I declare that the following are urgent bills and move:

That these bills be considered urgent bills:

Climate Change Bill 2022

Climate Change (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022

I understand that, because this is an urgent motion, it needs to be put immediately, so it's my intention to move that. Senator Birmingham.

President, for the benefit of the chamber, can I ask the minister to provide an explanation of the consequences of what the motion means?

I believe the minister can do that by leave, if she so chooses.

by leave—The consequences of this motion are that we would be able to ensure that both of these bills progress within the standing orders. It does allow us additional procedural flexibility, but within the standing orders, to ensure that these bills are dealt with in a timely fashion.

President, again, if I can seek indulgence in terms of a little further understanding of what that procedural flexibility may be. I note these bills are listed as the first item of government business for the day already, so this is clearly not a motion to change the order of government business. So it's not clear entirely, from the Manager of Government Business in the Senate's explanation, as to precisely what flexibility they are seeking to utilise from this motion.

I will advise the minister that she can, once again, seek leave.

by leave—Having the bills declared urgent bills means that, within the standing orders, we're not seeking to extend time at this stage, although we would note that yesterday, during the day when we usually get the most government time, we did not get to these bills at all. We do want to send a signal to the chamber that we are going to progress these bills and that we will progress these bills. This allows us some capacity, if needed—if we are not progressing these bills—to manage that within the standing orders. We are not seeking to gag or take away anyone's ability to speak on the bills, but we do want to send a message that we are serious about getting these bills done and this allows us some flexibility. If we were to need to move motions to progress the bills, we would have to win those motions as they were put, but it does give us some procedural flexibility for that.

Could we have more explanation, please, from the minister on what that flexibility could entail?

The minister is free to seek leave to give that explanation, Senator Roberts.

by leave—Again, the example I would give you is that, if the bills are not progressing—that is, if we are having a filibuster going on—we would have some flexibility within the standing orders to move motions to try and progress that and keep the bills going. That's essentially what this allows us to do.

President, I seek leave to make a short statement, if there is no alternative.

Leave is granted for one minute.

I thank the chamber. This is quite an extraordinary motion for the government to come in and move at these earliest days of consideration of legislation from the government. The Senate sat for the previous two sitting weeks, during which we dealt largely with ceremonial business and address-in-reply business, and in that time we cooperated with the government for the passage of one urgent bill that it had identified. We're now on only the second real sitting day of the Senate, getting down to genuine business, and the government is coming in, seeking in an opaque way without prior notice, to put in place arrangements that it says will give extra flexibility, and then saying, 'We're not intending to use that at present.' We should be getting down to business. It's on the Notice Paper. We should get into debating the bill, and if the government wants to move motions later, it should do so in the ordinary way, not through this very unconventional practice.

The question is that the motion as moved by the minister be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Following that which the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate has characterised, it's my opportunity to put on record the coalition's position on this. As has already been pointed out, having had the opportunity in the last sitting fortnight to examine such matters instead of others, we now have this being considered an urgent piece of legislation. That is passing strange, given what this legislation actually does. I think it's important to reiterate points made in the other place by the Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Ted O'Brien, which is that this legislation is bad legislation and reflects bad policy. How this legislation is characterised by those opposite and those who supported it is misleading to those in the community calling for action on climate. Indeed, the actual impact this legislation will have on the matter around climate change, on carbon emissions and the amount of which there is in the atmosphere, is also misleading.

As we consider the legislation that the Labor government has brought in, it's also important to consider that with the promise of legislating an emissions reduction target of 43 per cent—which we oppose legislating—there was another promise made, and that was around cutting the cost of electricity for Australian households and Australian businesses. It was a promise that, as soon as we arrived here to start conducting business on the first day of this 47th Parliament, was abandoned. It was $275 a year by the year 2025, something pledged 97 times in the lead-up to the election and not mentioned once since. There were two promises. One was a target of emissions reduction being legislated—and the government is delivering on that promise by legislating it. It is something we said we would not do and, therefore, oppose enshrining in legislation for reasons I will outline shortly. Another promise was made concurrently, and has been abandoned—completely wiped off the books, as if no-one will notice.

Today of all days, when the Reserve Bank of Australia will no doubt hand down a decision that will spell out further pain for Australian households when it comes to their monthly budgets—mortgage rates going up, power prices going up, fuel and all of those prices going up—we are instead focusing on legislating a target to reduce emissions which, frankly speaking, won't do what those opposite say it will. So it does really demonstrate the priorities of this government and how close they are to the dining table conversations and the living room conversations that are taking place out there in Australia. I'm pretty sure that households, universally, are talking about the impact that power prices and fuel prices are having on their weekly budget, and they want a government to act on those things. But, instead, here we are, in this first proper sitting week where we can deal with business, talking about this issue. As I say, that broken promise around not dealing with power prices but instead dealing only with a reduction in emissions being enshrined in legislation is going to be extremely evident to all as time marches on. Every time people look at this legislation and the debate that's taking place, they will be reminded of it. It is very telling that Labor have abandoned that promise, and, in doing so, have abandoned most of Australia—the people who are going to struggle with those bills. We know that, as of June this year, power prices were $208 higher than they were in the same month last year. And, of course, it's going to get much worse.

It's also important to point out a couple of the points that were made by my colleague in the other place Ted O'Brien, the member for Fairfax and shadow minister for energy, who said that this bill isn't needed at all. And it's a point that was actually made by the relevant minister, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Minister Bowen, who said, 'We do not need it,' referring to this legislation, and, 'We've also been clear that this legislation is not required'—points made by the government themselves in relation to the necessity or otherwise of introducing this bill. It's symbolic; it's tokenistic. In an interview yesterday the point was made by the Greens environment spokesperson that this is purely symbolic; it doesn't actually do anything, at least insofar as the primary bill is concerned.

So, that being the case—not needing to enshrine it—why are we doing this? There are a lot of things that this bill doesn't do. Sadly, one of the things it doesn't do is end green lawfare. Only yesterday in the Australian Financial Review, we saw that the Australian Greens said that the 43 per cent target being enshrined in legislation won't end climate wars. Again, I refer to the comments of the Greens environment spokesperson, Senator Hanson-Young, who said:

The climate wars will not end this week with the passage of Labor's climate bill—

which is something we were promised would happen; we were going to end the climate wars—

so long as they keep approving new coal and gas.

So there's another thing this bill doesn't do. It doesn't reduce emissions, it doesn't end the climate wars, and it doesn't bring down power prices—in fact, quite the opposite, I expect.

