2021-02-18 46 1 5 House of Reps 0 1

Thursday, 18 February 2021

The SPEAKER ( Hon. Tony Smith ) took the chair at 09:30, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.

BILLS 1 BILLS Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021 1

Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021

First Reading 1 Second Reading 1 09:31 Mr LITTLEPROUD 265585 Maranoa I move: That this bill be now read a second time. It gives me great pleasure to move the Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021. This bill is about sending a clear message to individuals and companies who put at risk Australia's $61 billion agriculture industry and over $1 trillion in environmental assets by contravening the Biosecurity Act 2015. A strong biosecurity system is critical to Australia's prosperity. Biosecurity laws protect agriculture, tourism and other industries, plant and animal health, the environment, and our market access. They are necessary to allow us to trade and for our nation to continue to thrive. Australia's biosecurity system faces growing regional and global threats such as African swine fever and hitchhiking pests like khapra beetle and brown marmorated stink bug. As we look towards our economic recovery from COVID-19, the growth in trade and travel will only further emphasise these biosecurity threats. This bill increases a number of civil and criminal penalties under the Biosecurity Act to ensure they are appropriate, adequate and fit for the crime. It targets key provisions of the Biosecurity Act where noncompliance has the potential to cause a significant and unacceptable risk for Australia's biosecurity status. While we all play a role in protecting Australia's biosecurity, these amendments focus on individuals and businesses, such as commercial importers and biosecurity industry participants, that have a particular responsibility to know and understand their obligations under the act and take the steps required to comply with the law. This bill ensures that penalties are set at a level that means they are not merely a cost of doing business. These maximum penalties, in some cases up to $1.1 million, reflect the potential gains someone might obtain or seek to obtain through noncompliance with our biosecurity laws, as well as the devastating impact that contraventions may have on Australia's biosecurity status, market access and economy. The increased civil penalties introduced by this bill will serve as a significant deterrent to anybody considering undermining our biosecurity laws and the criminal penalties will allow a proportionate and appropriate punishment for contraventions of the act. The biosecurity system is constantly evolving, with new threats from pests and diseases emerging. We are continually reviewing the effectiveness of the Biosecurity Act to respond to these threats and are committed to the management of biosecurity risks associated with imported goods. This bill aligns with recommendations of the Inspector-General of Biosecurity for stronger penalties for serious noncompliance and builds on our continued commitment to ensuring adequate penalties for noncompliance, as demonstrated by the amendments in the Biosecurity Amendment (Traveller Declarations and Other Measures) Act2020 which were passed last year to enable increased infringement notice amounts for travellers who fail to declare high-risk goods on their incoming passenger card. This bill will further enable a stronger penalty system that reflects the seriousness of any breach of the Biosecurity Act so that those who flout our biosecurity laws feel the full force of the law in a manner that reflects the seriousness of their actions. I commend the bill to the House. Debate adjourned. Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2020-2021 2

Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2020-2021

First Reading 2 Second Reading 2 09:36 Mr COULTON HWN Parkes I move: That this bill be now read a second time. Today, the government introduces the additional estimates appropriation bills. These bills are: Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2020-2021; and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2020-2021. These bills underpin the government's expenditure decisions. These bills ensure that there is sufficient appropriation to cover estimates variations related to existing programs—for instance, changes in costs for demand driven programs. These bills also pay for the first-year costs for measures announced in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook and subsequently announced new measures. Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2020-2021 seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just over $2.5 billion. This bill is necessary to support the government's COVID-19 recovery strategy and to ensure that life-saving vaccinations against COVID-19 are available for all Australians. I now outline the more significant amounts provided for in this bill. Firstly, the bill will provide an additional $701.2 million to the Department of Health, including $539.1 million for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout during the remainder of 2020-21. Secondly, the bill will provide the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications with an additional $408.2 million for policies and programs to support economic recovery from COVID-19 through improving transport access and supporting regional development and local communities. Thirdly, the bill provides an additional $253.3 million to the Department of Defence, including $194.8 million to reimburse Defence for foreign exchange movements across 2019-20 and 2020-20, with additional funding being provided for Defence operations including Operation COVID-19 ASSIST. A further $237.5 million will be provided to the Department of Education, Skills and Employment to assist recent jobseekers impacted by COVID-19 to rejoin the labour market through employment services programs such as Transition to Work and jobactive. The bill proposes an additional $199.4 million for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, including $89.3 million for the ongoing support of Australia's international interests and for supporting Australians through the COVID-19 pandemic when they are overseas—and, importantly, $62.1 million to support COVID-19 vaccine access in the Pacific and South-East Asia. An additional $142.1 million is proposed for the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. This includes $42.7 million to provide an interim production payment for the major oil refineries that recognises the importance to Australia of the refining sector's fuel security. Funding will also be provided to decommission the Northern Endeavour floating production storage and offtake facility and remediate the Laminaria and Corallina oil fields. Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedule to the bill and the portfolio additional estimates statements tabled in the parliament. I commend this bill. Debate adjourned. Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2020-2021 2

Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2020-2021

First Reading 2 Second Reading 3 09:41 Mr COULTON HWN Parkes I move: That this bill be now read a second time. Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2020-2021, along with Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2020-2021, which was introduced earlier, are the additional estimates appropriation bills for this financial year. This bill seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of approximately $141 million. These bills also ensure there is sufficient appropriation to cover estimates variations related to existing programs. Due to relative proximity of the 2020-21 budget appropriation bills, the bill is comparatively small compared with previous years. I now outline the most significant items provided for in this bill. The bill proposes $45.1 million to the Department of Home Affairs. Most of this amount, $31.5 million, will be provided to support the development of a secure digital platform for the collection and management of incoming passenger information. Secondly, the bill proposes a further $21.6 million to Services Australia for IT systems to support additional costs for the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, delivery of the New Employment Services Model, and greater flexibility for families reporting income for childcare subsidy. The bill also proposes $12.4 million be provided to support the Office of the Special Investigator investigate potential criminal matters identified in the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force's inquiry into the conduct of Australia's Special Operations Task Group in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016. Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedule 1 to the bill and the portfolio additional Estimate statements tabled in the parliament. I commend this bill. Debate adjourned. RESOLUTIONS OF THE SENATE 3 RESOLUTIONS OF THE SENATE Family and Domestic Violence 3 Consideration of Senate Message 3 09:43 The SPEAKER 00APG I have received the following message from the Senate transmitting a resolution agreed to by the Senate relating to violence against women: That the Senate— (1) notes that: (a) 19 February 2021 marks one year since the murder of Hannah Clarke and her three children; (b) since that date a further 52 women have been killed by violence in Australia; and (c) coercive control and persistent emotional or psychological abuse is abuse in its own right, and a strong indicator of future physical violence; (2) further notes that: (a) Tasmania has had laws criminalising emotional and financial abuse and coercive control since 2004; (b) Western Australia recently introduced a new offence of persistent family violence, recognising patterns of emotional and psychological abuse; (c) New South Wales is currently consulting on draft laws to criminalise coercive control; and (d) Queensland and the Northern Territory have announced plans to criminalise coercive control; and (3) calls on the Government to: (a) recognise the harm caused by persistent controlling behaviour; and (b) coordinate a national discussion regarding criminalising coercive control and related implementation support. The Senate requests the concurrence of the House of Representatives in this resolution. Ordered that the message be considered immediately. 09:44 Mr COULTON HWN Parkes I move: That the House concur with the resolution of the Senate. 09:44 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne I am pleased to speak today in support of this motion passed by the Senate and put forward by the Parliamentarians for Action to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children—a cross-party group convened by the Leader of the Australian Greens in the Senate, Senator Waters, the member for Cowan and the member for Reid. One year ago, Hannah Clarke and her three children, Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey, were murdered by Hannah's former partner, their children's father. He ambushed them on their way to school, poured petrol in the car and set the car on fire. It was an event so shocking it grabbed the attention of the public and politicians. It forced a conversation about what family violence looks like, how insidious it is and how critical it is we act to keep women and children safe. Since Hannah's murder, a further 52 women have been violently killed. Violence against women is a national crisis and we need to treat it that way. Too often as a society we have viewed family violence as a physical act, ignoring the harm caused by non-physical abuse—when a partner, most often the man, exerts power and control through restricting access to finances, isolating women from friends and family, monitoring movements, belittling them in front of their children, controlling everything about their lives and threatening to harm them or their kids if they leave. These patterns of controlling behaviour, coercive control, are the ultimate red flag. Research has shown that coercive control is more highly correlated to intimate partner homicide than it is to physical abuse. It's one of the strongest predictors that a man will go on to kill his partner or his children. In Hannah Clarke's case, before her death, she had suffered years of coercive control by her husband. He kept her away from family and friends, tracked her movements and monitored who she met with, who she spoke to and what she wore. Her murderer had never been physically violent towards her until the morning he killed her and her children. Her parents are now vocal advocates for criminalising coercive control, and I want to quote them: 'My daughter Hannah was a beautiful girl and her three kids, Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey, were the loves of her life. She tried to put on a positive front for them, but she was dealing with a hidden darkness. In the beginning it was only little things but then gradually her husband's controlling behaviour really started to escalate. Hannah was ready to leave him after Laianah was born. But then she fell pregnant with Trey, and Rowan convinced her she would be a bad mother if she left. He would constantly go through her phone, track where she was going and control everything. She was not allowed to have a Facebook page or wear shorts to the gym. He would threaten to kill himself, not speak to her for days and then twist it around and try to make her feel guilty. But for a long time Hannah didn't realise she was in an abusive relationship. She would say, "But he's never hit me." He would say the same thing to us: "I've never hit her." In both their heads, that was the definition of domestic abuse. That's one of the most important things we want people to understand. We want to educate people on what coercive control looks like so they can identify if it is happening to them. We didn't know. We want to do anything we can to prevent other people going through the same pain.' In most jurisdictions in Australia, it's extremely difficult to prosecute where the abuse is an insidious pattern of behaviour rather than an incident of physical violence. Coercive control, though, has been criminalised in Scotland and the UK, and the laws have given police important new tools to protect the victims of abuse. Tasmania has recognised non-physical abuse and financial control as an offence since 2004 but the offence has rarely been prosecuted. The momentum is growing in other states and territories. New South Wales is currently consulting on new laws. WA recently introduced a new offence of persistent family violence. Last week, the NT announced plans to introduce coercive control offences and yesterday Queensland announced that it had appointed Margaret McMurdo to conduct a comprehensive inquiry into coercive control laws. Criminalisation is not a complete response and cannot happen without wide consultation with experts, victim-survivors, frontline services, police, courts and families. Any change must be accompanied by system reforms, including the development of tools, resources and guidelines for police, prosecutors and judicial officers. We need to help people to identify the signs, to understand and validate that what is happening is not okay and, more importantly, to know what to do. Taking a national approach, as this motion that is passing through this parliament does—and, again, I reiterate my congratulations to the people who moved it, because it's passing through this parliament with everyone's support—to education and awareness, funding support services and harmonising the legal response will keep more women and children safe. This week, of all weeks, the parliament needs to show some leadership and tackle the culture that fails to keep women safe. The passage of this motion by parties across both houses is critical recognition that we need to take the politics out of it and get to work. We need Hannah's murder and the deaths of the 52 other women since then to actually be a catalyst for change. We need action to keep women and children safe. So, on behalf of the Greens, the Greens support this motion that is passing through the parliament with the support of everyone. We commend the motion to the House. 09:50 Dr ALY 13050 Cowan Tomorrow marks a year since the murder of Hannah Clarke and her three angels. I rise today to speak on this not to inflict further pain or hurt through remembering but to remind us all that domestic violence is an open wound in this country and one that we must work to heal. In the few minutes that I have left, I want to talk into the camera to my 23-year-old self. I hope that I can get through this. Wish me luck. I don't know if she's listening. She's probably not listening, because my 23-year-old self had no interest in politics, but I do hope that she gets this message. When he messages and he calls you 15 times a day to ask where you are and to find out where you've been, you say: 'It's because he loves you. It's because he cares and wants to protect you.' When he stops you from seeing your friends and your family, you tell yourself, 'It's just because he's a little bit possessive, because he needs you and because he wants you all to himself. When he calls you stupid and he calls you dirty, you tell yourself: 'Maybe I could be a bit smarter. Maybe I could take better care of myself. Maybe he has a point.' When he belittles you in front of his friends and in front of his family, you smile and you tell yourself, 'Well, that's just his sense of humour.' When he pushes you, when he throws things, when he slams doors, you tell yourself, 'He's got a bit of a temper, but at least he doesn't hit me.' And when he grabs you by the throat, pins you up against the wall with his fist in your face, you blame yourself for making him angry. You tell yourself it's not domestic violence because he's never actually hit you. There are no bruises, no broken bones. You haven't had to call the ambulance. You tell yourself that will never happen. But you know it very well might happen. He's capable of it. You know that, and that's what scares you the most—not what he does but what he could do. Listen to me. Listen to me: none of this is okay. None of this is right. None of this is a normal part of a relationship. And none of this is your fault. None of it. No matter how clean that stupid kitchen is and no matter how shiny that stupid kettle is and no matter how well you fold the laundry and no matter how patient you are, things are not going to get better, because it's not you; it's him. You are not a failure. You're not. There's no reason for you to feel the sting of humiliation and shame. He made you feel that way. You're not the broken one. He needs help and he can get help, but, honey, you have to put yourself first and you have to help yourself first. So please, please get help. Tell someone. Tell a trusted friend. Tell your doctor. Tell a parent. Call 1800RESPECT—that's 1800737732. Please listen to me. Coercive control is a part of domestic violence. It may not leave bruises and broken bones, but the emotional and psychological pain it inflicts can be just as damaging. Our nation has started a conversation about coercive control. That conversation needs to grow into a groundswell. Changing the law to make coercive control illegal will only go some of the way. It will only solve part of the problem. We need public awareness and education campaigns. We need to tell our daughters and sons that that is not okay, that that is not a normal part of a relationship. We need to overhaul the Family Court system and listen to the advice and recommendations of experts and survivors of family violence. We need more frontline services, more places for women to go when they need to leave. Until then, until we can get to that space, that wound of domestic violence will continue to fester and we will continue to mourn lives lost today, too early, too soon and too tragically. 09:56 Mr COULTON HWN Parkes Before she leaves, I would like to commend the member for Cowan for her contribution. It was very courageous. In Australia, on average, one woman is killed by a partner every 11 days. In 2019, 49 women were killed in a family and domestic violence related incident. An estimated 1.6 million women have experienced violence by a partner since the age of 15. Every single death is one too many. We know that domestic violence against women takes many forms, including coercive control. The decision to legislate in this area sits with states and territories; however, as a government, we welcome the significant work being undertaken by all jurisdictions to investigate the options for legislative reform for coercive control. The women's safety ministers meeting, co-chaired by the Minister for Women and the Minister for Families and Social Services, will continue to consider the options to legislate with all relevant states and territories at their regular meetings. Over a decade ago, in 2010, all governments around Australia committed to work together on the first National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022. Work has begun on the next national plan, which will commence in 2022, to build on the more than $1 billion invested since 2013. I reaffirm in this place that violence against women and their children in any form, for whatever reason, has no place in society. Question agreed to. BILLS 6 BILLS Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Bill 2019 6

Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Bill 2019

Consideration of Senate Message 6 10:00 Mr COULTON HWN Parkes I move: That the amendments be agreed to. 10:00 Mr DREYFUS HWG Isaacs On 24 June 1999 former Liberal Attorney-General Daryl Williams QC stood up in this place and introduced a bill to establish the Federal Magistrates Court, which is now known as the Federal Circuit Court. That name change, in fact, occurred when I was the Attorney-General in 2013, at the same time as a change that our government then decided on, which was that from that time, in April 2013, the former magistrates of the Federal Magistrates Court would be called judges and their court was to be called the Federal Circuit Court. Back in 1999, when the Federal Magistrates Court was established by the Howard government, Attorney-General Daryl Williams told this House that the new Federal Magistrates Court, which would be tasked with hearing less complex family law matters, was the answer to the problem of delays in the Family Court. The Attorney-General in the Howard government described the new court as: … an exciting new development, which will provide a cost effective means of helping to ease current delays and enable more effective use of expensive judicial resources. It will provide a more user-friendly option for parties to less complex matters and should also allow the Federal Court and the Family Court to concentrate on more complex cases. According to the Howard government, the establishment of a new court to exercise concurrent jurisdiction with the Family Court was the solution to the problem of delays in the family law system. Family law experts disagreed, but Mr Howard and his Attorney-General thought that they knew better. Twenty years after Daryl Williams introduced the Federal Magistrates Court bill, the current Attorney-General stood up in this place and, with a straight face, blamed the problem of delays on the family law system on the 'split federal family law court system'. In other words, the current Attorney-General said that the system established by the Liberal government 20 years earlier is the reason why Australian families are facing such significant court delays. So, according to the Liberals under Mr Howard 20 years ago, the creation of a split federal family law court system was the answer to the problem of delays. Now, according to the Liberals under the member for Cook, the existence of a split federal family law court system is the reason, and apparently the only reason, for delays! The truth is, when it comes to the family law system, you can't trust the Liberals. Everyone accepts that there are serious problems in the Family Court at present. The main cause of those problems is not a mystery. As the Australian Law Reform Commission found: … the family law system has been deprived of resources to such an extent that it cannot deliver the quality of justice expected of a country like Australia, and to whose family law system other countries once looked and tried to emulate. Just keep in mind that the Australian Law Reform Commission reported this in 2019, after the longest review of the family law system since its creation in 1975—the review was commissioned by Attorney-General Brandis, commissioned by this government—to this government. That's what its review said. This government has yet to even respond to the 60 or so recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission. Over the last seven years the story of the Australian family law system has been a story of neglect, neglect and more neglect—neglect by the Liberal government led by Tony Abbott, neglect by the Liberal government led by Malcolm Turnbull and neglect by the current Liberal government led by the member for Cook. But, instead of working to fix the family law system, the government remains determined to restructure the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court in a way that will make a bad situation worse for Australian families, including vulnerable children. (Extension of time granted) The government's claim is that the merger will help reduce delays and backlogs in these two courts by creating a single point of entry for federal family law matters, ensuring the development of common rules of court, forms, practices and procedures and streamlining the family law appeals pathway. As it happens, the creation of a single point of entry and the development of common rules, forms, practices and procedures is widely supported. It's widely supported by lawyers who work in the family law system, by counsellors who work in the family law system and by family violence services who participate in the family law system. But all of these things can be, and are being, achieved without any legislative change. It is up to judges to make the rules for their courts. It is up to judges to determine whether there should be a single point of entry for more than one court. All of those things can be, and are being, achieved by the judges of the Family Court of Australia, who are doing excellent work, and by the judges of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, who are also doing excellent work, and those changes are occurring without the need for a bill, let alone this bill, which is not needed for a single point of entry and is not needed to achieve common rules. I would like to take a moment to commend the Chief Justice of the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court, the Hon. Will Alstergren, for the work that he has done in relation to these matters, and I commend the work that the judges of both courts have been doing on those matters. I would like to commend the Chief Justice of the Family Court and the judges of both courts for the methodical and consultative way in which they've been going about that work. I'm hopeful that the creation of a single point of entry and the development of common rules, forms, practices and procedures will make a meaningful difference to the experience of those thousands and thousands of Australians who use these courts every year. But make no mistake: to the extent that those measures will reduce costs or delays for Australian families, it will have nothing to do with the bill that has come back to the House from the Senate. It will have nothing to do with the Morrison government. The measures that I have described—a single point of entry and common rules, practices and procedures between these two courts—are in the process of being implemented now. They will be implemented whether or not this bill passes today. This is a terrible bill. It is a terrible betrayal of Australian families by a government of wreckers. The government has not listened to the clear statements made by over 150 people and organisations who work in the Family Court and work in the family law system. The government has not listened to statements made by former chief justices of the Family Court of Australia condemning this effective abolition of the Family Court of Australia, the court established as a specialised court for family law by the Whitlam government which has served Australians so well for more than 40 years. The government has not listened to the voices of women's legal services, to the voices of community legal centres and to the voices of family violence services who have told the government with a unanimous voice for years now that this merger, this effective abolition, of the Family Court of Australia will do no good and may, in fact, do harm. It's a shameful act by this government, and a particularly shameful aspect of the passage of this bill through the Senate last night is that the government seems to have— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Isaacs's time has concluded. I call the member for Isaacs. Mr DREYFUS HWG A particularly shameful aspect of the passage of this bill through the Senate last night is that the government has not acted as the government of Australia. It has not acted nationally. It's done some kind of deal for one state to get an additional number of judges and registrars. The delays in the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court are national. The massive work overload being experienced, in particular by judges of the Federal Circuit Court and in particular by those judges of the Federal Circuit Court who sit in single-judge registries, has got to the stage where some judges are dealing with a case load of 600 current cases. It's hard to even imagine how a judge would be able to cope with that kind of workload or do justice to the families coming before that judge. None of that is going to be fixed by this bill. What would fix it, or go some distance to fixing it, is not just the measures that I've already described of the single point of entry, which is already happening, and the common rules, which are already happening, but actual increases of resources for both the Federal Circuit Court and the Family Court. That's what the government ought to have been doing. That's what the government has been told now for years. For nearly eight years this government has been in power and it has stopped its ears to the cries of those who are experiencing these delays in the Family Court. It has turned its back on all of the sound advice that it's received from former judges, from practitioners and from the Australian Law Reform Commission, and instead it is pretending that there's some kind of fix in the effective abolition of the Family Court of Australia. It's a shameful day and it's a great disappointment to me and everyone in the Australian Labor Party that the government has proceeded down this course. 10:12 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne The Liberal government's abolition of the Family Court will hurt women and will hurt children. The Family Court was established specifically to protect the people before it, particularly children, families and the survivors of family and domestic violence. It did this by creating for the first time in this country a standalone specialist family law court working in a system of collaborative, culturally safe and co-located services. The model that the Family Court operates under is unique and has been held up as a model of best practice internationally. But the radical and misconceived changes in the bill, even as amended, are going to effectively put an end to a specialist standalone Family Court in this country. The thing is that there's no-one in support of this bill outside of this parliament. The people who work in the sector and the people who support people who go through the Family Court all oppose this bill. They oppose it because they know that it is the end of a standalone court designed to deal with some of the most significant incidents that people will ever face in their lives. The issues that the Family Court deals with are some of the most personal and most difficult that people will ever face in their lives. Not only can they be incredibly complicated and personal but they can also deal with some of the most fundamental questions, including those that have been occupying this parliament in recent times—namely, how do we as a society ensure that children and women are protected when there is domestic and family violence? That is what the Family Court was set up for. When the people who participate in the Family Court system and the people who use the Family Court system all say, 'Don't abolish the court,' you have to ask: why is the government proceeding with it? Well, I'll tell you whose support this might have: Senator Pauline Hanson and One Nation. So the government are quite happy to listen to One Nation when it says, 'We would like you to please abolish the Family Court,' but they won't listen to everyone else who actually now has to deal with the effect of the abolition of the Family Court. You will find, I suspect, agreement across the parliament that there are things in the Family Court system that could be done better. But the root cause of that is not the Family Court itself. The root cause of that, in many respects, is a systemic and systematic underresourcing of the court over many, many years. The simple fact is that there are judges in the Family Court who are dealing with case loads in their hundreds. They are being forced to push people's hearings further and further back in a way that no doubt frustrates and hurts the people who are involved and who are going through that court. But that's because the government has underresourced it. The only thing the government can point to to say that this is the fix is a desktop review that was done by some consultants, which says there are some potential efficiency savings. Well, do you know what? If you're after efficiency savings, you don't actually need legislation to do it. A lot of the changes that could be made could be dealt with by increased resourcing, and if there's a need for some restructuring you don't need legislation to do it. If you did want to restructure, you would have a serious look at the model that does have support among the community, which is the Family Court 2.0 model. There is an alternative model out there that would have the broad support of the community. But the government's not listening to people who use the Family Court. The government's not listening to women and children. The government is doing what One Nation has asked it to do. This is a very significantly distressing day. This week of all weeks, for the government to be abolishing a court that is designed to protect women and children is reprehensible. This will change Australian society for the worse. This bill, even with the amendments, should not be supported. 10:17 Mr PERRETT HVP Moreton This is a very sad day for families in Australia, as the previous speakers have indicated. The bills back before the House today—the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Bill 2019 and the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2019—will abolish the Family Court. There is no doubt about that. The Family Court is a specialist court specifically designed to resolve the most complex legal family disputes and it is a superior court of record, a great Labor legacy that the Liberals will destroy today. All those on the other side of the House who say there will be no loss of specialty in the new Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia have clearly never had anything to do with family law at the coalface. There's no argument that the family law system is broken and desperately needs fixing—no argument at all. But if you neglect a system for seven years and you don't replace retiring judges when we know 40 years in advance that they're going to retire—it took a year and a half for a judge in the Sydney registry to be replaced and a year for a Brisbane judge to be replaced when they knew decades before that there was a certain date—and you don't resource the system appropriately and it's stretched to the limit and has difficult outcomes, then it's going to break. These bills before the House will provide more resources for only one state, South Australia. I have nothing against South Australia and I'm not badmouthing any South Australians, but they're the 30 pieces of silver necessary to get these bills passed through the Senate. The government is completely ignoring the seven other states and territories. What about the families in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania? Don't they deserve that their family law matters are dealt with in a timely way? There are no resources for the shunned seven other parts of Australia but these bills will decrease the minimum amount of Family Court judges in the whole of Australia. There will be fewer specialist judges who will be able to determine the disputes of vulnerable families. The bills are collapsing a standalone specialist court into a general court. That court hears matters as diverse as migration, industrial relations, bankruptcy and intellectual property—completely different to family law. Anyone who has ever practised family law—and I see the member for Blair here—or spent time listening to family lawyers, as I've done for the last five years or so, will know that family lawyers are driven to that area of law. They're driven to it because they have particular skills—a calling almost—and there's a particular culture in family courts so that families are always safer. Collapsing the new Family Court structure into the general Federal Circuit Court will see Division 2 judges jumping from hearing family law matters to migration matters to any other jurisdictions in the court. It would be like asking one of us to spend two days a week as a members of the House of Representatives and to then have three days over there in the Senate—working out whatever they do over there!—which has different procedures and a different culture. But that is what these bills will do; they'll be asking Division 2 judges to jump all around. Rather than listen to the experts who work in family law, who represent vulnerable litigants in family law, the Morrison government has completely ignored their pleas to reject the model in these bills and to instead implement the model first called for by the Semple review back in 2008 and, more recently, by the New South Wales Bar Association. This is a model that would preserve the standalone specialist Family Court and improve the specialisation of the family law system by moving Federal Circuit Court judges who hear family law matter into a lower division of the Family Court—a standalone specialist court with unique procedures and a culture that would protect families and children. There are good things happening. I commend the Chief Justice for initiatives like the Lighthouse Project, the single point of entry and many other initiatives—all things that are happening now irrespective of the bill before us that will get rid of the Family Court. The government has ignored the experts and relied on a desktop review,—they've clasped at it like a drowning man with a straw—to abolish the Family Court and decrease specialisation for families. It will be a shameful legacy for Prime Minister Morrison. It will be a shameful legacy for Attorney-General Porter. It is a betrayal of Australian families, and the bill and its amendment should not be supported. 10:22 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I want to begin with a quote from 1974: The essence of the Family Courts is that they will be helping courts. Judges will be specially and carefully selected for their suitability for the work of the court … Here will be a court, the expressly stated purpose of which is to provide help, encouragement and counselling to parties with marital problems, and to have regard to their human problems, not just their legal rights. Parties will not be driven to the court by their own despair as a last resort … So spoke Gough Whitlam when supporting the introduction of the Family Court. The introduction of the Family Court in 1974 was a part of the modernising of Australia after all of that frozen-in-time Menzies era where we fell behind the rest of the world. The election of the Whitlam government modernised Australia. Part of that modernisation was about treating women properly by moving incredible acts through the parliament—of which this was just one—to recognise that we needed to change our laws to reflect the changes that had occurred in society and the standards that had occurred in society. This was a time before no-fault divorce when you had extraordinary problems and impacts, particularly on women and children. This is a reform that has made an enormous difference to the quality of life for people. Family break-ups can be really difficult. They require some form of specialised assessment and, where there's a need for legal intervention, they require compassion. They require experience and consideration built up over a period of time, which you get with a specialised court process. That's why we have various lawyers who are specialists in family law. But what we're saying with this legislation is that none of that's necessary. We'll just turn back the clock. We'll roll the Family Court, with all its specialist staff and resources, into the Federal Circuit Court, one of the most overburdened courts that there is. This is a government that is anything but conservative. Conservatives support institutions in society. This mob undermine institutions in society. We see it every day, with the shutting down of debates in this parliament and with their failure to respect this democratic institution. We see it with the way that the Senate dealt with this bill last night, curtailing proper debate by ramming it through after, frankly, a shameful deal with some of the crossbenchers. It's a shameful deal that leaves all states except for one without any appropriate resources. This is the Australian parliament. We make laws for Australia. This legislation does not do that. True to form, of course, this government hasn't listened to any expert advice. Over 150 family law experts, ranging from the Law Council of Australia to Women's Legal Services Australia, community legal centres, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services, child protection advocates and disability services right across Australia, called on the government to abandon this proposal. The Family Court is far from perfect. It's been under-resourced. There haven't been enough people appointed to it under this government. The government starves the institution, undermines it and then gets rid of it. This is a terrible, destructive and negative move from a government that is defined by what it's against rather than what it's for. (Time expired) 10:27 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie I feel really fortunate that I haven't personally had to go through a Family Court experience, because the most distressing calls I get in my electorate office are from people who have been through that process—from mothers, from fathers and from grandparents. The group I don't hear from as much is the children, but we in this place all know that it's the children who are going to be the biggest losers out of the consequences of this terrible decision to roll a specialist court, one that was established to have specific skills and expertise, into a system that deals with a multitude of other matters. The federal circuit courts are dealing with a huge array of matters. I have friends who are judges in the system, and I know the variety of matters and the burden that they already carry. On this side of parliament, I think we are just shocked that this government has shown so little respect for the advice it's received from a multitude of bodies—from judges themselves, from child welfare experts and from anybody who has had anything to do with the court system. No-one thinks that the court doesn't need reform, but it doesn't need reform to get rid of it. It needs reform to strengthen it. More than anything, it needs a lesser load for judges to carry. We could extrapolate that across the entire system, because we have seen so many judges not being replaced. When we think about the Family Court, one of the things that I think about is the responsibility those judges carry. One of my very earliest memories of understanding what the Family Court was about was to do with the death of the person I knew as Aunty Pearl. This was one of the terrible attacks on Family Court judges that occurred in Sydney. It was the uncle of one of my very close friends who was the target, and it was Aunty Pearl, his wife, who died. My friend Karen Catalano carried that, and that's a horrible way to start to understand that Family Court matters can be really lethal. So, for me, there's always been a huge amount of respect and awe for the responsibility that Family Court judges carry. I think this sort of decision says to those judges: 'You are not special. We don't respect what you do. We don't think it carries any additional weight.' Yet anyone who's had anything to do with the Family Court knows the burden of responsibility that those judges carry. It is extremely short-sighted of this government to be making a decision that gets rid of that court. In fact, I know I'm going to get emails about this in my office. Some people will say, 'Well, something had to change,' but they'll say: 'Was this really the change that was needed? How is it going to help people get a better decision? How will it help them have a less traumatic experience of what is already an awful situation for a family to find itself in?' You don't end up at the Family Court because everything has gone really well. You end up there because of a series of really difficult situations. What we see on this side is that it is people that are most affected; it's kids who are most affected, and this will have a lasting legacy for those children. I don't think it's going too far to say that people will look back at this decision in future years and express absolute disgust that a government saw fit to remove an institution that for so many decades has provided not a perfect outcome for families but a way of getting some sort of resolution. What we should be seeing is an improvement to that court—support. I know that means money, but, my goodness, an investment in this process can transform lives and make a huge difference to how families together move on from the already awful experience of divorce and family breakdown. I know I'm not going to be the only one on this side who feels disgust—that is the only word that comes to mind. We have put up extraordinarily reasonable arguments, but so have the experts in this field. If you won't listen to us, you should have at least been listening to the experts, who counselled at every step against taking this path. 10:32 Ms CLAYDON 248181 Newcastle Whilst I am frequently disappointed by the Morrison Liberal government, today marks a terrifying moment for most Australian women and their families in Australia. The notion that we would even be debating the potential abolition of the Family Court of Australia is not just terrifying; it is unthinkable for the consequences that it will have for our society. I have served in this parliament on a number of committees around family law. Indeed, during the last parliament I was part of the House of Representatives review of the family law system and the experience that people surviving domestic violence have of that family law system. It shouldn't surprise people that most of the cases that are before our family law courts now involve family violence. The statistics are that more than 50 per cent of cases before the Family Court and some 70 per cent of matters before the Federal Circuit Court in Australia involve allegations of family violence. So the notion that we would abolish courts that seek to specialise in dealing with matters of family violence, that try to ensure the safety of women and children in these situations, is really unthinkable. Indeed, it is an example of this government continuing their do-nothing approach. For years, they have had recommendations—not just from the previous House of Representatives committees that I've deputy-chaired at times; they actually commissioned the Australian Law Reform Commission to undertake a review of the family law courts. Rather than wait for those reviews and reflect on and consider those reviews, the government have jumped to a remedy that can be nothing more—is nothing more—than a sop to One Nation and now a lone-ranger South Australian senator, who was paid handsomely perhaps for his cooperation in getting this bill through the Senate. But it's deeper than that. It's more than a political sop; it's an indictment of this government, which fails day after day to deliver any genuine reform to ensure the safety of women and children in this nation. It fails, continuously, to address these issues. In this parliament, we've seen ample evidence this week of these shortcomings. We've seen the fact that one woman is murdered every week in this nation at the hands of an intimate partner, that all of our legal matters are clogged up with hearings around family violence. When is this government going to take that seriously? When is it going to properly resource our family courts in order to ensure they can provide safety for women and children? When are we going to see a system that puts children at the centre of our law? I am sick of standing in this parliament and asking—pleading—for the government to take note of serious inquiries that have been conducted. These have been bipartisan recommendations from this parliament to ensure that children are at the centre of our thinking when it comes to family law matters. You cannot have judges with 600 cases on their dockets and expect them to be doing well. You cannot have family law court writers who are not properly qualified and the best and at the top of their game if you do not resource your courts to take these matters seriously. You cannot have retired judges not being replaced in a timely manner. These are matters that this government has known about for years. This is a terrifying prospect for Australian women and children. How dare you continue to ignore the pleas of this parliament and Australian women everywhere! (Time expired) 10:37 Mr NEUMANN HVO Blair Most Australians are not charged with criminal offences. Most Australians don't have car accidents and are not injured at work. Most Australians don't get involved in civil disputes involving the Supreme Court or the District Court. But, in a situation where one in three marriages break up and more than one in two second marriages break up, most Australians have the need to avail themselves of good legal advice when it comes to family law and child support. What this government is doing is listening to One Nation and not the Law Council of Australia. This is a reactionary, retrograde step that's consistent with the policy and position of the conservative parties to the time of Whitlam and Murphy. When the Family Court system was brought into this country, it was world's best practice and followed across the world. What this government is doing is going back to the days of the Matrimonial Causes Act, Garfield Barwick and the Menzies era. It's not looking at the progress of this country and what's happened since. Do they want private investigators now to look at what happened in terms of a family break-up? That's the sort of mentality of this government. I practised in this jurisdiction for 25 years before I was elected in 2007. I was an accredited specialist in family law, and, I did tens of thousands of cases in this jurisdiction. I know there are issues in this jurisdiction; I know there are sometimes judges and magistrates and problems in this jurisdiction, but you can't defund the system and then blame the system. That's what this government has done again and again. I can't believe the number of lawyers I know in Queensland, where I practised, who have approached me and said: 'Can you do something about the fact that we haven't got enough judges in the jurisdiction in Brisbane. And, while you're there, Shayne, how about you think about Sydney or Melbourne and elsewhere?' What's happened here is that not a dollar extra will go into any other state or territory other than South Australia—talk about 30 pieces of silver. This is simply wrong. When the Howard government was in, they passed legislation that wasn't in the best interests of children either. They weren't focusing on making sure that kids have a right to know and be cared for by both parents, regardless of their marital status, or on protecting children. They brought in a primary and secondary consideration, part 7 of the Family Law Act. This government has done everything they possibly can to undermine the system. Every conservative government has done that—constantly filing against the system and, from time to time, appointing people on the bench who don't have much experience in this area. I can recall speaking to one particular person on the bench at one time, having to explain what a statement of financial circumstances was. I explained how the child support system was applied and operated. Every lawyer who practised in this jurisdiction would have stories like that. This government is getting rid of that specialist jurisdiction and having a general jurisdiction. You can see that, if you're an experienced family lawyer. The tragedy is about 40 per cent of our people are going in there—because they don't fund legal aid properly—self-represented. Every experienced lawyer would have seen the challenge that it brings. They would have also seen lawyers and people on the bench who aren't experienced in the jurisdiction. This is very complex legislation. It's legislation as complex as the Income Tax Assessment Act and also the Corporations Law. You need specialist judges and specialist jurisdiction. That's why the states and territories have accredited specialisation when it comes to legal training in this area. To become an accredited specialist and to practise in the area at that level, you need to study very hard and pass exams and do everything you possibly can to get there—almost the same way you do when you're a doctor and you specialise. What's this government going do? Roll it into one, have a general practice and expect judges and the lawyers who practise in this area to understand the sensitivities of dealing with someone who is a victim of domestic and family violence. It will not work. It's ideological. It's obsessive, and this government continues to do it. It's on display here today. Lionel Murphy and Gough Whitlam were ahead of the curve. Labor has consistently supported the family law system in this country. We've consistently been on the side of progression and progressiveness. This government is on the side of reaction and conservatism. Women and children will suffer as a result of this decision today. They should hang their heads in shame. There'll be consequences to their constituents for decades to come, because of this decision. This is one of the worst decisions this government has ever made. They should hang their heads in shame. They should support the system and keep the legislation in place and fund the system properly. 10:43 Ms BURNEY 8GH Barton For a number of years, in my previous life, I was the Minister for Community Services in New South Wales. I know how important the Family Court system is. It is important because of the reasons that you have heard previous speakers mention; I won't repeat them. It is important for women and children who are escaping family violence and trauma. The Family Court system is an important mechanism through which we can protect individuals, women and children, experiencing family and domestic violence. We know that many matters which pass through the Family Court relate to or involve violence. We also know that the Family Court is a specialist court and that is the beauty of it—a specialist court with specialist judges and specialist staff that understand the issues that the Family Court deal with. It works to resolve some of the most complex and difficult situations for, I would add, highly emotional and often traumatic matters. The specialist nature of the court means it has an important role to play in protecting individuals experiencing family violence. The Family Court with the staff and resources are best placed to manage these types of cases. But does this government care and take that into consideration? Clearly it does not. Indeed, the Family Court is confronted with major challenges, in particular, lengthy court wait times, delays and backlogs in resolving family law disputes. The experts have consistently said that the abolition of the Family Court is not the answer to the problems the court faces. That is so important. Everyone that I have spoken to, everyone that's commented on this that has an expertise in the area has said that this is not the way to deal with these issues. Outright concern and opposition to this bill have been expressed by 150 experts and members of the community. That is 150 stakeholders from the Law Council of Australia to women's legal services, community legal centres, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services, child protection advocates and disability services from right across Australia. In fact, it will impact vulnerable children and families. It has not been helped by the fact that, as the Australian Law Reform Commission report found, Australia's family law system has: … been deprived of resources to such an extent that it cannot deliver the quality of justice expected of a country like Australia, and to whose family law system other countries once looked and tried to emulate. Over the past seven years under the Liberal government, Family Court and Federal Circuit Court judges have not been replaced in a timely manner. The government has continued to ignore, time and again, reviews and recommendations, as outlined by the member for Newcastle, including the review of the Australian Law Reform Commission. The government stubbornly remains determined to merge the courts and abolish the Family Court. The need for specialist family courts is more important than ever before. Its creation by the Whitlam government, as outlined by the previous speaker, has led to a greater awareness of family and domestic violence. Necessarily, it has seen an increase in its use and demand for its services. Former Family Court Chief Justice Diana Bryant said: I can say that I have spent my whole career—40 years—in family law. I think I have a reasonable knowledge of all those areas gained over that time, but I am still learning and it's not something you can pick up in five minutes. I think having specialised judges is important. Wendy Kayler-Thomson of the Law Council said, 'It would be a disaster to have trial judges who have not had any family law experience let loose here'. What is clear from those in this space, both legal and domestic violence advocates, is that they are seriously concerned that this measure will end specialist expertise within the Family Court. I say again: these matters are complex. They need expertise. They need attention, and the way to fix the issues within the Family Court is not by merging it, as this government is about to do. 10:48 Ms STEGGALL 175696 Warringah It's a very disappointing day to have to stand up and see the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Bill 2019 come back to this House with the Senate having passed it with these amendments. Let's be really clear: this is not a good outcome for the most vulnerable in our society when there is a breakdown of their family relationship and they find themselves having to resort to the courts. This merger of the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court is so disappointing. The government has completely failed to listen to the Law Council and 155 stakeholder groups, including 13 retired judges, who oppose this bill. The specialised Family Court has been the envy of many countries around the world. I've had the pleasure of practising as a barrister in that jurisdiction and I know its challenges. I certainly know it needs assistance and, mostly, it needs resources. What it doesn't need is to be abolished and merged into the Federal Circuit Court. What's been interesting is the justification that we've heard from the government, but also from fellow crossbenchers in the Senate, as to why they have supported it. I think it is motivated by personal experience, I would say a personal vendetta against an experience in that court, that will now impact millions of people's lives in how they have recourse to justice. I think there is an inability to recognise the experience of those who had some 40-plus years of experience, believing their own view is somehow more informed than so many people who have practised. The amendment before the House today is that there be at least 25 judges. Let's be really clear about the situation at the moment. I contacted the Law Council before coming down to the chamber. There are currently 32 judges, excluding Western Australia, which is also excluded in this amendment. The amendment says we'll have at least 25. Let's be clear about what we're doing here: we're going backwards. We're going to have fewer judges than we currently have. The data shows that what they need is not a reduction in judges; what they need is seven additional judges, one per jurisdiction, to make a significant difference to the time delays in the process through the system. Currently, there are eight positions not filled, so it's clear there has been a withholding and a delay in appointments for political motivations to get this bill and this merger happening in this place. We have 10 judges due for retirement next year. This jurisdiction is facing a very real, immediate loss of skill and ability to hear matters. We've heard a lot of people in this place talk about the delays in the system. The delays are huge. It's incredibly distressing for people taking such personal matters to the court. They are at their wit's end, and because of either parenting or property matters, they cannot resolve it. They need some attention but instead they get delays because the system is underfunded and under-resourced. What this amendment does, let's be really clear, is provide for fewer services, not more. This is not a streamlining or an efficiency. Where has this merger come from? This merger has come from a six-week desktop review of potential efficiencies conducted by PwC. It was done in 2018. The authors of the report appeared before the Senate committee, and all of their claimed efficiencies were dismantled in the Senate committee. Even the authors of the report walked away from the numbers because the desktop review only lasted six weeks and they did not interview lawyers or families with experience in the Family Court system or practitioners in the system. What we have here is a dismantling and a merger of the Family Court against the expert advice of all those who have practised in this jurisdiction and to the detriment of so many people that rely on this system to resolve disputes. It's very disappointing to see this. This is politically motivated and not in the best interests of Australian people. The SPEAKER 00APG The question is that the amendments be agreed to.

