Mr PEARCE (Braddon - Minister for Primary Industries and Water) - Honourable Speaker, I will start by congratulating you in your position as Speaker. You will do it justice. We all have faith in you. I know that you will be providing the fulcrum of justice when it comes to a fair-go across the Chamber. Congratulations, and I look forward to working under your direction.

I'd also like to congratulate our leader first up, Premier Jeremy Rockliff. I want to say right from the outset, that I've got a hell of a lot of respect for that bloke. I've known him all my life. I knew his father and I had the same respect for him. I can tell you what; up our way in the electorate of Braddon, there are a lot who feel exactly the same way. Those results were indicative of that respect. I thank you for the work that you've done so far and the work that you will continue to do. I am proud to serve under your leadership.

I want to thank my colleagues across the board. We have a great team, an excellent Cabinet, a great parliament. We have the makings of something very special when it comes to changing the focus, which has already been alluded to, for the strategic future of Tasmania.

I'm very proud of the fact that I represent the greatest electorate in the greatest state of the greatest country in the world. Braddon is the engine room of the Tasmanian economy. Tasmania is shaped like a funnel, where all the money's earnt at the top, and we won't talk about the other bit. I joke. I am making the point that Braddon is precious to me. Braddon is an electorate like no other. They're honest, hard working, mission-focused, community-centric, regional people. They bind tightly when threatened. They tell you exactly what they think straight to your face. There's no stabbing in the back there. They'll stab you in the front. I like that. I love that honesty. I'm very proud to represent them in this place.

It doesn't seem that long ago I was standing in a very different Chamber - probably a little larger in the federal parliament - giving my valedictory speech, my last speech to that parliament. I can tell you now, right from the heart, that this place, although smaller and a lot

more intimate, is no less significant. I've probably found my home. You see, I'm a fixer. I'm an outcome-driven person. I'm a farmer, I'm a soldier, I'm a person who wants to get on with business. Being here probably allows me to do that more effectively than the federal parliament allowed. I've got a great team around me. We've got a great parliament around us. Our prospects are absolutely fine. I look forward to that.

When I spoke at my valedictory speech, I referred to our flag. The Australian national flag is very important to me. I've worn it on my uniform as a defence member for more than two decades. I served overseas under it. I've buried soldiers under the draped national flag of our country. It's very precious. It's a symbol. I spoke of the Southern Cross on the flight quadrant of the flag. It's been our navigation tool for tens of thousands of years. It reminds me of our Indigenous culture. That's what it means to me. There is a small star in the Southern Cross. It's called Epsilon. It's smaller than the others, but it's the brightest star. That reminds me of my state, my state of Tasmania. The smallest state, less than 2 per cent of Australia's land mass, but we receive 13 per cent of Australia's rainfall captured in 54 hydro dams. We have 30 power stations churning away. They've been like that for more than 100 years. We hold 26.5 per cent of Australia's fresh water in storage.

We really are the jewel in the crown when it comes to renewable energy. We don't realise what we have. I think back to Eric Reece's time and pay tribute to him. He had his naysayers at that time, he had protests in front of him. They didn't want this bill, they didn't want a Hydro scheme, they didn't want it in Tasmania, but he persevered, and so it was that our great Hydro scheme was built. I am proud of that. The moral of that story is that sometimes you have to work through the naysayers and the negativity and push through and then you end up with the wonderful Hydro scheme that we have.

Out of the 10,500 gigawatt hours of energy that we consume each year, about 80 per cent is produced by Hydro. It is incredible. The thing I want everybody here today to remember - take your mind back 24 months - is that with the advent of ChatGPT, with the advent of AI, the amount of energy consumed for those algorithms is more than times by 10. It is 10 times the amount of a normal algorithm. So out of that 10,500 gigawatt hours that we use, when I can't see us getting a new hydroelectric scheme through parliament, where is that energy going to come from and how are we going to provide those electrons?