Having looked at those things this bill doesn't do, despite promises made before the election and promises made during this debate, let's look at some of the things it does do. A great place to start in looking at some of these issues is the dissenting report handed down by coalition senators on the Senate inquiry into this bill. I think it's pretty important to note that this bill and the consequential amendments bill will be pretty damaging when it comes to the economy and particularly regional Australia. It's going to have a massively adverse impact on jobs, on infrastructure, on major projects, on national security, on the wellbeing of rural and regional communities, and even on the day-to-day existence of many Australians—on household budgets, like we were talking about before.

It's important to point out also that the government, in drafting this legislation, have patently ignored the experience of other jurisdictions that have gone on to legislate emissions reduction targets. You only have to look at Europe to see what has happened there—and there are a range of examples, again, outlined in the coalition senators' dissenting report to the committee inquiry. In the United Kingdom, we've seen a range of critical infrastructure projects either delayed or completely blocked because of green lawfare. It's something we knew would happen. We predicted this, and we are warning Australians that, when this bill passes, it is going to be a green light for this sort of activity. In the UK, crucial projects like their HS2, their high-speed rail network, have been delayed because of legislated emissions reductions targets. Major road projects have been delayed. The third runway at Heathrow Airport has been delayed for years because of enshrined legislated targets for emissions reduction.

In France, of course, their sovereign government is being told by one of their courts that they will be subject to penalties if they don't take necessary measures on climate change by the end of 2022. So we have the judiciary telling the legislature and the executive what to do. And it's no different in Germany. In April last year, German courts ordered the government to increase its emissions reductions targets. So you've got courts—who are not elected, as far as I am aware, by the people—telling those elected by the people what to do. This is the by-product of legislating these targets, and this is why the coalition has sounded the alarm bell and opposes these moves.

Another telling factor in this debate is the fact that no modelling was actually undertaken by government departments in preparation for the introduction of this legislation, one of the signature promises by the Labor government, alongside that $275 power price reduction that was promised but abandoned—no modelling. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and also the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water each testified, and, astonishingly, neither of those departments were asked to do any modelling on the impacts on rural and regional Australia or the economy. What a revelation! That's unbelievable. Indeed, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry was not even formally consulted on the consequential amendments bill prior to its introduction—that was evidence tendered at the committee hearing.

Infrastructure Australia has also admitted to the committee that it could not yet even explain the consequences of the two bills and how they should make decisions when trying to balance environmental and economic impacts. That is something I think Australians expect us to do—to maintain balance between the economy and the environment, because, of course, we need a functioning economy, as well as a healthy environment, to live. And, of course, there is the entity Export Finance Australia, who is certain to struggle now when it comes to its vital work in supporting projects in countries right across the Pacific, something we as a nation have a responsibility to do. And the same could be said of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility too.

So, with that little amount of work done, there has been no consultation, no regard for unintended consequences and no concern for the people of rural and regional Australia—who will likely bear the brunt of these enshrined targets and the increased cost of living and the impact on jobs and the economy—and, perhaps, people who will be forced into energy poverty as power prices continue to skyrocket. Again, I remind senators and those listening of the broken promise to reduce power prices by $275 annually by 2025, a promise broken so early in the term.

Of course, there are other considerations related to the government's response to managing the environment, such as the 30 per cent of land locked up by 2030. How are they going to do it? What are they going to do to assist in reaching these enshrined targets? What impact will that have on farmers and other land users? How are they going to manage these commitments they have made and the impacts that they will then have on Australians seeking to make an honest dollar to pay their bills—the bills that are going up? These things have not been considered at all. In relation to this land lock-up proposal, the National Farmers Federation president, Fiona Simson, said:

Locking up land is not the answer. It has the potential to have the reverse effect on biodiversity, with a lack of land management allowing feral animals and plants to flourish, as well as heightening the risks from fire, drought and flood.

We know fires are a major contributor to carbon emissions, so we need to consider these things, which I just don't think the government have done.

As was stated in the other place by the member for Fremantle, the government have made it very clear: this is the beginning and not the end. And that, I think, is an important note for us to hover on. I have outlined my concerns and the opposition's concerns around this legislation. The government say: 'It's just targets. It's just targets in legislation. Don't worry; it will be okay.' We've heard about other jurisdictions where targets are enshrined in legislation, and we know what impact that has. They're not made-up examples. They happened. There are courts ordering governments to do things which were not part of a mandate, which have not been tested by the people of those countries. They are things being forced on governments. They have an impact on the cost of living—something we should all be concerned about. There has not been much debate in here about this. The government hasn't brought forward legislation to deal with those issues. Singularly, we are dealing with this: enshrining in legislation targets to reduce emissions.

So, as the member for Fremantle said, this is the beginning, not the end. What's next? Where do we go from here? When do we start striking a balance with concern for people's ability to pay their power bills, which are going up in my home state of Tasmania—a 12 per cent increase in one hit? And we're a renewable energy generator in Tasmania. Hydro, wind, solar: that's what we rely on down there, but we've got a 12 per cent increase. Where does it end? Where do the targets end?

You only have to look at other policy and legislative proposals being considered around, say, the safeguards mechanism. I'd love to hear the government provide a guarantee that not one job will be lost in some of those emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries, some of those emitters across the country, particularly in rural and regional communities. In northern Tasmania we have five or six of them that cumulatively employ 2,000 people. I'd love a commitment that not one job will be lost, but I don't think we will get that. I think there will be a focus on bringing down emissions with no regard for the economy, with no regard for those jobs and, indeed, as I've outlined here, with no regard for what impact this will have on Australian households—on their ability to pay their bills, to keep the lights on, to keep warm in winter in places like Tasmania, to keep food on the table. This bill, sadly, is worse than it seems—both these bills—and I warn senators to consider carefully before they cast their vote. We will oppose this bill.

WATERS (—) (): I rise to speak to the Climate Change Bill. And I note the presence of schoolkids up in the gallery, because this is relevant to them, as it is to all of us and the species we share this world with. From the day that this Climate Change Bill was released, the Greens have been warning: what happens if the 43 per cent passes on one day and new coal and gas fields are opened up the next day? In the month between this bill passing the House of Representatives and now, this first day of it being debated in the Senate, the Minister for Resources, Madeleine King, has released 10 new oil and gas leases, covering 47,000 square kilometres of our oceans. And then, straight out of the climate change deniers' book, she described carbon dioxide this way:

It's the bubbles in your soda water or out of your SodaStream … So, you know, we've got to keep it in balance, how we think about carbon dioxide.

Secondly, the Minister for the Environment and Water refused to block a gas-fired fertiliser plant in WA's sacred site of the Burrup Peninsula. Those chemicals would erode the 40,000-year-old rock art made by Murujuga ancestors and preserved until the present day. Of course, the Greens remain committed to the fact that we cannot have climate justice without First Nations justice.

