Page 26 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 27 November 2012
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At about the time I started primary school, everything at home was about to change. The family business fell victim to the “recession we had to have”, the result being that my parents lost the business, the family home—everything. This left my family’s only stable income being my grandmother’s pension. Everything mum and dad had worked so hard for was now gone.
In the years following, mum and dad did what they had to do. They started again. They saved for a deposit to buy a house and worked hard to provide as best they could for my sister and me.
They believed in the value of a good education and sacrificed much to put me through a Catholic primary school and later allowed me to follow my friends to Marist College. Whilst I was not always a model student, I do truly value the education I received, and firmly believe in supporting the non-government sector to allow more families choice when it comes to education for their children.
My parents were always open with me when it came to financial matters in our home, even from a young age. I guess it was their way of trying to explain why there were things that we sometimes just could not afford. This has taught both my sister and me to be very good with our money, to live within our means and to treasure every dollar—principles that I believe governments must follow.
As soon as I was old enough, like many teenagers, I applied for a job at McDonald’s. The work that youth employers such as McDonald’s do is often misunderstood. My confidence, communication skills and work ethic are all derived from my time cooking and selling hamburgers.
I have been privileged enough over the past six years to have worked in the family business. It has allowed me to view firsthand many of the issues that are concerning local business owners. There has been, over the past years, a significant increase in the amount of red tape that businesses need to deal with in order to operate. This simply inhibits them from getting on with their core business, stifles growth and prevents new jobs from being created.
It was from my time in the family business that I began to notice the direct impact that government policy has on the way in which the business sector operates, and the detrimental effect bad government policy has on businesses, their staff and families.
I believed in a better way of things being done, and decided to get involved by joining the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party promotes the philosophy of the innate worth of the individual and the need to encourage initiative and personal responsibility. It promotes family as the primary institution for fostering the values on which a cohesive society is built. It believes in the creation of wealth, competitive enterprise, consumer choice and reward for effort. We as Liberals also believe in equality of opportunity. This philosophy rings true with my personal experiences, and I will strive to promote this through my work as a member in this place.
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