CHALLENGES, achievements and the real Tony Abbott — in the past year Member for Mallee Andrew Broad has become well acquainted with all three.
Elected as the Federal representative for the Mallee electorate a year ago this week, he is now one-quarter of the way through his first term in parliament.
“It has been a very steep learning curve to be honest, nothing really prepares you for wandering into the House of Representatives,” he said.
“It is a strange place, you do get to meet some interesting people.
“Walking out of parliament once, I saw Governor-General Peter Cosgrove and Kamahl standing side-by-side, and Kamahl was giving a recital of the Gettysburg Address [by Abraham Lincoln].”
He said it had “not been an easy time” to come into government, with the Coalition lacking a majority representation in the Senate making it difficult to get legislation through.
The recent repeal of the carbon tax — which required a deal to gain the support of the Palmer United Party to pass — was “pragmatic”, according to Mr Broad, despite it also seeing the freeze of an increase to the superannuation rate.
“Freezing of the super contribution has been the right move I think,” he said.
“At the end of the day we have got a slowing economy and we want employers to employ people.
“People can still contribute some [extra funds] to super.”
In the next year, he is looking to see the mobile blackspot scheme delivered, local roll-out of the NBN and “anticipates a [local] visit from the Prime Minister [Tony Abbott] before the next election”.
On Mr Abbott, Mr Broad said he was not like he was represented to be.
“He is a conviction politician — I think they have thrown so much at him and he has got to be fairly strong… we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, we’ve had a fairly good barney at times, but that’s democracy,” Mr Broad said.
