The SPEAKER ( Hon. Milton Dick ) took the chair at 09:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.
STATEMENT BY THE SPEAKER
Parliamentary Language
The SPEAKER (09:01): I wish to advise the House that standing order 90, Reflections on members, is an important principle of the House. I want to reiterate that this is a matter I take seriously. I quote the standing order:
All imputations of improper motives to a Member and all personal reflections on other Members shall be considered highly disorderly.
I remind all members, particularly new members, that this is one of the most important principles in the House.
PARLIAMENTARY OFFICE HOLDERS
Speaker's Panel
The SPEAKER (09:01): Pursuant to standing order 17(a), I lay on the table my warrant nominating the honourable member for Wright to be a member of the Speaker's panel to assist the chair when requested to do so by the Speaker or Deputy Speaker.
REGISTER OF MEMBERS' INTERESTS
Registrar
The SPEAKER (09:02): In accordance with a resolution of the House of Representatives relating to the registration of members' interests, I have appointed Mr Peter Banson, Deputy Clerk of the House of Representatives, as Registrar of Members' Interests.
BILLS
Fair Work Amendment (Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2022
First Reading
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Burke.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (09:03): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Every worker in Australia has the right to be safe at work, and safe at home.
No worker should ever have to choose between their safety and their income.
It is unacceptable that millions of workers in Australia still face this impossible choice.
This is why, as my first parliamentary act as Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, I am proud to bring forward the Fair Work Amendment (Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2022which will provide employees with 10 days of paid leave to deal with the impacts of family and domestic violence.
It is not an overstatement to say that this is a workplace entitlement that will save lives.
Family and domestic violence affects people from all walks of life, in every community, in every city, and in every region across this country.
While family and domestic violence affects everyone in our community, it impacts on women most severely. First Nations women, younger women, women with disability, and women in remote and regional areas in particular face acute and significant challenges.
The facts set out by the Fair Work Commission in its recent review are frightening, and I don't use the word lightly. Since the age of 15, approximately one in four women experienced violence by an intimate partner. First Nations women are 32 times as likely to be hospitalised due to family and domestic violence than non-Indigenous women. On average, one woman is killed by her current or former partner every 10 days in Australia. The prevalence of family and domestic violence has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Family and domestic violence devastates the lives and livelihoods of those who directly experience it, and its damaging impacts reverberate throughout our communities, our workplaces and our national economy.
Unacceptably, rates of family and domestic violence are not declining in Australia. For many women, the most dangerous place in Australia is their home, and this must change.
I'm putting this bill before the House because, as a nation, we can and must do better.
An urgent, whole-of-community response is required, and workplaces have a key role to play as a source of critical support for people experiencing family and domestic violence.
Frontline workers have told us that there are two issues at the forefront of the minds of women seeking to escape from violent relationships. First, they're worried about the disruption to the lives of their children. Second, they're worried about the disruption to their income and employment.
More than 68 per cent of people experiencing family and domestic violence are in paid work. However, many can't leave violent situations without risking joblessness, financial stress, homelessness and poverty, leaving workers having to choose between their safety and their livelihood.
Getting out is hard, really hard. Reporting is hard, really hard, and turning up to court can be another trauma altogether. This bill makes all of that just that bit easier.
Getting out will still be hard. But it will be less likely that getting out makes you unemployed or poor. People in family and domestic violence situations have enough challenges already. This bill says that you will no longer have to ask, 'Can I afford to be safe?'
This bill sends a clear message that family and domestic violence is not just a criminal justice or social issue, but an economic and a workplace issue.
Frontline workers have told us that leaving violent relationships costs time and costs money. People leaving relationships often become sole parents; they have to find a new place to live and new schools for their children. People often leave a relationship with just the clothes on their backs, and have to start from scratch to build a new life. The economic impact on these workers and their families is nothing short of devastating. Paid leave provides the financial support and economic security these individuals so urgently need to help them leave dangerous situations safely and rebuild their lives.
The principle behind this paid leave entitlement is simple—getting out shouldn't mean losing pay. Normally, leave entitlements are calculated at the base rate of pay. But applying the principle that getting out shouldn't mean losing pay requires a different approach.
The new leave entitlement will be paid at the rate people would have received had they not taken leave, not just at their base rate of pay. Once in place, the 10 days leave will be provided upfront, allowing immediate access to the full entitlement from the commencement of employment.
In its review of family and domestic violence leave, the Fair Work Commission recognised that family and domestic violence erodes women's access to work, career progression and financial independence. By reducing these negative impacts, paid family and domestic violence leave will help to reduce the gender pay gap, support gender equality and increase women's economic security.
An increasing number of employers—both large and small—are already providing a range of support to their employees experiencing family and domestic violence, including access to paid leave. All states and territories now provide their employees with access to paid leave to deal with family and domestic violence. These efforts are to be commended. This bill will enshrine family and domestic violence leave as a minimum employment standard for all, ensuring that wherever you work and whoever your employer is, you will be guaranteed access to this life-saving entitlement if you need it.
This entitlement will be enshrined in the National Employment Standards and cover up to 11 million employees. It will be a lifeline when women most need it, allowing workers to take necessary steps to stay safe, while retaining their jobs and their income.
Normally casual employees do not have access to paid leave. But get back to that test—'getting out shouldn't mean losing pay'. You apply that test, you get to a different conclusion to where you otherwise might get with casuals.
This bill provides a paid entitlement to family and domestic violence leave for all employees, including casuals.
There are currently 2.6 million casual employees in Australia.
Family and domestic violence doesn't pick and choose based on whether you're a permanent or casual worker.
Casuals are not spared from family and domestic violence. In fact, women who are experiencing or have experienced family and domestic violence have a more disrupted work history, and are more likely to be employed in casual work, than women with no experience of violence.
Casuals are already dealing with the consequences of being in insecure work and are unable to access other forms of paid leave, making them more vulnerable when they're dealing with the impact of domestic violence.
Under this bill, casual employees will be paid for rostered shifts, including where a shift has been offered and accepted, providing employers with certainty about the rate of payment for the casual employee.
Employees facing family and domestic violence will no longer have to ask—'do I have leave to help me get out?'—the answer for every employee will now be 'yes'.
There'll be no gap for any employees who are not eligible for this paid leave entitlement. Casuals, for example, who are not rostered on for the exact shift will still be entitled to be absent from work without pay for 10 days per year to deal with the impacts of family and domestic violence, without having to worry about losing their jobs. But, where they are rostered on, the paid leave entitlement will be there.
Australians are increasingly living in more diverse living situations. For First Nations families and culturally and linguistically diverse communities, they also have familial responsibilities, households, and relationships which we need to make sure are being captured here.
Violence can be and is perpetrated by people who are not your relative but who live in the same household. In a tragic recent example, a woman at the Sunshine Coast was killed, allegedly at the hands of her unrelated housemate.
People increasingly live separately to their intimate partners; young people in particular. The amendments I will make to the definition of family and domestic violence will ensure that violent or abusive behaviour in intimate relationships—whether or not the partners cohabit—will also be captured, and employees can take paid leave to seek necessary assistance.
Some might suggest that these additions broaden the definition too much. During the two extensive hearings on family and domestic violence leave conducted by the Fair Work Commission, there was no evidence whatsoever of any misuse of paid family and domestic violence leave. This is just not an entitlement that employees rort.
Unless we include intimate partners in this way, we'd be left with a situation where a person suffering violence or abuse at the hands of an intimate partner would need to move in with their abuser in order to access paid family and domestic violence leave to seek assistance. That would be the most absurd and perverse outcome.
People experiencing violence in their home or at the hands of an intimate partner should have access to paid leave to escape or to deal with such situations, and the changes I've made to the definition of family and domestic violence will ensure that this is the case.
Employers are bearing the significant costs of family and domestic violence. They're bearing it in the form of reduced productivity caused by absenteeism, recruitment and retraining costs. The costs to the national economy are huge, with estimates ranging between $12.6 billion and $22 billion per year, with the cost to employers being about $2 billion per year. Paid family and domestic violence leave will assist to reduce this cost.
Now I recognise that business will need some lead-in time to adjust their payroll systems in order to ensure this entitlement can be provided confidentially and appropriately to employees. The government recognises that small businesses face a number of unique challenges here. They often have lower cash flow and lack the full sophisticated human resources capacity to administer a new leave entitlement and manage the associated sensitive issues.
Support for small businesses is essential.
My department's consulted with business representatives on implementation. To assist business, the entitlement will have a phased commencement, with most businesses having around six months from the date of introduction, and small businesses will be afforded an additional six months to prepare. We will also be consulting on a package of implementation support measures for small business to assist with rolling out this entitlement.
It's a fair question to ask why the government is providing these lead times for business. The truth is, I wish the starting date was years ago rather than next year. But I need to ensure the entitlement is understood both by workers and by employers.
For example, I don't want a worker being refused leave simply because the employer didn't yet understand the new entitlement. I want there to be a chance for business to work through essential principles, such as how to describe the leave entitlement on a payslip without using terms that could make an awful situation even worse.
We will work with businesses, large and small, so they will be equipped to have a sensitive conversation with their employee, understand their obligations, and have appropriate mechanisms and payroll practices in place to sensitively manage leave information.
Gender equity, women's safety and women's economic security are at the heart of this government's agenda.
We're serious about tackling family and domestic violence in Australia. In addition to paid family and domestic violence leave, our commitment includes measures to bring about long-term cultural change to tackle entrenched discriminatory attitudes and behaviours, as well as ensuring supports are in place to help people safely leave abusive situations. We are establishing a new Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Commission; investing $77 million in high-quality consent and respectful relationships education in schools; and delivering more safe and affordable housing to assist women fleeing violence.
This bill is an important part of that framework.
I might have the honour of introducing this bill—but it didn't start with me. This bill is the result of the tireless efforts of frontline workers, unions and gender equity advocates who've been campaigning for this entitlement for close to 15 years. In 2009, a group of experts from the Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse at the University of New South Wales approached the trade union movement in New South Wales to discuss the possibility of a groundbreaking new paid leave entitlement to help workers impacted by family and domestic violence.
One of those experts, Ludo McFerran, is in the gallery today. I acknowledge and thank her for her vision and her leadership on this issue over the past 15 years. Ludo drafted the first-ever paid family and domestic violence clause. That first clause did not get up, but it set in train a nationwide community and union campaign—a campaign which ends here today with this bill.
In 2010, the Australian Services Union and the Surf Coast Shire Council in Victoria negotiated a collective agreement providing access to 20 days paid family and domestic violence leave for staff of the council. As far as we know this was the very first example of this kind of entitlement anywhere in the world. And as a beautiful conclusion to that, the person who was assistant national secretary of the Australian Services Union at the time, Linda White, is now a senator waiting for us to send the bill there. I acknowledge and thank her for the key role she has played in the development of this life-saving entitlement.
Since the first clause was negotiated in 2010, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and its affiliates, including the Australian Services Union, the ASU, which represents frontline family and domestic violence workers, has led a national campaign to have the entitlement rolled out in more and more workplaces, with the mutual benefits for workers and employers increasingly recognised.
About 1.13 million employees, at this moment, have access to paid family and domestic violence leave through collective bargaining between workers and employers. This legislation takes that figure from just over one million employees, to 11 million employees.
I would like to acknowledge our incredible frontline workforce, who strive day in and day out to support and assist individuals and families impacted by violence, including our paramedics, doctors, nurses, police officers, community legal centre lawyers, educators and community sector workers.
I want to acknowledge those on the floor here and in the other place, my colleagues who have campaigned for this moment for so many years. Some of you are here in the public gallery as frontline workers. I acknowledge you and I thank you for your commitment to supporting those impacted by family and domestic violence. We respect and value your essential work.
But I also want to acknowledge those in our community who have lost their lives due to family and domestic violence.
I recognise those we've lost, those who've survived and those who, at this moment, still feel trapped.
This bill is for you.
You've asked us to do more to help, and we're here now, getting this done for you.
This bill will not by itself solve the problem of family and domestic violence; but it does mean no employee in Australia will ever again be forced to make a choice between earning a wage and protecting the safety of themselves and their families.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
PARLIAMENTARY RETIRING ALLOWANCES TRUST
Appointment
Mr WATTS (Gellibrand—Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) (09:22): Mr Speaker, this being my first occasion to speak in this parliament, I congratulate you on your new role. I ask leave the House to move a motion to appoint a member to the Parliamentary Retiring Allowances Trust.
Leave granted.
Mr WATTS: I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Act 1948, Ms Vamvakinou be appointed a trustee to serve on the Parliamentary Retiring Allowances Trust.
Question agreed to.
MOTIONS
National Archives of Australia Advisory Council
Mr WATTS (Gellibrand—Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) (09:23): by leave—I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of section 10 of the Archives Act 1983, this House appoint Mr Smith as a member of the National Archives of Australia Advisory Council for a period of three years.
Question agreed to.
GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S SPEECH
Address-In-Reply
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That the following Address in Reply to the speech of His Excellency the Governor-General be agreed to:
May it please Your Excellency:
We, the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, in Parliament assembled, express our loyalty to the Sovereign, and thank Your Excellency for the speech which you have been pleased to address to Parliament—
The SPEAKER (09:24): Before I call the honourable member for Kooyong, I remind the House this is the honourable member's first speech and I ask the House to extend her the usual courtesies.
Dr RYAN (Kooyong) (09:25): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank your for very warm welcome to this place. It is a great honour to address you today as the new member for Kooyong. Firstly, let me acknowledge that I do so on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land, and that the traditional owners and original custodians of Kooyong are the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. I pay my respects to them and to all the First Nations people of this wide and beautiful land. I honour their wisdom and their culture. I look forward to working towards them having a voice to this parliament. We have an extraordinary opportunity to join in a makarrata—a coming together after a struggle—and an opportunity to walk on this country with its traditional owners in trust, strength and truth.
To the people of Kooyong: thank you for entrusting me with this great responsibility to be your elected representative. I do so with humility and I am honoured to serve you. The electorate of Kooyong sits in eastern Melbourne. Its 59 square kilometres include Balwyn, Kew, Hawthorn, Camberwell, Deepdene, Canterbury, Surrey Hills, Mont Albert and Glen Iris. The seat is believed to have derived its name from the Wurundjeri name for resting place or camp.
In its 122 years, the federal seat of Kooyong has had only seven previous members, including Sir Robert Menzies, Andrew Peacock and Petro Georgiou. Those men were all true liberals. They recognised that open markets are the best way to boost prosperity. They were committed to protecting individuals' rights. Even before Federation, Alfred Deakin spoke in Hawthorn on the virtues of equality of opportunity and of generosity to the less fortunate in society. My predecessor, Josh Frydenberg, a well-respected member of this place, spoke in his first speech of the honourable legacy of previous members for Kooyong. I hope to honour that legacy by representing the electorate with dedication, integrity and effect.
I am the first woman and the first Independent to represent this electorate. I will not be the last. I've spent much of my life in Kooyong, as a child, as a student and now as a parent and a member of my community. My grandparents were first- or second-generation migrants from Wales, Ireland, Germany and Mauritius. For two of my grandparents, a bus trip to Sydney was the furthest they ever went in their lives. With all respect to my crossbench colleagues, they didn't like Sydney much, so they soon came home.
The Australian story is one of opportunity, of evolution, of adaptation to our circumstances. My paternal grandfather, George Alan Davis, was born in 1900—the year the seat of Kooyong was founded. When he was six months old his family tried to move from Bathurst to Melbourne in a two-horse covered wagon. One horse dropped dead as they tried to get through the Blue Mountains, so they turned around and ended up in Sydney. He had to leave school at 15 to support his family, joining the New South Wales Public Service. He admired Jack Lang—'the Big Fella'—and was moved sideways in the Public Service for agitating for an increase in junior clerks' pay, then 60 pounds a year. At age 21, he doorknocked and electioneered for Joe Cahill, a close friend who later became the Labor Premier of New South Wales. My grandfather rose through the Public Service and by 1940 was head of the federal Directorate of Defence Foodstuffs in the Ministry of Supply, an important job in a time of war. When my grandparents lost their elder son in 1943—drowned in Port Phillip Bay—Ben Chifley, the then Prime Minister and a friend of my grandfather, made the trip to Melbourne to commiserate on that loss. But, when my grandfather wrote his autobiography in 1978, he was very clear on who he believed to be our greatest ever Australian: my predecessor in Kooyong, Robert Gordon Menzies, who he described as a brilliant man, superb in wit and dialogue. In a true democracy, one votes on one's values, for a person, not for a party.
My parents were of the first generation in their families to attend university, to travel and work overseas and to dream of bigger lives. My father worked as a senior business executive, but his great love was his lifelong commitment to the nation's service in the Army Reserve; he rose to a senior rank in that force. My mum raised her family. Then she established a charity in Kenya which has in 18 years sent more than 3,500 primary and secondary school children to school and has assisted hundreds of women in the Kibera slums with literacy and skills training. My parents raised their seven children to work hard and to give back to those less fortunate. They gave us unconditional love and an understanding of the paramount importance of family. They gave me a twin sister, Anny, who has always been my best and most loyal friend. My brothers and sisters and I have all made homes in this country. We've been a very fortunate family but for the loss of a gifted boy, my nephew Hector, in a car accident in 2017. Together, my siblings and I have raised 18 members of the next generation, the generation which will deal with the legacy of the world that we in this place make for them.
I received an excellent education at a convent school. The nuns who ran that school were feminists who cared about social justice. Some volunteered in my campaign in Kooyong in 2022. The founder of the Loreto order of nuns, Mary Ward, said in 1612:
There is no such difference between men and women that women, may they not do great things? And I hope in God that it may be seen in time to come that women will do much.
I will be forever grateful to my parents for an education in which it was made clear that I could and should try to do much in my own life. We have in this place an opportunity to support education and to ensure gender equality in all facets of Australian life, which should never be taken for granted.
I grew up in Hawthorn. My husband, Peter, a generous and loyal man, a wonderful father and a steadfast husband, grew up in Balwyn. We have together forged a family with three kind, compassionate and trusting children: Annabel, Campbell and Patrick. I would not be here without their love and support, for which I will be forever grateful. We have a blended family, like many Australian families, which has its benefits and its challenges. The age of the traditional family unit has passed. In Kooyong, as in the rest of Australia, people who love each other live together in all sorts of units. All are to be celebrated.
We love our home: the wide streets; the parks with their big sky; the Yarra, Melbourne's beautiful upside-down river; and Kooyong's sporting fields, shopping strips, libraries and restaurants. At the start and at the end of every day, more than 35,000 children fill the streets of Kooyong, going back and forth from school. Most of them seem to catch the Glenferrie Road tram. The electorate is fortunate to have its own university, Swinburne, established in 1908, ranked in the top one per cent of universities worldwide and recognised for its research in the space industry, medical technology and the first National Centre for Reconciliation Practice. In these last challenging years during the long months of COVID lockdowns, we have realised more than ever how lucky we are to live in Kooyong.
I studied medicine at Melbourne university before undertaking training in paediatrics and paediatric neurology in Melbourne, Sydney and Boston. For 30 years, I have worked in the Australian public health system. Until recently, I was head of the department of neurology at the Royal Children's Hospital. The Royal Children's Hospital is a much-loved institution in Victoria. To be a neurologist for children and head of a department at that hospital was for me, for a long, long time, the best job I could possibly imagine. My area of specialty was nerve and muscle disorders of childhood, conditions which are generally uncommon and severe, the diagnosis of which is complex and treatment of which was, until recently, rarely curative. I was fortunate to finish my training at a time when new therapies for these disorders were just coming into clinical trials and to make a research career from studies into the causes and treatments of those conditions. During that career I led more than 30 clinical trials in Sydney and in Melbourne and at the end of last year my team gave the first dose of gene therapy ever given in Victoria for a previously fatal neurological condition of infancy: spinal muscular atrophy. That treatment was developed in international clinical trials. The children's hospitals in Melbourne and Sydney played an important role in that research. We helped transform the lives of those children and their families, and the lives of those who are to come.
We have in this country a wonderful health system. Our medical professionals are as good as any in the world. The NDIS has the potential to be a world-leading program for disability support. Our medical research is similarly competitive at a global level, but it has been underfunded and ill supported in recent years. The last few years have been terribly difficult for our doctors, nurses, allied health and other healthcare professionals. We have to ensure that health care in this country remains fit for purpose, accessible and resilient. There are many challenges to that, including not just an ongoing pandemic and an exhausted workforce but economic challenges of staffing and technology, new diagnostics and therapies, rehabilitation and disability support. These are challenges both of equity and of ethics. This 47th Parliament contains a number of doctors. I look forward to working with them for better health for all Australians.
But the greatest challenge of our generation is climate change. We have lived through a wasted decade of ineffective action on climate change. As a doctor, researcher and scientist my job has always been to care for children and protect their futures. I stood for election for the seat of Kooyong because I felt, and the people of Kooyong felt, that our previous government was not doing that. In recent years the effects of the climate emergency have been apparent to us all. Science has shown us that we need increased ambition and urgent action in our rapid transition to a net zero emissions world. We stand on the precipice of a great opportunity: a transformation to a new clean energy economy—an economy which will not need to rely on volatile markets and international security for a secure energy supply, an economy that is moving away from polluting fuels and combusting vehicles to quiet electric vehicles and clean air for our children. Our renewable energy resources are the envy of the world. We can use these natural advantages to bring down the cost of electricity for households; to protect our elderly neighbours from heatwaves; to ensure Australian families don't have to decide between heating and food; to support our small and large businesses; and to help position our country as the natural home of energy-intensive industries in the Asia-Pacific.
Taking effective action on climate change also means restoring and protecting our water supplies, sustaining the nation's food bowls and helping farmers put fresh food on our tables. Our systems are all interconnected. We can't have a resilient agricultural industry if we continue to drag our feet on climate change. Strong government leadership is crucial to manage a just transition, facilitate investment in low-cost clean energy and turbocharge economic activity and job creation across Australia.
In recent years the people of Australia have lost faith in our political system. We have been ashamed by the lack of integrity and transparency that it has shown. We have lost trust in its processes and have become disaffected and disappointed. We can restore confidence in our democracy by establishing a national integrity commission, improving whistleblower protections, restoring freedom of the media and legislating for transparency in political donations and truth in political advertising.
In 1949 Ben Chifley spoke of working for the betterment of humankind. He called it the 'light on the hill'. In his first speech the member for Melbourne expressed hope that that light would now be powered by renewable energy.
In these last years many Australians have perceived a dimming of the light of Australian democracy. Many of us felt that our elected representatives no longer reflected our values and that our government was not listening to our voices.
But then in 2012 a candle was lit in the seat of Indi, where the McGowan sisters, their nieces and their nephews and Helen Haines harnessed the power of a community and demonstrated the possibility of a new political paradigm in this country—independent representatives chosen by their community. Australia has had independent members since Federation, but this was something different. That first candle inspired more, individual but with collective effect, first in Warringah and now in Mackellar, North Sydney, Wentworth, Curtin, Fowler and Goldstein.
When I think of the people of Kooyong, I see that same spirit of community burning brightly. It started with Oliver Yates in 2019. By 2021 a people powered coalition of the willing and the passionate had come together and listened to the voices of our electorate, the Voices of Kooyong. We had a core team. I would not be here were it not for the members of that team: Robert Baillieu, Hayden O'Connor, Tamar Simons, Julia Cutts, Carolyn Ingvarson, Helen Sawczuk, Campbell Cooney, Rosemary Wilmot, Jedediah Clark, Brent Hodgson, Nancy Huang, Qingze Han, Peter Garnick, Jennifer Henry, Liza Miller and Elle McKinna. The support of the Climate 200 crowdfunding platform gave us the ability to kickstart a campaign that faced all the power, influence and money of an entrenched incumbent. Most of all, we had that inimitable, tireless, fearless, brilliant gem of a campaign manager, Ann Capling. If you build it, they will come. We built it and the people came. I would not be here were it not for the more than 2,000 volunteers—the Grahams, the Jennys, the Jos, the Kates, the Robs, the Davids, all the Peters; there were a lot of Peters—who brought energy and excitement, optimism and active hope, who gave us their time and their trust, who chopped wood and carried water and together built something.
I'm a child of the 1980s. During that time Steven Morrissey told us that there is a light that never goes out, but perhaps Albus Dumbledore put it better when he said, 'Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light.'
Kooyong has always been a seat held by conservative politicians. Since it was formed in 1944, the Liberal Party has always held Kooyong. The last time an incumbent lost his seat in Kooyong was 1922, proof positive that not all once-in-a-century events are bad things. But the Kooyong of 2022 is not the Kooyong of 1922. Nineteen per cent of voters in Kooyong in 2022 identified as Chinese Australian. Thirty-three per cent spoke a language other than English at home. Kooyong has more voters aged between 18 and 25 than any other electorate in Victoria. And it has an above-average proportion of women, all of whom are above-average women. In some ways, Kooyong is a quintessential urban seat and a microcosm of the housing affordability crisis in Australia, with young constituents in the area stretching themselves financially to remain close to their parents and the community in which they grew up. Forty-five per cent of the voters in the Hawthorn end of the electorate are renters, most living in a flat or an apartment. A third of them are in acute rental stress.
The people of Kooyong, like all Australians, value fairness, integrity and respect. They sought change not for their individual interests but for decency and democracy and, above all, for the next generation to be safe and prosperous in a hospitable world. To the rural communities of western New South Wales and Queensland, with farms and towns hit by drought: the people of Kooyong voted for you. To the people of Cobargo and Mallacoota and Kangaroo Island, whose homes burnt during that black summer: Kooyong voted for you. To the people of Lismore and Woodburn, whose houses have been inundated again and again this year by flood: Kooyong voted for you. To those who have dedicated their lives to education, to science, to the arts and to the caring professions, who have felt ill supported by a government which gave pandemic job subsidies to casinos but not to universities: Kooyong voted for you. For those women of Australia who are underpaid, undervalued and unsafe in their homes and in their workplaces: Kooyong voted for you. For immigrants subjected to fear and suspicion, and for the First Nations Australians still struggling for recognition: Kooyong voted for you. For those subjected to detention for trying to come to this country, for those who have been punished for speaking truth to power: Kooyong voted for you. I'm honoured to have been elected by such a community.
I'm committed to supporting responsible economic policy with foresight and long-term planning. That policy has to be predicated on effective and immediate action on climate change. I'm committed to integrity and honesty in politics and to supporting safeguards of transparency and fairness. I commit to working for world-standard health, disability and aged care. I commit to working for true equality and safety for women and to fostering respect for Australians of all ancestries regardless of when and how they came here, their gender, their sexuality, their religion or their beliefs.
To the people of Kooyong, know this: my vote will always be independent. It will always be informed by evidence and it will always be guided by you. As the first independent elected for Kooyong, every one of my votes will be a conscience vote. I'm honoured to serve as your representative, and I will never take that responsibility for granted. To the people of Kooyong, the community of Kooyong: when our children ask us what we did for our country, we will be proud to answer that we were the change that we wanted to see, and that in doing so we changed Australian history.
My final words are to the next generation, to the future of our country. My children. The children for whom I provided medical care. Those schoolkids on the Glenferrie Road tram. The young adults of Kooyong wondering how to pay for their tertiary education and their own homes: Yours is the light that has guided me to this place. Keep shining brightly. Your voices are being heard.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Goodenough ): Before I call the honourable member for Hasluck, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech, and I ask the House to extend to them the usual courtesies.
Ms LAWRENCE (Hasluck) (09:49): Here I stand on this hill, a newly elected member of this place, the Australian House of Representatives; the member for Hasluck; a representative. What is that? What is a representative? It is audacious, surely, to claim to represent 150,000 souls, even perhaps to represent anyone other than ourselves. What gall we have and yet here we are. Of course, it is a privilege and an honour. The enormity of the task entrusted to us is never far from my mind.
I am a proud Western Australian and spent most of my formative years in a beautiful regional Wheatbelt town called York. York is the oldest inland town in Western Australia, having been established in 1835. It is a pretty small place but it is full with arts, music and culture, and I immersed myself in all of it. The Balardong Noongar people have lived in the York area for more than 50,000 years, and I pay my respects to them.
My mother and father are here today. They moved us to York for a tree change when I was about nine and my dear, beautiful sister, Sophia, 11. We lived for a while, the four of us, in a small, tiny one-room cabin on a small property surrounded by nature, and we loved it. My mother, Glenyce—apart from helping Dad look after horses, sheep, goats, chickens and us—was a medical practice manager. From her I learned resilience and a strong work ethic. My father, Peter, had many jobs. His absolute favourite, like Ben Chifley, was being a train driver. From my father I discovered a passion for motorcycling and he taught me compassion and to see the world through an egalitarian lens. He also modelled dedication to the Labor Party and Labor values all of his life, and always pushed me to have a political career. Okay, Dad, I got the message! My parents provided me with a wonderful example of equal partnership and of a steadfast and loving relationship.
My husband and soulmate of over 20 years, Nenad Djurdjevic, is also here today. Everyone in this place will know how important it is to have family who support you in this work. I am more than fortunate to have his unwavering moral and practical support.
For the last 10 years we have lived in the shire of Mundaring, which today lies in the geographic heart of the electorate of Hasluck. I love the Perth Hills and our home there. We live near a creek surrounded by the Beelu forest where small groups of endangered red-tailed black-cockatoos will sometimes perch above us munching on marri tree nuts. If I am away from nature for too long I truly feel the lack of it. One thing certain about this job, and many others which I've had, is that there is a continual need to find balance and to return to the natural world. I need to reconnect with nature in some way every day.
The Wajuk Noongar people call the Mundaring area 'Minda-lung', meaning 'a high place on a high place'. I pay my respects to them, some 3,000 kilometres from home. I also pay my respects to the Ngunnawal people, on whose land I stand, and to their elders present and past, and their emerging leaders.
To the Speaker: I congratulate him on his election to the chair. The standard of conduct expected of us by our community is very high and we need to hold ourselves to that high standard. Above all, and more important than any policy or legislation, the Australian people expect us to be leaders with integrity. Leadership requires high standards. Through both legislation and our own behaviour we need to set and maintain those standards. I commit myself, Speaker, to that renewed effort.
I note the great community work done in Hasluck by the former member, Ken Wyatt, and I seek to build on his effort. He was the first Indigenous member of the House when elected in 2010. He was well liked across the chamber and he served with dignity as the Minister for Indigenous Australians. I hope and expect that this parliament will continue to listen to Indigenous people and will rise to the challenge to a full and constitutional implementation of the Voice to Parliament envisaged in the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017. The Uluru statement describes the difficulty facing Indigenous people as a structural problem, as 'the torment of our powerlessness'. The Voice to Parliament will be enshrined in the Constitution—the very centre of our power.
Hasluck today stretches from the bustling Swan Valley—communities like Caversham, Brabham and Ellenbrook, up the Darling Scarp into the hills communities of Mundaring, Kalamunda and Gidgegannup and as far as Wooroloo. Is it the most beautiful electorate in Australia? I don't know; I haven't seen them all. But perhaps it is. People choose to live in the hills and the Swan Valley for myriad reasons—for the national parks, for the farmland and natural environment; for the business opportunities; for the historic centres of Midland and Guildford; for the vineyards; for the active, wonderful and warm communities in each shire and locality; for the freedom; and for the challenges. And there are challenges. Moving around the electorate is one of them, with limited public transport options. Disaster readiness is always front and centre. Communications can be tricky and are patchy at best. The North-East Corridor, which centres on Ellenbrook, is one of Perth's fastest-growing areas and carries all the needs of a bustling mortgage belt. Access to health, education and social services is harder than in most metropolitan areas.
Campaigning in Hasluck also held challenges, and I cannot speak highly enough of the great team of volunteers who coalesced seemingly out of nowhere and helped me each and every day on what was a long campaign. They were many and varied: Labor Party branch members, young—and young in spirit—as well as valiant union members, fighting the good fight; students; pensioners; old friends; and quite a few locals who had just had enough. People like Jenny Elder-Green and Harry Craig sustained me through the campaign. They united to become the change makers.
But it's not the function of a first speech to name everyone, so I will wait and thank each of them as I meet them again. I must, however, thank Premier Mark McGowan, who encouraged me to run and whose support, together with that of Tim Picton and Ellie Whittaker at WA Labor, was crucial. I also thank all those in the great trade union movement for their steadfast focus and contributions in time, effort and support. In particular, I would like to acknowledge Peter O'Keeffe and Ben Harris at the SDA. I thank all my federal colleagues, who were there with me in solidarity every step of the way. I am also very fortunate to have six wonderful state Labor MPs within Hasluck, who were so generous with their time and guidance. I look forward to continuing to work with all of them in delivering for our communities.
I need to mention my mentors: the first member for Hasluck, Sharryn Jackson, as well as Alannah MacTiernan and Stephen Smith, for providing me with their support and sage advice at crucial moments. I particularly thank my campaign team, led by Gareth Thomas, who was ably supported by Ally Lewis, Russel McFarlane, Sam Rowe and Hannah Beazley. They sacrificed their personal time for 10 months, volunteering to ensure that we reached every corner of our 1,300-square-kilometre electorate.
I am here now to serve the people of Hasluck. I don't think there's any point in being here at all unless our actions in this place serve to make people's lives better, to reduce suffering, and to unlock the potential of our communities and so our nation. These are some of the many reasons I chose to run for office.
Another motivation for running was that I could no longer stand by and witness the abject betrayal of the Australian people. The previous government failed to act in our national security interest. They failed our LGBTQI community by recklessly creating divisions in our society and within families. They demeaned and even criminalised people seeking basic support through the NDIS, social security and asylum. They knew there was a need for an anticorruption commission and they failed to act. They presided over a decade of wilful ignorance and indifference to protecting our environment, and they continually failed to lead on a multitude of crises that Australians faced—pandemic, bushfires, floods, climate.
Is this the moment to speak truth to power? Is it? The previous government knew the truth. It was those suffering who were kept from knowing: the 30-year-old hills veteran, his body riddled with shrapnel, broken physically and mentally, asking me why he can't access the support he needs; the seniors in Aveley, borrowing money they know they cannot return to pay rates and bills, wondering to me why there is no action on cost of living; the young man in Swan View asking me why he had to quit his job to care for and to wash and clean his mother, as she lay, with cancer, in a nursing home. The truth—the sad, cruel, cold hearted truth—is that the previous government did not care. The previous government made me angry and motivated me, like my volunteers, to work to make change a national imperative. So on 21 May 2022 the Australian people voted for change. The new members here are a result of that mood for change, as is the new government. Of course, being the beneficiaries of a mood for change carries with it the onus to effect change. We need to deliver.
The experience I bring to this chamber includes work as an adviser for state governments of both persuasions on issues ranging from local content in government contracts to addressing insurance access and affordability, native title, counterterrorism and emergency and security management. From the resources sector, I bring experience in crisis and risk management, international business development and negotiating deals across cultures. From running my own business, I bring an understanding of the need for clarity and certainty from government, which provides the conditions conducive to investment, growth and employment opportunities.
Before all of that, when I was very young, I found the urge to travel, to see new places and different peoples. I began after-school work from 14 so I could save money to travel for a couple of months, backpacking across India when I was 16. My dad came along because he felt he had to. I was going either way. I also spent a year in Japan on Rotary exchange and, later, a time in Bangladesh with UNHCR. These were important experiences for me. I received the gift of understanding that there are many ways for people to live and many ways to approach the same goals. It also entrenched my curiosity in Asian politics, history, language and culture, leading me to study for bachelor's degrees in both economics and Asian studies. Education is so important. It needs to be of a high quality and accessible to all, not only to provide young people with a way to move forward in life but also to combat the racism, misogyny and elitism that a lack of good education foments.
The other thing I learned from my study and travels is the vital importance of government policies that support economic growth. Capital investment in modern times has opened the gates to economic prosperity. Capitalism alone, however, cannot sustain prosperity, because prosperity must also be measured in terms of environmental health and individual wellbeing, not just in gross economic transactional terms. In our complex societies the existence of a social safety net is paramount to ensure that no-one is held back and no-one is left behind.
I have met many people in Hasluck finding it harder and harder to meet their mortgage repayments as they face cost-of-living pressures. Others are caught up in a rental trap and have given up hope of ever owning their own home. Others, still, are homeless or facing homelessness. It is not possible in our society to be happy, healthy and productive when people face stress of this magnitude. This is a housing crisis, notwithstanding that we are one of the world's most prosperous nations. It is a matter of shame and a policy area that governments, at all levels, must address. My own parents benefited from affordable housing policy when they were starting out, thanks to the Whitlam government giving families access to land and housing at fair prices. Today, progress will require coordinated responses and novel, perhaps even courageous, unpopular solutions. I am glad that the new government is making this a priority and is taking the first steps. Shelter and security are human rights.
Equality is important to me. It is the foundation of our democracy, and a denial of equality on any basis—be it ethnicity, gender, sexuality or a lack of income, to name a few—is a denial of the rights of every person and a failure to have our nation realise its full potential both at home and abroad. We have a great untapped wealth of knowledge and experience in those Australians who have migrated here from the very cultures and political systems that we are now endeavouring to rebuild relationships with, trade with and work with. As Gough Whitlam said in 1972, we need to 'liberate the talents and uplift the horizons of the Australian people'.
