John Flowers (politician)

For other people named John Flowers (politician), see John Flowers (politician) (disambiguation).

John Flowers MP
Member of the New South Wales Parliament for Rockdale
Incumbent
Assumed office 26 March 2011
Preceded by	Frank Sartor
Majority	3.6%
Personal details
Nationality	Australian
Political party	Liberal Party of Australia
Residence	Brighton-Le-Sands
Occupation	Teacher
Website	Parliamentary webpage

John Fredrick Flowers MP, an Australian politician, is a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Rockdale for the Liberal Party of Australia since 2011.

Early years and background

Flowers was a teacher at Belmore Boys’ High School for over 20 years. He served as a Councillor on Kogarah Council between 1999 until 2004, and then Rockdale Council since 2004, where he served as Deputy Mayor and then Mayor.

Political career

In 2011, Flowers contested the normally safe Labor seat of Rockdale in the St George-Kogarah district. He was elected with a swing of 9.9 per cent and won the seat with 53.6 per cent of the vote on a two party preferred basis. Flowers' main opponent was Steve Kamper, representing Labor. Frank Sartor who was the previous Labor sitting member had earlier announced his retirement from politics after holding the seat for 8 years.

Immediately following the election it was revealed that Flowers may have breached legislation by running for political office whilst on a disability pension, gained when he was a teacher in 1997.

Inaugural Speech

I come to this place as the first Liberal elected to the seat of Rockdale. I thank the people of Rockdale warmly for their support. I also acknowledge the contribution made by the former member for Rockdale, the Hon. Frank Sartor, and wish him well. For me it has been a long and winding road that has led to this place. It is a great honour and privilege to be here.

I was born in the Royal Newcastle Hospital, the second of six children. My father was a colliery manager, so we moved around the coalfields, living in locations such as Wallerawang, before moving to the Hunter Valley and living in Cessnock, Maitland and again Newcastle, where I completed my tertiary education at the University of Newcastle. My father had always wanted to design his own mine and was given the opportunity in 1971. My father's design was a success and was very productive, so much so that Henry and Nancy Kissinger and David Rockefeller visited the mine in 1981 with a delegation from the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York.

My paternal grandparents settled in Australia from England in 1927. My grandfather was for some time manager of the John Darling Colliery at Belmont north and later a member of the Joint Coal Board, and a commissioner in the Royal Commission into the Queensland Collinsville mille disaster. My grandparents retired to Darling Point, and Flowers Drive at Catherine Hill Bay was named in my grandfather's honour. My mother's family had always had strong links with the St George area, with my grandparents moving into a war service home in Bexley in 1920 following the return of my grandfather from active service in France during the First World War. Although I never met my grandfather, we knew him by the music he had bought for the pianola, which brought us much pleasure. My great-great-grandfather had settled in the colony in 1853, arriving on the SS Maidment. He was from Scotland. My mother was born at Bexley and attended St George Girls High School where she was vice-captain in 1943. As young children we would go with our parents to the beach at Brighton-Le-Sands.

In 1976 I began teaching at Macarthur Girls High School at Parramatta but chose to live at Brighton where I had many fond memories. I was transferred to Belmore Boys High School in 1978 where I taught until 1996, and, after teaching for 21 years, chose to retire on medical advice. I then continued my interest in politics, as I had earlier realised that to make a difference in our community, you must take part in the political process. You cannot always leave it to others to do the hard work; you must play your part. I was elected to Kogarah council in 1999 and then Rockdale City Council in 2004 where I still serve as a councillor and served two terms as mayor.

I was mayor when, with the agreement of council, we built the Brighton boardwalk. We commenced the New Years Eve Botany Bay fire works, initiated city-wide flower displays, began upgrading town centres across the electorate, constructed the first skate park for our youth, created new open space with the demolition and relocation of the Royal Volunteer Coastal Patrol facilities at the end of Bay Street and relocated the Greek Sports Hall of Fame to the recently opened Millennium Centre in Brighton-Le-Sands. We introduced a new residential amenity improvement strategy delivering quality improvements to the built environment in Rockdale and created a new vision for the city of Rockdale that included a world-class pier and marina as well as linking the divided western and eastern sides of Rockdale. I am proud of what was able to be achieved while I was mayor.

At the end of this parliamentary term I hope to have delivered in a similar manner on the issues raised by people during the State election. These include the return of the Rockdale police station, which was sold off last year, finding a solution to the traffic congestion, the expansion of the Rockdale commuter car park, the installation of lifts at Arncliffe railway station, and the construction of a pedestrian underpass to improve the safety of the children attending the Al Zara College and the mosque. I know the $30 million upgrade to the emergency department of the St George Hospital will be delivered.

I learned from being a teacher that it is by your students that you will be taught. This also showed me the importance of listening to your community. We all share a space that is infinitely big, infinitely small and infinitely complex, yet you can only do what you believe is right at the time guided by your life experiences and sometimes simple words such as decency, kindness, love and forgiveness. These help me when I ask what is in the public interest. Some say you can tell how advanced a society is by the way it treats its prisoners and equally by the type of education you give the children at home and at school.

