw the loss of one NSW division altogether, Farrer increased in size by over 47,000 square kilometres, to cover a total area of 247,097 square kilometres. The redistribution saw the transfer of just an additional 727 electors to the division.

(Redistributions are designed to ensure that each electorate has a representative and roughly equal number of voters in each division, and are influenced by population growth and flows to different areas over time).

From our brief meeting in Canberra earlier this year and from what I have read, I believe Sussan will continue to be an effective member in this huge electorate which stretches as far away as Albury on the Murray River. Fortunately Sussan has a commercial pilot's licence and uses a plane regularly to fly around this vast electorate, which is almost the size of New Zealand.

At the time of writing this post, 100 out of 105 polling booths in Farrer had finished counting and 82.6% of the vote had been counted. Ms Ley had won 66.3% of the vote on two party preferred voting and was enjoying a 1.7% swing towards her on that basis, with her nearest rival Gavin Hickey representing the Country Labor Party, suffering a corresponding 1.7% swing away from him.

Seven other political parties contested the seat. The parties and their respective candidates running in this division, in order of appearance on the ballot paper were -

Rise Up Australia (Narelle Davis)
Democratic Labour (Brendan Cattell)
Katter's Australia (Ken Trewin)
Australian Liberal (Sussan Ley) - retained
Palmer United (Ron Emmerton)
Country Labor (Gavin Hickey)
Bullet Train for Australia (Tracey Powell)
Christian Democrats (Frank Horwill)
Australian Greens (Christina Sobey)

I'm confident Sussan will make every effort to represent the people of Broken Hill, and everyone in the electorate of Farrer, effectively, energetically and diligently.

Broken Hill's mining heritage has meant there have been strong links to Labor in the past, so Sussan made local history when she won one of the eight Broken Hill booths - Morgan Street Street School - from Gavin Hickey 351 to 328 votes.

I wish Sussan well in her new responsibilities. ABC Broken Hill reported earlier today that she has indicated a couple of issues she's going to get right onto, and they are to address issues relating to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and black spots with mobile phone reception. See link here to read more from that ABC article.

Note if another candidate from another party was elected, I would wish them well also, as this is a non-political blog. Okay, yes, this is a political themed article, but I'm just trying to report the facts, write about something very topical, and I enjoy the cut and thrust of politics, and this is my blog ;-) 

Cheers, Jane D

Sussan Ley stars with Annabel Crabb, in ABC's 'Kitchen Cabinet'

MP Sussan Ley, Member for Farrer

Kitchen Cabinet with MP The Hon. Sussan Ley
One of my favourite TV shows at the moment is ABC's 'Kitchen Cabinet', hosted by Australian political journalist and ABC's Chief Online Political Writer Annabel Crabb. Annabel will interview Federal Member for Farrer and Liberal Party representative, The Hon. Sussan Ley about her fascinating career. Annabel will also speak to New South Wales Liberal Senator The Hon. Bill Heffernan to find out more about what makes him 'tick'. Bill I'm told will be helping as assistant 'cook'.

The show is usually filmed at the guest's home, but this time it will be filmed in a shearing shed at Mount Gipps Station, a short distance from Broken Hill, partly due to the fact that Sussan has worked as a shearer's cook and shed hand.

Annabel Crabb, Bill Heffernan and Sussan Ley
From 'Kitchen Cabinet's Facebook page

These are just a couple of roles this fascinating politician has undertaken. She flies around her huge electorate and has a commercial pilot's licence amongst a myriad of other qualifications. The federal electorate of Farrer  covers an area of nearly 250,000 square kilometers including Broken Hill and Albury NSW to the south east, situated on the Murray River. Sussan's pilot's licence sees her regularly in the air as flies around the electorate in her light plane,

I very briefly interviewed Sussan when I was in Canberra earlier this year. See link to article of 8 June here.

To learn more about Sussan's amazing and impressive career, you can go to her website www.sussanley.com . For more information about Bill whom I've not met, see his website www.billheffernan.com.au .

Mount Gipps Station was where boundary rider Charles Rasp was working mustering, checking fences and prospecting when he identified a metal ore in 1883, which would soon after lead to the discovery of the rich ore body of silver, lead and zinc within the 'Line of Lode' which was also known as Broken Hill due to a small break in the middle of it.

Tonight on #kitchencabinet: The incredible life story of @sussanley, with a side order of Bill Heffernan. 8pm on ABC1
— Annabel Crabb (@annabelcrabb) July 30, 2013

'Kitchen Cabinet' is in its third season and this 5th episode screens tonight at 7.30pm Central Standard Time, (8pm in my home town Melbourne).