Our representative institutions must be representative in order to be legitimate and to instil confidence. The parliament and the government must always lead in this respect, and I am proud of the gender diversity, the cultural diversity and the diversity of life experiences that this parliament is now increasingly reflecting.
Integrity and respect in our national institution is vital, and hasn't this taken a beating in recent years? In a pluralist democracy everyone brings their own belief systems to bear upon their decision-making. Sometimes these beliefs are political, sometimes essentially cultural and historic and sometimes religious. Errors and injustices can occur when one group tries to impose its own world view upon others. I believe in the ready defence of civil rights and a strong civics education to vaccinate us against bigotry and extremism.
I'm also eager to examine and vote on legislation for a federal integrity commission. My community of Hasluck demands more than words. They demand that I, and all of you, do the right thing by them in this place. Throughout my own career as an adviser in government I was always careful to keep my politics separate from my governmental role. This is how it needs to be. A politicised Public Service cannot instil confidence or have the confidence to provide frank and fearless advice when it's needed.
Another institution which needs to be independent is the media. I support the public broadcaster in all its iterations, its proper funding and its right and need to operate without interference from government ministers. I believe in a cantankerous press that the government cannot control and, at the same time, a free press that is not directed in its editorials by privileged moneyed interests.
The problems that confront us are often huge, global, longstanding, overwhelming. Denial, delays, short-term thinking, administrative paralysis, hiding reports: these are not acceptable forms of governing.
We need to come to terms with the many challenges that face us as a nation—economic, health, security and, not least, environmental. This new government has not yet had much time to enact legislation, but it has already started to deliver. New emissions targets; support for a wage increase for lower paid workers; building bridges again with international partners. It may be a new government but it is not shy.
Instability has been a hallmark of our political system for a decade. The Australian people need both to know and to feel that there is now stability at the top. I am proud to serve under this Prime Minister. He is firm but fair; reasoned and deliberate. And the best thing is we know he cares. I look forward to seeing the Prime Minister and ministers visiting Western Australia, particularly Hasluck, a fair bit over the next few years!
And so where will we be as a nation 20 years from now? I hope to see an Australia confident and secure in its place in the world, and well connected with its neighbours. A serious country that takes itself seriously, and one that our region turns to naturally for help with serious problems. A country that has invested just as much in protecting its people from the real risks we face—from fire, floods and cyclones—as it does on defence. An Australia that can look back over 20 years of sure action on climate change and be proud, and more than a little relieved. An Australia with a strong, circular economy in a world where having a few digital Australasian dollars is regarded as a good thing. A country where Australians are still a little cynical about politicians, for that is part of our DNA, but where there are fewer reasons they can point to for that cynicism. A country where politicians speak less of the need for cultural and gender diversity because it has become the norm. A country where the First Nations voice informs the work of the parliament on a daily basis, and where First Nations cultures and languages are flourishing. An Australia where the wellbeing of the nation is underpinned by the wellbeing of each of its citizens, who know that in times of need they will be able to rely on universal Medicare, child care, aged care, superannuation and the NDIS, and in a just and superb education system that is accessible and free. An Australia where a new flag flies over this place as the political centre of a young republic. And a country where, 3,000 kilometres away, back at home in the shire of Mundaring, perhaps still at the heart of an electorate called Hasluck, Nen and I have noticed that the red-tailed black-cockatoos have increased in such number that we sometimes find it hard to hear ourselves speak.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Goodenough ): Before I call the honourable member for Hughes, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech, and I ask the House to extend the usual courtesies. I call the honourable member for Hughes.
Ms WARE (Hughes) (10:16): According to Plato, the beginning is the most important part of the work. In that spirit, Deputy Speaker Goodenough, we are both beginning in this 47th parliament, albeit in very different roles. I congratulate you on your role as a Deputy Speaker of the House.
It is an honour and a privilege to stand here before the parliament of our great country as the representative of the people of Hughes. The swings and roundabouts of life are borne out through my return to Canberra in winter following my recent election. Sixteen years ago, in May 2006, my husband, Michael, and I were flown by emergency air ambulance to Canberra Hospital, where our twins, James and Nicholas, arrived 13 weeks early, weighing one kilo, two pound two; and 930 grams, two pounds in the old system, respectively. At the time, we had no idea what lay ahead. Very premature babies often face significant challenges throughout their lives. We remain eternally grateful for the care the boys received at the neonatal intensive care unit within the Canberra Hospital and the support given to Michael and me over the many months we were living down here. I should add that, looking at our tall and broad sons today, nobody would presume the challenging start to their lives.
While I'm slightly overwhelmed, I'm also overjoyed to look up and see so many good friends in the gallery. I am reminded of the many good friends who travelled to Canberra during that cold winter of 2006 to support us, as well as the two best grandmothers in the world: my mum, Jan, and my late mother-in-law, Barbara.
The electorate of Hughes was named after William Morris 'Billy' Hughes, the seventh Prime Minister of Australia. Hughes served in the first Australian parliament in 1901 and remained there for a record 51 years and seven months. Billy Hughes may have been small in stature, but on any measure he lived an extraordinarily large life. Hughes's passions and positions led him to be expelled from three political parties and to play a leading role in forming three other parties. As a loyal member of the Liberal Party of Australia, these are not things I desire or intend to emulate. As a wartime leader, Hughes divided opinion during the First World War. He was viewed either as a great patriot and 'little digger' by returned servicemen or as an opportunistic warmonger who pushed for conscription. However, to use the modern vernacular, Hughes was a conviction politician with his advocacy for compulsory military service. At the Paris Peace Conference, as the leader of a country of little more than five million people, Hughes famously defied the great powers by standing up for Australia, ensuring that we would be independently represented and protected. Having been given the privilege of serving the Hughes electorate following the federal election, I will advocate for and represent the people of Hughes and Australia as tenaciously as my electorate's namesake.
I acknowledge the two most recent members who represented the electorate of Hughes in this House. Craig Kelly served from 2010 until the election this year. Preceding him was my friend and supporter, the Hon. Danna Vale, who became the first female to hold this seat when she was elected in the Howard landslide of 1996. Danna was also the first female to hold the veterans' affairs portfolio. This is especially fitting in the Hughes electorate, as the Hughes electorate contains the Holsworthy military barracks, one of Australia's major defence establishments. Hughes is proudly home to the Royal National Park, which spans 16,000 hectares and includes popular attractions Wattamolla Beach, Honeymoon Track, Wedding Cake Rock and the Figure Eight Pools.
Like many within the Hughes electorate—almost 80 per cent, according to the most recent census—I was born in Australia, as were my parents and grandparents. I did not trouble the Liberal Party or the Australian Electoral Commission with section 44 constitutional issues when I nominated to run in the seat. My parents chose Cronulla to raise my sister, Jacqui, and me. I was a third-generation student at St George Girls High School, Kogarah, following in the footsteps of my mum and nanna. This was unusual in a public selective school where the values of old girls' traditions and alumni are not as customary as within the independent school system. I attended between 1983 and 1988, during a time when selective high schools, under a state Labor government, did not enjoy the popularity and support they do today. Regarded as elitist, there were many attempts to close down this model of providing an environment to nurture and support those who are academically gifted. I acknowledge my close friends Alex Wilson, nee Halyard; Jenni Maher, nee Jens; Carolyn Rider, nee Harries; and Trish Moore, with whom I travelled the traumas and triumphs of our school years. The friendship of our group of five has survived and flourished through weddings, divorces, children, parents' deaths, careers, businesses and the highs and lows of our post-schooling life.
I studied law after high school and specialised in planning, government and environmental law. At the time, this was not a jurisdiction that was particularly well known or sought after by junior lawyers. For me, it was a decision, probably unconsciously propelled by my property-loving father. As an aside, whilst most children of my generation were taken to parks and the zoo, my formative years were spent at real estate agents and looking at various properties around Sydney with dad. He never once attended a sporting match or taught me to throw a softball; instead, he instilled in me a strong interest in and love for property. Most of my legal career was spent in private sector law firms, including as a partner of national law firm Piper Alderman. During this period, I worked for local government clients as well as major property developers, and on some of the major sites around New South Wales. In 2013, fed up with a long commute and with a desire to become more involved in my boys' schooling, I joined Hurstville City Council as its inaugural general counsel. I also laboured under the very false impression that legal practice within local government would be less stressful and less busy than in the private sector. Instead, it simply paid much less.
In 2016, the then Baird government legislated its council amalgamation policy, and I became the first director of legal service and general counsel of Georges River Council. I worked under the administration of John Rayner and the CEO, Gail Connolly, two of the most capable and competent local government operators within our state. I cannot express how much I learnt under the leadership of Gail, who, now that she's no longer my boss, is a close friend. She presided over an executive team that was 75 per cent female, a first in local government and, sadly, unusual in the private and public sectors in 2022.
I am extraordinarily proud that I practised for most of my 26-year legal career in the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales. I acknowledge the significant impact the Hon. Justice Sandra Duggan SC had on me both professionally and personally. We first worked together in the Abbott Tout local government and planning group in the mid-1990s. At her swearing-in ceremony as a judge of the court, Her Honour made reference to the truth of the statement, 'You cannot be what you cannot see.' In that context, she was referring to her reality: that it took her five years of legal practice to see her first female barrister. For Her Honour and for many of our solicitors and barristers alike, the apparent barriers to ambitions collapsed with the historic appointment of the Hon. Mahla Pearlman as the first female judge of the court. With her appointment, she became its Chief Judge and the first female head of any jurisdiction in Australia.
My political ideology is driven by what I consider to be the best elements of liberal and conservative traditions espoused by Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill. Edmund Burke, father of modern conservatism, was, throughout his parliamentary career, also an acknowledged champion of liberty. He supported trade liberalisation, due process and constitutional protections while being critical of the overbearing state and its influence. John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist, advocated for the harm principle, an expression of the idea that the right to self-determination is not unlimited. An action which results in doing harm to another is not only wrong but wrong enough that the state should intervene to prevent that harm from occurring. However, his most important contribution was his advocacy for mandatory and widespread education for all citizens. This included the most disadvantaged and poor as a way to provide a fair start in what he called the 'race of life' for all people, so that everyone would have the opportunity to prosper.
Eighty years ago, when forming the Liberal Party, Robert Menzies spoke of the forgotten people, middle Australia, described as 'salary earners, shopkeepers, skilled artisans, professional men and women, farmers and so on. These are, in the political economic sense, the middle class'. In 2022, it is the Hughes electorate that embodies these values for which I stand. Our largest employer is the construction industry. These are skilled tradies, most of whom are simultaneously small-business owners. This is why I'm committed to liberalism, the rights of the individual, support for individual enterprise and governments facilitating an environment where individuals, families and businesses can thrive. My vision is to achieve what Menzies termed civilised capitalism, unleashing the power of the individual and their enterprise, while always providing a safety net for those who, despite their best efforts, are unable to cope.
In this 47th Parliament, my immediate objective within this House is to work within my party and under the leadership of Peter Dutton to hold this government to account. In the longer term, I intend to participate in the rebuilding of the Liberal Party within Hughes, within New South Wales and within Australia. This means embracing our females. I do not accept that the Labor Party is the natural or only home for Australian women. It was our Liberal founder who specifically spoke about the need for women within the party and as members of parliament. Furthermore, my role in rebuilding the Liberal Party will be in developing policy relevant to Australians within the Liberal brand of a strong economy and a fair society.
During the campaign and since being elected, housing affordability has been one of the key issues confronting people in Hughes and in Australia more broadly. This is not just a financial issue; it is a social issue and a political issue. The average median house price in the Hughes electorate is $1.5 million. We need to facilitate an environment where we as a country deliver broader housing choices, including greater choice for the 30 per cent of Australians who will always rent. Furthermore, we must develop a system that provides security of tenure, such as longer term leases, particularly for our most vulnerable, many of whom are often Australia's children. I will use the skills, expertise and experience I gained throughout my legal career to develop policies for the better planning and development of our cities, rolling out of infrastructure and provision of better housing and employment opportunities for Australians.
This year we celebrate 100 years of female suffrage in New South Wales. As a newly elected female Liberal, it is appropriate, and probably not unexpected, that I intended to support, mentor and empower women within Hughes and the wider community. This means addressing issues related to women's pay disparity and women's security. From my discussions and meetings with women support groups and our local police, it is clear that family and domestic violence is one of the leading concerns within the Hughes electorate. Federal governments can assist state and local governments to better resource refuges and provide for women fleeing violent men. As a mother of sons, I've always been conscious of the need to be a role model for them and to teach them how to treat women and to not be afraid of or threatened by women. Just as we teach our girls about the behaviour to which they are entitled and disentitled, we need to educate our boys about their treatment of women.
This 47th Parliament will be considering climate change. It is one of the leading contemporary issues facing our country and our world. It is important, though, to remember that when we are talking about climate change it is not just about the climate. It is about the environment. It is about the local environment—the parks, the waterways, the green spaces and biodiversity. The environment was a key issue that the people of Hughes stated as a concern during the recent election campaign. My approach to addressing this is through traditional conservative pathways. We can and should use the markets to incentivise small businesses to innovate and embrace high-tech manufacturing.
Furthermore, it is important to encourage and embrace cutting-edge technology. In that context I specifically mention SunDrive solar, located in the Hughes electorate. It is a solar technology start-up company that was founded in 2015 as a small PhD project in a garage. It is now producing some of the most efficient solar cells in the world. SunDrive has developed a new breed of solar cells that are more efficient, free of precious metals and less prone to degradation. All of that means cheaper solar panels and less environmental impact. I was fortunate to visit SunDrive during the election campaign. It is now gearing up to start high-tech manufacturing all within the Hughes electorate. This operation is an example of the best way to combat the challenges of climate change and address environmental issues under the cloak of both conservatism and liberalism.
As His Excellency said on Tuesday:
Acting on Climate Change is a priority for the Government—and an opportunity for Australia. Embracing the transition to clean energy will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
How do we transition to new technologies and a new economy while still maintaining affordable and reliable energy to Australian households and businesses? As coal was essential to the Industrial Revolution in Britain and Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, to propel us into modernity we now need to move into the next economy without total reliance on coal. This can only be done through hybrid models of renewable energy and must include nuclear.
Hughes has the only nuclear reactor in Australia. Because of that, I am committed to approaching how we can utilise the technology and innovation developed at Australia's Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, ANSTO, with nuclear medicine to answer our energy questions. Whilst my 15-year-old self, with a bedroom full of Midnight Oil posters and records, would be shuddering, the nuclear of 2022 is a very different thing to the nuclear of the past. Going into the future, as we develop an energy policy that will produce sufficient base load power, the research already undertaken and the development of innovative solutions at ANTSO should then become part of our national solution to our current energy crisis.
The last major platform I wish to address is education. I've been involved in my sons' education, from preschool, as president of the Gymea Community Preschool board, through to primary school, where I was the P&C president and vice president for six years. When I made my pitch for P&C president, I quoted Nelson Mandela's immortal words:
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
We need a national curriculum that is relevant, is empowering and builds in our children a lifelong love of learning. We need a TAFE and university system that is first-class, leads the world and provides students with job-readiness skills. We also need to recall the words of Plato, a proponent of women's education:
If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
This was stated in 376 BC.
In conclusion, I recently campaigned to deliver a fresh start for Hughes. The campaign was short, intense and grassroots. I thank my team, headed by Chris Downy and Cameron Walters, and managed by Max Bail and Haris Strangas, with Cameron Mort, Greg Barker, David Morris, Tony Walker and Steve Nikolovski forming the remainder of the executive team. I had many Young Liberals, Liberal Party members and non-party friends who assisted at pre-poll with letterboxing, doorknocking and social media, and ran booths for me. It was a team effort, and we got there against what seemed like insurmountable odds when I was endorsed only the day before the election was announced.
I thank my now federal colleagues Andrew Bragg, Marise Payne, Simon Birmingham, Angus Taylor and Paul Fletcher, who provided tremendous support throughout the campaign, and two no longer in this House: Josh Frydenberg and Jason Falinski. I thank my state colleagues and MPs: Lee Evans, member for Heathcote; New South Wales Attorney-General, Mark Speakman; and our Premier, Dominic Perrottet. To Ned Mannoun, the rockstar Mayor of Liverpool City Council: thank you for opening doors into the multicultural community within Hughes which were not open to me at the beginning of the election campaign.
There are a couple of others who need to be singled out for their mentoring, for their support, for refusing to give up on me and for ensuring that I remained in the race. To Michael Douglas, David Begg and Natalie Ward: thank you. To four staunch members of the New South Wales Liberal Party state executive who remained unwavering in seeking a democratic preselection process—Matthew Camenzuli, as well as my good friends Sally Betts, Sammy Elmir and Matt Hana—thank you for your courage. To my lifelong friends with whom I grew up in South Cronulla, Aruna Nair and Michelina Blasco: thank you for being here. We've been through everything in life together.
My staff have been instrumental in keeping me sane, establishing my office and knowing what to do on the many occasions when I have not known what to do. Jacob Sich, my chief of staff, thank you for staying one step ahead of me and for everything else you've done. Jessica Plater, Louise Eddy, Angus Ellisdon-Morris and Charles Swindon—you're the best staff ever. 'Thank you' seems inadequate—also, for your assistance with this speech. If there is disappointment, the fault is in the delivery rather than the content.
Last, although certainly not least important—my parents, Jan and Rob, without whom I wouldn't be here. My father instilled the highest of work ethics; my mum instilled a love of history and sport, as well as the mantra 'just be kind'.
My sons, James and Nicholas, have taught me so much, given me so much support throughout the campaign and continue to be my main reason for being in this House. Boys, for you and your generation, I am here to address issues so that, when you and your generation are running our country and our world, you'll be able to address your contemporary issues with confidence, compassion and competence. Boys, please remember to look after Tilly when I'm in Canberra.
To my husband, Michael—my rock, my partner in crime—thank you. Last year, in March, I turned to you and said, 'I have a question for you.' You said, 'Yes.' I said, 'You don't know the question.' You said: 'You want to run in Hughes. Go and do it. Go and win it. And don't worry about the boys; they have a father.'
To the people of Hughes, thank you. You have given me the best job in the world. I will always strive to be worthy of the faith and trust that you have placed in me.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr Freelander ): Before I call the honourable member for Ryan, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech and ask the House to extend to them the usual courtesies.
Ms WATSON-BROWN (Ryan) (10:42): I'm Elizabeth Watson-Brown, a proud Greens MP. I come from Meanjin—Brisbane—the lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal peoples, and I acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri owners of this land. I acknowledge the deep wounds to Australia's first peoples, their lands and their culture. I acknowledge that sovereignty of these lands was never ceded. I acknowledge the ancient truth of the ancestors and the shameful truth of our history with elders past, I sincerely undertake to seek treaty with elders present and I vow to listen respectfully to the voice of emerging elders.
My electorate of Ryan encompasses Brisbane's west side. It extends from the inner suburbs that line Maiwar, or the snaking Brisbane River—including Toowong, or bird call; Taringa, or place of stones; and Indooroopilly, or place of leeches—and fans out to the south-west, to the Pullen Pullen fighting grounds on the Moggill, or water dragon, peninsula. To the north-west, Ryan extends past Enoggera, or the corroboree, along the ancient walking tracks leading towards the Bora Grounds of Samford. At its heart is Mt Coot-tha, the honey mountain.
Today the electorate, I feel, is like a cross-section of contemporary Australia, from inner-urban apartment living, through suburbs and outer acreages, to farmland and major eucalypt forests. It has a mixed economy anchored by high-level research at the University of Queensland, CSIRO and the Wesley Hospital; bustling commerce at Indooroopilly and Toowong; and the presence of the Enoggera army base.
Ryan is diverse. Ryan has areas of real struggle—people the economy has left behind. Doorknocking, I met people, even with good secure jobs, who were facing eviction and homelessness because of the government's failure to seriously tackle skyrocketing house prices and rents.
As an ecology, Ryan provides a large, but increasingly precarious, habitat for native fauna. It's also becoming an increasingly vulnerable habitat for humans exposed to creek and riparian flooding, large areas of bushfire hazard and the rising risks of urban heat island impacts. On a good day, however, the view from the lookout on Mount Coot-tha—and you joined me there once, Adam—is spectacularly beautiful. And what I see when I see that view is like a map of my own life, holding key moments of my personal history and the places and people I love.
Growing up, my family was not overtly political but was centred on love of life, friends, each other. I'm so sad that mum and dad have not lived to share this day. It would have been another good excuse for a family party! Testament to mum and dad is the abiding closeness of we siblings, and my two loving sisters, Margie and Jane, and other family members that are here today, as they always are for me.
Also here, as always, is my husband of 44 years—patient, clever, kind, funny, supportive Peter. And sorry, Pete, for upending the retirement plans. We share a passion for architecture and for our sons, Bill and Alex, both wonderful men too, with partners and families that we love. So blessed. Thank you.
As parents in this room know, children bring an extra dimension that grounds and enriches life, and creates a deep, deep desire for a better future. It was the arrival of my beautiful and innocent grandchildren that spurred me to more direct political action. No longer content to yell at the news—because enough of the cruelty, right; enough of the venality, right?—I joined the Greens and took to the streets of Ryan. I knocked on many thousands of doors, talking with and listening to my community about how best to shape our shared future. I was supported, uplifted, inspired by a tremendous, tireless army of Greens volunteers and organisers, and mentored by my friend, Greens state member for Maiwar, Michael Berkman, and the remarkable Greens team. I just can't thank you enough. Thank you.
And to that remarkable team—some of whom are here today, and others watching together in Ryan—thank you all, because my presence here is not just the result of any one person, nor even just one election campaign. It's the result of years, of decades, of hard yakka—volunteers donating countless hours of work, building their community, talking to their neighbours about Greens ideas, working to make the change that we desperately need, showing how politics can be done differently.
My own politics was forged during my studies at the University of Queensland in Ryan—proudly—in the 1970s—that dates me! This was a really exciting time of political change and of cultural aspiration. Gough Whitlam's liberation of access to education and an expansive vision for Australia was contrasted by Joh Bjelke-Petersen's authoritarian state that set the police against we peaceful protesters for political, racial and environmental justice. We arrived at UQ in the month of the 1974 floods. Much of the campus had been underwater. Our first project as fledgling architects was to go and document the flood damage to houses. Of course, what we really saw was huge damage to people, to lives. That was heartbreaking, that was salutary and, since then, I have experienced two more unprecedented major Brisbane River floods in Ryan.
Our architectural education was at an exciting time. The bland international style was giving way to community architecture, social housing and heritage conservation. As a student and a graduate I was fortunate to work alongside talented architectural designers, but very few women. In 1981, I was one of the few women to establish her own architectural practice in Australia. So without any models or obvious mentors, I first had to design how to do it my way. I was shocked when my bank refused to let me open a business account without my husband's signature. My male colleagues have remembered the eighties as a time of corporate indulgence and long tax-deductible business lunches, while I was shocked to find that I could not deduct the childcaring costs that enabled my practice to exist. And I remain absolutely appalled that the cost of and access to child care remains a major impediment to equity of opportunity.
With determination and the support of my incredible staff and family I've had a long and successful career in architecture. My practice, Elizabeth Watson Brown Architects, grew over 21 years from one to 12 staff before merging with a national architecture practice when I was invited to be their design director. Throughout this whole time, whether in my own projects or on government advisory panels and juries, my design and life values have always been to prioritise the needs of people and their community and the specifics of the environment and the place.
As I've always said to my students and staff, what we're doing is really important. We're building the infrastructure of the lives we share. We'd better do it well; we'd better do it responsively and responsibly. I've worked across all scales, from the intimate to the urban scale, in design. But one early project of which I'm particularly proud was designing the first purpose-built refuge in Queensland for women and children escaping domestic violence. At its heart, of course, was a nurturing subtropical garden.
I say all this to try to explain where I'm coming from. I haven't followed a traditional path to politics. I didn't study politics. I haven't been a staffer for an MP. And obviously I've come to it later in life than most. In fact, my candidacy was the first time I'd ever done that, so it's been a bit of an adventure. But it's these values—prioritising the needs of the community and the sustainability and amenity of life, of our climate and environment—that I bring to represent my Ryan community in this chamber. These values are shared by the people on Brisbane's west side. Over the past few years I've met so many good Ryanites. I've personally knocked on at least 10,000 doors. The volunteers have done a lot, of course—more than that, in total. I've spent countless time at markets, at schools, with community groups. I truly love it. I'm a bit weird and a bit of a nerd about doorknocking—and I know Max shares that with me! And I intend to continue.
The key message that keeps coming from these conversations is that the people of Ryan want their politicians to put the needs of the community and the sustainability of our environment ahead of corporate interests and petty politicking. Despite what's often been said about the Greens in the media and in this very chamber, I reckon our ideas are really just common sense for most people. A planned phase-out of coal and gas in favour of renewables and green manufacturing: that's common sense for the people I've spoken to across Ryan. Bringing dental care into Medicare so no one has to skip the dentist because of cost: that's common sense for the people I've spoken to across Ryan. Making billionaires pay their fair share so we can afford the things that make sure everyone has the basics they need to live a good life: again, that's common sense for the majority in Ryan. Building enough public and affordable housing so everyone has a place to call home; neighbourhoods that are walkable and cyclable and not being trampled by the interests of big developers or airport corporations; public transport that's cheap or free and that is fully accessible and genuinely integrated—these are all logic; these are all commonsense values shared by the majority of people in Ryan and, I would suggest, across the country.
I think if everyone genuinely listened to their communities then perhaps they'd realise this, too. But, unfortunately, I believe that instead of listening to everyday people the major parties in this country over recent decades have increasingly listened to the interests of big corporations. Why is that? Is it to do with the millions of dollars in donations flowing from big corporations to both the major political parties, or the revolving door between major political parties, big corporations, lobby groups and indeed government boards? Or is it to do with the now decades-long bipartisan addiction to neoliberal economic thinking, which—despite all evidence to the contrary, I believe—holds that the private market is the best way to deliver everything, including essential services and infrastructure? What I heard from the people of Ryan was that they were heartily sick of that. They felt ignored and abandoned, and they clearly wanted change. I think the new complexion of this House reflects that.
As the Greens spokesperson for transport, cities and infrastructure in this parliament, I wanted to end by returning to the question of design and development, because in my career I've seen firsthand the problems caused by the belief that public infrastructure should be developed and owned by private corporations. This has a profoundly negative effect on our ability to deliver for everyday people and communities. My experience of public-private partnerships, or 'PPPs' in the lingo, is that the private 'P' bit is what undermines the benefit to the public, as do planning regulations favouring private developers and profits. I'm here to say that public infrastructure should be in public hands, and that we need a public led approach to the way we develop our cities.
This is particularly urgent in the context of the climate crisis and the inequality crisis—so closely interrelated. Australia's cities actually house about 85 per cent of our population and generate the majority of our carbon pollution. Without exception, Australian cities were established at places of great natural resources and beauty. Our reliance on private cars is rapidly obliterating these natural assets, with unsustainable outward sprawl, inward traffic congestion and concrete chaos. Our conditions in Australia should allow us all to harness the power of the sun and breezes to heat, cool, electrify and vegetate our cities, yet unthinking planning to this day treats energy as a throwaway resource. On a social level, the diverse humanity of our cities is lost when only the rich can afford a roof over their heads, and when those who have been dealt hardships in life are moved on, out of sight.
The climate crisis, caused by the greed of coal, oil and gas industries, now continually tosses up unheard-of temperatures, floods, fires, droughts and heatwaves. Our buildings and our cities should protect us from these attacks, but they only make them worse. Urban hardening multiplies flash flooding effects, while devegetation accelerates urban heat island effects that amplify deadly heatwaves. We must design our settlements to accommodate and nurture everyone, to resist natural hazards and to allow us to flee safely when the next catastrophe inevitably strikes. In our last unprecedented, devastating flood, whole suburbs in Ryan were trapped. People had nowhere to go, with no help when they needed it. We need to do better, and we need to do it fast.
These are exceptional times, and we Greens are committed to ensuring that this House faces up to these unprecedented challenges and has the collective will to enact climate action now. That includes climate-proofing our cities and infrastructure. We've got to confront these serious issues together in this, the 47th Parliament, and not delay action. Australia's leading scientists, environmentalists, planners, designers and the community are keen to help. We need to invite them to the table.
When asked if I'm ready for the rough-and-tumble of this House—and I witnessed some of it yesterday—I reply that I have worked more than 40 years in a male-dominated profession where heated disputes over money, timing and outcome are not uncommon. I spent a lot of time on building sites, too. My role in practice, however, has been one of collaboration, not conflict, helping lead design teams, clients and builders towards creative solutions that benefit and endure. My campaign T-shirt featured the motto 'designing our future together', and I'm really determined to carry the spirit of collaboration into this chamber to reflect and represent the interests, the needs and the smarts of the people of Ryan. Thank you, Ryan, my home, for the faith and hope you've placed in me. I'm going to work hard with my amazing colleagues to honour it for a future for all of us.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr Freelander ): Before I call the honourable member for Curtin, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech, and I ask that the House extend to her the usual courtesies.
Ms CHANEY (Curtin) (11:01): Thank you for the privilege of participating in the debate on the address-in-reply today, and I commend the member for Ryan on her speech.
I acknowledge that I'm speaking today on the land of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, and I pay my respects to their elders and the elders of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, the traditional custodians of my home in Western Australia.
When I was five, I visited Parliament House. The only thing I remember is that, in the cafe, I saw a man eating a banana with a knife and fork. It was very intimidating and a little bit strange—a little bit like this week has been. I never thought that I would end up here. In January this year, I was asked to run as an Independent candidate in the seat of Curtin. For two weeks, the thought of it made me feel like vomiting. There were so many reasons not to do it: my three kids, the lifestyle of a Western Australian federal politician and the inevitable public scrutiny and attack. This was a safe Liberal seat, the election was only four months away and I had no political experience. But there was one main reason to do it, and that was that it mattered.
Increasingly, our community did not feel represented in the decisions of the day. It seemed that the serious work of policy development had been overshadowed by short-termism and political pointscoring. We were not addressing the big issues that would affect whether Australia flourishes over the next generation. I spoke to my husband and my three children about the decision, which obviously had serious implications for them. The next day, my 10-year-old daughter said, 'Mum, I think this would be bad for me in the short term because we'll miss you, but I think it'll be good in the long term because it will be good for Australia.' That was when I knew I had to do this.
I came to be here because of a community group. The Curtin Independent group started with a cafe conversation between Tony Fairweather, who had a niggling sense of dissatisfaction and a folder of papers, and Sarah Silbert, who helped Tony turn that feeling into action. They connected with Louise Jones, Anthony Maslin, Justin Kennedy and Charlie Caruso, and the community grew, looking for a candidate. When I agreed to run, this community group formed the core of the campaign team, supplemented by some wise and trusted advisers like Sarah Allchurch, John Atkins, Fred Chaney and Liz Constable. I'm very grateful for the incredible support and energy of the whole team. We planned to launch the campaign in a park, with a week's notice. We stood in the sunshine, and then we watched as hundreds of people streamed in from all directions. We slowly realised that we were not alone in our dissatisfaction and our desire for change.
Seventeen-year-old Ruby Paterson came with her little brother, her parents and her grandmother. I'd never met Ruby before, but she became a symbol in my mind of why I was here. She's in year 12, brimming with potential and hope. Ruby and her family wanted to see politics done differently, so they turned up and they became the movement. They formed bonds of trust with a pop-up community that shared the same thirst for long-term thinking, compassion and integrity. They arrived expecting the best from themselves and each other, and so they were not disappointed.
Change happens at the speed of trust. Trust grew rapidly, and, in four months, we achieved the improbable. Nearly 900 volunteers and 500 donors brought their diverse skills and enthusiasm to grassroots politics. Most of them had never been involved in politics before. We had Ian, a surgeon, folding T-shirts; Wendy a retired teacher, riding her campaign bike around the electorate until it faded; Jimmy, a physio, knocking on doors; and hundreds of people delivering flyers. Our campaign was positive, it was hopeful and it was fun. I'm not going to attempt to thank the campaign team and the volunteers by name as there are too many. You know who you are and I thank you for the time you put in, seen and unseen. You have done an extraordinary thing. Just thinking about this community, which didn't exist at Christmas time and is now so rich with goodwill and optimism, brings me close to tears. People are amazing. In the words of Margaret Wheatley, 'There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.'
Curtin stretches between the edge of Perth and the Indian Ocean, bordered by the beautiful Derbarl Yerrigan—the Swan River—from Mosman Park up to Gwelup. Its lakes, rivers and coastline are cared for by a network of volunteer environmental groups who form part of its rich social fabric along with sporting clubs, numerous primary and secondary schools, and nine local councils. With a university and a hospital, it's full of knowledge and experience. It has almost entirely been represented by Liberal members since its establishment in 1949, most recently by Celia Hammond and Julie Bishop before her, and I thank both of them for their service to the community.
Knocking on 10,000 doors, the team and I had a glimpse of the diversity of life experience and expertise within Curtin. No matter what their circumstances were, far from the confected outrage of social media, in person, people were kind, compassionate, wise and concerned for our future. My community expressed a deep desire to see better long-term thinking in our leadership and a more collaborative, positive approach. People told me they cared about climate action, returning integrity to politics, economic reform to meet the challenges of the future and support for inclusive, compassionate communities.
Democracy is messy and imperfect, but it gives me hope that communities can successfully put up their own candidate in the face of the historically dominant two-party system. I, and the other community Independents who now surround me, have overcome an uneven playing field. Many of us were supported by the thousands of donors to Climate 200, who could see that action on climate was going to require some new voices in the parliament. I'm grateful to Climate 200's thousands of donors and the vision of Climate 200's founders.
So why me? I was brought up in Curtin in a large family that values service to community, whether in education, business, law or politics. From my mother, Rose Chaney, I got a sense of optimism and community. My father, Michael Chaney, gave me his thinking style. My siblings, Tom, Anna and Amelia, have an incredible generosity of spirit. If you ask for help, the answer is always an immediate and genuine 'yes'. I have had the advantages of a stable, supportive family, high expectations and many opportunities, which I took up with the earnest, nerdy enthusiasm of a first child. I'm very aware that it's not fair that I had these opportunities. It's difficult to know the best way to respond to the unfairness of your own privilege. I know that good fortune is not merit. But I can use what I have to work for change.
My career in law, strategy, management and community services has prepared me for what I hope to achieve in this House. As a lawyer, I advised companies on mergers and individuals at Redfern Legal Centre on debt matters. As a strategy consultant, I grappled with problems in Sydney boardrooms and remote communities in Cape York. In the private sector, I developed reconciliation action plans and a sustainability strategy for one of Australia's largest companies, and in the community services sector I worked in partnership with government on innovative service design. Through these jobs, I've learned different approaches to solving complex problems and how to build consensus. I've learned about the deep disadvantages experienced by some and the challenges in building support systems to reduce those disadvantages. My career so far has taught me that there is rarely a black-and-white answer, there's always room to improve a solution after consultation and there is no one right way of thinking. I believe these will be useful lessons in this House.
I worked part-time while we had young kids, and my husband, Bill, who has a significant career of his own, has shared the parenting and the domestic work. I'm very grateful for his strong support and I will miss his cooking while I am in Canberra. I'm incredibly proud of my three kids, George, Fred and Olive, and I thank them for their support in this unexpected life change.
I have agonised about how much I should talk about my wider family. I am here because of my community, but my family has contributed to who I am. I am in the extraordinary position of having five relatives across the last four generations to serve in Australian parliaments. There's a thread to my family political history of independent thought.
On my dad's side, I have two uncles who served in this parliament for the Liberal Party between the seventies and the nineties. Fred Chaney was much loved by both side of politics and was ahead of his time and his party on Aboriginal rights. Ross McLean, my other uncle, referred in his first speech to the importance of marrying free enterprise with social justice.
My grandfather, also Fred Cheney, who was a rural school teacher after returning from the war, came from a strong Labor family whom he shocked when he entered politics as a Liberal. In his first speech he acknowledged that the acceptance of new migrants was proof of Australia's coming of age.
On my mother's side my great-grandfather and his father, Hubert and Henry Parker, were both in the Western Australian parliament. My great-great-grandfather was known as 'The People's Harry' because he sided with the underdog. In fact, he ran, unsuccessfully, in 1905 as the leader of the short-lived Independent Party.
It's hard to accurately see your own influences and dangerous to retrospectively fit them into a neat narrative, but I am sure these men in my family tree have in some way contributed to my strong sense of social justice and public service.
The women in my family have served their communities in quieter ways, as was expected in their time. My grandmother Delphine Anderson, who is currently recovering from COVID at 96, told me the other day about going with her father to the meeting where Sir Robert Menzies made the case for the establishment of the modern Liberal Party in the 1940s.
I have never felt a pull towards either political party, feeling stranded in the middle, but I feel a pull when I read the words of Menzies, who said he looked forward 'to a better distribution of wealth, to a keener sense of social justice and social responsibility'. I wonder if that might've been a party I would've been willing to join.
