MADELEINE King is advocating for fairness across all spheres should she be re-elected to the seat of Brand.
Her passion lies with education and the opportunities it can bring.
“At the heart of my motivation to be a member of Parliament is the idea about delivering fairness for more people and more opportunity,” she said.
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READ NOW“When I think about the things that helped me have a productive career as a lawyer, it was a public school system that was very healthy when I went to Safety Bay Primary.
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“It being a competitive yet healthy environment that let you do well, along with other schools in the area.
“When any government doesn’t properly fund the public school system, it devalues what the general community gets out of its own people and prevents the best of people as well.
“Education is one example but an important one. It is a formative part of people’s lives.
“Everyone getting an equal opportunity at learning is at the heart of it.”
The same applied to healthcare.
“Not everyone is healthy because of things beyond their control,” Ms King said.
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“If you have an accident and are sick, you should still be able to be cared for and contribute and prosper.
“The market is not always going to be able to do that, like letting private health go crazy like we have seen in America.
“There is a fairness aspect to my motivation; the idea of equality of opportunity.”
She said equality needed government support to thrive.
“I think Australia is a generous and open society and I think Rockingham and Kwinana are too,” she said
“They are a lot more diverse, certainly a lot more than since I was a young girl growing up here, and that’s why we need government participation to do that.
“We all want everyone to do well; I suppose I want everyone to have the opportunities I had when I grew up.
“I’m grateful for those opportunities.”
The most pressing issues facing the electorate were cost of living and slow wages growth, which she said Labor was keen to address.
“I know everyone knows it’s one of our campaign sayings that everything’s going up except your wages, but that’s the truth of the matter and people identify with that because it is true,” she said.
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“We haven’t seen wages growth in the country for a significant time, except for the very, very top end.
“Penalty rates is an easy one we sought in the last Parliament to stop the cuts to them when the Fair Work Commission introduced them; governments don’t have to accept their recommendations.
“We didn’t; that is one of the first things we will fix is penalty rates.
“We’re committed to restoring that and ensuring people’s conditions can’t go backwards.”
She held a special place for a smaller but very important project.
“The Baldivis Children’s Forest; I’m really excited about that, the half a million to build their education centre,” Ms King said.
“It’s what Baldivis used to be when I was a girl; that beautiful bushland.”