Thirdly, just last night, the Prime Minister told the Minerals Council dinner here in Parliament House that the government will deliver a predictable transition, while giving a nodding reassurance to the fact that Australia will keep selling coal and gas to the world. Well, it's predictable alright, but it maintains the lie to workers that nothing is changing. And, of course, the Prime Minister went to that dinner instead of the Clean Energy Council function which was on at the same time.

Fourthly, since this bill was introduced into the House of Representatives, the Queensland Labor government has approved the expansion of the New Acland thermal coal mine, north-west of Toowoomba, on some of Queensland's richest agricultural soil and farmland. Now, that approval would increase the mine's operation by more than 60 per cent and would extend its life span to 2034—a thermal coalmine. This is a destructive project that will trash some of our best cropping land, threaten farmers' groundwater supply and all the while contribute to dangerous climate change.

The project has been fought by farmers like Sid and Merilyn Plant, who I've personally visited several times. They've fought this proposal for over a decade. They and farmers like them have seen their communities gutted. They've ridden the emotional and economic roller-coaster of seeing, first, their land racked with drought and, then, their crops flooded. It's those farmers that should be supported by government. Instead, the Queensland Labor government continues to bend over backwards to appease the fossil fuel lobby. So how any of this squares with Labor's so-called commitment to net zero is an absolute mystery. The fact that the Queensland resources minister announced the decision late on a Friday with a two-line release shows that they know how shameful it is. Of course, you then remember that both the opposition and the government received over $10 million in political donations from the fossil fuel industry over the past decade. And you'll recall how many former ministers and senior advisers go to work in grossly overpaid lobbying roles for fossil fuel companies. Maybe Labor approving more coal and gas mines and neutering their own climate ambition isn't such a mystery after all. Ban political donations from fossil fuel companies and we might get science based decisions.

The International Energy Agency said that Labor's net zero target by 2050 can't be met if just one new coal or gas infrastructure or mine is built—not one. There are now 114 new coal and gas projects in the development pipeline. So the message is simple: no new coal and gas. Everyone from Twiggy Forrest to the Pope is saying it. You can't stop the climate crisis by opening up new coal and gas mines.

The Labor Party's target of 43 per cent was set in consultation with political scientists, instead of climate scientists, and it's at risk of failing because of new coal and gas. The committee into this bill heard evidence of how setting a 2030 target below what the science requires jeopardises that subsequent net zero target. And, because this 43 per cent target aligns more with two degrees of global heating and is not consistent with the Paris Agreement, that pushes more work into later years. If we are wasting more of our very limited carbon budget now with a weak 43 per cent target, we will have to have faster, deeper emissions cuts later.

Even for the risky two-degree scenario, Australia would need to reach net zero a few years before 2045, according to ANU climate scientist Professor Nerilie Abram, who gave testimony to the committee. Because 43 per cent is not science based, the knock-on effect is that net zero by 2050 is also not science based. For that reason, I will be moving Committee of the Whole amendments to the bill that will align Australia's targets with the science of what is needed to limit warming to 1½ degrees. This will eliminate the chance of runaway chain reactions on our climate system that we can no longer rein in. If we aim for two degrees we're rolling the dice, and there is a very real risk that, by releasing that much more heat-trapping energy into our oceans and atmosphere, we could spark chain reactions beyond human control to rein in once they're unleashed. The bill that we're debating is set above that dangerous two-degree limit, so the Australian Greens amendments that we'll move in the committee stage will change the national target to 75 per cent reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2035. That's what the science says we need to do; that's what this parliament should do.

We will pass this bill, but we want to see targets increased within this term of parliament. We want to see Australia sign up to the global methane pledge, which will see this potent, but short lived, greenhouse gas reduced by 30 per cent by 2030. That would be an important first step to prevent the early onset of dangerous planetary heating.

The Greens worked with the government to ensure that this bill, introduced into the parliament, included a no backsliding provision. We wanted to ensure that this legislation was Dutton-proof, just as we worked with the Gillard government to make ARENA and the CEFC Abbott-proof. And that's stood the test of time. We also secured agreement with the government that the Climate Change Authority's work had to be guided by the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement—not just a mere consideration, which could be trumped by politics, like the 43 per cent. Importantly, we ensured that funding agencies, like Export Finance Australia, Infrastructure Australia and the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, will have to have regard to these targets when they consider granting money to projects. This makes it harder for public money to be used to further subsidise coal and gas. Next stop will be tackling the $11.8 billion in public subsidies to fossil fuels that we've had in the budget for at least a decade now. We will be looking at the October budget with a fine toothcomb to identify all of those fossil fuel subsidies. When the government has said the country is too poor to afford free child care or to raise JobSeeker above the poverty line, it is criminal to be giving away more than $11 billion in free money to polluting companies every year, particularly when those fossil fuel companies often don't even pay their fair share of tax.

We've also worked with the government to include in the committee report our shared commitment to working together on ending the use of burning native forests being counted as renewable energy. I'm sure my colleague Senator Rice will have more to say about that.

Crucially, in the report of the committee—which was chaired by my colleague Senator Hanson-Young—we exacted support to establish a legislated energy transition authority to make sure that we can look after coal and gas workers. As part of our negotiations on this bill, the government agreed to consider Greens proposals to support coal and gas workers and communities, including by creating publicly funded transition authorities to empower local communities to develop and finance plans to create new jobs and diversify their local industries. Coal workers haven't caused the climate crisis, and they should be looked after so that their communities and their kids can be assured of a prosperous future, and they should have a say in what comes next. Coal workers know that coal won't stay in the system for decades. They know that they're going to get screwed over by coal corporations. They just want a clear pathway that will ensure their financial security and keep their communities in place. We took to the election a job-for-job guarantee for coal workers so that, as we transition off fossil fuels, coal workers would get good jobs at the same pay by enabling their new employers to receive a wage subsidy of up to half the worker's former wage for up to 10 years. It's a very expensive policy, but the Greens are committed to ensuring that no worker is left behind as we transition to a clean energy economy.

So, through our negotiations, we've improved a weak climate bill. It's still weak, and it's still nowhere near enough, but it is a small step in the right direction, and the Greens will vote for it. But I will say that we are in solidarity with First Nations communities, with climate scientists, with the global community and with our neighbours in the Pacific in saying that this is the critical decade, and we are resolute that there must be no new coal and gas and a transition off fossil fuels. This could be the climate parliament. We have the numbers to go much further and faster. The only thing standing in the way of more action is this government and its cosy relationship with the fossil fuel sector, who make generous donations to its re-election campaigns, along with those of the Liberal Party.