In reflecting on the first speeches of my relatives I noticed that some things in politics don't change. They all speak about the distribution of limited resources, where the government is spending too much or too little and the balance between state and federal roles. These issues will continue to occupy the minds of the people in this House. But I am struck by the huge challenges we faced and overcame in each generation. How we chose to address these challenges informs the assumptions of the next generation. In the 19th century it was the concept of federation and the need to develop fundamental infrastructure for an economy. A generation later it was the Depression, then nuclear war and waves of migration, and the economic headwinds of the 1970s.
The promising thing is that we managed these challenges. We built railways, ports and telegraph lines. We became a federation. We emerged from the Great Depression and various recessions. We saw off the immediate threat of nuclear war. We welcomed new migrants. It's important to remember this as we face the long-term issues of our day.
The challenges we face today require an even longer-term view than the seven generations of my family in Australia. We need to learn from the perspectives of our First Nations people, such as my friends Carol Innes and Colleen Hayward, Noongar elders who carry the local histories of not a mere seven generations but thousands. They have a collective memory of the time when Wadjemup, Rottnest Island, was joined to the mainland of my electorate more than 6,000 years ago.
Their sense of the long term brings a deeply sophisticated knowledge of a society in delicate balance with its natural resources, in tune with the cycle of time. This was dramatically interrupted by the painful arrival of a people with a linear view of time. Even in Western cultures the concept of time as linear is only 500 years old, but it's deeply embedded. We believe in the inevitability and inherent rightness of 'progress'. We measure progress in GDP, and assume that more is always better. This concept of progress has provided incredible leaps in life expectancy, population growth and interconnectedness. But we are now at an extraordinary uncomfortable juncture where even this assumption must be questioned in the policy decisions of the day. The trajectory of 'progress' that we're on as a species may cast us as the engineers of our own extinction. We're facing the reality that endless material growth is a myth built into all of our systems and decisions. We must find different ways to define and measure progress and wealth.
Questioning fundamental assumptions like this is painful. We can learn from the deep wisdom of First Nations ways of thinking and being. In Paul House's words at the opening of this parliament on Tuesday: 'Please look after the land and the rivers, and the land and the rivers will look after you.'
Our ability to address climate change depends on a uniquely human attribute. As a species we've thrived on this planet because of our ability to cooperate and work to a common purpose as communities. It's this spirit of cooperation that will be needed. The climate bill that was introduced into this House yesterday is a symbolic step in the right direction. We need to go further, but we need to start somewhere. The opportunity is huge—Western Australia should be leading the world in renewable energy. As decision-makers in this House we must balance this long-term imperative with shorter-term, more human-scale issues, to ensure stability and a smooth and fair transition.
My community recognises that we must rebuild trust and confidence in our institutions. We'll only be able to make these long-term decisions if the people of Australia believe that we are acting in their best interests. Politicians are frequently seen as the least trusted of all professions. Rebuilding trust in our democracy will require structural change and cultural change. Australians need to know that corruption will be uncovered and systems reformed to prevent it happening again. I'm optimistic that the proposed anticorruption commission is a step towards rebuilding trust in our public leaders. My community also wants to see transparency in political campaigns—they want to know who is funding their candidates in real time.
Cultural change will be harder. People in my electorate are sick of politics being about petty pointscoring and the poor treatment of women. They want robust but constructive debate on the issues. We need to take the best ideas from wherever they come, and to treat parliament as a policy workshop not a gladiatorial battleground. I'm optimistic that this is possible, even though battles entice more clicks than respectful collaboration. Politicians must be able to change their minds when new evidence arises, without being accused of flip-flopping, to give credit where it's due without being considered weak, to try new approaches that sometimes fail. We can't be paralysed into inaction by fear of unpopularity or criticism.
We're likely to have some tough economic times ahead, with a global downturn, rising interest rates and inflation confirmed by yesterday's announcements. We have wage stagnation, flatlining productivity, labour shortages and almost a trillion dollars in debt. Economic reform has ground to a halt over the last decade. Addressing many of our economic challenges will require bold, long-term thinking. We need a tax system that's fair, equipped for the demographic challenges of the coming decades, and that can fund dignified support for our elders, people with disabilities and people experiencing hard times. We need a long-term plan to ensure that the purpose of housing is to provide people with homes, and that a home is within reach.
The people of Curtin want to be able to work hard and reap the rewards, but protecting individual rights need not erode our sense of community. Humans need each other, and individual rights come with community responsibilities. We are lonelier, more depressed and more stressed than we used to be. Government support systems need to be designed to empower people to support and connect with each other not to punish and isolate them.
The people of my community have told me they want to look our history in the eye and rewrite the future of our relationship with our First Nations peoples. The First Nations voice to parliament will not address the urgent issues facing remote communities, but it will give us a chance to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma. It's an important piece of long-term thinking that will need to be accompanied by policies to address the immediate needs of First Nations people. My community no longer wants to wince when it sings the second verse of our national anthem:
… For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share; …
We want to treat asylum seekers with dignity and compassion and feel proud that Australia is fulfilling its international obligations in a way consistent with our great privilege. We want to live in inclusive communities, where people can be their whole selves no matter their gender, sexuality, race or religion. It's these values and priorities that I bring from my past and my community into this House.
Our challenge as leaders is to listen deeply—beyond the daily rhythm of the Twitter feed, the weekly rhythm of the lead media story, the yearly rhythm of the pandemic and the electoral cycle rhythm of the rise and fall of political parties—to the deep, slow heartbeat of the decades. Our decisions need to balance all these rhythms and turn them into the music of our generation. As a mum I am driven by the heartbeats and the future of my children. I balance the short term and the long term every day, making decisions for their long-term welfare even if they'd much rather stay glued to their screens.
At the end of this century, I hope that my great-great-grandchildren will look back with gratitude and wonder on the decisions I was part of; I hope they will see the assumptions we challenged and overcame and the way we used cooperation and ingenuity to turn our planet around. Of course, it will all be history by then and so immutable, just as we take for granted the outcomes of wars, the ending of recessions and the granting of rights to marginalised people. I hope that, by then, we will have the luxury of taking for granted our decarbonised economy, the care of our most vulnerable, our focus on wellbeing, and the integrity of our political system. I hope that, by then, we can move on to more subtle and less existential challenges, and talk with amusement about the time when we extracted our energy from the earth, not the sky.
These are big words and concepts. They raise the inevitable question of what I, as one voice in 151, can possibly achieve. No matter your role, it's easy to feel powerless, but the only way anything changes is if people believe it's possible. My very wise uncle Fred, who's an inspiration to me, advised me to listen to Hal Wootten, an Australian judge, who said:
I believe it is not just judges, but every man and woman who, in everything they do, can give the world little nudges that, in conjunction with all its other little nudges, can affect where the world goes.
As I join the 1,240 people who have served in this House since Federation, I will apply little nudges in the direction that's consistent with my values and the values of my community in Curtin. I will always vote with my conscience. I will be constructive, collaborative and optimistic. I will speak truth to power when needed, driven by the desire for better outcomes—not the desire for the appearance of influence. I will act in good faith, with integrity and in the interests of our children and our grandchildren. I'm excited about the challenges ahead, and I thank the community of Curtin for the faith they've put in me to represent them.
The DE PUTY SPEAKER ( Dr Freelander ): Before I call the honourable member for Flynn, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech, and I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies.
Mr BOYCE (Flynn) (11:24): It is difficult to put into words the enormous pride I feel standing here in the chamber of the House of Representatives as part of the 47th Parliament of Australia to deliver my maiden speech. It is a political milestone for me, as I have now represented my communities at all three levels of government: local, state and federal.
There is much to say and there are many to thank, and, as my fellow parliamentarians will know, the stony road to parliament is not a journey that one makes alone. Rather, it is an effort of many: family, friends, volunteers, donors, political party people, complete strangers and, of course, the voting public. All have made a contribution to make my campaign a success. I would sincerely like to thank everyone who has helped me to achieve this position as the federal member for Flynn. It is truly an honour to be elected by the people of Flynn and to join the ranks of the parliamentarians who have come before me. I do not take this lightly, and I pledge my loyalty to the people of Flynn and earnestly thank them for putting their trust in me. I will be their champion, and I will most ardently defend their future and their prosperity.
There has been one universal constant throughout my political career so far, and that is my wife of 35 years, Terri. Terri has been a monumental rock of unwavering support and certainly my biggest supporter and, at the same time, an unrelenting critic. There's been an old, longstanding adage that behind every good man is an incredible woman, and there in the gallery is living proof of that. I would like to thank my children—Sarah, Tom and Scott—and their families for their assistance in supporting me during the campaigning and for maintaining our rural properties while we were travelling the electorate of Flynn. I would also like to acknowledge my mother, Inge Lise, who is unwell in hospital and, I know, will be watching today.
My first memory is of sitting on my father's lap beside a wood stove. It was early in the morning and it was cold. On the table before us was a radio in a brown leather case, and the man who was reading the news said, 'The President of the United States of America, John F Kennedy, is dead.' So profound was the voice of the newsreader that I remember it to this day. That was my first experience of an event that changed the world. In my life I have seen many events that have changed the world, how we do things and how opinions change. I have seen many droughts, floods and fires. I have learned that Australia is a land of extremes, yet I am yet to see the record floods that happened in Queensland in the 1890s, two generations ago, and that bring meaning to Dorothea Mackellar's words:
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
I grew up in the bush in central western Queensland. I remember candles, kerosene lanterns, kerosene fridges, 32-volt lighting plants, party-line telephones, mosquito nets and flypaper. There were the wood stove and the wood heap; the axe and the chopping block; the chook pen where the eggs came from; and the garden where the vegetables grew. Trips to town were rare events, and with the exception of the mailman, who came weekly, we would see no-one other than our immediate family for weeks. Times have changed. No longer is this lifestyle normal in rural Australia; rather, it is the exception. This is because of the advance of technology, the availability of energy and the options and opportunities that this has provided.
One of the biggest issues the world faces is food security, and our ability to provide enough food will be one of our greatest challenges as we move to the future. History has shown us that there is nothing like hunger to drive political change and turmoil. Both the French and Russian revolutions were driven by the fact that the people were starving. We are seeing a situation unfolding right now in Eastern Europe, which traditionally produces one-quarter of the world's wheat crop. This production is likely to be severely limited given the war in Ukraine. This will ultimately affect Australia, as a world shortage of wheat will increase the commodity value. Bread will more than likely become more expensive as a result. If you live in sub-Saharan Africa or any other Third World country, the prospect of famine is ever more real.
Closer to home, look at what is happening in Sri Lanka, where a small nation that produces a surplus of food now cannot feed itself, all because of a seriously bad political decision to ban agricultural chemicals and fertilizers and become totally organic. This has resulted in riots and political turmoil. The advent of lumpy skin disease and foot and mouth disease in Indonesia, and particularly Bali, and varroa mites in our beehives in New South Wales, has highlighted the fact that biosecurity needs to be taken seriously by all of us to ensure Australia's ability to produce food. We need to be ever-vigilant and more proactive, educating people how vulnerable our industry is, rather than reactive after the fact should exotic diseases come to Australia. These diseases and pests could severely limit our ability to produce food.
Mankind is changing and adapting, as it always has, ever since we evolved from the creatures of the Rift Valley. Climate is changing, as it always has for billions of years since the dawn of time. We have geological and archaeological evidence from the past that shows us that there have been many changes in the earth's history, from ice ages to the era of the dinosaur, to the evolution of modern man. We must use our technology and look at the past to understand our history and learn from it so we can better understand our path to the future.
Flynn is a large electorate in Central Queensland, approximately twice as big as Tasmania, covering some 132,000 square kilometres. It has three coal-fired power stations—Stanwell, Callide and Gladstone—providing generation capacity of 4,635 megawatts of baseload power. There are 15 large coalmines, projected to produce 90 million tonnes of coking and thermal coal this financial year. There is the CSG gas industry, producing approximately 25 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas, which is exported to the world through the port of Gladstone.
Gladstone is home to Rio Tinto, Boyne Island alumina smelter, the Yarwun alumina refinery and the QAL refinery, which is one of the world's largest refineries, with a capacity to produce 3.9 million tonnes of alumina. Gladstone is Queensland's largest multicommodity shipping port and the world's fourth largest coal-exporting terminal. We support a huge agricultural sector, producing everything in terms of food and fibre for Australia and the world. The heavy engineering sector and the transport sector of road, rail and shipping all combine to make the Flynn electorate an economic powerhouse that generates the wealth for Australia, for the Australian economy.
The industries of Flynn are heavy carbon emitters and therefore most vulnerable to the economic effects of any emissions target proposals, and it is these arguments that pose the biggest threat to our jobs, our livelihoods and our future prosperity, both as a region and as a nation. There has not yet been a definitive explanation to what effect zero net carbon legislation, renewable energy targets and environmental constraints will have on people's jobs, particularly in Central Queensland, where everyone is connected to the agriculture, mining, resource, heavy industry, power generation and transport sectors in one way, shape or form. This is a question that needs to be answered.
The Central Highlands Regional Council, based in Emerald, derives approximately half of its rate revenue from the coal and resource sector. If we as a nation are to oversee the demise of the coal and gas industries, where is this revenue going to come from? This is a question that needs to be answered.
The argument that global warming has been caused by human emissions and there is a need for drastic action is based entirely on computer modelling. Climate, atmospheric and ocean temperature models over the last few decades have all been checked with actual measurements, and all of the predictions have been wrong. There have been the most outrageous claims made in recent decades about pending climate catastrophe that simply have not happened: 'The icecaps will melt. There will be catastrophic sea level rises. The polar bears will die. There will be tens of millions of climate refugees. We've got 90 days to save the planet,' and so on. It is preposterous to suggest that computer models can predict the climate future when input data and parameters are manipulated, flawed and wrong—rubbish in, rubbish out. If there is one universal truth, it is this: if the theory does not agree with practice, the theory is wrong every time, no exceptions.
Last year some 25,000 world leaders and bureaucrats converged on Glasgow for the climate conference. Many nations of the world, including Australia, agreed to the proposal to reach zero net carbon emissions by 2050. Since then, Russia has invaded the Ukraine, and Eastern Europe is at war. This event has exposed energy policy and national security in many EU countries as desperately lacking. Germany is arguably one of the world's most technologically advanced industrial nations on earth. They find themselves in a position where their renewable energy and emissions policy has exposed their national security. Russia now has the ability to bring Germany to its economic knees simply by turning the gas off. As a result, the German government has overturned its decision to phase out coal-fired power stations and nuclear power plants. France is considering more nuclear power, as is Italy. The UK has realised it cannot meet its carbon emissions commitments.
The world is demanding more coal, gas, petroleum and nuclear. Nobody is asking for more wind turbines or solar panels. The reason for that is simple: for the foreseeable future, the world is reliant on fossil fuels and nuclear for its energy. The renewables sector simply cannot supply frequent baseload power. Recent media reports say that Europe is abandoning net zero. It's quite clear that carbon emissions commitments made at Glasgow are now viewed by many to be nothing more than aspirational virtue signalling agreements that are unrealistic and unachievable in the real, practical world given the geopolitical events of recent times.
Here in Australia we seem to ignore the lessons being learnt in Europe. We are preparing to legislate carbon emissions targets and make them law. We as a nation are proposing to phase out the coal-fired power generation sector while the rest of the world are building and demanding more. World carbon emissions continue to rise, and we as Australians seem quite prepared to adopt energy policy and environmental policy that will lead to economic ruin and achieve and prove nothing in relation to the rest of the world. This has been clearly stated by Australia's former Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel. What Australia is trying to achieve amounts to virtually nothing.
There's a proposal to build an industrial-scale green hydrogen industry at Gladstone that will repower business and industry of the world. It will eventually replace coal and gas industries and be a world-leading alternative energy source. This green hydrogen will be produced by water electrolysis, using electrolysers powered by renewable energy from wind farms and solar farms. The production of industrial-scale hydrogen has huge issues and problems that have not been addressed or discussed publicly. Hydrogen is promoted as a saviour, the silver bullet for future energy needs. It will power everything from the backyard barbecue to an industrial blast furnace.
Hydrogen is extremely dangerous. It is extremely flammable and has specific qualities that make industrial quantities of hydrogen very difficult to produce, store, transport and use. In 1937 the zeppelin exploded. In 1986 the space shuttle Challenger exploded. In 2011 in Fukushima, Japan, a nuclear reactor plant exploded. More recently and close to home, the Callide C4 coal-fired generator exploded. These are all catastrophic hydrogen explosions.
You can't mine hydrogen; you have to make it. Through water electrolysis we can destroy the water molecule and produce hydrogen and oxygen. This is the basis of the proposal at Gladstone. The amount of renewable energy required to power the electrolysers to produce industrial quantities of green hydrogen is enormous. I will attempt to outline a ballpark scenario with back-of-the-envelope figures that will give an idea of the gargantuan scale of trying to produce industrial quantities of hydrogen similar to the CSG gas industry at Gladstone.
Coopers Gap Wind Farm in Jandowae in Queensland is Australia's biggest wind farm. It has a generation capacity of 430 megawatts. If you multiply that over a year, Australia's biggest wind farm has enough power to make approximately 30,000 tonnes of hydrogen. This is very little in terms of industrial quantities. If you multiply that by a factor of a hundred, you get three million tonnes of hydrogen, which is getting into the realms of industrial quantities. So you have to multiply Coopers Gap by a factor of a hundred. Coopers Gap has 123 turbines, so you would need 12,300 wind turbines, or the equivalent, to power a three-million-tonne-per-annum hydrogen industry. Coopers Gap cost $850 million to build. So, by my estimates, there would have to be in excess of a $100 billion investment if we want to go with the wind farm scenario to generate power to make hydrogen—just at Gladstone.
What really troubles me is the amount of land that would be required. The footprint of a large wind turbine is approximately 25 hectares. In rough round figures, 3,000 square kilometres of land would be required for the wind farm scenario. To put that into perspective, there'd be a wind turbine every few hundred metres all the way from Gladstone to Biloela in a corridor 30 kilometres wide. I shall require more staff in my office to deal with the complaints.
The ability to produce enough freshwater is another big issue that remains unresolved. You need 10 litres of water to create a kilo of hydrogen. Industrial quantities of hydrogen require industrial quantities of freshwater. There are no plans to build any large water storages to supply a proposed industrial-scale hydrogen industry. There are proposals to build desalination plants and use seawater, but this requires more energy and creates the problem of dealing with the brine that is created. Pumping brine into the ocean would be devastating for the Great Barrier Reef. Desalination plants have notoriously been inefficient and expensive, and I look forward to the ABC investigative journalism team reporting on this. Ordinary hardworking people in Gladstone and in Australia deserve to hear the truth.
I support the development of new technology, including hydrogen; however, I would question the huge amounts of government subsidies that have been allocated to such proposals, particularly when there are many issues that have not been satisfactorily addressed—aged care, child care, health care, the cost of living, social housing, housing affordability and so on. I have no doubt that a hydrogen industry will be developed in Gladstone. However, the practical and economic realities of doing this on a huge, industrial scale have not been investigated or understood. It should be the market that provides the bulk of the investment to such proposals, not the government.
To my fellow Australians, I say this: caveat emptor. Ordinary Australian people require and deserve the basics of life—food security, water security, energy security and national security. I have made a mound, and I stand upon it. I will be on good terms with all persons as far as possible without surrender, and I will leave the House with one final thought: de omnibus dubitandum—question everything. I commend my speech to the House.
The DEPUTY SPEA KER ( Mr Vasta ): I thank the honourable member for Flynn, and I wish him well in this, the 47th Parliament.
Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (11:45): It has been wonderful hearing the new members from right across the parliament share their stories and their hopes for this parliament. I too would like to do that. It's been a long time since Labor sat on this side of the chamber. It's the first time I've had the privilege to do so, and I'm very honoured to be here.
The issue that we have faced, which I've spoken about many times from the other side, has really been about the failure of those who sat on these benches on this side of the House to pay heed to the needs of my electorate, the electorate of Macquarie, the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, which has so many natural attributes but has also suffered so much since I have been in this place. The overwhelming emotions that people shared with me when the election result was known were of hope—hope that things could now be different, that they could be better—and a sense of relief that now the grown-ups were back in charge. We absolutely intend to meet the expectations that our communities have of us with the privilege of being on this side of the House.
In the last 2½ years, my community has faced four natural disasters plus many other weather events that don't rate as natural disasters. That has created a community that feels really under the pump. You add COVID to that and you have individuals feeling anxious and stressed. You have children who feel fearful when it rains, or have flashbacks of the 2019-20 bushfires when they smell smoke. You have a local economy that feels like a pressure cooker. There is not as much money flowing through the local economy, and people are telling me they're really feeling pressure that they have never felt before. I think we have a job, now that we are in government, to do everything we can to alleviate that pressure, to allow people to live their lives without the feeling of a threat hanging over them. That's certainly what many of the commitments I made during the campaign, and have made over many years, will allow us to do.
The very first of those commitments is, of course, related to legislation that we already introduced this week, and that is action on climate change. Many of our issues are related to that. We are at the forefront of experiencing the effects of climate change. It's not something esoteric to us. It's not something off in the future. It's something that happened a few weeks ago, a couple of months before that and a year before that. We are feeling that. I've just come from a briefing with the insurance industry, who advised me that my community has the highest premiums in the state. We are already paying the price for a lack of action to tackle climate change, thanks to those who for the last decade were in the position that we're in now. That's just shameful.
Our action on climate change is going to be one of the things that fundamentally gives hope to my community, hope that we can mitigate some of the effects that we are feeling. On top of that, I'm very proud to be able to provide tangible supports. One of the things we rely on right across Australia when there are natural disasters is volunteers. The volunteer workforce—who are in the Rural Fire Service, who are in the SES and who, in fact, are people who volunteer for Anglicare or the Red Cross—are the ones who keep stepping up and stepping up, time and time again.
One of my commitments relates directly to the Rural Fire Service and the SES. I've made sure that they are going to see funds coming to them that allow them to make decisions for their own rural fire brigade, their Rural Fire Service headquarters or their SES headquarters that make their life easier and make it easier for them to serve the community in the way they choose to do it. Every rural fire brigade in my electorate will receive $50,000, and that will allow them to make decisions about what their volunteers need. Already they're starting to think about what might be useful, and it ranges from mental health support through to a washing machine. Quite frankly, they are at the point of realising they do not want to take contaminated, smoke-filled clothes back to their family homes to ask family members to wash, or to throw in their domestic washing machine. So these are really practical things that make it easier for them to be volunteers. That is how we can start to alleviate some of the stress on the ground, and I hope that what it will do is make up for years of not being able to fundraise. When you're in the disaster and when you're recovering from the disaster, it is very hard to go to your community and ask them to give more, given that so many of them are suffering themselves.
I really want to shout out to the RFS and SES, who, of course, only in the last few weeks, have yet again stepped up. They're not alone. I spoke yesterday in this place about some of the many volunteers who get involved when there is a disaster, in the operation of it and in the recovery. We have a commitment to make sure those recoveries are easier. It's never going to be easy, but we need to give people a way forward. I have high expectations that, over the next little while, people will say, 'Right, I can see a difference between how a Labor government responds to a disaster versus how the previous government did.'
I'm going to give you one example of my personal experience of a disaster, back in 2013, when my house burnt down in the Blue Mountains bushfires. The very next day—the day after the fire, when about 200 homes had burnt down—a Liberal cabinet made a decision to cut emergency support. They cut it so that, if you had been unable to return to your house for a number of days, you were no longer eligible for support. If your house was still standing and didn't catch on fire, you weren't considered to have been disaster impacted. They also cut out the ability to access a small amount of support—we're talking $1,000—if your house was without power.
Originally, under the Gillard government, we had said to people, 'If you've been without power in your home for a number of days, you've got spoilage, you've got waste; your life has had an upheaval,' and no doubt many people will have had to have found alternative accommodation. But, no, the Liberal government decided that was not part of it. That amount, that $1,000, is not a big amount. If you've lost your house, it certainly doesn't cover all the costs that you're going to face. But it makes a difference then and there. It's the first little step to relieving the pressure that you're under, financially.
I really want to commend the minister in the House, the Minister for Government Services, for reaching out to me to say, 'We want to make sure those payments get through to people quickly and effectively.' I will continue to do that and identify the ones where we're seeing glitches in the system. But I know that, as a government, we're going to do this better. We are already doing this better. The comparison for me is that, during the last flood, my office was inundated with distressed people who'd been unable to access that small amount of money. This time we have seen a much greater speed with which it's flowed through, and I really welcome that.
When we think about the pressures and climate change, there's real hope in many of the commitments that we've made and will be delivering over the next three years. One of those is very practical for my community, and that's community batteries. I've committed to having one in East Blaxland and one in Hobartville. That will be part of the pilot we roll out, saying to people, 'We know that not everyone can afford to put a battery that their solar feeds into in their home.' Not everyone has those thousands of dollars sitting around to invest in this, but the community battery will allow us to do that on a community scale. That is going to make a difference for many people. Both Blaxland East and Hobartville have a high take-up, with about a thousand homes with solar on the roof, but neither of them have very many—if any—registered batteries. Again, people have looked at practical things, and I'm so proud of the policy set we've put forward. It says to people: this can actually be a win-win. There is not a loser here. This is about it working for everybody.
The Blue Mountains is World Heritage listed. That makes it a pretty special place and one that deserves protection, but, equally, the Hawkesbury has an extraordinary river. That river not only has been damaged by natural disasters but it also has a whole lot of other erosion issues. There hasn't been very much money in the last decade invested in that river. I think that's a tragedy. It is not only our source of water; it can also be a huge source of threat to us. But the river is the thing that makes the Hawkesbury what it is. It allows us to have the agriculture we have. It also allows us to have an ecosystem—a beautiful river ecosystem. One of my commitments is to ensure that the Hawkesbury Environment Network receives a million dollars to be able to invest back into our local Hawkesbury environment. The Hawkesbury Environment Network brings together a whole lot of community groups, and they will have time to think about the most effective ways that we can do that—no doubt collaborating with other organisations, whether it is our council or others involved in the catchment.
And that is, again, another really practical thing that we can do for our environment. It is a precious area, and I am not under any illusions that we don't have challenges. Every single person in the Blue Mountains knows that the flight paths for the Western Sydney airport are going to be an enormous challenge for our community. My commitment is to work that through as transparently as we're able to. I can guarantee engagement with the community so that views are properly heard, unlike the processes we saw when the environmental impact statement for the Western Sydney airport was first done and the community's views were really just brushed aside. Everyone on this side knows that there are going to be lots of challenges that face us, and we face them knowing that we have a community with a huge amount of expertise and a huge commitment to the areas in which people live, and we will work with them on those issues.
When you think natural disaster you might not instantly think mobile phone, but, quite frankly, that is life-and-death in a natural disaster. One of the challenges we have faced in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury is that there has been very sporadic coverage. There are black spots all over the place. On my way to work from my home in Winmalee in the Blue Mountains to my office in Windsor in the Hawkesbury—it's about a 40 minute drive—I go through two black spots. Both of them are in highly bushfire prone areas. So I am very pleased that there is already the funding now to fix some of those black spots. One of those is Hawkesbury Heights. Oakville is also smattered with black spots. I am very pleased to see that we have Oakville in the PUMP. Bullaburra is another one, but there are many others that need to follow. My commitment is that we will get fixes to the issues that face Bowen Mountain with their mobile coverage. Again, that is another highly fire vulnerable community, and they also at risk of landslides with those extraordinary rains that we have seen. Blaxlands Ridge is another area that has been neglected. I can't think of a single thing that those who were in government prior to us did that would have helped with the services for Blaxlands Ridge, but we will not be forgetting small communities—vital communities—like that. Maraylya is another one, along with Mount Tomah and Yellow Rock.
Let me tell you the Mount Tomah story. When the previous government sat on this side of the parliament, they promised to fix Mount Tomah, a black spot on Bells Line of Road—one of the major routes that people use to travel from Sydney to the west. They promised a mobile tower. In fact, it was there and it was committed, and then all of a sudden it disappeared. I couldn't work out what had happened to it. What had happened was that the job got a little bit too hard. The government decided that there was somewhere easier for it to go, and they sent it out west to a safe Nationals seat. The vulnerable communities of Mount Wilson, Mount Irvine, Berambing, Mount Tomah and Bilpin lost a vital, potentially lifesaving tower. We will restore that tower. We will make sure that that black spot is fixed.
Yellow Rock thought itself lucky when it got given a mobile tower by those opposite. Sadly, that tower does not provide mobile coverage for the bulk of the Yellow Rock community. So, yet again, one of the things we will be doing is cleaning up the mess and fixing the things that were half done—the things that did not meet community expectations. If what they'd done had met community expectations, I wouldn't be standing here, I can tell you. They failed to meet community expectations. They were all announcement, all glitz, but on the ground they didn't deliver. We will not make that mistake. I'm sure we'll make mistakes, but it won't be that one. We will work to deliver every single commitment that we have already spoken about.
Looking at the natural disasters that we've had, I see that finding refuge has been a really tough one for families because we don't have any purpose-built places. We have a challenging community, with one road that goes from the top of the mountains to the bottom and with real traffic and crossing problems when the rivers flood. One thing that will improve the access to help for people across the river on the North Richmond side of the Hawkesbury will be upgrades to the North Richmond Community Centre. My concern about the Hawkesbury is that it's a very large area; it's 3,000 square kilometres. So I'm not going to promise that it's going to be the solution for everybody, but what we'll be doing is upgrading the centre so that people can go there and take refuge. It will be much better appointed for that, with showers, toilets and better space. I'm looking forward to working with the council and the community to make sure that that facility meets expectations. We talk a lot in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury about disasters. That's because we face them a lot. But I'm so pleased to see that our government is going to be making daily life better for many people.
One of my areas of passion is mental health, and I can't count the number of times I've spoken about it in this chamber. I'm very pleased to see that we have already, in only nine weeks of being in government, announced additional funding for the Katoomba headspace. I look forward to talking more about the detail of that. But the big change will be having a headspace for the Hawkesbury. This is a big commitment but could save lives and change the lives of kids in the Hawkesbury and their families. It's only possible because of the enormous support the community has given to that. It's sad that it's taken this long to achieve it. We could have had it six years ago. We could have had it after the 2019 bushfires. We could have had it after the 2021 floods. Sadly, we've had to wait for another two natural disasters before we're deemed worthy of it by those opposite. It's taken a long time and a lot of advocacy. But that's one of the things that we want to do: make life better for people, to address the concerns that they have.
Another way we're going to do that is through the veterans hub. I'm very much looking forward to working with all the stakeholders to see where we put a veterans hub that is for veterans and takes into account the needs of defence families, who will ultimately be users of that service. These are things that won't be used by everybody, but they'll be used by people who really, really need them.
Something that will have a wider use is support for the Merana Aboriginal community association. I've committed $150,000 to upgrade their building so that we can facilitate in-reach to them so that medical practitioners can come and services can be provided within that facility. Again, for some people, it won't mean anything to them, but, for those who use it, it could potentially be life changing. Merana is an organisation that does a lot with little. I'm very, very proud to be able to support them.
There are a range of other commitments that I've made to my electorate: things like upgrading dog parks—small commitments but, gee, that can also change the way you use your local parks—improvements for parks across the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, and a shared pedestrian footpath and cycleway from Hawkesbury Heights to Winmalee. I remember how good it was when I was able to get out and push my kids in a stroller when they were young and have one in a trike riding alongside. These are the sorts of things that make life better—that give you a sense of hope that you can get through a day, sometimes—and they're the sorts of things that this government will do.
We're going to do the big things like tackling climate change. We're going to do the small things that actually make people's lives bigger. I'm so very proud to be part of that government.
Mrs ANDREWS (McPherson) (12:05): It is an absolute honour to rise in this debate having gained the support of my local community to continue to represent our wonderful corner of Queensland on the southern Gold Coast. This debate is always a very special time. It's when we get to learn about our new members in their first speeches, and these speeches are always a great expression of aspiration, of hope and of determination. For those of us who have been re-elected, it's an opportunity for us to reflect on our goals and on the challenges for the coming parliament. We have a new government and, as people who love this country, we on the opposition benches sincerely hope they succeed in their goal of contributing to our great Australian story. We, of course, will hold them to their promises and we will hold their actions up to scrutiny in the national interest, because that is our role and an effective opposition makes for a better government.
Having served in the last parliament as both the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology and the Minister for Home Affairs, I'm incredibly proud of the previous coalition government's achievements, especially in very difficult and exceptional circumstances. The worldwide pandemic was not something contemplated when we came to office in 2019, but we saw the country through that difficult and unprecedented time. Let's never forget the COVID-19 pandemic was a seismic global event that has challenged the status quo and disrupted lives and livelihoods right across the world. At my National Press Club address in May of 2020, I spoke about how the challenges had also presented opportunities, particularly for the manufacturing sector. Australian industry pivoted to produce PPE and other products impacted by supply chain disruptions, and we recognised the opportunity by acting swiftly to support the sector and to ensure our long-term sovereign capability. Our 2020-21 budget included an investment of $1.5 billion in our Modern Manufacturing Strategy—a bold plan to allow Australian manufacturers to scale up and to compete internationally. The strategy was based on direct industry input, and the priorities and grant schemes were carefully developed based on our areas of comparative advantage, to ensure value-add and make sure there would be some very lasting outcomes for the investment that was being made by the Australian people.
I've been personally very disappointed to hear about and read reports of the incoming government blocking vital manufacturing grants that were announced well in advance of the election being called. I will very happily look at any plan that they bring to this place to provide more support for manufacturing in this country, but I don't know how they justify blocking funding for projects that businesses are ready to invest in—projects where businesses have fully developed plans that had been vetted by the department and are ready to go. It makes no sense to pull the rug out from beneath those companies that were notified that there would be funding coming to support them and that had made plans based on that.
I was also listening carefully to the government's rewriting of the priority manufacturing sectors, and I noted the omission of a standalone space sector. Why Labor would ground this soaring sector and the promise of more than 30,000 jobs over the coming years is really, quite frankly, beyond me. I am comforted by the fact that they have talked about defence and enabling sectors. I will always argue that the enabling sectors clearly include the space sector, but my clear preference would be to make sure that that fledgling industry that we have here in Australia that has enormous potential—the space industry—remained a standalone sector.
I don't want this government to look at how it's going to pursue sectors based on ideology. I want the government to look at how they are going to support industry in these growth sectors and make sure that we are supporting manufacturing here in Australia and developing it, so I will be watching very carefully over this coming parliament and continuing to act and advocate on behalf of manufacturers, especially Gold Coast manufacturers, as I always have. The Gold Coast has a very strong innovative manufacturing base, and I intend to do all I can to keep it growing.
The other deep concern that I have is that Labor will reduce the record levels of funding that the coalition provided for our national security and law enforcement agencies so that they can continue their vital work of keeping all Australians safe over the coming years. It was alarming that one of the first actions of this government was to dismantle the Home Affairs portfolio, moving the AFP and a number of agencies to the Attorney-General's Department, essentially reducing Home Affairs to a shell. Again I ask, why? Why would this be done? Why would you go backwards to the more siloed structure that used to exist? How does that make Australians safer? What is the reasoning behind this decision by the new government?
I know that Australia has the best operational law enforcement and security agencies in the world. Enabled by record funding and new powers that the coalition passed, they have achieved absolutely remarkable results over the past decade. To run through that list of achievements would take much more time than I have today, but there are a few that I would like to touch on. A great example is Operation Ironside, which was supported by legislation that the coalition passed. This joint operation with the FBI seriously impacted on organised and transnational criminal gangs. More than 2,260 charges have been laid against over 350 offenders and more than 6,000 kilograms of drugs have been taken off our streets.
Drugs destroy thousands of young lives every year and have a devastating impact on families. Anyone who has seen the damage knows how important it is that we stop those who deal in this evil trade. It's an example of why we need to make sure our law enforcement agencies have the resources and the powers they need to make our communities safer. It was an enormous honour leading the men and women of the Home Affairs portfolio, whose diligence continues to keep Australia prosperous, secure and united. I will continue to do all that I can to support them.
When I became the Minister for Home Affairs at the end of March last year I identified cybersecurity as a priority. In my time as minister I was proud to spearhead several significant cybersecurity improvements that will directly benefit all Australians for years to come, including supporting industries to grow online through the National Plan to Combat Cybercrime; cracking down on cybercriminals by funding a dedicated AFP led cybercrime centre; securing landmark reforms to national security legislation to better protect our critical infrastructure; making all Australians safer through the passage of important legislation to revolutionise the way Australian agencies investigate and prosecute cybercrime; ensuring our law enforcement agencies have much-needed powers to combat crime on the dark web; cracking down and protecting Australians from ransomware through the Ransomware Action Plan; facilitating the exchange of digital information with United States authorities by signing the CLOUD Act agreement with the United States; and launching a public information campaign to increase Australians' cybersecurity.