Obviously, the answer is our renewables, and we transition through to a renewable future - wind and solar. However, put yourselves in the marketplace and in the position of our providers when it comes to wind and solar. How are they going to grow enough electrons to reach sufficient scale to produce those electrons at sufficient cost so that we can keep the cost down in Tasmania and at the same time provide that reliability? The answer is we need to make more electrons. It's economy of scale - Economics 101. How can you do that when they do not have access to market? That is why I believe so strongly in Marinus. It provides that access to market. It provides that resilience and provides another means of survivability in our system in Tasmania. Our focus needs to be reliable, cheap, environmentally friendly energy for Tasmanians first. Then we can use that market power to accelerate that process and return confidence.

In my electorate, at a place called Cape Grim, is the Kennaook atmospheric research station. Scientists there today are measuring the cleanest air on the planet, as it blows in from the Southern Ocean and Antarctica. It has been there since the 1970s. Adjacent to that at Cape Grim Water they are extracting out of a spring the purest water in the country. Between those two facilities is a farm of a couple of thousand acres. It is owned by a bloke called Jamie Oliver. Jamie produces the very best beef cattle in Australia. He has proven that many times at National Beef Week. In fact, Jamie has much of my Angus genetics in his herd. I am not saying that is the reason, but what I am saying is that he has spent a lot on genetics and he has a focus on the very highest of production.

He supplies HW Greenham & Sons. They are a sixth-generation abattoir privately owned in Smithton producing the very best beef in the world for international markets and high-end restaurants up and down the eastern seaboard. They produce the very best beef in the country and they do so from the very ethical perspective: our never-ever means no antibiotics ever. Peter Greenham invented that; he branded that. The GAP program, the Global Animal Partnership, relies on animal husbandry being the centre of beef production, genetics, looking after those animals, ensuring they have a grass-fed model. Peter Greenham understands that he cannot or should not, given the size and the scale of Tasmania, operate on that bulk commodity market like they would in South America, in South Africa or corn-fed beef from the US. He doesn't want to play there. If you want to eat a burger, eat that stuff, but what he has is the very best grass-fed beef in the country and that's how he's marketed it. I think he's on the right track. I think he understands Tasmanian agriculture and he wants to unlock that. I commend the Greenhams for the work they have done for our beef industry. I think there are many industries within our agricultural sector that could probably learn from the way Greenham & Sons have gone about their business.

The other point I want to make is that here is a farmer between an atmospheric research station and we're measuring the cleanest air in the world. What does that tell me? It tells me that nature and agribusiness can coincide, they can work together, as long as we get the balance right, as long as we get the science right, as long as we look after the environment, as long as we look after our animals, we can achieve that balance. Nature believes in balance and so do I.

I am very proud of the fact that I have been given probably the two portfolios that suit me the best. I have an enormous passion for agriculture. My family has been farming in Sisters Creek since the mid-1800s - my father, his father and all the way back. Farming is in my DNA and I love it. On my farm we breed Angus cattle, and we grow potatoes, peas, beans, broccoli, carrots, onions and opium poppies. In fact, we grew opium poppies with the Premier's father, Rick. The diversity we have in our farm allows us to move through market fluctuations so that when one market drops we have another foot on the ground with another market. That diversity stands us in good stead as we move forward.

That band of soil that we have on the north-west coast of volcanic derivative soil is absolutely precious. We don't realise how small that is comparatively. My aim for the agricultural sector, as minister, is to maximise the profitability and the science around that small parcel of land so that we can maximise the effects of our great irrigation projects. Tasmania Irrigation is doing a fantastic job. In my first term in federal parliament I was able to put $1.4 billion back into that electorate. A lot of that went into irrigation because I believe so strongly in it. I believe it unlocks potential and mitigates risk for agriculture. I want to see more money spent on irrigation. I want to see more money spent on research and development. I want Tasmania to be the agricultural science capital of the country. We've got a lot of work to do there but I think the potential is there. We have the very best farmers in the country. They're early adopters of research and development and science.

At the moment, there are many inhibitors to that. One of them is education. We don't have the bandwidth necessary in our particular part of the woods to transmit all those ones and nones to drive a tractor with two-centimetre accuracy and seasonal repeatability. We need more work around communications and data transfer.

