TRANSCRIPT: LORD BADEN-POWELL DRIVE UPGRADE PROJECT COMPLETION SPEECH, 26 APRIL 2024

Subjects: Lord Baden-Powell Drive Precinct Upgrades, Wagga Wagga Botanic Gardens

E&OE 

STARTS: 11.25am

ENDS: 11.32am

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Thank you to Deb O’Neill, I did mention at the ANZAC ceremony yesterday my good friend Deb O’Neill and we are good friends. Our spouses, Paul and Catherine, are good friends, they are good friends too, and that's important. I think sometimes in Canberra the media makes a lot of the argy bargy between the opposing sides, but mores the truth. I think we probably have just as many good friends, sometimes more on some days on the other side than you do on your own side and Deb and I are good mates. Mary, thank you for your welcome, it's important and I like the fact that this museum as you walk into it, the first thing that really hits you is the First Nations representation and whether it's King Peter's crown, given to him, as I understand, by the Devlin family of Ganmain, the canoes, the bark trees, all the important artefacts, the stones, the spears, this is important. We acknowledge and recognise not just our history, but our ongoing future; and I do acknowledge that we are in Wiradjuri Country, so thank you for your welcome. Mayor Tout and Councillor Richard Foley, thank you for both being here. I think it’s important that we acknowledge Council because it's the first level of Government and some would say the most important level of Government because it's the level of Government that people see and feel. It's tangible because it's about the roads, it's about those everyday living things that we need and accept and expect and demand and this Council, for the criticism that sometimes it gets, most of it, a lot of it, almost all of it unfounded. Wagga Wagga City Council has for, well, since incorporation in 1870, been an outstanding Council in this state, in this nation. And you don't get to be the mayor of this city unless you're a very good person with a very good vision for the future, so, Dallas, thank you for your leadership of Council and I look forward to working with you in the future. 

I'm sorry Dr Joe McGirr is not here, because I know this building was partly funded by the state, I know that the Federal Government put $4.3 million in; and when you start to talk about dollars, they're all airy fairy and, you know, the trouble is sometimes people see that there's a Federal Government cheque beside it and sometimes the price goes up, and I appreciate that there are contractors here. But when you have a regional project, I believe you get far more bang-for-buck out of what you do for regional liveability, regional roads, and regional infrastructure than you ever will if it’s a metropolitan project — because people here get it. And like Deb mentioned, Wagga Wagga is a great city — it is. During COVID we punched well above our weight when we came to helping this nation, through training our people because the training kept going, whether it was the Rex Airline Pilot Academy, whether it was Navy, the Air Force and certainly the Army, we kept training those recruits. This is a city of training excellence, and we need to make it a more liveable city. And that's why the $4.3 million that went towards not only this this special pet Luke Grealy/Janice Summerhayes project right here on the Hill, but across the other side, as Deb mentioned, across the other side of Lord Baden-Powell Drive where we’ve got the zoo, where we've got a beautiful gardens — and anybody who came to the Fusion Festival, the multicultural celebration of what Wagga Wagga really is, right here and now and into the future, which was held at the Botanic Gardens. And I must admit, I was a bit of a sceptic, I don't know about others, but when they decided to take the Fusion Festival, they took it over to the Botanic Gardens, I thought “why are they moving it out of the Victory Memorial Gardens, out of the main street precinct?”. But people came and more people came, and it was great because those gardens are magnificent. And many years before the Mortimers and Brentnalls and all our cricketers, Mark Taylor, etc., decided to represent Australia and really put Wagga Wagga on the sporting international stage, Wagga Wagga was known as the Garden City of the South — and it was a city where people came to go to the gardens and now, we’ve made our garden so much more beautiful. And those gardens over there are, well, if they're not the best in the state — I’m a bad judge. They are magnificent and you see on a Saturday and a Sunday, so many people, so many people from so many different countries who have made Wagga Wagga home, come there for picnics, come there just to have their reunions, their wedding photos, whatever and it's fantastic and we should, as a Federal Government, pump money into that. That's why I'm so pleased that we did when we were in Government. And you saw in those great days of Australian democracy, when I was the Deputy Prime Minister, we did pump the money into these sorts of projects. I said that on Q&A one day and I got about two laughs out of the audience and I said, come on, you can give me a bit of a break. But I did say to Phil as I arrived here, what the next step is — we need to put a wire guard rail on both sides of the road, but certainly, on the southern side of the road coming down, Lord Baden-Powell Drive because it is a crash waiting to happen and let's work towards that Mr Mayor and let’s get Dr McGirr involved and let’s get that guard rail because it is still a bit dangerous and we need to do that — Richard, there’s a little job for you to also push as well. And I know you will.

I think this is a fabulous museum, Deb you have only seen part of it, Luke will tell you and I don't know whether he will take you on a tour, but there is level upon level upon level of this and it goes to Wagga Wagga’s rich history and we do have a rich history, but better than that, we've got a rich future. And it is because of, as the mayor has quite correctly pointed out, the collaboration, the partnership between Local, State and Federal Governments. Let's leave the politics aside because this isn't just about who funded it, when and why — although that is important. But we need to get things done for regional Australia because it's regional Australia, which is the heart of this country and it's the regional Australians who, during times of crisis, they rise to the challenge.  They did during COVID, they are magnificent people, they grow the food, they train our best and bravest in in our military forces. It all happens in Wagga Wagga, it all happens in the Riverina, it all happens in regional Australia. And that's why we should invest more in regional Australia.