The other thing I was very determined to ensure was that we would keep Australia's borders secure. Of course, it's a matter of record that the coalition, with Operation Sovereign Borders, had stopped the boats that came under the previous Labor government. I wanted to ensure that the people smugglers did not attempt to restart their evil trade. I was not going to have people dying on my watch. It's something that we can never afford to take for granted. And, as we've seen in the past few months, if the people smugglers think Australia's resolve has wavered, the boats will come again. When we made this point during the campaign, we were accused of scaremongering, but we were proved correct when multiple boats once again attempted to make the journey to our shores. I have called on the government to reconsider their policy to abolish temporary protection visas, which would send a further signal to the people smugglers, and I hope that they do that. The world continues to face uncertain times, and the threats to Australia's future are many.
Today I have only touched on a fraction of the work in Home Affairs and what they did during my time as the Minister for Home Affairs and previously under the coalition government, but it's work that they have done to keep our nation safe. I am very pleased to have played a part, as the Minister for Home Affairs, in ensuring that Australia is better prepared for the unexpected and is capable of responding quickly. I urge the government to build on our strong track record rather than to dismantle it.
I also took time in a speech yesterday, as shadow minister for child protection and the prevention of family violence, to commit to working in a bipartisan way with the government in order to continue providing practical support for children, women and families experiencing violence and sexual abuse. Every time we can help someone escape a violent situation, we help create a safer and stronger community. And, of course, reducing the incidence of violence through education and prevention makes us even stronger in the future.
Of course, local communities are where we all live. What impacts our neighbours affects us all. And, when it comes down to it, the primary job of each of us is to represent our electorates and to be their voice. This is the role that I have cherished most over the last 12 years since I was first elected. So it is with grateful humility that I once again sincerely thank the people of McPherson for re-electing me.
I have spoken in glowing terms many times about the southern Gold Coast, and I will continue to speak up and speak of the wonderful opportunities that are provided to people who live and work on the southern Gold Coast. It's the small businesses, it's the industries there, it's the natural beauty, but, above all, what is important on the southern Gold Coast is the people who live and work there: those who volunteer at surf lifesaving clubs, the RSLs, the P&Cs, the chamber of commerce, environmental groups, sporting clubs, senior citizens clubs, SES and rural fire services, Rotary, Quota—the list will go on, and, now that I have started naming some of those groups, I'm concerned that I will have missed some of them out. But can I say to each of the volunteer groups that work not only on the southern Gold Coast but across the Gold Coast, across Queensland and across Australia: thank you. We could not exist without the work that you do, so thank you.
I am constantly inspired by the community spirit that makes the southern Gold Coast such a wonderful place to live and to work. I thank, again, the local residents who put their faith in me on 21 May. My message to all residents of McPherson, including those who did not vote for me, is that my door is always open to you. I want to hear from you, and I will always work to represent you here in Canberra. I am your elected representative in Canberra. My first and foremost role is to serve you, the people of McPherson. I wish that there was actually more time for me to detail some of my goals in the current parliament, but what I can say is that there are many issues in my local community that I will continue to work with my community on to make sure that the views, the opinions and the issues that I bring to Canberra are the issues that they want me to represent them on. One of the things that I highlighted during the campaign was the need for all levels of government to genuinely listen to the views of local residents. We should never adopt an 'I know better' approach.
A case in point is stage four of the Gold Coast Light Rail. This project will fundamentally change the southern Gold Coast and will impact the environment, yet both the Gold Coast City Council and the state Labor government have refused to listen to local concerns about the current proposed route. I will continue to fight for local residents to be heard and for their views to be listened to. We all agree that transport solutions have to be developed for the future, but they must be the right ones. Despite Labor's posturing during the campaign, Labor's new federal Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government recently confirmed they have not provided any federal funding commitment for stage 4. I hope they listen to local people before they consider it.
I will also continue to push for the fast-tracking of heavy rail from Varsity Lakes to the airport, because I know that this will open commuting options for locals and ease pressure on our local roads. While I was pleased to deliver funding for successive M1 upgrades, I'm acutely aware that we can't be complacent. Our growing population will mean even more demands on southern Gold Coast infrastructure in the future. I will continue to fight for funding for our roads, schools and hospitals and the services that locals rely on.
Of course, like others I also want to take time in this debate to most sincerely thank the many local residents, friends, branch members and supporters who helped me throughout the campaign. We all know it takes a small army, and again I wish I wasn't constrained by time and could mention everyone who has supported me over the years. But I do want to thank and mention some special people, and you know who you are: those who stood on roadsides waving in the early mornings and afternoons, those who worked for weeks at prepoll in mostly wet and unseasonably cold conditions on the Gold Coast, those who braved near-constant rain all election day to hand out how-to-votes and those who missed the drinks and food at the afterparty because they were scrutineering. I can't thank you all enough, literally hundreds of people. I do wish I could mention you all, but know you have my very sincere thanks. A special shout out to the federal and state campaign teams, to my LNP branch members, including my FDC executive: you provide the values, direction and manpower that will help rebuild and make our party stronger going forward.
To my Home Affairs ministerial staff, led by Jess, who left the role to go on maternity leave—congratulations to Jess, her husband and their new child—thank you, Jess. To Lachlan, who stepped into the role following Jess leaving to go on leave, thank you very much. The people from my ministerial office are the finest group of people I have ever worked with, and one of the most heartbreaking things on election night was to stand with them knowing they had lost their jobs. I am letting you know one more time how important your tireless efforts were to me, and I cannot thank you enough for your work. I will call out one of those staff, Ian, who was actually my longest standing ministerial adviser. He was second to none in his support and the tireless hours that he put in. Thank you, Ian; and thank you, everyone on my ministerial team.
To my electorate staff: over the years they have been absolute standouts, and of course they worked flat out during the most recent election campaign, dealing with issues within the electorate office. I will call out my longest serving staff in my electorate office, Margo and Bruce. They have been just an enormous support to me over many years. Margo and Bruce, you will always have a special place in my heart.
I have one other group of very remarkable people that I want to give a shout-out to, and I know that they would hate the recognition. But I want to sincerely thank my close personal protection team, who were with me since the time that I was appointed as the Minister for Home Affairs. These men and women are trained specialists, and they work every single day to keep their principals safe. I cannot thank them enough for making what could have been a very difficult transition from being able to be out and about in the community on my own to having a security detail. You are second to none in your work, and I thank you very much.
My final comments and my thanks go to my wonderful family. I could not have done this role for 12 years without them. Can I thank my mother, my sister, my three children and my husband. You have been an enormous support to me, and I cannot thank you enough.
Ordered that the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for a later hour.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
Economy
Dr CHALM ERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (12:26): by leave—Australians are overwhelmingly optimistic and confident people. Our optimism, and that confidence, is well founded—because it rests on our ability to navigate difficult times together, and emerge stronger.
Australians know their government changed hands at a time of instability, uncertainty and volatility—around the world and here at home. Today, through this parliament, I want to explain to Australians what this means for you—for your living standards, for your economy, for the budget that funds the services that you rely on. I will explain some of the international factors we are buffeted by; detail the domestic economic and budget pressures we are dealing with; provide some revised Treasury forecasts that try to reflect the circumstances we have inherited, in advance of a full update in the October budget; and outline our plan to deal with these conditions.
This is about giving you the best sense we can of what is really going on, because there is no use tiptoeing around the pressure that people are under. You know what we are up against. You see it every day at the supermarket, in your pay packet, when the electricity bill arrives. And you didn't send us to this place to bury the bad news or gloss over the glaring issues or wish away the warning signs or to pretend that our problems will solve themselves with more waiting, and more wasting time. That approach has already given our country a wasted decade of missed opportunities and messed up priorities. You are already paying too much for that in the form of:
high and rising inflation;
falling real wages; and
a trillion dollars of debt that will take generations to pay off—without a generational dividend to accompany it.
Nine years of mess can't be cleaned up in nine weeks—it will take time. Australians know that too. And they know that progress begins by us facing up to these hard realities and these hard truths, because only by facing up to these challenges can we transform them into opportunities. And this time of great challenge for our country is also a time of great opportunity, the opportunity to build a stronger and more resilient economy that converts the potential of our people into prosperity for our nation—an economy powered by cleaner, cheaper, more reliable energy where more people have the right skills, in secure jobs, with decent wages growing strongly and sustainably, and a better future, built with more opportunities for more Australians in more parts of our country.
The economy is growing—but so are the challenges. Some are home-grown, others come at us from around the world. As Governor Phil Lowe and I were reminded at the G20 meeting a fortnight ago—the global picture is complex, and the outlook is confronting. The world economy is treading a precarious and a perilous path. Higher global inflation, slower global growth, ongoing conflict and war, the impacts of COVID, clogged supply chains—all of this affects us, in some form.
At the G20 meeting, the IMF flagged they would again be revising down their global growth forecasts. And this week, they have—significantly downgrading the outlook for global growth in both 2022 and 2023.
These downgrades are broadly in line with Treasury's updated outlook for the global economy. The Treasury is forecasting global growth of 3¼ per cent in each of the next three years, which is half a percentage point weaker in 2022 and 2023 than expected in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook.
The IMF is expecting global inflation to reach 8.3 per cent by the end of this year—driven by higher food and energy prices, and strained supply chains.
In the United States overnight, the Federal Reserve has again raised interest rates by 75 basis points in response to the highest inflation figure recorded in more than 40 years. And tonight, the preliminary US GDP result for the second quarter is again expected to be weak—after falling by 0.4 per cent last quarter.
China is our biggest trading partner by a long way—what happens with China's domestic economy has a direct link to our national activity, income, and prosperity. China's strict COVID containment measures have had a substantial impact on their output and have made existing supply chain disruptions even more severe.
As has Russia's unilateral, immoral and illegal invasion of Ukraine, which undermines energy and food security—dramatically pushing up global prices. And all of this puts pressure on our economy and our budget.
Once again, Australia is outperforming much of the world, but that doesn't make it any easier to pay the bills at home. More Australians are in jobs than ever before—and that's a very welcome outcome—but fewer Australians are feeling confident about the choppy waters our economy is in. Because they see the impact that high inflation is having on their living standards—in an environment where workers aren't getting wage rises sufficient to match price rises.
Our high inflation is primarily but not exclusively global. It will subside but not overnight. It's been turbocharged by a decade of domestic failures on skills, on energy and on supply chains which just aren't resilient enough. Left untreated, inflation which is too high for too long undermines living standards and jobs, and wrecks economies. But the medicine is also very tough to take—and millions of Australians with a mortgage are feeling that pain right now.
Rate rises began before the election, and then they rose by a full per cent across June and July, and the independent Reserve Bank has told us to expect more to come. There's no point pretending these rate rises don't hurt—they do and they will. Every extra dollar Australians have to find to service the mortgage is a dollar that can't help meet the high costs of other essentials.
Governments shouldn't make it harder for the RBA on the demand side but, more than that, we should be working to address problems on the supply side, and we are.
Some of the conditions determining this inflation problem are outside of Australia's control and largely unavoidable. As much as we can provide support, we can't control the war in Ukraine, or China's COVID policies.
Floods and new COVID variants bring the supply chain disruptions and worker absences we are experiencing.
But there are things we can control. And some of these conditions have been building for a long time and were avoidable:
A decade of energy policy paralysis—with not enough investment in cleaner, cheaper more reliable energy, and not enough certainty for investors—that's pushed up power bills.
A lack of the right investment in skills and local manufacturing capability—that's seen our productivity flatline and supply chains break.
And an objective to keep wages low as a deliberate design feature of the economy—that's contributed to a decade of stagnant pay.
And let's be really clear about something. Inflation is high, and in the near term it will get higher—but the primary cause of this is not higher wages—nowhere near it.
We don't have an inflation problem because workers are earning too much or because we are in some kind of a wage-price spiral. Real wages growth over the past decade has averaged just 0.1 per cent a year. In the year to March real wages fell 2.7 per cent—the worst result in more than two decades. In the year to March, real wages fell 2.7 per cent—the worst result in more than two decades. And once wages data for the June quarter is released in a few weeks, it's likely this fall will have accelerated, given yesterday's inflation outcome. The wages of Australian workers are not causing this inflation. The fault lies with a decade of wasted opportunities, wrong priorities and wilful neglect—that Australians are now all paying for.
This is the context for the updated Treasury forecasts for our economy that I am releasing today. Forecasts are never perfect, but these better reflect the economic circumstances our new government is now dealing with—compared with what was set out before the election.
In the pre-election forecasts—released a little more than three months ago—inflation was expected to peak at 4¼ per cent. It's already at 6.1 per cent through the year to June, and now forecast to peak at 7¾ per cent in the December quarter this year. The current expectation is that it will get worse this year, moderate next year and normalise the year after. We haven't reached the peak yet, but we can see it from here.
Treasury expects headline inflation at 5½ per cent by the middle of next year, 3½ per cent by the end of 2023 and 2¾ per cent by the middle of 2024—back inside the RBA's target range. Inflation will unwind again, but not in an instant. Just as the domestic forces contributing to some of the supply-side pressures have been building for the best part of a decade, it will take some time for them to dissipate—but they will.
In the meantime, higher interest rates, combined with the global slowdown that I've described, will impact on Australia's economic growth. The national accounts in the March quarter showed that the economy had not been performing as strongly as had been predicted pre-election—we saw 0.8 per cent growth instead of the 1.8 per cent growth they told us to expect. And the headwinds that our economy is facing—higher inflation at the top of that list, along with that slowing global growth—are now reflected in the revised economic outcomes and forecasts. This has cut half a percentage point from growth for the last financial year, for this financial year and for next financial year.
It's expected that real GDP grew by 3¾ per cent in 2021-22, instead of 4¼ per cent as was estimated pre-election. The pre-election forecast for GDP growth in 2022-23 was 3½ per cent. This has now been revised down to three per cent growth. And growth is expected to slow further in 2023-24, at two per cent—down from the 2½ per cent that was previously predicted.
A key part of this weaker growth outlook is due to weaker consumption, which is all about higher inflation and higher interest rates. While some households have built up savings buffers, others are under much more pressure. Net exports will also be a bigger-than-expected drag on growth in the near term—because flooding hits commodity exports and because imports increase when businesses restock. Weaker dwelling investment is also part of the story—because of higher interest rates but also because of those capacity constraints that we're seeing in construction. That's what I mean by a growing economy but one with growing challenges as well.
This complex picture is reflected in the updated outlook for unemployment and wages. The unemployment rate is expected to remain low through the latter half of this year before returning to 3¾ per cent by June 2023 and four per cent by June 2024.
At the same time, the forecast for nominal wages growth is being upgraded—from 3¼ per cent to 3¾ per cent—for both this financial year and next financial year. If this eventuates—and I'm careful, cautious and conscious of the history here—it would be the fastest pace of nominal wages growth in about a decade.
The harsh truth is that households won't feel the benefits of higher wages while inflation eats up these wage increases, and then some. Real wages growth relies on moderating inflation and getting wages moving again. On the basis of current forecasts, real wages are expected to start growing again in 2023-24. But there is a key difference now. Australian workers now have a government with an economic plan to boost wages, not deliberately undermine them.
Our new government has begun its work in this time of serious uncertainty and the substantial challenges as I've described them, with a trillion-dollar handicap in our saddlebags.
The budget we inherited is bursting with waste and rorts, booby-trapped by expiring measures, and burdened by long-term demographic challenges that come with critical and necessary spending.
While the final budget outcome for 2021-22—published quite soon—is likely to show a dramatically better-than-expected outcome for that year, it's temporary factors like supply chain disruptions, capacity constraints and extreme weather which have delayed some of the planned spending—and now low unemployment and those volatile commodity prices, which are boosting revenue. These are factors that will not last forever—or even for long.
The short-, medium- and longer-term pressures on the budget are more pronounced. The temporary improvement in tax receipts may not persist over time, the impact on payments will persist, and the cost of interest on debt will grow as more debt is refinanced at higher interest rates.
A full set of fiscal forecasts will be ready for the October budget. But we already know that additional COVID-related spending so far costs the budget an extra $1.6 billion this year alone. We expect that government payments will be around $30 billion higher over the forward estimates than was forecast pre-election, because of inflation and wage expectations and how they flow through.
And we know that vital government programs, which are already growing faster than the economy, have upside risks on spending growth. This includes health spending, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, providing decent aged care after years of neglect, and fairer pay for aged-care workers—which the Fair Work Commission is currently considering. Then there are the hidden cost blowouts that we are beginning to discover—like the Modernising Business Registers project, which was not properly resourced and, as the Assistant Treasurer told us, could be $1 billion over budget.
Finally, we know that the debt burden left to us—the highest level as a share of the economy since the aftermath of the Second World War, with deficits stretching beyond the decade—is growing heavier because of the impact of higher interest rates on repayments. This isn't just COVID debt that we are repaying—our predecessors had more than doubled gross debt before the pandemic hit. And we know that the interest payments on government debt will be the fastest-growing area of government spending—faster than the NDIS, faster than aged care, faster than hospital funding.
For these reasons, our government must make the difficult decisions necessary for responsible budget repair so that in the future, when there is another pandemic, or another price surge, or more global pressures, future governments are not left in this situation, with so many problems to solve, but so few resources to solve them with.
Building our resilience against future shocks means starting to deal with the low-quality spending embedded by the previous government. That starts with the audit of rorts and waste that the Minister for Finance and I, and our departments, have begun, going through the budget line by line, making sure that spending is about building value, not buying votes, because right now, every household has to make tough decisions about what they can afford and what they can't—and it shouldn't be any different for government—and because the budget should be about high-quality investments in the right priorities. The Australian people endorsed our priorities in May and they'll see them budgeted for in October.
When the defining challenges in our economy are high and rising inflation, falling real wages, and choked supply chains—and when our choices are constrained by the fiscal situation—our economic plan will do three things to lift the speed limit on the economy.
First, help Australians with the costs of living—by cutting childcare costs for approximately 1.26 million families, and reducing barriers for parents, overwhelmingly women, to work additional hours; and by cutting the cost of medicines on the PBS by up to $12.50 a script.
Second, grow wages over time—by successfully arguing for a decent pay rise for the lowest paid; by supporting decent wages in the care economy; by training people for higher-wage opportunities; by investing in industries which will deliver more secure, well-paid jobs.
Third, unclog and untangle our supply chains and deal with the supply side of the inflation challenge by investing in cleaner, cheaper more reliable energy; by addressing skills and labour shortages; and with a national reconstruction fund to make us more self-reliant.
The growing pressures on the economy and the country don't make our election commitments any less important; they make them far more crucial.
Because our economic plan is a deliberate and direct response to the challenges and opportunities of this age: responsible cost of living relief with an economic dividend—in a time of higher inflation; investing in the potential of our people—in a time of flatlining productivity, skill shortages and falling real wages; action on climate change—before we run out of time; and focusing on budget repair and quality spending—in a time of substantial fiscal pressures.
Mr Speaker, Australians are paying a hefty price for a wasted decade. They know their new government didn't make this mess, but we take responsibility for cleaning it up.
In our first few months in government, the scope and the scale of the challenges left for us to tackle—some parts known, other parts hidden—have been made clear. These challenges are confronting for all Australians, but we are not daunted by them. Because in these first few months, we have also been comforted, encouraged and energised by the sense of cooperation and common purpose that Australians share.
People know not every good idea can be funded, not every support program can continue indefinitely. But there is a genuine appetite to address our challenges, a broad acceptance of the hard things that we have to do now, to pay off in the future. Australians know that we'll only rise to this occasion if we work together.
That's what the jobs and skills summit in September will be all about. It's what the Albanese Labor government will be all about.
Yes, we are in a challenging and changing world. The economic picture I've set out today represents a convergence of challenges, the kind of which comes around once in a generation. But this once-in-a-generation challenge represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for our country as well—the opportunity to build a better future.
That's why our agenda is a multi-year effort for a multi-generation benefit, for a future that restores a link between hard work and decent wages; a future that recognises uniquely Australian potential and rewards it with uniquely Australian prosperity; a future that revives our ambition on climate change and repairs our diminished standing in the world; a future where we make more things for ourselves, create more wealth for ourselves, and control our own destiny.
We have it within us to stare down these threats, to steer our way through this difficult period and seize the opportunities of this new age—with an economy and a budget as resilient as the Australian people themselves and with optimism and confidence that our best days lie beyond.
I thank the House.
Mr FLETCHER (Bradfield—Manager of Opposition Business) (12:48): Mr Speaker, I seek your guidance in relation to the content of ministerial statements. The standing orders are really quite specific that ministerial statements are supposed to be specific about government policy. Former Speaker Smith had this to say: 'The purpose of a ministerial statement is to announce government policy or matters for which the minister concerned is responsible. There is no flexibility, tolerance or capacity to talk about anything other than that. It is a ministerial statement; it is not a political statement.'
The opposition seeks to know whether, under your regime as Speaker, that policy will be maintained. The standing orders are very clear and it's unfortunate some of the things that have been said. We've listened respectfully. We haven't sought to take a point of order during the course of the ministerial statement, but I do seek your guidance, Mr Speaker, either now or as soon as possible. There is a well-accepted set of rules as to what can be said in a ministerial statement. As former Speaker Smith said: 'It is not a political statement.'
Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (12:49): First of all to the point of order: I thank the Manager of Opposition Business for observing the same protocol that I did in raising what you're saying is a similar issue—waiting until the end of the statement before the issue was raised. I do respect that.
When the issue was raised in the previous term, it was after the now shadow Treasurer had given a ministerial statement. Whichever rules you bring down we'll all follow, Mr Speaker, but I do submit there was a big distinction. Very simply, that ministerial statement by the now shadow Treasurer specifically referred to the Labor Party; it specifically referred to announced Labor Party policies; it contained a characterisation of his view of divisions within the Labor Party. That's always outside of ministerial statements.
What was in the ministerial statement that we just heard was the economic context that the government is now in. I wasn't here for the very start, but if there was anything in that statement that, for example, referred to policies or comments that had been made by the now opposition, that engaged in that sort of political dialogue, then that should not be in a ministerial statement. But if we create a situation where you can't talk about the context of the policies you're announcing, I think we'd actually be retreating a long way from what this principle has always been.
The SPEAKER: I thank the Leader of the House and I thank the Manager of Opposition Business for raising this issue. I have read both of the statements made by the now shadow minister on 29 October 2020, and I have listened to almost everything the Treasurer said. I do want to address this issue so that the House can move forward, because we will be having further ministerial statements.
I echo what the then Manager of Opposition Business said on that date, 29 October, when he advised the House that ministerial statements do occur through leave—and this is for the benefit of new members as well—and when that leave is granted then leave is also automatically granted to the opposition—in this case the shadow Treasurer, the Leader of the Opposition or the relevant shadow minister. The convention is that copies are provided in advance, and I understand the Treasurer did that in compliance with that arrangement.
But the purpose of ministerial statements is to announce government policies or matters for which the minister concerned is responsible. I want to make this clear: there is no flexibility, tolerance or capacity to talk about anything other than that. So think of it like this: think forwards, not backwards. When you are announcing a ministerial statement, you talk about the policies that you are announcing because it is a courtesy the House has given to the relevant minister—and the shadow minister as well.
I want to point this out to the Treasurer and to all future ministerial statements. While I agree with the Manager of Opposition Business there were some political undertones in the Treasurer's speech, these were given for context purposes. As this is the first ministerial statement to the House, I listened carefully. In making a decision now, I want to be crystal clear: ministerial statements are not to be political statements, and this is outlined very clearly and very concisely in the Practice. I would refer new members to pages 501 and 502. I hope that clarifies the matter moving forward.
I thank the Manager of Opposition Business, and I now call the member for Hume.
Mr TAYLOR (Hume) (12:53): Thank you, Mr Speaker. When UK Prime Minister Harold McMillan was asked about the greatest challenge for a leader, he replied, 'Events, dear boy, events'. The world is facing substantial economic and geopolitical events and challenges. For the best part of three years global events have thrown curveballs and continual challenges at governments, but for this government to suggest that it didn't know any of these challenges were there before the election is false. Russia's invasion of Ukraine happened well before the election. Supply chain issues relating to China's COVID response had been impacting the economy long before the election. The same goes for the impact on the economy more broadly from the pandemic.
No government can control all of the circumstances and the context that it faces. We accept that. But all governments can be proactive in their responses. Government is all about tough decisions in tough circumstances. In the budget earlier this year, we put in place measures to support Australians by delivering cost-of-living payments, cheaper fuel and cheaper medicines. We are pleased the new government has acknowledged the gravity of the global circumstances facing Australia. We're not suggesting that Labor can change those global circumstances—of course they can't—but they can put the national interest first, ahead of pet projects, ahead of ideological fixations and ahead of vested interests.
The Treasurer has said that the point of today's statement was to paint a picture of the economy. Well, the economy is not an abstract painting. It's people's lives. On this side, we know what that looks like: small business owners working 18-hour days; families counting each cent as they fill up their fuel tanks; young Australians trying to build for their first home and students working nights to build a better life for themselves and their families. The economy isn't some great mystery to us. It's the outcome of millions of Australians going about their lives, working hard and trying to fulfil their aspirations. Australians know it's tough right now. They don't need a painting from the Treasurer to tell them that. They feel it every day at the coffee shop, at the fuel bowser, at the checkout at the grocery store, when they renovate their homes and when, indeed, they build a new home. The statement from the Treasurer provided nothing to address this.
Today's statement from the Treasurer is a stark contrast to our record in government. It's a shame that in the first ministerial statement of the new parliament the Treasurer has come in here and delivered a speech which was heavy on politics, heavy on excuses and short on a plan. This is completely out of line with the conventions of ministerial statements.
When we were in government, we balanced the budget for the first time since the 2000s. We were on track to a surplus. But as I said, we faced curveballs, as governments do. We had fires and droughts and, of course, we had the pandemic, which we understand only too well. We had to take action and we did, even if it meant putting the budget repair on hold. That wasn't an easy decision for Liberals and Nationals, but it was necessary. Our fiscal response was temporary, it was targeted, and it saw Australia through one of the most challenging periods since World War II in a world-leading way. We came out of the pandemic with lower unemployment, strong GDP growth, low interest rates and our AAA credit rating intact. We had an unemployment rate of 3.9 per cent. We all remember that number! The economy was 3.4 per cent bigger than before the pandemic began. That's extraordinary. The cash rate was 0.35 per cent. We remember that one, too! We started the work on budget repair without increasing taxes. We saw in the last budget a record of over $100 billion to improve the budget bottom line. In the most recent financial statement, at the end of May, the budget deficit had more than halved compared with what was forecast in the budget. We delivered cost-of-living relief in our last budget that the Treasury confirmed to Senate estimates was responsible and measured and did not add to inflationary pressures.
The statement today from the Treasurer failed to acknowledge that, even before the pandemic and before global pressures on inflation, the coalition took action to reduce pressures on cost of living. We provided tax cuts for hardworking families. We didn't need a cost-of-living crisis to do that. We reduced the small business tax rate. We balanced the budget before the pandemic, and we didn't need a cost-of-living crisis to do that. We did these things because they were good policy, good for Australians and good for the economy. Despite the gloom and doom the Treasurer's painting, he has been right to point out in his statement that the underlying fundamentals of the economy are strong. These are proud achievements of the former government—no thanks to Labor. Labor opposed bigger tax cuts to families. They opposed the small-business tax cuts. They fought tooth and nail against restraint in spending, and they wanted to spend more throughout the pandemic. The statement failed to recognise any of that.
The Prime Minister has clocked up enough air miles in the last three months to circumnavigate the globe, but he hasn't delivered a plan to tackle inflation. Labor is yet to deliver a plan to address immediate cost-of-living pressures. Already since the election we've seen division within the government on this. We've seen the employment minister at odds with the Treasurer on the impact of real wage increases. We've seen the Treasurer and the finance minister profess the need for spending restraint. But the reality is that they're proposing to spend more.
Labor's criticism about debt levels in today's statement would have more credibility if they weren't proposing to add to that debt. Today's statement fails to acknowledge that the Labor Party went to the last election proposing bigger deficits. That is the reality. This was confirmed by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office, which showed that Labor's election platform would make the budget bottom line worse off. By contrast, the PBO confirmed that the coalition was the only party that went to the election with a pathway to improve the budget bottom line. Labor obstructed almost all efforts of budget repair over the last nine years. Over the last two years, their COVID response policies would have resulted in an additional $81 billion of spending. We know that the Labor Party platform, their wish list for government, will require more than $300 billion in new spending.
In seeking to cast blame today, the Treasurer held out three tests for himself: what happens to power prices, what happens with apprentices and what happens with real wages? We will hold him to account on these tests. Right now, though, the Treasurer sounds like a commentator, not a Treasurer—like a forecaster, not a leader. He is painting pictures, and whether they're finger paintings, water colours or oil paintings, that's not what Australians need; they need a plan. And the longer we go without one, the higher the price Australians will pay.
A government member interjecting—
Mr TAYLOR: I take the interjection. Let me help out here. In the short term, we do need better access to workers and supplies. This issue is exercising small businesses, and large, more than anything. We all hear this; we're talking to them all the time. And we know that if they can increase their output, if they can increase their supply, it will take pressure off prices. That's how markets work. That's why we've proposed a very specific measure to provide pensioners with more incentive to get back into the workforce, to work extra hours, through doubling the pensioner work bonus—good for pensioners, good for businesses and good for containing inflation. Let's get on with it.
Beyond this, we need good budget management, not higher taxes. The single greatest tool a government has in order to ease inflation and interest rates is to manage its budget. The IMF has told us this, saying that taming inflation should be the first priority for policymakers. And Chris Richardson recently said—he put it very simply, in fact—that if you throw money at the economy, you just get extra inflation. In today's statement, Labor has failed to outline a plan to address the cost of living. We do not know what they propose. We do know what they proposed in the election: $18.9 billion in new and additional spending measures, $45 billion in new debt for off-budget funds. That's their sneaky spending, the $45 billion—the off-budget stuff. Labor could rein in that spending now. They would have immediate support.
The Reserve Bank plays a crucial role in managing inflation, and we need a strong, independent, credible, capable Reserve Bank. But it's not enough to leave the response to rising cost-of-living pressures to the Reserve Bank. The less work Labor does on managing the budget the more the Reserve Bank will have to raise interest rates. Without a Labor plan for better budget outcomes, Australians will pay more on their mortgages.
Finally, productivity takes pressure off prices. In all the build-up to this statement, this week we've seen what Labor's priorities are on productivity. Labor has introduced regulation to abolish the ABCC and, in the process, raised the cost of construction in this country—the cost of building homes, the cost of building schools, the cost of building hospitals and the cost of building roads. We know from independent economic analysis that this will be a $47.5 billion hit to our economy.
At the same time, Labor is removing transparency and accountability from our super system and from initiatives that support better fund management and ensure that Australian's retirement savings are productively invested. These are actions the government is taking that are worsening productivity at a time when they should be searching for solutions to improve it. The solutions are there if you're prepared to look for them.
No-one blames the government for the global circumstances challenging Australia's economy, but we can and will hold them to account for how they respond to it. Today's statement neglected to acknowledge one simple fact: the government controls what happens from here. The government can make choices to address these pressures, and the risk for Australia is that Labor makes a bad situation worse. Australia needs a plan, not a picture. At the moment, the only plan Labor has is to make Australians poorer.
COMMITTEES
Human Rights Joint Committee
Corporations and Financial Services Joint Committee
Law Enforcement Joint Committee
Electoral Matters Joint Committee
Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade
Implementation of the National Redress Scheme: Joint Select Committee
Migration Joint Committee
National Capital and External Territories Joint Committee
Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity Joint Committee
Parliamentary Standards Joint Select Committee
Parliamentary Library Joint Committee
National Disability Insurance Scheme Joint Committee
Trade and Investment Growth Joint Committee
Treaties Joint Committee
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Joint Committee
Appointment
The SPEAKER (13:07): I have received messages from the Senate informing the House that it concurs with the resolutions conveyed by messages 2 to 16 of the House, relating to the appointment of certain joint committees and to the powers and proceedings of certain other joint committees.
Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity Joint Committee
Corporations and Financial Services Joint Committee
Human Rights Joint Committee
Law Enforcement Joint Committee
Membership
The SPEAKER (13:07): I have received messages from the Senate informing the House that Senator Shoebridge has been appointed a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement; Senator McKim has been appointed a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services; and Senator Thorpe has been appointed a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.
GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S SPEECH
Address-In-Reply
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That the following Address in Reply to the speech of His Excellency the Governor-General be agreed to:
May it please Your Excellency:
We, the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, in Parliament assembled, express our loyalty to the Sovereign, and thank Your Excellency for the speech which you have been pleased to address to Parliament—
The SPEAKER (13:08): I give the call to the member for Kingsford Smith.
Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith—Assistant Minister for Defence, Assistant Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Assistant Minister for the Republic) (13:08): Thanks, Speaker. I congratulate you on your election as the Speaker. I am certain that you will do a wonderful job in keeping order in the House. Congratulations.
It is an honour to be re-elected as the member for Kingsford Smith. It is a community that I love representing and in which I have lived my entire life: going to school there, going to university there and being heavily involved in the surf lifesaving movement in the local community for well over 35 years. I often tell people who come to my electorate and marvel at the beautiful beaches, the coastline, the magnificent Botany Bay and the parks and gardens that it is not the natural beauty that makes our elected such a wonderful place to live; it's the people: the Bidjigal people, the local La Perouse Aboriginal community who have inherited those lands and those beautiful waterways for tens of thousands of years. They were the First Australians who stood on the shores of Botany Bay and watched the tall ships come in, the first to be dispossessed of their lands, the first to feel the sting of the musket ball and the first to be taken from their communities.
I want to pay tribute to the wonderful La Perouse Aboriginal community for the guidance and the wonderful education that they have given me in understanding the importance of those waterways and that country to their culture and their heritage. I want everyone in the local community to know that I and the Albanese Labor government are wholeheartedly committed to delivering on all of the principles of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and ensuring that a voice to parliament is constitutionally enshrined in Australia.
I want to pay tribute to the wonderful multicultural communities that we have in Kingsford Smith; the great community groups, particularly all those that volunteer their time to help others within our community; the faith groups; and, of course, the businesses that employ locals. Over the course of the recent election campaign and the years leading up to it, I got a deep appreciation of the importance that our community places on stronger action on climate change. We are a seaside community. We live around the coastline, and many in our community are passionate about ecological sustainment and particularly water conservation. We acutely understand the effects that climate change—global warming, warming water and sea level rise—is having not only on our local community but on the broader Australian community as well.
A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate to visit Windsor, which once again had been deluged in the flooding that recurred recently—the fourth flood in two years. I was there to thank the wonderful Australian Defence Force for the work that they were doing in assisting those communities in cleaning up. It's not the first time in recent memory that the ADF has been called out to assist local communities. We, of course, remember the floods in the north of New South Wales and southern Queensland earlier in the year, where the ADF were deployed to assist those communities to recover. On behalf of the government, I want to once again thank the Australian Defence Force for the wonderful work that they've been doing in assisting with disaster resilience and recovery throughout Australia.
I also pay tribute to, and was fortunate to speak to, many of the volunteer organisations: the SES, the Rural Fire Service, Surf Life Saving Australia and many other community groups—people who, when the floodwaters come, give up their time and risk their lives to help others. I was fortunate to speak to many of those volunteers whilst I was in Windsor. I also spoke to a local homeowner, Andrew Brown, and members of his family. Andrew told me that this was the fourth time in two years that his home and his business had been flooded and faced the deluge. Anyone on the opposite side who continues to think that climate change is not real and that it is not having an impact on Australian families, businesses and local communities is living in a dream world. The notion from many on that side, particularly in the National Party, that climate change is something that will happen in the future is now completely dispelled. We all know that climate change is a real and immediate threat that is having a dramatic effect on the lives of many Australians. We all pay for it, and will continue to pay for it in the future, through our insurance policies, because these risks are only going to grow and make insurance more unaffordable in the future.
That is why Australians want action on climate change. They understand that climate change is occurring. They understand the ramifications for themselves, their families and their local communities, and they want stronger action. That is why they voted on 21 May for a new government that takes climate change seriously and will deliver the policies that are necessary to ensure that Australia is taking climate action swiftly and in a manner that ensures that we're consistent with other nations throughout the world.
They voted for a stronger medium-term target, and that is what this government is seeking to deliver. Only yesterday, the minister introduced legislation to ensure that we implement a 43 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 in Australia and that we have a stronger medium-term target that is consistent with Australia playing its part in what the rest of the international community is doing.
Electric vehicles are far too expensive in Australia, and there aren't enough models on the market, and that is why the uptake has been so slow in our nation. The previous government weaponised electric vehicles. Can you believe that, when you go back to three years ago, you see that that was the government that had a prime minister—Scott Morrison, the member for Cook—who said that electric vehicles would destroy the weekend and that it would be the end of tradies and they wouldn't be able to do their jobs anymore? You cannot get more out of touch than that enunciation about the effect of electric vehicles, and Australians are sick and tired of it. They see what's happening throughout the rest of the world. They know that vehicle manufacturers are no longer producing internal combustion engines. The future is electric vehicles, and Australians should, and need to, have access to affordable electric vehicles for families and for businesses in the future. That is why this government is getting on with making electric vehicles more affordable for Australians, and the Treasurer yesterday introduced legislation that will remove some of those taxes to bring down the cost of electric vehicles. But, most importantly, it sends a signal to electric vehicle manufacturers throughout the world that the Australian government is serious about encouraging the uptake of electric vehicles in our economy and about Australia doing its bit to reduce emissions.