My electorate includes a beautiful place called King Island. I love it. It is 110,000 acres. There are 15,181 people on King Island and around 960,000 cattle. They all come live into the port of Stanley. They go to either Greenham or they go left to JBS Swift in Longford. They grow almost 20 per cent of Tasmania's beef on that island. They've also got a thriving cheese factory. I'm pleased that our government has been able to lend a hand and support them as they move forward through difficult times. King Island is indeed a great community.

I want to touch on communities for a moment. The other day, as I worked through my electorate, I visited farming communities that are affected by the recent mop-top outbreak. I went to a place called Sprent. As soon as I walked into the Sprent community hall, I could feel the culture. They didn't have to say anything. You could just feel it. It was a special night. They were playing a film that was called Just A Farmer. It was about a farmer taking his own life and the effects that had on the community. They discussed the issue of suicide in agricultural communities. It was pointed out to me that night that every 10 days an Australian farmer takes their own life. It's awful. We need to think about that.

I made the point to those beautiful people at Sprent that communities in our regions are so important because they're the first touch points; they're the ones that notice the signs. I congratulated them on having such a wonderful community. The farther we get away from the big capital cities, the stronger the communities are. I see it on King Island, I see it at Smithton, I see it down our west coast.

Our communities are important. I want to support and push forward our communities and their importance as we move forward in generations.

Today is the one-year anniversary of the handing down of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. That's why I wore my medals today. It's important. I take my mind back - and I'd ask everyone to do the same - to a point in time when Scott Morrison was the prime minister, when he and that government didn't necessarily want a full-blown royal commission. They wanted a standing royal commissioner. I want you to picture what it's like to walk into a federal party room when you're looking at a sitting prime minister. It's a very daunting place when you're a first-term politician.

I stood up that day and, as a veteran, I couldn't not stand up. I stood up and I told him that I disagreed with him. I told him that we needed to draw a line under this. I told him that I'd buried too many soldiers in my time, and I wasn't going to bury any more. I told him I'd had enough and if we didn't have this royal commission that this thing would just go on and on and on, and it wouldn't resolve. I'll tell you what - my hand shook that day, it really did. I mean that. I've been in some very precarious situations, but my hand shook that day.

As I spoke, I told them what it was like when you find one of your Diggers. I told them exactly what that was like. Out of the corner of my eye, Phillip Thompson stood up. Out of the corner of my other eye, Garth Hamilton stood up. Before I knew it, half the party room was on their feet. The Prime Minister got the message, and he changed his opinion. It was discussed briefly, and we brought that royal commission in on the voices. I had two minutes to speak for 20 minutes. I didn't have time to prepare, so I just told them what I felt from the heart.

I think that's why I'm so connected to today and the findings of that royal commission. It hasn't fixed things - I understand that - but it's ruled a line on it. We've shone a light on it. We've put the focus back on our veterans. We can handle the bullets and the bombs. You've got to think about the change that a young person goes through. When a young Australian gets the gumption to go into a recruiting office, they're going to join the army, navy or air force. That decision that they make that day is the first step. I call it the first step to service. They've made the decision to go into recruiting. They raise their right hand and they swear an oath or affirmation to the King, the country and its people. It's another step. Then we take them to the recruit training establishments, to Kapooka, to Cerberus or to Edinburgh, to the Royal Military College and they take another step.

We teach them there that the rights of the individual have gone. You don't matter as an individual. The only thing that matters now is the team and the mission. We teach them that the person on their right or left is the most important person in the world, and you would do anything for that person. The reason that you would is because that person on your right or left would literally give their life for you. It's a mutual trust and respect that's established very early.

We then put those kids in the very most dangerous places on Earth. We put them in harm's way. Then the funerals start. That's where people like me, as a sergeant major, come in, dealing with that, helping that unit through that, helping that family through that. It's almost expected sometimes. When one of your Diggers takes their life by suicide, it's almost different. It's almost as if it was - to me it seems almost preventable, as if I should have done more.

