The SPEAKER ( Hon. Milton Dick ) took the chair at 09:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.
PARLIAMENTARY OFFICE HOLDERS
Speaker's Panel
The SPEAKER (09:01): Pursuant to standing order 17, I lay on the table my warrant nominating the honourable member for Higgins to be a member of the Speaker's panel to assist the chair when requested to do so by the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker.
COMMITTEES
Selection Committee
Report
The SPEAKER (09:01): I present report No. 4 of the Selection Committee relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and private members' business on Monday 7 November 2022. The report will be printed in the Hansard for today, and the committee's determination will appear in tomorrow's Notice Paper. Copies of the report have been placed on the table.
The report read as follows—
Report relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and of private Members' business
1. The Committee met in private session on Tuesday, 25 October 2022.
2. The Committee deliberated on items of committee and delegation business that had been notified, private Members' business items listed on the Notice Paper and notices lodged on Tuesday, 25 October 2022, and determined the order of precedence and times on Monday, 7 November, as follows:
Items for House of Representatives Ch amber (10.10 am to 12 noon)
PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Notices
1 MRS ANDREWS: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the Optus and Medibank data-breaches highlight the threats faced by Australians and Australian businesses from cyber-criminals;
(b) the previous Government passed significant legislation to help protect Australians and our critical infrastructure from cyber-criminals; and
(c) the Government's lacklustre response to the data breaches does nothing to allay the concerns and fears of Australians who may have been impacted by these cyber-attacks; and
(2) calls on the Government to support the passage of the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Ransomware Action Plan) Bill 2022, which would help law enforcement disrupt and deter cyber-criminals who engage in ransomware and cyber-extortion activities targeting Australians and Australian businesses.
(Notice given 25 October 2022.)
Time allotted — 40 minutes.
Speech time limits —
Mrs Andrews —5 minutes.
Other Members —5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
2 MS J RYAN: To move:
That this House:
(1) acknowledges the Government's $2.57 billion in funding in the 2022 October Budget for the infrastructure Victoria, and Victorians need, including:
(a) $2.2 billion for the Suburban Rail Loop;
(b) $57 million for the Ison Road Rail Overpass in Wyndham;
(c) $150 million for the Camerons Lane Interchange in Beveridge;
(d) $125 million to upgrade Barwon Heads Road; and
(2) notes this funding will make journeys quicker, and making sure Victorians can get home to their families safely, and comes after a decade of neglect for Victorian Infrastructure from the former Government; and
(3) thanks the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government and the Prime Minister for working with the Victorian Government.
(Notice given 25 October 2022.)
Time allotted — 40 minutes.
Speech time limits —
Ms J Ryan —5 minutes.
Other Members —5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
3 MS WATSON-BROWN: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes the Government's Budget gives billionaires and politicians a $9,000 a year tax cut but delays cost of living relief for everyday people; and
(2) calls on the Government to scrap the Stage 3 tax cuts that cost the public over a quarter of a trillion dollars, and instead spend this money providing immediate cost of living relief, through measures such as getting dental and mental health into Medicare and making childcare free.
(Notice given 25 October 2022.)
Time allotted — remaining private Members' business time prior to 12 no on.
Speech time limits —
Ms Watson-Brown —5 minutes.
Other Members —5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
Items for Federation Cha mber (11 am to 1.30 pm)
PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Notices
1 MR HAMILTON: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the Government has signed Australia up to the Global Methane Pledge despite promising the Australian public that it would not sign the pledge during the 2022 election;
(b) this is a broken election promise;
(c) the Global Methane Pledge includes a target to reduce methane emissions by 30 per cent on 2020 levels by 2030;
(d) 48 per cent of Australia's annual methane emissions come from the agricultural sector, where no affordable, practical and large-scale way exists to reduce it other than culling herd sizes;
(e) in the previous Government, the Coalition invested over $18 million to monitor and reduce fugitive methane emissions in the energy and resources sector, and help farmers reduce emissions from livestock; and
(f) this pledge, in effect, creates a cap on the size of Australia's livestock industry;
(2) further notes that:
(a) international research shows the target cannot be realised without taking behavioural and technical measures in the livestock agriculture sector, and recommends people change their diets resulting in lower meat and dairy consumption, leading to a capping or reduction of the national livestock herd;
(b) this will increase the price of a steak at your favourite restaurant or butcher, or a white coffee at your favourite cafe, at a time when small businesses are already struggling with mounting cost-of-doing-business pressures; and
(c) this pledge equally calls to reduce methane emissions from the gas sector—a critical fuel source that complements the increasing share of renewables in our electricity grid—which adds pressure to production and generation and is an invitation for the type of chaos we are seeing in Europe at the moment; and
(3) calls on the Government to:
(a) install financial protections for Australia's agricultural sector which will be impacted by the Global Methane Pledge;
(b) provide assurances to Australia's agricultural sector that there will be no new taxes and regulation to deliver the Government's methane emissions reduction target;
(c) provide assurances the national livestock herd will not be capped or reduced as a consequence of the Government's methane emissions reduction target.
(Notice g iven 25 October 2022.)
Time allotted — 20 minutes.
Speech time limits —
Mr Hamilton —5 minutes.
Other Members —5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 4 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue at a later hour.
2 MR PERRETT: To move:
That this House:
(1) acknowledges the Government's $9.6 billion of funding in the 2022-23 October budget for the infrastructure that Australia needs, including but not limited to:
(a) upgrading the Bruce Highway in Queensland;
(b) building electric bus charging infrastructure for Perth's electric bus network;
(c) investing in Tasmania's Bass and Tasman highways;
(d) investing in South Australia's Dukes and Augusta highways;
(e) partnering with the Victorian Government to deliver Melbourne's Suburban Rail Loop;
(f) improving Canberra's cycle routes;
(g) sealing the Northern Territory's Tanami Road and upgrading the Central Arnhem Road; and
(h) investing in Western Sydney's Road Package; and
(2) notes this funding will make journeys quicker and ensure Australians return home to their families safely.
(Notice given 25 October 2022.)
Time allotted — 50 minutes.
Speech time limits —
Mr Perrett —5 minutes.
Other Members —5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 10 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
3 MR LEESER: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) Israel, as a sovereign state, is free to decide its own capital; and
(b) for the last 3,000 years Jerusalem has not been the capital of any state other than a Jewish state, and has been the seat of government of Israel since 1950;
(2) recognises that the territory of West Jerusalem:
(a) has been part of Israel's sovereign territory since the state was established in 1948, and is not part of the territory which Israel captured during the 1967 war;
(b) is therefore outside the scope of United Nations (UN) resolutions since 1967, which are limited expressly to territory occupied by Israel since 1967; and
(c) has never been the subject of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians;
(3) further notes that:
(a) Australia's recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel's capital in 2018 did not in any way pre-empt the outcome of peace negotiations, or undermine the prospects of achieving a peaceful settlement of the conflict based on the UN-endorsed principle of two states for two peoples; and
(b) since 2020 five Arab states have officially normalised relations with Israel, thereby disproving claims which were made in 2018 that recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel's capital would worsen the conflict; and
(4) calls on the Government to:
(a) reverse its recent decision to no longer recognise West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; and
(b) apologise to:
(i) the Australian people for the lack of consultation or opportunity for public debate in the lead-up to the decision, and for effecting an important change of government policy through an amendment to a government website, and then officially denying the change, before a decision was taken by the Cabinet;
(ii) Israel for this ill-considered decision, and the hasty and careless manner in which it was made; and
(iii) the Australian Jewish community for the failure to consult and for announcing its decision on the Jewish Holy Day of Simchat Torah, when Jewish community organisations were precluded from responding.
(Notice given 25 October 2022.)
Time allotted — 40 minutes.
Speech time limits —
Mr Leeser —5 minutes.
Other Members —5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
4 MS STANLEY: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) Australia's unemployment rate sits at the lowest level since 1974 at 3.4 per cent;
(b) large sectors of the economy are facing jobs and skills shortages due to the tight labour market;
(c) the record low unemployment rate is not translating to significant and strong wages growth in line with inflation and real wages have declined as a consequence; and
(d) the gender pay gap has remained high and has increased in the past 6 months to 14.1 per cent;
(2) acknowledges that:
(a) the gender pay gap is a major concern socially and economically;
(b) the Government's Jobs and Skills Summit worked collaboratively with all stakeholders—unions, business, and advocacy groups to find solutions to skill shortages and close the gender pay gap;
(c) the Jobs and Skills Summit has identified 36 initiatives that can be taken immediately to alleviate skills shortages;
(d) areas of reform in the industrial relations system have been identified to spur wages growth for workers; and
(e) the sectors that will benefit the most from industrial relations reform are undervalued areas such as childcare, aged care and disability support. These sectors are female-dominated and are less likely to collectively bargain;
(3) supports further consultation with all groups to solve Australia's economic issues and to set Australia up for further decades of economic and social growth; and
(4) expresses concern over the increase in the gender pay gap and the decline of real wages and supports any efforts to alleviate these issues.
(Notice given 26 September 2022.)
Time allotted — remaining private Members' business time prior to 1.30 pm.
Speech time limits —
Ms Stanley —5 minutes.
Other Members —5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
Items for Federation Chamber (4.45 pm to 7.30 pm)
PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Orders of the day
1 EUROPEAN UNION FREE TRADE AGREEMENT: Resumption of debate (from 26 September 2022) on the motion of Mr Hogan—That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the European Union (EU) is Australia's second largest two-way trading partner of goods and services worth over $74 billion; and
(b) with a high-income population of almost 450 million people, the EU represents an incredibly significant market opportunity for Australian exporters;
(2) acknowledges the significant work undertaken by the former Government to pursue an ambitious and comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU; and
(3) calls on the Government to:
(a) prioritise the negotiation and completion of the Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement; and
(b) deliver a commercially significant agreement with liberalised access that is in the national interest.
Time allotted — 40 minutes.
Speech time limits —
All Members —5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
Notices — continued
5 MS PAYNE: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the gender pay gap still sits at an unacceptable 14.1 per cent;
(b) men earn an extra $263.90 per week more than women;
(c) the gender pay gap has only narrowed by 5.1 per cent since 1983;
(d) work in female-dominated industries is disproportionately undervalued because of discriminatory assumptions about the value of the work; and
(2) commends the Government for amending the Fair Work Act 2009 and related legislation to improve job security and gender equity by:
(a) including in the Fair Work Act 2009: gender equity, secure work, an equal remuneration principle, and enhancing the enforcement and compliance framework;
(b) prohibiting pay secrecy clauses; and
(c) establishing new expert panels in the Fair Work Commission for pay equity and the care and community sector.
(Notice given 25 October 2022.)
Time allotted — 50 minutes.
Speech time limits —
Ms Payne —5 minutes.
Other Members —5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 10 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter s hould continue on a future day.
6 MR PITT: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that the previous Government:
(a) had the foresight to implement Australia's first ever Critical Minerals Strategy in 2019;
(b) provided billions in funding to support the development of Australia's critical minerals sector since 2019;
(c) provided a $1.25 billion loan in April 2022 through the Critical Minerals Facility to Australian company Iluka Resources to develop Australia's first integrated rare earths refinery in Western Australia;
(d) committed $200 million in the 2022-23 budget to develop early and mid-stage critical minerals projects as part of the Critical Minerals Accelerator Initiative funded under the Regional Accelerator Initiative; and
(e) committed $50.5 million in the 2022-23 budget to the Critical Minerals Research and Development Centre;
(2) further notes that the Government is cutting critical minerals funding:
(a) by $100 million under the Critical Minerals Development Program, formerly known as the Critical Minerals Accelerator Initiative; and
(b) to the $50.5 million Critical Minerals Research and Development Centre, now rebranded as a 'hub', by pushing funding out over four years instead of three years; and
(3) calls on the Government to:
(a) explain why it believes renaming an existing program and cutting its funding makes it a 'new initiative' as described by the Prime Minister;
(b) explain why it is undermining its own rush towards an 82 per cent renewable energy target by 2030 by cutting investment in Australia's critical minerals, which are vital to the creation of technologies like solar panels, wind turbines and batteries; and
(c) reverse their cuts to the Critical Minerals Accelerator Initiative and the Critical Minerals Research and Development Centre.
(Notice given 25 October 2022.)
Time allotted — 40 minutes.
Speech time limits —
Mr Pitt —5 minutes.
Other Members —5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter sho uld continue on a future day.
7 DR M RYAN: To move:
That this House:
(1) acknowledges the devastation caused by ongoing native forest logging in this country;
(2) commits to protecting our native forests from logging;
(3) abolishes the effective exemption from environment laws that has been granted to native forest logging currently covered by regional forestry agreements between the federal and state governments; and
(4) further commits to implementing the recommendations of the Independent Review of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, as soon as possible, to arrest the decline of our iconic places and the extinction of our most threatened plants, animals, and ecosystems.
(Notice given 25 October 2022.)
Time allotted — 20 minutes.
Speech time limits —
Dr M Ryan —5 minutes.
Other Members —5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 4 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
Orders of the day — continued
METHANE: Resumption of debate on the motion of Mr Hamilton—That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the Government has signed Australia up to the Global Methane Pledge despite promising the Australian public that it would not sign the pledge during the 2022 election;
(b) this is a broken election promise;
(c) the Global Methane Pledge includes a target to reduce methane emissions by 30 per cent on 2020 levels by 2030;
(d) 48 per cent of Australia's annual methane emissions come from the agricultural sector, where no affordable, practical and large-scale way exists to reduce it other than culling herd sizes;
(e) in the previous Government, the Coalition invested over $18 million to monitor and reduce fugitive methane emissions in the energy and resources sector, and help farmers reduce emissions from livestock; and
(f) this pledge, in effect, creates a cap on the size of Australia's livestock industry;
(2) further notes that:
(a) international research shows the target cannot be realised without taking behavioural and technical measures in the livestock agriculture sector, and recommends people change their diets resulting in lower meat and dairy consumption, leading to a capping or reduction of the national livestock herd;
(b) this will increase the price of a steak at your favourite restaurant or butcher, or a white coffee at your favourite cafe, at a time when small businesses are already struggling with mounting cost-of-doing-business pressures; and
(c) this pledge equally calls to reduce methane emissions from the gas sector—a critical fuel source that complements the increasing share of renewables in our electricity grid—which adds pressure to production and generation and is an invitation for the type of chaos we are seeing in Europe at the moment; and
(3) calls on the Government to:
(a) install financial protections for Australia's agricultural sector which will be impacted by the Global Methane Pledge;
(b) provide assurances to Australia's agricultural sector that there will be no new taxes and regulation to deliver the Government's methane emissions reduction target;
(c) provide assurances the national livestock herd will not be capped or reduced as a consequence of the Government's methane emissions reduction target.
(Notice given 25 October 2 022.)
Time allotted — remaining private Members' business time prior to 7.30 pm.
Speech time limits —
All Members —5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 3 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
THE HON D. M. DICK MP
Speaker of the House of Representatives
26 October 2022
BILLS
Australian Crime Commission Amendment (Special Operations and Special Investigations) Bill 2022
First Reading
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Dreyfus.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr DREYFUS (Isaacs—Attorney-General and Cabinet Secretary) (09:02): I move:
That this bill now be read a second time.
Transnational serious and organised crime is destructive, pervasive and complex. In 2020-21 serious and organised crime was estimated to cost Australia up to $60.1 billion. As Australia's national criminal intelligence agency, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (the ACIC) is central to our national response to transnational serious and organised crime. The ACIC uses its collection and assessment capabilities to generate intelligence to drive disruptions, seizures and arrests by law enforcement, intelligence and international partners.
The Australian Crime Commission Amendment (Special Operations and Special Investigations) Bill 2022 amends the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002 to provide greater certainty with respect to the ACIC Board's powers to authorise special operations and special investigations.
The bill does not expand or otherwise alter the powers available to the ACIC when undertaking ACIC special operations or special investigations.
Under the act, the ACIC may only use its coercive powers where the ACIC Board makes a determination for a special operation or special investigation. The board may only exercise the power to authorise special operations or special investigations when it considers that it is in the public interest to do so.
However, the existing provisions in the act include key definitions which cross-refer to other definitions that are central to the process for making determinations. This layering of definitions adds unnecessary complexity to the process in making determinations.
The proposed amendments address this issue by repealing the current definition of federally relevant criminal activity in subsection 4(1) and replacing it with a new definition of federally relevant crime. The current definition of relevant crime in subsection 4(1) is also amended. These changes reduce the multilayered definitions that currently exist which add unnecessary complexity.
The bill also makes minor consequential amendments to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement Act 2010 and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979.
The measures in this bill provide that the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission can continue to exercise its powers with greater legal clarity when conducting activities to combat transnational and serious organised crime in Australia.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
Privacy Legislation Amendment (Enforcement and Other Measures) Bill 2022
First Reading
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Dreyfus.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr DREYFUS (Isaacs—Attorney-General and Cabinet Secretary) (09:06): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill sends a clear message that the Albanese government takes privacy, security and data protection seriously.
As the Optus, Medibank and MyDeal cyberattacks have recently highlighted, data breaches have the potential to cause serious financial and emotional harm to Australians, and this is unacceptable.
Governments, businesses and other organisations have an obligation to protect Australians' personal data, not to treat it as a commercial asset. The law must reflect this.
This bill will provide Australians with confidence that their data will be protected in four ways.
First, the bill will significantly increase penalties under the Privacy Act for serious or repeated privacy breaches to incentivise businesses to take strong privacy and cybersecurity measures to protect the personal data they hold.
Second, the Australian Information Commissioner will be provided with a suite of improved and new powers to resolve privacy breaches efficiently and effectively.
Third, the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme will be strengthened to ensure the Information Commissioner has comprehensive knowledge of the information compromised in a breach to assess the particular risk of harm to individuals.
Fourth, the Information Commissioner and the Australian Communications and Media Authority will have greater information-sharing powers to ensure regulators are able to work together and take prompt action to minimise harm to Australians.
These amendments are targeted and measured. They respond to the most pressing issues arising from the Optus data breach and other recent cyber incidents.
I am introducing this bill at the earliest opportunity. The government has moved swiftly at every stage of the response to the Optus data breach—giving Australians confidence that their compromised identity documents can be replaced, coordinating action between regulators, and taking steps to enable Optus to share information with financial institutions to detect and prevent fraud. I also acknowledge the work of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, Australian Federal Police and other federal regulators and agencies that have supported the response to this breach.
The novel privacy challenges posed by the rise of digital platforms and the unprecedented volume and variety of data that these platforms collect from users underscores the importance of reforming our privacy laws.
The Attorney-General's Department's review of the Privacy Act will recommend further reform proposals to ensure Australia's privacy framework protects the personal information of Australians, supports an innovative economy and responds to new challenges in the digital age.
Increased penalties
The bill will increase penalties for a serious or repeated breach of privacy from $2.22 million to not more than the greater of: $50 million; three times the value of any benefit obtained through the misuse of the information; or, if the value of the benefit obtained cannot be determined, 30 per cent of a company's domestic turnover in the relevant period.
Setting these penalties at a higher level will accord with Australian community expectations about the importance of protecting their personal data.
Further, penalties for privacy breaches cannot be seen as simply the cost of doing business. Entities must be incentivised to have strong cyber and data security safeguards in place to protect Australians.
These new penalties mirror those proposed in the Treasury Laws Amendment (More Competition, Better Prices) Bill 2022, which implements the government's 'better competition' election commitment. This will ensure alignment of penalties across Australian privacy law and consumer law.
Strengthened Notifiable Data Breaches s cheme
The bill will strengthen the existing Notifiable Data Breaches scheme by empowering the Information Commissioner to assess an entity's compliance with the scheme's requirements. Assessments are an important educative tool, and this power will assist entities in ensuring they are meeting their requirements.
The Information Commissioner will also have new information-gathering powers in regard to the scheme's reporting and notification requirements. This is necessary to provide the Information Commissioner with a comprehensive understanding of the information compromised in a breach, in order to assess the particular risks to individuals and take actions, such as issue a direction for the entity to notify individuals who have been affected by a data breach.
Enhanced enforcement powers
The bill will improve the powers available to the Information Commissioner to resolve privacy breaches by empowering the commissioner to publish notices about specific breaches of privacy or otherwise ensure those directly affected are informed. The bill enables the commissioner to compel entities to undertake external reviews to improve their practices to reduce the likelihood of them committing a breach again.
The bill will also provide the commissioner new information-gathering powers to conduct assessments and new infringement notice powers that can be used if an entity fails to provide information when required, without the need to engage in protracted litigation.
To ensure Australia's privacy laws remain fit for purpose in a globalised world and to ensure the Privacy Act can be enforced against global technology companies who may process Australians' information on servers offshore, the bill will amend the act's extraterritoriality provisions. This will mean that, even if foreign organisations do not collect or hold Australians' information directly from a source in Australia, they must still meet the obligations under the Privacy Act so long as they 'carry on a business' in Australia.
Greater information sharing arrangements
To ensure Australians are informed about privacy issues, the bill will provide the commissioner an express power to publish a final determination following a privacy investigation and information about a final assessment report. The commissioner will also be able to publish information about other matters, such as an update about an ongoing privacy investigation, if it is in the public interest.
The commissioner will also be able to share information with enforcement bodies, alternative complaint bodies and privacy regulators for the purpose of the commissioner or the receiving body exercising their functions and powers. The Australian Communications and Media Authority will also be provided better powers to share information within government for enforcement purposes.
This will drive better cooperation between regulators in order to deliver better outcomes for Australians.
Conclusion
The bill is an important and pressing reform that will make sure penalties for privacy breaches adequately reflect community expectations, and it will ensure Australia's privacy regulator has the enforcement tools necessary to effectively deter the misuse of Australians' personal information.
Debate adjourned.
Aboriginal Land Grant (Jervis Bay Territory) Amendment (Strengthening Land and Governance Provisions) Bill 2022
First Reading
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Leigh.
Bill read a first time.
Dr LEIGH (Fenner—Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) (09:15): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Wreck Bay Aboriginal community in the Jervis Bay Territory has an unusual status. It is part of my electorate of Fenner, but residents do not vote in state or territory elections. This means the Commonwealth has a particular responsibility to residents of Wreck Bay.
The Jervis Bay Territory is a special place. In a dozen visits, I have appreciated the chance to learn from and work with members of the community.
I thank my colleague Linda Burney, the Minister for Indigenous Australians, for allowing me to introduce this bill today on behalf of the Australian government.
The Australian government has worked with the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community Council and the broader Wreck Bay community over a number of years to co-design the Aboriginal Land Grant (Jervis Bay Territory) Amendment (Strengthening Land and Governance Provisions) Bill 2022, with the most recent consultations on the detail of the bill in August this year. This bill will:
strengthen the council's governance structures;
enhance the control the council has over its own affairs; and
help to enable homeownership style leases on Aboriginal land in the Jervis Bay Territory.
The Wreck Bay community is located in the Jervis Bay Territory, on the southern New South Wales coast, 126 kilometres east of Canberra. The Jervis Bay Territory was formally established in 1915, on the land of the Bherwerre Peninsula, through the enactment of the Jervis Bay Territory Acceptance Act 1915. First Nations people had been living in the area since long before that time, and never agreed to the surrender of these lands. Middens on the Bherwerre Peninsula provide evidence of thousands of generations of First Nations occupation of this area.
During the 1960s and 1970s, members of the community advocated for the recognition of their connection to the land in Australian law. This advocacy culminated in the enactment of the Aboriginal Land Grant (Jervis Bay Territory) Act 1986. The act established the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community Council to hold title to Aboriginal land in the Jervis Bay Territory, to manage that land for the benefit of the community, and to advocate for and serve the community more generally. There have been three declarations of Aboriginal land since 1987. Today, more than 90 per cent of the land in the Jervis Bay Territory is Aboriginal land owned and managed by the council. Much of that land is Booderee National Park, which is leased back to the Director of National Parks and is jointly managed by the council and the Director of National Parks.
This bill will ensure that the council is well positioned to hold and manage this land for the benefit of the council's members for generations to come.
The bill enhances local control over decision-making by increasing the amount the council can agree to spend under a contract without obtaining ministerial approval. This amount will increase from $100,000 to $1 million, enabling the council to pursue commercial ventures without having to navigate unnecessary red tape.
The bill assists the council to issue homeownership style leases to individuals in the community. If community members wish to do so, they will be able to take out a homeownership style lease. This will simplify arrangements for long-term leasing and provide opportunities for community members to enjoy the intergenerational benefits of homeownership.
The bill strengthens the council's governance structures, aligning them more closely with those of comparable corporate Commonwealth entities. The powers of the council will be vested in the board; until now, the council's members have had to delegate powers to the board, creating uncertainty within the council. The board and the chief executive officer will be explicitly empowered to delegate functions and powers so the council can function effectively. The bill also ensures only fit and proper persons may serve on the board, and changes quorum requirements from set numbers to percentages of overall members, ensuring responsiveness to changes in overall membership numbers.
Importantly, the bill updates the title of the act to the 'Aboriginal Land and Waters (Jervis Bay Territory) Act 1986'. This name reflects the council's ownership of an area of the waters of Jervis Bay, as well as freshwater sources across the Jervis Bay Territory. It recognises the community's strong connection to waters as well as land, and the importance of the act in supporting that enduring connection into the future.
The government's Closing the Gap commitment to shared decision-making has guided the development of these reforms. Targeted co-design sessions were held in 2020 and 2021, including with the council's board, men's and women's groups, subcommittees, elders, youth, and the broader membership. Some reforms were proposed by the community, others were suggested by government, and every reform in this bill has been explicitly endorsed by the board.
I acknowledge the work that occurred under the former Minister for Indigenous Australians, the Hon. Ken Wyatt, in progressing this important work with the Wreck Bay community.
The government sincerely thanks the council for its work in the co-design of this bill. In particular, we acknowledge the leadership of Annette Brown and Julie Moore, who have chaired the council during the co-design process.
The council's work honours the longstanding tradition of community service and representation in Wreck Bay. Those who advocated for land rights in the late 20th century paved the way for the present generation to maintain their deep connection to their land and waters. This bill ensures that the Wreck Bay community will continue to live their culture through this enduring connection for generations to come.
I commend this bill to the chamber.
Debate adjourned.
Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill 2022
First Reading
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Keogh.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr KEOGH (Burt—Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel) (09:23): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Australian community has a clear expectation that defence personnel, veterans and their families are well looked after. This is an important task and responsibility of government—a solemn commitment.
I am pleased to be introducing this legislation today, as it demonstrates the Albanese Labor government's commitment to delivering a better future for our veterans and families, addressing the adequacy of support to totally and permanently incapacitated veterans—oft referred to as TPI veterans and their families, providing them greater financial support to ultimately deliver a better future for them.
Before the 2019 election, the then Prime Minister raised expectations he would increase the TPI payment by committing to a review of the pension, even telling the TPI Federation they had a 'compelling case'; however, after the election, funnily enough, no increase was recommended by that review.
Typical of the all-announcement no-delivery games of the previous government, Labor senators decided they couldn't rely on anyone else to get the job done—they rolled up their sleeves and initiated their own inquiry.
That inquiry—the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Inquiry into totally and permanently incapacitated payments—recommended that government consider increasing the TPI payment.
It made that recommendation on 1 July 2021. While that inquiry did not recommend a specific amount of increase of the TPI payment, it suggested it should be a 'modest' increase.
True to form, the then Liberal-National government ignored the bipartisan recommendation, another slap in the face for our most severely injured veterans.
On 24 April 2022, Senator Wong, then shadow minister for veterans' affairs the member for Blair, and I announced in different parts of the country that a Labor government, if elected, would act on the recommendation of the Senate inquiry and increase the TPI payment by $1,000 a year.
This bill today implements that commitment by Labor by increasing the special rate of disability compensation payment for veterans.
Let's be very clear here. In early 2019, the former Liberal-National government said it would do something to help veterans and then didn't do it for an entire term of this parliament, despite a bipartisan Senate inquiry recommending them to act. Labor committed to action in April 2022, was elected in May 2022 and is introducing that legislation today in October 2022, and that increase will come into effect from 1 January 2023, less than a year from when it was announced by Labor, then in opposition.
This $1,000-a-year increase to the special rate of disability pension, an increase of $38.46 per fortnight, is to ensure veterans and their families are better supported financially, helping keep up with cost-of-living pressures.
It forms part of how last night's federal budget, delivered by the Treasurer, delivers on the Albanese Labor government's commitment to deliver responsible cost-of-living relief. The increase to the TPI payment means it will be comparable with the national minimum wage and, crucially, greater than the after-tax national minimum wage a wage earner would receive. This initiative recognises the importance of supporting veterans who have been severely impacted by their experiences in the Australian Defence Force.
The bill will achieve this by amending the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 to increase the rate of pension payable to TPI veterans.
This government is committed to implementing practical support measures to better support defence personnel, veterans and their families.
We want our service personnel, veterans, and veteran families to know that Australia is proud of them and that our country will always be there for them.
That they will get the support that they not only need, but deserve.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
COMMITTEES
Electoral Matters Joint Committee
Appointment
Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (09:28): I move:
That:
(1) the resolution of appointment for the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters be amended to replace paragraph 3 with the following:
(3) the committee consist of 14 members, five Members of the House of Representatives to be nominated by the Government Whip or Whips, two Members of the House of Representatives to be nominated by the Opposition Whip or Whips, one cross-bench Member of the House of Representatives to be nominated by the Opposition Whip or Whips, two Senators to be nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, three Senators to be nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and one Senator to be nominated by any minority group or independent Senator; and
(2) a message be sent to the Senate acquainting it of this resolution and requesting that it concur and take action accordingly.
Question agreed to.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Joint Committee
Reporting Date
The SPEAKER (09:28): I have received a message from the Senate informing the House of a resolution agreed to by the Senate that the time for the presentation of the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs on its inquiry into community safety, support services and job opportunities in the Northern Territory be extended to 1 March 2023.
National Anti-Corruption Commission Legislation Joint Select Committee
Membership
The SPEAKER (09:28): I have received a message from the Senate informing the House of the appointment of senators to the Joint Select Committee on National Anti-Corruption Commission Legislation. As the list of appointments is a lengthy one, I do not propose to read the list to the House. Details will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
BILLS
Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Lifting the Income Limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card) Bill 2022
Consideration of Senate Message
Consideration resumed.
Senate's amendment s —
(1) Opp (1) [Sheet 1643]
Clause 2, page 2 (table item 1), omit the table item, substitute:
1. Sections 1 to 3 and anything in this Act not elsewhere covered by this table |
The seventh day after this Act receives the Royal Assent. |
|
2. Schedule 1 |
The seventh day after this Act receives the Royal Assent. |
|
(2) Opp (2) [Sheet 1643]
Clause 2, page 2 (after proposed table item 1), insert:
1A. Section 4 |
The first 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October to occur after the day this Act receives the Royal Assent. |
|
(3) Opp (3) [Sheet 1643]
Clause 2, page 2 (at the end of the table), add:
3. Schedule 2 |
The first 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October to occur after the day this Act receives the Royal Assent. |
|
(4) Opp (4) [Sheet 1643]
Clause 2, page 2 (at the end of the table), add:
4. Schedule 3 |
The first 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October to occur after the day this Act receives the Royal Assent. |
|
(5) Opp (5) [Sheet 1643]
Clause 2, page 2 (at the end of the table), add:
5. Schedule 4 |
The first 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October to occur after the day this Act receives the Royal Assent. |
|
(6) Opp (6) [Sheet 1643]
Page 2 (after line 14), after clause 3, insert:
4 Review and expiration of Schedule 4
Review
(1) The Minister must cause a review to be conducted of the operation of the amendments made by Schedule 4 to this Act.
(2) The persons who undertake the review must:
(a) without limiting subsection (1), consider as part of the review, the merits of continuing the operation of the amendments made by Schedule 4 to this Act taking into account:
(i) changes in overseas net migration levels; and
(ii) the unemployment rate; and
(iii) the workforce participation rate; and
(iv) utilisation of the work bonus; and
(b) give the Minister a written report of the review no later than 30 days before the sunset day mentioned in subsection (4).
(3) The Minister must cause a copy of the report to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the report is given to the Minister.
Sunsetting of amendments
(4) The amendments made by Schedule 4 to this Act cease to be in force at the start of the day (the sunset day) after the end of the period of:
(a) 12 months beginning on the day Schedule 4 commenced; or
(b) each successive 12-month period after the day referred to in paragraph (a);
unless subsection (5) applies.
(5) The Minister may, by notifiable instrument, determine that the amendments made by Schedule 4 to this Act do not cease to be in force for a period of 12 months if the Minister is satisfied, after considering the report mentioned in subsection (2), that the amendments should remain in operation.
Definition of Ministe r
(6) For the purposes of this section, Ministermeans the Minister administering the Social Security Act 1991.
(7) Opp (7) [Sheet 1643]
Schedule 1, heading, page 3 (line 1), omit "Amendments", substitute "Commonwealth Seniors Health Card income test limits".
(8) Govt (2) [Sheet UD142]
Schedule 1, item 4, page 3 (lines 14 and 15), omit "2022 and 2023 (see subsections 1192(5BA) and (5BB))", substitute "2023 (see subsection 1192(5BB))".
(9) Govt (3) [Sheet UD142]
Schedule 1, item 5, page 3 (lines 18 and 19), omit subsection 1192(5BA).
(10) Govt (4) [Sheet UD142]
Schedule 1, item 9, page 4 (lines 10 and 11), omit "on 20 September 2023 and each later 20 September", substitute "annually on 20 September".
(11) Govt (5) [Sheet UD142]
Schedule 1, item 10, page 4 (lines 13 to 16), omit the item.
(12) Govt (6) [Sheet UD142]
Schedule 1, item 11, page 4 (line 20), omit "20 September 2022", substitute "the day this item commences".
(13) Govt (7) [Sheet UD142]
Schedule 1, item 11, page 4 (lines 23 and 24), omit "20 September 2022", substitute "the day this item commences".
(14) Opp (8) [Sheet 1643]
Page 4 (after line 24), at the end of the bill, add:
Schedule 2 — Suspension of benefits and entitlements instead of cancellation
Part 1 — Social security amendments
Social Se curity (Administration) Act 1999
1 After section 95C
Insert:
95D Age pension — suspension instead of cancellation under section 93 or 94
Application
(1) This section applies if:
(a) age pension ceases to be payable to a person because the rate of the person's pension is nil; and
(b) the rate of the person's pension is nil because of the occurrence of an event or change of circumstances (the income-related event) that results in the person's income reduced rate (see subsection (2)) being nil; and
(c) the person is required to inform the Department of the income-related event within a specified period (the notification period) because of a notice given to the person under subsection 68(2); and
(d) but for the person's income reduced rate being nil, age pension would have continued to be payable to the person; and
(e) the person's pension is to be, or has been, cancelled under section 93 or 94 because the pension ceased to be payable for the reason mentioned in paragraph (b); and
(f) at the time of the cessation, the person's ordinary income (as used to work out the person's income reduced rate) includes income for remunerative work performed by the person in Australia as an employee in an employer/employee relationship.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), a person's income reduced rate is the rate worked out at step 8 of the method statement in point 1064-A1 in Module A of Pension Rate Calculator A.
Suspension determination — event notified within notification period
(3) If:
(a) the person informs the Department of the income-related event within the notification period; and
(b) the person's pension has not yet been cancelled under section 93;
the Secretary may determine that:
(c) section 93 does not apply to cancel the person's pension; and
(d) the person's pension is suspended for a period of 2 years with effect from the day the pension would otherwise have ceased to be payable under section 93.
(4) If:
(a) the person informs the Department of the income-related event within the notification period; and
(b) the person's pension has been cancelled under section 93; and
(c) within the period of 2 years after the cancellation, the ordinary income of the person is of an amount that would not preclude the person from receiving age pension;
the Secretary may determine that:
(d) the person is to be treated as if section 93 had not applied to cancel the person's pension; and
(e) the person's pension is suspended for a period of 2 years with effect from the day the pension had ceased to be payable under section 93.
Suspension determination — event not notified within notification period
(5) If:
(a) the person does not inform the Department of the income-related event within the notification period; and
(b) the person's pension has been cancelled under section 94; and
(c) the Department subsequently becomes aware of the income-related event; and
(d) within the period of 2 years and 14 days after the cancellation, the ordinary income of the person is of an amount that would not preclude the person from receiving age pension;
the Secretary may determine that:
(e) the person is to be treated as if section 94 had not applied to cancel the person's pension; and
(f) the person's pension is suspended for a period of 2 years and 14 days with effect from the day the pension had ceased to be payable under section 94.
Residency requirement
(6) The Secretary must not make a determination under subsection (3), (4) or (5) unless the Secretary is satisfied that the person is residing in Australia.
Resumption of age pension after sus pension
(7) If:
(a) the Secretary suspends a person's age pension under subsection (3), (4) or (5); and
(b) within the period the suspension is in effect, the Secretary reconsiders the decision to suspend; and
(c) as a result of the reconsideration, the Secretary is satisfied that:
(i) the person did not receive age pension that was payable to the person; or
(ii) the person is not receiving age pension that is payable to the person;
the Secretary is to determine that age pension was or is payable to the person, as the case requires.
(8) The reconsideration referred to in paragraph (7)(b) may be a reconsideration on an application under section 129 or a reconsideration on the Secretary's own initiative.
(9) A determination that age pension was or is payable to the person under subsection (7) takes effect:
(a) if the person applied for reconsideration under section 129—on the day the application was made; or
(b) in any other case—on the day the Secretary starts to reconsider the decision to suspend.
Cancellation of age pension after period of suspension
(10) If:
(a) the Secretary suspends a person's age pension for a period under subsection (3), (4) or (5); and
(b) the suspension continues in effect throughout the period;
then, at the end of the period, the determination granting the person age pension is, by force of this subsection, revoked.
2 At the end of paragraphs 96(1)(d) and (3)(d)
Add "with effect from the day the pension would otherwise have ceased to be payable under section 93".
3 Paragraph 96(3A)(c)
Repeal the paragraph, substitute:
(c) as a result of the reconsideration, the Secretary is satisfied that:
(i) the person did not receive disability support pension that was payable to the person; or
(ii) the person is not receiving disability support pension that is payable to the person;
4 Subsection 96(3A)
Omit "is payable to the person", substitute "was or is payable to the person, as the case requires".
5 After subsection 96(3B)
Insert:
(3C) A determination that disability support pension was or is payable to the person under subsection (3A) takes effect:
(a) if the person applied for reconsideration under section 129—on the day the application was made; or
(b) in any other case—on the day the Secretary starts to reconsider the decision to suspend.
6 At the end of subsection 96(6)
Add "for the period of the suspension of the person's disability support pension".
7 At the end of paragraph 97(1)(e)
Add "with effect from the day the pension had ceased to be payable under section 93".
8 At the end of subsection 97(2)
Add "for the period of the suspension of the person's disability support pension".
9 At the end of paragraph 97(3)(d)
Add "with effect from the day the pension had ceased to be payable under section 93".
10 At the end of subsection 97(4)
Add "for the period of the suspension of the person's disability support pension".
11 Paragraph 97A(6)(c)
Repeal the paragraph, substitute:
(c) as a result of the reconsideration, the Secretary is satisfied that:
(i) the person did not receive disability support pension that was payable to the person; or
(ii) the person is not receiving disability support pension that is payable to the person;
12 Subsection 97A(6)
Omit "is payable to the person", substitute "was or is payable to the person, as the case requires".
13 At the end of section 97A
Add:
(8) A determination that disability support pension was or is payable to the person under subsection (6) takes effect:
(a) if the person applied for reconsideration under section 129—on the day the application was made; or
(b) in any other case—on the day the Secretary starts to reconsider the decision to suspend.
14 Paragraph 97B(5)(c)
Repeal the paragraph, substitute:
(c) as a result of the reconsideration, the Secretary is satisfied that:
(i) the person did not receive disability support pension that was payable to the person; or
(ii) the person is not receiving disability support pension that is payable to the person;
15 Subsection 97B(5)
Omit "is payable to the person", substitute "was or is payable to the person, as the case requires".
16 At the end of section 97B
Add:
(7) A determination that disability support pension was or is payable to the person under subsection (5) takes effect:
(a) if the person applied for reconsideration under section 129—on the day the application was made; or
(b) in any other case—on the day the Secretary starts to reconsider the decision to suspend.
17 After section 97B
Insert:
97C Age pension, disability support pensio n and carer payment — suspension instead of cancellation under section 93 or 94 (partners)
Application
(1) This section applies if:
(a) one of the following determinations (a suspension determination) is made in relation to a person who is a member of a couple:
(i) a determination under subsection 95D(3), (4) or (5) suspending the person's age pension because the pension ceased to be payable to the person;
(ii) a determination under subsection 96(1), 97(1), 97A(1) or 97A(2) suspending the person's disability support pension because the person ceased to be qualified for the pension;
(iii) a determination under subsection 96(3), 97(3) or 97B(1) suspending the person's disability support pension because the pension ceased to be payable to the person;
(iv) a determination under subsection 56ED(3), (4) or (5) of the Veterans' Entitlements Act suspending the person's age service pension, invalidity service pension, income support supplement or veteran payment because the pension, supplement or payment ceased to be payable to the person; and
(b) immediately before the suspension under the suspension determination, the person's partner was receiving an age pension, disability support pension or carer payment; and
(c) the partner's pension or payment ceases to be payable to the partner because the rate of the partner's pension or payment is nil; and
(d) the partner's cessation of payability occurs:
(i) at the same time as the person's cessation of payability or qualification that gave rise to the person's suspension determination; and
(ii) because of the occurrence of the same event or change of circumstances that resulted in the person's cessation of payability or qualification; and
(e) because of the partner's cessation of payability, the partner's pension or payment is to be, or has been, cancelled under section 93 or 94.
Note: For suspensions when a person's partner has been receiving service pension, income support supplement or veteran payment, see section 56EE of the Veterans' Entitlements Act.
Partner suspens ion determination
(2) The Secretary may determine that:
(a) the partner is to be treated as if section 93 or 94 does not apply or had not applied (as the case may be) to cancel the partner's pension or payment; and
(b) the partner's pension or payment is suspended with effect from the day the pension or payment would otherwise have ceased to be payable under section 93 or 94, for a period of:
(i) if section 94 would otherwise have applied—2 years and 14 days; or
(ii) in all other cases—2 years.
Resumption o f partner's pension or payment after suspension
(3) If:
(a) the Secretary suspends the partner's pension or payment under subsection (2); and
(b) within the period the suspension is in effect, the Secretary reconsiders the decision to suspend; and
(c) as a result of the reconsideration, the Secretary is satisfied that:
(i) the partner did not receive pension or payment that was payable to the partner; or
(ii) the partner is not receiving pension or payment that is payable to the partner;
the Secretary is to determine that pension or payment was or is payable to the partner, as the case requires.
(4) The reconsideration referred to in paragraph (3)(b) may be a reconsideration on an application under section 129 or a reconsideration on the Secretary's own initiative.
(5) A determination that pension or payment was or is payable to the partner under subsection (3) takes effect:
(a) if the partner applied for reconsideration under section 129—on the day the application was made; or
(b) in any other case—on the day the Secretary starts to reconsider the decision to suspend.
Cancellation of partner's pension or payment after period of suspension
(6) If:
(a) the Secretary suspends the partner's pension or payment for a period under subsection (2); and
(b) the suspension continues in effect throughout the period;
then, at the end of the period, the determination granting the partner pension or payment is, by force of this subsection, revoked.
Partner ceasing to be member of couple
(7) To avoid doubt, subsections (3) to (6) apply to the partner even if the partner ceases to be a member of the couple after the Secretary suspends the partner's pension or payment under subsection (2).
18 Application provisions
Amendments relating to suspension of age pen sion
(1) Section 95D of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, as inserted by this Part, applies in relation to:
(a) age pension ceasing to be payable on or after the commencement of this Part (whether the pension first became payable before, on or after that commencement); and
(b) age pension ceasing to be payable during the period of 12 weeks ending immediately before the commencement of this Part.
Amendments relating to suspension of disability support pension
(2) The amendments of subsections 96(1), (3) and (6) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 made by this Part apply in relation to a determination made under those subsections on or after the commencement of this Part.
(3) The amendments of subsection 96(3A) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 made by this Part apply in relation to a determination made under subsection 96(1) or (3) of that Act before, on or after the commencement of this Part.
(4) Subsection 96(3C) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, as inserted by this Part, applies in relation to a determination made under subsection 96(3A) of that Act on or after the commencement of this Part.
(5) The amendments of subsections 97(1), (2), (3) and (4) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 made by this Part apply in relation to a determination made under those subsections on or after the commencement of this Part.
(6) The amendments of subsection 97A(6) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 made by this Part apply in relation to a determination made under subsection 97A(1) or (2) of that Act before, on or after the commencement of this Part.
(7) Subsection 97A(8) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, as added by this Part, applies in relation to a determination made under subsection 97A(6) of that Act on or after the commencement of this Part.
(8) The amendments of subsection 97B(5) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 made by this Part apply in relation to a determination made under subsection 97B(1) of that Act before, on or after the commencement of this Part.
(9) Subsection 97B(7) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, as added by this Part, applies in relation to a determination made under subsection 97B(5) of that Act on or after the commencement of this Part.
Amendments relating to suspension of partner's pensions
(10) Section 97C of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, as inserted by this Part, applies in relation to:
(a) age pension, disability support pension or carer payment ceasing to be payable on or after the commencement of this Part (whether the pension or payment first became payable before, on or after that commencement); and
(b) age pension, disability support pension or carer payment ceasing to be payable during the period of 12 weeks ending immediately before the commencement of this Part.
Part 2 — Veterans' entitleme nts amendments
Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986
19 Subsection 56(2) (note)
Repeal the note, substitute:
Note: In some circumstances, the Commission may decide that the pension, supplement or payment is not cancelled but suspended (see sections 56ED and 56EE).
20 Subsection 56A(2) (note)
Repeal the note, substitute:
Note: In some circumstances, the Commission may decide that the pension, supplement or payment is not cancelled but suspended (see sections 56ED and 56EE).
21 After section 56EC
Insert:
56ED Suspe nsion instead of automatic termination under section 56 or 56A
Application
(1) This section applies if:
(a) service pension, income support supplement or veteran payment ceases to be payable to a person because the rate of the person's pension, supplement or payment is nil; and
(b) the rate of the person's pension, supplement or payment is nil because of the occurrence of an event or change of circumstances (the income-related event) that results in the person's income reduced rate (see subsection (2)) being nil; and
(c) the person is required to inform the Department or a specified officer of the income-related event within a specified period (the notification period) because of a notice given to the person under section 54; and
(d) but for the person's income reduced rate being nil, the pension, supplement or payment would have continued to be payable to the person; and
(e) the person's pension, supplement or payment is to be, or has been, cancelled under section 56 or 56A because the pension, supplement or payment ceased to be payable for the reason mentioned in paragraph (b); and
(f) at the time of the cessation, the person's ordinary income (as used to work out the person's income reduced rate) includes income for remunerative work performed by the person in Australia as an employee in an employer/employee relationship.
Note: When a person's pension or supplement ceases to be payable in the circumstances set out in this subsection, the person will generally continue to be eligible for fringe benefits for up to 2 years (see subsection 53A(3)).
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), a person's income reduced rate, in relation to a service pension, income support supplement or veteran payment, is the rate worked out in relation to that pension, supplement or payment at step 6 of method statement 1, step 6 of method statement 5 or step 6 of method statement 7, as the case may be, in Module A of the Rate Calculator.
Suspension determination — event notified within notification period
(3) If:
(a) the person informs the Department or specified officer of the income-related event within the notification period; and
(b) the person's pension, supplement or payment has not yet been cancelled under section 56;
the Commission may determine in writing that:
(c) section 56 does not apply to cancel the person's pension, supplement or payment; and
(d) the person's pension, supplement or payment is suspended.
(4) If:
(a) the person informs the Department or specified officer of the income-related event within the notification period; and
(b) the person's pension, supplement or payment has been cancelled under section 56;
the Commission may determine in writing that:
(c) the person is to be treated as if section 56 had not applied to cancel the person's pension, supplement or payment; and
(d) the person's pension, supplement or payment is suspended.
Suspension determination — event not notified within notification period
(5) If:
(a) the person does not inform the Department or specified officer of the income-related event within the notification period; and
(b) the person's pension, supplement or payment has been cancelled under section 56A; and
(c) the Department subsequently becomes aware of the income-related event;
the Commission may determine in writing that:
(d) the person is to be treated as if section 56A had not applied to cancel the person's pension, supplement or payment; and
(e) the person's pension, supplement or payment is suspended.
Rules for suspension determinations
(6) The Commission must not make a determination under subsection (3), (4) or (5) unless the Commission is satisfied that the person is residing in Australia.
(7) A determination under subsection (3), (4) or (5) takes effect on the day on which, but for the determination, the person's pension, supplement or payment would be cancelled under section 56 or 56A.
Cancellation of pension, supplement or payment after 2 years
(8) If:
(a) the Commission makes a determination suspending a person's pension, supplement or payment under subsection (3), (4) or (5); and
(b) the determination continues in effect throughout the period of 2 years from its date of effect;
then, at the end of the period:
(c) the suspension ends; and
(d) the pension, supplement or payment is cancelled.
Note: The Commission may end a suspension if satisfied that a person's pension, supplement or payment is payable to the person (see section 56F).
56EE Suspension instead of automatic termination under section 56 or 56A — partners
Application
(1) This section applies if:
(a) one of the following determinations (a suspension determination) is made in relation to a person who is a member of a couple:
(i) a determination under subsection 56ED(3), (4) or (5) suspending the person's service pension, income support supplement or veteran payment because the pension, supplement or payment ceased to be payable to the person;
(ii) a determination under subsection 95D(3), (4) or (5) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 suspending the person's age pension because the pension ceased to be payable to the person;
(iii) a determination under subsection 96(1), 97(1), 97A(1) or 97A(2) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 suspending the person's disability support pension because the person ceased to be qualified for the pension;
(iv) a determination under subsection 96(3), 97(3) or 97B(1) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 suspending the person's disability support pension because the pension ceased to be payable to the person; and
(b) immediately before the suspension under the suspension determination, the person's partner was receiving a service pension, income support supplement or veteran payment; and
(c) the partner's pension, supplement or payment ceases to be payable to the partner because the rate of the partner's pension, supplement or payment is nil; and
(d) the partner's cessation of payability occurs:
(i) at the same time as the person's cessation of payability or qualification that gave rise to the person's suspension determination; and
(ii) because of the occurrence of the same event or change of circumstances that resulted in the person's cessation of payability or qualification; and
(e) because of the partner's cessation of payability, the partner's pension, supplement or payment is to be, or has been, cancelled under section 56 or 56A.
Note: For suspensions when a person's partner has been receiving age pension, disability support pension or carer payment, see section 97C of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999.
Partner suspension determination
(2) The Commission may determine in writing that:
(a) the partner is to be treated as if section 56 or 56A does not apply or had not applied (as the case may be) to cancel the partner's pension, supplement or payment; and
(b) the partner's pension, supplement or payment is suspended.
Note: When a partner's pension or supplement ceases to be payable in the circumstances set out in subsection (1), the partner will generally continue to be eligible for fringe benefits for up to 2 years (see subsection 53A(5)).
(3) However, subsection (2) does not apply if:
(a) the suspension determination referred to in paragraph (1)(a) suspended the person's partner service pension; and
(b) the partner was receiving income support supplement or veteran payment.
When suspension determinations take effect
(4) A determination under subsection (2) takes effect on the day on which, but for the determination, the partner's pension, supplement or payment would be cancelled under section 56 or 56A.
Cancellation of partner's pension, supplement or payment after 2 years
(5) If:
(a) the Commission makes a determination suspending the partner's pension, supplement or payment under subsection (2); and
(b) the determination continues in effect throughout the period of 2 years from its date of effect;
then, at the end of the period:
(c) the suspension ends; and
(d) the pension, supplement or payment is cancelled.
Note: The Commission may end a suspension if satisfied that the partner's pension, supplement or payment is payable to the partner (see section 56F).
Partner ceasing to be member of couple
(6) To avoid doubt, subsection (5) applies to the partner even if the partner ceases to be a member of the couple after the making of a determination under subsection (2).
22 Paragraph 56F(a)
Omit "or 56EB", substitute ", 56EB, 56ED or 56EE".
23 Paragraph 56M(2)(b)
Repeal the paragraph, substitute:
(b) ending when the suspension ends:
(i) under a determination of the Commission (under section 56F or 56L); or
(ii) because of the operation of subsection 56ED(8) or 56EE(5).
24 After paragraph 57(2)(b)
Insert:
(ba) making, or refusing to make, a determination that a service pension, income support supplement or a veteran payment be suspended instead of cancelled under section 56ED or 56EE; or
25 Application provision
Sections 56ED and 56EE of the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986, as inserted by this Part, apply in relation to:
(a) service pension, income support supplement or veteran payment ceasing to be payable on or after the commencement of this Part (whether the pension, supplement or payment first became payable before, on or after that commencement); and
(b) service pension, income support supplement or veteran payment ceasing to be payable during the period of 12 weeks ending immediately before the commencement of this Part.
(15) Opp (9) [Sheet 1643]
Page 4, at the end of the bill (after proposed Schedule 2), add:
Schedule 3 — Extended qualification for pensioner concession cards
Part 1 — Former recipients of age pensions
Social Security Act 1991
1 After section 1061ZC
Insert:
1061ZCA Extended qualification rule: former recipient of age pension and partner
Qualification
(1) Subject to subsections (8) and (9), a person is qualified for a pensioner concession card for the period of 2 years starting on the day on which this section begins to apply to the person.
Former recipient of age pens ion with employment income
(2) Subject to subsection (6), this section applies to a person if:
(a) the person has been receiving an age pension; and
(b) age pension ceases to be payable to the person because the rate of the person's pension is nil; and
(c) the rate of the person's pension is nil because of the occurrence of an event or change of circumstances that results in the person's income reduced rate (see subsection (3)) being nil; and
(d) but for the person's income reduced rate being nil, the person would have continued to be qualified for a pensioner concession card because age pension would have continued to be payable to the person; and
(e) at the time of the cessation, the person's ordinary income (as used to work out the person's income reduced rate) includes income for remunerative work performed by the person in Australia as an employee in an employer/employee relationship.
(3) For the purposes of subsection (2), a person's income reduced rate is the rate worked out at step 8 of the method statement in point 1064-A1 in Module A of Pension Rate Calculator A.
Partner of former recipient of age pension with employment income
(4) Subject to subsection (6), this section applies to a person who is a member of a couple if:
(a) the person's partner is qualified for a pensioner concession card under this section because subsection (2) applies to the partner as a result of age pension ceasing to be payable to the partner; and
(b) immediately before the partner's cessation of payability, the person was receiving an age pension, disability support pension or carer payment; and
(c) the person's pension or payment ceases to be payable to the person because the rate of the person's pension or payment is nil; and
(d) the person's cessation of payability occurs:
(i) at the same time as the partner's cessation of payability; and
(ii) because of the occurrence of the same event or change of circumstances that resulted in the partner's cessation of payability.
(5) To avoid doubt, if the person ceases to be a member of the couple after the person's cessation of payability, the person's qualification for a pensioner concession card because of subsection (4) is not affected.
Residency requirement
(6) This section only applies to a person while the person is residing in Australia.
Note: If the person is temporarily absent from Australia, the person continues to be qualified for a pensioner concession card for a maximum period of up to 6 weeks (see Division 4).
(7) However, this section applies to a person in relation to a day if:
(a) the person is in Australia on that day but not residing in Australia; and
(b) the age pension, disability support pension or carer payment that the person had been receiving was received solely because of the operation of the scheduled international social security agreement between Australia and New Zealand.
No double qualification — person receiving certain other social security payments
(8) If, during the period of 2 years referred to in subsection (1), a person receives an instalment of a social security pension that relates to one or more days within that period, the person is not qualified under this section for a pensioner concession card on the day or days in relation to which the person receives the instalment.
(9) If, during the period of 2 years referred to in subsection (1), a person receives an instalment of:
(a) a youth allowance while subsection 1061ZA(2A) applies to the person; or
(b) a jobseeker payment while subsection 1061ZA(2B) applies to the person; or
(c) a benefit PP (partnered) while subsection 1061ZA(2D) applies to the person;
that relates to one or more days within that period, the person is not qualified under this section for a pensioner concession card on the day or days in relation to which the person receives the instalment.
2 Subsection 1061ZEA(1)
Before "1061ZD", insert "1061ZCA,".
3 Subparagraph 1061ZUC(1)(a)(i)
After "1061ZC,", insert "1061ZCA,".
4 Application provision
Section 1061ZCA of the Social Security Act 1991, as inserted by this Part, applies in relation to:
(a) age pension, disability support pension or carer payment ceasing to be payable on or after the commencement of this Part (whether the pension or payment first became payable before, on or after that commencement); and
(b) age pension, disability support pension or carer payment ceasing to be payable during the period of 12 weeks ending immediately before the commencement of this Part.
Part 2 — Former recipients of disability support pensions
Social Security Act 1991
5 Section 1061ZD (at the end of the heading)
Add "and partner".
6 Before subsection 1061ZD(1)
Insert:
Qualification
7 Subsection 1061ZD(1)
Omit "52 weeks", substitute "2 years".
8 Before section 1061ZD(2)
Insert:
Former recipient with 30 hours per week employment
9 Before subsection 1 061ZD(3)
Insert:
Former recipient with increase in employment income
10 After subsection 1061ZD(3)
Insert:
Partner of former recipient with employment
(3A) Subject to subsection (4), this section applies to a person who is a member of a couple if:
(a) the person's partner is qualified for a pensioner concession card under this section because:
(i) subsection (2) applies to the partner as a result of the partner ceasing to be qualified for disability support pension; or
(ii) subsection (3) applies to the partner as a result of disability support pension ceasing to be payable to the partner; and
(b) immediately before the partner's cessation of qualification or payability, the person was receiving an age pension, disability support pension or carer payment; and
(c) the person's pension or payment ceases to be payable to the person because the rate of the person's pension or payment is nil; and
(d) the person's cessation of payability occurs:
(i) at the same time as the partner's cessation of qualification or payability; and
(ii) because of the occurrence of the same event or change of circumstances that resulted in the partner's cessation of qualification or payability.
(3B) To avoid doubt, if the person ceases to be a member of the couple after the person's cessation of payability, the person's qualification for a pensioner concession card because of subsection (3A) is not affected.
11 Before subsection 1061ZD(4)
Insert:
Residency requirement
12 Before subsection 1061ZD(5)
Insert:
No double qualification — person receiving certain other social security payments
13 Subsections 1061ZD(5) and (5A)
Omit "52 weeks", substitute "2 years".
14 Before subsection 1061ZD(6)
Insert:
Residency requirement exception — New Zealand agreement
15 Paragraph 1061ZD(6)(b)
Omit "disability support pension", substitute "age pension, disability support pension or carer payment".
16 Before subsection 1061ZD(7)
Insert:
No double qualification — person with partial capacity to work
17 Application provisions
(1) The amendments of subsections 1061ZD(1), (5) and (5A) of the Social Security Act 1991 made by this Part apply in relation to a person who receives a disability support pension on or after the commencement day (whether or not the person was receiving the pension before the commencement day).
(2) If:
(a) on a day during the period:
(i) starting on the day that is 52 weeks before the commencement day; and
(ii) ending on the day before the commencement day;
section 1061ZD of the Social Security Act 1991 (as in force on the relevant day during that period) begins to apply to a person; and
(b) on the day before the commencement day the person is qualified for a pensioner concession card under section 1061ZD or subsection 1061ZA(1), (2A), (2B) or (2D) of the Social Security Act 1991;
the amendments to the period a person is qualified for a pensioner concession card under section 1061ZD, as made by this Part, apply in relation to the person.
(3) Subsections 1061ZD(3A) and (3B) of the Social Security Act 1991, as inserted by this Part, and the amendment of paragraph 1061ZD(6)(b) of that Act made by this Part, apply in relation to:
(a) age pension, disability support pension or carer payment ceasing to be payable on or after the commencement day (whether the pension or payment first became payable before, on or after the commencement day); and
(b) age pension, disability support pension or carer payment ceasing to be payable during the period of 12 weeks ending immediately before the commencement day.
(4) In this item:
commencement day means the day this Part commences.
Part 3 — Former recipients of veterans' entitlements and certain partners
Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986
18 Before subsection 53A(1)
Insert:
General rule
19 Before subsection 53A(1A)
Insert:
Certain persons eligible before 1 January 2017
20 Before subsection 53A(2)
Insert:
Certain recipients of invalidity service pension who cease to be permanently incapacitated for work
21 At the end of section 53A
Add:
Former recipients with employment incom e
(3) If:
(a) a person is receiving service pension or income support supplement; and
(b) the pension or supplement ceases to be payable to the person because the rate of the person's pension or supplement is nil; and
(c) the rate of the person's pension or supplement is nil because of the occurrence of an event or change of circumstances that results in the person's income reduced rate (see subsection (4)) being nil; and
(d) but for the person's income reduced rate being nil, the person would have continued to be eligible for fringe benefits because the person would have continued to receive the pension or supplement; and
(e) at the time of the cessation, the ordinary income of the person (as used to work out the person's income reduced rate) includes income for remunerative work performed by the person in Australia as an employee in an employer/employee relationship;
the person remains eligible for fringe benefits for the period of 2 years beginning on the day the pension or supplement ceased to be payable to the person.
(4) For the purposes of subsection (3), a person's income reduced rate, in relation to a service pension or income support supplement, is the rate worked out in relation to that pension or supplement at step 6 of method statement 1 or step 6 of method statement 5, as the case may be, in Module A of the Rate Calculator.
Partners of certain former recipients with employment
(5) If:
(a) a person is:
(i) eligible for fringe benefits under subsection (3) because the person's pension or supplement ceases to be payable to the person; or
(ii) qualified for a pensioner concession card under section 1061ZCA of the Social Security Act because subsection (2) of that section applies to the person as a result of age pension ceasing to be payable to the person; or
(iii) qualified for a pensioner concession card under section 1061ZD of the Social Security Act because subsection (2) of that section applies to the person as a result of the person ceasing to be qualified for disability support pension; or
(iv) qualified for a pensioner concession card under section 1061ZD of the Social Security Act because subsection (3) of that section applies to the person as a result of disability support pension ceasing to be payable to the person; and
(b) immediately before the person's cessation of payability or qualification, the person's partner was receiving service pension or income support supplement; and
(c) the partner's pension or supplement ceases to be payable to the partner because the rate of the partner's pension or supplement is nil; and
(d) the partner's cessation of payability occurs:
(i) at the same time as the person's cessation of payability or qualification; and
(ii) because of the occurrence of the same event or change of circumstances that resulted in the person's cessation of payability or qualification;
the partner remains eligible for fringe benefits for the period of 2 years beginning on the day the pension or supplement ceased to be payable to the partner.
(6) To avoid doubt, subsection (5) applies to the partner even if the partner ceases to be a member of the couple after the day the pension or supplement ceased to be payable to the partner.
22 At the end of subsection 56(1)
Add:
Note: If a person ceases to receive a service pension or income support supplement, the person's eligibility for benefits under Division 12 will generally cease.
23 At the end of subsection 56A(1)
Add:
Note: If a person ceases to receive a service pension or income support supplement, the person's eligibility for benefits under Division 12 will generally cease.
24 Subsection 56E(1) (note 4)
Omit "also cancelled", substitute "generally cancelled too (but see also sections 56ED and 56EE)".
25 Subsection 56EA(2) (note 3)
Omit "also cancelled", substitute "generally cancelled too (but see also sections 56ED and 56EE)".
26 Application provision
Subsections 53A(3), (4), (5) and (6) of the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986, as added by this Part, apply in relation to:
(a) service pension or income support supplement ceasing to be payable on or after the commencement of this Part (whether the pension or supplement first became payable before, on or after that commencement); and
(b) service pension or income support supplement ceasing to be payable during the period of 12 weeks ending immediately before the commencement of this Part.
Part 4 — Certain partners of former recipients of veterans' entitlements
Social Security Act 1991
27 After section 1061ZDA
Insert:
1061ZDB Extended qualification rule: partner of former recipient of veterans' entitlement
Qualification
(1) Subject to subsections (6) and (7), a person is qualified for a pensioner concession card for the period of 2 years starting on the day on which this section begins to apply to the person.
Partner of former recipient of veterans' entitlement with employment income
(2) Subject to subsection (4), this section applies to a person who is a member of a couple if:
(a) the person's partner is eligible for fringe benefits under subsection 53A(3) of the Veterans' Entitlements Act because the partner's service pension or income support supplement ceases to be payable to the partner; and
(b) immediately before the partner's cessation of payability, the person was receiving an age pension, disability support pension or carer payment; and
(c) the person's pension or payment ceases to be payable to the person because the rate of the person's pension or payment is nil; and
(d) the person's cessation of payability occurs:
(i) at the same time as the partner's cessation of payability; and
(ii) because of the occurrence of the same event or change of circumstances that resulted in the partner's cessation of payability.
(3) To avoid doubt, if the person ceases to be a member of the couple after the person's cessation of payability, the person's qualification for a pensioner concession card because of subsection (2) is not affected.
Residency requirement
(4) This section only applies to a person while the person is residing in Australia.
Note: If the person is temporarily absent from Australia, the person continues to be qualified for a pensioner concession card for a maximum period of up to 6 weeks (see Division 4).
(5) However, this section applies to a person in relation to a day if:
(a) the person is in Australia on that day but not residing in Australia; and
(b) the pension or payment that the person had been receiving was received solely because of the operation of the scheduled international social security agreement between Australia and New Zealand.
No d ouble qualification — person receiving certain other social security payments
(6) If, during the period of 2 years referred to in subsection (1), a person receives an instalment of a social security pension that relates to one or more days within that period, the person is not qualified under this section for a pensioner concession card on the day or days in relation to which the person receives the instalment.
(7) If, during the period of 2 years referred to in subsection (1), a person receives an instalment of:
(a) a youth allowance while subsection 1061ZA(2A) applies to the person; or
(b) a jobseeker payment while subsection 1061ZA(2B) applies to the person; or
(c) a benefit PP (partnered) while subsection 1061ZA(2D) applies to the person;
that relates to one or more days within that period, the person is not qualified under this section for a pensioner concession card on the day or days in relation to which the person receives the instalment.
28 Subsection 1061ZEA(1)
After "1061ZDA", insert ", 1061ZDB".
29 Subparagraph 1061ZUC(1)(a)(i)
After "1061ZDA,", insert "1061ZDB,".
30 Application
Section 1061ZDB of the Social Security Act 1991, as inserted by this Part, applies in relation to:
(a) age pension, disability support pension or carer payment ceasing to be payable on or after the commencement of this Part (whether the pension or payment first became payable before, on or after that commencement); and
(b) age pension, disability support pension or carer payment ceasing to be payable during the period of 12 weeks ending immediately before the commencement of this Part.
(16) Opp (10) [Sheet 1643]
Page 4, at the end of the bill (after proposed Schedule 3), add:
Schedule 4 — Increasing the work bonus for pensioners and veterans
Social Security Act 1991
1 Subsection 1073AA(2) (examples 1 and 2)
Repeal the examples, substitute:
Example 1: David has $2,600 of work bonus income in an instalment period of 14 days. David's rate of social security pension for that period is greater than nil.
David's work bonus income for that period is reduced by $600, leaving David $2,000 of work bonus income for that period.
Example 2: Amy has $1,300 of work bonus income in an instalment period of 14 days. Amy's rate of social security pension for that period is greater than nil.
Amy's work bonus income for that period is reduced by $600, leaving Amy $700 of work bonus income for that period.
2 Subsection 1073AA(4) (example)
Repeal the example, substitute:
Example: Bill has $1,600 of work bonus income in an instalment period of 14 days. Bill's rate of social security pension for that period is greater than nil.
Under subsection (2), Bill's work bonus income for that period is reduced by $600, leaving Bill $1,000 of work bonus income for that period.
Assume Bill's unused concession balance is $800.
Under subsection (4), Bill's work bonus income for that period is further reduced by $800 leaving Bill $200 of work bonus income for that period.
Bill's unused concession balance is now nil.
3 Subsection 1073AA(4A) ( example)
Omit "$200", substitute "$500".
4 Paragraphs 1073AA(4C)(a) and (b)
Omit "$300", substitute "$600".
5 Subsection 1073AB(2) (example)
Omit "$7,900", substitute "$8,200".
Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986
6 Subsection 46AA(2) (examples 1 and 2)
Repeal the examples, substitute:
Example 1: David has $2,600 of work bonus income in a pension period. David's rate of service pension or income support supplement for that period is greater than nil.
David's work bonus income for that period is reduced by $600, leaving David $2,000 of work bonus income for that period.
Example 2: Amy has $1,300 of work bonus income in a pension period. Amy's rate of service pension or income support supplement for that period is greater than nil.
Amy's work bonus income for that period is reduced by $600, leaving Amy $700 of work bonus income for that period.
7 Subsection 46AA(4) (example)
Repeal the example, substitute:
Example: Bill has $1,600 of work bonus income in a pension period. Bill's rate of service pension or income support supplement for that period is greater than nil.
Under subsection (2), Bill's work bonus income for that period is reduced by $600, leaving Bill $1,000 of work bonus income for that period.
Assume Bill's unused concession balance is $800.
Under subsection (4), Bill's work bonus income for that period is further reduced by $800 leaving Bill $200 of work bonus income for that period.
Bill's unused concession balance is now nil.
8 Subsection 46AA(4A) (example)
Omit "$200", substitute "$500".
9 Subsection 46AA(4C)
Omit "$300", substitute "$600".
10 Subsection 46AC(2) (example)
Omit "$7,900", substitute "$8,200".
11 Subsection 46AD(3) (example)
Omit "$200", substitute "$500".
12 Application provision
(1) The amendments of the Social Security Act 1991 made by this Schedule apply in relation to an instalment period that starts on or after the commencement of this item.
(2) The amendments of the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 made by this Schedule apply in relation to a pension period that starts on or after the commencement of this item.
Ms RISHWORTH (Kingston—Minister for Social Services) (09:29): I would like to indicate to the House that the government proposes that amendments that amendments Nos (1) and (8) to (13) be agreed to and that amendments Nos (2) to (7) and (14) to (16) be disagreed to. I suggest, therefore, that it may suit the convenience of the House first to consider amendments Nos (1) and (8) to (13) and, when those amendments have been disposed of, to consider amendments Nos (2) to (7) and (14) to (16). I move:
That Senate amendments (1) and (8) to (13) be agreed to.
These amendments are incredibly important to ensuring that an additional 50,000 self-funded retirees get access to the Commonwealth seniors health card, easing some of the cost-of-living pressures that they are facing. This bill was due to commence on 20 September 2022, but, due to the suspension of parliament following the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the bill could not be passed in time for the increase to be implemented on 20 September 2022 as intended. As a result, the government accepts the Senate amendments to allow the increase to the income limits to take effect seven days following royal assent.
The Albanese government is committed to easing cost-of-living pressures, and this bill is a very practical example that will support older Australians. The Commonwealth seniors health card is available to Australians who have reached pension age and are ineligible for an income support payment due to their income and/or assets. Cardholders gain access to Commonwealth health concessions, including concessional co-payments for Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme medicines, and concessional thresholds for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme safety net and the extended Medicare safety net. State and territory governments and some private entities may offer additional concessions at their own discretion.
The income limit for a person who is single will increase from the current $61,284 to the new limit of $98,054. This single-person income limit also applies to a person who is a member of an illness separated couple, a member of a respite care couple or a member of a couple whose partner is in jail. The income limit for each member of a couple will increase from the current $49,027 to the new limit of $72,000. This means the Commonwealth seniors health card income limit for a couple will increase to $144,000 of combined income. These are very sensible amendments, and I commend them to the House.
Question agreed to.
Ms RISHWORTH (Kingston—Minister for Social Services) (09:33): I move:
That Senate amendments (2) to (7) and (14) to (16) be disagreed to.
These amendments that have been put forward are amendments that are completely unrelated to the Commonwealth seniors health card. In fact, the amendments are based on a completely separate private member's bill introduced into the Senate on 3 August 2022 by Senator Dean Smith. The Senate 28 September 2022 amendments to the bill do not concern the Commonwealth seniors health card. They do not concern the income limits that the Commonwealth seniors health card relates to. This is a political tactic by the opposition to delay many seniors access to this important card, and I urge the opposition to stop these shenanigans.
I also would like to indicate that this bill attaches significant spending obligations to the Commonwealth, so, for the opposition to suggest that we are somehow fiscally conservative—that is a joke when it comes to these amendments. The appropriate place to consider these amendments is in the time of private members bills. Or I invite the opposition to consider amendments in the separate Social Services Legislation Amendment (Workforce Incentive) Bill, where it is in a much more appropriate position to be discussed.
By rejecting these amendments, we are sending a clear message to seniors that we are not going to stand in the way of them getting extra support for medicine, extra support on health care and extra support for the cost of living. Any delay to this bill by the opposition by playing politics and adding unrelated measures just shows that they are not serious about helping seniors in their time of need. I ask the House to reject and disagree to the amendments.
Mr SUKKAR (Deakin) (09:35): We will be supporting these amendments that have come back from the Senate. We say to the Minister for Social Services: you've already broken your commitment to Australians. You promised to deliver this much sooner than you did. The mismanagement we see from this minister, the mismanagement in the Senate and indeed the mismanagement in the House means that Australians are waiting longer. The minister can seek to try to blame the Senate, who voted for these very sensible amendments. On behalf of the coalition, I commend Senator Dean Smith, who moved a number of these amendments and subsequently amended the bill as passed by the Senate.
The amendments give rise to several coalition initiatives, and we congratulate the government for adopting these coalition initiatives—although we don't congratulate them on being on a go-slow in delivering them. Firstly, these amendments double the age and veteran pension work bonus scheme, the amount that can be earned without impacting pension payments increasing from $300 $600 per fortnight. It also ensures that working pensioners can continue to accrue the unused work bonus scheme income up to the cap of $7,800, exempting future earnings for pension income test purposes. This proposal was announced by the Opposition Leader on 26 June 2022, and was primarily aimed at getting older people back into work and encouraging them back to work or to work longer hours to help ease labour shortages. The minister, who was on the go-slow, did not see the urgency of those labour shortages, and we now find ourselves in the position where, instead of just adopting and accepting the proposal put forward by the opposition, in a pig-headed and stubborn way, the government sought to do it in a different way. The Senate has rejected that.
Secondly, these amendments ensure that pensions will be suspended for up to two years if they exceed the income cap, during which time pensioners will undergo a simplified process to resume their pension once their income falls to the relevantly prescribed level. Both age and disability support pensioners will be able to keep their pensioner concession card for two years as an acknowledgement of, as we said before the election, the importance of the concessions that the PCC offers. Pensioner partners of working pensioners will also enjoy the same pension and PCC arrangements.
We see here a government who promised to deliver this much more quickly. Seniors have had to wait for this to be introduced. It was three months late when it was introduced and now it's five months late. Sadly, the minister has failed those seniors. A majority of the Senate have supported these amendments, and we will therefore be supporting these excellent amendments put forward by Senator Dean Smith on behalf of the coalition.
The SPEAKER: The question is that the amendments be disagreed to.
The House divided. [09:43]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)
Ms RISHWORTH ( Kingston — Minister for Social Services ) ( 09:48 ): I present the reasons for the House disagreeing to Senate amendments (2) to (7) and (14) to (16), and I move:
That the reasons be adopted.
Question agreed to.
Atomic Energy Amendment (Mine Rehabilitation and Closure) Bill 2022
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr TUDGE (Aston) (09:49): The coalition supports the passage of the Atomic Energy Amendment (Mine Rehabilitation and Closure) Bill 2022. In 1999 an agreement was reached between the Commonwealth government and Energy Resources of Australia, known as ERA, that, upon the completion of mining activities at the Ranger mine in the Northern Territory, ERA would take charge of rehabilitating the Ranger mine site. Mining at Ranger ceased in January 2021 and remediation is already underway. The current framework allows ERA to undertake remediation work until January 2026.
More than 20 years ago, it was believed that ERA would need only five years to complete rehabilitative work on the site. As a result, the authority set out a 'cease of operations' for mining works in January 2021, with the authority lapsing on 8 January 2026. However, following consultations with the previous and current governments, it was concluded that, to fully rehabilitate the site to higher contemporary standards, ERA would require more than the five years provided to complete the rehabilitation and monitoring required.
This bill extends the legislative framework surrounding the rehabilitation, ensuring that ERA can complete rehabilitation, close out the site, continue monitoring and return the land to the traditional owners. The bill does not provide any authority for further mining on the site, which follows ERA's commercial decision to not pursue any further mine site extensions in 2015. Rather, the bill's primary purpose is to enable the long-term remediation and monitoring of the site. Primarily, it amends the legislation to allow the remediation authority to be milestone based rather than time based, keeping the onus on the responsible company to complete the rehabilitation.
The coalition supports all mine rehabilitation being completed to high standards—and Australia has some of the most stringent environmental and rehabilitative standards and processes in the world—and supports ERA fulfilling their obligation to properly remediate the Ranger mine. The authorities created under this legislation will allow for the progressive close-out of areas of the mining lease. This means that, as portions of the lease are considered to be fully rehabilitated, the lands can be returned to the local community sooner.
The Ranger uranium mine has served the country well, over its years of operation, creating economic benefits for the country and local community and providing jobs and employment services to the local population and the wider Northern Territory. As Ranger's operations have come to a close, the focus is on ensuring that the affected areas, which are small in size, are fully rehabilitated, to ensure protection of our natural environment. Traditional owners, the Northern Land Council and other Northern Territory bodies are supportive of the bill and have expressed their support for ERA fulfilling their obligations set out under the Atomic Energy Act to rehabilitate the Ranger site.
The coalition began the process of engaging with ERA over the rehabilitation of the Ranger mine under the previous government and supports this bill proceeding, in order to guarantee that Ranger can be fully rehabilitated by ERA over the coming years. We commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
Reference to Federation Chamber
Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (09:53): I declare that the Atomic Energy Amendment (Mine Rehabilitation and Closure) Bill 2022 is referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration.
Treasury Laws Amendment (More Competition, Better Prices) Bill 2022
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr ROBERT (Fadden) (09:54): It's wonderful to stand and speak on Treasury Laws Amendment (More Competition, Better Prices) Bill 2022. We love competition and we love lower prices, so the opposition will be supporting the legislation.
This bill includes important reforms to unfair contract terms that will better protect consumers and small businesses. These are important reforms to support small businesses and they were initiated by the former coalition government. I was the former small business minister and went through, as Assistant Treasurer, in 2018-19, when we started the unfair contract terms; this is like tranche 3 or 4 of them. This is a process that's been ongoing for almost a decade—to respond to the Minister for Small Business, across the table. This is part of the coalition's longstanding commitment to supporting small business. These amendments were put to the parliament before the last election, Minister across the table. It's good to see that they've been retained, building on the previous tranche of legislation that we'd put in progressively over the last nine years.
The reforms will make unfair contract terms unlawful, give courts the power to impose civil penalties, increase the small business eligibility threshold for protections from less than 20 employees to less than 100 employees and introduce an annual turnover threshold of more than $10 million as an alternative threshold for determining eligibility. It'll remove the requirement for the upfront price payable under a contract to be below a certain threshold in order for the contract to be covered by the protections of the ACL, and it'll increase the relevant threshold under the ASIC Act from $300,000 to $5 million. It'll provide more flexible remedies to a court when it declares a contract term unfair, including by clarifying the court's power to determine an appropriate remedy. It'll clarify that remedies available for non-party consumers also apply to non-party small businesses, and it will improve clarity around the definition of 'standard form contract' by providing further certainty on factors such as repeat usage of a contract template and whether the small business had an effective opportunity to negotiate the contract.
However—and there's always a 'however' with the Labor party—while the opposition will support the legislation for these reasons, it's important to note the costing blowout attached to the other section of the bill. Treasury costings confirm that there is a staggering $500 million black hole in this policy which Labor were relying on to offset their largest deficit. The first bill of the small business minister, who happens to be here in the House, which is pretty exciting, has got a $500 million black hole. I'm sure she's very proud of that! Prior to the election, Labor claimed that the policy to increase penalties under the Competition and Consumer Act would raise $557.7 million in its first four years. That would be the minister's pre-election costing, I'm sure—$557.7 million. It's in her pre-election costing document, so I think we can all safely assume that it is indeed the minister's number. But then Treasury, the grown-ups in the room, come along, and they cost the government's legislation—the minister's legislation. It'll actually raise $63 million in the first four years. That's not missing it by a little bit, is it—$557 million versus $63 million? That is missing it by a country mile.
The black hole in Labor's costing explains why Labor is looking to break its promise to support legislated tax relief. Labor was talking a big game before the election, but now it's clear that it doesn't add up. We saw that with electricity. Over 90 times, we heard that there would be $275 cut from consumers' electricity bills. What did we find out last night? No, they're going up by 57 per cent—another miss by a country mile. This will continue as we drill into the budget that came down last night. This budget fails families at a time when they really need a plan for cost-of-living pressures.
There's a $1 billion black hole in Labor's budget—a further one. At the election, Labor promised to crack down—to the tune of $1.9 billion over the next four years—on multinational tax avoidance by following up on some of the OECD work. It was hilarious. Labor criticised us for not doing it; we were the deputy chair of the OECD committee that recommended the work! But, again, the budget confirms Labor is big on rhetoric but not particularly good on the numbers. This measure is now expected to generate $950 million. That's another $1 billion black hole on top of the minister's half a billion dollars I announced before.
We also know that Labor has waved the veritable white flag on productivity. GDP growth has been downgraded significantly. Labor expect that GDP will be lower in the coming years. By their own admission, they do not believe that their spending will grow the economy. They can't even back their own plan. It's quite extraordinary.
This government has failed to provide a limit to taxes imposed on Australians. Under Labor, taxes paid by Australians will increase—on Labor's own budget papers—by $142 billion over the forward estimates. The coalition had a tax speed bump where we had receipts for taxation—or expenditure, if you like; the same side of the ledger—at 23.9 per cent of GDP. The Labor Party has no plan to reduce spending or to cap it at any level. Families facing cost-of-living pressures should be able to keep more of what they earn to deal with them.