An important part of our commitment to changing the debate about climate change and emissions reductions in Australia is investing in solar and in batteries. These are going to be an important part of the renewable energy future in our nation. We've seen what the previous government did in trying to ensure that they continued to prop up dirty coal-fired power and introduce polluting fuels into the remit of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The new government takes renewable energy very seriously and will encourage investment in renewable energy into the future and lay the foundation for Australia finally to realise its potential and be a renewable energy superpower into the future.
I am very proud to represent the community that has the University of New South Wales within it. The University of New South Wales is world renowned for its photovoltaic and solar research facilities. Almost every single solar panel that is produced throughout the world has technology that comes from the University of New South Wales. Professor Martin Green is internationally renowned as the father of PV and solar technology throughout the world. That is something that I am deeply proud of and that all Australians should be deeply proud of, but it's a shame that, on several occasions over the period of the last government, the University of New South Wales have had to fight to continue to secure their Australian Renewable Energy Agency funding to maintain that important research and work that they have been doing. I was very proud to go to the University of New South Wales—accompanying the new climate change and energy minister from the Albanese Labor government, in one of his first acts—and to tell those solar researchers that their funding from ARENA is guaranteed under this government and they will continue to be able to innovate and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of solar panels throughout the world, something that all Australians should be very proud of.
Australians—members of our community—voted to restore integrity to politics in Australia as well. They are sick and tired of the rorts and the waste that were undertaken by the former government. We all remember the car park rorts and the sports rorts, where spreadsheets were changed in the Prime Minister's office and in ministers' offices to ensure the favourable political outcomes and manipulation of public funds that were condemned by the Auditor-General and others in independent inquiries. Those programs were manipulated for political purposes to try and get members on that side re-elected to the House of Representatives. The Australian people saw through it and they voted at the last election to restore integrity in politics and in the operation of this parliament. That is why they voted for a federal ICAC. This government is committed to delivering a federal ICAC that has teeth, that has the probative powers necessary to ensure that politicians and public servants alike face scrutiny for the decisions that they make and face consequences if they try to manipulate public funds with their decisions. It's important that we get on with that. It is something that this government is committed to delivering as quickly as possible.
When it comes to families and the cost of living, many Australians are facing a difficult period. The Treasurer has just outlined those difficult economic circumstances that the Albanese Labor government has inherited from the former Morrison government. The government have a plan to ensure that we deliver cost-of-living relief for families throughout the country.
We know that access to child care is a major impediment to families ensuring that they have the earning capacity that they deserve. We know it's a major impediment to parents returning to work as quickly as possible. We know it's a handbrake on productivity growth in Australia. If we can encourage more women into the workforce and provide support for them to be able to do that after they've had children, not only do those families and those individuals benefit but our economy benefits as well. The new Labor government has a plan to ensure that we have cheaper and more accessible child care for families throughout the country.
One of the most disgraceful indictments of the former government was their approach to aged care. We saw those indictments laid bare in the royal commission—the shocking circumstances under which elderly Australians were being treated in some facilities throughout the country. The new government of course will listen and implement the recommendations of the royal commission through our policies to restore nurses to nursing homes, to increase the quality of the food that's given to patients and the nutritional value of it, and to make sure that our aged-care facilities are there to do what they should be doing—that is, provide care for residents, our elderly Australians who built this country into the wonderful place that it is today. That is what this government is getting on with doing and delivering.
I'm very fortunate to have been appointed as the Assistant Minister for Veterans' Affairs, as the Assistant Minister for Defence and as the Assistant Minister for the Republic. Constitutional reform is something that this Albanese Labor government is interested in bringing back onto the agenda in Australia. We haven't updated our Constitution since 1977. Of course, Australia is a very different country to the one that was reflected in 1977. We now understand and recognise the important heritage, culture and connection that First Australians have with this land. It's something that we should be proud of. The oldest continuing culture in the world is right here in Australia, yet if you picked up a copy of the Constitution you'd never know that. It reads as if Australia began in 1788. Not only is it an injustice to First Australians; it's a poor reflection on the pride that we have in our history and our culture. It's something that finally we are recognising. It is something that we need to get on with fixing.
The priority of this Albanese Labor government in terms of constitutional reform will of course be a voice to parliament. We are getting on with implementing that as quickly as possible, working with the Australian people. But at the same time we are interested in trying to bring the issue of a republic back into the dialogue here within Australia. It's not our priority—as I mentioned, the voice to parliament is.
The Queen recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of her reign over the Commonwealth. I and the Prime Minister congratulated the Queen on that historic achievement. She has been a wonderful leader for the people of Great Britain and of the Commonwealth. But, as the Queen comes to the twilight of her reign, Australians are naturally now beginning to think, 'What comes next for us?' We are a mature, independent nation. We make our own decisions about how we govern ourselves, principally in this place and in the Senate. We have our own unique identity and culture. It is time, we believe, for Australians to start to think about what comes next for us and whether or not we can have one of our own as our head of state, and we believe that we can.
It is not disrespectful and it is not ungracious to the Queen or the royal family to start thinking about that. In fact, if you look at the Commonwealth of Nations, of the 54 nations that are members of the Commonwealth 34 of them are republics. Australia is very much in the minority. Barbados became a republic last year, and they did it with the agreement and cooperation of the royal family. In fact, members of the royal family travelled to Barbados for the ceremony establishing the new republic.
We in Australia can finally recognise our maturity, our independence and our unique culture and identity by having one of our own as our head of state. We're not going to rush into this. We are going to do this carefully and methodically to bring this back onto the agenda in consultation with the Australian people, and that is the most important aspect of this movement for an Australian head of state. I want this to be a movement and a force that unites Australians around pride in our own and having one of our own as our head of state and reflecting that in our Constitution.
I know that there are many in the Liberal and National parties, in the crossbench and in the Greens who support that. I want to say to you that I look forward to welcoming you and working with you to ensure that we work together on this. This won't be an issue that divides members of this parliament. It won't be an issue that divides Australians. It will be a force that unites Australians around the pride and the notion of having one of our own as our head of state. I look forward to working with all members of parliament and members of the Australian public on that.
In conclusion, I thank the wonderful volunteers in my campaign in Kingsford Smith that gave of their time to ensure that the Labor voice was heard within our community and provided me with the support to ensure that I could run a decent campaign and be re-elected as the member Kingsford Smith. I sincerely thank you for the work that you do in promoting Labor values and ideals within our community.
It is a wonderful honour to have been re-elected as the member Kingsford Smith. I look forward to working with our community to deliver the commitments made by the Albanese Labor government in the lead-up to that election and ensuring that Australia once again starts to move forward.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Georganas ): The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may resume at a later hour.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Energy
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (13:28): I want to talk about the Prime Minister's signature election policy commitment of a $275 cut in electricity prices—an iron-clad commitment, a very big feature at the recent election campaign and a solemn undertaking. It was the absolute centrepiece of Labor's energy policy at the election, so much so that the first sentence of the YouTube video announcing Labor's energy policy was: 'Labor's Powering Australia plan will cut power bills by $275 a year for homes.' It was not ambiguous and not qualified in any way. Even more so, three days before the election, there was a particularly important, big speech at the National Press Club—everyone was there. When raising the energy plan, what did the Prime Minister say on 18 May? 'It is the best way to cut power bills for families and businesses, saving families $275 a year'. So it was very clear.
This is interesting too. On 12 July, after the election, there was a big speech on energy. It was such a big speech that the word 'energy' was mentioned 41 times. How many times was the saving mentioned? None. Not at all. In fact, I don't think the Prime Minister has mentioned it once since the election, which seems a remarkable oversight. But the Australian people won't forget, because this was a fundamental commitment. (Time expired)
Commonwealth Games
Mr DAVID SMITH ( Bean — Government Whip ) ( 13:29 ): Deputy Speaker, I rise to congratulate you on your elevation but also to congratulate, encourage and support members of the ACT community who have joined a team of 435 dedicated athletes from right around the country to represent Australia at the 22nd Commonwealth Games. Right now, there are 13 world-class athletes representing the ACT all the way over in Birmingham. I would like to congratulate Andrew Charter, Angela Ballard, Corey Toole, Daniel McConnell, Grace Brown, Jake Lappin, James Bacueti, Jaydon Page, Matthew Levy, Sam Harding, Samuel Carter, Timothy Disken and Zoe Cuthbert for representing the ACT. I would also like to give a shout-out to Ellie Dixon, one of my constituents on Norfolk Island, on her debut at the games. Seventeen-year-old Ellie is following in the footsteps of her father, Ryan, who in 2018 came home with a medal in the lawn bowls event. I would also like to give a shout-out to Ellie's mum, Susie, who enlisted our help and worked so hard to make sure that Ellie had a new passport within 48 hours—not an easy feat from Norfolk Island. This is a mammoth achievement for the whole family and there is so much for them to be proud of. All of Bean are behind you, Ellie, and all our other wonderful athletes from right across the ACT.
Braddon Electorate: Vincent Industries
Mr PEARCE (Braddon) (13:31): Today I stand to recognise a truly remarkable career. Last week I had the absolute pleasure of celebrating Lorraine Morris's remarkable 45 years of employment at Wynyard's Vincent Industries, a great organisation that provides a wonderful workplace for individuals with a disability. Lorraine hung up her hi-vis vest last Friday night and celebrated with family, friends and workmates. In a true reflection of what makes Lorraine so special, she spent the night talking about everyone else. Her focus has always been on her team, the community that she has been a crucial part of building at Vincent Industries, the care that she has given so freely and genuinely, and the lasting friendships that she has made.
Lorraine Morris is a true role model for every workplace across the country. On retirement, she had accrued 114 weeks and four days of sick leave. In 45 years, she hadn't taken a day off. Fittingly, Lorraine's legacy will continue to shine as Vincent Industries' longest serving employee. I have no doubt that this achievement will stand the test of time and deservedly so. I wish Lorraine the best.
I also want to recognise the entire crew and the staff at Vincent Industries, particularly Nellie McKenna and her team, who create a work culture which engenders respect, dignity and pride.
Commonwealth Games
Ms MURPHY (Dunkley) (13:32): The Commonwealth Games start tomorrow. Today, I want to give a shout-out to two female athletes who will be wearing the green and gold in Birmingham. For Alyssa Polites, who lives in my electorate of Dunkley, Birmingham will be her first Commonwealth Games. Apparently, sibling rivalry was her inspiration for taking up cycling when she was 12, jealous that her older brother had been gifted a new race bike by her parents. Well, she has sure shown them. Last year, she won the national junior time trial and road race. This year, she won the under-23 road race, while still 18 years old, and the national madison champion title. Although she rides at the Caulfield Carnegie club, up the road from my electorate, we can forgive her for that because I know that all of Dunkley will be cheering for her.
For Rachael Grinham, a legend of Australian and world squash, it will be her fourth Commonwealth Games—the first female Australian athlete to reach that milestone. When she carries the Australian flag at the opening ceremony, she will be the first squash player to ever do so—if you can believe that. Rachael made her Commonwealth Games debut in 1998 in Kuala Lumpur, and I was in the crowd cheering her on. She won silver in the doubles at those games, and then in 2006 with her sister in Melbourne she won gold. I was there cheering her on again. She is not only a superb athlete; she has been a leading voice for Australian LGBTIQ athletes, and she is a great person.
To Alyssa and Rachael, and all the athletes competing, best of luck, compete well and have a great time.
Biosecurity: Foot-and-Mouth Disease
Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (13:34): This past month I have received countless emails, calls and letters from primary producers in Mayo who are deeply concerned at the prospect of foot-and-mouth disease entering our community. We know there is a significant outbreak in Indonesia, including in Bali, and we must do all we can in this place to provide protection for our Australian livestock industry and assist our neighbours in Indonesia to get this outbreak under control.
Mayo is a food bowl of diverse agriculture, including dairy, beef cattle, sheep grazing, horticulture and food production. In South Australia, we are the closest rural electorate to the Adelaide Airport, and, as such, my community overwhelmingly supports a temporary halt to travel until this outbreak is under control. If the government will not do this, we call on the government to invest in 3D X-ray machines at our international airports in Australia as a matter of urgency, and to help Indonesia ensure that all travellers use disinfectant mats and that every traveller's luggage is checked. The government must implement a robust education program and ban the importation of all foodstuffs in travellers' luggage. Declaration cards and random checks are simply not enough. We must be vigilant, we must be thorough, and we must put our farmers first. This is an $80 billion industry that we can't risk.
Myanmar: Phyo Zayar Thaw
Mr JOSH WILSON ( Fremantle ) ( 13:36 ): As this new parliament gets underway following a high-integrity electoral process and an orderly transition of power, we should reflect on the preciousness of democratic institutions and culture. This week, the military junta in Myanmar carried out the executions of four democracy activists. Among the victims was Phyo Zayar Thaw, who served as a member of the parliament of Myanmar and who worked as an assistant to Aung San Suu Kyi. Either side of his parliamentary service, he was a hip-hop artist—one of Myanmar's first—and his music and lyrics were an expression of his activism in the cause of democracy.
Zayar Thaw visited Australia in 2012. Indeed, he met Prime Minister Gillard in this building, and he was the beneficiary of support that Australia provides through our aid program to build democratic capacity in our region. One of the reasons I speak today is that Zayar Thaw was a friend to my former chief of staff, Peter Yates. They met in Australia, and their friendship continued when Peter worked in Myanmar to support the development of the country's democratic institutions. As I've said, Zayar Thaw was executed this week. He was 41. His death is a tragedy and crime against human rights. It's a terrible reminder that Australia must continue to work with the international community to oppose the authoritarian regime in Myanmar and to support the return to peace and democracy in that country.
Barber, Ms Evelyn
Mr COULTON (Parkes—Opposition Whip) (13:37): Today I have the solemn duty to announce to the House the passing of Evelyn Barber from Narromine. For over 25 years, Evelyn served the people of the Parkes electorate, working in the Parkes electorate office in Dubbo for four federal members of parliament: Michael Cobb, Tony Lawler, John Cobb and, for 14 years, myself. Evelyn sadly passed away nearly exactly 12 months after she retired, suffering from a very sudden illness that caused her death. Through all those times, her calm nature, her steely determination, her kindness and her attention to detail has helped thousands of people right across western New South Wales.
Evelyn was a true servant of the people in the greatest sense of the words. Evelyn's passing will leave a great hole in her very close-knit family, but her legacy lives on in the countless people that she has helped to reunite through her work with migration, and people that she has helped with taxation, social services and a whole range of other things. It's really difficult to comprehend that Ev is not with us. She was such a calming presence. She sat at the front desk in the Parkes electorate office and dealt with everything that came her way. Ev, we miss you. You will be missed.
Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project
Mr BURNS ( Macnamara ) ( 13:39 ): If you drive down Beaconsfield Parade in Albert Park, you will see that it is one of the most picturesque parts of Melbourne. It is truly beautiful, driving down Beaconsfield Parade. Along the way, you'll see an incredible convent, which is home to the Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project. I was pleased to visit my old friend Sister Brigid Arthur, who was also recently awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia, which is an outstanding recognition of someone who has literally given her life to help and serve others. Anyone who has come across Sister Brigid knows that she is a person of integrity, great effort and great capacity. She was one of the founders of the asylum seeker project there in Albert Park, along with Sister Catherine Kelly before she passed away.
I was joined by Libby Saunders, one of the key people in the Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project. I met with many local people who want to see an end to the cruel practices of vulnerable people being used as political footballs in this country. We have to be better than that, and we've already started the important work of reforming many different parts of our humanitarian program. We're going to get people off TPVs and SHEVs and put them into permanent protection because they've deemed to be bona fide asylum seekers. It comes in a long list of reforms that we're going to do to bring humanity back to this important policy area.
Zonta Club of Cairns
Mr ENTSCH (Leichhardt) (13:40): The Zonta Club of Cairns, in collaboration with the Far North Queensland Hospital Foundation, held their second masquerade ball on 23 July at the Pullman Cairns International. I had the great pleasure of attending with my beautiful wife, Yolonde. It was a colourful affair, with everyone donning all sorts of uniquely designed masquerade ball masks. The ball was a chance for the Zonta club to raise much-needed funds to enable it to continue the fabulous work it does throughout the community. It was a great event filled with plenty of exciting performances. Local artist Vivien Aisi and a local salsa and samba dance group kept everyone well and truly entertained.
If you're unaware, Zonta is a worldwide service organisation for females in business and professionals working together to advance the status of all women. The Zonta Club of Cairns was formed in 1983 and has since contributed to empowering women and girls in our Cairns community. Many of Zonta's fundraising efforts have supported unique projects, like the creation of breast cancer cushions and birthing kits, and have provided financial awards to contribute to the education of year 12 girls and support local women's shelters. I am sure you'll agree with me, Madam Deputy Speaker Claydon, that Zonta is a fabulous organisation. I congratulate all involved in putting together another wonderful event.
World Hepatitis Day
Dr FREELANDER (Macarthur) (13:42): Congratulations on your appointment, Madam Deputy Speaker Claydon. I'd like to alert the House that today, 28 July, is World Hepatitis Day. The theme of the day today is: hepatitis can't wait. This is a very important message that I'd like people to hear.
Hepatitis C and hepatitis B are two of the leading causes of liver failure, liver cancer, liver transplant and death, but there are effective treatments available. There's immunisation for hepatitis B. There are treatments for hepatitis C that can be taken orally, are curative, have very high success rates and are readily available through the Australian government, free of cost. It's very important that we alert people to the availability of these treatments so that they do access them.
During the pandemic it has been very difficult for many people to access primary health care. Yet, if given, immunisation can prevent the spread of hepatitis B to other family members, and antivirals can prevent progressive liver damage from hepatitis B. The treatments for hepatitis C are curative and can be taken orally through a general practitioner. People need to visit their GPs. They need to be tested and they need to get access to these treatments. It's very important. If we can do that, we will eliminate hepatitis B and hepatitis C. We aim to do that by 2030 if we can, but people need to be aware.
Belmonte, Mr Jason, AM
Mr GEE (Calare) (13:43): I rise today to pay tribute to a central west sporting legend. I speak, of course, of a man widely regarded as the greatest tenpin bowler of all time: Jason Belmonte. Born in Orange in the eighties, Jason started perfecting how to split pins at the ripe old age of 18 months. That's right—at the same time he was taking his first steps, he was learning the lanes at Orange Tenpin Bowl, the alley owned and run by his parents, Aldo and Marisa, who still run the centre four decades later. It's a great local business.
With the bowling ball too heavy for the toddler to handle, young Jason decided to use both his hands to launch it down the lane. This unique two-handed technique would become the signature bowling style of the current number-one ranked PBA Tour player. It's a style that has revolutionised the sport. Through his glittering career, Jason has secured 30 Professional Bowlers Association tour titles and a record 14 major championships and has been named PBA Player of the Year six times. Today, Jason is lacing up his bowling shoes a little closer to home, taking on the inaugural Devil's Lair tournament in Hobart. Here's hoping he has an Aussie home-lane advantage.
Earlier this year, Jason was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours for significant service to tenpin bowling at the elite level. Today, we honour the local Central West sporting icon that is Jason Belmonte, the young boy from Orange who became the best pin splitter on the planet.
Boothby Electorate: Commonwealth Games
Ms MI LLER-FROST (Boothby) (13:45): Madam Deputy Speaker Claydon, can I congratulate you on your election to this position.
I think most Australians would believe that sport is a really uniting part of our community, in both the fitness that it brings to us and the ability to connect with our fellow human beings. There are now less than 6½ hours before the start of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, so I'm very excited. Of the 431 Australian competitors at the Commonwealth Games, we have five from the electorate of Boothby. We have Tahlia McGrath in the Australian women's cricket team; and Kyle Chalmers OAM, Matthew Temple, Meg Harris and Madison Wilson, all from the Australian Dolphins swim team—obviously one of our traditionally high-achieving areas. We also have a late inclusion: Matthew Northcott, who is representing Australia for Bowls Australia Jackaroos in the mixed doubles. I'm extremely excited that they're all over there. We say, 'Go, Australia!' I really look forward to welcoming them all home and celebrating, hopefully, some gold medals and some other medals.
Lyne Electorate: Community Organisations
Dr GILLESPIE (Lyne) (13:46): Madam Deputy Speaker Claydon, congratulations on reaching your position. I'd like to congratulate Jenny and Steve McGregor, who recently reached the milestone of 10 years of volunteering at Riding for the Disabled in Kendall. The committee and volunteers recently held a morning tea and presented a certificate to Jenny and Steve for their outstanding service and dedication to Riding for the Disabled in Kendall.
Also doing great stuff are Halle Ford from Black Head Longboarders and Steve Keevers from Saltwater Malibu Club, who, along with club members, raised $500 at their surfing competition to benefit Samaritans Taree Women's Refuge. These surfers continue to ride a wave of charity and goodwill, with further community projects scheduled in the coming months.
Another great innovation I should celebrate is that Julie Fitzgerald, the president of Dungog's CWA, and her team have established an art gallery in their hall. Paintings donated by community members have raised over $9,000 to pay for renovations for the wonderful old CWA hall in Dungog, and the fundraising is ongoing. Well done, Julie, on your terrific efforts.
The Lions Club of Hallidays Point recently, at their changeover dinner, gave a huge wave of thanks and congratulations to outgoing president Vaughn Parker, for his stewardship. Donations made during 2021-22 amounted to $127,000, an outstanding effort from Vaughn and the committee. Most of these funds were made through the op shop, and it's very professionally managed and presented by Lions Club volunteers.
Labor Government: Northern Territory
Mr GOSLING (Solomon) (13:48): It's been wonderful to see so many government ministers embrace the Northern Territory so fully and straight out of the gate. We hit the ground running with the Prime Minister's visit in early June, when he was coming back from his visit to Indonesia. He was able to announce the NASA rocket launches that were held in north-east Arnhem Land. He's back there this weekend for the Garma Festival, along with Indigenous Australians minister Linda Burney; Senator Pat Dodson, who's a special envoy for the Uluru Statement from the Heart; and our fellow Territory members Senator Malarndirri McCarthy and the member for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour.
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, wasted no time in getting up to the NT last month to visit Kakadu, and the north Australia minister, Madeleine King, came up to Darwin a few weeks ago for a roundtable with stakeholders. Trade and tourism minister Senator Don Farrell also came up on Territory Day to meet with our local tourism operators. Jason Clare went straight out to remote Arnhem Land to learn about how our First Nations Territory kids walk in two worlds. Anne Aly, the Minister for Early Childhood Education, also came up to meet with stakeholders. I'm so glad to see that the Territory's getting so much attention, the attention we rightfully deserve, and I urge all other ministers to come and visit the Territory soon.
Brisbane Airport
Mr BATES (Brisbane) (13:49): Congratulations, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your elevation to your new role. During our campaign to win the seat of Brisbane, we heard from thousands of locals about the issues that affected them most. One issue that came up throughout multiple suburbs was the impact of unsustainable flight noise caused by the new parallel runway built by Brisbane Airport Corporation. Residents who have called suburbs like New Farm, Hamilton, Ascot and many others home for years were not consulted about the impact that the new runway would have on their lives. They were misled about the flight paths the planes would take; they had been told that the planes would fly over the bay, only to find them flying directly over their homes and causing huge amounts of noise at all hours of day and night.
As the newly elected member for Brisbane, I will be fighting for the interests of my community—and the community is not asking for a lot. They simply want the same standard across the board. I'll be fighting for the introduction of a curfew and a long-term operating plan, as exists at Sydney's airport, as well as a cap on the number of daily flight movements. We must also amend the air navigation regulations to introduce a maximum decibel noise limit that complaints can be measured against. We need a real framework that allows the complaints of residents to be taken seriously. The people of Brisbane deserve to enjoy their homes, without flight noise caused by corporate greed.
Child Care
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (13:51): Earlier this year, the Mitchell Institute released a report into the availability of child care. They called it Deserts and oases, with 'deserts' meaning that they are very few childcare places available for the children and little ones wanting to attend. In my electorate of Bendigo, there is desert everywhere—whether it be in Elmore or Heathcote, in Castlemaine or Kyneton—and yet the previous government did very little to address this issue. They didn't work with local communities. They left it up to the market and created the problem that we have in towns like Kyneton: the fact that we have so many young families where women—it's predominantly women—cannot return to work.
I met with a number of these women, and their little ones, during the election campaign. They were deferring returning to work and were hoping that their bosses wouldn't make them redundant, because they had no available child care within an hour's radius of their town. They were looking at childcare options as far away as Bendigo and Melbourne. They're caught in between Bendigo and Melbourne; it's just a completely unacceptable option. They are working closely with community and not-for-profit organisations to try and find solutions.
It shouldn't have come to this crisis. We need to be working collectively and collaboratively with our communities in solving this childcare crisis. Our government will work together to make it happen. It's disappointing that the previous government let it get to this.
National Rugby League
Mr YOUNG (Longman) (13:52): I rise today in support of the seven Manly rugby league players and their stance on refusing to wear the jersey in this weekend's NRL round. These seven individuals are not allowed to go to work, for refusing to wear something that goes against their personal beliefs—which is simply ridiculous. As someone who has employed people for over 30 years—and although we had uniforms with company logos and other badges—I never asked my staff to wear a logo or a badge that had any type of social-issue connotation. Nor would I, because, as their employer, I know that it wasn't my job to push my personal views onto them.
I read with interest that the Manly management team said it was about inclusivity. I wasn't aware that homosexuals weren't allowed to play in the NRL. If that's the case, that should change, but we all know that they can play in the NRL. Ergo, they are already included, so why the need to promote inclusiveness?
The last census showed that apparently Christians are now a minority. Does this mean that, with Christians being a minority group, to promote inclusiveness the NRL should have a round where every team wears a crucifix on their jersey? Good luck seeing that happen—and, by the way, I wouldn't support that either.
This is just another example of the woke culture that says, 'We respect that anyone can have an opinion, as long as it's the same as ours.' Just let these men do their job and play footy.
Commonwealth Games
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Chief Government Whip) (13:54): First, let me join others today in congratulating you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your position. The 28th of July is finally here; the wait for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games is over. I know that many on this side will be celebrating it, and, as we've heard today, there are so many with athletes in their electorate. There are 435 Australians set to compete, among 4,000 athletes from about 72 countries around the world. It's an exciting day for me. I am no stranger to sport and am, as everyone in this chamber knows, a lover of sport. I want to wish all of those Australians athletes all the best. I want to join with the members for Boothby, Dunkley and Bean in celebrating people from their electorates. The electorate of Lalor is not sending an athlete to the Commonwealth Games, but it won't change my excitement, because the Australian Diamonds will be playing in the Commonwealth Games. As everyone knows—including those in the chamber who are friends of netball—we are hoping to see the Australian Diamonds bring home gold at these Commonwealth Games.
There are many sports being played this time. It is the biggest para sport program ever for the Commonwealth Games. Women's T20 cricket will be played for the first time. There is 3x3 basketball happening, but my eyes will be fixed on Liz Watson and the Australian Diamonds. Go Aussies!
Canning Electorate: Peel Health Campus
Mr HASTIE (Canning) (13:55): I rise to speak about a problem that has been ignored by WA Labor and is putting lives in Mandurah at risk—that is, the McGowan government's failure to fix the Peel Health Campus. The hospital is yet to receive upgrades promised by the Premier over a year ago, and the Premier knows that the facilities are old, the services are limited and capacity is much too small.
Back in 2019 I ran a grassroots campaign and, with the people of Mandurah, secured $25 million from the previous coalition government to upgrade the emergency department at the hospital. And what did Labor do? They poured $10 million into a new car park. Whilst the state government delays, the crisis only gets worse. When I spoke back in May 2018, ambulances were ramped for 20 hours that month. By this last month, ramping hours had skyrocketed to more than 450. That means that for almost 17 hours every day a patient waits in an ambulance, unable to get into the hospital for treatment, and that is simply not good enough.
The people of the Peel region trusted Mark McGowan. They elected four state Labor members of parliament and they have been let down. In 2018 I said that the people of Mandurah were angry. Well, they're still angry, and rightly so. They know they've been forgotten by McGowan and WA Labor. It is time for the Premier to fix this situation. After almost six years in government, he can only blame himself.
Mahon, Hon. Hugh
Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (13:57): Speaker, I congratulate you as my next-door neighbour on your elevation. I am sure you will look after me as your neighbour throughout this 47th Parliament. I want to talk, particularly with you in the chair, about a former Labor Party member of this parliament, who was actually a Postmaster-General, a Minister for Home Affairs and a Minister for External Affairs. He did great service to this nation. I stand today to tell you that we need to make amends for the fact that Hugh Mahon is the only person to have been expelled from this parliament. He was expelled for making 'seditious and disloyal utterances' about the British Empire. I know the member for Fremantle supports me in this endeavour of trying to make right what occurred 100 years ago.
In fact, on Monday night—I will put this on the record—I had dinner with the Sinn Fein leader, Mary Lou McDonald, here in Canberra, and I probably will do so again on Friday night in Brisbane, so things have changed. On Monday night we talked about my support for a united Ireland, and many other people at that event would say the same thing. But back in 1919, when the Irish War of Independence had begun, things were quite different here. When Hugh Mahon was talking about the hunger strike death of the Irish nationalist Terry MacSwiney— (Time expired)
Biosecurity: Foot-and-Mouth Disease
Mr YOUNG (Longman) (13:59): You need to do something about FMD—there we go!
The SPEAKER: In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Pensions and Benefits
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Leader of the Opposition) (13:59): My question is to the Prime Minister. The coalition strongly supports the cashless debit card for welfare payments to working-age recipients where alcohol and drugs are a problem. Research from the University of Adelaide showed that the cashless debit card led to a 21 per cent decrease in gambling and 45 per cent of people believed it had improved their lives. Prime Minister, to please the inner-city, woke audience you've abolished the card. As Jacinta Price points out, it will result in higher incidences of domestic violence and assault in Indigenous communities. Why make a bad situation worse?
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:00): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question, and I will also ask the minister to supplement my answer. We went into the election with the very clear position of abolishing the cashless debit card, and we did so because of the impact that it had in privatising part of the welfare system, whereby for the first time we had a welfare system that was paying a private company to engage in activity with profit motive, which was resulting as well in issues being imposed on communities and on individuals without their having any say in that. One of the things that we have done is make sure that we're about empowering communities, not taking power away from them. That is an important distinction between our attitude and the attitude of those opposite—not a patronising position that says, 'We know best,' not one that extended the cashless debit card into communities. It wasn't just in Indigenous communities; it was imposed on other communities as well, and that is why we went to the election with a very clear position. We stand by that, and that's why we'll be legislating to achieve our objective. I'd ask the minister to also comment.
Ms RISHWORTH (Kingston—Minister for Social Services) (14:02): Of course, the Leader of the Opposition hasn't quite got his correlation and his causation right. He just said that the University of Adelaide report led to a change. I'm going to quote from the University of Adelaide report.
The SPEAKER: I call the Leader of the Opposition on a point of order. The minister has been going for eight seconds.
Mr Dutton: On relevance, Speaker, I'm not interested in causation; I'm interested in reducing domestic—
The SPEAKER: There's no point of order. The minister was referring to the report when you took the point of order.
Ms RISHWORTH: I will answer the question. Those opposite have insisted the University of Adelaide report in January supported the cashless debit card. What they have failed to point out is that the evidence was inconclusive. The study found that any reduction in alcohol and drug use could not be directly attributed to the effect of the card. They failed to acknowledge that the report found that the cashless debit card introduced 'widely felt and costly hurdles to many participants in relation to financial planning and money management' and:
A large proportion of CDC participant… respondents reported that their quality of life had been affected in a negative way…
That was the University of Adelaide report. Of course, we have this ANAO report which the minister failed to listen to either, and I will go to the conclusion of the most recent ANAO report, which said that it 'has not demonstrated that the CDC program is meeting its intended objectives'. Need I say more?
Economy
Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (14:03): My question is to the Treasurer. Given the growing challenges facing Australia's economy, how is the Albanese Labor government responding?
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (14:04): Thank you to the member for Moreton for that question. It's an honour to serve the southern suburbs of Brisbane with the member for Moreton as we try to get our communities and our country through what is a difficult period for the national economy. This side of the House is confident that Australia and Australians can weather the storm that we are going through right now when it comes to this combination of economic conditions. But that begins with acknowledging the particular combination of challenges that we now confront that present themselves to us, and that begins, of course, with taking the Australian people into our confidence about what is happening in their economy right now, what it means for them and what this side of the House has begun to do about it. The statement and the updated forecasts that I provided the Australian people through their parliament today were honest and upfront about that combination of challenges. We do have high and rising inflation. We do have rising interest rates. That, combined with the impact of the slowdown in the global economy, is slowing our own economy, and that will have implications for unemployment as well.
So, our economic situation is confronting. Our economy is growing, but so are the challenges to that economy. That's why the economic plan that the now Prime Minister, the now finance minister and I took to the Australian people is now more important than ever. It has at least three parts. The first part is to provide responsible long-term cost-of-living relief to people who are doing it tough, particularly when it comes to areas like child care and medicines and getting wages moving again, particularly for the lowest paid in our community. The second part is to make sure we are growing our economy the right way and making it more resilient by investing in skills, investing in cleaner and cheaper and more-reliable energy, investing in a future made in Australia—all of those important elements of our plan. The third part is to deal with the legacy of rorts and waste, which has given us a budget that is heaving with a trillion dollars in Liberal Party debt and no way near enough to show for that generational debt, without a generational dividend.
Mr Fletcher: Speaker, we've now got the Treasurer launching into an attack on this side—
The SPEAKER: What is your point of order?
Mr Fletcher: The point of order is relevance. The question did not contain any reference to alternate approaches. And even when questions have contained references to alternate approaches, Speakers have said that there is a restriction on what the minister at the box can cover. So, he needs to stick to the question.
The SPEAKER: I'll hear from the Leader of the House.
Mr Burke: I'd just draw your attention to the opening part of that question, which is, 'Given the growing challenges facing Australia's economy'. I reckon a trillion dollars of Liberal Party debt counts as that.
Mr Fletcher: Speaker—
The SPEAKER: What is the point of order? You've had one on relevance. What is the point of order? There's no point of order. I'll give the call to the Treasurer, who will remain relevant to the question.
Dr CHALMERS: The point I'm making is this. A lot of the challenges that are in our economy have been around for a long time—for the best part of a decade—and it will take more than nine weeks for us to clean up the mess that those opposite have left us. But the hard work of implementing our economic plan has begun. We want to bring Australians together around that plan. The challenges to our economy and our people are serious. If only those opposite took them seriously as well.
Australian Building and Construction Commission
Ms LEY (Farrer—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:07): My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to reports that the construction watchdog investigated Mr Luke Gibson, who allegedly told a female work safety officer, 'Go call the police; off you go, you effing dog', followed by the C-word. By dissolving the construction watchdog, why is the Prime Minister prioritising what the CFMMEU wants over what women on worksites need?
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:08): I thank the member for her question. At a time when we had an inflation figure yesterday of 6.1 per cent, we have serious economic challenges before us. We've had an economic statement given by the Treasurer before this parliament today. And we're back here again. Let me repeat: people, whether they're employees or employers, should behave appropriately on every worksite, and every worker should behave properly. I note that yesterday—
Ms Ley: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order entirely on relevance. The issue is not whether the behaviour is unacceptable—of course it is. We all know that. The issue is why the priority is getting rid of the construction watchdog, a tough cop on the beat to address that behaviour.
The SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The Prime Minister is referring to the behaviour in his answer. I'm listening carefully.
Mr ALBANESE: It's wrong in any workplace. I've heard people sworn at in this place too. I've heard people behave badly in this workplace too. And it shouldn't happen. People should behave well in every workplace. But I'm asked about the issue of women in workplaces, and I'll tell you what the government is doing. We're adopting all 55 recommendations of the Jenkins Report—all 55, including the obligation on employers, including those in the construction industry, to provide safe workplaces for women. That is what we are doing, and by providing those provisions that we will put into law, employers will have an obligation to provide safe workplaces for women, and that will affect the behaviour of everyone in those workplaces. That is what we are doing.
The other thing we are doing is making gender pay equity an objective of the Fair Work Act. That is something that those opposite would never have done, and we'll wait to see whether they support it or not. Today, of all days, I would have thought that if you were going to ask a question about domestic violence—which is what the first question today was about—or about the position of women in workplaces, you might have asked a question about, or indeed endorsed, the legislation that was introduced just this morning for 10 days of paid domestic and family violence leave. It took the election of a Labor government to do that.
We think that all workplaces should be safe workplaces. We're legislating to do just that, and the approach of those opposite says more about them than anything else.