Using our numbers in the parliament, we will now look to putting further limits on coal and gas pollution. We'll be pushing for the government's reform of the safeguard mechanism to include new coal and gas, and we will fight for a climate trigger in our national environmental laws that stops new coal and gas projects from going ahead. And, as always, around the country we will join First Nations people, farmers and community activists fighting giant new coal, oil and gas projects on their lands and water. We could be creating tens of thousands of jobs right across the country as we establish the industries of the future and become a clean energy export powerhouse. We went to the election with a fully costed sector-by-sector plan of how we would create those jobs, transform our old industries and create new ones.

Australia is the sunniest continent on the planet, with amazing wind resources and smart, adaptive and innovative minds. These resources and these huge opportunities are being wasted as each year passes. Imagine what could be achieved if Australia's energy is effectively free. Manufacturing could return to our shores again, and we could make green products here instead of exporting the raw materials overseas. Transporting ourselves, our food and our goods with clean electricity instead of imported oil would reduce the cost of everything and enhance our security. This future can happen if we rapidly transition to a clean economy powered by renewable energy and export it to the rest of the world. How? Shift electricity generation to renewables and storage; increase electricity production to allow the electrification of all households, businesses, transport and industry; soak up the remaining emissions and move to negative emissions by protecting our forests and landscapes; and reform our agriculture to draw down carbon from the atmosphere so we can start to return to a safe climate.

Critical to our plan is the phasing out of coal and gas, not only from our domestic economy but also for export. This is why our goal of reaching 700 per cent renewables is critical—because it will allow us to become a renewable energy superpower developing new export industries and new manufacturing industries, such as green hydrogen, direct transmission of renewable energy and the production of green metals. That plan would also mean the creation of 805,000 new jobs, with 162,000 of those being direct jobs and the remainder being indirect jobs created across the country, particularly in the areas most affected by the transformation—a transformation that we need in order to reach net zero in the next 13 years. So our plan would not only create more than 800,000 jobs but improve the budget bottom line by—the PBO says this—$51.9 billion over the decade as we remove those handouts for the coal, oil and gas industries and make them pay for the damage that they're causing.

As society makes this big switch, the Greens' plan supports workers to shift out of coal and into new industries by guaranteeing them employment at the same pay whilst also lifting income support for those unable to find a new job. The Greens will work to empower local communities to manage the change by developing and financing plans to diversify away from coal and create new jobs and industries as we act on global warming.

This is, and could be, the climate parliament. We are ready to do what the science says is necessary to protect our biosphere and our communities. The question is how powerful the fossil fuel donors are in this building, and that remains to be seen. This fight is not over. We will keep pushing to make sure that not a single coal or gas project is opened, because the science says we just cannot afford to do that.

As I rise to speak on the Climate Change Bill 2022 and the Climate Change (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022, it is important to note that recently released government data shows that Australia's greenhouse gas emissions increased in 2021. As the current minister, the Hon. Chris Bowen MP, said, this caps off the coalition's record of 'denial and delay' on climate change. The Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments' legacy on climate change is a lost decade at a time when Australians were crying out for real and significant action. That policy vacuum has a long legacy, and Australia is paying the price.

But it's not too late. It's not too late to do the work that should have started a decade ago to make real, significant and meaningful action on emissions reductions. In 2022, Australians from all walks of life and from all parts the country made it clear that they wanted a government that is determined to act on climate change. They voted for action on climate change, and that is what the Albanese Labor government is delivering with this legislation. Labor knows that good climate and energy policy is also good economic policy. This country has all the resources, the ingenuity, the innovation and the inspiration it needs to become a green energy superpower. The Albanese Labor government is determined to grasp the opportunities that the transition to a net zero economy offers us—a future built on decent, secure and skilled jobs; a future where we lead the world on solutions to the climate challenge, rather than being part of the problem.

And there is no time to waste. Australians are impatient for action on these issues. In recent times, the incidence of floods, bushfires and droughts has increased in intensity and regularity. These results have been catastrophic for tens of thousands of people and their communities. Australians are worried, and they're tired of inaction. Labor went to the last election with a detailed plan on climate change, and the Australian people embraced it. We were determined that it should be very clear that a vote for Labor was a vote for real action on climate change. Australians voted for an emissions reduction target of 43 per cent by 2030 and for 82 per cent of the energy going into the grid to be renewable energy by 2030.

These bills today reflect Labor's Powering Australia plan and Paris Agreement commitments—commitments that the Australian people voted for; commitments that the Australian people expect us to keep. These bills are about providing the certainty so desperately needed by business, industry, investors and the wider community after a decade of denial, delay and deception on climate change action. With a 2030 target of 43 per cent, this legislation puts Australia on track to reach net zero by 2050. This provides the certainty that is vital to ensuring Australia reaps the economic benefits of the energy transformation that is underway. Powering Australia will deliver 604,000 jobs across the country and will see our energy needs met by 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030. We are legislating the 2030 and 2050 targets because it's best practice to do so and because we are determined to meet those targets.

The community is crying out for an energy policy that will end the do-nothing strategy of the previous minister, Angus Taylor—a strategy that has left Australian families dealing with skyrocketing energy prices that are putting a terrible strain on household budgets. Legislating Australia's emissions reduction targets provides certainty to industry, states and territories and, just as importantly, it keeps the promise that we made to the Australian people. It brings Australia into line with countries such as France, Denmark and Spain that have also legislated net zero targets for 2050. Countries such as Canada have legislated their 2030 target. The target we've set is ambitious, and our Powering Australia plan makes it achievable. It is important to note that it sets a floor, not a ceiling, on Australia's emissions reduction ambition.

The Australian people want their government to step up and deliver on their promises, and they want to be able to be kept informed, not fobbed off. That's why they will be updated every year on the progress that we're making. The minister will be required to report annually to parliament on Australia's progress towards meeting our targets that are set out in the bill. For almost a decade, we have seen the standards of accountability in government eroded. We've had a decade of duck and dodge, fibs and fudging from the previous government. We are asking Australians to join us in a huge transition as we head to net zero, and they rightly deserve to hear from their government on how it's working towards its goal. That is how accountability actually works.

In our first month in office, the Albanese Labor government updated our nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement to reflect the target that we were elected to deliver: 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030, and to set Australia on the path to net zero by 2050. This action sent a message to our friends, to business, to our trading partners and to our neighbours in the Pacific, and for the first time in a decade Australia has a government that takes climate change seriously—a government that understands the opportunity which is there and which is determined to deliver on it. The bills are straightforward, positive and powerful. They reflect Australia's obligations under the Paris Agreement, and so I urge the members of this chamber to pass this legislation and to send a clear and positive message to the people of Australia, and to the world, that we are taking real action on climate change. That decade of inaction, infighting and denial is now over. How we manage that transformation will determine the future prosperity of this country, and we are determined to ensure that Australia emerges as a stronger, more dynamic and self-reliant nation as we reach net zero.