This budget provides no certainty, none, for 10 million Australians on their legislated tax relief in 2024. The only new change to the tax system announced in this budget is a new tax on investments. Who would have thought! I must have missed that in the Treasurer's speech, but it's there in the budget papers. A sneaky new tax will slug Australians who invest their own savings and superannuation. Despite ruling out these changes before the election, Labor will hit investors and retirees with a new $555 million tax, depriving investors of franking credits which they have previously relied on. It's one of the many broken promises in this disappointing budget.
On cheaper energy, Labor's own budget numbers confirm electricity and gas prices will rise sharply over the next two years. Treasury has assumed retail electricity prices will rise by a staggering 50 per cent, and retail gas prices are up some 40 per cent in 2022 and 2023. Just so that the minister opposite knows where to look, it's page 57 of Budget Paper No. 1, old boy. Have a look there, and you'll see electricity prices going up 50 per cent, despite 91 iterations pre-election about a $275 saving. I'm looking for that $275. I can't find it. Is it there? Where is it? You said 91 times that it would be there. Budget Paper No. 1, page 57, says, 'It's not there; actually, your power price is going to go up by 57 per cent.' The broken promises and the chutzpah from this government are staggering.
Labor's forecasts reveal that real wages will fall over the coming years. But the Prime Minister promised—he promised that no-one would be left behind! The Prime Minister must have forgotten about the 150,000 Australians who will lose their jobs as unemployment goes up to 4.5 per cent. On bringing down the cost of living, there's not one measure in this budget that will help families struggling with the cost of living this year.
Mr Shorten interjecting—
Ms Collins interjecting—
Mr ROBERT: This year. Your child care doesn't start until 1 July next year, Minister for Small Business. Don't you even know the government's own policy? Unbelievable. There's not one measure in this budget that will help families struggling with the cost of living this year, and all the two ministers across the other side can do is smile gleefully. This budget shows inflation will be higher and will remain higher for longer and the cash rate—forecast at over 3.3 per cent—will be higher.
The test for the federal budget was for the government to build on the strong position it inherited from the coalition to address the cost-of-living crisis bearing down on Australians, and the jury is quite clear: Labor has failed this test. This budget does nothing for your budget, for family budgets. There is no credible plan to deal with the source of inflation or to help families deal with their immediate cost-of-living pressures. This budget confirms the following, and this is not in dispute: the cost of living is going up; your electricity and gas prices are going up; citizens' tax payments are going up; government spending is going up; employment, as the number of Australians who are employed, is going down; and real wages are forecast to go down, despite this government saying less than six months ago that this wouldn't happen, no-one would be left behind and the halcyon days were ahead. It's a high-taxing, fairly high-spending, typical Labor budget that does nothing to help everyday Australians. So what does it mean? Before the election the Prime Minister told Australians they would be better off under Labor. The facts are by Christmas the average Australian will be $2,000 worse off. I think the average Australian has got the right to ask for their money back, because they were 100 per cent duped at the last election. It is a disgrace. The budget is an extraordinary disappointment.
Ms COLLINS (Franklin—Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Minister for Small Business) (10:05): I appreciate hearing those on the other side are supportive of the Treasury Laws Amendment (More Competition, Better Prices) Bill 2022, because, of course, we know small business owners more often than not do not have the deep pockets and the bargaining power to effectively review and negotiate terms in standard form contracts.
I am perplexed why the former government over there didn't actually deal with, given they were in government for nine years. I appreciate the former minister's spin on the fact that it was nine years of reform on this, but they did have nine years in office to deliver this.
I'm pleased and want to congratulate the assistant minister, Dr Andrew Leigh, for his diligent hard work on getting this legislation into the parliament and introducing it so early in our term. This is Labor delivering on our election commitment. We know existing laws haven't stopped the use of unfair terms, and, under almost a decade of neglect from the former government, the use of unfair contract terms against small business is widespread. Just this year, the Federal Court decided in favour of small businesses, bringing an end to an unfair contract terms battle waged for eight years.
Since November 2016, Fujifilm had entered into or renewed around 34,000 contracts, the vast majority of which were made using the standard form contracts at issue in the case. As of August this year, many of those contracts were still in force. We can't access the data on how many of these contracts were with small businesses, but the ACCC says it's likely they made up a substantial number. Speaking on the case, the ACCC said:
We continue to strongly advocate for law reform to prohibit unfair contract terms and enable the Court to impose penalties in cases where such terms are imposed and enforced against small businesses …
So I'm very pleased that our government, the Albanese Labor government, is introducing this legislation to strengthen unfair contract term protections for small businesses and consumers. As I said, I'm pleased to hear those opposite will be supporting it.
We're also increasing the number of small business contracts that will be afforded protection under this legislation. We're increasing the small business eligibility threshold for the protections from less than 20 employees up to less than 100 employees. And we're also introducing an annual turnover threshold of less than $10 million as an alternative threshold for determining eligibility under this legislation. We know this will go to helping improve small business confidence and allow our small business community to grow with confidence, because, unlike the previous government, the Albanese Labor government is serious about delivering on our better deal for small businesses. These reforms are a critical part of our plans to help small businesses. These changes will help improve the long-term resilience of Australia's small businesses and help them bounce back following significant challenges in recent years.
This is just the latest measure that the Albanese Labor government is taking to support small businesses. Of course, last night in the budget the Treasurer announced that we'll be providing more than $15 million to small business owners across Australia to access free mental health and financial counselling support, while $10.9 million in funding will go to the NewAccess for Small Business Owners program and $4 million to the Small Business Debt Helpline. The Albanese Labor government will also deliver energy efficiency grants to eligible small and medium businesses to help address rising costs. This new funding will build on measures put in place already by the Albanese government, including $18.6 million to help small businesses adapt and build resilience through digital technology.
Small businesses will also have access to new tax incentives to train and upskill employees and to improve their digital and tech capacity. That will be legislated by the Albanese government. Worth more than $1.5 billion, the technology investment boost and the skills and training boost will be backdated to 29 March so small business owners can receive the full benefits of this measure. We've updated the Commonwealth Procurement Rules, which means small businesses will get a bigger slice of the $70 billion in contracts that the Australian government spends every year. These measures sit alongside the Albanese government's wider agenda that will benefit small businesses.
We all know, of course, about the skills shortages. Australia's small businesses will benefit from an increase in the migration program to help address some of these shortages. We'll also deliver $36 million in additional funding to accelerate visa processing and help resolve some of the visa backlog. We'll provide one-off credit to older Australians, to give them the option to work and keep more of their money, immediately boosting the number of people in the workforce. And we'll accelerate the delivery of 465,000 additional fee-free TAFE places, with 180,000 to be delivered in 2023, to help get more skilled workers into the job market more quickly.
We've done this because we are the government that supports small business. Small businesses employ millions of Australians. They contribute more than $430 billion to our nation's economy each and every year. They were at the heart of our discussions at the Jobs and Skills Summit and in the roundtables in the weeks leading up to it. We know small businesses have been doing it tough, that they've stared down years of floods—and of course some of them are facing floods yet again—fires, a global pandemic and now a tight labour market and rising inflation. They need support that only a Labor government can and will deliver. The Albanese government knows small businesses are vital to Australia. They're at the centre of our communities right across the country and they'll always be at the centre of our government's decision-making. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (10:11): I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (More Competition, Better Prices) Bill 2022. The opposition will be supporting this bill, which has some sensible provisions in relation to unfair contract terms. I will come to those in a moment, but perhaps the most significant thing to note, in the context of last night's budget, is the absolutely extraordinary failure of this bill to meet the government's forecast of how much it was going to raise. Let's have a look at that. Before the election—and this is a bit of a theme: before the election and after the election, we find very different things are said, and we've got a few examples we'll go through. But let's start with this bill. Before the election, the Labor Party said that its changes to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 would raise $557 million in its first four years. That is quite a lot of money, and no doubt it would be adding to the budget revenue line. But now the budget has come out, and the thing about budgets is that Treasury has got go through numbers and it's got to make sure that the forecasts are accurate. It doesn't just accept press releases at face value. What does Treasury say? Well, Treasury says it's actually not $557 million, not $510 million, not $457 million, not $357 million, not $257 million and not $157 million. It's actually $63 million that this legislation will raise. So it was $557 million before the election and it is $63 million after the election. It doesn't take a graduate of MIT to realise that that's a lot less. It's $500 million, or about 89 per cent, less than the government forecast it would raise. That's pretty bad. The only worse example I can think of is the Rudd-Gillard government's miss on the mining tax revenue, which from memory was greater than 95 per cent. But 89 per cent is extremely bad, even though 95 per cent is even worse.
But it's not really surprising, because it comes in the context of very similar discrepancies between what the government said, as the opposition, before the election and then what has actually happened after the election. Of course, the most famous example of this is the solemn promise the opposition delivered so many times, and which was of such relevance to millions of people around Australia. This was a very compelling promise that the government took to the last election. That was that the average household would save $275 on electricity bills. That's a really significant thing for people—$275 for the average household. It was said 97 times. It was actually said as recently as a couple of days before the election, when now Prime Minister Albanese went to the National Press Club—and it's one of the real centrepieces of that speech to the National Press Club. He said, 'We will reduce electricity prices, energy prices, by $275 for the average household.' And he'd said it many times before. There is a very colourful YouTube video featuring the member for McMahon that goes back to December 2021, and there were 97 times in between—$275, not ambiguous, and it wasn't qualified. It wasn't like, 'Hey, maybe we'll do $275.' It was 'we will'. Very clear.
What did we learn last night? We learned last night that electricity prices are going to go up by 50 per cent or more. We learned that gas prices are going to go up by 40 per cent. These are extraordinary increases in what is, for most households, one of the very biggest elements of the household budget. So there is just an extraordinary discrepancy. This bill in relation to the competition law is of a piece with the government's record as it pertains to energy as well—just a shocking failure there.
Real wages was another one. You will recall before the election lots of discussion about how the then opposition and now government would get real wages moving. Real wages were going to go up. The member for Watson was very forward leaning in his comments about that. That's not going to happen. It's in their own budget. Don't take my word for it; it's in the budget. Real wages are going to go down under this government.
So let's get real here. We need to make a very clear distinction between things that were said before the election and things that were said afterwards. Again, the source is not me; the source is the now government of Australia. Real wages are going down under this government; energy prices are going up massively. Both of those are in complete contrast with what was said before the election.
The other one we need to talk about—and there are a few—is this very sneaky new tax for investors. Numerous people in my electorate raised this with me in recent weeks, because they saw this coming. We now see in the budget $555 million in additional taxes for people, and it's related to franking credits, but it's effectively a penalty tax for people who have saved—often older people, retirees, people who have worked hard and put some money aside for their retirement. What does this government do? Bang: $555 million, thanks very much. And, again, there was nothing about that before the election. In fact, to the contrary, before the election, what we heard was that there wouldn't be any disruption to taxes on investors and superannuation. Well, that's turned out not to be true, because there is in fact a new tax of some $555 million.
Another one—and they add up, one after the other—is that, before the election, the government said they were going to raise $1.9 billion through cracking down on multinational tax avoidance. I think the vast majority of people would support sensible measures that were supposed to be cracking down on tax avoidance. The problem is, once again, the election is over, and now it's reality. So Treasury go through and they get the talking points—maybe six or seven bullet points on a piece of paper; that's the usual way these things go for the Labor Party—and they say, 'Actually, we're going to have to do a bit more work on this.' When they do that, it's like, 'Oh, gee, sorry, it's not $1.9 billion; it's $950 million'—so pretty much exactly half, a billion dollars less than they said, and that's a billion dollars that Australia won't have that the government said they would have before the election.
Then we have the fact that spending is rising and tax is rising. The budget basically says there is an extra $142 billion in tax to be collected, and the cap that our government had in place in terms of tax as a proportion of the economy—that's gone. Any sort of notion about a constraint on how much tax there should be in the system is gone under this government. We're going to come back to that in a minute, because I suspect we're going to be hearing a lot more from this government about tax in the next budget, if not before.
We've also seen that all of the different changes that this government has presided over in terms of the cost of living are going to add up to about $2,000 in extra costs for the average family by Christmas. Going back to before the election, maybe I missed it, but I don't recall the now Prime Minister, the now Treasurer or, frankly, any member of the then opposition saying: 'You know what we're going to do? We're going to have $2,000 of additional costs for households by Christmas'. I suspect that would not have been particularly well received, which is probably why it wasn't said. But that's what's happening. How is it happening? It's happening because of the impact of rising inflation under this government, the impact of rising energy prices and the impact of rising interest rates, all of which this government said it would take action to address. It said interest rates would be lower under it, and that has not proven to be the case. It adds up to cost for average families. That's why management matters. What we've seen from the government is a whole bunch of things it was going to do before the election and then very different outcomes after the election.
I want to turn to the provisions of the bill. We do support it. We are very disappointed but not surprised that it raises 89 per cent less than they said it would, but there are important provisions around making unfair contract terms unlawful, giving the courts power to impose additional penalties, increasing some of the penalties that protect small businesses against unfair contract thresholds, and making remedies more flexible so that a court can impose remedies that are most suited to the particular situation. It also improves clarity around standard form contracts so that everyone who's going into a contractual situation—particularly small businesses, who are often at a disadvantage when negotiating with big businesses—is aware of what the standard form contract terms are, and that they willingly go into variations of those terms. These are sensible things and we will support them. It's just a shame that the financial impact of this is half a billion dollars worse than the Labor Party said it would be.
You've got to ask the question: if costs keep going up and up, if the spending of the government keeps going up, if deficits under this government go up—obviously, it's benefitting from the high commodity prices and other structural benefits provided by the previous government at the moment, but under this government they say deficits will go up and up towards the end of the four-year period—what are they going to do next? I'll give you a tip: more taxes. We've got another budget coming up in May. It is not that far away—six or seven months. You might have heard the Treasurer talking about the national conversation. He's big on conversations, this guy, and he wants to have a national conversation about the budget. It's probably not a bad thing. I think it's very important that represented in that national conversation are the millions of Australians who aren't going to get their $275 energy reduction. It's very important that represented in that national conversation are the millions of Australians who aren't going to get real-wage increases, despite being promised that by this government. And it's very important that also represented in this conversation are the very large number of Australians—anyone earning $45,000 or more—who benefit from the legislated stage 3 tax cuts.
We know what they're going to do, they're not going to stick to the legislated stage 3 tax cuts. They obviously contemplated getting rid of those in this budget, but I think it is a very fair assumption that there's going to be change there. Should that occur, it would be a massive broken promise. There's no precedent for it—except there is. It was in the 1990s when then Prime Minister Keating repealed tax reductions that were already l-a-w law, and that's precisely what this government is contemplating doing. I'm sure the Treasurer will get lots of photos of himself—one day he'll be jogging, one day he'll be staring in a contemplative fashion out the window. There'll be lots of interesting shots of the Treasurer as part of that national conversation. But the last sentence from the Treasurer in that national conversation is going to be, 'Here are your new taxes.' That's where this is headed. Should that occur, that will be a complete abrogation of responsibility and a complete backflip on what was promised before the election.
I think it's also quite likely not only that the government will move away from the legislated stage 3 tax cuts which they supported wholeheartedly before the election—going back to that theme of before the election and after the election, we're seeing a pattern here—but that it won't stop at the stage 3 tax cuts. I think we'll start to see more academic documents and think tanks calling for other taxes and other increases, and I'm sure that the government will create an environment which is very supportive of those sorts of calls for increased taxes, because that's what this government wants to do and it's what Labor always does, because it always gets the numbers wrong. That's why management matters. It matters to be competent. They get the numbers wrong every time and, as a consequence, what do they do? They say, 'Give us more money,' and they say that to the average Australian. That's wrong. We will always fight against that. We support this bill but are very concerned about the direction of this government.
Mr PIKE (Bowman) (10:26): It is a pleasure to follow that very thoughtful contribution by the member for Banks. He's touched on many important aspects of last night's budget and the journey that our nation will take over the next few months as we head into the next federal budget. I will touch on some of those same themes as well a bit later in my remarks.
Firstly, I want to discuss the specifics of the Treasury Laws Amendment (More Competition, Better Prices) Bill 2022. This bill seeks to help improve competition across the private sector, and it does this through two schedules.
Schedule 1 amends the Competition and Consumer Act, the CCA, and the Australian Consumer Law, the ACL. It increases penalties on businesses for breaching anticompetition laws. Specifically, if the ACL is breached, the business will be fined whichever is the higher amount of either $50 million, three times the value of the benefit obtained, or 30 per cent of the body corporate's adjusted turnover during the breach turnover period. If the CCA is breached, the business will again be fined whichever is the greater of four options. For breaches under 21 days in length, it will be $50 million plus $1 million for each day that the contravention continued. For breaches over 21 days in length, it will be $71 million plus $3 million for each day that the contravention continued after the first 21. The other two options are matching the ACL breach punishment: three times the value of the benefit obtained, or 30 per cent of the body corporate's adjusted turnover during the breach turnover period. The maximum punishment for a person in breach that is not a body corporate is $2.5 million, a 400 per cent increase. That's all very technical and very complex but, to put it simply, it increases penalties for businesses acting in an illegal, anticompetitive way.
Schedule 2 amends the CCA and the ACL as well as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act. It increases penalties on businesses that impose unfair contract terms. The maximum penalty for an ASIC breach is the greatest value of 5,000 penalty units or three times the value of the benefit obtained or the detriment avoided. The maximum penalty for an ACL breach is $2.5 million.
The bill will better align Australia's penalty regime with equivalent jurisdictions, as determined by the OECD, on competition law worldwide. It is a crackdown on the exploitation of consumers and small businesses, and the coalition stands resolutely for these groups and will be supporting this important bill.
Healthy market competition is fundamental to a well-functioning economy. I think everyone in this chamber and, indeed, across this country would agree with that statement. Competition keeps prices low and the quality and choice of goods and services high. Competition is the not-so-secret ingredient that has ensured that our nation and similar nations with similar economies have prospered, while other world economies, without the same level of competition, have stagnated.
Australians are currently suffering under a rapidly worsening cost-of-living crisis. We're all aware of that, and there's been much talk of that in the course of this new parliament and, certainly, in the media's discussion of last night's federal budget. It is absolutely critical and it should be the No. 1 priority of this government and of all of us here in this chamber to ensure that we respond to that cost-of-living crisis as effectively as possible. It was disappointing that last night's federal budget didn't go anywhere near addressing the crisis. We had, essentially, just an adoption of the Labor Party's election promises and some bad news—laying the groundwork for tax increases that I'm sure will come in due course.
It was an abandonment of a number of critical elements of cost-of-living relief that we were promised ahead of the last election. Of course, the $275 energy price reduction guarantee from the Labor Party was essentially put to bed. Their commitment in relation to real wages has been abandoned in this budget, and, disappointingly, from my perspective as the member for Bowman, none of the projects that were promised for my electorate in the Redlands were explicitly outlined in the budget, and many of them were buried within an element of the budget that extends beyond the forward estimates, which I find quite remarkable.
As I make my way around the businesses and households of the Redlands, that cost-of-living and inflation pressure is absolutely biting, and people are raising it with me all the time. We've got local businesses who are struggling with the pressures of inflation and with supply chain concerns, and certainly I've had many stories raised with me by local businesses who have been doing terrific work—absolutely the right thing, in good faith, every step of the way—but have been hung out to dry by bad operators in the market who act without regard for others or concern for legal consequences.
According to the 2018 OECD report Pecuniary penalties for competition law, Australia lags behind other developed countries in the competition policy space, due to its relaxed laws. In fact, the base penalty for anticompetitive breaches in Australia has not changed in almost 30 years. I looked this up, and, as it turns out, I had just started primary school when some of the penalties were last updated. With rising inflation and a deepening cost-of-living crisis, a realignment of Australia's anticompetitive penalty regime is certainly necessary. This bill provides that realignment in the face of new pressures that are being felt across the economy. Last night's budget warned us, correctly, I think, that we've got more of that to come. That is going to be the challenge before this new government—to make sure that they do take the concrete action needed, not summits or national conversations, to address the economic challenges facing our country.
There is one aspect of the government's planning on this bill that leaves a lot to be desired. Prior to the election, Labor claimed that this policy to increase fines under the Competition and Consumer Act would raise, in its first four years, $557.7 million for the budget. But Treasury's costing of this legislation has found that it will actually raise a mere $63 million. So we've got a $500 million black hole here, and the question is: how did the government get that so wrong? Of course, I can understand that, being in opposition, you do not have the resources of the government to get these costings exactly right, but that is a significant black hole—a significant discrepancy between what was promised, in terms of revenue from this measure, and what we're actually going to see come through from these changes. You've got to imagine the sort of opportunity cost that $500 million would have—certainly, in all of the electorates represented in this place. You can think about how much difference $500 million would make to local infrastructure projects or local initiatives.
It goes to, I think, a fundamental problem with the projection of revenue from measures such as these. Too often I've seen rhetoric—this government is particularly guilty of it, unfortunately—about hitting the big end of town, hitting multinationals and achieving greater compliance, and big numbers are attributed to the additional revenue that these will actually bring in. But the simple fact is that that isn't a silver bullet for Australia's fiscal situation. It is not a silver bullet for our economic woes. That is not the revenue solution that's going to end up solving our fundamental structural deficit problems. So we've got a really serious concern there, and we need to make sure that, when measures like this are floated, we are very realistic about how much they're actually going to raise. We are supporting this bill and we support this measure, but certainly a $500 million black hole should be of deep concern to all in this chamber.
As a further concern, many contract negotiations are inherently unequal in nature. Large corporations quite regularly leverage their immense resources to tell consumers and small businesses to either take it or leave it, and this can lead to poor market outcomes and, in extreme cases, downright exploitation of those least able to defend their interests. Certainly, I've heard many stories in my electorate of businesses who've had to go through very difficult negotiations where the power imbalance between the parties was very significant. In today's commercial environment, and with dark clouds gathering across Australia, it becomes critically important that improved safeguards are provided both for consumers and for small businesses. This bill, by adding strong civil deterrent measures for unfair terms and in standard-form contracts, aims to do that.
This bill further protects the interests of Australian consumers and small businesses with no consequent increase in their compliance burden. This 'more competition, better prices' bill is both necessary and timely, in that it is one positive step, at least, to help mitigate the potentially devastating cost-of-living impacts that we've been warned about in last night's budget—impacts which will, of course, only be made worse by Labor Party policy elsewhere, including the abolition of the ABCC and Labor's reckless energy and climate policy, for a start.
It was the coalition that first commissioned a review of unfair contract terms protection for small business back in 2018. It was this discussion paper that found that our current penalties are not a sufficient deterrent for bad behaviour from big business. When the provisions of the bill were first considered by the former coalition government last year, aspects were discussed with key stakeholders across consumer groups, businesses, legal organisations and the telecommunications industry. From those stakeholders the coalition government received some 80 submissions. I hope that this Labor government is likewise committed to effective stakeholder engagement when it comes to applying the provisions and monitoring the consequences of this bill. The coalition commissioned and funded the findings which inform this bill, and now it is essential that this parliament puts these findings to good use by supporting this bill and the improved deterrence regime that this bill will provide for.
I note that the bill includes a requirement to review the reforms two years after commencement. I believe that's very good practice and a very good provision for such matters, and it's certainly something that I'd like to see in a lot more bills that we have in this place—that we have a locked-in, legislated review to determine how it's gone in practice, to determine how we can improve it, to re-engage stakeholders on how things have been implemented and how things could be improved, and to proceed on that basis. Unfortunately, too much legislation in this place is just 'set and forget'. We need to be a lot more flexible and nimble in the way that we pass bills in this place and how we review these and strive to get a better regulatory environment across the country. It's not just about more regulation; it's about better regulation. It's about reducing red tape and getting better results.
When it comes to good public policy, I understand the importance of bipartisanship, subject to the needs and views of my electorate, and, as such, I stand with my coalition colleagues in support of this bill. The coalition's support, of course, does not extend to a blank cheque. The coalition will not allow the government to take control of competition law reform and lead it in a strange direction. It is to this end that this bill includes a clear requirement to review all provisions two years after their commencement. I want to ensure that this review is thorough and timely and includes adequate consultation. I'll certainly be keeping an eye on how all that progresses and the feedback from relevant stakeholders, wherever possible.
The coalition stands where it has always stood: as a true champion of small business. I hope that this bill will go some way to making their life easier in this very difficult environment. It is open competition between businesses within the context of the free market that makes Australia great, and, at such a challenging time, it is entirely appropriate that the safeguards outlined in this bill are introduced promptly to protect them.
Almost every day I talk to good people at home in the Redlands. These are decent hardworking Queenslanders who are struggling to pay their rent or mortgage and put food on the table during this cost-of-living crisis. During this time, it is very difficult to run a small business in Australia. This bill—born, as it is, from the coalition—is at least one sound step in addressing this crisis. I commend the bill to the House.
Ms WARE (Hughes) (10:41): I rise to give support to the Treasury Laws Amendment (More Competition, Better Prices) Bill 2022. At the outset, I say it's a pleasure to follow the member for Bowman and I congratulate him on his considered and eloquent speech in this House today.
This bill seeks to increase the penalties for breaches of the Australian Consumer Law as well as the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. It is pleasing to see that many of the reforms proposed within this bill were as contained in the former coalition government's Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Tax Integrity and Supporting Business Investment) Bill 2022.
We are lucky, in this country, to have strong protections for consumers. It is an important cornerstone in any modern economy for consumers to be confident in the goods and services for which they pay. In Australia, the Australian Consumer Law offers protections in significant areas, including unfair contract terms, consumer rights, product safety, door-to-door sales and telephone sales and lay-by agreements. The benefit of a strong Australian Consumer Law is to allow for these protections to be unified across Australia. We are a federated nation, and certainty for consumers in all states is only logical.
As part of this bill, body corporates can be fined a maximum of the greater of $50 million or three times the value of the offence, or 30 per cent of the adjusted turnover during the breach period. For persons other than a body corporate, the maximum fine will now be $2.5 million. These amendments will increase the severity of Australia's penalty regime for anticompetitive behaviour and facilitate the imposition of penalties that are more comparable with international jurisdictions.
Another important cornerstone of the Australian Consumer Law is the protections offered to small business in business-to-business transactions. Small business is the backbone of Australia. All small businesses rely upon a steady, consistent cash flow and simply cannot afford to absorb the costs of being the victim of unfair contract terms from larger entities. Large businesses often have legal teams at their dispose to challenge contracts and engage in litigation to resolve disputes. However, if the victim of unfair contract terms is a small business owner, he or she is prohibited, through both time and costs, from taking court proceedings against a much larger entity. The reforms proposed within this bill will discourage the use of unfair terms by reducing their prevalence in standard form contracts, helping protect small businesses. This will provide a lot of benefit for many of the small businesses located within my electorate.
The eligibility threshold for protections will be increased for small businesses with less than 20 employees to businesses with less than 100 employees. An alternative eligibility threshold will be included to allow businesses with an annual turnover of less than $10 million to be also eligible for unfair contract terms. There will no longer be a requirement for the upfront price payable under a contract to be below a certain threshold in order for the contract to be covered by the Australian Consumer Law. This will, of course, really improve the cash flow of many small businesses. Courts will also now be able to apply more flexible remedies when it declares a contract term unfair through clarifying the court's power to determine an appropriate remedy.
While I fully support these increased protections for consumers and small businesses, I must use this opportunity to challenge some of the costings announced by Labor in the lead-up to the May election and last night. During the election Labor claimed its policy to increase these penalties would raise $557 million in is first four years. However, the latest Treasury costings show that it will really merely raise $63 million. This is a $500 million blackhole. This is a significant discrepancy between the amount that Labor costed would come through from its penalty regime and the reality. This blackhole is one more example we saw of Labor's inability to properly cost, which we saw last night in their higher spending, higher taxing budget delivered in this House.
The test for the federal budget last night was for the government to build on the strong position it inherited from the coalition to address the cost of living particularly bearing down on Australians. When the Labor party announced this bill, it said that this would have a direct impact on the cost of living for Australians. However, Labor failed this test. We saw this last night. Just before the election the Prime Minister told Australians that they will all be better off under a Labor government. In reality, by Christmas, the typical Australian family be will at least $2,000 worse off.
As we emerge from the pandemic, the fundamentals of the Australian economy were strong. Our jobs growth was better and our debt was lower than any other advanced economy. Every nation in the world is facing challenges borne from the pandemic and amplified by global economic headwinds. We approached these challenges in a stronger position than any other nation. Despite this advantage, Labor's first budget fails to deliver for Australian families, for Australian businesses and for Australians overall. This budget fails Australian families at a time when they really need a plan to address cost-of-living pressures. Everybody that I've spoke to in my electorate of Hughes is struggling at the moment with the increased cost of living. This budget does nothing to assist their family budgets or other family budgets throughout our country. There is no credible plan to deal with the source of inflation or to help families deal with immediate cost-of-living pressures. Instead, there is an aspirational promise to build one million homes, starting in 2024, with a lack of detail about how this will occur. This is a budget heavy on partisan politics but lacking in overall economic plan.
What we do know is that the cost of living for all Australians is going up. Power prices are going up, and, instead of the $275 reduction that we were promised in the election campaign, we heard last night that it's anticipated everybody's power prices will be up by more than 50 per cent. Gas prices are also going up by more than 40 per cent. We heard this last night. Also taxes are also going up—$142 billion more than was anticipated or spoken about in the election campaign. In addition, we've got unemployment forecast to increase; interest rates have increased significantly this year and are forecast to continue to increase next year; and real wages, promised, during the election campaign, to increase under Labor, are instead forecast to decrease. This is again a high-taxing and high-spending budget that does nothing to help Australian families or Australian businesses.
If we turn to some of the tax reforms that were announced last night, the Albanese government has again failed to limit the taxes imposed on Australians. Under Labor, as I've just said, the tax paid by Australians will increase by $142 billion over the forward estimates. The tax cap of 23.9 per cent of GDP has been abandoned. Families facing cost-of-living pressures should be able to keep more of what they earn. This budget delivers no certainty for the 10 million Australians on their legislated tax relief which is due next year. The only new change to the tax system announced in this budget is a new tax on investments. I have many self-funded retirees within the electorate of Hughes. This sneaky new tax will slug people who invest their own savings and superannuation—people who have worked very hard throughout their lives, don't want to rely on government and instead are now being punished through higher taxes.
There was an opportunity squandered last night. The Albanese government inherited an enviable set of economic circumstances from the former coalition government. In just one year under the coalition, between 2020-21 and 2021-22, the budget position improved by over $100 billion, the largest budget turnaround since Federation. The coalition wants Australians to do well, but we are hampered by a new government with no real economic plan for the future. Australians deserve better from a government that promised so much during the election campaign but, in its first economic test last night, delivered very little.
This is also a breach of trust. It's a breach of trust with the Australian people. It's also a missed opportunity. On 97 separate occasions before the election and during the campaign, Labor promised a $275 cut in power prices. This budget confirms an increase of more than 50 per cent for Australian families, Australian individuals and Australian businesses. Labor promised to increase real wages. This budget, however, demonstrates real wages are going backwards. Before May, the Labor Party promised no new tax changes. This budget dumps the tax cut and delivers instead a new tax on investors and self-funded retirees.
To conclude, whilst I commend the bill to the House, it still demonstrates Labor's inability to properly calculate costings that will come out from this bill. There is a $500 million black hole within the legislation, confirmed by Treasury, and this $500 million black hole is just one example of some of the bad economic measures that were introduced last night. Whilst the government is to be congratulated for implementing overall the coalition government's protections for consumers and small business in this bill, Labor said its competition policy was all about reducing the cost of living. The high-taxing budget of last night clearly demonstrated that the government is not committed to reducing, or is unable to reduce, the cost of living for most Australians.
Mr VIOLI (Casey) (10:54): I rise to speak in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (More Competition, Better Prices) Bill 2022. This bill significantly increases the fines and penalties that can be imposed upon Australian businesses for breaches of competition and consumer law and, most importantly, it protects small business.
My electorate of Casey is home to many small businesses across various industries. These small businesses are the engine room of the economy. It is these small and medium businesses that are often the ones driving innovation and economic growth, bringing new ideas to the marketplace and creating new jobs. Small business provides 4.7 million jobs in our nation. Small-business owners have risked their financial security to chase their dream but, because of their size, they are vulnerable to the coerciveness of big business. I worked in the small-business environment for 15 years and I saw, directly and indirectly, the pressure that small business faces when working with bigger players. These are negotiations and conversations that you don't forget. When owners know that it's their house and their mortgage on the line, and they're negotiating with a business with significant cash reserves, it's an unfair balance. So we need to protect small business, and this legislation goes towards that.
But small business isn't just about the economic benefits. Small business truly is the heart of the community, especially where I live in Casey. Small business supports community groups like the CFA, sporting clubs and charities. In our time of need, it is small business that is connected to the community and has the agility and the will to support the community. I see this every day in my electorate and living in my community, but I saw it last week when I was at Mount Evelyn IGA to celebrate the Ingpen family owning that business for 50 years. They really are pillars of the community. It was amazing to see the number of members of the community who came, including Rick, from the Mount Evelyn CFA. At that celebration, Tony, the owner, presented him with a cheque for financial support that the IGA provides every month to the CFA. Normally Tony does that in private and doesn't make a big show of it, but it was a great occasion to celebrate. When you hear Rick, who is a CFA captain, talk about the importance of that money to their organisation and to protecting our community, it's just another reminder of the importance of small business and protecting it. Rick also talked about how, in times of emergency—whether it's fire or flood, as we're experiencing at the moment—Tony and the team open their doors and provide any supplies that the CFA need, with not a question asked and no bill run up. Straightaway the doors are open. That's what small businesses do. They support our community, and we need to support them.
We saw this also during COVID. The IGA were talking about how they could support our communities, making sure those most vulnerable got the support they needed, whether it was food or toilet paper. They had the agility and the ability to adapt and provide our community with those vital resources that they needed. That's why the previous coalition government recognised the importance of small business to the economy when we committed to JobKeeper, to the cash flow boost payments and to 50 per cent wage subsidies for apprentices. We supported around one million businesses and four million jobs. I'm proud of the things the coalition did during their time in government to allow small business to flourish. During the campaign, as a new candidate, and since being elected as the member for Casey, I've had had many businesses thank me for the previous government's support to get them through COVID. Again, they talked about how it wasn't just about their business; it was about their family and being able to put food on the table for their children.
This bill will help to further support and protect those small businesses, by sending a clear message that unfair trading will be penalised. As I said in my first speech, we must acknowledge and recognise that big business will naturally support regulation and red tape which stifles small business, to the detriment of competition. As a Liberal, I instinctively support free markets and the benefits they bring to the economy and the nation. However, we have to acknowledge the risk of having dominant players in a market, a risk that I saw firsthand working in the food industry. For Australia to continue to prosper as a nation, we need to ensure our legislation supports the growth of small business in every way.
These reforms will better protect small business and consumers, by increasing penalties for anticompetitive behaviour. This will ensure that the price of misconduct is high and will bring our penalties in line with those in other countries. As I said, this is so important, because small-business owners are risking their homes; big businesses do not have that risk.
The changes brought about in this bill are similar to the previous coalition government's proposal under the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Tax Integrity and Supporting Business Investment) Bill 2022. We supported the amendment to existing unfair contract term provisions and the introduction of a civil penalty regime. There is also bipartisan support for the expansion of a class of contracts covered by the unfair contract provisions.
The 2018 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that Australia's maximum penalties for anticompetitive conduct were lower than those in the UK, the US and the European Union. At the moment, the maximum penalty for breaches of competition laws in Australia is $10 million or 10 per cent of annual turnover, whichever is greater. This bill will take those maximum penalties from $10 million to $50 million, adding a significant deterrent to big business. Businesses can also be fined 30 per cent of their turnover during the offending period for engaging in anticompetitive behaviour, with maximum penalties for breaching civil penalty provisions jumping from $500,000 to $2.5 million.
The bill will amend three pieces of legislation—the Competition and Consumer Act, the Australian Consumer Law and the ASIC Act—to strengthen the existing protections from unfair contract terms in consumer and small business standard-form contracts. It will introduce a new civil penalty regime for those small businesses that use and rely on unfair contract terms in standard form contracts. Unfair contract terms are those that disadvantage one party but are not necessary to protect the interests of the other. Examples of unfair terms are excessive exit fees, automatic renewal terms, unreasonable termination terms, or price increases affecting only one party. Another example is reserving the right to vary the contract at any time and removing liability for interruptions in supply. And, again, this is a challenge for small business, because many big businesses have the legal support within their organisation to make sure they can review contracts with a fine toothcomb. Small business does not have the ability to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers so are at another disadvantage—not just size, but the resources from a legal perspective.
For small businesses, which often have a lower bargaining power, these clauses bring about a lot of risk. As I mentioned, I've seen this firsthand in my career. You need to understand this threat and what it means to a business. I've been in these conversations with an owner of a business dealing with multinationals. You know that business represents over 50 per cent of your revenue, and one phone call overnight could close your business. And it's not just closing the business for you; it's not allowing you to put food on the table for your family. It's for those employees that took a risk to join your business. And that can be shut down overnight when a big business has a significant part of your revenue. That's the reality that we have in Australia. One example is the food industry. Two major players, Woolworths and Coles, are a significant part of that industry. If you want to grow your business within the food industry, you need to work with Woolworths and you need to work with Coles. But they have and use significant power in those negotiations.
It's so important that we continue to protect small business so they can innovate. All the new food products that we get to enjoy come from the small businesses that are looking to create a unique niche in the market. Whether it's food, technology or any industry, if they don't have that ability, we lose that innovation and we lose our advantage as a nation, so we need to continue to protect those small businesses. Protections against unfair contracts currently apply to small-business contracts where at least one of the contracting businesses employs fewer than 20 people. This bill will increase the scope of these protections by increasing them to businesses that employ fewer than 100 employees and turn over less than $10 million. This is such an important change because in the current environment, at any time, 100 employees is not a large business. A hundred employees is a small business; their cashflow is still exposed.
We also want to encourage and incentivise businesses that have got 15 employees to grow to 50 employees and not feel that, by moving over a threshold, they lose some of the protections that they have. I can tell you firsthand that I worked in an amazing company called Yarra Valley Snack Foods, and when I joined that company we were at 70 employees, and when I left we were at over 130. But even at that time we were still a small business, we were still exposed and we did not have cash reserves. We were investing that back into the business so we could employ more locals and support the farmers who were growing the organic products that we sold. What we need to do is protect those businesses so they can go from being a small business to a larger business.
This change from 20 to 100 employees is significant. I think it's something we need to continue to review, to make sure we get that number right, because even with 150 to 200 employees a lot of those businesses don't have the market power and they don't have the cashflow. And that's the important part: it's the cashflow; it's the ability to go to the lawyers if you need it. It's also not allowing a supplier to be a significant part of your business. And we need to acknowledge the size of our markets in Australia. Whether it's the banking industry, financial services, the food industry, there will always be large players within our market. That's just the nature of our country and our economy, and that's why it's our obligation in this House to continue to protect those small businesses that are risking it all to provide so much for our country.
Consumers and businesses can apply to the courts to have certain unfair terms deemed void. However, this has not been enough to deter some businesses from including unfair contract terms in their standard form, and this is because those big businesses know that small businesses doesn't have the resources to go to court. They don't have the lawyers to review the contracts, and, in many cases, they don't have the time to negotiate on those long form contracts. That's why it's so important that we give the courts new powers to determine an appropriate penalty, such as an injunction order. So, if they do go to court and invest that time, they can continue to operate while that decision is being made.
By strengthening penalties, Australia will be promoting competition and setting standards for corporate behaviour. Increased competition means prices are kept in check, and there is more choice for Australian families. With the current cost of living soaring, the last thing small-business owners need is the headache of navigating dodgy business contracts. It is vital that we support small business to thrive. They've survived two years of COVID and state-imposed restrictions on their trading. They are currently going through significant rising costs with energy and with labour shortages. It has never been tougher to be in small business.
For Australia to continue to prosper, we must ensure our legislation supports the growth of all businesses. These new offences and higher penalties will make business think twice before including unfair terms in their contracts. Larger fines for anticompetitive behaviour will ensure a more level playing field for business. I will always support small business; it's in my blood, and that is why I am supporting this bill today.
Mr STEVENS (Sturt) (11:08): I rise to speak in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (More Competition, Better Prices) Bill 2022, which, as has been outlined, has two core elements: one is to do with increasing fines and the other is to expand the protections around unfair contract terms. My understanding is the OECD had undertaken a good body of work around the consequences of anticompetitive behaviour in different regimes within the OECD. The outcome of that was that, in this country, we have not been putting in place sufficient fines.
You would hope there was a disincentive, from a moral point of view, for people not to engage in uncompetitive behaviour in our economy. But, of course, we need safeguards in place, and the OECD—which probably reflects on the value of that organisation—to be able to give us this sort of comparative policy analysis and advise this jurisdiction that we are at the lower end of the sorts of penalties that are put in place within other similar OECD nations, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom. The first element of this really dramatically increases the penalties that can be put in place within our competition framework, and that's a really important thing. As a proud free market capitalist, I'm equally very conscious of the importance of having a very robust framework in place to ensure that we have free, fair and open markets and free and fair competition within our economy. The framework that we've got in place, and organisations like the ACCC, do an excellent job in making sure they're protecting consumers, but we're clearly always going to need to be vigilant in looking at opportunities to make sure the protections are in place at the appropriate level to ensure that we have free and fair competition.
In this country, we haven't had a really concerning history of major anticompetitive examples. Some jurisdictions—like the United States—talk about antitrust, which is the same sort of principle. In fact, if ever we have had anticompetitive issues, it has always been because of government enterprises that have had the ability to compete with the strength of government in what should be a free and fair market. It's a great commendation to people like Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, who recognised that maybe the private sector could run airlines in our economy, rather than government running one and stifling competition in a sensible market like that, which should be free and open for private sector to compete with each other in and, hopefully, achieve good outcomes for consumers in that market, through that competition, with the lowest possible price being achieved.
We welcome the upgrade to penalties, but I make the same point that other coalition speakers have made, which is that it's humiliating how the costings have ended up on this. When the Labor Party announced this in the campaign, they were expecting a dramatic revenue dividend from these measures, but the forecast, as part of the legislation and the budget indicate, is that that's going to be dramatically lower. It's probably a good lesson for people to learn about assumptions and applying multipliers et cetera to these kinds of policy initiatives that are, effectively, always going to be in the hands of the courts. Despite suggestions that you can predict and just provide some kind of multiplier to decisions that the courts are going to make, it seems, based on a more sober reflection, that nowhere near the expected revenue is going to be achieved from the measures. That doesn't change the importance of the measure, but I make that point on the record—as others have—because it's not insignificant when people try these sorts of things on in election campaigns and election costings into the future to have important examples like this to point to.
The second element within this legislation is the issue of unfair contract terms. This is really important, and I think everyone in this chamber would agree—I don't mind being very honest about this—that when you've got the choice of spending your money with a small business versus a big business, we'd all choose the small business. Everyone in here would have superannuation and investments in major corporations, and good luck to major corporations, but we all back our small businesses at every opportunity in our communities and anywhere in our economy. Small businesses are the absolute lifeblood and backbone of our economy and also our communities. They are the biggest employer. We've got so many people that own and operate small businesses in our electorates—all of us would have, on average, more than 10,000 small businesses. These unfair contracts are nothing short of absolute bullying. They are absolute bullying and deception from people that are wilfully seeking to take advantage of a particular party. So they're coming from a position of strength and they are attempting to effectively engage in what I will say is deceptive conduct—that is, trickery, tricking someone into entering into agreements when there's an imbalance between the two parties. One party has drafted the contract with extreme complexity and without feeling any obligation to bring to the attention of the other party the specifics that they should be aware of. Of course, the other party shouldn't be expected to apply the kinds of resources that would be necessary to fully understand what they might be committing to by entering into that contract. That is absolutely something that we need to provide protections over, and that's obviously what occurs in this element of the bill.
If you're a really big business, you probably have in-house counsel, an in-house legal team. When you're the author of contract, you draft a contract for another party. Even if you purport that it is a completely standard agreement that you have with a whole range of other suppliers or customers—or whatever you might be claiming—all contracts are complicated. When I get a mobile phone, I don't mind admitting that I don't sit there and read all seven pages of the eight-point font that comes after the bit that's helpfully got the 'sign here' tag. Frankly, I think a lot of us probably think, 'What exactly am I going to do to dispute this anyway?' These are standard contracts from Telstra, Optus or whoever. So all contracts are complicated. All contracts require legal capacity and training to fully understand what their full consequences might be.
There's no doubt and there's clear evidence—and we probably all have specific experience of this with constituents—that people are tricked and lulled into committing to things without fully understanding the consequences of doing that. When that is blatantly the objective and when that sort of trickery and bullying is engaged in, we should stand up for the people who are victims of it. They didn't wilfully sign a contract knowing what they were committing to then changed their mind later or tried to weasel out of something that was fair and reasonable and that they were fully aware of at the time. This is really talking about circumstances where people haven't been fully aware of the consequences of what they've committed to.
People have also quite consistently made the point that the barriers for a small business undertaking a civil contract dispute against a big business are enormous. If you are a small business taking on one of the big players, you know that their first objective in any of these disputes is just to bleed you dry of money through legal costs so that you'll never even get your day in court. You'll have so many costs before ever even seeing the inside of a courtroom; it's almost never going to be worth your while, depending on the scale of the contract. As members, we would also know of businesses that have had terrible experiences in taking on a party that's had significant financial capability to litigate against them. We all understand and know that the legal system provides opportunities for parties to drag these things out significantly, and that puts a lot of cost on the party that's seeking justice. There are undoubtedly cases where both individuals and businesses are in a circumstance where they probably feel very confident that they are an aggrieved party and that they deserve justice, but they can't afford it. Those people have got to make that appalling decision that they shouldn't have to, which is that, even though they could rectify that situation through the courts, the cost to them and the risk to them and the time that it would take to achieve that justice means that it's simply not worth their while. That's not fair.
What we're doing here is giving people that are in that circumstance a lot more support, giving people like the ACCC and our consumer laws the ability to stand up for those people, so those people don't have to do it all by themselves and the bigger, powerful, bullying party isn't in the position where they can simply say, 'I'm not frightened of any consequence of taking advantage of you here because I'll just bleed you out before you ever get the chance to seek the justice that you deserve.' I think, again, that element of this legislation is very meritorious, and on that basis I'm very pleased that we appear to have a consensus to support these reforms.
We thank the OECD and the other processes that put us in a position to become aware of the need to improve and update the way in which we protect consumers, small businesses and individuals in our economy. A strong free market, like the one we've got in this country, is always going to need those very important protections for consumers and for fair competition in our economy. On the basis of that, I commend the bill to the House.
Dr LEIGH (Fenner—Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) (11:21): My thanks to the members who have contributed to this debate. I acknowledge the work of both Small Business Minister Julie Collins and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones on this bill. This bill delivers on an election commitment to protect Australian households and small businesses by banning unfair contract terms and increasing penalties for anticompetitive behaviour.
The Australian Labor Party has a long history of economic reform that builds a fairer and more resilient economy. Competition is an essential part of that for three key reasons. First, competition is about fairness. Without government action, monopolists can wield their power to rig the game in their favour rather than compete on even terms. Second, competition deals with cost-of-living pressures and makes our supply chains more resilient. Competition means businesses offer Australians the best prices they can. A diverse and dynamic economy, a resilient economy, helps to absorb, adapt and solve the challenges of an uncertain world. Third, competition is about jobs and skills. Competition helps to ensure that the most innovative, creative and savvy businesses are the ones that thrive. Those are the businesses that are best placed to offer jobs that are stable, secure and well paid. Competition also gives workers more options, empowering employees to negotiate pay and conditions that reflect their true value.
This side of the House has a long record of supporting competition. It was Labor Attorney-General Lionel Murphy who introduced the Trade Practices Act 1974, which outlawed businesses colluding at the expense of Australian consumers. It was Paul Keating in the 1990s who recognised that competition eased cost-of-living pressures by lifting wages and lowering prices. Working with Fred Hilmer, he backed it up by implementing reforms that transformed swathes of Australian regulation for the better and helped deliver the 1990s productivity surge. National competition policy was far-reaching. Government businesses were restructured and made more efficient. A competitive National Electricity Market was established. Barriers to the free trading of gas across state and territory boundaries were removed. Before national competition policy, bakers in New South Wales could only bake bread at certain times of the day. Families across the nation had to do their grocery shopping in a mad, crazy rush on Saturday morning before shops closed for the weekend.
As a result of national competition policy, the Productivity Commission has estimated that the size of Australia's economy was permanently increased by 2.5 per cent. Today, that equates to some $5,000 per household. But productivity growth has slowed in Australia since the mid-2000s. From its peak of 2.5 per cent in the late 1990s, average productivity growth in the past 20 years was 1.2 per cent. Weak productivity hits real wages and the cost of living. By hitting national incomes, it stifles our ability to invest in infrastructure, to plan for the future and to lift up those who need support.
The productivity slowdown has been driven, at least in part, by a decline in dynamism. When workers move to more productive firms, they earn higher wages, and the economy benefits. Yet job switching has slowed in recent years, which can account for about a quarter of the recent productivity slowdown. Creating more opportunities for job switching through competition is crucial to reverse this trend.
Another crucial measure of the health of the economy is the startup rate. How many new companies, which employ people, are created every year? We can think of this as the business equivalent of the birth rate. That measure is in decline. Since the 2000s, there's been a downward trend in the rate at which new businesses enter the market. More than ever we need settings that allow startups to enter the market and challenge the old guard on even terms, and that means reversing the trend of market power concentrating in a smaller number of firms. When power is concentrated, monopolists can shift away from competing to instead focus on trying to dig moats that keep the competition out. Monopolists awash in cash simply buy out new rivals and, much like the Borg in Star Trek, assimilate those rivals to take their strengths as their own.
One way of analysing market power is to look at industry concentration. Since 2000, those figures show the market share of the largest firms in each industry has trended upwards. From baby food to beer, the largest firms hold a high and growing share of the market. For Australian consumers, that means higher prices, because businesses that dominate the market tend to impose on consumers bigger mark-ups. According to recent estimates, mark-ups—the gap between prices and production costs—increased by six per cent over the past two decades. Australians cannot afford for the trend in declining competitive pressures to continue.
That need for change to our competition laws is something that the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia has noted. In May this year, CEO Alexi Boyd said:
Reforming competition policy is crucial to ensure Australia remains a place where small businesses can grow and thrive …
The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, Bruce Billson, welcomed the introduction of this legislation. As he noted, rebalancing relationships between small and large enterprises has an important role to play in promoting economic growth. Mr Billson also said that penalties for anticompetitive behaviour 'need to be more meaningful and not just an easily absorbable cost of doing business'.
Schedule 1 of this bill seeks to do just that—to increase the maximum penalty available for breaches of competition and consumer laws to ensure the price of misconduct is high enough to deter unfair activity and to ensure consumers retain a robust level of protection. By strengthening penalties, Australia will be promoting competition and better corporate behaviour. Greater competition means better prices and more choice for Australian households.
Australia's competition laws have long needed an update. It's been close to 30 years since the maximum penalty for anticompetitive behaviour was increased. As a result, we've fallen behind our international peers. In 2018, the OECD found that the average and maximum competition penalties in Australia are substantially lower than in comparable jurisdictions. The amendments in schedule 1 will increase maximum penalties for corporations that engage in anticompetitive behaviour from $10 million to $50 million and from 10 per cent of annual turnover to 30 per cent of annual turnover for the period the breach took place. The maximum penalty for individuals who engage in anticompetitive conduct will increase from $500,000 to $2.5 million. This will bring Australia into line with comparable international jurisdictions and will ensure that fines have a meaningful deterrent effect.
It's been noted by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights that the increases in penalties are substantial enough to warrant considering whether a criminal standard ought to be considered rather than a civil standard of balance of probabilities. I have great respect for the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, ably chaired by the member for Macnamara, and I thank the committee for bringing this issue to the parliament's attention. However, the Albanese government believes the use of the civil standard is appropriate and proportionate.
As I have noted, Australia's fines are presently substantially lower than in equivalent jurisdictions. This bill seeks to ensure we do not fall behind and risk those penalties being treated as just a cost of doing business. Increases to penalties are necessary for effective deterrence. The bill also provides discretion to the courts on how these penalties are enforced. While the maximum penalty is being raised, judges will continue to use their discretion and apply maximum penalties only to the most egregious cases. I appreciate the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights raising this important point, and I am confident that protecting the courts' right to discretion will ensure that all are treated fairly.
Schedule 2 to this bill will better protect consumers and small businesses from unfair contract terms by strengthening the existing protections against unfair terms in standard-form contracts. Standard contract terms are a commonly used and cost-effective option for businesses, as they avoid costs associated with negotiated contracts. An unfair contract term is one that's one sided and excessive and isn't necessary to protect one party's interests but causes detriment to the other party. Protections were first introduced in 2010 for consumer contracts and in 2016 for small-business contracts, to deal with terms that caused significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations. However, consultation with stakeholders suggested that unfair terms are still prevalent. While courts presently have the power to void unfair contract terms, what has become clear is that it is necessary to introduce strong deterrents. That's partly because consumers and small businesses generally lack the bargaining power to effectively review and negotiate terms when entering into contracts with larger parties. The hallmark of effective legislation is that it has a deterrent effect on the behaviour it seeks to regulate. It is unfortunately evident that unfair contract terms remain a significant problem.
What do we mean by 'unfair contract terms'? Let me take the House through some examples. In one case, the ACCC raised concerns about contracts between farmers and milk processors in the dairy industry. The contracts allowed milk processors to unilaterally change basic supply terms, such as the price they paid, without giving farmers the option to terminate the contract. The contracts also required that farmers comply with lengthy notice periods before terminating the contract, while giving milk processors much greater flexibility to terminate the contract.
In another case, a contract between a potato wholesaler and potato growers included terms that allowed the wholesaler to unilaterally determine or vary the price it paid farmers for potatoes; unilaterally vary other contract terms; declare potatoes as wastage without a mechanism for proper review; and prevent farmers from selling potatoes to alternative purchasers. In another case, the ACCC noted that chicken growers were being locked into contracts with meat processors that allowed processors to force growers to upgrade their facilities to fit with the needs and preferences of the processors.
The ACCC has also raised concerns about a supplier of serviced office space that was imposing on tenants terms that allowed the supplier to automatically renew contracts unless the customer opted out; unilaterally increase the contract price; and unilaterally terminate a contract. There was even a contract term that allowed the supplier to keep a customer's security deposit if the customer failed to request its return. In another case, the ACCC raised the issue of a company which leases photocopiers, scanners and printers to thousands of small businesses. Its contracts contained unfair terms such as automatic renewal that meant contracts were automatically renewed unless the customer cancelled a certain number of days before the end of the contract; termination payment terms that required customers to pay excessive exit fees when they cancelled their contract; and unfair payment terms that required customers to pay for software licences as part of the agreement even when they had not received the software.
Contract law can be complicated, but the principle is simple: big and powerful firms must stop putting unfair terms into their contracts with consumers and small business.
This bill will introduce stronger deterrents by prohibiting, through civil penalty provisions, the use of and reliance on unfair terms in standard form contracts. It will also provide a 12-month transition period that will allow businesses time to prepare. The bill will also expand the class of contracts that are covered, to ensure that a larger number of small business contracts are afforded protection. The government's expectation is that regulators will continue to take a reasonable and proportionate approach to enforcing these protections. These amendments will ensure customers and small businesses get a fair go when entering into standard-form contracts with larger partners.
Since at least the days of Adam Smith, economists have recognised the central role of competition in driving growth and productivity. If we are to increase living standards and deliver for consumers, the Australian economy needs a dose of competition reform. By strengthening the deterrents against bad behaviour by monopolists, we make our economy fairer, more dynamic and more competitive. I commend this bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Third Reading
Ms CATHERINE KING (Ballarat—Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) (11:36): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
to which the following amendment was moved:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
(1) notes that this bill does nothing to address broader challenges for access to child care in Australia, namely:
(a) child care service gaps in regional Australia; and
(b) early childhood education and care workforce shortages which are preventing families from accessing the care they need;
(2) notes that the Government's child care package, which costs $4.5 billion, does not add one additional child care place;
(3) notes that child care providers have already increased fees since the Government came to office and the additional demand placed on child care services as a result of this bill will put further inflationary pressure on fees;
(4) calls on the Government to ensure that the promised savings for families will not be eroded by higher fees due to the additional demand for child care services as a result of this bill; and
(5) notes that the bill commits to higher ongoing structural spending and calls on the Government to manage its spending commitments to improve the budget while standing by their promise to deliver legislated targeted income tax relief".
Ms DANIEL (Goldstein) (11:38): I rise to offer qualified support for the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022. In Australia, we take for granted the fact that school is universally available to our children and families. Every child can access infant, primary and high school via the public system. Yet, despite all the evidence about the benefits, we continue to baulk at providing universal publicly funded early childhood education and care. These benefits are for both children and families, providing children with the foundations needed for their education while enabling women to enter the workforce.
For so long, increasing affordable learning and care has been in the too-hard basket. For many women, that has meant that being at home and folding the laundry is more affordable than working. Constraining women to unpaid work is good neither for women nor for an economy struggling to boost productivity. The Minister for Women has said:
If women's workforce participation matched men, we would increase GDP by 8.7 per cent or $353 billion by 2050.
The ACTU told the current Senate inquiry into work and care that there would be another 893,000 women in the workforce if they were able to participate at the same rate as men. The Parenthood noted to the same inquiry that last year the World Economic Forum ranked Australia 70th out of 153 countries for female workforce participation and that just 56 per cent of women in Australia aged 25 to 40 with young children took part in paid work.
So Australian women are the best educated in the world but rank way down the list for workforce participation. Why? Today, secondary income earners, mostly women, can lose 80 to 100 per cent of their pay for working more than three days a week. Why would you bother? Around 60 per cent of secondary-income-earning parents work part time. This bill could incentivise hundreds of thousands of parents, mostly mothers, to increase their days of work, both benefiting the economy and improving female financial independence and security.
Child care is not welfare. Early childhood care and education is not babysitting. This is economic policy. This has been central to my platform since day one, and the people of Goldstein voted for it. Treasury forecasts suggest that these reforms will generate the equivalent of 37,000 additional full-time equivalent employees, or 185,000 additional days of work. The Grattan Institute modelled 220,000 additional days of work from this reform. This could not come at a better time, amid chronic workforce shortages across the country as employers struggle for staff, while many of our highly educated female workers stay home because working is not worth their while or is not available or is not flexible enough to suit their casualised, irregular or short shifts.
This bill represents the biggest increase in affordable early learning and care since the Howard and then Rudd government reforms to the childcare benefit and rebate in 2007 and 2008 respectively. But there are pitfalls. Childcare fees have grown more than 40 per cent in the last eight years. With billions of dollars funnelled into child care, guess what happens. Fees go up, rents go up and the cost of care goes up, without transparency. Transparent pricing information is an important part of this suite of reforms. So are the ACCC review into this and the Productivity Commission's review that will report next year. We must ensure that more subsidies don't just continue to lead to higher costs of care.
But we must do more than that. I applaud the government's intent to make early care more affordable and accessible, but I also call on the government to take a brave and systematic approach to restructuring the system. One in five Australian children starts school not ready. It is two in five in country areas, and half of First Nations children. Children who arrive at school unprepared rarely catch up. This is a disgrace. A system of universally accessible early childhood education and care that doesn't penalise already-disadvantaged children by locking them out of the system because their parents don't work enough to fit the access criteria is what is needed. This bill does go some way to addressing this issue but it should go further. It should be amended to drop entirely the so-called activity test, which disproportionately affects low-income families generally, as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and their children.
In 2018 the previous government halved the minimum childcare subsidy entitlement for families who didn't meet the minimum threshold for the activity test. This has had consequences, unintended or otherwise, especially for those low-income families. Data provided to Senate estimates last financial year found that in July 2018, before the changes were implemented, 54,300 families were entitled to the minimum weekly hours of care. Three years later that number had plummeted to 21,110 families, an overall reduction of 42,000 families. The tightening of the activity test had been recommended by the Productivity Commission. However, the Productivity Commission also acknowledged that it could deter some parents from taking a job with very low hours per week. Research by the Australian Institute of Family Studies has found that, while the greatest negative impact of the activity test changes has been on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, they are also disproportionately hurting low-income families and those from non-English speaking backgrounds. Low-income families are more than six times more likely to be limited to one day of subsidised care per week, and it's a similar story for those from non-English speaking backgrounds.
This legislation is a start. But the government should consider it a launch pad to consider the structure of the system and how we value the care and education of our youngest children and the value that their mothers can add to the workforce.
There's another workforce piece. Considering existing vacancies, this reform will require an additional 16,000-plus early childhood educators across the country, especially targeted at the so-called childcare deserts where it's all but impossible to get a place. Turnover in early learning has jumped from around 20 per cent to 30 to 40 per cent in the last year. We can't provide care without carers, and this turnover is a direct reflection on the underpaid and undervalued nature of care among a burnt-out workforce. Childcare centres in Goldstein are already struggling for staff. The government has found savings in its original estimate of the cost of this program. I urge the minister to consider the value of putting that money back into the system in the form of better pay for early childhood educators, who are currently paid as much as 30 per cent less than their primary school equivalents.
There is something deeply troubling about the fact that not only are women being disadvantaged by being unable to afford care or find care places for their children but also the predominantly female workforce is undervalued and underpaid, compounding the very problem that we are here to solve: how to underpin a better future for our children.
Dr REID (Robertson) (11:46): Early childhood education and care is not just child care; it's not just babysitting. Early childhood education is exactly what the name depicts: early childhood education. It is a vital and an essential part of our education sector and it is an indispensable component of a modern education system and a modern economy. It is a sector that will ensure that our children develop the vital foundations that they need to succeed in their later schooling and, indeed, beyond. It is a sector that provides vital social skill development, social and emotional learning, speech and language development and pre-literacy development. Children need these skills—especially if they are expected to be ready to participate in a primary school curriculum. Early childhood education is an important step in their developmental journey. Our government, the Albanese Labor government, will ensure that it is more accessible for more Australian families right across Australia and indeed on the Central Coast. This is particularly true for the thousands of families in my home electorate of Robertson that will benefit from this new policy. This policy, this legislation, will impact multiple generations, and we will continue to see the benefits of this bill for families for years to come.
At the end of the day, what this means is that, by ensuring that early childhood education and care are more affordable for more families, both on the Central Coast and around Australia, more people—in particular, women—will have the choice to return to the workforce, increasing economic opportunities for families and giving families the freedom to control their own future. Businesses currently screaming out for workers in my electorate will have a larger pool of available workers. Some of the barriers to access, such as those stemming from socioeconomic inequality, will be broken down, allowing more children to access early education, ensuring the foundations of their journey of lifelong learning are strengthened.
We must also recognise that this is a cost-of-living relief measure for thousands of families who are doing it tough, having to choose between keeping a roof over their heads, purchasing their essential medications or ensuring that their children are receiving early childhood education and care. Those are not decisions that should be made in this country today, and it is simply not good enough. That is why this policy was developed. That is why this policy was shaped over the course of the election—because we observed a need throughout the community to improve access. The numbers were telling us from an education, economic, workforce and productivity perspective that there was a need. This is why this policy was recently introduced to the floor of the parliament.
This education, this economic reform, will cut the cost of early childhood education and care and will benefit over one million Australians. Over the last eight years, costs for early education have dramatically increased—41 per cent—creating a barrier to education, a barrier to entering the workforce and a barrier to improving and expanding our economy. Over 90 per cent of families who have children in early childhood education and care will benefit from this progressive reform, and what must be stressed is that no Australian family will be worse off under this bill.
The Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022 will allow people to re-enter the workforce if they choose. For example, primary carers will be able to work more paid hours and days if they choose to. In this example, they are most commonly women. It is a fact that women in Australia today are twice as likely to work in a part-time capacity due to responsibilities that are associated with caring. Of women in Australia with children under six, 60 per cent work part time. For the majority—this was raised with me time and time again when doorknocking and phone banking around parts of the Central Coast, and I'm sure this is true for many parts of Australia—working more hours or more days does not make financial sense when you have children in early childhood education and care, not when almost everything you earn when working a fourth or fifth day is captured by the cost of early childhood education and care.
This is not only costing these families, who, as I said earlier, are already doing it tough; this is also costing our nation in workforce participation, productivity and the education fundamentals and groundwork for our children. During the election we continued to say, 'No-one held back and no-one left behind,' and we meant it. This bill is an example of our commitment to the Australian people, and it is an example of our commitment to the people of Robertson. This is not a tax concession, and do not let anyone tell you that this is welfare. This is economic reform. This is forward thinking and this is nation building.
This means more people, in particular women, on the Central Coast will have more choice. If primary caregivers work part time, it should be because they want to work part time, not because they have no other financial option. People will have the opportunity to increase their earnings and people will have the opportunity to maximise their career potential. People will have the opportunity to save for their retirement.
As I said earlier, businesses in my electorate have been screaming out for workers. This bill means more workers will be entering the workforce. Treasury estimates that, with our early childhood education and care reform, 37,000 extra full-time workers will be added to the economy in 2023-24. That is the equivalent of an increase of up to 1.4 million hours per week next financial year, in paid hours worked by women with young children. Extrapolated, that equates to approximately 72.8 million hours next financial year. What this means is this: it's good for children, it's good for families and it's good for the economy. However, without the educators, without the teachers, our children would merely be attending an empty room. Early childhood education and care is a reality because of our highly trained educators throughout Australia, who work tirelessly to provide our children with the best education and the best teaching that they have to offer.
Access to early childhood education provides vital social skill development, vital social and emotional learning, vital speech and language development, and preliteracy development, all of which are essential for ensuring that children are well prepared for primary school and well prepared to engage with the primary school curriculum. Barriers to accessing structured early childhood education mean that at present a frightening number of students are commencing kindergarten with skills well below those required to successfully engage with the primary curriculum. I have been repeatedly advised, by local speech pathologists and primary school teachers in my home electorate of Robertson, of the staggering yet increasing number of students who are commencing kindergarten in our primary schools with skills well below those expected of their age. How can we expect our future generations to succeed with this track record? It is a track record that Labor will not stand for. No-one held back and no-one left behind—and it's time to do better. It's time to be better. It's time to give our future generations the opportunities that they so rightly deserve.
Compounding the issue is the reality that we have a real shortage of educators and teachers right across the country, including in my electorate of Robertson. We cannot continue to silo different sectors of the economy because it suits government and politicians. We need to be agile. We need to be adaptable to the challenges that face modern Australia. We need to be part of the solution—no more temporary bandaid fixes. A Labor government means real change. It means real strategies, and that's why our government is funding additional university positions and fee-free TAFE places: 20,000 Commonwealth supported university positions and 465,000 fee-free TAFE places, many of which will be dedicated to our early childhood educators and our teachers in our community. This incentivises people to train in this area and enter the profession, providing a much-needed boost to the workforce.
Wages for the sector are also an important aspect of discussion with this bill. One of our first acts as a new government was to make a submission to the Fair Work Commission to increase the minimum wage. This increased wages for over 2½ million Australians. Among them were 113,000 early childhood educators who were on the Children's Services Award, which went up by 4.6 per cent. But the work doesn't end here, because the job is not yet finished. Our government is endeavouring to make gender pay equity an objective of the Fair Work Act and embed a statutory equal remuneration principle which will help guide the Fair Work Commission on equal remuneration and work value cases. Why is this important? This is important because the workforce in early childhood education and care is over 90 per cent female.
Education is one of the core reforms that we are making as a new government, with a dedicated Minister for Early Childhood Education, an early-years strategy for children aged zero to five, and a Productivity Commission review that will commence next year with the aim of implementing a universal 90 per cent subsidy for all Australian families. This is what we do, this is what progressive governments do and this is what Labor governments do: economic reform, forward thinking and nation building. I commend this bill to the House and I thank Jason Clare, the Minister for Education, and Anne Aly, the Minister for Early Education, for their tireless work and tireless efforts.
Debate adjourned.
Ordered that the resumption of the debate made an order of the day for a later hour this day.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
Regional Ministerial Budget Statement
Ms CATHERINE KING (Ballarat—Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) (12:01): by leave—I am very pleased to deliver the Regional Budget Statement on behalf of the government. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet—the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples—as well as the Wadawurrung and Dja Dja Wurrung people—the traditional owners of the lands that I represent—and I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.
Like almost 30 per cent of Australians, regional Australia is where I call home. I have represented the regional electorate of Ballarat for over 20 years and I have seen massive change in that region and across all of our regions over that period.
This budget delivers on our election commitments and provides funds for the government's purposeful and targeted approach to investing in regional Australia. It contains more than 760 initiatives which the government is delivering to boost regional communities and our industries. It is the first step along the path to create new, sustainable and transparent pathways for funding in regional Australia.
It is about high-quality investments in the right places and with the right priorities. It is driven by our determination to deliver on our election commitments and ensure that our policies and our expenditure are focused on productive investments, and that they are fairly delivered across all of regional Australia.
This is a budget centred on the role the regions play in our nation's economic growth. Regions that are as diverse as the people who call them home—and no more is that represented than in this place. It is an approach that supports sustainable growth, helping regional communities achieve their potential. An approach that is driven by communities and lets communities in on the decision-making process.
Built on a foundation of transparency and integrity—and focused on creating jobs, building resilience and unlocking economic growth—the investment we have outlined will support the government's ambition of 'no-one held back and no-one left behind'.
These measures range across all areas of government responsibility, from infrastructure to health, from energy to education, from social services to tourism, from digital connectivity to defence and from net zero to First Nations communities. This is a budget that responsibly faces up to the pressures facing the global and Australian economies, but sets Australia's regions up for a strong future and to play their continued significant role in the economy of the nation.
As we sit here today, the statistics for regional Australia tell a good story. Australia's regions are home to one in three Australians. Between June 2020 and June 2021, the population in regional Australia grew by one per cent, or just over 80,000 people. Over the five years to June 2021, regional coastal areas grew by an average annual rate of 1.4 per cent, regional cities by one per cent and inland country by 0.6 per cent. In the year to July 2022, regionally based industries including agriculture, forestry, fishing and mining made up an extraordinary 72 per cent of the value of Australia's merchandise exports.
Regional Australia is a great place to live, it is a great place to raise a family, and we always punch above our weight. I know that firsthand, as do so many in this place.
Election commitments
This budget makes substantial investment in our regions. It's providing $9.6 billion to deliver our infrastructure election commitments with transparency and integrity. This includes the delivery of significant priority investments like the Cairns Marine Precinct, the Middle Arm precinct in Darwin, logistics hubs in north and Central Australia, enabling infrastructure in the Pilbara and our transformational Central Australia plan.
We're making the regions stronger through a streamlined and retargeted investment in a nationally significant infrastructure pipeline. We're starting work on nation-building infrastructure by investing $500 million for the corridor acquisition, planning and early works of a Sydney to Central Coast and Newcastle high-speed rail project following the introduction of legislation to establish the High Speed Rail Authority. We're delivering safer roads to Tasmanians by investing $540 million to upgrade the Bass Highway, the Tasman Highway and the East and West Tamar Highways.
We're building stronger and more resilient freight connections across our vast country with a new $1.5 billion Freight Highway Upgrade Program, focused on key freight routes in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia. And $7.7 million to develop common-user infrastructure at the port of Bundaberg in Queensland to support industry diversification. We're investing $332 million towards the Northern Territory Strategic Roads Package, upgrading the roads that remote communities depend on, like the Santa Teresa Road and the Mereenie Loop. And we're investing $40 million to upgrade the jetties, wharfs and barges that underpin life up in the Torres.
They're just a few of the investments that we've made across my portfolio.
Regional g rants
Not only does this budget deliver now, but it sets new structures for regional funding well into the future.
I'm not going to go into the way in which the previous government went about funding decisions today—there are other forums for that—but all regional Australians need to have confidence in regional grants processes.
The budget does replace the Building Better Regions Fund with $1 billion over three years for two new programs targeted at regional and rural areas. Community groups and local government will be invited to seek support from the Growing Regions Program which will support infrastructure that enhances liveability and supports prosperity, funding projects like arts and cultural centres, sports facilities, libraries and airport upgrades.And through the Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program, the government will work with states and local councils in a nationally consistent way to invest in those larger scale place-based projects aimed at transforming regional and rural centres.
These funds will help drive regional economic prosperity by providing equitable and fair access to funding for capital works for community and economic infrastructure across our nation, across our regions, rural and remote, and all of our areas across Australia. We know that regional grants programs like this are important.
Many projects that deliver benefits to communities are beyond the scope of constrained regional council and community group budgets. And to ensure local communities have a say in the future of their own communities, we are delivering ongoing support for the Regional Development Australia network that we established when last in government, and we want it to play a significant role in place based decision-making. Located in 53 regions, RDAs bring together all levels of government, providing local information that supports effective policy development and the delivery of projects that align with regional strategies.
Further, our commitment to a much stronger partnership with local government will support our ability to listen and respond to the needs of regional Australia, including by partnering with them to provide an additional $250 million—on top of what was promised by the previous government—through the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, particularly to upgrade regional and remote and peri-urban roads.
Communications
At the same time as building the transport and community infrastructure regional Australians need, we're investing, through Minister Rowland's portfolio, in communications infrastructure.
Over recent years we've seen just how important high-speed internet connectivity is. We've all joined Zoom meetings, we've worked from home and many of us have shifted our lives from the cities to the regions. Digital connectivity is one of the foundations for regional growth in our modern world. But too many regions have been left behind. That is why the Australian government will provide $2.4 billion in equity funding to NBN Co to provide around 90 per cent of the NBN fixed-line footprint with access to gigabit broadband speeds by 2025. As part of this initiative, NBN Co will provide access to full fibre upgrades to approximately 1.5 million additional fibre-to-the-node premises around Australia. Importantly, over 660,000 of these premises are expected to be located in regional areas, allowing more workers and more small businesses to base themselves in regional Australia.
At the same time as building on our proud legacy of the NBN, this budget delivers our Better Connectivity for Rural and Regional Australia plan; a five-year plan, a $656 million package that will significantly improve mobile coverage in rural and remote communities that are currently underserved. It delivers also $30 million over three years from 2022-23 to 2024-25 for the on-farm connectivity program, enabling farmers to extend connectivity in their fields and to take advantage of the connected machinery and sensor technology we know many are using now.
So that we can find out exactly where mobile black spots are, we're also investing $20 million in an independent national audit of mobile coverage to establish an evidence-based guideline. We know telecommunications companies, many in our regional communities, tell us there is coverage but we all know that is simply not true when we actually go to use our phones in regional communities. This will provide an evidence baseline to guide future priorities. The core of this audit will be delivered utilising the Australia Post transport fleet to ensure all corners of our nation are actually reached.
Net Zero
Just as we're investing in the future of regional Australia with our communications and infrastructure investments, we're also securing the future on the pathway to net zero. We will deliver job-creating emissions cutting and price-reducing commitments through Rewiring the Nation, the National Energy Transformation Partnership and the $1.9 billion powering the regions fund.
Up to $3 billion from the National Reconstruction Fund will provide support to ensure that regional Australia can harness the economic opportunities of decarbonisation, including green hydrogen and clean energy manufacturing. Our net zero task force will bring together perspectives from communities, state and territory governments and industries and unions to advise the government on ensuring regional Australians are first to benefit from Australia's transformation to a renewable energy superpower.
We're investing in the fuels of the future, including green hydrogen, with $100 million to support the port of Newcastle and the Hunter region becoming hydrogen ready, and $71.9 million for the Townsville hydrogen hub as part of more than half a billion dollars for regional hydrogen hubs in places like Tasmania, Gladstone and the Pilbara.
Resources and Manufacturing
My home town was built on mining and with that came manufacturing, as is the case with so many regional centres. Our $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund will support other communities to do the same, helping expand and transform Australia's industry and economy to secure future prosperity with a focus on value adding in resources, agriculture, transport, medical science and defence capabilities.
The $50.5 million Australian critical minerals research and development hub and $100 million Critical Minerals Development Program will further advance and modernise these sectors while local industry grants will support specific projects across the country from Hobart to Ipswich.
We will build more trains, here in Australia with our national rail manufacturing plan, supporting proud manufacturing communities from Ballarat and Bendigo in Victoria to Maryborough up north. To train the workers needed, we establish Jobs and Skills Australia to precisely map and anticipate skills shortages, as well as delivering 480,000 fee-free TAFE vocational education places in key areas across the economy, and providing $22.6 million for 29,000 additional in-training support places for apprentices in regional, rural and remote areas.
Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
The budget also makes critical investments in agriculture to protect and grow Australia's agricultural industry, our fisheries and our forestry sectors.
Investing more money in our biosecurity system is critical, delivering on our election commitment to back the forestry industry and even beginning the work of planning for the next big dry with more than $20 million allocated for drought preparedness—it might not feel like it right at the moment but it will come.
Environment
While we create jobs in agriculture, resources and manufacturing—we will protect our environment and natural heritage with investments totalling $1.2 billion by 2030 to protect the Great Barrier Reef and $233.4 million in Kakadu and other national parks. These generate huge tourism jobs in our regions.
We understand that water is a lifeline for regional communities across the country, which is why we are delivering on our election commitments to restore and protect rivers and streams across the country, as well as continuing investments in our most important and critical river system—the Murray-Darling Basin—and investing in dams that stack up across the country through the National Water Grid Fund.
At the same time, we well understand the threat that flooding and disasters pose—our thoughts remain with those in crisis now. The volunteers, council workers, emergency personnel and community on the ground are doing incredible work day and night, preparing and cleaning up. And we know that they are exhausted.
We have already seen the new National Emergency Management Agency in action, working collaboratively and quickly with all levels of government and communities to identify and design appropriate and effective mechanisms for response, recovery and long-term strategies so communities are better positioned to respond to future disasters.
But, more importantly, to deal with and prepare for the disasters of the future, this budget establishes the Disaster Ready Fund, investing up to $200 million per year, matched by states and territories where possible, on disaster risk reduction, resilience and mitigation.
The CSIRO found that every dollar spent reducing disaster risk saves between $2 and $11 in post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. We have got to do better here.
The Australian government also commits $38.3 million over four years from 2022-23 for Disaster Relief Australia to upscale their organisational capacity and operations, providing a significant increase of 5,200 additional volunteers to their existing disaster volunteer workforce by covering the uplift costs associated with recruitment, deployment, equipment and training. When they are needed, these volunteers will be there.
We make this broad range of investments because regional Australia is so diverse. When we have heard regional Australia spoken of in the past there has been a tendency to pretend that the only thing that matters to us is infrastructure investment and grants spending.
But regional development and regional Australians deserve so much more than that. We need and deserve access to government support and strong, reliable services that those in the cities can take for granted. We need affordable housing—which will be added to through our $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund and Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee. And we need stronger education—giving Regional Australians priority access to 20,000 extra Commonwealth supported places at university and $158.5 million worth of measures to address teacher shortages across our regions.
Good regional development isn't just about investing in roads or industries—it is of course that—but it is also about investing in our people through skills and training. It's about investing in our services like Medicare, the NDIS and child care, enabling regional Australians full participation in economic and social life.
After nine years of cuts and neglect, Medicare is in its worst state ever, and that's why we are investing in urgent care clinics, supporting regional GPs, putting nurses in aged-care homes and investing $185.3 million to attract, support and retain more health professionals into regional and rural communities.
And good regional development is about supporting our veterans through housing, services and work. Importantly, it's about investing in the future of First Nations communities and righting the wrongs of the past.
That's why we are committed to enshrining a voice for First Nations people in our Constitution and further boosting efforts on closing the gap between the experience of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, including in our regions.
This is a budget that supports Indigenous Australians and the environment through a $636.4 million expansion of the Indigenous Rangers program; $100 million to upgrade housing in First Nations homelands; as well as support for jobs, health care and education in First Nations communities across regional and remote Australia.
The work of reconciliation is, of course, unfinished, but this budget commits to advancing that cause.
Conclusion
Our approach to developing Australia's regions, supported by the investments we are making through this budget, will harness the wealth of the diverse communities that make up regional Australia.
We are investing in our regions' people, the places we live in, the services we rely on and the industries that help our economies grow.
We are committed to ensuring regional Australia is at the centre of our nation's growth and at the forefront of our agenda, delivering a better future for all of Australia and leaving none of us behind.
Mr LITTLEPROUD (Maranoa—Leader of the Nationals) (12:20): Australia's regions, home to one in three Australians, are absolutely crucial to our strength and success as a nation. We know that regional Australia punches above its weight. Around two-thirds of Australia's exports earnings come from regional industries such as mining, agriculture, tourism, retail services and manufacturing. But it's not just an economic sense that underpins its importance; our regions are integral to our values and identity as a country.
We know that, while it's immensely rewarding living in the bush, it comes with some major and unique challenges. It's crucial that the millions of men, women and children of regional, rural and remote Australia and the communities they live in have a voice in their federal government. They deserve a voice—a voice with influence, a voice that matters. When we were in government, the federal coalition was immensely proud to give regional Australia that voice. We understood the challenges regional people face every day. In contrast to those opposite, those of us in the coalition overwhelmingly represent the regions in this parliament. We live, breath and experience these challenges, and, as a government, we took decisive action. In government, we looked at ways to harness and turbocharge the incredible potential, talent and opportunities that the regions offer to our nation. Our track record in investing and building critical infrastructure speaks for itself, especially in the regions, with record investments across Australia supporting around 40,000 jobs. These commitments remain our vision for regional Australia.
In our March 2022 budget, we increased the federal infrastructure investment pipeline to $122 billion, to create new jobs, to keep people and freight moving and to drive economic growth. The coalition's last budget also announced an additional $17.9 billion to road, rail and community infrastructure projects across regional Australia. This proud legacy and record of achievement and investment is in stark contrast to this Labor government, which, sadly, has been epitomised in this federal budget, which has swung the financial axe to dedicated funding for regional Australia that we, as a coalition, fought so hard for.
Since the election on 21 May, it hasn't taken long for this Labor government to show its true colours and character. It's less than 160 days since Labor was elected, and already this government has enforced measures that will make life harder for the millions of Australians who live outside our capital cities. During the election, we saw the warning signs. In a deliberate blow to our farmers and the whole agricultural supply chain, they pledged to scrap the agricultural visa, a reform that the coalition delivered as part of our plan to address the massive and acute workforce shortages in the regions. They also promised to shut down the live sheep export trade, which employs 3,000 Western Australians.
