Tim Watts: The Australian Values Study, released this week, found that one-third of Australians think it is good to 'have a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections'. Extraordinarily, over half of 30- to 34-year-olds also think this is a good thing. Now, on one level, I can sympathise. The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government has been terrible. Not only is it a running...
Read More >Tim Watts: The Leader of the Opposition created a problem for me recently. As many people in my community know, people ask me, 'Why did you into politics? What do you want to achieve in your political career?' or 'If you were PM for a day, what would you do?' I used to tell them I'd do universal access for three-year-old kinder. There's a lot of nonsense in this building, particularly in recent times,...
Read More >Tim Watts: The collapse of the West Gate Bridge is an event etched in the psyche of Melbourne's west and of the people who live in my electorate, where this accident occurred. At 11.50 am on 15 October 1970, a 114-millimetre gap between spans 10 and 11 of the West Gate Bridge gave way, and 2,000 tonnes of steel and concrete fell over 50 metres into the Yarra below. On that day, 35 West Gate Bridge...
Read More >Tim Watts: It is my sad obligation today to recognise in this chamber the recent statement from Medecins Sans Frontieres about refugees and asylum seekers in Australian-funded facilities on Nauru. Upon being forced to leave the country by the government of Nauru, MSF described the situation of the men, women and children that it had been previously providing mental services to as 'beyond desperate' and...
Read More >Tim Watts: The Australian way is to stand beside a mate in need, and we all know that Australian farmers and their families are doing it tough at the moment, struggling to pay the bills and buy feed in the face of a horror drought with no end in sight. Jasvinder Sidhu, a community activist in the Australian Indian community in Melbourne's west in my electorate, saw this suffering and wanted to act. Many...
Read More >Tim Watts: I also welcome the timely publication of the Building up & moving out, the report of the inquiry by the House Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport and Cities into the Australian government's role in the development of cities. I also want to acknowledge the contributions from the members for Grayndler, Bruce and Scullin and their much deeper expertise in these issues than mine...
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