We learnt during the toughest periods of the pandemic that, as a country, we need to be more self-sufficient. One of the things that cleaner, cheaper energy will do is to drive advanced manufacturing in this country. This transition offers us an opportunity for Australia to reignite the manufacturing sector and for Australians to make things once again right here in Australia. This is also about our national security, as we commit to making our sovereign manufacturing capacity a priority.

I'm a great believer in science, and the science is in. We are determined to meet the challenge. Labor embraces the change that is required because we see it also as an opportunity—an opportunity to plan with certainty and create new jobs and industries, and a chance to embrace new technologies and build a new, bold, smart manufacturing industry. The Climate Change Bill 2022 and Climate Change (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022 are a statement of intent by the Albanese Labor government. We believe in Australia's ability to meet the challenge of climate change, and we know that everyday Australians are up for it. This legislation will ensure that we can take that journey confidently together and be very confident in a better future.

In 1956 South Australia experienced the great flood, an event described as the greatest catastrophe in the state's history. It was the highest flooding in the region since European settlement, but nobody asserted it was caused by humans, because it was a natural disaster. There hasn't been a worse flood in Adelaide since. If this event had occurred in 2022, we'd be bombarded by propaganda telling us that it was caused by carbon emissions from human endeavours. Headlines about the dangers of climate change and the urgent need for harsh emissions reductions would abound.

The corporate and political classes have bought into this narrative that, to avoid the imminent climate apocalypse which the so-called experts have for the last 50 years been predicting will occur in the next 10 years, we must hastily transition to renewable energy, whatever the cost. Those apocalyptic claims come to us from the United Nations, and with the Climate Change Bill 2022 and Climate Change (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022 Labor is pushing to reduce carbon emissions by 43 per cent by 2030, which marries up perfectly with the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This is, by the way, the same agenda that led the Dutch government to declare soil, of all things, a threat to the environment and push farmers off their land and out of their profession. As well as ruining thousands of lives, this means that global agricultural experts and food suppliers suffer. This is the same agenda which also led to the uprising in Sri Lanka as the cost of living for Sri Lankans became unbearable. Clearly, these restrictions now place an impossible burden on citizens, and Labor seeks to take us down that path. At some point Australians need to realise that the net zero agenda is not about saving the planet; it's about preventing us from being energy independent by bringing our fossil fuel and nuclear capabilities to a halt.

For those who are cynical, refer to what's happening in Europe at the moment. At what point do we start assuming that international bodies like the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, which also pushes the net zero agenda, have our best interests at heart? At what point do we start judging their ideas by what happens when they're implemented? We live in a time when political ideas are judged by what sounds good rather than what actually works. It is a post-truth era, perhaps better described as the era of rainbows and unicorns, which is so overtly pushed by our friends across the chamber.

We can see that these ideas, from declaring soil a threat to the environment to rapidly shutting down coal power stations, lead to the disenfranchisement of ordinary citizens and to more wealth in the hands of the anointed elites. So let's see politicians, corporate elites and celebrities who moan about the so-called climate crisis lead by example and c their own international travel aboard fuel-guzzling private jets. Let's see them give up eating meat in favour of crickets. Let's see them giving up their champagne in the Chairman's Lounge, where I see them very often on a Thursday night heading home. None of them want to do that very quickly. Those pushing this agenda lecture you about your so-called carbon footprint while making no adjustment to their own lives. While you worry about the rising cost of food, fuel and bills, they simply march on unabated.

The hasty push for renewables doesn't make any sense other than in the light of an agenda to rob ordinary people of autonomy in energy and in food production. Coal and gas currently account for 79 per cent of Australia's electricity generation, and we are now apparently required to build solar and wind plants to cover that gap. It's impossible to quickly reduce this figure without jeopardising our capacity to generate electricity and increasing its costs, which will be the net effect.

What we know as so-called renewables, wind and solar, are inefficient, expensive and dreadful for the natural environment. For wind and solar power to generate electricity, the wind must be blowing and the sun must be shining, meaning you have stable power generation less than 40 per cent of the year. Given they're so inefficient, renewables have such short life spans that they rely on fossil fuels as backup sources. Wind turbines have a life span of about 20 years before they're buried in the earth. So we're not dealing with achievable outcomes here. This is nothing but a utopian fantasy.

The transition to renewables would need Australia to increase its mining operations to build the required solar panels and wind turbines. The Greens members who are calling for Australia to ban the development of new mining projects are literally calling for the prevention of the means of building the renewables they argue for. You simply can't make this stuff up.

Renewables require much more land than fossil fuels and their nuclear counterparts, meaning vast stretches of beautiful Australian landscape are going to become wind and solar farms. The natural environment will be turned into an ugly landscape of metal and plastic. So much for environmentalism! True environmentalism actually means being good stewards of our natural environment while keeping the lights on, and conserving our natural resources while using them appropriately. If we are serious about reducing emissions, then, as we've said many times in this chamber before, nuclear energy is the answer. If there were really a climate crisis, Australia's prohibition on nuclear power generation would be considered irrational and inexcusable. Over 70 per cent of France's energy is generated through nuclear, and their natural environment is no worse for it, as exhibited by our friends' guzzling of French champagne. Their carbon emissions are low and they have some of the lowest electricity bills in Europe—or they used to. If we were truly facing a climate emergency, we would pursue nuclear energy, as it would address the emissions concerns and improve the cost of living for everyday Australians. It's such an obvious solution, but of course we know that it would interfere with the net zero agenda, so it is falsely presented as unsafe.

Let's not forget that Australia contributes roughly 1.08 per cent of the world's carbon emissions, compared with China's 29.34 per cent, the US's 13.77 per cent and even Russia's 4.76 per cent. If carbon emissions do cause climate change, then our emissions are negligible compared to those of other nations. China is now building 43 new coal-fired power plants, despite being a signatory to the Paris Agreement, while Australia, which is the largest exporter of coal in the world, is gearing up to dismantle its largest export industry.

Labor's bill continues the trend of deferring to experts with conflicts of interest, with the role of the Climate Change Authority in advising climate policy. The Climate Change Authority has got to provide advice to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy on reaching emissions targets, and any deviation from this advice has got to be accounted for by the minister in a written statement.