Once in office, those opposite went even further. We know that access to adequate health care and a GP is an enormous struggle in rural, regional and remote Australia. In July, this government chose to rip up the Distribution Priority Area classification system for overseas trained doctors, which, as a direct consequence, will rip doctors from our regional, rural and remote communities. This means the residents of Mitchell, a small rural community in western Queensland, that's desperate for a GP will now be forced to compete over the same pool of doctors as Brookfield in Brisbane. All across regional Australia, we're already seeing these consequences. There's a real human toll to this.
Now, in a further blow to the bush, by handing down this budget, this government has cut billions of dollars in dedicated regional infrastructure funding. This funding was going into supporting transformational community-building projects, which would have made a real difference on the ground to our regions. This government has broken the hearts of regional and rural families in this perverse budget. The Prime Minister promised, if he won government, there would be no-one held back and no-one left behind. But in Labor's first budget 30 per cent of Australians from regional and rural Australia have been betrayed. This is a horror budget for everyone who lives, works and invests in the regions.
The federal coalition firmly opposes and condemns this government for ripping multibillion-dollar funds out of rural, remote and regional Australia. The coalition's worst fears have been realised. These everyday Australians, our hardworking regional and rural families and businesses, have been unapologetically forgotten by Labor. Whether it's infrastructure, agriculture, water, the availability of child care, or the cost of living, through this budget the government has turned its back on regional and rural families and workers. It has abandoned them.
A major test last night in this federal budget was for the government to build on the strong position it inherited from the coalition to address the cost-of-living crisis bearing down on Australians. Labor has failed this test, and this budget does nothing to assist the family budget. There is no credible plan to deal with the source of inflation or to help families deal with immediate cost-of-living pressures. This budget confirms that the cost of living is going up. Electricity and gas bills are going up. Tax payments are going up. Employment will go down, and real wages are forecast to go down. This is a high-taxing and high-spending budget that does nothing to help Australian families get ahead.
In our regional communities, these cost-of-living pressures will bite especially hard. The drastic increases in grocery bills were man-made, by the government, and this budget would make the average family worse off by at least $2,000 by Christmas. Groceries are already eight per cent higher, not just because of natural disasters but also because of a Labor-made disaster, in scrapping the dedicated agriculture visa. Supply has been slashed because farmers and processors are only working at around 60 per cent capacity, which has put prices up at the check-out. Retail electricity prices are already up 20 per cent this year and predicted to increase by a further 30 per cent next year, while the $275 reduction in electricity bills promised by the Labor government during the federal election is now all but gone. Interest rates have already gone up and are predicted to go up a further 75 basis points under this government, which is ripping hundreds of dollars out of households each month. Every time Australians get their grocery receipt, their power bill or their mortgage statement, they should see this federal government's face in it.
The federal coalition recognises that the cost of child care is a major issue. That's why, in government, our childcare subsidy policy was targeted towards families on low and middle incomes, with around 90 per cent of families eligible for a subsidy between 50 and 85 per cent. We made further changes in March this year by introducing a higher subsidy, up to 95 per cent, for families with multiple children in care, which was estimated to save a family an average of $2,260 per year. In fact, our targeted extra support, introduced in March, made a real difference, because childcare costs came down 4.6 per cent in the year to June 2022.
Although this budget makes a lot of noise about the cost of child care, there is dead silence on any measures to actually improve frontline availability and accessibility of childcare services in regional, rural and remote Australia. In this budget, Labor have turned their backs on the mums and dads desperate to find regional and rural childcare places. Last week I visited childcare centres in Kempsey and Coffs Harbour on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, and the waiting lists there are staggering—about 200 children. It's extremely concerning that the government has announced $4.7 billion on cheaper childcare fees for city families, while refusing to spend even one dollar on delivering more childcare places in regional communities. A recent comprehensive study, by Victoria University's Mitchell institute, found that nine million Australians live in an area defined as a 'childcare desert', with at least three children competing over each available childcare place. Regional Australia was among the worst impacted, and it's a damning reality that 75 per cent of people living in rural, regional and remote Australia live in a childcare desert.
However, in this budget, there's no plan to improve access to child care, there's no plan to address these childcare deserts and there's no plan to address the workforce shortages that are crippling this sector. The questions that regional Australia is entitled to ask are: Where are the additional places going to open up for all the new children entering the system? What's point of having lower out-of-pocket costs if you can't even get your child into care? Regional and rural families have every right to feel let down, to feel disappointed. Unlike those opposite, the federal coalition delivered measures to improve childcare availability in regions. In our budget in March 2022, we provided $19.4 million to support the establishment of 20 new childcare centres where there is limited or no child care, which took our total investment to $432.5 million over the next four years through our Community Child Care Fund. This year the fund was supporting 824 services, of which 403 services are in regional and remote Australia, receiving 65 per cent of the total funding.
In this budget, multibillion dollar programs announced by the coalition have been scrapped, including the $7.1 billion Energy Security and Regional Development Plan, which supported transformative investment in four key regions that were poised for growth: the Northern Territory, North and Central Queensland, the Pilbara in WA and the Hunter in New South Wales. The $2 billion Regional Accelerator Program—which was poised to provide communities with funding opportunities targeted to local priorities in infrastructure, manufacturing and industry development, skills and training, research and development, and education—and round 6 of the Building Better Regions Fund, worth $250 million, has all been ripped up, which has scrapped 815 projects around Australia.
The federal budget takes more than $5 billion out of water projects by not proceeding with the Hells Gate Dam project in Queensland and deferring funding for the Urannah Dam, Dungowan Dam pipeline, Emu Swamp Dam pipeline, Hughenden Irrigation Scheme and Wyangala Dam wall-raising project. We need dams to mitigate flooding in the future, grow our regional areas and continue to grow our economy. These cuts to water programs are devastating and will impact regional areas. If you take away water infrastructure, you take away the future of regional Australia.
In relation to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, the government is refusing to tell regional Australians the cost of delivering their commitments. According to the budget papers, the costs to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and the Department of Treasury for delivering water commitments are not for publication. The government should be open and transparent with the Australian public and basin communities. What are their plans for the basin, and how much is it going to cost? This plan is also under threat, with the safety net of 450 gigalitres less about outcomes and more about numbers.
The federal coalition is immensely proud of our achievements in agriculture during our term in government. By the time we went to the federal election earlier this year, we were investing over $1.7 billion into Australian agriculture. As a government, we supported agriculture, fisheries and forestry production to reach a record $87 billion in 2021-22. In this year's budget, Labor are claiming that they committed a billion dollars. It'd be good to see the numbers, but it's essentially a continuation of what we committed—nothing new, no vision, no plan.
We had an Ag2030 plan, with seven key themes, including stronger trade and export; protection against pests and disease; building productivity and a better environment; stronger local manufacturing and supply chains; stronger and more resilient infrastructure; and helping our farmers and fishers secure their future. We worked in partnership with the industry to get through droughts, bushfires, floods and COVID-19. Now this government needs to work in partnership with industry to assist them with the cost of living. A 50 per cent increase in energy prices is not good for an agricultural business, a dairy farmer, a meatworks or the horticultural sector. A 40c increase in fuel is no good for farming. What's their vision? Cuts to trade and exports, cuts to local manufacturing and supply chains and cuts to infrastructure.
The cuts to the $2 billion Regional Accelerator Program and $7.1 billion Energy Security and Regional Development Plan are going to hurt agriculture and regional Australia. This was the very industry that assisted all of Australia to get through COVID-19 and contributed to the windfall in the budget—building supply chain resilience and investing in agricultural imports and manufacturing. It is all gone. This government has spruced $500 million from the National Reconstruction Fund to support local sovereignty but will not provide loans or equity until mid-next year. Fertiliser input prices and supply chain issues need to be addressed now. The Export Market Development Grants for industry has also gone. With no agricultural visa, and not helping farmers and fishers secure their future, where are all our workers going to come from?
In April 2022, to address critical workforce shortages in the agricultural sector, the federal coalition was proud to announce the introduction of the ag visa. This was a huge piece of reform that would help alleviate workforce pressure for our farmers. Built on a bilateral agreement that we secured with Vietnam, the ag visa had a minimum age of 21 and provided a pathway to permanent residency. Under the ag visa, employees would be recruited to work across a range of agricultural sectors, including horticulture, dairy, wool, grains, fisheries and forestry as well as support services and primary processing. Importantly, this program provided flexibility for workers to move between approved employers without compromising workforce standards and undermining worker protections.
Given the severe workforce shortages in the agricultural sector, the government's decision to tear up this visa is unconscionable. This move makes it so much harder for farmers to find workers. Right now, Australia needs 172,000 workers to get product from the paddock to the plate. The government's Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme will be able to provide 42,000 workers at best. Labor must deliver practical solutions for our farmers, their families and Australian consumers. Now they're even changing the settings. As the National Farmers Federation has pointed out, the PALM promise is 'undelivered':
The budget reveals that Labor's election commitment to cover worker travel costs under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme will instead be replaced with an underwriting scheme.
This commitment to help with the cost of bringing in Pacific workers was a consolation prize for the scrapping of the Ag Visa …
Already, election commitments have been cut at the expense of agriculture, fisheries and forestry. Under the coalition, the Pacific, Timor-Leste and South-East Asia were prioritised within our overseas development assistance budget. Travelling across regional Australia, visiting agricultural communities and speaking directly with locals—from the fruit and veggie growers in the Gascoyne to the beef producers in Central Queensland and the farmers in Mildura—I've seen and heard firsthand what a tremendous difference the ag visa would have made to the businesses and livelihoods of regional Australians.
The coalition supports improving the environment and started the world's first Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Package, with an investment of over $90 million. There was the $5 billion Future Drought Fund, $214.9 million for soils and the $1.1 billion National Landcare Program. This government have indicated they'll protect the environment, including 4.8 million hectares of additional protected areas. Tasmania is 6.8 million hectares. Where is this going to come from, and how will it be done? It's another measure creating uncertainty in investing in agriculture in Australia.
This budget also includes $80.7 million to support voluntary action by farmers to lower methane emissions. This plan doesn't stack up. The plan will force farmers to buy more expensive food for their cattle and make farming more expensive. The result will be an increase in meat prices, which will push up food bills for families across the country. In government, the coalition took a practical step towards helping reduce methane emissions in the resources and agricultural sectors. We didn't sign up to the Global Methane Pledge, which calls for a 30 per cent global reduction in methane emissions on 2020 levels by 2030. Signing the pledge goes against the agriculture sector's desire to grow to $100 billion by 2030. At a time when Australian families are struggling with the cost of energy and mortgage payments, this has the potential to push up food prices even further.
We owe so much to our veterans. It appears that wellbeing centres to support those who have served our nation are not spared from this government's cuts to the regions. Veteran wellbeing centres, established in partnership with ex-service organisations, local health services or community organisations, help better connect veterans to the extensive support and advocacy already available, with a strong focus on health and wellbeing. A re-elected coalition government would have established 14 new veteran wellbeing centres, at a cost of $70 million. However, this government is funding 10. Veterans on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales and in Wagga Wagga, Mackay, Wide Bay-Burnett and Sunshine Coast have all missed out.
The government has announced $99.8 million for a strategic critical minerals development program to assist critical minerals producers progress strategically significant projects. However, this program has been rebranded and was previously a $200 million critical minerals accelerator program. The program actually only has about $50 million left, after the first $50 million is already out the door, following six grants announced and approved by the coalition in April. In a further sleight of hand, the government has rebranded the Australian critical minerals research and development centre as a hub. They are trying to pretend it's new. While the headline figure of $50.5 million in funding appears the same, the government has hidden further funding cuts by stretching it out over more years to reduce annual funding. This funding cut is a slap in the face to an industry that should be leading the world in critical minerals extraction and exports, as the global demand for batteries and renewable components soars. The hypocrisy is clear. This government is pushing Australia headlong into a rush towards renewables, all while cutting funding to the very critical minerals that are vital— (Time expired)
BILLS
Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
to which the following amendment was moved:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
(1) notes that this bill does nothing to address broader challenges for access to child care in Australia, namely:
(a) child care service gaps in regional Australia; and
(b) early childhood education and care workforce shortages which are preventing families from accessing the care they need;
(2) notes that the Government's child care package, which costs $4.5 billion, does not add one additional child care place;
(3) notes that child care providers have already increased fees since the Government came to office and the additional demand placed on child care services as a result of this bill will put further inflationary pressure on fees;
(4) calls on the Government to ensure that the promised savings for families will not be eroded by higher fees due to the additional demand for child care services as a result of this bill; and
(5) notes that the bill commits to higher ongoing structural spending and calls on the Government to manage its spending commitments to improve the budget while standing by their promise to deliver legislated targeted income tax relief".
Mr TUDGE (Aston) (12:40): I will start my speech today by pointing out that the Prime Minister misled this parliament in his remarks in relation to this childcare bill, the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022. He came into this place and said that we were opposing this bill, when the member for Moncrieff, our spokesperson on this issue, categorically said in her speech on the second reading that we would not be opposing this bill. If the Prime Minister had any decency, he would come into this place and correct the record, because he was indeed misleading this parliament.
We are not opposing this bill, because we do not want to stand in the way of families getting access to higher subsidies, but we do have concerns with this bill, and this is why we have moved the amendment which the member for Moncrieff put forward. Our concerns are fourfold. We have concerns that this will add to childcare inflation. We have concerns that this doesn't add to any supply of childcare places despite spending $4.5 billion. We've got concerns about workforce shortages which already exist and will just be exacerbated by this bill, and we've got concerns about this bill adding to the structural deficit of the budget when we know the budget is in serious deficit already and is going to get worse under this government, according to its own budget papers.
I'll go through each of those in turn, but before doing so let me just say that the coalition has a very proud record in relation to child care. We doubled the spending when we were in office, to over $10 billion per annum. We supported 280,000 more children in the childcare system than there were when we first came to office. Women's workforce participation in this country hit record levels under our government, in part because of the childcare policies which we put in place. We gave access to child care, through various programs which we instituted, to dozens of locations which otherwise would not have had any access at all to childcare services.
Most importantly, though, we did all these things and achieved all of these outcomes without adding to inflationary pressure. Indeed, in the last 12 months, as a result of our childcare policies, out-of-pocket expenses for child care came down by 4.6 per cent. Inflation was going up in almost every other category, according to the ABS, but in child care in the last financial year it came down by 4.6 per cent, a remarkable achievement. That will be the benchmark upon which we now measure the inflationary impacts of this policy that the Labor Party has introduced.
This brings me to my first concern about Labor's new policy, and that is that it will indeed add to inflationary pressure. Inflation is arguably the most pressing economic challenge facing the country at the moment. It has risen to over seven per cent, according to the budget papers' own figures, and so a responsible government should be doing everything it possibly could to remove those inflationary pressures, because inflation just means that what people earn does less—doesn't purchase as much as it used to be able to purchase. In other words, people are poorer in real terms. That's what inflation does, and we've got inflation of seven per cent. But, instead of the government taking all possible means to reduce inflation, they're actually adding to inflationary pressures, in part through this bill, because it's putting $4.5 billion more into childcare demand, when there are already massive supply constraints in place, which I'll outline in a minute. And, as any person who has studied any basic economics knows, if you add to demand but you don't increase supply, prices go up. Even the Treasurer should know that, even though he's only got a PhD in studying Paul Keating. He should understand that basic concept—that, if you increase demand without increasing supply, prices will go up. This is exactly what is happening with this childcare bill—$4.5 billion of extra demand will be put on the system, and we're already seeing prices go up. Fees started to go up as soon as the Labor government was elected, on the basis that people knew that this would be coming. So we're seeing this across the board already.
These fee increases will continue. I think that they will eat up much of the $4.5 billion in additional subsidy which this bill puts in. So, over time, parents actually aren't going to be much better off, despite a $4.5 billion slug on taxpayers, because fees will just rise and gobble up the benefit that they otherwise would have got from this additional childcare subsidy. This happened when the Labor Party were in office last time. When you look back at the figures, fees went up 53 per cent in just the six years that they were in office. It's just going to happen once again. The Minister for Education, in his second reading speech on this bill, promised this place that fees would not go up. He actually said that this is 'a multibillion dollar boost to productivity and participation—without adding to inflation.' Well, I tell you what: we will be watching. Parents will be watching very closely, and we will be holding him accountable, because basic economics says that he is wrong.
Our next concern is that this package does not add a single childcare place in the country—not a single place—despite spending $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money. And we have many areas in the country where affordability is not the issue; it is access overall which is the issue. In fact, as the Leader of the National Party just mentioned, in the previous address, the Mitchell institute did a study on this, and it found that 35 per cent of the population live in an area described as a childcare desert, and those are regions where there are three children for every one available place. So 35 per cent of the population live in such a childcare desert. Many of those are in the regional areas. Anybody who has been to the regional areas knows exactly this problem. Almost every regional town has this problem, where it's the supply at all of childcare places, as opposed to the affordability, that is the issue. This bill expends $4.5 billion but does not add a single childcare place—not a single one. This is in comparison to the initiatives which we put in place when we were in government, which were specific programs of funding to enable new facilities to be built in regional areas, in particular, to add to the supply.
Our third concern is what this does to workforce shortages. This bill, again, does nothing in relation to the shortage of educators working in childcare centres. Labor has no plan to address this. We know that there is already a shortage of 7,200 early childhood educators right now. Goodstart, which is the largest provider in the country, told the Senate inquiry last week that we're going to need another 9,000 workers to deal with the demand which this bill creates. We are already short 7,200 workers and this bill will create a further demand for 9,000 workers. So 16,200 workers are somehow magically going to appear to work in these childcare centres. It's simply not going to happen. The Labor Party says, 'We're putting more money into the universities for more early childhood training places.' I'll tell you what, their plan is for only 14,069 places. There's a 16,200 shortfall. This is basic maths, which that side of the chamber have real problems with. They have problems with economics and with mathematics, because they can't understand that we have massive workforce shortages. They are doing so little to address this. What happens when you have workforce shortages and supply constraints? You add to demand and prices go up. That's what happens.
Ms Madeleine King interjecting—
Mr TUDGE: I'll take interjections from those opposite who say, 'It's all our fault because we didn't process the visas.' I thought those opposite were about training people in-house, training people in the country.
Finally, I point out the budgetary impact of this decision. It's $4.5 billion over the forward estimates. It's structural expenditure as opposed to temporary expenditure. We have a significant deficit already. This budget that was delivered last night bakes in additional structural expenditure to the budget at a time when we need to actually be curbing expenditure. This is also a considerable concern we have in relation to this.
We want to be assured that the stage 3 tax cuts, which we promised and which Labor promised, actually get delivered. They can be delivered while maintaining sensible budgetary settings. If they keep adding to the structural deficit, they won't be able to deliver those tax cuts. Adding to the structural deficit, they won't be able to maintain sensible budgetary settings. It simply doesn't work. They have to get control of the budget. Adding structural expenditure—almost unlimited structural expenditure—doesn't do that. We have these concerns and we point them out in this chamber, but we won't be opposing the bill for the reasons I articulated at the start and for the reasons which the member for Moncrieff articulated in her second reading speech contribution.
The bill does provide $4.5 billion in additional expenditure for the childcare system, but there are concerns and that is why we are moving this amendment. We have concerns about the inflationary pressure, about workforce shortages, that it doesn't add a single childcare place, despite spending $4. 5 billion, and that it adds to the structural deficit of the budget.
I commend the amendment. I hope the parliament support this amendment but we won't be opposing the bill in its substantive form.
Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (12:53): I rise to speak on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill. Every industry in every region of Australia at this moment in time is struggling to find workers. Any time I walk through my community on the south side of Brisbane, I see signs in shop windows advertising positions available. When I talk to my local small businesses, almost every single conversation starts with them telling me that they are struggling to find staff. This is one of the many reasons the Albanese government's plan for cheaper child care is so important for our nation. We have parents and carers, particularly women, across Australia, who want to enter the workforce for the first time, re-enter the workforce or increase work hours. However, the financial cost of child care is one of the biggest barriers affecting them. That's thousands and thousands of skilled workers wanting to work more hours who at the moment simply can't. This Albanese government bill means around 96 per cent of families with children in early childhood education and care will be better off—96 per cent. Importantly, I stress that no families will be worse off. This is not only a much-needed and welcome cost-of-living reduction measure; it will also deliver a significant, positive productivity dividend to the Australian economy. Productivity, the ABS tells us, actually decreased to 102.3 points this year, down from 104.9 points in the first quarter.
Labor's plan means that more than one million Australian families will be better off, which will include around 8,800 families in my electorate of Moreton. Many of the families benefiting from this bill will be those with a combined income of $80,000 or less. This sensible legislation will lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent for such battler families. An added benefit is that the Albanese government will also keep the higher childcare subsidy for families with multiple children aged five and under who are in care.
Childcare costs have increased by around 41 per cent over the last eight years—those dark years of the coalition government. These home-budget-crunching increases have held back parents and carers from entering and re-entering the workforce or increasing their work hours. Why? Because the money coming in from work barely covers the cost of their child's child care and, in many cases, doesn't cover it at all. Families were going backwards by going to work. That is not sustainable or logical as a society.
According to the latest ABS data, last year there were 73,000 people who wanted to work but weren't looking for work because they simply couldn't make the cost of child care work for their family budget. As I said, if they went to work, they went backwards. Can you imagine if we remove this barrier and connect or reconnect these 73,000 people, from every region in Australia, with the employment opportunities that are now out there? That's 73,000 'worker wanted' ads taken down from the shop windows of Australia. What a positive impact this would have on productivity and the Australian economy. That is why the Albanese government's cheaper childcare policy is so important.
These changes will go a long way to meet the workforce shortages that this country is facing and will allow small and local businesses especially to fill those staffing gaps that I mentioned upfront. These businesses can thrive and make our nation stronger.
A great local example of how this cheaper childcare bill will help is that of Remah, who lives in Pallara, at the southern end of my electorate. Remah has recently welcomed a new baby into her family. Congratulations, Remah, to your household. Remah told me that this cheaper childcare bill will allow her to access more hours at work, which will both benefit her family and help boost the productivity of her employer. Remah said she was right at this moment weighing up her options for a return to more hours of work, but, with the cost of child care being so high, she's not sure whether she can access the level of work that is right for her and her family. Remah added that, with the current impacts of rising inflation and interest rates, having access to a reduced bill for child care would help reduce the barriers to her accessing more hours at work, which would mean a better standard of living for her family. Remah said that being the mother of two young children was about finding that balance between work and care that would provide the best standard of living for her children while also allowing her to have a fulfilling life-work balance. Access to cheaper child care will give Remah the right balance and the right sort of control.
That is what many families with young children are currently facing—that juggling act of weighing up the family budget and the ability to access work. When parliament passes this bill, homes with young children in them will improve across the nation from July 2023.
Another story from my local area is from Matthew and his partner, who live in Annerley, in the northern part of my electorate. They have two children, aged four and two. Matthew and his partner both work full time. Matthew said that, at this moment in time, child care is one of their family's biggest expenses and that at times he and his partner have had serious conversations about the possibility of one of them having to work part time. Matthew informed me that the changes to the cost of child care will mean that they won't in the future have to have those conversations. The removal of phase 2 of the higher childcare subsidy when their eldest child turns five will also make a significant difference to Matthew's family budget.
Another example is Emma, who lives in Yeronga. Emma has a three-year-old going to child care four days a week. Like most families at the moment, Emma and her partner struggle to afford the cost of child care, and, for Emma to continue working at the level she is, they've had to sacrifice other expenses, such as swimming lessons for their daughter. Emma said the changes will be better than a pay rise for them, as the changes will free up money in their family budget. One of Emma's first priorities will be to start their daughter's swimming lessons. I should stress that swimming lessons are essential in Queensland. Emma added that the cost of child care is one of the biggest discussion topics she has with all her friends. They speak of the real-life difficulties when it comes to balancing the benefits of work and the cost of child care. Sadly, too many of Emma's friends have decided that working more hours just isn't viable for them at the present, even though they want to work more. Emma knows that the changes that the Labor government is putting forward will change these conversations for the better, and more of her friends will be able to rejoin or increase their participation in the workforce and improve their family's financial situation in these struggling timeless.
There is also a great new initiative to assist First Nations families, with the introduction of a base level of childcare subsidy entitlement of 36 hours of early learning per fortnight from July next year. Importantly, this new measure kicks in irrespective of the family's activity levels. This will see more First Nations children into early learning by boosting the hours of subsidised care available, and directly addresses target 4 of Closing the Gap. As a former teacher, I know that early learning is such an important building block in a child's educational development. The last report handed down by the Productivity Commission saw, for the first time, that development of readiness for First Nations children actually went backwards. That is shameful. We can't let this continue, and I'm confident that the introduction of the base level of childcare subsidy for First Nations families, as well as other initiatives, will see these rates of development rise again.
Another part of the bill, which I mentioned earlier and which will benefit families just like Matthew's, is the removal of phase 2 of the higher childcare subsidy for families with multiple children. Anyone who would have had two children in care under the age of five would have had their family budget impacted once one of their children reached five or left care. There would have been a reduction to the period that a family was eligible for the higher childcare subsidy. As you can imagine, this would have put a large strain on the household budget for a family like Matthew's, and extra strain right when one of their children was heading off to school.
Funnily enough, in yet another example of the sheer incompetence of the previous Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments, phase 2 changes would have had a negative impact on the Commonwealth's budget. It was estimated that the phase 2 changes would have saved the budget around $34 million over the forward estimates, but the IT changes required to implement the measure were estimated to cost around $89 million. A cost savings scheme initiated by the previous government would have cost more to implement than it saved, to the tune of some $55 million—or about one car park, to put it in useful measures—while at the same time disincentivising mothers, in particular, from remaining in work, or forcing them to reduce their hours of work, taking away the availability of skilled workers when small businesses and the economy can't afford them.
It doesn't take much to know the cost of child care for families in this country is a drag not only on the family budget but also on the Australian economy, as Treasurer Chalmers indicated in his budget speech last night. This bill is another positive economic and social step forward delivered by the Albanese government, and will be welcomed by families, including families like Remah's, Matthew's and Emma's, right across Australia. I commend this bill to the House.
Dr WEBSTER (Mallee) (13:03): I acknowledge the amendment made to the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022 by the member for Moncrieff, and I will speak to the bill and the amendments. My question, to start with, is: where is the detail from the Albanese government on this bill? Where is the plan to address the current workforce shortage and pressures being faced by educators? Where is the plan to address access to care, with many parents struggling to find a place for their child? Where is the plan to address thin markets and childcare deserts, where there are little to no services?
The term 'childcare desert' is worth highlighting. A report from the Mitchell Institute showed that around one-third of Australians live in a childcare desert. A childcare desert is described as being one place for every three children. Nine million Australians live in a place where only one in three children can actually access a place in child care. It's a game of musical chairs, and when the music stops, two children miss out. Labor are throwing $4.5 billion at child care, but not one cent is going to creating additional places or services. What good is a subsidy if there is no service? In our childcare deserts, parents need an oasis. The Albanese government has given them a mirage, a vision of how they could be benefited that is, in truth, just that: a vision, with nothing of substance. This issue is particularly pertinent in my electorate of Mallee. I have seven towns in dire need of a childcare service. Birchip needs child care. Boort needs child care. Cohuna needs child care. Murtoa, Pyramid Hill, Rainbow and Wedderburn all need child care.
The Prime Minister spoke yesterday in this very chamber about how this bill allows parents to return to work. Does he even understand the practicality of that claim? I have people in Mallee who want to go back to work, professionals who offer their towns vital experience and skills, but can't, simply because there is no place for them to leave their children. In fact, Labor has not only ignored the need for services in Mallee but deliberately scrapped funding that would have provided this in the form of the Building Better Regions Fund round 6. For example, the Yarriambiack Shire had submitted an application to fund a childcare centre in Murtoa. How does this bill help them build the services their community needs? It's simple. It does not. This government has shown no appetite to ensure extra places are created to meet the growing demand. But that's only one flaw in Labor's policy.
Let's not forget the existing pressure on the workforce itself. Early childhood educators have been under pressure for a couple of years. They worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic, and now, on the other side, workers are leaving the sector for other careers. Many educators have raised low wages, mental health issues, unappreciation, increase in red tape and burnout as their top concerns. There are currently 7,200 vacancies in this sector. We've asked the government several times how many additional educators will be needed under this policy, and it's failed to answer every single time. This government is getting good at not answering questions. Goodstart Early Learning, the largest not-for-profit provider, estimates an additional 9,000 educators will be needed by July 2023 to match the influx of children expected under this policy. Where are those educators coming from? The government has been doing a lot of talking in this space but clearly no listening.
In 2019, the Labor Party campaigned on a platform of higher wages for early educators. Now, in government, they seem to have dropped that. Instead of delivering higher wages, which they now have the power to do, they point to their fee-free TAFE places. This doesn't deliver the immediate relief to the workforce that is required. Solutions are needed now. Educators aren't happy about this, and, in turn, they are leaving the sector. This leaves childcare centres understaffed and short, and, in the end, it's our children who miss out.
Many centres are already capping enrolments and asking families to keep their kids at home because they don't have the staff to operate at full capacity. An increasing number of centres are applying for waivers because they can't retain teachers, who leave the sector for better pay and conditions in the education sector. It goes back to Labor offering a subsidy over actually helping the service be provided to the level it needs to be. With more children set to enter the sector from July 2023, how will the government ensure there is a workforce to meet those needs? Instead they offer this flawed policy that is going to benefit higher income earners over lower income earners.
Currently, families with a combined income of up to $355,000 are eligible for a childcare subsidy. Labor's bill will blow that out to $532,000. The government has done no modelling on whether increasing the threshold to $532,000 will actually increase the number of hours worked by those families or if it will actually increase the number of days they put their child in care. They can't tell us what the families in those brackets currently do, whether they access care five days a week or whether they use a mix of informal and formal arrangements or whether there is a stay-at-home parent. The bill will have taxpayers forking out an additional $22,524 for a family on a combined income of $360,000 a year with a minimum of two kids. Compare that with a family earning a combined income of $80,000. Taxpayers will fork out $2,488 a year for them. It's clear the government has done no due diligence on this policy and next to no modelling to show what the outcomes of this policy will be. It just heightens Labor's proven inability to mitigate cost-of-living pressures for ordinary Australians.
Australians know Labor cannot manage money. The last time Labor was in government, childcare fees skyrocketed by 53 per cent in just six years. Out-of-pocket costs are already rising, and fees will most likely rise before 1 July 2023, which may erode a significant amount of the increased subsidies before they're even in place. During our time in government, the coalition kept out-of-pocket costs low. The latest CPI data, from June 2022, showed that childcare costs came down 4.6 per cent in the year to June 2022.
Labor has no plans to address rising out-of-pocket costs or rising cost-of-living pressures in child care—or anywhere, for that matter. The 12-month $10.8 million ACCC inquiry they have announced is too little too late. This inquiry will do nothing to alleviate current pressures in the sector, including workforce and access. The ACCC inquiry doesn't start until 1 January 2023 and won't report back until the end of next year. That means they will do nothing to address rising costs until 2024 at the earliest. Australian families cannot wait that long. They need relief now. With early education costs set to increase under this government, Australian families deserve to know if they will really be better off under Labor.
It's time the government focused less on politics and more on a plan to ensure a strong economy that supports Australian workers and families. It's what we did, after all. The model is right there for Labor to look at. We almost doubled childcare investment to $11 billion in 2022-23, locked in ongoing funding for preschools and kindergartens, and made the biggest reforms to the early childhood education system in over 40 years. More than 1.3 million children, from around one million families, have access to the childcare subsidy. As a result of measures under the coalition, 280,000 more children are in early childhood education. We abolished the annual cap on the childcare subsidy. Around 90 per cent of families using the subsidy are currently eligible for a subsidy of between 50 and 85 per cent. Since March 2022, we have provided a higher subsidy of up to 95 per cent for families with multiple children in early childhood education, increasing workforce participation and cheaper access to care. Our targeted extra support, introduced in March 2022, made a real difference. Childcare costs came down 4.6 per cent in the year to June 2022. We saw women's workforce participation reach record highs at 62.3 per cent in May, compared to 58.7 when Labor left office.
Our communities, our families and our children deserve better than what the Labor government are offering. We walked the walk, while Labor simply talk the talk.
Ms COKER (Corangamite) (13:13): Labor made one of its most significant commitments at the last election to families, to cut the cost of child care. The Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022 implements that commitment. The Albanese government is once again delivering. The government's reforms will cut the cost of child care for about 1.26 million families. Ninety-six per cent of families with children in early childhood education and care will benefit from this reform, and no Australian family will be worse off. This legislation will give children access to critical early education they may otherwise not receive. The cheaper childcare plan is good for kids, it's good for families and it's good for our economy.
Children are our most precious resource, and we know the first five years are everything. Early learning shapes the person we each become, and when we invest in our children we invest in our future. Our government is committed to giving every child the best possible opportunity in life to thrive. I know cheaper child care will help families with young children in rapid-growth areas like mine in the electorate of Corangamite. These families know all too well about the rising costs of child care—costs that have soared across the nation by 41 per cent in the past eight years. I'm especially thinking of young families who are struggling with the costs of establishing a new home while raising young kids, often within newly developing suburbs like Charlemont, Ashbury Estate and Anchoridge within the Armstrong Creek high-growth suburb, or established areas with fast-growing estates, like Bannockburn, Grovedale, Leopold, Torquay and Ocean Grove in my electorate.
A fortnight ago I hosted a baby expo for new parents across my electorate. It was very well attended, and parents were keen to learn about the services for them and their children within their community. Inevitably, as I moved around the expo chatting with parents, child care was a common theme. It's clear that parents, particularly women, want to make the best choices for their families around child care, early education and, importantly, workforce participation. Women want to choose to progress their career, develop their skills and, importantly, earn more. At the baby expo I was able to tell parents of the much-needed reforms in the legislation we're debating today, and the response from parents was overwhelmingly positive. There are some 6,000 families currently using approved child care within my electorate. Of those, some 5,800 will benefit from our government's cheaper childcare plan. Many others could also benefit as they consider the new opportunities offered by this reform. Making child care cheaper will help ease the cost-of-living pressures for many families by giving parents the opportunity to work more and earn more if they want to. That means thousands more skilled workers for our economy. Therefore, this legislation is about not just the cost of living but also economic reform—economic reform that will mean more women retire with more superannuation, with a greater sense of security and with a buffer against the growing rate of homelessness amongst older women. From July 2023 the government will lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent for families with a combined income of under $80,000. It will also increase subsidy rates for families earning less than $530,000 annually. Analysis by Treasury indicates the impacts of this policy will mean up to 37,000 extra full-time workers, and they will be available for Australian businesses in the financial year 2023-24.
Many Australian parents want to work more but, if they do, under the current circumstances, their income is gobbled up in childcare costs. It's just not worth it. I've met with many families who have sat down with a calculator and figured out that working an extra day, or an extra two days, is just not worth it financially. By making these changes under this legislation, we'll be giving families the option to go back to work knowing they can afford quality child care, earn more and save more. According to the Bureau of Statistics, last year, 73,000 people who wanted to work didn't look for work because they couldn't make childcare costs work for them. Importantly, these reforms also mean that more children will potentially have access to quality early childhood education. As I've already stated, all the research shows that these early preschool years are significant formative years. Children learn to play, and through interaction with others they learn more and develop their skills. It prepares them for school. It prepares them for life. We know that when we invest in these early years we get better outcomes for them later on. At the moment, 60 per cent of mothers with young children work part-time hours. Under these reforms, a family on the median combined income of $120,000 and with one child in early childhood education will save $1,780 in the first year of this plan, and that's good news. The higher childcare subsidy for families with multiple children aged five or under in early childhood education will be retained.
The legislation also introduces measures to increase transparency in the early childhood education sector. It will mean that all large providers need to publicly report revenue and profits, together with commercial leasing information. The bill also helps families make more informed choices and puts in place measures to deter fraud. To attract and retain workers, the bill also allows providers to discount childcare fees for early childhood educators.
I am pleased the Albanese government is also introducing reforms to help more Indigenous children into early education. As part of the government's plan for cheaper child care, all Indigenous children will be able to access 36 hours of subsidised child care a fortnight from July next year. At the moment, First Nations children are eligible for only up to 24 hours subsidised child care a fortnight. These simple changes will benefit around 6,600 First Nations families. Not only do the changes help ease cost-of-living pressures; they provide more opportunities for First Nations children to access the development, education and health benefits of early childhood education and care. At the moment, just 4.3 per cent of children in early education and care identify as Indigenous, despite Indigenous children being 6.1 per cent of the population of children aged up to five years.
We know access to high-quality early education and care can impact the readiness of a child for school. In 2021, for the first time, the Closing the Gap target for school readiness went backwards. That's simply not good enough. We must turn this around. That's why our government will also invest $10.2 million to establish the Early Childhood Care and Development Policy Partnership between the Australian state and territory governments and Indigenous representatives. The partnership will be co-chaired by the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care and will help drive the development of community led policies and programs that Indigenous families need for their children to thrive. These measures will help improve First Nations children's readiness for school. It's essential all governments work together and in partnership with First Nations people if we're to close the gap and improve outcomes in early childhood education.
Of course, all of these early education measures rely on having enough childcare workers. We know that in Australia at the moment we are short by about 6,500 workers, and predictions indicate this shortage will get worse before it gets better. That's one of the reasons why our government has committed to an extra 20,000 university places for next year and the year after. Those new places will include an allocation for those who are training to be early childhood teachers and educators. That's also why the Albanese government has allocated 465,000 free TAFE places to train up the workforce of the future.
The government knows that things are tough out there, and the Treasurer has said things are expected to get tougher before they get better. That's why the Albanese government is taking a number of practical steps. Cutting the cost of childcare through legislation is a significant cost saver which will help to ease the squeeze on many families. Our government is also cutting the cost of medicine. This will help many Australian families who need to spend at the chemist every week. Other measures include increasing the minimum wage by over five per cent. This will help many Australians who are living on low incomes. So these childcare reforms are one element of an Albanese government package of reforms to foster a better and more caring and inclusive Australia.
This legislation recognises that children are our most precious resource. It's part of delivering on our government's commitment to the parents and children of Australia. Together, we will build a better nation and a better future for families.
Dr RYAN (Kooyong) (13:24): I rise to indicate my support for this bill but also to share with the House where I hope that we can improve on this area in the future, as well as my ongoing concerns about the looming crisis in early childhood education. The Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill is a welcome acknowledgement from this government that, for too many Australian families, early childhood education is unaffordable and not financially worthwhile.
This legislation increases the rate of the childcare subsidy from 85 per cent to 90 per cent for those earning less than $80,000 a year. That increased childcare subsidy will decrease by one per cent from 90 per cent for every $5,000 earned over $80,000 a year. The subsidy then cuts out when the family income level hits $530,000. The legislation strengthens protections against fraud. It also introduces discounts for parents who work as early childhood educators. This is perhaps one of the most direct demonstrations of how providing child care for women benefits workforce participation, and its multiplying benefits for our economy. The bill also introduces a base rate of 36 subsidised hours of child care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, regardless of their parents' activity levels. This is a worthwhile reform to the problematic activity test, which I'll speak more about in a moment. Any measure to see more young children attending early childhood education is a good thing. This bill will see more young children being able to attend more hours at child care, accessing valuable developmental benefits to prepare them for primary school and setting them up for a lifetime of better educational, social and employment outcomes.
The evidence is clear about the benefits of quality early childhood education for children. The first five years of a child's life are critical for their physical, social and cognitive development. I know that because I'm a paediatrician. We should aspire to a future of universal access to quality early childhood education for all Australian children. Australia has a strong national framework and quality standards for early childhood education. We know how important this care is, and we have invested in the development of best practice in the provision of this care. But access to services is patchy, and, despite the subsidies in place, it is still highly dependent on a family's hours of employment and its income. In the future, Australia should aim to give every child access to early childhood education, no matter what their parents' income or their employment status is.
One limitation of this bill is that the hours of child care that Australian families can be subsidised for is still tied to their activity levels, or the hours worked by the parent. The legislation amends the childcare subsidy activity test. Currently it is as follows, with exceptions for children in special circumstances—for example, those at risk of neglect. Children whose parents are working eight hours a fortnight have 24 hours of subsidised child care unless their parents earn more than $72,000 a year, in which case they're not eligible for any subsidised childcare hours. Children whose parents work eight to 16 hours can attend child care for 36 hours a week at a subsidised rate. If parents work between 16 and 48 hours, their child can receive 72 hours of early childhood education. It's all very complicated.
It's great to see that this legislation will provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children with a minimum of 36 hours of subsidised early childcare intervention, regardless of the employment status of their parents. This is a highly worthwhile change to the activity test and to how subsidies are allocated. It will have significant long-term benefits for those children and their families. In this provision for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, the government acknowledges that the activity test for childcare subsidies is a pernicious measure, as it is underpinned by an outdated belief that children should only go to child care if their parents are at work. A child's access to the lifelong developmental benefits of early childhood education should not be denied because their parents are unemployed, underemployed or in insecure casual work with variable hours. If these children are rendered ineligible to attend child care at the subsidised rate because their parents aren't working enough hours, how are these parents—who aren't working enough—meant to afford child care at 10 times the subsidised cost?
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and, the member's speech having just been interrupted, I apologise, you will be granted leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Mental Health
Ms BYRNES (Cunningham) (13:30): His Boy Elroy is a local burger bar in my electorate owned by Lachlan Stevens, veteran of two Afghanistan tours with the Australian Army. While dealing in burgers, beers and sport, Lachlan noticed men having deeper conversations at the bar. With this, the Barstool Brothers, a men's mental health charity, was formed. They invited men in the community down for a free burger at His Boy Elroy, with a simple goal in mind: to provide an opportunity and environment for men to connect. The group grew to 1,400 members, and a deeper issue was uncovered—the poor level of mental health amongst hospitality workers.
After talking with industry leaders, the Barstool Project was created, with the goal of training hospitality staff in a mental health awareness and communications course. The project is about to launch a 12-month pilot in New South Wales, with the goal of training 50,000 hospitality staff in a course that they consider to be as important as numeracy and literacy. Currently, similar courses are being monetised for up to $250 per person. The Barstool Project plans to deliver this education package for under $10 per person, with the aim of making it accessible to any business or employee, with sustainability at the forefront of their plans to expand nationally.
Lachlan is here in the gallery today, along with Daniel Chin, General Manager of Barstool Brothers, and they should be proud of the impact they are making in the hospitality industry at a local and national level. I'm even more excited by their latest local campaign, 'Palms in holes, not up poles', featuring the 'palm up a pole' burger. I can't wait for the keto salad!
Nicholls Electorate: Community Organisations
Mr BIRRELL (Nicholls—Deputy Nationals Whip) (13:32): I'll have an opportunity later to speak at greater length on the flood emergency in my electorate, but I'll say now that the region has been hit very hard and the risk is ongoing. But our communities have rallied to help each other, as good communities do, and a great example I want to talk about is GV Cares—Goulburn Valley Cares. Their coordinated volunteer effort to assist with basic needs like food, medicines and clothing is all the more remarkable because this organisation didn't even exist before August 2021. It sprang from nowhere when a COVID-19 outbreak in the Greater Shepparton area led all major schools to be declared tier 1 sites. Close to 20,000 residents entered 14 days of mandatory isolation.
The flow-on impact of nearly a third of our population being in quarantine was immense. The workforce shrank at the same time as demand for deliveries of food and other essentials soared. I was one of the many volunteers who delivered boxes to the doorsteps of locked-down residents, and the whole experience brought our community closer together.
The Greater Shepparton Lighthouse Project recognised the crisis that was unfolding and drew together service organisations, community groups and volunteers and provided a rapid response for food relief. It is estimated that 8,000 people were supported during this crisis. During the floods that we've got at the moment, they've been doing the same valuable work, demonstrating once again the true value of connected and caring communities. Amy Robinson from the Greater Shepparton Lighthouse Project, Jeremy Rensford from Shepparton Foodshare and all the volunteers deserve recognition for their incredible efforts helping people in this time of crisis.
Breast Cancer
Ms FERNANDO (Holt) (13:33): October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Breast cancer is the second-most-commonly-diagnosed cancer in Australia, with which around one in seven women and one in 600 men are diagnosed. Breast cancer treatment is most successful when the cancer is discovered early, and breast screening is the most effective way to do this.
Unfortunately, my electorate of Holt has one of the lowest screening rates in Victoria, with only one in two women having undertaken a breast-screen test. This is something I am determined to change.
The first part of this process is increasing awareness, which I am doing now. The second part is to make breast screens more accessible by continuing to work closely with the South Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network to provide more mobile screening centres in my electorate. I applaud the work of the National Breast Cancer Foundation in funding vital breast cancer research and supporting Australians during some of the hardest times of their lives. I encourage everyone in my electorate of Holt, especially women, to have a breast screen if they have not already done so.
Flynn Electorate: Central Highlands Region
Mr BOYCE (Flynn) (13:35): While many criticise and attack the coal and resource sector, I would like to draw attention to the fact sheet prepared by the Central Highlands Development Corporation. The Central Highlands is the heart of the Bowen Basin and the economic engine room of my electorate of Flynn in Queensland. Australia's largest coal reserve and 12 operating mines are in the Central Highlands. The region produces more than 62 million tonnes of coal per annum and represents 28 per cent of Queensland's total coal production.
Mining is the largest employer in the Central Highlands, with a direct workforce of over 6,000 people. Fifty-five per cent of those workers are non-residents, commuting by road and air from Rockhampton, Mackay and South-East Queensland. Ninety per cent of non-resident workers stay in accommodation villages such as caravan parks, hotels and motels. For the local Central Highlands economy, over $790 million is spent on local goods and services, which is estimated to be 30 per cent of the total spend. Astonishingly, the Central Highlands has an output of $9.4 billion. These export dollars are helping pay for our schools, our roads and our emergency services and hospitals. To anyone in this House who criticises one of our biggest exporters: I welcome you to the Central Highlands. Come and meet the workers who are paying Australia's bills. These people are keeping the lights on, and these people are paying our salaries.
Bean Electorate: Islamic School of Canberra
Mr DAVID SMITH (Bean—Government Whip) (13:36): One of the most enjoyable roles I have as the member for Bean is working with our great school community: the teachers, students, parents and guardians, principals and administrators. Last week was one such occasion: I helped to open the new multipurpose hall at the Islamic School of Canberra. The hall will be used for indoor sports, as well as performance activities and events. This will make a real difference to the school, helping to provide the best environment for teachers to nurture and educate and for students to do the best that they can. The project was delivered with government funding of $1 million, but that's only part of the story, with the community raising $1.3 million themselves, an extraordinary effort. Over the next four years, the government will be investing around $800 million in new and improved facilities at schools right across Australia, including $3.5 million here in the ACT this year. We want every child to have the best schooling possible. Congratulations to the Islamic School of Canberra for completing this magnificent project. Particular thanks go to the principal, Dr Mahmoud Eid, and to the teachers, students and administrators for their kind hospitality and making me feel so welcome last week in opening their magnificent hall.
Energy
Ms SPENDER (Wentworth) (13:38): Last night's budget included a lot of welcome changes, but real action on gas was conspicuously absent. Prices have been surging all year and are now reaching consumers, businesses and industrial users. One manufacturing business I have known has seen its electricity bill increase by 400 per cent. They will be paying millions of dollars for electricity next year.
Let's be honest: this is a fossil fuel price crisis, driven by a war overseas. We must take action. It's time for the government to accept our gas policies are simply not working. The domestic supply policy doesn't ensure domestic gas supply, and the tax policy isn't collecting enough tax. These policies are not fit for purpose, and the public has no confidence in them. Australians know their government can and should do better.
Past attempts to reform gas policy have failed. The Albanese government should try to do something different. Don't tinker. Don't reform. Just scrap them. Scrap the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism and the petroleum resource rent tax. Scrap them, start over, bring the gas companies to the table and ensure Australians finally share in the full benefits of the resources we own.
Budget
Mr GOSLING (Solomon) (13:39): Territorians elected me and the member for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour—right behind me—to build them a better future, and that's exactly what the Albanese government is doing in this first budget, which is responsible and is full of targeted cost-of-living relief. It has massive infrastructure funds for the Northern Territory, as well as cheaper child care, cheaper medicines and the expansion of paid parental leave—really important. We are also going to get wages moving again.
For my electorate of Darwin and Palmerston, we have $5 million for a dedicated youth engagement hub, which is really important for the future of the Top End. There is also some supported housing for our veterans and $1 million for a Darwin men's shed, to be co-located. Our environment will benefit from $13.6 million to make our creeks healthier and also to tackle the scourge of Gamba grass. When it comes to rec fishing, which all Territorians love, we have $2.5 million for a fishing centre in Palmerston.
The Territory always does better under federal Labor, and this is a start for the Albanese Labor government. We are delivering what we committed to deliver, which will help Territory families and grow the Territory's future.
Sandringham Primary School
Ms DANIEL (Goldstein) (13:40): I direct my remarks to students, parents and staff of Sandringham Primary School. I am celebrating your new school from this House, and I acknowledge the adversity that many of you have faced. The fire that took place at the school at the start of 2020 had a huge impact on families, staff and residents. As a former Sandy parent—both my kids attended your school—I was devastated, and I felt such empathy for everyone affected. Yet our community managed this in such a special way, finding alternative locations for children to go to school and supporting each other through a difficult time, which was even more difficult due to the pandemic. However, it was also a time when we remembered the importance of our neighbourhoods, our local businesses, our environment and our community. Often, when I pass the school with our golden retriever, Tully, I remember when Tully was a puppy, my children were little and I was among the parents chatting in the yard at drop-off and pick-up. What a lovely time that was at such a special little school, tucked away among the gum trees in Sandy. I congratulate you all on your resilience. Enjoy the rebuilt Sandringham Primary School for years to come.
Housing
Mr BURNS (Macnamara) (13:42): One of my favourite things I like to do in Macnamara is go and have morning tea or lunch with my public housing residents. One of my favourite places to go is the Emerald Hill public housing estate. Mel, the president of the Emerald Hill public housing association, and Maureen, one of my favourites there as well, helped put on a breakfast barbecue. We spent some time with a lot of the residents. Every time I go there, I'm filled with hope and good times and I appreciate the friendship of all the residents.
I'm really proud of our public housing community. I'm really proud of the residents in social housing in my electorate. I am also really proud that, once again, the federal government is back in being involved in housing policy in this country. It's telling that the sorts of governments that invest in public housing and social housing in this country are Labor governments. Last night we saw a realisation of our commitment to build 30,000 new social housing homes. It is a great Labor policy; it is a great Labor reform to ensure that Australians have access to safe and secure housing.
I was also especially proud to hear the Treasurer talk about the new Housing Accord, which is a profound ambition to work with the states and industry to invest in affordable homes. Our housing sector hasn't had a federal government willing to step up to the table and try and make sure Australians have access to safe and secure housing. That changed last night, and the Labor government that we are proud to be part of is back in the business of building affordable homes.
COVID 19: Vaccination
Mr BROADBENT (Monash) (13:43): A couple of weeks ago, former Commonwealth Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth, said, 'If you're a really healthy child or adolescent, the benefit of the COVID vaccine just isn't there.' He also called for a review of vaccination guidelines for children. In Denmark, for example, COVID vaccinations are no longer being offered to people under 50, and in the UK injections for healthy children aged five to 11 have stopped altogether. I have been told of children suffering from myocarditis, heart attacks and strokes here in Australia. Am I the only one hearing this?
According to the TGA, as of 8 October this year, there were more than 136,000 reports of adverse reactions to the vaccines. To date, the health department has recorded nearly 10 million cases of COVID. The ABS has recorded a significant increase in the number of deaths during 2022. In New South Wales, data shows that, over a four-week period to 15 October 2022, of the 555 COVID hospitalisations, 554 were triple and quadruple injected; just one was unvaccinated. I am very surprised that there isn't more public questioning of the mandating of vaccines. So last week I wrote to the federal Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler, to ask about the vaccination of healthy young people, the justification for any ongoing COVID-19 mandates, health professionals being censored and gagged and whether the Pfizer vaccine was tested for the reduction of transmission of COVID. I look forward to the minister's reply.
Budget
Dr REID (Robertson) (13:45): After almost a decade of savage cuts and broken promises by the former Liberal government, the Albanese Labor government handed down its first budget last night. This budget is focused on delivering our election commitments and investing in our nation to ensure it is strong, innovative and resilient, ready to confront the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. I'm proud to be part of an Albanese Labor government that is helping Australians with cost-of-living pressures, while ensuring that we are sustainably addressing the trillion dollars of debt that's been left behind by those opposite. The Albanese government is delivering cheaper child care, because we understand that, to get our nation's productivity lifted, we need to improve affordability and access. This will ensure more parents can re-enter the employment market if they choose to. We are delivering on our election commitment to provide 20,000 more university places across Australia. The University of Newcastle, in my electorate, has secured 967 additional places. This means that more Australians will be able to train in the areas of the economy that need workers—teaching, nursing, IT and allied health. In addition, our government is providing fee-free TAFE to make sure we are training workers in industries hit hardest by the pandemic and in the care economy. In health care, the government will establish two Medicare Urgent Care Clinics on the Central Coast and cut the cost of medications on the PBS. The first Albanese Labor government budget is sensible, measured and practical for modern Australia.
Budget
Mr BUCHHOLZ (Wright) (13:46): When we left office, the Australian economy was strong. It was the envy of the world and it was definitely the envy of the OECD nations. There was record employment data—our unemployment figures started with a '3'; record low interest rates; and the highest female participation rate in the workforce ever in history. Our economy undoubtedly was strong. Remember during the COVID period when the unemployment queues snaked around the corner? People were losing their houses. People were losing their jobs. Their businesses were under threat. We put together the JobKeeper program, and every time we asked for money we brought it to the House, and those on the other side supported the spending. In fact, when we went to stop JobKeeper—and I highlight this for the people in the gallery, because on the other side you will continually hear the rhetoric that we left $1 trillion worth of debt—those on the other side said that the economy was going to fall off a cliff, and they wanted to keep spending. It was just as well we shut it off when we did. This week in the budget we saw what Labor's true plan is. Their true plan is higher electricity costs, higher interest rates, higher fuel costs. When Labor are in office and they run out of their own money, be absolutely sure they'll come looking for yours and they'll do it by way of higher taxes. Just you wait and see.
Budget
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (13:48): Last night's budget delivered one of the most important changes to gender equality and women's workforce participation that we have seen in decades. In the budget last night, it was announced that this government will increase the Paid Parental Leave scheme currently funded by the government to 26 weeks, or six months. Not only will it increase the entitlement; it will also make sure that it's accessible not just for women and birth mothers but for fathers and parents. Why is this important? For too long in this country, paid parental leave has fallen to the mother. It's often the mother that doesn't have the choice to return to work, because she is the one entitled to the paid entitlement. It locks fathers out of being involved, but it locks women in the home. This gender reform says to families: What's best for your family? Who is best to take the paid parental leave: is it mum or is it the partner? This is how forward-thinking this government is. It is taking gender equality seriously by giving the choice on paid parental leave back to households and back to families. That's the kind of reform this government is doing. I give a big shout-out to all the mums and future mums, because we're thinking of you.
Casey Electorate: Roads
Mr VIOLI (Casey) (13:49): By cancelling the Wellington Road upgrade in Casey, Labor are breaking their 2019 promise for the $110 million construction. Road duplication consists of building a second separate carriageway alongside the initial single carriageway, easing congestion and improving safety. Wellington Road is a bushfire escape route for those towns in the Dandenong Ranges. It also allows emergency services access to the mountain, with the local CFA labelling Labor's decision as 'really distressing news for our community' for this reason. Local councils and communities want and need this, but Labor is refusing to deliver it. It was a bipartisan project, with both Labor and the previous coalition government committing to this crucial project.
Labor used to see the value in reducing risk to vulnerable communities, but obviously they have changed their views. The Minister for Finance argued for the scrapping of projects by accusing the former coalition government of using taxpayer money cynically to buy votes. The Labor government thinks it is cynical to ease congestion and improve road safety in bushfire-prone areas. The opposition thinks it is necessary. Not only have Labor broken their promise but they are also putting my constituents at increased risk in an emergency.
Budget
Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (13:51): I've waited nine long years to say these words: congratulations to Treasurer Jim Chalmers on delivering Labor's first budget in nine years. The Albanese Labor government is delivering on our election commitments, providing targeted cost-of-living relief and ending the waste and rorts from that previous government. This budget provides cost-of-living relief without adding to inflationary measures, by making child care cheaper, by cutting the cost of medicines, by expanding paid parental leave to six months, by making more affordable housing and by getting wages moving again. We're delivering on what we promised.
In this budget and in my electorate of Moreton, we're delivering on the commitments that I took to the last election:. $2 million for an accessibility and safety upgrade of the Sunnybank pedestrian bridge; $400,000 for a fauna crossing under Toohey Road, which snakes through Toohey Forest; a community battery in Moorooka, part of the $224.3 million for the Community Batteries for Household Solar Program; and matching the Queensland government's $133 million commitment to fix the dangerous Coopers Plains rail crossing on Boundary Road. Under Labor, there will be 2,811 additional university places for Queensland and $24.6 million for communities that were impacted by floods earlier this year, such as Yeronga, Rocklea, Tennyson, Graceville, Sherwood—and I could go on. The Albanese government is delivering for Australians today to build a better future for all.
Groom Electorate: New Acland Coal Mine
Mr HAMILTON (Groom) (13:52): Finally, the Queensland Labor government has seen sense and provided the remaining approvals for the restart of the New Acland coal mine. The water licence is in, and we'll see work resuming in the coming months. This is great news for our community. That means jobs for locals and extra cash flowing through our region's economy. What these approvals also bring—so crucial for our area—is certainty: certainty for the workers, for the people of Oakey and for the local suppliers.
You have to remember this has been 15 years in the making, with endless legal challenges from green activists and political games from the Queensland Labor government. There was never a justifiable reason to delay this decision. While they did, we saw 450 people lose their jobs. So, while there's a great opportunity now for these people to get their jobs back and come back to Oakey onsite now, we can't forget the pain and the stress that was put on these workers, their families and our local community. It's something that I don't think the people of Oakey will ever forget or forgive the Premier for, and why should they? They deserve better.
Coal plays a very, very important part not only in Queensland's economy but in our local economy, where it provides up to 10 per cent of our gross regional product. The truth is that coal will still be a part of our energy mix for a long time to come. You can't just make a political decision to opt out of it; the economy just doesn't work like that. I'm glad the Queensland Labor government have learned their lesson about the importance of coal. It's a lesson I hope those opposite take note of, although I don't hold my hopes very high.
Budget
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Chief Government Whip) (13:54): It is five months and five days since Labor took government, after nine years of malaise, of wasted opportunity. The contrast is extraordinary. It's been five months and five days of hard work and extraordinary energy from the members on this side, making the most of every day in government to deliver for the country that we all love and want to see prosper. The contrast is really clear.
What we saw last night when the member for Rankin, the Treasurer, delivered this government's first budget was extraordinary. It's responsible. It's sensible. It's right for the times. It's going to help those who need it most, in a beginning move, but it is fiscally responsible and it is measured and it makes sure that everything we're committing to has an economic dividend. I am so proud today to be a member of this government, and I want to congratulate every member here for representing their communities with honesty, with clarity and with commitment and for giving us a compelling message for the Australian people and setting us up for the future. Thank you, everyone.
Budget
Mr CONAGHAN (Cowper) (13:55): Scrolling through the headlines this morning to see the response to last night's budget, I came across a comment from one Luke Douglas, who said:
Watching Dr Jim presenting the budget last night was like watching Santa bypassing your home on Christmas Eve.
I couldn't have put it better myself. It would be funny if it weren't so serious. The Treasurer's budget sleigh, pulled by reindeers renamed Slasher, Dashed Hopes, Cut It and Victims, flew straight past the homes of regional Australians, gleefully calling their empty stockings pork barrels. One notably empty stocking in my own electorate belongs to Southern Cross University in Coffs Harbour. The Treasurer has slashed the $27 million previously budgeted that was allocated to complete the campus's health services precinct. The precinct would have had a health clinic with speech and voice labs, mental health and therapy rooms, rehabilitation and exercise studios, and consultation rooms. These facilities would have created local jobs, guaranteed essential healthcare services and contributed to the growth and prosperity of the region. Are jobs, health and education not supposedly the focus of this new government? Or was that just for their metro mates? There was no, 'Ho, ho, ho.' It was all, 'No, no, no.'
Budget
Ms THWAITES (Jagajaga) (13:57): After a decade of the needs of Australian women being ignored in this place, after a last term when the previous Prime Minister told women who came to this place demanding their right to be safe that they were lucky they weren't being shot at—after that, the best we've been offered for a decade—what a refreshing change to be in this place last night for a budget that delivered cheaper child care and a budget that delivered an expanded paid parental leave scheme.
On this side of the House, we get modern families. We get the needs of modern women. We get that families want support to do the juggle between work and family and that men and women want to do this. What we are setting up with an expanded paid parental leave scheme is a scheme that allows Australian women to care for their children and also allows Australian men to care for their children, so that we set up a caring dynamic across the lives of our families where men are involved in bringing up their children.
We know that this is good for women, it's good for men, it's good for children and it's good for all of us, because we've all got businesses in our electorates crying out for people to work. We've all got women who want to get back to work. This budget delivers for Australian women, and I'm so proud to be here as part of the Labor government delivering it.
New South Wales: Infrastructure
Mr GEE (Calare) (13:58): For years country communities west of the Great Dividing Range have been campaigning for a better crossing over the mountains. Last year, the coalition delivered $2 billion in the budget for the crucial Great Western Highway upgrade. To date, the new government has been silent on the future of this vital project.
In the same way, since the days of the gold rush, residents of the Central West have raised their voices calling for a bridge to be built at Dixons Long Point. Instead of leaving residents at the mercy of the rise and fall of the Macquarie River, a new crossing would cut the travelling distance between Orange and Mudgee, be accessible to vehicles all year round, withstand record flood events, and open up access between the Central West, Newcastle and Hunter Valley regions to drive economic growth and tourism. The former coalition government was determined to deliver this river crossing, investing $29.8 million from the Roads of Strategic Importance fund, with a further $5 million commitment before the last election. It's got an excellent cost-benefit ratio of 2.491. To date we haven't had any word on the future of this game-changing project. It would be a dagger through the hearts of the communities of western New South Wales if funding has been snatched away from either of these projects. When the Prime Minister was elected, he said he would govern for all Australians, so I'm calling on the new government to back both of these region-building road projects.
The SPEAKER: In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
Kennedy, Ms Caroline
The SPEAKER (14:00): I would like to inform the House that present in the distinguished visitors gallery today is Her Excellency Ms Caroline Kennedy, the ambassador of the United States of America. On behalf of the House, I extend a very warm welcome to you.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Budget
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Leader of the Opposition) (14:01): My question is to the Prime Minister. On 30 April this year, the Prime Minister said Australians would be 'better off under a Labor government'. The budget confirms that a typical family will be $2,000 worse off by Christmas, with inflation, the tax burden, power prices and unemployment all forecast to go up under your budget. Can the Prime Minister explain how a $2,000 hit to family budgets makes Australians better off?
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:01): Of course, I reject the premise of the question, in which the Leader of the Opposition has simply made up figures. What he said in April was this—
Mr Taylor interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Hume will cease interjecting.
Mr ALBANESE: On 5 April, the Leader of the Opposition said:
And also the headwinds. I mean inflation is very high in the United States, and we have to be again realistic about what's happening economically over the coming years.
On 3 May, he went on to say:
… nobody wants to see interest rates go up, but it's a reality of a world where there's inflation. I think Australians understand that …
… … …
… there's a lot of pressure—upward pressure—on interest rates at the moment.
The Shadow Treasurer said: 'We're facing circumstances in what's happening in the Ukraine and Russia that were not expected and very hard to predict. These pressures are driven by extenuating circumstances.' So they had a lot to say about the difficulties that Australia is facing due to the global impact, which is a global inflationary pressure that is seeing central banks around the world with the fastest and most consistent tightening of monetary policy that we have seen in many decades.
What last night's responsible budget, handed down by the Treasurer, did was to have fiscal policy work in partnership with monetary policy, rather than against it. We make no apologies for the fact that we have brought in responsible measures, including responsible measures on the cost of living; cheaper child care—and those opposite aren't quite sure whether they're against or for that—
Mr Burke: They never did it!
Mr ALBANESE: cheaper medicine—which they never did either—with the first cut to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in 75 years since a Labor government introduced it; expanding paid parental leave to six months; making more affordable housing. We're working with the private sector, working with state and territory governments to deliver more affordable housing. And, importantly, we're getting wages moving again.
People might remember during the election campaign me standing up day after day with a $1 coin, which is what we said the minimum wage should be increased by. Those opposite opposed it. They said it was reckless, said it was loose. Do you remember that? They said it was loose economic policy to argue that people on the minimum wage, the heroes of the pandemic, should get a pay increase of just $1 an hour. The Australian people judged you in May for the hypocrites and hopeless economic managers that you are, and you've learnt nothing in the days, weeks and months since.
Budget
Mr RAE (Hawke) (14:04): My question is to the Treasurer. How does the Albanese Labor government's first budget help to build a better future for Australia?
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (14:05): Thanks to the member for Hawke for his question about the budget last night. We're really proud of the budget that we handed down last night—the first budget of the Albanese Labor government. In uncertain times, what the budget did was recognise that when you've got all this global uncertainty right around the world, your best defence is a good, solid responsible, sensible budget at home.
But the budget does more than batten down the hatches against global uncertainty—it also begins to back families and to build a better future for this country with our five point cost-of-living relief plan of $7½ billion: cheaper child care, extension of paid parental leave, cheaper medicines, a housing accord for more affordable housing, and getting wages moving again. In addition to that cost-of-living plan, delivered in the most responsible way that we could so that we're not adding extra pressure to inflation, is our plan to grow the economy to make it stronger, more resilient and more modern. Absolutely central to that is investing in the capacity and the capabilities of our people. That's why our investments in fee-free TAFE and more university places are so important. It's why our investments in cleaner and cheaper energy are so important. It's why our investments in a future made in Australia and our National Reconstruction Fund are so important. That's how we strengthen the economy—by diversifying it, by investing in our industries and by creating new, secure well paid jobs.
Right across the board, the budget that I handed down from this despatch box last night was all about building a better future for Australians and going about it in the most responsible way. If we had continued down the path set by those opposite, we'd be up for another decade of wage stagnation, skills-and-labour shortages, a crisis in aged care, energy policy chaos and a trillion dollars with nowhere near enough to show for it. What we were able to do last night was to begin to lay the foundations for a more resilient economy and a more responsible budget.
Mr Pike interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Bowman will cease interjecting.
Dr CHALMERS: We're proud of the budget that we handed down last night. We're proud of the response that we've had so far, and the hard work of cleaning up the mess left by those opposite will continue.
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! There is far too much noise. I want to hear these questions in silence.
Power Prices
Ms LEY (Farrer—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:07): My question is to the Prime Minister. Before the election the Prime Minister promised that if he was elected, power prices would drop by $275. Last night the Prime Minister's budget said that power prices would rise by more than 50 per cent. Given the Prime Minister often references his Bachelor of Economics degree, can he advise the House how it is possible to have prices rise by more than 50 per cent, but fall by $275 at the same time?
Government members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The House will come to order. I heard the question in silence. I'd like to hear the answer as well.
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:08): The cheapest form of new energy in this country is renewables. That is something that is recognised by the Business Council of Australia, by the Australian Industry Group, by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the National Farmers Federation, but is apparently beyond the capacity of those opposite to recognise.
Mr Fletcher interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The manager of opposition business will cease interjecting.
Mr ALBANESE: For a decade, we have suffered from the fact that we had 22 different energy policies announced but none of them landed. Even when they went through the Liberal Party room—not once, but twice—they still didn't land. In fact, they so detested the idea of landing an energy policy that when one looked like being landed, they lopped off a Prime Minister instead—not once but twice! And they ended up with the member for Cook. It turned out that one of the hidden figures in the last budget was the member for Cook.
The SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister will pause and I will hear the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.
Ms Ley: A point of order on relevance. It was a tight question. How is it possible—
The SPEAKER: You may resume your seat, thank you. The question was a broad question around power prices dropping and rising. I am going to give the call to the Prime Minister, who is in order.
Mr Dutton interjecting—
The SPEAKER: If the Leader of the Opposition can cease interjecting and the House could come to order, the Prime Minister will continue.
Mr Dutton interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition!
Mr ALBANESE: I've got plenty of time, Mr Speaker.
The SPEAKER: I've given the courtesy and made it clear I want to hear these questions in silence and, out of respect for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, ensured the House could hear the question. I think it is entirely reasonable to allow the Prime Minister to answer the question in the same circumstances. I give the call to the Prime Minister.
Mr ALBANESE: Twenty-two policies were announced and none of them landed. An energy grid built for the middle of the last century—
Mr Ted O'Brien: We got prices down!
The SPEAKER: The member for Fairfax!
Mr ALBANESE: The shadow minister interjects that energy prices went down under the former government—really? Wow!
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The House will come to order.
Mr ALBANESE: That's absolutely extraordinary. Indeed, so bad was it going that the shadow Treasurer changed the law so that the price increase that was built in and should have been declared in March wasn't declared until after the election. That's how bad it was going. During their time in office, we saw four gigawatts of capacity leave the grid and one gig go in. You talk about the old supply/demand a bit in an economics degree—if you go four gigs out and one gig in, do you have more energy or less energy? More or less? Do you think that has an impact— (Time expired)
Budget
Dr ANANDA-RAJAH (Higgins) (14:12): My question is to the Treasurer. What are some of the challenges facing the economy, and how does the Albanese Labor government's budget respond to those challenges?
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (14:13): I thank the honourable member not just for her question but also for all of the incredibly important work that she does in our team. Australians understand that while our economy is growing the challenges facing the economy are growing as well. The budget that we handed down last night was framed against the backdrop of a serious deterioration in the global economy—global energy and price shocks in particular—and damaging and devastating natural disasters here at home. People can see the impact that that's having on the cost of living in particular but also on energy prices. These pressures are primarily coming at us from around the world, but we understand that they're felt most acutely around the kitchen table. That's why inflation, which has been higher than we would like for longer than we would like, is the primary influence on the budget that I handed down from this despatch box last night. That's what makes it so absolutely crucial that the budget that we handed down was a responsible budget and right for the times, but at the same time will ready us for a better future.
The best evidence of the responsible approach we took to the budget is that, when we got the substantial and very welcome boost to revenues in the near term from higher commodity prices, we returned that boost to the budget. Ninety-nine per cent of the temporary revenue boost over the next two years was returned to the budget to help rebuild our buffers against global uncertainty and also to ensure that there's less debt in our budget than there was in the last budget presented by those opposite over the forward estimates. So we returned 99 per cent of it over two years. We returned 92 per cent over four years. On average, our predecessors returned about 40 per cent of these temporary upgrades.
Real spending growth in the budget averages 0.3 per cent over the forward estimates. The member for Hume was on Insiders on Sunday, and he was asked what was the test for the budget. He said that real spending growth had to be lower than real economic growth. Well, we passed that test with flying colours—0.3 per cent real spending growth in the budget. That's much less than growth in the economy.
We've made hard decisions for hard times in this budget. Twenty-two billion dollars in savings and $6½ billion in tax changes mean $28½ billion in budget improvements. There are $22 billion in savings. We looked in the last budget from the former member for Kooyong, and we couldn't find a dollar of savings on the expenditure side. So that's the difference.
So what we released last night was a responsible budget. The defining feature was spending restraint in the budget when we've got this inflation challenge—a responsible budget distinguished and defined by its restraint. That's why those opposite don't recognise it.
Petroleum Resource Rent Tax
Ms STEGGALL (Warringah) (14:16): My question is to the Prime Minister. Will you commit to an urgent review of the petroleum resource rent tax to close loopholes, prevent multinational tax avoidance and deliver to the Australian people a fair share of the revenue from extracted Australian natural resources? This could then fund the rapid electrification of households needed to reduce emissions and deliver up to $5,000 in much-needed cost-of-living savings per year per household.
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (14:17): I thank the member for Warringah for her question. I do understand, appreciate and respect that the member for Warringah has had a view about the PRRT and about the taxation of resources, particularly when we're seeing these quite extraordinary prices for gas in our economy. Our focus when it comes to the gas market is building on the good work of Minister King, who has guaranteed more supply into the market. It is to work with other colleagues—Minister King, Minister Husic, Minister Bowen and others—to now turn our attention to the code of conduct and to see if there's something meaningful we can do on the price side of the equation as well.
I understand that there are a number of people in the community—a lot of people who I respect—who have called for us to somehow dial up the PRRT. My predecessor the former member for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg—and I have been kind to him about this because I think it was the right step—began some work in the Commonwealth Treasury about the taxation of gas in the PRRT. What the Treasury did was that they began that work. There was an initial report. Josh Frydenberg took some initial steps, but the work was paused while the department, for good and understandable reasons, focused on the COVID response. That work is in the process of restarting. We have said that it's not something that we're focused on. Our focus is on the regulatory side—on prices and the code of conduct and some of those other issues. But obviously, if and when the Treasury completes that work, I will take their advice seriously.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
Work Exposure in Government Program
The SPEAKER (14:19): Before I call the member for Canberra, I would like to inform the House that present in the gallery today are a group of First Nations students participating in the Work Exposure in Government program. These students have come from all around Australia to learn about career opportunities in the Public Service. On behalf of the House, I extend a very warm welcome to you all and I hope you're enjoying your day learning about careers in Parliament House. I look forward to meeting you after question time.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Budget
Ms PAYNE (Canberra) (14:19): My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Women. How is the Albanese Labor government delivering for women?
Ms BURNEY (Barton—Minister for Indigenous Australians) (14:19): I thank the member for Canberra for her question. Hello to all the students up there that we had breakfast with together this morning. I really hope you're enjoying your stay and enjoying question time.
The Albanese Labor government believes in women, and the budget last night absolutely proved the respect we have for equity, for diversity and for fairness. There will be cheaper child care. In fact, there will be $4.7 billion of cheaper child care, which will make child care more affordable for 97 per cent of Australian families. We've expanded the Paid Parental Leave scheme to 26 weeks and it also applies to single-parent families, and that is an extraordinary contribution to the life of families in this country and, in particular, to the participation of women in the workforce. And we will provide greater flexibility for families to ensure that the paid parental leave system works in ways that are best for them. It's not up to government to decide that; it's up to families to work out the ways that are best for them. We are going to invest $1.7 billion in women's safety initiatives, including $170 million for 500 frontline community workers to support women and children experiencing domestic violence. I know that the Leader of the Opposition has a particular interest in this cause, and I respect him for that.
These are all policies in our first budget that are good for women, good for families and good for our economy. Australia should not rank 43rd out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum global gender gap index. That is shameful, and we need to move that. We have a gender pay gap of 14 per cent in this country, and we know absolutely that gender equality is a key factor behind the issue of gender based violence. The tragic stories that we all saw on Four Corners earlier in the week absolutely underscore this terrible inequity. That's why we'll develop a standalone First Nations national plan to tackle gender based violence for Indigenous women, and that will be led by the work of Minister Rishworth, in terms of her responsibility. I am absolutely proud to be part of this government.
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Leader of the Opposition) (14:22): on indulgence—I want to join in acknowledging the very important comments made by the minister, firstly, in welcoming the students who are here today. A very important part of our process here is to welcome students and to involve them in workings of the parliament. That's very important.
On the substantive issue that the minister raised, there is a bipartisan position of support for all these issues. There is no tolerance in our country whatsoever for violence or discrimination against women, or on the basis of gender, at all. The mental health impacts of COVID and the surge in domestic violence that took place resulted in us putting additional program funding in place. Many of those programs have been continued by the government in this budget, and we commend them for that. We have made comments of support as well for the work to increase participation, and around PPL. On behalf of the coalition, we commend the government for that work within the budget.
I might say to the minister, particularly on the work that needs to take place in Alice Springs, that I was there last week and it is a national tragedy that cannot be allowed to continue. For young women, for young girls and for elders—the women that we spoke to in community were equally horrified as any Australian is. We absolutely stand shoulder to shoulder, and I've spoken with the Prime Minister about what more we can do to address this scourge in society. I'm very pleased to be able to lend support and words of support to the minister's very worthy remarks.
Budget
Mr TAYLOR (Hume) (14:24): My question is to the Treasurer. A short time ago, the Treasurer was asked whether Australians can expect $275 off their power bills. He said: 'Yep. It's in the budget.' Page 57 of the budget says that prices will increase by 20 per cent this year and 30 per cent next year. What page refers to a reduction of $275?
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The shadow Treasurer was heard in silence. I wish to hear the Treasurer in silence.
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (14:25): I'm pleased to get this question from the shadow Treasurer, for two reasons. First of all is that it gives me the opportunity to explain to the House—and explain to the relevant journalist who asked me the question—that I misheard the question at the National Press Club.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Members on my left will cease interjecting.
Dr CHALMERS: I was temporarily blinded by the vast influence of Charles Croucher, who has inherited this remarkable position of power in this building from Laurie Oakes and Chris Uhlmann! I say, as I said to Charles when I rang him straight after the Press Club—I rang Charles and I rang Laura Tingle—that I thought he was asking me a different question. I misheard it, and I answered a different question. So I say again to Charles, who is in the gallery—through you, Mr Speaker—that I misheard his question. And I am genuinely grateful—for once!—to the member for Hume for the opportunity to talk about this.
Mr Taylor interjecting—
The SP EAKER: The member for Hume will cease interjecting.
Dr CHALMERS: The other reason that I am genuinely delighted to get this question from the member for Hume on energy prices is—
The SPEAKER: The Treasurer will resume his seat. The Treasurer is not halfway through his answer, but I will hear from the member for Petrie.
Mr Howarth: Mr Speaker, it's on relevance. It's been one minute and 17 seconds. How long is the preamble that he gets?
The SPEAKER: The Treasurer is referring directly to what he was asked about. That is not a point of order.
Dr CHALMERS: I reassure the member for Petrie that my answer is not going to be about the shadow Treasurer's history of doctoring documents. My answer is going to be about energy prices. He asked me about energy prices.
Mr Hamilton interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Groom will cease interjecting.
Dr CHALMERS: I pay tribute to the opposition tactics committee, who decided, on today of all days, that the matter of public importance today will be the shadow Treasurer talking about energy prices. When I got given this by my office, I couldn't believe my eyes. The guy who has his fingerprints all over this energy policy chaos that we've inherited, the guy who was more responsible than anyone else in this building for the fact that we've had this wasted decade which has given us energy policy chaos, has the nerve to ask us a question about energy prices! This is the guy who gave us the wasted decade of missed opportunities, with electricity market chaos, and, now that we've got this war in Ukraine, our energy markets are more vulnerable than they should be because of the rank incompetence of the shadow Treasurer. We've spoken in this place before about the sense of humour that the opposition tactics committee has in giving the shadow Treasurer questions on energy prices. Before, when everybody jumped at the same time to ask a question and, Mr Speaker, you didn't give the call to the shadow Treasurer, the biggest sigh of relief came from over there, because he has got his fingerprints all over this energy policy crisis.
Mr Taylor interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Hume will stop yelling.
Dr CHALMERS: He hid an energy price increase from the Australia people during the election, and they won't forget it.
Mr Hamilton interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Groom has been continually interjecting. He is warned.
Budget
Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (14:29): My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. How will the Albanese Labor government's first budget make medicines cheaper and impact on the lives of Australians?
Mr BUTLER (Hindmarsh—Minister for Health and Aged Care and Deputy Leader of the House) (14:29): I thank my friend the member for Moreton for his question, because I know he appreciates that last night the Treasurer delivered a budget that invested $9.9 billion in new health and aged-care measures: measures to strengthen Medicare; measures to restore dignity to aged care, being led by my friend and colleague Minister Wells; measures to cut the cost of medicines; measures to rebuild the health and aged-care workforce; and measures to strengthen First Nations health, beginning the long task of cleaning up the mess that was left to us by the Liberal Party—a job that every modern Labor government has had to do over the last 50 years in the area of health.
A centrepiece of this investment delivered the biggest cut to the cost of medicines in the 75-year history of the PBS, bringing the maximum co-payment for general patients down from $42.50 to just $30, putting $190 million every year back into the pockets of hardworking Australians. This responsible cost-of-living relief could not happen at a better time than this. Leanne wrote to me yesterday and said: 'At the moment, I pay over $150 each and every month for medication I need to be on. Thank you, Albo. This will make a big difference to me.' Lucy, a pharmacist, wrote: 'Thank you for making medicines more affordable. As a pharmacist, it's a difficult conversation to have with patients when they can't afford the treatment that they need.' Janine wrote: 'Thanks, Albo. My family spend a few hundred dollars every month on scripts, and this will definitely make a difference.'
This relief builds on a range of other measures introduced in our short five months in government to cut the cost of medicines and to list new medicines on the PBS. Just a few months ago, in early July, the safety net threshold for pensioners and concession card holders was slashed by 25 per cent, meaning, across the year, those millions of Australians know that they will pay no more than $4.70 every week for all of their medicines needs. Last month, the prices of more than 2,000 individual medicines were cut, putting another $130 million back in the pockets of hardworking Australians. As all members know, today this House again reaffirmed our promise to extend cheaper medicines to more self-funded retirees. Our legislation to extend the seniors health card to more than 50,000 additional self-funded retirees will see their medicines bills plummet. Cutting the cost of medicines is not just good for the hip pocket but also good for the health of millions and millions of Australians. These responsible measures introduced by the Treasurer's budget last night will make a real difference to millions of Australians.
Energy
Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (14:32): My question goes to the Treasurer. It follows his response to the former question, where he explained his proclivity for mishearing questions. My question is: have the Treasurer and the Prime Minister also misheard questions to which they responded with a promise of a reduction of household power bills by $275, where they made that commitment no less than 97 times? (Time expired)
Mr Ted O'Brien interjecting—
The SPEAKER: You may resume your seat, Member for Fairfax. You have asked your question.
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The House will come to order.