The House divided. [10:56]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 63 AYES Alexander, JG Allen, K Andrews, KJ Andrews, KL Archer, BK Bell, AM Broadbent, RE Chester, D Christensen, GR Conaghan, PJ Connelly, V Coulton, M Drum, DK (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Falinski, JG Fletcher, PW Flint, NJ Frydenberg, JA Gee, AR Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Hamilton, GR Hammond, CM Hawke, AG Hunt, GA Joyce, BT Kelly, C Laming, A Leeser, J Ley, SP Littleproud, D Liu, G Martin, FB McCormack, MF McIntosh, MI Morrison, SJ O'Brien, T O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pearce, GB Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Price, ML Ramsey, RE (teller) Robert, SR Sharma, DN Simmonds, J Stevens, J Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Thompson, P Tudge, AE van Manen, AJ Vasta, RX Wallace, AB Webster, AE Wilson, RJ Wilson, TR Wyatt, KG Young, T Zimmerman, T 60 NOES Albanese, AN Aly, A Bandt, AP Bird, SL Burke, AS Burney, LJ Burns, J Butler, MC Butler, TM Byrne, AM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Chesters, LM Clare, JD Claydon, SC Coker, EA Collins, JM Conroy, PM Dick, MD Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Fitzgibbon, JA Freelander, MR (teller) Georganas, S Giles, AJ Gosling, LJ Haines, H Hayes, CP Hill, JC Husic, EN Jones, SP Kearney, G Keogh, MJ Khalil, P Leigh, AK Marles, RD McBain, KL McBride, EM Mitchell, BK Mulino, D Murphy, PJ Neumann, SK Owens, JA Perrett, GD Phillips, FE Plibersek, TJ Rishworth, AL Sharkie, RCC Shorten, WR Smith, DPB Snowdon, WE Stanley, AM (teller) Steggall, Z Swanson, MJ Templeman, SR Thistlethwaite, MJ Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Wilson, JH Zappia, A 13 PAIRS Buchholz, S Bowen, CE Coleman, DB Gorman, P Evans, TM King, CF Hastie, AW Mitchell, RG Hogan, KJ O'Connor, BPJ Howarth, LR O'Neil, CE Irons, SJ King, MMH Landry, ML Payne, AE Marino, NB Rowland, MA Morton, B Ryan, JC O'Brien, LS Thwaites, KL Wicks, LE Vamvakinou, M Wood, JP Wells, A

Question agreed to.

 Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2019 15

Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2019

Consideration of Senate Message 15 11:01 Mr GEE 261393 Calare I move: That the amendments be agreed to. Question agreed to. COMMITTEES 15 COMMITTEES Privileges and Members' Interests Committee 15 Report 15 11:03 Mr BROADBENT MT4 Monash In accordance with standing order 216, on behalf of the Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests I present Report concerning the registration and declaration of members' interests during 2020. Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e). STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE 15 STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE Member for Cowan: Domestic and Family Violence 15 11:03 Mr BROADBENT MT4 Monash Earlier in this day, the member for Cowan addressed the House. The address was titled 'Talking to my 23-year-old self'. I was privileged to be in the parliament as she gave her address. It would be my prayer that the video of that address is played in every secondary college around this country. I thank you. BILLS 15 BILLS Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Refunds of Charges and Other Measures) Bill 2020 15

Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Refunds of Charges and Other Measures) Bill 2020

Second Reading 15 11:04 Mr MARLES HWQ Corio I rise to speak on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Refunds of Charges and Other Measures) Bill 2020, and I move the amendment circulated in my name: 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 is of the opinion that the Government, by failing to support Australia's higher education institutions and international students, has undermined the bill's objective of providing sector-wide support in the special circumstances of the current coronavirus pandemic". The purpose of this bill is to amend the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 to provide for the secretary to refund Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students charges, otherwise known as CRICOS charges, in special circumstances and change the definition of 'course' to allow certain education and training to be provided to overseas students without the need for CRICOS registration. The stated purpose of the bill is to provide sector-wide support to the registered providers in special circumstances, such as the current coronavirus pandemic. However, I note that the legislation is drafted so that the relief can be provided on a case-by-case basis at any time. So Labor calls on the government to ensure that any fee waivers will be made publicly available to ensure that there is transparency in the application of the new refund arrangements. Exemptions from CRICOS registration charges in 2020 and 2021, in the circumstances of COVID-19, are the very least that this government can do. There's no legislative basis for refunding these payments where fees had already been paid, so act of grace payments were used. What this bill does is to correct that. That's important, but it's not enough. While Labor supports the changes proposed in this bill, the amendments also highlight the government's failure to support the sector as a whole. The government has absolutely neglected universities during this pandemic, during this health and economic crisis, and, not surprisingly, as a result of that thousands of jobs have been lost across the country. The government's Higher Education Relief Package in response to the impact of this pandemic has been manifestly inadequate, and what's worse is the treatment of international students, who play such a big part in our education sector. Their treatment from this government during this crisis has, frankly, been appalling. Every international student in this country absolutely knows that when the pandemic hit, at that moment, on that day, our Prime Minister said, 'It's time to go home.' That was the fundamental response of this government to international students at that moment, and universities themselves were left to fund international student welfare. Indeed, in my own electorate, Deakin University had to announce funding of $25 million to target support for international students who were slipping through the cracks that existed because there was no, or very limited, access to government assistance, and that money had to be spent by the university in a context where they themselves were losing much revenue. This neglect, of course, is nothing new. This government does not have a plan for education and for training. In fact, this government has a very scant plan for Australia's economy as a whole. Over the last eight years, it has been trying to undermine the fundamentals of our higher and vocational education systems. Eight years of the coalition government has seen billions of dollars cut from TAFE and training, widespread skill shortages arising and the loss of 140,000 trainees and apprenticeships—and that was before COVID-19 struck. These institutions—universities and our TAFE sector—are critically important in the skills and the education that they provide for Australians, but they are also economic institutions. We will never get the economic benefit and the growth potential that we can in this country if we don't treat them properly. The government has tried in every way possible to cut funding to this sector. Whether it's cuts to grant funding to institutions, increased fees, more student debt or cuts to research funding, this government at every step along the way has attacked education and training in this country. The government's failures in funding higher education, for example, have forced them to fund public research through student and international student fees. This has created a system which has become unsustainable. It's little wonder that our higher education institutions have, accordingly, been hit so hard during this pandemic, because the squeeze on our higher education system that has been put in place by the conditions that have been enacted by this government during its time in office has created a chain reaction for universities as a result of the coronavirus then occurring. The seeds of the difficulties that our universities face now as a result of COVID-19 were sown by this government well and truly before the pandemic hit. When you erode funding to higher education institutions, you fundamentally make them more fragile and more vulnerable. In Australia, the erosion in funding to our higher education institutions began on the day that the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government was elected. Under this government, there has barely been a budget that has not included cuts to higher education in our country. It's a history of cuts. It's a catalogue of its failure on higher education. All of this attests to this government's lack of vision. Even before their first budget, eight long years ago, the government announced almost $200 million in cuts to regional higher educational institutions and an efficiency dividend on higher education funding in the 2013-14 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook. After that came the horror 2014-15 budget, with its cuts to higher education in the order of billions of dollars, an increase in student fees of 20 per cent and a deregulation of student fees. Labor at every step fought those steps, here in the parliament and across the country. In the 2015-16 budget, the coalition made a further $250 million in cuts to sustainable research excellence funding. That's funding that Labor put in place when we were last in government to power innovation in this country. Then came cuts of almost $4 billion in the 2017-18 budget and the capping of student places. The announced handbrake on funding put pressure on universities to cap student enrolments because they would not receive any additional direct Commonwealth grants funding if enrolments increased. By failing our higher education institutions, the government has failed Australia on jobs. It has failed as an economic manager. Australian universities shed at least 17,300 jobs in 2020. The government, in the face of that, excluded universities from JobKeeper, despite the pivotal role that universities have played in Australia's virus response. It's probable we will see further job losses in the university sector this year. Higher education powers so much of our workforce. We need it to develop the skilled workforce that will power the economy in the future. We are transitioning to an economy that needs more postgraduate education. Falling Commonwealth funding for higher education has meant more reliance on international student revenue and, when international travel dried up as a result of the pandemic, the higher education system buckled. Higher education is one of our biggest export industries. According to the Reserve Bank, Australia's education exports totalled $40 billion in 2019. This included $17 billion in tuition fees paid by international students and $23 billion in international students' living expenses while they were studying here in Australia. On fairly conservative assumptions it means that 27 per cent of total research expenditure, or about $3.3 billion, relies on profits from international students. Public research has a multiplier effect on jobs in our economy if it is done properly, and the choices we make now will have a profound impact on the economic recovery that we hope will occur. Australians right now are experiencing one of the highest levels of unemployment in decades and record underemployment. A million Australians, since 2014, have been underemployed in this country, throughout the tenure of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government. It's in that context that our higher education and training sectors are so fundamental to our economic future. But the track record of this government has been characterised by cuts, mismanagement and neglect of the sector. Labor recognise that for a strong recovery we have to invest now in giving our people the capacity to work their way out of unemployment and underemployment. Unlike this government, we believe that investing in education and training is an investment in the future of our people, but also in the future of our economy. It's an investment in, not a burden on, our national prosperity. We won't oppose this bill, but the changes here do little to address the enormous problems facing our higher education and our training sectors. This government needs to do so much more. The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZP Is the amendment seconded. Ms Madeleine King 102376 I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak. The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZP The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Corio has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House, I will state the question in the form that the words proposed to be omitted stand as part of the question. Debate adjourned. Reference to Federation Chamber 17 11:17 Mr VAN MANEN 188315 Forde I declare the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Refunds of Charges and Other Measures) Bill 2020 is referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration. VET Student Payment Arrangements (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2020 17

VET Student Payment Arrangements (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2020

Second Reading 17 11:18 Mr HOWARTH 247742 Petrie I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and move: That this bill be now read a second time. The VET Student Payment Arrangements (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2020 will assist the Commonwealth resolve outstanding matters under the former VET FEE-HELP scheme and will further facilitate the closure of the scheme. The bill also amends the VET Student Loans Act 2016 to improve the administration of the VET student loans program. The bill formally revokes the approval of remaining vocational education and training providers that operated under the VET FEE-HELP scheme but provides for the continuing application of the law for the purposes of dealing with any matters that arose while a body was approved under the VET FEE-HELP scheme. The Commonwealth's obligation to pay amounts of VET FEE-HELP assistance to VET providers in respect of older student data will cease. No student has an entitlement to VET FEE‑HELP assistance in relation to units with a census date after 31 December 2018. However, a small number of providers continue to lodge old claims dating back a number of years. Therefore, the Commonwealth will continue to make payments to VET providers only if the providers report certain information by specified deadlines. The deadline for reporting information for units with census dates before 1 January 2018 is 1 July 2021, while the deadline for all other units is 1 January 2022. This will prevent unsuspecting students from incurring VET FEE‑HELP debts indefinitely in relation to study they undertook many years ago, potentially dating back as far as 2009. Those students will also be protected by a measure which will discharge their liability to pay to VET providers any amounts relating to tuition fees not reported before the specified deadlines. Many VET providers are also higher education providers receiving amounts of FEE-HELP assistance under the Higher Education Support Act 2003, or approved course providers receiving VET student loans payments under the VET Student Loans Act 2016. To facilitate the collection of debts owed by VET providers to the Commonwealth under the VET FEE-HELP scheme, the bill enables the Commonwealth to offset those debts against VET student loans and FEE‑HELP amounts payable by the Commonwealth to those providers. This means the Commonwealth will be able to pay a net amount to a provider, rather than make a VET student loans or FEE‑HELP payment and separately invoice a debt under the VET FEE-HELP scheme. This will be both simpler and cheaper, saving the processing of invoices and payments, for providers and the Commonwealth. The bill also provides for further circumstances in which the secretary is not required to pay a VET student loan amount to an approved course provider under the VET Student Loans Act 2016. These circumstances reflect existing provisions in that act under which a student's HELP balance can be re-credited. This measure makes clear that the secretary is not required to pay an approved course provider a loan amount in circumstances where the student would then become eligible for a re-credit, and the provider would be required to re-pay the amount paid to the Commonwealth. Finally, the bill also contains a measure providing for the automatic revocation of a course provider's approval under the VET Student Loans Act 2016 if it ceases to be a registered training organisation. This measure is appropriate having regard to the requirement that an approved course provider for VET student loans must be an RTO. The measures in this bill will make for a fairer, more efficient student loans regime, helping to deliver a skilled and educated workforce to support Australia's economic recovery from the COVID-19 recession. 11:23 Mr MARLES HWQ Corio I rise to indicate that Labor will be supporting the VET Student Payment Arrangements (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2020. This bill proposes sensible administrative changes that are worthy of the parliament's support. These include amending the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to resolve and phase out obligations and arrangements relating to the previous VET FEE-HELP scheme. The bill will also amend the VET Student Loans Act 2016 to improve administrative efficiency by enabling the direct re-crediting of a student's Higher Education Loan Program balance in certain circumstances. This will replace the current process, in which the Commonwealth seeks to recover the amount from a provider once the amount has been paid to a provider and re-credited to the student's HELP balance. The bill will also enable the automatic revoking of the approval for an approved course provider once that provider ceases to be a registered training organisation. I note the assurance provided to the parliament in the explanatory memorandum that students will not be adversely impacted by the proposed amendments to the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and that related protections in the bill prevent providers from pursuing students for amounts the Commonwealth does not pay as a result of these amendments. I also note the assurance in the explanatory memorandum that VET providers were consulted on the bill's proposed changes via a working group with no critical issues being identified by them. The vocational education and training sector is profoundly important to our nation and to working Australians, with around 4.2 million Australians enrolled with training providers. It is a sector that is vast. It positively impacts the lives of millions around our country, whether we are talking about a kid straight out of school who is just embarking on their career journey or an experienced worker looking to retrain and broaden their skills and qualifications. This is a critical sector, and, again, I note that the government has cut billions of dollars from TAFE and training, with the number of apprentices and trainees dropping by 140,000 people. Nevertheless, Labor supports this modest and sensible administrative change which is proposed in this bill. 11:26 Mr HOWARTH 247742 Petrie I thank the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for his contribution—maybe except for that last bit! I think we're putting more money into TAFE and helping with more apprentices. The VET Student Payment Arrangements (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2020 takes a number of important steps to further facilitate closure of the former VET FEE-HELP scheme. The VET FEE-HELP scheme was replaced by the VET Student Loans program from 1 January 2017. The measures in this bill will make for a fairer, more efficient student loans regime, helping to deliver a skilled and educated workforce to support Australia's economic recovery from the COVID-19 recession. I commend the bill to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Third Reading 19 11:28 Mr HOWARTH 247742 Petrie by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020 19

Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020

Second Reading 19 11:28 The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZP The original question was that the bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Watson has moved as an amendment that all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House, I will state the question in the form that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question. I give the call to the member for Fowler in continuation. 11:29 Mr HAYES ECV Fowler Before the adjournment of the debate on the second reading of the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020 last night, I was trying to give those opposite a bit of a gratuitous history lesson on industrial relations. At that stage, I was talking about their efforts in relation to Work Choices. Just briefly, I would like to continue with that lesson if I could, because what Work Choices did was to establish such a degree of uncertainty in the minds not just of workers but of parents, grandparents and particularly kids who were either graduating from school or about to join the Australian workforce, when they saw what was possible under Work Choices—that is, that people could be paid at less than award rates of pay, for the first time in our history. Collectively, the decision was made throughout the community that Work Choices was not just bad legislation and an attack on workers and workers' rights but fundamentally un-Australian. Here's a tip for those opposite: workplace relations is not just about workers. It is also about their families and their communities, and it's about looking after people. What we saw in the first iterations of this bill was an attempt to inevitably draw back to their experiences with Work Choices. Sure, they tried to make amends for that yesterday by restoring the BOOT test, but, by and large, you really have to look at the detail of what is in this bill and set it in your own mind. I invite those opposite to do the same. Is this what you want to be seen as the way you represent working families in your own local communities? Putting that into some perspective, you might have noticed yesterday that, whilst the minister was pretty free with his words in throwing guarantees around the House, it was not so for the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was nowhere when he was asked to give a guarantee that no worker would be worse off. He wanted to talk about anything else but that. It's probably for very good reason, because he probably has a bit of an inkling of what's in this bill. This bill as it stands still allows for workers' pay to be cut. It makes it easier for employers to casualise jobs. It makes it almost impossible for a casual worker to be made permanent, except at the instigation of the employer. Unbelievably, if a casual worker at a fast food restaurant or something like that wants to pursue the notion of being a permanent employee, they have to go to the Federal Court. There are enough lawyers in this building to know that, when you do that, you go through your solicitors and, if you're in a jurisdiction like New South Wales, you take your barrister with you as well, and you enter into this legal costs jurisdiction. So, as a casual employee, you'd better hope that you win, because otherwise you'll have the employer's costs awarded against you. And they want to say that's fair arbitration! Casual workers, in my experience, are not well-paid workers. They are, as described, casual workers. Their bargaining rights are somewhat limited compared to those of an employer. So, despite this mealy-mouthed stuff the government want to say about how you have the prospect of going to arbitration and you can go all the way to the Federal Court, they know that's not just a reality, or at least I hope they do. Otherwise it reflects on the mentality of those opposite if they think this is really a prospect in real life. The other thing this bill does to employees is to make bargaining for better pay even more difficult than it is currently, and where jurisdictions have criminalised wage theft, as many around the country have done, it actually overrides states' jurisdiction in that respect, obviously because of constitutional supremacy. It weakens some ordinary punishments for the crime of wage theft as it stands. Another thing that's near to my heart, having worked in setting up agreements in industries, particularly in hydrocarbon and oil areas, is that, leading from manufacturing into production, sometimes you will have greenfield sites set up. Instead of having industrial complications, you will try to get a situation where there are some known industrial outcomes for employees. Under their provisions, they can set their greenfield agreements up for a period of eight years. You can set up so there is no pay rise capable of being negotiated throughout the whole period of that greenfield agreement. So it is something that they have failed to take account of—that there's a real situation out there. They have failed to take into account that we're not talking about the top end of the labour market and they've failed to take account of our collective responsibility in looking after people in need. The reason why we have industrial regulation is to protect those that are in work. The government like to talk about the individual and the individual's ability to go out and negotiate. We heard all that from John Howard onwards. The simple fact is that all these fellows here, including on our side, don't go and individually negotiate their parliamentary salaries. It is all done in one job lot. You can't think that a casual worker can simply go out and take on their employer. You know what will happen? They simply won't get any more shifts. They would be engineered out of the workplace. This is making it harder at that end. I think most in this place gave speeches genuinely of thanks to all those workers that have helped us through the pandemic—the shop assistants and the truck drivers that ensured the logistics were taken care of and that our shelves were as full as possible. Our cleaners have had an extraordinary responsibility throughout this period. They're just a couple of the types of frontline workers. Clearly there are many others—police, ambulance officers and emergency services workers, of course. But the ones I mentioned earlier—the truck drivers, the shop assistants and the cleaners—are not high-paid workers. But they're the ones who are effectively the targets of this legislation, because they are principally the ones you'll find on casualised employment. It does make a difference to them whether they have a regularised income. It certainly does make a difference to them if they can be permanent. Under this legislation, after 12 months the employer can offer to transition someone into permanency in their employment—can. But you could be there for 12 months and the employer could take the view, 'It's not reasonable because I don't think your job is going to be in existence in 12 months time.' That at face value could be seen as a reasonable justification not to make that person permanent. That person can't go to a bank and get a loan or a mortgage. It affects not only the stability of the person in employment but the person's ability to further provide ongoing sustenance to their family in terms of living and what secure employment would do in giving security to a family within a community. I ask those opposite just to think about it. The change to the BOOT test was interesting. They put it in there probably thinking: 'If John Howard could do it, why shouldn't we? Those are our colours. We're members of the Liberal Party, so this is what we do.' It's a bit like the story of the scorpion and frog: halfway across the stream, the scorpion stings the frog. When asked why, the scorpion's view is: 'Well, that's what we do. That's in our nature.' I think to some extent the BOOT test, like Work Choices, was in their nature. However, they should actually go a little bit past ideology and think about why they became members of parliament. I would hope that everybody in this place came here to help make their communities a better place and, in doing so, that means looking after people, particularly those in need, those falling through the cracks. That's not what this legislation does. It not only identifies the cracks but widens them and does things to people at the lower end of the employment scales. These are the people who need all of our collective support. Those not just from Labor on our side but those in government should take the responsibility seriously about helping protect people in need. Quite frankly, we are a community in need at the moment. We are rebuilding and recovering from the worst pandemic in 100 years. We need everybody to find security of employment and be confident that they can spend in our economy and, as a consequence, that will generate other jobs. Let's not make it harder for our own domestic economy by doing things like this. It might fit with the ideology, but it doesn't fit with the economics, it doesn't fit with looking after people. I would've thought collectively in this place that our sworn responsibility is protecting people in need. Consequently, we'll be voting against this legislation. 11:42 Mr WALLACE 265967 Fisher Since Labor's Fair Work Act of 2009 was passed, the world has changed immensely. In a post-COVID economy, we need to work together to build a more effective industrial relations system which helps job creation rather than hindering it and ensures more Australians are able to enjoy more of the rewards of work. The Morrison government's response has been timely and it's been constructive. Last June the Minister for Industrial Relations gathered employers, industry and the unions in a four-month process to reach a consensus around trying to find a way forward. The union movement, through the ACTU, was involved in this process. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Business Council of Australia all took part. All sides had a role in the development of the reforms. The government consulted widely and in depth, because we knew how important it is to put our political differences aside and avoid playing the usual political games at such an important time. Sadly, not all members in this House take this mature attitude. There is a crew of wreckers in this place who insist on continuing to throw a partisan spanner in the works and hold back the interests of workers to put themselves first. I'm speaking of course about the Australian Labor Party. The issues could not be more important. Jobs growth, underemployment, job security, the underpayment of wages and the total failure of Labor's enterprise bargaining system to improve wages and productivity growth are front of mind for millions of employers and employees today. Opposition members interjecting— Mr WALLACE 265967 Yet it's become clear that the Leader of the Opposition and those members opposite, some of whom are interjecting right now, intend to do all they can to delay action. They are fighting the reforms set out in this bill because they don't want this problem solved before the next election, not when they think they can get some political advantage out of it. I have some gratuitous and unsolicited advice for members opposite. Australian workers aren't interested in who it is that makes the changes we need. They don't care who makes the changes. They just want the changes. They don't care who sets up an industrial relations system which will improve flexibility, regrow jobs and help them to secure better pay and conditions. They want to see us get this done, and they will not forgive those who hold back progress. The reforms Australia needs to get the economy going are already on the table in this bill. All members opposite need to do is vote for them. The bill contains a statutory definition of what it means to be a casual worker. Employees and employers alike need a clear picture of what their rights and responsibilities are, and workers need to know exactly how to identify which category they fall into. Under this bill, an employee would be categorised as casual based on the offer of employment they accept. Employees will know what they can expect, and employers will avoid the risk of having to pay the same worker twice because their classification is not clear. This sort of double dipping is estimated to cost employers up to $39 billion, which they could be using to help more Australians into work. I don't know how many employers have spoken to me in the last 12 months about their concerns about the issue of double dipping. There are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of employers—small-business employers, mums and dads—who are worried about having to pay casual workers these additional costs, which and actually factored in to their casual rates of pay. That's of course as a result of a Federal Court decision. There are small businesses out there that will close the doors if this issue is not resolved. In contrast, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor government failed to provide any useable definition of 'casual worker' in the Fair Work Act 2009. In the 12 years since, Labor have failed to let Australian workers know what their definition is. In his so-called big speech last week, the Leader of the Opposition promised only that Labor would get around to writing a definition at some unspecified time in the future. There is a sensible, workable definition of casual work on the table right now in this bill. All members opposite need to do is vote for it. The bill introduces for the first time a statutory obligation on employers to offer their ongoing casual workers the opportunity to become permanent employees. I would have thought those opposite would think that was a pretty good thing. Under the bill, this offer will have to be made after 12 months of employment unless there is a compelling business reason not to. Employers will also be required to provide new casuals with a casual employment information statement from the Fair Work Commission to ensure they are fully informed about their rights. In contrast, when they wrote the Fair Work Act in 2009, Labor provided no statutory path to permanent work for casual employees. Let me say that again: Labor provided no statutory path to permanent work for casual employees. And they make out that they are the champion of the worker. In his speech to the Press Club last week, the Leader of the Opposition said that Labor would offer contract workers a path to job security after 24 months. The Morrison government can do much better than that. In the bill before the House today, there is a plan to give casual workers certainty after 12 months. All members opposite need to do is vote for it. The bill before the House introduces new flexibility into the industrial relations system to ensure that part-time employees under an award who want more hours can get them whenever they're available. Does that sound like a big deal to you, Assistant Minister? It doesn't sound like a big deal to me. At present, many awards in sectors that have been hard hit by COVID-19 allow additional hours to be granted only to permanent employees when a formal alteration of the pattern of hours is agreed. This makes it cheaper for many employers to take on a casual worker rather than giving their existing employees the hours that they want. This bill would allow employers in retail and hospitality to give their loyal staff more work and make taking on permanent employees more attractive. Further, the bill introduces flexibility to ensure that new enterprise agreements can be made quickly and in a way that suits the specific circumstances faced by a given employer and their workforce. New enterprise agreements have been few and far between in recent years because of drawn-out approval processes and narrow technical assessments. Under this bill, agreements will be approved, where practicable, within 21 days. Procedural requirements will be simplified and employees' voting rights clarified to encourage more agreements to be made. More enterprise agreements will mean there is the certainty that employers need to put on more staff as well as better pay and conditions for their workers. Of particular importance are the reforms this bill makes to greenfield agreements. More foreign investment in the construction sector could create thousands of new jobs in this country. However, the requirement to renegotiate greenfield agreements during the construction phase of large-scale projects is a major handbrake on these sorts of investments. They cause costly and unpredictable delays that many investors simply will not take the risk on. This bill will allow the Fair Work Commission to approve long-term major project greenfield agreements with an expiry date of up to eight years if the projects are valued at over $500 million or have declared national significance. At the same time, the bill stipulates that longer-term greenfield agreements must also guarantee annual pay increases, while the existing requirements for dispute settlement will remain in place so that these agreements will not only increase foreign investment but also help to create jobs and drive growth. In contrast, Labor have a plan to impose a massive new investment-killing administrative burden on employers which would make hiring a casual employee significantly more difficult and ensure that far fewer jobs are available in our economy. Labor want to create an unnecessary and vastly bureaucratic portable leave system. They would give casual workers access to long service leave at the cost of making it much less likely that a job will be available for them at all. It's this pathological issue that Labor has with cutting off their nose to spite their face. They want to continuously say that they are creating all of these weird and wonderful things, but what they actually do is result in less jobs. There is so little detail available on Labor's big spending idea that estimating the cost of Labor's policy is difficult. However, the department of the Minister for Industrial Relations has calculated that Labor's scheme would cost up to $20 billion a year. There's a plan in the bill before the House to make creating jobs and increasing hours far easier and more attractive, ensuring that thousands of Australians will have the opportunity to get back to work, earning the income that they need. All that members opposite and on the crossbench have to do is to vote for it. Finally, this bill will strengthen the Fair Work Commission and ensure that it can deliver a real deterrent against exploiting vulnerable workers. I wouldn't have thought that those opposite would be against that. When workers have been underpaid, the bill makes it easier and cheaper for them to recover their wages. The bill introduces a new criminal offence for dishonest and systematic wage underpayment, as well as increasing the size of civil penalties that apply for noncompliance with the Fair Work Act. For employees who want to recover their entitlements, the bill increases the cap on small claims processes to $50,000, ensuring the Fair Work Commission can handle all but the largest of cases. In contrast, Labor not only opposed the Morrison government's efforts to strengthen the Fair Work Commission but also want to get rid of two of Australian workers' other strongest defenders—the Registered Organisations Commission and the Australian Building and Construction Commission. If members opposite, and on the crossbench, are serious about strengthening the institutions that protect Australian workers from exploitation, the reforms we need are right here in this bill before the House. All they need to do is vote for the bill. But they won't. Ever since the coalition government was elected, we have acted time and again to protect workers' interests and defend them from exploitation. With the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Act, the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the Registered Organisations Commission, JobKeeper and our Ensuring Integrity legislation, this government has stood up for workers time and time again. Labor have stood up only for themselves and their union mates like the CFMMEU, the same organisation that continues to bankroll the Labor Party, the same organisation that has been criticised up hill and down dale as being the largest recidivist organisation in this country for breaking industrial laws in this country. In the bill before the House we have a suite of fundamental reforms, created through extensive consultation, which will see jobs created, more security and better pay and conditions for more Australian workers. Members opposite have an ill-judged thought bubble that won't do much for them and will do even less for the workers they claim to represent. It's time for Labor to put the interests of ordinary Australians behind their own political gain and support the much needed reforms in this bill. I commend the bill to the House. 11:57 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne Before I came to this place I spent 12 years working as a lawyer in employment, industrial and public interest law, looking at exactly these kinds of laws. When a bill like this comes before the parliament, you've got to look carefully at what the words will actually do in practice. If this bill passes, insecure work will spread like wildfire across the country. That's because this bill does three key things. Even after the better off overall test was dumped—which may have been an ambit claim from the government; I don't know—this bill does three key things. The first is that it lets employers call you casual even if you're not, and there's nothing you can do about it. The second is that it spells the beginning of the end of full-time work contracts, because it introduces into the system a new form of contract where the employer can employ you part time and then put your hours up or down as the employer wants. And the third thing it does that the government doesn't tell you about is take an already difficult process of bargaining for better wages and conditions and tilt it even further in the employer's favour, making it harder for you to ask in your workplace for what you're entitled to. The bill does a number of other things as well, but I want to spend a bit of time talking about these three key things, because the government won't tell you about them. Those three things, if they pass in this bill, will spread insecure work like wildfire across the country and change the face of the labour market in one of the most significant changes we've seen for decades. Firstly, what does the bill do about casual employment? We already know that insecure work is a massive problem in this country. And we've seen that during COVID. We've seen people who are stuck on casual or insecure contracts being forced to make that terrible decision: 'Do I come to work knowing I'm sick and potentially put myself and others at risk or do I stay home but miss out on pay because I'm a casual employee and I'm not entitled to sick leave?' And we've seen that the awful choices people have been forced to make contribute to the spread of this virus. But we also know that casual and insecure work over many years is a virus for people's lives, because it makes it difficult to plan—not only to plan what you're doing from week to week but to plan your whole life. It makes it difficult to go to the bank manager and try to get a mortgage. It makes it difficult to make plans about a family if you don't have a secure income. So we know it's a problem already. This bill's going to make it worse. The first thing it's going to do is allow employers to say you're a casual employee, even if you're not, and, once the employer has said you're a casual employee, you can't challenge it. This bill's definition of 'casual employee' says that, if the employer says you're a casual, you're a casual. That's basically it. That means that the problem of insecure work is going to get worse, because, even if you work a regular span of hours for someone and in ordinary circumstances you should be entitled to get sick leave, annual leave, and all of those entitlements that come from being a part-time employee or a full-time employee—even if, by law, you're entitled to those things—it won't matter, because the employer will have said at the start of your employment, 'You're a casual,' and then, under this bill, what the employer says goes. We've seen exploitation of people. People who should be entitled to some sense of security and to some decent conditions like holiday pay and sick leave are going to be denied it simply because the employer says so. So that is reason No. 1 that this bill should be opposed. Reason No. 2, which hasn't got a lot of attention but deserves to get a lot of attention, is that this bill is the beginning of the end of full-time employment contracts. At the moment, if you work more than 16 hours a week—say you work 25, 30 or 35 hours a week—you might sign a contract or respond to a job ad that says your job is a 25-, 30- or 35-hour-a-week job, and you then get all your pay and conditions on that basis. If you're asked to work more, you should get overtime or you have the right to say no. But you know that that's how many hours a week you're going to get. This bill introduces a new form of employment contract that says the employer can put you on a minimum of 16 hours a week and they can then go up or down after that, basically at their whim, and you're not going to get any additional entitlements for working those extra hours, even though it actually counts as overtime. Not only is it going to hurt people who already work these part-time arrangements, because they're going to end up with less money in their pockets, but it's a threat to people who have full-time jobs as well, because all of a sudden an employer, instead of advertising a 30-hour-a-week job or a job that has decent hours, can now just offer a 16-hour contract and say, 'Oh, look, from week to week, I'll give you the odd day here or there, basically at my whim.' That is going to make it impossible for people to plan their lives. That is going to make it incredibly difficult to go and get a mortgage. Forget about a mortgage; if you don't know from week to week how much you're earning, it becomes even more difficult just to pay your rent. So this problem that we have in Australia at the moment, where only four out of 10 people working are under standard employment arrangements, is going to get worse because, firstly, if the employer says you're a casual, you're a casual, even if you're not; and, secondly, if you want to work a job with decent hours, the chances of doing that have just been diminished because the employer has access to this new part-time flexible arrangement that's going to turn full-time or close-to-full-time jobs into a form of insecure work. In a context where the government and the Reserve Bank and everyone say, 'Jeez, we'd like wages to be higher to get the economy going and for people to have their money in their pockets,' this bill is going to drive down wages, because people are going to feel less confident about coming and asking for the payment that they're entitled to, because the employer is going to hold all the cards. Indeed, it's going to give them even more of the cards, and that's the third problem with this bill. Under this bill, when you go and negotiate an enterprise agreement—because the government says, 'Well, that's your way to negotiate yourself above this really low award'—the employer no longer has to even show you the full agreement. You could be asked to sign up to something without the employer having to show you what the whole agreement actually is. All the employer needs to do under this is say, 'When it comes to hours of work and changing your hours of work, you've got to abide by company policy.' And you might think, 'Well, I want to know what the company policy is before I sign.' They don't have to tell you, if this bill goes through. You're signing your rights away and giving the employer a blank cheque. You might think: 'Well, I'll tell you what: that doesn't sound fair. I want to go and talk to my union and get advice about whether I should sign this agreement or not.' What the government is doing under this bill is extending the amount of time before the employer has to tell you that you're allowed to go to the union. It's going to go out by a couple of weeks, from 14 days to 28 days, during which time the whole agreement might have been completed. In other words, the employer is able to say: 'Here, sign this deal. You've got to sign it. This is the only way you're going to get a modest pay rise.' You might be signing your rights away. They don't have to tell you that you've got the right to see a union. They'll tell you a month later that you can go and see a union, but, by that time, it might all be done and dusted. So there is less that they have to tell you. They don't even have to tell you what the agreement that you're signing up to is. They don't have to tell you, before the bargaining may well be, in fact, concluded, that you can go and join a union. But, also, if you do enter into one of these agreements, when you take it to the Fair Work Commission to get it approved, there's a sneaky little clause in here about the so-called minimum conditions of the National Employment Standards, which are meant to be the legal minimum that everyone is entitled to. The commission can now basically apply a pretty rubbery test about whether the agreement goes below those. So they're changing the test about whether or not the agreement even meets the legal minimum in this country. That is why I say—and I think anyone who understands industrial relations law and employment law and looks at this clause by clause can come to no other conclusion—that this bill is one of the biggest threats to secure employment that we have seen for a very long time. This bill will spread insecure employment across this country like wildfire, even as, at the moment, insecure employment is at peak levels and posing a threat to people's ability to plan their lives. We already have too many people suffering from insecure jobs. When the government say, 'It's okay; unemployment is coming down because we're getting more people into jobs,' what they don't tell you is that a big part of the growth in jobs is in crappy jobs where you work an hour or two a week. People may not know this, but, if you're employed for one hour a week, it counts in the statistics as being employed. So we're seeing more and more people being put in these crappy, low-hours, insecure jobs, and this bill is specifically designed to make it worse. So this bill has to be rejected. I say to the members of the crossbench who are thinking about how to vote on this bill now that the BOOT test has been dropped: if this bill passes, there's going to be a flood of constituents coming in, once this starts to bite, saying, 'Why can't I get a full-time job anymore?,' 'Why am I only guaranteed part-time hours of work?' or, 'Why is it that I'm not a casual but I'm told I'm a casual, and I can't go to court or to the Fair Work Commission to challenge it?' That's what will happen if this bill passes. The devil is in the detail, and the detail is devilish, because it will change the face of the labour market in this country, in the biggest reform that we've seen since Work Choices, in a way that is designed to spread insecure work, drive wages down and drive conditions down. Sober analysis of this bill, even if you're someone who doesn't sit on a union or on an employer side but you just look at this and ask what's best for workers—as someone who has spent 12 years working in this area, I'll say this—shows that the legislation does a lot more than the government is saying. It attacks some of the most fundamental things that we take for granted here about how work is organised in this country. It is going to hurt people, if this passes. I think we need to scrap this bill and start again. We need to outlaw insecure work in this country. Insecure work has spread to the point where people don't have the ability to plan their lives in the way that they used to. We need to outlaw insecure work and get back to the point where every job is presumed to be ongoing unless there's good, sound business reasons otherwise. If you are running a small business, an ice-cream shop, and it is only open over summer, then yes, sure you can put someone on for three months to work over summer as a casual on a short-term contract. Of course there are always going to be sensible reasons for it, but it has gone too far in this country. I remember someone coming and giving evidence to an inquiry when I introduced a bill to tackle insecure employment several years ago. She worked at a university for close to 10 years without being entitled to a day of sick leave, even though she did the same job in basically the same department for 10 years, because she was called a casual for all of that time. There are so many people in this situation who are doing rolling contract after rolling contract and who are doing a bit of work here and a bit of work there. It's not just Uber drivers or food delivery drivers; it's happening everywhere now. It's happening in the aged-care sector. Carers are being asked to care for someone in the morning and then care for someone in the afternoon and they don't get paid for the time in between. It stuffs up their whole day. They can't work or go and do another job, and they only get paid for a couple of hours either end. We need to outlaw insecure work in this country. We can't let insecure work spread like wildfire, which is what will happen if this bill passes, so we've got to oppose this bill. 12:12 Ms BELL 282981 Moncrieff I would like to remind the member for Melbourne and those opposite that this bill is about urgent industrial relations reform. Like so much of the Morrison government's work, it's about protecting jobs and creating jobs. It's about boosting wages and enhancing productivity. It's about synergy for employees and employers. It's about our national economic growth. For me, it's ultimately about Moncrieff businesses booming—which is very important to my local electorate—and families flourishing. In my maiden speech I mentioned that it was one of my goals for my time here: to make sure that that actually happens. The impetus for reform can come from a wide range of influences. The support for our continued recovery from the pandemic has accelerated the importance of these incremental and commonsense changes and updates. Through modest reforms, the government is building upon the same cooperative spirit the country has so successfully embraced in our approached to overcoming the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic. The flaws in Labor's Fair Work Act are depriving wages growth and stifling job creation. The Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020 will address many of the issues to clean up Labor's mess, which was frankly sloppy and at other times truly ideologically myopic. Allow me to elaborate on some of the issues and how they will be addressed by this bill. The bill defines 'casual employee' to provide the clarity that businesses and employees need. It will give eligible casual employees a statutory pathway to permanent full-time or part-time jobs, if they wish. It addresses some inflexibilities in the act around duties and location of work that the pandemic has highlighted, in the retail and hospitality sectors, by extending our successful JobKeeper flexibilities so that employers and employees can continue to work together to recover from the pandemic. I've worked in the areas of hospitality and retail, and I understand the need to have that security of a full-time position. The bill increases the likelihood of secure part-time work by boosting the confidence of employers and facilitating workers to get the additional hours they want. It smooths the enterprise-agreement-making pathway to drive wages growth and increase productivity. Megaprojects create jobs. We know that. And this bill will encourage investment in megaprojects so they are more likely to proceed. It will do this by allowing the construction of major projects to be covered by a greenfield agreement for up to a maximum of eight years. It also bolsters compliance and enforcements under the Fair Work Act to protect workers from wage underpayments, simultaneously supporting businesses to comply with their obligations through a free advisory service for small business. It will ensure that employees can recover their correct entitlements faster. This is good news. The changes that I have outlined are the result of significant consultation by the Morrison government with a broad range of stakeholders, including unions, employers and industry. Unfortunately, as Labor do, they chose divisiveness for political gain over the authentic needs and wants of all Australians. In Moncrieff, it's vital that we address issues like job growth, underemployment, job security, underpayment of wages and the failure of Labor's enterprise bargaining system to drive wages and productivity growth. Labor are opposing all of these incremental changes, but, as seems to be the norm, aren't presenting a realistic alternative. We don't see one coming from the other side. Of course, from time to time, there will be disputes, but one of the great achievements of Australia has been our maturing industrial relations stability in a way that has been a net positive for employers and employees. It's also an understatement to say that workplaces have changed significantly over the past decades, let alone under the sudden changes induced by the pandemic. They have indeed changed. It is deeply disappointing that the Leader of the Opposition and Labor generally have failed to evolve to keep pace with the modern Australia. In Moncrieff at least—and, I suspect, nationally—people expect the parliament to deliver reforms that keep pace with our workplace realities and our economic circumstances. To those members opposite, I say: if you really are a friend of workers then work with the government to deliver the reforms that the nation needs. Advocate within your party to modernise Labor's stance to become a constructive contributor to reform or, alternatively, simply vote for this bill. Let's delve into a little more detail about casual employees. The more we can do to reduce uncertainty for business the more confidence businesses will have to invest in jobs. That seems pretty obvious to me and surely to those members opposite. Confidence is what we need right now. Businesses tell me that the single thing they need the most in Moncrieff and on the Gold Coast is confidence, and I'm sure it's the same across the country. This bill delivers greater certainty to businesses about their obligations. It delivers casual employees stronger rights to convert to permanent employment if they wish to. It's bordering on shameful that Labor refuse to support fixing their own failure to define casual employees a decade ago. We are introducing today a clear definition of what it means to be a casual employee. Under this bill, both employers and employees will have certainty about when a person is a casual employee and the clear rights and obligations in those circumstances. One of the sensible reforms in this bill that should achieve bipartisan support, in my view, is the establishment for eligible casual employees of a new statutory pathway to permanent employment on a full-time or part-time basis through a legislated casual conversion entitlement. This delivers choice to eligible casual employees regarding their ongoing full-time or part-time employment. The Morrison government firmly believes all employees should be classified and paid correctly. That's consistent with the innate sense of fairness that Australians have. If you have a go, you will get a go. We know that. It's a very important part of our values on this side of the chamber. Australians also know that fairness is less achievable when some people get to double-dip. We don't like double-dipping. What the Morrison government knows and the good people of Moncrieff expect is that employees can't be paid a casual loading as compensation for not having leave entitlements and then, on top of that, be paid those leave entitlements as well. Small businesses, other employers and the legion of workers who earn their entitlements every week by receiving a standard hourly rate without a loading will be outraged if the parliament allows such an obvious gross unfairness to continue. What a confidence-destroying signal to business it would be if we were to do that. That's really at the heart of the way Labor often operates. There's an arrogant indifference on the other side. We shouldn't be surprised. This attitude comes from the same party that treated retirees with contempt on franking credits. This bill will implement an important safeguard. In the event that an ongoing employee is misclassified as casual, the bill will ensure any casual loading amounts paid to the employee can be offset against claims for leave and other entitlements, to address any potential for double dipping. The Morrison government is acting to fix the double-dipping problem and prevent unfair outcomes in situations where employers could effectively have to pay an employee twice for the same entitlement. Businesses in Moncrieff and across the country will be saved from Labor's roughly $39 billion double-dip hit on employment. Those opposite, in good conscience, should support this bill for workers. They should not be against casual employees who want to become full-time or part-time employees. Why on earth does Labor want to keep casual workers in casual roles even when they prefer permanent roles? Wouldn't Labor prefer them to be in permanent roles? This bill sets out much-needed incremental reform on the award system. Greater flexibility will be introduced into awards in some of our hardest-hit sectors. This will drive retail and hospitality jobs, which are so important on the Gold Coast. It will drive jobs growth in those sectors and it will tackle underemployment. This is very important for driving down unemployment in Moncrieff, which is among the highest in the country. We know that Queensland is the state with the highest unemployment. On the Gold Coast it's worse than the Queensland average. The Gold Coast needs this reform to support the continuation of our recovery as we moved forward. The JobKeeper flexibilities protected thousands of jobs during this pandemic—10,500 businesses in Moncrieff were on JobKeeper. It supported so many people in their jobs, and it needs to continue across key awards for a further temporary period of two years to improve the precarious position of the retail and hospitality sectors. These flexibilities include those relating to duties and location of work. For clarity I will quickly list some of the awards that this affects. The Business Equipment Award 2020, the Commercial Sales Award 2020, the Fast Food Industry Award 2010, the General Retail Industry Award 2020, the Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020, the Meat Industry Award 2020, the Nursery Award 2020, the Pharmacy Industry Award 2020, the Restaurant Industry Award 2020, the Registered and Licensed Clubs Award 2020, the Seafood Processing Award 2020 and the Vehicle Repair, Services and Retail Award 2020 will all be affected by these industrial relations reforms. This bill brings employers and part-time employees together in the economically vulnerable retail and hospitality sectors, as I mentioned, to work together to agree on additional hours of work for part-time employees who want them. This will help to increase working hours and wages and encourage employers to offer more permanent, secure roles with benefits, including paid sick leave, over traditionally more flexible forms of employment like casual roles. This will help people like my brother in Cairns, who has worked for decades in a butcher shop making sausages. For at least one decade he hasn't had a break over Christmas. He has to work through Christmas because he's a casual employee. I think it would be great if he became a permanent employee and he had a couple of weeks off over Christmas. That would be nice, wouldn't it? He could spend time with his grandson and his family over Christmas. It would be great. Very many workers will have improved entitlements under this bill. The sectors we are addressing combine to employ over a third of all casual employees, so the scale of this will be meaningful for the economy, just as it will be for the individuals and businesses it involves. Stats from the ABS tell us that more than 100,000 part-time employees aren't getting the hours they want. Around 30 per cent of part-time employees in the retail trade industry and about 40 per cent of part-time employees in the accommodation and food services industry would prefer more hours and are available to work more hours, but they won't get the extra work without this very important reform. This bill is one of the actions the Morrison government is taking to reduce underemployment. Reducing underemployment will help young people in Moncrieff get a better start in life, and it will help Moncrieff families meet their needs. Employees will be able to agree to additional hours of work at their normal rates, provided they already regularly work at least 16 hours per week and provided various other important safeguards are satisfied. This removes barriers to part-time work for recovering businesses and facilitates additional hours of work for part-time employees who want them. If Labor members vote against this bill, they are denying thousands of workers extra hours. They are actively working against those they have in the past called their own hardworking Australians. The opposition leader likes to talk about underemployment but won't support the government to reduce it and has no credible plan of his own. Secure jobs with paid sick leave and more hours are what many workers want. Why does the Opposition Leader want to impede that by voting against this bill? It's beyond me; I don't understand. Enterprise agreements encourage job creation, wage increases and productivity growth, but you have to get the agreements in place. Drawn-out approval processes and the risk of agreements being denied on narrow technical grounds are thwarting the success of those agreements. There will be faster agreements targeting a 21-working-day turnaround. That lets employers refocus on their business operations and employees get better pay and conditions sooner. The better off overall test will continue and be improved to reflect the more collaborative reality we see on the ground that I mentioned earlier. This simplification of procedural requirements will ensure that genuine agreement requirements continue but will eliminate unnecessary delays and complexity. The Morrison government knows that greenfield agreements need to be improved to attract investment with the potential to secure thousands of Australian jobs as we continue to recover from the pandemic. Under this bill, the Fair Work Commission will be able to approve longer-term major project greenfields agreements by allowing the nominal expiry date to go up to eight years. There will be criteria that apply, and I don't have time to go through them all. This bill will protect workers. This bill will reform industrial relations in this country. The Morrison government is delivering the sensible reforms that will benefit employers, employees and our economic recovery. Labor, those opposite, should support this bill. 12:27 Mrs PHILLIPS 147140 Gilmore I rise today so that I can put on the record my complete and absolute opposition to the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020. The reason I oppose this bill is simple: I care about workers. But not only that: I also care deeply about our businesses, and this bill will hurt both, no matter how the government wants to package it, no matter what bow they put around it. Things like hurting workers, cutting pay and making jobs less secure hurt our entire economy. It is bad for the country and I can tell you it is bad for my electorate of Gilmore on the New South Wales South Coast. Before I talk about the aspects of the bill that I am most concerned about and the impacts this will have on workers, I want to talk a little about the economy on the South Coast. The New South Wales South Coast is beloved around the country. It is a beautiful place to visit and an absolutely amazing place to live. We have beaches, mountains, wineries, boutique food outlets, festivals and more. TripAdvisor named the Shoalhaven as the eighth top emerging travel destination in the world, and I couldn't agree more. The outcome of this is that our economy is largely centred around tourism. It is largely seasonal, with our population doubling, tripling or more in school holidays and on long weekends. Tourism permeates every aspect. Even if a business might not be directly related, it will still feel the peaks and troughs that this seasonal economy brings to it. Even our essential workers like our nurses and hospital staff are impacted, as are our police and other emergency services. I could go on. The impact of this for local workers is that they rely on casual and part-time employment. Sadly, we have seen what happens when that seasonal economy fails. It started with the bushfires, with workers across the South Coast suddenly left without an income. I will never forget the cleaner who contacted my office in the immediate aftermath of the bushfires. She normally cleaned holiday rentals, but with no-one coming to the coast she was suddenly without an income. She didn't know how she was going to pay her bills. She didn't know how she was going to feed her kids and she was so terrified about the consequences of speaking up about this that she would not leave her name. She couldn't afford to risk losing her job. This bill is going to make that situation worse. It is going to make more people like that cleaner terrified and unable to pay the bills because, at its heart, this bill seeks to cut workers' pay, attack workers rights and will leave those that rely on a seasonal economy worse off. After the bushfires came COVID: even more people out of work, even more people feeling insecure about what was going to happen. Whenever restrictions allowed it, I spent my time visiting with local businesses across the coast—hundreds of them. The local butcher, the local post office, the local book store, the local cafe: I heard a similar story from each of them that might surprise some people. JobKeeper and the COVID supplement for JobSeeker saved them. Yes, absolutely, because it helped them keep their workers on. But there was another reason. Local people had financial safety and security. Even for a short period of time they had a little bit, perhaps more than usual, in their wallet. They could afford to go to their local butcher. They could afford to buy a coffee in their local cafe. Spending in the local shops was keeping local shops open, meaning more people had jobs, meaning more people had money to spend in local shops. And so it goes on. My electorate has traditionally had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Our youth unemployment rate has been unacceptably high, and we have seen unacceptable levels of underemployment. People struggle with housing affordability, something that is getting even more out of control. People rely on support services like the wonderful Salt Care or the Red Door hall lunches, because $40 a day is not enough to get by on when you're struggling to get work or you're between jobs. We know that. It isn't a secret. My point is that it's completely counterintuitive to say that if you cut workers' pay and remove their job security then you help business. You don't. You hurt business. Hurting workers hurts businesses. I know it does in my electorate, I have seen it. From my perspective, the entire premise on which the changes in this bill are based is completely unfounded. Let's explore what this bill is actually trying to do. This bill will make it easier for employers to casualise jobs that would otherwise be permanent. It will decrease the bargaining power of workers and stop unions from helping the Fair Work Commission to ensure an agreement is fair. It will cut workers' pay. It will remove the rights of blue-collar workers on big projects. It will make work less secure and it will hurt our economy. The government have thankfully backed down on their plan to remove the better off overall test. That is great news, welcome news, but the truth is they didn't do it because they realised it was unfair. They didn't do it because they changed their mind and decided this wasn't a good way to go. They did it because they knew they couldn't get it through. They still believe this change should be made and, if given the chance, the Liberal-National government will try this again. At the end of the day, the Liberals want to cut workers' pay. They have proven it time and time again. They are proving it again now. Make no mistake, that's their endgame. This is a change that the people on the New South Wales South Coast cannot afford. Our workers certainly can't afford it, but our businesses also can't afford it. If our workers get their pay cut, if they can lose their jobs more easily, where will they end up? On JobSeeker, which, from the end of next month, will be back at $40 a day—not enough to live on, not enough to pay the bills, certainly not enough to let you buy from the butcher or the local coffee shop. Does that help businesses? Clearly the answer is no. Earlier I touched briefly on the bushfires our community experienced last summer, and I want to return there for a moment. The bushfires were a harrowing time for everyone in our community. It was something we went through together, and it had a profound impact on us all. But what I witnessed, and what many people continue to remark on, was a unique rallying of our human spirit. That human spirit was embodied in our essential workers, our community heroes no doubt: firefighters, emergency service workers, police, council workers, nurses, doctors, ambulance workers—the list goes on. That was even before the pandemic, when these heroes took on even more and continued to earn our admiration, our respect, and our thanks. They have done an amazing job helping and protecting local people at huge risk and cost to themselves. They have been there for us every day, working long hours, working hard in terrible conditions and they deserve to be paid fairly for it, but not according to this bill. These are the workers that will be left worse off under these changes, our amazing essential workers, the heroes of 2020. This is how the government chooses to thank them: attacking their rights and cutting their pay. How is that fair? How is that right? To be frank, I am outraged and I just will not stand for it. The risks in this bill are too great for essential workers. The new simplified additional hours in the bill will allow a part-time employee to work additional hours at their ordinary rate—that is, without overtime. This means they will receive a lower rate for their annual leave, superannuation and personal and carers' leave. It will allow a standard 16-hour commitment to be normalised with simplified additional hours being used to top up on an as-needed basis. This reduces job security and will effectively casualise part-time work. It is frightening and it is completely unacceptable to me. When COVID hit and JobKeeper was introduced, the government made changes that allowed for stand down directions to be given. These were meant to be temporary, an emergency provision needed for an unprecedented emergency situation. Labor was always nervous that this was a slippery slope and that the government would move to make this permanent, and here we are. The bill will extend the ability for all employers covered by the identified awards—including those employers that never qualified for JobKeeper—to give an employee a direction about their duties and location of work. The government has pushed and pushed the boundaries on this condition and now we see the true endgame. The government's changes to workplace bargaining will also deliver wage cuts to workers. Workers will no longer be assured that changes to their enterprise agreement will leave them better off. They'll be stripped of the right to a comprehensive explanation of an agreement, and they'll be then asked to vote on it. They can be notified that bargaining has started a month after it has happened. The Fair Work Commission will have less time and less power to ensure that an agreement was genuinely agreed to, and unions will no longer be able to play a role in helping the commission to ensure an agreement is fair if they were excluded from bargaining. A couple of weeks ago, I went to the movies. I went to the wonderful Roxy Cinema in Nowra, an independent cinema which has been left, like many independent cinemas, without adequate support from the government to deal with the pandemic—a different issue, granted, but worth a mention. Anyway, I went to the Roxy to see a film made by local woman, Robynne Murphy. The film is called Women of Steel and it tells the story of a group of women from the 1980s who took on BHP, a steel-making giant in the Illawarra, to fight for jobs for women. They spent 14 years on this crusade, and they changed workplace law in Australia. They were supported by the Australian Workers Union. Not only did these remarkable women win jobs for women; they also fundamentally changed the workplace. With the help of the union, they improved workplace health and safety laws, introduced maternity and paternity leave and flexible working, broke the ceiling for women and paved the way to fairer working conditions. It is incredible viewing, and I would like to congratulate Robynne on her work putting together this important film. I encourage everyone to go and see it. But it is also incredibly timely viewing, because this bill flies in the face of what Robynne and her band of warriors fought so hard for. It winds back rights for workers and it hurts women, who we know are disproportionately represented in casual and part-time employment. We have spent years and years fighting for these rights. It is something many people can too easily forget, the rights that workers have now have not always been there, and they didn't get there overnight. They were hard fought for by people like Robynne, by our unions, by Labor, and we will not see them so easily stripped away by this government or any government. Changes like this will hurt for generations. We already know that young people are being left behind. It's harder and harder for young people to buy a home, it's harder and harder for young people to find jobs. They have to be supported by their parents for even longer. This is the first generation where children will not be better off than their parents. In fact, they will be worse off, and the changes in this bill will make that even worse. How can we expect young people to buy a house, keep a job and move ahead if we take away their rights and make their work more insecure than it already is? How can we expect them to get a loan when they can't guarantee their pay? The government is once again turning its back on young people. We also know that one of the fastest-growing demographics of unemployed are women over the age of 55. What does this bill do to help them—our cleaners, childcare workers, nurses and retail workers? We know these industries are disproportionately represented by women. We know women's superannuation balances are a huge problem, particularly for older women. This bill will see that problem get worse, not better. From every angle I look at it, this bill is bad news. It's bad news for people in my electorate, bad news for our economy and bad news for Australia. I won't support it. I will do everything in my power to stop it. The Liberals cannot be trusted when it comes to workplace relations. They cannot be trusted to help workers and protect their rights. Only Labor can be trusted to do that, and we will. I will. I will be here every day, standing up for workers in my electorate, because I know that standing up for workers means standing up for businesses. You can't help business by hurting workers. It is counterintuitive. It doesn't work, and the people of the South Coast will not stand for it. 12:41 Ms McBRIDE 248353 Dobell I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020. I support the amendment moved by the member for Watson and endorse the comments of my colleagues. The bill represents the government's industrial relations reform package, and it is the outcome of months of consultations with employer groups, businesses and unions through a working-groups process. When announcing this process, back in May last year, the Minister for Industrial Relations claimed that the reform areas dealt with 'specific known problems in the system which all parties agree inhibit job growth or job creation or are causing issues in the system that prevent jobs being saved'. He went on to identify five areas for reform: casual and fixed-term employees, award simplification, enterprise agreement-making, compliance and enforcement, and greenfield agreements for new enterprises. Labor's test for the bill from the outset—and we were clear—was: will it create secure jobs with decent pay? We were, as others have said, prepared to support measures reflecting what was agreed in the working groups. But, from the first meetings in June, the deliberations of the groups were highly secretive. All participants and third parties signed confidentiality agreements and were told they would be removed from the process should they breach these rules. It now appears that the working groups did not reach a great deal of consensus on any one issue and that the government is proceeding with its own reforms in the absence of consensus. The result of this approach by the government is a bill which makes workers less secure and cuts pay in the middle of a global pandemic. I'll quote from the ACTU: The Bill fails the Government's own test: workers will be worse off. …   …   … The Government's changes will make jobs less secure; they will make it easier for employers to casualise permanent jobs and allow employers to pay workers less than the award safety net. This is the opposite of what the country needs. Let's look at what the bill does, in particular to casuals. The government has ignored years of common law and overturned the recent Federal Court decision on what it means to be a casual. Under these laws, if a worker agrees to be employed as a casual at the start of their employment, they remain as a casual regardless of their actual work pattern, so long as the employer employs them on the basis that they make no firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work according to an agreed pattern of work. If a court finds later that they are in fact a permanent, any casual loading they receive will be offset against any permanent entitlements they are owed. Both the definition and the offset apply retrospectively. Under the government's own figures, this involves cancelling an estimated $18 billion to $39 billion in back pay that would otherwise be owed to casuals. As part of the National Employment Standards, employers must make a written offer of conversion to permanent employment to casual employees after 12 months if there has been a regular pattern of work for the last six months. However, the employer does not have to make the offer if there are reasonable grounds not to. An example would be that the employer has reasonable grounds to think the job might not be there in 12 months. This reasonable-grounds defence has the capacity to undermine any path to permanent work. Employers cannot manipulate hours to prevent them from having to make the offer, although there is no civil penalty for a breach. There is no arbitration of disputes other than by agreement. If an employer does not make a casual conversion offer, there is a residual right for the employee to request conversion. Again, the employer can refuse if they have reasonable grounds. The Fair Work Ombudsman must prepare and publish a casual employment information statement which employers must provide to employees when they commence employment. Part-time workers will also face the prospect of job casualisation. Under the simplified additional hours measures, employers could reduce part-time work to a 16-hour weekly minimum, with future hours on a casual basis, risking the job security for employees on these contracts. What particularly troubles me about this legislation, and it's what I'd like to turn to now, is the significant impact of this legislation that the government appears to have overlooked, brushed aside or ignored—the very real mental health impacts of insecure work. In the National Suicide Prevention Adviser's interim advice it was recommended that the government should: Develop a Commonwealth process for reviewing new policies or initiatives to ensure they assess any impacts (positively or negatively) on suicidal risk or behaviour. I wholeheartedly agree. A mental health lens should be cast over this legislation, which is being introduced at the very same time as the government is winding back COVID-19 support, like JobKeeper. The Prime Minister has consistently said—and I believe that he's genuine—that mental health is a priority of this government. But the government can't continue to ignore the impact of its actions in workplace relations, housing, education or social services on the mental health and wellbeing of all Australians. The link between insecure work, financial distress and mental health crisis is well established. As soon as the sector you work in is at risk, your mental health is at risk. As the demands of your work increase and the control you have over your circumstances falls, the risk only continues to grow. This was highlighted in Suicide Prevention Australia's Turning the Tide report in March last year. As I said earlier, the link between unemployment, financial distress and suicide is, sadly, well established. The report points to a global analysis of suicide population economic data which found that the rate of suicide for people who were unemployed was nine times that of the general population. Australian studies, including a recent analysis of male suicide rates, have found periods of unemployment and underemployment, particularly in insecure forms of work, are strongly correlated with an increase in the suicide rate. So we know that, if you're unemployed, underemployed or in insecure work, there is a strong correlation with an increased risk of suicide. Over the past 12 months, we've seen hundreds of thousands of people find themselves out of work as businesses folded, companies collapsed and jobs have been shed. Many of those people are experiencing mental health problems for the first time. As the Black Dog Institute said at the very start of the pandemic: Common consequences of disease outbreaks include anxiety and panic, depression, anger, confusion and uncertainty, and financial stress, with estimates of between 25% to 33% of the community experiencing high levels of worry and anxiety during similar pandemics. What particularly troubles me about this legislation is the very real mental health consequences to people and to our economy. We know, because the Productivity Commission has estimated it, that mental ill health affects all Australians, directly or indirectly. Almost one in five Australians experience mental illness in any given year. Black Dog have estimated that 25 to 33 per cent of the community will have, or will be experiencing, high levels of worry and anxiety during this pandemic. We know, as I pointed out, that some Australians are more likely to experience mental health problems, including those who are underemployed and unemployed or who find themselves in insecure work. Of course, this is a significant risk for individuals and families in our community. It is also a significant risk to our economy. We know from the Productivity Commission final report into mental health that mental health is costing the Australian economy about $200 billion to $220 billion a year, which the report considered a conservative estimate of the cost. It's no surprise that mental ill health has been described by some as the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. My concern is that this legislation runs the risk of directly impacting the mental health of those who are caught up in this reform and at the same time increasing the cost of mental ill health to the Australian economy. It flies in the face of the recommendations of peak bodies, advocates and experts, including Suicide Prevention Australia, who have called for urgent action to provide gig workers with relief during a period when their livelihoods are at risk. They recommended a two-pronged approach, and the first was to provide Australian gig workers and independent contractors with relief and ongoing support through the COVID-19 crisis. This is the exact opposite of what this legislation will do, and I'm very concerned about the real human consequences of this legislation. I urge the government, as the interim advice of the Suicide Prevention Adviser to the government has said, to consider the suicide and behavioural risk consequences of any action they take. I'll turn now to what this means to my local community. I grew up in a regional coastal community just an hour and a half outside of Sydney, and there's always been stubbornly high unemployment, particularly for younger people. But at the height of the pandemic there were 36 jobseekers for every job vacancy on the Central Coast. While I'm relieved that this number has decreased and some sectors of the economy are recovering, some are still hurting, and they'll continue to hurt, like events companies. I spoke earlier this week about Peter Rubin, who runs a mid-size events company in my electorate. He's really worried about what will happen when JobKeeper ends in March. We know that on the Central Coast at the height of the pandemic there were 4,902 businesses employing 18,734 people who were supported by the JobKeeper wage subsidy in my electorate. We know the government didn't want to introduce a wage subsidy and that it was Labor, the union and others that pressed for it. Then they were going to cut it off in September. They rolled it out for another six months to March; however, the Treasurer's been very blunt and he's ruled out the possibility of extending JobKeeper, stating, 'It was always a temporary measure.' What I'm concerned about, as I've pointed out, is the known and clear risk between underemployment, insecure work, financial distress and mental health crisis, and the consequences of that. I was pleased to hear the Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe, when he was expressing his concern about job shedding after JobKeeper, talking about this as a moral obligation. Thousands of people in my electorate, as I've mentioned, have benefited from JobKeeper. It's protected their lives as much as their livelihoods. As we continue to have this patchy recovery, particularly in certain sectors of the economy, like the events industry, higher education and tourism, there are many people—hundreds of thousands of people—across Australia who are at risk. At the same time, in my local community last Friday the Centrelink at Ettalong on the Central Coast closed for the last time. I was there with Senator Deborah O'Neill and the state member for Gosford, Liesl Tesch, on the day it closed. They're not just doing this on the Central Coast; they've done it in Newcastle in New South Wales and Newport and the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. At the same time as they're winding back COVID support, cutting JobKeeper and not giving any indication what they may do about the rate of JobSeeker, they're closing Centrelink shopfronts where people in communities like mine can go for help and support. Before I came to this place, I was a chief pharmacist and a mental health worker. I worked in the adult acute mental health inpatient units in my local community for almost 10 years. I saw the very real risk when people came in in crisis—financial distress, relationship breakdown—where they had nowhere else to go but a public hospital mental health inpatient unit. They came because it was the only place where they could get a meal, a shower and a safe place to sleep. In a generous country like Australia, why is the government taking actions in workplace relations, housing and social welfare that leave vulnerable people stranded and at risk? Labor would have a different approach, and our plan would include making job security an object of the Fair Work Act, so it becomes a core focus of the Fair Work Commission's decision. We would also extend the powers of the Fair Work Commission to include employee-like forms of work, allowing it to better protect people in new forms of work from exploitation and dangerous working conditions. We would legislate a fair and objective test to determine when a worker can be classified as a casual, so people have a clearer pathway to permanent work. There have been many statements in this House about people on the front line of COVID-19—those people who have put themselves in harm's way, working in aged care, in disability care and in hospitals—and some of those very same people will be caught up in this so-called reform. And, as the aged-care workers told me recently, the time for cupcakes and applause is over. What they really need to see is genuine support from this government and real action to improve their conditions, to make sure that they are safe and protected at work, and to make sure that they're not having to work across multiple workplaces, which, particularly in the time of COVID-19, presents a very real risk to them and the people they're trying to support. We really need to see a different approach from this government. We need to see this government cast a lens on the mental health and wellbeing of all Australians in any actions they take. I urge the government to consider seriously the very real risk to the mental health and wellbeing of Australians when they're putting forward legislation like this that poses a very real risk to the most vulnerable people in our society. 12:56 Ms STANLEY 265990 Werriwa I rise to make my contribution to the debate on the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020. It's as simple as this: workers will be worse off. The casualisation of the workforce does not create more secure jobs. As stated in the explanatory memorandum, this bill will help employees engaged as casual employees who work regularly to become ongoing employees if that is their preference. While the Attorney-General can call it an important right for workers, the fact is that workers will have fewer rights and these rights will be filled with qualifications. The new amendment to the Fair Work Act states that an employer must offer full-time employment to the employee, the employee must also be employed with that business for at least 12 months, and must have worked at least six months on an ongoing basis. These changes may be subtle, yet the underlying issues are written between the lines. An employee must complete 12 months of service. However, an employee would be working permanent full-time hours up to a year and still be labelled as a casual employee under this legislation. That doesn't give any power to the employee. The employee must also work on a regular pattern of hours on an ongoing basis, but most employees don't have control over the hours they work. Therefore, it is the employer who is in control of the so-called regular pattern of hours on an ongoing basis. Also, the employee must work these regular hours on an ongoing basis without 'significant adjustment'. This allows the employer to easily declare that workloads will be changing, therefore constituting a significant adjustment. This again does not give the employee more rights or power. Perhaps the government has mixed up the words 'employer' and 'employee' in this relationship. The employer is clearly benefiting, which is odd because the Attorney-General continually says that it's the employee who will be better off. The government and the Attorney-General can spin words all they like, but the facts are that, under the coalition government of the past seven years, there has been a history of stagnating real wages, higher cost of living and more insecure work. Real wages in Australia were almost one per cent lower in 2019 compared to 2013. In 2019, Australia sat in third-last place out of 35 OECD countries for wage growth. Australia's record on real wages sits well behind those of comparable economies like Germany, Korea, Sweden, Denmark and the United States. And now the government is making the insecurity, inequality and wage stagnation even worse. This restricts a lot of Australians from achieving their goal. A goal for many people in Australia is owning a home. That goal is becoming increasingly unobtainable, largely due to stagnating wages and wealth insecurity. And, if you're working casually, you certainly can't get a housing loan. According to the OECD, Australia is the third most unaffordable housing market within the OECD, because house prices have risen much faster than Australia's income. Wage growth has not yet kept up with the cost of living. Increasingly, inequality has allowed the well-off to drive up property prices, while Australians are facing declines in wages and more insecure part-time employment. Therefore, affordable housing is harder than ever to find, which should not be surprising, as we're in the middle of the lowest sustained wage growth since World War II. Taking power from employees and casualising the workforce will lead to even harsher statistics, and that is a national disgrace. In Werriwa, 23 per cent of the workforce is already without paid leave entitlements, 16 per cent identify as a casual worker and 35 per cent of all workers do not have guaranteed hours each week. Industries such as retail, health care, social assistance, transport, postal and warehousing are at the highest risk of being affected. These industries represent one-third of employment in Werriwa. Over 60,000 workers will be worse off; over 60,000 people will have their jobs, conditions and job security attacked. Tragically, that is the minimum number of workers in Werriwa who will have their jobs effected. Accommodation, food services, arts, recreation services and administration and support services are among the top five industries whose workers in Australia already work without paid leave entitlements. These workers are being forced into casual work—not permanent, not secure. Automation is a major challenge for many industries. In Smeaton Grange, Coles is automating its workers out of a job and plans to shut down the warehouse within the next three years. After a 24-hour strike in November last year, Coles have indefinitely locked out their 350 warehouse workers at the distribution centre, with no sympathy for their workers or their workers' families. These workers were the ones keeping the supermarket shelves stocked throughout the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, while Coles experienced more than a seven per cent increase in their profits, with net profits equalling almost $1 billion. Their workers lost their income over Christmas, meaning children missed out because their parents were locked out. Workers all across Australia need work that will come with protections, protections such as sick leave, family leave, annual leave, penalty rates and work transition packages for jobs that won't exist in the near future as the world changes around us. You can't raise a family, buy a home or build for the future if you do not have a secure job with these protections. This legislation does not provide a means to deliver secure jobs with decent pay. The reality is that the Australian economy was not in a good state prior to the pandemic. The growth of insecure work and wage stagnation were major issues for Australian workers. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed this fact. Too many people in this country work in low-paid, insecure appointment. That includes casuals, contractors, freelancers, labour hire workers and gig workers. These workers were vulnerable. They were the first to be hit by the pandemic. They were the ones who could least afford it. These workers were on edge and the pandemic pushed them over. The issue doesn't fully lie with COVID-19 and nor should the blame. These workers knew they were vulnerable before the pandemic, as did the government; however, the government did nothing to help these workers. COVID-19 has now presented an opportunity to learn from neglecting low wages and insecure work and the issues those interdependent problems create, but this government has done the opposite with this legislation. It is making it easier for businesses to employ people as casuals even when they work like permanent workers makes employees worse off. Changes to part-time work that will effectively end up casualising it makes employees worse off. And, in aged care, where people need to work in a number of settings to make ends meet, this has caused so many issues for both them as workers and the people that they look after. Allowing enterprise agreements to not have the better off overall test for two years or longer makes employees worse off. Letting businesses cut wages and conditions by allowing agreements to cut penalty rates, shift allowance and other entitlements makes employees worse off. This is the Prime Minister's and the Attorney-General's answer to the twin problems of insecure and low-paid work: casualising essential workers who carried Australia through the pandemic. Childcare workers, aged-care staff, cleaners, supermarket workers, truck drivers and other essential workers on the front line put themselves at risk to keep our economy going and keep us safe. Now they are facing a pay cut and fewer rights. The last time the government cut penalty rates for retail, fast food, pharmacy and hospitality workers, it failed to deliver a single extra job. Are Australians expected to believe that cutting more penalty rates, cutting overtime, cutting shift loading and cutting allowances will create jobs? What would be different this time? The legislation fails Australian workers. Fair wages and good working conditions are staples of a functioning society. Neglecting the issues of insecure work and low wages is bad enough, but pairing these issues is inexcusable. For Australia to recover from the COVID recession, we need people to have a secure income and the confidence to spend money back into the economy. Secure work, fair wages and good work conditions is a foundation for that confidence. Allowing employers to pursue wage reduction strategies will not create confidence. People will continue to be too afraid to buy things, because they can only just make ends meet. This is why Labor will legislate job security as a key objective of the Fair Work Act, which will bring job security to the forefront of decisions made about rights at work. Labor will define what an employee is and ensure that all workers have access to employee protections and entitlements that are currently denied to them. Labor will restore the Fair Work Commission to the centre of workplace relations. Labor will limit the number of consecutive fixed-term contracts an employer can offer for the same role. Australian families deserve better. Australian workers deserve better. They deserve protection, good conditions and fair pay. This government wants to take that away. It is not on your side. Under Labor, workers will not be left behind. 