If we look back, it's pertinent to realise that none of the climate alarmists' predictions—from a new ice age all the way through to the melting of the ice caps—have come to pass. But, rather than admit these obvious errors, the climate propagandists simply change the nature of the emergency and push the catastrophe back a few decades, because their predictions have been wrong for so many decades. That begs the question: why are people still listening to them? We need to consider this, especially seeing as the net zero agenda places us in a more vulnerable position regarding China, which is the greatest manufacturer of renewables technology, meaning our transition to renewables will ensure that we become reliant on the Chinese Communist Party's exports for our electricity. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Europe is learning the hard way that relying on a hostile foreign power for energy resources is a disastrous idea. Far from making us a renewables superpower, as Labor claims we will be, net zero will simply mean greater economic dependence on the Chinese Communist Party, of all organisations, for our energy, placing them in a considerable position of leverage over us and ensuring that we go down the path of becoming a tributary state. We don't need to become a renewable energy slave to China. We already have the resources here to become an energy superpower, and we should be leading the world in energy production, including nuclear. And we would be, if it were not for the unscientific and ideologically driven net zero agenda.

Those who have introduced and supported this bill need to understand that they're dooming Australia to a high-energy-cost future, a future in which Australians must choose between heating and eating. One only needs to look at the bleak winter fast approaching in the Northern Hemisphere to see our future right there before us. Power bills will become 500 to 600 times the cost, with energy shortages and businesses going under. It's all on the watch of those who support this bill, and we won't let you forget. We've been blessed with a natural environment with bountiful resources that can allow us to reduce the cost of living and become less dependent on foreign powers. I hope that, as a nation, we can become alert to the urgency not of climate change but of pushing a rational energy policy. It's time for those in this place to reject this bill. It's time for those in this place to put Australia first.

I rise to make my contribution on the Climate Change Bill 2022. It is absolutely no secret that climate change is upon us. We see the impacts of this every day, in the most extreme bushfires and flooding and droughts that are becoming more frequent and more severe. But we're also seeing it in much more subtle ways. The delicate balance that our ecosystems have operated in for thousands of years is changing, and they cannot adjust with the speed that is needed. If we do not act on these impacts, they will only get worse and affect every single area of our lives, including for those opposite. This will also affect the future that we are building for our children and their children. It actually starts right here, with us in the nation's parliament. The science is absolutely clear: we need to reduce our emissions by 75 per cent, not 43 per cent, and reach net zero by 2030, not 2050. I'm proud to be part of the only party that respects this science and that I am the Greens spokesperson for the science and technology portfolio. We don't have time to play politics with this. We cannot let the government place our future at risk to appease their corporate donors. Let's be real: the only reason this target is so low is so that the Labor Party can keep raking in the money from their fossil fuel company mates. If they tell you any different, that's a lie. I saw that firsthand at the Minerals Council dinner last night.

The latest IPCC report paints a very dire picture of what we're in store for if we do not take radical action. If we had listened and taken action when the scientists first questioned this, then maybe our emissions might not have had some of the unintended consequences down the line, and we would be in a very different place right now. But, of course, we didn't. We ignored the scientists. We ignored them for so long that we are at the point now where we need radical action to avoid further disaster. It sounds terrifying, and that's because it absolutely is. It sounds serious because it is. Forty-three per cent is not enough, and I refuse to sugar-coat that.

Just as scientists saw the problem, they have also given us the answers. We need to transition away from fossil fuels as soon as possible, address overconsumption by humans, protect our natural environment and work to restore what we have destroyed. First Nations science plays a key role in this, because my ancestors have taken care of land and sea country for thousands of years, aiding the delicate balance of nature and taking only what they needed. We don't subscribe to the Western idea that nature is something that needs to be conquered. We are part of nature. We are not better than it. We are equal. We know the land and how it operates, what it needs to survive and to thrive. Governments, mining companies and private landholders need to welcome this knowledge and allow us, support us, to work to protect and heal this country. That would be to the betterment of all of us.

Australia is known for its amazing produce—wine, grain, cheese, beef. You name it, we make it, and we do a damned good job of it. As seasons shift and weather patterns become more unpredictable and unruly, the ability of our farmers to continue to produce these products is, and will continue to be, impacted. Regional and remote communities across Australia rely on primary production to survive. The yields will decrease, in both quality and quantity, making it harder for these communities to exist. We need to support our farmers in adopting more sustainable farming practices and to mitigate the impacts on their businesses to ensure our rural and regional communities are not left behind.

As well as our amazing produce, Australia is known for its amazing and diverse ecosystems, which people travel from all over the world to come and see—from our deserts to our rainforests, our native forests, our mountain ranges, our coastlines, our reefs, our arid lands and our river systems, all with unique plants and even more unique animals. We have a lot to offer. A lot of our tourism relies on these natural wonders. Again, many of these are in our rural and regional communities. The impacts of climate change will place these businesses at risk due to the destruction of these places. We've already seen that with the wonderful and amazing Great Barrier Reef. If we lose these precious places, we lose our history, our culture and what makes Australia unique.

Let's be frank. Fossil fuel companies are the reason we are in this mess and the reason action has not been taken sooner. Both the major parties are captured by these companies due to the millions of dollars that they have taken in donations from them. Due to this, the major parties are too scared to take any serious action to wind up fossil fuel production at the speed that we need it because they might lose some money in their political donations. There's clearly no concern about the primary producers or the small businesses who will lose their money as a direct result of climate change. These companies are getting a pretty good return on their investment, too, since none of them pay any corporate tax and they receive billions of dollars in our public money as subsidies.

Instead of holding up a dying industry or relying on carbon capture and storage—which, in fact, is unproven—to procrastinate in reducing emissions, the government should be focusing on investing in renewable energy projects. Let's use that money to build rail to transport green hydrogen, just like Germany has done recently. Use that money to rehabilitate the land. Use that money to invest in solar panels, hydro, wind—literally anything other than paving the way for these greedy companies to destroy our planet.

I want to be absolutely clear that the climate wars are not over. They have, in fact, reached a new frontier. The Greens are begrudgingly supporting this bill, but we know that 43 per cent is nowhere near enough. The fight continues for meaningful climate action, which also means preventing one more fossil-fuel project opening, expanding or continuing. My call to action for the folks out there watching is to join us—come forward and fight for our children's future and for our climate.

Today I rise very proudly to endorse these bills. The climate change bills going through this chamber are critical but quite simple. These bills represent a clear commitment from the Albanese Labor government. They represent an ambitious but achievable plan, they represent accountability to the parliament and they represent accountability to the people.

Make no mistake here: the scientific facts are clear. Climate change is a real thing, and people in this chamber are going to have to get on board with that. We are warming. There is more rainfall. Our patterns of weather are seriously disrupted. These things need to be addressed. We need to take action. The global temperature will almost certainly continue to rise, but the rate and magnitude of that increase will be determined by what we do next and by our ability to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

We know that there is a well-established causal connection between climate change and extreme weather events. The CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, numerous scientists, numerous think tanks and the vast majority of the globe are on board. But for far too long we've been having, as Senator Cox pointed out, climate wars with the most minute points and the most ridiculous arguments. We are effectively standing by while Rome burns. We need to stop. People are torn between the 43 per cent that's laid out in these bills being too much or too little. But 43 is bang on, 43 is the right number, 43 is the achievable number—and we will achieve it.