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (14:33): Mr Speaker, I know that we're supposed to take these characters seriously, but some days, when they ask us about energy prices, it's just too difficult. I do confess, when you have ears as big as mine and you say that you misheard something, I know that people might doubt that, but it's the truth. I rang Charles immediately after and I explained to him what happened.
Now that I have fessed up to mishearing a question at the National Press Club, it's time for you to fess up to your role in energy policy chaos.
The SPEAKER: The Treasurer will just pause. I'm going to hear the Leader of the Opposition. We're barely into the question, but I'll hear his point of order.
Mr Dutton: Mr Speaker, it's on relevance. Pensioners and families heard this government say on 97 occasions—
The SPEAKER: You may resume your seat.
Mr Dutton interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition cannot be heard. The Leader of the House has the call.
Mr Burke: Two points—first of all, in the way that question was asked, almost anything could be in order. Second, Mr Speaker, I refer to your earlier rulings where points of order have been taken by the Leader of the Opposition where it was clearly intended to participate in debate rather than to take a point of order. I just refer to that earlier ruling.
The SPEAKER: I thank the Leader of the House, and I want to make it clear that points of order on relevance must be stated. It is not an opportunity to ask the question again, to ask for additional information or to give statements. The manager, the deputy and the leader have extra responsibilities in that area. If it continues, the points of order will not be heard. I want to be very clear to the House. I give the call to the Treasurer.
Dr CHALMERS: There are three facts about what's going on in energy markets. First of all, renewable energy is cheaper energy. That remains the case. Second, there's a war in Europe which is causing havoc in energy markets and pushing up electricity prices. And, third, the energy policy chaos brought to us by the dregs of the former government over there has made things harder rather than easier for us to deal with it.
Housing
Ms VAMVAKINOU (Calwell) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Housing and Minister for Homelessness. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to address the supply of new housing in Australia to ensure more Australians have access to an affordable and secure home?
Ms COLLINS (Franklin—Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Minister for Small Business) (14:36): I want to thank the member for Calwell for her important question. She, like many people in this place, knows that far too many Australians don't have a safe, affordable place to call home and that we all should be doing more. And that's what we saw in last night's budget from the Treasurer. The Albanese Labor government is committed to addressing the cost-of-living pressures by making housing more affordable.
Last night's announcement of a once-in-a-generation housing accord agreed by each tier of government, by investors and by industry is a national commitment to work together to address the systemic problems in the housing market. We know that working together is the only way to get this done. We need all three tiers of government, using the levers available, to invest in more affordable housing right across the country. Indeed, our National Housing Accord is an aspiration, from 2024, to deliver a million new homes in five years—a million new homes for more Australians to have a safe, affordable place to call home. It will deliver $350 million to 10,000 new affordable homes, and this will be matched by the states and territories for a further 10,000. So that's an additional 20,000 affordable homes, and that comes on top of our election commitments that we have already announced. There's the Housing Australia Future Fund—30,000 social housing and affordable homes right across the country. Our Housing Supply and Affordability Council will play an important role as part of the Housing Accord, working with the different tiers of government, particularly the state governments and the federal government, on what additional levers need to be used to get more supply on the ground faster. The accord will help drive private investment, including from superannuation funds, to get more homes on the ground sooner.
This builds on our incentives to get more people into their own home, with the Help to Buy Scheme and the Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee. And of course there's our recent announcement, coming out of the Jobs and Skills Summit, to widen the remit of the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to unlock $575 million for more social and affordable housing sooner.
We want to unlock the NHIF to get more houses on the ground now; then we've got the Housing Australia Future Fund, with investment returns coming in the second half of next year; and then we've got the Housing Accord, with more affordable homes across the country for 2024. This is a systemic reform to housing in this country. It is showing leadership for the first time in a long time from a federal government. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get this right, and we will work to get it right so that more Australians have a safe, affordable place to call home.
Energy
Mr LITTLEPROUD (Maranoa—Leader of the Nationals) (14:39): My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the government's budget decision to cut supply development funding to the Cooper and Adavale basins. By how many gigajoules will this reduce domestic gas supply, and will this increase domestic gas prices further beyond the 40 per cent increase locked in in the budget?
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order. Members on my left will cease interjecting.
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:40): I thank very much the Leader of the National Party for his question, and I will make some comments and then refer to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. The fact is that, earlier on, what we had was a position put that somehow prices for energy went down during the former government's reign. That's what they said. I was actually able to get the 2019 policy of those opposite that they took to the election, and it said: 'A re-elected Morrison government will be targeting a 25 per cent reduction in the average wholesale electricity price by the end of 2021 with new supply through our underwriting new generation initiative.' That's what they said. That was the commitment that they made. And the member opposite, who's been given responsibility for this area, interjected saying that indeed prices went down.
The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister will pause and I will hear from the Manager of Opposition Business.
Mr Fletcher: Well, Mr Speaker, previously you've said that a minister or a Prime Minister can have a preamble. He's had his preamble, on something that's not relevant to the question, which was quite specific—
The SPEAKER: Resume your seat. I just remind the manager that, if he's rising on a point of order, as I said about 5½ minutes ago, you must state the point of order, not just start rambling. Can I give the call to the Prime Minister—
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! I give the call to the Prime Minister, who was answering the question.
Mr ALBANESE: Well, at May 2019, the average wholesale price was $84.25. In May 2022, it was $286.18, so an increase—higher—of $201.93. So, instead of their commitment that they went to the election on, during the last term, of a 25 per cent reduction, it was a 240 per cent increase on their watch.
When you go into the detail about supply, you get to: 'underwriting investment in new reliable power generation and improved competition, including Battery of the Nation'. Well, Battery of the Nation was signed off last week by me and the energy minister. They had a policy that they said would decrease it by 25 per cent; it went up by 240 per cent—
The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister will return to the question.
Mr ALBANESE: and then they said it would be driven by projects that they didn't deliver, that we are delivering in partnership with the Tasmanian Liberal government.
The SPEAKER: I invite the Minister for Climate Change and Energy—
Mr BOWEN (McMahon—Minister for Climate Change and Energy) (14:43): I'd better be quick, Mr Speaker, because the Prime Minister did such a comprehensive job! We are reprioritising the wasteful spending of those opposite, including the alleged, fraudulent, gas-led recovery that the member for Hume claimed existed. And we have abolished his UNGI program because it didn't deliver a megawatt, a gigawatt, a kilowatt or a watt and left the Australian people are saying: 'What was that about?'
Government members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order. Members on my right will cease interjecting so I can hear the member for Jagajaga.
Budget
Ms THWAITES (Jagajaga) (14:43): My question is for the Minister for Social Services. How will the Albanese Labor government's budget deliver cost-of-living support for new parents? How will the policy change help Australian families?
Ms RISHWORTH (Kingston—Minister for Social Services) (14:44): I'd like to thank the member for Jagajaga for her question, because she has long been an advocate of extending paid parental leave, and I am so pleased that the Albanese government is delivering the biggest expansion to paid parental leave since Labor introduced it in 2011. By increasing the amount of government paid leave to six months by 2026 we are providing responsible cost-of-living relief to more Australian families. Our investment supports both parents to take more paid time out of work to care for their children, taking pressure off household budgets. Not only will it help families to better balance work and care; it will also support participation and productivity, providing an economic dividend to the Australian economy.
I am pleased that our changes have been widely welcomed across family groups, gender advocacy groups, employers and unions alike. The ACTU said that the increase to 26 weeks is 'a great step forward for Australian parents, particularly working women'. Jennifer Westacott, from the Business Council of Australia, said that the expansion 'doesn't just help make a fairer society; it's also a major economic reform that will help raise workforce participation and boost productivity'. The Parenthood said that this is 'a significant improvement' after 'no meaningful change to the policy' over the last decade. Minderoo's Thrive by Five Foundation said the government's changes 'will benefit parents, infants, employers, employees and the Australian economy'. And Sam Mostyn, President of Chief Executive Women, welcomed this much-needed expansion.
Our changes are pretty significant. They make our paid parental leave more modern and more flexible, and, of course, they extend it. One of the key changes means that all parents can access government paid leave at the same time as their employer paid leave. Under the current scheme, this is not available to recipients of dad and partner pay. The reason for this is that members on this side of the House want to encourage families to get the support they need from both government and their employers, and I hope that those opposite will support all changes to our paid parental leave, all elements including this one.
Of course, it wasn't long ago that those opposite, when they were in government, accused mothers who wanted to take both government leave and their employer leave of being frauds, of being double-dippers, telling those women they were rorters. This was a terrible attitude to take to Australian families. This side of the House takes it seriously. We seriously want to support families at the time of having their newborn baby.
Budget
Ms TINK (North Sydney) (14:47): My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care: In last night's budget the government outlined the pressures Australians are under following multiple crises—COVID, natural disasters—as well as forecasting the dire cost-of-living pressures to come. Indeed, in the past year alone, two million Australians have accessed Medicare funded psychology sessions. Can the minister please explain to us and to those in the community who need mental health support why the budget did not include an extension of the vital additional 10 Medicare funded psychology sessions, which will now expire at the end of December?
Mr BUTLER (Hindmarsh—Minister for Health and Aged Care and Deputy Leader of the House) (14:48): I thank the member for North Sydney for her question and for her deep understanding of and engagement in health policy in her time in this parliament. As the member pointed out, for some time, there have been an additional 10 sessions available under the Better Access program under Medicare as part of the COVID response, and that has been taken up quite substantially across the country.
We included $2.6 billion in last night's budget for COVID measures, which will take us up to 31 December, by and large. That includes the extension of the COVID national partnership agreement that the Prime Minister concluded with premiers and chief ministers at his first National Cabinet meeting, and a range of other measures going to the need to replenish the National Medical Stockpile. But a range of measures beyond 31 December are still being considered by the government, and arrangements for Better Access in 2023 are one of those measures about which we will have more to say in coming weeks. The government is considering that and a number of other COVID measures that currently expire on 31 December. Many of them were intended to expire on 30 June or 30 September under arrangements put in place by the former government, but I'm very alive to the views of the APS, the Australian Psychological Society, about this, about patients, about the current Better Access arrangements. We're looking at it very deeply in terms of what will be in place for 2023.
More broadly, in relation to Better Access, there is—as I'm sure the member is aware—an evaluation underway that was commenced by the former government, as was appropriate. The last deep evaluation of the Better Access program hadn't taken place for more than 10 years. The final report on Better Access is not due until probably December, maybe a bit after that, and we'll have a look at longer term arrangements in light of that very deep evaluation of Better Access, which I know has had very strong support in the sector. But I assure the member that, in relation to the 10 additional sessions that were put in place as part of the COVID response, we are looking at that closely, along with a range of other COVID measures that currently expire on 31 December. GP respiratory clinics and a number of others are in that category. We'll have more to say about that in coming weeks, and I'd certainly welcome a further discussion with the member about her perspective on this.
Child Care
Mr BURNS (Macnamara) (14:50): My question is to the Minister for Education. Why is Labor's plan for cheaper child care so important?
Mr CLARE (Blaxland—Minister for Education) (14:50): I thank my friend the member for Macnamara for the question. The short answer is: because the cost of child care has gone up by 41 per cent in the last eight years—41 per cent under the Liberals and the Nationals. That's the truth. Child care is expensive. Any mum or dad with a child in child care knows that, and that makes it a massive roadblock for a lot of parents who are going back to work or who want to work more hours and work more days. For example, we know that when both parents are working, if they've got two or more children in child care, one parent can lose between 80 and 100 per cent of their take-home pay if they work a fourth or a fifth day. You'd think, 'Why is it worth it?' Not surprisingly, those parents are almost always women. That's why what we did in the budget last night is so important. It'll cut the cost of child care for more than a million Australian families, including almost 10,000 families, Mr Speaker, in your electorate, about 7,000 families in the opposition leader's electorate and about 6,000 families in the member for Macnamara's electorate—in fact, on average, about 6,000 families in every single electorate represented in this chamber.
At the Jobs and Skills Summit, the head of the Grattan Institute, Danielle Wood, said:
I can't help but reflect that if untapped women's workforce participation was a massive iron ore deposit, we would have governments lining up to give tax concessions to get it out of the ground.
This isn't a tax concession, but it's not welfare either. This is economic reform. It's going to help Australians, particularly Australian women, by giving them more choice. It'll help them to be able to earn more and to retire with more. And, for Australian businesses, that means more skilled workers back at work. According to Treasury, they estimate it will be the equivalent of up to 37,000 more full-time workers in the first year alone. So it's good for children, it's good for parents and it's good for our economy. It's why the Australian people voted for it in May. It's why we're delivering it in this budget. Not surprisingly, this mob opposed it for two years. And then yesterday, at midday, they scurried in here and said they're going to vote for it, but then they proceeded to attack it again. If they think it's such a bad idea, why are they voting for it? We know why—not because they get it; not because they think it'll help children or parents or the economy. We know why they're voting for it, and they're all sitting up there.
Energy
Mr HAMILTON (Groom) (14:53): My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer him to the over 50 per cent increase to electricity prices in his first budget. I refer also to his $100 billion plan to roll out the energy transmission network, with 28,000 kilometres in wires and poles snaking their way around the country. Will this expansion of the energy transmission network further increase electricity prices for Australian families and businesses?
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:54): I'll be seeing the New South Wales Premier later this week, and I'll convey these coalition colleagues' views about renewables and about fixing transmission, because we're working with state and territory governments to fix the mess that was created by those opposite with all of their years of inaction. Here is what a colleague of those opposite had to say about Marinus Link, which is about transmission, which is what you're asking about:
This will renew our economy as a renewable economy … It will put downward pressure on electricity prices … Electricity prices will be lower with Marinus Link than without it. Marinus Link will help save money on people's power bills. It is a great day, a historic day.
That's what Guy Barnett, the Minister for Energy and Renewables, well-known radical socialist and government interventionist—who served in the Senate as a Liberal Party senator for year after year after year, served on their front bench, has gone into the Tasmanian parliament, is a minister and was standing next to me, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy and the Tasmanian Premier—had to say about that. The Tasmanian Premier himself, Jeremy Rockliff, had this to say:
Renewable energy is absolutely 100 per cent in Tasmania's DNA … Reliable, affordable and clean energy that will unlock billions of dollars of investment over the course of the next decades …
He spoke about a 'renewable future'. The New South Wales Premier said:
The issue here, that NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia are dealing with now, has been the ideological war when it comes to climate change and energy policy in this country, and that has led to a lack of private sector investment
That's what Dominic Perrottet, the New South Wales Premier, had to say.
But it's not just coalition members—although there's a range of good quotes from Matt Kean, so I hope you give me another one. Kerry Schott, who the coalition government appointed to look after the Energy Regulator, said:
Just have a think about the way electricity gets dispatched …
Mr Dutton interjecting—
Mr ALBANESE: The Leader of the Opposition says Malcolm did. I've got news for you, sunshine: he was a Liberal Prime Minister and you were in his cabinet. You were in his cabinet. If you had any guts, you would have resigned if that was your view. If you had any guts, you would have resigned and not served a day. (Time expired)
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The House will come to order.
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The House will come to order. The Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting so I can hear the member for Cunningham.
Wages
Ms BYRNES (Cunningham) (14:57): My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to help Australians deal with the cost of living by getting wages moving after a decade of stagnation?
Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (14:58): I thank the member for Cunningham and acknowledge her commitment in particular to closing the gender pay gap, which is part of getting wages moving in this country.
If there was a statistic last night that really stuck out for me—and there are a lot of statistics floating around on budget night—it was this fact: real wages are lower today than they were 10 years ago. Real wages are lower today than they were 10 years ago. That's the impact as a direct result of a government that deliberately wanted to keep wages low. Then you go through the occupations where, to this day, wage growth is still at its lowest. With wage growth already, you look at the inflation figure that's just come out and put that against the wage growth figure at the moment, the WPI, which is 2.6 per cent. But then look even lower than that, in particular occupations. What do these occupations have in common? Retail trade, accommodation and food services, education and training, health care and social assistance: all of them low paid, all of them predominantly women—every one of those. And that's the story of low wage growth in Australia.
The Fair Work Act, when it was established—and those opposite did not seek to amend these sections—had always envisaged that there would be multi-employer bargaining. There were three different streams of bargaining dedicated to multi-employer bargaining, but they haven't worked. For example, with some of the barriers that turned out on the way decisions went, early childhood workers were denied a pay rise on the basis that they couldn't compare their work to the work of engineers. Low-paid workers weren't able to enter the low-paid stream. Think of who these workers were. Nurses, aged-care workers and security guards weren't able to enter the low-paid stream. To those opposite, if you want to question whether or not multi-employer bargaining and opening it up will make a difference to getting wages moving, look no further than the quote from, and I hate that it's the same person again, the shadow Treasurer. The shadow Treasurer was asked by Laura Jayes about his attitude to why they were opposed to multiple-employer bargaining. He answered with this, 'It pushes up wages.' He went on with more, saying, 'This is a bad place to go.' By the end, he was saying, 'This is exactly what they shouldn't be doing.' In terms of having an impact on wages, it will, but if you're a government that wants to get wages moving, these are the sorts of decisions you take, and we'll be introducing it to the parliament tomorrow.
Telecommunications
Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (15:01): My question is to the Minister for Communications. During the election, Labor made a number of commitments to Mayo, including $1.5 million for mobile coverage in Rapid Bay and Cudlee Creek, NBN upgrades to 20,000 Mayo homes and boosted farm connectivity. Would the minister please provide an update with respect to these announcements?
Ms ROWLAND (Greenway—Minister for Communications) (15:01): I thank the member for her question. I acknowledge her longstanding advocacy on the importance of communications right across the portfolio in her electorate. I can inform the member for Mayo that this government is delivering on all its election commitments in the communications space and that includes making sure that Australian families and businesses are better connected than ever. We have invested in this budget over $2.2 billion in regional communications. that represents one of the most major funding boosts to regional comms since the national broadband network was announced.
To the specific issues the member raises, I can go through and itemise the Better Connectivity for Rural and Regional Australia Plan, which is in addition to the $480 million already committed to the upgrade of the fixed wireless network, which in turn improves satellite connectivity as well for those constituents of hers who may also be on the satellite network. We have committed $400 million to improve regional mobile coverage but also to harden communication networks against natural disasters. I know the member is familiar with that. We have $200 million to run further rounds of the Regional Connectivity Program and that funds a broad range of place-based communications solutions.
We have $30 million to expand on-farm connectivity and drive productivity through machine-to-machine networks, which will be keenly felt by farmers. We have $20 million for an independent audit of mobile coverage to see where the true black spots really are so that evidence-based decisions can be made on that basis. We also have $6 million to extend the regional tech hub, which provides expert advice to regional customers on how to connect and stay connected. This is in addition to our announcement of $2.4 billion to upgrade full fibre access for 1.5 million additional premises right across Australia and they include 660,000 premises in the regions.
This government is committed to making sure that more than ever Australians can be connected, they can be informed and they can experience the best improvements in productivity that can be provided through these communications investments. I would note also the Nationals like to talk about being the friends of the regions. There was one party that went to this last election with a policy of improving on-farm connectivity. It was this Prime Minister who will be delivering substantial upgrades, not only in terms of connectivity but also in terms of ensuring that every Australian, irrespective of where they live, where they work or what they earn, have exactly the same opportunities right across the regions.
Budget: Industry and Manufacturing
Mr BURNELL (Spence) (15:04): My question is to the Minister for Industry and Science. What policy changes has the Albanese Labor government made in its first budget to support Australian industry and manufacturing?
Mr HUSIC (Chifley—Minister for Industry and Science) (15:08): I thank the member for Spence for the question. I know he's particularly pleased about the $10 million budget investment we made in the Flinders University's Factory of the Future, building advanced manufacturing skills in businesses and workers in the great state of South Australia. There are a number of projects that we invested in, backing in the proud contribution of the regions to our national manufacturing effort.
From the Prime Minister across the breadth of the party, we're joined in the belief that Australia should be a country that makes things—a truism underscored by what we experienced as a nation through the pandemic; the things that we needed most weren't there when we needed them, at the time that we needed them the most. We, like many nations, are determined to pare back our dependence on one or two countries for our goods. It's not just that we should be a country that makes things but that Australia must be a country that makes things—backing our businesses, their workers and their great ideas because we believe in revitalising manufacturing in the national interest. That's why you saw in last night's budget a commitment through a first down payment in our National Reconstruction Fund, where we'll build capability, resources, agriculture, energy, and medical and emerging technology. We'll put that capability to work through our Buy Australian Plan, which will open up government contracts to Australian industry—all adding up to a future made in Australia.
I couldn't help but notice last night the contrast in the delivery of the budget to what we've seen previously. Before we had a coalition Treasurer stand at that despatch box daring manufacturers to leave the country, and last night you had a Labor treasurer backing in the view that this is a place where we should do more onshore. We believe in manufacturing in the national interest. Those opposite only ever believe in it in the political interest. Look at their record—they cut programs, they goaded manufacturers to go offshore and then they scrambled to do a U-turn. Two years ago this month, they announced a $1.5 billion manufacturing program, which in 2020 they invested nothing in. Fifty shades of flex!
The SPEAKER: Order! The Minister for Industry will withdraw that comment.
Mr HUSIC: I certainly withdraw.
The SPEAKER: I give the call to the Manager of Opposition Business.
Mr Fletcher: A point of order on relevance. He was asked about this government's plans. He couldn't go more than a minute 30 before getting into unspecified sledging—inaccurate and offensive sledging—of this side of the House's record.
The SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order. The Minister was asked about policy changes. I'm asking the Minister to return to that part of the question.
Mr HUSIC: It is an absolute contrast, because you look at what they announced—they announced $1.5 billion program, they did hardly anything in 2020, they hardly did anything in 2021, and then in the weeks before the election 85 per cent of those funds went out the door—85 per cent!
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! Members on my left!
Mr HUSIC: It is an utter contrast. The only thing they're able to manufacture is a regular round of industry ministers that went right through, constantly, versus what we were able to deliver—an important contrast and commitment to manufacturing for the national interest. (Time expired)
H onourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! I'd like to hear the member for Durack in silence. I give her the call.
Energy
Ms PRICE (Durack—Opposition Whip) (15:09): My question is to the Prime Minister. For nearly six months the Prime Minister has refused to repeat his promise of a $275 reduction in household power bills. Now that the government's own budget papers forecast an over 50 per cent increase in power prices, isn't it time the Prime Minister came clean with the Australian people? Will the Prime Minister concede he has broken his $275 promise?
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Durack was heard in silence, and now the Prime Minister will be heard in silence.
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (15:09): Thanks very much, Mr Speaker. I'm sure I will be. I'm very confident that I will be because I'm asked about commitments given during election campaigns on electricity prices. I do know about election commitments given on electricity prices because the former government that we know, before the 2019 election, said that a re-elected Morrison government—
Mr Rick Wilson interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for O'Connor is warned.
Mr ALBANESE: They went on to say a 25 per cent reduction in the average wholesale electricity price. So the electricity price then was $84.25. In May of 2022, it was $286.18—an increase of $201.93. So, instead of a 25 per cent decrease, there was a 240 per cent increase. And that doesn't take into account either the further increase that was baked in where they hid, where they changed the law in order to achieve their outcome—
The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister will return to the question.
Mr ALBANESE: At that election, there were a range of commitments that they gave, none of which they delivered. The election commitment that we gave was to move to 82 per cent renewables, was to invest in our Rewiring the Nation plan—
The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister is talking about the election commitment. I'll hear from the Manager of Opposition Business. I'll ask him to state the point of order.
Mr Fletcher: The point of order is on relevance. He needs to—
The SPEAKER: Resume your seat. The Prime Minister was in midsentence, talking about his election commitment. The question was about election commitments.
Mr ALBANESE: It's a long way to the dispatch box from over there. He's the first Manager of Opposition Business who's ever not sat there, the first Manager of Opposition Business who hasn't sat closest to the dispatch box, because you don't even have support of your leader.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Members on my left!
Mr ALBANESE: The truth is that we've established a rewiring the nation plan.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister will pause. Members on my left, I'm issuing a general warning. Questions are heard in silence, and the answers will be heard in silence. It's not a hard concept.
Mr ALBANESE: Our Rewiring the Nation plan was a part of my first budget reply. It was provided for in last night's budget. And even before our first budget we're delivering, with deals signed by Tasmania and Victoria with the Commonwealth. In the case of the Marinus Link, we have a tripartite agreement between a Victorian Labor government, a Tasmanian Liberal government and the Commonwealth.
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister's time is concluded. Just a reminder to the House: I do not need anyone watching the clock on my behalf.
Budget
Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (15:13): My question is to the Prime Minister. How is the government's budget assisting to build resilience in the Australian economy by implementing the policies which the now Prime Minister announced in his budget replies?
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (15:14): I thank the member for Macquarie for her question. I was given the great honour of having three budget replies during the last term of parliament, and in every one of them I set out an alternative vision for the nation, an agenda which now we have implemented. Every single commitment that we made was in the budget last night.
The first one, of course, was for cheaper child care—one that was opposed by those opposite, one that they said was reckless, including the cap on childcare rebates. They were opposed to it. They then made a little bit of a dance down towards it but then ended up opposing it again. Now it's before the parliament, it appears they're still opposing it.
In that same plan we put forward the Rewiring the Nation plan. This wasn't a plan made up—to give credit where credit's due—by the Labor Party. It's a plan developed by the Australian Energy Market Operator based upon their Integrated System Plan. It's been on the website for years. People have known how to fix the energy grid and how to bring it into the 21st century. But, as for those opposite, it was too hard for them. We put it in our first budget reply. It was in the budget last night.
The second budget reply had in it the Building Australia Future Fund, which we've built on. We not only had the provision for 30,000 places for social and affordable housing that we'll create over five years through the Building Australia Future Fund; we've built on that and worked with the private sector to have our housing accord, which was in the budget last night, as one of the key components. As part of that, we had the National Reconstruction Fund, not just assisting business to transform and to become more efficient but creating new businesses that make things here in Australia. Of course, we had at the centre of the last budget reply aged-care reform, something we are now delivering on in government with legislation that's already been passed through to this parliament.
So the test for the opposition leader tomorrow night is to move out of the mindless negativity which he's focused on. A mob who never knew how to do anything but oppose have returned to their spiritual home on the opposition benches. They're more comfortable there. They didn't know what their last leader was up to, so how could they know what Australians are up to? How could they know what the needs of Australians are? But the test tomorrow night is twofold. What is their alternative? The second part of that test is: if they think it's a good idea, why didn't they do it during their almost one decade in office? That's the big test for the opposition leader tomorrow night—an appropriate title for someone who opposes everything.
I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
DOCUMENTS
Department of Parliamentary Services
Parliamentary Budget Office
Presentation
The SPEAKER (15:17): Pursuant to the Parliamentary Service Act 1999, I present the annual reports for 2021-22 of the Department of Parliamentary Services and the Parliamentary Budget Office.
Presentation
Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (15:17): 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 (15:17): 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:
This Government's failure to deliver on their commitments to the Australian people on cost of living and energy prices.
I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.
More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
Mr TAYLOR (Hume) (15:18): The Prime Minister a moment ago was very keen to talk about tests, but the real question here is: what was the test for the budget? We laid this out very clearly in the lead-up to the budget, and it was to build on the strong economic and budgetary position inherited by those opposite to address those challenges that are bearing down on Australians. We know that absolutely at the top of that list is the cost of living. We also know that it's absolutely essential for all Australians that over the medium to longer term we see strong economic growth and a robust economy which creates opportunities for all Australians and allows them to realise their aspirations. But on any measure, Labor failed that test last night.
Just before the election, the Prime Minister told Australians that they will be better off under a Labor government—no ambiguity, no asterisk, no footnotes. In fact, based on their numbers in the budget, by Christmas, the typical Australian family will be at least $2,000 worse off.
An opposition member: How much?
Mr TAYLOR: Two thousand dollars worse off by Christmas. The budget fails Australian families at exactly the time they need a clear and comprehensive plan to deal with the cost-of-living pressures they are facing.
Now, the budget confirms a number of things. Firstly, the cost of living is going up. Secondly, electricity and gas bills are going up. Electricity bills are going up by 20 per cent this year and 30 per cent next year—56 per cent over two years. Gas bills are going up by 40 per cent over two years. Thirdly, tax payments are going up. Fourthly, government spending is going up. Fifthly, employment will go down;150,000 jobs are going to be shed. Finally—there's more on the list, but this will do for now—real wages are going down in this election cycle.
An opposition member: A typical bread-and-butter Labor budget.
Mr TAYLOR: This was a bread-and-butter Labor budget—there's no doubt about that. It was a big spending, big taxing, traditional Labor budget that delivers everything to government and nothing to the Australian people. So much so, we know there are going to be 20,000 additional public servants. That is the contribution being made to the bread and butter of Australian households. That's not how we're going to deal with the cost-of-living crisis in this country. The budget that the Treasurer handed down last night has no credible plan to deal with those challenges that Australians are dealing with in their households.
Back in July, the Treasurer delivered a ministerial statement to this House. There was a lot of forecasting and a lot of commentary, but what he did say in that statement was that he wanted to paint a picture for the Australian people. Well, we now know what the picture is. It is a self-portrait! All this time he was painting a picture for himself—just a big oil painting of the Treasurer. And that's what we got in the budget last night. There was nothing else of substance. As the Treasurer leads the Labor Party through the desert and into this fiscal nirvana, the prime ministership is waiting for him on a mountain top, and he's getting rid of his rivals day by day—several of them going by the wayside.
That 50 per cent increase in electricity prices—how did that get into the budget papers? There are a lot of questions to answer here. But what we do know is that this was a vanity project for the Treasurer. It should have been about Australians—Australian families, Australian pensioners and hardworking Australian small businesses. They will pay the price for the self-indulgence of this Treasurer and for the lack of a coherent and comprehensive plan to get through to Christmas and deal with those cost-of-living pressures that all Australians are facing. This budget was all about the Treasurer.
There were a number of very significant broken promises in this budget. It confirms that electricity and gas prices are expected rise sharply over the next two years—56 per cent for electricity prices and maybe 40 per cent for gas prices. The promise that Labor made for a $275 electricity price reduction is gone. In fact, the Treasurer confirmed today that it's not in the budget. He misheard, but after clarification it was very clear it is not in the budget anywhere, because it has absolutely gone—like something out of George Orwell, you wipe it out of the documents! The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister Burke, said on 15 June: 'People will be seeing in their bank accounts what the change of government means.' Well, he was right. This a commitment he will keep. This is a commitment they will keep because they will be seeing in their bank accounts exactly what this government means, which is a higher cost of living—more taxes, higher electricity bills and Australians being worse off.
More broadly on cost of living, the Prime Minister said: 'Australian families know that the price and cost of everything is going up—food, petrol, housing. Everything is going up except for the wages.' It's clear that he was talking about his future government because that is exactly what we are seeing around us right now. There were other broken promises.
Those of us who were here in 2019 will remember the debate in this place and in the election campaign about franking credits. On 4 March 2022, that's this year, when asked whether or not he was going to change taxation around franking credits, on ABC Perth mornings the Prime Minister said, 'We're not touching them.' On 30 March 2021, an earlier stage, on ABC Radio AM, he said: 'We won't have any changes to the franking credit regime.' Then the Treasurer on 17 January 2022 said, 'We won't be doing franking credits.' He might have misheard. It's always possible that he misheard and who knows what 'doing' means. But he did say, 'We won't be doing franking credits.' Do you know what they brought into the budget? It is a change to taxation on franking credits. This is another broken promise.
They claim that this was a responsible budget. There's some creative accounting in what the Treasurer said last night. Let's go to the facts. How much more tax is going to be charged to Australians over the next four years in this budget versus the March budget? It's a very simple number: $142 billion of extra taxes. That's a rising rate of income tax, a 10 per cent increase in the average income tax rate paid across the economy. The only way that is going to be stopped is the stage 3 tax cuts. Those opposite can't even bear to mention them. It goes further than that. Not only are they taxing an additional $142 billion; they're spending an additional $115 billion. This is a traditional Labor budget. It is a big spending, big taxing budget. The one thing we know in this budget is that they put in a great big gap for the next budget, which is to get rid of the stage 3 tax cuts. However much they're taxing, they always want to tax more.
Mr JONES (Whitlam—Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services) (15:28): We're delighted to have a debate about energy policy and energy prices because of the 150 members of parliament there is not a man or woman who is more culpable for the diabolical state in our energy markets, in our generating system, in this place than the member for Hume. So ashamed is he of his diabolical record that he has now scurried from the chamber. There is not a man or woman in this place who is more culpable for the diabolical state of our energy market in Australia than this guy here: 22 failed energy policies. All of them can collectively take responsibility for the 22 failed energy policies of the last nine years. But the person who has got his grubby fingers over every single one of them is the member for Hume. He personally did his very best to white-ant and pull apart the energy policies and then the prime ministerships of those people who'd put those policies together. There is nobody in this parliament who has more personal responsibility for today's state of rising energy prices than the member for Hume. It's the member for Hume who should be writing to all Australians and saying: 'I am sorry for my diabolical record as the previous energy minister of this country.'
How do we know this? From the fact that, on his very watch, we had nine years of energy policy chaos. What was the result? Well, the result was a capital strike, with four gigawatts of baseload energy transmission withdrawn from the system—four gigawatts withdrawn from the system. And how much went back in? One gigawatt. So, on his watch, we saw three gigawatts of energy generation withdrawn from the system. If you want to know why power bills are going up in 2022, look at the woeful track record of this bloke over here. He's like the guy who mugs you on the way to the shops and then complains that you haven't come home with the shopping. It's all on him and on every single one of them.
We used to hear a lot—those who've been in this place for a while remember hearing—the member for Hume, when he was the energy minister, bragging about his 'big stick' legislation. Remember his big stick legislation? Waving it around in the air, bragging to us that he had legislated a big stick. Well, he doesn't talk about it much today, does he? Neither do his mates down there. They don't talk much about the big stick anymore. They promised the big stick legislation was going to deliver a 25 per cent reduction in energy prices. We all remember that. 'I'm going to wave around my big stick and threaten the energy companies: "If you don't lower your prices, I'm going to wave my big stick at you."' Twenty-five per cent was promised. What was delivered? A 240 per cent increase! This guy thought he was a student of Teddy Roosevelt—we all remember that one: the bloke who was going to 'speak softly and carry a big stick'—except he got it the wrong way around. Our bloke spoke stickly and carried a big soft! A 240 per cent increase in energy prices—and they have the gall to come in here today and complain about the impact of rising energy prices on Australian households! Well, we are not going to have a bar of it.
To add insult to injury, on 6 April, one month before the election, when he was due to sign off on and release and expose to Australians what the default market offer was going to be for wholesale prices throughout the country, did he sign off and did he release those prices? No, he did not. He signed an instrument which guaranteed that those prices would not be released to the Australian people until after the election. And why did he do that? Why on earth would he want to hide the truth from the Australian people before the election about the cost of energy prices? The reason was: he knew that energy prices were about to go up by 20 per cent. And what Australians are seeing in their energy bills today is the direct result of this bloke's policy. Every single cent of increase in electricity prices and gas prices is on his head. There is not another person in parliament who is more culpable, more responsible, for energy price increases in this country today than the member for Hume—not another person.
But it does not have to be this way. It's why we, as one of our very first acts when we came in to government, was to ensure that we created stability and certainty for energy policies in this country. How did we do it? We legislated our carbon emissions targets and we sent a very clear message to energy markets and investors in this country that we believed in the science and we were going to be partners in the energy transition, giving certainty—not a different policy every six months, which is what they had seen from the legacy of this mob over there. We've legislated, providing investment certainty, and it is flowing. The big investors are lining up. They're hungry for the projects because they know that there is a future in renewable energy.
Gone are the fruitless arguments that they're still having over there about whether we should be moving to a clean energy future and generating more energy in our network through renewable energies. We legislated for climate change and carbon emissions, but we also legislated to kickstart wind energy, and, in particular, offshore wind energy, in this country. We know there is enormous potential and jobs capacity, particularly in offshore wind energy generation, in this country. We don't have to have the chaos that we've seen over the last eight years which has seen power prices go up and up and up. There is an alternative, and the alternative is the policies offered by the Albanese Labor government.
They often talk about the impact of jobs in regional Australia. That is the reason why our plan specifically identifies regional Australia as the site for renewable energy generation. We know that there are jobs in it: jobs in the building of it, jobs in the maintenance of it and jobs in the transmission.
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr JONES: They laugh, they wonder and they ask these baseless, ridiculous, bone-headed questions all through question time about our plan to rewire the nation.
Mr Tehan: Come on, tell us. Where are you going to get your content from for offshore wind?
Mr JONES: Dangerous Dan, the member for Wannon, over here wants to know what Rewiring the Nation will do. Here's the tip: if you don't have a connector between the place where you're generating the energy and the place where you're using it, it doesn't work, sunshine. It doesn't work. That's why we are rewiring the nation. It is exactly what industry is after. This mob had the option to do it for nine long years, but, instead of fighting for the Australian people, they were fighting amongst themselves, and we are seeing the result—
Opposition mem bers interjecting—
Mr JONES: They're still at it. They are still in denial. Listen to them. They are still shouting at the wind and arguing amongst themselves. They can't land an energy policy. They couldn't land one in government, and they've certainly got no hope of landing one in opposition, particularly when you've got the chief clan running their energy and economic policy.
Australians have hope that we are going to put all this behind us. We have policy certainty, we have legislated the targets, we are working with industry to ensure that we can kickstart legislation, we are working with manufacturers who know where the future is in this area, and we will ensure that, from the very beginning to the very end, we have a supply chain of renewable energy and there are jobs in it. This is the thing that these numbskulls over there could never get through their thick heads: there are jobs in renewable energy. There are jobs in the regions in renewable energies, and the people in the regions know it.
At the run-up to the last election, they were running these arguments in their inner-city seats, and they lost them; and the next mob will be regional Australia.
Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (15:38): Well, it is the day after the new government's first budget, and we all know it is a budget littered with broken promises. Now, I can tell you about all 275 broken promises that I have on my mind right now, and they're all related to power prices. Every single Labor member in this chamber was elected to this House on the basis of a promise—a promise made no less than 97 times. That promise was that household power bills would come down by $275. Today in question time, yet again, we asked the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the responsible minister to confirm the promise that they told the Australian people, but they couldn't, because they know it's a broken promise.
Last night, the new government's own budget put in black and white the very thing that the Prime Minister has not had the courage himself to say—that is that the $275 promise has been broken, entirely broken, because electricity prices, already skyrocketing, will go up by another 50 per cent and gas prices by 40 per cent. This is a clear broken promise, and it comes after the coalition government not only delivered on its emissions targets—not only reduced emissions by over 20 per cent on 2005 levels—but also reduced the price of power for households by eight per cent, for businesses by 10 per cent and for industry by 12 per cent. Yet the Labor Party assured the Australian people they could do better—they could reduce the price further—and it has only been going up since.
We know that the cost of living is the key issue for Australians right now. The government conceded this last night—that, because inflation is going up, they need a cost-of-living plan. But if you go to the budget papers, in particular Budget Paper No. 1, and look at the economic outlook section, within the pages on inflation, the most common theme about what is driving inflation now is the increasing price of energy. Energy is going through the roof in terms of its cost for businesses and households. That's the No. 1 issue driving inflation, according to the first budget paper. So then you might turn up and say: 'Right. What's the government's plan? What is the government going to do about it?' The government has a cost-of-living plan. It's got five points, but nowhere in that does the government address the issue of the cost of power. First, the government breaks the promise; second, it has a so-called cost-of-living plan that excludes any consideration for reducing people's power prices.
Believe it or not, there's a more serious long-term issue we have here with the broken promise and Labor's first budget. The $275 promise was based on economic modelling. We now know, through the government's own budget papers, that that economic modelling is flawed. We also know that because today neither the Prime Minister, the Treasurer nor the minister would actually stand by that modelling. Yet here's the deal: the modelling, which is flawed and is now proven to be flawed, is the exact modelling that the government has based its entire energy policy on. Its entire energy policy is based on that same economic modelling. The member for Whitlam was boasting about legislating targets only a moment ago. The government went to this House and legislated targets for emissions reduction without having the department do any economic modelling. What was it based on? The same flawed economic modelling that has now been revealed. This is why Australia's energy sector is going to become an absolute train wreck. It will be a train wreck because, we now know and Australians know, it's based on economic modelling that is flawed. The government knows it. The Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the minister cannot defend it, and that train wreck will be on them. It will be on the Labor government.
Mr BRIAN MITCHELL (Lyons) (15:43): What a performance. What an absolute debacle on that side of the House. We are meant to be taking lessons from a guy proposing that the answer to Australia's energy future is nuclear, the most expensive form of energy in the world. That's what we're meant to believe from this bloke. I've been listening to the comments from those opposite, and I can't make head or tail of what they're on about. It's just beyond comprehension what they are talking about. They are making absolutely no sense at all. It was under their government and the former energy minister, the member for Hume, that these problems arose with energy prices. This is the guy who, before the election, hid from the Australian people the fact that a 19 per cent energy price rise was on the way. That's what they did on that side of the House when they were in government. Shameful conduct from those opposite when they were in government.
What we heard last night from the Treasurer was a responsible budget by the Albanese Labor government that tackles cost-of-living pressures head-on and provides strong and sound investment in improving our energy sector for the long term. That will result in energy prices being driven down over the long term. The facts speak for themselves: renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy in the world today. I come from the state of Tasmania, where we produce 100 per cent renewable energy. Marinus Link, which was signed off by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Climate Change and Energy last week—with me in the background; very proud to be there—will allow Tasmania's energy output to drive to 200 per cent. It will increase Tasmania's capacity. It will increase energy security. It's vital as part of the Battery of the Nation. We've got Liberal premiers, Liberal ministers, and a former Liberal senator of this place backing in Marinus Link, backing in renewables and totally repudiating the position of those opposite when it comes to renewable energy. They are all over the shop on that side of the House.
What we know on this side of the House is that we are consistent, methodical and competent when it comes to delivering policy that matters for people and families. This goes to the cost-of-living plan that we addressed last night, with five points that will help families but also help the economy. Cheaper child care is good for families and good for household budgets but also good for the economy because it gets workers, mostly women, back into the workforce. It's the equivalent of 37,000 workers back into the workforce at a time when employers are crying out for workers. It's a fantastic economic measure, not just a cost-of-living measure. There is an expansion of paid parental leave. It's a very important reform that allows families to take time off for their kids, particularly for dads, to spend more time with their young children. That's a very important reform.
Cheaper medicines: for the first time in Australia's history, the cost of medicines will come down. Those opposite are saying we've got no plan for the cost of living. We're making medicines cheaper!
Mr Perrett: The first time in 75 years.
Mr BRIAN MITCHELL: The first time in 75 years—that's right, Member for Moreton. I can tell those opposite that people who buy medicines on the PBS will feel the benefits of this. One script a month—300 bucks a year you'll save.
More affordable housing: a comprehensive plan to tackle the housing crisis that this country is facing in both rentals and buying homes with the way prices have got out of control. We've got a comprehensive plan to get more affordable housing into the mix—it's far too detailed to go into in this speech. And, of course, we're going to get wages moving again. We're not going to pretend that will be easy, but we've made a start. We've backed the minimum wage increase. We're backing aged-care workers getting an increase. I don't forget that one of the first, most shameful acts of those opposite when they came to government was to knock out aged-care workers and early childcare workers getting a pay rise. That was nine years ago. They've paid the price ever since. We are backing some of the lowest-paid, hardest-working members of our community into getting a pay rise. We are addressing the cost of living.
I fully back Marinus Link. It's fantastic that that was signed last week. Renewable energy is the future of this country. Those on the opposite side should get on board or get out of the way.
Mr PITT (Hinkler) (15:48): What the Australian people know after last night is that under a federal Labor government the only way is up in Australia. That is for interest rates, because they are going up. The cost of living is going up. Mortgage repayments are going up. Electricity costs are going up by up to 56 per cent in the Labor budget. Gas prices are going up. Everything is going up. The price of food is going up because it relies on these things not only for production but for logistics. Those opposite claim the cost of living is going down, but their own budget papers prove that is not true. But something is frozen, and it has been admitted by the Treasurer and in the budget papers, and that is real wages. How many times did we hear that real wages were going to go up under a Labor government? But they are frozen for the next two years, according to your own budget papers.
We heard earlier about the big stick. Well, the big stick is being taken to the Australian people by federal Labor. We have people right now who cannot afford to rent a home. They are living in cars and caravans and tents. They need support. What support do we hear about from federal Labor? Yes, they have made changes for the PBS—for next year, not this year, not now. People need to be able to pay their bills right now. We heard some claims from the Prime Minister in question time about wholesale power prices. I thought it was quite interesting that the Prime Minister selected only a couple of particular years, because guess what: in one of the years that he left out, according to AEMO—to give one example: quarter 3 of 2020—the NEM wholesale power price was down 48 per cent to, in Queensland, $32 a megawatt hour. How convenient for the Prime Minister that he just happened to miss that contribution from AEMO. So the government are claiming there are enormous changes in wholesale power prices, but the reality is that, in one of the years that they didn't pick, the wholesale power price was down significantly—in fact by almost half.
What else happened? Well, we're expecting a 40 per cent increase in gas prices. So what have those opposite done? They've cut the strategic basin plans out of the budget—the things that actually develop more gas, which drives down the price because there is more supply. We continue to see more cuts. Madam Deputy Speaker, I'm sure you'll be very interested in this. I've heard about these organisations so many times in this place. The government have cut funding to the CSIRO, ANSTO and Geoscience Australia. Can you believe it, Madam Deputy Speaker? It is in the budget papers. They have cut the science academies of Australia—those individuals in Geoscience who go out and find the resources this country relies on. They have found resources with over $1 trillion, as part of their organisation, and that helps build our economy and provides confidence for those that invest. And we continue to hear from those opposite that this is not happening. It's your budget paper. It's not ours. It is in your documents.
We have seen today an outpouring from the Australian people, because they don't need these types of problems. They already have them. They have challenges paying their bills right now. And what have we seen? We have seen cuts in the budget to the things that will actually fix problems. An electricity price increase of 56 per cent will be not only devastating for every pensioner in this country but devastating for the manufacturing industry. We will lose jobs, because the industry is simply not competitive at those prices. Gas is exactly the same. Without cheap, affordable, reliable gas and electricity, we cannot be internationally competitive. And yet what we hear from those opposite is that they are going to expend billions of dollars on transmission, which is paid for as a regulated asset, with a guaranteed rate of return. It is paid for by—guess who?—electricity consumers and businesses. So your proposal drives up the price of electricity. It doesn't drive it down.
The big elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about is: if you are having an 80 per cent, roughly, renewable target, with intermittent wind and solar, you'll have intermittent power, because it does not work. It has to be backed up 100 per cent. That is in every international design for an electricity network. That has to be paid for, so you pay for it twice. You pay for the transmission. It will drive up power prices even further. We see a 56 per cent electricity price increase forecast in Labor's budget. Gas is going up. Prices are going up. The cost of living is going up. And what do we hear from those opposite? Silence. They continue to claim that this is not happening, even though it's in their documents, in their budget. The Australian people will not forgive them, because they know it is them who have to pay.
Dr ANANDA-RAJAH (Higgins) (15:53): Part of the reason I stand in this chamber as the first Labor member Higgins is that the people of Higgins agreed that the former Prime Minister took no responsibility. The thing is: that outbreak of not taking responsibility has spread. It has spread like a contagion and infected everyone on the opposition benches. There is an inability to take responsibility for the chaos and neglect of the last nine years. Now we as a government are the adults in the room trying to clean up this mess.
What I witnessed yesterday was incredible—sitting in this chamber and listening to a budget delivered by our Treasurer, who then followed on with the National Press Club address. Honestly, it was a master class in fiscal responsibility. At its core was generational investment—not electoral bandaids like suspension of the fuel excise, which led to a liability on the heads and shoulders of Australians, but investment in our people and our future.
At the heart of that budget was something very close to my heart: cheaper child care, an investment of over $5 billion in women, in children and in our economy. Unlike those opposite, we see cheaper early childhood education and care as a force multiplier. It doesn't just benefit children; it enables women who have skills, knowledge and talent to re-enter the workforce, because what happens with the motherhood penalty is that they are held back. Suddenly they hit the dirt and the brakes come on and they lose traction. If things go really badly for them, they completely skid off the road altogether. I talked about this in my maiden speech. Years go by. Ambition is dimmed until it is snuffed out altogether. That almost happened to me, but what saved me was getting a grant from the government and re-entering the research economy.
So cheaper child care matters. It matters to people in my electorate. Higgins in Victoria pays the highest cost for child care, and that statement is based on a study from Victoria University. As I walked around my electorate, people were telling me, as they were clutching their babies, that they were paying $165 a day or $200 a day. In one case, unbelievably, a mother disclosed that she was paying $2,000 a month for child care. She understood that there were intangible benefits of working, but I can assure you that the warm glow of charity is not one of them. So it is incredible that this government has now stepped in to fill this void and we are giving our women a chance—a chance to get back on track, advance their careers and contribute to this economy. For too long women were deprioritised by those opposite. So that is a very real, tangible reform that is going to drive down the cost of living.
Among the other things, of course, is paid parental leave, which is going to be boosted from 18 weeks to 26 weeks—that is, six months—over the next four years. We're also investing heavily in affordable housing. In my electorate, South Yarra has a median house price of $2.2 million. No-one can afford that, yet I have thousands upon thousands of young renters living there because they love living there. It is a village. So it is incredibly heartening to see that we are investing in a million homes to be built over the next five years. That is going to make a real benefit for thousands and thousands of Australians around our country.
But we're not stopping there. We're also introducing cheaper medicines, something I know something about, having prescribed a lot of medicines in my life. I understand that people ration medicines, and when that happens there are always downstream consequences. Diabetes is out of control. Hypertension is out of control. People get heart attacks or strokes. They end up in the emergency department with sugars of 50 instead of 7. So we are going to be bringing that in in January, and it's going to save lives. This is the kind of policy reform that is going to put our country back on track, drive down cost-of-living pressures and give the generational investment our country needs.
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (15:59): This budget has entirely destroyed any credibility held by this government across so many different areas, but nowhere more so than in the most crucial of areas, the cost of living. Within the cost of living, there is no issue of more significance to Australian families than the cost of electricity and power. That's just the reality, and this government has consistently misled the Australian people, over a significant period of time when in opposition, about what it was going to do on electricity prices. It was entirely false before the election and we know now just how entirely false all those statements were, because they have been talking about this $275 a lot, right up until a crucial date in May, which was, of course, the election. If you read the Powering Australia plan and, sadly, I've done that, right there on the first page is, 'We will save households $275 on their electricity prices.' That's clearly not true, but it is on page 1 of the Powering Australia plan.
The Prime Minister wrote an op-ed in the Daily Mail, trying to reach as many people as possible. A lot of people read the Daily Mail. That op-ed says, 'We'll save you $275 on your power prices.' Not true. The Treasurer went to his local paper—I'm sure it's his local paper—My City Logan. I'm sure he takes very seriously the commitments he makes to MyCity Logan. On 15 Mayhe had a list of great things he was going to do but the very first one he said was, 'We'll invest in cleaner and cheaper energy through our Powering Australia policy to cut power bills by $275.' The people of Logan were told that very clearly by the Treasurer.
Then, perhaps most significantly of all, at the National Press Club a few days before the election—the Prime Minister was there, all the journalists were there and it was live on television—the centrepiece of the Prime Minister's speech was saving households $275 a year. They are just a few of the 97 occasions on which this occurred. But the weird thing is, and this is really interesting, on 12 July the Prime Minister gave a speech about energy to the Sydney Energy Forum. It was a really long speech, 2,300 words. But, oddly, two months after the election, no mention of the $275. It's very strange because they were so proud of this policy and they talked about it 97 times before the election then after the election, it became the policy that dare not speak its name. We know why, because it wasn't true, it was never true. They knew it wasn't true but they said it over and over.
We learn in the budget that electricity prices are going to rise by more than 50 per cent over the next two years. That is going to smash Australian families. It is a massive increase. Gas prices are up by more 40 per cent. We're talking about hundreds and hundreds of dollars every quarterly bill for Australian families, which is very different to prices coming down. This is a massive betrayal by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.
The government was going to get real wages moving again too. Remember that? It was all going to be good after the election but the budget, again, says the opposite thing. It says that real wages are going to go down. Then to counter that inconvenient truth, the Treasurer and the member for Watson say, 'No, what we're going to do is reintroduce pattern bargaining, embed the ACTU into just about every workplace in Australia and that's going to sort out this issue.' That will be like going back to the 1970s and not in a good way. Not the Lillee and Thomson good aspect of the '70s; the bad aspects of the '70s.
This is a huge problem which is hitting people very hard because this is about the most fundamental issue of the cost of living. With all this going on, it's weird in the budget papers that the Treasurer found time to have a chapter called 'Measuring what matters'. He tells us that in 2023 there is going to be a measuring what matters statement, 'An important next step in facilitating a more informed and inclusive policy dialogue on how to improve the quality of life of all Australians.' We have got to wait until 2023. I am sure it's going to be wonderful! But here are some tips: tell them the truth, do something about the cost of living, don't say something that's wrong 97 times and try to act with integrity in public office.
Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (16:04): I am going to give some sage advice to the opposition. We, unfortunately, spent nine years on that side. When you put up a matter of public importance and you think it is important, you actually put people on the benches. Look at their side: one, two, three. They have got three people in the chamber. If they thought this was a big issue, they would have them over there giving us lectures, hectoring and interjecting. But they are nowhere to be seen, because they know they should hang their heads in shame for nine years of failure in this space.
We've got a Treasurer that's delivered a strong budget, a resilient budget, fulfilling our election commitments. I'll tell you what those people opposite did in their first budget. Their first budget resulted in the Prime Minister losing his job. Tony Abbott lost his job over that budget, and Joe Hockey, the then member for North Sydney, was never the same again. He sat there, a diminished man. What that mob did was have a commission of audit, and they cut $80 billion out of health and education. Remember the Medicare co-payments to make the cost of living harder for people in our areas? They are the people that did it. Then they froze the indexation of Medicare, year after year. And they have the gall to come into this place and give us lectures about the cost of living.
What about wages—10 years of failure. Have they ever supported a wage rise for low-paid workers? Not at all. Not once. When the former opposition leader, the now Prime Minister, held up a coin during the election campaign and talked about a $1-an-hour increase for low-paid workers, they called him a loose unit because they didn't support and still don't support wage rises. There has never been a wage cut or a wage freeze they haven't supported. That's the view that they took. That's what their former finance minister Mathias Cormann said in a moment of candour and honesty. That's what they truly believe. Those people opposite will never support the representatives of the workers. They'll never support the workers—the heroes of the pandemic.
When it comes to child care, they haven't supported that policy. There are 8,900 families in my electorate who will benefit, but those opposite will not support it. So they'll oppose that improvement for low-paid workers, for young families in my area—more than 10 per cent of the people living in places like Spring Mountain, Springfield Lakes, Ripley Valley and South Ripley in my electorate. Those opposite will vote against, not support, the childcare changes that will help those young families in my electorate. That's why the candidate that ran against me could not even talk about those issues in the last election. They should be ashamed of what they've done.
When it comes to education, they wouldn't support needs based funding. We on this side of the chamber believe that everyone has got a right to go to a cathedral of learning, a great state school—but parents have the right to send their kids to a private school and to support those private schools as well. We believe in education. Those opposite wanted to freeze—we've talked about the cost of living—pay rises for the military, the ADF, and only a campaign by military families and the Labor opposition, supporting the ADF, got pay rises for the military. So don't come into this place and give us lectures about the cost of living.
What about dementia supplements and aged-care supplements? It took them 32 minutes to get rid of $1.3 billion in funding to the most vulnerable people in this country: people living with dementia struggling with cost-of-living pressures. That is what those opposite did in 2013-14. That was their first budget. That's what they did when they came into office.
What we've done now that we've got into office is help people with cost-of-living pressures, like childcare and paid parental leave to help families. Under that mob, there wouldn't have been a budget paper from the Treasury that had wage indexation or expected wage rises. It wasn't achieved. It never was achieved. So don't give us lectures—because there's a 3.75 per cent wage increase in the budget papers. That's what's going to happen across the board. They never achieved any of that, not once when they were in government. It was nine years of neglect—nine years of not caring less about families, working families, and individuals, people in my electorate, people in working-class areas, young families in regional and rural areas. They pose—they preen in this place—about how they're concerned about helping working families and people in need. But they do nothing when they're in government; they make those people's lives that much harder.
Mr PEARCE (Braddon) (16:09): The electorate of Braddon—the north-west, west coast and King Island in Tasmania—is a hardworking, no-nonsense electorate. We're the engine room of the Tasmanian economy. In fact, 52½ per cent of Tasmania's GDP comes out of our resource sector down the west coast. Our thriving agriculture sector, our forestry sector and our fishing and tourism sectors all contribute equally to Tasmania's GDP, but they've been through the works. They've been through quite a bit of trauma in recent times. They've been through COVID, like the rest of the country. They've been through a wet winter, and, finally, in the last couple of weeks, they've endured a devastating flood in my region. I want to acknowledge all the SES, emergency services and volunteers that have helped out during that localised campaign. They've done it tough and they've had a kick in the guts.
That community has bound together, worked together, helped each other out, lifted each other up and worked in conjunction with regional SES and other organisations to ensure that people are looked after. But they received another a kick in the guts last night, when they read the budget. They felt they had been disenfranchised and left out. We're a regional electorate. We're a rural electorate. We come from the bush. My electorate, along with me and many others on this side, feel that the bush was abandoned last night.
As well as being abandoned, they were also insulted, because this is where the food comes from for our region; this is where our income comes from. And it's impacted in many different ways. If you want to know how it's impacted them and what this budget means for them, we can put it very simply: first of all, your cost of living is going up. That is undeniable. That is a fact. Your power prices are going to go up. Just on that, I received an email from a constituent. He's a farmer and a mate of mine. He grows seed potatoes and has a coolstore in the Latrobe area. His name's Andrew. His last bill from his energy supplier was $26,000 for the month of June, and his power bill for the month of July has increased from $26,000 to $63,000. It's a significant increase that will probably put him out of business, considering the damage that's occurred during the floods. From $26,000 to $63,000 in a month—and that's going to get worse.
When we talk about business, particularly agribusiness, advanced manufacturing, forestry and those hardworking jobs where people take risks and put their livelihoods on the line, we know business confidence is king. As soon as that confidence is knocked, then it's infectious, and other businesses are also infected by that lack of confidence. Sooner or later that builds into the stage where people give up. They sell their business and walk off. And I don't want to see that in my great electorate of Braddon.
They're hurting right now, and they need instant relief. The local government organisations and local councils need money to drive their bottom line, when they're putting out excavators and crews to fix the local bridges, culverts and infrastructure that they so desperately need to get the vehicles and the public through. They need assistance now. It's an insult, really, to offer them $1,000 or $400 for every child. We need those roads and that critical infrastructure fixed up, and the government needs to act now.
If you want to know what else is impacting my producers in Tasmania, it's diesel prices and energy prices, as I alluded to earlier. The disparity between diesel fuel and ULP derivatives is up to 50c per litre. Diesel, which was traditionally cheaper than ULP, now costs 50c more. Tasmania runs on diesel. Our trucks, our mineral industry, our resources sector, our logistics—everything comes by boat, and they've got diesel engines. The gas price is affecting the removal of sulphur out of that diesel, and that's what's causing the disparity. And they're going to see more of this, because no parameters have been taken. Instead of fixing the problem and finding a way out, all we're doing is the blame game, and it's got to stop. Look after the bush.
Mr ROB MITCHELL (McEwen) (16:14): I'm going to start with these famous words: 'We will deliver a surplus in our budget each and every year we're in government.' That was said by Joe Hockey, that famous Treasurer of the Liberal government, who goaded the Australian automotive industry out of existence—and thousands and thousands of jobs with it. What we saw with that government when they were in was actually a tripling of the debt. It was headed for $1.2 trillion under their watch. We had the then Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, come in here and say that there would be no cuts to SBS, no cuts to health and no cuts to education, and they tried the GP tax. All these were things that they did over nine years of neglect and darkness, which they seem to forget now. They seem to be absolutely ignorant of what they did when they were in government. They expect it to be fixed just like that.
We know that, when it comes to the cost of living, people are hurting. They are hurting because of a whole range of issues, but No. 1 was a deliberate strategy of the Liberal and National parties to drive down wages. There has never, ever been a wage case going forward to the Industrial Relations Commission or to Fair Work Australia—which is the place we go to now—in which those opposite have supported an increase for low-paid workers. They have done everything they can to make it harder for Australians who are doing it tough at the moment through things like child care.
We could talk about power prices and that, because we remember Captain Cayman himself, the member for Hume, coming in here and carrying on. Remember, he was going to carry his big stick—one of the 22 plans they had for power prices that they never, ever delivered. Well, that big stick turned out to be a bit of limp lettuce. It did nothing. In fact, during his time as energy minister, the thing he was most famous for was dodgy documents relating to Clover Moore. That was the extent of what they were aiming to do.
You have that mob over there, who still sit there and say, 'Oh, we've got to continue with developing coalmines.'
A government member: It's not a mob; there's three of them.
Mr ROB MITCHELL: There's three of them—yes, three of them. It's probably the brains trust! This is the day that we talk about a matter of public importance. Well, let's have a look. We know that renewable energy is the cleanest and cheapest form of energy. Once you've got those systems up and running, you actually have free energy that can come out of that. We also hear the misnomer from those opposite about how the wind doesn't blow all the time and solar doesn't work at night. The irony is that it was one of their resources ministers, the one that the member for Cook had to shadow because he was going that badly—old Scomo decided to pop in and fill in that position himself at the same time; you know, he's interested—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): I remind the member to refer to members by their correct titles, please.
Mr ROB MITCHELL: Well, if I were talking about the member for Cook, I'd use my five minutes going through all of his titles that he had tucked away! But we talk about resources. The resources that we have here in this country have been neglected by that lot over there in the nine years that they forget about, are actually about building battery technology and developing the stuff that is actually going to work and help to make things cheaper and better for people. All we've heard about since we've come in here—and the shadow minister pops in—is the $275. Never once have we seen an apology for the 240 per cent increase in power prices under their watch or the $500 that Tony Abbott promised and never, ever delivered. That lot over there are very hypocritical when it comes to talking about power prices.
I'll be very clear about what we said in the Powering Australia plan. Our election promise has been absolutely consistent with the modelling that we took to the election. I'm going to say this slowly so that those opposite can keep up. We said in our Powering Australia plan, there in black and white, 'It will cut power bills for families and businesses by $275 a year for homes by 2025 compared to today.' Let's remember: 2025. So they sit there and say that we've broken our promise three years before it's actually due. I'm not sure where you get your logic from over there, but it's not real bright at all to be able to come in here, considering your history of failing every single time you talked about budget surpluses, with your 'Back in black' mugs.
Of course, the good old member for Hume, the shadow Treasurer, is coming in here the day after the budget is delivered, and he can't come in and talk about economic policy. He is the greatest thing that the member for Rankin, the Treasurer, could ever wish for. Jim has certainly been kissed, having Angus Taylor as his shadow. So, before we hear any more of this hypocritical stuff coming from those opposite, have a look at your own record before you get up and speak.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: A point of order?
Mr Pearce: A point of order, Deputy Speaker: I'd like the members referred to by their correct and proper title.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have reminded the member of that just previously, and I'm happy to remind all members of the House to refer to each other by their respective titles. That concludes debate on the matter of public importance.
BILLS
Supply Bill (No. 3) 2022-2023
Supply Bill (No. 4) 2022-2023
Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2022-2023
Returned from Senate
Messages received from the Senate returning the bills without amendment or request.
Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
Report from Federation Chamber
Bill returned from Federation Chamber with an unresolved question; certified copy of the bill and schedule of the unresolved question presented.
Ordered that this bill be considered immediately.
Unresolved question—
That the amendment moved by the honourable member for Fairfax be disagreed to:
(1) Schedule 2, item 7, page 13 (lines 10 and 11), omit the item. [financial security]
The SPEAKER (16:25): The question is that the amendment be disagreed to.
The House divided. [16:25]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)
Third Reading
Mr BOWEN (McMahon—Minister for Climate Change and Energy) (16:33): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
BUSINESS
Orders of the Day
Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (16:33): I declare that Federation Chamber orders of the day Nos 5, 6 and 7, government business relating to the Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 3) Bill 2022, the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Fees Imposition Amendment Bill 2022 and the Income Tax Amendment (Labour Mobility Program) Bill 2022, are returned to the House for further consideration.
The S PEAKER: The matters will be set down for consideration at a later hour this day.
COMMITTEES
Public Works Joint Committee
Report
Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (16:34): On behalf of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, I present the committee's Report 4/2022:AIR7000 Phase 1B Remotely Piloted Aircraft System Facilities Project and other works.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
Mr PERRETT: by leave—On behalf of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, a committee established back in 1913, I present the committee's 4th report for 2022. This report considers two proposals referred to the committee in August with a combined value of over $491 million. Most of this is for the Department of Defence improvements at RAAF Tindal outside Katherine in the Northern Territory and RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia. The report also includes the proposal for an office fit-out for the Australian Taxation Office in Paramatta, New South Wales.
The works on facilities and infrastructure at RAAF Base Tindal and RAAF Base Edinburgh will support the introduction of the Triton aircraft system into service at an estimated cost $427 million. The Triton is a remotely piloted aircraft system capable of high altitude, long endurance flight, designed for maritime patrol and other surveillance roles. The introduction of this aircraft system will enhance this nation's defence capabilities and ensure we remain agile and adaptive within a rapidly changing geostrategic environment.
The second project is for an office fit-out for the ATO, within the recently constructed building at 6 Paramatta Square in Western Sydney. The member for Parramatta, who sits next to me, tells me this is the biggest building in Australia for floor space—Paramatta, who knew? The project has an estimated cost of approximately $64 million. The ATO's location plan recognises the need to maintain its 47-year long presence in Paramatta, often described as Sydney's second CBD, though I'm reliably informed it is the country's most dynamic CBD. In line with this plan, it's important that the ATO can provide continuity for its current workforce and continue to attract high-quality personnel located in Western Sydney into the future.
The committee extends its thanks to all those who provided written and oral evidence in support of these inquiries. I would like to thank the personnel of both the Department of Defence and the ATO for their comprehensive presentations on these two projects. They provided enough detail to ensure the committee was able to appreciate the importance and nature of the proposed works. In the case of the defence project, the committee travelled to inspect the proposed works at RAAF Base Tindal, outside Katherine. I wish to thank the Department of Defence for facilitating the committee's visit and providing an invaluable insight into the opportunities and challenges associated with the project. In both cases, the committee recommends it be expedient that the proposed works be carried out.
Finally, I point out that the Public Works committee, with the full support of the deputy chair, the member for Hinkler and the rest of the committee, have gone from relying on numbers in the title to now using words—radical, I know, but I stand by my committee. I commend the report to the House.
BILLS
Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
to which the following amendment was moved:
That all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
(1) notes that this bill does nothing to address broader challenges for access to child care in Australia, namely:
(a) child care service gaps in regional Australia; and
(b) early childhood education and care workforce shortages which are preventing families from accessing the care they need;
(2) notes that the Government's child care package, which costs $4.5 billion, does not add one additional child care place;
(3) notes that child care providers have already increased fees since the Government came to office and the additional demand placed on child care services as a result of this bill will put further inflationary pressure on fees;
(4) calls on the Government to ensure that the promised savings for families will not be eroded by higher fees due to the additional demand for child care services as a result of this bill; and
(5) notes that the bill commits to higher ongoing structural spending and calls on the Government to manage its spending commitments to improve the budget while standing by their promise to deliver legislated targeted income tax relief.
Dr RYA N (Kooyong) (16:38): The childcare subsidy activity test, often paradoxically, means that children who would benefit most from early childhood education are excluded. Families need to have children settled in early learning centres before they can undertake additional training or study, before they can pick up more shifts at work, and before they pursue work opportunities; not the other way around. Making workforce participation a prerequisite for childcare subsidy makes it even harder for parents with young children who are already disenfranchised from work or study to turn that situation around. We're in the grips of a worker shortage crisis. How many Australians would be ready and rearing to work if they could just get their kids into early childhood education to pursue those job vacancies?
There are compelling arguments to get rid of the childcare subsidy activity test. The organisation Early Childhood Australia says an increase in childcare subsidies 'without a complementary measure to increase the number of hours available to families with low incomes and less than 16 hours of work, study or training, will exacerbate existing inequity and widen attainment gaps for children in families with low incomes and insecure work.' It will also tangibly increase financial disincentives and out-of-pocket costs and barriers to work, study and training for parents of young children. It's at a time when the government is trying to increase productivity as part of the skills shortage across the economy. We don't tie a child's primary school education to how many hours a week their parents work. Why would we do this for early childhood education?
Increasing access to early childhood education is also a valuable investment in women's social and financial equality. Currently, Australia is rated No. 1 in the OECD for women's attainment of education, but it is 38th for women's economic participation. These figures tell a grim story. This story says that our society invests in women's education through primary, secondary and tertiary education and training but it then wastes their talent. It crushes their career dreams and it hobbles their capacity to return on the investment that we've made in the form of workforce participation and it's benefits for society and our economy. Getting women back into the workforce when they would like to return to work is crucial.
There are significant issues with the early childhood education sector but none more urgent than the crisis affecting its workforce. Qualified and experienced early childhood educators are leaving the workforce at an alarming rate. Fifteen per cent of staff have left the workforce since October 2020 because of low wages, tough conditions and insecure employment. The care of preschoolers and the delivery of early childhood education is skilled work. Anyone with children who are or were fortunate enough to attend child care can attest to how hard educators in the sector work and how important the service they deliver is. It's underpinned by extensive research into early development and careful implementation of best practice tailored care for each child in the system, and yet our early childhood educators are amongst the lowest paid workers in this country. An educator with a bachelors degree working with children in those critical first five years of life earns a salary 30 per cent lower than their counterpart working in a primary school.
The minister told the House that Treasury estimates that these measures will increase the hours worked by women with young children by as much as 1.4 million hours a week, potentially adding another 37,000 women to our workforce. But it all falls apart if the children of those 37,000 women can't actually get a spot in a childcare centre because there are not enough centres and there's a shortage of workers. Affordable child care is fantastic. Equitable access to early childhood education is critical. But, unless this crisis in the early childhood sector workforce is addressed, then this could be a wasted investment, with these reforms unable to help families in the way that they should.
The Labor government took its cheaper childcare package to the election, costed at $5.4 billion. It's a worthwhile investment, which the public supported at the election. Since then, the government has revised the cost of this package down to $4.5 billion, with savings coming from transparency measures. Experts in early childhood policy have called for these already budgeted funds to be diverted to increasing the wages of early childhood educators by 10 per cent for the first two years at a cost of $350 million a year as an urgent measure to stabilise the industry before it collapses. This proposal should be looked at by the government.
This legislation is a great start, but for it to succeed it has to be accompanied by other reforms. When it comes to securing our nation's social and economic future, there's no such thing as a golden ticket policy. But, if there were, increasing access to early childhood education would be a contender. Increasing access to early childhood education and care for more children and their parents is among the most effective policy levers a nation can pull if it wants to improve gender equity across society and productivity across our economy. It's also a powerful investment in our children.
I'm pleased to support this legislation, and I will continue to work to improve access to early childhood education for more Australian children and their families.
Ms McBRIDE (Dobell—Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention and Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Health) (16:45): I rise to speak in support of the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022. Right now there are thousands of families across Australia who are struggling to make ends meet. Last night's budget introduced vital cost-of-living measures to support people and families living in all parts of Australia, including in my community on the Central Coast in New South Wales, and a big part of that is cheaper child care.
Childcare expenses are one of the biggest cost-of-living pressures that families are facing. Childcare costs have increased by 41 per cent across Australia over the past eight years, and this is placing a huge burden on parents and carers and the family budget. It's also holding people back, particularly women, from re-entering the workforce. According to the ABS, there were 73,000 people who wanted to work last year but couldn't look for work because of childcare costs. Many of these people are women—in communities like mine, in regional parts of Australia all around the country. They're highly trained, experienced, capable workers who would boost our workforce and make significant contributions to the economy, but they're struggling to re-enter the workforce because they can't find affordable child care for their children, especially close to home.
That's why our government has introduced this legislation for cheaper child care. Our plan for cheaper child care will mean around 96 per cent of Australian families with children in early childhood education and care will be better off. This will make child care cheaper and more affordable for around 1.26 million families around Australia, and no family will be worse off. This bill will also help more First Nations children with their early learning, by boosting the number of hours of subsidised care available to them. It will introduce a base level of 36 hours of early learning per fortnight for First Nations families, starting from July 2023, regardless of a family's activity test. Under our plan, First Nations children will be able to participate in more hours of early childhood education to address this gap and get them ready for primary school.
I'd like to take the time now to recognise Aunty Bronwyn Chambers, from the Wollotuka Institute at the University of Newcastle. Aunty Bronwyn and I went to the same primary school, St Cecilia's in Wyong, and Aunty Bronwyn has dedicated most of her working life towards the education of younger people in our community. I want to recognise the work she has done, including at Toukley Pre-School. Thank you, Aunty Bronwyn.
Labor's plan for cheaper child care will also benefit thousands of families, as I've mentioned, in communities like mine in regional Australia. In the electorate of Dobell and the neighbouring electorate of Robertson, on the Central Coast of New South Wales, there are around 6,900 families who will be better off under this plan. It will cut out-of-pocket costs for families with children in early education and care. For example, a family earning $120,000, with one child in care, will save more than $1,700 in the first year of this plan. That is a significant saving to that family and a significant investment in that child's education and in our economy.
The changes to the childcare subsidy will kick off 1 July 2023. Not only will this ease cost-of-living pressures by cutting the cost of child care but it will help thousands of skilled workers to return to the workforce—skilled workers that we need in communities like mine on the Central Coast of New South Wales to boost our local economy. This is a plan that is good for children, good for families and good for the economy.
I was proud to host the Minister for Education, Jason Clare, on the Central Coast of New South Wales last month. Together with the member for Robertson, Dr Gordon Reid, we visited Little Miracles child care at Terrigal, where we met with the early childhood educators and the children that they teach—and those children were thriving. While we were there, we joined them for their Flying Start school readiness program, rotating through construction and Lego building, shapes and numbers, working with children who were absolutely thriving and getting very well prepared for school. We heard from the educators, too: dedicated, capable educators who are contributing and shaping the futures of our young people. We heard from Rob Bateman, the founder of Little Miracles. Rob really welcomed our announcement and took the time to tell us what it would mean for young families and children across the coast. He said: 'COVID has brought a lot more children into the world. Preparing them well for school is a great thing because we want to give them a flying start.' He said, 'It's really important so they make friendships, and, for us, teaching the children to read and giving them the confidence before they go to school is so important.' This policy, as I said, is good for families, it's good for children and it's fully supported by early childhood educators.
This is also a measure that's equally about participation and gender equality, which was central to the Treasurer's budget handed down last night. Instead of being able to return to work or find a new job, many parents are missing out because they can't find suitable and affordable care for their children close to home. This bill will help parents, particularly women, return to work by reducing the cost of child care and making significant reductions to the workforce disincentive rates. It will help us work towards gender equality by addressing the gap in workforce participation, remuneration and superannuation felt by so many women across Australia.
There are many young families on the Central Coast of New South Wales, where I live. I spoke to a young woman from the Central Coast recently. She has a three-year-old in day care and a five-year-old who started school this year. She's worked hard her whole professional life. She's a professional woman, highly educated, capable and talented. She had recently secured a promotion. While this was really good news, she was left so disappointed because the pay rise that came with her promotion was almost entirely absorbed by the costs of childcare. It set her and her family backwards when it should have been putting her on the next step of her career, boosting her family and boosting our economy. This is what we need to turn around because we know that women's workforce participation continues to lag well behind the participation rates for men.
In August last year, the workforce participation rate for women on the Central Coast was just over 53 per cent, compared to the New South Wales average of 61.6 per cent. I am so keen to see women in my community not be held back, not be limited in their career and not be unable to participate within the paid workforce because of the costs of childcare, which are such a significant barrier. We need to make sure that women on the Central Coast of New South Wales and in the regions across Australia can return to work or work more hours if they want to. That's why we're committed to making child care cheaper for all Australian families.
I am proud to speak in support of this bill today and to be a part of a government that is putting Australian families first. Parents and carers should be able to afford childcare for their kids so they can have the best start in life and so that the parents can return to work or work more hours if they want to. This bill will provide real benefits to parents and carers across Australia and remove the burden on people who are already struggling to make ends meet. It's a cost-of-living measure that will make a real difference to family budgets. It's a plan that will give parents the opportunity to return to work or work more hours when and if they choose to do so. It's a plan that will give children the best start in life. This legislation will make child care cheaper for 1.2 million Australian families. This is a bill I am proud to support and, in doing so, I thank my preschool teacher.
Mr BATES (Brisbane) (16:53): Child care is too expensive. Since 2012, prices for child care have increased faster than those for housing or electricity. The ABS states that since 2002 costs have risen by 74 per cent for couples and 102 per cent for single-parent families. In Brisbane our child care costs are among the highest in Queensland, having increased by up to 6.5 per cent this year alone.
On average, families across Australia are paying $123 per child per day for this crucial and essential service. But families in my home electorate of Brisbane are paying even more. In fact, of the five suburbs where child care in Queensland is the most expensive, four are within my home electorate of Brisbane. In Ashgrove, families are spending $146 per day to put one child in child care. In Paddington, they are spending $144 per day. In other suburbs around Brisbane the figures are much the same.
We're suffering from a lack of skilled workers across many industries, as many parents are forced to opt to stay home and care for their children as the exorbitant costs of child care make it difficult to justify working a shift. For some parents, it actually makes more financial sense to skip a shift than to pay for child care. Many parents feel they are working simply to afford exorbitant childcare costs. They are suffering from fatigue, burnout and the impacts on their mental health, with precious little access to relief. We pair this with stagnant wages and the rising cost of living and it is abundantly clear that more needs to be done to support parents to be involved in caring for their children.
Meanwhile, Australia has among the most heavily marketised and privatised childcare system in the world, and Queensland has the most privatised system in Australia. Around 75 per cent of the Australian childcare sector is privately owned. The private childcare sector and their landlords made $1 billion in profits Australia-wide in 2016. Rental payments to landlords make up a significant and growing portion of the costs, which are ultimately paid for by parents and governments. It is unacceptable that many parents, including single parents, are struggling financially, physically and emotionally in trying to provide care and stability for their families, while the private childcare sector rakes in exorbitant profits, with no credible alternatives provided by the government.
The Greens believe access to high-quality, free child care should be a fundamental right. This will allow parents, especially women, to get back to work if they wish and also ensure every child gets the best start in life. A 2020 report by the Australia Institute revealed that free child care provided a unique economic opportunity, creating an effective fiscal stimulus in the short term, with the capacity to boost workforce participation in the long-term and, as such, the longer term economic growth of our country. We don't have to look very far to see these benefits being played out.
Compared to the Nordic countries, whose universal childcare policies rival those of most nations, Australia's female workforce participation rate drops dramatically at the ages when most people are starting their families. Universal child care allows secondary income earners, who are often women, to re-enter the workforce after the birth of their child without the fear of huge costs, boosting the participation rate in the workforce. If Australia did have a comparable workforce participation rate, similar to the average of the Nordic countries, we could expect the economy to be $60 billion, or 3.2 per cent of GDP, larger—all thanks to universal child care. That figure represents an enormous amount of untapped creative and labour potential and a choice that the government is forcing families and parents to make. You can follow your career ambitions, or you can follow your family ambitions. A universal childcare policy ensures the freedom to pursue both.
A career in child care and early childhood education should also provide good, steady jobs with decent pay, especially since the vast majority of workers are casual, part time and female. During the election campaign, I was lucky enough to visit the Goodstart Early Learning centre in Clayfield. It was incredible seeing the true dedication the staff had to the education of the young children in our community. The staff at Goodstart Early Learning Clayfield and the childcare centres across Brisbane and around the country know all too well the importance of their work and the profound impact early childhood education has on the development of children. It is for that reason that we need to guarantee good pay and job security for these workers. The first years of a child's life are fundamental to their development, so workers in early childhood education should be treated with the respect that they deserve.
We know a policy for universal child care can be done, because it already has been—and not just overseas but here, too. During the initial stages of the pandemic, child care in Australia was made universal, recognising the important and essential role it plays in supporting families and children. Scrapping the stage 3 tax cuts would free up a quarter of a trillion dollars in revenue over the next decade—easily covering the costs for a universal childcare policy. We have the precedent to get it done, both overseas and here at home. We have the resources to get it done. Let's get it done.
Mr ROB MITCHELL (McEwen) (16:59): Throughout the last election campaign I had many conversations with people right across my electorate, and the one thing that always got them excited was our plan for delivering cheaper and more accessible child care. Today, we can finally begin to deliver this election commitment with this bill. When this bill passes, some 6,500 families within McEwen will directly benefit from these reforms. It's not only an election promise but also a cost-of-living measure introduced by this government to give more Australians and their families a fair go. It has the added benefit of producing a significant productivity dividend that we're able to measure, and sets the groundwork for other election commitments, such as working to close the gender pay gap and the retirement income gap, and starting work on Closing the Gap measures for Indigenous Australians, which the last government neglected to do.
The bill means 96 per cent of families will be better off. Numerically, that's around 1.2 million families receiving benefits from these reforms. Considering how childcare costs increased by 41 per cent over the past eight years, these reforms alleviate some of the financial burden that many young families are facing. Labor are making sure that we are working with Australians to guarantee everyone can make ends meet. From July next year we will help families by increasing subsidy rates for any family earning less than $530,000 a year, and we will lift the childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent for families with a combined income of under $80,000. The bill supports more families who have more than one child under five in child care by keeping the higher childcare subsidy rates for those in that position.
Additionally, under these proposed changes, families with combined incomes of $120,000 with one child in care will save up to $1,780 in the first year of this plan. This means no family will be worse off under Labor's new childcare plan. The legislation not only benefits families but also specifically benefits the children of Australia, giving more opportunity for Australian children to access early education. This improves children's readiness for primary school, and we've seen that students who access early education have improved school and learning outcomes. Labor are focused on delivering our children the best opportunities because, put simply, they are our future.