Manufacturing Industry
Ms MASCARENHAS (Swan) (14:12): My question is to the Prime Minister. A key part of the economic plan that Labor took to the election was for a future made in Australia. What work is the government doing to bring about that future?
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:12): I thank the member for Swan for her question. I congratulate her on her magnificent first speech as well as her election to this place. She brings experience as an engineer in the mining industry around Kalgoorlie and around Western Australia to this House, and she adds so much to the quality of the House of Representatives by her election.
The pandemic showed that Australia is at the end of a global supply chain, and that's a very precarious place to be. We know that future challenges could arrive, be they future pandemics, issues of cybersecurity or international security, and we know that one of the lessons is that we need to be more resilient as an economy. For a decade we've seen manufacturing leave this country. Most significant of course was the car industry, which was dared to leave by those opposite. That had real consequences throughout the supply chain. It had real consequences not just for the direct jobs affected but for the innovation and industry that goes with car industries, which is why other countries around the world back their car industry. We've also seen a refusal to invest in new industries like renewables. We've seen opportunities lost in that area.
The SPEAKER: The Manager of Opposition Business: it had better be on a point of order. What is the point of order?
Mr Fletcher: It's on relevance, Mr Speaker. The question was: what work is the government doing to bring about that future? It wasn't an open-ended invitation to criticise the record, and make incorrect allegations about the record, of the previous government.
The SPEAKER: There is no point of order. What the Prime Minister is saying is directly relevant to the question.
Mr ALBANESE: What we need is a government that backs Australian workers, that backs Australian industries and that backs Australian innovation and creativity. And we have just that. Through our National Reconstruction Fund we will have a $15 billion fund to support existing industries to transform, but also to support new industries to be created. We have in this country everything that goes into a battery—for example, we have nickel, we have copper and we have lithium. Yet, most of it is manufactured overseas. We need to value-add here. Our resources sector will continue to be important in terms of exporting, but where we can we should be value-adding, creating jobs and creating advanced manufacturing right here in this country. One way that we can do that is by having cheaper, cleaner energy, which will drive down the cost of manufacturing in this country. We can advance food processing and value-add to agriculture. We can add in terms of defence industry, as well. We're a world leader in science. We have been responsible for so much of the innovation throughout the world but we haven't commercialised those opportunities. We have a commitment for there to be 1.2 million tech jobs by 2030. We'll also be a government that buys Australian, that uses our purchasing power to support small businesses in this country. We need a future made in Australia. We need to be able to stand on our own two feet, and that is one of the lessons that we have from the pandemic. We've learnt it, we've developed a plan and we'll set about implementing that plan over this term of government.
Murray-Darling Basin
Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (14:16): My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Water. I thank the minister for today reaffirming the government's commitment to deliver the promised 450 gigalitres of water to South Australia by 2024, as under the plan. Today's commitment is a relief for thousands of people across Mayo. Will the minister please detail how the 450 gigalitres will be delivered to South Australia by 2024?
Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Minister for the Environment and Water) (14:16): I thank the member for Mayo for her question. It's a very important question. This government shares her concern to ensure that the 450 gigalitres of additional environmental water that was promised to South Australia in order for South Australia to sign onto the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is in fact delivered. I support that objective, I know the Prime Minister supports that objective, I know the members for Spence, Boothby, Makin and Adelaide and the Minister for Health and Aged Care and the Minister for Social Services support that objective. I know the South Australian government is very committed. I spoke again this week to their Deputy Premier and minister for water about how we deliver on this plan.
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is a good plan. Labor made it. Labor delivered on it. It's those opposite who, for almost a decade, have sabotaged the delivery of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. I'd be interested to know whether the members for Grey and Barker and Sturt also support the delivery of the 450 gigalitres of environmental water for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
I'll tell you something that makes this a little bit challenging, Member for Mayo. What makes it challenging is that in almost a decade those opposite have delivered two out of 450 gigalitres of water. Those opposite in almost—
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: I'd just ask the Minister for the Environment and Water to resume her seat. I'll call the member for Petrie.
Mr Howarth: Relevance: the environment minister is not being relevant to the question. The question said nothing about alternative policies and what happened in the past.
The SPEAKER: The minister is being entirely relevant.
Ms PLIBERSEK: Mr Speaker, I'll tell you how we are delivering on it. In fact, in the two months that I've been the environment minister, I have already contracted almost two gigalitres of water towards this 450-gigalitre target. I have done as much—I have contracted as much—in two months as those opposite delivered in almost a decade. I'll be meeting—
Mr Littleproud: Where's it coming from?
Ms PLIBERSEK: with state environment and water ministers in coming months—
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Nationals will stop interjecting.
Ms PLIBERSEK: I'll be meeting with the state and ACT water ministers in coming months to make sure that we can deliver on this 450-gigalitre target. I'll be making sure that every state—Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT and South Australia—does what it has promised to do, which is return this flow to the system. We'll increase First Nations water ownership and we'll take climate change into account in future modelling and planning for the system. We'll make sure that we release the Water for the Environment Special Account report. Guess what? That is another report they had before the election and didn't release. I can reassure the member for Mayo: we are committed to meeting this target. We will work with you to do that.
Economy
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Chief Government Whip) (14:20): My question is to the Treasurer. What did Treasury's revised forecast for the economy mean for the budget and what are the Albanese Labor government's budget priorities?
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (14:20): Thank you to the member for Lalor for her question about the implications of the combination of circumstances we confront in the economy and what that means for the Commonwealth budget. It's true that in recent times the good prices that we have been getting for our commodities on global markets have helped prop up the budget, as has the fact that in the last year at least the former government found it very difficult—indeed, impossible—to get some of their commitments away. That means in the near term there have been some improvements in the budget. But the structural issues that those opposite presided over and made worse over almost a decade in government do constrain the new government's choices as we deal with this combination of challenges. What we've been saying for some time now is that there is an onus on us to provide genuine value for money, to invest in the future of our economy, to invest in responsible cost-of-living relief, at the same time as we trim back the legacy of rorts and waste which defined budget policy for the best part of a decade under those opposite.
I listened to the shadow Treasurer earlier on responding to the statement that I gave to the parliament. In that 14 minutes of absolute drivel from the shadow Treasurer, I noticed that the fake indignation we hear from those opposite would be far more convincing if they hadn't been in government for the best part of a decade and created all of the challenges that the new government is now left to deal with—whether it's in water, as the member for Sydney said, or really right across the board. All the ministers are now dealing with the legacy of almost a decade—
The SPEAKER: Order. The Treasurer will cool his jets for a moment. Manager of Opposition Business, wait until I call you before you start talking. There is plenty of time.
Mr Fletcher: My point of order goes to relevance. The question asked was what are the government's economic priorities. We are a minute and a half in and he has spent most of his time criticising the record of the previous government.
The SPEAKER: The question was specifically about the revised economic forecasts and what the impacts mean for the budget. The Treasurer is in order and I give him the call.
Dr CHALMERS: It may be embarrassing for those opposite to hear this: they want to talk about their record in government, but on the record we have inherited, the budget we have inherited, the truth is that the choices we make as a new government are constrained by the fact that we have inherited a trillion dollars of debt with almost nothing to show for it. The reason for that is the shadow Treasurer and all the colleagues arraigned before us on the shadow front bench, the dregs of the former Liberal government, have left us with these challenges—whether it's a budget chock full of rorts and waste, which the member for Hume knows more about than probably anyone else in the parliament, or the fact that we don't have enough to show for this trillion dollars in debt. Every dollar they borrowed now costs more to service in the budget. The fastest-growing area of spending in the budget is us paying the interest on the debt that they accumulated over almost a decade. Instead of all this fake indignation and railing about the circumstances that they gave to us, the best thing they could do is to do the right thing and come together as the rest of Australia is doing, as we try to fix the mess that we've inherited.
Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining And Energy Union
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): My question is to the Prime Minister. Since the construction watchdog was last abolished by the Prime Minister, the militant CFMMEU has been handed well over $10 million to the Prime Minister's party. The watchdog had a 91 per cent success rate in court, prosecuted over 2½ thousand contraventions, secured over $16 million in penalties and recovered over $5 million in wages for over 8,000 workers. We understand there are 10 million reasons why your government has taken the side of the corrupt and criminal CFMMEU over Australians—
The SPEAKER: Order! I ask the Leader of the Opposition to resume his seat. I was crystal clear in saying that I wanted silence while the leader was being heard. The member for Moreton has been continuing to interject. He will leave the chamber under 94(a).
The member for Moreton then left the chamber.
A government member interjecting—
The SPEAKER: He may be my neighbour, but he's having a holiday! I give the call to the Leader of the House.
Mr Burke: The issue was raised yesterday about imputations of motive. The question and the section that this question's at right now is a direct imputation of motive. It can't be seen in any other way. I'd ask for the question to either be rephrased or be ruled out of order.
The SPEAKER: I'll hear from the Manager of Opposition Business.
Mr Fletcher: That's completely incorrect, Mr Speaker. It goes to the factual circumstance. It's not a question of motive; it's the factual circumstances around the donations that have been made.
An opposition member interjecting—
The SPEAKER: I do not need assistance from anyone on my left. I'll ask the Leader of the Opposition to rephrase that part of the question. I ask him to start the question again and for the clock to start again.
Mr DUTTON: Prime Minister, since the construction watchdog was abolished by the Prime Minister, the militant CFMMEU has handed well over $10 million to the Prime Minister's party. The watchdog has had a 91 per cent success rate in court, prosecuted over 2½ thousand contraventions, secured over $16 million in penalties and recovered over $5 million in wages for over 8,000 workers. Prime Minister, we understand that the $10 million paid to the Labor Party by the CFMMEU has resulted in policy change. What else do they get for their $10 million?
A government member interjecting—
The SPEAKER: There was a question at the very end.
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:27): I thank the member for his question and for showing the workers of Australia that his remains an antiunion party that is obsessed with attacking the rights of trade unions to exist.
Mr Dutton interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition has asked his question. The Prime Minister deserves to be heard in silence.
Mr ALBANESE: I say this to the honourable member opposite: if unions did not exist in the construction industry—
The SPEAKER: I'll ask the Prime Minister to resume his seat. I call the Leader of the Opposition, and it better be a point of order.
Mr Dutton: It is a point of order, of course, Mr Speaker. It's on relevance. The $10 million figure is never mentioned by the Prime Minister, and yet that is what the CFMMEU gave to the Labor—
The SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Resume your seat. The Prime Minister has been going. He is entitled to a preamble. He is in order. I'm listening carefully to his answer. It was a highly political and partisan question, and I'm giving the Prime Minister the call to respond.
Mr ALBANESE: I'm quite happy to engage in these questions about whether unions should exist in the construction industry, about whether—
Mr Dutton: It has nothing to do with it.
Mr ALBANESE: It has everything to do with it. The truth is that those opposite do not believe that there should be unions in the construction industry. If there weren't unions in the construction industry, the number of deaths on worksites would increase. The number of injuries on worksites would increase. I've been in this place for 26 years, and not once have I heard any coalition member speak about safety on construction sites. Not once! Not once have I seen a criticism of employers who, when left unfettered without the protection of unions, often engaged in activities that lead to tragedies in those workplaces. Not once!
All workers should be subject to the same laws and regulations as others. That is the simple principle that we on this side hold. The ABCC has not done anything to improve workplace safety. It doesn't do anything to guard against wage theft—which we will make a crime, by the way. Those opposite had the numbers to make wage theft a crime, and the member's question went to this. It went to the issue of the retention of wages and paying them back. Well, those opposite actually had legislation before this House that was passed, and, when it got to the Senate, they withdrew the provisions about wage theft being made a crime. The truth is that good unions and employers work together to share a common interest, which is why we'll be bringing them together at the Jobs and Skills Summit.
Small Business
Mr KHALIL (Wills) (14:30): My question is to the Minister for Small Business. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to assist Australia's small businesses to grow and to create more jobs, given the challenges facing the Australian economy?
Ms COLLINS (Franklin—Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Minister for Small Business) (14:31): Mr Speaker, I take the opportunity to congratulate you on your new role, and I also want to thank the member for Wills, who knows that small businesses are a critical part of his local community and have a large impact on the economy there.
Small businesses, of course, are the engine room of the nation's economy. They're at the centre of local communities, and they employ millions of Australians. We all know what a difficult few years small businesses have had in this country with the global pandemic. Of course, there have been floods and there have been bushfires, and we know that it's had a significant impact on them, but they have been incredibly resilient.
Despite the resilience, though, small businesses are facing challenges. We heard from the Treasurer earlier today about what some of those challenges are. Small businesses know that we inherited $1 trillion of debt. They know that rising inflation is increasing the cost of their supplies. They know that interest rates are increasing. They know that electricity prices are increasing—
Ms Bell interjecting—
Mrs McIntosh interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Moncrieff and the member for Lindsay will cease interjecting.
Ms COLLINS: even though those on the other side didn't have the guts to tell small businesses prior to the election, did they? And, of course, there are significant workforce shortages. We also know that those over there didn't do anything about that for nine years other than cut skills and training.
We on this side of the House understand how important small business is to the economy, which is why we've moved so quickly to actually support small businesses. We want to invest taxpayer money where it really matters. Yesterday we introduced Jobs and Skills Australia legislation, because we want to reinvest in skills in Australia. We want to make sure that local small businesses have the workers with the skills they need to be able to expand. We want to rebuild TAFE. With our cheaper child care, we want to make it easier for parents to do additional hours in those small businesses.
It's also why we've recently changed the Commonwealth Procurement Rules. We want to ensure that small businesses have a better pathway to engage and do business with government. Indeed, we're making it a requirement that 20 per cent of Commonwealth procurement must come from small businesses. Of $70 billion a year in Commonwealth contracts, 20 per cent will go to small businesses. This will provide certainty to small businesses. It will mean that they can invest in their communities and in their businesses and that they can grow and create more jobs in local businesses.
We have already announced that we're going to be working hard, as noted by the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, to make sure that we legislate against unfair contract terms for small businesses. We want to make sure that they can negotiate with larger businesses. The former government over there said that they would do it, but nine long years they were there and they didn't get around to it. But this side of the House is going to act, and act quickly, to support small businesses, because we've got their back. We want to support them so they can grow in local communities right across the country and create jobs.
Biosecurity: Foot-and-Mouth Disease
Mr LITT LEPROUD (Maranoa—Leader of the Nationals) (14:34): My question is to the Prime Minister. Given foot-and-mouth disease will cost the Australian economy $80 billion and hit everyday family budgets for milk and meat, does the Prime Minister agree with Western Australian Labor agriculture minister Alannah MacTiernan's statement that FMD won't be catastrophic and that milk and meat will actually be cheaper?
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister will be heard in silence. The Leader of the Nationals was heard in silence. I would ask for the same respect to be shown to the Prime Minister.
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:34): I thank the leader of the National Party for his question. I congratulate him on his election to high office. It must be difficult to follow the member for New England in your position, but I wish you well. I was aware of FMD, and I'm accountable for what happens in this place, of course. I was made aware by a tweet on 9 May 2022, and that tweet said:
This morning Chief Veterinary Officer Mark Schipp briefed me about Foot and Mouth Disease and its presence in Indonesia.
There it was, 9 May 2022. You would've expected the person who got that information to have acted, not to be in a position to then, subsequently to what happens down the track, look back and say, 'People didn't act earlier.' I heard that yesterday. I heard him say, 'People didn't act earlier.' But the tweet was in fact from David Littleproud MP, so on 9 May he was alert to the issue.
The SPEAKER: The member for Page, a point of order?
Mr Hogan: The point of order is relevance. This question went quite specifically to Alannah MacTiernan's very irresponsible and outrageous statements to every farmer in this country, and the Prime Minister needs to address the comments that she made.
The SPEAKER: The question was about foot-and-mouth disease and the impact on the economy. I give the call to the Prime Minister. I'm listening to his answer carefully.
Mr ALBANESE: I am indeed taking the issue seriously, and the government is taking the issue seriously. What we won't take seriously is someone who, when he was the minister, rang the bell and said, 'This is happening,' on 9 May and then says, 'Oh, why didn't you act earlier?' Seriously. They talk about foot-and-mouth disease, people coming in and whether shoes have been checked off enough. This is the same mob that let the Ruby Princess come in, a bit more noticeable than a pair of shoes. It was docked at Sydney Harbour. Everyone got off and brought COVID in. That was on your watch after you said that you'd stop the Ruby Princess coming in. After they said they would stop cruise ships entering Australia, they allowed the Ruby Princess to dock. The truth is we are acting with the strongest biosecurity response in Australia's history.
Mr Hogan interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Page will cease interjecting.
Mr ALBANESE: That's why our response is backed by the NFF and backed by the cattle industry. You don't have a single peak agricultural organisation backing your rhetoric—not one, unlike the NFF. Let it be recorded that he regards himself as a greater representative than the National Farmers Federation. (Time expired)
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: There is far too much noise in the chamber. I've already ejected one member. I will have no hesitation now in issuing a general warning and advising that, if this behaviour continues, members will be asked to leave the chamber.
Economy
Ms COKER (Corangamite) (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. What is the Albanese government doing to get wages moving again after a decade of low wage growth?
Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (14:39): I thank the member for Corangamite for the question, particularly today. Members might not know that when the member for Corangamite was the mayor of Surf Coast Shire it became the first employer in the world to establish family and domestic violence leave. So, it's a real pleasure to receive that question, particularly today.
The question asks about getting wages moving again, and it matters, because we've had a decade of wages being deliberately kept low. When you look at the inflation figures that are coming out now, imagine how much worse it would have been for people right now had the government not already acted to get the minimum wage moving. There are three parts of what the government will be doing to get wages moving. The first is the formal processes under the Fair Work Act, the second is closing loopholes and the third will be to reinvigorate enterprise bargaining.
The first of those formal processes was to participate in the annual wage review. We remember hearing that the sky would fall if we advocated for the improvement, but there are now workers all around Australia who are being paid more than they would have been paid because they now have a government fighting for their wages to get moving. But the formal processes don't stop there. It won't be too long before the government is making a submission on the review of aged-care workers' wages, where we'll be supporting a wage increase there. The third area where formal processes need to be looked at is that we need to legislate to be able to make sure the formal processes can deliver pay equity, and our pay equity reforms will be coming as well.
The second area, though, is the loopholes. A whole lot of loopholes have appeared in the act that have never been closed. We get a loophole in the tax act, we come in here—there's a TLA bill at the moment—and we close them really quickly. But, for a decade, when there was a loophole that caused wages to go down it was just left here. So, we'll be acting on the gig economy. We'll be acting on the way labour hire is being used with the 'same job, same pay' principle. In that area I'm looking very closely at the unilateral termination of agreements where people, when they're voting on a new agreement, aren't simply voting on whether or not they get a pay increase but are potentially voting on whether their dollar rate of pay immediately could go backwards if there's a unilateral cancellation of agreements.
Finally, we all know that the best period for getting wages moving with productivity improvements is when bargaining is at its best. The Prime Minister has put enterprise bargaining squarely on the table for the jobs summit and will be looking closely there for where consensus is available and also where good ideas are put forward. We need to get wages moving again and, after a decade of them being stagnant, it's time for that to happen.
Economy
Mr TAYLOR (Hume) (14:42): My question is for the Treasurer. Today the Treasurer told us he painted a picture. How much will painting that picture reduce the prices of the essential goods and services Australians are buying every day?
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (14:43): I want to begin this answer with a little bit of advice for the member for Hume. Member for Hume, when these geniuses write you a question which has something to do with energy prices, you should say, 'Thanks, but no thanks.' Mate, I would be happy if you asked me 11 questions a day about the energy market, because every single member of this House knows, and the people of Australia know, that the member for Hume, as the energy minister, is more responsible than anyone for the last decade of energy policy failures, which have driven up the cost of energy. If the member wants to ask me about inflation in this economy, he could at least fess up to the fact that he knew before the election that electricity prices were about to go up by around 20 per cent, but he sat on that information. He didn't tell the Australian people about that.
This is the political and economic equivalent of the arsonist whinging about the firefighters taking too long—those opposite asking us about inflation when their record is of almost a decade now of making all the problems in our economy worse rather than better. It takes a lot of nerve to ask a question about the cost of living. The member for Hume, wanting to talk about his record earlier today, wrecked the energy market, he rorted the budget and now he wants to get his hands on the Australian economy.
Mr Fletcher: Mr Speaker—
The SPEA KER: Has the Treasurer concluded his answer? Manager of Opposition Business, resume your seat. The Treasurer has answered the question.
First Nations Australians
Dr REID (Robertson) (14:44): My question is to the Prime Minister. What message will the government take to the Garma Festival, given the importance of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and of Closing the Gap?
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:45): I thank the member for Robertson for his question, and I congratulate him on his election and in joining the growing number of First Nations people who are represented across the political spectrum in this House and in the Senate.
The Garma Festival is Australia's most significant gathering of First Nations people to celebrate culture, but also to discuss their future. It's a real opportunity, and I'll be travelling there tomorrow with the Minister for Indigenous Australians and the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, along with Senator Dodson, who has been given special responsibility as the envoy for reconciliation and the Uluru implementation.
The Uluru statement is a gracious, generous hand being extended to non-Indigenous Australians, and I believe we should seize the opportunity and grasp it to advance us as a nation. It will be one of those moments, just like the apology was, where, after it happened, everyone will wonder why we didn't do it beforehand. Everyone will be lifted up, the entire nation, by recognising in our Constitution, in our national birth certificate, that Australia didn't begin in 1788, nor did we end. It should be a great source of pride that we have the oldest continuous civilisation on the planet sharing this island continent of ours. It is a great privilege, and we should honour it.
But we also need to recognise that it's not a matter of doing that or closing the gap. It's not a matter of symbolism, as some people would see it. It's a matter of empowerment. Giving people respect is a first step to overcoming some of the challenges which are there—and we know that they're there. There's a life expectancy gap of some 20 years. We have some of the worst incarceration rates in the world. When a government listens to people, when you look at the programs that have been most successful—justice reinvestment, Indigenous rangers, the national partnership agreement process driven by the Coalition of Peaks and Pat Turner—that's why they are the successful programs.
Our policies include 500 additional Aboriginal healthcare workers, investing in life-saving kidney dialysis treatment, the Housing Australia Future Fund to repair remote housing, locally tailored justice reinvestment. We'll do all of that. At the same time we want to work across the parliament and, indeed, across the country to lift this nation up by recognising our First Nations people in our Constitution, giving them a voice to parliament, which is nothing more and nothing less than good manners, and consulting people on matters that affect them. That's why I look forward to advancing the discussions on the weekend. I'm pleased that, across the parliament, the shadow minister and the minister will be travelling with me tomorrow.
Heritage Listing
Ms STEGGALL (Warringah) (14:48): My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Water. Congratulations, Minister, and thank you for visiting the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust sites in Warringah with me. These are iconic places, from the North Head Sanctuary to Mosman's Headland Park, ancestral Indigenous sites and the very military map rooms and tunnels where the defence of Sydney was planned in World War II. These sites need to be valued. They're falling into disrepair. Will you invest in the restoration and conservation of these sites for future generations?
Ms PLIB ERSEK (Sydney—Minister for the Environment and Water) (14:48): I want to thank the member for Warringah for her question. I also want to thank her for going with me and with the member for North Sydney to see some of these beautiful special places on Sydney Harbour. I am honoured, as are the Prime Minister and the member for Wentworth I think, to represent, here in the national parliament, these areas surrounding our beautiful Sydney Harbour.
Sydney Harbour has deep history—65,000 years of history. Its stories are told so well by Aboriginal tour groups, like Tribal Warrior, that sail around the Harbour showing tourists the history of the place. As the member for Warringah said, we have the history—military history, convict history, maritime and industrial history—and the beautiful natural environment, the incredible biodiversity under the waters of Sydney Harbour, protected and restored so well by the Sydney Institute of Marine Science.
I am excited, as the member for Warringah is and as I know the member for North Sydney is, about two really exciting master plans that are being developed at the moment by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust managing the land of Cockatoo Island and the North Head Sanctuary. The member for Warringah is quite right. These areas have been run down in recent years and neglected by those opposite. I know that the Prime Minister has a special interest in this, because, of course, Cockatoo Island is part of his area. He was profoundly influenced by his mentor and my friend Tom Uren. Tom Uren was a man who took up the lesson of Niels Nielsen, a very early lands minister in the New South Wales government, who thought that every Australian, every Sydneysider, should have access to the property around our harbour, to the beaches and the foreshore, the built environment and the natural environment. That is the principle that we will always use when we are considering how we best protect, restore and maintain these precious sites.
Australian Constitution
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Lingiari) (14:51): My question is to the Minister for Indigenous Australians. How is the Australian government delivering the Uluru Statement from the Heart and, in particular, progressing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the Constitution?
Ms BURNEY (Barton—Minister for Indigenous Australians) (14:51): I thank the member for Lingiari for her question and congratulate her on her very powerful speech last night. And I want people in this chamber to note that history is being made right now with the member for Lingiari asking me this question. History is calling us all. The Australian government is committed, as the Prime Minister just said, to implementing the Uluru statement in full. We will hold a referendum to enshrine a First Nations Voice in the Constitution this term of parliament.
The oldest continuous cultures in the world—something that is a gift to all of us. Despite inhabiting this land for more than 60,000 years, we have no place in the founding legal document. It is a glaring omission. This is not a radical proposal; it is fair and it is practical. It is about growing our nation up together. It's about unity. It's about hope. It's about consulting, as the Prime Minister has just said, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people about laws and policies that affect us, and it is about delivering practical outcomes. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create lasting change. It is one shot in the locker. Every Australian will have the chance to answer the Uluru statement's patience call, and I invite them to do so.
Uluru was five years ago. Since then there has been consideration by constitutional experts, First Nations leaders and parliamentary committees. I believe Australians are ready to take the next step. I want to acknowledge the shadow minister and his really good will and involvement in the discussions that we have had. I am encouraged by the in-principle support of all the state and territory leaders, including Premier Perrottet from New South Wales and Premier Rockliff from Tasmania. I invite all the members of this place to join us on this journey.
This is an issue that does not belong to either side of politics. It is about building a better future. History is calling us. Australians believe in decency, and I say to those on the other side: get onto the station; we want you to be on the train with us.
Energy
Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (14:54): My question is to the Prime Minister. You promised a $275 decrease in household power bills. Will you guarantee to the House that Australian families will see that $275 cut?
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:55): I thank the member for his question, which goes to the commitment that Labor has through our Powering Australia plan. It is indeed a comprehensive plan that was fully modelled by RepuTex, who are Australia's leading energy economists. They had a look at the full suite of policies that we have, including fixing transmission in this country, bringing it into the 21st century through our plan to rewire the nation. That was in my first budget reply. And that will be the most significant element in terms of the changes that will occur. But, of course, it wasn't just something that we came up with. It's based upon the Integrated System Plan of the Australian Energy Market Operator. It's been out there for such a long period of time that, with the rise in renewable energy, you need to make sure that you can connect up to the grid so that Australians can benefit from it. But what we've got from those opposite when it comes to energy prices, of course, is—
Mr Fletcher: A point of order, Speaker—
Mr ALBANESE: It's about energy prices.
The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister will take a breather. Manager of Opposition Business, remember, I told you: wait until you get the call and then you can start speaking. I give the call to the Manager of Opposition Business.
Mr Fletcher: The point of order is relevance. It was a very simple question: will you guarantee to the House that Australian families will see the $275 cut—
Mr Hogan interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Member for Page, I don't need any assistance from the cheap seats next to me. The Prime Minister was asked a question about his commitment regarding a $275 decrease in household power. He was referring to the policy announcement.
Mr ALBANESE: I was referring to our Powering Australia plan. I can understand how those opposite are confused by this, because we actually had a plan. Those opposite had a pamphlet. It was the 22nd pamphlet that they had.
Mr Taylor interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The shadow Treasurer will cease interjecting.
Mr ALBANESE: We have a comprehensive plan, which is backed by the Business Council of Australia, backed by the Australian Industry Group, backed by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, backed by the Clean Energy Council, backed by the Australian Conservation Foundation, backed by Greenpeace, backed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions. And what every single one of those organisations is saying is that business need the investment certainty that they haven't had for a decade—for a decade!
The SPEAKER: Leader of the Opposition, we have had one point of order about relevance; what is your point of order?
Mr Dutton: It is a point of order, Speaker. This is the most tortured answer. The answer really is no.
The SPEAKER: Resume your seat.
Mr Dutton: Condense it to 'no'. That's all. You can't guarantee the $275. You've broken a promise.
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting. I want to be clear on this point. There is one point of order made on relevance. I will not tolerate the standing orders being abused.
Mr ALBANESE: It's only day 2 of question time, and it's the second-best day they'll have, because it doesn't get better. The truth is that those opposite sat on the information, knowing that energy prices would go up in July. Not only did they sit on it; they refused to tell the Australian people. They knew that that was baked into the wholesale prices, and they refused to tell them. (Time expired)
Medicare
Ms STANLEY (Werriwa—Government Whip) (15:00): My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. After a decade of cuts and neglect, what are the Albanese Labor government 's plans to strengthen and protect Medicare?
Mr BUTLER (Hindmarsh—Minister for Health and Aged Care and Deputy Leader of the House) (15:00): It is a great honour to get that question from my friend the member for Werriwa, because the Labor Party have no prouder legacy than our contribution to universal health coverage in this country, particularly through the twin pillars of the PBS and Medicare, great Labor initiatives opposed vigorously by the Liberal Party at the time—in Medicare's case, literally for decades. Who can forget the father of the modern Liberal Party, John Howard, with a straight face describing Medicare as one of the great failures of the Hawke government? That is why it has been the duty of every incoming health minister of the Labor Party—Doug Everingham, Neal Blewett, Nicola Roxon—to confront and clean up the mess left by their Liberal Party predecessors, and it's exactly the same this time.
Mr Tehan interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Wannon will leave the chamber under 94(a).
The member for Wannon then left the chamber.
Mr BUTLER: After nine long years of neglect and cuts to Medicare, it has never been harder or more expensive to see a doctor than it is right now, because, after the now Leader of the Opposition failed to get his GP tax through the parliament—a tax that would have ended bulk-billing forever and for everyone—he imposed a freeze on the MBS rebate for six long years, a freeze that has baked in an ongoing cut to Medicare of more than $500 million each and every year. No wonder gap fees skyrocketed under this government.
Mr Howarth: Point of order on relevance. It's a minute and 30 seconds, and there was nothing asked about alternative policies. He spent a minute and 30 seconds talking about us.
The SPEAKER: Member for Petrie, you're continually raising wrong points of order. The minister was asked, 'After a decade of neglect, what are the government's plans for health and aged care?' That means he's referring to what happened over the last 10 years.
Mr BUTLER: No wonder the average gap fee to see a GP now, for the first time in Medicare's history, is more than the Medicare rebate itself, and no wonder junior doctors are walking away from general practice in droves. Just as every new Labor government had to do, we will clean up this mess because there is no higher priority for Labor than a strong Medicare system.
That's why we're already working with state governments to deliver our 50 urgent care clinics, which will make it easier to see a doctor and take pressure off our hospitals. Tomorrow I will chair the first meeting of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce to advise the government on our $750 million commitment to deliver on the primary care sector's plan for better primary care delivered to patients when and where they need it. We'll slash the price of medicine for millions of general patients. We're expanding the Aboriginal health workforce, as well as services for dialysis and rheumatic heart disease. We'll introduce world-best screening programs for our precious newborn babies, and we'll fund upgrades to the thousands of general practices that worked so hard to keep us safe over the last 2½ years. After nine long years of neglect and cuts, there is much to do to strengthen and protect our Medicare system, and finally Australia has a government with a plan to do it.
Aged Care
Ms WARE (Hughes) (15:04): My question is to the Minister for Aged Care and Minister for Sport. How many additional nurses are needed to fulfil the government's commitment to have 24/7 nursing in aged care by 2023?
Ms WELLS (Lilley—Minister for Aged Care and Minister for Sport) (15:04): I thank the member for Hughes for her question, and I congratulate her on her first speech in the House yesterday and welcome her to this place. With respect to the question of 24/7 nurses, I was so pleased to be the minister to introduce that bill in the House yesterday morning. There were many people from this side of the House here yesterday morning to witness the very first bill to be introduced to the House in this 47th Parliament that gets to the work of reforming aged care—something that was neglected for nine very long years under the previous government.
Like the minister for the environment—I noted from an earlier answer today—in just nine weeks, in the first 100 days, we are going to deliver 17 and two: 19 recommendations of the royal commission in 100 days of this government compared to only nine in 17 months of the previous government. Compare nine in 17 months to 19 in the first 100 days. One of those goes to 24/7 nurses. Member for Page, are you coming for me on that?
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! I remind members on my left that one of your members is taking a point of order. I will give him the call when there is silence. The member for Page, on a point of order.
Mr Hogan: It is one of relevance. I ask that the minister maybe Google it. It's a number. The answer to that question is a number.
The SPEAKER: Resume your seat. The minister is being relevant. She has been on her feet for one minute. The question was specifically regarding the government's policies around the additional nurses commitment in aged care. I call the minister.
Ms WELLS: We estimate that about 80 per cent of the facilities across Australia already fulfil or nearly fulfil that requirement for 24/7 nurses, so we are focused 110 per cent on the 20 per cent of facilities that are not yet fulfilling the 24/7 nursing requirement. We need to lift up the standard of care across the country that was neglected for nine years under the previous government, and I note this new-found interest in 24/7 nurses. The previous government could not find within themselves to support that in the Senate in the 46th Parliament. The bill that we put through the House yesterday morning would have gone through but for their inability to support 24/7 nurses. So now they ask me how I'm going to deliver something that they could not do themselves, despite the fact that in the Senate they had the ability in budget week, in the dying days of the Morrison government. One of the very last things they could have done was legislate 24/7 nurses for older Australians across the country, but they didn't. You didn't! So now we will.
In the first 100 days we have commenced that legislative process. We are working with providers to make sure that everybody will have those nurses so that come 1 July next year every single older Australian will know that they will have access to a nurse when they need it in their facility, across the country. We will do that in tandem with our friends in the industrial movement, who are helping us move forward, and with our friends in the community and providers association, who are working with us to make sure that people in regional and rural areas and people in remote areas can access nurses and have the exemptions and support that they need to do that.
I am pleased and proud that this side of the House understands the importance of that. I am heartened by the question. It suggests that there might have been a turnaround in your approach, but I note that we would not be in this position—being forced to address these workforce shortages—if you'd done anything in the past nine years to take aged-care reform seriously. (Time expired)
Mr Fletcher interjecting—
The SPEAKER: I didn't hear what the Manager of Opposition Business said. For the third time today, if I don't call you, I can't hear what you say, so there is no point talking until I call you. I give the call to the member for Macquarie.
Environment
Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (15:09): My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Water. What actions is the government taking to address the decade of neglect of our environment, as highlighted in the State of the environment report?
Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Minister for the Environment and Water) (15:09): I want to thank the member for Macquarie for that question. I was fortunate enough to visit her electorate just last week, where I met with New South Wales parks volunteers, the Blue Mountains Conservation Society and other members of her constituency who are passionately committed to better protection for the environment of the Blue Mountains and surrounds.
Last week, I released the State of the environment report. This is a report that is to be tabled every five years, keeping Australians up to date with the state of the environment. The previous government received this report in December last year. The minister at the time had it sitting on her desk in December last year. But she didn't release it in December. She didn't release it in January. She didn't release it in February, in March, nor in April, nor in May. I'll tell you the reason she didn't release it when she had it for six months: it's because this report tells a story of an environment in bad shape and getting worse in catastrophic ways in an accelerating decline. It tells the story that Australia has, for the first time, more introduced plant species than native plant species. Australia has lost more mammal species to extinction than any other continent. A habitat the size of Tasmania has been lost in the last couple of decades. Plastics are choking our oceans—up to 80,000 pieces of plastic in a square kilometre of ocean. The flow in the Murray-Darling river system in 2019 was the lowest on record. The Murray-Darling river system is under greater pressure than ever before.
Is it any wonder then that those opposite didn't want Australians to know this? And what did they do to turn it around? I'll tell you what—they did nothing to turn it around. Instead, they axed climate laws. They failed to fix the broken environmental laws that don't serve business and don't serve the Australian environment. They set recycling targets with no hope of meeting the targets and no plan to meet them. They cut the highly protected areas of marine parks in half. They halved the highly protected areas of marine parks, and they cut funding to the environment department by 40 per cent. We will change this with $1.2 billion to restore our Great Barrier Reef; a quarter of a billion dollars to protect threatened species; real action on climate change—one of the first acts of the new government—growing the national estate, protecting 30 per cent of our land and 30 per cent of our waters by 2030 at least; and actually delivering on the $276 million—promised by those opposite but never delivered—to protect Kakadu National Park. These are the commitments that we make that we will deliver after a decade of neglect from those opposite. (Time expired)
Aged Care
Ms LE Y (Farrer—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:12): My question is to the Minister for Aged Care and Sport. I refer the minister to her previous answer, and I ask: what is the number of additional nurses needed to fulfil the government's commitment to have 24/7 nursing in aged care?