As a nation, we have been failing. Our climate bill sets a best-practice and science-based target to achieve that reduction. This is a floor, not a ceiling. This is a start. Let us not go back to the place where we do nothing because we are so driven by the perfect. This is an excellent first step. This is a floor, not a ceiling. This is the certainty and the mature policy that we need. The bill is a solid foundation, setting clearly and firmly in Australian law our emissions reduction ambition. It holds the government of the day properly accountable to the Australian people, and to the Australian parliament in how it measures up to those ambitions and how it is addressing this fundamental issue. It is a certainty and the mature policy that we need.

Many issues were raised in the committee hearings considering these bills, and some of those were issues of merit and issues that should be considered but are outside the scope and intent of these bills. Some issues will be captured in a range of other associated but concurrent actions that are being progressed, and I will just give you a list of what they are: consulting on options to reform the safeguard mechanism, which deals with a number of the issues that were raised in the committee hearings; developing a national electric vehicle strategy, which will be done in collaboration with the states and the territories; working with the state and territory governments to increase the share of renewables in the National Electricity Market by 2030; investing $20 billion for urgent upgrades of the electricity grid; appointing an independent panel to review the integrity of Australian carbon credit units, led by former Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb; responding to Professor Samuel's review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act; and the impending release for a proposal for an independent federal environment protection authority. Each of these things deals with the vast majority of the issues raised in the committee hearings.

As I said, the vast majority of people supported the passage of these bills. As Minister Bowen outlined in his second reading speech in the other place, this bill is important for the message that it sends to the future generations of this country, for our economy, for business and investment, for our nation and for our environment. I'm proud to be Chair of the Senate Environment and Communications Committee, and we spent two days and waded through hundreds of submissions of people's perspectives on these bills. I speak now as an individual, not as Chair of that committee, but the committee recommended that the Senate pass these two bills. There was widespread and near unanimous support for these bills from organisations and interest groups representing all facets of the Australian economy and society. In fact more than 110 organisations and specialists declared their support for the bills. Specialists across business and industry, agriculture and forestry, unions, conservation groups, energy and resources, academics and the legal sector all support these bills. Overwhelmingly, submitters and witnesses expressed support for the objectives and the provisions of these bills. They support them because they know there are significant opportunities in decarbonisation. There are significant opportunities for Australia by taking action. The industries of the future are enabled by the investment that takes place when we have clear and sensible policy, which is exactly what these bills provide.

This is what a Labor government is all about: finding the solution. I'd like to express my thanks to the members of the Greens party and to other senators, including Senator David Pocock, for engaging robustly and productively on these bills. But that's what a Labor government is all about. We care about workers, we care about business and we care about the environment. We consult, we listen and we take action. We care about investment in the future and the opportunities that are available to us through decarbonisation. We have a clear plan to ensure that we drive our economy forwards as we decarbonise. I know there are those in this chamber who will just flatly oppose these bills, without thinking about the future, without thinking about what that will do. I urge everyone in this chamber to support these bills. They are a simple, strong framework to start taking action. We cannot ignore or deny climate change. This is happening, and if we do not act on climate change our wildlife, our planet, our industry and our citizens will all suffer. I urge everyone to support these bills.

Thank you for the opportunity to make a statement about these climate change bills today. These are important issues—very important issues—and there is a lot to be said about this whole policy space. This is a bill that is not a particularly large bill; it's only 10 or 12 pages long. That doesn't mean it's not important. Certainly, it is a pretty threadbare bill in what it does. The minister himself, Mr Bowen, has described this bill as being 'not necessary'. That is an interesting approach to a piece of legislation that you want to get through the parliament. But perhaps the reason it is unnecessary is that the NDC the Nationally Determined Contribution from Australia, has been set in international law now.

I've never been convinced that international law is particularly strong. I'm not sure how enforceable it is, but the reality is that the way that the system works under the climate accords means that the NDC is set via international law. That's been done by the government, and they've decided to go with 43. Personally, I'm relaxed about it going higher. I'd be relaxed about that happening if there was the work done to show how it can be done and how much it will cost, but the point is that Minister Bowen is the minister for this area, and he's described his own bill as being 'not necessary'. That's an important starting point, but I don't want my contribution to be a hyperpartisan rant, because these are important issues. But this particular bill, by any assessment, is actually quite a threadbare bill.

The cost of this transition to get to net zero is eye-watering and you can see, through the Senate inquiry, that no-one knows how much it is actually going to cost the country. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to get the answer. I said at the start of this process, when this bill was introduced, that I thought that the inquiry, which was conducted by the environment and comms committee, which is a very good committee, had one question to answer.

The best committee!

Indeed! That question was: how will Australia generate or obtain the capital to fund the journey to net zero? I said that there could be a range of ways this could be achieved and that this should all be explored. I committed myself to participating in the inquiry. I'm not a member of the committee, at the current time, but—

We miss you!

I'm sure you do! We participated in the inquiry, and there were a couple of days of hearings. I persistently tried to get answers on this key question of the cost. I think it was the Business Council which referred to the work of Alan Finkel, who estimated that it's going to cost about $1 trillion to transform the electricity sector. But we don't have any good analysis in the government or the private economy of the overall cost estimates over the long-term. As an importer of capital, as Australia has been over the last 250 years, I would have thought that we should try to get those answers. I think it is something that we should pursue.

I was surprised that more work had not been done by the Treasury and by the line department on this matter of the cost. I think it means that the bill is genuinely unsupported by a broad evidence base, and I have concluded that, in the absence of being able to ascertain the cost, the things that really matter here will be the signals that we send to the market—recognising that, whatever the cost may be, I think we can all agree that this country does not have enough capital to fund the transition ourselves. Those who have bandied around the idea of using other pools of capital for this purpose—like the superannuation scheme, for example—are, I think, very wrongheaded. The day that that scheme starts to pursue non-financial objectives is the day that it will be on the road to ruin. So, setting aside the major domestic pools of capital, we are going to have to seek funding from offshore to fund these major capital investments in this transition to net zero.

There are two things about this issue that I think are really important in the debate on this bill: What are the policies of the parties of government? And what are the policies that those parties of government will take to market? I think we have had some significant developments in recent months. And I very much welcome, as a member of one of the parties of government, that the leader of my party, Mr Dutton, said on 11 August, in relation to the 2030 targets—which is a large part of this debate—that our target 'is likely to come in well north of 35 per cent, maybe 40 per cent-plus' and that we'll 'have a very credible policy, I can promise you, by the time of the next election'. Now, that is a significant statement, and it is a statement that, from the coalition's point of view, puts an end to the 2015 targets, at 26 to 28 per cent reductions in carbon emissions, that we have had for too long, in my view. Those targets should have been updated to reflect what is now possible. Even our own modelling in the last parliament showed that it was possible to exceed 26 to 28.