These reforms will not only help families with daily living costs but also give parents more flexibility to return to work if they would like to do so. This unlocks skilled workers to come back and participate in the workforce, increasing economic productivity. According to the ABS, some 73,000 workers want to return to the workforce but are unable to because of childcare responsibilities, which were only exacerbated by the cost of the early learning system. We want to re-engage those workers and present more opportunity for them to have stable employment if that is something that they want.
The legislation allows parents with primary care to take on more secure work without worrying about the effects that it might have to their subsidy claims. Under the current system, if the primary care worker works more than three days a week, they are often worse off due to the financial penalties they face by not having access to the childcare subsidy, meaning that household budgets must always take a hit and that it is increasingly difficult to balance work, life and family needs. Families are put in a position of having difficult conversations on whose career is to be put on hold or who will take on more insecure work. The impacts affect us all. Like a lot of grandparents, my wife had to drop a day of work per week to look after our two beautiful granddaughters, Ava and Lacey, so my daughter could get full-time work. The cost of child care meant she was actually going to lose money by going to work. There are many families across places like Wallan, Whittlesea, Doreen and Mernda where people are paying up to $3,000 a month in child care. That is more than mortgages. That can't happen. It has got to stop. We have got to address this problem, which has been allowed to fester for the last nine years without any support from the previous government.
As I've mentioned, both parents increasingly share the load of parenting responsibilities, but the fact of the matter is that women are still expected to shoulder most of the child's caring responsibility. The cheaper childcare scheme will help us tackle the economic insecurity that face mainly women when they start a family by giving them more opportunity for their children to get to early learning. Currently, women are at a disadvantage, with the system creating a situation where women must often take on more insecure work or work less, often in casual roles. It means they miss out on benefits that full-time and contract work can provide, including paid leave, increased contribution to their superannuation and the ability to gain other benefits. This all contributes to the gender pay and retirement income gap. We can't begin to fix these gaps until we fix our broken childcare system and lay the foundations to tackle these issues.
We're also committed to fixing the failings of the previous government by providing more support to First Nations children and families. In 2020-21, for the first time since the targets were established, and specifically on Closing the Gap target No. 4, developmental readiness for school, this nation's progress had gone backwards. We can't let that happen again. That is a national shame. To remedy this, we are providing 36 hours of subsidised early childhood education a fortnight, no matter the level of the family's activity. We will help improve overall First Nations children's readiness for future schooling.
We are committed to building a brighter future for all Australians and to providing everyone with more opportunity, whether it be for our children or our families, or participation in the economy. That means closing the gap for Indigenous Australians. It means implementing a multifaceted approach to closing gender and retirement income pay gaps. We know that increased accessibility to our early learning system will increase demand in a sector that we already need to entice people to enter and to come back to. We've heard a lot today about wages and conditions. Let's remember we were the ones that were standing up to support early childhood teachers to come back into the system, to give them the dignity and the respect that they deserve for doing such an important job. That's one of the stark differences between us on this side and the members of the Liberal and National parties.
We know that increased accessibility to our early learning system will increase demand, and that's why Labor is introducing these measures in the bill, such as further discounting of childcare fees for early childhood and care workers. We're supporting this legislation with the commitment to another election promise—465,000 TAFE places to meet current and future needs, especially when the care economy is based on shortages that were identified by the National Skills Commission.
We heard previous speakers on that side of the chamber talk about 'early education deserts', places where you can't get child care. But the only thing they never said is 'In nine years of government we did nothing to fix that.' That's the interesting bit. Suddenly all these problems, according to them, have happened since the election. Before that, it was all rosy. We know that this has been a problem. We have areas where there are 700 kids that can't get access to child care. This has not just happened now that a new, decent government is in place. This was happening beforehand, and the results of the previous government's failure are what we are dealing with today. It's the one consistent thing that we can say since coming to government: we are here cleaning up their mess.
Ms Price: What a load of rubbish!
Mr ROB MITCHELL: Labor is committed to developing a whole-of-government review of the early learning youth strategy. And we can listen to the chortles over there. That's the fact of the matter. As a former minister of the Crown, you'd think you'd actually get up and have the decency to apologise to all those people that have missed out because your government refused to do anything about it. It's about time you took responsibility for what you've done. We are the ones that are cleaning up your mess.
Ms Price: What mess? What about the childcare workers? Who's supporting them?
Mr ROB MITCHELL: The mess that you created through failing to support workers, failing to support families and putting women's and children's educational futures at risk. That is the result of the LNP government. There is nothing—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Vamvakinou ): Order, the member for McEwen. The member for Barker?
Mr Pasin: I would ask you to draw the member back to the matter before the House.
T he DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for McEwen—
Mr ROB MITCHELL: It's great that the member for Barker—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: will return to the bill, thank you.
Mr ROB MITCHELL: waddles in here and wants to interrupt. But the fact of the matter is that what I've said is absolutely true.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Barker has a point of order?
Mr Pasin: Yes. The member has indicated that I waddled in. Pot, kettle, black.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That was not a point of order. The member for McEwen will assist the House by continuing on with the substance of the bill before the chamber.
Mr ROB MITCHELL: You've got to admit he's halfway there. He is an absolute disgrace.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for McEwen will continue.
Mr ROB MITCHELL: But, again, see how the change had to be—not standing up and admitting what they did was wrong; they want to go and play silly little games, because they have nothing to offer. It is this government that is addressing the nine years of failure and neglect that that lot left the Australian people with. You'd think, if they had any intelligence or decency, they'd be embarrassed. But clearly they're not, when they should be.
Ms SPENDER (Wentworth) (17:09): I rise today to speak enthusiastically and wholeheartedly for the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022. I welcome this legislation. There is no other bill that could bring me greater joy than this bill in front of the parliament today, and I welcome the support across the parliament for improving accessibility and affordability in child care.
Child care has three crucial impacts, I think, and this bill has three crucial impacts on Australia. The first is on our children, in terms of giving them greater access to education—that crucial pre-five education that we know is so important in setting them up for effective education and school life. The second reason why I support this legislation is that it is good economic policy. This is good economic policy because it is anti-inflationary and it lowers costs for families, which is crucial, but it also drives labour productivity. Finally, I support this because it's a policy that will support families and particularly women.
Child care and paid parental leave are often seen through this economic lens, but we need to also consider them through a cultural lens. Australia has a wonderful egalitarian culture, but I have to say parenthood is an area where we are not as egalitarian as we could be. I speak from personal experience of watching my own friends and family go through having children at the age we all did. It's an unremarkable phenomenon—when you look at the numbers—where working women and their partners, who are typically men, are relatively equal in their participation in the world of work. They are often very equal in terms of their pay and their positions. Then children come along, and almost universally the women in my social circle took a step back while the men just kept on going. This is something that you see again and again and again borne out in the economic statistics. There are always examples where men took the primary load in relation to the kids, but it was always more the exception than the rule. Access to child care is a crucial enabler for us to change our culture, in terms of women's economic participation in the workforce and, ultimately, equal participation in society.
There's a default view in the country that looking after children is women's work. You see that absolutely in the statistics, where Australia comes equal first for women's education but we are 70th in the world when it comes to economic participation. That is absolutely down to how we raise children and manage children through this. So this default view is holding us back. It holds back women and it holds back the country. Recently Treasury released some research that showed that women's earnings were reduced by an average of 55 per cent in the first five years after parenthood. This is what they call the 'motherhood penalty'. This is the penalty that relates to lower participation in paid work, reduced working hours and reduced hourly wage. It doesn't just happen where the father is the primary breadwinner. Even for women who are the primary earner, the motherhood penalty is large. There's real room for improvement in our culture and our society by changing the culture so women are not the primary carers by default, regardless of their career, aspirations or trajectories.
This is an issue that so many people came to speak to me about in Wentworth. I remember very vividly standing on a corner in Paddington. A woman came up to me and I said, 'What's important to you?' And she said, 'Actually, for me, child care is the most important issue.' She said: 'I'm a lawyer; I'm someone who's highly trained. I made choices because of the costs of child care and, on reflection, I wouldn't have made those choices about my career. I wouldn't have taken such a big step back if child care had been more available and more affordable for my family.' I just heard time and time and time again that this is a crucial issue for women's participation and actually for more equal sharing of child-rearing arrangements among families. We need the cultural change that would mean more parents working out themselves what arrangements best suit their families. I hope this will lead to more fathers sharing parenting responsibilities, including those crucial pick-ups and drop-offs.
One of the reasons why I support this bill is that I think it will help to support changes that will make our society more egalitarian. Making child care more accessible frees up more women to fully pursue their professional aspirations. It will help reduce the motherhood penalty that so many experience. We invest huge sums of money developing the human capital of women. Basically, we educate them, we develop them, they have wonderful jobs, and then we do not allow them to flourish economically. You see that in terms of the discrepancy of pay and the discrepancy of economic outcomes for women compared to men, and child care and child-caring arrangements are absolutely crucial to this.
However, this bill is not a silver bullet. It contributes towards cultural change, but there's much more to do. And I think the two key areas that we need to consider in this House are, firstly, access to child care and childcare deserts and the childcare workforce, because we can have this welcome increase of support for families to access child care, but, if you can't actually get a place in a childcare centre, then it is not meaningful. Again, in my community, I have people who say that they called the childcare centre literally when they were 12-weeks pregnant to put their child's name down and still were not able to access the child care that they needed when they needed it. And I know that Wentworth, of all communities, probably has better access to child care than many other communities. So access to child care and making sure that this aspiration is met by both an increase in childcare places and childcare workers is absolutely crucial.
The second crucial element to changing the culture, which I think is so important, is paid parental leave and, crucially, that there is a part of that paid parental leave that is 'use it or lose it' for the second parent, which is typically a man. This is absolutely crucial to ensure that we change the culture in Australia so that men and women equally share the burdens and the joys of raising children and that we do that equally because this is good for women. It's actually good for men's mental health and it's good for child development because children develop better bonds with their fathers.
So Australia is making more progress towards becoming a fairer, more egalitarian society, and this legislation is a crucial piece in ensuring that we enable the economic empowerment of women as well as support families and children for our future. I commend this bill.
Ms PAYNE (Canberra) (17:16): I'm so proud and excited today to talk about Labor's Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022, formally in our budget handed down last night but one of the earliest parts of our platform that we announced in the previous term—in fact, in the now Prime Minister's first budget reply. And I was particularly excited to attend one of the events visiting a childcare centre in my electorate with the now Prime Minister and the then shadow minister for early childhood, the member for Kingston, at the Campbell Cottage in my electorate, which is run by the YWCA, with my little girl, Elena, when she was just three weeks old. It was her first press conference, and she handled it pretty well.
This is such an important bill. It's good for children, it's good for families and it's good for our economy. As a parent, I know—as all parents that use early childhood education and care know—just how critically important this is. We understand the benefit and the incredible work of early childhood educators. I just want to spend a little bit of time talking about that as a parent but also as a local member, having visited many of the wonderful centres in my electorate and met with delegations of workers in that sector over the years. I want to talk about recognising the many layers of the work that they do.
They are educators. They are teaching the youngest children. We know that it is just so critically important that the first five years really set up children for their life, so that learning is critically important, and there's a real skill and expertise in doing that. Responding to the ever expanding curiosity of toddlers, babies and preschool-aged children with patience and finding ways to communicate with them is really something incredible. As parents, we all do a little bit of that, but our early childhood educators do that all day with a range of children.
Throughout the pandemic, when COVID first hit, our early childhood educators were some of the most affected frontline workers that just had to front up in those really uncertain times to keep our economy going and to keep caring for families. Under the previous government, there was a policy rollercoaster for those centres, where workers were worried for their own health, and centres were worried about whether they would need to lay off their workers and worried about the families that they support. I just want to again thank all the early childhood educators for what they did through that time for families and for Australians.
This bill makes it so more families can access early childhood education and care, and these great benefits for their families. This bill will benefit around 96 per cent of families, or 1.26 million Australian families, by making their child care more affordable. Anyone that uses child care knows it is very expensive, and those costs have been rising—in fact, 41 per cent over the last eight years is the national figure. I know that Canberra has some of the highest childcare fees in the country, and this is something I obviously hear a lot about from my constituents and know myself.
This bill will really make a change for families, enabling them to access more of that great education for their children and particularly enabling mothers to get back into the workforce or increase their hours of work. We've heard that too many people are stopped from working as much as they would like or from seeking work because of the costs of child care. In fact, according to the ABS, last year 73,000 people who wanted to work didn't look for work, because they couldn't make childcare costs work for them. We are robbing our economy of that potential; we are robbing those young children of that opportunity for early childhood education; and we're robbing those parents of the ability to get back into the workforce.
Another lesson about early childhood education and care that I often hear from the centres in my electorate is that it's about not only the great education and the opportunity that's provided for families to get back into work but the care for those children and the families. It goes without saying that you have to have a bottomless cup of patience to deal with pre-school-aged children. Don't start me! That care is also there for the families, and I've heard stories from early childhood educators in my community about families that they knew of during the pandemic, and in other times as well, who really needed the support but who hadn't been paying their fees, and they allowed some of those families to continue using child care. In one case, a centre told me that this was because they knew that the children were only getting regular meals when they were at child care, because this family was struggling so much. This was a not-for-profit provider, but it continued to offer that care.
Just recently, at another centre, I heard a story of a family where the mother had had to go overseas following the death of a relative, and they found they could help the father by providing meals for him as well, because he was really struggling during this family crisis that they were having. It's also about the key part in our community that these centres play.
So I want to acknowledge our early childhood educators and providers as part of this discussion, particularly as last week was Early Learning Matters Week. As part of that week, I went to visit the Guardian Centre, in Allara Street, right near my office—and thank you to Hayley, Peimin and the whole team there for showing me around and to the wonderful children that let me make some playdough and read a story with them. And, of course, I'm so indebted to the centre where my children go for the help and support and wonderful learning that you provide to my two children, which means so much to our family.
To focus on the economic side, an important part of our policy is that we're increasing subsidy rates for all families earning less than $530,000. This expands eligibility to almost universal standards for our community. It's about saying that early childhood education and care is not something different from school education; it is something that we know is critically important. Science has shown the importance of education for the youngest children and how that sets them up for life—so why do we see it differently from the access that we have to public education? This is a really important step in that direction towards a fully universal system which enables more families to access care.
We've heard, through our jobs summit and before that, just how important women's participation is to our economy. Too often, childcare costs are seen as coming out of the mother's wage, not the family wage, because they tend to be the lower earner. I'm also particularly proud that Labor have made closing the gender pay gap such an important part of our platform
This is an excellent bill. I'm incredibly proud. This will benefit many Canberra families. In fact, in the ACT, it will benefit around 23,200 families, including 8,900 in the electorate of Canberra, which I represent. This benefit is spread all around the country. There are thousands of families, in every electorate, who will benefit from this, but the number in my electorate is at the higher end. I'm really pleased that Canberra families can benefit from this, and I'm really pleased to support the bill today.
Mrs MARINO (Forrest) (17:25): I am very pleased to stand and speak on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022 today. The coalition, as we know, is supporting the bill, but it is offering some additional amendments in an effort to improve the bill itself, with the purpose of helping even more families, particularly those in rural and regional areas. The member for Moncrieff has also moved an amendment to the second reading motion.
We all understand the very great importance of child care, but there are a couple of matters that really need to be addressed and aren't addressed by this bill but that we see out in our communities. They involve both the current workforce and also issues around access, particularly if you're in a regional, rural or remote part of Australia.
Yes, we certainly believe in choice, and we want parents, whether they are working or studying, to be able to access care through formal or informal arrangements, whatever those arrangements may be. But, within what we've seen today, there isn't a plan to address the current workforce shortage and the shortage pressures being faced by educators, which is why we're seeking to make the bill better. There are currently 7,200 vacancies in the sector right now, and the measures in this bill, with, I think, $4.7 billion being invested, will create even greater demand, so additional educators will be needed. I understand that means that an extra 9,000 people will be required to work in this space in child care. This is really important because we need a plan that helps to address the access to care for so many who are struggling to find a place for their children. There's also no plan for the thin markets that we see in rural, regional and remote areas. There isn't, within this package, one cent allocated to create additional places and services that are so desperately needed. We know that around 50 per cent of childcare areas that need extra places are located in metropolitan locations, and 50 per cent are in rural, regional and remote locations. We really need those extra places—we need those people who need these places most desperately to be able to access them.
I want to speak a little about our Connected Beginnings program, which we initiated as part of what we were doing in this space. The Connected Beginnings program, which was established by the coalition, provides access to Indigenous Australians living in regional and remote Australia. There are currently 31 Connected Beginnings sites, right across the country. I was very impressed with the work being done when I visited Tennant Creek in my ministerial role. I really want to acknowledge the work being done in Tennant Creek, with the young people, through the Connected Beginnings program. We committed, in 2021, an extra $81.8 million to expand this Connected Beginnings program to 50 sites nationally. When we know the great level of need out there, we see that there's a great need for this program, in the same way that there is for the Community Child Care Fund, which is funding grants for services in disadvantaged and vulnerable communities.
As I said earlier, the access to additional staff is a really critical issue. The Mitchell Institute's research shows a 7,200 shortage now, and an extra 9,000 staff needed to meet the extra demands created by the measures in this bill. That's 16,200 extra workers needed for the existing childcare places that are on offer—not for any new places but for the existing ones—and there are no new places provided for within this particular bill or budget measure. We know that there are three children competing for every one place available right now, so 35 per cent of the population miss out.
While I speak of those who miss out, I want to talk about one of those places, which is Augusta, in my electorate. A group of wonderful women have been working for years—and I've been working with them since 2019—trying to secure a facility to house a childcare service in Augusta. In 2021 they sought a premises, and that year the Shire of Augusta-Margaret River, voted to support the upgrade of the Augusta Recreation Centre. There was not a lot happening there at that time, and it was to provide the venue for the childcare service to be able to operate in this tiny community in Augusta. But in more recent times the shire voted against this project, and you can imagine the impact that had on these women who have worked so hard and are very engaged in their communities. I've suggested that, given that the Augusta-Margaret River shire is unwilling to use council funding to upgrade the Augusta rec centre, we have another round of local roads and community infrastructure grants. I'm calling on the council to dedicate this funding to the upgrade for the families, the community and the businesses in Augusta. Their purpose is to provide a nurturing, enriching childcare service in our rural location. That's how they describe themselves and that's exactly what they want to do. They want to increase the liveability and inclusivity in Augusta, whether for the old, the young or the in-between.
I can't think of a better purpose for that funding than for the Augusta childcare group. They've worked so hard and for so long. Their children deserve this opportunity. When you look at the cost of fuel and the fact that the nearest childcare centre is in Margaret River, some distance away, transport both ways is simply not doable for so many of the mothers in Augusta. They deserve access to childcare services in Augusta. It is a lost opportunity for those women if they're not able to pursue a job or a career—a lost opportunity for them, their families and these beautiful little kids. I want to see them have access to this service as soon as possible. I will keep working with them, and had secured an election commitment in that sense as well.
There are so many wonderful childcare providers in my part of the world, as there are right around Australia—wonderful workers and staff members who love what they do. That's the one thing we all notice when we walk into a childcare centre—the people who are working there love being there and do such a fantastic job with our children.
During Book Week, I've been into some of these centres to read my favourite book, and I've kept one of the books I had when I was a child specially for that purpose. It's certainly one that entertains the young people. The young children love it, and they're very engaged with it. It is, with my farming background, about Dabbity Duck, who has all sorts of wonderful experiences—and is not dissimilar to some of the wonderful ducks that live in and around our farm, for which I have a great fondness and that spend a lot of time on my lawn. They decided to set up a nest with many eggs and babies outside my front step. This is a very personal issue for me when reading to these young people.
I go to places like Annie's Angels Play and Development Centre in Harvey. There is BlueBird Childcare in Busselton. Capel has a wonderful childcare centre. Here's one I don't think many would have—it's called Cowtown Calves childcare centre, and that is in the location of Cowaramup, where you can see a wonderful group of cows throughout the town. There's the Harvey Community Play and Learning Centre, Little Angels Early Learning Centre and the Margaret River Community Centre for Children. One I've had a bit to do with over the years—another small community that needs child care for their families—is the Treehouse Childcare Centre in Donnybrook. Again, it is really important to our local community. Each one of these is offering invaluable services to the community. But there's no doubt that, in many parts, like Augusta, there is demand and a need for more childcare places, which is what we were seeking to do in the amendment we are providing while supporting this bill.
When we were in government, we basically almost doubled childcare investment, to $11 billion in 2023. We locked in ongoing funding for preschools and kindergartens, making the biggest reforms in the early childhood education system for about 40-odd years. More than 1.3 million children from around one million families have access to the childcare subsidy, and there are over 280,000 more children in early childhood education. We abolished the annual cap on the childcare subsidy. So around 90 per cent of families using child care are currently eligible for a subsidy of between 50 and 85 per cent. Since March 2022, there has been a subsidy of up to 95 per cent for families with multiple children in early childhood education. That is increasing workforce participation and cheaper access to care. That targeted extra support in March this year made a real difference, and childcare costs came down by 4.6 per cent in the year to June 2022. As well, we saw women's workforce participation reach record highs, at 62.3 per cent. It was 58.7 per cent when Labor left office.
I am very pleased to support the bill but also the amendment that we have proposed. I go back to the fact that, in so many areas around Australia, rural and regional, those smaller communities, there are either no childcare places available or, as we see in Augusta, no child care available at all. These are the places where we don't have the two things I've spoken about that are the focus of the amendment—access and staff numbers. Both of those things are real issues, particularly in regional and remote parts of Australia. It is a huge challenge. We are facing real challenges around workforce in general, and this particular sector is no different.
So, in the government's funding of this bill and in its funding of child care, we would like to see it address those two really critical issues. Access is the first thing for so many of us who live in rural and regional areas. Access is the most important thing that's not there, with 35-odd per cent of kids not being able to get child care at all. There are so many families that sit in that bracket. The Augusta group is but one that I've been able to talk about today.
I am supportive of the bill, but I also want to underline the importance of the shadow minister's amendment. I think that what we all want to see is greater access to child care in the locations where it's needed, like Augusta and like so many other small communities that I'm sure we're going to hear about in this discussion and debate. We need access to more childcare places. The other worry I think we all have, if we're being really honest, is about the access to the extra staffing that will be needed to support the measures in this bill and for ongoing services.
Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (17:39): Parents with children in early education, or in before- and after-school care, know more about the challenges of rising costs than many of us. This is why our cheaper childcare policy is so vital. It's to make it more affordable for families to allow their children the chance to have a quality early learning experience, which, we know, will pay so many dividends in years to come. It's a long time since my children were in school or preschool, but I well remember that juggle. There's nothing worse than having to do that juggle, with the additional complications of a complex system where you're actually penalised if you work more days. That's the sort of thing that we want to see an end to, and this legislation, the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022, will do that.
The cost of early learning has jumped by a whopping 41 per cent in just the last eight years, under the watch of those opposite. This legislation will lead to the costs being cut for more than a million families. Ninety-six per cent of families who are currently using early education and care will be better off under these changes, and no family will be worse off. This is a really significant way to help people combat, at one level, the rising costs and challenges that their budgets are facing.
For the electorate of Macquarie, which I'm so proud to represent, this will affect more than 6,000 families who are already accessing early learning, and there'll be more who'll take advantage of it once the costs are lowered. We've got 112 locations in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, with 101 providers. They are an amazing group of people who provide excellent supportive care. You know, when you're caring for and educating kids, you're also dealing with lots of parents, and sometimes those parents need a bit of care, too, as they juggle their responsibilities. More than half of the childcare services in my electorate are run as not-for-profits; they're community-run or they're school based. So that paints a picture of where some of the benefits of this are going to flow through to and where parents are going to be able to be well supported.
Now, why is this needed? I often get people of my generation asking: 'Why do you even need this? What is the problem that they face?' To get a picture of it, we only have to talk to people in their 20s or 30s with kids. These are families where the discussions weigh up the cost of care against the bonus of working an extra day or two, where the opportunity for extra work might mean that not a single extra dollar comes in the door because of the way it changes a subsidy for the care of the children. About 60 per cent of Australian women who have children under the age of six are working part-time in paid work rather than full-time. The cost of child care is a massive roadblock, stopping a lot of Australians from going back to paid work. That's because, often, working the fourth or fifth day is gobbled up in childcare costs. If it's a promotion you're being offered, the additional pay can see people lose subsidies and end up not financially better off in any way, and, potentially, worse off.
According to the Bureau of Statistics, last year 73,000 people who wanted work didn't look for work because they couldn't make childcare costs work for them. Well, this will change that. If we can make child care cheaper, it will mean more Australian families—and, in particular, a lot of Australian mums—can go back to work. In this chamber I think we've heard that we're talking about a million hours of person-power being freed up, potentially—the equivalent of 37,000 full-time jobs. Now, that's something that businesses in my community would welcome, because they are desperately looking for skilled workers at the moment. What that means is that, in the 2023-24 financial year, this could make a real difference for them.
So this is a government that's looking to the future. It's making decisions now that we know will take a little bit of time to flow through. It will also take a lot of adjustment, in terms of how the system is run. We need to give the system time to do it and get up to speed. I recall reading that when those opposite made changes to the childcare system it took 50 weeks for the systems to be able to be adapted to them, so these things need time. We'll be working to do ours by 1 July next year.
It is a big and important reform. And it's not just going to benefit parents and those businesses who will have access to more workers. It's also going to be great for kids, because it means there are going to be more kids better prepared for school. All the research shows how important these formative years are. It's a time when play and music and games can help with development. Early learning is also a place where developmental problems can be identified and dealt with quickly. In my family, one of my kids, at about the age of three, had a speech issue that was picked up by his educators, and, thanks to early intervention, it was quickly addressed before he went to school. It wasn't something that he had to be teased about at school. It was something that was able to be looked after through incredible work by a speech pathologist. This is what early education does. It prepares children for school and prepares them for life, and we know that when we invest in these early years we get really great outcomes.
As a parent, I saw the benefits of quality early learning, and, fortunately, as the federal member for Macquarie, I get to see it now as well in places like Euroka Children's Centre at Blaxland. It's a community based service for children from six weeks to six years, which, like so many similar services in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury, runs on a tight budget so that it's as affordable as possible for families. I am delighted that, as we promised during the election, last night's budget contained my election commitment of $20,000 for improvements to the backyard play space for this childcare centre. When I visited in March, they were thinking of things like slides and a rock wall and scrambling nets—creating a space where kids can safely be brave. This is the power of quality early education. So this is good for children, it's good for parents and it's good for our economy.
Let's just go over a few of the details here. From July 2023, we will lift the maximum childcare subsidy, the CCS, rate to 90 per cent for families with a combined income of under $80,000 and increase the subsidy rates for families earning less than $530,000, so many families are going to benefit. We'll keep the higher CCS rate for families with multiple children aged five and under in care. It's not just for your first child; it's for your second and your third and even your fourth. The plan for cheaper child care will make child care more affordable for, as I said, around one million, in fact 1.26 million, families. Here's an example. A family on a combined income of $120,000, with one child in care, will save $1,780 in the first year of this plan. So this is a genuine saving to people's budgets.
The bill also helps families make more informed choices, because it puts in some measures to deter fraud. That's an extra thing that we've added. One thing that I know will resonate with a lot of workers in the sector is that, in order to help retain and attract workers, the bill also allows providers to offer discounted childcare fees for early childhood education and care workers. That's a really sensible thing to do when we know that getting the workforce is a really key part of it.
I do want to acknowledge that, as we've heard in this chamber, finding a place in a centre can be a real challenge for parents. Only two days ago, I was on the phone to a mum from Sackville, who had been at the end of her tether trying to find a place. She's been trying to work from home, with a young child, and she feels huge relief that she's found a place for that child next year. They'd had orientation, and it was all looking really good. That is a positive outcome, but there are many families where this is a huge struggle. That's one of the reasons why we need to now support centres to be able to expand and to skill up the workforce. That is why I am so proud of our announcement of 1,469 new places at university being quarantined for early education training. That will be nearly 1,500 people moving through that training process. We will not have them tomorrow but we will have them. We also have a significant number of fee-free TAFE places for all our areas of skill shortage, of which childcare workers is definitely one. So there are things in place. We're not just standing here saying: 'Oh, it's a problem. No-one has done anything about it for the last 10 years. Gee, it's too hard for us.' We're recognising that there has been an issue and there has not been the work done. We're prepared to do the work. We know there's going to be some time for those workers to flow through and come online, but we'll be supporting centres so that people in the Macdonald Valley and Wisemans will hopefully have an easier time than they have had in trying to revive an early learning centre.
I want to take a quick moment to give a shout-out to two incredible women in the Blue Mountains, Sarah O'Carrigan and Dr Jenna Condie, who looked at the problem of not being able to find a childcare centre and set up Bub Hub Mountains, a co-working creche space. I've visited it in Winmalee. It uses existing OOSH facilities and brings mums together. There is a shared way of caring for the kids. This is a really innovative way of going about it, and I really take my hat off to these women. They knew they wanted to work. They knew that it was hard to do it in a way that worked for them. They have come up with a design, and they're piloting it to see how well it works for other mums. This is women solving women's problems, and this legislation is driven very much by the women on this side of the House but also by all the men who are dads and want to see a really fair deal for families with young kids. I'm very pleased to be supporting our Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022.
Mr STEVENS (Sturt) (17:52): I rise to speak in favour of the second reading of the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022 and the amendment that has been moved by the member for Moncrieff. As people have already covered comprehensively, this legislation will provide some cost-of-living relief to families that have their children in child care, and it will dramatically expand the ability to access the CCS and increase the amount that some people are realising.
Unfortunately we saw in the budget last night—and it's been made worse with the release of the inflation figures by the ABS today—that Australian families have never needed support more to help them meet the ever-increasing and escalating costs that they have to bear. That applies to families with children, in particular. Last night we had the revelation—perhaps confirmation—of how dramatic the increases in electricity and gas bills are going to be for Australian families. We've seen the ABS confirm today a surprisingly high inflation rate for the September quarter, of 7.3 per cent—much higher than was anticipated by economists that had been surveyed by the various media outlets in the last 24 or 48 hours. Unfortunately the underlying rate, which is probably the one we are more interested in, was even higher as an order of magnitude compared to what people were expecting. So we're in an environment of dramatically escalating costs across the board. That is putting an enormous amount of pressure on families, so I'm very happy to support this measure which will help some families who have childcare costs to get more support from the Commonwealth, because they need it. The government are talking about when they made this commitment. It was a few years ago, early in the last term of parliament, when they were in opposition. Of course, the significance of this support is dramatically diminished with inflation being at the rate that it is at now, and, of course, we don't know where it will be by the time this takes effect on 1 July next year nor how much more will be lost control of by this government as revelations of our electricity prices, like were made in the budget last night, came into effect. Imagine what the impact would be for those families if, on top of all that, the stage 3 tax cuts were repealed. Imagine saying to those families you want to help them with childcare costs through this bill and then taking that money—and probably more—away by reversing the stage 3 tax cuts.
If you care about people re-entering the workforce and being properly valued for that and having the support that they need, sure we can and will increase support for childcare costs. But even more importantly let's put some money back in their pocket by reducing their taxes in responsible ways that ensure this bracket creep and these escalating costs being put upon them through all these various inflationary pressures are honoured and that there is not an attempt to, in this budget, implement this measure. Yes, you did take this measure to an election, and, yes, you are putting it in place, and, yes, we are not standing in the way of it, but the government needs to make sure it does not dare undertake the hypocrisy of removing this kind of support from parents that access child care and of penalising every other person that pays income tax that earns more than $40,000 a year by thinking that the people of this country will fall for this kind of measure being dressed up as a way of supporting them, particularly women, to re-enter the workforce by removing a tax cut. This will only address the bracket creep they are suffering, which is not only what we envisaged when it was legislated years ago but that is now a more significant bracket creep that will come in because of inflation running at what has been confirmed in the September quarter as 7.3 per cent. And we have no idea where this is going to end, because, unfortunately, quarter after quarter after quarter it's only continuing to go up. If electricity prices are going up by 56 per cent over the next two years, and gas is going up by more than 40 per cent over two years, then I don't really understand how, with those sorts of cost pressures in place, inflation is going to be brought under control and will be reduced from 7.3 per cent. But we will wait and see, and I hope the government bears that in mind.
We're happy to support this bill and the cost-of-living support it will provide, but it's nowhere near enough what people need. We need much broader support to reduce the cost pressures that the budget confirmed last night. Last night in the budget the government said, 'Hey, your costs are going up, and we will do nothing to help you meet those costs.' That's what we found out in the budget last night, and that is bitterly disappointing for the families that are going to get hit really hard by this and the businesses that will get hit really hard. We have a government that wants to say in a budget, 'Strife is coming your way, and you're on your own.' That is truly terrible for some of the most vulnerable people in our society, who, in particular, will find it the most difficult to meet the costs—with interest rates going up at the same time.
If you want to talk about global uncertainties and how they're feeding into things—and I think we can agree that the planet isn't getting more certain in the months and years ahead. So, if you want to say that there are external forces at play here and they are a factor, I don't think any of us would suggest that they, as a factor, are coming to an end any time soon.
The childcare system needs a lot more than just this measure, and it would be unacceptable for the government to think that this legislation puts into place some great fix. I'm not qualified, like some of my regional colleagues, to talk about the significant challenge of accessing child care in this country whatsoever, because it is a very different environment from an access and service point of view depending on where you live, and that's not right. There's nothing in this bill that helps people in regional areas that can't access child care no matter what it costs because it doesn't exist. I'll obviously let my colleagues give their examples—and they already have in their contributions so far about that, and there'll be more tonight. But I really implore the government to listen to those contributions from people who come from communities that are not serviced at all and don't have any access to childcare. Whether or not it is cheaper for them, if it doesn't exist that is completely irrelevant.
I'm very lucky that my electorate is well serviced. I'm in a metropolitan electorate, and I haven't heard other metropolitan members talk about no service existing in metropolitan areas, though they have—and I have the same issue in my electorate—huge challenges still with people accessing child care, because the centres might exist but that doesn't mean that there are places in those centres that are available for people who need access to them.
I visit these centres, and I had the opportunity to take the shadow minister, the member for Moncrieff, to one about a month ago. The story we heard there—which I hear regularly from my childcare centres and which she confirmed she was hearing right across the country—was about these enormous challenges with workforce. There are thousands and thousands of unfilled roles under the current system today, right now. Childcare centres across the country have thousands and thousands of vacancies for staff that they are currently unable to fill.
We understand and respect that there are workforce issues across the economy right now. I don't suggest that it is unique to child care, although that even more compounds the problem. It's not as if, when you talk about training places that you're making available, there's a huge slack capacity of people to shift from some sector that has a massive oversupply of labour that can be redeployed into the childcare sector by retraining people—quite the opposite. We have huge problems more broadly across the care sector. Obviously, the NDIS is growing significantly and there are huge demands for workforce in disability services and disability care. The aged-care sector equally has enormous workforce challenges and needs enormous growth in that workforce into the future. We've got a situation where the Victorian state government health department is trying to cannibalise nurses from the South Australian health system by offering them significant inducements and sign-on bonuses to leave—
Mr Giles: It's free association time, is it?
Mr STEVENS: Well, take it up with the South Australian Labor government. We have this situation where, of course, that will be retaliated against, and all that means is that, while these shortages are not unique to child care or to the care sector more broadly, they are enormous challenges. What are we going to do to find the workforce we need just for the system as it is, let alone to increase the capacity of the system? The sector are saying as we speak that they don't have the ability or that the workforce doesn't exist to meet their current requirements, let alone what the new requirements will be if this policy succeeds in the way in which the government is indicating it is.
So that's an enormous challenge that needs to be addressed, and I haven't heard any really serious, credible suggestion for how that's going to occur. I'm all for training places in the various skills that are needed to provide that workforce, but I'm very concerned about where the people are physically coming from to work in all these different areas that have major workforce shortages. We've seen in the agricultural sector the government not supporting the agricultural visa, which would have brought more than 40,000 people into the country to address massive workforce challenges in agriculture. We get it. We know that that's an instruction from the union movement and that the government's not allowed to do these things. But it's heartbreaking. We know that the unions went to meet with the various embassies that we were seeking to negotiate with to have bilateral agreements on the agricultural visa, and we know that the government are not allowed to do these things because the unions won't let them. In the meantime, we have these spectacular, dramatic skills shortages across many, many sectors, and obviously the childcare sector will have an enormous challenge to meet because they don't have the workforce to meet current requirements, let alone future demand.
I'm also very curious about what's going to happen in my home state of South Australia. We're now having a royal commission to look at universal preschool in South Australia. I'm sure this wasn't just election announcement to win votes. I'm sure it was really well thought through, and the government in South Australia knows how much it's going to cost and what the impact is going to be on the childcare sector. But, if they do know the answer to those questions, they haven't talked to the sector about it. The disruption that that would cause in the sector would obviously be spectacular. I don't understand, if they did go down that path, how that would allow them to interact with the childcare system and the funding that the Commonwealth provides for child care, as opposed to what we provide for preschool, and if they're extending preschool. All those sorts of things are spectacularly complex, and I don't know, and the sector doesn't know, where that's heading, so we look forward to getting answers to those pretty significant questions.
But, with those points of clarification made, I welcome the support to meet the enormous cost-of-living pressures that are being felt by the young families of my electorate and others across the country. It is a very depressing and bleak outlook from a cost-of-living point of view in this country, whether it's electricity bills, whether it's meeting your mortgage, where it's possibly having stage 3 tax cuts ripped away from you in the months ahead—and with inflation at 7.3 per cent and on a trajectory of continuing to climb. If electricity bills are going up by more than 50 per cent and gas by more than 40 per cent, I don't see what is going to lead to inflation falling from that level for some time into the future. People's incomes are being dramatically eroded as we speak, and that is going to continue to happen into the future. Of course we on this side of the House support anything we can do to help meet the very enormous pressures that are on family budgets, and on that basis I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
BUSINESS
Consideration of Legislation
Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (18:07): I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring in relation to proceedings on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022:
(1) from 8 pm on Wednesday 26 October, the time limit for Members speaking on the second reading debate being reduced to 10 minutes;
(2) from 9 pm on 26 October, the time limit for Members speaking on the second reading debate being reduced to 5 minutes;
(3) the second reading debate continuing until either:
(a) no further Members rise to speak; or
(b) a Minister requires that the debate be adjourned at no earlier than 10 pm; at which point, debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until Thursday 27 October at 9 am;
(4) during the sitting of Thursday 27 October, the bill being called on and questions being immediately put on any amendments moved to the motion for the second reading and on the second reading of the bill;
(5) if required, a consideration in detail stage of the bill, with any detail amendments to be moved together, with:
(a) one question to be put on all government amendments;
(b) one question to be put on all opposition amendments; and
(c) separate questions then to be put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and one question to be put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(6) should a Minister require, any question provided for under paragraph (5) being put after no less than 10 minutes of debate on each set of amendments;
(7) when the bill has been agreed to, the question being put immediately on the third reading of the bill; and
(8) any variation to this arrangement being made only on a motion moved by a Minister.
I won't delay the House long. The notice is on the Notice Paper, so members have had a chance to be across it.
For the final sitting fortnight of the year, there are pieces of legislation that we will need to have through the House and across to the Senate by that point. There will be a few when we return for the single week as well. In terms of managing that time, rather than simply coming in and moving that the question be put and guillotining speeches immediately, I prefer, and I think most members have preferred, a process where we set a deadline which allows people to make speeches that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to, and then have the votes the following morning. That's the reason that this is being moved. Once again, while there can be some inconvenience for people in terms of the timing of later speeches, I do think it's a much better procedure than simply moving that the question be put and crunching things through.
Mr FLETCHER (Bradfield—Manager of Opposition Business) (18:09): I'm pleased to rise to indicate that the opposition does not support this debate management motion. The fact is that under the previous government, in the previous parliament, the then Manager of Opposition Business, now Leader of the House, was very passionate about the importance of debate occurring in a way that allows all in the House to express their views and speak to the fullest extent possible on matters that are of considerable importance to members. I will quote from one statement that he issued, in which he criticised coalition MPs for being 'part of a government obsessed with shutting down democratic debate and silencing its opponents.' It was an unfair characterisation, I hasten to add. He went on to say that he was very critical indeed of government MPs, who, he said, 'pretend to their electorates that they're the sort of people who listen and then spend all their time in Canberra silencing voices they don't like.'
It's interesting to see the position that the Leader of the House is now taking. Having been a vigorous champion, an enthusiastic champion, an unrelenting champion of the importance of debates being allowed to take their full period, he now has a different view. Apparently, it's enormously important that this particular bill get moved through the House within a particular period of time. It's a little unclear exactly why that is, when we look at the facts. Firstly, the changes outlined in this bill do not take effect until 1 July 2023. In fact, I am advised that the department has already told Services Australia to get the ball rolling on administrative changes that may be required. So that work is already underway. We also know that the legislation is currently in the middle of a Senate inquiry, which is not due to report until 16 November. So the suggestion that we need to rush this through, that consideration in the House needs to be truncated, really doesn't stand up to any detailed scrutiny at all. It is puzzling to see this change in perspective from the Leader of the House.
We know under quantum mechanics that it is possible for an electron to be in two states at once. Perhaps we have a new particle that's been discovered—a burkium. It is violently opposed to gag motions while at the same time an enthusiastic user of them. That may be it. I can't be entirely sure, but that may be the phenomenon that we are witnessing in the House at the moment, with this enthusiastic user of gag motions. He says to us that, in essence, this gag motion doesn't choke quite as tightly as others that may be available to him, and we should be very grateful for that.
The opposition's position is clear. This is a matter of very considerable importance to the opposition. It's of very considerable importance to many opposition members. Many opposition members represent regional and remote electorates, and regional and remote electorates around Australia are overwhelmingly represented by coalition MPs. We are very strongly committed to regional and remote Australia, and it's very important that the perspective of the people of regional and remote Australia is heard in relation to this bill. We know that although the bill proposes the very extensive spending of additional taxpayers' money it does not produce additional childcare places, and we've not seen any clear, well-developed plan to deal with the specific challenges of regional and remote Australia. It is enormously important that we have members representing regional and remote Australia who are able to express their views and subject this bill to the appropriate scrutiny.
I note also that this debate management motion involves a very serious contraction of the normal procedures in relation to consideration in detail. This is a very troubling aspect of what this government is repeatedly doing. Consideration in detail is a very important process in which the provisions of a bill can be put to detailed scrutiny and in which any member is able to move an amendment and speak to it but also to ask questions of the minister at the table. This is an enormously important process and it's one of the casualties of this particular debate management motion, as well as the broader gag mechanism which the government has empowered itself to use, really at the drop of a hat, by declaring a bill to be urgent. I acknowledge that the specific procedures to do with urgency have not been used here, but what has been used here is a debate management motion which includes many of the unattractive features of the gag mechanism that the government has empowered itself to use—and I might also add that the government gave itself those powers on the first or second day of the parliament sitting, at a time when, I think it's fair to say, a number of members on the crossbench had not had the opportunity to participate in consideration in detail and appreciate its importance.
So the opposition does have grave concerns about the use of this debate management motion and this gag process which is being imposed. It is troubling to us and it does not have our support. I want to be very clear about that.
We hear excuses along the lines of: 'Oh well, we've got a lot of stuff to get through, so let's not bother with all that messy and inconvenient legislative process. Let's not bother with all of that annoying scrutiny from elected representatives, because we're an executive government; we've got a lot to get done!' That tone, coming from the government, is troubling. It is, frankly, showing an inappropriate, inadequate level of recognition of the very important work of the parliament. Indeed, the Leader of the House, when he was in his previous role—as indeed did the Prime Minister in previous roles—spoke eloquently about the importance of the parliament performing its role as a mechanism for scrutiny and ensuring that debate can occur in an unconstrained fashion and is not subject to artificial restrictions and gags. So I put on record, on behalf of the opposition, our grave concerns with this debate management motion and our strong objection to what is being proposed here this evening.
Mr BANDT (Melbourne—Leader of the Australian Greens) (18:17): I move, as an amendment to the motion moved by the minister, the following—and I have copies of it if anyone wants:
(1) Before paragraph (1), insert:
(1A) notwithstanding standing order 31, at 8 pm on 26 October, the bill being called on for further consideration;
(1B) any division called for from 7.30 pm until adjournment being deferred until the first opportunity on Thursday, 27 October;
(1C) if any Member draws the attention of the Speaker to the state of the House from 7.30 pm until adjournment, the Speaker announcing that he will count the House at the first opportunity on Thursday, 27 October, if the Member then so desires;
Just briefly, the intent of this is to preserve the half-hour adjournment speeches that we have. That's important because this is the first adjournment post the budget, and, over the last couple of parliaments, it's been the case that the crossbenchers especially have used that opportunity to respond to some of the matters that have been raised in the budget. For many of us, it's our first chance to do so in parliament. So this preserves that half hour. I will certainly be availing myself of that, should the Speaker give me the call, and, whilst I would hope that every member is going to be here, and I would love it if they were, I don't want to compel them to have to be here. So I think it's appropriate—especially if we are now going to be sitting later as well—that divisions and quorums are deferred. That has previously been part of recommendations to the House about what happens when we are going to be sitting late, and I think it's appropriate that that occur on this occasion as well.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Buchholz ): Is the amendment seconded?
Mr Bates: I second the amendment to the motion and reserve my right to speak.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Member for Brisbane. The Leader of the House?
Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (18:19): The government will be supporting the amendment that was moved by the member for Melbourne. It does improve the motion from what was on the Notice Paper and makes sure that it's completely consistent with the Jenkins recommendations. So I appreciate that being raised.
This now gives us potentially a new way, whenever we have to use this sort of mechanism, of being able to make sure that the people who had planned and scheduled to speak on the adjournment debate are able to do so. At some point we'll make a reference to the Procedure Committee to have a look at this. I think this will be the third different way we've tried to do this, to try to work out which one works best for the House.
In closing, to respond to the issues raised by the Manager of Opposition Business: in terms of shutting down debate, the impact of what we're about to do will be to allow 30 extra members to speak on this bill. That's the impact. Shutting down debate looks different to that.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Buchholz ): The original question was that the motion be agreed to. To this, the honourable member for Melbourne has moved an amendment. The question is now that the amendment be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
The SPEAKER: The question is that the motion, as amended, be agreed to.
The House divided. [18:25]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)
BILLS
Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
to which the following amendment was moved:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
(1) notes that this bill does nothing to address broader challenges for access to child care in Australia, namely:
(a) child care service gaps in regional Australia; and
(b) early childhood education and care workforce shortages which are preventing families from accessing the care they need;
(2) notes that the Government's child care package, which costs $4.5 billion, does not add one additional child care place;
(3) notes that child care providers have already increased fees since the Government came to office and the additional demand placed on child care services as a result of this bill will put further inflationary pressure on fees;
(4) calls on the Government to ensure that the promised savings for families will not be eroded by higher fees due to the additional demand for child care services as a result of this bill; and
(5) notes that the bill commits to higher ongoing structural spending and calls on the Government to manage its spending commitments to improve the budget while standing by their promise to deliver legislated targeted income tax relief"
Ms THWAITES (Jagajaga) (18:31): This government gets it. We know that too many families are facing unacceptably high costs as they try and do something about something that, as a society, we all should all support— juggling work and family. We know that, in a time of genuine cost-of-living pressures, one of the largest expenses for many families is their childcare bill, and we get that too many women—and it is mainly women—are unable to take up that extra day of work because the cost of child care is currently just prohibitive. The consequences of that are felt not just by them and their family but by us as a community and a society.
In a period where we have workplaces desperately looking for workers, we are disincentivising a huge chunk of our workforce from being in jobs, helping our businesses get on with it. And, of course, we also know that we are setting women up for being at risk of poverty later in life. In fact, the greatest group at risk of homelessness at the moment is older women, and that is often a consequence of women, earlier in life, taking up caring responsibilities. There are so many ways in which this bill is really important and in which it is going to change the lives of families in Australia and going to make our communities stronger. It's for all these reasons that I'm very proud to be speaking in support of it today.
I have young children myself. As someone with young children, I spend a lot of time in playgrounds. Quite often, I've come to have what I like to call the swing conversation. This is where you're pushing your child on the swing and there's another mum next to you pushing their child on the swing. You start having that chat: 'How old is your kid? What do you do? How often do you work?' And it always ends up with, 'How often do you work?' and, nearly always, the line is: 'I'm just working three days a week at the moment. We wanted to look at an extra day, but we sat down and did the maths, and it doesn't make sense for me to work that extra day—child care is just so expensive.' I genuinely have this conversation with women in my community over and over again. It doesn't need to be this way. Early education is something that benefits our children, and it benefits families.
We know from the data that last year there were 73,000 people who wanted to work but didn't look for work because they couldn't make childcare costs work for their situation. With our plan, our government is encouraging these people; we're encouraging those mums at the swings to be able to work that extra day, to know that they can do that without actually paying more for their child care than they're being paid to do their job. This bill is all about supporting women to increase their participation in the workforce and, through this, accelerating work to close the participation, pay and superannuation gaps. It is a win-win-win—good for children, good for families and good for the economy.
One of the really important parts of our plan is that 96 per cent of Australian families will be better off. This is important because child care should be one of those services that we can all rely on and all use. I'm very pleased that our government has been clear that this is not the end of the childcare journey—that we also want to look at how we make this a universal system that does benefit all families.
The changes we're introducing will lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent for families with a combined income of under $80,000. For some of the families in Jagajaga, in my electorate, that will be a really big, beneficial change. A family on a combined income of $90,000 a year—they might be in Heidelberg Heights or Watsonia in my community, for example—with one child in child care three days a week currently receives an annual subsidy of about $13,000. With the future subsidy delivered by our government's plan, a family in this situation will save $1,140 in the first year of our new policy. This is significant money going back into the pockets of local families to help bring down their costs. Of course, there are many families in my community who have more than one child attending child care—my family is one of those—and our government understands this. Our plan will retain the higher childcare subsidy for families with more than one child aged five or under in care, to maximise the benefits this policy has across communities and ensure as many families benefit as possible.
We also know that part of this equation is supporting the people who work in early education. I want to give a big shout-out to all of those people who do this incredibly difficult work that we have undervalued for too long. The people who work in early education do deserve a pay rise, and I am very glad that this government will also be bringing legislation to this place that goes to some of the historic issues that have meant women in feminised industries like early education have not been paid as they should. Any of us who have spent time caring for children, trying to educate them, know what a huge job that is and what an important job that is.
I want to give a shout out to all the early educators in my electorate and to the people at Goodstart Ivanhoe, who I visited recently for Early Learning Matters Week and who took me through everything they were doing in a day, running around after teeny, tiny children and helping older children start to learn their letters. It's a huge breadth of both care and education that these educators are providing, and at the moment we don't recognise it as we should. As we continue to look at how we improve our childcare system, that's absolutely something that we must improve. I also want to give a shout-out to all the educators at my children's centre. Again, I see every day how hard you're working to keep things on track in really difficult circumstances, often feeling underappreciated for that.
We make all these changes because Labor understands modern families. We understand that in our families we want to be able to juggle work and care and we want to be able to do that without it ruining us financially. I hear this time and time again in my community: we need to make these changes that for too long—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): Order, member for Jagajaga. I call the member for Mallee.
Dr Webster: I draw the Deputy Speaker's attention to the state of the House.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: In accordance with standing order 55(d), the House will be counted at the first opportunity on the next sitting day if the member then so desires.
Ms THWAITES: I will note that I was interrupted. This is an important bill. It matters to families in my community. It matters to early educators in my community. It matters to businesses in my community, who will benefit from having more workers available to them. It is good for children in my community, who will be assisted to get the best possible start in life. For all those reasons I am very pleased to support this bill, and I commend it to the House.
Mr BIRRELL (Nicholls—Deputy Nationals Whip) (18:40): I'm happy to rise to speak on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022. The goal of cheaper child care is admirable but, as always, the execution is really important. The electorate of Nichols is typical of many regional electorates, with larger cities, smaller townships and rural areas, with little community infrastructure. I think back to my family's own experience. Even in a city like Shepparton, which is a big population area in my electorate, there were applications and significant waitlists. Affordability is always a factor with child care, but it isn't the only one in regional communities—accessibility is critical. My wife and I were fortunate to find places for our kids, facilitating a return to work and a participation in the economy by myself and, more importantly, my wife, who is a very serious and significant professional. But many regional families are not so fortunate.
While this bill tackles the issue of affordability, the price tag of this policy has changed three times now. First it was $5.4 billion, then $5.1 billion and now $4.5 billion. Labour's $4.5 billion policy is costed for three days a week, not the five days a week that most parents work and, therefore, require care for. Labor, under this policy, will blow out the amount a household can earn and still qualify for the childcare subsidy to $530,000 in joint income. Under this bill, taxpayers will fork out an additional $22,524 dollars for a family on a combined income of $360,000 a year with a minimum of two kids, compared with just $2,488 extra for a family earning a combined income of $80,000. This isn't an attack on the aspirations of high-income households who work hard and deserve equal access to childcare support. It is, though, an acknowledgement that lower-income families, who often can't afford for one parent not to be working, deserve greater support.
In Nichols, the issue for many families is not affordability but access to child care. The Mitchell Institute's report Deserts and oases: how accessible is childcare in Australia? was published in March 2022. It shows that metropolitan-style consolidation of services is occurring in regional centres at the expense of small towns. In Shepparton, between 2.14 and 3.59 children compete for each childcare place, depending on the neighbourhood. The population centres most likely not to have any child care accessible within a 20-minute drive are towns with a population under 1,500 people, the Mitchell Institute found. It gets worse in more rural and remote communities.
The township of Tatura—a wonderful place—is a 15-minute drive from Shepparton. It's where I went to kindergarten, too. It is a great town with a strong and independent community. When the report describing childcare deserts was released, Tatura resident Jay Corrigan spoke to the Shepparton News, telling it:
I could only get my daughter in to Shepparton, which is annoying having to drive over and back,
Of course, when floods block the causeway—that linking road between either side of the river—as they did last week, even doing that is impossible. The article also said:
Report lead author Dr Peter Hurley said for many regional towns, Australia's policy approach to early learning was a complete absence of provision, especially for towns with a population of fewer than 1500 people.
In this report they are called 'childcare deserts'. I have many childcare deserts in my electorate. The absence of child care is not because there isn't a market. People in small towns and people on farms have children and they return to work, just like everyone else. There is an absence of policy from Labor to encourage viable child care to operate in smaller communities. In areas designated as inner regional, nearly 45 per cent of the population live in a childcare desert. In outer regional Australia, 61 per cent of the population live in a childcare desert. There is no joy for a huge proportion of regional and rural Australians in a bill that makes child care they don't have access to more affordable.
The coalition firmly believes in choice. Parents who work or study should be able to access care, whether through formal or informal arrangements, but there appears to be no plan to address access to care, with many parents struggling to find a place for their child, and no plan to address thin markets and childcare deserts, where there are little to no services. Equally, there is no plan to address one of the biggest issues facing the sector, the current workforce shortage and pressures being faced by educators. The headline figure of $4.5 billion sounds great. It sounds fantastic. It's a big figure. But not one single cent will be spent to create additional places or services. There are currently 7,200 vacancies in the sector and no plan to train and recruit educators. Without such a plan, the likely result of this bill will be more families competing for places in an already strained marketplace. What's the point of having lower out-of-pocket costs if you can't even get your child into care? What's the point of having lower out-of-pocket costs if you live in a childcare desert and don't have access to child care?
There is more to be done, and we need amendments to this bill that do something to address the gaps in childcare services, workforce shortages and the real prospect that any benefits delivered to families by this reform will be eroded by higher fees. There is no commitment to the coalition's Connected Beginnings program, which provides childcare access to Indigenous Australians living in rural and remote Australia. This program operates in Mildura, the only site in Victoria, and it should be expanded to other regional centres, including Shepparton, in my electorate, which has the largest Indigenous population in the state, outside Melbourne. In 2021 the coalition government provided an additional $37 million to the department of health and $42.8 million to the department of education to expand the Connected Beginnings program to a minimum of 50 sites by 2025. This should occur.
This bill will extend the activity test from 24 hours to 36 hours of subsidised care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, and, as part of this, will introduce a new definition of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child. This has raised some concerns, as it doesn't exist in the family assistance act currently and it is different to the definition within the Social Security Act. It is possible that a child could be eligible under one act and ineligible under another. That's a mess that needs cleaning up.
In government, the coalition almost doubled childcare investment, to $11 billion in the 2022-23 budget. We locked in ongoing funding for preschools and kindergartens and made big reforms to the early childhood education system. Under the coalition, 280,000 more children joined early childhood education, and we made it simpler to access support, with around 90 per cent of families currently eligible for a subsidy of between 50 and 85 per cent. We support families. We support the opportunity to work and study. We're incredibly supportive of choice. If parents want to send their kids to child care, we want them to be able to do it. If they want to keep their kids at home, we want them to be able to do it. But it's not just about having the fees subsidised; it's about having the facilities that actually exist.
Under the coalition, we saw women's workforce participation reach record highs at 62.3 per cent, and long may that continue. An aspiration to heighten women's workforce participation is something we should all share and something that's extremely positive for our nation. But it's not just about saying, 'Here, we'll give you a bit of money to help with child care.' The facilities—the places—actually need to be there. This particularly affects places like my electorate of Nicholls and the electorate of Mallee. There are many childcare deserts. We want professional people to be attracted to these places because the economies are going well under nine years of coalition government.
For a variety of reasons—including COVID, but also just for the lifestyle choices and for the economic benefits and the opportunities—people want to come to regional Australia. Often they say: do you want to live in a flat in suburban Melbourne and travel to work for an hour and a half on substandard public transport or do you want to live in a beautiful regional city like Shepparton, Seymour, Mildura or Swan Hill and do some really exciting work for a region that's really moving forward? But young professional people moving to these places want to know that, if they go down the track of having a family—I've been through this myself—they can make the choice to put their children into care and get back into the workforce.
Sometimes it's not about money; sometimes it's just about wanting to participate in the exciting economy of a community like the Goulburn Valley. That was the experience for me and my wife. Sure, we wanted to earn some dollars, but we wanted to get back into agriculture and the wonderful agribusiness industries that exist in the Goulburn Valley. We could see where that was going and we wanted to be part of it, but we had to have places to put our children into care. We were very fortunate, but there were some long lists. Had we not lived in the large population area—for example, had we lived in another part of the electorate or in some of the childcare deserts in the electorate of Mallee—it wouldn't have mattered how much money we had to spend on it. We just wouldn't have been able to put our kids into care, and that would have stopped one or two of us going back to work, and we don't have the opportunity to get ourselves ahead. The great organisations that benefited from our agricultural professional qualifications wouldn't get those skills and services and we wouldn't be able to move forward. So there are a variety of reasons why we need more child care, not just subsidised child care.
I refer, again, to the need for amendments to this bill to ensure that families with limited or no access to child care, most of whom are in regional and rural communities, are afforded the same opportunity to access affordable and accessible childcare.
Ms MILLER-FROST (Boothby) (18:53): I rise to speak in support of the government's Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022. Before I speak about the substance of what will be for many families in Boothby a transformational policy, I want to tell this chamber a story. It's a story familiar to thousands of Australian families, but with a slight twist.
My experience of motherhood is in some ways slightly unusual but in others very familiar. I had an established career when my former husband and I decided to start a family together, and my intention was to work as late into the pregnancy as possible, take maternity leave and then return to work sometime later on. However, this all happened a lot faster than I had planned, when I discovered I was pregnant with triplets. A triplet pregnancy puts a fair strain on your body. Consequently I ended up going on maternity leave at 18 weeks of pregnancy because I could barely walk. Going on maternity leave 20 weeks earlier than planned obviously puts a pressure on the family budget, as did suddenly having three babies instead of the usual one. Three times the cost of nappies, three times the cost of formula—you get the idea.
My babies came home with me a couple of weeks after they were born, and we were on the four-hour sleep cycle that parents of newborns know so well. As someone who valued her career, I still wanted to return to work in some capacity. I also needed a bit of a break from doing the same thing every four hours, to keep my sanity. So I returned to work two days a week at a nearby town, working as a rural project officer in the medical industry. It was really interesting, worthwhile work and reasonably paid. But three lots of childcare fees really bites into the family budget. Between child care, tax, and petrol to drive to work, I calculated that I was taking home an extra $20 a month. From memory, a packet of 60 nappies cost about $20 in the year 2000, and we would go through more than a packet a week. So, while every extra dollar helps, my $20 didn't contribute very much to the additional costs.
There were other benefits to me going back to work. Staying home with three newborns—preemies—24/7 on a four-hourly sleep cycle was overwhelming, and, when they were very small and couldn't sit up in a pram by themselves, I couldn't even leave the house by myself. The opportunity to work on something different from my role as a mother and have adult conversations was very valuable in helping me maintain my mental health in those early days. In retrospect, it also helped me to continue my career without paying the 'mummy price'—having a gap in my resume that would set my career progression back. And, as I was working in a rural area at the time, and there weren't too many other people with my background and skill set in the local area, I was also meeting a local skills need.
Despite the novelty factor that a triplet birth gives my story, my experience is one shared by many families. For that reason, I cannot commend this bill highly enough. First and foremost, once this legislation is fully implemented, child care will be cheaper for 96 per cent of Australian families. Passage of this bill will mean that 1.26 million Australian families will be able to access cheaper child care. In my electorate of Boothby, approximately 7,300 families will be better off, and, crucially, none will be worse off because of this bill. At a time when, as the Treasurer rightly noted last night, the cost of running a household and raising a family is going up, cheaper child care will be very welcome. That $20 packet of 60 nappies now costs around $35, and of course that's only the start. Over the past eight years, childcare costs increased by a whopping 41 per cent. It's absolutely no surprise to any of us here to hear that families are doing it very tough. That's where this plan for cheaper child care fits perfectly, for this key cost-of-living relief measure will not only benefit the family budget directly but also deliver social and economic dividends.
All the research tells us that one of the key strategies to tackle intergenerational poverty is intervention in the early childhood years. Children who access early childhood education are given an opportunity to learn through play and to develop social skills and developmental patterns that they simply don't get otherwise. And, as in my own example, it can be a huge relief for many new mothers.
But this is also a reform that will tackle gender inequalities that continue in this country. We know it is most often women who experience the greater disruption in their careers for taking time out to care for children. The 'mummy gap' and the 'mummy track' set back career progression for women. We pay the mummy price. This is partly illustrated by the fact that Australian women are more than twice as likely as men to work part time because of their caring responsibilities. Now, it's absolutely true that for many women this is precisely how they wish to structure their home and work life. But we also know that for many other women the cost of child care is simply too high for them to work as much as they would like to. If we make child care cheaper, it gives more families, and particularly women, greater choice in how they structure their family responsibilities.
This also points to the way in which this reform is a key economic reform. Given the global and local economic circumstances the Treasurer outlined, the government has had to be extremely strategic and targeted in the types of cost-of-living relief measures we are implementing, to make sure they build productivity and don't feed inflation.
We know that women's workforce participation is a huge untapped potential resource in the Australian economy. Female workforce participation was 57 per cent in 2005. Seventeen years later it has slightly improved to 62 per cent. That's five per cent in 17 years! Boosting women's workforce participation would help with one of the greatest economic challenges I hear from businesses when I'm out and about in Boothby. Pretty much every business I speak to, large and small, no matter what the sector, tells me about the skills shortage. They are crying out for workers, and this skills shortage has a very real impact on their viability and their ability to grow their businesses, and so it has a very real impact on our economy. One of the clear strategies to address this shortage is to tap into those people already in our community who want to work and who would work if we could remove the barriers. We know the impact childcare fees have on women when they are making decisions about whether to go back to work. If we make child care cheaper, at this bill does, businesses potentially gain access to thousands of workers. Treasury estimates that the measures in this bill will allow Australian women with young children to work up to 1.4 million additional hours per week in 2023-24 alone, and that's equivalent to an extra 37,000 full-time workers, at a time when industries across our economy in our community are crying out for staff.
There is one more really important factor that we should not overlook. Women returning to work has another financial benefit to their own long-term financial security. We know that women over 55 is the fastest growing demographic experiencing homelessness and poverty, and I can tell you that, when I worked in the homelessness sector, these women arrived at the doors of the shelter, and if they have any superannuation it was so small. This is partly due to low wages in the caring professions, but it's also partly due to interrupted careers. Long periods off work mean there are no contributions to their superannuation during those periods, and, by removing the financial barrier of childcare costs and enabling women to choose to return to work if they so choose, those women will also be contributing to their superannuation balance, to their own financial security.
This bill is a key piece of legislation taken to the last election, and I'm thrilled that we are here now, within the first six months, introducing it to parliament. It will benefit women, it will benefit families, it will benefit children, it will benefit businesses and it will benefit the economy. I commend this bill to the House.
Mr GE E (Calare) (19:02): I rise to speak on the proposed Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022. While this side of the House supports the amendment put forward by the member for Moncrieff, we won't be opposing the bill in its substantive form.
Our country is experiencing a childcare worker drought. The field is diminishing as the pay and conditions are inadequate. With this drought of workers, childcare deserts are forming across the country, and, according to the Mitchell institute, about nine million Australians, or 35 per cent of the population, live in neighbourhoods classified as a childcare desert, which are areas where there are more than three children under four per childcare place. There are currently 7,200 vacancies in the childcare sector, and many centres are capping enrolments and asking families to keep their kids at home because they don't have enough staff to operate at full capacity. An increasing number of centres are applying for waivers because they can't retain teachers, who leave the sector for better pay and conditions in the education sector. With more children set to enter the sector from July 2023, we ask: how will the government ensure there is a workforce to meet that demand? This bill is silent on that issue, yet it is a crucially important issue for regional Australia.
Alarmingly, there are also 1.1 million Australians who live in regional and remote areas where there is no child care available whatsoever. This bill does not even begin to consider the severe shortage of early childhood services in areas of rural and remote Australia, including areas that require mobile playgroups and early education programs. Remote and outer remote areas have the highest levels of childcare deserts, at 87.5 per cent and 79.9 per cent. About 453 remote towns do not have a childcare centre within a 20-minute drive.
Just as we've seen with the Building Better Regions grants and with the Distribution Priority Area classification system, Labor is once again forgetting the people of regional Australia. In that regard, we know that Building Better Regions has been cut and, with that, the opportunity for many childcare centres to be developed and built. The other side talk high and mighty about integrity in grant funding distribution, but on my reading of the budget that was handed down last night there are about $1.35 billion of grants that are only going to be available to government-held seats. Where's the integrity in that?
The Australian Children's Education & Care Quality Authority estimates that an additional 39,000 childcare workers would be needed next year to keep up with demand, and this was before this bill was introduced. According to Labor, this bill is meant to be good for careers and good for families. However, in an industry that is 39,000 workers short, I would query what it does for an already overstretched childcare worker and whether it's good for the multitude of families that have no access to child care in the first place.
While making child care more accessible is absolutely a good thing, we also need to see real change in the recruitment of, and the pay and conditions for, those working in child care. Katherine Wilson is the owner of a childcare centre in Blaney in my electorate. She recently contacted me with a desperate plea. She said:
I'm crying out for educators, but they have all left the industry because of low pay, bad conditions … the government has forgotten us. We need to know the government at least understands we are struggling. We are in crisis with no light at the end of the tunnel.
That's a plea from the heart, but this bill does nothing to answer that plea or hear those concerns.
Sadly, Ms Wilson is not alone. Lauren has also contacted my office. She's emailed: 'I have a seven-month-old son and cannot find child care anywhere. I know I am not alone here.' She goes on in her email: 'I need to go back to work for financial reasons but may not be able to because there is no-one to watch my son. I rang around this morning: 120 families before me on the waitlist and one child care has shut its baby rooms due to staffing.' Charlotte has written in, and she says: 'Our daughter is enrolled in a centre in Orange that is closed to anyone other than essential workers most weeks, and the inconsistent access to child care is making it impossible for both of us to work. As a result, we are thinking of moving back to Sydney so we can access reliable child care.'
Caroline has written to me. She's from Orange in New South Wales as well. She says this: 'I would like our parliament to be aware of the severity of this crisis in Orange and welcome any measures to encourage more staff into Orange or to encourage new staff already in Orange to join the sector, such as school leavers. This is a matter of urgency for families, mental health and the economy.' Nadia has written: 'I'm writing to see what is being done about the acute childcare crisis in Orange. I am a small-business owner and a new mum desperate to have access to child care. As a first-time mum, I am appalled at the situation for families seeking child care. I have been on a waiting list at numerous childcare facilities since my daughter was born in October last year. As a small-business owner, I have not had the opportunity to take a break from my work as labour is scarce. The current situation is holding women back from re-entering the workforce and, as such, is contributing to the ongoing gender inequality that is exacerbated in regional areas.'
Kelly has written in. She says this: 'I've had a dad on the phone today desperate for child care as the Hill Street centre is shut for a third day in a row. I've had families from the Albert Street service calling me in a complete mess as their service is shutting up completely, and they are left with no options. I just had a nurse from the hospital call me this afternoon saying she will have to quit her job, as the Dalton Street early learning centre has classrooms closed due to a staff shortage. I, myself, have reduced our opening hours to make things run more smoothly.' Her email goes on: 'It concerns me that the Labor government is going to make child care cheaper next year, which will only increase the number of children coming our way, and I think we need to start thinking about this now.' That's what we're talking about in this House tonight. Lucinda has written to me as well. She writes of the 'childcare crisis facing our community in Orange'. Jessie has written to me and she says this: 'The problem is staff. There are not enough early childhood educators to maintain all the current and new childcare centres in Orange. Orange is expanding with so many new families moving to the region, but, with a lack of early childhood educators, you will have skilled workers unable to return to work.' She goes on to say, 'There are so many families in the same position.' Nerine has written to me. She says: 'The government's plan to make childcare more cost-effective will make the current issue of low staff in the childcare industry much worse. Currently my son's day care is closed more often than it is open, due to lack of staff. New centres that have capacity cannot open rooms due to low staff, and waitlist are hundreds long to get a spot.'
Annual data released by the Australian Children's Education & Care Quality Authority shows 13 per cent or 163 of the childcare centres in South Australia were rated as 'working towards' the National Quality Framework standards at the end of September 2022. If there are 163 childcare centres in South Australia alone that are currently not meeting the National Quality Standards, why isn't the government proposing solutions to support existing facilities and ensure they are providing high-quality education and care? The minister for early education recently said:
Anyone who really cares about Australian children and understands just how important good-quality education is for children in their formative years can't argue with the fact this is good for our children.
Unfortunately this statement assumes, as this bill assumes, that there is an adequate number of high-quality childcare providers and educators available in the first place. This is the heart of the problem. The expansion to 36 hours of care per fortnight for eligible Indigenous families, while positive, also doesn't account for the lack of childcare availability. Unfortunately, without increasing the number of childcare workers in both metropolitan and regional areas of our country, the danger is that children will have no greater access to early education than what is available to them right now.
And then, of course, there is the issue of out-of-pocket costs. The last time Labor was in government, childcare fees skyrocketed by 53 per cent in just six years. Out-of-pocket costs are already rising, and fees will likely rise before 1 July 2023, which may erode a significant proportion of the increased subsidies before they're even in place. During our time in government, we kept out-of-pocket costs low. The latest CPI data, from June 2022, showed that childcare costs came down 4.6 per cent in the year to June 2022.
Labor has no plans to address the rising out-of-pocket costs or rising cost-of-living pressures in child care, and Australian families need relief now and, Deputy Speaker, you've seen and heard that in the emails that I've just read out to you. With early education costs set to increase under this government, Australian families deserve to know if they will really be better off under what is being proposed. It's time the government focused less on politics and more on a plan to ensure a strong economy that supports Australian workers and families and, unfortunately, one of the glaring omissions from this budget that we've just seen is a total lack of any plan to deal with the rising costs of living. And, from interest rates to power costs to gas costs, with high inflation, it's a very difficult situation for families and it hasn't been addressed properly.
Instead what we've got are inquiries. A further $10 million has been allocated for the ACCC to complete an inquiry on this issue, despite the fact that the findings of this inquiry are not scheduled to be announced until some six months after Labor's intended start date for this initiative. The concern is that the government has done no due diligence on this policy and next to no modelling to show what the outcomes of this policy will be, and it's deeply concerning to the people of regional Australia. The time for talking and inquiries is over. And I point out to those on the other side of the House that they may take great delight in blaming the now opposition—the former government—for everything, but I can tell them that the feedback that we're getting from around Australia is that the public are tired of it. They want the government to start taking responsibility for their actions. The public are not interested in the blame game. You're in government now, you've just had your budget and you need to start taking responsibility for your actions and stop passing the buck.
Stop having inquiries and start delivering policy on the issues that matter to Australians. Do something to address the chronic childcare labour shortages that Australians are crying out for you to do something about. You've heard that through the correspondence I have read to this House tonight. I urge those opposite to do something—to stop playing the blame game and take positive action to address this acute childcare and early education worker shortage that is affecting so many families around Australia. It's having a very detrimental impact, as you've heard in those emails from my electorate.
I urge all members to support the amendments moved by the member for Moncrieff and I again urge the government to take concrete steps to address the labour shortages in the childcare and early education sectors.
Ms SITOU (Reid) (19:06): I do want to thank the member for Calare for his contribution, as well as those emails that he read out. I wanted to offer him some assistance with responding to those emails. May I suggest that you put in the subject line 'I'm sorry'. 'I'm sorry I was part of a government that for nine years neglected this sector. I'm sorry that I failed to value our early childhood educators. I'm sorry I was part of a government that, as a key policy plank of ours, held wages down.' What's the best way of attracting people to an occupation? Increasing their wages. Not those in the opposition—they don't think that increasing wages is the best way to attract people to this profession.
So let's look at their record on this. They had an opportunity to support a pay rise for early childhood educators at the Fair Work Commission. They opposed it. They had nine years to try and improve access to TAFE, to skill up and train more educators. Instead, they gutted TAFE and left us to pick up the pieces. Right now they have the opportunity to help elevate wages in the sector through multi-employer bargaining, but guess what? They opposed that too. Yet those on the other side have suddenly woken up and discovered that there is a workforce shortage in our childcare sector! This did not spring up overnight. This did not spring up over the last few months since the election in May. This has been going on for years, and they did nothing about it.
I remember the day my son came home from child care and was rattling off the names of the planets that he had learnt. He was so excited to be learning about space, and I was delighted to see his love of learning. Early childhood education is vital for our kids. It introduces them to the wonders of the world and sets them up for life.
The Albanese Labor government is making early childhood education more affordable and accessible for 96 per cent of families with children in child care. It is the single biggest commitment we made in the budget. The child care subsidy will be lifted for all families earning less than $530,000. For example, a family on a combined income of $120,000 with one child in care will save $1,780 a year. After eight years of escalating costs—jumping up by 41 per cent over that period—finally families will get some financial relief. Our cheaper childcare measures are a $4.5 billion package, but I don't see it as a cost; it's an investment. It's an investment in the future of our kids and in the future of this country, because we know that, for every dollar spent on child care, we see $2 in benefits.
The research tells us that children who receive high-quality early education are more likely to enter primary school with the social, cognitive and emotional skills needed to succeed at school. I know this to be true because I saw it in my own son. Max started school this year, and he was ready to go. He had learnt his alphabet; he knew how to write his name and do basic maths. And that was because his early childhood educators had worked so hard to ensure he was ready for school. Last week, I had the opportunity to go back to my son's former childcare centre, Lighthouse in North Strathfield, to thank all the amazing staff there, from the centre director, to the early childhood educators, to Mr Anthony, the chef. They all had a part to play in my son growing, learning and thriving.
Of course, talking about access to early childhood education is just one side of the equation. The other side of the equation is our early childhood educators. We know that child care isn't about babysitting our kids; it's about educating them. I'm grateful to be part of an Albanese Labor government, who finally values and recognises the contribution that our early childhood educators make to our kids and our society. Our cheaper childcare bill is transformative. It's transformative for kids because it will give them access to quality early education. It's transformative for families, as parents will be able to return to work. And the increase in productivity will be transformative for our economy. I'm proud to be part of a government that is introducing this vital reform.
Mr CHANDLER-MATHER (Griffith) (19:21): I move:
That all words after "reading" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
the House:
(1) notes this bill only provides limited support for families that are currently paying exorbitant fees for early childhood education and care; and
(2) calls on the government to make early childhood education and care universal and free, and address the workforce crisis by ensuring educators receive better pay and conditions.
This bill provides some limited support to families that are currently paying high fees for early childhood education and care. We welcome that the new government is making the right noises about the fundamental importance of early childhood education and care for children's development, for families and for our society. But, realistically, this is only a very limited investment. Families will still be paying high fees, and many will continue to be locked out altogether. Early childhood education is just as important as primary or secondary education, yet we don't means test access to public schools. But, under Labor's plan, parents will still have to pay thousands of dollars to access what should be a universal right—not only that, but, by retaining the complex means-testing system, you also retain the perverse situation where it is often cheaper for one parent to quit work than to pay for child care, forcing often women to stay at home and leave work, even if they don't really want to.
At a broad level, this bill fails to address one of the major structural flaws in child care—that is, that an essential service like early childhood education is increasingly dominated by large for-profit providers. Corporations shouldn't be making a profit out of providing an essential service. Once again, we do not leave primary and secondary education to for-profit providers, so why is early education any different? We know that early childhood education costs have risen by 41 per cent over the last eight years. Australia is regularly near the bottom of global lists of wealthy countries on affordability for child care. In a UNICEF report released last year, Australia was ranked 34 out of 40 on affordability. Rather than spending $254 billion on the stage 3 tax cuts, we could have universal free child care at a fraction of the cost.
It's not that we just don't think this bill goes nearly far enough. In the Senate inquiry into this bill so far we have heard from a range of stakeholders—centres, peak bodies, advocacy groups and early childhood development experts—who agree this bill doesn't go nearly far enough to ensure that early childhood education and care is considered by the government as an essential service. This bill does not tackle the workforce crisis in early childhood education. Early childhood educators do extremely important work but have been underpaid and undervalued for far too long. We don't have to wait for the proposed Productivity Commission inquiry in two years time to know that early childhood education workers are underpaid and undervalued. The Greens will push the government to act immediately on workers' demands for better wages and conditions.
There are a range of ways this bill could be improved. I understand my colleague Senator Faruqi will elaborating on this in the Senate. One terrible aspect of this childcare policy is that retained in this bill is the activity test. The activity test—a classic coalition measure—restricts the amount of subsidised child care a family can receive, based on the number of hours they work, study or volunteer. The fewer the hours of activity, the less subsidised child care that household can access. It is estimated that at least 126,000 children are missing out on child care due to the activity test, and the majority of these children are from low-income families. The government should stop punishing low-income families with insecure work, who are most likely to miss out on child care, by getting rid of the activity test. That disastrous coalition policy deserves to be consigned to history.
We absolutely know what will fix child care, and that is: making it universal and free. It is absolutely affordable. We know we can afford it by scrapping the stage 3 tax cuts. And that's exactly what this government should do.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): Is the amendment seconded?
Ms Watson-Brown: I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
Dr ANANDA-RAJAH (Higgins) (19:26): The welcoming of a child into a family is a joyous experience. Families are brought together, dreams are fulfilled, gifts are given. But nothing really prepares you for it—the chaos, the exhaustion, the brain fog, the multitasking. The demands on families are relentless and mounting, and most of the care falls on the shoulders of the woman, the mother, who has to then balance raising a child with looking after other children and attending to household duties, while her career—or what is left of it—slowly ebbs away. Now, this story is familiar to millions and millions of Australian women, including me.
If it takes a village to raise a child, all I can say is: that village has disappeared from modern life. We simply don't have the help around us that we once did. Multigenerational families are the exception rather than the rule in our culture. It falls, then, on early childhood education and care to pick up that load, that slack. Child care is not a prop; it is a pillar—a pillar for so many families and for society at large.
So the blessing of children comes, unfortunately, with a trade-off, and that trade-off has lived in the shadows for too long. For the mother, the motherhood penalty is very real. And it is insidious; it creeps up on you; you don't even realise it's happening—until, as I said in my maiden speech, ambition is dimmed until it's snuffed out altogether. And the effect is compounding. The effect on the individual spells less job security; career progression that effectively stalls, in some cases; less pay; less super; fewer assets; and, in later life, increased vulnerability. In other words, women in their older years are less resilient to the shocks in life, whether they be illness, relationship breakdown or worse.
For the nation, the effect is also significant. What we have is a denial of talent and of the energy that women bring to the table.
We are reaping, unfortunately, nine years of neglect of this entire policy piece of work. Those opposite deprioritised women. Women were airbrushed out of the economic narrative. Those opposite stood by, hands in pockets, watching childcare costs balloon—a whopping 41 per cent in eight years. This was felt acutely in my electorate of Higgins. Why? Because Higgins actually has the highest childcare fees in Victoria. That is according to a study by the Mitchell institute, Victoria University, that was published this year. It has the highest childcare fees. This weighs like a millstone around the necks of my constituents and my families.
Debate interrupted.
ADJOURNMENT
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Vasta) (19:30): It being 7.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
Budget
Mr BANDT (Melbourne—Leader of the Australian Greens) (19:30): The cost of everything is going up, but wages and incomes are going backwards. People are going backwards. Billionaires and politicians get a $9,000 tax cut in Labor's budget. Clive Palmer gets a tax cut. Gina Rinehart gets a tax cut. Everyone in this House gets a $9,000 tax cut. There is $254 billion of tax cuts for billionaires and the very wealthy, but real cost-of-living relief for everyone else is delayed.
The government says that it's making difficult decisions, but these aren't as difficult as the decisions people across the country are making trying to pay the bills—trying to pay the rent, trying to pay the power bill, trying to afford groceries. While people are struggling to cope with rising costs without a real pay rise, Labor gives fossil fuel corporations at least $40 billion in subsidies. While three million people will still live in poverty, Labor gives politicians a $9,000 tax cut. While people live in their cars because they can't afford a house, Labor's budget says rents will skyrocket.