Enjoy. Cheers, Jane D

Faster Broadband for Broken Hill Q & A, 2-3pm 17 July 2013

Luke Hartsuyker MP
Federal Member of Cowper
Image supplied from Sussan Ley's office

Community Event
Don't miss the opportunity to find out more about the Federal Coalition's commitment to deliver internet speeds of between 25 and 100 mbps to all Australian premises by 2016.

The Hon Sussan Ley MP, Federal Member for Farrer, together with Luke Hartsuyker MP, Federal Member of Cowper (NSW), Shadow Minister for Regional Communications are holding a question and answer session to address the very important issue relating to Broadband in the Bush, in particular Broken Hill. Details -

Venue:     Broken Hill City Council, 240 Blende Street, Broken Hill

When:      2 - 3 pm Wednesday 17 July 2013

Queries to Sussan Ley's office 1300 303 203 (toll free inside Farrer)

Sounds like a valuable opportunity to raise any concerns you may have and to find out more about this really important issue for all Australians.

Talking NBN in the back country with Luke Hartsuyker. Labor has said 2020 maybe. #BrokenHill and FarWest won't be forgotten under our plan!
— Sussan Ley (@sussanley) July 16, 2013

Worth attending if you get the chance. Cheers, Jane D

Eighteen months on and Jane Deany still loves Broken Hill

The Broken Hill Court House and me
Argent Street, Broken Hill

I couldn't let the day go by without mentioning that it has been eighteen months since I started www.ilovebrokenhill.com on 8 December 2011 and I still have much more to say after nearly 150 posts.

So as the romance continues, I plan to keep writing about all the things that are great about Broken Hill as there is still so much to say.

You can follow the story on Facebook at ilovebrokenhill.com and Twitter @ilovebrokenhill or of course right here on the blog.

I've met and spoken to many interesting and wonderful people over the time I've been writing and have had some fun experiences including becoming the story in a page three article in the 'Barrier Daily Truth' (BDT) in October (see post 28 October 2012 link here), writing a guest post on the ABC Open website on 29 November (see link to post here) and being interviewed by Chris Jeremy of ABC Broken Hill 999 local radio on his 'Outback Outlook' show in January this year.

I've interviewed a number of high profile and interesting Broken Hill identities such as Broken Hill Mayor Wincen Cuy and Sussan Ley the Federal Member for Farrer in which Broken Hill is situated, see story earlier today, just to name a couple of people, and there are still many stories to tell and more people to be interviewed.  Everyone I've spoken to has been friendly and helpful.  So thanks to everyone in Broken Hill (and nearby Silverton).

So stay tuned for more ilovebrokenhill.com in the months ahead.

As always, cheers, Jane D

Broken Hill, Sussan Ley and the Canberra connection

Politics
Broken Hill at the Federal politics level is part of the Farrer electorate.  A huge area of 247,097 square kilometres.  The electorate was named after William Farrer (1845 - 1906), a noted wheat breeder and experimentalist.  The electorate reaches as far away as the Albury City Council, and includes the shires of Balranald, Berrigan, Congaro, Corowa, Deniliquin, Greater Hume, Hay, Jerilderie, Lockhart, Murray, Wakool, Wentworth, Urana and Central Darling.

This week I visited Canberra to 

• enjoy some of the city's many 100 year anniversary celebrations
• see Parliament in action; and
• visit the fabulous Turner exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, which had just opened.

Sussan Ley (left) and me
Pro Hart 'Off to the races St Pats'
in Sussan's Canberra Parliament
House office

It was when I was watching Parliament on Monday 3 June that I saw the Federal Member for Farrer, The Hon Sussan Ley MP in action in the House of Representatives.  Sussan is currently the Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, and Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning.  All of a sudden I realised that this might be a good opportunity to try and catch up with her.

I had tried to meet Sussan on a few of my visits to Broken Hill but, with such a huge electorate to cover, she was 'out on the road'.  In her case, it may be that she was 'out in the sky' as she has a commercial pilot's license and flies around her huge electorate, which is roughly the size as New Zealand.

I chatted with her media adviser Steve Block and I was delighted to find there was the opportunity for a very quick introduction the following day.

After a very quick tour of some of Parliament House
and a very long walk to her office, I met Sussan and we had a very quick chat as she was heavily booked with appointments and commitments.

After she asked me a few questions, I only really had the chance to ask her one very important question "What does she love about Broken Hill?"

Her reply was the "light, landscape, history, number of pubs and clubs and the people".

Unfortunately time didn't permit more reflections or questions from me, but at least we've met and can communicate via phone for another more in depth discussion another time.

Sussan's website is www.sussanley.com.  Sussan was elected as the member of Farrer in 2001 and has held the seat of Farrer since then, being re-elected in 2004, 2007 and 2010.

The www.aph.gov.au website has a lot of information about Sussan (and all the Senators and Members), see link here to her details.

Stand by for another article in the future.

Cheers, Jane D