Many of the solutions to society's problems are to be found in the way we treat our children. However, other solutions to community issues are encased by the economic problem of wants being unlimited and resources scarce. This causes us to look at the great battle of ideas. We all know that land, labour, capital and enterprise have as their reward rent, wages, interest and profit. But how do you combine these to grow the economy? The State Government is primarily responsible for the delivery of services. This does not mean it has no responsibility for economic growth. Services themselves should be delivered in a way that increases the capacity of the people of New South Wales to in turn be more productive. We know the socialist in all his disguises can never do this. We know the socialist fundamentally wants to redistribute everyone else's wealth except his own. They are well connected—with waste and mismanagement.

I have always had a strong belief in the rights of the individual and the need to encourage individual enterprise. Self-interest and the profit motive are powerful drivers of economic growth because they are reflective of life forces. Individuals make up society. They are all different, they are all unique, and they are all equal. I share Margaret Thatcher's view that the individual has a right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as his servant and not his master and that these are the essence of a free economy upon which all our other freedoms depend. This is the freedom that is enduring. It leads to economic growth, technological advancement, wealth creation and to higher standards of living, the end result of which is that we are all better off. I am also very mindful that while good people can make good things happen in this place, I hear the echo of Ronald Reagan when he said that the most terrifying words in the English language are, "Hello, I'm from the Government and I'm here to help."

I also believe that our highly evolved system of constitutional monarchy affords the best protection for all, through the separation of the responsibilities of the head of state from that of the head of government, effectively and efficiently partitioning power from glory. We say to the monarch, "The glory is yours to have but not the power", and we say to the head of government, "Elected power is yours to have but not the glory." Constitutional monarchy and the Westminster system are, of course, much more than this, but the stability and safety attached to them are the foundation of the prosperity that attracts people from all over the world to our shores.

The people of Rockdale come from many parts of the world. Of the 70,000 people in my electorate, 40 per cent were born overseas, 35 per cent were born in non-English speaking countries, 56 per cent have both parents born overseas, and 65 per cent have at least one parent born overseas. At home 49 per cent of the electorate speak a language other than English. I am continually humbled by the richness this cultural diversity brings, the pride they have in their countries of origin and the love they have for their chosen land. They have achieved success through hard work and strong family values. No matter from where they came, I will represent everyone equally, fairly, proudly and to the best of my ability. We are all better off for knowing and sharing the best each has to offer.

The Rockdale electorate extends from the Cooks River in the north to the Georges River in the south, from the shores of Botany Bay in the east to Bexley North and Bardwell Park to the west. It has a variety of housing styles. Tempe House and Lyndham Hall are fine examples of colonial architecture and are rightly protected by heritage orders. Some areas are low density residential and the residents are rightly proud of those beautifully kept suburbs and want to keep it that way. Some areas are medium density and those areas are fully developed. Wolli Creek has significant potential, and to achieve this requires more work. Some areas of the electorate are showing signs of urban decay and I will mention more of that now. [Extension of time agreed to.]

To some extent the Rockdale of the past will not be the Rockdale of the future. We have to recognise a new reality. This is the rise of China and soon India, along with the spectacular new architecture and developments transforming not only the Gulf States but our neighbours in South-East Asia. As great changes occur around us, it is better to adapt to the changes than to pretend they are not happening. During the term of the Coalition Government China will become Australia's largest inbound tourism market and Australia's largest trading partner. The middle class in China will number in the many hundreds of millions in less than 10 years. Not only are the numbers of Chinese visitors on a scale not seen before, but their average expenditure is greater than that of their American, British or other East Asian counterparts.

The tourism potential of a vast middle class from China and the subcontinent seeking new and interesting destinations cannot be understated or ignored. There will be new money in play. There will be much competition for those dollars. Much needs to be done to get them. Situated on historic Botany Bay, adjacent to Australia's largest airport and within easy reach of the city, I believe the western shores of Botany Bay have a larger role to play in Sydney's tourism industry. Through Kyeemagh, Brighton-Le-Sands, Monterey, Ramsgate Beach, Dolls Point, Sandringham to Sans Souci along the kilometres of Lady Robinsons Beach and Cook Park one can clearly see where Captain Cook of the Royal Navy sailed through the heads in 1770 and as a consequence gave rise to modern Australia. The full potential of this special location in Rockdale has not been realised. There is a lack of modern infrastructure to accommodate the economic opportunities that are coming. I believe this must change.

The Novotel Brighton Beach was completed 21 years ago and stands as a solitary reminder to what could have been. It was a good start, but the momentum stalled. By contrast whole national economies have been transformed in the 21 years since the construction of the Novotel. Various planning ordinances and local environmental plans have not encouraged the renewal and revitalisation that is necessary in key areas of the electorate. This is the case in both the public and private domain. In the Rockdale electorate The Grand Parade, with its 70,000 vehicle journeys a day, is like a river in flood, separating the community from its most beautiful asset, Lady Robinsons Beach and Cook Park. The residents want Rockdale to be a destination not a congested thoroughfare. They want a desirable and sustainable place to live, work and play that is aesthetically pleasing with a high standard of social overhead capital, improved commercial centres and improved tourist facilities. They want preserved green space in the F6 corridor.