This is not what people voted for. People voted for change. Together, we kicked the Liberals out. People want this parliament to tackle the climate crisis and to tackle inequality. People voted for change. But, after this budget, people are still waiting for it. We wanted change, but sadly we got too much more of the same—the same tax cuts for the wealthiest, the same handouts for fossil fuels, the same special treatment for big corporations, the same higher rents, higher inequality and lower wages and incomes. Under Labor's budget, you get higher bills, and Clive Palmer gets a $9,000 tax cut.
But it doesn't need to be this way. We could scrap the stage 3 tax cuts for the wealthy, put dental and mental health into Medicare and make child care free. We could actually build a million new homes instead of announcing a budget night policy that contains funding for only 10,000 new homes, with the hope that private developers will do the rest. And we could take on these coal and gas corporations that are gouging us. It's time to put people first. It's time to look at capping electricity prices. If that costs money, the coal and gas giants can pay for it.
Instead, Labor's budget locks in more coal and gas and uses people's money to pay for it, because, at the same time as people are forced to wait years for real relief, Labor is giving the gas corporations a free ride. The budget showed that the existing gas tax, the PRRT, is going to collect almost half a billion dollars less than forecast—in the middle of a gas boom. The big gas corporations are making giant windfall profits. We should tax them and use the money to help people and businesses with their energy bills, help them get off dirty and expensive gas with renewables and electrification.
The climate crisis is here. Floods are destroying homes in Melbourne and around the country—in towns on the Loddon and the Murray—and ruining crops and driving inflation up further. Insurance is unaffordable. People's entire lives are being dumped out on the street. Coal and gas are fuelling floods, but in this budget Labor continues at least $40 billion in handouts to fossil fuel corporations, including a staggering $1.9 billion to build a new gas project in Darwin Harbour and $30 million this year alone to open up the giant carbon bomb in the Beetaloo gas basin. It's really good to see a budget that starts to take renewables seriously, but Labor is still throwing money at the coal and gas corporations, pouring fuel on the fire and making the climate crisis worse. Yes, international factors are important, and the previous government left a mess. But these decisions to work with the Liberals to fund gas and give tax cuts to Clive Palmer are being made right here, right now, by Labor.
But if Labor stops siding with the Liberals and instead works with the Greens, we also have the power right here, right now, to deliver people real and immediate cost-of-living relief. We could get dental and mental health into Medicare. We could freeze rents. We could make child care genuinely free. We could wipe student debt. We could build affordable housing. We could lift income support to the poverty line. We could stop new coal and gas. We could afford all this and help people with the cost-of-living crisis right now if we scrapped the stage 3 tax cuts for the wealthy, axed fossil fuel subsidies and started making big corporations pay their fair share of tax. The only obstacle to this is Labor. So, Labor: if you're keen, the Greens stand ready to pass the lot and deliver a better future for all of us.
Victoria: Floods
Mr BIRRELL (Nicholls—Deputy Nationals Whip) (19:35): I rise to speak about the flood disaster in my electorate of Nicholls. I thank the member for Hughes for graciously allowing me to take up her speaking allocation at this important time—it's greatly appreciated. Firstly, I pay my respects to 71-year-old Kevin Wills from Rochester and 65-year-old Bryan Hack, a farmer near Nathalia, who both tragically lost their lives during this flood event. I offer my sincere condolences to their families, friends and communities.
Before I speak about the damage done and the enormous challenge it presents to help people recover and rebuild their homes and their lives, I first want to talk about the great people of my electorate. They are stoic, practical, empathetic, and selfless. Across the flood-affected areas of my electorate, in Seymour, Rochester, Murchison, Shepparton, Mooroopna and Echuca, we have seen and heard of countless acts of kindness—neighbours helping neighbours, strangers helping strangers, and a community spirit that is the very essence of what it is to live in rural and regional Australia. As the local member, I'm so proud.
As the situation worsened and the floodwaters approached, thousands of people helped fill, distribute and lay sandbags, and others helped families evacuate and gave them shelter on higher ground. Communities rallied to distribute food, water and other necessities where they could. In parts of north Shepparton, which was isolated for four days, a lone stranger in a kayak paddled through the streets delivering water and homemade sandwiches. Daniel Cleave, Kaiden Richards, Curt Arthur and Michael Hand used a tinnie to make supply drops around their estate in Shepparton, and the food was supplied by members of a local boxing gym. Communities formed on social media, sharing their experiences and helping stranded and isolated people find out about their relatives and friends in other areas.
Many residents evacuated to the safety of refuges where, again, volunteers from the community did everything possible to feed and comfort. Day and night, people stranded in their flooded homes checked on those around them. It was a very familiar scene for people to gather on their porches and shout up and down the street to establish who needed supplies or assistance, but it was also a way of lifting spirits. In true Aussie fashion, these street meetings would be accompanied by a beer or a glass of wine. As their accessible world shrank with the rising water, people stuck together and did what they could to support each other, and this is what good regional communities do. That that support is also evident as flood victims are dealing with the shocking reality of what these floods have wrought on their communities. The clean-up and recovery tasks are massive, as unprecedented as the flood itself. Again, these strong and resilient communities will rise to the challenge, but having seen firsthand the scale of the damage I know they can't do it alone. Local footy and netball clubs have become clean-up crews, but it will be a long pre-season. In Rochester, 90 per cent of the homes and buildings have been flooded above floor level, and Rochie has been through this before in 2011.
With so many people impacted and dealing with their own calamities, the volunteer workforce is stretched. I stood in a flooded Rochester home with 83-year-old Lorraine Wilson, who was cleaning the mud off her cabinets of collectibles and treasured photographs of her late husband. She raised five children in that home—one of them, Leigh Wilson, has been doing an amazing job rallying and supporting his community of Rochester. After the Brisbane flood there was a mud army, and Rochester needs the army, our ADF, to speed up the initial clean-up and get the town on the road to recovery. The longer the sodden, smelly mess remains, the worse the impact on the community which right now, frankly, feels a bit forgotten and neglected. They need hope and they need help.
Across my electorate, business owners have been hit hard, and some have wept openly at their loss. They need support to clean up and re-establish. An example is the IGA supermarket in Rochester. Despite the efforts of a gang of volunteers, it may not be fully operational before Christmas. Outside the towns, there are stock losses. Milk is being dumped because the tankers couldn't get through to pick it up. Healthy crops that should have produced a bumper harvest have been destroyed, and we don't yet know the full toll on mature fruit trees. Our infrastructure has suffered greatly. Roads, bridges, footpaths, community buildings, schools, sports facilities have all been impacted. The cities, small towns and rural communities impacted by this flood want to clean up, rebuild and move on, but they can't do it alone. They need government assistance and a lot of it. We, in this place, need to commit to those communities that we will provide the assistance quickly and do what it takes to speed their recovery.
Budget: First Nations Australians
Ms LAWRENCE (Hasluck) (19:40): This morning I attended the WEX breakfast, the Work Exposure in Government breakfast, hosted by Minister Burney and the National Indigenous Australians Agency. About 50 Indigenous students from all over Australia were here in the parliament today, having travelled from near and far. They were here to see how the government works. We entertained them a little in question time, but I think the highlight of their day will have to have been when Adam Goodes showed up at the breakfast. It was great to meet some of the students this morning, and I was truly impressed with their maturity, their interests, their attitudes and their stories. It was also great to share in the breakfast event and to listen to the minister and other speakers, including the students, particularly knowing that just hours earlier the Treasurer had brought down an excellent budget, not least in the areas particularly relevant to the Indigenous Australian communities.
The commitments made in the budget are significant and wide-ranging. They will make a difference in every state and every community. These commitments will create better futures. They will improve programs and services and invest in self-determination. Closing the Gap targets have informed the government's approach at every turn. The government made commitments across the broader areas of health, education, housing, environment and justice. In each area, the government's approach is to work in partnership with Indigenous communities to deliver the best outcomes for First Nations people.
In the Indigenous health budget, there are provisions for the training of 500 First Nations health workers, vital health infrastructure, birthing on country and a renewed focus on combatting health disease and better renal care for diabetes.
In the education budget, there is funding for First Nations educators and primary schools to teach First Nations languages, and subsidies to better enable Indigenous families to access early childhood education. Minister Burney remarked this morning to the students that, if someone had told her when she was in high school that one day she would be a government minister, she would not have believed them. She told them never to listen to anyone who tells them that things aren't possible and that their education was something no-one could take away. Of course, this is true, but it also helps to have a government that is on its game and delivering on education.
For housing and environment, there is a boost for housing on Northern Territory homelands, an extension of the Indigenous Protected Areas program and a doubling of Indigenous rangers. Not only is the significant extension of the Indigenous rangers program good for the individuals; it's great for communities. The rangers program means that young people who are interested in the role can stay on country, learn from their community members and work on their local environment in culturally attuned ways employing traditional knowledge.
In justice, there is over $80 million for justice reinvestment initiatives in up to 30 locations around Australia; additional funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services, including funding for the peak body to provide leadership across the Indigenous legal sector; and, not least, provision was made in last night's budget for the Electoral Commission to start making preparations for the referendum on an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament to fulfil this government's pledge to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. Many of the students I met this morning will be old enough to vote in that referendum. Additionally, the government has provided for our first ambassador for First Nations people and allocated significant funds for preparatory work for the establishment of an independent Makarrata commission for agreement making and truthtelling.
The budget was a wellbeing budget and not least in this portfolio area, where the budget seeks to support culture, language and community as well as individual wellbeing. Minister Burney told the students at breakfast this morning that she was once a schoolteacher. She's still teaching now, as she shows us the way towards reconciliation, a voice to parliament and real measures with real purpose that are underpinned by real funding measures in the budget and that will take us further towards closing gaps across health, education and justice.
Trade Unions
Mr RAE (Hawke) (19:45): It is a simple economic principle that accurate and fair input prices are a precondition for stable and effective markets. One of the largest of these input prices in our economy is labour—and rightly so. It reflects the enormous contribution made by the millions of Australians who go to work each day to keep our nation moving. The economic mechanism to ensure a fair price for this labour and to provide security and longevity in the market is the collective action of workers. For over 100 years, trade unions have served this interest on behalf of workers and our broader economy. Trade unions have achieved so much for Australian workers, and I commend the work that the government, particularly minister Tony Burke, is doing to empower collective action and the trade union movement through industrial reforms such as the Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill, which will be introduced shortly.
Whilst the trade union movement has fought for workers all throughout that 100 years, they have recently faced a sneakier, more insidious opposition—corporations setting up shop as fake unions, undermining the interests of workers and the economy. Rather than supporting workers in uniting to pursue better pay and conditions, fake unions exist to promote individuals opposed to the collective who are just in it for themselves. Sadly, these companies have been popping up all over the place, in Queensland, in New South Wales and in my state of Victoria.
They are generally set up for one of two reasons. The first is to generate profit from the fees paid by the vulnerable workers they prey upon. These fake unions trick and lie to workers, often citing false claims to justify their sad existence. In reality, these corporations have been set up by employment lawyers, disgruntled opportunists and politically motivated individuals seeking to make a buck on the back of hardworking Australians.
The second purpose of these fake unions is to divide workers and weaken the power of collectivism that is fundamental to our movement and represents our strength at the bargaining table. The basis of their existence is to pit workers against one another and undermine the efforts and processes of the legitimate trade unions who actually fight for workers' rights.
Fake unions are not trade unions. They are for-profit corporations established to serve the interests of those who create them. A real union has a legal right to represent you in the workplace or to enter a workplace and inspect the safety conditions. A fake union does not. A real union has rules, is regulated and is registered with the Fair Work Commission. A fake union is not. A real union is not incorporated, because a real union is not a company. Fake unions are a blight on workers and their interests. They exist to divide and will only ever undermine the progress our movement has made.
To all Australian workers, I say: join your union—your real, registered trade union. The fight for workers' rights is, sadly, now being fought on another front, and only through the power of collective action at the bargaining table will workers ultimately prevail. To those that seek to profiteer by establishing fake unions and taking advantage of workers: we see you, we know what you're doing and we'll act to shut you down and hold you to account.
Wandin Silvan Field Days
Casey Electorate: Agriculture Industry
Casey Electorate: Community Organisations
Mr VIOLI (Casey) (19:50): Firstly, I commend the words of the member for Nicholls and echo his sentiments. I and the residents of Casey stand with him and his residents as they recover from the floods. In Casey, the Wandin Silvan Field Days have been circled in our farmers' and growers' calendars for over 50 years. After not being able to run it for the last two years, due to the pandemic, it was fantastic to see the Wandin East recreation reserve packed with locals and exhibitors again at the 53rd Wandin Silvan Field Days event. The wet weather and muddy fields did not dampen the enthusiasm of locals, who came along to see the latest in farming machinery and technology. There was something on show for the whole family at this year's event, with a number of lifestyle and general interest exhibitors holding stalls. The Field Days have always been a great opportunity for the Casey community to catch up and network with like-minded industry figures. This year was no exception, and I enjoyed catching up with many locals, business owners, community organisations and familiar faces.
In Casey, around 11,300 hectares are used for agricultural production, growing wine, strawberries, cherries and apples in our rich soil. Almost 2,000 people are employed full time, with more than 700 businesses registered in agriculture in Casey. Agriculture is in my blood. My grandparents migrated from Italy in 1953, settling and establishing a farm in Silvan. My Uncle Sam and Aunty Vicky only just retired from their strawberry farm in Coldstream. That's why I love the Field Days. They are a reminder of how important the agriculture industry is to the fabric of Casey. It's not just about the economy but also about the family connections, the friends and the communities that are built over generations.
I ran into many familiar faces, including Belinda from Tribe-Monbulk Youth Incorporated. They're a local organisation doing incredible work to empower young people in the Yarra Ranges. I also ran into Dave from Treasuring Our Trees, a group that was established after the June storms devastated our communities in 2021. And I had an amazing chat with the president of the Silvan Football Club, Charlie Caputo, who was still on a high from their recent premiership win. The club won its first premiership in eight years back in September, and it's an amazing achievement for the club.
From my conversations, I could see local farmers were optimistic about the season ahead, despite the many challenges facing the agriculture industry in Casey. Many raised with me the concerns they had over the rising cost of goods and the lack of workers they can access to pick their crops. The skills and worker shortages are by far the biggest barrier to business growth in my electorate. That's why I will continue to advocate for a designated area migration agreement in partnership with Yarra Ranges Council. It will help our businesses, including our agriculture, tourism and hospitality businesses, address the skill shortages that they currently have.
The Field Days would not be possible without the support of local CFA groups who assist in the organisation of the event. It was great to catch up with the members of the Gruyere, Wandin and Seville CFAs over the course of the weekend, including Peter Burgi, a legend of Gruyere who recently received a medal for 60 years of service for the Gruyere CFA. The CFA play such an important role in Casey. Not only do they show up for the community in times of emergency; they are always out doing their bit to support local events as well. It was fantastic to see that all proceeds from the gate at the Field Days would be donated back to our local firefighters.
Congratulations to the Wandin Silvan Field Days committee and subcommittee for hosting yet another successful field day event this year. Your resilience over the past two years has paid off, and it was wonderful to see the community back together again. A special shout-out goes to Casey from Casey Jnr Trucking, who did an amazing job helping countless cars get out of the bogged mud. It was a great event despite the mud and the rain—the farmers wouldn't have it any other way—and I can't wait to come back next year and enjoy the festivities.
The House transcript was published up to 19:55. The remainder of the transcript will be published progressively as it is completed.
Federation Chamber
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ) took the chair at 09:30.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ) took the chair at 09:30.
CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS
Goldstein Electorate: Energy
Ms DANIEL (Goldstein) (09:30): The Treasurer is right to say that he is worried—very worried—about the cost of energy, especially the prospective cost of gas. For the residents and businesses of Goldstein it is not just a worry; it is having a real impact on their living standards and on the viability of their enterprises right now. Fab, a shopowner in Hampton, told me last week that he had confronted a 30 per cent increase in energy costs over the past two years, and shoppers are now buying less.
I've been surveying the Goldstein community, and the results are as predictable as they are disturbing: 54 per cent of respondents report concern over household bills; 53 per cent are worried about meeting the cost of health and medical expenses; and 53 per cent report pressure about the day-to-day cost of living—paying for essentials like food, clothing and transport. As one concerned constituent put it: 'I've cut back on my grocery costs, but I still have fresh food. I'm also more careful about my power usage and use public transport whenever possible.'
Voters have been making it clear for some time that something has to give, so I am pleased that the Treasurer is at last warning of the need for greater regulation to force gas prices down. I also note that Ministers Bowen, Husic and King are now emphasising the need for the ACCC to consider options to improve price transparency in the gas supply code of conduct and whether to make it mandatory. Maybe the gas suppliers will get the message that, if they're not prepared to do something voluntarily about price, they will have a solution imposed on them.
This is not some kind of theoretical argument. Last week I spoke to a major textile manufacturer—one of just three of its kind in Australia—with around 50 workers. The price of energy for his business is now between 40 per cent and 60 per cent of his value-added costs. 'It's unsustainable,' he says, and if there is no relief he may need to shut his doors.
If the energy suppliers don't get it, there is no alternative but for the government to intervene. If not, jobs will be lost and any hope for a return to real growth will evaporate.
Afghanistan
Mr BOWEN (McMahon—Minister for Climate Change and Energy) (09:32): On 30 September this year a group of young people were studying for their exams, just as many young people in Australia are currently studying for the HSC. But the difference is that these young people were studying at a centre in Kabul. They were Hazara. As they were studying, a suicide attack occurred, and 35 young girls lost their lives and 82 others were injured.
Although Australia is a long way away from Afghanistan, I think it's appropriate that this parliament records that it is not a crime to be a young woman studying to go to university, it is not a crime to be born Hazara and it is not a crime to hope for freedom. I've read the diary entries of one of the young girls killed. She recorded her hopes and dreams. It wasn't anything too fancy. She wanted to go to Italy and eat pizza. She wanted to visit Paris and climb the Eiffel Tower. She wanted to study and go to university. These dreams will not be fulfilled.
The Hazara people have been through years of attacks and oppression. There was a window of light for the Hazara community, particularly females, but that window of light was slammed shut with the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan. In September an inquiry was conducted by our colleagues in Great Britain. The British parliamentarians published a report into the dire situation of the Hazara people. They used a term which is not used lightly and should not be used lightly—it would never be used lightly in this House; certainly not by me—and that term is 'genocide'. While it should not be used lightly it is an appropriate use of the term an attempted genocide.
There was a time when the Taliban probably didn't care what the West thinks of them. I'm advised that that time is passed and they now care. Let me make it very clear that this is unacceptable, to the Taliban and to anybody. The Hazara people—Hazara young women in particular, who had the hopes and dreams of an education—deserve the protection of their government, not to be killed with, at the very least, the tacit consent of the government of Afghanistan and arguably worse. I'm sure all honourable members in Australia of all persuasions join with me in sending the strongest possible message to the Taliban that whatever Australia can do—as hard as it is and as far as we are away, we will stand with the Hazara people. We will stand with young women in particular, who deserve to have their hopes, dreams and aspirations protected and respected.
Budget
Mr TAYLOR (Hume) (09:35): The test for the federal budget handed down last night was whether Labor was going to build on the strength of the economy and the improving budget position they inherited to deal with the challenges that Australians face. Sadly, the budget failed the test. Just before the election the Prime Minister told Australians that they will be better off under a Labor government. But, in fact, what we've seen from the budget is that by Christmas the typical Australian family will be $2,000 worse off than before the election.
There's no credible plan in the budget to deal with those challenges Australians are facing. Indeed, what we see is a 50 per cent increase in electricity prices, cost of living going up more generally, tax payments and tax rates going up, employment going down and real wages not going up—in fact, going backwards, despite promises that were made by Labor to the contrary before the election.
In addition, last night what we saw was critical regional programs being slashed and right at the heart of that was the Building Better Regions Fund. Programs like this are the lifeblood of regional communities—regional communities like my electorate of Hume. They provide funding to critical infrastructure at a time when regional Australia is seeing a real renaissance—an extraordinary position. We're exporting to the world at a pace and a rate we've never done before. We're powering the Australian economy. People have rediscovered regional Australia through the pandemic, and good on them. More people are wanting to live in places like where I live in Goulburn. The Building Better Regions Fund has supported so many critical projects in Goulburn that supported that growth: $4.4 million for an irrigation scheme, $2.7 which is greening the parks and playing fields around Goulburn, $2.7 million for a new accommodation facility for people with disabilities, $2.5 million to reseal the Wombeyan Caves Road—opening up a whole tourist opportunity in the electorate—$487,000 to expand recycling operations. These are the sorts of projects that have been slashed in this budget, and that is just a few of them.
I'm also calling on the Labor government to clarify what has happened to a critical project to my electorate, the Picton Road and Picton bypass upgrade. This was locked in in the March budget but there is no mention of it in this budget. We want a commitment from the Labor government that this project will proceed. We'll be working to make sure the state government makes its fair share and contribution, but we need it from this government. It was locked into the budget. People in my community, in the communities of Hume, deserve to know whether or not the investments and commitments that were made in the previous budget have been slashed by this government.
Sparks, Ms Jessica
Ms BYRNES (Cunningham) (09:38): I can confirm to the member for Hume that the Picton Road upgrade, from last year's budget, will be honoured in full. But at the moment I would like to take a moment today to celebrate and commemorate the life of Jessica Sparks and share with you all of the incredible contributions that she made. Jess had cystic fibrosis, but there was never a moment where she allowed herself to be defined by that. At only 17 Jess was diagnosed with end stage lung disease and was lucky enough to receive a double lung transplant.
I first met Jess following a call from her grandmother—
A division having been called in the Ho use of Representatives—
Sitting suspended from 09:39 to 09:5 2
Ms BYRNES: I first met Jess following a phone call from her grandmother Shirley Sparks with regard to some Telstra issues the family was having at the time. Obviously having a working phone is an absolute necessity when you're awaiting a call for a lung transplant. Luckily, that was an issue that Sharon Bird and I were able to help with quite quickly, and Jess got her phone call to say her transplant could proceed.
With her new lungs came a new lease on life. Three minutes is too short a time to list Jess's many achievements, but I will list some of them now—it's quite a list! She competed in the Australian and World Transplant Games. She set up her own non-profit organisation, Sparking Life, to raise awareness of organ donation and increase organ donation registrations and launched a new system for transplanting organs in New South Wales. In 2013 she was named the Wollongong Young Citizen of the Year and the Illawarra businesswoman of the future. In 2014 she received both a Churchill Fellowship to investigate education barriers to organ donation and an Australian Press Council award for journalism to work on a special UN study on protecting news sources in the digital age. In 2016 she was named the Chancellor Robert Hope medallist, which is the University Of Wollongong's most prestigious award for academic excellence and leadership.
Later that year, Jessica's lungs began to fail again. In an interview with the Illawarra Mercury at the time, she said, 'My lungs won't make it to another anniversary, so I want to especially thank my donor family and all donors and donor families for saying yes to organ donation and giving me the great opportunity that has been an extra seven years of life.'
She underwent her second double-lung transplant, a surgery which very few people have, and, despite all of the challenges, the achievements Jess made over her 30 years were more than most people could hope for in 90. But there is no doubt that her greatest achievement was the impact that she had on the lives of every person she met and the happiness and strength that she gave to those closest to her.
It would be remiss of me to talk about Jess without picking up the torch and continuing her advocacy for organ donation. Registering to be an organ donor can be done online through DonateLife. It takes one minute and could save up to seven lives. Jess will always be dearly missed by family and friends, but for all of us who were lucky to know her her memory and legacy will live on.
Victoria: Floods
Dr WEBSTER (Mallee) (09:55): The people of Mallee are known to be tough and known to be resourceful. In times of crisis we roll up our sleeves, put our heads down and just get on with it. The past week and a half has shown that to be absolutely true. Nine of my 12 local government areas are impacted by floods in Victoria. That may become 10 even as we speak today, as the flood peak moves on.
The high water has done little to dampen the spirit of the people of Mallee. I've been travelling my electorate to offer my support in these troubling times. While I've seen the damage and despair that comes with a natural disaster like this, I have also seen the best of human spirit shine through in some of the people that I've met—people like John McConville, or 'Mr Donald', as he is known. John is a typical hard worker. And in Donald he seems to have his finger in many pies and on the pulse. He is the kind of person who doesn't command respect; he is simply given it. With even five minutes chatting to him I know that he deserves it. John led a team of workers to build a levy in the township of Donald that saved businesses and homes from becoming inundated. He and his team didn't wait for help; they helped themselves.
In Newbridge, amid the sodden ruins of the multimillion dollar sporting complex, I met three ladies: Kaye Graham, Colleen Young and Sue Horsley. They are members of the Newbridge Recreation Reserve Committee of Management. While the recreation reserve was hit hard by the floods, their strength and optimism were inspirational.
At Bridgewater's famous Bridgewater Bakehouse I met the owner, Theresa O'Toole. We stood in her shop surveying the damage to her family's livelihood. She told me she was committed to rebuilding and getting back to business.
These are only some of the stories from my travels—I visited at least a dozen towns in the space of seven days—but these are some that struck me as truly representative of Mallee tough. My thoughts remain with those affected by the flooding. We will get through this together.
Lilley Electorate
Ms WELLS (Lilley—Minister for Aged Care and Minister for Sport) (09:57): Today I rise to update the chamber on recent events in my loved electorate of Lilley. Over the past week thousands of northside families came together to celebrate Diwali, the festival of lights, which signifies new beginnings and the triumph of light over darkness. To signify this auspicious occasion, every year our community comes together in Banyo to enjoy sweet delicacies, delicious food stalls and entertainment to celebrate Diwali. I would like to congratulate the Banyo District Community Group on the success of the Banyo Diwali Festival and give special thanks to the hardworking volunteers—Devinder Bains, Randip Johal, Jagjit Khosa, Jatinder Rehal and Harpreet Singh Kohli—who helped with the success of the event.
Lilley has a proud manufacturing history and is the home of household brands like Golden Circle and Arnott's. This week Golden Circle is celebrating its 75th anniversary in Lilley. Golden Circle commenced pineapple cannery production in Northgate in 1947, and you would be hard pressed to find a long-term Lilley local who doesn't know someone who worked at the Golden Circle cannery at some point in time.
Earlier this year I visited the Golden Circle workers to walk a mile in their shoes. It has been a big week—a big year even—for the Golden Circle workers, who carried the company through the pandemic and then the February floods. In June the workers took protected action and were able to negotiate a 5.76 per cent pay rise and a 13.25 per cent wage increase over the life of their enterprise agreement. I congratulate Kraft Heinz and the employee bargaining representatives from the United Workers Union for reaching this agreement.
The Toombul Shopping Centre continues to be a hot topic on the northside. Last week I met with the CEO of Mirvac and the state member for Nudgee, Leanne Linard, for a long overdue update on the future of the site. During the meeting Mirvac committed to building retail and ongoing access to public transport and green space in their reconstruction. They have also committed to meaningful consultation with our community through a survey and through drop-in sessions to provide direct feedback on what you would like to see at this site. I will continue to represent our community and keep you updated on future consultation dates.
I also want to congratulate Darian Kaptich, a St Pat's alumni and Taigum local, who has won the senior men's division of the Queensland Figure Skating Championships, which took place at Boondall Iceworld, another iconic institution in Lilley, last weekend. Another Boondall local, Emily-Jean Kelly, led in the senior women's division but had to settle for second place—an enormous effort. All of this is a stepping stone towards the Australian Figure Skating Championships, which will be held at Boondall Iceworld later this year. Good luck to all competing, and I will see you there.
Clarke, Mr Hugh Mitchell (Mitch)
Mr WILLCOX (Dawson) (10:00): Today I pay tribute to one of nature's true gentleman, a local statesman and all-round good bloke, Mr Hugh Mitchell Clarke, more broadly known as Mitch. Mitch departed from us on 13 October 2022 at the age of 92, leaving behind a legacy of commitment and service to community. He now rests with his beloved wife, Edna. Mitch was a proud father of two sons, Allan and Glenn, and then later in life he was a proud grandfather of his six grandchildren. Mitch was a canegrower in Glen Isla with his father. They farmed the land together from 1950, and he enjoyed a rich life with his wife, raising their children there. Later on in life he handed the farm on to his sons.
I knew of Mitch a long time before I knew him personally, such was his presence and highly esteemed reputation in our community. He served on the executive of the Proserpine District Canegrowers for 21 years. He brought a great deal of passion and understanding to his role. He served on the hospital board for almost two decades and he helped found the Whitsunday Sailing Club. He was a proud National Party member for over 25 years. One of his greatest passions was Rotary, which he served for more than 55 years. He was a member of the Masonic lodge for over 65 years. He was a man of the land and he loved the sea. He loved his farm and he loved where he lived. He loved the Whitsundays. He loved his family.
Vale Hugh Mitchell Clarke. Thank you for your sacrifice and unwavering dedication and service to the community of Dawson. A life well lived and a presence dearly missed. Rest in peace, you great man.
Strnad, Ms Halina
Dr GARLAND (Chisholm) (10:02): I rise to pay tribute to Halina Strnad, a remarkable and beloved member of our local Labor family in Chisholm who died recently. Born Halina Wagowska in Poland, Halina grew up in the city of Poznan. Hers was a loving family of Jewish cultural heritage. The safety of her childhood was cruelly disrupted by the German invasion of Poland. Halina spent time in Auschwitz and Stutthof concentration camps, bearing witness to the darkest of human deeds. Halina lost both her parents in the camps, her mother dying in her arms. Halina was forced to work in the Todkommando, the 'death squad', at Auschwitz, a place now synonymous with the most abject suffering. After the war, after an escape from Stutthof that Halina could not quite remember, she came to Australia, boarding a boat in Marseilles, and built a life here, dedicating her long life to social justice.
Halina wrote a book, The Testimony, to detail not just her own experiences of life through one of the world's most horrifying events but to be a reflection on what she had learned settling in Melbourne as a refugee, and her story is one of compassion but also of steely determination. The Testimony opens with a quote from Aldous Huxley:
Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.
Halina took things that happened to her—horrific, heartbreaking things—and turned these into an experience that propelled a life of passionate activism, commitment to her community and an unwavering focus on justice.
Recently, in 2020, Halina gave testimony as a witness in the trial of Bruno Dey, a Nazi guard at the Stutthof concentration camp at the same time as Halina was a Jewish prisoner. After so many years, justice was finally able to be pursued, and Halina's clear statements were vital to this process. I want to now read Halina's own words about speaking out. She said:
My need to speak out about the things that matter to me is great, and my limited time and capacity to do so a constant frustration. Current social, political and legal reforms lag behind so many urgent human needs. Minority groups worldwide still suffer as a result of ingrained prejudices and racist attitudes and the denial of basic human rights.
I hope to honour Halina's memory and legacy by doing my part of the work in this place that was so important to her. Vale, Halina. You will remain an inspiration to all who knew you. We will miss you. May her memory be a blessing.
Budget
Mr RICK WILSON (O'Connor) (10:05): I rise today to applaud the small communities across my electorate of O'Connor that continue to deliver transformative projects under the Building Better Regions Fund. The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government claims she axed the fund because it was a pork-barrelling exercise for the Nationals, but my regional seat of O'Connor is not a Nationals seat, and neither are the regional divisions of Durack and Forrest that border O'Connor. The excellent members for those electorates can no doubt vouch for the fund's role in building their communities, so I'll stick to O'Connor, which has 57 local government areas—the most of any electorate in Australia.
In O'Connor's largest centre, Albany, the fund assisted commemoration of the centenary of the first two convoys of Anzacs, which departed there in November 1914. Albany has a profound connection to the Anzacs, and the centenary was a big deal for both Australia and New Zealand.
Further north, in the Goldfields region, the fund is helping to restore the Niels Hansen Basketball Stadium. The stadium was in very poor condition. It desperately needed an overhaul so Kalgoorlie-Boulder can have courts comparable to the slick city stadiums in Labor's metropolitan heartland.
Minister King thinks Building Better Regions was all about delivering votes for conservative politicians. If that were the case, why would the program have funded a digital education program in Gnowangerup, which has a population of just 1,215; environmental work by the Fitzgerald Biosphere Group in Jerramungup, which has a population of 1,160; and an early learning centre for the children of Mukinbudin, which has a population of 555? There are not a lot of votes in those areas, but the coalition believes that country towns and the shires that surround them deserve the best possible facilities.
There was a time when both sides of the political divide championed equity of access for regional communities. Minister King's axing of the fund shows that equity of access is a withering value on her side of politics. Particularly pernicious is the pulling of round 6 of the fund. The coalition had fully budgeted for this round in May 2021. More than 20 local government authorities and community groups across O'Connor applied by the deadline of 8 December last year. In the lead-up to last night's budget they were told their earnest efforts had been in vain.
This means that, among many other projects, a cultural centre planned by the Southern Aboriginal Corporation remains unfunded. If the centre had been funded, it would have been a centrepiece of commemorating the 2026 bicentenary of Albany's foundation. The bicentenary is important as Albany was the first town where Aboriginal and European people learned to live together on the western side of the continent. Now the clock is ticking, and the bicentenary is fast approaching.
Last night's budget was Labor's first in nine years. It's a shame that pulling the rug from under regional Australia will be the budget's legacy.
Budget
Mr LAXALE (Bennelong) (10:08): Last night the government delivered our first budget in nearly a decade. I'm proud to say that this is a budget the people of Bennelong voted for. The budget delivers on the commitments we made to the Australian people and the commitments I made to the people of Bennelong. It delivers responsible cost-of-living relief that doesn't put pressure on inflation. It makes targeted investments to build a stronger and more resilient economy. And it begins the hard yards of budget repair so that we can pay for what's important.
This budget is for those who are worried about the cost of living, for mums wanting to get back into the workforce and for employers that are desperate for skilled workers. This budget is for kids who worry about affording an education and for those who want to reduce emissions and invest in renewable energy.
Labor's first budget in a decade is responsible, is measured and provides the security Australians need. It repays hard work and rewards aspiration. It's right for the times and ready for the future. We know there are difficult times ahead, and we're being upfront about the challenges that we face. These are difficult times, and hard choices are required to get the economy and the budget back on track. We can't clean up this mess overnight, but we're working every day to build a better future for Australia.
One thing that was raised a lot with me in Bennelong was cost of living, and I'm proud to say that this budget has over $7.5 billion for targeted cost-of-living measures and provides responsible relief for households in Bennelong. It includes cheaper child care and early education, with higher subsidies for 1.26 million families in Australia, including 9,800 families in Bennelong. We're expanding paid parental leave, with six months paid leave by 2026. There are important amendments to eligibility for modern families.
We've got cheaper medicines. We're slashing the PBS general co-payment to $30 a script, a reduction for the first time in 75 years. We'll have more affordable housing, delivering the Housing Australia Future Fund and a new national housing accord. And we are getting wages moving again, supporting a wage increase and minimum wage increase for workers, fixing the broken bargaining system and investing in capacity in the economy.
We've also got some fantastic local commitments. I'll close by touching on these. Locals elected me to be a strong voice for Bennelong in Canberra. I'm proud that our government has listened. There's $2,000 for the Asian Australian Association of Bennelong to host the Harmony Cup. There's $20,000 for the Ryde Persian community to celebrate Nowruz, their new year, with a street and food festival in Bennelong. There's a community battery in North Epping, which is just extraordinary. We're working with the state government to widen Epping Bridge. There's to be an upgrade of Blenheim Park and there's to be additional university spaces at Macquarie University. This is a budget that delivers for the nation and delivers for Bennelong.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Sharkie ): In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.
BILLS
Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
to which the following amendment was moved:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
(1) notes that despite a promise to reduce household energy bills by $275, electricity prices have skyrocketed under this government and are forecast to rise by another 50 per cent in 2023;
(2) notes energy reliability issues in the National Electricity Market under this government, forcing unprecedented interventions, and the Australian Energy Market Operator's forecast for further reliability issues over the next decade;
(3) notes the impact of the above mentioned energy prices and reliability issues on Australian households, small businesses and industries at a time when they can least afford it;
(4) notes this government's failure in policy, particularly the lack of new gas supply and premature closures of baseload generators without adequate replacement, risking too hasty a rollout of renewables and new transmission;
(5) notes the concerns of regional communities that they will be steamrolled over by this government's target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030 which will require the installation of forty 7-megawatt wind turbines every month, more than 22,000 five hundred-watt solar panels every day and up to 28,000 kms of new poles and wires infrastructure;
(6) notes the need for appropriate environmental consideration and approvals for all new projects, including care for bird life and sea life;
(7) notes the importance of product stewardship and the need for improved solutions for waste management and landfill, including in identified onshore and offshore renewable energy zones;
(8) notes the importance of maximising local procurement which will deliver job opportunities and community initiatives from regional energy infrastructure projects, especially in light of much of the content for offshore wind projects being imported;
(9) notes the importance of transparency around each financial security deal approved by the Minister; and
(10) criticises the Minister for failing to appreciate the importance of attaining a social license for major renewable and related infrastructure projects and notes that this sets renewables up for failure, not success".
Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (10:11): I'm so pleased to be supporting the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. I was delighted when the previous government introduced legislation to at least get offshore wind starting, although there were many gaps in that legislation that this bill seeks to correct to ensure that the essential things are in place for offshore wind projects to be able to start.
I think it's really important to understand why offshore wind is so important. It is part of a suite of renewable energy initiatives. The energy initiatives that we have are about cleaner, cheaper and more secure energy. Our budget last night outlined our spending on so many of those, which will really give people a sense of hope that we are moving into this renewable energy growth that we know has just been waiting for a decade to be unleashed.
For my own electorate, it means really practical things, like community batteries for East Blaxland and Hobartville, which will help them significantly reduce their power costs. There are also energy efficiency grants for small and medium businesses. They're some of the really practical things we are doing.
This legislation is about something that people say they want governments to do, and that is to think longer term and put things in place that will see us into the future. That's exactly what this legislation does.
I sometimes say to people, 'Why am I so excited about offshore wind?' I want to explain that. There is enough wind potential just off Australia's coasts to power our electricity grid several times over. If all the current proposed wind farms were built, their combined energy capacity would be greater than all of Australia's coal-fired power stations combined. One of the key comparisons we find is with the United Kingdom. The UK are an absolute world leader in offshore wind. They got onto it long before the previous government even realised it existed, I think. They have more installed capacity than any other country. Already offshore wind there powers the equivalent of 4.5 million homes annually, generating for them about 10 per cent of their electricity. But, at that scale, it would be much more impactful for us. The cost of new offshore wind has fallen there by 50 per cent since 2015. It is now one of the lowest-cost options for new power in the UK. It's cheaper than new gas and cheaper than nuclear power. This is the opportunity we have and that we are finally seizing in having proper legislation that allows for these offshore wind projects to progress.
Interestingly, only last year we didn't even have a process to allow for these projects to be built. I know that, for years, investors, energy experts—people I worked with in my life prior to politics—have been desperate to see a regulatory framework for the offshore wind industry. That's why the progress we've made in the last 12 months, after much urging for many years by those on our side, has been really heartening.
We do have catching up to do, and that's what this legislation will help put in place. Since coming to government we've taken a few steps in this offshore wind area, and one of those is to outline proposals for the first six offshore wind projects. They include a 200-turbine wind farm off the Gippsland coast, which will generate jobs as well as electricity—that's the bonus that we have. It really will help shore-up our national energy security grid. Here's what I want you to think about, Madam Deputy Speaker: just one rotation of one offshore wind turbine provides as much energy as an average rooftop solar installation generates in a day. Think about that: one rotation does what an entire rooftop solar installation does in a day; that's the scale of it. That's why we have the capacity to be an energy superpower, exporting the excess energy that we create.
Anyone who has heard the Minister for Climate Change and Energy speak about this will know his passion. I know that my community in the Blue Mountains, who got to meet with him in person in the lead-up to the election, saw his absolute commitment to this. I think what we're demonstrating in these first few months is the pace at which it needs to happen, because, sadly, nothing in this space has been happening with any sense of urgency or pace for a decade.
When we look at all the proposals—there's the Gippsland one, off the coast of Victoria, and there are the Hunter and Illawarra ones, off the coast of New South Wales, much closer to home for me—I think we all recognise that there's a need to develop these industries in renewables in places where there will be transitioning from the old, traditional sources to these newer ones, and I really welcome that. All of the sites, including the one in Western Australia, off Bunbury, and in Tasmania, have been chosen because of their good-to-excellent wind resources, their existing energy-generation facilities and their connections to the transmission network, as well as their location near ports or industrial hubs. It's really sensible thinking about the most practical places to put them. The legislation that we're talking about will allow those projects to take the next steps.
One thing that is really important in the work we're doing around offshore wind power is to think about the way communities get consulted. Wind farms will have impacts. Even though these start at about 5.5 kilometres offshore, we have to be very mindful of the environmental and human impacts they will have, including impacts on other people using those waters. Our approach will always be to have genuine, open consultation. Certainly, as someone who has been part of a so-called consultation over a new airport in Western Sydney, I have been highly critical of the processes the previous government allowed to happen there. The consultation was not genuine; it was tick-and-flick stuff. As a community member, I will be calling for, at every stage, open consultation, and I know that's what anybody connected to these projects has a right to expect as well.
The other part of all of this is how it fits into the big picture. These projects are really exciting, but I can imagine people saying: 'They're going to take a long time. What's in it for me? How does this actually affect my life, as someone who's looking at my power bill and thinking oh my goodness, the cost of power has gone up, how am I going to cope with that?' We are really aware of the increased costs of power. I think it's very disappointing that the previous government hid those likely cost rises from people, using regulation to hide and keep information from people in the lead-up to the election. The news might not be what people want to hear, but it's really important that we tell it like it is. Then we can work through the pathway to resolve problems and find some relief. We do this with a view not just to short-term sugar hits but to get the systems in place in the long-term, so that, ultimately, we end up with cleaner, cheaper and more secure energy for many, many years to come.
Offshore wind is really key in that whole process. We are doing it because it gets us fabulous, huge amounts of renewable energy. That's great for the environment, but it is absolutely vital in bringing additional supply into our electricity market. We all know that that is a key to getting lower prices.
We won't hide from the fact that energy hikes are hurting people, and we will be upfront about the reasons why. As the Business Council of Australia says, it's the impact of the Ukrainian war—global forces—but, also, as they describe, 15 years of domestic energy policy chaos. That chaos has ended. This government has already demonstrated that that chaos has ended, and that we are putting forward sensible, deliverable, and pragmatic energy plans and, really importantly, we are working with the states, because a lot of the rollout of this happens at a state level.
As the Prime Minister and Treasurer have both said in the last 24 hours, we will work through these latest forecasts and expectations of what the prices will be doing around the energy market. We will be looking at regulatory and other steps that we can take. I certainly know how much pain is likely to be felt in the homes of people in the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains in my electorate when they open those bills. I say to my community: I would really like to hear about the circumstances that you're facing, so that we are able to understand the different impacts this is having across a wide range of different families in different situations. That's the only way that we will be able to work through and come up with a pathway to provide support to families to get through this. In the medium and longer term, we know there are many steps being put in place, like the community batteries, like the solar banks, like offshore wind and other increases in renewable energy. But we know there is going to be pain felt between now and then, and I want to share your stories so that we can make sure we put everything possible in place to support people.
Mr STEVENS (Sturt) (10:23): As the seconder of the amendment, it won't surprise people to learn that I rise to speak in favour of the amendment to the second reading moved by my colleague in the chamber yesterday. That's not to say that we don't support this bill; the amendment doesn't seek to stand in the way of the second reading passing. It does raise a concern, which I'll touch on any minute.
Firstly, I do think this bill, the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022, will make it easier for more generation to come into the grid—and, God, we desperately need it. So I'm looking forward to seeing something—hopefully with sensible amendments from the coalition—passing, because we are in the middle of an energy and electricity crisis in this nation at the moment, and we desperately need more generation. We saw confirmation in the budget last night. Treasury, who are pretty conservative on most things, are suggesting that over the next two years electricity prices in this country are going to increase by more than 50 per cent, which is just a devastating revelation for families and small businesses in my electorate and across this country. I'm still coming to terms with how seriously that is going to impact people, what businesses will not be able to survive with a 50 per cent increase in their power bill. There will be tens of thousands of businesses that could not possibly survive. I worked in a business in the wool industry where power was our largest input. There's just no way a 50 per cent increase in their electricity prices is sustainable or competitive and that is a frightening outlook for this country.
To hand down a budget and say, 'That's going to happen and I'm not doing anything about it,' is a particular disgrace and something that will be heartbreaking to many people in this country. It is also something that, I think, is going to have spectacular political consequences for the government. If you say to people, 'Your bills are going to go up by 50 per cent, and at the same time as I am telling you that we are also doing nothing about it,' then, in a democracy, you will face a very serious price for that. I'm not happy about that. I don't delight in that. None of us in this place want to see that kind of pain metered out against the people of our country. Whether or not it's got political consequences is irrelevant to the people who have got to get that bill.
There will be families that cancel holidays when they get their next power bill. There will be some where one of the members of that family comes home and says, 'I've lost my job because the business I work at has to cut back because they can't meet that increase in their costs,' and that is a heartbreaking future that is upon them.
I really am very moved and upset about that news last night. Although, regrettably, it wasn't the greatest surprise, because I think everyone else except the government, until last night, has been making these points and giving these warnings. Whether it's the energy companies, the major manufacturers, people in industry, small business people, families and households they make the point that it's tough out there as it is, and that if the electricity prices are going up any further then it will be the question between viability and not in so many cases. But a more than 50 per cent increase is a real kick in the guts.
I'm all for more generation coming into the market. Any new supply could have a minor impact in addressing the challenges that we've got, so that's fine. As I indicated, the coalition, with some sensible amendments, are happy to see this proceed, because we started creating the framework to provide an ability for people to invest with certainty in offshore electricity generation and, of course, it's very important that we have a proper framework of regulation in place.
One of the core issues in our amendment that I want to touch on is one that is really important, which is the mechanism in which decisions are made around financial viability of proponents, and the fact that, quite surprisingly, there's this ministerial discretion being provided in this bill, rather than having a proper impartial agency approach to it. Acting Deputy Speaker, you will know better than me about an example in South Australia off the coast of Carrickalinga where there was a wave generating electricity plant that, unfortunately, came a cropper to some bad weather. At the moment, there is not a long-term resolution to this thing. It's just sitting off the coast of Carrickalinga. It's probably a good example of how important it is that any proponent, any business that is undertaking activities in this space, has a proper ability to take responsibility for the infrastructure that they're installing, and that if, for whatever reason—maybe it's just end of life and end of a successful investment; that's what we hope for with these projects. The Carrickalinga example is a good example of where it's vitally important that we, as a government, are giving permission to undertake these sorts of ventures, and that they are held to full responsibility for any potential adverse consequence—like what has happened there in Carrickalinga.
Our concern in the coalition is that, if the minister is making decisions about the financial viability of these proponents and is not comfortable giving that responsibility to an independent agency, political considerations will come into the mix. When a politician is making decisions, obviously they will. I don't suggest a minister wouldn't follow their legislated requirements and their responsibilities as a minister to make decisions in an appropriate way, but, if the decision rests with the minister, they are perfectly entitled to use objectives of government policy et cetera in their deliberations.
If you're frightened of an independent agency taking responsibility over making that decision, that's because you foresee a circumstance where that agency wouldn't consider the proponent to have appropriate financial security around what they intend to invest in and you'd rather a minister make the decision because you don't want a situation where an independent process chooses not to clear that proponent as being appropriate to bear the financial risk of the investment they're making. You therefore want the minister to make the decision, because that will result in a minister signing off on projects that an independent process wouldn't.
What is that going to lead to? If you're frightened of an independent process in overseeing that element of the approvals that need to be put in place for these sorts of investments, that raises massive concerns for us in the coalition. I don't want to see other situations like Carrickalinga. They could be at a much more significant scale where, for whatever reason, a lower standard is provided to certain proponents of this sort of infrastructure. If we end up in a situation where, because the standard was applied, they do find themselves in financial peril and they are not in a position to take responsibility for all the things they should if they're undertaking these investments, particularly around remediation and removing the footprint of their activities after those activities have ceased, we're going to have poor outcomes and, in particular, we're going to have a situation where the government will be taking that responsibility which rightly should be borne by the people undertaking the investment, who in undertaking that investment intend to be the ones that make money out of these projects.
We've got a situation where a centre-left government doesn't want the private sector to have full responsibility for the investments they're making and wants to set a lower standard when it comes to the responsibility that the private sector should bear for the environmental clean-up and outcome from their activities than what those of us on this side of the chamber are proposing. This is truly bizarre. It's an example of how weird the energy debate has become in this country. We should have fundamental principles around these sorts of things. If it were an oil rig, I would be very confident about what the Labor Party's position would be on holding those sorts of companies to the highest standards when it could comes to determining that they are financially capable of being responsible for all elements of the investment they're undertaking and, in particular, the full remediation of what they do out there in the pristine offshore waters of our nation when they've finished undertaking their economic activity. Why we think a lower standard should be put in place and why a minister should put a political lens over those decisions of financial viability of a proponent to properly and adequately be responsible for the activities they undertake offshore is really bizarre to me and, I think, to all members of my party room.
Our amendment addresses that point in particular. I urge the government to consider what the legacy of this decision could be—it may not be for five or 10 years time, but I really hope that some common sense will prevail over that point because we don't make it to score any political capital. We want to support what you're looking to do here, which is an extension of the things we were doing in government until six months ago. But it's really important that people who are given opportunities to achieve an economic outcome from whatever they might be doing offshore—in this case we're talking about electricity infrastructure—are held to the highest of standards of responsibility, particularly environmentally, for that activity. Having a low standard of financial oversight over their capacity to do that is, I think, a very poor way of approaching that.
More broadly, we support a proper regime for governing offshore electricity opportunities for the private sector to develop. In my opening remarks, I made it clear how frightening the outlook is for the energy and electricity situation in this country. So if anyone out there is looking for other ways to install more generation capacity that feeds into the grid their cost within the market structures that we have then I'm all for it, because I'm desperately frightened about the outlook for households and businesses in this nation based on the revelations in the budget last night. I don't think this will in any way have a significant impact on that frightening outlook, but if it can provide any help at all then that is all well and good.
We continue to make the important points around social licence and about communities that are affected by these projects being properly engaged, listened to and respected. As an extension of the remarks I've just made on the environment, the social licence is equally important. It's vital that we bring communities with us and we take the time to make very sensible, measured decisions about these sorts of activities because they do have acute impacts. Some are good, of course. There are good economic outcomes possible for projects that are happening off the coast of communities, but those communities have to be engaged and they have to be supportive of and want these projects because we shouldn't be riding roughshod over them and their interests either.
So, with those remarks, I commend the amendment to the chamber and also support the principle of the bill with those points we've made in the amendment, which I think will ensure the ability for this investment to proceed with certainty but also make sure that the activities of the companies that are undertaking this are at the highest standard and that companies are taking all the proper responsibility for those investments that they should. I commend the amendment to the House.
Ms BYRNES (Cunningham) (10:37): I rise to speak today on the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. This bill will help to create an offshore renewable energy sector, a sector that will power job creation in regional coastal communities like the Illawarra. It will contribute to the development of cleaner and cheaper renewable energy for Australian households and businesses. For the people of Cunningham, the creation of an offshore renewable energy sector represents a great opportunity to create clean energy jobs, grow our local economy and help reduce emissions.
The Albanese Labor government is getting on with the job. We embrace the vision of Australia as a renewable energy superpower, and we are moving closer to this vision every day. I am really excited about the role that my local area can play in being part of these exciting opportunities. But there is much work to be done before this vision can be realised. Over the past decade, there has been too much time wasted, with lost opportunities that must now be rediscovered. We have a lot of catching up to do.
This bill takes an important first step towards the creation of an offshore renewable energy sector. Firstly, the bill takes into account recent machinery-of-government changes and makes some small administrative amendments to the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Act 2021. The changes build on the amazing work already done by the Albanese Labor government and the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, the Hon. Chris Bowen. The government recently announced six potential offshore wind zones, including the Illawarra. Public consultation for an area in the Bass Strait off Gippsland, Victoria, has already been announced. The other regions are the Pacific Ocean region off the Hunter, the Southern Ocean region off Portland in Victoria, the Bass Strait region off northern Tasmania and the Indian Ocean region off Perth and Bunbury in Western Australia.
Over the next 18 months, Minister Bowen will be seeking the views of the communities from these proposed regions, including the Illawarra. This government understands the importance of listening to local voices. We will listen to local industries, community groups, traditional owners, unions and government stakeholders. We will listen and ensure that locals are given time to consider the effects of offshore renewables on their communities. We will support and empower Australians to have their say.
The government is also working on regulations to implement the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Act 2021. Consultation on the first stage of regulations that would establish the licensing scheme has occurred, and comments have been positive so far. These regulations will help enable projects like the Star of the South, a proposed two-gigawatt offshore wind farm off the coast of Gippsland, Victoria, and the Marinus Link, transmission lines to share energy between Tasmania and mainland Australia. It was also only after Labor's pressure that the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Act came into effect in June 2022, a framework that regulates offshore renewable energy infrastructure in Commonwealth waters.
Offshore renewable energy has enormous potential in Australia. We have some of the best wind resources in the world, and our government is now unlocking the potential of this valuable resource. We are sending a clear signal that, when it comes to new energy, Australia is open for business. The people of Cunningham care about reducing emissions and doing our part to tackle climate change. We also understand the realities involved in keeping the lights on and forging the steel required for infrastructure. An offshore renewable sector will require diverse skill sets in steel making, manufacturing, engineering, port and land logistics, and many others—skills that the Illawarra has.
Our community has a thriving port in Port Kembla, a world-class university hosting brilliant minds in the University of Wollongong and a manufacturing base with a long history. The ocean off the coast of Wollongong is also a source of strong and reliable wind. Blue Economy's 2021Offshore wind energy in Australia report shares our region's potential when it comes to renewable energy. The report notes that highly developed port facilities, steel mills and fabrication and manufacturing facilities, as well as a skilled workforce, make Port Kembla a good resource. Wollongong knows how to make things. We have strong and consistent ocean wind, and we are innovative and hardworking. The creation of an offshore renewable energy sector would be a perfect fit for the Illawarra.
Our government has also committed $10 million for an energy futures skill centre at the University of Wollongong and $2.5 million for a renewable energy training facility at Wollongong TAFE. These two investments will help train the workforce needed for the renewable energy jobs of today and tomorrow, jobs that this bill paves the way for. We are already home to groundbreaking organisations working on hydrogen electrolysers, sustainable buildings and renewable energy innovations, and we are ready to tap into the global offshore wind sector.
The Renewables 2022global status report highlights the growing uptake of offshore winds worldwide. In 2021, the total offshore wind generation capacity increased to 54.8 gigawatts. Offshore wind accounted for more than 18 per cent of newly installed wind-power capacity and represented nearly 6.5 per cent of total capacity at the end of the year. Countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium are all harnessing the power of offshore wind. Offshore wind currently contributes around 13 per cent to the UK electricity mix. This is generated by 44 wind farms, totalling over 2,500 turbines. Last year, the UK installed over 2.3 gigawatts of new offshore wind installations, making up 70 per cent of total European installations for 2021.
The Global Wind Energy Council's Global wind report 2022 mentions Australia as a market to watch. The report identifies that, with an estimated offshore wind potential of nearly 5,000 gigawatts, our opportunity is huge. However, the report, which was published prior to the election, identified that this opportunity was held back by a lack of federal ambition and incumbent support for fossil fuels. Well, that is no longer the case. The Albanese Labor government is ambitious and getting on with the job. We have a vision of Australia as a renewable energy superpower and of growing a strong economy while reducing our emissions.
The Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022 builds on our election commitments. Our Powering Australia plan will encourage growth and investment in regions that have been powering Australia for decades—regions like the Illawarra. Powering Australia will create 604,000 jobs, with five out of six being in the regions. It will encourage $76 billion of investment and finally bring governments and business together around renewable energy. The economic benefits are immense and so are the benefits to our planet. We have already legislated a 43 per cent minimum emissions reduction target by 2030 and a net zero target by 2050. Powering Australia will also increase the amount of renewables in the National Energy Market to 82 per cent by 2030. This bill helps us to achieve these goals.
We are also investing $20 billion to rewire the nation, modernising the grid to unlock the potential of offshore wind and other forms of renewable energy, because this government understands the massive opportunities renewable energy provides to Australia and to regions like the Illawarra. With this bill and our other policy initiatives we are paving the way for Australia to become a renewable energy superpower. It updates the existing Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Act 2021 to reflect machinery-of-government changes, and it extends the jurisdiction of the Customs Act to lower the risk that offshore renewables infrastructure is used to smuggle goods into Australia.
These minor necessary changes will enable the creation of an offshore renewable energy sector—a sector that will create jobs for Australia, particularly in coastal areas, jobs that will enable these communities to continue to power our nation and jobs that will contribute to an increasingly decarbonised economy. That's a sector that would be right at home in Wollongong, with our strong manufacturing base, established port infrastructure and the University Of Wollongong. The offshore wind sector has already been embraced by countries around the world, and it is increasing year by year as technology improves. This government understands the potential of offshore wind as well. Australia has strong and consistent offshore wind resources.
This bill is great for Australia and it is great for coastal regional communities like the Illawarra. It sends a clear message that Australia is open for business when it comes to clean energy, and a message that will help create an offshore renewable energy sector creating regional jobs, generating cheaper and cleaner energy, and lowering our emissions. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr PITT (Hinkler) (10:46): I rise to talk on the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill, and of course support the opposition's amendments. As a former resources minister, I've had some exposure to offshore structures. We continue to see from those opposite—I will give Minister Bowen, the member for McMahon, his due: he is 100 per cent committed to his ideals. He is an idealist, but he is absolutely not a realist and a realist is what we need in this space. The forecast we saw in the budget yesterday, as expected, and as we warned the Australian people, was a more than 50 per cent hike in the price of electricity. What has changed? There has been a change of government, there has been a change of policy, and we've seen brought forward changes in the closure of reliable and affordable base load coal-fired power stations in this country. That will be paid for by the Australian people. That will be paid for by Australian businesses. The member for McMahon, better known as 'Blackout' amongst my colleagues—he's very well known amongst my colleagues; he got a good run in question time yesterday. I'd say to the member for McMahon: we need to look at some of the history here, and in particular some of the subsidies that have already been provided to intermittent wind and solar.
I had some research done by the Parliamentary Library, both on this bill and some previous support that's been provided over a long period of time, and I want to provide some examples for you. To start with, simply under the RET scheme—I'm sure those listening would know what that is; it's the Renewable Energy Target scheme—the LRET alone, between the years 2011 and 2016, resulted in $5,166,000,000 in subsidies paid for by either the taxpayer or users. Five billion. The SRES, the small-scale scheme, between the same period—2011 to 2016—was $5,485,000,000 for a total of $10,000,000,671. We're without the last six years of data, we don't have that data anymore, but it would have gone up substantially.
The Library says that, in total, at least $30 billion in subsidies and support has been provided for intermittent wind, solar and renewable energy. That is an incredible amount of money. You could build significant amounts of actual generation that works for $30 billion, without that additional support. So what we see is long-term support for a technology which is now considered mature, but that is not enough for those opposite. They need more to meet their ideals, and we saw Minister Bowen announce the 82 per cent Labor Renewable Energy Target. He said at the AFR Energy & Climate Summit that it will require 40 seven-megawatt wind turbines every month until 2030 and more than 22,000 500-watt panels installed every day, with 60 million by 2030.
This is my background. I'm an electrical engineer; I'm an electrician by trade. I've got a reasonable understanding of what it takes to do this work. This is not going to happen. It just will not. It is an incredible thing to put to the Australian people, and the result will be an increase in electricity prices. We've seen the budget itself identify more than 50 per cent. The people I represent can't pay their bills now. Can you imagine how they will be situated when the power price goes up by more than 50 per cent? How will industry be competitive internationally when the power price goes up by more than 50 per cent? How will they be competitive when the lights continue to go out? The thing about intermittent wind and solar is that it provides intermittent lights and power.
These are real numbers. Rough and ready, wind turbines produce in the 30 per cent range for utilisation. On average, they produce 33 per cent of their installed capacity. For example, if they are three megawatts across a year, on average they provide one megawatt. At times they'll provide three megawatts and at other times they'll provide zero—none. At times when there are providing none the lights will go out. If you have 80 per cent reliability on an intermittent supply, then your supply will be intermittent. The lights will go out, industry will leave and we will lose jobs. We even saw forecast by federal Labor in last night's budget that there will be an increase in the unemployment rate and that we'll continue to see inflation going up. They said consistently through the election and up until recent weeks that they will drive up real wages, but the budget says that real wages are frozen for two years. You simply cannot trust them.
If we look at solar panels, utilisation of solar panels in Australia is around 22 per cent, so roughly a fifth. If you have five megawatts, then you will get on average one. At times you'll get five; at other times you'll get zero. This is incredibly bad for the network, because it means that not only does the load shift up and down—that's what the demand is—but you now have the supply moving up and down. That creates huge instability. In electricity networks that means blackouts, because things trip. You can't maintain consistency for frequency control, for voltage regulation and for a thing called system strength. You have to pay for all those. They are ancillary in existing equipment; they come for free. You get that because, quite simply, it's inherent in spinning capacity.
These are just some of the things that have already been happening right around the world. But in terms of offshore wind turbines, I had some data put together, as I've said, by the Library. They've said that the first wind farm decommissioned—it lasted just 10 years—due to malfunctioning turbines. Two others had lifespans of more than 20 years. These are very new installations in Australia, and I've worked on a number of them. What we know very clearly is that whatever you put into the ocean corrodes. It is very difficult to maintain things that are in the sea. Ask any fisherman; ask any trawler operator; ask anyone that is putting things out there.
As I said earlier, as a former resources minister, I've dealt with a lot of offshore infrastructure and assets, and I still recall court cases and others where the claim was that 'whales will run into them'. Now, won't someone think of the whales! We have potentially hundreds of offshore structures. Will the whales magically determine that, because of the low-frequency noise from the turbine, they'll avoid it? And yet, if it was oil or gas, they'd run into it! This is the type of nonsense that gets put forward by those opposite.
In terms of the construction, we find that they include steel, copper wire, electronics, metal gears and lots of oil—because you've got a turbine and spinning components—and the wind turbine blade is 93 per cent composite material: two per cent PVC, two per cent balsa and three per cent metal paint and putty, rough and ready. This is obviously from the Library. Each blade can be between 25 and 100 metres long. At the end of the life cycle of the asset, it has to be removed and you have to do something with it. Madam Deputy Speaker, I think this might even surprise you: the forecast is that, by 2050, a total of 43 million tonnes of wind turbine blades will have to be put into landfill. There are very few other options. That's 43 million tonnes. Those opposite filling the ocean with turbines and towers that may or may not last their designed life. They are also producing enormous amounts of waste which can't be recycled.
The member for McMahon's proposal has been to change the decision-making power to him as the minister. There are very good regulatory authorities for offshore structures, which have been in place for decades, in NOPTA and NOPSEMA. NOPTA is for permits and approvals and NOPSEMA is obviously for design. That is what they do. In this legislation proposed by those opposite, those decisions are being taken away and given to the minister. I like Minister Bowen! He's a very interesting individual, but I'm quietly confident that he has absolutely no idea about geotech, about engineering, about design for corrosion, about life cycle and about how to ensure things are actually looked after and not abandoned and left for the Australian taxpayer at the end of their life, which may be much, much shorter than expected.
This is fraught with danger, if we look at what is happening around the world and locally. As we've heard from other speakers, the proposal now is that we will see offshore wind farms in the Hunter, Portland, Bass Strait and Bunbury. I can tell you where the load is; it's not there. The load is in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. It's in the capital cities, where most people live. I say to those individuals—to the member for Warringah, in particular, who's very keen on this—there are some great spots for wind at Manly Beach. It's close to the load, you can move it in nice and tight, you don't have to transmit it, you don't have to build transmission lines all over the country. Get out there and support this. You should be moving these things to offshore Sydney, because that is where the load is. It makes sense from an engineering and an economic viewpoint; it absolutely does. Less transmission means less losses and that means less cost, particular for the taxpayer. It's an incredibly good spot to put them.
We see transmission plans—whether it's offshore or onshore—right around the country as part of the proposal from those opposite. We are now seeing reports of payments proposed of up to $200,000 a tower. For those who might be listening to this discussion, there is a regulated price for transmission costs in this country. It is fixed and it is paid for by consumers. Every single piece of transmission that is installed in this country is paid at a set rate of return, and it is paid for by electricity users. It puts up prices. The concept that you will build thousands—in fact, more than 10,000—kilometres of transmission in this country with no impact on cost is wrong. It is absolutely wrong, and it will be paid for by the Australian people, by Australian consumers. We will lose businesses, internationally, who are no longer competitive.
Our great advantage in this country has been the cost of resources: gas and electricity. We have the technology. We have very hardworking individuals. We have lots of people who are out there investing in Australia, but they are walking away in droves because they cannot be competitive internationally at these types of prices. And nor will they be in the future—particularly if their business is only able to run when it's windy or sunny. The utilisation rate that I've put forward in this presentation is accurate. That's what it is: it's in the 30s and 20s. We haven't seen the big elephant in the room yet. This has to be backed up. If you have an 82 per cent intermittent wind and solar delivery system, you must have that 100 per cent backed up or the lights go out. It's not that difficult a proposition; it is very, very straightforward.
It will cost a fortune. Even AEMO has said transmission alone is more than $300 billion. We've seen a commitment overnight from the Labor Party for transmission, for Rewiring the Nation, of $40 billion. You're 300-odd short. And that's just on what's in the AEMO ISP—let alone all of these other things being proposed. They do not have enough money. They have not told the Australian people what it will cost. And it would be incredibly damaging to our economy.
Those opposite need to get back into the world of realism. Idealism is fine, but the Australian people have seen overnight that the budget is all about the ideals of the Labor Party. I was quite shocked by a comment from the federal Treasurer, reported on the front page of theAustralian this morning, about trying to 'condition' the Australian people: the Australian people need 'conditioning' to get used to these types of budgets. They don't need conditioning; they need help. They need support at a time when cost of living is through the roof. They need support when they are losing their homes. They are sleeping in cars. And yet we see federal Labor's budget not help on cost of living. Proposals are pushed out into the future. They have cut more than $10 billion from regional projects. I'm sure, Madam Deputy Speaker Sharkie, there are some cuts in your area that will impact you. These projects drive jobs, they drive the economy, they provide opportunities for employment. That is what matters to individuals who are trying to pay their bills, but what we have seen are increases in cost of living. We saw promises of a reduction of electricity prices, and instead they are going up by more than 50 per cent. We saw promises on real wages; instead, we see freezes. We saw commitments on infrastructure; instead, it's all been cut.
The Australian people, very clearly, supported a Labor government—not in Queensland so much, but around the country—and I accept that. And they are getting a Labor government. It is a Labor government which will be managed by its ideals, not by outcomes. It will do things like conditioning the Australian people—'Socialism 101'. I just want you to help them. I represent some of the poorest people in the country. They cannot pay, and that has always been the case. We have enormous penetration of rooftop solar in my patch, and the reason for that is that people can't pay the bills. They are literally turning off their fridges overnight, trying to find ways to save. These are Australians, in this country—it is outrageous. And yet we see more propositions for more things that don't work and that will cost an absolute fortune for the Australian people. And the taxpayer will pay. That's assuming they're still employed. We see that there are going to be increases in unemployment over future forecasts, under a Labor government.
We haven't seen anything to do with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. That still has to be approved. And many of these proposals will trigger the EPBC Act. We saw in the budget last night that the Environmental Defenders Office has been funded—that great bastion that takes all of our resources companies to court and shuts down their projects, like the Barossa gas project. Will we see them come out and try to save the whales? Will they take the $2 million plus a year, in perpetuity, and use it to shut down offshore wind because they're concerned about birdlife? To be honest, they should be. I think that is at really high risk. These measures are environmentally poor. Since when were batteries environmentally friendly? It's just incredible.
Those opposite are all noise and no substance. They are all ideals and no reals. They are all cost, and they are certainly not helping the Australian people. This will continue into the future under the government, because it is what they truly believe. Get out and talk to some people who actually have to deliver this stuff. It is not possible, it will not work, and you have not funded it or costed it.
Mr LAXALE (Bennelong) (11:01): I rise to contribute to debate regarding the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. I'm speaking for this bill because the issues of climate change and renewable energy were the top issues that locals in Bennelong raised with me and, ultimately, issues they voted for. They voted for a strong voice on climate change to be their voice here in our nation's parliament. They voted for someone to support legislation just like this: legislation that will unlock our nation's renewable energy potential; legislation that will produce emissions-free electricity as we drive down our emissions to our legislated targets, and hopefully well above them. Offshore wind is just one way that this government is getting on with the job. After a lost decade of denial and delay, we're getting on with the job of tackling climate change and investing in renewable energy and the economic prosperity that renewable energy delivers. We know that offshore wind is poised for explosive growth globally.
As an island nation, Australia has a coastline more than 60,000 kilometres long, with very high wind resources. With that comes so much potential for offshore electricity. Right now there are more than 10 offshore wind proposals in Australia just waiting to be given the green light by this parliament. We know that offshore wind power is abundant. It's homegrown, it provides jobs and it is affordable. These projects promise enormous generation capacity, with tens of thousands of jobs in the construction phase, thousands of good, ongoing jobs as they become operational, and billions of dollars in investment. Importantly, most of these proposals are sitting alongside our traditional energy regions. We heard from the member for Cunningham, who's proud to have had her electorate identified as an area where offshore wind can prosper. We already have very strong infrastructure in place in those regions because of the electricity grids that transmit traditional power. Our regions have the most to gain from a thriving offshore wind industry.
We heard earlier, but I'll repeat it: one single turn of an offshore wind turbine can provide as much energy as a whole day's worth of rooftop solar, and these turbines can turn 15 times per minute. Around the world, more than 35 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity is already in operation, with expected increases of up to 80 gigawatts by 2030 and 2,000 gigawatts by 2050. Just to put all of that in perspective, currently Australia's entire national energy market is around 55 gigawatts. With these proposed projects alone generating over 25 gigawatts, we will have more offshore wind resources than we could ever possibly use ourselves. That means there are lots of opportunities for us to export this clean renewable energy globally.
It's deeply regrettable that all the benefits of offshore wind have been delayed for so long because of the inaction of the former government. Credible offshore wind projects have been waiting for more than five years for this legislation. We heard that it was only after Labor's pressure—the offshore electricity act came into effect in June 2022—we finally have a framework for regulating offshore renewable energy infrastructure in Commonwealth waters. The previous government dragged their heels on getting this industry up and running, and there is no doubt we have a lot of catching up to do.
This legislation makes some small administrative amendments to the existing Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Act of 2021 to reflect recent machinery-of-government changes. It also makes some technical amendments and closes a regulatory gap in the Customs Act to ensure full coverage of customs obligations for new renewable energy infrastructure projects offshore. This regulatory framework for offshore renewables will contribute to delivering cleaner, cheaper renewable energy for Australian households and businesses. This underpins the acceleration of energy transition and decarbonisation in Australia—exactly what locals in my electorate of Bennelong voted for.
Not only are we doing this but we're sending a clear signal to the world and to investors that we're open for business when it comes to new energy investment, giving the certainty to the market that our country has been crying out for for over a decade. As I mentioned, there are so many great opportunities for jobs and industry in our lifetime—opportunities for new traineeships and apprenticeships, for our local manufacturing and supply chains, for our seafarers and blue economy workers and for those currently working in traditional resource industries.
Not only do we have the capacity to manufacture the parts needed for these wind turbines but we also have the deepwater ports to export wind turbines. There aren't many places in the world where you have the rail infrastructure, the manufacturing capacity, the skills and the deepwater ports to produce and export offshore electricity. Australia's share of manufacturing and supply chain activity in most renewable energy sectors is low, but it really doesn't have to be that way. After years of manufacturing decline, imagine all the jobs we can create locally by creating new energy sources, like offshore wind, and adding those to our current mix.
Offshore wind also offers immense opportunities to produce green hydrogen for export. In my electorate we have Hyundai, one of the pioneers and leaders in hydrogen technology for transport. Hydrogen, produced by offshore wind directly or through the supply of electrolysis located in port facilities, is a real game changer. If we can produce hydrogen from renewable energy, we can forge a multibillion-dollar green industry with tens of thousands of new well-paid jobs for our regions.
Now that this legislation has been introduced, it is time for us to move and to move fast. We don't have a moment to waste. We cannot waste another 10 years, like our predecessors. We're taking steps towards our vision of a decarbonised economy, we're considering where offshore renewable energy infrastructure may be suitable and we're consulting industry and regional coastal communities about them.
The people of Bennelong supported me because they want to see real action on climate change, and that's exactly what this bill does. For too long the conversation in Australia has been skewed towards the costs of climate change action instead of the opportunities of climate change action. We have a huge amount of work to do to seize these opportunities. We have only 86 months until 2030, and that's not long for the massive transformation that our environment needs. It would be a much easier path if we weren't grappling with a lost decade on this policy. It means that we have no time to waste. It also means we need to be all in. Government can't do it all and nor should we try to. This must be a whole-of-economy effort and a whole-of-society effort. I'm pleased with the progress our government has made so far, but there is so much more to do.
You'll recall in the first 26 days of coming to office, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Climate Change and Energy formalised Australia's updated nationally determined contributions under the Paris agreement, our 2030 target. In 109 days we passed the Climate Change Act, enshrining this target into legislation. As I said earlier, I'm pleased with and proud of this, but I'm not satisfied. I'm not satisfied because we have so much more to do and only 86 months to achieve that 43 per cent reduction. This bill will help us get there.
Our climate change target will require an energy revolution, and that's why we're targeting 82 per cent renewables in our electricity grid by 2030. A big part of that was a huge announcement that the minister for climate change made last week, the first and biggest investment from our Rewiring the Nation plan that takes us one step closer to achieving our emissions reduction target. It is the biggest energy investment by an Australian government since the Snowy Mountains Scheme in the 1940s. It's called the Marinus Link, with two undersea transmission cables to connect mainland Australia to the abundant renewable energy available in Tasmania. This agreement will support Tasmania's plan to increase renewable generation by 200 per cent. It will improve our energy reliability, cut emissions and create thousands upon thousands of new clean energy jobs all at the same time, unlocking the potential that our land has to create more renewable energy.
Just in conclusion, if you take anything from the first few months of this government it should be not just be that it doesn't want to waste a day but that consultation and collaboration is a key part of this government's reform process. We took an agenda to the last election which was endorsed by the Australian people. But in implementing it we know we need to work with every sector of our economy and every part of our community to make sure we strike the right balance.
To achieve Australia's emissions reduction target of 43 per cent by 2030, it's estimated that we'll need to install 40 seven-megawatt turbines every month until 2030. This is a lot. Is it achievable? We will try our very best, working with industry, the regions and energy producers in our economy to do so. We'll act rapidly. After the last decade of inaction on climate and cuts to renewable energy, we're turning things around.
Mrs MARINO (Forrest) (11:13): I'm pleased to speak on the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. As we know, the coalition in government passed legislation to enable the development of offshore electricity infrastructure through the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Bill 2021. It provided a robust framework, particularly in Commonwealth waters, for this path of development. The majority of this bill has our support. However, to improve the bill even further, I support the amendment moved by the shadow minister, the member for Fairfax, in this space.
There is a proposal for a particular offshore wind farm in my electorate, off Bunbury and throughout the south-west along Binningup. In looking at this at a presentation recently, it was apparently around 5.5 kilometres. It's currently looking at starting in state waters. It's a near-shore construction. It will expand into Commonwealth waters over time. The proposal is for 111 turbines, 15 in state waters and 96 in Commonwealth waters, producing 1.8 gigawatts of power. Construction is expected to take place between 2028 and 2030 and it's expected this wind farm will be operational from 2031. I'm not sure of the exact height of the turbines, but we know that, according to NOPSEMA information, they started off at a particular height and now can be built to up to 250 metres. I understand the company stated that it has 10 offshore wind projects fully approved and ready to go. As I know, from talking to my colleagues, it's really important that we have the right location for offshore and onshore wind turbines and wind farms. We've seen some very successful ones in the member for Grey's electorate and also in Tasmania.
One of the important parts of this is to really consider the whole-of-life management of the infrastructure: the logistics, the construction and the maintenance; issues around corrosion and potential collision with vessels; the particular impact on bird life; the issue of fires; mechanical and electrical equipment failure; and potential wind damage. The life span of wind turbines ranges from 10 to 15 to around 20 years, so the removal, the recycling and the decommissioning of these is also an issue to be considered at this point, which is what we really want to see throughout this legislation. In particular, the financial arrangements for licence holders should also be considered to guarantee the dollars are there for not just the maintenance but the removal and the recycling.
I am also particularly focused on local procurement that might go with this in my electorate. I'm aware that, in certain areas, the same crew is used to simply service various wind farms on rotation, and it may not involve locals. The presentation that I saw recently, in spite of what has been said, showed that once these wind turbines are in place, whether onshore or offshore—and it's the same with solar panel farms—there are actually very few jobs locally available once they're operational.
We see in this legislation that there is a change that gives the minister discretion in the decisions around the financial side of this for the proponents. Certainly, robust guarantees need to be put in place, whether it's by way of a banknote or a letter of credit, and there needs to be an enduring arrangement so that, at the end of life of the piece of infrastructure, the actual dollars are there and financed by those who actually built and benefited from this particular infrastructure.
I'm also concerned about the national security and sovereignty issues. The fact is that, at this time, at least 80 per cent of solar panels are produced in China, and that's moving towards 95 per cent. In the turbine space, China is also a major supplier. I've received some information around the recycling capability, and certainly the turbines that came out of Germany had a higher recycling capability than others. So, when you consider the 10-, 15- or 20-year time frames, these are all practical matters that need to be dealt with when these sorts of projects are on the table.
Recently, at the Energy and Climate Summit, I saw the need, as we've heard repeatedly, for 47-megawatt wind turbines to be built every month until 2030. It will be a significant task to manage these and to recycle them over time, and, as we know, they could be up to 250 metres high. At the same time, we will need to see 22,500-watt solar panels installed every day—that's 60 million by the end of the decade. NOPSEMA talks about the location of the turbine—whether it's solar or wind or onshore or offshore—and the importance of its closeness and proximity to the markets where the demand is. We know that to be often either industrial or city based, because that's where the demand is.
In rural and regional areas, we're now seeing the impacts of this. The most important thing will be the social licence, the community consultation process and the real concerns around the changes in this bill that give the minister the financial security of the licence holders, which will sit with him and not with the regulator. There is concern that rural, regional and, sometimes, more remote communities could be steamrolled in this process.
We also know of the 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines that will be required onshore. This will have a significant impact on rural, regional and, potentially, more remote communities. I'm unashamedly a farmer, and the other issue around the new solar farms is that there are some significant areas that are the right place for onshore wind farms and solar panels, but there are also some places that are the wrong place for onshore wind farms and solar panels. We know that the sheer size of the area that will be required for both will be significant, which is why I also very strongly support the amendments proposed by the member for Fairfax, the shadow minister for climate change and energy.
Given the ministerial control over the financial arrangements, it's really important that the regional communities are not steamrolled and that they are well consulted on the installation required and are a part of the discussion from day one. That is a particular part of the amendment that I am very supportive of. That social licence is so critical, and in rural, regional, and remote areas it is very, very important. It's not okay to say in that space, 'You will just take this whether you like it or not.' There is a real need to engage with the community along the way.
The issue of product stewardship is important; the whole of life of these particular pieces of infrastructure is really important. But I am very committed to maximising local procurement, which is, again, covered in the amendments. It's important that wherever the infrastructure is located, whether it's onshore or offshore, the local communities are actually benefiting and the local businesses—the small businesses engaged in this—are actually beneficiaries of this space. There is a real need for real transparency around each financial security deal approved by the minister—no question. The community needs to have confidence in that process and to know that, at the end of life for that infrastructure, there are arrangements in place not only for the ongoing servicing and maintenance but for the removal and the recycling. The community needs to know that that is in place from day one so that they have confidence that they won't be left with assets that are no longer working and with no funding to support that work.
In the budget last night, we saw a potential increase of 50 per cent in energy bills and 40 per cent in gas bills to 2023. What we need is a managed transition as we move through. It's the government's job to manage the transition because there is a need for affordable, reliable and dispatchable power. Under the coalition we saw electricity prices fall by 10 per cent for households and small businesses and by 12 per cent for industry. In spite of what's being said, we also saw $40 billion invested in renewables from 2017.
I support the legislation and I support the further amendments to improve this bill and to improve the outcome. As I said, it's really important to rural and regional communities that they are part of this process and that they can have confidence not only in their dealings with the actual companies but in the whole-of-life management of these particular assets and this infrastructure. One clear way of doing that is to ensure the financial security side of it and to have clarity over that, but the social licence to operate in those communities is also particularly critical. There is a real need for our communities to be engaged early on and to not be steamrolled in this process. It is equally important that there is a benefit for those small communities not only with the production of this electricity but in the management of the process throughout its life span, whether that's 10, 15 or 20 years, and that appropriate management and recycling are part of that.
Mr JOSH WILSON (Fremantle) (11:24): I'm glad to speak in support of the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. The Albanese Labor government is getting on with the task of modernising Australia's energy system. That's the long and short of it. This bill is an instalment in that process; it makes an important contribution to that process. It's a task that has been utterly neglected for the past 10 years. It's a task that's been utterly neglected over the course of a decade when the world has been making a profound shift with respect to the generation, distribution and use of energy. It's a shift that will define the 21st-century, and for the last 10 years Australia, thanks to the previous government, has essentially been asleep at the wheel. We're not going to allow that to continue. We are taking on the long-neglected task of modernising Australia's energy system.
We are blessed in this country with incredible natural resources. That's been part of our history. We are also blessed with fantastic human capital, with incredibly talented scientists and engineers, and we're blessed with a community that's always been an early adopter of new technology. I don't think there's any question that the Australian community over time has actually embraced positive change and embraced a range of technological developments that have been necessary and beneficial. This is the latest one, and it's the most critical for our economy and for our social and environmental wellbeing.
For all of those reasons, we absolutely should be a renewable energy superpower. If we achieve that potential, which, frankly, is what the Australian community has every right to expect, then we will have secured a whole range of benefits: cheaper energy, less pollution, lower and lower carbon emissions and greater energy security and resilience at a time when we can see other countries suffering from a lack of that kind of independence and resilience. We see that currently in Europe as a result of Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine and the associated consequences of that action and its response. We will see a new range of renewable energy exports, which will be of enormous benefit to Australia, and a new range of business activity in manufacturing, technology, development, offshore installation and maintenance and all the jobs that are involved in those activities.
