Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Thursday I hosted a seniors forum for my older constituents in Kwinana, and I can tell you they were as angry as me to hear about the Morrison government's cashless welfare card for age pensioners. One attendee aptly pointed out that those on the age pension don't get a lot of money to begin with, so surely they at least deserve the freedom to spend their money as they wish. Imagine being an age pensioner working all your life and now being told that you may not have the agency to spend your money as you wish. My constituents are disgusted at such a proposition. Indeed, we know all Australian age pensioners are gravely concerned by the prospect of a cashless age pension card being rolled out in this country. Next week Labor will introduce legislation to scrap the cruel cashless debit card, and only Labor will end the Liberal's plan to roll out the cashless pensioner card right across this country.

WA's local government elections were held last weekend. I really want to take the time to congratulate the successful candidates in the cities of Rockingham and Kwinana, which constitute my electorate of Brand in Western Australia. Deb Hamblin was elected as Rockingham's first popularly elected mayor and also became Rockingham's first female mayor. Caroline Hume, Dawn Jecks, Leigh Liley, Mark Jones, Brett Wormall and Robert Schmidt were also elected as councillors. In Kwinana, current mayor Carol Adams was re-elected. Matthew Rowse, Barry Winmar, Sue Kearney and Michael James Brown were also elected as councillors. I note Councillor Winmar is Kwinana's first Indigenous councillor. I would like to thank everyone that nominated for both the mayoral race in Rockingham and for all of the council elections across both cities. It isn't always easy to put yourself out there and campaign, but the community thanks you for your effort and for standing up. I am pleased to report that Rockingham and Kwinana had an increased voter turnout of close to four percentage points. Thank you all, local residents, for being part of the democratic process in local government.

I would also like to praise the generosity of Rockingham Senior High School students, who raised an extraordinary $47,000 for Telethon. Over the past eight years the school has raised more than $275,000 for Telethon, the iconic charity that's been running in Western Australia for many, many decades. In fact, I remember as a young girl having sleepovers with my friends and watching the high jinks and fun that goes on at Telethon as people raise money for disabled children and sick children in our community. The spud king himself, Tony Galati, who's first and original Spudshed is in Baldivis, raised $300,000 by shaving off his iconic caterpillar eyebrows, while Mark McGowan's Labor government donated $10 million towards the record-beating total of $62 million. Congratulations to all.