Ms WELLS (Lilley—Minister for Aged Care and Minister for Sport) (15:13): It's 869.
Pensions and Benefits
Mr GEORGANAS (Adelaide) (15:13): My question is to the Minister for Government Services. What progress is the Albanese government making towards establishing a royal commission into robodebt?
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Minister for Government Services) (15:13): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and congratulations on your election. Just for the benefit of the House, when talking about the robodebt royal commission, I might remind members that robodebt is the colloquial term that has been used to describe the automated debt collection system which was introduced by the previous government in July of 2015 until it was ceased in November of 2019. It was a system which was designed so the Commonwealth could say it was chasing payments that it was allegedly owed by social security recipients. But in about April of 2021, at the door of the Federal Court, on the day that ministers and senior public servants might have had to give evidence in the trial of the class action, the Commonwealth finally admitted that it had no legal basis to raise these debts and that, in fact, it unlawfully raised $1.7 billion of debt against 433,000 vulnerable Australians. It was described by the court as a shameful chapter in Commonwealth public administration and that it should have been obvious to the senior public servants and responsible ministers at different points who designed it, oversaw it and boasted about it in the media that it was an illegal scheme. Advocates, citizens, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, MPs and the media all campaigned on this. Great harm was caused by the robodebt scheme—financial hardship, distress, anxiety and far worse. Yes, the money has been repaid, courtesy of the class action. Yes, the scheme has stopped, courtesy of the people of Australia. Yes, the government has gone, courtesy of the voters.
Labor have promised to introduce a royal commission because there is much that we do not know. I have worked with my colleagues, the Attorney-General and the Minister for Social Services. The terms of reference will likely go to: who was responsible for the design, development and establishment of the scheme? What questions were ever asked about its legality? What risks were identified? Why were the volume of complaints and the Administrative Appeal decisions ignored for 4½ years? What were the full costs of this scheme?
This royal commission will start most likely in the last quarter of this year. Hopefully, it will be concluded in the first six months of next year. We are finalising the personnel. But let us be very clear to the people of Australia: we have to learn from the mistakes which the previous government has never owned up to, and that is the very least we can do for the nearly half a million of our fellow Australians who were illegally attacked by their own government.
Biosecurity: Foot-And-Mouth Disease
Dr HAINES (Indi) (15:16): Mr Speaker, congratulations on your appointment. My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Indi is sheep and cattle country. If foot-and-mouth disease hits Australia, the cost to our community will be devastating and the people of Indi are worried. Having grown up on a dairy farm and as someone who still runs beef cattle, I feel this fear too. What are the next steps to strengthen Australia's biosecurity response and when will the government take those steps?
Ms CATHERINE KING (Ballarat—Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) (15:17): I thank the member for Indi for her question. I know, like all of us who represent regional communities in this place, that we are extremely concerned about the risk of foot-and-mouth disease entering this country. It is a concern that the Australian government is taking very seriously. It's why we have put in place the toughest biosecurity measures that the country has ever seen.
I thank the member for Indi and her staff for attending the backbench briefing that was provided yesterday by the minister Senator Watt and the chief vet. It is an important part of ensuring that we all do our part to make sure messages get out. Whether you are in a regional seat, like my own or another seat, you have people travelling to Indonesia and Bali, and it is important that you get consistent messages out.
As you know, the Australian government has put in place tough biosecurity measures, including measures in Indonesia, which I outlined to the House yesterday, and measures here in the country. But, of course, we are monitoring the situation closely every single hour, every single day. We continue to take advice from the biosecurity experts in relation to any further measures that are needed. We know that we need to continue to work closely with our Indonesian counterparts. It is in our national interest that Indonesia gets on top of that. Our embassy in Jakarta is working with and engaging at the highest levels in Indonesia, and we are continuing to offer both financial and technical assistance in that. But, of course, the very best way to ensure FMD does not come to Australia is to assist Indonesia to get the outbreak under control, and we are committed to doing everything we can to protect this important Australian industry.
Defence
Mr ROB MITCHELL (McEwen) (15:19): My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. What is the Albanese government's plan to meet the national security challenges facing Australia in the region? Why is deeper engagement in the region important for Australia?
Mr MARLES (Corio—Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence) (15:19): I thank my good friend the member for McEwen for this question and congratulate him on his wonderful re-election to this place. Australia is facing the most complex set of strategic circumstances that we've had since the end of the Second World War. The global rules based order—which Australia helped build from Bretton Woods onwards, and, with the United States, has helped try to protect since then—is under more pressure and strain now than at any point since the end of the Second World War.
Russia's appalling invasion of Ukraine—a large country seeking to impose itself on a smaller neighbour, not by reference to the rule of law but through might and power—is an example. But we see examples in the Indo-Pacific: the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, freedom of navigation—so important to us as an island trading nation—is also under strain. As China seeks to shape the world around it in a way that we have not seen before, this raises really complex challenges for Australia, not least because China is our largest trading partner. To be sure, we value a productive relationship with China, and we want to see that relationship in a better place. But, while the Australian government has changed, our national interest has not. The Albanese government is absolutely committed to standing up for Australia's national interest, particularly when that differs from the actions of other countries, including China.
While the way forward is not obvious, what's really clear at this moment is that it is a time to be working with like-minded countries with our friends. This is why it was so important that the Prime Minister attend the meeting of the Quad, even though this occurred immediately after the last election. Indeed, the Prime Minister's presence was very profound. Since then, I have visited every member of the Quad—Japan, India and the United States—and what's really apparent is that, in each of our bilateral relationships with these countries, there has never been a greater degree of strategic purpose. There has never been more closeness in our relationship, including defence cooperation. That, combined with repairing our relationships with ASEAN and rebuilding our relationships with Pacific island countries, makes it clear that, under this government, Australia is back at the table of the international community of nations.
This stands in stark contrast to the government that was led by those opposite over nine years, who did nothing other than shout at the world. Strategic policy, foreign policy—it is not a fundamentalist space. We will engage with sense and with intelligence, and, precisely because of that, Australians will be safer.
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Leader of the Opposition) (15:22): on indulgence—I want to join in support of the opening comments of the Minister for Defence—not the flourish at the end, obviously. This is an issue that is incredibly important for our country and for our region. It's important for us to have the strongest possible relationship with our allies, not just the United States and the United Kingdom but India, Japan and others in the region. We will support whatever action the government takes to take the decisions to keep our country safe in a very uncertain world.
Mr Albanese: I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE
Commonwealth Games
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (15:23): The Commonwealth Games opening ceremony is tonight. Along with the Minister for Sport and all members of the House of Representatives, I'm sure we wish all of our athletes, the men and women who will represent our great nation, all the best over the coming fortnight as they compete in Birmingham and as they do Australia proud.
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Leader of the Opposition) (15:23): Likewise, I join with the Prime Minister in offering support to our best and greatest. We expect to scoop the pool. There are a lot of opportunities there for us and our wonderful athletes. We thank their family, the support staff and all of those who have contributed to what I'm sure will be a great success and make all Australians very proud.
QUESTIONS TO THE SPEAKER
Questions Without Notice
Mr FLETCHER (Bradfield—Manager of Opposition Business) (15:24): I rise with a question for you, Mr Speaker: how do you intend to handle the approach of ministers when they're asked a question about policy and then turn to a generalised attack on the previous government?
Government members interjecting —
The SPEAKER: Order! I can't hear the question.
Mr FLETCHER: There was a well-understood practice under Speaker Smith in relation to questions that asked for an analysis of alternative policies. In all of the questions we have had today there has been no attempt to even put in that line about alternative policies. They have simply been purportedly questions about the government's plan, but it seems that most ministers want to spend a lot of their time criticising the previous government. I ask you, Mr Speaker—and this is an important issue—how will you be handling that?
The SPEAKER: Just on that point, Leader of the House?
Mr Burke: Mr Speaker, I also ask you when you're looking back over question time for the last couple of days to consider with respect to the number of points of order whether there is in fact now a new point of order for relevance deprivation, because the number that we're getting is absurd.
The SPEAKER (15:25): I thank both the Manager of Opposition Business and the Leader of the House. I will take that under consideration and report back to both of them.
STATEMENTS
Personal Explanations
Mr LITTLEPROUD (Maranoa—Leader of the Nationals) (15:25): Mr Speaker, I believe during question time I was misrepresented.
The SPEAKER: Do you claim to have been misrepresented?
Mr LITTLEPROUD: I do, Mr Speaker.
The SPEAKER: You may proceed.
Mr LITTLEPROUD: During question time the Leader of the Opposition answered a question with respect to foot-and-mouth disease from a tweet I quoted on 9 May. I remind the House that that was during the caretaker provisions. He conveniently forgot to read out the last two lines of that tweet that demonstrated the actions that we were taking in conjunction and after consultation with the opposition—
Ms Collins interjecting—
Mr LITTLEPROUD: with respect to the caretaker provisions, Member for Franklin—that we would extend workings in not only Indonesia but Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea. It is disappointing that the Prime Minister did not use the full text of that tweet to answer a question on a matter as serious as foot-and-mouth disease.
AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORTS
Reports Nos 1 of 2022-23 and 45 of 2021-22
The SPEAKER (15:26): I present the Auditor-General's performance audit report No. 1 of 2022-23 entitled Award of funding under the Building Better Regions Fund: Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts; Department of Industry, Science and Resources and the corrigendum to the Auditor-General's performance audit report of No. 45 of 2021-2022 entitled Effectiveness of the management of contractors: Department of Veterans' Affairs.
Documents made parliamentary papers in accordance with the resolution agreed to on 28 March 2018.
DOCUMENTS
Presentation
Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (15:27): Documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Cost of Living
The SPEAKER (15:27): I have received a letter from the honourable member for Hume proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The need for the Government to adopt a plan to ease pressure on cost of living for Australian families and small businesses now, not in October.
I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.
More than t he number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
Mr TAYLOR (Hume) (15:27): Today the Treasurer told us he painted a picture. I don't know whether it was a watercolour, an oil painting or a finger painting, but the truth of the matter is he ain't no artist. He might think he's Leonardo da Vinci. He might think he's Michelangelo. He might think he's Tom Roberts. Who knows? But the truth of the matter is that he didn't do what the Australian people really want, which is explain how he's going to address the cost-of-living pressures that Australians are facing. Indeed, Mr Speaker, within three hours of painting his picture he couldn't even answer a question about what was going to happen to the cost of essential goods and services for the Australian people. He refused to answer that question. In fact, what we heard from him was all smear and no idea. That's all he had, Mr Speaker. He could not answer that question. The truth of the matter is the real reason is that he has no plan.
Mr Speaker, it's worse than that, because they are already either crab walking or sprinting away from the few commitments on this that they did make to the Australian people prior to the election. We heard it here today, Mr Speaker. Did any of us hear the Prime Minister prepared to recommit to the $275 reduction in electricity prices he promised? He promised it back in December. He's making all sorts of excuses about what happened in April and May. He's walking away from it, Mr Speaker—and not like a crab, like a gazelle. He is running away from that commitment as fast as he can.
It gets worse than that, because in the oil painting that we got today from the Treasurer we also saw another broken commitment. Prior to the election, they committed to meaningful increases in real wages, Mr Speaker. Snuck away in the back of his statement, in a table, was an admission that there was not going to be any meaningful increase in real wages. In fact, in the next 12 months, Mr Speaker, there's going to be a 1.75 per cent reduction. In the total of three years—that's likely to be the term, or thereabouts, but who knows how long they're going to last—of this parliament the total increase in real wages is 0.5 per cent. That's 0.166 per cent a year, Mr Speaker. This is a real worry, Mr Speaker. This is a pathetic excuse, Mr Speaker—that in fact things are happening that they don't really like. What we've heard is: 'Gee, it's tough.' He's pointed the finger a lot and he's walking away from those absolutely ironclad commitments that the Australian people expected. That's what the Australian people expected, Mr Speaker, because they said they were going to deliver it.
Mr Speaker, when we were in government we did deliver under incredibly difficult circumstances. We know the nature of government is you're getting curveballs every day. Things are coming at you at pace and the only thing you can do is respond proactively. There's no point complaining. There's no point saying that the pandemic is not your fault. The one thing you can do is act and put together a plan, Mr Speaker, and that's exactly what we did.
In fact, coming out of the pandemic unemployment was substantially lower than before the pandemic. Growth in the size of the economy was over three points higher at the end of the pandemic than before it. Mr Speaker, these are absolutely remarkable outcomes. In fact, when I talk to others around the world, so many are keen to know what is it that Australia did so well, Mr Speaker. It was a remarkable outcome.
We realised that there were real cost-of-living pressures coming through at the back end of the pandemic. That's why in the last budget we had support for Australians on fuel, support for Australians on medicines, support for Australians on tax. That built on many years of working to make sure Australians were able to make ends meet with tax reductions for small businesses, tax reductions for households—hardworking families, Mr Speaker. Our longstanding commitment is to make sure that Australians are able to make ends meet, because it's this side of the House that has always been committed to lower taxes. It's this side of the House that has always been committed to making sure that Australians can find a way to make ends meet.
In seeking to cast blame today, the Treasurer held out three tests for himself. They were pretty extraordinary tests. What happens to power prices, what happens to apprentices and what happens to wages? Given that they've walked away from their commitments on two of those three, who knows what's going to happen to the third one, Mr Speaker? The reality is that he has set a pretty tough test for himself. But, Mr Speaker, he does recognise the importance of a plan, because during the election campaign he accused the former government of having an excuse for everything and a plan for nothing. But what I heard today from the Treasurer was an excuse for everything and a plan for absolutely nothing, Mr Speaker.
He made an interjection when I was making my response to the statement. He asked us what we were suggesting. I am very happy to provide him with some help, Mr Speaker, because, as he pointed out, it is quite right that we do need to help with some of the supply pressures that businesses are facing right now, particularly the labour pressures. That's why we've announced, in recent weeks, that we would support pensioners being able to double the amount of the work they can do without losing their pension. What we have at the moment is small businesses all around the country looking for labour, looking for people who can help them to deliver to their customers, and we have many pensioners who would like to work more. They're facing a high effective marginal tax as a result of the way the pension works. What we're proposing is that we would allow them to increase the amount that they work without losing their pension. That's good for pensioners, good for businesses and good for the nation. The Treasurer might want to consider that as a way of dealing with this, but he is going to spend between now and who knows when trying to concoct his plan, when the action required is urgent; it is required now, Mr Speaker.
The second thing they can provide is good budget management. We know that every decent economist out there right now is saying that countries had to do what they had to do during the pandemic but now is the time to tighten the belt. That's why, at the last budget, we turned around the budget by $103 billion. Those opposite wanted to spend an additional $81 billion during the pandemic. They wanted to bribe Australians to get a vaccine. And it's worse than that, because they took to the election commitments to spend an extra $45 billion on off-budget indulgences—sneaky little expenditures that the Australian people have to pay for, Mr Speaker. On-budget, they were prepared to fess up to $18 billion of additional spending, Mr Speaker, and we know that additional spending puts pressure on interest rates, puts pressure on inflation and, therefore, puts pressure on Australians.
Mr Speaker, the final area they can focus on is productivity. Productivity matters. It matters because that's how you pay people more. That's how you pay back your budget deficits.
Mr Jones: Every year productivity went down!
Mr TAYLOR: That is how you make sure that Australians have a good standard of living. Mr Speaker, I will take the interjection from the member opposite, because—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): I have waited because I was loath to interrupt you—
Mr TAYLOR: I'm sorry—Deputy Speaker. I apologise.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: but you have called me Mr Speaker on at least a dozen occasions. My title is Deputy Speaker. I don't need a Mr, a Mrs or a Madam; it's just Deputy Speaker.
Mr TAYLOR: I'll go with Deputy Speaker.
An honourable member: But she would have been a great Speaker!
Mr TAYLOR: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. You would have been a very good Speaker! But, Mr Speaker, meanwhile—
Honourable members int erjecting—
Mr TAYLOR: those opposite get rid of the ABCC. We know how important that is to productivity. We know that that is helping to reduce the cost of construction in this country. The Treasurer gave us a painting today, Mr Speaker. He was a forecaster, not a leader. He was a commentator, not a Treasurer. We need a plan, Mr Speaker. That's what Australians want now.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Seriously, shadow Treasurer, you are just going to have to dump the 'Mr Speaker' when I am in the chair, okay?
Mr JONES (Whitlam—Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services) (15:38): Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I've got to say that if anybody ever says that the Leader of the Opposition is completely humourless, I am just going to point to the shadow Treasurer. He appointed this man as the shadow Treasurer of Australia, who is no good with names and no good with numbers. A bit of self-reflection would not have gone astray—just a little bit of self-reflection.
There we have the member for Hume puffing himself up, in only the way that a King's private schoolboy can, and demanding that the government of nine weeks deliver something that this mob couldn't deliver in nine years. In nine weeks they demand that we deliver something that they could not land in nine years. Just a little bit of self-reflection wouldn't go astray. We deliver a comprehensive plan to confront the crisis that was left behind by this rabble over here—to confront the mess that they have left us—and what does the member for Hume say? 'That's very good, but where's the plan?' It is a joke. They should reflect on the nine years that have got them on that side of the chamber: a complete policy vacuum that has left the country economically weaker and in a state of disarray with our relationships with our near neighbour and with our friends in Europe that we have spent the last nine weeks trying to patch up. Our relations with the Pacific, Europe and the US were in a worse state when we came back into government than when we left it. We've got a crisis in wages, a crisis in skills and $1 trillion worth of debt, made worse by the mob on that side because of their addiction to rorts, waste and mismanagement. When the waste and mismanagement wouldn't get them far enough, they'd fiddle the books, and I'll have more to say about that in a moment. The member for Hume has a long history of fiddling the books, and we'll reflect on that.
The title of this MPI asks what we are doing about the budget and what we are doing about cost of living. Well, there is nobody in this parliament who is more responsible for the cost-of-living crisis that we are facing in this country than the member for Hume. The man who demands a plan from Labor is personally responsible for destroying 22 of his own government's plans. There is nobody in this parliament who had a greater responsibility than the member for Hume for destroying every single one of the previous government's inadequate plans on energy. When those opposite come to the dispatch box and complain about the price of energy going up—and up, and up, and up—they should look to themselves, because the fault is in the mirror.
As if smashing a sensible plan for a clean energy future that will drive investment and keep prices down is not enough, when the regulator presents those opposite with the consequence of their nine years of inaction and vandalism, what do they do? They hide the truth. The member for Hume himself is responsible for hiding the truth. There was a 19.7 per cent increase in energy prices because of his disastrous policies, and what does he do? He tries to hide the truth. He's got a long history of hiding the truth. We all remember the Clover Moore affair, when the member for Hume got his office to make some fake documents to try to get a press release out and get a boost against the well-respected Sydney Lord Mayor. This guy has a long history of fiddling the books and hiding the truth. He cannot be trusted. When he offers to hand us a document with a little bit of help on some plans, you'd better check the provenance of that document, because it's probably been doctored.
He demands a plan, and we've got one, because on this side of the House we understand that galloping inflation is a regressive tax on the lowest-income households in the country, so fighting inflation will be at the core of our plan. It's why, this morning, the Treasurer announced in this place a comprehensive plan about how we would address the economic challenges that we have inherited from the other government. The first step in this plan is ensuring that we get the budget in order. That may cause some pain for the Nats, who see the job of government as being to deliver a channel of pork barrel to their electorates. It may cause the Nats a bit of pain, but what is good for the budget is going to be good for the country. It could cause some embarrassment for members on the other side when we expose the fact that they have knowingly cooked the books, that they have been dishonest with the Australian people about the state of the budget.
There is no example that better puts a spotlight on their ineptitude than how they have managed the Modernising Business Registers program. There has never been a party in Australia's political history that has talked more about economic management but done so little of it. There's never been a party that has talked so much about business but understood so little about it. Managing a modern economy requires us to have a national registry of companies, company directors, Australian business numbers and those participating in the financial markets. It is absolutely critical and it is at the core of a modern economy. They have overseen the dilapidation of this system. They told parliament that they had a plan to put it back together again. They told parliament it was going to cost a little over $450 million. But now we discover hiding in the back of their budget was a trick, a time bomb, waiting for us, an over-a-billion-dollar blowout in this essential program. There has never been a party that talked more about economic management but did so little of it—a billion-dollar blowout which they tried to hide from the Australian people, fixed into the back of the budget books. It will take Labor to clean this mess up.
We on this side have a plan for jobs and skills. When you talk to businesses, large or small, they say their number one challenge is finding the workers with the skills, and that job has been made so much harder because over the last nine years this mob over here have run down vocational education, run down higher education and thought the responsibility of the education minister was to wage culture wars on schools, on vocational education and on universities in this country.
An Anthony Albanese Labor government will wage a war on skills shortages in this country because we think that is the responsibility of people who have the portfolio of education, of people who are responsible for universities and vocational education. Australia needs a war on the skills shortage, not more of this protracted and confected culture war of this pathetic mob over here. We understand that a way of getting more women into the workforce is by ensuring that families can balance the cost of child care, so Labor has a part of its plan to ensure that we can help families with the cost of child care with two benefits: not only reducing cost-of-living pressures on households but getting more workers, including skilled workers, back in the workforce for longer. We have a comprehensive plan.
In the time we have left, I want to address the issue of wages. Unlike those opposite, who had baked into their budget a plan for real wages to go backwards over the next three years, we have a plan to turn that around. On the previous government's watch, real wages went back by 2.5 per cent in the last three years alone and they intended for that to continue for the next three years. So while the member for Hughes, with his confected, puffed-up outrage, criticises us for not having a plan for real wages, nothing could be further from the truth. In our first month in government we have gone to the lowest-paid workers, the people these guys see as the economic bumper bar in any downturn, and we have convinced the Fair Work Commission to increase their wages by 5.3 per cent and, on top of that, ensured that their superannuation goes up by another 0.5 per cent—a 5.8 per cent increase for the lowest-paid workers in Australia, confected outrage from this pathetic mob over here.
Mr HOGAN (Page) (15:48): Thank you, Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your election. Today the MPI is about the cost of living. One of the most important parts of any family's cost of living is their power bill. We all know that, we wait for it quarterly and it makes a big impact on the family budget. I am going to read out some quotes that I think are very important to give context of what this new government said before the election and what they are now doing after. An ABC online article on 29 April 2022 said:
Mr Albanese maintains that Labor can still bring power prices down $275 per year by 2025—
quoting the now Prime Minister as saying—
… if we do other measures that we've got in place as part of our Powering Australia plan, we will see those energy prices drop.
The now Treasurer, Dr Chalmers, on Wednesday 25 May—this is now after the election—on 2GB Breakfast with Ben Fordham vowed that the Albanese Labor government had a climate and energy plan to produce cheaper renewable energy available to all Australian households, saying:
No Government, three days old, can kind of turn that around, but what we've said in our policy and the economic modelling of our policy—it is about $275 a year by 2025.
The now Treasurer, on 5 April, in his address to the National Press Club, said:
… it will also cut power bills by $275 a year by 2025, unlock $76 billion of investment and create over 600,000 jobs, most of these in the regions too.
On 27 April, in the Guardian, the now Treasurer is reported as saying:
On power prices, we have released the most comprehensive modelling that an opposition has released on a policy ever. Our powering Australia plan says that by the middle of this decade we will get power prices down by $275 a year.
The now Leader of the House, Mr Burke, on 19 June—again, after the election—said on Sky News: 'We stand by the modelling that was there that the impact of what we will do, particularly through transmission, allows you to get cheaper energy onto the grid. It'll deliver downward pressures on prices. We'll get it done.' On 19 June, a newspaper article stated, 'Senior minister Tony Burke insists Labor's promise to reduce household energy bills by $275 a year over five years is still intact.'
The now Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek, on 17 March, said on Sky News: 'We've also got plans to bring down the cost of electricity—$275 a year cheaper. These are the sorts of differences that we can make to people's lives every day if Labor is elected, and only Labor will do it.'
Katy Gallagher, the now finance minister, in the Canberra Times on 18 May, two days before the election, is quoted as saying, 'There's a once-in-a-century opportunity to reinvent our economy, build a better future and end the climate wars, invest in renewables and cut power bills by'—I think you'll be able to guess—'$275 over five years.'
An article in the Canberra Times, in referring to the now Minister for Defence, states:
As part of the policy, Labor anticipates household power bills would be $275 cheaper by 2025 and $378 less expensive in 2030, compared to today's rates.
Mr Marles said rigorous modelling was used to determine the figures.
"We will be giving rise to cheap power in this country, and that will drive economic growth, which will have a really significant impact on jobs," he said.
Senator Penny Wong is quoted as saying, 'Labor's Powering Australia plan will cut power bills, reduce emissions and bring renewable energy to Australian homes and save families $275 a year.'
But what happens then? On 28 July, an article in theDaily Mailstates:
Labor has already dumped its election promise to reduce power bills by $275 a year by 2025—after just six weeks in power.
The article states that Minister Bowen, asked if he still stands by Labor's $275 figure, didn't really say yes or no. He just said, 'Of course figures will move around.'
So there you go. This was one of the biggest commitments that this government made. They say they're going to have a new era of politics of transparency and be very upfront about what goes on, but they walk away. Six weeks after one of their major commitments in the election campaign, they walked away from it. The Prime Minister has been asked twice. No-one in Labor will mention $275 again in this House over the next three years, because what they've done has been deceitful.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): I remind the member for Hasluck—I know you're a new member— that you are interjecting, and you are not even in your own seat.
Dr MULINO (Fraser) (15:53): Congratulations, Deputy Speaker Claydon, on your well-deserved elevation to that important role. This MPI discussion reminds me of a person who holds a raucous party. The next morning, after having created a gigantic mess, somebody else must come to help clean it up, and they stand there with arms crossed, tapping their toe impatiently and complaining about the speed with which the other person is cleaning up that mess. That's exactly what we're facing here today: a gigantic mess created by those opposite after a decade of inaction, and then they snipe at a government that has undertaken more in two months than they did in a decade.
The shadow Treasurer quoted Harold Macmillan as saying that public life and politics exposes one to unforeseeable events. I can understand the shadow Treasurer having a fondness for the 1950s, given that his views on climate change would fit very well in that era, and I do acknowledge the views of Harold Macmillan, to the extent that there are unforeseeable events in public life. Having said that, I think that unforeseeable events do not give one licence for complete mismanagement and ineptness in the lead-up to those events.
That is what is so galling and so inappropriate about the motion we see here today. Well before COVID, well before supply chains were seizing up and well before the Ukraine invasion, the previous government was mismanaging the economy on a whole range of fronts. Even though there were some unforeseeable events, what was entirely foreseeable is that, no matter what events were over the horizon, the previous government was not going to make the economy as resilient as it should have been, experiencing nine years of the lowest productivity growth in decades. No matter what events were over the horizon, having the lowest real wages growth over a decade since the Great Depression was never going to help households to cope with those events. And no matter what events were over the horizon, it was never going to be a good idea, under any circumstances, to have a decade with 22 ridiculous energy policies, none of which were implemented, and to take no action on climate change. So yes, there were some unforeseeable events, but the previous government so mismanaged the economy in the lead-up to those events that it placed our economy and our society in a much more vulnerable situation than it needed to be.
The other part of the motion is equally as galling and equally as inaccurate. It says that this government, the current government, should take action now and not in October. Let's look at the first element of what this government is proposing and already taking action on: let's look at wages. During the course of the campaign, we proposed a five per cent wage increase for those on the lowest wages, for those who are the most exposed to inflation increases. Those opposite said that that would destroy the economy, that it was highly irresponsible: $1 an hour was too much, they said. This government—not in October but as soon as taking power—made a recommendation to the Fair Work Commission, and the Fair Work Commission has in fact made a decision to increase those wages by 5.2 per cent. And now the opposition comes in here and says, 'Well, you're not doing enough.' So, in the lead-up to the election, they were saying 5.2 per cent was ridiculously irresponsible, and now they come in here and say, 'We want you to do more and we want you to do it sooner.' Well, we're not waiting until October. We made a submission to the Fair Work Commission and there has already been action—a 5.2 per cent wage increase for those who are most vulnerable, which will make a real difference to those individuals and those families in the face of the inflation that we are currently experiencing and the inflation that is in the pipeline.
What about the cost of living? Again, this government is passing bills this week that deal with a whole raft of issues. This government is prioritising action on child care, which will help 1.26 million families by reducing the cost of child care for those families. That will have a direct impact on the prices of child care and, in turn, will have a significant impact on productivity, participation and the supply side of the economy. Finally, clean energy: a decade of inaction from those opposite, and we come in this week and we put a bill onto the table which would immediately provide certainty for investors, and those opposite say we should be doing more and doing it more quickly. The hypocrisy is utterly ridiculous. We do have a plan to ease cost-of-living pressures. We understand the urgency of taking action to ease cost-of-living pressures, and we are taking action right now.
Mrs McINTOSH (Lindsay) (15:58): The definition of a plan is a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something, and we all came in this morning—there was great anticipation from those opposite—and sat here and waited for the Treasurer's plan. But it ended up being all anticipation, no substance, despite the fact that this is a serious issue impacting every Australians—so serious that inflation has gone up to its highest levels in 21 years, so serious that building things and buying things in this country costs more. Australians deserve more. They deserve better from this Treasurer. The warnings are dire. Yet, despite all the tough talk during the election, all the promises, the government, those opposite—it must have been such a tough election—are now asleep at the wheel.
Before the election, those opposite were so big on talk. The current Prime Minister promised to make things here in our country, and there is nothing better than Australian made, yet now the government is looking to gut Australian manufacturing grants. The current Prime Minister promised to reduce household electricity bills. We all heard that today—$275. But could he commit to that today? Could he look Australian people in the eyes and say that their electricity bills will be $275 cheaper? He couldn't. The current Prime Minister promised to have an economic plan to help households and businesses, but today the Treasurer couldn't commit to that. He couldn't give us details of that plan.
Being in government is all about making those tough decisions in tough circumstances, something that those opposite should learn something about—something that we knew during the pandemic, when we had to make those tough decisions that ensured the security and safety of the Australian people. But what the government is good at now is casting blame about what we did for Australia during the pandemic, despite the fact—and we all remember this, and the Australian people won't forget this; I think the Treasurer is in COVID denial—that those opposite wanted to pay people $300 to get vaccinated when we had world-leading vaccination numbers. You may think that Australians forget these things, but we don't. As we heard today, Labor is yet to deliver on the plan to ensure that Australians can manage those cost-of-living pressures.
In seeking to cast blame today, which the Treasurer has proven he is quite good at, he held three tests for himself. The first was: what happens to power prices? Well, we heard from the Prime Minister today: he doesn't know. The second was: what happens with apprentices? There are crickets there. The third was: what happens with wages? How about they add: what happens when the lights go out, costs go up and Aussies can no longer afford to pay their bills? This is what people in my community of Lindsay are concerned about, and it's what Australians deserve to know from the government.
The Prime Minister is telling Australians they need to wait till October. Well, Prime Minister, Australians need their government to act now. They need to hear your plan.
Mrs PHILLIPS (Gilmore) (16:02): Deputy Speaker Claydon, congratulations on your election to the role. I have to say I find the opposition's attempts to rewrite history highly amusing. It's almost as if they think the Australian people have forgotten that they were in government for almost a decade. It's as if they think that our communities will believe that the cost of food, the cost of petrol and the cost of electricity have only just gone up—that Australians will believe that their wages have only just stopped growing in the last few months. It's quite shocking, really—this tale they are trying to spin that they think we will buy.
Well, I can tell those opposite that my community on the New South Wales South Coast is not buying it. We have faced years of drought, bushfires and countless disaster declared floods, all while those opposite did nothing to address our changing climate. We have faced years of high unemployment and low wages, all while the Liberal Party ripped money from TAFE and slashed penalty rates for casual workers. The South Coast has been experiencing a worsening housing crisis for years. I have stood here in the parliament so many times to beg the then government, the Liberal government, to take serious and urgent action. My office has been inundated every day for months and months with heart-wrenching stories of local families who cannot find a home or cannot afford their rent and who will end up sleeping in their cars: single mothers with their kids, pensioners, young people—you name it and they are struggling. But those on that side of the House did nothing. We've had rising health costs and a GP shortage impacting every corner of the South Coast, but there was no help there either.
When small businesses in Kangaroo Valley were calling for help after yet another flood in March this year saw their access roads cut, I wrote to the then minister, asking for support for small businesses. I told the minister for disasters and emergency management that our local small businesses were on the brink because their customers couldn't get to them. As these businesses were not directly flood impacted, there was no support. With access roads cut completely, they may not have been flooded, but their businesses were certainly going under. I asked the minister to help, to see the need for a specialised package of support, targeted directly to the small businesses of Kangaroo Valley. The minister even visited the South Coast for a media stunt with my Liberal opponent, but she completely ignored Kangaroo Valley. Our requests fell on the deaf ears of a government that didn't care to listen. They did nothing. That, sadly, is the legacy of the Liberal-National government of a decade—nothing. No real action, no real solutions, just photo-ops. So I'm sorry, but my community on the South Coast is not buying this tale you are trying to tell.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that you can't fix nine years of neglect in nine weeks. But we have sure proven that we are up to the task. Incredibly, soon after the election, the Albanese government managed to secure a critical rise in the minimum wage. It was a top priority, and we got it done with lightning speed. The very first piece of legislation introduced under the Albanese Labor government has addressed the urgent skills crisis in our country. Jobs and Skills Australia is a game changer that will build the job opportunities we need for the future. It will address the issues in the skills and training sector and will create more secure employment opportunities. We've announced the Jobs and Skills Summit, to look more broadly at moving our economy forward.
After the floods our community was hit with once again, in June, support started flowing through to individuals, businesses and primary producers, more quickly and more effectively than we had seen before. This week, we have introduced legislation to tackle climate change, and we are working with the energy sector to rein in prices. Cost-of-living support will also be provided to older Australians, with a lift in the income threshold for access to the Commonwealth seniors health card—a very significant change for people in my electorate. People with diabetes will also celebrate, because we've made continuous glucose monitoring more affordable—another huge issue for people in Gilmore. Medicine costs are coming down, and childcare costs won't be far behind. You can't change nine years of poor policies in nine weeks, but we have proven you can make a red-hot start.
Mr PITT (Hinkler) (16:07): Deputy Speaker, you may well ask, 'What's up?' Well, I'll tell you what's up. Fuel is up, rent is up, the cost of housing is up, electricity is up, inflation is up, the cash rate is up—for those of us who actually know what the cash rate is. There are a couple around who might have no idea, I'm sure. And all of these things are costing the Australian people money. They are costing the Australian people more than they paid before, and this is an absolute disgrace. They cannot afford to pay more—they simply cannot.
We've heard today about painting a picture. I'd like to paint a picture, because I actually think they've got a plan, and that is to soften up the Australian people for more cuts—cuts to the budget, cuts that hurt them, cuts that hurt age pensioners, cuts that hurt the people that I represent. I will paint this picture. The Treasurer has got his Rocky hood on and he's gone into the abattoir for the Treasury. He's got the carcass there in front of him. I'm not sure who's playing brother-in-law Paulie. It might be the member for Whitlam, but the PowerPoint presentation he puts on will help him a lot, I'm absolutely certain. He's there, gloves on, fairy tapped from the left, fairy tapped from the right. It doesn't do anything at all. We can see the Treasurer, gloves off, moisturiser on, and he'll go for the knives. The intention of this mob is to cut the budget.
The Treasurer and the Prime Minister, today, this week, last week, next week, are softening up the Australian people to cut the budget, and those cuts will hurt them. The best thing the government can do is keep the tax cuts that we legislated, because that is more money in people's pockets. It is the ability for them to pay their own way. And they need that money. We have seen promises already broken. In question time today, the $275 reduction in the price of electricity—no-one could say it, not one. The question was asked not once, but twice, and was never answered. So what we are seeing from the new government is that they cannot even commit to the things that they promised in the election.
So, to go back to painting the picture: we've got the Treasurer, he's in the abattoir, he's hacking up that carcass of the budget and he's taking away the prime cuts that the Australian people rely on because they have to be able to pay their way. Power prices continue to increase. We will see the RBA, I'm sure, make a decision that is likely to increase the interest rate for every single mortgage holder in this country.
I think the Prime Minister probably needs to take some more advice, because what we've seen—and what we continue to see—every now and again is a little breakout about who the next leader might be. And he's only been here for how long? I can see we've got one of our colleagues in the chair down there. It's been nine weeks, and we've already seen breakouts in the media about changing out the Prime Minister—
Dr Leigh: What's the cash rate, again?
Mr PITT: It's 1.35 per cent, for those interjecting. We have plenty of interjections, but those of us on this side know what the cash rate is. We saw very clearly, as did the Australian people, those who didn't know.
We are in a softening-up period. Those opposite want to drive down the budget, they want to cut the budget and they want to take things away from the Australian people. The best thing that you can do is to continue to drive the economy and support the things that are paying the Australian people's way.