I take you back to the example I gave you earlier. I can remember being in that morgue that day talking to that young bloke. I was supposed to be the expert on human resource management. I was supposed to be the leader. I missed all that. I didn't see it. I should have seen the signs. I should have recognised that. You know better than that, Gav. Yet I didn't. Every single young bloke that I buried through suicide - I guess you could call it guilt - I don't know what. I don't have the words to describe it. I think about it every day. I think about it every night. Suicide, for me, from our veterans in our defence communities, is incredibly important.

I am very proud of the fact that we were able to get that royal commission, but the work is not done. The work is not over. We need to continue with our fight. Not only did I fund the

$5 million for wellness centres in Tasmania during my first term, I also funded a $2.5 million north-west veterans' hub. A friend of mine who used to be an ammunition technician, a bloke called Andrew Clarke, who is now a GP, runs that for me. He works in conjunction with Open Arms and Soldier On and many other agencies. We have a family centre there. The soldier, sailor or air person leaving the military and moving into the civilian world leaves a big family, a military family.

Sometimes the only thing they will still have is their real family, and I believe that that is the key for them making the transition from the military into civilian life. That's what we do there at the north-west veterans' hub. Andrew has a no-fuss, quite stern mentality: 'You get off the couch, you stand up. There will always be someone there to help you, but you need to take the first step yourself. You need to start looking after yourself.' It's working fantastically. The kids understand why mum or dad feels the way that they do. The kids understand what mum or dad goes through - and that intergenerational trauma is somehow alleviated by somebody putting a label on it or explaining it to those children. I want to see more of that.

At the moment, when we have an acutely affected PTSD veteran, they are sent towards Greensborough Hospital for a six-week program where we fill them full of benzodiazepines so they can sleep. Then, they're kicked out at the end of that six-week program back into Tasmania with no continuum of care. That's not on. That is almost un-Tasmanian. I want to see our soldiers looked after. I want to see a place almost like - I describe it sometimes like a Ronald McDonald House, where the kids can go. I want to see the kids and the veterans transition through that. I want to see the kids help that veteran through their treatment because at the end of the day, when that family goes back to their community, that family is all that they've got. I want to see families connected back to veterans again. I want to see that treatment surrounding that family. I want to see that focus put back into caring for our veterans. I want to see that mentality that we have of the veteran taking that first step. I want to see that pursued more.

I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. I've been diagnosed with that as a result of my active service. I don't say that for pity. I say that to let veterans out there know that, yes, you may have this thing, but there is help available. It's almost like a tennis elbow or a dry rash for me. That's how I view it. You can work through this. I'm operating at a reasonably high level here and you can do the same. That's what I tell my veterans. I want to tell the good stories.

I had a young bloke who came to my office in federal parliament. I hadn't seen him for 15 years. I asked him what he was doing and he said, 'Well, you know how you used to tell us, sir.' He still called me sir, not because I was a parliamentarian, but because I was his sergeant major. He said, 'You used to tell us to use the last year of our service to set ourselves up for civilian life.' I said, 'Yes, what are you doing?' He said, 'I've got 72 of my mates working for me. I design, build, and install electromagnetic pulse countermeasure technology for geo- orbital defence satellites.' He's a smart guy, he's got all his mates together, he's got a plan and he's got a beautiful future.

I had another young girl who has written a book on leadership and what it's like to break the glass ceiling as a female in a male-dominated active service unit. I was so proud that she asked me to open a book launch in Canberra.

These are the stories we need to tell. I'm here to tell all employers out there today that employing a veteran is good for your business. They bring a set of skills and a set of values that - second to none - you won't find anywhere else. Give them a go. Employing a veteran is good for your business. That's my message today. They need purpose, they need a job and they need to keep those families together. I feel strongly about this and I will continue my fight.

I'm passionate about agriculture, I'm passionate about our veteran community and I'm passionate about my electorate in Tasmania. I have looked forward for many years to getting my teeth right into the guts of things. I believe that this allows me to do more than what I ever could do in federal politics.

I look forward to working with all of you. I want to remind everybody today that the strategic future of Tasmania is more important than anything else. We're all leaders in this place. I listened to the stories from our crossbenchers and our newly elected members.