13:07 Mr WATTS 193430 Gellibrand Australians know that we debate this bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020, in uncertain times—Victorians, in particular. We aren't through this pandemic yet and we still have a very long way to go in our economic recovery as we navigate the path ahead. But, at this point, it's worth looking backwards for a moment to those people who have gotten us through the most acute stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, those frontline workers we have relied on as part of this health crisis. In Victoria, where I myself was locked down for over 100 days with my family, we gained a very firsthand experience of how much we relied on people who weren't able to do their jobs from home during the lockdown but whose presence in the workplace during a health crisis, during a pandemic, was necessary to enable our society to continue to function. Obviously, there are the frontline health workers—doctors, nurses, epidemiologists and GP clinicians who are running respiratory centres in my electorate. But also there are the workers who were involved not in the health response but in the logistics of keeping the society operating—people working in the logistics sector, people working in our supermarkets, people stacking shelves overnight to ensure that people had what they needed to get through the pandemic. I have spoken to many of these people during this pandemic. It was tough going out into the community, particularly at the height of the second wave in Victoria, concerned for their safety and concerned about what would happen if they became sick. These concerns were particularly acute because many of these retail and hospitality workers, those we relied on the most during the crisis, are in insecure work. They don't have the benefits and they don't have the security that many of us take for granted. We were relying on them, the heroes of this pandemic, at a time where they were confronting incredible insecurity. This bill will see them worse off. It is a sad reality that the government is now using this pandemic as a smokescreen to pass a bill that could reduce the conditions, pay and job security of these workers, these heroes, when they can least afford it. Labor approached this bill with a fairly simple test. We asked: will it create secure jobs with decent pay? The answer was certainly no in December and the answer, unfortunately, is still no today. While the Attorney-General has removed the most extreme part of this bill, with the suspension of the better off overall test for two years, even without this the bill represents a fundamental attack on the rights of workers that hasn't been seen since John Howard's Work Choices. These are the workers who got us through the COVID-19 pandemic, the heroes of the pandemic. We relied on all of them and we owe them better than the bill before the House today. The Attorney-General has removed the most politically contentious part of this bill, the extreme better off overall test provisions. He said they detracted from the rest of the bill, so he'll remove them and then we can focus on the rest of the bill. Unfortunately, the rest of the bill is still bad. It still makes jobs more insecure and can still lead to pay cuts. It makes it easier for employers to casualise jobs that could have otherwise been permanent. It makes bargaining for better pay and conditions more difficult than it currently is. It allows for wage cuts, takes rights off blue collar workers on big projects, many of whom are in my electorate, and weakens wage theft punishments in jurisdictions like Victoria that led the way in deeming this most repugnant of acts a criminal offence. We shouldn't be surprised by this, as shocking as it is, because this government has form on the way that it is engaging with workers over the last 12 months. They've been trying to erode the rights of workers and make things worse for working families in Australia throughout this pandemic. They've already cut penalty rates for many workers in Australia. They had to be dragged by Labor and the Leader of the Opposition to implement the JobKeeper program at the height of the pandemic. Can you imagine where this country would be today if the Prime Minister had stuck with his original insistence that we did not need JobKeeper in the face of a global pandemic? It was similar for JobSeeker at the start of the pandemic, and now they're letting both JobKeeper and JobSeeker fall off a cliff in March. As a Victorian I can tell you that we're not through COVID, and withdrawing and cutting the rates of JobSeeker and JobKeeper will have significant impacts. The newly pre-selected Liberal candidate for Menzies, in a recent interview—maybe he's more in touch with the community than his colleague who is already in the chamber—noted that the cuts to JobSeeker and JobKeeper would create an extremely challenging period for Victoria going forward. Well, that's a challenging period created by a decision of the government. They don't have to do it. This government has told young people they should mortgage their future by raiding their super if they found themselves struggling during the pandemic. And now they're using the cover of the pandemic to introduce a bill that can cut wages, undermine conditions and create more insecure work. They haven't seen a workers' conditions and pay package that they don't want to cut. We saw it on full display in question time yesterday. The Prime Minister was asked on three separate occasions whether he would guarantee that no worker would be worse off under this bill. The Prime Minister is a renowned expert in marketing and he knew that he couldn't say the words. He refused to make that guarantee not once but twice. He had a very simple opportunity to say that, regardless of all the political controversy you hear about this bill, no worker will be worse off as a result of this bill. He refused three times. The third time was in response to when we put the question to the Minister for Industrial Relations, and the minister—maybe his marketing savvy isn't as sharp as the Prime Minister's—waded into it. He said: Members of the opposition and their claims that anyone will be worse off under the government's bill are absolutely 100 per cent wrong. He didn't read the room there, the Minister for Industrial Relations. So, in the next question, the Labor leader put it to the Prime Minister, saying: Now that the Minister for Industrial Relations has been prepared to guarantee that the industrial relations legislation will leave no worker worse off, will the Prime Minister give the same guarantee that his legislation will leave no worker worse off? And, come in spinner, the Prime Minister replies: I completely reject the assertion that has just been made by the Leader of the Opposition. It's not often in question time that the fish jumps onto the hook or jumps into the back of the boat, right? The marketing man knew that he couldn't get away with explicitly guaranteeing that no worker would be worse off under this bill, but he also knew that he couldn't allow the assertion that his industrial relations minister had led him into stand, because it's not true. You really can't believe what many members of the government say about the way that this industrial relations bill works. We've seen it earlier in this debate. Government members can't even seem to understand the way that the casual conversion provisions work in this bill. The member for Dawson, in particular—a lion in his local electorate, a mouse in this chamber—suggested that, just because someone can request to become permanent under this legislation, casuals will automatically become permanent employees, as an absolute right. He was discussing these provisions and he said that the legislation 'will ensure that it is an absolute right for those workers'—that is, to convert to permanent work. He said: I've heard all these stories that come up. They say, '… It's unenforceable.' They're presumably stories from people who have read the bill and understand the way it works. That's nonsense, nonsense and more nonsense. The member for Dawson went on to say that, if a casual made a request to be converted into a permanent role and that wasn't acceded to by the employer, the worker would 'have the backing of the Fair Work Commission'. You don't. There is no arbitration process; there's no Fair Work involvement in that process. The member for Dawson is completely wrong, and what he is telling his constituents about this bill is completely wrong. The member for Dawson says that, as a result of this, the boss will have to offer permanent employment to that person. That is just not right. There is no provision for Fair Work Commission arbitration. The only option for a worker confronted with that situation will be to go to the Federal Court. It's just one of those things that you do on every day ending with a Y: get the financial resources together to mount a Federal Court challenge. These are casual workers, remember—workers whose hours and conditions are contingent on their relationship with their employer. They would risk that relationship by mounting costly legal action, apparently, and then they will be able to convert their casual position into a permanent position, if they are able to convince the Federal Court. This is fantasy-land stuff. Government members do not understand the provisions of their own bill. I also want to make a brief comment on the wage theft provisions in this bill. I've spoken about wage theft in this chamber many times since I was elected in 2013, because I think it is one of the great scandals that have been allowed to emerge in our society in this period. Exploitation, particularly of temporary migrant workers and international students, has become endemic in a range of industries—hospitality, services et cetera—and that does not just have impacts on those workers who are being exploited. I can tell you: I've had many conversations with temporary migrants, and I've heard of the most appalling exploitation you can imagine—not just working at half the pay rate they're entitled to but exploitation of their visa status, the most appalling sexual abuse and the most appalling threats towards their family in their home country. These are vulnerable people being treated in the most reprehensible way. That's why I was extremely pleased when the Andrews Labor government moved to criminalise this, and the Palaszczuk government has taken action as well, because this is literally taking money out of the back pockets of the most vulnerable workers in our community. This bill purports to create a compliance and enforcement framework for wage theft. It purports to increase penalties for wage underpayments and job ads that advertise below the minimum wage. It prohibits employers from advertising jobs specifying a rate of pay less than the national minimum wage—I see these all the time, particularly in languages other than English, targeting particular communities. Acting on this issue is good, but again you get to the detail about the operation of this, and that is when the catch comes. This bill inserts a definition of 'dishonest' requiring that for wage theft to be criminalised, 'the employer dishonestly engages in a systemic pattern of underpaying one or more employees'. That definition of dishonest is a twofold test: (a) dishonest according to the standards of ordinary people; and (b) known by the defendant to be dishonest according to the standards of ordinary people. You don't have to be a lawyer to know that's going to be a very high bar to meet. Trying to prove that level of intent—although I can tell you, there is plenty of it out there—will be extremely difficult. The Victorian legislation gets this; it only includes that first provision, 'dishonest according to the standards of ordinary people', an objective test. That's where the bar should be, but unfortunately this bill, whilst purporting to act on wage theft, undermines the existing state based wage theft provisions. It's just not good enough. Labor, on the other hand, is on the side of working Australians and their families. While the government is trying to make it look like they have got a plan that will help workers in Australia, Labor actually has a secure jobs plan released by the Labor leader in recent weeks. An Albanese Labor government is on the side of workers and working families and we want a recovery from COVID-19 built on secure work, better conditions and local jobs. We want a recovery built on job security that means that workers can plan for their future and have confidence to spend their money; a crucial part of the recovery. We want workers to be able to get a loan to buy a house and have their super so they can retire with dignity. Our plan will mean that those currently in insecure work will get better minimum pay and conditions and that workers can't be on a rolling fixed-term contract for years. Our plan will give an objective definition of 'casual', not the unbalanced agreement that this bill provides. While the Morrison government is focused on cutting workers' pay and conditions, undermining job security, Labor is focused on delivering good, secure jobs for the reconstruction after COVID-19. 13:22 Ms KEARNEY LTU Cooper Labor gave the government a very simple test for this legislation. We wanted it to provide secure jobs and decent pay. Well, it fails that test; it fails it dismally. Part of failing that test, as we argued, was their intent to weaken the better off overall test. They have said they will amend the bill with regards to weakening better off overall test because, let's face it, if you weaken a better off overall test, then people are not going to be better off overall. They have said they will think about amending it. They said they were going to do this not because it would make the bill fairer, which is why you'd think they would do it, nor because it would make life better and people would actually be better off overall. No, they have said they're going to do this because it is pragmatic. It is an act of pragmatism. I'm sure every worker out there will be thrilled to know that their government, the law makers of this country are basing their legislative changes on pragmatism, not on good, decent legislation that will make peoples' lives better. Pragmatic or not, removing those provisions will not make this bill acceptable in any way. Yesterday, we heard the Prime Minister absolutely refuse to guarantee that this legislation will not guarantee that workers will be better off. He would not say that no worker will be worse off. He weasel-worded his way around the issue, conflating job security with job creation. When I was president of the ACTU I ran an inquiry into the scourge of insecure work because we believed that while you could create jobs, not every job was a decent job. It's not a decent job if it doesn't give you the dignity of decent pay. It's not a decent job if it doesn't ensure secure income week to week, month to month. We have seen the rise in Australia of insecure work, and that inquiry that we ran at the ACTU showed just how perilous insecure work is. Casualisation is part of it, yes, but there are also private contractors, short-term contracts, zero-hour contracts, single-client contracts for tradies. I don't know if anyone on that side of the House could actually know what it's like to have to try to live a life of insecurity, a life of anxiety, but that's what insecure work delivers for a large proportion of our workforce. The ACTU inquiry uncovered an underbelly of our workforce that live incredibly anxious lives. I would like to share with the House some examples of what it's like to live with insecure work. One woman who gave evidence to the inquiry was a piece worker. Now piece workers receive pieces of material from companies that they then have to sew and put together and make garments. This worker, Mrs Phan, told us she got paid a pittance in terms of what these dresses and clothing items that she made were actually sold for in the shops. Sometimes it was hundreds of dollars difference for a single item. She was set KPIs to make them. If she didn't meet those KPIs she wouldn't get paid. If she made a mistake, she would be charged, she would be penalised the retail price of that garment—not the minuscule hourly rate that she was being paid for making that garment. She told us that sometimes, to meet the KPIs, she would work all night, she would sew all night, until she was exhausted. When the commissioners asked her how did she get the strength and the energy to do that, do you know what she said? She said the thing that drives her is fear—fear of not getting paid, fear of not making those KPIs. The driver behind her work was fear. We heard stories from people who worked for cable TV installers who once would have been employees with sick pay, holiday pay, with all the benefits that come from a good job. But they were sold a story of becoming a self-employer, of getting your own ABN, having your own life and being flexible. 'Life could be a pleasure.' 'You could work when you wanted to.' But they were sold a story that wasn't true. A lot of these tradies told me they had to borrow money from the company to buy the truck and all the equipment to put the cable TVs up. They only had one client, and that client set terrible contracts for them, cruel contracts where they had to meet daily KPIs—again—for the number of things they installed. If they didn't meet those, they didn't get paid. If they were sick, they would have to find somebody else to do their workload for that day. They would get harsh penalties. There were harsh penalties for wanting to get out of the contract, so they were stuck. Their lives were anything but better. I know such contractors aren't covered by this legislation, but I am trying to paint for this House what life is like out there for a huge proportion of our workforce in insecure work. University lecturers who've signed hundreds of contracts throughout their lives never once being offered permanent tenure. TAFE workers who get employed from March to the end of October, which is the academic year, never being able to accrue entitlements like sick leave and holiday pay and even maternity leave. Call centre workers who once used to be employed but were sacked and then offered their jobs back, exactly the same jobs, but they would have to rent the desk, rent the phone, rent the computer and all the equipment that once was provided as part of a good, secure job. Of course they got no superannuation, no sick leave, no paid holidays. Or not being able to say no to a shift as a casual worker because you're frightened you won't get a shift next week. This means you have to work whenever the boss offers you a job; you're sitting by the phone waiting for that call. You miss out on birthday parties. You miss out on your kids' sporting events. You miss out on family gatherings. You miss birthdays, because you're too scared to say no to a shift. I had one young man tell me that he took his girlfriend away for a weekend for her birthday. He said no to some shifts and, consequently, he didn't receive any shifts from his employer for a whole month, purely as a punitive measure. This is what life is like when you have insecure work. You sometimes have to work three jobs just to make a living. There are such things as zero-hour contracts in this country where you can't get three jobs because you sign a contract to say you will wait for a shift to come from that one employer, a shift that may or may not come. You can't get a loan for a car. For many people, if you don't have a car, you don't have a job. And then of course there is the gig economy. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate will resume at a later hour. The member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed. STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS 37 STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS Vocational Education and Training 37 13:30 Mr ZAPPIA HWB Makin Over the years, TAFE has served a critical role in ensuring that Australia has the necessary skills to build a strong economy. In doing so, TAFE created new opportunities for millions of Australians by reskilling them. Regrettably, over recent years conservative federal and state governments have cut billions of dollars of funding from TAFE. Because of the cuts, campuses have closed and courses have been abolished, nowhere more so than in South Australia, where this week the TAFE boss revealed that industry groups including child care, aged care and disability services have raised concerns about the cuts and the quality of training from the private training sector. About 20 TAFE SA courses are being scrapped this year and will be privatised. I accept that there are some good private training providers. However, at a time when the economy is rapidly changing, when Australia is facing many skills shortages across so many sectors and when we need to rebuild after the COVID crisis, it makes no sense for the South Australian Marshall government to dismantle the most credible and affordable VET provider we have, particularly after the widespread rorting by private training providers exposed over recent years. It seems the South Australian Marshall government has learned nothing and is obsessed by its privatisation ideology. Illicit Drugs 37 13:31 Mr GOODENOUGH 74046 Moore I rise to call for an escalation in the national campaign against the misuse of illicit drugs in our community through better resourcing of our national law enforcement agencies. One of the few positives of the COVID pandemic is that the tightening of international and state borders has resulted in more narcotic interceptions as criminal syndicates attempt to smuggle contraband across tighter borders. During the lockdown, I issued more drug related warrants as a justice of the peace in a month than I would normally issue in a year. Our local Joondalup hospital emergency department, which is already stretched for resources, has to deal with unruly drug affected patients daily. Over a period of four years, the Australian Federal Police has intercepted some 621 international shipments of illicit drugs. In the year to 30 June 2020, 18,600 kilograms of drugs and precursor chemicals to the manufacture of illicit drugs were seized at the border before they could be distributed and cause harm on our streets. In the year to 31 December 2020, the National Anti-Gangs Squad laid a total of 203 charges against 75 offenders and seized 63 illegal firearms and over $1.73 million in cash. The federal government is making progress in the war against drugs. (Time expired) Travel Industry 38 13:33 Ms COKER 263547 Corangamite Next month Scott Morrison will put an end to JobKeeper, ripping support away from thousands of businesses across my electorate who desperately need it. The travel agency sector is undoubtedly amongst the hardest hit by the pandemic, yet they've fallen through the cracks. Before the pandemic struck, the travel industry employed 40,000 Australians, and 30,000 of these were women. Recently I met with travel agents from Corangamite. These women are nothing short of remarkable. Since the closure of our borders they have had virtually no income. They've worked around the clock to ensure that customers receive refunds and advice. They've faced the toughest year of their life and, thanks to this government, there is no end in sight. Leigh from Torquay told me her young daughter caught her crying recently. It wasn't the first time she'd cried that day; it was the third. Her daughter asked if it was because she couldn't put planes back in the sky. Carly told me most days she is working for nothing. Amber described feeling lost. She worries about the ongoing uncertainty and what it will do to her and other agents' mental health. It's a worry I also share. It is reprehensible that the Morrison government has not stepped up and delivered a comprehensive plan to save an industry that is on its knees. All the women I spoke to have followed government advice. They've picked up part-time work. They've waited patiently for the government's much-anticipated support program. They're still waiting. So, Scott Morrison, help these women, help save the industry, and extend JobKeeper for the travel agency sector. Western Australia: Children's Health Care 38 13:35 Ms HAMMOND 80072 Curtin Western Australia does not currently have a dedicated children's hospice. At present, general hospices, hospitals and home-based services perform this role for the 2,000 children with life-threatening conditions and their families. While the current services do an admirable job in providing services to the children and their families, these children and families in WA need a dedicated, purpose-built facility which provides care and services designed for and aimed solely at the needs of children; a child-centred approach in which the children's needs and those of their families are the starting, middle and end point; and a dedicated facility which provides all the care of a hospital with the feel of a family home, providing the best quality of life through a holistic approach supporting the physical, emotional, social and spiritual aspects that a child and their family may seek through this time. The Perth Children's Hospital Foundation with the support of and in partnership with the WA Child and Adolescent Health Service, have commenced a project to build and then operate such a place. While Swanbourne in my electorate of Curtin has been chosen as the preferred site for this new facility, the hospice will service children and families from across the state, from as far north as Kununurra, south to Esperance and east to Eucla. I know that all of my colleagues in WA strongly support the vision and goal of the CHEF and will do all that we can to support and advocate for this. Domestic and Family Violence 38 13:36 Mr PERRETT HVP Moreton Tomorrow will mark 12 months since the tragic murder of Hannah Clarke and her three beautiful children, Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey. My thoughts are with Hannah's family and her friends as they mark this unrelentingly sad anniversary. Five days after Hannah and her children were murdered last year, I stood in this chamber and called on Prime Minister Morrison and the Attorney-General to act. I called on them to do something urgently to stem the tragic tide of deaths due to family violence. I called on them to do what frontline domestic violence workers have long been calling for and what even a bipartisan parliamentary committee report, with a coalition chair, had recommended back in 2017. I called on the Morrison government to amend the Family Law Act by repealing section 61DA, which contains the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility. It's a small legislative amendment that wouldn't cost anything but would save lives. By June last year, when the Morrison government had still not acted, I introduced a private member's bill into this parliament—a bill that received wide support from women's legal services; Small Steps 4 Hannah, the foundation set up after Hannah's death; Bravehearts; and many others. My private member's bill is still sitting there. Members from both sides of the chamber have already spoken on it, and more will do so this Monday. But still the Prime Minister will not act. Words are cheap, Prime Minister. Action takes real courage. It's time to grow a spine, Prime Minister. Goldstein Electorate: COVID-19 39 13:38 Mr TIM WILSON IMW Goldstein Key to Australia's successful COVID-19 response has been the responsibility taken by local communities to overcome testing challenges. Last fortnight, the Sandringham Ambulatory Care Centre, or SACC, delivered a rapid and comprehensive enlargement of their local testing capacity after a positive case was identified in our community. That has happened since the beginning of the year, led by CEO Amanda Murphy, operations manager Dave Osman, senior clinician Vanessa Thompson, senior project manager Ralph Markham and chief of services Sally Hoffmann. SACC swiftly re-established a drive-through testing site, extended its operating hours and organised a public awareness campaign. It was thanks to SACC's devoted work that state health authorities could reliably assess the risks of further outbreaks and deliver an appropriate response. Of course, the Morrison government is supporting efficient and adaptable local COVID-19 responses by providing $712 million to fund testing equipment, to make sure that communities can take responsibility and stop the spread. Thank you to all of Goldstein's frontline healthcare workers for their dedication and sacrifice in defending our community from COVID-19. Thank you also to all of those people—all the residents—who got themselves tested even with the mildest of symptoms. What you've made sure of is that any outbreak in our community can stay there and stop. Climate Change 39 13:39 Ms CLAYDON 248181 Newcastle I would like to draw the attention of the House to the Climate Council's latest report, Hitting Home: Compounding Costs of Climate Change, which shows that the cost of extreme weather in Australia has more than doubled since the 1970s and totalled $35 billion over the past decade. These figures are alarming and deserve a national response. In accordance with our international obligations, Labor has adopted a net zero emissions target by 2050. And we are not alone: every state and territory in Australia, along with our major businesses, and 120 nations across the globe have also signed up to this target and are working to meet it. This now of course includes the United States, under a Biden presidency. The Morrison government can no longer get away with a do-nothing approach. Both domestic and international pressure demands real action on climate change. Reducing our emissions is not only the right thing to do for future generations; it is also the right thing to do for our economic interests today. But we need a plan to ensure that no-one is left behind, that communities like Newcastle don't get left hanging out to dry because of this government's abject failure to plan. I urge the government to show responsible leadership and to sit with the opposition and the crossbench to put an end to these climate wars. News Media and Digital Platforms 39 13:41 Mr CRAIG KELLY 99931 Hughes What a difference 24 hours makes. Yesterday I stood in this parliament and advised the House that I'd become the first member of parliament to be blocked from posting to Facebook. I quote my exact words from yesterday: … this is a very dark day for freedom of speech. I may be banned today—and it may be my colleagues next week or next month or next year or next decade who are banned … Well, this is the next day. But yesterday when I said those words, members of the opposition, rather than standing up for the principles of free speech and espousing the concept 'I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to my death your right to say it', they sniggered, sneered and celebrated that a member of this parliament had been shut down. If you say you believe in free speech but not for those who disagree with you, you don't believe in free speech at all. Shame on you! That will eventually come to bite you on the backside. If social media companies want to operate in this country, they must do so with a commitment to free speech. Otherwise, they should not be able to operate in this country. Members of Parliament: Staff 39 13:42 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne You don't need to consult your wife to know that women are human beings. You don't need to have daughters to know that women who have been raped should be listened to, believed and supported. Women aren't finding themselves in vulnerable situations; men are putting them there. This has been a dreadful week for parliament. This building is the home of our democracy. It should not just meet a minimum standard of behaviour that we expect in other workplaces, it should be a shining example. But, as we heard from Brittany Higgins this week, Parliament House is a house of shame. Disturbingly, over this week the account of the Prime Minister and the account of Ms Higgins have diverged significantly. It doesn't add up and it's starting to look like a cover-up by the government. There has to be an independent investigation into who knew what, and when, in the Prime Minister's office and in the government. A review by the Prime Minister's own department is not good enough. The investigation must be at arm's length. It must answer the question of whether the Prime Minister's office really knew nothing for the best part of two years. There also has to be an independent body for staff in this building to take complaints to—and I'm pleased there's action on that front—and there has to be an independent review of the culture in this building. But, most of all, the public need to know that this terrible incident has been handled properly. Parliament 40 13:44 Mr JOYCE E5D New England One of the amazing things about what we are doing right now is that probably nobody is watching it. If you are watching this, ring my office right now—I bet you I don't get a call. Because nobody is watching means it really doesn't have as much of an effect as we would wish. I remember a very salient comment that was made by the son of a mate of mine. They were sitting in the visitors gallery, and the boy looked down and asked, 'Why is that man talking to himself?' That's basically the view. Why is this important? I did a Facebook post the other day, and it reached 320,000 people. Facebook is incredibly powerful, but for a democracy to work you have to have the fourth estate. You have to have the people upstairs. We don't have Kmart upstairs. We don't have a department store upstairs. We have the media. Democracy needs the media. It needs transparency; otherwise, it doesn't work. That being the case, I fully support anything that we can do to keep journalists in this place employed. Without journalism, this just becomes a pointless exercise in the middle of the day. News Media and Digital Platforms 40 13:45 Mr KHALIL 101351 Wills We awoke this morning to a very different Facebook. There were no news platforms, no publishers and no articles; health pages and hospital pages were blocked as well. This is a massive whack from Facebook in response to proposed media bargaining laws that would see social media platforms pay Australian news outlets for content shared on their sites, but it's not the main game. The real game is that these big tech companies, as well as other multinationals, don't pay their fair share of tax to our nation. On this, our Treasurer has dropped the ball. Maybe the numbers are too big for him. Maybe it's too daunting to tackle. These big companies must pay their fair share of tax. They don't; they avoid it. They offshore, they debt-load on subsidiaries, they price-transfer—all tricks to avoid paying their fair share of tax. Let's take Facebook, since we're talking about it today. In 2018-19 Facebook earned around $580 million in Australia and paid $15 million in tax. That's 3c in the dollar. That is unacceptable and unfair to working Australians. If your average Aussie worker is paying tax of 32c in the dollar out of their wages or salary, it's not too much to ask these big tech companies to pay their fair share. That's money lost that could have gone towards our kids' education, to our hospitals, to buying enough COVID vaccinations. Every tax dollar that Facebook avoids paying hurts us as a nation. Treasurer, why don't you get Mark Zuckerberg to pay his fair share of tax? Queensland: Crime 40 13:47 Mr LAMING E0H Bowman Any amount of crime is too much, but Queensland's appalling record of having double the number of thefts per 100,000 people, compared to every other mainland state, is deeply concerning. The number of vehicle theft offenders per 100,000, according to the ABS, is three times higher than the mainland state average, at 52.4 compared to about 19. These extraordinary differences in the levels of vehicle related theft and theft in general demand that in Queensland we do something more—more than just looking into the problem or having a parliamentary inquiry. We've seen 33 deaths to motor vehicle related crime in the last 45 days. I ask the simple question: how much of it is illicit drug related? Are we assiduous in making sure that illicit drug testing occurs early in the journey and not only once a judge decides that it's a drug possession case or a case of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of drugs? We need to introduce the intervention earlier. The recommendations by the Queensland Premier to include things like GPS tracking, metal detection and owner onus are all fine—we accept all of them—but they don't begin to touch the edge of the challenge. We need to do so much more. To list 'increased parental responsibility' or to say that serious indictable offences lose the bail presumption is just too little. We agree with it all, but we need to do so much more about illicit drugs if we're serious about reducing theft and related crime. News Media and Digital Platforms 40 News Media and Digital Platforms 40 13:48 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie There is shock and dismay in my community about the sudden ban on accessing news via Facebook. Small local papers like the Blue Mountains Gazette, the Hawkesbury Gazette and the Hawkesbury Post really feel they're going to suffer. It is a total mess. It's not just news sites that are banned; it's also other information that's vital to my community, information about health and emergencies. It's understandable that there is anger towards Facebook for what they've done in pulling the rug out from under people, but the people who are truly responsible for this are the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts. They've spent all week cock-a-hoop about what great deals they were going to get done with Google and Facebook, and only three days ago the Treasurer was name-dropping about his phone calls with the heads of those organisations. He assured us on this side that the code was workable; they were his assurances. It certainly doesn't look that way now. The Treasurer didn't haven't a clue it was going to go pear-shaped, or so he says. He was so busy patting himself on the back, but he's no so cocky today. The reality is that the Treasurer and the minister for communications have created this situation. They are the ones who now need to do what never happens on the other side: they need to step up, find a solution and get this mess fixed. Lunar New Year 41 13:50 Mr ALEXANDER M3M Bennelong Last week families across Bennelong and across Australia celebrated Lunar New Year. As an electorate with a very large number of Chinese and Korean families, this event is normally one of the highlights of the local calendar, with Eastwood becoming a riot of colour as locals host festivals and events in celebration. Of course, this year the celebrations were muted, in line with the COVID restrictions. Parties in homes were limited, and Eastwood restaurants were down on previous years. We must remember that this is the second year that this community has had to restrict its activities owing to the pandemic. Lunar New Year was the first large event of many to be curtailed by the coronavirus in 2020. At the time, we had no idea what we were dealing with. We didn't realise that it was so contagious or deadly or that it would still be with us 12 months on. We were also in the dark about its spread, and vicious rumours were being circulated on social media that it was already thriving undetected across Eastwood. While thankfully this turned out to be misinformation, it did have the effect of turning the restaurants on Rowe Street into a ghost town. So, as we celebrate another restricted Lunar New Year, we celebrate our hardiness and the things we have to be thankful for, like family and friends. Even more than normal, I wish everybody a prosperous and healthy Year of the Ox as we look forward to brighter times ahead. JobKeeper Payment 41 13:51 Dr LEIGH BU8 Fenner This week we learnt that $3 million of taxpayer money went via JobKeeper to Moelis, an investment bank that last year paid its executives millions of dollars. At a time when wages are flat for most Australians, the wealth of billionaires rose 59 per cent in the last 12 months. At least 11 Australian billionaires, including Solomon Lew, Gerry Harvey, John Gandel, Brett Blundy, James Packer and Nick Politis, have benefited from the JobKeeper program. There have been a handful of firms that have repaid their JobKeeper as a result of enjoying strong profits—a shout-out to Toyota Australia, Super Retail Group, Domino's, Iluka, Santos and Collins Foods. Who's asking for repayments? Well, it's not the people opposite, who set up the robodebt scheme to persecute social security recipients; it's Labor that's asking for it. Those opposite are as soft on billionaires as they are cruel to social security recipients. They've been treating JobKeeper money like it's Liberal Party money rather than taxpayer money. But we have the receipts in now from four business activity statements and an income tax return from every JobKeeper recipient. We need to know how many firms got JobKeeper and used it to pay executive bonuses. Has the Morrison government lifted a finger to ask firms that didn't need JobKeeper to repay the money? They have the receipts. We need to know what they're hiding. Greenlink 41 13:53 Ms LIU 282918 Chisholm Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Greenlink in Box Hill. Greenlink is a vibrant local organisation in Chisholm devoted to growing and preserving native Australian plants. Working with local council and the Chisolm community, Greenlink re-established native plants in our local environments. Protecting our heritage is important and that includes the heritage of our native Australian plants. Like so many other organisations in Victoria, Greenlink had their operation heavily disrupted by COVID. But they survived, and, like the plants they nurture, they will grow and thrive. Part of that is to do with their Aussie ingenuity. It was quite an education for me to see how Greenlink uses technology to collect seeds, map growth and protect Indigenous flora. But there was something else I was even more inspired by, and that was the spirit of local volunteerism. Organisations like Greenlink stand or fall by the work of their volunteers. I encourage everyone in the Chisolm electorate to volunteer and get involved in groups like Greenlink so we can bounce back from COVID. Safer Communities Fund 41 13:54 Ms MADELEINE KING 102376 Brand If ever the people of Rockingham and Kwinana needed any more proof that the Liberal Party and this government do not care about them, here it is, reported in my local paper, The Sound Telegraph—sadly blocked by Facebook today as well: 'Almost half a million in funding was slashed from the city of Rockingham's safer communities grant application after the Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, redirected hundreds of thousands in funding to marginal electorates.' An opposition member: 'VolderRort' strikes again! Ms MADELEINE KING 102376 The 'VolderRort' grant system strikes again! And here we have it. The city of Rockingham was eligible for over $900,000, yet what happened is the Minister for Home Affairs decided to take $500,000 out of the safer communities program that was meant to install CCTV cameras across the Rockingham area. The two projects that missed out because of this 'VolderRort' grant system were the beautiful and iconic Palm Beach Jetty—many people fish there and children play there in the evening, the morning and all times of day. Why don't they deserve the safety of CCTV projects in favour of marginal Liberal seats to save their jobs? The Larkhill Sporting Complex, in Port Kennedy, also had cameras taken away. Why do these sporting clubs not deserve safety? This Liberal government is only in it for itself; it doesn't care about the people of Rockingham and Kwinana. (Time expired) Rotary Club of Five Dock 42 13:56 Dr MARTIN 282982 Reid I would like to commend the Rotary Club of Five Dock on the 15th annual charity golf day. The golf day is a club tradition, with a focus on community, connection and charitable giving. I would like to congratulate President Stephen Taranto, Secretary Alan Laughlin and the members of the board for organising this successful event under COVID restrictions. It allowed our community to come together socially, especially in a time that's been isolating for many of us and has made community engagement difficult. More importantly, it was a fantastic fundraising event. The charity event raised over $16,000, and these funds have been dedicated to the Concord Cancer Centre, which provides vital treatment and care for cancer patients and engages in important research through world-leading clinical trials. In addition to this, funds will allow the Rotary Club of Five Dock to continue their community projects and initiatives, like the Australian Rotary Health detour house, the seed harvest project, the Rivendell mental health centre and the ShelterBox just to name a few. Congratulations to the Rotary Club of Five Dock on this outstanding result. I look forward to supporting them further in the years to come. Sexual Harassment 42 13:57 Ms PLIBERSEK 83M Sydney Today I want to send a message to Brittany Higgins: you have shown enormous courage over the last week and over the last two years. Your interview on Monday night was both moving and deeply impressive. You should hold your head high. Your bravery will give other women courage and make this a safer workplace for all. Speaking about a crime that happened to you shouldn't require bravery, but, sadly, for survivors of sexual assault, it still does. You run the risk of being targeted and smeared. Some people will still question where you were, what you were wearing, what you had to drink. Is it any wonder that so many of these crimes go unreported? Only a fraction, an estimated one in 10, are reported to police. And, despite the best efforts of police, only a fraction of those proceed to court, and only a fraction of those obtain a conviction. And, if the perpetrator has an expensive barrister, well, the chances go down even further. In New South Wales, of the crimes reported in 2017, about one in ten resulted in a guilty conviction. No-one should have to choose between seeking justice and keeping their job. No victim of crime should ever feel as though they are the one on trial. Sadly, too often, for survivors of sexual assault, it's them who pay the price, not the perpetrator. For the one in five Australian women who will be a victim of sexual assault, we must do much better. Manufacturing 42 13:59 Mrs McINTOSH 281513 Lindsay Manufacturers are front and centre of our economic recovery, and the Morrison government is backing them all the way. Locally, I established an Advancing Manufacturing Taskforce to support manufacturers from St Marys to Emu Heights to listen to and address their concerns. In Western Sydney manufacturers have been telling me about the damage intellectual property theft has on their business. One told me how they've seen entire catalogues ripped off and counterfeits displayed overseas. Another told a shocking story of how a Chinese company had assumed this Western Sydney manufacturer's identity and, under this disguise, sold a counterfeit product back into our country to an Australian buyer. Only when the product failed—and this product was an important safety product—was it revealed that it wasn't the Australian company at all. These Western Sydney manufacturers are not alone in their fight against IP theft. It's so important we protect their integrity against foreign competitors who don't play by the same rules, because, when we protect manufacturers, we protect local jobs. There is nothing I want more than for our local manufacturers in St Marys, Penrith, Emu Plains, Emu Heights and right across Lindsay to succeed. Backing Australian manufacturers, backing Aussie made, backing local jobs—that's exactly what the Morrison government is doing. The SPEAKER 00APG In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 43 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE COVID-19: Vaccination 43 14:01 Mr BUTLER HWK Hindmarsh My question is to the Minister for Health. It has been 3½ weeks since the Therapeutic Goods Administration approved the Pfizer vaccine. The Australian Medical Association has today raised concerns about some basic logistical arrangements for the vaccine rollout, including not enough GP practices have yet been approved and the government's national booking system isn't ready yet. Can the minister advise the House when these arrangements will be finalised? 14:01 Mr HUNT 00AMV Flinders I thank the member for his question. Shortly before question time we outlined the next phase of the vaccine rollout. This is phase 1A. The Pfizer vaccine rollout commences on Monday. It arrived into the country this Monday and it has been going through the testing processes. It now goes to the rollout process. In particular, there will be two parts that begin next week: (1) we will have 16 Pfizer hubs around the country—those were all outlined before question time—and (2) we will have approximately 240 aged-care facilities in week one which we expect and hope to reach. Those are in all states and territories. In particular, they will be delivered by courier direct to the facilities, which has a surge workforce that is highly trained. Professor Murphy outlined before question time that there are approximately 500 surge workforce engaged in that part of the process. That process begins literally in a matter of days. I want to thank all of the states and territories for their work. I think Professor Murphy did say that he regarded this as the largest, most complex vaccination program in Australia's history. It is now in that very, very strong position. At the same time, we know that today there were zero community cases nationwide. Those zero community cases mean that we are in a strong position. Having said that, we focus on our most vulnerable—that is, in 240 facilities across 190 towns and suburbs in week one. We are distributing 80,000 vaccines. We've said that, knowing that some may move over into the course of the next week, allowing for the early lessons, we are hoping and expecting that at least 60,000 vaccinations will actually be delivered. That's the course of phase 1A of the program. Phase 1B is when general practices will begin their involvement. We've had those discussions with practices specifically. I know that Professor Michael Kidd, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, was meeting again as part of a regular series of updates yesterday, with general practitioners. I spoke with him this morning. He was holding a webinar with general practitioners. The accreditation process has seen more general practices than we had hoped, which is magnificent. All general practices that meet the standards and that have applied for the EOI will be able to participate. We had initially hoped there might be a thousand. Then we had hoped it would reach two thousand. It is now likely to be more than three thousand general practices, if not more, that are accredited around the country. I want to thank them. They will play a critical role going forwards. COVID-19: Economy 43 14:04 Dr ALLEN 282986 Higgins My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister please inform the House how the Morrison government's strong economic management is providing a pathway for the Australian economy to generate more jobs and to continue its strong recovery from the international COVID-19 recession? 14:04 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank the member for Higgins. It was good to be with the member for Higgins last week visiting many of the small businesses in her electorate. Can I also acknowledge former Prime Minister Rudd, who is in the chamber with us today and this week as we mark the anniversary of the Closing the Gap statement, which the former Prime Minister delivered from this very dispatch box. We commend him, as we do each year, on that very significant contribution at that time. Our economic recovery plan is working. Today we've learned that the unemployment rate has fallen again. It has fallen to 6.4 per cent from 6.6 per cent. What that means is that 59,000 full-time jobs were created in January. The underemployment rate declined further to 8.1 per cent. That is the equal-lowest level it has been at since June 2014. This now means that not 80 per cent of the jobs have come back from the COVID-19 recession; 93 per cent of the jobs lost during the COVID-19 recession have come back. That means 813,600 jobs have been added in the past eight months. Pleasingly, women have taken up the majority of those more than 800,000 jobs. I'm sure the member for Higgins and those small business owners in her electorate are very pleased, like so many around this country. It is welcome news to all Australians to see Australians back in jobs, and that is building confidence in the comeback in the Australian economy. That has been building month upon month upon month. It's particularly pleasing because in January, as we all know, we went through the next transition, the next gear change, on JobKeeper and JobSeeker. When that occurred we saw 59,000 full-time jobs added to the Australian economy. The Australian economy is getting back up on its feet and can have confidence that it will continue to receive support—whether it's instant expensing initiatives, the overly successful HomeBuilder program or the work we're doing in manufacturing to build that up for the longer term. Tax cuts are helping 11 million Australians around the country, as well as small business. Over $250 billion is sitting on the balance sheets of households and businesses, which will continue to flow through the economy as that confidence builds. The economic recovery plan is working. The comeback in Australia is well underway. DISTINGUISHED VISITORS 44 DISTINGUISHED VISITORS 14:07 The SPEAKER 00APG On behalf of the House, I formally welcome former Prime Minister Rudd. It is good to see you here in the gallery. Honourable members: Hear, hear! QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 44 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE JobKeeper Payment 44 14:08 Mr MARLES HWQ Corio My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday, the Treasurer rejected Treasury's expectation that 100,000 Australians will lose their jobs when the government cuts JobKeeper next month. How many people who are now on JobKeeper will lose their jobs when JobKeeper is cut? 14:08 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook When we went through the first transition on JobKeeper, the increase in employment in Australia in October was 180,000 jobs. And then, with the second change, as I've just been able to inform you, there were 59,000 full-time jobs that we created. That's net. That's up. That means more jobs. That means more people in employment. That means people, through the course of the COVID-19 recession, as they're coming back, if they find themselves in a position, sadly, where they're unable to retain employment in one firm, are able to gain employment in another firm. That's what a growing economy does. This may be lost on the new economic spokesperson taking over from the shadow Treasurer but, when there is a net increase in jobs, that means more people are in work. Under our policies, more people are getting into jobs—93 per cent of jobs that were lost are coming back. The only people who seem to be unhappy about the changes taking place that are getting more people back into jobs are those sitting opposite. Our economic plan is working, the recovery plan is working and more Australians are getting back into jobs. That's happening because of their confidence, and that confidence is building and building and building. The vaccination program that rolls out from next Monday will continue to build that confidence and ensure that, as we go through 2021, we will be in an even stronger position in 2021 as we come back from this COVID-19 recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. There are few countries in the world that can look at their record over the past 12 months—as difficult as it has been, where we have seen the biggest single contraction in our economy since the Great Depression—and say that, in their country, they've been able to mitigate as much as possible the dreadful losses of the COVID-19 pandemic, whether that was the loss of livelihoods or the loss of lives. The Australian people know this, and they're building in confidence. No amount of trying to undermine that confidence by the Labor Party will stop the resilience of Australians. Infrastructure 44 14:11 Mr CONAGHAN 279991 Cowper My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development. Will the Deputy Prime Minister please inform the House how the Morrison-McCormack government is driving economic recovery and job creation through its $110 billion infrastructure pipeline? Mr Husic interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG Member for Chifley! 14:11 Mr McCORMACK 219646 Riverina He's a repeat offender. I do thank— The SPEAKER 00APG So are you. Just get on with the answer. Mr McCORMACK 219646 I do thank the member for Cowper for his question. He knows, as all of us do, that the jobs figures were very good today. They're strengthening, they're being bolstered and they're doing that on the back of the infrastructure that we're rolling out across this nation. Whether it's on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales or wherever, we've got the infrastructure programs and projects happening right now: workers on the ground, shovels in the ground. They're building the infrastructure that local communities need, want, expect, demand and deserve. Communities know that there is a need for immediate and direct and ongoing funding for these programs—for local roads, for local infrastructure and for local communities—which then provides, of course, local jobs. Part of the government's economic stimulus to our recovery from the global pandemic is the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program. Now, with the Roads to Recovery top-up mid last year, this is providing a huge boost to communities right across the country—and certainly in Cowper, where 30 major community projects across five councils have been funded to support local jobs and local communities. Bellingen council received $1.3 million as part of these upgrades. Kempsey Shire received $2.7 million. Coffs Harbour City Council, which extends into the member for Page's electorate, received $4.3 million; Nambucca Valley, $1.8 million; and the Port Macquarie-Hastings Council, which extends into the member for Lyne's electorate, $5.2 million. I see the member for Lyne nodding. He also knows how important this funding is for local jobs. Indeed, Coffs Harbour mayor Denise Knight welcomed the funding for her local government area: We've got some key large projects happening in Coffs Harbour to upgrade and reclaim recreation space and create vibrant spaces for our residents and visitors to enjoy … I thank the Australian Government for this further investment in our region. Councillor Knight knows how important it is for these local jobs to happen on the back of the local funding that we are putting into that fine city. Every council in Australia, all 537 of them, is benefiting, is receiving a share of the $1.5 billion of Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program funding, putting direct stimulus where it's needed. In every corner of this nation, we are getting on with the job of making sure that those jobs figures, as the Treasurer talked about earlier, are going to be further bolstered by this stimulus, by this ongoing and direct funding. The LRCI is creating jobs—indeed, 10,000 jobs. It's a good program, creating local jobs and benefiting local communities. NBN Co 45 14:14 Ms ROWLAND 159771 Greenway My question is to the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts. Given Australia is ranked 61st in the world for fixed-line broadband, the cost of the NBN has blown out from $29 billion to $57 billion and up to 238,000 premises still can't access minimum NBN speeds as required by law, how on earth were NBN Co executives, management and staff given $78 million in taxpayer funded bonuses? How much would they have been paid if the NBN wasn't over budget and behind schedule? 14:15 Mr FLETCHER L6B Bradfield I thank the shadow minister for her question, which goes to the remuneration arrangements at the government business enterprise set up by Labor— Mr Brian Mitchell interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The minister will pause for a second. The member for Lyons will leave under standing order 94(a). The minister has the call. The member for Lyons then left the chamber. Mr FLETCHER L6B to employ executives from the private sector. It was set up by Labor with a plan, at the time, to connect to 12 million premises around the country. When they left government, barely 51,000 premises were connected to the fixed-line network. It is certainly true that there were no bonuses paid when Labor was in government. I'll tell you why: it's because the performance was so hopeless. They fell so far short of their targets. They were short by 40 per cent, 50 per cent, 60 per cent. I'll tell you something else: the base salary of the chief executive employed by Labor was 18 per cent higher in real terms than the base salary of the current chief executive. Let's talk about performance! Let's talk about how vital it was that people had reliable broadband they were able to connect to when this nation was hit by COVID and millions of people moved to working and studying from home overnight. That was absolutely vital to our nation. When traffic levels rose by 70 per cent during the day, the NBN kept going. The NBN is now able to connect to almost 12 million premises, and almost eight million premises are connected. We're getting on with the job of delivering the NBN. We inherited a chaotic train wreck of a project. We've turned it around. We've got on with delivering it. Please ask me more questions about the NBN, because I'm happy to keep talking about it all day. The SPEAKER 00APG Just before I call the member for Warringah, members on both sides, the level of interjections is too high. I give this warning at about this time every Thursday, I think. Don't be surprised if you're ejected for interjecting. The member for Warringah. Paid Parental Leave 46 14:18 Ms STEGGALL 175696 Warringah My question is to the Treasurer. Paid parental leave is identified as one of the key factors in reducing the gender pay gap. Australia has one of the least adequate paid parental leave schemes. Our scheme offers 18 weeks, while the OECD average is 55 weeks. The Parenthood and Equity Economics released modelling this week demonstrating a potential increase of up to 4.6 per cent of GDP by implementing a policy of one year paid parental leave shared equally between both parents. Will you commit to reforming and increasing paid parental leave in the May budget? 14:18 Mr FRYDENBERG FKL Kooyong Our paid parental leave scheme is supporting working women across the country. What we saw prior to COVID was a record number of Australian women in work. The honourable member refers to the gender pay gap. In fact, the gender pay gap has closed to a record low of 13.9 per cent. Do you know what it was when Labor was last in office? It was 17.4 per cent. Our paid parental leave scheme is providing about $2.3 billion a year. We've made some changes over the course of the pandemic, supporting new parents whose employment was interrupted by the pandemic by introducing an alternative paid parental leave work-test period for a limited time. Prior to temporarily changing the work test period, parents must have worked 10 out of the 13 months prior to the birth of their child to qualify for paid parental leave. In November of last year the government temporarily extended the work test period to require parents to work 10 months out of 20 months for a limited time. The honourable member also references the OECD. Let me point out that comparing Australia's Paid Parental Leave scheme with those of other OECD countries is quite problematic because of cross-country differences in the design of statutory paid parental leave schemes and employer provided parental leave schemes. In Australia, parental leave is fully funded through general taxation revenue. This is a non-contributory scheme, which means that all parents who are eligible for government funded paid parental leave can access this support when needed in addition to any employer provided paid leave. Unlike the majority of the members of the OECD, Australia provides a flat rate rather than a replacement wage from a contributive fund, so you can't compare the two schemes. News Media and Digital Platforms 46 14:20 Dr MARTIN 282982 Reid My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on the Morrison government's plans to ensure the imbalance in bargaining power between digital platforms and news media organisations is appropriately addressed to ensure public interest journalism remains strong in Australia? 14:21 Mr FRYDENBERG FKL Kooyong I thank the member for Reid for her question and acknowledge her experience as a psychologist, in small business and as a strong advocate for the people of Reid. I had the great pleasure to join with her recently in visiting Pasticceria Papa at Five Dock, among other businesses, as well as headspace. The member for Reid understands that there is a revolution occurring when it comes to the digital economy. It's changing the way we work, it's changing the way we shop and it's changing the way we communicate. Conscious of that change, back in 2017 the then Treasurer, now Prime Minister, commissioned the ACCC to undertake a comprehensive review. What the ACCC found in this expanding online advertising market was that it was extremely concentrated and there was an unequal bargaining position between the main players. It's around $9 billion a year in terms of online advertising. It may surprise members to know that, for every $100 spent in online advertising, $81 goes to Google and Facebook. Google gets $53 and Facebook gets $28. In light of these dynamics in this sector, the ACCC recommended to the government that we initially put in place a voluntary code and then, when it became clear we weren't getting the cooperation that was needed, we moved to a mandatory code. That mandatory code has a number of clear features. It's based on two-way value exchange, two-way value to both parties involved in the negotiations and under the code, as well as a final offer arbitration mechanism. They're the features of the code, and it's really pleasing that this code being worked on has helped bring the parties to the table, so much so that we've seen some positive announcements, including this morning, between News Ltd and Google. There were positive announcements on Monday between Channel 7 and Google. There are also reports of real progress in negotiations between Nine Entertainment and Google. This is really positive, and we thank Google and we thank the stakeholders for the good faith in which they've negotiated. But what we saw today from Facebook was unnecessary. Facebook's actions today were unnecessary. They were heavy-handed. They were wrong. It was provocative and it was overreach, and it will damage Facebook's reputation here in Australia. There was no reason to block access to government sites, sites providing credible information about the pandemic, about emergency services, about mental health. It was unnecessary to do that. So we say to Facebook that we will continue to work with them to hopefully find a pathway forward. But what their actions today have done is remind Australians about the importance of this code, and it has reaffirmed and strengthened the government's resolve to implement it. NBN Co 47 14:24 Ms ROWLAND 159771 Greenway My question is to the Prime Minister. Given Christine Holgate lost her job over $20,000 worth of Cartier watches given as bonuses to executives, what are the consequences for NBN Co paying $78 million in taxpayer funded bonuses in the depths of the recession? The SPEAKER 00APG The Minister for Communications will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order? Mr Burke DYW It goes to the circumstances where the Prime Minister can refer to aminister. The purpose of that within the standing orders and within the Practice is where the minister is in a unique position to provide further information. This question goes exactly to the treatment that the Prime Minister gave to Christine Holgate and contrasts it with what NBN Co have done. There is no additional information on that that can be invited from the relevant minister. The SPEAKER 00APG I will hear from the Leader of the House and then I will deal with the point of order. Mr Porter 208884 The question contains its own assertions as to figures, and usually when Labor ask these sorts of questions those assertions are wrong. That is only going to be in the knowledge of the minister. The SPEAKER 00APG I will just say to the Manager of Opposition Business that this is an area of Practice, not the standing orders. Under the Practice, it's a problematic area. I will say that. I will certainly say it's a problematic area. It may well be that that is the intent of the Practice—that a Prime Minister can, as often happens, answer part of the question and refer the rest to the relevant minister or refer the entire answer to the minister. The Manager of Opposition Business has made his point, and that is one part of Practice historically such that if a minister had the detail that the Prime Minister didn't, the House could be provided with our system of questions without notice directly rather than the question automatically being taken on notice. So I understand the point the manager is making. But the other part of Practice is it's unqualified, and that is that the Prime Minister can choose to refer any question to any relevant minister. It is unqualified. So I appreciate the point the manager is making, but nonetheless that doesn't prevent the Prime Minister from referring the question. 14:27 Mr FLETCHER L6B Bradfield As was made clear in the way the government handled the Australia Post matter, there were significant concerns. It was referred to an investigation by the secretary of the two departments—my department and the Department of Finance—supported by advice from an external law firm. That advice did, indeed, find that there were significant concerns about compliance with the requirements of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act. What is also the case is the former chief executive of Australia Post chose to resign. We acknowledge her performance during her time in that role, but those are the facts. In terms of the NBN, I simply make the point that a large portion of the number quoted in the media today goes to a very large number of staff across NBN. Under the terms of their employment, there is base pay and there is at-risk pay, arrangements that have been in place since Labor set up NBN as a government business enterprise, I remind the House. The proposition seems to be that, in some way, when the conditions for at-risk pay to be paid have been met the terms of employment should be retrospectively varied by the employee. You can just imagine what Labor would say about that if any large corporate in Australia did that. I do make the point also that the Minister for Finance has written to the chief executive of NBN, as he has to other government business enterprises, drawing his attention to a review of performance bonus arrangements for senior executives and equivalent employees. That was done before Christmas, and NBN is fully aware of that. News Media and Digital Platforms 47 14:29 Mr STEVENS 176304 Sturt My question is to the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts. Will the minister please update the House on how the Morrison government's world-leading legislation is facilitating commercial deals between news media businesses and digital platforms and how these deals will strongly support the future of public interest journalism in Australia? 14:29 Mr FLETCHER L6B Bradfield I thank the member for Sturt for his question, and I know he has a very strong commitment to a vigorous news media sector in Australia as, indeed, does our government. A vigorous and diverse news media sector is an essential element in a modern democracy, and that is the key reason the then Treasurer, who is now the Prime Minister, initiated the ACCC's digital platforms inquiry. It's why the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and our colleagues and I have been working to give effect to the recommendations that the ACCC made in that very comprehensive report of many hundreds of pages which started with the premise that there is a significant issue of market power in the market for digital advertising— The SPEAKER 00APG The minister will resume his seat. The member for Kennedy on a point of order. Mr Katter HX4 Mr Speaker, if a person knows that a minister is lying, isn't it his duty to stand up and say that he is lying? Christine Holgate never resigned. Don't tell lies to the House! The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Kennedy will resume his seat. The Leader of the House. Mr Porter 208884 I think that was one question ago, Mr Speaker. The SPEAKER 00APG It took him a little bit of time to get down here. Mr Burke interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG First of all, we're not going to have those terms bandied around. The member for Kennedy knows full well two things: not to use unparliamentary language and— Mr Katter interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Kennedy can withdraw the word 'lie' and substitute the word he just said, if he wants to. Member for Kennedy. Mr Katter HX4 Mr Speaker, I withdraw the word 'lie' and I say he told an untruth. The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Kennedy will resume his seat. Having been a member of this House for 28 years, I refer the member for Kennedy to other opportunities in the parliamentary day to engage in political debate. The minister has the call. Mr FLETCHER L6B I'm pleased to return to the question presently before the House. As the Treasurer has pointed out, over recent days we've seen announcements from Seven West Media in relation to striking an agreement with Google. We saw a story yesterday in The Sydney Morning Herald—which is, of course, owned by Nine Entertainment—about that business striking a deal with Google. We saw an announcement today that News Corp has announced a groundbreaking agreement with Google. We welcome these commercial deals, and we make the point that the news media bargaining code is very specifically designed to encourage commercial negotiation. Indeed, the policy evil that it is addressing is that, because of the imbalance of bargaining power, we have not hitherto seen the sorts of commercial agreements you would ordinary expect. In relation to the conduct of Facebook in blocking access to many pages today, that clearly raises serious questions. If you say that you object to the news media bargaining code, why would you block the pages of government departments, emergency services organisations, the Bureau of Meteorology and 1800RESPECT? These pages would never be covered by the code. Why were you so determined to resist the introduction of blocking requirements under our legislation in relation to abhorrent and violent material, yet block thousands of pages of wholly unobjectionable content overnight? Why would you pick on small businesses like North Shore Mums in my electorate? Founder Rachel Chappell tells me today that she's got 25,000 followers. She found this morning that her feed is no longer appearing on the page. Why is it a good idea to respond to a policy measure directed at your market power with an overt display of that market power? Why don't you recognise that our government is committed to this code and that we're committed to legislating it? What we suggest is that Facebook needs to come back to sensible discussion with the government. We've been engaging with all of the stakeholders. We'll continue to do that, but what we will not change is our resolve to legislate this code. JobKeeper Payment 48 14:34 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler My question is to the Prime Minister. Why is the government willing to spend $78 million on taxpayer funded bonuses for NBN executives, management, and staff but has not been willing to extend JobKeeper payments beyond March to save the jobs of Australian workers who still depend on it in sectors such as tourism, live music and the arts? 14:34 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I can advise the Leader of the Opposition that the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister announced a review of performance bonus arrangements underway for SES and equivalent employees in the Commonwealth Public Service in November of last year. In the meantime, while that review is ongoing, the expectation is that agencies with access to bonuses exercise restraint to the furthest possible extent. Minister Birmingham wrote to the NBN last year, reiterating those expectations. I'm asked more broadly about the government's program of providing unprecedented support to Australian workers during the time of the greatest economic crisis this country has faced since the Great Depression. Our government put in place a targeted, extensive program using existing delivery methods that has resulted in one of the most successful economic policies this country has ever seen at a time of its greatest need. For it to be targeted and proportionate it needs to have a clear exit strategy that comes into place as the economy gets back up on its feet. The opposition, when it comes to JobKeeper, have had a bet each way the whole way, as they do on everything. They say they support it, they say it should be temporary, and when you— The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition, on a point of order. Mr Frydenberg interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The Treasurer will cease interjecting. The Leader of the Opposition has the call. Mr Albanese R36 Mr Speaker, while irony applies to questions rather than answers, my point of order goes to relevance. The Prime Minister was asked about NBN getting $78 million of taxpayer funds for the executives and at the same time not being prepared to extend JobKeeper in sectors like tourism, live music and the arts. That's what the question went to. It had nothing to do with the Labor Party or alternative views. It was a very clear question. The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister is entitled to compare and contrast, which I think he's done. But I think the Leader of the Opposition makes a fair point about the other parts of the question. Mr MORRISON E3L The Leader of the Opposition always gets very anxious when I talk about his each-way bets. On the point that he raises— The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business? Mr Burke DYW I raise a point of order on the standing order requiring members to be addressed by their title. The Prime Minister just referred to each-way bets and to the Leader of the Opposition, when the only person who has been arguing both sides of the case on wage subsidies has been the Prime Minister, who said that wage subsidies were dangerous. The Prime Minister argued against wage subsidies here on the floor and in private meetings, and now he wants to claim it was somehow his idea. The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister has the call. Mr MORRISON E3L I seem to have deeply offended the precious sensitivities of the Leader of the Opposition! The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister will come to the question. Mr MORRISON E3L I'm sure they'll recover before we get back here on Monday. They can recuperate over the weekend. The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister will come back to the question. Mr MORRISON E3L The JobKeeper program has been a lifesaver for Australians across the course of this pandemic, as those opposite would know. We have said on numerous occasions that those sectors that continue to be subject to very real challenges because of the nature of border closures internationally, whether it's in the travel agent sectors or the aviation sector, are under close consideration by the government as we look to the months ahead, as we continue to transition the various programs of support that we have in place. Those opposite might want to undermine the confidence of Australians during the pandemic, but we are building that confidence. That's why over 50,000 jobs for full-time employees were created in January. That's why 180,000 jobs were created after the first transition of JobKeeper. Our policies are working. They're putting people back into work. The Labor Party continues to play pandemic politics. News Media and Digital Platforms 49 14:39 Mr PEARCE 282306 Braddon My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister outline to the House the outrageous decision taken by Facebook this morning affecting Australians seeking access to critical health information during the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis? 14:39 Mr HUNT 00AMV Flinders I want to thank the member for Braddon who has been a great advocate for veterans' mental health as well as children's cancer projects such as the Zero Childhood Cancer project. As part of all that work, public information is absolutely fundamental—the ability to provide health information, the ability to provide mental health information, the ability to provide vaccination information at this critical time. On this day we know that a major global corporation has taken a decision which is denying Australians access to fundamental health, mental health and vaccination information. Facebook has taken steps which are unprecedented and reprehensible, unacceptable in a democracy such as this and an abuse of their power. In particular, the advice that I have is that, during the course of the day, government health pages for Queensland Health, ACT Health, SA Health and NSW Health have all been affected. Dementia Australia has had its Facebook page and information affected. Those, I'm advised, thankfully, have been addressed in part. However, as at coming to question time, the advice that I have is that the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne has still not had its Facebook feed rectified. MS Australia, Danila Dilba Health Service in the Northern Territory that provides support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, and in particular, Bowel Cancer Australia and the Kids' Cancer Project have been blocked. This is outrageous and unacceptable. We expect that Facebook will fix these actions immediately and never repeat them again. This is an assault on a sovereign nation. It is an assault on people's freedom and in particular it is an utter abuse of big technology's market power and control over technology. This will go around the world, but this stops. This is unacceptable. I will say this: apparently, their original mission was to bring the world closer together and to allow people to help share and express what matters to them. That seems to have been replaced by profit over people. We say to Facebook: stop this now, and perhaps it's time to put people over profit. Members of Parliament: Staff 50 14:42 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler My question is to the Prime Minister, and I refer to the Prime Minister's answers yesterday. In relation to the reported sexual assault, does the Prime Minister still maintain that his office didn't know even though in the same answers he said a member of his office did? 14:42 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I stand by the statements that I have made in this House all week. As the Leader of the Opposition knows, the member of staff that he is referring to was formerly the chief of staff to the Minister for Defence Industry and that knowledge related to her time in that role, not in her role in my office. He'd be aware of that, and seeking to conflate those things and suggest that involves a knowledge of my office would be misplaced and inaccurate. I was asked about the knowledge of my office—that is, the Prime Minister's office—being informed by other officers about these events and I have answered honestly about this. The last thing I've sought to do— Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG Members on my left, I'm trying to hear the Prime Minister. Mr MORRISON E3L is to cause any further distress in this area and it's very important that we continue, and I will continue, to address these issues as honestly and as openly as possible. That is what I am doing. That is what the Minister for Defence is doing, that is what the minister for employment and skills is doing, and we will continue to do that. Everyone should feel safe in their workplace and be safe in their workplace. I want to advise the House today that to ensure staff are supported at this time—and it's been a traumatic, I believe, time for staff, over the course of this week, as these events have become known to us all—that the Department of Finance, through the Employment Assistance Program, is increasing support available to staff but also to members and senators. From Monday 22 February, three counsellors will be available onsite in Parliament House between 8.30 am and 5 pm, and counsellors will also be available for telephone based calls via the usual employment assistance hotline, which is 1800945145. We are keen to ensure that support is put in place for the members and senators in this place and their staff. If there are any staff out there who need to reach out for that counselling and support at this time because of the traumatic events of this week, I would encourage them to do so. Indeed if there are any members or senators who wish to do that, that support and service is available to them. News Media and Digital Platforms 50 14:45 Dr WEBSTER 281688 Mallee My question is to the . Will the minister please update the House on the extremely irresponsible action taken by Facebook this morning, affecting Australians seeking to access critical and up-to-date information about disaster and emergency services? 