You still can't commit—I've got to give the Prime Minister his due. The Prime Minister has said that he supports the coal sector and the oil and gas sector, because they are paying the bills of the Australian people. The same can't be said of too many on the front bench. They are out there and they are fudging their way. We saw the minister for the environment at the Press Club; she could not answer the question. She would not say that they supported the resources sector, a sector that is driving over $400 billion of the economy in this country.
We continue to see jobs. We hear about the great skilled workforce shortage. There's certainly a shortage in the workforce, but if they weren't skilled they wouldn't be employed! These are some of the lowest unemployment rates we've seen in this nation since 1974. It is an incredible result, and it needs to be driven forward and it needs to be managed carefully. That is what governments do.
Can you imagine if it was our proposition—in government, in that position right now—that they couldn't control the increasing costs for the Australian people? There would be outrage. There would be Twitter everywhere. We would see so many things on Twitter that even the member for Gippsland would get a comment, I'm sure. We last heard from the Labor government something critical, and that was the recession we had to have. Is it going to be that way again?
Mr GEORGANAS (Adelaide) (16:12): Congratulations, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your elevation to your new role. The Australian people are hurting. It certainly is hurting them—the cost of food and the cost of fuel being increased and interest rates going up. There's no doubt that people are suffering, and those that will suffer are the ones that are on the lowest incomes and the ones that are doing it tough.
The irony is that it's as if none of this existed until 21 May. It is as if this just started on the 21 May. But, if you have a look at it, people were suffering way before then. Of course, the global situation is making it harder, but there's the irony of an opposition that was in government for 10 years—presiding over the Australian economy for the past 10 years—now basically wiping their hands of it and having no responsibility. They're washing their hands, virtually overnight, of the enormous costs that are taking place in the community.
During the inaction that took place for 10 years, we saw the lowest productivity rates that this country has seen. We saw the lowest wage growth in the history of this nation. Yet there was no action. There was no urgency. There were no private members' motions at that time to deal with and act on those things that were affecting working people. Yet here they are today, on one of their first MPIs, and they want to talk about how we're going to fix this situation.
And fix it we will. It is our responsibility. We were elected by the Australian public to look after the economy and to do everything we can. Within the first week, we supported a wage increase for the lowest paid workers of 5.2 per cent—something that the then government, who are now in opposition, wiped their hands of. They didn't want to deal with it. They didn't care about low-paid workers, who hadn't had an increase in years and whose wages weren't keeping up with inflation.
The previous government had 22 different policies on energy—22 climate change policies. In other words, they would come up with a policy, not agree with it, throw it in the bin and start again. It is because they are denialists on that side. And what did that do? That gave the business community no confidence to invest in renewables so that we could have renewables invested in, lots of players in the market and lots of competition to bring down prices. It was on their watch.
We are dealing with these issues. We saw the increase in wages of 5.2 per cent. Our childcare policy will assist hundreds and hundreds of families. It will bring down childcare costs for those families, ensuring they can work, be productive, pay taxes and help the economy. That is an enormous contribution to the economy.
We've seen that the previous government didn't want to act on anything. They were in government just for the sake of being in government. These issues have been going on for a long time. In fact, before the current global situation, the previous government left us with a trillion dollar debt and nothing to show for the future. Where were their big-picture policies? Where were their big infrastructure projects? Where were the things that help the economy and future Australians? They are nowhere to be found. They were only interested in sitting on the government seats, not actually doing anything.
I'm proud to be part of this Labor government. I'm proud because we have a plan to tackle the situation, to tackle the economic crisis left behind by the previous government. We've ensured that the lowest-paid workers get a pay rise of 5.2 per cent. This will help our most vulnerable people. In addition, we will ensure that wages grow over time. We're going to invest in industries that will deliver more secure, well-paid jobs. We will also invest in skills, an area totally neglected by the previous government. You need to invest in skills for the 21st century so Australians are trained and educated for higher wage jobs. In addition, we're cutting childcare costs for 1.26 million families. This is vital because childcare costs are one of the highest ongoing costs for working families. In addition, we cut the cost of medicines on the PBS by up to $12.50 per script.
Those opposite had 22 policies on climate change. (Time expired)
Mr VIOLI (Casey) (16:17): The economy is the outcome of millions of individuals going about their lives, working hard and trying to fulfil their aspirations. I have lived this experience firsthand. Australians know it's tough right now. Listening to the Treasurer today did not fill me with confidence that our new government has a plan to ease the pressure on the cost of living for my constituents in Casey or, indeed, people all around the country. There are challenging economic circumstances in Australia today. However, we do expect the government to be proactive in their response. We can and will hold them to account for how they respond to it.
Labor needs to put the national interest first. The risk for Australia is that Labor's inaction or distraction will make a bad situation worse. There is no avoiding inflation for households. Nondiscretionary goods and services rose 1.8 per cent in the quarter, to be 7.6 per cent higher through the year. Annual goods inflation is the highest since 1987. Goods accounted for 79 per cent of the rise in the CPI this quarter, reflecting high freight costs, supply constraints and prolonged strong demand.
The government does not have a plan to address this. The Treasurer said that the point of today's statement was to paint a picture of the economy. On this side, we do not paint pictures. We know we are dealing with people's lives. We are talking about small business owners working 18 hours a day to provide for their families and families unable to fill a tank of petrol until the next pay. Fuel price pressure continues to flow through to consumers following an oil price shock caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine last quarter, and this has been coupled with ongoing easing of COVID-19 restrictions, which has strengthened global demand. While the cutting of fuel excise of 22c per litre on 30 March 2022 resulted in fuel prices falling in April, the average unleaded fuel price in the month of June surpassed the previous record high monthly average seen March. While cutting the fuel excise of 22c per litre on 30 March 2022 resulted in fuel prices falling in April, the average unleaded fuel price in the month of June surpassed the previous record high monthly average seen in March. We are talking about young Australians trying to build their first home, students working nights to build a better life for themselves.
The economy isn't some great mystery to us. When the coalition were in government, we balanced the budget for the first time since the 2000s. We were on track to surplus, but then events changed. We had fires. We had drought. We had the pandemic. We had to take action, and we did—even if it meant putting budget repair on hold. That wasn't an easy decision for us as Liberals and Nationals, but it was necessary. Our fiscal response to COVID-19 was temporary, it was targeted and it saw Australia through one of the most challenging periods since World War II.
In my previous career, our business was a firsthand beneficiary of the JobKeeper program. It kept people employed and connected to their jobs. I saw this firsthand. Australians know it's tough right now. They don't need a painting from the Treasurer to tell them that. They feel it every day—at the coffee shop, at the petrol bowser and at the supermarket checkout—and the statement from the Treasurer today provided nothing to address this right now. He gave a list of excuses and he's pushing it off to a jobs summit in September, which doesn't help families today and doesn't help businesses today. Thank you.
Ms THWAITES (Jagajaga) (16:21): I note the members opposite have so much to say about this important topic that in fact two of their speakers have finished with a full minute left in their allocated time. It's obviously something they feel passionate about, that they have a lot of material ready to go. But of course it is an important topic.
I do understand it has been a difficult two months for those opposite—lots of life changes, lots of transitions—but for them to come in here and suggest our government doesn't have a plan represents a kind of collective amnesia around their wasted decade in office. It was a decade with no plan for wages growth; no plan to tackle the climate crisis; no plan to invest in renewables and bring down power prices; no plan to support women back to work and invest in cheaper child care; no real plan to support small business, despite the incredibly challenging circumstances those businesses have faced for the past two years. Simply heckling from the sidelines, kind of like what they did for past 10 years, seems to be what they're doing from opposition.
This government has no intention of wasting its time in office. We do have a plan. We acknowledge the circumstances we find ourselves in are challenging. We do know that inflation is high, and that it's hitting Australian households. It is absolutely the case, and I, like every member in this place, talk to people in my electorate who are feeling that effect. We know that rate rises hurt ordinary Australians struggling to pay their mortgages. We also know that the causes of inflation at the moment are primarily global. We have inherited a situation from the previous government: nine years of mess, $1 trillion of debt and nothing to show for it. As so many on this side have said, nine years of mess can't be cleaned up in nine weeks. The maths doesn't work. It will take time, and Australians know this.
I want to highlight one of the very key areas where this opposition let Australian people down when it was in government, and that was its deliberate design feature of low wages. What is it that means Australians are struggling to pay for things? There's not enough in their pay packets. And what was the previous government's policy? Deliberately low wages. It has a real effect on Australians lives and their ability to meet cost-of-living pressures.
It was the previous Prime Minister who said an increase to the minimum wage would be 'reckless and dangerous'. And to be clear, these are the wages of the people we called heroes during the pandemic, people such as our cleaners, our aged-care workers, our early educators. We know that these workforces are largely made up of women. These are the people that the previous Prime Minister said it would be reckless and dangerous to give a pay rise to. This government takes a very different approach on wages. We supported an increase to the minimum wage. We've been very clear that we will support a wage increase for aged-care workers. Again, these are some of the lowest-paid people in our community, who are doing some of the most difficult and most important work.
We get it. We get what people's lives are like. We get where the pressures are. The previous government didn't get it. It's not just those on minimum wages that the previous government was prepared to leave behind. Pensioners in my electorate haven't forgotten that, under the coalition, around 370,000 pensioners saw a cut to their pension. Pensioner concessions were scrapped. And, of course, the previous Prime Minister tried to raise the pension age to 70. We've seen a decade of inaction, a decade of cuts.
Our government will be different. We will make child care cheaper, helping Australian women to get back to work and to do more work. I note no-one on the other side addressed the important issue of women's participation in the workforce and how you best support that. We will get on with dealing with the climate crisis and make sure we have reliable renewable energy. This is another area the previous government failed to address for a decade. We will invest in small business. We will make Australian people's lives better.
Mr CHESTER (Gippsland) (16:26): Deputy Speaker, I congratulate you on your election to your position and wish you well. I join this debate with some degree of trepidation after listening to the member for Jagajaga pretending, during her contribution, that the previous government did nothing in nine years. We have at the table the former minister for infrastructure, who presided over a record investment of $110 billion over 10 years. We had investment in programs and projects directly aimed at reducing the cost of living for Australian mums and dads—projects like the investment in the Western Sydney Airport, which was long overdue. It was neglected by the current Prime Minister when he was the infrastructure minister. When the member for Riverina, who is at the table, was minister, he did some outstanding work in investing in Australia's important major infrastructure projects. We saw the completion of the duplication of the Pacific Highway between Sydney and Brisbane, a project that not only helped reduce the cost of transport for Australian mums and dads—for people travelling in those communities—but actually saved lives by reducing trauma on a stretch of road which was the site of the single biggest fatal accident in Australian history.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do apologise to the member for Gippsland, but the time for the discussion has now concluded.
ADJOURNMENT
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It being almost 4.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
Biosecurity: Foot-and-Mouth Disease
Mr BUCHHOLZ (Wright) (16:28): The sum of $80 billion is about to be cut from the agricultural sector if we don't move quickly on addressing the real and true threat that sits right on our doorstep at the moment in the way of foot-and-mouth disease. Foot-and-mouth disease is a debilitating disease within the cattle sector. It's frightening local growers. Every grazier in Australia who has cattle is petrified at the moment. You're petrified if you are a grower, if you're a grazier, if you have selling yards, if you're a business that relies on the primary industry whose singular source of revenue is cattle. When we do the numbers, when those businesses collapse, the flow-on effect through the economy is absolutely catastrophic. We hear the word 'catastrophic' in weather reports and hyperbolic media reports. We hear it far more often than we should. But the true definition of 'catastrophe' will be if foot-and-mouth disease gets into this country.
I have four sets of selling yards in my electorate of Wright, which is in Queensland on the Gold Coast Hinterland: Beaudesert Saleyards, Silverdale Saleyards at Harrisville, Moreton Saleyards and Laidley Saleyards. And just outside my electorate we have Toogoolawah. Combined, they probably process around 10,000 head of cattle a week, just in the south-east corner. Close to those saleyards there are two meatworks: JBS Swift at Dinmore and the Teys Beenleigh site, owned by a private family in conjunction with Cargill. The flow-on effect would be that employment in those two places would collapse. We have the Stanbroke Grantham meatworks in my electorate as well.
Yesterday we received a presentation from the first vet, from the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and from the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They shared with us the risk weighting. There would have been 100 people from both sides of the House listening to the officials on what the government is doing in trying to prevent this terrible, terrible disease.
Before I go on, I just want to share with you why they're worried about foot-and-mouth disease. It's because foot-and-mouth disease is a debilitating disease where cattle get ulcers on their tongues and lips. These ulcers are extremely painful, and the cattle get the same symptoms on their feet. The ulcers prevent the cattle from eating. The beast's tongue swells, and it just stands there and drools, without taking any steps. It's so painful, so they just stand there and die in the paddock. It's a terribly infectious disease. It's spread by meat processors. It spreads by soil samples or by the touch of a hand. There are other diseases which we are equally worried about—or even more so in the case of lumpy skin disease, an airborne disease which is prevalent up there at the moment and which has a higher risk rating. But we can vaccinate against lumpy skin disease. It is foot-and-mouth disease which is going to be so debilitating.
I want to acknowledge the National Party. In particular, I acknowledge David Littleproud, the member for Maranoa, for the work that he did in calling for footbaths for people coming back from Indonesia. When we went to the presentation last night, we saw the spread—the islands and provinces that are affected in Indonesia. We're seeing it spread from the left of Indonesia to the right, and the concern is that it will go through the islands. The greatest threat that we have is not only that it may come back from Bali into any of our international airports here in Australia. More catastrophically, it may travel over into New Guinea and then come down into North Queensland through those islands, through islander traditions where they carry livestock in small vessels. David Littleproud, the member for Maranoa, was front and centre, calling for immediate footbaths. Whether or not we got there in time is something that time will tell. But I also want to acknowledge and thank—because this is a situation that needs to be bipartisan—the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Watt, for convening the meeting yesterday. This is an all-of-government— (Time expired)
Biosecurity: Foot-and-Mouth Disease
Tasmania: Storms
Mr BRIAN MITCHELL (Lyons) (16:33): I may be late to the party, but I extend my congratulations to you, Speaker, on your ascension to the chair.
Before I get to the meat of my submission, I will just reflect on the comments by the member for Wright. The government's taking foot-and-mouth disease absolutely seriously, with swift, decisive action by the minister. There was a nine per cent chance of FMD coming to this country a few months ago. It's now just over 11 per cent, so the risk has increased, absolutely. There's an outbreak in Indonesia. We are absolutely taking it seriously.
Last month, the north-west of Tasmania was hit by a devastating storm. One woman, whose name has not been publicly released, lost her life. Other locals suffered injuries, and thousands of properties suffered damage. In my electorate, people in and around the town of Sheffield were most affected. People were left without power for as long as 10 days during some of our state's coldest weather. That's no reflection on Aurora Energy, which is Tasmania's state owned power company, nor its workforce. They worked very hard in challenging conditions to restore power as quickly and safely as possible, and I extend my gratitude to them. Tasmania's power workers and state emergency services personnel are often called out in awful weather to deal with downed lines and to reconnect electricity, and they deserve our thanks.
The storm resulted in badly damaged properties, with homes losing roofs, fences flattened, equipment broken and livestock scattered. After the storm, I visited numerous properties in and around Sheffield, kindly hosted by Brian Harris and Wally Crosswell from Kentish Lions. I saw firsthand both the damage and the incredible efforts that the community had made to repair that damage.
Thousands of trees were toppled, many of them towering giants literally ripped out of the ground by wind. They took out power poles, roofs and fences. They blocked roads. Elderly residents were left to face repairs, and farmers were confronted with rounding up wayward livestock. Brian and Wally explained that after the storm it was the Lions, alongside the Kentish Council, SES and fire brigade, who were first on the ground. Together, they went house to house, talking to residents, examining damage and offering food and fuel vouchers to those in need. The council offered showers. An Airbnb owner offered their investment property free of charge for emergency housing. Local business Tas Pumps Pipes & Rural Supplies offered the use of generators for free. And there were many more similar examples. This was a community that came together in a time of need, and it was a privilege to see it as their federal member.
It was clear, though, that government assistance is also required to ensure the region fully recovers. I reached out to the Minister for Emergency Management, Murray Watt, to determine what assistance may be available and how that may be accessed. He immediately got back to me to say that under Commonwealth-state disaster relief arrangements federal funding was being made available. I'd like to express my thanks to the minister and his office for the timely and compassionate way in which they have dealt with this when they've got a lot of other things on their minds. I've got Senator Watt on speed dial because he's also the minister for agriculture, so he'll no doubt soon know and fear my number, if he doesn't already!
The federal funding being made available will assist the north-west to get back on its feet and begin the next step in the extensive rebuilding process. We've seen this decisive action happening across the country under Minister Watt's leadership, most notably during the flooding on the mainland and in recent days with the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Indonesia. He identifies a problem and he takes action. It's a stark and welcome contrast to what we saw previously.
The Albanese government knows extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, whether they be floods, droughts, fires or storms. It's a challenge we are prepared and equipped to face, and we will not hide from it. Our communities need us, and we will be there when they do. My thanks again go to the many organisations and locals who assisted their neighbours and friends affected by this extreme weather event. I'm very pleased that as their federal member I was able to confirm that federal assistance was forthcoming.
I've taken the opportunity to wear the green and gold. At 4.45 am tomorrow our time it all gets underway in Birmingham. You can watch it on Channel 7.
Mr McCormack: Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!
Mr BRIAN MITCHELL: I'm not going to say it, Member for Riverina—oi, oi, oi! There are 72 nations taking part and more than 4,000 athletes, more than 400 of whom are Australians. There's no better way to spend your weekend. Get onto the Commonwealth Games. Get behind your local athletes. They're from all over the country. Whatever electorate you're from, whatever state, get in there. Support Australia. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!
Gippsland Electorate
Mr CHESTER (Gippsland) (16:38): The new Prime Minister has made a lot of claims about no Australians being left behind, a fresh approach to his role and building consensus across our community. We're about to find out if the Prime Minister is fair dinkum about those claims.
I've been seeking urgent action from the new government in relation to several projects of critical importance to the future of Gippsland. The reason I raise them here tonight is that each of these projects was fully funded by the previous government, but I fear they're in some high degree of doubt now due to partisan politics. The reason I raise them here tonight is that this is not a question of a local member just trying to look after their own job—I've been re-elected for the next three years, and I thank the people of Gippsland for that great honour and privilege—these are other people's jobs at stake. These are people who live in my community, who want to see a future in their community, whose jobs are at stake. There was a willingness by the previous government to invest in projects, in partnership with the private sector, to ensure that we have long-term, sustainable jobs in regions, like the Latrobe Valley, which are going to undergo a major transition over the next couple of decades.
In particular, the projects I want to talk about here this evening are the energy-from-waste project at the Maryvale Mill, which the previous government committed $48.2 million to; the indoor barramundi farm, also at the Maryvale Mill but associated with a company called MainStream Aquaculture, which the previous government committed $30 million to; and Patties Foods in Bairnsdale, which the previous government committed $4 million to.
I'll go through those projects one by one. The energy-from-waste project is a game changer for the Maryvale Mill. The Maryvale Mill is Australia's largest producer of paper products. It is the biggest private employer in Gippsland's Latrobe Valley region. It is a $500 million project that will find an alternative energy source for the mill by taking household waste and gasifying it and then providing a reliable form of energy for the biggest private employer in my region and assist them in the manufacturing process—so household waste powering large-scale manufacturing process. This is exactly the type of long-term, sustainable initiative that this new government should be supporting—just as the previous government was prepared to do.
The other project I mentioned at Maryvale Mill was the barramundi project put forward by MainStream Aquaculture. This will be the world's largest indoor barramundi aquaculture operation. The joint venture partners involved in this project are looking at a $125 million project in total. The previous federal government was prepared to put $30 million on the table to make sure that investment came forward and provided an opportunity to work in partnership with the activities already underway at the Maryvale Mill to provide long-term, sustainable jobs in the Latrobe Valley region.
I emphasise that it is the Latrobe Valley region, because the Latrobe Valley will be one of those regions most directly impacted under any scenario as we move towards net zero by 2050. Latrobe Valley is home to the three coal-fired power stations in Victoria that provide 60 per cent of the energy for Victoria's needs right now. Loy Yang A, Loy Yang B and Yallourn are all forecast to close by the mid-2040s. We need to make sure that the people in those communities are treated with respect and have the opportunity to transition to long-term and sustainable jobs. Both of those projects at the Maryvale Mill are critically important, not only for the Maryvale Mill employees who are already there but also to add new opportunities, in this case through the aquaculture initiative which the previous government was prepared to support.
The other project I mentioned was for Patties Foods. Patties Foods is the world's largest savoury pie factory, right in the seat of Gippsland, in the township of Bairnsdale. The company was a family owned business. It has expanded incredibly over the last 50 years. They're looking to invest in improved robotics as they go about their production of the Four'N Twenty pie, along with sausage rolls and a range of other products. It is an incredibly important investment in the future of the region of the successful company. The previous government had allocated $4 million to go with the funding that was going to be provided by the private sector.
Each of these projects boosts local jobs. It helps reduce costs, particularly at a time when costs are going through the roof. It makes these businesses more sustainable. It helps Gippsland's Latrobe Valley region secure its own future and provide more opportunities for young people in those communities to have long-term, secure jobs. So if the Prime Minister is actually fair dinkum about his claim that he is going to govern for all Australians, including the regions, he has to invest in projects just like this. I have written to the Prime Minister—he did do the right thing and reply—and I was told that these projects are under review. I say to the Prime Minister: these projects have been through a rigorous process and they should be supported.
DOCUMENTS
Climate Change
Presentation
Ms PAYNE (Canberra) (16:43): Speaker, I congratulate you on your elevation to the chair. Today I have the great honour to table, on the behalf of thousands of women and non-binary people from around Australia, the #EverydayClimateCrisis Visual Petition, a collection of 1,247 images and personal statements showing the state of our environment in Australia today.
The project is the brainchild of Hilary Wardhaugh, and I am very pleased that she is here in the chamber today. She is a brilliant photographer. She had this idea based on the idea that, of course, a picture is worth a thousand words and that this project would give a megaphone to the voices of the advocates for action, Australia's flora and fauna, Indigenous cultures, oceans, land and future generations calling out for action on climate change. I seek leave to table the document.
Leave granted.
Ms PAYNE: Today in this parliament one of the first actions of the new Albanese Labor government happened. We introduced a bill that means every worker in Australia has 10 days of paid domestic violence leave. This is a win for years of advocacy from survivors, from unions and from frontline workers. They have made this possible, and today is the end of that campaign. I'm very proud it was one of our first actions, and today we wear this purple rose from the Australian Services Union in recognition of that advocacy.
Ecofeminism is a body of thought that uses the concept of gender to look at humans' relationships with nature. It explores women's connection with nature and the parallels between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature by humankind. It is very clear from the incredibly powerful images and statements in this petition that the unbridled exploitation of our natural world by humans is nothing short of a violence against our earth, which gives us life and sustains us, much like a mother.
The climate crisis really has resonated with women in my community. I don't want to in any way diminish the activism of men for climate action, which has also been mighty, but I do want to acknowledge the many groups and the women involved in this incredible project: Australian Parents For Climate Action, the Women's Climate Congress, the Women in Climate and Health Network, the Common Grace Show Your Stripes Project, and my constituent Toni Hassan's incredible work Conversation Pieces: Remembering Black Summer, which brought together women's recollections.
I've talked many times before about that experience here in Canberra, as a relatively new member in my previous term—just the depth of feeling from people in my community about that bushfire crisis. One is Amy Blain, who is a contributor to this project. I want to share what she wrote to me about it. The image that she has included is one of a burnt leaf—a blackened gum leaf—in a child's outstretched hand. The child's hand is sitting in the palm of an adult. Amy writes that she carried the leaf around for a long time finding the right moment to take the photo: 'I thought I was waiting for the perfect light, for the right backdrop. But, if I'm honest, it was just too difficult to take. The leaf came from our holiday home in Bermagui. I picked it up as we left suddenly during the 2020 bushfires. There was no clean water supply, we were disconnected and our seven-year-old was exhausted, terrified and constantly anxious. We drove home from the nightmare and found our newborn still had ash that fell from the sky in their ears. Our eldest had to get ash out of her eyes. We rushed back to smoke-filled Canberra where we suddenly felt unsafe and uncertain about our future and our kids' future. Journeys since then are often haunted with reminders for our little one: sounds of sirens and a preoccupation with why cars are travelling away from where we're going. What do they know that we don't? Why are they leaving?' Her mother threw the leaf out, and she rescued it. She says that was the moment when she realised it's not about the photo, it's about the story. And she took her photo.
I'm so proud now, having accepted this petition, that I'm able to present this in a government that is taking the action we need on climate change. It would have been just too depressing to do this had a government been elected that was not going to take the action we need, and I'm so proud that the people of Australia made that decision in May.
Climate Change
Ms STEGGALL (Warringah) (16:48): We need to talk about climate adaptation and risk mitigation. Yesterday the CSIRO released its megatrends report for the decade ahead, titled Our future world. It should come as no surprise that the megatrend for the decade ahead is unprecedented weather events. Right now, we're seeing the costs of poor climate planning play out. Climate disasters are incredibly expensive. In the last April budget, this year's floods in northern New South Wales and Queensland had already cost over $6 billion to the budget bottom line. It feels crude, really, to put these disasters in financial terms. But, since action is often delayed on the basis of cost, it is necessary to talk of the costs and consequences: the $2.8 billion Black Summer bushfires and the $1.5 billion Queensland floods. While this highlights the urgency of investing in climate adaptation, talking in dollars simply doesn't do justice to the human cost. It's heartbreaking to see residents along the Hawkesbury in Sydney's west hit for a second time by floods right when their homes had just been repaired. These are people in communities in limbo. They wake up every day with reminders of disasters. The Northern Rivers area has been devastated and is still in recovery, with thousands living in temporary accommodation, uncertain of whether they will ever be able to return home.
It is so insulting, then, when people like the former National Recovery and Resilience Agency head Shane Stone turn around and say:
You've got people who want to live among the gum trees—what do you think is going to happen? Their house falls in the river, and they say it's the government's fault …
But let's get real. All levels of government must accept responsibility for decades of negligent planning and be part of the solution. It is governments who have opened up lands on floodplains for residential development and allowed buildings to be constructed on sensitive sand dunes.
Australian families need affordable housing, and they are the ones who suffer from poor planning. We need proper planning, preparation and mitigation. According to a report by Deloitte Access Economics, only three per cent of public money allocated to disaster relief is invested in preparation and mitigation. The Emergency Response Fund, established in 2019, has committed just $150 million to disaster mitigation while earning more than $800 million in interest. In Warringah, all three council areas have been declared disaster zones at least once this year already. Insurance premiums have skyrocketed and infrastructure has been impacted. The Manly post office remains closed months after the March flooding event due to damage incurred.
With extreme weather on the rise, our beautiful coastal communities are at risk. Manly is among the top 10 communities most exposed to coastal climate impact according to CoreLogic. In a submission to the inquiry into the climate change bills that I tabled in the last parliament, Local Government NSW estimated that there are $212 billion of public assets at risk from climate change induced events. We need to assess risks and begin to plan for our future world. We need to assess risks in order to properly prioritise our next steps as a nation. Proper risk assessments will encourage investments in adapting healthcare systems, critical infrastructure and all the elements that need to be done.
But right now systems simply can't cope with the compounding impacts of climate disasters: heatwaves, floods, droughts, water shortages, impacts to water quality, bushfires and bushfire smoke, and sea level rise. This type of risk assessment and response needs to happen across the country. We can't ignore the risks to communities where climate disasters are rendering households and businesses uninsurable. Leaders anticipate; losers react. For too long, our governments have denied and underplayed the extent of the risk to our way of life from global warming. We must prepare our communities and keep them safe.
I welcome the climate targets bill tabled this week by the government, but it doesn't go nearly far enough. A comprehensive climate bill should also have national risk assessments and adaptation planning, because, as the State of the environment report told us, there's already significant climate impact baked into our already warm world. We have to balance our actions from risk mitigation to adaptation to resilience building. That's why I urgently call on the government to make sure that the Climate Change Authority prepare a national risk assessment identifying communities, sectors and environments most at risk.
Medical Workforce
Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (16:54): Mr Speaker, congratulations. Well done, Milton.
In 2019 the Morrison government cut back the areas of Australia where overseas trained doctors and doctors in the Bonded Medical Program can practise. This change contributed to the GP crisis we've witnessed in our nation. It meant that in regional areas, particularly on the fringes of our capital cities and major provincial cities, there would be trouble for GP practices recruiting GPs as older GPs retired. I spoke with medical practices in rural Walloon, in Riverlink Shopping Centre in Ipswich Central, and in Karana Downs in outer Brisbane, all of whom were anxious and troubled by this decision.
The new distribution priority areas define areas of Australia which allow overseas trained doctors and bonded medical program doctors to access the MBS and therefore practise in those areas. The modified Monash model is how the federal government defines location: city, rural, remote and very remote. MM1 is the major city classification; MM7 is very remote. It's MM2 areas—regional areas within a 20-kilometre drive of a town of over 50,000 residents—places like Ipswich, the Somerset region and even the Karana Downs region in Brisbane in my electorate, which were so adversely affected by the decision of the Morrison government.
With the support of local doctors such as Dr Catherine Hester and Dr Tony Bayliss in the Colleges Crossing Family Practice and many other local doctors, I started a campaign straightaway to have the Morrison government overturn this tragic decision. I could see adverse health outcomes for hardworking families and battling individuals across Blair, which already had 50 per cent of GPs who are non-Australian. With the support of the Darling Downs and West Moreton Primary Health Network, the West Moreton Hospital and Health Service and, indeed, Mr Speaker, you as the member for Oxley, I wrote to the regional health minister, the member for Parkes, on 7 August 2019, asking the government to reverse the decision and make an exception to the changes. Unfortunately, he wrote back to me, on 23 September 2019, saying that unless there was a dramatic reduction in the number of GPs employed in my area or a substantial drop in health outcome services for my region, there would be no change. I wrote to him again on 8 January 2020 asking him to reconsider the decision. He wrote back again on 10 February 2020 saying that the Distribution Advisory Group endorsed the current methodology used to determine DPA status. I wrote again on 30 March 2021, talking about the idiocy of the current changes that he'd made, which had such an adverse impact, cutting rural towns in two. I wrote to the minister inviting him on 10 June 2021, and I wrote again to the new minister, the member for Lyons on 27 July 2021.
Labor initiated a Senate inquiry into this issue, talking about the critical lack of doctors accessing regional areas across the country. I made four speeches in parliament urging the government to change, on 15 October 2019, on 6 February 2020, on 12 August 2021 and on 9 February 2022. In this place, I urged the government to change their decision.
We made a commitment on 4 February saying that if we got into government we would make the change by designating regional centres, such as those classified in MM2 areas, as DPA for the purpose of GPs. On 22 July 2022, I thanked the minister for making that change. More than 700 areas, fully or partially, got that change in classification, including in my area and in your area, Mr Speaker.
GP practices now, in exceptional circumstances, in catchment areas MM1, outer metropolitan, and MM2 areas only, in Ipswich, in Kilcoy and Woodford could get access to GPs in these circumstances. GP practices with an election commitment in MM2s and other selective catchments in Lowood, Rosewood and Springfield to Redbank, could get access. This is about the Albanese Labor government being concerned about regional health outcomes in a way that those opposite, who pose and preen and posture in this place about supporting regional Australia, failed to do. That history of correspondence and speeches in this place showed that the Morrison government had failed to look after regional Australia in terms of health outcomes and in my area. It's only the election of a Labor government that made the difference in terms of health outcomes in regional Australia.
Dr LEIGH (Fenner—Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) (16:59): I move:
That the question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Dr LEIGH (Fenner—Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) (16:59): I move:
That the House do not adjourn.
Question agreed to.
COMMITTEES
Membership
The SPEAKER (16:59): I have received advice from the Chief Government Whip and the Chief Opposition Whip nominating members to be members of certain committees.
Dr LEIGH (Fenner—Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) (17:00): by leave—I move:
That:
(1) Ms Swanson, Mr Burnell, Dr Freelander, Mr B Mitchell and Mrs Phillips be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture;
(2) Mr B Mitchell, Mr Burns, Mr Khalil, Ms Templeman and Ms Coker be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts;
(3) Dr Mulino, Dr Charlton, Mr Rae, Ms Lawrence, Ms Payne and Mr Laxale be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Economics;
(4) Ms Chesters, Ms Sitou, Ms Fernando, Dr Garland, Ms Stanley and Ms J Ryan be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training;
(5) Mr Zappia, Ms Byrnes, Mr Repacholi, Ms Mascarenhas and Ms Coker be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water;
(6) Dr Freelander, Dr Ananda-Rajah, Dr Reid, Ms Murphy and Ms Stanley be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport;
(7) Mr R Mitchell, Ms Byrnes, Mr Repacholi, Ms Vamvakinou and Ms Mascarenhas be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Resources;
(8) Mr Gosling, Ms J Ryan, Mr R Mitchell, Ms Roberts, Mr Zappia and Ms Chesters be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Regional Development, Infrastructure and Transport;
(9) Ms Murphy, Mr Neumann, Mr Lim, Ms Miller-Frost and Ms Vamvakinou be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs;
(10) Mr Georganas, Ms Sitou, Ms Claydon, and Ms Stanley be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Appropriations and Administration;
(11) Ms Templeman, Ms Byrnes, Ms Swanson, Ms Roberts and Ms Chesters be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Petitions;
(12) Mr R Mitchell, Ms J Ryan, Ms Payne, Dr Mulino, Ms Claydon and Ms Thwaites be appointed members of the Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests;
(13) Mr Neumann, Dr Ananda-Rajah, Ms Stanley and Dr Garland be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Procedure;
(14) Mrs Phillips, Ms Lawrence, Mr Khalil and Ms Stanley be appointed members of the Publications Committee;
(15) Mr Smith, Dr Freelander, Ms Stanley, Ms Claydon, Ms Roberts and Ms Byrnes be appointed members of the Selection Committee;
(16) Mr Perrett, Dr Reid, Ms Claydon and Ms Scrymgour be appointed members of the Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs;
(17) Mr Lim, Mr Zappia and Ms Murphy be appointed members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity;
(18) Ms Templeman, Ms J Ryan and Mr Laxale be appointed members of the Joint Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings;
(19) Mr Georganas, Ms Mascarenhas and Dr Mulino be appointed members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services;
(20) Ms Thwaites, Mr Rae and Mr Neumann be appointed members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters;
(21) Mr Neumann, Mr Gosling, Mr Burns, Mr R Mitchell, Mr Hill, Ms Vamvakinou, Mr Perrett, Ms Templeman, Mr J Wilson, Ms Thwaites, Mr Khalil and Mr Georganas be appointed members of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade;
(22) Mr Burns, Mr Perrett and Mr Khalil be appointed members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights;
(23) Ms Miller-Frost, Mr Lim and Mr Repacholi be appointed members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement;
(24) Ms Vamvakinou, Ms Fernando and Mr J Wilson be appointed members of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration;
(25) Ms Payne, Mr Gosling, Mr Hill and Ms Claydon be appointed members of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories;
(26) Ms Coker, Ms Payne and Dr Freelander be appointed members of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme;
(27) Ms Stanley, Ms Thwaites, Ms Fernando and Mr R Mitchell be appointed members of the Joint Standing Committee on the Parliamentary Library;
(28) Mr Hill, Dr Garland, Ms Murphy, Dr Ananda-Rajah, Mr Rae and Dr Mulino be appointed members of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit;
(29) Mr Perrett, Mr Smith, Mr Zappia and Ms Roberts be appointed members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works;
(30) Ms Scrymgour, Ms Swanson and Mr Zappia be appointed members of the Joint Standing Committee on Implementation of the National Redress Scheme;
(31) Mr Georganas, Ms Lawrence and Mr Laxale be appointed members of the Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth;
(32) Mr J Wilson, Mr Burnell, Ms Thwaites, Dr Charlton, Dr Mulino and Mr Gosling be appointed members of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties;
(33) Ms Claydon, Ms J Ryan, Ms Vamvakinou and Mr Smith be appointed members of the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Standards;
Question agreed to.
Membership
The SPEAKER (17:00): I have received messages from the Senate informing the House of the appointment of senators to certain joint committees. As the list is a lengthy one, I do not propose to read the list to the House. Details will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
House adjourned at 17:00
NOTICES
Presentation
The following notice was given—
Mr Burke to move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring in relation to proceedings on an item of private Members' business, Restoring Territory Rights Bill 2022:
(1) the order of the day for resumption of debate on the second reading of the bill being called on immediately;
(2) debate to continue for no longer than two hours, with debate then being adjourned, the bill made an order of the day for the next sitting and referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration;
(3) the second reading of the bill having priority over government business in the Federation Chamber, with the exception of the grievance debate, until no further Members rise to speak;
(4) the bill then being returned to the House for consideration of the remaining stages immediately, or otherwise as ordered; and
(5) any variation to this arrangement being made only on a motion moved by a Minister.