This Labor government is squarely focused on doing all the things that are necessary to modernise our energy system. We need to significantly increase the proportion of renewable energy in the mix and we need to do that through a diversity of generation. That's what this bill goes to, because it's frankly quite bizarre that we do not presently generate one watt of offshore wind power. I'll come back to how bizarre that is on a comparable basis shortly. We need a diversity of generation as well as an increase of generation. We obviously need investment in associated distribution and storage. I know, Deputy Speaker, that those are things that you've been engaged with. I remember the work of the energy and environment committee in the last parliament looked at some of your contributions to the question of how Australia pursues a low-carbon future, particularly in its approach to energy generation, other kinds of industrial developments and the way that we measure the emissions associated with that.
All of those things have been neglected. All of those things are now being taken on. They can't be changed with a snap of the fingers, but they can't be left just to gather dust in the corner, either, which has been the case. We saw the Prime Minister just the other day down in Tasmania talking about the Marinus Link. That's a distribution project that will allow what Tasmania has to offer as a storage state. It will really be one of the batteries of the nation—probably the most significant battery of the nation in the short term—in addition to projects like Snowy Hydro. We need to have the benefit of that. We need to make sure that the whole nation is connected so that renewable energy generation created in one part of Australia can supplement the needs in the other parts of Australia, and it is the same with storage.
As I suggested before, Australians could be forgiven for wondering why there hasn't been a single offshore wind project located at the hem of our island continent. There are probably people who assume that perhaps the reason for that is that our wind resources aren't up to scratch, that the reason we've done well in solar and had projects in onshore wind but not offshore wind is perhaps because our offshore conditions just aren't suited to that, but nothing could be further from the truth. We have wind resources that are comparable to the wind resources in the North Sea off the United Kingdom. Of course, the United Kingdom has the greatest amount of installed offshore wind capacity of any nation. I think the UK gets 21 per cent of all its power from wind power, and 10 per cent of that is from offshore wind. That's the kind of potential that Australia could look at. I think the report by the Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre identified Australia's wind potential as being in excess of 2,000 gigawatts. We haven't yet tapped a single watt of that, which is strange.
If you look at what we could achieve and take where we're currently at, you see that about 29 per cent of our generation currently is renewable. I think nine per cent of that is wind presently. That's all onshore wind, not offshore wind. As I said, look at Denmark, where 50 per cent of their renewable energy is from wind. In the UK, it's 21 per cent, with 10 per cent being offshore. South Australia has shown the value of wind in that, at various times, 40 per cent of its energy generation comes from wind but, as yet, none is from offshore wind. That's something that we can really benefit from and increase in future.
Last year, wind generation grew 14 per cent globally. In total, the additional wind generation was the largest amount of new wind power that had ever been added. To give a sense of how other countries are approaching the offshore wind opportunities: the United States has a target of achieving 30 gigawatts of installed offshore wind by 2030, and the UK, which currently is the world leader in installed offshore wind capacity, has a target of achieving 40 gigawatts by 2040. If we achieve that, we will diversify our renewable energy mix. We will bring some of the cheapest energy generation into the mix, which will lower household prices.
We'll also create new industries and related jobs. Again, that report I mentioned, which I think was produced in the middle of last year by the Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre, suggested that, at the low end, by the of this decade we'd expect to see about 4,000 additional permanent jobs in offshore wind and potentially as high as 8,000 jobs. That fits in with Labor's overall ambition when it comes to our Powering Australia policy, which estimates that, by achieving 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030, we will create 600,000 new jobs and five out of six of those will be in rural and regional Australia. My colleague from Western Australia, the member for Forrest, will be very aware that one of the identified zones is off Bunbury in Western Australia, on the south-west coast, adjacent to her seat.
Like everyone who happens to live in an urban area, I'm very mindful of the fact that our economic development should be focused on the needs of rural and regional Australia. That's a part of our national community that almost always gets left behind or comes to the party late. We have an opportunity, as we make this transition, to correct some of those disparities and imbalances. I think it's remarkable, when we look at the potential in this industry, to think that five out of six new jobs potentially will be in rural and regional Australia.
On the jobs task: I could talk about the neglect of the previous government under five or six different subheadings. One of them would be about the lack of preparation for the transition we're making with regard to Australian workers. Despite the fact that the former government made commitments through the Paris Agreement to prepare for transition, nothing was ever done. We saw a massive dropping away in training numbers generally. And we saw nothing that was aimed at preparing young Australians, and Australians in a range of industries undergoing change, for that change through training and job transition. That's in stark contrast to what our partners have done elsewhere—other comparable countries.
The American Jobs Plan that the Biden administration issued had six separate initiatives directed at clean energy, electrification, zero carbon manufacturing and those kinds of things. The UK Green Jobs Taskforce was squarely focused at that piece. I'll quote from that because I think it's really well put in the Green Jobs Taskforce report from the UK. It said:
As we look ahead to publishing our comprehensive Net Zero Strategy and hosting COP26 in the autumn, we must focus on how we invest in the UK's most important asset—our workforce—so that people have the right skills to deliver the net zero transition and thrive in the jobs it will create. We must ensure that green jobs are good quality, that they can be accessed by people of all backgrounds and in all parts of the country, and that workers in sectors and industries undergoing change can reapply their skills and expertise towards this new challenge.
That's exactly what we should be doing in this country.
I note that the World Economic Forum has looked at that transition question and identified the top 10 skill sets required in the net zero carbon economy. Of those top 10 only three are industry specific. So there's a lot of potential to allow people in existing industries to transfer into these new jobs. But government has to actually take on the challenge and be an active part in working with communities, working with unions and ensuring that the educational and training infrastructure or architecture is there to enable that transition to occur.
The reality is there's going to be work in areas like asset and project management, engineering and technical skills, mechanical and electrical engineering, control instrumentation, blade and turbine technologies, marine biology, geophysics, hydrology, oceanography—all of these different areas are going to be involved in the offshore wind industry and other related parts of the new energy transition. We should be preparing young Australians and workers in affected industries to take the benefit of it. Labor is doing that. That's why we went to the election with the new energy apprenticeship program, and that was delivered on in last night's budget. The new energy apprenticeship program itself—$95.6 million over nine years from 2022-23 to support 10,000 people to complete new energy apprenticeships—is exactly what we need to enable people to be part of this exciting change, with all the benefits it will bring.
Separate to that, there's a new energy skills program, $10 million over five years from this financial year, to support Australia's workforce to transition to a clean energy economy. That is just one of the many things that we have been, sadly, lacking over the last 10 years.
This bill is an instalment in that great neglected project of modernising Australia's energy system. It is bizarre and inexplicable that a country like Australia, with the best wind resources going around, including offshore wind resources, has not yet tapped a single watt of that potential. We've shown what our community, what our tech sector and what our energy businesses can achieve in areas like household solar, large-scale onshore solar and all of these other things. Yet, offshore wind somehow remained a strange and inexplicable blank within the palette of energy options. This bill is an important step towards correcting that.
We know we have some 12 projects that are under consideration that will begin to address what has been an aching gap in our portfolio of energy generation options. We're doing all the things that are related to the transition, particularly in relation to the workforce aspects of it, because it's not only about more energy and diverse energy generation, more energy resilience and security, lower air pollution as well as lower carbon emissions, it's also about new jobs, new exports, new opportunities for young people and people in industries that are going through change, particularly in rural and regional Australia.
Mr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (11:39): I thank the member for Fremantle for that contribution. I'll take it, by the fact that he didn't declare Fremantle waters open for business, that maybe he doesn't support wind farms in his electorate, but we'll have to see how that unfolds in the future. That does come to one of the points I want to make in this speech, which is about the denial of the reality and actuality of our move to renewable energy in Australia.
I also want to take issue with the member for Fremantle's comment—and unfortunately he has now left the chamber—that somehow the coalition was not doing its job in the effort to transition Australia to renewable energy. In fact, as we well know, our emissions in Australia have fallen by 23 per cent since 2005 levels, on a trajectory that was to continue under the previous government's policies. Under the coalition government, for instance, $40 billion had been spent on renewable energy in Australia since 2017—6.1 gigawatts of capacity in the last five years. These are the kinds of figures that put Australia among the top 15 per cent of performances in the world when it comes to the transition to renewable energy. That is no mean feat, and it should not be belittled by those on the other side of this chamber. They should speak with clarity, transparency and truth on this subject. They should use that last word—truth—and actually stick to the facts and steer away from the rhetoric.
The member for Fremantle mentioned South Australia. In South Australia there is 2,300 megawatts of installed capacity of wind, 400 megawatts of installed capacity of large-scale solar and 1,800 megawatts of rooftop solar. I have great interest in this, as the member for Grey. Of those wind farms, just a tick under 2,000 megawatts sits within the electorate of Grey. Close to 75 per cent of the large-scale solar capacity sits within Grey as well. And there is a lot of interest, particularly in the upper Spencer Gulf area, in generating more renewable electricity, perhaps converting it into hydrogen, and tapping into the wind resources of the far west coast of South Australia, with new transmission lines under construction at the moment. That will be good for my electorate.
I'll give the wind farm operators a bit of a tick here. They've learned a lot in the years since they first started. They've learned to give the landholder a bigger slice of the action. I've had very few complaints from landholders who have wind farms on their property and are in receipt of proper financial recompense—very few complaints about problems with having wind farms. The wind farm operators have come to realise they need community consent. They've become more generous with neighbours who might be inconvenienced by the wind farms, and with communities generally.
I have no problem with the idea of wind farms generally, and I have no problem with offshore wind farms. I think it's right and proper that we have in place legislation that will enable people to build offshore wind farms if that is what they wish to do. But I am mystified, I have to say. Australia is the sixth-biggest country in the world. It covers 7.7 million square kilometres and has, interestingly, 34,000 kilometres of coastline. Most of that coastline is a good prospect for wind farming. Certainly, the southern coast of Australia is fantastic for wind farms. You would well appreciate that, Mr Deputy Speaker Wilkie. One of the things we do know about offshore wind farms is that they are more expensive, and somebody has to pay the bill at the end of the day. So I'm fairly mystified that, in a country this size, somehow we have to build these wind farms offshore. But we do know why that is, and I touched on it at the beginning of this speech: it's the denial of reality and fact. Most people are in favour of renewable energy, but a whole lot of them don't want to see it. They don't want to know about it. They don't want to have to look at it. Mr Deputy Speaker, I know you come from an Australian rules football state. I was very keen—I think I'm maybe past my prime now—on playing half-forward for Adelaide, but probably the reality is I could not, I'd have to say. We all want renewable energy, but we somehow don't want to see these monstrosities, as some people call them, next to us. We all want better mobile phone service. You'd be surprised, Mr Deputy Speaker, at the number of people who come to me and say, 'I don't want a mobile phone tower anywhere near me, but I do want service.' We have this problem in Australia that people are saying, on the one hand, 'I want renewable energy,' but, on the other hand, 'I don't want it near me; somebody else has to have it.' Otherwise, we would have seen the member for Fremantle standing up to say, 'I want it off Fremantle port.' But he doesn't want it there. He wants it off my coastline, where my people will have to look at it. People should be honest with themselves about this situation, and politicians should be honest with the public that there is a cost as a result. That cost will be financial, but that cost may also be to your amenity.
I'm indebted to Minister Bowen for pointing out that we are going to need 18,000 kilometres of transmission towers. I hope the people building those transmission towers will take a leaf out of the book of those people who built the wind towers and start cutting the landholders in the local communities a decent slice of the action. But, if they do that, it will come at an extra cost. It will go on the power bill for the box that's outside your house and everybody else's house in Australia, unless they're not connected to the grid, of course. But for most people it will come in the price of the product coming down from the power line to them. That is where the honesty is lacking in this campaign. This will all come at added cost.
The Labor Party came into government on the commitment to the Australian people that power prices would come down $275 a year under their watch. I read the budget last night. I'm sure you did, Mr Deputy Speaker. It actually tells us it's going up by 50 per cent in the next two years. It is Russia's fault, apparently. That is what the Treasurer said. There are a whole lot of other things at play here. It is not as simple as the invasion of Ukraine. There are a whole lot of other drivers for the electricity price. So let's be honest about it.
Let's be honest about the fact that the move from fossil fuels to renewable energy is not a cost saving; it's going to come at a cost. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it; I'm saying we should be realistic and truthful about where this is heading for Australia. We should also be truthful about what a 50 per cent increase in our power prices is likely to mean for industry in Australia. We have heard the government wax lyrical about the idea of growing manufacturing jobs in Australia. Good luck with that! With a 50 per cent increase in power prices, good luck with growing new manufacturing jobs in Australia. We will be fighting tooth and nail to keep the ones we have already. I will be fighting for them. I have 40 per cent of Australia's steel industry in my electorate. They don't need higher electricity prices. I have a significant multimetal smelter in my electorate in Port Pirie. We do not need higher electricity prices. They are all looking at investment in renewables to power these operations, and I'm pleased with that. But they know it doesn't come free. It comes at a cost. So let's be truthful with the Australian public about those matters.
Mr Bowen tells us that, along with the 18,000 kilometres of new transmission lines, we are going to have 22,000 new 500-watt solar panels installed each day for the next eight years. I actually haven't done the calculation on how many that is in total. It is certainly in the millions at 22,000 a day. Gee whiz! There will be a lot of jobs in that! But I think you should tell us where those panels are coming from—this is an important part of Australia's security. At this stage, 95 per cent of solar panels are coming out of China. I don't know if anyone has looked at the tensions in the Asia-Pacific lately, and at Australia's economic security and our supply lines, but how strong a position will Australia be in if our electricity system relies entirely on a nation that may have hostile intent for us?
I haven't heard anything from the government about where we are going to get these solar panels from. There's been absolutely nothing. We're also informed that there are going to be 40 wind towers built a month. Considering that I already have about 2,000 megawatts of nameplate capacity wind towers in my electorate, and I've watched them go up and seen how fast they can build, I suggest that this would take just about Australia's whole construction industry. Did you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that there are 1,600 tonnes of concrete in one wind farm? That's a lot of concrete. It emits a lot of carbon. I don't buy into that argument that somehow wind towers aren't efficient when it comes to reducing carbon, but I do think it needs to be realised this is a resource that will need to be removed one day. Forty a month is an astonishing number, and I just don't know where they're all going to go. Obviously, they are all going in the sea. They will require more concrete there, I would say, than they are likely to require on land.
I would be very grateful if the government would actually explain not only where the solar panels are going to come from but where the solar panels are going to go to when we've finished with them. At this stage, the waste stream coming out of renewable energies is a completely unconcluded area that everybody just ignores, because we don't have to deal with it in any great scale now. I am hopeful that it will be possible to recycle solar panels, but to what level I don't really know. And certainly with the windfarms, my understanding at the moment is that wind farm blades, which are made of fibreglass, are not recyclable. I don't know whether they could be made into something useful, but my understanding is that at the moment they get torn to shreds and buried. And the life of those wind blades is certainly not the life of the tower. They are replaced quite often. So there is a significant stream there that is going to require fossil fuels—I presume fossil fuels are required to produce fibreglass.
But, once again, all I'm asking for is honesty in this debate, and it is just so lacking on a general basis. As we saw from the government, they presented a platitude before the election: 'We're going to your power by $275.' Afterwards, a little bit of honesty crept through with the budget, because they had to deal the Treasury estimates, and then it was, 'Oops! It's going up by 50 per cent.' We need honesty and transparency. Let the sunshine in, fellas. That would be a really good thing, because at this stage I'm not seeing too much of it.
Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (11:53): Isn't it timely that we are discussing this bill today, the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022, the day after the budget, because what we saw in the budget last night was something quite extraordinary. We saw the government come out and admit that over the next two years your electricity bill is going to go up by 50 per cent—50 per cent! Yet, we heard nothing—and we haven't heard it mentioned since the election—about the government's commitment to deliver a drop in your electricity bill by $275. It was mentioned 97 times in the lead-up to the election. You would have thought that the Treasurer last night would have been up-front with the Australian people and said, 'Sorry, we can't deliver that $275 reduction in your power bill.' But there was no mention of it—none whatsoever.
We've got the minister here in the chamber! He won't mention the words $275. I will say them while he's here: $275.
Mr Bowen interjecting—
Mr TEHAN: Stand up, Minister, because we'd love to hear it: $275. I'm happy to cede the floor to you. Come on, mention $275!
Honourable members interjecting—
Mr TEHAN: Oh! Just so everyone's aware, and we've got two members here who heard it, he was mumbling under his breath '$275'—
Mr Bowen interjecting—
Mr TEHAN: yet he will not stand up and say $275! Say it in the parliament. Get on your feet and say it so that everyone can hear it. You said it 97 times during the election, but you will not mention it now. Not once. You were at the dispatch box six or seven times yesterday. You did not mention $275. And this is the sad reality: it shows you how duplicitous this government is. That's the sad reality that Australians have woken up to today. They've seen the budget papers and they've seen duplicity—outright duplicity. It's a shame, because it's going to be households that feel the pain of that 50 per cent increase.
And not only that, businesses are also going to feel the pain of that 50 per cent increase. The sad reality is, as we also saw last night, the budget papers show that the unemployment rate in this nation is going to go up. One of the reasons the unemployment rate will go up is because these energy bills continue to go up. The sad reality that the budget also showed is that real wages aren't going to go up like the government promised before the election. Real wages were meant to go up, but they will go down. What we saw in the budget last night was a government with no plan, no economic plan whatsoever, to address the challenges that this nation faces.
Now, what about this Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill? What about this bill? Well, this bill builds on some very good work that we did when we were in government. But it also shows, and demonstrates once again, that the government has no plan. Let's think about how offshore wind is going to be developed in this nation. Right now all the contents for offshore wind will be imported—all the blades will be imported, all the towers will be imported—because this government has no plan, no plan whatsoever, to see how we can have local components in these offshore wind farms. None whatsoever. And I would say to the minister, while he's here, he needs to think long and hard as to how he is going to ensure this is going to happen. I'm told that when he was approached about this he was completely dismissive about it. He wouldn't even give the time of day to those who raised it with him. I'm hoping that arrogant, out-of-touch, duplicitous approach that we're already seeing from this government will begin to change, and we will start to see them looking very seriously at these issues.
We also know, because the minister—I'm so glad he's here—has told us, there is going to be 28,000 kilometres of new poles and wires right across the landscape of this nation. Now I, sadly, have already seen what those kilometres of poles and wires look like if they're not done properly, if there's not community consultation, and if those poles and wires shouldn't be above ground—especially in bush prone areas and in areas where there is good productive agricultural land. Those wires should go underground because, at the moment, those poles and wires are coming in and, more often than not, they're using cheap steel that's been imported from China and they are a blot on the landscape. And not only that, they are being put on roadways, next to roads, so they're actually dangerous. They are actually dangerous. They're not being properly regulated, they are not being properly put in place and they are dangerous. They're already eroding, and our road network is already dangerous enough. So, Minister, 28,000 kilometres of new poles and wires is not going to be accepted by the people of rural and regional Australia, and you're going to have to think very, very carefully about how you are going to do this. We're already seeing it as a blot on the landscape, and it will only make a bad situation worse if you do not get this right.
We also need to think about how you are going to be able to deliver a proper transition when it comes to energy for this nation, because, right now, you are rushing in a way which is going to turn the lights out in this nation. Any transition has to be done properly, and any transition has to be done with a careful plan. We are seeing nothing from this government about how its rush to renewables is, in any way, going to generate jobs in this nation and put downward pressure on energy prices. As a matter of fact, we're seeing the complete opposite. We are seeing a plan which is going to lead to job losses and which is going to see energy prices go up. This will have a detrimental impact on the Australian people, and, worse than that, it will have a detrimental impact on the communities that rely on cheap energy to make sure that they can sustain their livelihoods.
Minister, you absolutely need to go back to the drawing board to look at what you are doing to this nation. We know that, last time you were in government as a minister, there was complete chaos within the portfolios that you administered. The sad reality is that we're starting to see the exact same thing again, and that is because you don't have a plan. We had a plan, and the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Bill was part of our plan. It was part of an orderly transition which would see this nation being able to continue to generate jobs, while also dealing with downward pressure on emissions and downward pressure on electricity prices. Now we are seeing the complete opposite.
One of the things that really concerns me more than anything else is what impact this will have on communities in my electorate, in particular the town of Portland, where we have one of the few aluminium smelters in this nation. We have to make sure that there is an orderly transition which will see them continuing to access affordable energy that will enable them to continue to provide aluminium, which earns us export income and provides jobs to our local community. If we do not get this transition right, those jobs will go and all the benefits that accrue to the local community from that smelter will disappear.
We have not only that but also Keppel Prince, which makes wind towers, and, if we don't get this transition right and if the minister can't deliver on his wild claims of how many jobs are going to be delivered by renewable energy, then we're going to see those jobs at Keppel Prince go as well. I am yet to see any plan from this minister—none whatsoever—as to how any content in offshore wind will come from Australia. I would say this to you, Minister: you need to lose a little bit of the arrogance and go and talk to these people. Sit down with them and work out how you're going to deliver on the jobs that you have promised. They are not seeing anything, and they are hearing nothing from you as to how that is going to take place.
In summary, it's timely that we're debating this bill today, because last night we saw the most extraordinary budget delivered. It was much ado about nothing apart from one fact: the commitment from this government to take $275 off your electricity bill was jettisoned and what we got instead was a 50 per cent increase in your energy bill over the next two years. The $275 is out the door and a 50 per cent increase is coming to your energy bill over the next two years. What a budget! That was the key takeaway from the budget.
We also know that we are going to see 28,000 kilometres of new poles and wire infrastructure across the Australian rural landscape, with no plan on community engagement; no plan on making sure that those wires will go underground where there's productive agricultural land and where we need to protect our local communities from fire hazard; and no plan on upgrading the two-phase power that still exists in a lot of rural and regional Australia. We're going to have lots of new poles and wires and nothing to address the two-phase power that we have across many parts of rural and regional Australia. There is no plan whatsoever.
The one good thing about this discussion is that we now know that the minister mumbled '$275' under his breath—and we heard it! So now we will wait for the minister to get up and actually say: 'We will not be proceeding with the $275 cut to your electricity bill that we promised 97 times before the election. We will not be proceeding with that.' Minister, that's what we want to hear. You mentioned $275; you mumbled it under your breath. Let's hear you get on your feet and just admit it to the Australian people. There's nothing wrong with admitting you promised something and you can't deliver it. Just get up and admit it—you've admitted there's going to be a 50 per cent increase in people's energy bills. Although I note the Treasurer didn't say that last night. It was just in the budget papers; he didn't say it in his address last night. So hopefully what we're going to get now from the minister is a bit of honesty and a bit of frankness. He's going to come clean with the Australian people. He's going to say: 'Your electricity bill isn't going to go down by $275. Instead, it's going to go up by 50 per cent over the next two years.'
Mr BOWEN (McMahon—Minister for Climate Change and Energy) (12:07): I'd like to thank all honourable members who have contributed to this debate on the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. I particularly thank honourable members from the government. I also do want to thank honourable members from the opposition. I particularly like it when the member for Hinkler contributes, because he reminds all Australians of just how backward-looking the opposition is. He reminds all Australians of why the coalition lost the election when he gives a rant against renewable energy and talks about how renewable energy can't be recycled and about how bad wind turbines are. I always welcome a contribution by the member for Hinkler, in particular, and I'm sure it will be broadcast in electorates throughout the country. Those electorates voted for a climate government—a government that takes action on climate change—whether they voted Labor or Independent. The member for Hinkler is one of our greatest assets, and I always like it when he contributes to the debate.
An honourable member interjecting —
Mr BOWEN: Thanks for your contribution. The establishment of the offshore renewable energy sector will promote regional development, enabling investment in Australia's coastal areas and creating thousands of jobs. One of the great things about offshore wind is it creates a lot of energy and it creates a lot of jobs. The offshore wind turbines need strong maintenance because they work very hard; it's very windy. That means there are ships going out to the wind turbines and that means that ports are re-enlivened.
I was interested to hear the honourable member opposite, the member for Wannon, just say that we need local content. I welcome his contribution after nine years of doing absolutely nothing about local content. Local content is certainly something that I've discussed with state and territory ministers, and we'll be working on that together when we come to detailed licensing arrangements, for his information. If he wants to have a serious conversation about local content, he can have one. But I won't be taking lectures from someone who sat there for nine years and watched manufacturing decline in this country. He was a member of a government which asked the car industry to leave. I was there in the parliament for that. I'm old enough to remember when Joe Hockey was Treasurer—that's how long I've been here—and he got up and he shamed Holden into leaving Australia.
This bill does make some small administrative amendments to the existing Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Act 2021 to reflect recent machinery-of-government changes, which is very sensible and necessary. It also makes some technical amendments and closes a regulatory gap in the Customs Act 1901 to ensure full coverage of the customs obligations for new renewable energy infrastructure projects offshore. This is all very sensible.
I do note that the opposition has expressed concern about a change which alters the role of NOPSEMA and the role of the minister. I do not accept the points made by the opposition. It is right and proper that the minister of the day, whoever that minister is, be empowered to reflect and represent the interests of the Commonwealth. NOPSEMA is a good regulator, but that is not its job. While it is a Commonwealth entity, it is actually not formally, constitutionally and legally part of the Commonwealth. And the Commonwealth's best interests should be protected by the Commonwealth. Certainly my approach as minister, if such a decision were to be taken by me, would be to consult and seek advice from NOPSEMA and my department in reaching those conclusions. But it is appropriate that the minister of the day, whoever that is, have that power. So I will be opposing the detailed amendment moved by the opposition, and, of course, I'll be opposing the second reading amendment on the basis that it's ridiculous.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Stevens ) (12:11): The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Fairfax has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be disagreed to.
Question agreed to.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Consideration in Detail
Bill—by leave—taken as a whole.
Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (12:12): I move opposition amendment (1), circulated in my name:
(1) Schedule 2, item 7, page 13 (lines 10 and 11), omit the item.
The coalition supports the vast majority of this bill. At the end of the day, it builds on the coalition's work in the previous term of government. Given our strong legacy when it comes to record investment in renewables while also being able to reduce emissions, keep the lights on and, of course, reduce prices, we are very proud to see our legacy built on by this government. As flagged in my second reading amendment, though, we do have a concern about just one aspect of the bill, and that aspect is reflected in the substantive amendment to which I now speak. It is an aspect that has the minister moving, to the House, that he gain more power to make determinations with respect to financial securities on offshore infrastructure deals. Our approach was very clear when in government. Our view has not changed. There is a regulator who should have that authority. We therefore disagree with the government's proposal that that authority move out of the realms of the regulator and to the minister.
I acknowledge the minister's words just now, before I rose to speak, that he believes that he would be better placed to make such decisions. I can understand why the minister might believe himself to be the best to make such decisions. However, our obligation in this place is to do what we think is right and what is in the best interests of the Australian people and the Commonwealth. I will not repeat the concerns expressed in my speech on the second reading other than to note those words, especially the concern that regional Australia has about this government not respecting the need for a social licence on these major, very important infrastructure projects. I appreciate advice that the minister has provided to my office on the importance of financial securities. On that aspect, there's no different view from the Coalition; financial securities are absolutely key. That's not in question here. What's in question is whether or not the minister himself is empowered to make decisions that should be made by the regulator.
We cannot afford, in light of the enormous rollout of renewables that the minister has planned—we're talking here about 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines, over 22,000 solar panels every single day and 40 wind turbines every month. You can imagine the amount of deals that needed to be done and the importance of protecting the Australian people, including from potential liability for the Commonwealth, and why therefore we need to protect regional Australian communities from a minister who might be emboldened with the authority to make easier terms on these financial securities and the missionary zeal with which he is already trying to implement his policies—policies that were predicated on economic modelling that last night was disproven in the budget papers by the government itself, economics that were disproven in the budget papers themselves. It is very unwise to empower this minister—indeed, any minister—for this purpose, and that is the reason I've put forward this substantive amendment.
Mr BOWEN (McMahon—Minister for Climate Change and Energy) (12:17): I will correct the honourable member opposite. I did not say and I do not believe I am better placed than NOPSEMA. I believe that for the minister of the day it's an appropriate reflection of their duties. The powers that we are giving the minister in the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022 are entirely keeping with the powers that I as Minister for Climate Change and Energy have. On a very daily basis, on things I would sign off and approve, other ministers in other portfolios would have similar and greater powers. NOPSEMA is an important and respected regulator. This is not in keeping with their role. As I said before, this is about protecting the interests of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth's interests should be protected by a Commonwealth minister.
Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (12:18): I would like to make the point that the minister now stands and says: 'It's not about me as the minister. It's not about wanting to give myself more power. It's just whoever the minister of the day is.' But there was no complaint from the now minister previously about these powers—no complaint whatsoever. It just so happened that, when this minister became the minister, he thought the minister was best placed to make these decisions. Think about that. Here we have a situation where we've got a new minister who decides, 'I need more power.' Never before was he suggesting that somebody who acted in this capacity has this power, but, now that he is the minister, he wants that power.
This goes to the very heart of why we are concerned about this proposed amendment from the government. It is the emboldenment of power that this minister is after. Now he wishes to rise above it, be on the high moral ground and say it has nothing to do with who is the minister. 'This is in the best interests of the Commonwealth.' But when he was not the minister he was silent on this point. This is about him. This is about his agenda, and it is an agenda that has been proven to be flawed.
I will take the opportunity to point out that the minister was asked multiple questions in question time yesterday, but at not one point was he prepared to confirm on the Hansard record that he will deliver $275 reductions in household power bills. Now, I am very happy to allow the minister—actually, the minister will have an opportunity to get on his feet again after I speak. I ask you, Minister, to confirm that you will deliver on your promise of a $275 reduction in household bills for Australians.
We found out last night that the government's economic plan that said that they would deliver that $275 reduction in household power bills was wrong. Who said it was wrong? The government's own budget papers. The government's own budget papers have confirmed what the Prime Minister and this minister have not had the courage to say publicly. Despite being asked multiple questions in question time, this minister refuses to state whether or not he stands by his promise of a reduction in power prices. We found out last night—and it took the Treasury to put it in writing—that power bills are going to go up by over 50 per cent.
Where did the government get that modelling from? From modelling it had outsourced before the election. That same modelling justified their entire suite of climate and energy policies. Think about that. The minister's entire suite of policies is based on an economic model that last night we found out was entirely flawed. When you start talking about over 600,000 jobs coming out of the plan of the new government which model is it based on? The same model which is flawed.
An honourable member interjecting—
Mr TED O'BRIEN: Over 600,000 and rising. What reduction in household power bills will the minister commit to? Silence! This is the problem. He knows very well that he has broken that promise. This gets back to why I have moved this amendment. I had no intention of having this sort of back and forth, but I'm not going to accept on behalf of the Australian people, especially regional Australians, this minister pretending he's doing the bidding of the people of Australia. He says that this power should be in the hands of the minister of the day regardless when we know very well he was silent on this issue when he was not the minister. Since he has become the minister he wants all the power he can get, and it will be the Australian people who lose.
Mr BOWEN (McMahon—Minister for Climate Change and Energy) (12:22): I welcome the opportunity to point out that under this government there's one minister for energy and it's appropriate that the power be held by a minister for energy. It would have concerned me under the previous government because we now know that there was more than one minister for energy under the previous government. Under the government's absolute shemozzle there were secret ministers, who all would have had the power. I concede that there would have been less governance in relation to that. I don't wish to detain the House. We'll resist and defeat the amendment. I invite the honourable member opposite to ask me more questions at 2 o'clock. I suggest he word them better than the ones yesterday.
Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (12:23): I would like to make the point that we have the Minister for Climate Change and Energy in the chamber today. He had every opportunity to stand and rebut the substance of what I put forward and he just stood yet again and had no substance to rebut what I have put, which only affirms to me that he has no interest in respecting the social licence that can only be gifted by those communities that are impacted by major projects. Him being empowered with this authority that should lie with the regulator will only embolden his visionary zeal, and the Australian people will lose.
Question unresolved.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: As it is necessary to resolve this question to enable further questions to be considered in relation to this bill, in accordance with standing order 195 the bill will be returned to the House for further consideration.
Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
to which the following amendment was moved:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
(1) expresses concern that the Government is seeking to remove an additional source of funding for natural disaster recovery at the very moment when many communities across South East Australia are facing many months of work to clean up after devastating floods; and
(2) notes the Government has not yet identified what disaster mitigation actually encompasses".
Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (12:24): I'm pleased to speak on the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022. In this year's election, Labor made a commitment to improving Australia's disaster readiness by investing up to $200 million a year on natural disaster resilience and mitigation initiatives, as recommended by the Productivity Commission in 2015. With this bill, we are taking a significant step in delivering on that promise.
In May 2022, former Governor of Queensland Paul de Jersey did an independent report in response to a recommendation decision that was made by the Brisbane City Council. It's just one demonstration, in a capital city, of the impact that disasters can have on our country. Twenty thousand homes in Brisbane, in 177 suburbs, were impacted by riverine, creek and overland flow from flooding in 2022. That is an astonishing number—177 suburbs in Brisbane. Mr Deputy Speaker, just imagine the impact on the tens and tens of thousands of people. Brisbane City Council took away 60,000 tonnes of flood impacted belongings after the flood. Three thousand streets had kerbside collection, engaged in by the Brisbane City Council workers. In the Brisbane and Ipswich areas there have been close to 20 major floods since 1840; in my lifetime, in 1974, 2011, 2013 and 2022.
Natural disasters are devastating. They're unpredictable, and, tragically, in this country they're inevitable. The full impact of any disaster, particularly the economic impacts, is not felt straightaway. The recovery is a very complex process and takes years. Assistance in relation to disasters is not just what the state or federal government or a council can do at the time. While great community organisations help out enormously, it takes a very long time. So any assistance to communities, whether they are in capital cities, like Brisbane, or regional areas, like mine—Ipswich and the Somerset region—is timely and important, and it is critical to our flood resilience.
In 1974, when it was a child, my parents' house was eight feet underneath the water. It took us years and years to recover. There were 74,000 people living in Ipswich, and 1,500 homes were inundated. In 2011, when 170,000 people were living in Ipswich—it's close to 250,000 now—3,000 homes were inundated. Hundreds of businesses were destroyed. In the Somerset region, in that flood, 470 properties were inundated. Over 700 streets in Ipswich in 2011 were inundated. The impact is enormous. This is something that affects communities, individuals and families, so it's particularly important that we get disaster resilience correct in this country.
In 2011, the cost in my electorate of Blair alone was estimated to be more than a billion dollars. For a period during the last Labor government I had the responsibility, under the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, of being in charge, from the Commonwealth point of view, of recovery after those 2011 floods. The impacts I saw as I travelled around Queensland were simply astonishing.
This legislation has been warmly welcomed. The Local Government Association has said:
Millions of Australians will … benefit from our new Government's $200 million per year Disaster Ready Fund, that will help protect high-risk communities from fires, cyclones and floods.
It has been supported by the Insurance Council of Australia, who commented that they had long called for the level of investment in resilience measures to be increased and they warmly welcomed the announcement by the then Labor federal opposition.
There's a lot of work to be done in this space. As Australians in Tasmania, New South Wales and Victoria continue to clean up, our hearts go out to them. Not only have people been impacted through the loss of jobs, homes and businesses; people have died. Many people have died in my community since those floods in 1974 that I recalled being in as a child.
The amendments in this bill change the name of the former government's emergency response fund to the Disaster Ready Fund, allow $200 million to be debited from the DRF for natural disaster resilience and risk reduction, and allow the minister to adjust that maximum disbursement amount by a disallowable legislative instrument. I think that's a sensible move, to be honest with you. It will facilitate the transfer of responsibility for fund expenditure to the new National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, and streamline administrative arrangements in this space.
Under the DRF $1 billion has been set aside over the next five years to mitigate potential disaster loss and damage. This is a fundamental program that is critical across Australian communities. The specific focus of this particular expenditure in the fund will help Australians deal with future catastrophic weather events. It's vital we invest in these communities. It's vital we reduce harm, loss of life, property loss, the impact on farms and businesses, the impact on economic productivity. It's critical we do this.
The previous government put aside $4 billion. But to not spend it on any disaster resilience program is just astonishing. It acted almost like an interest bearing deposit that grew up to $800 million but didn't spend any money. It's simply astonishing to me that they did that in 2019. The purpose was to spend part of this money and for this to be like a future fund but it never happened and it's quite extraordinary that they didn't do so. I think it's an absolute dereliction of responsibility by the previous government.
We're going to put these monies to work to keep Australians safe and to keep properties safe and reduce the cost of repair from natural disasters. I recall after the 2011 floods Deloitte Access Economics saying that if we spent $250 million we could save $12 billion, with respect to the cost to the taxpayer—of recovery from floods and natural disasters as well. So this is really important. Committing this money not only mitigates damage and saves lives but we know that every dollar spent saves at least $2—but up to $11—in recovery costs.
We're dedicating the DRF to natural disaster resilience and risk reduction. There will be a clear distinction in terms of different funding sources for recovery and resilience. The government will honour previous ERF commitments announced, including recovery elements. As part of what we're doing here, it's important to note that the recovery efforts will continue on the ground for those rural communities and the country towns and cities that are, tragically, being affected currently. Arrangements are always in place and dealt with regardless of who is in power at a federal level. This particular bill is dealing with one fund. In times of difficulty politics should be set aside to deal with disasters in a way that the people expect.
My region has been smashed by floods. It has been the greatest tragedy I've seen in my time in federal parliament, seeing how my community has been impacted and the loss of life, the damage, how people have been affected. When I see the pain that they experience it takes me back to my childhood.
In last night's budget I was pleased to see the $4 million that we allocated to Ipswich showgrounds in Blair. This delivers on a key election commitment that I announced with the Minister for Emergency Management earlier this year. It comes as a result of the initiative of the Ipswich Show Society. This includes $2.5 million for general upgrades as part of the stage three redevelopment of the showgrounds, an important step towards the Ipswich Show Society's ambitious plan for an Ipswich events and exhibition centre. But more importantly $1.5 million will be allocated for the DRF to improve amenities which will be utilised by a new emergency relief centre during disasters. This is our major location as an evacuation centre in Ipswich. It's commissioned and run by the show society. They do a mighty job. During the most recent floods in 2022 the council offices, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and many communitarians with great heart acted to assist hundreds of people who were impacted by the floods. These upgrades will include toilets, showers and privacy for locals as part of a purpose-built emergency relief centre for use by the entire region as emergencies strike. Ipswich is the fastest-growing city in Queensland and it needs adequate infrastructure to support the community. This is an absolutely critical piece of infrastructure to future-proof Ipswich against the impact of devastating natural disasters. Just last week, I met with representatives from the Ipswich Show Society, Darren Zanow and Denise Hanley, to discuss their plans for the showground's upgrade. I know they'll be delighted with the news coming out of the budget. The project will help my local community better prepare for floods and natural disasters.
I'm also pleased to see $3 million in the budget to support Ipswich City Council with flood recovery and resilience projects along the Bremer River and its tributaries. I also saw the council's commitment during the last federal campaign, and beforehand, to look at the creeks and tributaries into the Bremer River, which backlog and flood, such as the Bundamba Creek, the Mihi Creek, the Deebing Creek, the Woogaroo Creek and a whole range of other creeks. Last week, I had the Minister for Water and the Environment, Tanya Plibersek, up to Ipswich, where she met with the mayor and deputy mayor of Ipswich as well as council officers and stakeholders, who are doing a lot of work in relation to cleaning up the Bremer River and the like. This $3 million will go towards geoscience, flood gauging, revegetation and eradicating noxious weeds in the area. It will also look at issues in relation to PFAS and other issues. It's really critical because we know the Bundamba Creek and other creeks flood. We've seen the impact on schools and sporting clubs, such as the Ipswich Knights Soccer Club, the Ipswich Men's Shed, Brassall state primary school and Ipswich State High School, all as a result of these creeks backlogging and the water coming back through the Bremer River. I've got the Somerset Dam and the Wivenhoe Dam, the main water supply, in my electorate. So I'm pleased to see this $3 million partnering with the $1 million Ipswich City Council will contribute towards flood resilience and recovery as part of Labor's urban rivers project as well.
A couple of weeks ago, I was delighted to meet with Ipswich homeowner Dirk de Vos, together with the Speaker, the member for Oxley, the Queensland Deputy Premier, Steven Miles, and the mayor of Ipswich. Dirk's home in Goodna was affected by the February floods and will now be bought back thanks to $740 million under the Resilient Homes Fund, a joint initiative delivered through the Commonwealth and state disaster recovery arrangements I referred to. Dirk and his family are leaving the member for Oxley's electorate. They are moving to Fernvale, a great country town in my electorate in the Somerset region. They're going to start a new life and they're looking forward to a bright future without fear of rising floodwaters. Dirk and his family have been through the floods twice.
As well as Dirk, I understand that dozens of Ipswich homeowners are now accepting offers for voluntary buybacks, with more to follow in coming months. I'm advised that a further 60 flood impacted homes in Ipswich have now been identified to proceed to independent property valuation as part of the program. This is a great outcome for those homeowners, and I commend the Ipswich City Council and the Queensland Labor government. This is a nation-leading program. I know it has bipartisan support, and I appreciate that. I want to thank the minister, the Palaszczuk Labor government and the Ipswich City Council for their efforts in working together to support these local residents.
So many people in my local area had their homes ravaged by the floods earlier this year. We can't stop the floods from occurring, but with proactive initiatives like this and the DRF we can take steps to reduce their impact. I have worked tirelessly, whether under this government, the previous government or the National Insurance Affordability Initiative that I announced with then Prime Minister Julia Gillard in February 2013, to improve flood resilience in Ipswich. Whether it was the bunt that we see near Thagoona, the flood issues and road infrastructure issues in and around Redbank Plains and Redbank Plains Road or the sandbagging equipment I got for the Ipswich City Council and the local SES, I worked hard in those areas because I know the impact that floods and natural disasters have on my community. I applaud Senator Watt, the relevant minister, for the work he's doing in this space. This is critical work for my community. If ever a bill were going to impact my community in a positive and beneficial way, it's this particular piece of legislation. I want to thank him very much for his commitment to the people of Ipswich and Somerset as well.
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina) (12:40): I concur with the concerns of the member for Page about this particular bill, the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022. The member for Page has been to hell and back and arrived there again with the floods in Lismore. He has led magnificently in trying times. But it's not just the member for Page who has led; it's particularly the first responders in his community and the ordinary, average, everyday Australians in that community who have risen magnificently to the challenges that they've confronted to do what they can to save lives and livelihoods. They have been a wonderful exemplar of what being a true Australian is in times of hardship.
Lismore has been absolutely smashed by floodwaters and, as we speak, is confronting the grim reality of rising waters again. But it's not just in the Northern Rivers and, indeed, that area of Australia. Inland New South Wales and the eastern states are currently very concerned about not just the flooding occurring at the moment but also what the weather could hold in coming days, weeks and months.
I'm concerned that this particular bill is a little bit like a skit, in one sense, out of the 1979 classic Monty Python's Life Of Brian. What we're doing is changing the Emergency Response Fund to the Disaster Ready Fund. It reminds me of the change of the popular people's front to the people's popular front, and poor old Graham Chapman, acting as Brian, didn't know which group to join or which group not to join—he certainly didn't want to be a splitter. People who are sandbagging their house or preparing their business to be as resilient as it can be to protect themselves against rising floodwaters don't care whether it's the ERF or the DRF. They just want to know that this government, this parliament and this nation have their backs. I'm not quite sure whether changing an acronym, changing a name, is something that they are really all that concerned about.
As we speak, people in my electorate are very, very worried, particularly in the northern part of the electorate in and around Forbes, where the Lachlan River is once again causing hurt and hardship to those central-western New South Wales communities of Forbes and West Wyalong. The rising Lachlan has broken its banks on all too many occasions in recent years—indeed, six times in the last 12 years: 2010, 2012, 2016, last year and twice this year. We had then Prime Minister Scott Morrison and New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet there in November last year. We had the current Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, Premier Perrottet, the New South Wales emergency services minister—she's also the flood recovery minister—Steph Cooke, who's from the neighbouring electorate of Cootamundra and the federal emergency management minister, Senator Murray Watt, there last Monday. I very much appreciated their visit and, most importantly, so did the locals. The state of the roads in and around Forbes and the Riverina and in and around New South Wales and Victoria is just shocking at the moment. I'm sure Tasmania is pretty bad too, with potholes brought about by relentless rain. When you're a council with a low rate base and not much ability to increase due to rate pegging in New South Wales, it is tough to get the funds to provide not just a bit of asphalt thrown in a pothole but the maintenance, the upkeep, the improvement, the betterment of those roads, completely rebuilding the roads in some cases. It used to be $1 million a kilometre. I'm sure it will be even more than that with the current state of the roads.
Whilst I appreciate that the New South Wales government has provided a $50 million package to do just that, I can remember the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program that I put in place when I was Deputy Prime Minister. Although it could have gone to community infrastructure and some councils chose to do just that, it was around $55 million for my electorate alone, so $50 million is a great start but is not going to patch every hole in the flood-affected areas of New South Wales by any stretch. But it is a good start.
This particular bill does change the name, which when you are up to your knees in water doesn't really make much difference. It is former coalition government policy with a new name. No additional money is being directed to natural disaster events. There are no new projects until after July 2023. The difficulty there is that people generally have a cynicism about politics and politicians, and this bill doesn't help that, particularly when our people, particularly our country people, have been smashed so badly by so many natural disasters and particularly now with the floods. There's no transparency about how the funds will be distributed. Indeed, there's no definition of what constitutes a mitigation or disaster prevention project. The minister refers to activities, with river gauges and rain modelling and examples, but these are activities of government agencies such as the Bureau of Meteorology.
Whilst I'm on the Bureau of Meteorology, could you imagine the condemnation that would have been rained down—pun not intended—upon the then Coalition government had, at the time of a flood, the bureau decided to change its messaging as far as wanting to be called the Bureau rather than the BoM? The minister would have been hauled before Senate estimates. They would have been pilloried in the public. There would have been a rush of condemnation by the media. Labor would have been calling for the minister's head. But we move on.
Minister Watt refers to consultation guidelines to be held with stakeholders. Who are those stakeholders? It's a fair enough question. What are the guidelines? It's a reasonable request. Now, the bill doesn't come into effect until 1 July 2023, so any potential inquiry probably needs to and should go into this. I appreciate that the bill has been referred to the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee for inquiry. That won't delay its implementation. I appreciate that the reporting date has been set as 16 November and submissions have closed. I get all that. But we do need to query the intent. We do need to query the provisions within this bill, and that's what the member for Page rightly does with the amendment that he quite reasonably has put forward.
I want to talk a little about some things that have been said in relation to the politicisation of some of these natural disasters, which has been unfortunate. Minister Watt claimed on Twitter in March:
The level of denial about the Lismore floods among Morrison's Ministers is astounding. None of them are here and they have no idea how absent their Govt is.
The then emergency management minister, Senator Bridget McKenzie, had visited several times. I will pay credit to her and give her her due. She had been there. She had been working, not just with the local member, Kevin Hogan, but with local stakeholders. She met local people. Then Prime Minister Morrison visited, and he made a national emergency declaration on March 11. As I said before, the member for Page stood up when it counted—he always does, but particularly so in this crisis. I wouldn't want to, as Minister Watt did, politicise that situation. He shouldn't have done it. It wasn't true, and that's unfortunate.
The Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022 doesn't—
Audio for the segment from 12:50:42 to 12:51:48 was unavailable at the time of publication .
The project would raise the Wyangala Dam wall by 10 metres to 95 metres. That would add 650 gigalitres of extra capacity to help flood mitigation. Six-hundred and fifty gigalitres is a lot of water. It's more than what's in Sydney Harbour. Not only would it help flood mitigation; it would also help agriculture. If it's good enough for the New South Wales state government to raise the Warragamba Dam wall by 14 metres to help those people in the shadow of that huge piece of water infrastructure, then it's good enough for them to also to do the costings and the business plan for Wyangala Dam. They need to get on with that quick smart.
I know that the member for Cootamundra, Steph Cooke, is very much an advocate for it. I know that the local mayors, whether it's Phyllis Miller at Forbes, Bill West at Cowra, certainly Brian Monaghan at West Wyalong—I mean, West Wyalong had the Newell Highway cut off for six weeks in the 2016 flood. That's six weeks where one of the greatest arterial corridors of commerce in New South Wales was cut off by the Lachlan River's waters. I drove to Forbes only the other day, and the water was lapping up either side of the Newell Highway. It's quite a sight to see, but it could be avoided, potentially, if Wyangala Dam were to be increased.
I know the state government wanted a $325 million loan, as part of $650 million towards that projects. Well, they got it. Then they wanted a grant, and we gave them a grant. Then they came back to the then federal government and said it's going to cost a lot more. We said: 'Okay. So be it. Let's do the costings.' Whether it cost $1 billion or $2 billion, let's get the costings and let's work out what this is going to save. Forbes used to be flooded once every seven years, and those figures go back to 1887. They've been flooded six times in 12 years. Do the maths. Do the figures. They don't deserve to have their town sandbagged all the time in readiness for the next flood, which, potentially, could be next week, next year, the year after—probably all of those. And here we are talking about changing an acronym. It's Life Of Brian stuff; it really is.
The member for Page has genuine concerns. He's made an amendment. I concur with what he has put forward. We need to be disaster ready—yes, we do need to be ready. We were, as the coalition government. We put in place plans for funding and priorities. Does this build on those? Not really. It just changes the name. It doesn't provide any new funding. We need genuine action. We need legislation that's going to have meaningful actions so that people who are sandbagging their homes and those genuine heroes, such as those in the SES and other first-responder organisations, the volunteers, don't get too cynical about politics and politicians.
Mr GOSLING (Solomon) (12:55): These remarks are important at this time of natural disaster in our nation and for us in the Territory as well as we begin the cyclone season that could potentially see 11 cyclones. At the outset I want to acknowledge all the community groups, first responders, the families helping families and the mates helping mates around our country at this distressing time. My thoughts and prayers are with you all. However, we as a federal government also understand that you need a lot more than just thoughts and prayers. You need action and you need a supportive federal government working cooperatively with the states and territories and local government at this time.
With a sense of pride I contribute to this debate on the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022. The Albanese government has started delivering on its promise to create the new Disaster Ready Fund to help our communities all around the nation prepare for natural disasters. Despite the member for Riverina's admiral defence of one of his local members, it also has to be said that over the past decade we saw from those opposite a failure to really help Australians prepare for floods, fires and storms.
It's hard to think that we had a $5 billion fund sitting there ready to go and yet it did not spend a cent since its establishment in early 2019. While that fund was sitting there untouched it was accruing millions of dollars of interest, and that interest could have been spent to help those Australians who had been battered by floods and fires to rebuild their lives and protect their communities. I think it's fair to say that those opposite could have done more. We need to learn from that, and we are.
When they as a federal government did belatedly start offering assistance they too often started playing some political games with the states, particularly if they weren't from their political organisation. That is unfortunate. Dividing people and not showing national leadership at a time of crisis are I think partially responsible for the decision the Australian people made in May this year.
As so many Australians are experiencing now, floods or even having water creeping towards your home is devastating for people and for communities. We reflect on our experience in the Northern Territory. With the Katherine River in the Northern Territory there have been seven notable floods in the last 100 years. My wife, Kate, was in Katherine for the 2006 floods. She described it as a feeling of creeping dread. That's what so many families feel. I heard on morning TV the other day someone around Echuca talk about that creeping dread as the floodwaters crept closer to their house.
It was a big one though in Katherine in late January 1998. A tropical cyclone developed in the Gulf of Carpentaria. As I said, the Territory is entering the cyclone season. There were three days of steady rain over that Australia Day period in 1998. Four people died and thousands of people were evacuated. Our Minister for Emergency Management, Senator Watt, previously said about the arrangements of the former coalition federal government:
It is unconscionable that communities have been left at risk while money is available to keep them safe.
I don't want to make a partisan point here, but I do want to thank the minister for coming to Darwin recently. We spent some time with the NT disaster response people at the centre, and I also want to acknowledge the people at the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, who were part of the Northern Territory's response apparatus to natural disasters both on homeland and in our region.
The natural disaster funds should be used to help communities prepare for disasters. We don't need to be told that they're going to be more frequent. We know that climate change and the La Nina weather systems—a third one of which is forming—mean that we're going to have more floods. We're already dealing with a really wet country across our nation. Down the whole east coast and beyond, the ground is absolutely full with water, and we're expecting, as I said, an unusually early start to the cyclone season. We've had a lot of rain already; there's going to be a pause this week, but there's more rain coming after that. A number of our remote communities have to evacuate every year as those storms approach.
Many Top Enders also carry the scars of Cyclone Tracy, which honourable members would be aware of. But honourable members might not be aware that, almost 50 years ago, when Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin, at least 71 people died. All Territorians worry about the future. So I'm delighted that this Disaster Ready Fund bill will lead to real action in terms of both mitigation and support for those who will inevitably be affected by worsening weather events. This fund will provide up to $200 million per year to invest in mitigation projects like flood levees, which are really needed in places like Katherine; cyclone shelters, which are needed throughout the north; and fire breaks and evacuation centres in the Northern Territory and around Australia.
Our government will not repeat the mistakes of former governments. With the communities, we will prepare for natural disasters. We'll protect lives and livelihoods, and we'll hopefully then see much lower damage from floods, fires and cyclones. I will note that, in order to deliver security for natural disaster impacted communities, the government will also honour the 2022-23 Emergency Response Fund commitments that were announced by the former government. That includes $150 million for the New South Wales Northern Rivers region, which is being hammered once again, and $50 million for the Coastal and Estuarine Risk Mitigation Program. It's appropriate that they are honoured.
My heart goes out to the people of Lismore and the Northern Rivers area. They've had an incredibly tough time, and they're still recovering from previous flood events. I want to acknowledge all of them, no matter what side of politics they're on. I also particularly want to acknowledge the work of Janelle Saffin, the former member for Page, who is now a New South Wales member of parliament. She's been working with her community through an incredibly difficult period. Our thoughts as Territorians are with the people of the Northern Rivers and all around the country where they're facing disaster. We've seen the devastating consequences of not being prepared when natural disasters hit, such as in the Black Summer bushfires and the recent floods. As I said, we know there's more to come. We want Australians to be as protected as possible to weather those storms, and I'm proud to be associated with this bill.
Sitting suspended from 13 : 03 to 16 : 04
Mr VIOLI (Casey) (16:04): In my electorate of Casey we know quite a bit about emergency response and disaster resilience. We have experienced more than our fair share of bushfires, storms and other natural disasters. The 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria caused widespread devastation and the greatest loss of life from fire in Casey in known history. One hundred and seventy three people tragically lost their lives, 414 were injured, more than a million wild and domesticated animals were lost and 450,000 hectares of land were burnt. More than 19,000 CFA members worked tirelessly, not just in the immediate emergency, but for weeks and months, to finally extinguish the last blaze. And many thousands of Victorians and millions of Australians came together to support those affected, including in my electorate of Casey, for the weeks, months and years of our physical and psychological recovery.
As Australians become more urbanised the fringes of cities encroach further into the bush and it is here in the frontier zone between bush and city that bushfires do much of their damage. It was in this edge environment, in my local communities of Healesville and Yarra Glen, that the Black Saturday bushfires inflicted the damage that made them some of the most destructive in Australian history. We cannot only measure the destruction in loss of property or even loss of life, from experience I can confirm that the devastation is much greater. The profound loss of life and injury to family and friends is accompanied by the loss of homes and the memories they contain, businesses that have been lovingly run for generations, the complete alteration of familiar landscapes and the sense of foreboding that such a disaster could happen again. I saw how this affected my family, my friends and my community as the fire ravaged regions of Casey. Doctors and psychologists reported a rise in suicides among bushfire survivors, along with alcohol and drug abuse and addictive behaviour such as gambling.
The importance of the Emergency Response Fund, now to be called the Disaster Ready Fund, cannot be denied. This bill essentially repurposes the Emergency Response Fund, turning it into an ongoing source of funding for natural disasters, resilience and risk reduction—to be known as the Disaster Ready Fund. This bill is little more than a change in acronym, as it will continue to be managed by the Future Fund Management Agency within the Department of Finance.
The Emergency Response Fund was set up by the coalition government in 2019 as an investment fund intended to grow over time to maximise the Commonwealth's capacity to support states and territories as they respond to major natural disasters into the future. Under previous legislation the government could access up to $50 million for pre-disaster resilience measures and up to $150 million for emergency response and recovery each financial year. The government made an election commitment to revamp the fund to spend $200 million annually on disaster prevention and resilience. It allows the DRF to provide up to $200 million per financial year for these initiatives.
In my first speech, I spoke of my commitment to making sure the effects of natural disasters are minimised due to effective resilience planning and preparation. This bill will ensure the coalition's promise, and my personal promise to my community, and will continue to support them through the tough times. One such recent example was on the night of 9 December 2021. Families hunkered down in their living rooms across the Dandenong Ranges as ferocious winds roared and the crash of trees breaking and falling thundered around them. Even houses that weren't hit by the gigantic trees falling shook with the impact. It was a genuine miracle that nobody was killed. In that one terrifying night 177 properties were damaged, 76 of which were deemed uninhabitable; thousands of trees fell across roads and power lines, trapping many in the Dandenongs; power was cut to more than 6,500 homes, including my own for 12 days; while phone and internet services also went down across the Dandenong Ranges and surrounding towns. Townships such as Kalorama, Monbulk and Mount Dandenong were hardest hit, with 373 hectares of the Dandenong Ranges impacted.
More than a year later there are still many who have not been able to rebuild or who have run into financial or practical obstacles preventing them from returning to their homes. I've met with many of these constituents and it's heartbreaking to hear their stories. They are trapped in this situation; they aren't able to move forward. One community example is the Mount Dandenong Preschool, which has been operating out of the Olinda Primary School as the preschool's old site remains unrepaired and condemned since the storm. The trauma for the children, parents and staff is ongoing because they are regularly seeing it covered in tarpaulin and fallen trees as they drive past.
As the local mayor, Jim Child, said recently, 'It was a crisis that tested us beyond belief, but people in this region are resilient and we know how to look after each other.' This is clear when you see the community groups that responded out of such tragedy and loss. New community bonds rose in the form of Rescue Logs and Treasuring Our Trees, two organisations that are taking those fallen trees to create new habitats for schools so that the children in those primary schools across Casey can have a new environment to play in, but also help them to recover from the trauma that they've experienced. Many more community organisations banded together at the time and have banded together since then.
Effective emergency management is as much about planning and preparation as it is about response, clean-up and recovery. In Casey, we unfortunately have extensive experience with emergencies. But as is often the case in Australia, amazing people come together to build resilience, to protect their families, their businesses and their communities. The local Yarra Ranges council have led this emergency response in Casey. They've developed a new program called the Yarra Ranges resilience project to protect our communities by increasing disaster preparedness, risk management, recovery and future resilience. I am very proud to say that the previous coalition government committed $10 million to this plan so as to increase our community's ability to mitigate, avoid, withstand and recover from the effects of bushfires, floods and storms. This project is going to be delivered by council in partnership with other levels of government recovery departments along with local businesses and communities. This project is one that is dear to my heart. One of the first meetings I had when I was successful in becoming the member for Casey was to meet with the Yarra Ranges council about this important area and to get an update on this project that is making a difference, and will continue to make a difference, in the lives of our residents.
The Yarra Ranges resilience project includes proactive tree management and clean-up. It includes plant based resilience planning and buildings. It's about establishing an emergency relief network and evacuation plans. This one in particular is really important for our communities, because we know—we experienced it during Black Saturday; we experienced it during the June storms—given the location of our towns and some of the roads that are one-way in and one-way out, those communities cannot rely on emergency services responses outside of their own town. It is so important that they have plans if the emergency comes, but also relief networks that allow them to evacuate, if they have that opportunity, before the risk is there.
It also allows for a resilient energy precinct. We're running a program with Monash University in Monbulk to have a microgrid and to have the energy there to be self-sufficient, which is so important. We saw it in June when these communities were without power and they were also without access. Emergency services couldn't get in; no-one could get out. We're talking about 100 metres of road completely blocked by trees. It took significant time to get through, and it's no-one's fault other than the reality dealing with the disaster that we had. This project will allow those communities to have the power they need at that time. Crucially, bushfire risk assessments will be done throughout the Dandenong Ranges and Casey because there is a significant and dangerous bushfire risk there.
Obviously, the coalition supports programs that effectively promote disaster resilience and risk reduction, although I do have a few concerns as I look through this legislation. I've not been able to see any information around how the funds will be distributed or any clear definition of what constitutes a mitigation or disaster-prevention project. It is very important that we have that clarity so that the money we're investing on behalf of our residents and taxpayers will make a tangible difference to our communities.
I note that the Minister for Emergency Management referred to activities such as river gauges and rain modelling as examples, but these are activities of the Bureau of Meteorology, the BoM, not something I would expect the DRF to undertake or fund. Minister Watt has also mentioned that there will be guidelines and consultations to be held with stakeholders but cannot say who the stakeholders are or even what the guidelines will look like. Again, while this fund, this money, is needed and is crucial, it is so important that we get it right, that we engage at the community level. We in the electorate of Casey know that the community understand their needs better than anyone. We have to engage, like we have through the Yarra Ranges resilience project, with the right stakeholders.
We've all seen the devastating floods inundating northern Victoria over the last week. In Casey last week we had minor flooding. We were fortunate; we managed to avoid the worst of the damage. Unfortunately, the clubrooms at the Yarra Glen Cricket Club were damaged and will need to undergo repairs. Just last night, my home town of Lilydale and the towns of Upwey and Belgrave experienced flash flooding, with between 60 and 65 millimetres of rain hitting those towns in about 30 minutes. The local SES received calls from 12 people trapped in their cars after driving through floodwaters. It's another example of how even in our urban areas the risk of flood is very real. Power was cut to thousands of homes. The main street literally looked like a river. We were lucky not to see any loss of life, but there will be a huge clean-up. I've spoken to businesses and residents, and I stand by their side and look forward to getting home on Friday to see them and support them. We need to help those businesses, which have already had significant challenges in the last two years. I send my heartfelt condolences to those impacted, including my own staff, who were impacted but were back at work today to support the residents and constituents of Casey. As I said, I'm very much looking forward to getting home and supporting them.
The government, as we know, needs to be ready and prepared to act when significant events occur. We still don't know what the long-term impacts will be for not only Victoria but the wider community—the impacts on food prices and long-term recovery. When we talk about food prices, it's important to note that it's always our most vulnerable who suffer. We need to make sure that we're protecting life, protecting property and protecting our agricultural bowls. In Casey last week we were fortunate. I spoke to a farmer the day after the floods hit. He'd been up all night defending his property by removing water with pumps, trying to do what he could. He was lucky. He said there was a gap of 30 centimetres, after which the banks of the river would have been breached. If that river had breached, his farm and many others in the Yarra Valley would have been destroyed. We saw heartbreaking footage from Rochester and other towns, where farmers were about to pick their crops. It impacts them and the wider community, but it also impacts our most vulnerable through increased prices.
Just to be clear: this bill doesn't provide additional money. I'll always support additional money for natural disaster events, and I hope that the government continue to recognise the urgency and importance of real action, because that is something that needs to be bipartisan. I look forward to supporting this bill and continuing to support the residents of Casey and the nation as we continue to struggle with these natural disasters.
Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (16:19): I think I need to correct some of the comments that were made by the member preceding me. With all due respect, there has been no sense of urgency from the previous government in dealing with disasters, and that's why the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022 is so important. There are many in this place who've experienced disaster in the last couple of years. In my community there've been four declared natural disasters in 2½ years plus additional floods, because some of those were double floods. The sense of urgency in how the previous government managed its funds was completely lacking.
Let's be clear: there was $4 billion of funding set aside to help deal with natural disasters and make communities more resilient. Not a cent was spent, and it earned $700 million in interest. My community and I sat there, watching this fund get richer and richer without investments in our community. It even goes back to just before the Black Summer, when the retired fire chiefs from around the country were warning about the circumstances we were facing, using their decades of experience. They were ignored by the previous Prime Minister and the previous government.
This is a crucial piece of legislation that will turn something that was just sitting there, not even being used, into something that can make a real difference. Goodness knows so many of our communities really need a difference to be made.
This commitment is really about an injection of up to $1 billion over the next five years to mitigate potential disaster loss and damage, and it really is coming at a critical time. We know that right now there are people in the midst of floods or under threat from floods. Quite frankly, we're going to see the threat of floods for at least the rest of this year in so many parts of the country, including in the Hawkesbury, where my constituents have struggled to deal with the cumulative effects, knowing that there were things that could have been done over the last years. There were evacuation routes that could have been made. There were roads that could be made resilient.
A division having been called in the House of Representatives—
Sitting suspended from 16:22 to 16:3 7
Ms TEMPLEMA N: This fund is going to be a crucial part of our ability to prepare for and reduce the impact of disasters that we know are going to be on the increase. We know that the weather will become wilder—we're seeing it before our very eyes—and it is beyond time that there was decent investment.
This $1 billion over the next five years will allow people right across the country to start putting in place some of the things we need. For the Hawkesbury it might be things like evacuation routes, rebuilding the roads, putting in levies and doing the sorts of sensible things that are shown to deliver benefits. In the Blue Mountains, where the bushfires ravaged the countryside and the wilderness, a range of things can be done to help ensure people are safer in those sorts of circumstances. I look forward to working with both the NSW government and my local councils, as well as the community and community organisations, in identifying the very best things to do—the things that will provide in a very sensible way immediate benefits and potential benefits in a disaster.
One of the things I'm very proud of that we are going to be delivering in the context of disaster preparedness is upgrades to the North Richmond Community Centre so that it is much more suited to being an evacuation or recovery centre. Birgit and her board there have seen the possibility and the need for improvements for a very long time and have spent a long time working with council to try and get those improvements. I'm really pleased that $2.5 million of Commonwealth funding will now go to that centre. That was in last night's budget, so it's wonderful to see that that money is going to be available for upgrades.
When the Hawkesbury gets warnings of floods, there's not always easy access for people to cross rivers that might already be flooded. On the North Richmond side there's very little infrastructure. We don't have an ambulance station, we don't have a fire station and we don't have a hospital. There is very poor infrastructure. But what has happened in the past is that services have based themselves in various locations, including at the North Richmond Community Centre, even if it's just for them to be able to sleep and recover between their shifts. This community centre has already been delivering services in a building that is completely inadequate—an old kitchen, toilets that come from when it was first built. It's not suitable for anybody who needs some sort of disability access, so $2.5 million will go a long way to helping them create a place that is not only welcoming but also safe for people, if they need to evacuate their own homes. Sharon Stevens, who volunteered in the 2021 floods and has been there helping people, appreciates first-hand how inadequate the kitchen area is. This might all seem like relatively small stuff, but, when you are evacuated from your home, when you don't know how long it's going to be before you can get back there, when there is the threat of a dam spilling or a river flooding, then you need somewhere where you can have the basic comforts of being able to go to the bathroom, have a shower, get some sleep and have some food. I want to thank everybody at North Richmond Community Centre for the work they have done through bushfires and through floods, and I'm so proud that we're going be able to create a better facility there for community use.
One of the big areas where we need to become more resilient is our roads. Across the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains, in fact, everybody who has had rain damage will say, 'It's our area too.' But I'm going to talk about my community and the challenges that they are facing in repairing the roads. A lot of the responsibility falls on council. Unfortunately, councils are just not equipped to deal with the size of the problem they are facing. In the Hawkesbury, they've estimated around $190 million of road damage. That includes damage that occurred initially in 2021. In fact, it was even before that in the 2020 flood, which came right after the bushfires. Small damage, not repaired adequately, became bigger damage in the 2021 floods and has now blown out. It is a huge job down at Cornwallis. Roads that got completely washed away in 2021 are still not repaired, like Greens Road in Lower Portland. With these sorts of roads—and the latest on the list as Settlers Road in Lower MacDonald—its really frustrating to only be able to replace the road to the standard that it was.
That's why I'm very pleased to see the decision that we've made to ensure people are disaster ready by allowing them to build back better. This has been a real sticking point, and there is now more than $500 million from the Australian and New South Wales governments that has been set aside for this. In my area, they are entitled to apply for some of the $200 million of the Infrastructure Betterment Fund to help recovery efforts focused on rebuilding damaged and destroyed infrastructure in a more resilient way. That makes sense to all of us; you don't just build it back to the standard it was, because guess what? In the next flood it's going to wash away again. We have roads that suffered that extreme heat during the Black Summer Bushfires, and then they had extraordinary rain. So across the electorate the seals on the roads have just disappeared. This betterment fund gives both the Hawkesbury council and the Blue Mountains council an opportunity to identify places where they can build back better. It's what they've been asking for. They have both had very good meetings with the minister for local government, and I'm very pleased that we can show we have been listening to the needs that they have.
When I talk about roads, I have mentioned the Hawkesbury and the $190 million that they have identified. Of course, that will be available under the existing joint arrangements. There are already joint arrangements, but I'm pretty sure that, over time, we're going to be able to do better with those, so that it is a smoother process. Right now, it feels like there is a bit of a blockage. The money is there and waiting, but there is a process councils have to go through. They have to have enough people to help them do the paperwork and the essential things they need. I look forward to us, over time, being able to support them even better, so that they can access that funding and don't have to sit around saying, 'There's a problem with the money at a state level,' let alone any subsequent issues. At this point, what councils are telling me is that they are waiting on the states. The states seem to indicate that they're waiting on councils to go through a process. These are some of the things that I hope we can get in and streamline. It's worth us getting involved to streamline these processes and have discussions about it—how can we help to make this better?
When we talk about roads, the Blue Mountains—I don't want to say they're equally impacted because their damage bill, including repair of roads and 66 landslides, exceeds $400 million. This is an area where it's the storms that've done it and that has led to flooding. What both councils are finding is that every time it rains they get set back. They're struggling to get contractors who have the availability when they need it because when it stops raining everybody wants them. I understand the materials are an ongoing challenge. Even though they fixed 7,000 square metres of local roads in the Blue Mountains, which is the same amount they did in the entire previous financial year—and they've done that just in a month post floods and storms—there is still a huge amount to do.
To put the challenge that the Blue Mountains faces into perspective, the mayor says that council staff are in the process of implementing 10 years worth of roadworks in 12 months just to get back to where we were. The mayor says that councils right across eastern Australia are experiencing similar issues. These are the things that our fund has the opportunity to head off at the pass. We've got an opportunity to invest so that there is much greater resilience in what we do.
There's another area where this fund can really make a difference and that is on the cumulative toll that disasters take on infrastructure. I will give one example of what some of the farmers and land owners in my Hawkesbury community are finding now. They're saying that after two years of rain and floods fences are now rotting, and that's not just a panel here and a panel there but the foundations of their buildings are becoming unstable. There has been a cumulative process. It isn't only the big community assets that we need to be thinking about; we need to be thinking about what we can do to help people make their own assets more resilient. That when we give them funding to rebuild their homes after a flood, we make sure they're able to make their homes more resilient.
I am very much looking forward to bringing my community together. There's a group of people who have been through successive floods and they've learnt from those floods. They have learnt how to redo their kitchens so that there is less damage to repair next time—with hard surfaces, not replacing gyprock with gyprock but using better materials. I had organised to bring them together, with help from the experts from Suncorp who also have a lot expertise in this area. But, ironically, a flood meant that no-one's head was in a place to think about rebuilding. People were just thinking about getting through the next few hours. So I look forward to bringing my community together in the new year to be able to share their experiences. It isn't just governments who have the answers on this; it's the people who have experienced it time and time again who were learning, rather than repeating the same mistakes. My Hawkesbury community knows we can learn from each other. Although I will be grateful to have the Suncorp building experts there too, with the work they've done, particularly in Queensland, around cyclones and flood resistant homes. But there's a lot we can do for ourselves.
I absolutely welcome that, finally, we're going to get to see this significant fund being used, and put to good use, rather than having it sit languishing as it has done for years. I remember that when we first voted for this fund we supported the government on this fund even though they took money away from university assets to do it. But we said, 'This is needed and it's needed now.' That was years ago and not a cent has been spent. It has earnt interest but that has not helped my community. I am very pleased to see tangible action from the Albanese government.
Mr STEVENS (Sturt) (16:49): I rise to speak in favour of the amendment moved by the member for Page to the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022. I would like to start by acknowledging what he's been through with his community over the last few years, particularly with the town of Lismore. I lived for a couple of years in Alstonville, which is not far from Lismore, so I know the area very well. Lismore has been absolutely belted a couple of times in a row, and it's been really tough for that community. Lives, livelihoods and infrastructure have suffered enormous damage.
The member for Page has been an exemplary leader and supporter to his community through all those challenges, and we wish the best for the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales in the recovery that they are going through. I never thought I'd say this as a South Australian—because we should never complain about the rain—but, if more rain could fall on the other side of the Great Dividing Range for the next few months, I think both the people of Lismore and the people of Adelaide would appreciate it in equal measure.
The amendment that he's has moved is absolutely coming from a place of very deep experience. I know other members have had experiences of natural disasters in their electorates in recent times, but certainly the member for Page would have to be at the top of the list of local members who have been dealing with the enormous impact of natural disasters within their communities over the last 12 months. We send him best wishes and congratulate him on what he's done for his community. I certainly support the amendment he's moved to this second reading question.
The second thing I want to say is that the great thing about this parliament is that it brings together people from every corner of this nation. There are not too many countries in the world that have such geographic diversity as Australia. To have tropical forests, snow, deserts and everything in between within one country is almost unique. Except for maybe the United States, I can't think of any other country that has that great variety of geography. Of course, we have an unbelievably varied climate associated with that.
As a member from metropolitan Adelaide, I don't have a lot of great or direct experience in the impact of and the recovery from things like hurricanes or tropical cyclones, but we equally have our own types of natural disasters in South Australia that aren't necessarily felt in other places. Drought is one that shouldn't be forgotten when we're having this discussion. While some natural disasters occur in great instancy, a drought is one of the most consistent natural disasters that we have in this country. It has enormous impacts that are completely akin to the types of things felt by communities as a result of other natural disasters such as floods and the like.
In my own electorate, we've certainly had serious rain events in the years gone by. My electorate is in the Torrens catchment, and we have had flash flood events that have led us to develop local plans to better manage the impact of short, significant rain events that come through the hills facing the Mount Lofty Ranges and that have caused a lot of damage to property in years gone by. We also have the Brown Hill Creek catchment, which comes out of the Mitcham hills.
Councils, including from my electorate, have worked together really well to develop plans that need to be invested in to deal with the risks of once-in-10-year, once-in-50-year, once-in-100-year or—as we now talk of—once-in-1,000-year events. We've undertaken some projects in that Brown Hill Creek catchment, but there's a lot of work to be done to complete that project for the residents not just of my electorate but of a number of other electorates in Adelaide so that they can deal with the risk of a once-in-100-year event, which could cause a lot of significant property damage. And there is always the risk of worse, including loss of life, when these sorts of weather events occur. Obviously I'm very happy to support the next iteration of this fund that helps communities like my own invest in the sort of resilience projects needed to prepare communities and mitigate the risks of these very significant natural disasters and weather events. We are certainly seeing some significant ones at the moment. They are of course on the rainfall side of things.
I mentioned at the start of my remarks that of course in South Australia we should never complain about the rain. These serious weather and flooding events have been a terrible misfortune for communities in the Murray-Darling Basin catchment, in northern New South Wales, particularly Moree, and in the recent month in Victoria at Shepparton, Echuca and other towns along the tributary rivers and now of course the Murray itself. Coming into South Australia there are some significant flooding risks in the Riverland in South Australia at Renmark and the like. Of course, whilst we hope there is not significant damage to communities and to agricultural production and other economic activity, it is pleasing to see such significant flows that are breaking records when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin, particularly within South Australia. I think we're at almost 80,000 megalitres a day crossing the border. We have a good chance of breaking records that go back to the early 1990s.
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It does underscore that we are always going to be dealing with unpredictable weather patterns, the risk of bushfires and droughts, which, unfortunately, will return. It is a certainty that we will have droughts to contend with in the future, despite what we're experiencing right now on the other side of the coin.
This does put in place an ability for the Commonwealth to invest in a whole range of measures that will help local communities better prepare for these events.
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I think it's not until next financial year that any new decisions related to this mechanism will be entered into. We don't have the details about what they might be, but we do know that the announcements and commitments we have made to significantly impacted communities are going to be honoured by the new government.
This is an area that we should be working together in. I'm pleased that the coalition is supporting this bill. I respect and support the member for Page's second reading amendment, for the reasons I outlined at the beginning of my contribution. Nonetheless, I think that when it comes to supporting our communities to deal with these significant events that they are going to face in the future we should be doing it with a sense of unity. I anticipate that this will be supported through the parliament without dissent. With those comments I commend the bill to the House.
Ms McBAIN (Eden-Monaro—Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) (16:58): I rise today as the member for Eden-Monaro to update communities about election commitments, particularly the Disaster Ready Fund, which will help our communities prepare for future natural disasters. As Mayor of the Bega Valley Shire Council during the Tathra fires, the Yankees Gap fire and the Black Summer bushfires and as the local member now watching over the recovery, the experience of leading my communities really drives me to demand a strengthened disaster management response in regional Australia. The Disaster Ready Fund seeks to curb the devastating impacts of natural disasters by investing in important disaster prevention projects. Our communities deserve a better, more coordinated approach. The Albanese government is committed to recovery, but it is committed, more importantly, to preparedness, to resilience and to mitigation in our communities.
I'm relieved this bill, the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022, will transform the former government's Emergency Response Fund into a dedicated, ongoing source of funding for natural disaster resilience and risk reduction initiatives. This government, through the Disaster Ready Fund, will provide up to $200 million per year to invest in mitigation projects like firebreaks, flood levees, cyclone shelters and evacuation centres around the country. When I travel through my communities across Eden-Monaro—from Batlow to Cobargo, from Braidwood to Kiah—I know from listening to locals who are still struggling with the hurdles and the mental toll of recovery that an ongoing funding source for disaster resilience and risk reduction is going to be much appreciated.
My heart really does go out to everyone affected by recent floods—to those who've lost loved ones and those who've lost their homes, their possessions and their livelihoods. Over the last few weeks, I've spoken with mayors from disaster impacted councils in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. They've talked about the devastating toll taken on communities: the impacts on communities who are facing the loss of loved ones, the mental toll and the tiredness that some communities are facing after multiple floods in the space of only a few months. A one-in-a-hundred-years flood takes a toll on the community at any given stage, but especially when they've received four one-in-a-hundred-years floods in the last two years. The compounding, cumulative impact of those floods, mentally, physically and financially, is really tough.
Mayors have told me that rebuilding roads is going to be difficult and complex. They've told me that some of their recreational assets are no longer covered by insurance. They've told us that accessing supplies is incredibly difficult. We know that when disaster hits in more than one area at any given time there is a stretch on our contractors. They actually lose competitive advantage, because they no longer have multiple contractors bidding to rebuild a road; they might be left with one. The recovery is going to take time in a lot of these areas. I know, nearly three years on from the Black Summer bushfires—Eden-Monaro lost over a thousand homes—that the memories are still very real. We know that there are a lot of people who are still waking up with deep and lasting trauma from that time.
We're not strangers to natural disasters in this country. For anyone who's grown up outside any of our major cities, extreme weather events are part of life. But what we've seen with devastating floods, and what we saw with the Black Summer bushfires, is that these disasters are intensifying and they are causing more damage than ever. We can't stop natural disasters but we can prepare for and prevent the worst. And we could and should learn from the past. I recently met with the Bega Local Aboriginal Land Council—an amazing organisation—on the importance of cultural burning practices. In the lead-up to the Tathra fires in March 2018, this group of individuals did cultural burning on part of their land outside Tathra. It is the only parcel of land that was not burnt during the Tathra fires. We need to listen to communities, we need to strengthen coordination and we need to invest in disaster prevention projects to ensure we're ready for what is to come next.
Over three years, the former Morrison government's Emergency Response Fund didn't complete a single mitigation project. They failed to release a cent in recovery funding. We know it earned them $800 million in interest, though. It did leave us dangerously unprepared for the increasing natural disasters which we are seeing now. We know that we have to prepare for natural disasters, because we want to be able to protect lives and livelihoods and lower the cost of damage in our communities. Additional funding for natural disaster recovery efforts will also continue with this government. It will continue through Commonwealth and state government disaster recovery funding arrangements, so refocusing this fund to deal with mitigation and resilience is not going to stop the recovery process. But we do know that every dollar spent in mitigation will save up to $11 in recovery funds. I'm really proud to be part of a government that is implementing the Disaster Ready Fund. This builds on last night's announcement that an additional $3 billion will be set aside for disaster recovery. We know that, although we have experienced a number of floods this year, there will probably be many more to come over this summer, and this government is already preparing for that.
I'm incredibly proud that this government has put in place a special envoy for natural disaster as well. Our relevant minister, Minister Murray Watt, is doing an amazing job in responding to communities, getting assistant out fast, mobilising ADF support, getting dollars out the door to communities most impacted and standing shoulder to shoulder with local governments to say, 'We will be there to support you and we know how important community recovery is.' The establishment of the Special Envoy for Disaster Recovery adds further to that commitment, because we are seeing more and more disasters happen across the country and we need to make sure that we are prioritising those communities most impacted in their darkest days.
The creation of our new single agency the National Emergency Management Agency is also a step in the right direction to streamline not only response but recovery. For far too long when we have seen natural disasters occur in this country we have tried to reinvent the wheel for recovery processes. I am incredibly proud that this government has listened to communities that have been through natural disasters and said, 'We have heard you, we want to streamline the process and we want to make it easier for you.' Local governments told the former government time and time again that they needed to make it easier for local governments to apply for funding, to get it out the door quick and to make a simple acquittal process. We are now a government listening to that sector and saying, 'We will work on that with you.'
Our communities that have been through significant disaster can't change it. We can't change what we went through, but we do want to know that our lived experience counts for something. The change in policy by the government shows that we were listening. It shows that we were prepared to make a change for the betterment of communities right across this country, with simple things like actually implementing recommendations from the royal commission into the Black Summer bushfires the government has committed to.