Where there are unresolved issues that need attention we must set about fixing them. As the Sutherland shire and the Illawarra continue their growth, the need for a Botany Bay planning authority to plan and coordinate the traffic flows from the south and manage the container traffic from Port Botany, as well as develop and coordinate the untapped tourist and development potential of the bay region, requires urgent consideration. The Cooks Cove development in the Rockdale electorate adjacent to Sydney airport, which was designed to employ 12,000 people in high technology jobs, has been in the planning stages for 15 years. For economic development to occur it is essential that planning laws do not deliver planning paralysis, as has been the case in my electorate.

Zonings contained in local environmental plans, not just in Rockdale but also in New South Wales, require an appeal mechanism. Where we hold up values such as the rule of law, it seems unreasonable that appeals are possible to the Land and Environment Court on a development application but not on a zoning decision by a council. Housing affordability is determined by the supply and demand for houses. Inappropriate zonings can restrict the supply side of the equation, causing price distortions in the housing market. Rockdale is at the centre of these issues.

Brighton-Le-Sands is located close to the city and airport and is on the beach. Some unit blocks from the 1950s and 1960s detract greatly from the visual amenity of the area and by no means make the best economic use of the scarce resource of the land. There is no mechanism for these areas to undergo much-needed urban renewal. In the future the beautiful natural environment will have to be matched by an attractive built environment. This is not the case at the moment in parts of the electorate. The zonings contained in successive local environmental plans make this transition difficult to achieve. If our recent history is a guide, all we can be certain of is that nothing will happen, when something needs to happen. I repeat my earlier point: there is no place to complain when reason is absent from the planning process.

The substantive point is the orderly and timely preparedness of areas of my electorate to take advantage of changing times and the enormous opportunities that this will present sooner rather than later. I would like Rockdale to be awakened to its great potential, with the richness of its people combined with being located in the right place at the right time. The historical contrasts from the past are stark. In the past the beach was covered with people. In 1889 there was a steam tram from Rockdale to Brighton, a new hotel was built for the fashionable people from Sydney Cove and the baths doubled up as a promenade people could walk around. There was a 500-foot long pier where people could catch a ferry from Brighton to Kurnell and tour the bay and the Georges River. All that remains is a low-tech net that serves as the Brighton Baths. We could be doing a lot better than this. Peta Depena Reserve and Pine Park at Dolls Point require Centennial Park style modern dining facilities. There is no parking in many places where it is required, with the community being denied proper access to desirable locations they wish to visit. There are, of course, many lovely settled estates with first-class homes. These are not the issue in such a diverse electorate as Rockdale. What we desire is the best that we can achieve for our communities into the future. In some respects what we have is no longer the best we can do or be as a community, given the plentiful natural resources we have to work with. Where there is urban decay in the private and public domain we must admit it exists. Only then can we explore and prepare community-based solutions for a future that is rapidly approaching.

Special mention should be made of Peter and Elizabeth Antonopoulos, and Alex and Theodora, for without the iconic Le Sands restaurant and pavilion the area would be much the poorer. In any event, I would like to sincerely thank those who worked so hard for my election—my number one supporter over many years, Jan Brennan, who has been on this 20-year journey from the beginning; my mother for her unending love and support; my late father, with whom I had many political discussions; my brothers and sisters and their partners, Philip and Jenny, Deborah and Steve, Tim and Lisa, Kathryn and Brett, Peter and Cate; and my nieces and nephews, Evan, Madeleine, Alison, Bronwyn, William, Robert, James and little Sam. I thank my campaign team—Petros Kalligas; Peter and Vicki Poulos and the Poulos family for their contribution over many years; and Michael Kitmiridis, who gave more than I thought it was possible to give. I also thank Paul Sedrak and his family, Matthew Manos, Sam Stratiopoulos, Ron Bezic, Chris Hall, Jennifer Havilah, Nicholas and Dorette Varvaris; all those who were up at the railway stations from 6.00 a.m. until 9.00 a.m., letterbox dropping and taking part in photo shoots; and my loyal branch members, especially Georgina Hrdina, and also the late Mercedes Clark and the late Councillor Gary Green. We miss you. To my friend Councillor Michael Naji, thank you for embracing change in Rockdale. Thank you to my friends at Rockdale City Council and to Councillor Judy Feeney and Councillor John La Mela. Thank you to the Hon. Matthew Mason-Cox and the Hon. Natasha Maclaren-Jones for your visits, and to Russell Grove and the parliamentary staff for your assistance since my election. I send a special thankyou to Premier Barry O'Farrell and Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells. I will conclude with the words from a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins that was quoted by King George VI in his Christmas Day broadcast in 1939:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown, And he replied, Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.