14:45 Mr LITTLEPROUD 265585 Maranoa I thank the honourable member for Mallee for her question and her concern about the reckless and irresponsible actions of Facebook this morning to block State Emergency Service pages, the Bureau of Meteorology and even ABC Emergency. Facebook has done that on a morning in which there was an extreme fire warning issued for Eucla in WA, and, in fact, there are flood warnings for the Tully and Murray rivers in North Queensland. They've tried to issue those today through a platform that has been used and has evolved—as Facebook has evolved —into an important conduit in providing critical information to people in disaster areas. Let me make this clear: the legislation that passed this House and is now going to the Senate does not impose any financial burden on Facebook for the use of government information, particularly from emergency services. So the actions that they have taken are reckless. They're reckless even more so because the legislation has not even got royal assent and is not even in place. It is an overreach which Facebook has undertaken, recklessly, and it has put Australians' lives at risk. It is important that we continue to work with them, because it is important to also understand, as many in this place would understand, that Facebook can also be a place where misinformation is placed—particularly in times of natural disaster. Any State Emergency Service will tell you that one of the key resources that have to be deployed during a natural disaster is the monitoring of information that's put up on Facebook during a time of natural disaster, to make sure that the truth can be rectified. In fact, you need a single source of truth. That's why these sites are so critical to the Australian public in times of natural disaster. I'm proud to say that, this morning, the communications minister made a representation to Facebook. As we speak, we are slowly but surely seeing those sites, those pages, come back online because of the direct intervention by the communications minister with Facebook to ensure that those pages are placed back up, so that the Australian public can have confidence in the State Emergency Service and the Bureau of Meteorology being able to issue warnings as they require. But let me say this: the Australian people and government will not be bullied by some big tech company that is putting people's lives at risk and putting profits ahead of people. Members of Parliament: Staff 51 14:48 Ms PLIBERSEK 83M Sydney My question is to the Prime Minister: Yesterday Peta Credlin said there was no way a prime minister or his office wouldn't know about an alleged sexual assault in a minister's office. Ms Credlin says the claim that the Prime Minister and his office weren't told doesn't stack up and 'doesn't smell right to me'. Does the Prime Minister stand by his story? 14:48 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I have answered these questions honestly and openly in this place, and the statements I've made to this House about all of these issues are exactly as they are to my knowledge. I continue to stand by those statements, and I will. As I said in this place yesterday, the advice that we had in dealing with this matter when it was a matter for the now Minister for Defence, but the then Minister for Defence Industry, was that the minister at the time arranged for Brittany to meet with the police, she respected her wishes as they were expressed to her and we at all times sought to provide support in the best way we possibly could. As I said earlier this week, clearly, over the passage of time, Brittany has felt that that support was not sufficient, and that is what we have to address. We have to learn from this. That is why the inquiry and process that has been set up across parties, all across this place, will be there—to try and ensure that these supports pick up all the lessons of this and other issues. I would say this to the members of this House and in the other place: if there is any suggestion here that this is not an issue, or if there's any suggestion that this issue is confined to any one party in this place, then I think that's a false suggestion. I think we all understand that. We're working to put a process in place—that is, the Leader of the Opposition and I, and other leaders—to ensure, as best as we are all able, that this will not happen again. That is our goal. We share that goal. That's my goal. I believe that's what Brittany would like us to achieve as well, and I'm committed to that. News Media and Digital Platforms 51 14:50 Mrs McINTOSH 281513 Lindsay My question is to the Minister for the Environment and the Minister representing the Minister for Women. Will the minister please update the House on the shameful and irresponsible action taken by Facebook this morning, affecting Australians seeking access to critical information on weather forecasting and warnings and—this one is truly distressing—information on counselling services for victims of domestic violence? 14:51 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer I thank the member for Lindsay for her question and I commend her on her swift action in her local community when she found that Facebook, in this capricious way, had taken down the pages of community groups that she's close to. One was a group that provides housing support. There was distress that then flowed on, which she reported to me earlier, particularly in the case of 1800RESPECT. People rely on being able to access information, and they develop trust in the platforms that provide it. Particularly in rural and regional Australia, Facebook has been many things. It's been a community bulletin, a lifeline during the pandemic and a way of communicating with family and friends when there has been no other way. I have to say that trust has been badly breached. We are in the middle of a pandemic, and it's utterly irresponsible of Facebook to remove access to webpages or block their content, particularly in the case of 1800RESPECT and the Bureau of Meteorology. On the matter of 1800RESPECT, I encourage anyone who feels unsafe or would like to see to someone about this to call 1800RESPECT or visit 1800respect.org.au. Over the last year, the total contacts to 1800RESPECT have been more than 6,000 a week, highlighting how crucial it is for people escaping domestic violence and seeking advice on sexual assault and associated violence. 1800RESPECT and the Morrison government are, of course, utilising other methods to communicate this national helpline to those in need, but I come back to my main point: if you're used to receiving information on your Facebook feed, that's what you come to rely on. As the minister for agriculture said, Facebook has also affected the Bureau of Meteorology. The BOM, as it's affectionately known by all Australians, uses Facebook as a communications channel, with posts and video content complementing the website's and the app's official warnings and forecasts, particularly during server weather. Cyclones can strike without warning. There are fire weather warnings and sheep graziers alerts. People come to rely on this popping up in their Facebook feed and giving them the information they need at a time of crisis. The bureau's Facebook page has 894,000 followers, the third-largest audience for a government Facebook page in Australia. All forecast warnings and other critical information warnings are at the BOM weather app—and I take this opportunity to ask that people download it. When, as a multibillion dollar corporation, you enter into the world of information platforms, you walk into responsibility as well as profit. The message we receive today is that that responsibility is arbitrary at best and heavy-handed at worst. As the minister for communication has said, our resolution on the media bargaining code is strong, but we want access to community and safety information. (Time expired) Members of Parliament: Staff 52 14:54 Ms PLIBERSEK 83M Sydney My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday Brittany Higgins issued a statement in response to the Prime Minister's remarks. In that statement, Ms Higgins said: The continued victim-blaming rhetoric by the prime minister is personally very distressing to me and to countless other survivors. How does the Prime Minister respond to Ms Higgins's statement from yesterday? 14:54 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook The last thing I would want is to add any further distress to what Brittany is already going through. and I am doing everything I can to ensure that that is not the case in how we seek to handle these issues. I'm very sorry she feels that way. I know she must be under tremendous stress over the course of this week. She has shown great courage and great bravery in speaking up over these matters. I've been listening to what she's been saying. I'm seeking to put in place arrangements for the support of staff who are in this building here and now and will be feeling, I think, increasingly fragile and vulnerable because of the nature of these events that have arisen this week. The best way I can address those comments, I think, is to ensure that I'm doing everything within my power to try and make this a safer place. Manufacturing 52 14:55 Mr HAMILTON 291387 Groom My question is to the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology. Will the minister please outline to the House how the Morrison government is supporting Australia's manufacturing industry and creating jobs as we continue our recovery from the COVID-19 recession? 14:55 Mrs ANDREWS 230886 McPherson I thank the member for Groom for his question. He knows that this government is getting on with the job of delivering for our manufacturing sector, to help them to rebuild and to create the jobs in one of the toughest years that they have experienced on record. Our Manufacturing Modernisation Fund is just one of the immediate ways that we are backing our manufacturers and their workers. I joined the member for Groom late last year to open round 2 of the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund at Pixie Ice Cream in the electorate of Groom. They are a fantastic manufacturer, and many Aussies may not know that they are responsible for the iconic Home Ice Cream brand. Pixie is a great example of what many of our manufacturers are doing right across the country, which is looking at technology and how they can upgrade their technology so that they can introduce efficiencies to their manufacturing processes. That is exactly what the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund is all about. Round 2 closed on 21 January, and there's been a tremendous response to that. There have been over 500 applications received. This builds on the success of round 1 of that fund, where we supported over 200 projects, and it was about $215 million in support that we gave to those manufacturers. That supported them at a particularly difficult time during the height of COVID last year. The Manufacturing Modernisation Fund is part of our $1.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy, which we announced in October last year, and work is well underway on delivering the key parts of that strategy—firstly, with the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund round 2, which is currently being assessed. We also committed to making sure that road maps were developed by April of this year, that guidelines were developed and that we were opening the funding rounds. All of that work is well on track so that we can deliver the longer-term support that our manufacturers need. Let's be clear: this strategy is not about a short-term sugar fix. This is about setting up Australian manufacturing for the future. We have taken a long-term view, and we have looked clearly at what manufacturers need in this country to be able to succeed. We are helping them to build resilience, to build competitiveness and to build scale, and we are doing that in our six national manufacturing priority areas. We are supporting manufacturers. We always have. We always will. Members of Parliament: Staff 53 14:59 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday, Brittany Higgins issued a statement which said a current senior staffer to the Prime Minister, and Ms Higgins's former chief of staff—the same person—'continually made me feel as if my ongoing employment would be jeopardised if I proceeded any further with the matter'. Has the Prime Minister raised Ms Higgins's clear statement with his staff member? 14:59 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook There have been many conversations over the course of this week in relation to these issues. That is why I have asked the Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to follow through on this process, to look at these matters and to provide me and the cabinet with advice on how we can ensure that in these horrendous situations the best possible support can be provided. That is what everyone in this situation was seeking to do in the best of faith. But, as we have stated— The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order? Mr Albanese R36 It can't be a clearer question. The question just goes to whether the Prime Minister has asked his senior staff member about the declaration made by Ms Higgins—about whether that is accurate and whether he has raised it with the member of his own staff. Surely we can get an answer to that. Ms Higgins deserves one. The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister has the call. Mr MORRISON E3L Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition didn't understand me. What I'm saying is I have had these conversations with the member of staff. I said there have been many conversations. I'm happy to indicate I have had conversations about the support provided by the member of my staff now. She was working as the chief of staff to the Minister for Defence Industry at the time. I have discussed with her those matters and the support provided, and she indeed has indicated to me some appreciation that was also provided to her at the time in the messages that were sent to her. We all accept that Brittany no longer feels in any way that she felt supported, particularly over the prolonged period of time well beyond that initial incident where initially the advice was followed. I note that the Australian Human Rights Commission says if an employer suspects that a criminal incident has occurred the individual should be advised to report the matter to the police, and that is indeed what the minister did at the time. The minister arranged for Brittany to have that meeting with the AFP, and that occurred on 1 April. That was followed up by a meeting between ministerials and the AFP assistant commissioner. Everyone here tried to do the right thing. They took advice and followed the advice, and they sought to provide that support. This is what the challenge here is for us: even when that has been done, it hasn't done the job, because now Brittany clearly feels that way. That is not disputed. That is what we're seeking to apply our attention to to ensure we learn from that and that others are not in a position where they are faced with this. That is simply what we are trying to do. That is simply what we're trying to do, honestly and openly. Energy 53 15:02 Ms FLINT 245550 Boothby My question is to the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison government is continuing to drive down power prices as we continue our recovery from the COVID-19 recession? 15:03 Mr TAYLOR 231027 Hume I thank the member for Boothby for her question. As someone with a family farming background, she knows how important affordable, reliable energy is to ensuring that small businesses can make ends meet, can invest and can employ. We are seeing report after report telling us that energy prices are coming down and that they have been coming down since well before the onset of the pandemic. The ACCC's latest gas inquiry found that gas prices offered for 2021, this year, have fallen by as much as 50 per cent over the last two years. A 50 per cent reduction. We know that lower gas prices are also helping to support the reduction in electricity prices. We have seen eight consecutive quarters of CPI reductions in electricity, and 10 consecutive quarters in the member for Boothby's electorate. A new report released by the AER confirms that wholesale electricity prices across the National Electricity Market were up to 58 per cent lower. They have fallen by 58 per cent since 2019. With household prices making up a third to a half of a bill, those are big savings that can flow through to consumers. Now is a great time to shop around and get a good deal, and a great way to do that is to go to the Energy Made Easy website, where you can compare your bill with bills that could come from other plans and the savings that are up for grabs. We also put in place several years ago our default market offer to make sure that reductions are passed on to consumers even when they don't have time to shop around. That means that, compared to before the introduction of the default market offer, a family in Clarence Park, in the member's electorate, could be now up to $707 a year better off. A cafe in Mitcham could be over $6,000 better off. This is all part of our plan to bring down energy prices. Over the longer term, we know that critical to doing this whilst we bring down emissions is technology. Just last week, the Biden administration established a new advanced project research agency, allocating an initial $100 million towards technologies with stretch goals, including energy storage, low-cost clean hydrogen, carbon capture, low-emission steel and soil carbon. If that sounds familiar it's because they're the same five priority areas in our technology investment road map. We know that we need to be evaluating any technology that can bring down emissions and deliver affordable reliable energy for all Australians. Members of Parliament: Staff 54 15:05 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler My question is to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister accept that he and his office have a human resources responsibility for all ministerial staff? Has the Prime Minister asked his principal private secretary whether he checked in on Brittany Higgins as Ms Higgins has clearly stated? 15:06 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I have, and I have advised the House about when my office knew about these matters in accordance with the advice that I have received. Resources Industry 54 15:06 Mr THOMPSON 281826 Herbert My question is to the Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia. Will the minister please update the House on the resilience of Australia's resources exports and highlight how the industry, with the support of the Morrison government, is driving economic growth and supporting everyday Australians? 15:06 Mr PITT 148150 Hinkler I thank the member for Herbert for his question, another fighter for the north and strong supporter of the resources sector. What we know is the resources sector continuous to be the backbone of the Australian economy. It has been. It is. It will be into the future. It will continue to grow and drive jobs, all through the hard work of everyday Australians who are out there every single day in their high-vis, working on behalf of their companies and our country. The resources sector will always be a key driver of our economy, particularly for regional Australia, and it's great to see another increase in job numbers today, another increase in employment. In fact, in Queensland in November last year the resources sector actually supported 78,000 direct jobs. The sector grew 17.9 per cent over the year and 22.7 per cent for the quarter. I say to all of those Australians who might be looking for jobs: get yourself out to the regions. There are plenty of jobs. You can certainly get employment. As the Deputy Prime Minister has said, you might find love or you might not, but you can certainly get a job in a sector like the resources sector. In 2019-20, Australia exported over $102 million of iron ore. That is enough iron ore to build 10,000 Harbour Bridges. It's also driven dividends for mum and dad investors. We will continue to support the sector as it supports us. What does it mean for the states? It means $8 billion in royalties for Western Australia, $3.5 billion for Queensland and $1.5 billion for New South Wales. That's money that can pay for schools, hospitals and roads. We will continue to support the sector. I want to give a shout out to Kensey. Kensey is a 22-year-old apprentice electrician. He works in the Bowen Basin. This week I received a number of emails from hardworking men and women in the sector, including Kensey. So I gave Kensey a ring before question time. Apprentice electricians go anywhere. You never know where you might find one. As a former electrician, who thought I would have ended up here in the parliament? But, for those who don't know, Kensey is working in an underground mine. It's deep, hot, dark and difficult work, but Kensey ensures the big fans stay on and the equipment keeps running. He literally keeps the lights on. I say to Kensey and his colleagues that we are so thankful for the work you have done over the last 12 months. You have helped drive our economy. You have kept yourselves employed. You have kept yourselves safe. You have managed the pandemic. You have done everything that has been asked of you. Kensey is a great supporter of his industry. He is proud of what he does, as he should be. I say to all of his colleagues right across Queensland and across Australia, once again, thank you for your service in such an important sector as the resources sector. You can count on us to support you. You can count on us to continue to support the sector. We will not be out there arguing against resources. We want more, not less. We want more jobs, not fewer. We will drive it forwards. Mr Morrison E3L Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper. STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE 55 STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE Domestic and Family Violence 55 15:10 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I've discussed this with the Leader of the Opposition, and I'm sure the member for Griffith would agree. I wish us all to take a moment to remember Hannah Clarke and her three children, Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey. Tomorrow marks one year since that vile and terrible crime—that terribly violent, unspeakable and unthinkable crime—was committed against them. In response to that crime last year, I said in this place that the words 'family' and 'violence' just jar. Those words should never be together, but sadly they so often are. Those words have nothing to do with each other, because our families should be the safest place in all of the world. But for so many, including in this place, that has not been the case, and that is a profound sadness. Sadly, this was absolutely not the case for Hannah and her children, and for so many others. All we can do is extend our love to Hannah's family and seek to reach out to them. I extend to them, through the member for Griffith, the House's kindest regards and deepest affection, and commend Hannah again for how she led us all a year ago. The most important thing we can do in this place is, of course, do everything we can. As the Leader of the Opposition and I know, these issues are above politics, thankfully. We must do all we can to prevent family violence and to support those suffering it, working together with the states and territories across this chamber on the next National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children and producing more support for women in particular and their children, who are most at risk of experiencing family, domestic and sexual violence. Hannah, Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey, we remember you. We will never forget. 15:12 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I join with the Prime Minister in commemorating the first anniversary of the tragic deaths of Hannah Clarke and her three lovely children, Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey. We still see their faces in photographs, and we see their joy. We see the love with which they all so happily embraced each other. We see in their eyes the sense of a future so bright and so eagerly anticipated—a future that was stolen from them. As our shock turned to sorrow, we came together to remind ourselves that we cannot resign ourselves to this. We in this House have a particular responsibility when it comes to issues of family law and taking action on domestic violence. We have an opportunity to make a difference. We cannot be bystanders—not now, not ever. Let us be guided every day by their memory and let them never fade. DOCUMENTS 55 DOCUMENTS Presentation 55 15:13 Mr PORTER 208884 Pearce 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 55 MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE Environment 55 15:14 The SPEAKER 00APG I have received a letter from the honourable member for Griffith proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The government's mismanagement of environmental protection. I call upon those 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— 15:14 Ms BUTLER 248006 Griffith 'Australia's natural environment and iconic places are in an overall state of decline and are under increasing threat. The environment is not sufficiently resilient to withstand current, emerging or future threats, including climate change. The environmental trajectory is currently unsustainable.' Those are the words that start off the 'Key messages' section in the final report of the independent review of Australia's environmental laws. This is a report that was provided to the government in October—the government sat on it until January before releasing it—and it comes at a time of very significant environmental degradation, as the reviewer has said. It is a fact that Australia's environment is in unprecedented decline. We have an extinction crisis, which existed before the series of bushfires that happened over the summer of 2019-20. We have the very dubious distinction of leading the world in mammal extinctions. Koala populations are on the brink of extinction in New South Wales. There's actually no national strategy for the koala; the last one expired back in 2014 . Platypus numbers also look to be in serious decline. These are animals that have a particular iconic status within the Australian identity, and we as a nation are failing to do enough to protect them. And, of course, then came the bushfire crisis. It was a crisis in which three billion animals were killed or displaced. It's a horrific statistic. Unfortunately, it rolls off the tongue a bit too easily, doesn't it? Three billion animals. Think about the gravity of the loss that we as a nation suffered across the bushfires. I'm talking about the environmental loss. They were horrific fires. So many people lost their lives. So many communities lost infrastructure, lost property. There was a great deal of harm to business, to tourism. But in my portfolio of the environment it's important to remember the impact on our native species and our beautiful natural environment as well—three billion animals. It's a horrific statistic. Australians are growing more and more concerned about environmental protection here in this country. They've been concerned about bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef. They've been concerned about the increasing biodiversity crisis the world is facing and whether our nation is doing enough to stand up for it. They've been concerned to hear that fewer than 40 per cent of threatened species have a recovery plan—and, because monitoring has been so poor, the government is not even sure which of those are being fulfilled. In fact, last year, when we asked the government why 170 of the 171 outstanding threatened species recovery plans were overdue, the government complained that we were too focused on plans. These are key documents that make sure we are doing what we should be doing to protect our iconic threatened species—and all of our threatened species; there are less charismatic ones as well. I still remember the reports about the fluorescent pink slug that was affected by the bushfire. I shouldn't be taken as being focused on cuddly koalas or the beautiful platypus; all of our native species are precious to us and to our ecosystem. The statutory review is being undertaken in circumstances where we are now in the eighth year of a conservative coalition government. Over that period, the government has cut about 40 per cent of funding to the environment department. So we're seeing a situation where what has been sown is now being reaped when it comes to environmental protection. And it's affecting jobs and investment as well. This is a government that is so hopeless it is able to preside over both an environmental crisis and a jobs crisis and fail to deal with both. The massive cuts to the environment department's administration under this government have had clear ramifications for environmental protection. At the same time, it's also caused decision-making in respect of major projects to be absolutely terribly maladministered and underfunded. But you don't have to take my word for it. We know this because last year the Audit Office produced their most scathing report of their entire audit year in relation to environmental decision-making under the EPBC Act. Mr Perrett interjecting— Ms BUTLER 248006 It is a big call—I take that interjection from the member for Moreton—but somehow the environmental decision-making came out on top of the most woeful, scathing report from the Auditor-General. Seventy-nine per cent of decisions were affected by error or were otherwise non-compliant. There was a massive blowout of about 510 per cent in the delays of approvals, and, of course, in a single year alone 95 per cent of key decisions were made beyond the statutory time limit. Every single late and poor decision that's caused by funding cuts is a cause of delay to jobs and investment. Of course there are some perfectly legitimate reasons why there might be delay. It might be necessary to consider the environmental ramifications of a project, to consider the assessment or to consider the work that needs to be done. But, when the delay is just caused by the reckless failure to properly resource the environment department, that's a problem, and it's a problem that is laid squarely at the feet of this government. Mr Deputy Speaker O'Brien, I mentioned to you that we are currently going through the 10-yearly statutory review of Australia's environment laws and I read to you some of the key messages about the environmental decline that Australia's environment is facing. I also wanted to mention that the reviewer, Graeme Samuel, an eminent Australian, a highly qualified regulator—he came to this with fresh eyes but a depth of experience in regulation—has not pulled his punches at all when it comes to the environmental decline that is being faced in this nation. What he has said is: The EPBC Act and its operation requires fundamental reform to enable the Commonwealth to: set clear outcomes for the environment and provide transparency and strong oversight to build trust and confidence that decisions deliver these outcomes and adhere to the law— and a range of other recommendations. In fact, he's made 38 recommendations. He handed those recommendations and the entire report—and it's a substantial piece of work—to the government back in October 2020. As I said, the government then sat on it for three months and then dropped it out late on a Thursday afternoon in late January. It wasn't a sitting week; the following week was a sitting week. And did they bother to publish a response? Was a government response produced? Maybe that was the explanation for the three-month wait that we had for this to be revealed to the Australian people. No government response has been provided to the Australian people, so we don't even know where they stand on the 38 recommendations. Here's what we do know. Last year, when the interim report came out, it made a sweeping set of integrated recommendations that laid a blueprint for reform. The government, after spending millions of dollars and many hours of consultation, took that really good solid interim report and just dropped it over here and, ignoring it, they went over to the shelf, looked up 2014 and pulled down a piece of Abbott-era legislation that had failed. They blew the dust off it and whacked that into the parliament instead. We just got Abbott 2.0. We should have had Samuel. The opposition have said very clearly we will properly consider anything meaningful the government want to put forward that's consistent with Samuel, and they just gave us Abbott 2.0. And they've done it again when the final report was published. It's a report that annexes several proposed national environmental standards. Graeme Samuel has obviously done a lot of work. There were lots of consultations with everyone from the Minerals Council, the NFF and the BCA through to the Conservation Foundation, WWF, Wilderness Society, Humane Society, scientists and environmentalists. There were massive amounts of consultation with business, with industry, with the minerals sector and with environmental scientists, and millions of dollars were spent. And, again, what have they done? They've just shelved the Graeme Samuel standards and have gone back to the 2014 file and pulled out the Abbott-era standards. We know this not because they published a response to the report but because these were dropped out to the media, again, late in the afternoon. It is such a disgrace, because here are the conditions that the government have for reform: they've got a majority government and they've got a situation where the opposition has been constructive, has not cherrypicked and has not played the rule-in rule-out game but is standing here ready, willing and able to properly consider anything that they want to put forward that's serious. Instead, it's just wedge politics, Abbott-era proposals and absolute nonsense. The real victim in this is Australia's national environment. 15:24 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer I just can't let the member for Griffith get away with her criticisms of the Samuel review. Yes, it was due to go to the government on 31 October last year; yes, the review is now in the public domain; and, yes, we have dedicated ourselves to a range of measures, including a short-term response, as agreed by national cabinet, and a longer-term response. But the Labor Party also reviewed this act, because it has a statutory review every 10 years. The Hawke review was released on 30 October 2009 and the government response was on 24 August 2011! So not only did we see almost a two-year gap when Labor undertook this statutory and very important task, but we didn't get a single piece of legislation through the parliament following that. Nothing happened—nothing at all. The one thing that I suspect the member for Griffith—indeed, the Labor Party—and I agree on is that nobody loves the EPBC Act. You have different perspectives, you come to it with different points of view, but you all agree that it is not fit for purpose and it is outdated. It might have had a couple of minor amendments, but effectively it never has been amended. That's why we are committing ourselves to the task in a careful, consultative way, and we expect that the agreement that premiers made with the Prime Minister towards the end of last year will be noted and responded to by the parliament as a whole. We are working that through carefully. On Thursday 28 January I tabled and released the report of the independent review of the EPBC Act, prepared by Professor Graeme Samuel. We need to ensure that the act is serving its intent to both protect our environment and grow our economy as we work to recover from the COVID-19 recession. I know that the Labor Party agrees with that, because, having heard the member for Griffith interviewed, she certainly has linked the reforms to this act with a jobs recovery from COVID. Consistent with his interim report, Professor Samuel concluded that the EPBC Act is not working for the environment or for business. He made that very clear. It's a far-reaching report. It's important that we continue to work alongside stakeholders as we go through each of the recommendations. The member for Griffith has suggested there is something that I or the government don't want or don't like in the report. We appointed Professor Samuel. I thank him for his dedicated work. He's undertaken comprehensive, thorough and no-holds-barred process over a period of 12 months. He's handed us a good report. We are taking, as I said, some early, necessary, agreed-on-by-all-jurisdictions steps while, longer term, we work through the detailed recommendations of what I said is definitely a far-reaching report. I met with a group of stakeholders that I've been keeping in touch with during this process and was keen to hear their thoughts—demonstrating that ongoing consultation. Unlike Labor, which failed to introduce any legislative change in response to their previous review—and it took two years to deliver the response—I am committed to ensuring that our environment laws are fit for purpose. Our immediate priority is to improve the efficiency of the EPBC Act. We remain committed to progressing single-touch approvals underpinned by national environmental standards. Single-touch approvals will remove duplication and accredit states to carry out environmental assessments and approvals on behalf of the Commonwealth. That absolutely aligns with Professor Samuel's review and his suggestion that a sensible, staged pathway is needed. Remember: standards and harmonisation are two of the key themes of his report. We've immediately picked them up. National environmental standards will make the existing requirements of the EPBC Act clear. At the moment, they don't have clarity. We will create legislative frameworks that will pave the way for future change. We will build and improve the standards over time. The first standards will be interim. Two years later there will be a development of final standards. The critical starting point is to have clarity, to ensure efficient and streamlined single-touch approvals. As I said, each premier and chief minister, at national cabinet, recommitted to this priority reform in December 2020. So we're working with jurisdictions. We're working with the will of national cabinet to make that happen. State Labor premiers understand and agree with our approach whereas federal Labor seems to be opposing merely for the sake of opposing. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Streamlining Environmental Approvals) Bill 2020 and bilateral agreements will reduce regulatory burden, create greater clarity for all parties, accelerate job-creating projects, promote economic activity and create certainty around environmental protections. The government has also committed to modernising the protection of Indigenous cultural heritage, and I'm delighted about that because it's so important. The process is already underway. I've already jointly chaired a roundtable meeting of state Indigenous and environment ministers, which took place in September 2020. We need to ensure the EPBC Act is serving its intent to both protect our environment and grow our economy as we work our way out of the COVID-19 recession. The process is too important to stall. The fact is we need to start, we need a staged process and we need reform. I'm delighted that the member for Brisbane will talk on recycling and waste, as it's another area that is critical to the government for protecting the environment and understanding that we can't keep contaminating the oceans with landfill, overusing and overconsuming. We need to remanufacture and reprocess so much of what we throw away. I want to touch on recovery plans because the member for Griffith started with those. I want to make the point to the House, as I have before, that 99 per cent of threatened species and ecological communities listed under the EPBC Act have a conservation advice and/or a recovery plan—that's 99.9 per cent. Those listening may be thinking: 'Well, that's a conservation advice, but not a recovery plan. What's there difference?' Emeritus Professor Helene Marsh has said: Conservation advices are effective and efficient recovery instruments that can be amended much more easily than a recovery plan to adapt to new information or changing circumstances such as occurred in Australia as a result of the fires. A conservation advice is not a 'recovery plan lite'. I think that's an important point to note. Of the more than 1,900 threatened species and ecological communities, I acknowledge there are 171 species that require a recovery plan to be in place that don't have a plan. But I will continue to work with the Threatened Species Scientific Committee and be guided by their expert advice. All except one—just one—of these 171 species have a comprehensive conservation advice in place. I just mentioned Professor Marsh's opinion of those conservation advices and the strength of them as a recovery instrument, and they have been prepared by our Threatened Species Scientific Committee. The member for Griffith accused me of talking about plans. I'm very happy to talk about practical on-ground actions because we dedicate a lot of time and money to on-ground actions, such as the $200 million for bushfire recovery. I'm delighted to say that, in the critical areas burnt by the Black Summer bushfires, the community has helped design how we spend that money—controlling feral animals, removing weeds, replanting, creating seed banks and using the traditional knowledge of the Indigenous people in those areas. The member for Macquarie is here. I know that she is very concerned about the Blue Mountains and has put forward some good ideas about how we recover in those areas. Similarly with the South Coast, the North Coast, Kangaroo Island and the Adelaide Hills, we have worked so closely with communities, and I invite everyone to look at the work that is happening, in conjunction with the advice of our expert scientific committee, as that money is rolling out. We love our iconic national species, and, like the member for Griffith, I like the prickly, scaly, spiny ones just as much as I like the koalas. I must remind you, as you may not have been in the parliament then, that in 2012 there were just three examples of 46 species that didn't have recovery plans and were kicked down the road. Recently I wrote to the South Australian minister to finally deliver a recovery plan for the grey-headed flying fox, which should've been in place when Labor was last in the portfolio, in 2012, but it was again kicked down the road. We've worked hard on those because we love our iconic species and we want to do the very best by them. We also know of the damage that feral animals do. Last week I was in my electorate, near a place called Rankins Springs, and I was talking to some land managers about the malleefowl mounds that were set up to protect this beautiful endangered bird of the rangelands of western New South Wales. All the work that had been done—the malleefowl does have a recovery plan—was being undone by foxes. A fox was caught on camera with a chick in its mouth. Too often we see that as we pick up the extraordinary damage that feral animals do around Australia. Since 2014, we've spent $34 million on addressing feral cat damage alone. We've allocated over $16 million to safe havens and islands, and we've got more funding on the way. I know these dollar amounts roll off the tongue a bit, but I also encourage people to see how we have made a difference by fencing and removing feral animals and allowing our extraordinary native wildlife to come back to make us all proud. 15:34 Dr FREELANDER 265979 Macarthur I very much thank the member for Griffith for raising this matter of critical importance. Sadly, all we've just heard from the minister are weasel words that mean nothing to the environment in my electorate. I have written to her and I've written to her predecessors to get them to come and do something for the critically endangered species in my electorate, particularly our koalas and our platypuses— Ms Ley interjecting— Dr FREELANDER 265979 Well, you haven't replied, you've refused to come and you've done nothing. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The member for Macarthur will address his comments through the chair. Dr FREELANDER 265979 Sorry, Chair. As I speak, the koalas in my electorate are being killed, their environment is being trashed and this government and the New South Wales state government are doing absolutely nothing about it. I've written to them about Appin Road, which runs through our koala habitat, to get them to put protective fencing along the road. They've done nothing. I've written to them to try and protect our waterways. They've done nothing. They're allowing rampant development to occur along the Nepean River and the Georges River. They're allowing developers to cut down trees that, critically, the koalas use to move between the two major rivers—the Georges River and the Nepean River—to survive. We have the only chlamydia-free urban population of koalas in the country, and they are dying as we speak. This is me and my grandson with a koala that was rescued, very sick, having been hit by a car on Appin Road. I'm frightened that my grandson may be the last of my grandchildren to see a koala in the wild in my electorate. We have platypuses, or platypi, in our rivers, yet the government is doing nothing to protect our river system from the massive development that's occurring in Macarthur. I want to pay tribute to Professor Robert Close, from Western Sydney University, who has for years been tracking koalas, getting their numbers and researching their breeding habits. We have all the statistics. It's a huge population of koalas that is gradually being diminished by habitat reduction and rampant development. We have schools in my electorate, particularly St Helens Park Public School, where the children can be distracted looking through the windows at koalas in the trees around the school. I'm frightened that this will finish very soon. The Samuel report made multiple recommendations, which this government talks about but on which it does absolutely nothing. I've written to the New South Wales environment minister on a number of occasion. To his credit, he is the only one who has come out and seen our environment and seen koalas in the wild in the Appin area, around the Gilead development about to be developed by Lendlease. He has seen what a tragedy it would be to lose this environment, but it's already happening. I drove by the other day to see massive trees, koala habitat, being chopped down. I saw their stumps. No more trees were being planted. This is being done for a development that's going to occur. It is a perfect environment for a national park to connect the two rivers. In fact, the name Twin Rivers National Park was suggested about 20 years ago by the University of Western Sydney. That would connect the Dharawal National Park in my electorate to the national park around the Heathcote-Audley region and the coast, which would allow proper migration of the koalas. I really think it's an absolute tragedy that this government is doing nothing. As we speak, our environment is being destroyed: koala habitat and the habitats of many other animals, including wombats, kangaroos, snakes, lizards—lace monitors—and multiple bird species. This will be the last generation that will see them if the state and federal Liberal governments have their way. Members of the government have come out, I see today, to drive for nuclear energy. Do they really want that? The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The member for Macarthur will just pause for a moment. That's twice now that you've used, effectively, a prop. I'm pretty lenient on things, but don't abuse the friendship. Dr FREELANDER 265979 Yes. Mr Ramsey interjecting— Mr Tim Wilson interjecting— Dr FREELANDER 265979 No, I don't, but I don't want multiple nuclear power stations around the country. Would you like it in your electorate? Would you like it in your electorate? The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The member for Macarthur will direct his comments through the chair. Dr FREELANDER 265979 I'm sorry, Chair. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 And the member for Grey and the member for Goldstein will stop interjecting. Dr FREELANDER 265979 I will address through the chair, as long as I'm not being constantly interrupted by terribly rude interjections from the Liberal Party members. (Time expired) 15:39 Mr EVANS 61378 Brisbane Last year, Australia got its first national recycling laws. The nation-leading Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 2020 does a lot to protect our environment, and it was delivered by the Morrison government. Under our new recycling laws, Australia will no longer be able to export various waste streams overseas, things like waste plastics, waste glass, whole tyres and contaminated paper and cardboard. And record co-funding being delivered by our government is right now helping to build new state-of-the-art infrastructure in every state and territory to ensure we have the facilities here in this country to recover, process and recycle our waste streams onshore. By leveraging this record federal funding, and getting it matched dollar for dollar both by the states and territories and by industry, we've created a Recycling Modernisation Fund that is supporting almost $1 billion worth of new recycling infrastructure being built right now across our nation. The Morrison government's reform agenda for the waste and recycling industries has been unprecedented. No federal government before now has ever done this much to tackle this environmental protection priority head-on. Labor, in office, simply left it in the too-hard basket, along with so many other issues. Led by the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Environment, the Morrison government is driving a once-in-a-generation transformation of Australia's waste and recycling industries to deliver greater environmental sustainability and protection in Australia. And it's about economic sustainability as well as environmental sustainability, because this will enable much of our waste to be sorted, processed and turned into a valuable commodity that can be used again and again in Aussie manufacturing to support the making of the next generation of fantastic products. That's the circular economy, and that's true environmental and economic sustainability in action. Our practical reforms, which will reduce Australia's waste footprint, our action under the National Waste Policy and our record funding, including through the Recycling Modernisation Fund, will create over 10,000 new green jobs in recycling across Australia in the next decade. And, unlike Labor, the coalition government know that protecting the environment and building an economy is not a zero-sum game. Taking care of our environment also means driving practical reforms to empower industry to take more responsibility for the products they make and sell across each product's life cycle. That's why we're also turbocharging product stewardship. Product stewardship, of course, is a proud coalition legacy. Australia's first Product Stewardship Act was created by the Howard government to stop dirty used oil being dumped in drains and groundwater. Today, that scheme has grown to the point where it supports the recovery and the recycling of about 300 million litres of dirty used oil per year, supporting jobs at 11 oil recycling refineries around the country and protecting our environment. That's why, in addition to strengthening the legislative framework to empower industries to make new recycling schemes, the Morrison government is also, through its National Product Stewardship Investment Fund, investing in 15 new, exciting projects to help set up new, exciting recycling schemes in many important environmental priority areas. I'm talking about a new national product stewardship scheme for farm products, such as dairy silage wraps; a new recycling scheme for cosmetic waste; expanding the recycling programs for e-waste; a textiles recycling scheme; a new scheme to recycle the plastics in plant nurseries; and many more. Together, these schemes will not only reduce tens of thousands of tonnes of waste going into landfill each year, but in many cases they will stop things like plastics, dangerous chemicals and hazardous materials from leaching into the surrounding environment, our waterways and our oceans. We know there's still much more to do, but the Morrison government will continue on our mission of reducing Australia's waste footprint, boosting our onshore recycling capabilities, and tackling the plastics challenge. And we know that there's no other political party in Australia that goes even close to matching the Morrison government's funding commitments, our policies and our engagement when it comes to recycling. That's why there is this long and growing list of not just recycling industry players, experts and researchers, but also environmental groups and community organisations working so closely with this government on our reforms and supporting our policies. And we do it far more effectively than those on the other side. 15:44 Mr BRIAN MITCHELL 129164 Lyons During the Morrison government's continued failure to maintain and improve our nation's environmental protection laws, there are organisations that are still trying to do their best to protect our environment all while being undermined and/or ignored and underresourced by this government. In my electorate, I would like to recognise the Tasmanian Land Conservancy for its continued drive and dedication to nature conservation. The TLC is a not-for-profit apolitical and community-minded organisation whose ethos surrounds the important and growing challenge of preserving our environment for future generations to enjoy and appreciate and, importantly, it does it hand in hand with private landowners. Just outside Buckland on Tasmania's east coast, the Prosser and Back Rivers cut their way through a valley of grassy woodland. This 1,534-hectare reserve will protect threatened vegetation communities and 11 threatened plant and animal species as well as old-growth vegetation communities and freshwater ecosystems. It's all made possible thanks to a very generous bequest by the late Mr McGregor. It's a wonderful piece of Tasmanian territory. The pre-European values of this land are amazing. It's all done through private bequest, so the government's got no part in it. Also with the TLC, at Beaufront in Ross in my electorate, Julian von Bibra for the last seven years has been working very hard with the conservancy to restore 190 hectares. He says, 'Conservation now has a place on the farm balance sheet.' There are people out there doing the right thing for conservation and the environment, because this government is not doing enough for them. Another project in my electorate is the Derwent Catchment Project, which does amazing work in the Derwent Valley and the Central Highlands. They look after around one-fifth of the total area of Tasmania. The Derwent catchment's a vast region with extraordinarily diverse landscapes. Members may recall that the Derwent and Central Highlands area was devastated by bushfire a few years ago, and areas of Tasmania that have never known fire for literally tens of thousands of years were burnt. This of course is the contributing nature of climate change, a hotter climate with fires getting wilder and going to areas where they've not been seen in tens of thousands of years. A big shout-out to the Derwent Catchment Project for the incredible work they do. It would be remiss of me not to talk about the failures of this government when it comes to the environment without briefly touching on the Northern Midlands prison project in my electorate. This is largely a state government jurisdiction, but it also touches on federal jurisdiction. The plot of land that the Tasmanian Liberal government has chosen for this northern prison site is just outside the town of Westbury and the land that it's chosen was reserved under federal environmental law, using federal funding for environmental protection. Somehow the minister has allowed the state Liberal government pretty much carte blanche to do what it likes with this land. I don't for the life of me see how a prison fits the values of environmental protection and wildlife protection, but we'll see what happens. We've put a number of questions on notice to the minister on this very point. How on earth is she allowing the state government to do what it's doing, given the supposedly important nature of this land? It was deemed important enough to reserve; now it's being turned into a prison. We can have no confidence that this is the right site, because the decision-making process that the state government used to determine this site was completely flawed. So we've got no confidence that even the choice of this site was the right decision. I'm quite sure it's probably the wrong decision. Briefly, Labor are calling on the Morrison government to introduce strong national environmental standards—not too much to ask. We're asking the government to establish a genuinely independent cop on the beat for Australia's environment—not too much to ask—and fix the explosion in the unnecessary 510 per cent job and investment delays caused by the government's massive funding cuts over its term in office. This government is no friend to the environment and it should stop pretending it is. 15:49 Mr TIM WILSON IMW Goldstein It's wonderful to be able to speak on this motion and the commitment the Morrison government has to the conservation of our environment. The very principle of stewardship and conservation goes to the core of who we are as Liberals. Need we remind those members on the other side of the chamber that we have consistently been at the fore of major environment challenges, while Labor has been trying to play catch-up. Mr Burns interjecting— Mr TIM WILSON IMW When I hear the interjections from the member for McNamara, it's sometimes difficult to remind him the Howard government was the government that established the Australian Greenhouse Office, while those opposite were twiddling their thumbs on the other side of the chamber. We have consistently been at the fore of major environmental discussions to conserve the health of this environment, from Landcare projects, investing in reforestation, the commitment of the Morrison government to soil C sequestration and soil carbon and the focus on the transition of our energy profile. What you get from this side of the chamber is not just a commitment to meeting the challenges of today but a commitment to facing the challenges of tomorrow. Before I saw the fossil the member for Macarthur get up and rant and rave about the members on this side's commitment to looking at new technology options for the future energy generation of this country— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The member— Mr TIM WILSON IMW I withdraw. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 won't use personal— An honourable member interjecting— Mr TIM WILSON IMW Well, the way he conducted himself in this space— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The member won't reflect on other members. He's withdrawn. Other members can stop interjecting also. Mr TIM WILSON IMW We will continue to argue the case for technology and not engage in the science denial of the members opposite. We have an opposition that is full of nuclear science deniers. We have the Marxist member for Melbourne, who is part of their coalition, who denies the science of nuclear power, who has engaged in the science denial of genetically enhanced foods. One of his colleagues in the Senate, Senator Hanson-Young, has openly admitted that the Greens political party is being influenced by the science deniers of vaccines. At this critical time, the Greens are full of science deniers and we have a Labor Party full of nuclear science deniers, and they dare come into this chamber and lecture members on this side of the chamber who see the opportunity of technology to be part of the stewardship of the future of our environment and our economy to build the future of this country. That's why we won't take lectures from members opposite—because our record is proud and true, because our commitment is clear. While they want to hold back the future, we want to build it. Yes, the Morrison government have done it at every step, in terms of advancing our economy, our environment and our society. We have been consistent in our approach to managing the challenges, for instance, of Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. The minister has looked very closely at what we can do to make sure we improve the legislation to build standards that can ensure the whole of the country is taken on this journey. We heard before from the Assistant Minister for Waster Reduction and Environmental Management about his commitments and his projects, particularly in the area of environmental stewardship, in making sure that we get a circular economy. We see the potential to repurpose existing resources—recycle them, repurpose them, reuse them—as part of the continuing economic growth of our country. That's one of the reasons why we are Liberals; we see the potential of turning waste to potential, while Labor is always part of the old industrialist mindset of abusing the environment to deliver for today. They have no vision for the future of this country. They do not see how they can improve and benefit our nation to be part of not just a greater responsibility for our continent but a contribution to a global effort. That's why their solution is always taxes. They say it isn't, but it always is. Before each election, they say they won't introduce taxes, and then as soon as the election is over they betray the commitment they gave to the Australian people. There are members on the other side of this chamber right now who are part of that betrayal and part of that misinformation. They continue to do it. When they go to the next election, they'll make the same promises. If they're elected to government, they'll break them again. The only solution that Labor ever see to any public policy challenge is to empower themselves, not to encourage Australians to take responsibility. They don't see the success of this country through the success of Australians; they see the success of Australia through themselves. That's why they have no commitment, no honesty and no consistency on these issues. (Time expired) 15:55 Ms COKER 263547 Corangamite I thank the member for Griffith for the opportunity to speak on this important issue: this government's mismanagement of environmental protection. In my first speech in this place, I spoke about my first experience of activism. It was actually environmental activism, sparked when I saw land cleared in a local rainforest which sent koalas fleeing for refuge in my parent's front yard in Port Macquarie in New South Wales. Today, because this government refuses to do enough, the koala is endangered. Native species are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. Our environment, our coastline, our biodiversity, the place we all call home—it's all threatened by the government's inaction. Did you know the funding for the Commonwealth department of environment has been slashed by 40 per cent, and this government has absolutely no plan to rectify any of this? For the past 30 years, I've lived in the electorate of Corangamite in Victoria. I love our environment, and I will continue to fight for it: our green open spaces, our incredible wildlife, our magnificent oceans and waterways and our amazing blue sky. That love continues to motivate my work in this place. I know that people in my community are extraordinarily passionate about protecting our environment. More than 300 individuals and groups contacted my office when the government set about trashing the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act last year. They were horrified the government had spent millions of dollars on the Samuel review of the EPBC Act and then disgracefully ignored the findings. Even before last summer's horrific bushfires, Australia was in the midst of an extinction crisis. Many animals, like the tiger quoll local to my area, are at risk. Since then, more than 1 billion animals have died and more than 12 million hectares of land has burned. The habitat of iconic Australian species, like the koala, has been decimated. I am fortunate to represent one of the most amazing parts of Australia. Corangamite contains some of the most famous surf beaches in the nation, including Bells Beach, Fairhaven Beach, Shelley Beach, Apollo Bay and Thirteenth Beach on the Bellarine Peninsula, just to name a few. From the stunning waterfalls and tree ferns in the Otways to Lake Elizabeth near Forrest and the wetlands in the Bellarine, my electorate is nothing short of spectacular. Everyone in my community is proud of our environment, and I stand with them in the fight to limit inappropriate development and sustain our biodiversity in green belts, like Spring Creek in Torquay and the Ramsar wetlands in the Bellarine. These are truly spectacular, and, as we drive along the heritage listed Great Ocean Road, we're all reminded of just how lucky we are to live in Australia. The steep cliffs that rip in the coast, the golden sands, the massive stands of eucalypts and the sounds of the crashing waves—it takes your breath away. Often in this chamber we debate matters that may seem abstract, but what is at stake in this debate is all too clear. It's our parks. It's our beaches. It's our native animals. It's our World Heritage sites. It's our coastline. It's the ancient sacred sites of our First Nations people. It's our communities. It's our livelihoods. They're at stake, but, in a time of climate change, with the intense development pressures on our coastline and our greenfields, we see this government cutting environment department funding by 40 per cent and trashing the EPBC Act. Our environment is 100 per cent entwined with our jobs and economy. We need one to sustain the other. I know that my community would not be the same without the incredible natural environment around us. It sustains jobs in our region. It brings people to our region to work, to visit and to live. But the government has failed in its duty to protect the environment for too long. In doing so, it has failed to look after our communities. Labor has loudly called on the government to introduce strong national environmental standards, establish a genuinely independent cop on the beat for the Australian environment and fix the environmental failures caused by their massive funding cuts. The government must act now to save our environment or get out of the way and let a Labor government do it. 15:59 Dr ALLEN 282986 Higgins Thank you for the opportunity to outline the Morrison government's unwavering commitment to protecting and preserving our iconic and spectacular natural environment now and for generations to come. Our government is committed to protecting our environment and, at the same time, providing real economic leadership and reform as we prepare for our post-pandemic world. There are many examples that illustrate this, but I will outline three key areas of substantial investment. Firstly, in the Morrison government's most recent budget, we've made significant commitments to protect our oceans and waterways and to preserve our pristine national parks and heritage areas. We're also now transforming our nation's waste industry. Any MP in this House who's been to a local school will know how schools engage with and embrace waste and recovery and recycling. Now it's time that we, as an Australian community, get up and start to really lean into a circular economy, and that is where we are showing leadership with the Morrison government's commitment. We've committed $249.6 million to drive a billion-dollar transformation of our waste and recycling capacity that will not only help save waste but also create 10,000 new jobs over the next decade. These jobs will be generated through new initiatives such as the Recycling Modernisation Fund, the National Waste Policy Action Plan and the implementation of our waste export ban—real investment to create real impact. Australia generates about 67 million tonnes of waste each year, and only 37 million tonnes of that is recycled. That's why the Morrison government is stepping up. As the Prime Minister has said, 'It's our waste, it's our responsibility.' Our plan will work to end the 645,000 tonnes of rubbish, including plastic, paper, glass and tyres, that we ship overseas, mainly to China. It will also provide the basis for those who design, manufacture and distribute products to take greater responsibility for the impact of those products on the environment. I welcome anyone to look at the science and technology committee's waste and recycling report that has just been delivered to parliament. Secondly, I'm proud of our package to protect our oceans and marine ecosystems. Australians love the beach, but, more than that, we care about our environment. The package of $67 million includes $14 million to tackle the marine impacts of ghost nets and plastic litter, and $28 million for compliance, enforcement and monitoring activities. We need to put the work into this to make it happen. A further $20 million is being invested, through the COVID-19 Relief and Recovery Fund, to re-establish native oyster reefs at 11 sites across the country. This additional funding also means our parks and heritage spaces will receive more than $319 million, with a record $230 million for national park upgrades and $12 million to replace revenue forgone in tourism, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Again, these are important investments in our natural resources to protect them now and for generations to come. We're also investing in our wildlife, and this is so important in our post-bushfire environment. I had the pleasure of welcoming the Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley, to Melbourne Zoo in early 2020, following the devastating bushfires. We're rolling out $200 million in bushfire, wildlife and habitat recovery funding. This includes phase 2 of our $149 million National Environment Science Program. Finally, we are updating the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. This once-in-a-decade review has listened to over 30,000 voices from across the country, including scientists, businesses, environmental groups, state and territory governments, and our Indigenous Australians. This far-reaching review will work to ensure the act is fit to meet the challenges facing our natural environment. It's so important that we make sure we embrace the things that matter to all Australians, and that includes our natural environment. I'm proud to be a member of the government who continually champions environmental protection. Our plans are working, and we'll continue implementing initiatives and policies that will create jobs and protect our natural environment. All Australians should lean into ensuring Australia remains a continent that we can all be proud of, one that we can develop and keep safe for future generations, and one that we can all participate in safely and with confidence. 16:04 Mrs PHILLIPS 147140 Gilmore It's been clear to me for some time that this government doesn't really care about our environment. Everything they do contradicts environmental protections, and we have seen the condition of our environment deteriorate rapidly since they came to office. There are probably no better examples of the government's failures on the environment than the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act amendment it pushed through the House in September and its continual failure to properly address the findings of the Samuel review of the act. I was down to speak on the amendment when it was before the House last year, but this government was so afraid of what Labor might point out about its environmental record that it shut down the debate. It was appalling behaviour. That bill did nothing to protect our environment, support jobs or give business the certainty it needs. It cherrypicked aspects from the interim EPBC Act review. It is not a true reflection of Professor Samuel's recommendations. My electorate on the New South Wales South Coast is a beautiful place. Our environment is one of our main drawcards, and it brings people from near and far. But our environment was absolutely devastated by last summer's bushfires. There was blackened bushland as far as the eye could see. Countless animals were either killed or left without adequate habitat and food. Our wonderful community groups were there picking up the pieces and doing their bit, but where was the government? It was making more flashy announcements and false promises but not delivering. It was not taking any serious action to address the unprecedented nature of what we were facing. Ask any environmental group on the South Coast and they will tell you the government has been missing in action. We still haven't done a proper ecological audit, so we don't know the full cost. We don't know enough about what the bushfires actually did to our environment. Then there is the regeneration of our bushland. I recently met with a pair of dedicated environmentalists in Yatte Yattah. They lost their home in the bushfires and they have a harrowing story to tell. But one of the things they are most upset about is the loss of their beautiful bushland. What's left is being overtaken by weeds, and it is clear it will be a difficult and time-consuming task to get it back to what it was. I'm not talking about a little backyard garden. I'm talking about hectares of land destroyed and in need of repair. They have asked the government for help to regenerate, but there is really nothing available for individuals like them. They are being left to fend for themselves, shuttled between government departments and told to monitor grant websites. All the while, they try to rebuild, deal with their trauma and live surrounded by burnt bush. Consecutive Liberal-National governments have failed to implement recovery plans for threatened species. There are estimates that fewer than 40 per cent of our threatened species have a national recovery plan, and the government is clueless about whether existing plans are being implemented. The Liberals and the Nationals have cut the environment department by an estimated 40 per cent since they came to government, and now they are trying to rehash Tony Abbott's one-stop shop from 2014. These attempts simply put the environment, jobs and investment at risk. They do nothing to strike the right balance. Instead, they are trying to tip the scales. Local people do not want to see our environmental protections watered down. The Samuel review of the EPBC Act is the most significant opportunity for reform in the last 20 years. It is heartbreaking to see those opposite wasting it. We need to get this right. After spending millions of dollars and countless hours on the review, they are pursuing second-rate so-called standards that are inconsistent with the review's final report. Every major achievement in environmental protection in our country's history has been delivered by Labor governments. We created Landcare, an absolutely vital organisation in my community that is doing amazing things in the wake of the bushfires. There are dozens of Landcare groups, and each one of them is achieving fantastic things, all thanks to Labor. We created the largest network of marine parks in the world. I'm lucky enough to live right next to one of the most beautiful marine parks in Australia, the Jervis Bay Marine Park. That is Labor's record, and I'm proud of it. It's time the government started truly working towards making sure our environment is preserved and nurtured so it's there for future generations. 16:09 Mr SHARMA 274506 Wentworth I welcome the opportunity to address this issue of environmental protection. I share some of the sentiments of those opposite who have concerns about our environment. I think it's undoubtedly true that the massive growth in the world's population and the growth in our living standards and the consumption that comes with that has put a strain on our natural environment. If you look back through history at the population of humans, around the time that settled agricultural societies first developed in 10,000 BC or thereabouts the world's population was about 2½ million people. At the time of Jesus's birth, around 0 BC, the world's population was about 180 million. It grew only slowly after that. It was about 300 million in the year 1000, 500 million in 1500 and one billion people in 1800. The point is that, up until the 20th century, the world's population had never doubled in a century and the world's GDP had never doubled in a century. But in the 20th century we had the world's population not only double once but double twice and the world's GDP did not only double once, twice or three times but doubled four times, in fact. So today we are 7.7 billion people or thereabouts in the world aspiring to and leading in many respects middle-class lives like we live in Australia. Undoubtedly around the world that is putting a strain on our natural environment. That is why, naturally enough, environmental protection has been elevated in people's minds as a priority. That takes a number of forms. It's the coexistence with our own natural world. It's the level of CO2 emissions and our contribution to the global climate. It's things like biodiversity and species preservation. It's issues like limiting our waste and it's imperatives like protecting our oceans. I think sometimes when you think of the scale of these challenges it can be easy to give in to despondency. But, piece by piece, step by step and issue by issue, we are making good progress in addressing these issues. I thought rather than rehashing some of the arguments that have already been heard today I would just go through some of the things that the government has announced literally within the last two months to address some of these issues. Just after Christmas, on 26 December, we announced a new $4 million body called Stop Food Waste Australia that will bring together some of the brightest minds in supply chain management and food waste NGOs to help tackle the problem and reduce or halve by 2030 the millions of tonnes of food that currently go to landfill each year. Each year, as many here would know, we throw away over seven million tonnes of food at a cost to the economy of more than $20 billion. Every household in Australia, on average, throws away some $3,800 of food a year. So this initiative announced before Christmas will help reduce that. In January we announced funding to assist recycling in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia. In Victoria we have announced funding to help double that state's domestic glass-recycling capacity and increase plastic recycling by 40 per cent and create over 350 jobs in doing so. In New South Wales we announced $162 million for new recycling infrastructure to help transform the industry there. In Western Australia we announced $70 million in joint funding to drive a $174 million recycling boom in Western Australia. All of these were under our Recycling Modernisation Fund, which is designed to help build a circular economy in Australia, process more of our waste in Australia and extract more value from our waste in Australia—all worthwhile initiatives. We are also protecting our built heritage. I was pleased to see the Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley, in Sydney just earlier this month announcing the addition of a 100-hectare site in Sydney to our National Heritage List, the old part of Sydney known as the Governor's Domain and Civic Precinct, which covers Government House, Hyde Park Barracks, the Conservatorium of Music, the mint, New South Wales Parliament House, Hyde Park and the Domain, making sure that those areas are preserved for future generations. Even just this week, in fact, we've announced two important initiatives. The Minister for the Environment announced yesterday that we have joined the Global Oceans Alliance. We are committed to an initiative called the 30by30 initiative, which is intended to provide formal protection to 30 per cent of the world's oceans by 2030. In Australia we are already at 37 per cent of our oceans that warrant this protection. We will be providing assistance to other countries to make sure that they protect their own marine jurisdictions. Lastly and one of my favourites is an initiative we announced just yesterday under the National Environment Science Program, using artificial intelligence, technology and the traditional knowledge of Indigenous rangers to help increase the survival rates of turtle hatchlings in Australia's remote far north. So we are doing things. There's no cause for complacency but nor is there cause for despair. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The discussion is now concluded. BILLS 66 BILLS Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Improved Home Care Payment Administration No. 2) Bill 2020, Crimes Legislation Amendment (Economic Disruption) Bill 2020, Customs Amendment (Product Specific Rule Modernisation) Bill 2019, National Consumer Credit Protection Amendment (Mandatory Credit Reporting and Other Measures) Bill 2019, Native Title Legislation Amendment Bill 2020, Telecommunications Amendment (Infrastructure in New Developments) Bill 2020 66

Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Improved Home Care Payment Administration No. 2) Bill 2020

Crimes Legislation Amendment (Economic Disruption) Bill 2020

Customs Amendment (Product Specific Rule Modernisation) Bill 2019

National Consumer Credit Protection Amendment (Mandatory Credit Reporting and Other Measures) Bill 2019

Native Title Legislation Amendment Bill 2020

Telecommunications Amendment (Infrastructure in New Developments) Bill 2020

Assent 66 Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2020 Measures No. 2) Bill 2020, Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals and Other Measures) Bill 2020, Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Provider Category Standards and Other Measures) Bill 2020 66

Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2020 Measures No. 2) Bill 2020

Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals and Other Measures) Bill 2020

Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Provider Category Standards and Other Measures) Bill 2020

Messages received from the Senate returning the bills without amendment.

Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Refunds of Charges and Other Measures) Bill 2020 66

Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Refunds of Charges and Other Measures) Bill 2020

Report from Federation Chamber 66 Third Reading 66 16:16 Mr HAWKE HWO Mitchell by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020 66

Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020

Second Reading 66 16:17 Ms KEARNEY LTU Cooper Insecure work is a scourge. For many, it is designed to keep workers compliant, scared to speak up about unsafe conditions, about sexual harassment, about wage theft, about unpaid overtime. I have been telling these things here today to paint a picture of a serious underbelly of insecure workers in our workforce out there. This bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020, does nothing to secure work for anyone. It does not fix the casualisation issues. It certainly does not address other forms of insecure work. In fact, it makes it easier to employ people as casuals. The details have been explained very clearly by the shadow minister, the member for Watson, and many other speakers who have spoken to this bill today. So I won't spend time going through the details. But I have spent my whole career fighting alongside workers for their rights, for decent pay and conditions. I became a job rep for the nurses' union as a very young nurse. I actually held honorary positions for the nurses' union, the ANF, now called the ANNF, as president of the Victorian branch and as federal president, and then I held a full-time position as federal secretary of that great union. I then was ACTU president, and here I am in this House still fighting for workers' rights; and it beggars belief that we are still fighting over similar things This government has form when it comes to attacking workers' rights, when it comes to attacking their pay, their conditions and their bargaining rights. This is in its DNA. So this bill is no surprise to anyone. It's no surprise to us. It certainly isn't any surprise to so many hardworking Australians who have had to fight for their rights time and time again because of this government, whether it was Work Choices—remember Work Choices?—whether it was cutting low-paid workers' penalty rates—if you ask, 'Where are those thousands of jobs that cutting penalty rates was supposed to create?' the answer is that they're nowhere—whether it was the so-called, weasel-word-entitled ensuring integrity bill, which tried to cut the right to organise to maintain pay conditions, whether it was leaving workers in key industries out of JobKeeper or whether it was cutting superannuation increases. That is a short list. I could go on forever. The government have said that they will amend this bill, but after the amendment it will still fail the test. It doesn't create secure jobs and it doesn't ensure decent pay. It makes it easier for employers to casualise jobs that would otherwise have been permanent, it makes bargaining for better pay and conditions more difficult than it already is, it allows wage cuts, it takes rights away from blue-collar workers on big projects and it weakens wage theft punishments in jurisdictions where wage theft was already deemed a criminal act, as in my state, Victoria. The Minister for Industrial Relations can pop some lippy on this legislation if he likes, but it is still a pig of a bill. We will not support this bill. We stand up for workers, for workers' rights and for decent jobs. 16:21 Mr BURNS 278522 Macnamara I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020. The devil is in the detail and is certainly not reflected in the title of this bill. Before I go into some of the specific matters of this bill, I want to talk about the context of why we are actually talking about the fair work amendment bill and not the other bill that was before it on the original government business program a mere 24 hours ago, which of course was the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Amendment (Grid Reliability Fund) Bill 2020. We are debating this bill because the government has pulled the Clean Energy Finance Corporation bill, because the member for New England put in an amendment but didn't tell his colleagues, and now that bill isn't going to be coming back to this floor. Mr Falinski interjecting— Mr BURNS 278522 I can hear the interjections from the member for Mackellar. He is very brave in interjections, but I will only believe in his bravery when he votes against the member for New England's amendments to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation bill. I know the member for Hughes, who has walked into the chamber, will be supporting the member for New England's amendments to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation bill, joining with many of his colleagues on those completely misguided amendments to that bill. But that is why we are here now, at the end of this parliamentary sitting week, talking about the fair work amendment bill: because the government are too ashamed to bring on the original bill that was meant to be debated this week. They have been shamed into pulling that bill off the government program, and they've been forced to settle for this bill. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The minister on a point of order? Mr Hawke HWO The member has a requirement to remain relevant to the bill under discussion. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 Member for Macnamara, I'm listening closely. Mr BURNS 278522 I didn't catch the mumbling that was going on there, but I will say this: let's turn our attention to this bill before the chair at the moment. The Attorney-General, during question time, was asked over and over and over again, 'Will you guarantee that workers will not be worse off under your bill and your industrial relations framework that you're introducing in this House?' And what did we see from the Attorney-General? We saw base politics. We saw denial. We saw rejection of contentions of questions. But there is one simple thing we didn't see, and that was an acceptance of the truth that this industrial relations framework that this government has bowled up to this place is a reflection of what they are all about, and that is leaving Australian workers worse off and cutting the pay and conditions of Australian workers. Despite the Attorney-General time after time trying to make a little bit of political ground on this, he simply failed and backed down. He was again shamed into pulling one part of the bill from this place. Just like they pulled the Clean Energy Finance Corporation bill after the member for New England's amendments were bowled up to this place, he pulled the better off overall test from this bill. But that's not the only thing that is stopping us from supporting this bill. There are other parts to this bill— Mr Falinski interjecting— Mr BURNS 278522 I can still hear the member for Mackellar talking about how much he's looking forward to supporting the member for New England's amendments to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation bill, but I'm going to come back to the matter before the chair. I'm not going to be distracted by the member for Mackellar's interjections. This bill simply leaves Australian workers worse off— Mr Falinski G86 Better off! Mr BURNS 278522 Worse off. And it doesn't matter how many times the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General come into this place and deny it, you only have to look at their own actions to see that what they say at the dispatch box doesn't reflect what they actually do. What they say at the dispatch box is that it doesn't hurt workers, but what they actually do is pull out bits of the bill which then, in black-and-white legislation, leaves workers worse off. We on this side of the House have a very different idea about making sure that hardworking Australian families aren't left worse off by this Morrison government and by this Attorney-General. What this bill does is create more casualisation in our economy; it creates more of a casual workforce in our economy. We on this side of the House have said that this doesn't have to be the way. In fact, we've offered up policy solutions. The Leader of the Opposition gave a detailed speech about the options that we could be undertaking, as a country, to help give people a pathway to permanent work. If you are a casual, we want to see you have the option—if it's what you want—of getting into full-time, permanent work. What this government wants to do is lock you into the casualisation of your work. This government wants to lock in the lack of pay and conditions of the casualised workforce, compared to the permanent workforce. This government's idea of industrial relations reform is to make sure that workers have less work security, less job security and less long-term security in their employment. To look at some of the details of why and how the government is going to unravel this, let's look at some of the things it's doing around enterprise bargaining. Under this bill, workers will only have to be notified a month after negotiations have even commenced—a month! They're weakening the bargaining framework so that workers are going to be left behind without negotiations. They're also taking away the right to a comprehensive explanation of an agreement that they're being asked to vote on. And workers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds will no longer be guaranteed an appropriate explanation from this government's reforms. I'm looking forward to continuing this when the debate resumes. I will be continuing with my contribution on this bill, but, as we head towards the adjournment debate today, let me reiterate where I started: the Labor Party opposes leaving workers worse off. This government wants to make sure hardworking Australians are worse off under their industrial relations framework. We on this side of the House want to see fewer casual workers in the economy, we want to make sure workers have a pathway to permanency and we want to see good pay and conditions available to Australians, not denied. If you are looking to transfer from casual work to permanency—for example, if you've been in the same job for two years—we think that is an appropriate time for you to say: 'Hang on a second, I've been with one organisation for at least two years. That should guarantee me a right to permanent protection.' But of course they're not entertaining any reforms like this. All they want to do, all the member for Mackellar wants to do, is leave workers worse off, to pay them less, to rob them of pay and conditions. We will not stand for it on this side of the House. Debate interrupted. ADJOURNMENT 68 ADJOURNMENT Vietnamese Australians 68 16:30 Mr ZAPPIA HWB Makin When 20-year-old Lam Binh sailed into Darwin Harbour with his younger brother and three friends aboard the 20 metre Kien Giang on 26 April 1976, the thought that their arrival would mark a significant event in Australian history, and that it heralded a new era in Australia's cultural diversification, probably did not even enter their minds. In the months and years that followed, a further 2,000 Vietnamese boat people reached Australia. They were the lucky ones, not because Australia is the lucky country but because, unlike the estimated 200,000 to 400,000 refugees who perished at sea, they had survived the perilous 3,500 kilometre journey, having endured pirate attacks, dangerous seas and starvation on unsafe, flimsy boats. They became known as the Vietnamese boat people. For the South Vietnamese, the end of the war did not bring relief but a new trauma. Their choice was to stay in Vietnam and face the likelihood of brutal persecution, starvation and discrimination, or they could risk their lives in a highly dangerous escape attempt. It is estimated that over 1.5 million people fled Vietnam. Of those, around 800,000 were resettled in other countries by the UNHCR. Eighty thousand came to Australia in the decade after the end of the war, and thousands more followed in subsequent years. Their migration represented a major shift in Australian immigration policy and Australian culture. It marked a visible end to the White Australia policy. For the early arrivals, life was often difficult, particularly as not all Australians welcomed the Vietnamese influx. However, community fears and trepidation soon faded as Australians saw grateful people being given a new start in life, free of war and persecution after decades of conflict in their homeland. For most, it was the first time they could live in peace. They could finally see a bright future ahead. They too had dreams and aspirations. They too wanted a better life for themselves and their children. They worked hard, they showed initiative, they supported each other, and at all times they remained appreciative of the opportunities that Australia had given them. Today, their contributions have permeated through all walks of Australian life. They have particularly excelled in the health and medical professions. Vietnamese students are frequently the very high achievers. In South Australia, the Vietnamese people have had some great ambassadors and role models, none more so than Governor of South Australia since 2014, His Excellency Hieu Van Le, who, as a boat refugee and supported by Mrs Van Le, has won the hearts of South Australians. From boat refugee to Governor of South Australia—what an extraordinary achievement! In acknowledgment of the extraordinary trials and tribulations, the lives lost, the suffering endured, the resilience shown and their gratitude to Australia, a monument dedicated to the Vietnamese boat people has been constructed on the banks of the River Torrens in Adelaide and was officially unveiled on 7 February. The project was the culmination of four years of planning and fundraising by the Vietnamese Boat People Monument Association, led by Tung Ngo and Thai Minh Nguyen. Tung Ngo, who came as a 10-year-old boat arrival, is today a member of the South Australia's upper house. In a display of unity, the monument was jointly blessed by religious leaders of the Vietnamese Catholic and Buddhist communities. Beautifully designed by Tony Rosella and Ash Badios, the memorial rightfully acknowledges a significant chapter in Australia's history. My compliments to all who, in any way, contributed to the monument. It represents another example of Vietnamese perseverance and determination. Today, around 300,000 Australians have Vietnamese ancestry. Australia has become a better country, a more prosperous country and a more inclusive country because of the resettlement of Vietnamese people. And it all began 45 years ago, with the arrival of a courageous and skilful Lam Binh and his four fellow refugees. COVID-19: Ivermectin 69 16:35 Mr CRAIG KELLY 99931 Hughes I'd just like to congratulate the member for Makin on that fine speech. I concur with every single word about the endurance, courage and resilience of the Vietnamese people who came to settle in Australia. Thank you, sir. Over recent weeks, I've been vilified, smeared and slimed by the prejudiced, the ignorant and the ideologically biased. All I have done is try to act within the principles of what is known as the Declaration of Helsinki, the ethical principles for medical research, and especially clause 37, which is titled 'Unproven Interventions in Clinical Practice'. It reads: In the treatment of an individual patient, where proven interventions do not exist or other known interventions have been ineffective, the physician, after seeking expert advice, with informed consent from the patient or a legally authorised representative, may use an unproven intervention if in the physician's judgement it offers hope of saving life, re-establishing health or alleviating suffering. This intervention should subsequently be made the object of research, designed to evaluate its safety and efficacy. In all cases, new information must be recorded and, where appropriate, made publicly available. My entire objection to this debate is that we have denied Australian doctors that ability. We have many state governments that have acted contrary to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki and in fact have violated it by preventing physicians using an unproven intervention if in the physician's judgement it offers hope of saving lives. That is simply what I have done. I have simply continued to post information upon the most recent studies of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. I can report to the House that over the last week another four studies into ivermectin have been published. The first one, a peer-reviewed study out of Mexico, was a prospective trial involving 768 COVID patients. Its findings were that treatment with ivermectin lowered the risk of death by 77.7 per cent and lowered the risk of hospitalisation by 67.4 per cent. A second study in the last week was a double-blind randomised controlled trial out of Israel. The lead author was Professor Eli Schwartz. This study found that ivermectin was associated with an 80.7 per cent lower risk of hospitalisation. The third one was a prophylaxis study from India that involved 3,523 healthcare workers. It found that ivermectin was associated with an 83 per cent lower risk of COVID infection. The fourth study, a peer-reviewed study out of Egypt, was a non-randomised controlled trial of 62 mild and early moderate patients, which found an 86.9 per cent lower risk of there being no virologic cure. All up, that now takes the number of ivermectin studies published in the medical literature to 41 trials involving 304 scientists and 14,830 patients, and that includes 20 randomised controlled trials. We have 41 out of 41 trials concluding the same result. The probability of an equal or greater percentage getting such positive results from an ineffective treatment is one in two trillion. I'll repeat that: in 41 out of 41 studies it is one in two trillion, and yet people in this country are running around the place saying that this is misinformation and that there is no evidence. I call on the National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce to please—for God's sake—look at the evidence. (Time expired) Western Australia: COVID-19 70 16:40 Dr ALY 13050 Cowan I'd like to take the opportunity this afternoon to thank Premier Mark McGowan and the WA state Labor team on behalf of all Cowan residents for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic recovery. The WA McGowan government, particularly Mr McGowan, have been so successful that people are getting tattoos on their thighs of Mark McGowan now! I'm not sure I would feel if somebody had a tattoo of me on their thigh, but I'm sure it's a positive message! While this federal LNP government has abrogated their constitutional responsibility for quarantine, the Mark McGowan government has risen to the challenge to keep WA safe and moving. But it's not just in regard to COVID-19 that the state Labor government has literally had to pick up the slack where this federal government has refused to hold the hose, so to speak. The federal government has been remiss in delivering promises to the people of WA, particularly to the people of Cowan. In the 2019 federal election, this government promised $50 million for training which was supposed to see a training hub in Wanneroo delivering 400 scholarships. We're yet to see that training hub emerge. Instead, what we've seen is the loss of 140,000 apprenticeships and 17,000 jobs in higher education. But Mark McGowan has come to the rescue. The McGowan government has undertaken a number of reforms in the training sector to pick up the slack of this federal government. They've frozen TAFE fees for another four years. They've committed $29.8 million to provide an additional 9,000 places in vocational education and training for school leavers by 2024. And, while this government left behind older workers who needed retraining to re-enter the workforce post the pandemic, the McGowan government has dedicated $5.2 million to getting 200 more apprenticeships for people over the age of 21. But there's more. This government abandoned grandparents raising grandchildren—some of the most compassionate and valued members of our society. They are the grandparents who find themselves in the position of having to take on full-time care of their grandchildren, many in some very, very heartbreaking circumstances and many already struggling on a meagre pension. They're doing everything they can to ensure that their grandchildren grow up to have a bright and positive future in Australia. Well, once again the McGowan government has come to the rescue with a promised $6 million grandcarers support package that will go a long way to helping this group of grandparents and carers—a group which this government has left behind and forgotten. And, while this federal government hugs chunks of coal and struggles to answer the urgent call for a modern energy policy that would see Australia into the future, the McGowan government is investing in renewable energy and building wind turbines in WA. While this government leaves hospitality and tourism operators to languish without an income and without any access to assistance, the McGowan state government continues its record of reform designed to promote and expand these businesses in WA. In terms of HomeBuilder: I've had many approaches from Cowan residents who have been unable to access the federal government's HomeBuilder scheme. In fact, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, AHURI, recently released a report and I'll quote that report, which was talking about the federal government's HomeBuilder scheme. They said that there are some concerns about the administrative settings. But they found that the steps undertaken by the WA government in releasing a variety of schemes to increase incentives for homebuyers—including a Building Bonus Grant scheme, an extension to the Off-the-Plan Duty Rebate Scheme for multitiered developments, the Regional Land Booster program and the Social Housing Economy Recovery package—have filled that gap. But perhaps the biggest blow to WA from this government comes in the form of Clive Palmer and the backing he received from WA members of this government—including the member for Pearce and the Attorney-General—in his bid to try and bring down the WA border and then to bankrupt the state. He has shown his face again— (Time expired) Moore Electorate: Economic Development 70 16:45 Mr GOODENOUGH 74046 Moore Local economic development within Moore continues to be one of my main priorities for my electorate—even more so now as we restore and rebuild the economy from the COVID-19 pandemic, creating skilled jobs for our residents locally. There are many opportunities to partner with local government in promoting the city of Joondalup, both of the destination and regional CBD. We have the opportunity to foster strategic economic development in order to attract a range of modern, high-technology industries to the northern suburbs of Perth to establish their operations in the Joondalup city centre, in close proximity to leading higher education facilities located in the Joondalup learning precinct. Industries such as advanced manufacturing, research and development, medical technology, software development and cybersecurity would support a skilled workforce and be a perfect fit for the Joondalup city centre. Joondalup is more than just a retail and hospitality precinct. It has the potential to develop into an advanced technological centre and compete with the best in the world in terms of innovation. The digital economy presents enormous opportunities for our workforce. Currently there are a number of vacant sites which are suitable for constructing buildings and facilities suitable to accommodate these advanced industries. With a strong cybersecurity research centre based at Edith Cowan University, and the Western Australia Police Academy located on the adjoining campus, Joondalup has the ability to become a leader in cyber law enforcement operations of the future. This would be conducive to a federal government agency decentralising and relocating its operations to Joondalup to create a high-tech law enforcement and cybersecurity precinct. As a local government, the City of Joondalup plays a proactive role in attracting modern and advanced industries to invest and establish operations in our area through the work of its economic development unit, led by Nashid Chowdhury. The Minister for Industry, Science and Technology visited the city on two occasions last year and addressed forums with the local business community in conjunction with the Joondalup Business Association, encouraging local business operators to think boldly and embrace future technologies. Furthermore, the proximity of the Joondalup city centre to the Neerabup industrial area, less than 10 kilometres away, allows it to evolve into a service hub for a vast commercial and industrial area of 1,000 hectares, supporting up to 20,000 jobs when fully developed. Businesses in Joondalup have the opportunity to provide the professional, banking and financial services required by firms in Neerabup as well as cater to retail and hospitality needs. The federal government has recently delivered essential road infrastructure, such as the extension of the Mitchell Freeway, the widening of Wanneroo Road and a grade separated bridge at the intersection of Joondalup Drive, to improve connectivity between Joondalup and the Neerabup industrial area. There are two priority major road projects which I'm campaigning to secure funding for in the budget. Firstly, there is the opportunity to improve connectivity with the Wangara commercial industrial area by connecting Whitfords Avenue with the realigned Gnangara Road. The Western Australian Liberal Party has committed $10 million towards this vital project. Connecting the residential suburbs of Moore with the vast industrial powerhouse of Wangara will be a catalyst for further economic development within the city of Joondalup, as local residents are able to commute more easily to work and businesses based in Joondalup are able to provide goods and services to customers in the Wangara commercial industrial area. Secondly, the grade separation of the Reid Highway, with a bridge at the intersection of Erindale Road, will help connect Moore to the commercial and industrial areas of Balcatta, Malaga and beyond via the Tonkin Highway and NorthLink project. This will remove a major point of traffic congestion and promote economic development. Attracting advanced industries to Joondalup to build a strong local economy which supports highly skilled jobs for local residents remains one of the main priorities for my electorate. (Time expired) Members of Parliament: Staff 71 16:50 Ms BIRD DZP Cunningham I rise in this, the last debate that will occur in this House this week, as we debate the adjournment of the House, as we do at the end of each day—of course, this being the last day of this sitting week. I reflect on the fact that I've taken the opportunity to participate in debates in this place on behalf of my constituency, around issues such as wage stagnation, the rising cost of living and the difficulties getting access to government services that are taking longer and longer over various government departments. I've spoken on aged care and my frustration for local residents in accessing things like home-care packages. But I have to say that this week, as I've participated in debates in this place, my mind has constantly and consistently gone to an interview I saw with a young woman on TV, where she was brave enough to recount the horrifying experience that had happened to her in this place. I want to take this opportunity, as we finish up this debate, to say to Brittany Higgins that I found the witness she provided publicly, in her interview with Lisa Wilkinson, an extraordinary act of bravery. To hear her describe an act of violence of the most vile type—I was watching, and I could only imagine what it would take for an individual to do that. I saw a bright young woman. I came here as a young staffer, a long time ago. I saw a bright young woman who came here as I had, with the deep thrill and honour you feel when you come to work in this place. It's a profound sense of service to your country. The thrill you feel at being able to be part of that—I could see that in her. Since I came here as a young staffer, I've seen an increasing number of women working in this place, sitting on the seats in this chamber—sitting on the front bench. I've seen a woman lead this parliament as the Prime Minister. I want to see that continue to happen. I want to see young women across this country aspire to work in this place and know they can do so in safety and dignity and be treated with respect. And so, when Brittany Higgins says to us, all of us, that we failed her, we must hear that, we must listen to it and we must respond to it. The fact that what happened to her happened in one of the most senior offices in this place—we must understand that we have to deal with that. I understand that people have talked about Ms Higgins's desire for her own agency, but, as an organisation, it is completely unacceptable that we do not respond to such an action in this place in every possible way. As an organisation we must respond. As parties and individual parliamentarians we must respond. And we must respond in a way that shows we understand the cultural aspects of this place and will make sure that it is a culture that welcomes and respects women and sees the number of women participating at the top level of their country continue to grow. I want to acknowledge that the Prime Minister has now said there will be an independent review. I think that must happen. Whilst people feel that they cannot pursue justice, which is what Ms Higgins has said, because they feared they would lose their job, that is a culture we cannot tolerate. We must deal with this. Whilst I've had the opportunity to participate in debates on behalf of my constituents, I will leave this place this week with a very brave young woman, Brittany Higgins, at the front of my mind. I hope, and I believe, we should all leave with an absolute determination that for every other young woman out there we make sure that the culture of this place endorses their full and respected participation in this place. Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples: 13th Anniversary 72 16:55 Mr LAMING E0H Bowman When Noel Pearson wrote 'Radical hope' for the Quarterly Essay in 2009, many hoped it would turbocharge the Rudd apology with some practical action. But 13 years on not much has changed: annual statements to parliament are filled with excuses and Pearson's Cape York interventions remain very much on life support. For 230 years our continent's original landlords would see themselves as having been accommodating hosts to the tenants and squatters who have arrived since 1788. Though a couple of centuries late the movement has now begun to reassert Indigenous control over public land. An example of that would be national parks, handed over first to co-management and then potentially leased back to governments for the privilege so that non-Indigenous citizens can enter. You may call it rent seeking, but after all that's what landlords have done forever. The grounds for this are that Australia's steps in nationhood silenced Indigenous Australians when it truly mattered. Mostly this was unintentional, but privileges like nationality, voting and land rights were all granted late, painfully and typically on mainstream terms. Jacques Derrida wrote extensively about the South African reconciliation experience, describing the violence as 'excessive and powerless, insufficient in its result, lost in its own contradiction'. He'd probably argue there were similarities here with apartheid set aside. That's why the heart of the 2008 apology was so important as a plea for forgiveness. The Danish philosopher Svend Brinkmann described true forgiveness as not being instrumentalised for any other purpose such as feeling better about ourselves, moving on, compensation or improving social cohesion. Indigenous hospitality on this continent has been true hospitality, because they relinquished control over their space and did so pretty much unconditionally. That's probably why the apology has had so much difficulty since, because both sides sought to externalise the outcomes. One party wanted to get on with life, and the other saw it as another step in a justice war. The original seven gaps ignored economic development. There were two in health, four in education and one in employment. We simply poured money in from the top and we poured money through Centrelink at the bottom. That rendered many Indigenous kinship structures and the senior men and women who lead them as little more than customer reference numbers. The first two health targets out of the now 16 and the snowstorm of targets are not controversial. But those pursuing school quality look at enrolment more than attendance or even performance. Accepting 55 per cent as the level of children being developmentally on track impedes the following two very important gap closures. If we ignore academic outcomes, we end up with too many children stuck halfway through primary school, disengaged for a decade and then pushed into competency based certifications. With 88 per cent securing appropriate housing risks more and more housing without an ability to maintain the home and pay the rent, which is so important. Outcomes 10, 11 and12, the ones that concern me most—reducing incarceration, youth detention and out-of-home care—fail to look at the underlying antecedents that lead to that, in particular the offending. We simply don't give enough choices to judges in the first place, and focusing on administrative or judicial outcomes is simply the wrong place to be looking. Failure to break down national gaps into regions, councils and communities has also let a lot of local actors off the hook. There's more focus on the Bureau of Statistics once a year than there is on service providers in-between. Thousands of latter-day middle-class Australians now identify as Indigenous, and that skews the data far more than the good work we should be doing on the ground in remote Australia. For that reason this week I simplified this boondoggle of gaps down to three, and they're based on the characteristics not of what Western society looks like but of what globally functional economies look like. Four out of five families should be independent of government income replacement and public housing. Four out of five children, we know, internationally who are meeting global education standards can transition into a healthy economy. Four out of five jobs need to be outside of the public service—namely, private sector enterprise and a service economy—which simply doesn't exist at the moment. Finally, every ethno, geo and demographic group will have gaps with each other, and Indigenous Australia can forge that path to a functionally happy and healthy society without direct comparisons to the mainstream. While that point will be exclusively one for Indigenous Australia to make, I argue it isn't about achieving Western outcomes per se. We can be better than we are and we should be striving so that everyone in this society can be, but, more importantly, that in so many cases Indigenous Australians can lead us to close our own gaps. The House adjourned at 17:00 NOTICES 73 NOTICES

Thursday, 18 February 2021

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Zimmerman) took the chair at 10:00.