This government, as part of its election, also committed to dealing with mobile phone blackspots along transport corridors, especially those that we know are going to be impacted by natural disasters time and time again. I am incredibly proud that I am part of a government that has said to communities, 'We have heard you.' We ask you to look at a phone and an app that tells you when fires are coming. We ask you to follow weather reports. We ask you to heed the warnings. But sometimes, when you are leaving an area, you can't access those because we don't have any mobile phone service. There was no resilience in our telecommunications network and so when mains electricity went out our telephone communication died. This government is writing those wrongs. This government is implementing recommendations from that bushfire royal commission. The government are listening to communities because, for us, all communities matter, especially those that have been through significant trauma from natural disasters.
Again, I want to say to all of those flood impacted communities across three states at the moment—New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania—that we are with you. We know that it is taking a toll not only on your communities but on your livelihoods. We know that agriculture is significantly impacted across the country. We know that it is going to take time to get the recovery right, and we are with you each and every step of the way.
Ms CHANEY (Curtin) (17:09): I rise to speak in favour of the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022, but also to identify some implementation concerns to be considered which partially align with the amendment proposed by the member for Page.
I'm pleased that the Australian government is recognising the impact of climate change on the frequency of extreme weather events, and acknowledging that pre-disaster mitigation is essential in moderating the severity of post-disaster recovery. Natural disasters in Australia have devastating financial and social impacts on individuals, families, local communities, businesses and governments. Australia's 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires were the worst on record, burning through 24 million hectares of land, claiming lives, and destroying homes and livelihoods. The subsequent Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements in 2020 recognised the contribution of climate change to that event, and that the 2019-20 bushfire season may have provided only a glimpse of the types of events that Australia may face in the future.
The floods in South-East Queensland and New South Wales at the beginning of this year were Australia's worst recorded flood disasters. Damage from the floods cost more than $1½ billion and, as of 8 March, $282 million in disaster payments had been paid to flood victims, but it still wasn't enough. Right now the east coast is experiencing continued significant flooding, with more expected to come. Climate change is here and we are seeing the devastating effects.
I commend the government for acknowledging that Australia's disaster resilience response needs specific funding, and acknowledge that this is a Productivity Commission recommendation in its report into natural disasters which is supported by local government and disaster relief bodies. But this will only be the start. A recent Deloitte report said:
… natural disasters cost the Australian economy $38 billion per year on average, representing—
about—
2% of Australia's … (GDP) in 2020. Even under a low emissions scenario—whereby timely action will see emissions start to fall and reach zero by 2100—this cost will rise to at least $73 billion annually by 2060 …
This puts the current $200 million commitment into perspective. This report suggests that scaling up investments in both physical resilience, such as infrastructure, and community resilience, such as preparedness programs, will be required to reduce the significant anticipated costs from natural disasters, even under a low-emissions future.
We need to improve coordination and targeting of investments to avoid the impacts on some of the most vulnerable areas in Australia. The $200 million commitment represents 0.5 per cent of the annual cost of natural disasters. It will need to be allocated carefully to create the most impact for the investment, and the amount committed will need to be scaled up commensurate with impact. I note that the funding limit will be reviewed every five years. I urge the government to review this more regularly given the scale of the impact. But it's a good start, and I look forward to watching this space closely and holding government to account.
I also commend the government for committing $50 million this year for the Coastal and Estuarine Risk Mitigation Program to reduce the impacts of natural disasters and coastal hazards such as storm surges and coastal inundation. But this commitment finishes at the end of this financial year and the effects of climate change continue to destroy our dune ecosystems. We need to do more to protect these coastal areas. Protecting our coastline is essential for Australia's quest to build resilience and prepare for natural disasters. I urge the government to make an ongoing allocation for Coastcare to be funded from the Disaster Ready Fund.
In my electorate of Curtin there are more than 15 kilometres of coastline stretching from Leighton Beach in the south to Trigg Beach in the north. The estimated cost to government of managing the 55 identified erosion hot spots could be $110 million over the next five years. So much of this work is being done by passionate community volunteers. Along the stretch in my electorate we have a number of very active Coastcare groups, including Cottesloe Coastcare, Cambridge Coastcare and Stirling Natural Environment Coastcare. These groups are made up of passionate members who care about our community and our environment. I've visited them and seen firsthand the effects of climate change on our dunes and beaches, and the work they're trying to do to counter that impact.
While applications for the Coastal and Estuarine Risk Mitigation Program have already closed, I spoke with Cottesloe Coastcare about how funding our coastline would protect our natural habitat and assist our community. Since 1996, Cottesloe Coastcare has raised funds for fencing to protect fragile sand dunes and to build access walkways to the beach. But the bulk of Cottesloe Coastcare's work is revegetation to increase foredune physical resilience and to improve biodiversity. Volunteers hand-remove invasive environmental weeds, collect seeds of local plant species and restore areas, planting, hand-weeding and watering about 100,000 plants in total. More than half of Cottesloe's degraded coastal dune system has been restored by these efforts.
Cottesloe Coastcare has raised funding in excess of $300,000 over 25 years for dune restoration projects, which has been matched by the town of Cottesloe, but so much more could be done. I asked Cottesloe what they could do with federal government grants if the Coastal and Estuarine Risk Mitigation Program were an ongoing program. A grant of $100,000 would fund two years of on-the-ground activity, allowing revegetation of a hectare of degraded coastal land. It's estimated that five to seven hectares of degraded coastal dunes remain on Cottesloe's foreshore. A grant of a million dollars would allow the rapid completion of the restoration of Cottesloe's foredunes to nearly original condition, providing physical stability. This work adds to the beauty and amenity of the dunes, but, importantly, it also allows nature to protect itself from natural disasters. Dune vegetation is the best protection against erosion. We need a sustainable, equitable and efficient funding model to enable the implementation of coastal hazard risk planning. It needs to be part of the Disaster Ready Fund.
I'd also like to raise some concerns that the bill does not include any details about how this new resilience fund will be allocated, and it seems to confer broad ministerial powers on how to allocate funds, without any parliamentary oversight. The bill does not include any details about how projects competing for disaster mitigation funding will be prioritised. I have no doubt there will be disaster mitigation projects proposed all over the country that greatly exceed $200 million. The varied examples of eligible projects presented by my fellow members show the challenges in defining disaster mitigation. I assume that projects will need to be prioritised according to the value of the mitigation benefit. But is this a financial value, a property value, a life value? And what criteria will be used, and who will make these decisions? The lack of clarity about prioritisation criteria and eligibility criteria will create challenges and potentially produce suboptimal outcomes.
In conclusion, I support this bill, given that it addresses the specific need to fund disaster resilience efforts, but I strongly urge the government to, firstly, include coastal hazard management in the funding allocated to the Disaster Ready Fund; secondly, review the quantum of the Disaster Ready Fund, given that it represents only 0.5 per cent of the annual cost to the country of natural disasters; and, thirdly, commit to transparency in relation to the allocation of the Disaster Ready Fund, on both the definition of disaster mitigation and the criteria that will be used to prioritise projects.
Ms DANIEL (Goldstein) (17:17): As we speak today in this place, once again communities are sandbagged, houses are under water, crops are ruined and families are grieving. Lismore residents have had to face the risk of being flooded for the third time this year. Communities across New South Wales and Victoria have been dramatically affected. Residents of Maribyrnong in Melbourne are cleaning up—if they've even been able to get back into their homes. And we were warned. We've been warned for years, and we've not listened. For that, we are culpable.
I truly hope this legislation is a turning point for common sense, pragmatism, action and taking note of expert advice, because we knew that climate change would mean natural disasters of greater severity and frequency. Our own experts have reams of data on this and the advice we need. I recently witnessed the extraordinary air-monitoring work and greenhouse- and carbon-emission modelling at the CSIRO in Aspendale, just on the fringe of the electorate of Goldstein, for example. For decades, governments have neither listened nor heard the warnings. Climate policy has been politicised and weaponised. Talking about climate change during so-called natural disasters has been dismissed. Apparently, it hasn't been the right time. Ordinary Australians across the country have paid the price for this wilful blindness.
In many ways, community concern about this inaction has put me here to make this speech today. Few Australians—city or country, coastal or inland, urban or rural—remain untouched by the impacts of our changing climate. People in Goldstein and elsewhere want action, real changes to reduce carbon emissions, but unfortunately, due to our tardy actions, the impact of climate change will be baked in for some time. And we already know what that looks like: houses under water, properties burnt out, flora and fauna unlikely to recover, biodiversity reduced, our future prosperity at risk. Methane is growing exponentially, in part, due to increasing rotting vegetation and increased rain and flooding in the tropics, for example.
So far, properties in some places in North Queensland have been rendered uninsurable, and, as I said, Lismore and parts of Brisbane have been underwater twice or more in the past year. The Black Summer of 2020-21 cost lives, ruined futures and destroyed houses, fences and livestock. Two years on, some of the affected people are still living in tents. Urban areas like Goldstein also see an impact, particularly in the form of increasingly severe erosion on the shores of Melbourne's beautiful bay as more severe storm activity occurs with ever-increasing frequency.
This is something we can now expect, plan for and risk manage—indeed, we must. Yet management remains fragmented: multiple departments, stakeholders and levels of governments work at cross-purposes or remain unaware of what the other is doing. Wheels are reinvented, money is wasted and responsibility is not taken. Half the time, no-one even knows whose responsibility the particular issue is. In Goldstein and along Port Phillip Bay, 60-plus organisations have a stake in bayside management. Dozens of community organisations, councils, state government departments and more tell me they want support to become more cohesive. This is a facilitation role that the federal government can play, helped through this kind of funding in the Disaster Ready Fund.
The previous government barely talked the talk on this subject, let alone walked the walk, declaring disaster response to be largely a state responsibility. After the horrifying Black Summer—a disaster we were warned about, by the way—it took too much time to deploy the military to assist. Former NSW fire chief Greg Mullins told me it would happen months before it did. Again, we were warned. Over and over again, we have seen flood and fire victims struggle to get access to relief assistance and their government benefits.
The old Emergency Response Fund had $4.8 billion in the kitty, but it was not responsive. The emergency was that people in need couldn't get what they needed when they needed it. People in distress didn't get the money they needed. All it did was earn the government interest on the money allocated. With this legislation, we must do much better. We must prepare vulnerable communities for the acts of nature that appear inevitable, and we can no longer say that we didn't know.
The Bureau of Meteorology is warning us that we are in for another La Nina summer. Many parts of Australia are already sodden in ways they have not been for decades, and we don't have much time. This $200 million, the amount for disaster resilience and risk reduction, needs to be actively deployed expeditiously to have maximum impact, and, realistically, it is just a start. It's time to improve coordination, planning and cooperation. The Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines must be used to ensure this money is spent well, expeditiously and, most importantly, where it's most immediately needed.
But we're also at the point where we need to become more realistic and more strategic about what's ahead. Part of that is about managing risk. How we will do that and with what kind of emergency workforce is something we must also begin to consider. While our Defence Force has always jumped to the task, dragging our forces away from training and deployment every time we have a disaster is not a long-term solution, with more frequent disasters predicted. We must consider developing a national disaster response force, with training and resources to match, if we are to manage the challenges we know are coming—just like we must take seriously giving vulnerable communities the tools for resilience. The events of the last year, in particular, have demonstrated that we have no more time to wait.
This legislation is a step in the right direction, but the money versus the cost of the damage is just a drop in the warming ocean. It's a reminder, too, of how much more there is to be done.
Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith—Assistant Minister for Defence, Assistant Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Assistant Minister for the Republic) (17:24): Firstly, can I offer our thoughts to those communities that are once again afflicted by flooding and are dealing with the consequences. I want to pay tribute to and thank the volunteers, council workers, emergency personnel and community who are on the ground doing incredible work, day and night, in preparing for the flooding disasters that we're seeing and in cleaning up. We've already seen that the new National Emergency Management Agency has had to work collaboratively with all levels of community and government affected by these floods that we're experiencing at the moment.
It turns out that the climate scientists were right! They've been warning for some decades now that we will experience an increase in the severity of weather events—particularly, in Australia, around flooding associated with increased rainfall and bushfires associated with the summer months—and that's exactly what is playing out. Unfortunately, many communities and many individual households and businesses have experienced that in having to deal with the flooding.
We all know that there is a cost associated with climate change. The previous government and those opposite have denied that. They've said that there's no cost associated with climate change—that you can get on with removing emissions trading schemes and with trying to remove the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and all these organisations that were devoted to encouraging an increase in renewables and a reduction in emissions so Australia did its bit to tackle climate change. They said that there was no cost; we didn't have to worry about it. But the economists and the climate scientists were saying, 'There will be a cost associated with climate change, and the longer you kick the can down the road, the more the cost will be.' Well, guess what, Madam Deputy Speaker? Communities that are afflicted by flooding at the moment are feeling that cost right now. Australians over the last decade have been feeling that cost, particularly during the bushfires—we've still got people living in temporary housing—and during the floods that we saw earlier this year, particularly around the Lismore area, where people still haven't been able to rebuild their homes. That is the cost of climate change, and that cost is only going to grow.
The Insurance Council of Australia last year estimated that the cost of natural disasters in Australia over the 2019-2020 period was $5.19 billion. That cost is going to grow. They expect that every year the average cost of natural disasters in Australia will be $18.2 billion, growing to $39 billion by 2050. The cost of climate change is going to be felt by Australians and it's going to grow. It will be principally felt through individuals', families' and companies' insurance premiums. Think about the notion of insurance. You are costing in a risk. You are looking at what the risk is going to be and factoring in a cost to insure people for that. What we've seen is that the risk is going to increase. That is the cost of climate change. It's going to feel its way into all of our insurance policies, not just those of people who are living in flood-prone areas or areas increasingly in danger of cyclones and bushfires. Each year, that cost is going to grow.
The Productivity Commission have had a look at this issue, and they've said that historically in Australia what we've done as a government and as a people is overinvest in post-disaster recovery and underinvest in mitigation. We all know you can't stop the weather. You can't stop the fact that we're probably going to have many more floods, bushfires and cyclones in the north of Australia, but what you can do is prepare communities to ensure that you reduce the risk of those extreme weather events doing damage and thereby reduce the cost to communities and the flow-on costs to people's insurance policies into the future. That is exactly what this bill is about.
The approach of the previous government, when it came to their Emergency Response Fund, was that all of the money associated with it was spent on post-disaster recovery—on clean-up—rather than on mitigation, and anything that wasn't spent was invested in markets to earn interest. What's the point of that when you have an increasing risk of damage associated with climate change and you are not spending the money allocated to the fund that has been specifically allocated to ensure that the government invests in mitigation infrastructure? We have seen that underinvestment and we have seen the damage that's been done to communities where we know there are natural floodplains, where we know there is the risk of flooding and where we know there is the risk of cyclones.
The former government had to play catch-up, and they played catch-up in a number of ways. There's the cyclone reinsurance pool in the north of Australia. Time will tell whether that will work, but it is a $10 billion guarantee backed by the government because insurers are pulling out of that market because they know that the risk is too high. You can't insure against something that's almost a certainty. Then we had the disastrous approach with the Emergency Response Fund and not investing in mitigation infrastructure.
The Albanese Labor government accepts that climate change is occurring. We accept the advice of climate scientists and economists who say that the costs associated with climate change are going to grow unless we invest in mitigation infrastructure, and that is exactly what this bill does. It ensures that the government establishes the Disaster Ready Fund, investing up to $200 million a year, matched by the states and territories, in disaster risk reduction and mitigation. The CSIRO has found that, for every dollar spent reducing disaster risk, it will save between $2 and $11 on disaster recovery and reconstruction.
The new government is also committing $38.3 million over four years, from 2022-23, for Disaster Relief Australia, a veteran led group doing wonderful work, so that they can scale-up their organisational capacity and operations, providing a significant increase of close to 5,000 additional volunteers to their existing disaster volunteer workforce by covering the uplift costs associated with recruitment, deployment, equipment and training.
This government's approach will be in complete contrast to the climate change denial and the lack of investment in mitigation infrastructure from the previous government. Instead of spending money solely on clean-up and recovery, this government will support communities when that occurs but also will invest up to $200 million a year in mitigation infrastructure to future-proof communities and individual families and businesses.
We're talking about things like building levees. I was fortunate to go to Roma in Central Queensland a few years ago. They had problems with flooding in the past. The river there would overflow quite regularly and inundate houses and businesses. Insurers were pulling out of that market because the risk was too great and they didn't want to lose money on what was becoming an ever-increasingly risky proposition. So the Gillard government, with the Campbell Newman government in Queensland, co-invested in the building of a levee. The levee has made a fundamental difference to the risk of flooding in Roma but also to insurance premiums. That risk is now mitigated, insurers are moving back into that market and households and businesses are able to access insurance at a reasonable cost. That is a classic example of governments working at state and federal levels to build mitigation infrastructure, to protect communities from the risk of climate change and to ensure that that money is being wisely invested.
That is exactly what this fund is about. It's about building those levees. It's about building those culverts. It's about providing the opportunity for people that live in fire-prone areas to future-proof their homes to ensure that they can reduce the risk of the monumental damage associated with bushfires.
There is also some great work going on in the north of Australia through the university sector up in Cairns and Townsville. They are developing homes that will be cyclone-proof into the future because they know that the risk is going to grow and grow and that that will have a cost for households and businesses through their insurance policies. This is something that the government in Australia should've been doing a decade ago. But we had that wasted opportunity under the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, where the denial of climate change and the fact that they put all of this on the back burner and kicked the can down the road meant that the climate scientists and the economists were right that the longer you delay the greater the cost. Communities are now feeling that cost. And governments, particularly the federal government, have had to intervene in markets—particularly in the north of Australia with the cyclone reinsurance pool—and back insurers to ensure that the risk is reduced and that you can have insurance maintained in those markets. If there had been some foresight by the government and some planning then potentially they wouldn't have had to do that. But because this government ignored the advice of those experts and kicked the can down the road we've now got those significant costs that are being undertaken and, unfortunately, those costs are going to grow and grow and grow.
The increasing threat of severe weather is likely to increase. The risk of damage, particularly to critical infrastructure, is going to grow. That's why Australia needs a Disaster Ready Fund, so that we are building that mitigation infrastructure to reduce those impacts—particularly of cyclone, flood and bushfires—on communities, households and businesses into the future. It demonstrates that this government takes the threat of climate change seriously and will do whatever it takes to ensure that we can, where possible, protect communities and the livelihoods of Australians.
Mr ROB MITCHELL (McEwen) (17:36): I rise to support the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022, noting that it implements an essential election commitment by Labor at the last election, an election commitment that was well received by our communities in McEwen. The implementation of this policy will see a vast improvement in our disaster readiness by investing up to $200 million every year to build resilience and prepare for and reduce the risk from future natural disasters.
We are acting where the last government failed abysmally. Who could forget the billions of dollars apparently committed to the former government's Emergency Response Fund sitting in the bank earning interest but doing absolutely nothing for communities suffering through disaster. In three years the ERF did not complete a single mitigation project or release one cent in recovery funding. Instead it earnt the government $800 million, taking it to nearly $5 billion all up, but nothing to show for it—not at thing. At least they were consistent over there—all announcement, no delivery. I can assure you that Labor will deliver.
There is an urgency in getting this done as we have seen the devastation caused by the recent flooding happening along the east coast of Australia. Communities like the ones I have, and the ones that you have as a neighbouring MP, are suffering through the impacts. But what's been really great is we've had a government that's been responsive and is getting there and helping.
We have no doubt that some of the effects of the recent flood events could've been mitigated if the last lot had done their jobs and protected local communities with the fund they created but never used. But no-one is surprised they couldn't get their act together. Labor is moving quickly to put this bill through so we can not only manage the recovery but also look forward to the future.
This is a matter that is incredibly important for our electorate of McEwen and for me personally having seen the impacts of these recent flooding events that have happened across our electorate. We are doing our best to support those that have been affected. I was able to get to one of the worst hit communities in the electorate last week, Darraweit Guim. Darraweit Guim, as I know you are aware, is as a small hamlet that has both Deep Creek and Boyd Creek running through it. While the community has withstood many flood incidents from either one of the two creeks over the past 30 years, this was different. This time both creeks flooded and it was nothing like the community had seen before. It was described by Viki Spedding, a Darraweit Guim local, to my team as, 'So big and fast and loud that it had a real fury to it.' Other residents talked about the roaring water that came past and through their homes. While these times can be incredibly traumatic and stressful for residents and their families, we can see the community embody the best of the Australian spirit.
In Darraweit Guim two-thirds of the community had been impacted, with the local primary school flooded and many properties becoming unsalvageable. One particular property will remain in my memory: Joanne and Neville Wests's home, which was scarred with water and debris marks that were almost six foot above the ground. Outside their beautiful weatherboard home they had gardens, but inside was where you really saw the impacts of the floods. Doors and walls were bowed from the rush of the flood. Mud and debris were strewn amongst their belongings and family possessions that can never be replaced. The family were quick to thank everyone who helped, especially the Wallan football club, whose young men arrived armed with brooms and shovels to clear the thick mud that was left behind.
Another example is how the local community gathered to protect the only business in Darraweit Guim, which is of course Darraweit Valley Cider. The community came together to protect the blossoms for next year's crop. Marc Serafino credited local volunteers in the Star Weekly and saidthatthe community volunteers 'came in and took all the debris off'. What could have been a job that would have taken weeks was done in two days. That gives them a chance to have the next crop come through and lessens the impacts that they are facing in their business. I did note today that they're talking about reopening next week. That is the strength and resilience of the people I represent throughout our region. Despite the devastation in the region, Darraweit Valley Cider is going on. Marc and Jenny's resilience is second to none.
Examples of this kind of community spirit really spurred me on when I had to fight to make sure that the residents of Darraweit Guim were able to receive all the funding available to other flood affected communities. It was in stark contrast to what we saw previously, because the Minister for Emergency Management, Murray Watt, and the Minister for Government Services, Bill Shorten, worked with me to make sure that this community could receive the support they needed. We should acknowledge and give real credit to Viki Spedding and Christine Craik for their dedicated efforts in helping the community navigate assistance from federal, state and council resources. Businesses and residents received the funding incredibly quickly. Darraweit Valley Cider said that they received federal funding within 15 minutes of entering their claim. That is the speed it happened.
I think back to the time of the 2014 Kilmore fires. The previous government—and it was Minister Keenan at the time, and I had very strong words with him in the parliament—didn't even set up an agency to help us. The communities were left for dead. I remember his words clearly to me, 'Sorry, we only contacted government members.' That was the way communities were treated under the former mess called the LNP government.
From Ash Wednesday to Black Saturday, through floods and storms we have seen the worse of what our environment has to offer. Our communities know that we can do better at protecting ourselves from these disasters and bouncing back from them, but they need support to do that. This government is committed to reducing the trauma, damage and loss of life we see all too often during natural disasters. It is involving communities in that work.
Recently in Nillumbik shire where I was pleased, along with my good friend and neighbour the member for Jagajaga, to announce a disaster risk reduction program that will help our communities be better prepared. The Victorian and federal governments have invested in the Nillumbik community connectors program. The cornerstone of this project is the Nillumbik community connectors program, which includes a series of workshops and skill-building activities that will empower local community members to identify risks relating to storms, heatwaves and other disasters. Participants will co-design a community led plan that includes triggers for when and how council should share information before, during and after heatwaves, storms and other emergencies. The community connectors will be able to represent the ideas and suggestions of the local community for how these disaster risks can be reduced. These projects and initiatives will be supported by council and agencies. The program will foster community ownership and leadership of place based disaster risk reduction efforts. What a great community based program that will be.
In addition to that we announced funding for an emergency management exercise. This will culminate in a storm scenario. It will involve council and emergency management agencies, including the Nillumbik Municipal Emergency Management Planning Committee and the Nillumbik community connectors. This will build upon the improved connections and capabilities developed through the project while strengthening collaboration between community, council and the agencies in all phases of emergency planning, preparedness, response and recovery. The exercise will be key to building disaster-resilient communities that are aware of local risks and invest in preparedness and risk mitigation. There are two great initiatives there in Nillumbik that are the sort of investment we need right across electorate and the country. No doubt that is why investing up to $200 million per year on resilience projects was recommended by the Productivity Commission in the 2015 report into national disaster funding and is supported by insurers, local governments and disaster relief bodies.
This investment in resilience will go a long way to underpinning the good work already being done in our community not only to protect lives and property but also to reduce the impact on taxpayers when it comes to the aftermath of disaster. It's the approach of the fence at the top of the hill rather than the ambulance at the bottom. It will also ensure that the National Emergency Management Agency has the appropriate powers and arrangements in place to administer payments for the DRF.
I know how much support a program like this has in the communities across our electorates, and I was also pleased to see that it is supported by ALGA and the Insurance Council of Australia. Labor is going to deliver on this commitment. I know our communities will benefit greatly from this program because it's so important and we've been through it, but we only get through it because we work together and we stick fast and stick strong. One of the great things that you see when you go through things like Ash Wednesday, Black Saturday, the Kilmore fires and the Macedon storms we had last year and this year—these ever-increasing and increasingly severe storms and the impacts they have—is the way that our community bands together. It doesn't matter if it's, rain, hail, sleet or snow; people will be there helping. The one thing that has always been missing is a federal government that's actually committed to addressing problems caused by climate change and make sure that risk mitigation was in place. That's why it's so important that we get this through and get it through very quickly. That's why I will be supporting this bill and commend it to the House.
Mr CHANDLER-MATHER (Griffith) (17:47): Australia is in the middle of shocking climate-fuelled natural disasters, in particular the terrible floods affecting so much of this country at the moment—indeed, floods that deeply affected my electorate of Griffith earlier this year. We know it's only going to get worse as the globe continues to heat up with the expansion of coal and gas that is driving this climate crisis. Of course, with more fires, floods and storms to come with ever greater frequency as a result of climate change, the Greens welcome any money spent on mitigation of natural disasters.
But let's put this into context. The Insurance Council of Australia has said that, just for coastal protection, we need an extra $30 billion of large-scale investment over the next 50 years. That's $600 million a year. Compare it to the $40 billion spent on fossil fuel subsidies in the budget or the fact there is literally extra in the budget to open up the Beetaloo gas basin, which will produce many more times the emissions of Adani, further driving the climate crisis. It actually includes an extra $1.9 billion to facilitate the export of that gas from the Northern Territory.
We know that the expansion of coal and gas mining is driving the climate disaster, so why is the government doling out billions of dollars that will literally accelerate the climate crisis while only giving $200 million to mitigate the consequences of that crisis? Let's be clear about the impacts of labour's plan to expand coal and gas mining. We know the scientists have told us that 95 per cent of Australia's coal has to stay in the ground to avoid dangerous global warming. Climate change means more of our rainfall coming the form of intense downpours, more moisture in the atmosphere and more energy for storms, all of which ramp up the risk of flooding.
Under 2½ degrees of warning, the most devastating cyclones are projected to occur twice as often as they are today. The number of people suffering extreme droughts across the world could double in less than 80 years. By 2030, fire seasons could be three months longer in areas already exposed to wildfires. In Western Australia, for example, this would add up to three months of days with high wildfire potential. In 2019 we saw what a devastating effect bushfires can have on Australia.
Australia will already experience—this is already locked in on the heating that's already going to happen—one-in-50-year storm surges every year by the year 2050 no matter what we do. The frustrating thing is that this bill provides no new money for dealing with natural disasters. It simply shuffles a little bit of extra cash into disaster preparations at the cost of funding for recovery. When the next flood, bushfire or cyclone hits, that clean-up money will have to come from somewhere else.
The $200 million for climate disaster mitigation and $40 billion to accelerate climate change really demonstrate the broken priorities of this budget. What's worse is that ultimately it will be ordinary people who will pay for the expansion of coal and gas, the fuelling of the climate crisis and the more frequent natural disasters that will follow, not the coal and gas corporations that are driving this crisis. It will be ordinary people who will pay through higher insurance premiums and higher grocery bills if floods disrupt food production and drive up prices. They will pay to clean up. They will pay through the emotional devastation that comes with the loss of homes, communities and sometimes, tragically, loved ones.
Indeed, I saw firsthand in Brisbane from the floods this year the devastating effect disasters can have on local communities. As we mobilised our volunteers to help clean up after the devastation, it struck me how deeply unfair it was that, while all this was happening, coal and gas corporations were reporting record profits. It was deeply frustrating in particular because I spoke to people like single mums who were having to sleep on couches because they couldn't afford the rent for a new place after their old place had flooded. Meanwhile, people like Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer were recording record profits. So many families who lost everything, families who did not have insurance, were forced to sleep on the couches of friends. They did it incredibly tough.
It really should be the coal and gas corporations that pay. If we properly tax coal and gas as we phase them out over the next 10 years, we could build a sovereign wealth fund of hundreds of billions of dollars. Norway—like other countries around the world—have properly taxed their resource industry and now have a sovereign wealth fund of over $1 trillion. Imagine what we could do. In that way we could mitigate natural disasters by finally tackling climate change, phasing out coal and gas and investing tens of billions of dollars in protecting our communities from the natural disasters we already know are to come.
Sitting suspended from 17 : 52 to 17 : 54
Mrs PHILLIPS (Gilmore) (17:54): Today is a really exciting day, and I'm so pleased to be able to add my support to the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022. My electorate of Gilmore, on the New South Wales South Coast, knows a thing or two about disasters. We have had multiple droughts, bushfires and floods, all in the last few years. The bushfires were nothing short of horrific. They burned most of my electorate, destroying hundreds of homes and millions of animals, and devastating the environment and lives. We are still dealing with the aftermath of those bushfires today. People are still without homes, and they are still dealing with the trauma. The environment is still in recovery. Sometimes it is hard to see a silver lining, but, in this instance, I do like to think that the positive to our devastating experience is this Disaster Ready Fund.
In the weeks following the bushfires in early 2020, I took Labor's entire shadow cabinet to Batemans Bay so that they could see firsthand what had happened. I brought along Warren Sharpe, the then director of infrastructure at Eurobodalla Shire Council, to share his experience and thoughts on a way forward. Warren was a steady presence throughout the bushfires. He led and guided council's response and spent countless hours at the makeshift emergency operations centre. He lived and breathed what was happening around him. His speech to the shadow cabinet that day was emotive, raw and real. Many of the shadow ministers who were present that day have told me what an impact Warren's speech had on them and that it stayed with them. Many of those shadow ministers are now ministers in this government. Warren recently retired from council, an incredible loss for all of the Eurobodalla. I want to sincerely thank him for his years of hard work and advocacy, particularly in the disaster management space. You're an asset to our community, Warren, and you will be missed. I wish him all the best.
I also want to make special mention here of the Minister for Emergency Management, Senator Murray Watt. Murray is an absolutely fabulous emergency management minister and a great friend. What has made him a great minister is being on the ground listening to people impacted by so many natural disasters around the country for years. He knows his stuff. He's been there, and he is really passionate about it. The minister visited the South Coast in the wake of those bushfires on many occasions. He travelled with me through Conjola Park, one of the hardest hit areas of the Shoalhaven, very soon after the bushfires. As we drove down one particular street, we saw a group of people sitting on a picnic table out the front of what used to be their home, looking out over the blackened forest to the lake—an eerie sight. We stopped to hear their stories. Murray listened intently, as he did everywhere he went, to the owners of the bait shop in Burrill Lake. They were afraid their business wouldn't make it.
I want to thank everyone in our community who shared their stories with me and with the many shadow ministers who visited the South Coast over the last few years, because now we have this legislation. The stories we heard about the woeful state of the Eurobodalla emergency operations centre, being run out of a hall in Moruya and off tables from Bunnings, mean that we will now, through last night's budget, deliver funding for a new emergency operations precinct for the Eurobodalla, a dedicated precinct for all our emergency services to be based in one place in Moruya, with fit-for-purpose buildings, fit-for-purpose equipment and no tables from Bunnings.
I started calling for this after my very first visit to the Moruya emergency operations centre during the bushfires. The Shoalhaven has one of these precincts already. I have spent countless hours there since my election due to bushfires, floods and more. It was mind-boggling to me that the Eurobodalla didn't have a facility anywhere near that one in comparison. I could see the difference it could make and how badly it was needed. I walked out of that hall that very first day and vowed to get them a proper EOC. Thanks to the Albanese government, now they will have one. It is really exciting.
One of the other things that happened during the bushfires that has really stayed with local people is the loss of telecommunications and the loss of power. It left us all in an incredibly vulnerable and dangerous position. So, as part of the Disaster Ready Fund, we will spend $750,000 to fireproof the Mount Wandera transmission tower, something that Warren Sharpe advocated strongly for because it would make sure that local people don't lose telecommunications in an emergency. Mount Wandera is the main telecommunications infrastructure for the whole of the Eurobodalla, so this is a hugely important project.
Another fabulous local advocate, Trevor Daly from the Durras Community Association, shared his community's harrowing experience with me, with the now Minister for Emergency Management and with the now Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. Durras has one road in and one road out. They lost power, they lost telecommunications and it was terrifying. Trevor wanted an NBN cable put underground so that it wouldn't be vulnerable to disasters. He also wanted the power poles that line the road into the town from the highway to be upgraded from timber to composite poles so that they could withstand fire. So, as part of the Disaster Ready Fund, we will spend $221,000 to do this. It doesn't sound like much in the scheme of a $1 billion fund, but it is so important for this community.
Many people may also have heard the stories about hundreds of people stranded on the Princes Highway as they tried to escape the bushfires. One other thing the South Coast is famous for—and it's no compliment—is our infamous mobile black spots. Many of those people stranded also didn't have mobile phone reception. Just imagine being in the middle of nowhere, with no mobile phone, stuck and knowing a bushfire is coming. It was horrifying. It was terrifying. And it should never have happened.
So we are working to make sure it doesn't happen again. As part of the budget announced last night, we will spend $5 million to fix the mobile black spots along the Princes Highway, from Ulladulla to Tuross Head in my electorate and right down to Eden in the wonderful member for Eden-Monaro's electorate. We will also spend another $3 million to fix mobile black spots in Jamberoo, Kangaroo Valley, Worrigee and Lilli Pilli. Making sure people can stay connected is one of my top priorities.
We must be more resilient; we must be better prepared. We won't let a dollar go to waste. These are the things that this Disaster Ready Fund can do—the difference that we can make now as the Albanese government. This is a $1 billion fund to mitigate potential disaster loss and damage. It is critical. It will save lives. It will make sure that our devastating experience during the bushfires hasn't all been in vain. I listened to the stories from our community. The trauma our community experienced and continues to experience because we weren't well-enough prepared cannot be overstated. It has had a lasting impact that can never be erased.
Along with everyone in our community, I too lived the traumatic experience that was the 2019-2020 bushfires. I've been right there on the ground with our community every day since as we try and recover. I've heard so many stories of tragedy, of resilience and of fantastic community spirit. It brought us together—bound us together in a way that is hard to describe. It was a shared lived experience. Listening to these stories, you cannot help but be moved into action. I took those stories back to the shadow ministry. They listened and they acted, and now the Albanese government has put real steps in place to build a better future. It will make a tangible difference in Gilmore and on the South Coast. It will make a tangible difference across the country. I am proud to be a part of that.
Thank you to absolutely everyone who contributed to this. I commend the bill to the House.
Ms STEGGALL (Warringah) (18:03): I rise to speak on the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022. We know climate change is real for Australia and the rest of the world but in particular for us as we are a continent incredibly exposed. There are immediate and deepening risks to our natural environment, economy and way of life. I welcome the government's initiative in shifting disaster and emergency spending from reactive recovery to adaptation and mitigation measures. We need to start being a more preventative policymaking institution here. The governments of the day need to start focusing on the long, long-term planning that is required to tackle a challenge like global warming.
This bill changes the name of the Emergency Response Fund to the Disaster Ready Fund. It's sad to think that we have to be ready for disasters, but it certainly is a more preventative approach. It allows up to $200 million per annum to be debited from the Disaster Ready Fund for natural disaster resilience and risk reduction, allows the responsible ministers to adjust the maximum disbursement amount via a disallowable legislative instrument, facilitates the transfer of responsibility for fund expenditure to the National Emergency Management Agency, and streamlines administrative arrangements in relation to transfers from the fund. They're all quite administrative aspects, but, when we are trying to build resilience for communities to ensure they are ready for disasters, it is important that these processes are streamlined and not unnecessarily bureaucratic.
I welcome the commitment to proactively spend the money set aside in the fund. Mitigation and adaptation projects will tangibly benefit Australians by lessening the impact of extreme weather events brought on by the climate crisis. The recent floods across much of the east coast of Australia, less than two years after the devastating 2019-20 bushfires, are a reminder of those risks and the devastating impacts they have on our communities.
It was clear during the royal commission into our response to the bushfires that there had been warnings that had not been heard and heeded, and that there were aspects of preparation that could have been attended to that may well have mitigated the extent of some of the disaster for some communities. So it is really important that we shift towards a more preventative approach to policy.
We have to talk about the health risks of unmitigated climate change, which really cannot be understated. The WHO has classified climate change as a defining issue for public health in the 21st century. It's essential that we address these challenges head-on and do our best to mitigate the risks of climate change before they occur rather than spending so much, primarily on recovery, after disasters have already occurred.
There is absolutely no sense in hiding behind statements that these are 'one-in-1,000-year floods' or that these are 'unprecedented events'. The reality is that, as the science and so much of the global community have warned us time and time again, these events are going to be exacerbated, they are going to be accelerating, they are going to be more frequent and they are going to be more and more extreme and severe, which means they will cost more in human lives and in the lives of native birds and other fauna. They will cost more in disruption to our communities and they will certainly cost more in repair. So all work to do that adaptation piece is incredibly important.
In the Climate Change (National Framework for Adaptation and Mitigation) Bill 2021, which I presented in the last parliament, I outlined the need—it was a key component of that legislation—for national climate change risk assessment to properly prioritise our next steps in mitigating climate change as a nation. During the course of the inquiry in relation to that bill, it was astounding that the New South Wales association of local government acknowledged that there was no coordinated national risk assessment process. It was astounding to learn that we have public infrastructure worth some $212 billion along the east coast exposed to global warming impacts. When I asked the then minister for the environment, who was responsible for that response to risk assessments, whether we had a national risk assessment process, the answer was no. I think it's really telling that, in a continent where we are so exposed, we're not even prepared to acknowledge, prepare for and assess the level of risk.
I welcome the government's commitment in yesterday's budget to establishing a national climate change risk assessment and the allocation of $9.3 million over the next four years to build climate risk management capabilities and systems. I strongly encourage the government to establish ongoing processes and five-year plans, as I proposed, to improve the mitigation programs that will be supported by the funds. We've heard many contributions in this place about how devastating some of the natural events we've had in recent years have been for those communities. We need to make sure there is a regular process of risk assessment, adaptation and planning that goes with acknowledging those risks.
Aside from informing mitigation and adaptation programs, the proposed five-year plans would allow an adaptive response to the identified risk, which is relevant both nationally and regionally for economic sectors including agriculture, biodiversity, national parks, marine parks, health, energy, transport services, education, planning, construction, infrastructure and so many more. Furthermore, proper risk assessments encourage investment in critical infrastructure to cope with the increase of severe weather events and to inform insurers and the community alike of the risks they face.
Once we assess the risk, we have to have a very clear and accountable process to make sure we put in place adaptation planning. It's something that, again, I had proposed, and I have had discussions with the minister in respect of the need to implement that as a regular aspect. Risk assessment and national adaptation planning, once produced, can include—and this is important for communities—the objective to protect against and mitigate those risks with strategies, policies and proposals for meeting those objectives; time frames to implement strategies, policies and proposals; and measures and indicators to monitor progress and how the strategies will be funded.
This bill comes at a crucial time. The CSIRO report into our future world predicts that, for the decade ahead, escalating impacts of unprecedented weather events highlight the urgency to invest in climate adaptation and preparation. The Insurance Council of Australia has indicated that insurance is already becoming more difficult to access due to the rising premiums after insurers recorded over $13 billion in claims cost over the two years following the Black Summer fires of 2019 and 2020. It was welcome that in the budget delivered yesterday there was some $25 million over five years to improve insurance availability and affordability. We know the predictions of how many households will be uninsurable by 2050. It is up to a million. That poses a serious question for communities and individuals. It poses a serious problem when it comes to lendability for credit for banks. The climate risk associated becomes too big for that mortgage portfolio. There are really serious questions that need to be addressed when it comes to those ongoing impacts of climate.
The Australia state of the environment report found that we're in rapidly changing climate with unsustainable use of our resources contributing to the deterioration of our environment. Immediate action with innovative management and collaboration can turn things around. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I wrote to the then government, urging them to provide support to communities through the disaster recovery fund to assist with recovery from COVID-19.
We know that during lockdown periods it was incredibly important for governments, both state and federal, to come up with mechanisms to deliver assistance to local businesses as quickly and efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, the definition of 'natural disasters' did not allow for 'pandemic' to be recognised. Payments under the mechanism would have been effective and simple to administer using existing processes through Services Australia, and that would have been of great assistance during, for example, the Christmas lockdown on the northern beaches in 2020-21. Unfortunately, that request was denied on the basis that the definition of 'natural disasters' did not extend to pandemics, but we do know from the WHO that the risk of pandemics is incredibly increased as a result of warming global temperatures, so I think it is important for the government to consider the definition of 'natural disasters' and whether or not 'pandemic' should also be included to ensure we have a prompt process to roll out assistance. I encourage the government to consider broadening the definition to include pandemics as there is no other existing mechanism to rapidly deal with such dire situations as we found ourselves in on multiple occasions over the past three years. Further, I believe it to be appropriate for some of the Disaster Ready Fund to be invested in pandemic preparedness.
I welcome this bill and the government's commitment to proactive measures of mitigation and adaptation to natural disasters. The impacts of climate change are already baked into our environment, and we need to assess what the risks are, adapt to them and mitigate them as best as possible. Australians know that this is true. We are seeing this on a daily basis with the floods that have been running across the east coast of the country for the past year. I welcome the changes in this legislation, but I urge the government: (1) to develop a plan to conduct regular national climate risk assessments; (2) to develop regular mitigation and adaptation plans in response to those national climate risk assessments; and (3) to consider broadening the definition of natural disasters to include pandemics to provide a shovel-ready tool to distribute funds in the event of future events such as COVID-19.
Mr WOLAHAN (Menzies) (18:15): I have the great fortune of being in a city seat in Melbourne that also touches the fringes of the outskirts of regional Victoria. I've got the suburbs of Wonga Park, North Warrandyte, Warrandyte and Warrandyte South. Within those communities are four country fire authorities: the Wonga Park CFA and the North Warrandyte, Warrandyte and Warrandyte South CFAs. When I visit them, and I have been to many of their awards, it's such a treat to meet members of your community who have other jobs—they're tradesmen, lawyers, people who work in sales and retail—and here they are, giving up their time during the week to do training and on the weekend to go and help prevent fires.
More than that, they've signed a contract with their life. They have put their life on the line to defend our community when the call is made. That's a real risk. One of the first things I did as a candidate was to speak to one of the captains of those CFAs. I said, 'What is your fear about Warrandyte and a Marysville type scenario?' He said, 'It's not if; it's when.' I hope he is wrong on that. His view is that there will be a date when devastation will come through that community full of families. That's something I know the local police, the local council and the CFAs practice and rehearse again and again. We hear so often about one-in-100-year events, from financial crises to floods to pandemics, but here in Australia, in this continent, natural disasters are more than one-in-100-year events; they're a part of life. So it is right and proper that we consider that.
My next-door neighbour is the member for Casey, and I had the great honour of hearing his first speech in the main chamber. I was sitting just in front of him and I looked up. I didn't have a preview of what he was going to say. He described the Black Saturday experience that he had. He described a moment where he looked at his now wife, who was his partner, and thought, 'I've done something that will get us both killed,' but they survived. I was waiting for the detail, but he moved on. Then we were out at dinner and I said, 'Tell us what happened.' He goes, 'I didn't want to say it because I couldn't get the words out without crying.' I'll tell you what he said.
He was driving through Yarra Glen, which is not far from Lilydale. In an hour, you could be in the CBD of Melbourne. On that day, he was driving out of Yarra Glen and he saw this firestorm in the distance. He thought, 'I'll keep driving east, and then turn north and get out of it.' By the time he had travelled east 500 metres and turned north, that firestorm had completely engulfed him and his car. He couldn't see anything except red fire and smoke. He thought, 'I've killed my future wife,' but he put his foot down and kept going and somehow went through the other side. I said, 'In that moment, what did you say to each other?' He said, 'I said, "I love you," and she said the same back.' He had that glimpse of what we think of in the worst of times. It brings out the best in us.
He got through the other side, pulled the car over, looked back and thought: 'Oh my God. The poor people who are in that.' All across Victoria, in many different areas—Marysville and other areas—people didn't get out. But what we do know is that members of the Country Fire Authority weren't driving out; they were driving into it. That's what they've signed up to do. When I think of Warrandyte, I think of the families that are there. Whenever I visit the schools, I now ask, 'What is your evacuation centre for the children?' These things come on so quickly. Parents are in the city and the children are studying. They would be terrified. You don't want cars moving in lots. They've tried to turn basketball courts and production theatres into evacuation centres. This bill is seeking to do just that—make sure that we are preparing in advance to save lives. They are mostly young people, who rely on us to care for them.
It is not a perfect bill and it is not one that is without flaws. We do note that, as there is a lot of money in the fund, perhaps some better transparency is required about how it will be looked after and how it will be distributed. There's no definition of what constitutes 'mitigation' or 'disaster prevention' projects. In the last few weeks, I have been poring over the National Anti-Corruption Commission Bill. That's going to loom large over everything we do in this building and the Public Service. But, short of corruption—and no-one wants that—it's just about proper management of money. It's a lot of money and it's important that it's allocated well.
We also note that the minister refers to 'consultation on guidelines to be held with stakeholders'. But who are the stakeholders? What are the guidelines? Sometimes bills with the best of intentions head off on tangents that none of us expect because the press knocks on the door, makes the call, gets their voice heard and takes it down a path that we didn't expect. This is a feature of US politics that thankfully we don't see too much of here. They will have a headline for an act or a bill and within the bill there's foreign policy, new bases, a new aircraft carrier for someone and new roads. There's all this horse trading that goes on behind the scenes. So we have to make sure that when we set up funds like this we haven't in other ways—
A division having b een called in the House of Representatives—
Sitting suspended from 18:22 to 18 : 3 3
Mr WOLAHAN: I started talking about the wonderful CFAs that I have in my corner of the world in Warrandyte. I'd like to mention to my colleagues who are sitting to my left that your Greens candidate for Menzies is a wonderful person. We actually became quite good friends. He lives in North Warrandyte and runs this Facebook group about supporting platypuses. I've checked it and had a look. He's a former journalist. The community love it and they love the work that he does. He also won the primary in North Warrandyte, so he'd be the member for North Warrandyte if that were a booth. He's a wonderful person. We had lovely conversations on prepoll about all sorts of things. It's a unique part of the electorate.
I want to give particular recognition to the councillors that cover those areas. Again, as a candidate, in order to find out all I could about a particular area, I reached out to all of the 11 councillors that cover my seat. The City of Manningham is entirely within Menzies, but there's one ward from Nillumbik, and then there are a few from Whitehorse. I've been thoroughly impressed. They're from all sorts of political backgrounds and stripes and persuasions, but each is a person who understands and knows their community. The councillor who covers Warrandyte, Carli, took me on a lovely drive around her electorate. I keep coming back to Warrandyte, but it's the one area that I think will benefit most from this particular bill. She took me up and through North Warrandyte, out to Wonga Park. She pointed out—I won't say his address—the residence of the very famous John Farnham, who lives in Wonga Park. John Farnham hasn't had a great time lately; he has been unwell. But, from media reports, he has sort of come through.
Again, there's a unique perspective on life there that I think this bill will speak to, and I will always be their representative, working hand-in-hand with the councils as well as the state member, Ryan Smith, to help people. God forbid that one day something horrible happens. Wherever we are, I know we will stop what we're doing and get to our committees to help in the best way that we can. There are a lot of things you can do in advance and there are a lot of things that can be done in the immediate aftermath. Again, this particular fund will be very important for providing that assistance. I probably had my train of thought broken, but I'll finish early. I commend the bill.
Ms WATSON-BROWN (Ryan) (18:37): Are we ready for disaster? Only last weekend, in Ryan, we thought we had to be again, a mere eight months on from the last one, from which so many have not yet recovered. The Bureau started sending out urgent warnings of impending possible flooding. There were pings on phones in the middle of the night. We're all hypervigilant at the moment. In Victoria, we've seen unprecedented flooding over the last month. Lismore was issued an evacuation order again, only eight months out from their last devastating floods. When this La Nina year ends, it will be bushfires again before too long, and my home electorate of Ryan, with its enormous stretches of beautiful bushland, is also at risk here. Climate change is here, it's getting worse, and we have to be ready.
We in our electorate office have been meeting, planning, taking advice from locals, getting a picture of what dozens of remarkable volunteer organisations across Ryan have been doing and building relationships so we can support them and help the community look after itself. That's how we see it; we see our role as using the resources of our office and our vast network of Greens volunteers not to replace the work of these groups but to complement and support them. In fact, one of the most encouraging things I've found since beginning this work is getting to understand the depth and breadth of community action in this area. It's actually quite astounding how many amazing groups there are doing this work. We have the Bellbowrie-Moggill Community-led Disaster Management Group, who are doing incredible disaster preparedness planning for the Moggil-Bellbowrie-Anstead area, coordinating resources, communication and crisis accommodation. We have the 4070 & 4069 Action Group building community in their areas, pushing for community led solutions to things like the isolation of the Moggil-Bellbowrie area during floods. There's SOWN, Save Our Waterways Now, keeping creeks and waterways healthy and flowing by removing rubbish and weeds and revegetating.
We recently met the amazing team at Brookfield Rural Fire Brigade, a volunteer run organisation protecting the large area of bushland in our electorate, including through hazard reduction. Other groups include: the Mandalay Progress Association—and I went to their festival the other day—formed after the 1974 floods and still going strong; the Gap Sustainability Initiative, which is pushing for a range of sustainability initiatives in their particular area, including energy security; Meals on Wheels, who fed so many people in need during the February floods; BrisWes Connect; and Transition Town. There are great environmental groups, like the Wilderness Society, Moggill Creek Catchment Group and Cubberla-Witton Catchments Network. We've got social assistance groups like the Indooroopilly Uniting Church refugee hub, who look after some of the most vulnerable, Picabeen community services, Lions and rotary clubs and women's groups. The list goes on and on.
This is just a sample of the extraordinary community initiatives across Ryan. There are so many more, as well as new ones forming all the time—great volunteer led groups doing essential work. In fact, 45 very worthy Ryan volunteer led groups applied for grants recently, and we were very happy to be able to award 23 of them. I really feel that all these groups are the social infrastructure of Ryan, and they're what gets our community through when disaster strikes. I also recently had the good fortune of meeting the incredible group of people behind Sweltering Cities, who are doing excellent work fighting to climate-proof Western Sydney—a great example of the type of community initiative happening all across Australia.
But, as amazing as all these groups are—rolling up their sleeves, putting on the gumboots, getting out the generators, organising sandbags, food, shelter and clean-ups, and proactively creating more sustainable and resilient neighbourhoods—they need real support. To do that, they need funding, and that funding needs to focus on preparedness, not just 'clean up after the fact' assistance.
This bill does propose to repurpose the existing Emergency Response Fund to focus on disaster mitigation and risk reduction, on building resilience and on preparing for future natural disasters. This is welcome. But there is one problem: there's no more money in the fund. It's just shifting the same amount of money from before, from disaster recovery to disaster preparedness. Anyone living in my electorate of Ryan or in places like Lismore or Melbourne, in fact, will tell you we need an overall increase in the funding for dealing with disasters. Anyone who lost their houses or who choked through the 2019 bushfires will tell you the same thing.
This new disaster readiness fund includes only $200 million a year for the whole country. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't cut it. Whole cities and suburbs need major redesigns of infrastructure, planning and development to prepare for the increased extreme weather events that are being driven by climate change. Emergency accommodation, escape routes, buying back properties on flood plains, building new evacuation centres, retrofitting homes to deal with heatwaves, creating new firebreaks, restoring creek ways and developing new drainage systems: all of this is going to cost into the tens or hundreds of billions. So any expenditure here has to be seen as an investment in the future. The Insurance Council of Australia has said that we need to spend $30 billion in large-scale coastal investment over the next 50 years. That's $600 million a year, every year, just to protect against storm surges, erosion and sea-level rise.
I'd like to bring it back home to what this means for my electorate of Ryan. We have an entire section of the electorate that gets totally cut off from the rest of the city in floods. This is the Moggill-Bellbowrie area. As a note, the word 'Moggill' comes from 'magil', meaning water dragon, and 'Bellbowrie' means 'place of flowering gums' in the original language, which are beautiful descriptors of the natural, original character of the place. These days, it's an area of high population with limited social infrastructure, relying on one road in and out. That's Moggill Road, which is cut off by floodwater at more than three points when it floods.
While the locals are doing that incredible job coordinating and looking after each other, they shouldn't be cut off in the first place. What many locals are calling for is very reasonable: a bridge from Bellbowrie and across the river to Wacol or Riverhills—a bridge that would operate for buses, cyclists and pedestrians in normal times but that, during emergencies, would function as an escape route from both floods and fires and a way to get crucial supplies to support the area. This is a really good example of essential, urgent disaster readiness infrastructure. The cost for a bridge like this, even at the lowest estimates, could be around $300 million—and that's one piece of critical infrastructure. How many similar projects are needed across the country? How is $200 million a year supposed to cover all of them? This doesn't even begin to cover the kind of community infrastructure that would allow that area to be more resilient, self-sufficient and prepared. We owe it to Moggill, Bellbowrie, Pullenvale and Anstead people.
Compared to the scale of what we need to keep our communities safe from the effects of climate change, this $200 million for disaster preparedness is obviously deeply inadequate. But, compared to what this government is funding in this budget, it's actually quite stunning. We've just seen Labor commit $2 billion of public money—new cash—for expanding the gas industry. The budget also contains $40 billion plus in fossil fuel subsidies. It contains $254 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy. The government is going to be spending upwards of $170 billion on nuclear submarines. Even just highway upgrades will cost this budget billions each year. But only $200 million a year for preparing for disasters that threaten Australians' lives and livelihoods and the economy? Come on, people! I think we've got to do better than that.
When the minister introduced this bill, she said that the management of climate change and its impacts was, and I quote, 'one of the most important issues that faces our country'. If that's the case, why does it rank so desperately low in the government's spending priorities? This government has a lot of rhetoric about addressing climate change, but, when you dig a little deeper, you find support for new coal and gas, and you find that the investment in keeping our communities safe just isn't there. When the original bill, which was the Emergency Response Fund Bill 2019, was brought in by the coalition, the Greens raised concerns not just about the inadequate scale of the fund but about the way the fund worked. These real concerns about the original bill, like ministerial discretion to expend significant funds with absolutely limited guidance and scrutiny, remain. In fact, we're concerned that those very issues may become more acute under the proposed pivot from reactive to proactive spending. The fund also suffers from the fact that the amount available each year is tied to the earnings on a capital fund. If the stock markets take a hit one year, we mightn't even be able to fund the $200 million. This money should be guaranteed, not reliant on the ebbs and flows of financial stocks and derivatives. Climate change won't wait for the stock market to recover. In the ultimate irony, among the corporations that this $2 million invests in—guess what?—there are coal and gas companies. The fossil fuel industry is the root cause of the problems. That is some kind of perverse, inverted, circular economy, I reckon, feeding off itself and creating ever-more-difficult disasters.
Instead of our disaster readiness fund investing in the very corporations who are causing more extreme and frequent disasters, another thing that the Greens said back in 2019 was that this fund should be expanded by instituting a levy on coal and gas corporations. Since then, we've had devastating, deadly bushfires and repeated, unprecedented floods. And, since then, we've also had record profits for coal and gas corporations. Coal and gas companies have known for decades that burning their products would lead to exactly the effects we're seeing today, but they keep doing it anyway. They have made, and continue to make, enormous profits while causing dangerous climate change. With that in mind, I think it's only fair and rational to impose a levy on these big corporations to fund the billions in disaster preparedness that Australia, obviously, desperately needs. That's the message: no new coal and gas, phase out fossil fuels and, in their dying days, tax these big fossil fuel corporations to fund disaster preparedness and renewables. I don't think that's a radical proposal. The radical proposal is that we can keep tinkering around the edges when the effects of climate change are bearing down on us and devastating our communities with predictable regularity.
Mr BATES (Brisbane) (18:49): Natural disasters across the country are becoming more frequent and more intense. We are feeling them right across Australia. Even as I stand here speaking here now, people living in New South Wales and Victoria are being subjected to intense rainfall and flooding. This is at one degree of warming.
In my home electorate of Brisbane, the city council recently released an updated flood map for the city. This map shows the extent to which Brisbane is susceptible to climate change induced increases in rainfall and flooding. Residents of Brisbane already knew the widespread devastation that resulted from the floods earlier this year, but to have it shown to them on a map of their city was truly confronting. We saw suburbs that had never previously flooded now being inundated. We saw communities that had previously flooded now being even more severely affected. This is at one degree of warming.
Local businesses in Albion are now increasingly anxious whenever rain sets in. It is not just flash flooding and rising creek levels that can impact them but also now dam releases if these are not done early enough before the wet season. Residents in Stafford saw their backyards shrink by as much 10 metres as rushing waters of the Kedron Brook inundated their homes and properties. A once quiet stream turned into a fast-flowing river carrying shipping containers and debris for miles.
Many residents of Brisbane are now no longer able to get insurance on their properties due to the impacts of climate change on their homes and communities. These more frequent disasters cause immense damage to agriculture, our food sources and supply chains, pushing up prices and making a bad situation even worse. This is at one degree of warming.
When it comes to these climate fuelled disasters mitigation must be the way forward. It is not enough to rely on the resilience of the people in this country every single time a natural disaster occurs. Communities should not be expected to quite literally rebuild their streets, suburbs and even towns every few years, or even more frequently. It is the role of government to keep people safe and to mitigate the risks posed by climate change, especially since successive governments over decades have ignored science and advice from global experts about the damage to individuals, communities and the economy that climate change will cause. Supporting mitigation efforts in communities is the very least that we can do.
This bill is simply a rebranding of the Emergency Response Fund. This bill shifts $150 million set aside for disaster recovery to instead sit with the $50 million spent on public works to minimise the impacts of natural disasters before they hit. There's no new money. Even the Insurance Council of Australia, as my colleague the member for Ryan quoted—and I will quote it again—has stated that we need to spend $30 billion over the next 50 years on large-scale coastal mitigation to protect communities against increasing storm surges, erosion and rising sea levels. That is around $600 million a year. The $200 million a year the government is proposing is not enough, and our communities deserve better. This bill is not spending any new money while it is relying on stock market returns to ensure the fund stays topped up.
Perhaps the most glaring issue here is where this money comes from. The fund is allowed to invest in the very companies that are causing the climate crisis, like Santos, ExxonMobil and Whitehaven. For climate mitigation and infrastructure, Australians are being asked to rely on the stock market returns of the fossil fuel companies causing this damage. The government is choosing to rely on the ever-increasing performance and profitability of the fossil fuel industry as part of its climate policy.
The Greens believe that we should be making these fossil fuel giants pay their fair share of tax to fund the services that we need. We should not be investing in fossil fuel companies to prop them up and support our communities, because these companies are serial tax avoiders. They shift huge amounts of their profits offshore. They pay some of the lowest royalties in the world, receive billions each year in subsidies, send us the bill for the mess they make and donate millions to the major parties to get away with it. We should not be handing out money to and investing heavily in the fossil fuel industry.
With another La Nina event being declared, communities in Brisbane are anxious. They reach out to my office every single day. We are already experiencing a wet spring and we know that the rain will continue into the summer. I want the people of Brisbane to know that my office has put together a flood information sheet with key information and points of contact. We will be distributing this to every single household in the electorate. We will also be seeking community leaders and volunteers to express their interest in participating in any flood clean-up efforts with us.
I want the people of Brisbane to know that I have their back and I will keep fighting for them. The Greens and I will keep pushing for more to be spent on climate change mitigation in our communities. We want to stop the billions in subsidies to fossil fuel companies and we want to make sure our country does not remain captured by vested interests.
Dr HAINES (Indi) (18:54): I rise to speak in support of the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022. The bill proposes to amend the Emergency Response Fund Act 2019 to repurpose the existing Emergency Response Fund as a dedicated ongoing source of funding for natural disaster mitigation and risk reduction. It will be known as the Disaster Ready Fund. The Disaster Ready Fund is expected to commence on 1 July 2023.
This bill will also allow up to $200 million per annum to be debited from the Disaster Ready Fund for natural disaster resilience and risk reduction. It will allow the minister to adjust the maximum disbursement amount via a disallowed legislative instrument and facilitate the transfer of responsibility for fund expenditure to the NEMA and streamline administrative arrangements in relation to transfers from the fund.
I represent an electorate where this fund will matter. I am grateful to the minister and his office for detail on its proposed operations, including its focus on built-environment projects, such as levees, and community resilience projects, including preparedness plans and place based responses. I understand that disbursement of these funds will be directed through eligibility guidelines. This is very important to ensure these funds are going to worthy projects that stack up, because the last thing that emergency affected communities want is white elephant projects that look good to announce but do nothing to build our resilience.
I supported the former government's Emergency Response Fund Bill in 2019 when it was passed in September of that year. Back then, my electorate was experiencing drought. The Benalla Rural City Council and rural city of Wangaratta became eligible for Drought Communities Program funding, with these areas experiencing hardship as a result of years of below-average rainfall. Who could have foreseen that since that time the pendulum would swing right back around with floods brought about by the third La Nina event in three years? And of course there were the Black Summer bushfires that ravaged my electorate.
It is regional Australia that endures the brunt of disasters, the droughts, the floods and the bushfires that are becoming increasingly severe and happening increasingly often. These aren't one-off events. We barely get a chance to breathe between them, and we can't keep reacting to disasters. We can't keep going with knee-jerk reactions—a ministerial announcement or an ad hoc appropriation. We need to shift our focus from recovery towards prevention and mitigation. We need to reduce the economic and psychological impacts of these disasters which are increasingly becoming a part of our lives.
Right now my electorate is very wet. Rainfall records for October have been tumbling. Benalla, Euroa and some parts of Wangaratta have experienced flooding, and there's more rainfall forecast. Right across Murrindindi, the rivers are full and overflowing. Our soil is saturated right across our electorate. This will be an ongoing situation for us. I have spoken with federal emergency services minister Murray Watt and local government minister Kristy McBain about the support and repair works that are needed. I am grateful for their attention to the unfolding disaster and their rapid approval for disaster recovery payments. I am very grateful to Minister Watt for his frequent phone calls to me over the course of the last couple of weeks, checking in on the community.
Our councils, though, are now facing enormous costs to clean up and fix potholes on our roads. The price tag is eye watering. And these are councils which already have a low rate basis. Before the flooding, we had significant problems right across our rural road networks. This flooding is causing enormous damage. That's why I was disappointed to see the lack of new road funding in the budget. I was heartened to see that the government will continue to partner with state and territory governments to fund projects under the Road Safety Program, with the delivery of total nationwide funding of $3 billion to continue through to mid-2025. But so much more is needed in these times to equip us. It is incredibly difficult for local councils—I can't underscore this enough—to keep up with the necessary repairs. This area needs significant investment, and Labor missed an opportunity in the budget to strengthen roads further in light of the recent floods.
I was pleased to see in the budget last night a measure that addresses insurance premiums for areas that are prone to natural disasters. I have lobbied the Minister for Emergency Management, Murray Watt, from the day he took office to address skyrocketing premiums for businesses and households affected by bushfires. Insurance premiums are driving our iconic businesses to the wall, especially in our alpine areas. I make special mention of Mr Steve Bellow, from the alpine areas in Indi, who I've worked with closely on this really difficult area of insurance. He has come to me many times. He's worked tirelessly on bushfire recovery and he's been a champion for the businesses in our alpine resorts. Mr Bellow, I hope you are listening, because there is a little glimmer of hope in the budget. But so much more needs to be done to address this insurance crisis.
I welcome the government's commitment of $22.6 million over four years to start tackling this insurance problem. We know how complex the issue is, and greater regulation will not solve the issue on its own. The government has proposed partnerships between government and the insurance sector and to inform mitigation projects to reduce the cost of this essential protection. The measures in the budget papers last night were welcome but they are light on detail. I want to see evidence that shows the government's proposals are linked to real action.
The first three years of my parliamentary career have been marked by me fighting alongside the community to get access to government support to help my constituents recover from the impact of natural disasters. After the Black Summer bushfires, affected communities were nonsensically excluded from support. This was a gruelling process of advocating for their inclusion that resulted in the long-awaited extension of the $10,000 small business bushfire recovery grant to Indigo, Wangaratta and Mansfield six months after the fires—sadly too late for many businesses. At the end, though, together with the community, we made progress with our recovery and resilience through securing $938,000 for 18 primary producers, including grape growers affected by smoke take; $6.43 million for 642 small businesses; and $2 million for individuals and families impacted by the 2019-20 fires.
My observation is that through this hard-fought process this government is incrementally getting better at responding to communities' needs. There is more consultation, and recovery payments flow quicker. Time is of the essence with these emergency supports. It needs to be responsive so that it can save businesses and get lives back on track quickly, because we know there is a long tail for recovery, and the economic, psychological and social impacts last for years and sometimes decades.
We also need to continue to systematically engage affected small businesses and primary producers to identify whether the support provided is enough to sustain them. If it's not, the government will have to decide what price it's willing to pay to save regional communities affected by disaster. Natural disasters will continue to dominate our lives in regional Australia, throwing lives into chaos, affecting businesses and disrupting our agricultural and production sector.
This bill is a good development, but we do need more. I'd like to see the inclusion of emergency services precincts or emergency operations precincts in eligible projects. These would coordinate emergency and volunteer services efforts and help recruit the much-needed volunteers. Everywhere I go across my electorate, most particularly in the last couple of weeks with the floods, when I speak the SES and the CFA, they tell me that their volunteer numbers are down and those who are left are exhausted. When we talk about resilience funding, we need to make sure that the guidelines enable us to address that as a key problem and to address the fact that multiservice precincts are a great way to go to capitalise on the volunteers that we have got—share resources, share information. I believe those things fit squarely within the resilience aspect of these funds. I know right now Mansfield and Myrtleford are two places that could benefit so greatly from emergency services precincts.
We need a nationwide plan to adapt our country to a changed climate. This would involve practical steps to protect our farm and small business sectors and keep our communities safe. We need to restore funding to research organisations leading this work. I suggest that the government adopt my proposal for an adaptation plan for the agricultural sector, including research investment into climate-resilient crops, more support for farmers to diversify into new types of crops, and payments to landowners for their extraordinary ecosystem management. Farmers have so many answers. We need to back them when it comes to adaptation and climate change.
Finally, we must reduce the likelihood and severity of these disasters by cutting carbon emissions at home and abroad. As long as emissions continue, our temperatures will rise and these crises will escalate. To say this should be as controversial as saying water flows downhill—and it flows a lot.
Regional Australia bears the brunt of natural disasters, but we also have the most to gain from smart, practical action to lower emissions and create new industries in rural and regional Australia. The opportunities are there if we are clever enough to seize them and the opportunities in this bill are there if we're smart enough to realise what communities need be resilient.
Dr SCAMPS (Mackellar) (19:05): Earlier this year I visited Lismore. I saw the devastation with my own eyes and heard stories of horror and survival from the local community. One young woman told me how the floodwaters trapped her, her mother and her two dogs inside their own home. The water rose to within inches of the ceiling. As the hours passed, she thought she would die. This is just one story, and there are thousands more which are never told.
During the most recent Lismore floods, waters reached14.4 metres. The worst previous flood reached 12.3 metres in 1954. These disasters used to occur decades or even centuries apart. However, it is now clear that climate change is causing climate breakdown, and Australia is at the front line of these impacts, experiencing more devastating fires, floods and storms more often.
Just in the last couple of days and weeks, communities in five states were under flood warnings. Communities in Victoria and along the Murray River are reeling as we speak, while, sadly, authorities have reported a woman has died in the floodwaters in western New South Wales. The ongoing cleanup has been amongst the most expensive in Australian history, and people are still living in tents and makeshift accommodation following the floods and the Black Summer bushfires a few years ago. In the May budget, it was estimated that $6 billion would be spent on relief and recovery following the Queensland and New South Wales floods. As we heard in the budget speech last night, the latest floods have caused a downgrade of 0.25 per cent in GDP growth this quarter.
The McKell Institute estimates that extreme weather in the previous 12 months cost every Australian household, on average, $1,500. This is estimated to grow to $2,500 by 2050. The government has put aside $5 billion for this coming summer, with authorities warning that flooding is likely to continue for months. There were many lessons learnt from the Lismore floods. These include the need to provide up-to-date weather warnings for communities, the need to deliver evacuation orders faster and the need to dispatch emergency services faster. It also showed the desperate need to redesign and adapt our infrastructure for a warming world.
I'd like to thank those at Resilience Lismore for explaining to me the web of complexity they faced in accessing government funding and support services. Overwhelmingly, one thing was clear: community groups who have recovered from these natural disasters need to be consulted and funded to actively participate in developing a blueprint for recovery of the communities. Those local community organisations should also be funded now, before the next disaster. We need to build resilience to enable preparation for effective, community-led response to future events.
However, what has become clear is Australia has not put aside adequate funding to help communities adapt to these climate change fuelled natural disasters. In 2019, the then coalition government legislated the Emergency Response Fund Act. The ERF was set up with seed funding of $4 billion. It was designed to release $150 million annually to disaster recovery and resilience, except that, by the time the flooding events occurred on the east coast last year, the ERF had only dispersed $50 million, and this was despite having generated $800 million in interest. Is it any wonder communities were not prepared?
Despite this fund, the then Minister for Home Affairs set up a GoFundMe page for flood affected Queensland communities and suggested that people crowdsource for their own protection. At the time, the former government said it had spent $17 billion on disaster response. But they did not tell us that, out of that $17 billion, over $13 billion went to pandemic response, $3 billion went to bushfire recovery and $1.5 billion went to the floods in northern Queensland in 2019. The argument by the coalition was that the ERF was not set up to respond to every natural disaster. But, as families were left stranded on their roofs, the fund's interest rate was going through the roof. This was a failure of public administration on an enormous scale. We were dealing with life and death. So how do we move forward?
This bill picks up the pieces and will rename the ERF the Disaster Ready Fund, increasing the fund's annual expenditure to $200 million, which the states and territories will match. The government have committed to disbursing the funds faster than the coalition, and I look forward to holding them to that. This is a start, and we know that, for every dollar invested in resilience, the return is far greater. Unfortunately, this increase will not touch the sides of what is needed. The Insurance Council of Australia estimates that we will need to invest $1.8 billion a year in disaster resilience by 2050. Every $1 million in funding results in more hospital beds, more emergency vehicles, more microgrids and more flood- and fire-resilient homes and communities.
There are three things that can be done to fund a safer future for Australians. First of all, we need to look at repurposing our current spending on fossil fuel subsidies and shift those funds towards supporting disaster adaptation to prepare our communities for the future. Every good health carer knows that prevention is better than a cure and far cheaper. It's high time we stopped handing out taxpayer money to companies that are making these disasters worse.
Secondly, Australia must ensure that we stop multinational oil and gas companies from avoiding the payment of their fair share of tax. We can do this by closing the enormous loopholes in the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, or PRRT. Multinational fossil fuel companies are raking in enormous profits currently, using our resources, and Australia is not benefiting as it should. These profits have been turbocharged by the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and come at the expense of Australian energy consumers and our environment. As former Treasury secretary Ken Henry said, 'There is simply no economic reason windfall profits could not be taxed.' This already happens in Norway, which is how they built their $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund.
Finally, we also need to charge a reasonable rate of royalty on our resources. Queensland is already doing this, and the federal government should follow.
Although this fund will assist with adaptation efforts, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that, if we continue emitting greenhouse gases at the rate we currently are, we will reach a point where adaptation is futile. Climate change is the driver of catastrophic floods that have inundated the east coast. The Prime Minister admitted this in comments this week, and I praise the Prime Minister for recognising the impact of climate change on fuelling natural disasters. However, if we don't reduce emissions quickly, we do face a dark future.
As Australians, we must accept our responsibility for making these disasters worse, both here in Australia and globally. Australia is the third-largest fossil fuel exporter in the world. According to an analysis by the Australia Institute, our exported emissions account for almost five per cent of global emissions. While some actions are being taken to reduce domestic emissions, the government is still approving coalmines and recently approved the $1.9 billion taxpayer funded Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct in the Northern Territory. Middle Arm will link up with gas fields in the Beetaloo Basin and will power gas manufacturing at the hub. Environmental scientist Dr Michael Petroni estimated that this precinct could generate 50 million tonnes of carbon emissions per annum. That's almost the pollution of 7.7 million cars on the road in a year. We need to stop approving these fossil fuel projects if we want a safe future. This bill is the start and not the end. We can do so much better. The people of Mackellar believe we can safeguard communities from natural disasters, that we can become a renewable energy superpower and that we cannot waste a dollar more on fossil fuel subsidies.
I will finish by thanking the local rural fire service volunteers and brigades in Mackellar and our local SES volunteers, ambulance drivers and emergency workers. They do a phenomenal job in what is turning out to be a very tough job, indeed. I hope that by passing this bill we provide them with the support they need and deserve. I commend this bill to the House.
Mr BIRRELL (Nicholls—Deputy Nationals Whip) (19:15): I rise to speak in support of this amendment to the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022, but I also bring to the debate the personal experience of the past fortnight as my electorate of Nicholls has been ravaged by an unprecedented flood emergency. The Emergency Response Fund was set up by the coalition government in 2019. It was funded by the uncommitted balance of the Education Investment Fund, which was then closed. It was an investment fund intended to grow over time and maximise the Commonwealth's capacity to support states and territories to respond to major natural disasters into the future.
As of December 2021, the ERF balance was $4.7 billion, comprising of $3.978 billion credited to the ERF when it was established and $750 million in net earnings. That earnings figure in reserve has grown even more since. Under the previous legislation, the government could access up to $50 million for pre-disaster resilience measures and up to $150 million for emergency response and recovery each financial year.
Following the devastating Lismore floods this February and March, the coalition government was criticised for spending only $50 million on mitigation projects of the $836 million in interest earned by the fund. Labor made an election commitment to revamp the fund to spend $200 million annually on disaster prevention and resilience. The disaster ready bill will repurpose the ERF, turning it into an ongoing source of funding for natural disaster resilience and risk reduction.
There is a place for risk reduction and mitigation, but the bill lacks any detail or definition of what constitutes these activities. The Disaster Ready Fund, as it will be known, will provide $200 million per financial year for natural disaster resilience and risk reduction initiatives, but there is no transparency about how the funds will be distributed or what constitutes a mitigation or disaster prevention project.
In the past week, I sat down at a kitchen table in the small region of Undera in the Nicholls electorate. Seated at the table were local farmers, some with a history on the land dating back many, many generations. They had seen floods through the generations and knew how to respond. They have a levee to protect their properties from the Goulburn River and they knew one week prior that it was in a fairly poor state in some sections. They set to work but between local and state authorities couldn't nail down who was responsible for the levee's maintenance. They took matters into their own hands, making repairs and purchasing sand to fill sandbags to reinforce the levee. They battled with the elements and time and ultimately many areas still flooded as the water rose over the levee and then undermined it. They now need urgent temporary repairs because the Goulburn River is still high and the risk of further flooding has yet not receded. At the time we sat around the kitchen table, they also needed to find hundreds of missing cows. They didn't know if they had perished or had dispersed into the regional park.
As I have travelled throughout my electorate, the sound of helicopters overhead has been fairly constant. The farmers wanted a quick flyover to locate their cattle so they could at least attempt to get feed to them. The ongoing emergency meant that that wasn't possible for them. I mention this because it reflects that in an emergency the immediate needs of flood victims are many and varied. Shelter, food and comfort are the most immediate, and in Seymour, Nagambie, Shepparton, Mooroopna, Rochester and currently Echuca, that help is available in my electorate. Emergency financial support is also important, and I thank the Minister for Emergency Services, Senator Murray Watt, for being engaged and responsive to my community needs.
We do not yet fully understand the scale of the impact, but it would be correct to assume that there is more to add in terms of assistance and much more to be done as the region shifts from emergency to clean-up and then to recovery. Only this afternoon, at 2.12 pm, the emergency SMS network was used to send a text to people in the flood zone, informing people queueing for flood relief payments at the Shepparton Showgrounds of lengthy delays and urging them to instead make their applications online. The demand for support is great. People's circumstances are dire, and the level of support needs to ramp up to match the demand.
The people of Nicholls are like many Australian communities: they are stoic, practical, empathetic and selfless. Across the flood-affected areas of my electorate, we have seen and heard of the countless acts of kindness during this crisis: neighbours helping neighbours, strangers helping strangers, a community spirit that is the very essence of what it is to live in rural and regional Australia, and as their local member I am so proud of them.
As the situation worsened and floodwaters approached thousands of people, the community got out there and helped to fill, distribute and lay sandbags in a last, desperate attempt at mitigation, which in many cases, sadly, was not enough. Others helped families to evacuate and gave them shelter on higher ground. Communities rallied to distribute food, water and other necessities whenever they could. In a part of Shepparton North which was isolated for four days, a lone stranger in a kayak paddled through the streets, delivering water and homemade sandwiches. Daniel Cleave, Kaiden Richards, Curt Arthur and Michael Hand used a tinnie to make supply drops around their estate in Shepparton. The food was supplied by members of a local boxing gym. Communities formed on social media shared their experiences and helped stranded and isolated people find out about their relatives and friends in other areas. Many residents evacuated to the safety of refuges, where again volunteers from the community did everything they could to provide comfort.
Day and night, people stranded in their flooded streets checked those around them. It was a familiar scene for people to gather on their front porches and shout up and down the street. They would establish who needed supplies or assistance, but it was also a way of lifting each other's spirits. As their accessible world shrank with the rising water, people stuck together and did whatever they could to support each other. This is what good communities do, what regional communities do.
That support is also evident as flood victims deal with the shocking reality of what these record floods have wrought on their communities. The clean-up and recovery tasks are massive, as unprecedented as the flooding itself. Again these strong and resilient communities will rise to the challenge. On the weekend, I joined one of many football and netball clubs helping to coordinate clean-up volunteers, but, having seen firsthand the scale of the damage, I say they can't do it alone.
In Rochester, an estimated 90 per cent of the homes and buildings have been flooded above floor level. Rochester, or Rochie as we call it in my electorate, has been through it before, and history records how they helped each other after the 2011 floods. But, with so many people impacted and dealing with their own calamity, the volunteer workforce is stretched. I stood in a flooded Rochester home with 83-year-old Lorraine Wilson, who was cleaning the mud off her cabinets of collectibles and treasured photographs of her late husband. She raised five children in that home, and one of them is named Leigh Wilson. He's been doing an amazing job rallying and supporting his community in Rochester.
After the Brisbane flood there was a mud army, and Rochester needs an army—our ADF—to speed up the initial clean-up and get the town on the road to recovery. The longer the sodden, smelly mess remains, the worse the impact on the community, which right now, frankly, feels a bit forgotten and neglected. They need help and they need hope.
Across my electorate business owners have been hit hard. Some have wept openly at their loss. They need support to clean up and re-establish. Despite the efforts of a gang of volunteers, the IGA supermarket in Rochester may not be fully operational before Christmas, and that's the only supermarket in that town. Outside of the towns there are stock losses. Milk has been dumped because the tankers couldn't pick it up. Healthy crops that should have produced a bumper harvest have been destroyed, and we do not yet know the full toll on mature fruit trees.
Our infrastructure has suffered greatly. Roads, bridges, footpaths, community buildings, schools and sports facilities have all been impacted. The cities, small towns and rural communities impacted by this flood want to clean up, rebuild and move on, but they can't do it alone. They need government assistance and a lot of it.
We will also need to turn our attention to the future and mitigation or disaster prevention projects. The coalition government established a fund to support such measures. As the second reading amendment notes, we are concerned that this measure from the new Labor government is seeking to remove an additional source of funding for natural disaster recovery at the very moment when many communities across south-east Australia, including communities across my electorate of Nicholls, are facing many months of work to clean up after these devastating floods.
Ms LAWRENCE (Hasluck) (19:25): I'd like to begin by taking us back to 2009 at Christmas time. My husband and I made a very last-minute decision to go from Toodyay down to Esperance for a bit of a Christmas break. I'm extremely grateful that we managed to secure cancellations in a couple of places to stay on the route down and then in Esperance itself, which is some 1,000-plus kilometres from my home in Toodyay. It was indeed fortunate because, unfortunately, at that time a fire took hold in Toodyay. There were 38 homes lost, including my own. Since then I have lived in Parkerville, where 44 homes were lost in 2014, and in Wooroloo, where 86 homes were lost in 2021.
The nature of climate change and where we live means that we face incredible and real risks of natural disasters. Be they floods on the east coast or fires on the west coast, these are matters that we absolutely have to focus on because there is no greater threat to our people, our property and our environment. I'm extremely proud to be part of a government that is now unlocking taxpayer funds that rightfully should be made available to mitigate those risks and to protect our communities. We'll now see some $200 million per annum being made available for mitigation, response and recovery to ensure that our communities are well and truly protected when facing these very real threats that are coming at us seasonally and unseasonally as well. It's incredibly troubling.
The focus that this government is placing on it is absolutely evident in the fact that when the Minister for Emergency Services, Murray Watt, made his first trip to Western Australia he immediately ventured into my electorate, which is an area that has a very high bushfire risk, to meet with the City of Armadale, the City of Swan, the City of Kalamunda and the Shire of Mundaring, in which I live. He sat down to fully appreciate not just the issues and the mitigation measures that are needed to lower the risk to families and communities but to consider the impact of the fires that these people have lived through and to work through the quickest and best ways for recovery. We have a government that is focused, a minister who cares and a government that will absolutely work to deliver on this commitment to ensure that we're protecting all Australians.
Debate adjourned.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:2 9