 

CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS 74 CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS Parramatta Electorate: National Broadband Network 74 10:00 Ms OWENS E09 Parramatta There is yet another NBN disaster in the electorate of Parramatta. I'm going to talk about a young family and I will call the husband Abi—very close to his real name. They connected to the NBN in March 2020 after receiving a letter advising that existing connections would be decommissioned within 12 months. Previously they had an ADSL for around three to four years and they were quite happy with that service. They signed up for a 50-megabit plan, but when they connected they experienced slow speeds. They were told those would improve. Over time they tested their speeds and they never went above five to 10 megabits per second. They raised the issue with their provider and contacted other providers but they just kept getting told that the speeds were because of the poor quality of their NBN connection. They asked their provider to downgrade their plan to reflect their internet speed then, suddenly, the NBN went down altogether. They switched to another provider, and the NBN is still down—as of 9 February. The NBN tech visited and said they are 1,200 metres from the node—that's over a kilometre from the node—and that the building should never have been declared NBN ready because so much work needed to be done. The technician said that they're called to the building every day. Abi and his family are at their wits' end. They're caring for young kids and on the phone all the time to service providers. This is one of several stories that I'm getting in my electorate. It's exactly the same story: people are being told by technicians that they're more than a kilometre from the node and that their speed simply will not get better. Five to 10 megabits per second, when this government promised us all 50 by the end of 2016! Now, in 2021, this is what we've got. We finally have the government recognising that fibre was the way to go in the first place and promising to roll out fibre upgrades for at least half the households which are currently on fibre to the node by 2022, just a year away. But so far they've only announced 47 places: in New South Wales that's Belmont North, Charlestown, Toronto, Carramar, Castle Hill, Holsworthy, Liverpool, Wetherill Park, Campbell Town, Elderslie, Narellan, Maitland, Singleton, Tarro, New Lambton, Bathurst and Orange. That's 47 places so far around the country and none, so far, around the electorate of Parramatta, even though we have people who are more than a kilometre from the node. I'm really hoping that the government gets its act together on this. Of course, is worth noting that when this fibre does roll out down the streets—when they finally do roll out fibre down the streets—it's only going to be available to people who are prepared to pay the higher price for a faster internet connection. So it's going to roll past houses—down the footpath and past houses that can't afford to upgrade their connection. This is outrageous! What's been happening in the past is outrageous, what is happening now is outrageous and this new plan is just as ridiculous. COVID-19: Travel Industry 74 10:03 Mr LLEW O'BRIEN 265991 Wide Bay We need travel agents to be there when the international borders reopen, and government must improve its travel agent support program—to better target it to ensure that those businesses survive. So far the focus has been on crisis management, but this must shift to protecting the future of these businesses on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic. We need to provide a better lifeline to what have been successful travel agents and local small businesses which are now on the brink of collapse through no fault of their own. These small, sole operators and family owned businesses which sell flights, accommodation, cruises and experiences continue to suffer. Their incomes have plummeted by 90 per cent and, in some cases, have dropped to zero. Travel agents struggle to keep their 40,000 employees in a job. Three out of four travel agents are women and many of those are mothers. During lockdown, with state and international borders closed, they worked for free to cancel bookings and provide refunds to their customers for the travel they were no longer able to take. Their incomes and bank accounts dwindled as they diligently paid back the commissions they had earned many months ago on bookings that were then cancelled. But travel agents' bills keep coming in for office rent, staff costs, electricity, business equipment, phone and internet. Travel agents and tourism work hand in hand, and Queensland coastal communities rely on the jobs and income they provide. Forcing travel agents to wind up and get out is not an option because they will play a critical role in the recovery of our tourism and hospitality industry throughout Noosa, Wide Bay and Queensland. The people who provide the travel, accommodation and tour bookings through travel agents and the travel agents themselves deserve to be supported, because they will play a critical role in our national recovery and the reemployment of thousands. Once borders reopen, it is the travel agents who will make sure Australians can explore the world safely and who will market our locations and experiences to people overseas. We will endure the impact of COVID-19 for several more years but we need travel agents to be there when the borders reopen, and the government must listen to them and support them. Blair Electorate: Ipswich Hockey Association 75 0:05 Mr NEUMANN HVO Blair Much has been said about the government's Community Sport Infrastructure Grants program, but my criticism today is not of the government but of the Ipswich City Council. Today I want to express my dismay and disappointment with the conduct of the Ipswich City Council in its mishandling of an application for $500,000 of money under the Community Sport Infrastructure Grant for the benefit of the Ipswich Hockey Association and sport in Ipswich generally. The council received that grant in February 2019. The history of this is that the land is owned by the Ipswich Hockey Association and the council has a long-term lease over it. The council could have let the hockey association apply for the grant in the first place but it didn't. There was a grant of $500,000 and a $1.1 million contribution from the council towards lighting, irrigation and reconfiguration of the fields for the multipurpose sports use in Ipswich. But guess what? Within months, the council went to the hockey association and said, 'We're not going to go ahead unless we buy the land at a ridiculously low price.' Then the hockey association had to lawyer up and offer a long-term lease to the council for a peppercorn rent of $1. This all happened at a time when the Ipswich City Council was in a period of administration. A new council got in—a new mayor and councillors got in—and accepted the nonsense from the council officers. They wouldn't even meet with the Ipswich Hockey Association, but then made the decision to not proceed with the application, with the $500,000 from the federal government. I wrote to the CEO of the Ipswich City Council on 2 November 2020, expressing my disappointment and saying, 'This money can't be lost to Ipswich'. He wrote back to me saying that the council had made a decision not to proceed with the capital works program and that, although it offered potential benefit to the community, they said that it wasn't in the best interests of the community or an appropriate use of council funds. There was no fact unknown to the council either during the administration or since. In addition they said, 'The ongoing maintenance costs would be on an annual basis.' The council knew that anyway. They also said that the Ipswich Hockey Association advised that it 'wouldn't benefit their association immediately or provide additional beneficial use.' That is untrue. The Ipswich Hockey Association had told the council that they could play hockey in summer and not just winter. I have met with council officers as a result of this, and their position was arrogant and supercilious. I have spoken to councillors in Ipswich about this. The Ipswich City Council has treated the Ipswich Hockey Association disgracefully. This is a great disappointment for sport in Ipswich. I call on the mayor and the councillors in Ipswich to do better. This sets a very bad precedent for sport in Ipswich. The council should do better. The current council shouldn't have acted lemming like to accept the council officers' inexplicable conduct in relation to this. International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day 75 0:09 Ms HAMMOND 80072 Curtin I rise to convey my strong support for the motion that was passed yesterday, that 15 October officially and eternally be recognised as International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I acknowledge and thank the Senate for proposing it and I particularly thank Senator Keneally in this regard. I also acknowledge and thank the members of this place who have advocated and pushed so hard—the members for Boothby, McMahon and Werriwa, who spoke so powerfully on this yesterday. Pregnancy and infant loss touches so many Australians. Each year one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage and one in six pregnancies ends in a stillbirth. This means that nearly every Australian has been touched by the loss of a baby, either directly or indirectly. Yet this is something that people are often unaware of or rarely discuss. Official recognition of International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day in Australia acknowledges the loss and ongoing grief that those impacted by pregnancy and infant loss endure. It provides these families with the knowledge that they are not alone and that there is support for them in the Australian community. It is a day on which parents, families and friends can memorialise babies lost through infant death, stillbirth or miscarriage. I want to recognise and thank a dedicated and inspiring WA couple, John and Kate De'Laney, for their work in relation to pregnancy and infant loss and on having this day officially recognised. Mr and Mrs De'Laney have lost seven babies by miscarriage. After losing their first baby the De'Laneys didn't know where to turn, who to talk to or where to get support. Over time and by supporting each other they discovered that the loss of a baby is not something you get over; you just have to find a way of integrating it into your life. Since this time, John and Kate have dedicated themselves to raising awareness of the issue of pregnancy and infant loss to ensure that no-one ever feels as alone and as unsupported as they did on the day they lost their first child. And they do this with one of their children, beautiful Mary-Jane, who I hope has enjoyed her first couple of weeks back at school. The De'Laneys undertake all sorts of awareness-raising activities to honour the memories of the seven babies they lost, in their own time and at their own expense. In recognition of his contribution to the awareness and support of pregnancy and infant loss, Mr De'Laney was nominated for an Australian of the Year award in 2021 and was awarded a Community Citizen of the Year award on Australia Day 2020. John, Kate and Mary-Jane: I look forward to working with you over the coming months so that we can light up as many buildings in Western Australia as possible in the colours pink and blue. Lingiari Electorate: Detention of Murugappan Family 76 10:12 Mr SNOWDON IJ4 Lingiari Mr Deputy Speaker Zimmerman: as you know, Priya and Nades came to Australia separately by boat in 2012 and 2013. They'd fled Sri Lanka because of persecution of the Tamils. The couple married and settled in the Central Queensland town of Biloela, where they lived and worked. Their daughters, Kopika and Tharnicaa, were born in Australia. The family have been in detention on Christmas Island since August 2019—and Christmas Island, of course, is in my electorate. On Tuesday this week the Federal Court stopped their deportation, upholding a decision made in April 2020, which the Department of Home Affairs has sought to have overturned. Labor welcomes the court's decision. The family are being held in detention at a centre known to the Christmas Islanders as 'construction camp'. This construction camp is located next to the Christmas Island recreation centre and the community cricket ground. In November 2019, whilst on Christmas Island as part of my regular visits, I met with this family and had the opportunity to witness their living circumstances and hear of what they had to say and about their situation. I also spoke to many Christmas Island residents about how they felt about the family being on Christmas Island and in detention. Overwhelmingly, the view was that the Australian government was wasting tens of millions of dollars to detain a family of four—two adults and two children—for no good purpose. They said, rightly, that the family posed no threat to the community and that they should not be in detention but should be given freedom to be at liberty and to live in the community. That has not happened. That view has not changed. But, since then, many more tens of millions of dollars have been spent keeping the family behind wire in a detention facility—a shameful thing. The children attend the local school before returning home to detention each afternoon. The fate of the family is in the hands of the minister and this government, who have the right to grant a visa, and they should. The sorry saga should come to an end. The Biloela community in Central Queensland has always wanted them to return. The minister, with his powers, should have intervened to long ago. It is unfair, unjust and unreasonable to continue to cause so much pain and suffering for this family and to continue to waste the tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds on their detention, simply to prove a point. Allow this family to stay. We don't need any more taxpayer money wasted keeping in detention on Christmas Island a family of four who pose no risk to the community. At the very least, the minister should allow them the freedom of living in the community and, even better, allow them to return to Central Queensland, to the welcoming arms of the community of Biloela. Australia Day Awards, Bhardwaj, Ms Radhika, Bhardwaj, Ms Krishnapriya 76 10:14 Mr HAMILTON 291387 Groom I rise to acknowledge all of the Australia Day 2021 award recipients and those acknowledged across the Toowoomba region. As I shared in my first speech in this place, Groom is a place of strong community values. That is reflected across our community. The Australia Day honours certainly demonstrate the strength of those values and how well they play out amongst us. Time does not permit me to name all of the award recipients, but I acknowledge you all and thank you all on behalf of the people of Groom. I do wish, however, to single out two individuals. They are two young ladies who are committed to service, to helping others, supporting their community and being upstanding citizens. They are Toowoomba's Young Citizen of the Year joint winners, Radhika and Krishnapriya Bhardwaj. They are inspirational sisters, and they are owed credit for feeding our firefighters, service people and residents during the 2019-20 bushfires and during COVID-19. I have had the great pleasure of meeting these young ladies on several occasions. They are very impressive, compassionate, hard-working and selfless. The Bhardwaj sisters asked their parents to go above and beyond for their community. They even cancelled their overseas holiday in 2019, using that money to cook and distribute over 13,000 meals that went to firefighters and families impacted by the fires. It was a fantastic act of service. Responding to calls from other areas, the family then travelled, sharing meals, kindness and their beautiful smiles with people impacted by the devastating fires in Kangaroo Valley, Bega, the Snowy Mountains and Cooma. When COVID-19 struck, the hard working teenagers struck again, themselves responding by distributing a hundred meals a day to health-care workers at the Toowoomba Base Hospital. In our Toowoomba region the health community is such an important part of our community, and it is so great to see them in a difficult time being so well supported by the community. I think it reflects not only the high standing that the health community has within the Toowoomba region but just how well we want to work together and make things work together. Radhika and Krishnapriya's compassion and generosity is inspirational, and they're very deserving recipients of Toowoomba's Young Citizen of the Year award. I would go on to say that it's not surprising, having met the parents of these two young girls, that they are inclined towards community service in this way, particularly since their father, Sid, plays such an important role in the Toowoomba region of bringing people together. I spoke in my maiden speech of my experience walking through Queens Park and being so glad to see the children from so many different cultural backgrounds playing together. It was during that time that I met Sid. He was kind enough to introduce me to Toowoomba's local Sikh community, who do so much good in our region. He was so kind to take me in. The Sikh community speak very highly of the Toowoomba region's ability to bring people together, and they are a great example of how regional immigration can work so well. I thank the Toowoomba Regional Council for their role in that. National Disability Insurance Scheme 77 10:18 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong Today I rise to warn against the Morrison government's radical proposal to introduce independent assessments to the very important National Disability Insurance Scheme. Independent assessments were announced last year by the Morrison government to be introduced this year. What it means is that people with a disability will have to audition in front of a complete stranger to get access to the NDIS and to find out how much funding they can get on their plan. This is a radical change, where a new independent assessor, unknown to the participant, will have a much greater say than the treating professionals who have been working with the person on their plan and their life. The Morrison government says this will fix consistency and fairness. It is true that NDIS decisions can be inconsistent and that sometimes these decisions result in unfair outcomes. The problem is that there is no evidence that the proposal, the solution of the Morrison government, actually fixes the problems of inconsistency. Many consumers and many advocates are worried that in fact it will have the opposite effect and make it harder to get packages. My own officers set up a petition, and we already have 2,000 signatures calling upon the government to stop and keep hands off the NDIS and independent assessments. The evaluation report released on the pilot scheme to date makes heavy reference to scheme sustainability. This is coded bureaucratic language that they want to wind back the amount of money that people are getting in their disability packages. These are cuts by stealth to these schemes, whereas now the benefits that the NDIS offers will contribute to the GDP of Australia. This is now under threat. The independent assessment process started in 2018. The second pilot was abandoned in March 2020 but the government issued a tender anyway, even though the pilot schemes had been abandoned. The government has actually said that it relies upon the rollout of independent assessments in its independent assessment pilot scheme. The first pilot was voluntary; a total of 513 out of 762 people approached agreed to participate. But only 145 people completed the survey and, of those 145, only 34 were actually people with a disability. So on the basis of 34 people's survey responses the government is changing a scheme for 400,000 people. The government knows it has a problem; it's tried to do the NDIA pilot again. It's invited 4,896 participants to participate in a second round and just 215 have accepted the invitation—4,496 have not even responded. The government is now paying people to go into the pilot scheme. Independent assessments are the wrong direction to take the NDIS in. We say loudly and clearly, 'Hands off the NDIS'. I encourage people to attend the rally at the State Library on Saturday in Melbourne at 2 pm. Berowra Electorate: Education 77 10:21 Mr LEESER 109556 Berowra For students, parents and teachers, 2020 presented new challenges: online learning, being separated from classmates or the uncertainty of disruptions at home. Despite the difficult year in 2020, students in the Berowra electorate achieved some outstanding results. I want to acknowledge in particular two students in my electorate who came first in the state in their respective subjects. Congratulations to Lachlan Voss from Pacific Hills Christian School for coming first in the state in engineering studies, and to Andrew Malcolm from Cherrybrook Technology High School for coming first in the state in Mathematics Standard 2. Each year I have the privilege of presenting awards to students in the electorate for their academic achievements, citizenship, leadership and outstanding efforts. In 2020 I presented awards to students of all ages to recognise their success throughout the year. Congratulations to these recipients of citizenship and service awards, which recognise ongoing dedication to serving peers in the broader school community: Evie Herczeg from Annangrove Public School; Bianka Liang at Arden Anglican School; Kieran Heap at Asquith Boys High School; Jacinta Kong at Beecroft Public School;    Hugh Bingham at Pacific Hills Christian School; Jessica Passe de Silva at Pennant Hills Public School; Nathan Dsouza at St Agatha's Catholic Primary School; Jake Williams at St Bernard's Catholic Primary School; Lilly Sakkal at St Madeleine's Kenthurst; Teresa Cullen at Tangara School for Girls; Matthew McPherson at Berowra Christian School; Charli Beard at Galston Public School; Daniel Gallagher at Mount Kuring-gai Public School; Talia Yates at Glenhaven Public School; and Gretel Lazenby at Hornsby North Public School. Recipients of leadership awards for outstanding leadership included: Emelyn Sinani and Isaac Henry at Cherrybrook Public School; Aiden Holfter at Clarke Road School; and Alvina Hasty and Madeleine Sylvester at Mount St Benedicts College. Students who received awards for excellent academic achievement included: Yu—Liz—Zhi at John Purchase Public School; Billie Hunter at Normanhurst Public School; Ling Chi Ambrose Hon at Northholm Grammar School; Elliot Abeyaratne and Noah Hickey at Oakhill College; and Yang Yang Jiang at Cheltenham Girls High School. Other awards I presented included:    Kyella Van Epen at Arcadia Public School for striving for personal best; Krystal McGhee at Brooklyn Public School for perseverance; Nicholas Martin at Cowan Public School for excellence in technology; Madi Corr at Galston High School for encouragement and excellence in character; Jessika Hodge at Hillside Public School for encouragement; Charlotte Cheal at Hornsby Heights Public School for commitment to improvement;    Cooper Walter at Kenthurst Public School for being the most improved student; Alina Graham at Maroota Public School for embodying school values; Faith McNaught at Mount Colah Public School for being a quiet achiever; Abigail Lam at Murray Farm Public School for achievement in Japanese as a bilingual speaker; Zakari Edwick at Wisemans Ferry Public School for encouragement; Thomas Doan at Normanhurst Boys High School for excellence in music;    Sophie Watts at Normanhurst West Public School for recognition of improvement;    Georgia Ryman at Thornleigh West Public School for her performance as an all-rounder; Asher Burroughs at West Pennant Hills Public School for a principal's award; and Emma Edgar at Wideview Public School for being the most improved student. On behalf of everyone in the Berowra electorate, I wish to extend my sincere appreciation and admiration to every student, parent and teacher for their fortitude and hard work throughout 2020. Congratulations and good luck for the year ahead. Child Care, Manufacturing 78 10:24 Ms MURPHY 133646 Dunkley Australian working families are struggling under some of the highest childcare costs in the world. In fact, under this Liberal government childcare costs have gone up more than 35 per cent. That's on top of the economic impacts of COVID-19 and the recession. Working families are really struggling right now, and an expensive and difficult-to-navigate childcare system is just making it worse. That's why federal Labor is committed to reducing the cost of child care. Under federal Labor's plan, 97 per cent of families would be better off and no family would be worse off. With the way the current system works, many women actually lose money if they go back to work more than three days a week. It's not right for women, it's not right for men, it's not right for their children and it's not right for the economy. We need to fix Australia's broken childcare system, and Labor and I are committed to doing that. There are 100,000 or more families locked out of child care because they can't afford it, yet we know how important child care is to the early education of our children and the future of Australia. Structural barriers are removed under Labor's cheaper childcare policy, and that will help second income earners, mostly women, to get back to work. More affordable early education and child care is an economic reform that will supercharge Australia's economy. It is good for the economy, it is good for families and it is good for women. We need an Albanese Labor government to get this achieved. When we talk about a future made in Australia, we're talking about jobs, livelihoods and our shared wealth. Many of us are old enough to remember when Australia was really proud because of so many things we made right here in our manufacturing industry. But, over decades, we have seen that industry fade away. Federal Labor has a policy, A Future Made in Australia—a blueprint to rebuild local manufacturing and create good, secure jobs for Australians. An Australian skills guarantee and a national industry strategy are just the start of this policy. This policy would mean more local jobs in Dunkley. We have an amazing Carrum Downs industrial precinct, and it will be able to thrive under a federal Labor government. We should always be a country that makes things. Australia's workers, our local workers in Dunkley, are second to none, and we can deliver high-quality products incorporating the best technology. We need to bring industry expertise back onshore, back into our country, and we need to supercharge national productivity. All we need is vision and leadership. Made in Australia, more Australian manufacturing jobs, vision and leadership is what you will get under a federal Labor government. Page Electorate: Australia Day Awards 79 10:27 Mr HOGAN 218019 Page I would like to acknowledge and congratulate members of my community who were recognised at the Woodenbong Australia Day Awards recently. The Citizen of the Year award went to Tien Smith. Tien is a very active member of our community. She has been a member of the Woodenbong Show Society for 19 years, a member of the Woodenbong Swimming Club for 17 years and a member of the Woodenbong Tennis Club and Woodenbong Campdraft, to name a few. The Sportsperson of the Year award went to Nicholas Hannant. Nick has a very long list of achievements: he is a qualified touch and league referee; he has played State Cup touch football for the past four years; and he has competed at the combined high school zone and regional competitions for athletics, cross-country and swimming. The Business/Service of the Year award went to Taylor's Hardware store—a wonderful, local, family owned business that has been operating for 58 years. They support a lot of community groups and all members of the local RFS. The Community Organisation of the Year award went to the Woodenbong Unrugged Group—a wonderful group of women who sew together knitted squares, making rugs that are sent to disadvantaged people in other communities. Thank you, and congratulations to all the winners. I'd like to acknowledge and congratulate members of my community who received OAMs and Australia Day awards at the Kyogle event. The Citizen of the Year award was awarded to Kay Noonan. Kay ran a successful business in Kyogle for 40 years and has made a great contribution to many sporting clubs and groups in town. The Senior Citizen of the Year award went to Leo Laarhoven. Leo worked at Duncan sawmill for 34 years. He has volunteered for many community groups, including the Rotary Club, the Garden Club, the Northern Rivers District Bowls Association and the SES auxiliary. The Senior Sportsperson of the Year was awarded to Peter Anderson. Despite being 92 years of age, Peter can be found playing 18 holes of golf twice a week and bowls twice a week—a great effort. Peter also used to be a swimming coach, a surf lifesaver and a major volunteer for many organisations. The Senior Student of the Year award went to Ashton Leck, and the Junior Student of the Year award went to Rahara Mapabandara; congratulations to both of you. There was also a special posthumous achievement award for Thomas Matthews. Tom was a great member of our community. He volunteered at the Lions Club, the information centre, St Vincent de Paul, the Men's Shed and many other organisations. Thank you, and congratulations to all these deserving winners. Independent Cinemas 79 10:30 Mr BURNS 278522 Macnamara I rise to support the Independent Cinemas Australia campaign to save independent cinemas in Australia. These independent cinemas are hubs of our local community. They are wonderful institutions that have been around for decades, some even longer. They are a central focus point for local economies, but obviously this pandemic has meant that they are doing it really tough. I had the privilege of going to two of my local cinemas last week. The first one I went to was the Astor cinema in St Kilda. I also visited the Classic Cinemas in Elsternwick. The Astor is one of Melbourne's most iconic, grand art deco buildings. It was built in 1936 and it continues to operate as a single-screen theatre and cinema that can seat over a thousand people in non-COVID times across two storeys. The Astor stands in the Melbourne's cultural institution that is St Kilda, and it is a host for independent musicians, artists, performers and filmmakers. I was very pleased to meet there with Benjamin Zeccola, the CEO of the Palace Cinemas, and Zak Hepburn, who is the cinema's manager. You may recognise Zak from his appearances on News Breakfast with his friend Kubrick—and Kubrick was there with us on my visit. I also had the chance to visit the Classic Cinemas in Elsternwick, which is a fantastic local cinema that has been a home for film since 1911. It has been run since 1997 by Eddie and Lindy Tamir, who have turned it into a magnificent, refurbished home for fine, popular arthouse independent cinema and also international film festivals, including the Jewish International Film Festival, which has its first day today for the 2021 festival. I also thank them for giving me this mask, which you have to wear inside the cinema at the moment as part of COVID restrictions. The message from independent cinemas was clear: because of international COVID situations, a lot of the international film production companies aren't producing the blockbusters or releasing them until later in the year; they've also got the situation where there's a restriction on numbers inside the cinema; and they are home to independent Australian films, so Australian films that are being released at the moment rely on independent cinemas. For all of these reasons, they are doing it pretty tough and they are struggling. Without JobKeeper, we are going to lose our independent cinemas in Australia. My message to the government is that this pandemic is not over. There are businesses who are coming out of JobKeeper, and that is a good thing, but there are businesses who are struggling and businesses who will not survive. Both the Classic and the Palace Cinemas, the Astor, have done an amazing job of not letting staff go. We need to support our local workers. We need to support our cinemas. I call on the government: do not withdraw JobKeeper from our wonderful independent cinemas. Rose, Mr Terry 80 10:33 Mr COULTON HWN Parkes I'd like the Australian parliament to recognise the life and record the death of Terry Rose from my home town of Warialda. Terry started his working life, following in his father's footsteps, as an apprentice mechanic at Roger Moore's garage under the tutelage of Roger Moore himself. He very quickly progressed to owning a service station in partnership with his brother-in-law, and finally he started a business with his childhood sweetheart and wife of 48 years, Maureen. That business grew and prospered largely because of Terry's exceptional skill as a mechanic and his ability to work incredibly hard over long hours. If that was his life's work, his life's passion was motor vehicles and racing motor vehicles, starting from a bush track bulldozed around the back of Kellys Gully near Warialda and sprints on Mosquito Creek Road on a Sunday afternoon, with a wink and a nod at the local police sergeant, to running a drag racer at the Gold Coast drag circuit. But he finally found his real niche in off-road racing. Under Terry's leadership, the Warialda Motor Sports Club developed a track on a property, Monomeeth, and developed a reputation for hosting probably the premier off-road event anywhere in Australia. In 1999 and 2000, Terry was the Australian champion, two years in a row, largely because of his exceptional motor mechanic skills, technical knowledge and fearless driving. Terry was also a very active community member. Maybe some don't remember that there was no rescue squad in Warialda. Terry, along with Charlie Woollett, formed the initial squad that would help people who were severely injured in road accidents. Due to Terry's skill, under the bonnet of a very old International truck was a very large motor. I think it was the fastest rescue squad in New South Wales. I would like to record that Terry's demeanour was as a quiet man. He was a well respected community man, a good citizen, an Australian sportsman, and well regarded. He will be missed by everyone who knew him and he will leave a hole in the small community of Warialda. COVID-19: Mental Health 80 10:34 Mr KHALIL 101351 Wills In 2020, I heard so many stories about the long-lasting mental health impacts of COVID-19 on the community: isolation, a feeling of being disconnected, and losing work and income. In Victoria, this week we found ourselves thrown back into that same circumstance with a lockdown that, thankfully, ended last night. Victorians endured another five days of hard lockdown. It might seem to some of us in this chamber as just five days, but it's so much more than that. It was another five days of anxiety and uncertainty of what's to come. It was five days that brought back memories for many of the three-month lockdown that we all endured last year. The recent five days showed us that we're not anywhere near through the mental health crisis that's upon us. People are still living through uncertainty, anxiety and frustration. For young people especially, the pandemic has disrupted their lives at a pivotal moment across Australia, at the very time when they are transitioning to adulthood. Deciding what to study, searching for the first job and looking for an affordable home were all made so much harder by what we've gone through with the pandemic. There are a lot of question marks around important milestones and what's possible for people in the coming years. Of course, the uncertainty around all of this doesn't just vanish with a day or two of zero cases. There is a generation of young people, particularly young women, who have been disproportionately impacted, at least in my electorate, but I'm sure also in other parts of Australia, who have not only lost work or income but suffer the mental health impacts. I heard many stories from them during last year's lockdown. Laura in Brunswick West said to me: 'I have spent seven months watching my savings disappear, without a hint of when I will be permitted to return to work. I don't know how I'm supposed to keep making ends meet.' Bethany said, 'I know five people who have recently committed suicide and every single friend I have in my group of 20- to 25-year-olds are depressed, anxious and in a crisis mode.' Another Wills local, an older resident who wanted to remain anonymous, wrote to me about her COVID experience, unable to see her kids or grandchildren, and the effect that it has had on her state of mind. These are just a few of the stories of people in my community in 2020, but there are so many more around Australia. Despite the increase in funding from state and federal governments for mental health, we still need more. Services are overwhelmed and wait times for psychologists can be months. We have a duty to acknowledge the pain, not push it to one side. The short lockdown may be over, but it doesn't mean that it wasn't hard, it doesn't mean people didn't suffer and it doesn't mean that people don't need help going forward. Even though we are able to get back out there today in Victoria—back at work and back at the cafes, pubs and restaurants—it's worth reaching out to your friends, your family and your loved ones. Check in with them and make sure you have those conversations. Let's hope that this was our last lockdown and that lockdowns, no matter how short, remain the absolute last resort of governments. Forrest Electorate: Busselton SES 81 10:38 Mrs MARINO HWP Forrest I want to acknowledge the wonderful work of the Busselton SES during the recent bushfire in Wooroloo that started on 1 February north-east of Perth. As we know, it burnt up to 11,000 hectares and destroyed 86 houses and two fire trucks. Our Busselton SES volunteers played a very important part in helping to contain the fire. Busselton SES manager Wayne Credaro leads this great group of volunteers. The team had been training in this field since the start of January and had already been involved in controlling a number of fires in WA. Using the local Bussleton Margaret River Airport facility the SES volunteers mixed and reloaded fire retardant for the water bombers involved in that fire. Busselton is over 270 kilometres from the site of the fire. Of the 40 volunteer SES members, men and women, 12 were selected to be part of the fire-retardant mix and load crew. The team of 12 were split into groups of four to work four-hour shifts. They spent five days working 12-hour shifts from 8 am to 8 pm. At the outbreak of the fire the team were able to mix and reload two water bombers within 15 to 20 minutes. What a great effort. Each plane is loaded with up to 45,000 litres of fire retardant so it's no mean effort. When a third bomber was brought in from interstate the team were able to get all three planes loaded and in the air in 45 minutes—just a fantastic effort. This is the first time that three planes were loaded in this way. Since January the team has mixed and loaded around 390,000 litres of fire retardant with 60,000 litres currently on hand. That is around 330,000 litres that have been unloaded onto those bushfires in WA since is start of January to help control these fire events. I know that Wayne Credaro is particularly pleased with the response he got from his team, that very well trained team, and is hoping to train more volunteers over the upcoming 12 months. I know he really wants to thank his volunteers. He has enormous gratitude to his volunteers, to the DFES, to the pilots who worked with them and to everyone involved in helping to bring the fire under control. I particularly want to thank Wayne for his leadership and the effort he puts in to the training of our local SES people. I recently met and listened to this group at their headquarters and I heard about their work with the fire, their ongoing training and their ongoing work in various emergencies in the community. I can only say that they provide confidence and support to local people and there is great ongoing gratitude in the community for their efforts, often at a time of great stress and trauma to the individual. Telecommunications 81 10:42 Mr BYRNE 008K0 Holt I rise this morning to raise one of the most important issues facing my constituents in the electorate of Holt and that is after years and years and years of lobbying, many residents in my electorate, too many residents in my electorate, don't have access to reliable mobile phone reception, particularly in suburbs like Cranbourne East, Clyde, Clyde North and surrounding areas. These are some of the fastest growing areas in Australia. These are suburbs that have lots of young families that come and live and expect, in the 21st century, that when you shift in to an area—and one of the fastest growing areas in Australia—that you would actually have mobile reception. It is story after story after story of people not being able to use their mobile phones. This is the 21st century in a major capital city in one of the fastest growing areas in Australia and you can't use your mobile phone. The consequences of that can be quite terrifying and I'll get into that in a second. Deputy Speaker, as you know, when these matters are raised there is a lot of, in a sense, passing the buck—a bit of handballing like Polly Farmer. I'm putting you are all on notice: the federal government, the City of Casey, telecommunication providers. Stop making excuses and give people the facilities that they deserve, need and warrant. Just because they live in the outer suburbs does not mean that they should be discriminated against. Because you live in Cranbourne East or Clyde or Clyde North does not mean that you should be excluded from getting an essential service like a mobile phone service. Here is one example of not being able to use a mobile phone. Zoe Harriet from Clyde North basically had incredibly difficulty ringing an ambulance for her six-month-old son during an emergency. Her son, thankfully, is okay, but she's unable to contact an ambulance to get access to her son in Cranbourne East. It is unacceptable that that would actually happen. It actually defies description that that would happen. My office has also been contacted by Darrin Bayliss-White, the Community Manager of a Aveo Botanic Gardens retirement village in Junction Village. They have 157 independent living residential units with 190 residents. The retirement village has been unable to enjoy reliable mobile phone reception from Telstra, Optus or Vodafone, which, understandably, creates safety concerns which impact the village. Not only do we have young people and emergency situations; there is also another situation around Cranbourne East where a woman told me she was watching someone trying to break into her home. She did haven't the NBN and went to use her mobile phone. She could not ring. She had no reception. Imagine you not being able to do anything to ring an emergency number. She was quite traumatised. I've had enough. We deserve to be able to have a mobile phone in the outer south-eastern suburbs, and I'll campaign until we do. (Time expired) Family Court 82 10:45 Dr MARTIN 282982 Reid Many constituents contact me about my committee work. With the tabling of the final report from the Joint Select Committee on Australia's Family Law System due very soon, it is appropriate to provide an update for residents of Reid. I've always felt it is an honour to be a member of this committee and to work alongside colleagues with the intent to improve a system that's long been broken. My membership of this committee has been shaped by my unique experience as a psychologist. I have worked closely with families going through separation and divorce. There are many reasons why an individual or couple may choose to divorce; relationship breakdowns are incredibly complex. The complexities of divorce are worsened when the system that facilitates this process has its own unnecessary complexities. At best, the inefficiencies of the family law system can cause unnecessary costs and delays for a separating couple. At worst, these inefficiencies can put families at risk of serious harm. We know that, during a period of separation, there is an increased risk of experiencing family violence and abusive behaviour. Almost two in five women and one in three men who temporarily separated from a violent former partner experienced family violence during the separation. One of the most protective measures currently in the system is the principle of no-fault divorce, established in the Family Law Act 1975. In Australia, the only ground for divorce required is the irretrievable breakdown of the relationship, demonstrated by 12 months of separation. Prolonging the period of separation puts victims at further risk of abuse and harm. Reform of this system must mitigate the hostilities and risk of violence that can arise during a separation. Going forward, a key priority must be the safety and wellbeing of all family members going through the family law system. The Morrison government is already enacting a significant shake-up of the federal and family law courts in order to end unnecessary costs and delays that arise from a split federal/family law court system. It is legislation like the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Bill 2019 that will achieve this, but much work still needs to be done to create a system that works quickly, inexpensively and efficiently for all. I can assure constituents of Reid that my focus is shaping the reform to provide safe pathways for separating families, which will benefit all families and communities across this great country. Fenner Electorate: Mobile Coverage, National Broadband Network 82 10:48 Dr LEIGH BU8 Fenner One of the most beautiful parts of my beautiful electorate of Fenner is the Wreck Bay community, located in the Jervis Bay Territory. Surrounded by Booderee National Park, it is a truly stunning part of the world. But residents have long complained to me about the problems of accessing high-quality mobile telephone coverage. This became a particular issue in the 2019-20 bushfires, when bushfires came close to the community. Fire is an ever-present danger in the Wreck Bay community, and yet Telstra don't see a commercial case for upgrading mobile phone coverage. So I've written to Ministers Paul Fletcher and Mark Coulton, calling on them to make funding available through the next round of the Mobile Black Spot Program—round 5A—to upgrade mobile phone coverage in the Jervis Bay Territory. This is a key safety issue and for the community that one of equity for a community which currently lacks good quality mobile coverage. In the ACT, I have joined with my colleagues Senator Gallagher and the members for Canberra and Bean to call on the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts to ensure that the ACT gets its fair share of the $3.5 billion in funding announced to finish the National Broadband Network. Of course, none of this funding would have been necessary if the coalition hadn't spent seven years building a second-rate network. As my colleague the shadow minister for communications has noted, it turns out that fibre is what Australian businesses needed all along. As that fibre rollout comes, it is vital that the ACT gets its fair share. Of all the capital cities, the ACT has the highest proportion of fibre to the node—meaning fibre to a box down the street, which might be some 700 metres away, with the signal finally trundling its way to you on copper lines. The share of fibre to the node in the ACT is 66 per cent, compared to the national proportion of 36 per cent. The ACT deserves its fair share. There are too many parts of the ACT where NBN coverage is slow, impeding the ability of kids to do their homework, impeding the ability of workers to telework—as so many Canberrans working in the government and business have been doing this year—and impeding the ability of people to run home businesses. The National Broadband Network is an equity measure and a productivity measure. We need to ensure that fibre to the home becomes ubiquitous, as befits a 21st century society. The Liberals didn't do it right the first time. As they patch up their job, they must ensure that Canberra gets its fair share. Red Frogs Australia, Petrie Electorate: Good Samaritans 83 0:51 Mr HOWARTH 247742 Petrie I want to read a quote, and the quote reads as follows: 'Thank you so much for looking after me and offering to hang. I appreciate it so much. Don't know what I would have done if the Red Frogs crew weren't there for me. So thank you.' This was a text message written by a young person who found themselves vulnerable at Schoolies Week last year. It was written to a young Red Frogs volunteer in my electorate. This is why the Red Frogs Australia movement has gone from 17 volunteers in 1997 to nearly 4,000 today—young people helping young people—and the movement has gone global. A young woman in my electorate, Danielle, who has just bought her first home, is part of the Citipointe Church, where the movement began through one of the young pastors, Andy Gourlay. Andy hit Schoolies Week on the Gold Coast with his skateboarding mates back in the 90s and realised the need for a designated sober person at the alcohol- and drug-fuelled parties. Twenty-four years later and one of those troubled teens who was helped by the Red Frogs has become a volunteer to return the favour. Danielle said she knew from firsthand experience how lifesaving the early intervention strategies can be to reduce the risk of harm. Red Frogs volunteers are operating in all major universities in Australia, distributing around 10,000 donuts. Sitting suspended from 10 : 53 to 11 : 04 Mr HOWARTH 247742 As I was saying, Red Frogs volunteers are operating in all major universities in Australia, distributing around 10,000 donuts, 5,503 icy poles and 74,132 cups of water. They offer direct relief and support at festivals with hydration tents and roaming teams, they speak at various high school education events—in fact, my son, who finished Year 12 last year, mentioned they spoke at his school—and they hand out 1,784 kilograms of red frogs and 147 litres of sunscreen at various sports events throughout the year. Red Frogs is one of the largest harm minimisation programs in Australia. I thank them all for the help they are giving our young people, and I encourage every member to get involved with Red Frogs. They are pretty well in very university. I will read an email I received from a good samaritan in my electorate, Jim Evans. I would add that this is not the first time Jim has helped someone in need. Jim writes: 'I met a person along the road collecting cans on his bike and trailer. He has a small government unit that he is renting at Margate. He has a speech impediment and has battled addiction in past. He wants to work, even if it is fruit picking, but due to his speech finds it difficult. I have seen him work at the men's shed and he is very smart and a hard worker. If you have the time to hear him out and see what government schemes are available to help him, that would be great.' I have just learnt that he has been offered a job with one of the businesses in my electorate that we reached out to, and he will start as a metal polisher today. The rest is up to him now, and. I wish him well. Thanks to Jim Evans for being a proactive member of the Petrie community. Bendigo Electorate: Australia Post 83 11:06 Ms CHESTERS 249710 Bendigo We all know Australia Post has had its issues, and roadside delivery of our mail to our houses has started to diminish. However, there are constituents in my electorate who don't even receive that service, despite Australia Post now having an increased capacity, because fewer of us are still receiving mail. Mail delivered to our homes is still a vital service, particularly given that many formal documents are still received through the post—for example, rates notices and electricity bills. For a lot of people it is still the way they receive their important mail. Yet the residents of Huntly, in my electorate, do not receive this roadside delivery service. They, despite being a growing suburb of outer Bendigo, are still denied this service. They have approached Australia Post on multiple occasions to ask that they be included and have the opportunity that so many of us have of having the postie deliver their mail to their mailbox. The process to achieve that is complicated and, in my opinion, ridiculous. First, the residents of Huntly had to put a petition together to say, 'Yes, we want the service.' Now Australia Post is rolling out a postal ballot to the people who live in this area. They will deliver postal ballots and ask people whether they want their mail delivered to their front door. Because most of them don't have mailboxes, it will be dropped off at their front door. What makes it even more complicated is that, if people don't vote, Australia Post assumes it's a no vote. So I am here today encouraging the people of Huntly: if you want to receive mail to your mailbox or to your door, like the rest of us, do vote. Pick up that ballot, fill it in and return it. That is how you will get roadside delivery. In my opinion, it should just be automatic. When you have regional areas, with the growth corridors like in regional cities and in Bendigo, it should be that, once you get to a threshold, once you get to a level of density, Australia Post just automatically includes these areas for roadside delivery. This is an issue Huntly is going through right now. It is also an issue we will face in Marong, in Lockwood and in other growth areas. Our garbage gets picked up automatically when these houses are built. NBN is delivered to these houses automatically when these houses get built. Why is it that Australia Post are making the residents jump through these hoops just to receive a basic postal service? It is unfair. I encourage the residents of Huntly to vote, I encourage the residents of Marong to get active and I encourage Australia Post to change this procedure. Hume Electorate: Mining 84 11:09 Mr TAYLOR 231027 Hume I rise today to support local mining jobs in my electorate—mining jobs that are at risk. In the north of my electorate, the Tahmoor coking coal mine operates just near the small village of Tahmoor, selling as an essential supplier to the BlueScope steel mill down at Port Kembla. Tahmoor Coal is one of the biggest local employers in the Wollondilly shire, with 60 to 70 per cent of its employees living in the area. More than 400 employees and contractors currently work at the mine, and the mine supports many local businesses and services: the local school, Wollondilly Anglican College, and many local sporting and community groups. Tahmoor Coal is currently seeking approval for ongoing mining operations through the Tahmoor South project. Approval is critical to the continuation of mining at Tahmoor. It's expansion not only will ensure that the current 400 jobs are secured until 2032 but also will provide an additional 150 jobs and inject $137½ million into the local economy. I've been in regular communication with the mine in recent months and I recently had a visit with the workers at the mine. I recognise that some in the local community have raised important concerns about subsidence issues. Tahmoor Coal has acknowledged the community's concerns and has responded by scaling back plans, reducing the mining activity that would have occurred under the village of Bargo. I've always expected the mine to deal with subsidence issues in a timely and community focused way. The extension will make that focus even more important, and my expectations of the Tahmoor mine will remain very, very strong. The proposed extension currently sits before the New South Wales Independent Planning Commission, to which I've made a submission in my capacity as the local member. In my submission to the IPC and to the public more broadly, I've made my view on this issue clear. The social and economic benefits that the mine extension will provide for the local townships around the area and for Tahmoor, Bargo and so on—the local economy and the importance of jobs in our post-COVID recovery—cannot be overlooked. Continued stable employment in this region has never been more critical. Ultimately, this is a decision for the New South Wales government, but I will always stand up for and support local workers in my electorate. The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZY The time for members' constituency statements has concluded. For the information of members, our next item of business is yet to be referred to the Federation Chamber by the House. For that reason, the Federation Chamber is suspended. Sitting suspended from 11:12 to 11:45 BILLS 84 BILLS Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Refunds of Charges and Other Measures) Bill 2020 84

Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Refunds of Charges and Other Measures) Bill 2020

Second Reading 84 11:46 Ms BELL 282981 Moncrieff I rise to speak on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Refunds of Charges and Other Measures) Bill 2020. Educating overseas students is an important industry in Australia and it's very important in the seat of Moncrieff. Pre COVID it was worth $1.6 billion to our economy on the Gold Coast. And educating overseas students is about far more than education providers making money; the Australian experience is that it helps to attract international talent to Australian businesses. Also, when international borders reopen it will return to being a driver for tourism, which is worth $5 billion to the Gold Coast economy. Students themselves and their visiting families spend considerably with tourism operators and those small businesses which need that extra injection right now. Moncrieff is missing these very welcome visitors and we look forward to the day when we can welcome them back. Significant challenges—or, indeed, a crisis like the pandemic—can understandably cause individuals, businesses and governments to focus on the large and most obvious problems. That's necessary, to an extent, but the Morrison government is being very disciplined by listening to industry stakeholders and applying their detailed insights to other addressable reforms. This is just such a bill. Stakeholders in Moncrieff tell me that these are achievable reforms which will benefit them now, and especially later, as our education exports recover as circumstances permit. Shortly I'll go through some of the detail in this bill but, firstly, I will give a bit of an overview of the bill and what it will do. It will maintain quality without unintended disincentives to genuine short-course education providers who are seeking to address market demand. It will promote the competitiveness of the Australian education system by maximising the quality of the Australian experience for students. That's very important. By allowing students to pursue personal interests through short courses and permitting workplace components of their substantive study this bill will facilitate the growth of our education industry with all of the economic benefits which flow from that. Ultimately, through a more vibrant education sector this bill will promote better quality experiences and choices for Australian students too. The first question that Australians might ask is: why do we need these amendments to the ESOS Act? Currently, all courses, including single units of competency, such as first aid courses, may only be offered to overseas students where the course and provider are registered on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students—CRICOS. The requirement for CRICOS registration to offer courses to overseas students is constraining supply by placing a regulatory burden on providers of very short courses which they may judge as too arduous to be worthwhile. Registration on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students is deliberately onerous to create barriers to entry by low-quality providers. Genuine providers which specialise in short-course provision are being discouraged. For example, in the VET space, only 29 of the 1,070 RTOs with supplementary courses have sought and obtained CRICOS registration. These changes mean providers will be able to offer these short courses to the 450,000 overseas students currently in Australia and will not have to check a student's visa status before enrolling them in the course—a much simpler process. Finally, it will allow students to pursue their personal interests that complement their formal studies, enhance the quality of their Australian experience, as I mentioned before, and attend workplace components approved as part of a substantive qualification. You might be asking: what are the changes? This bill removes regulatory barriers for education providers and enables overseas students to study some supplementary courses, such as first aid—which is something that everybody should do—responsible service of alcohol and construction white cards, which are all very important. Two changes to the ESOS Act are needed to achieve this. The first change refines the definition of 'course' in the ESOS Act. The new definition will refer to existing definitions for formal education qualifications in Australia and will have the effect of removing hobby or recreational courses from its scope. Only courses that lead to a substantive educational outcome will need to be registered. This enables providers to offer recreational or hobby courses, such as craft, cooking or scuba diving, without registering them on CRICOS, unless the courses are delivered by a higher education provider, in which case all courses will need to be registered with CRICOS. The second change is to provide a power for the minister to make a disallowable legislative instrument to include or exempt certain courses from the ESOS Act. This will specify skillsets, modules or the units of competency, such as first aid, responsible service of alcohol, construction white cards, hygienic food preparation, and infection control. International students will be able to undertake these supplementary courses in addition to their main course study. The next question is: when and how will the legislative instrument be introduced? If this bill is passed in autumn this year, the minister for education will be able to create an instrument to exempt courses from the ESOS Act. As the instrument is disallowable, it is of course subject to parliamentary scrutiny. What else? Only a limited number of courses will be available for supplementary study. The ESOS legislative framework imposes stringent monitoring and reporting requirements on the student's primary course, and these will remain in place. All supplementary courses will remain covered by the same quality assurance mechanisms that apply to other domestic courses and students, including oversight by the Australian Skills Quality Authority, or ASQA, as it's known. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, TEQSA, which a tongue twister, will identify and respond to any malpractice. Like domestic students, international students will be protected by Australian consumer law for supplementary courses, which is good news. Other questions are: will these changes adversely affect international students' primary course of study, and how will the risk of course overload be monitored? I'm sure that, on the other side, that question is of interest. Existing mechanisms equip the primary course provider to oversee student progress and take action, as needed, with consequential effects on visa conditions. The amendments will not alter these mechanisms in any way. There will be communications and guidance material produced dealing with this particular concern. Members opposite will be pleased to hear that. The amendments will not make it easier for providers to poach students, as all the same transfer restrictions will apply if a student decides to change providers for their primary course. Will there be sufficient oversight of the minister's power to include or exempt courses through the legislative instrument? That is another very good question, which I will answer for the Federation Chamber. An honourable member interjecting—Hear, hear! I'm glad you asked. Ms BELL 282981 Indeed. The instrument will list courses exempted from the ESOS Act through this instrument, which will be determined following consultation with the regulators, industry peak bodies and the international education sector. The Minister for Education and Youth's power to control which supplementary courses will be exempted from the ESOS framework will be exercised with a view to curbing sharp practice. The instrument will be disallowable, providing parliamentary scrutiny, of course. The next question is: how will the oversight and quality be maintained? I'm sure again that members opposite will be talking about this question next up on the list. I assure them that the stringent monitoring and reporting requirements already in place in the ESOS Act will continue to apply to international students' primary course of study. Student will still need to meet existing requirements associated with their student visa, including progressing in their primary course. Domestic assurances including oversight by ASQA and TEQSA and coverage by the Australian Consumer Law will apply. These are peak bodies that can take compliance action against a provider for noncompliance, which is terrific. By making course exemptions through a legislative instrument, the government will be able to respond quickly to address exploitative practices as well as meeting the emerging needs of those overseas students. The other question they may have—and I'm sure there's a member opposite I can see who's grinning with this question, no doubt—is: how did the department consult the sector? That is an absolute corker of a question—a very important question. A consultation paper on proposed arrangements for supplementary courses was released for public consultation on 25 September last year, 2020, with the closing date of 9 October 2020. The department received 44 submissions from education providers, education and student peak bodies, and industry bodies, and it held follow-up meetings with stakeholders to address key issues. These included ITICA, TDA, IHEA, TPS and the University of Melbourne. There was strong stakeholder support for the proposed changes and the flexibility for both providers and students. The Department of Home Affairs, TEQSA and AQSA have been consulted and support all of these measures. How were providers refunded in 2020, you might ask? As part of the Australian government's economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, registered providers are not required to pay annual registration charge or entry-to-market charges for the period from 1 January 2020 to 30 June 2021. Registered providers who already paid a 2020 ARC or EMC invoice from 1 January 2020 were refunded using the active grace provisions in the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, which is known as the PGPA Act—lots of acronyms today—to a total of more than $10.9 million. These changes are necessary, and this amendment will enable a more effective and flexible response in the future from 1 July 2021 should further refunds be required, providing sector-wide support to registered providers in special circumstances such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, the ESOS legislation does not contain the legislative authority required to enable or permit charges to be refunded to those providers. Without this amendment, only mistaken overpayments of charges are refundable. I'd like to finish by saying that the amendments will allow for sector-wide support only in special circumstances. The secretary has limits in place on his or her power to make payments under the duties of the position in the PGPA Act. Finally, these questions have all been addressed in the bill, and I commend it to the chamber. 11:58 Mr HILL 86256 Bruce I want to commend the member for Moncrieff on making a dry technical bill somewhat interesting and also acknowledge the fact that, like me, she genuinely cares about international education and wants the best for it. Like with me, it's very important to the economy in your community. And so I commend you on that. I think we're a rare breed at times in the House for such a significant export sector. The bill is pretty technical, and I think the previous speaker has done a good job in outlining what is in essence a non-controversial piece of legislation. I won't go over that. I want to turn my remarks to the second reading amendment. The focus of my speech will be to call out the Australian government's failure; the lack of care for international education and international students during the pandemic; and in particular the Prime Minister's personal behaviour, his words, his lack of care and his lack of empathy for international students over the last 12 months. I say at the outset that I am a big supporter of international education in this country. Students enrich all of our cities and our regions. They enrich our communities and our campuses and places of study. They make our places more vibrant. It's also our fourth biggest export sector—or it was before the pandemic—worth more than $40 billion a year in export revenue to this country. It's the biggest single export sector in my home state of Victoria. The soft power, though, that we have accrued over decades to this nation as a result of international education is incalculable. We have educated onshore, in their formative years, more than one million people from South-East Asia and our region. You could not put a value on that if you tried. Then, of course, the human capital, the talent that Australia has retained over many decades from people who have come here, bright in their society, and decided to fall in love, stay and build a life in our country, has been a wonderful thing for our country. We should be so proud of this sector. We should celebrate the success we have achieved over decades through universities and TAFEs but also, sometimes overlooked, the many reputable and innovative private providers in the sector—English language providers—which are important in their own right but who often are a feeder for people who come as tourists or backpackers and decide to stay. It's a pathway. In the context of such a wonderful thing for our country that is the international education sector, it is perplexing to see the government's lack of response for 12 months, to see the Prime Minister's personal behaviour, or misbehaviour. At times it has made me ashamed. The Prime Minister's lack of care, which I will get to, is bad enough, but his blatant and overt hostility to international education and international students is outrageous. It's bad enough that there has been no national support provided. It's the only one of Australia's top 10 export sectors that the government has done nothing for. Waiving a few fees, as this bill may allow it to do, is 5c off the table—it's a crumb off the government table—as a tidal wave of economic devastation has been wrought over this sector. The tourism sector received $240 million of support in the previous budget, and yet 60 per cent of the tourists in this country are international students or their visiting friends, family and relatives. What has been done for the international sector? What has been done for student accommodation providers that are facing insolvency after July as the pipeline of students dries up? Nothing—no engagement, no support. All we hear from the government is, 'Blame the states'. Somehow it's the states' fault. Well, it's not. It's our fourth biggest export sector. The cabinet won't admit it, but we know from sources that the cabinet has rejected proposals brought by ministers last year to support this sector because of the Prime Minister's and the Treasurer's personal hostility to doing anything. Unbelievably, doing nothing would have been better, but the Prime Minister went out on national television, as this emergency took hold, and said to students: 'If you don't like it, go home.' Go home! I don't think he understands the damage, the harm, that that has done to our reputation and to the emotional wellbeing of students. I spoke to the CEO of a large accommodation provider, who said that, literally the day after the Prime Minister said 'Go home', he had a queue of students at the front desk thinking they actually had to go home. They were paying fees. They were part of the community. They had invested in their future. We should be so privileged that young people in their formative years decide to invest what, in many cases, is a fortune for their families. It's an investment in their future, their entire life, to pay tens of thousands of dollars to come and be kept safe in our community, to be cared for by our community, to spend their formative years in Australia. We should value this. But the Prime Minister told them to go home. It's no surprise. Remember when he was in trouble for his own government's failure to invest in infrastructure? He said: 'If you can't get a seat on the train, or you can't drive down the road because of congestion, don't blame me for not investing in new infrastructure; blame the international students; they're taking your seat'. What nonsense! This guy has got form. We are a high-cost, high-quality provider in a very competitive market. We have hundreds of thousands of students offshore right now, unable to come into this country, who are still paying those fees, studying offshore and online. I want to say very clearly to those students and to the international students who are here right now, paying top dollar: Thank you. Australians are a better people than the way we've been represented by our Prime Minister, who has not shown any care, any empathy, any recognition of the plight that you have suffered, the destitution that you have faced, seeing, potentially, the life savings of your families threatened, being chucked out of work, being unable to pay rent, literally starving and relying on food vouchers. There has been not one word of care from the Prime Minister, just a dismissive, arrogant, narcissistic 'Go home!' That embarrassed me and I was ashamed as an Australian at his lack of care. International students deserved a lot, lot better than they have had from this mean, miserable government. It does not represent the views of Australians. You are welcome here and we look forward to the day where students are able to come back onshore and study in our communities. In the last few days we have seen—in the most tragic, the most vile of circumstances—the Prime Minister's lack of empathy, his lack of human compassion, his narcissistic response. If, as we've been told—as we've witnessed, as the nation has witnessed—the Prime Minister can only understand the plight of others through thinking about his own children, then I ask how would the Prime Minister feel if one of his children was stranded in a foreign country during a global pandemic, starving, kicked out of their place of employment, unable to support themselves? Would he like the host country to show a little care, a little compassion? I would hope so—just as other countries that aren't Australia have shown, like the UK, Canada and all our competitors and peers. That's bad enough but it has also damaged our national interest. As I said, this is a $40 billion export sector. Can anyone really imagine this government pouring scorn on the coal industry or the iron ore industry or the gas industry or the agriculture industry or the tourism industry? For some reason it's only international education that has their back turned on them—overt hostility from this government. I do not get it. I have never understood it. His predecessors didn't have this view. There is something wrong with this Prime Minister. There is something not right about him. It is just a bizarre hostility and it should stop. Seriously, lobsters got their own planes to be flown overseas and students got nothing. Let's have a look at the jobs impact. More than 250,000 jobs in Australia rested on this sector last financial year—250,000 jobs! That is more than the entire mining sector. It's more than the entire agricultural sector. It is a service sector. It is jobs intensive. As I said, 60 per cent of tourists to this country are international students or they're visiting friends and relatives. It is bad enough we have seen the job losses of tens of thousands in universities, but reputable private providers and accommodation providers are facing insolvency. These are businesses that won't come back. We're about to see the end of JobKeeper. There are, quite rightly, calls for sectoral recognition for the tourism sector. Sectors that rely on the borders being open for the businesses to survive warrant particular attention. I say very clearly to the government: put the international education sector on that list of sectors that deserve some support. They're worthy of support. They need help for the next six to 12 months—until we can get through this crisis. A few suggestions have been messaged to the Prime Minister by the peak bodies, falling on deaf ears. Letters have been sent recently again to the Prime Minister, the national cabinet, all the chief ministers. The states and territories performance has been better than the national government but still at times a bit slow and a bit patchy. The first thing that we need from the government is positive messaging, not telling students to go home. That ricocheted around social media. It destroys our future pipeline, our marketing and recruitment pipeline. If nothing else, if you just want to be mercenary about it and not human and empathetic, what do you think that does to a word-of-mouth sector? As a leading education CEO told me a few months ago: We are trying to work with the government. But the major negative is the messaging from Morrison, rolling out the unwelcome mat and highlighting a lack of support for students. If we can get things right though we are in the box seat, Australia has huge potential advantages from this crisis— because the states and territories have managed the health response so well.' The second thing we need is some kind of indicative return date. The UK and Canada have kept their borders open. I understand, of course, that being an island continent we're in a different context, and we treasure that. It was the government's failure, the Prime Minister's failure, to take responsibility for quarantine months ago. As his own report that he asked for said, 'it's a national responsibility', but he just wants to blame the states. If he had done that months ago when he had that report we would not have this impossible choice between 41,000 stranded Australians on whom the Prime Minister has turned his back. Turn back the boats—at that point he is responsible for borders and quarantine. You wouldn't find a politician in this place who has banged on more about borders and quarantine, but when it comes to 41,000 stranded Australians he turns his back on them. It's the same with international students. If he hadn't created this mess over the last 12 months, we would be able to be bringing students in safely and securely and save tens of thousands of jobs. We shouldn't be in this choice. As I said, we also need some targeted industry assistance to this sector, which is more than warranted. Zero dollars for international education but $240 million for tourism says it all. The final thing I will say is: please, a little more empathy for the plight. I know we can't bring students back right now. We could have before we saw these contagious strains emerge; we could have done that safely if the Prime Minister had brought citizens home and done his job, as it says in the Constitution, and stepped up to manage quarantine, but we are where we are. Have some empathy. I've had emails because students understand I care about this sector, because I have spoken about it. You get terrible stories. Imagine the plight of a fourth- or fifth-year dental student who has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars—more than their entire family's wealth—in their future. It is their last year, and they're unable to come back and complete it onshore. They're distraught. Students have told us this. We have seen cases of students attempting suicide because they feel they have no future left. Have a little empathy—a little hope, at least—to help people get through these circumstances. People like that are in limbo. The truth is that Australia has relied on some of these medical and dental students actually staying, because they're the ones that go to regional areas and provide desperately needed medical specialists in regional areas. This is a selfish national interest, not just a moment of human empathy. I will finish with a quote from a very simple email from one of the student advocates, who loves Australia. Their palpable love for Australia and Australians shines through, despite the way that, I believe, they have been profoundly mistreated by this heartless, cruel Liberal government—not that all members of the government are evil, nasty and cruel, but culture comes from the top. The Prime Minister's lack of human compassion and lack of empathy that was on display for the nation this week has driven this lack of care, attention and response. He owns it. This email said: 'Many students have had a tough year. They've had many significant issues—educational, financial and personal—due to the uncertain situation. But most of them are very disappointed about the Australian government and give up. Some are happy to learn online at home. Therefore, only students who have partners in Australia are craving to come back ASAP. I suggest if the government could open the border, even to those few students with compassionate reasons.' Imagine a student who has never met their child because they have had to go home, and their Australian partner is here with the baby they've never met? We've spoken to these people. Show some compassion. Students have been anxious and isolated, and they face destitution. They just want some help or at least the government to stop the harm and show some care and empathy. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265979 The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Corio 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 words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question. Question agreed to. Original question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment. ADJOURNMENT 89 ADJOURNMENT Youth Employment 89 12:14 Dr MULINO 132880 Fraser I rise today to speak about one of the great challenges and the great opportunities for my community and electorate of Fraser, for the broader community of western Melbourne and indeed for all similar communities around Australia—outer suburban areas and regional areas, particularly those that are disadvantaged—and that is the need to invest more in the skills and job opportunities for our young people. It was wonderful to have a visit from the shadow minister for industry and innovation last week in Fraser, and we visited many employers and training providers. It was a very positive day that reinforced the need for many of the policies that the Labor opposition and the Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese, are promoting at the moment. I want to talk about a bit of the context in which we need to think about the need for more investment in skills and employment opportunities. If we look at the west of Melbourne at the moment we see that 13 per cent of people aged 15 to 24 are not in employment, education or training. Now, there are two things to note about that. Firstly, that rate of 13 per cent is significantly higher than the rate overall for Melbourne, which is nine per cent. Secondly, we are talking about a disadvantage that isn't just affecting school leavers but is tracking well into people's lives in their mid-20s. This is something that is simply not good enough and that is entrenching disadvantage and entrenching intergenerational disadvantage. It's also important to look at the fact that modelling by the West of Melbourne Economic Development. Alliance suggests that in the next 10 years there will be 100,000 more people looking for work than there are new jobs created in areas like my electorate of Fraser. Also, if we look at the rates of underemployment and labour underutilisation in Melbourne's west, we see that for those aged 15 to 24, even pre-COVID, underemployment was 18.2 per cent and unemployment was 14.9 per cent, for a scandalous underutilisation rate of 33 per cent. This is clearly an area that demands more policy attention and more investment from government. There are lots of bright spots, which we can learn from and which point to the way forward. Let's look at skills, for example. The Victoria University skills hub is a wonderful example of the way forward if we put more investment into this area. The skills hub was opened in February 2020. It is a world-class component of the VU Polytechnic and includes a health and community services centre of excellence. It is highly collaborative and involves students, local schools, TAFEs, universities and industrial employers, all working together. Importantly, it is focused on robotics, virtual reality and 3D printing. But it is not just those specific skills. What inspired me was the fact that it's looking at those skills in a hybrid environment—looking at coding, looking at robotics and looking at virtual reality, and there are four people looking to work in the caring economy, in health—and the way we can provide very targeted skills for people who are going to get employment in the future in those growing parts of the economy. Another example is the Victoria University Cyber Security Training Centre. I was thrilled to be at the opening of this centre. It is now thriving. It is providing skills in one of the fastest-growing parts of the economy to students in the area of Melbourne that I represent, which is so in need of employment opportunities for people coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. This is going to be one of the growth areas in the economy, and we know from its performance already that the VU Cyber Security Training Centre is giving students precisely the skills they need. Again, it is highly collaborative. It was invested in collaboratively by VU, along with Cisco. Last term alone they had 700 applicants. The next part of the chain, if you will, is jobs. We can look at Bell Environmental as an example. I visited Bell Environmental with the shadow minister. This is a firm that provides world-leading, first-class emergency services vehicles, with significant potential for export. It's providing services right across Australia and beyond. It also has potential to extend its services into the defence sector. Bell has around 180 full-time jobs. Importantly, it has expanded to this level of employment from something like 35 jobs just a couple of decades ago. Importantly, they're looking to extend, notwithstanding all the economic headwinds they've faced over the past 12 to 18 months. And many of the job opportunities they're looking to create will be for apprentices. That takes us to the way forward. Let's look at some of the policies the Leader of the Opposition and the Labor opposition have put forward. We need more investment in VET. More than $3 billion has been ripped out of TAFEs. There are 140,000 fewer apprentices and trainees than there were when this government came to office. We also need more apprentices through major projects. The Australian Skills Guarantee—ensuring that one in 10 jobs on major federal projects will be for apprentices—is a good example of that, and there are so many more other wonderful opportunities. Higgins Electorate: Australia Day Honours 90 12:19 Dr ALLEN ( 282986 Higgins ) ( ): I'm pleased to see so many constituents in the Higgins community recognised in this year's Australia Day Honours List. This year there were 20 award recipients in Higgins—women and men who have served our community with dedication and distinction. These are women and men who have given back to the community in myriad ways. The Australia Day Honours List each year provides a wonderful opportunity for all Australians to recognise the importance of the people who go above and beyond to make a difference in all of our lives. One of the many honour awardees I would like thank is Rabbi Dr John Levi, AC, who has been elevated to the Companion of the Order of Australia, a merit of the highest degree in service to Australia. Rabbi Levi was honoured this year for eminent service to Judaism, through seminal roles in religious, community and historical organisations; to the advances of interfaith understanding, tolerance and collaboration; and to education. It is no surprise that I'm standing here today to speak of Rabbi Dr John Levi's service to Australia; a service to the country is ingrained in the Levi family tradition. Rabbi Dr Levi is in fact related to Nathaniel Levi, who also served our country as the first Jewish state MP, going back all the way to the 1860s. While reading a complete list of Rabbi Dr John Levi's accomplishments would keep us here until nightfall, I did want to highlight his previous work as rabbi for Temple Beth Israel. And he is one of the founders of the King David School in Higgins, a wonderful Jewish school brimming with the leaders of our future. In fact, I was delighted to spend time in a Q and A session with some of the fine senior students at The King David School, in my electorate. We know that the future is bright with students like these. I was also pleased to see a number of incredible medical professionals honoured for their important work, including Dr Brenda Shanahan, AO, for her distinguished service to medical health research, as well as to the business and finance sectors, corporate governance and philanthropy. Dr Shanahan really has done it all. I also want to thank and congratulate Professor Amanda Fosang, AM, for her significant service to medical research in the field of arthritis and to international societies. In fact, I've seen Amanda in action myself as she's a former colleague at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. I'm delighted that her outstanding contribution to improving the lives of those who suffer from arthritis is being recognised and celebrated in this way. This year's honours list includes recognition for significant services to water polo at the elite level, awarded to Higgins constituent Ms Jeanette Gunn, AM. And an honour was awarded for service to botanic gardening and ornithology—the study of birds—to Dr David Plant, OAM. He has a fitting name for his achievement in gardening! My electorate was also represented in the Australia Day Honours List with an award for significant service to veterinary science and equine welfare granted to Dr John McCaffrey, AM. Congratulations to the work of Amanda Mandie for her contribution to charitable organisations. Amanda is a director of Koala Kids. Koala Kids is a volunteer organisation which provides small things that make a difference to children and young people, from birth to 25 years, their families and healthcare team during cancer treatment. Koala Kids provides quality entertaining, engaging and creative activities to families in their homes and in hospital, designed to engage children and young people to relieve the boredom associated with cancer treatment. They also work very closely with social workers and childcare therapists to develop and provide therapeutic items that distract children during invasive and painful treatments and procedures in hospital. Importantly, Koala Kids is about filling the gaps in care and not competing with current services. Finally, the Australian Police Medal was awarded to Sergeant Jonathan Payne, APM. I thank Sergeant Payne for his service. I commend all of the Higgins residents—and, indeed, all Australians—represented in the Australia Day Honours List this year and express my deep appreciation for their valuable contributions. I seek leave for the following list of Higgins recipients be tabled in the Hansard. Leave granted. List of recipients: Rabbi Dr John Simon Levi AC Ms Brenda Mary Shanahan AO Professor Amanda Jane Fosang AM Dr Gregory Julian Goodman AM Miss Jeanette Lillian Gunn AM Mr Peter Stuart Marshall AM Mr Philip David Mayers AM Dr John Phillip Mccaffrey AM Ms Jill Harrison Smith AM Mr Lino Domenic Bresciani OAM Dr Carmel Crock OAM Ms Elizabeth James OAM Mrs Amanda Mandie OAM Mr David William Plant OAM Mrs Megan Ruth Rynderman OAM Mr Neil Howard Samuel OAM Mr Patrick Francis Tehan OAM QC Associate Professor David Rowan Webb OAM Mr Rodney John Whyte OAM Sergeant Jonathan Patrick Payne APM Indi Electorate: Inland Rail 91 12:24 Dr HAINES 282335 Indi Over the last few months, I've been visiting communities affected by the government's Inland Rail project. Inland Rail aims to allow taller and heavier double-stack trains to run from Melbourne to Brisbane. In the north-east, this means we'll need to upgrade the line to accommodate these bigger trains. This affects four towns in particular: Wangaratta, Glenrowan, Benalla and Euroa. In my extensive consultation with these four communities, two things have become clear. First, each town is anxious that the upgrades must deliver outcomes that create connectivity, allow small businesses to thrive, are accessible and respect the heritage of these communities. Secondly, there is a very strong feeling that the ARTC has not been fully transparent and consultative. I've been told that questions are going unanswered, staff turnover is high and decision-making is unclear. In Euroa, when I visited in January, 80 people turned out to express concern about the proposed Anderson Street bridge rebuild. When the bridge was built in the sixties, it created a huge physical divide, splitting the town in two. House prices on one side have never recovered. Small businesses feel cut off from the rest of town. There is a real fear that the bigger, taller, more imposing bridge proposed will further exacerbate this divide. In Benalla too, people fear the government is repeating mistakes of the past. In 1975, against the wishes of the Benalla community, the government demolished the Benalla station tower, building the Mackellar Street overpass that then cut the station off from the town down Carrier Street. In 2019, the Benalla Ensign wrote: The decision to demolish the former refreshment rooms and tower, which were constructed in 1889 is an excellent example of how bad planning and short-sighted decision making can have a negative effect on a town for decades. …   …   … That one questionable decision made in 1974 is still affecting Benalla Today. Instead of a historical, almost 130-year-old train station, we have a car park. Instead of a local entrepreneur or business person operating a museum or tea-room in the building we have a car park. Instead of a view across the north-east to snow capped peaks, we have a car park. The memory of a terrible decision imposed by a distant government that refused to listen to local concerns is very much alive in towns like Benalla and Euroa. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the 1960s and seventies, yet so far the ARTC insists that it is constrained by a lack of funds. But this excuse doesn't add up. Inland rail was originally costed at $4.4 billion in 2010. In 2015 it was bumped up to $9.9 billion, and just two months ago the government announced the cost had blown out by another $5.5 billion. But, as far as we know, not a cent of this was earmarked to do a proper job in the north-east upgrades. When I asked the Deputy Prime Minister on Tuesday in question time, 'How much of this increase would be spent in these towns to deliver outcomes that meet community expectations?' he did not answer that question. The ARTC is also refusing to disclose their budget to complete each upgrade in Indi and insisting that good design outcomes for our communities are out of budget. People in Indi are entitled to ask why government can find $5.5 billion for the ARTC and yet they can't find a few million to make sure the station and bridge upgrades in towns like Benalla, Euroa and Glenrowan are done properly. In its ambitions to claim a nation-building project, the government should not trample on the aspirations of the local communities in everyday places like Wangaratta, Benalla, Euroa and Glenrowan. I'm looking forward to the Deputy Prime Minister visiting these towns, as indeed he will in March. Then he'll hear from the community itself about its concerns and ambitions, and I sincerely encourage him to listen and take action. I'm calling on the ARTC to do better in engaging with our communities. Tell us how much has been budgeted for each location. Be up-front about your plans. Publish the results of the community engagement so we all know what's being said. I've met with the ARTC and raised this directly with them, but now I feel it's time to escalate these concerns as I'm doing here today in parliament. We are not unreasonable people. We know the ARTC can't deliver everything that everybody wants, but what everyone rightly expects is transparency and a genuine commitment to delivering a good outcome for our towns. Work with us; don't do things to us. China 92 12:29 Mr ANDREWS HK5 Menzies If there's a silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, it surely must be that the west is finally waking up to the true nature of the communist regime in China. For far too long many people in the West—indeed, in this country—naively believed that China was no longer communist and was on some pathway to a form of liberal democracy. That illusion has been shattered particularly in relation to the ongoing cover-up of COVID-19. I want to refer to two books which are required reading these days for members of the Chinese Communist Party and should be required reading for policymakers in the West. They're the latest of Xi Jinping's books, published in November and December last year. The first book is titled On the Party's Propaganda and Ideological Work, which collects about 52 of his speeches and writings over a number of years. He insists: China is red, and this color cannot be diluted. It is necessary to tell the stories of the party, the revolution, the origin, the stories of heroes and martyrs, strengthen revolutionary tradition education, patriotic education, and youth ideological and moral education, and carry on the red gene to ensure that the red country will never change its color. To contrast one of his and the Chinese regime's grievances against Australia, that our media carries unfriendly reports from time to time about China, he insists that the media 'must firmly adhere to the principle of party spirit, firmly adhere to the Marxist outlook on news, firmly adhere to the principle of correct orientation of public opinion, and firmly promote positive publicity of the party'. One only has to read the mouthpiece of the CCP, the Global Times, against the West, to see what that means in practice from the Chinese perspective. He insists that the Chinese people 'must continue to accept the nourishment of Marxist philosophical wisdom, and more consciously adhere to and apply the dialectical materialist world outlook and methodology'. Doubling down, President Xi Jinping demands that the 'Chinese communists still have to learn and practice Marxism, and continuously draw scientific wisdom and theoretical strength from it'. His second book was published just before Christmas and it's titled, On Persistence in Comprehensively Governing the Country According to Law. It's again a collection of speeches over about five or six years. But President Xi Jinping's conception of the rule of law bears no resemblance to its Western counterpart. As we know, it's one of the foundations of democracy in countries like Australia. Although there are different interpretations of what is encapsulated in it, there are some common understandings, such as that government operates under the law, that there are effective procedures to ensure it does, that courts are independent and impartial, and that natural justice and equality before the law are maintained. Central democracy is the idea that power corrupts. As James Madison wrote in 'Federalist Paper No. 51': ... the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others. This concept, which is common in the West, and, as I say, underpins our democracy, is completely rejected by Xi, who uses the concept of law to concentrate power in the hands of the CCP. In various speeches set out in the book, he applies his principle to every person and institution involved with the law, from police and regulatory authorities to lawyers, judges and courts. Understanding Xi's communist ideology is therefore critical in the West. It explains his regime's abuse of human rights, his willingness to ignore international arrangements and his disregard for formal agreements. It's why China, for example, blatantly disregards its obligations as a member of the World Trade Organisation and in free trade agreements. Not only does President Xi Jinping insist that the law should be subject to the party; he says that international law should also be subject to the same dictates. Those who believe that China's on a path to greater political freedom should take notice of a remark he made at a conference on the rule of law in November, in which he said that he wants this Marxist model about the rule of law applied universally—not just in China but throughout the world. As early as 2014, he spoke of constructing international playgrounds and creating the rules for the games played in them. Unfortunately, he wasn't referring to some sporting contest; his goal, despite the fancy references to scientific socialism with Chinese characteristics, is that his ideology would be applied right around the world. One application of this we see right now in Hong Kong, where the rule of law, according to Carrie Lam, is subject to the dictates of the Communist Party, and we know what's happening, tragically, in that country. Watson Electorate: Land Zoning, JobKeeper Payment: Arts Industry 93 12:34 Mr BURKE DYW Watson I've been to the electorates of everybody here and enjoyed the magnificent open space that is part of all of those different parts of Australia. My electorate is a very different story. In my part of Sydney, open space is at an absolute premium; we have very little. To those who don't know Sydney well: can I suggest that you look out the window as you come down in the plane. You'll see that on one side of the Parramatta River Sydney is filled with trees, and that on the other side there is an image of concrete. What has happened over the last few years in my area is that the premium of the limited open space we have has been challenged further and further. There's currently an ICAC investigation on foot over a large number of high-rise developments in the suburb of Canterbury, and at the exact same time the one area of potential additional open space we have is compromised. Canterbury Racecourse was bought by the Turf Club back in 1945. They got it cheap. Why did they get it cheap? Because the land was zoned open space. They now pay their rates cheap. Why do they get their rates cheap? Because it's zoned open space. And what's the Turf Club trying to do right now? Piece by piece, start to change the zoning to increase the number of people relying on a decreasing amount of open space available, to change the zoning through deals with development companies so that what limited open space we have shrinks and yet the need for it increases. The number of people in my part of Sydney who live without a backyard increases every day. The park isn't just for picnics; it's your backyard, and it's the only opportunity you have to enjoy local open space. In the suburb of Canterbury itself, there's one playground for every 2,403 people. In another part of the electorate, where I live, there is one playground for more than 9,000 people. These are suburbs where we so many people without a backyard. If the Turf Club continues with this plan, if they get away with it, if the decisions that go through the various levels of local and state government result in them getting away with rezoning this land, it will be a permanent hit to what it is to live in one of the less wealthy parts of Sydney. In Sydney people often use the term 'leafy suburbs', and they always mean wealthy suburbs. The two shouldn't be the same. Whether or not you get public open space shouldn't be determined by personal wealth. Public open space should be just that. If the Turf Club wants there to be a total master plan, we are there for that. But to have a piecemeal approach of taking away the opportunity for open space that we have in my part of Sydney is nothing more than theft of community assets. I want to refer to an open letter that was signed recently by 3,500 of our musicians; they put together an open letter urging the government to continue JobKeeper. As I have said on many occasions before, a whole lot of people in the arts sector missed out altogether. There are a whole lot of people who weren't able to qualify for JobKeeper. Some people, because of the way their agents had set up their personal business, have operated as sole traders and been able to access JobKeeper. It's a limited number of people but it's still significant, and it's been a lifeline for them. They need continued support every bit as much as the tourism industry. In fact, there is a direct link between supporting our musicians and supporting our tourist industry. Studies just released say that last year live music went down to four per cent of what it's normally been. On the other side of this crisis, I want to make sure our musicians haven't been forced to move on to other careers. I want to make sure the people who enrich our lives in that way, who are always competing against overseas artists but have managed to cut through and make a living here in Australia, keep being able to do that. I would encourage all members of the House to make sure that we support the musicians of Australia so that the soundtrack of Australia keeps getting played for years to come. WP Holman Clinic 94 12:39 Mrs ARCHER 282237 Bass Almost 100 years ago in Launceston, a young Dr William Prout Holman began administering radiation therapy services at a local private hospital after obtaining radon needles from Brussels. Today the WP Holman Clinic, established in 1952, and renamed after Dr Holman in 1986, is the leading provider of treatment for cancer patients in Northern Tasmania. The clinic has been expanding at an average rate of around 10 per cent per year for the last six years, with almost 2,000 patients attending the clinic annually. Supporting the clinic and its ability to deliver top-line treatment to the patients that enter its doors every year has been a focus of both this government and the Tasmanian Liberal government. This joint commitment and partnership led to the delivery of a new state-of-the-art CT scanner and linear accelerator to the clinic last year, as part of a $28 million upgrade to our state's ageing oncology equipment, through the Commonwealth Radiation Oncology Health Program. Its investment in the best equipment, combined with access to the most advanced treatment, has led to an increase in cancer survival rates, which is an incredible outcome. In 2019 it was reported that almost seven out of 10 Australians will survive at least five years beyond a cancer diagnosis, and, between 2011 and 2015, relative survival for all cancers combined was 69 per cent, up from just 50 per cent between 1986 and 1990. There wouldn't be many of us who have remained untouched by cancer in some way. I lost my own father when I was just eight years old. He passed away within a matter of weeks at the age of just 42. To see the survivor statistics is extraordinary, but there does need to be a focus on assisting cancer survivors to live well post treatment. Over the past 12 months, I've had a number of conversations with compassionate and dedicated staff at the clinic about the topic of survivorship and exactly what's needed to provide the right care for those who have survived a cancer diagnosis. Annually over 3,500 Tasmanians receive a diagnosis of cancer, and over two-thirds of them are likely to experience one or more survivorship care needs, which, as pointed out by Holman clinic staff, needs to go beyond disease surveillance by oncologists and surgeons. I think our society, to a degree, expects survivors of cancer to be thankful that they're alive and that life should resume as it was before their diagnosis and treatment. Yet research has indicated that following cancer treatment many cancer patients and their families describe a void of care, information, knowledge and support, regardless of their geographical location. It's important to point out that people in low socioeconomic groups, rural and remote areas and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have poorer cancer outcomes and access to comprehensive cancer services, including survivorship care. Regardless of background, after the shock of a diagnosis, the physical, emotional, mental and financial trauma a cancer patient endures can be tremendous, and the expectation that they will just pick up life where they left off is unreasonable and detrimental to leading a more meaningful life post cancer. Research undertaken by the clinic has identified these gaps and pain points, with one cancer survivor stating, 'Everyone was so helpful during treatment, but afterwards there wasn't really anyone to call,' while others, when discussing life after treatment and their recurrent fear, have said, 'I'm still not right almost a year later, and you always think about it coming back.' The Holman clinic is leading the way in advocating for cancer survivorship services that support patients, their families and the broader community to live healthy, well-informed and meaningful lives. Led by clinical nurse consultant Sarah Coulson, staff at the Holman clinic have been developing plans for what a survivorship care service could deliver for clinic patients. The service would aim to provide specialist clinical advice for patients and their families and other healthcare professionals relating to cancer survivorship. Additionally, the proposed project would look at coordinating and running support groups, in conjunction with NGOs and community partners, and mapping, promoting and linking cancer survivors and their families with existing services, while undertaking quality improvement projects to close gaps in services and resources. There'd also be a strong focus on self-empowerment, while providing education and support to the local community about cancer and living beyond a diagnosis. Thank you to Sarah, Dr Stan Gauden, the director of the Northern Cancer Service, which includes the Holman clinic, and the incredibly professional and dedicated staff at the clinic for the work that you do and for raising the issue of the importance of cancer survivorship with me. I look forward to working further with you and doing what I can to ensure that your survivorship project can get off the ground. Question agreed to. Federation Chamber adjourned at 12:44