In relation to this, the Business Council of Australia said that they think bipartisanship is very important and that they are very supportive of both major parties coming to the net zero position. The BCA said to the committee that they would be strongly supportive of a more ambitious coalition target. I look forward to playing my role—because you've got to focus on what you can control—of helping the party of government, with the coalition, to have the best possible plan that we can have for 2030 and 2035. That is something that is within our preserve, and I think a significant change has been achieved in the past few months: that we have put an end to the Abbott-era 2030 targets. So, I look forward to that process over the next couple of years.

The second issue is about the policies. Again, I like to say that it's important to focus on the outcomes, not on the embroidery. There are many policies that can be deployed in this space to get emissions down. You can look at the fuel standards. You can look at your tax policies, You can look at your corporate law. You can look at how you might require companies to disclose their emissions. You can look at how emerging technologies like cryptocurrencies can tokenise the carbon credit system and how that can be used. There are so many opportunities in this space that draw on Australia's core equities of being a sophisticated, high-wage economy.

One of the things we have done in the past few weeks is that we have been able to examine another bill, which has looked at the tax arrangements on electric vehicles, and there is no doubt that how that bill has been drafted is a very muddled approach. That has been cherrypicked out of a National Electric Vehicle Strategy, which prior speakers in this debate have referred to. It is important that we think carefully about these policies, that we cost them and work out, 'Okay, if we're going to have this particular measure, this is how much carbon abatement we're going to achieve.' I think that is very important.

In relation to corporate law—and, again, I think that as a safe and strong jurisdiction, as an open democracy with the rule of law and as a member of the G20 group of nations—we should be looking to be a leader on carbon disclosure. We shouldn't be looking to do it through self-regulation. We shouldn't be asking the Corporate Governance Council to put out a note. We should be looking to pass laws in the life of this parliament to ensure that Australia is going to have an aggressive but measured approach on carbon disclosure. I believe that the countries that have the most transparency on these issues are more likely to be able to attract marginal capital. If you are an investor, if you are an international investor—whether you're BlackRock or you're a smaller investor—if you can look into an organisation and make a judgement about their risk profile by looking at their scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, then I think you're more likely to invest into that nation than into another nation. And as a nation that has often exported corporate law, we should be looking to do that again.

I note that some in this place like to junk all fossil fuels in together, but that ignores the statements of the scientists. Whether it's Finkel or whether it's our own institutions or whether it's Larry Fink at BlackRock, which is the world's biggest investor—I want to make the point that everyone who is credible and serious identifies gas as a necessary transition fuel, so we should not be conceding on gas. I'm pleased that the coalition is pushing this government on gas and building on our record in government where we had some important initiatives in this space.

Of course, the same goes for nuclear. There's no reason that we would have an ideological position that would preclude the country from using this particular form of technology, particularly when you consider the large deposits of uranium we have in this country. We will be well served to remove the obstacles for using nuclear. I mean, it seems to be a bizarre position that if the market wanted to use this particular formula of energy production, it would be prohibited because of an ideological position that was put in place decades ago. So I do think this body of work that has been done by the environment and communications committee has made a very persuasive case for the removal of the nuclear prohibition, and I look forward to the work that is going to be done for the Leader of the Opposition on this matter.

In summary—look, it is not true that the majority position of the G20 countries is to legislate a target. The Parliamentary Library itself has said that 12 of the 20 countries have not legislated a target. Having said that, I don't think it's necessarily the end of the world if you do it. The point I've made in these remarks is that the key legislative component here, even though it is international law, is done through the NDC, so whatever you do here is simply superfluous. If I was the minister for energy and climate change, or if I was a minister for any portfolio, I would not be describing my own legislation as 'not necessary'. Why would we, as a parliament, enact a bill that the minister has said is unnecessary. I don't think that's our job.

Finally, it is very important that we reflect on what we can control in these roles that we have been given, and I am very pleased that the coalition, as a party of government, is committing itself to having a more ambitious agenda for 2030. It is true that it was our government that committed the country to net zero emissions at 2050, which was one of the signature achievements of the last government. All that is left for us to do now, as a party of government, is to ensure that we have a credible position, one that is more aggressive than the 2015 targets, for 2030 and 2035 and all the other interceding years. That is something I look forward to working with my coalition colleagues on.

If we achieve that, we are sending a signal to the market that both of the parties of government are committed to emissions reduction and are committed to getting Australia where we need to get in the medium and long term, and we should do that in a way which is technology agnostic. I don't believe we should be throwing gas in with coal. I think they have fundamentally different characteristics, as referenced by the scientists and the major investors, and I also think that we should be very much open to this debate on nuclear energy for domestic purposes. It makes no sense that we would be the greatest exporter of uranium but have no view about using it for our own domestic purposes. They are important issues. I thank the Senate committee for their work on the bill, it was an important inquiry, and I thank the Senate for the opportunity to speak to this bill this afternoon.

I rise today to speak in favour of these pieces of legislation, and I want to put squarely on the record right from the beginning that it is because the Greens have worked constructively that we have been able to improve and strengthen these pieces of legislation so they are acceptable. Forty-three per cent is nowhere near where we need to go if we are to reduce and cut pollution to save this fragile planet. It is nowhere near where we need to go if we are to give our children a future which they can rely on, a safe climate, clean water, healthy air and clean, safe food. But it is, now we have strengthened this bill, a step forward in the right direction.

What we now need is to put in action the things that will drive pollution down, that will cut pollution. We often talk about carbon pollution during this debate. That is true. But there is also a huge amount of urgent work to do to cut methane in this country and across the world, and it is why Australia must sign the methane pledge. The big gas companies are getting away with secretly polluting the atmosphere even more than is being recorded, and it needs to stop. The big gas companies and gas industry need to be held to account for their toxic contribution to the climate catastrophe because of leaking methane. The International Energy Agency, the UN and even the Pope have called on governments right around the world to stop funding the expansion of new fossil fuels. They have called on governments to stop subsidising fossil fuels and allowing their expansion. I want to acknowledge that even earlier this week one of Australia's leading businessmen, Twiggy Forrest, called for a halt and a stop to the expansion of fossil fuels and fossil fuel subsidies.

The rest of the world get it, and they've been waiting for Australia to catch up. The climate has changed. Climate change is here: the bushfires, the floods and the droughts not just in our own country but right around the world. All we need to look at is the 33 million people displaced and impacted by the terrible, deadly floods in Pakistan over recent weeks. Europe has been in the grips of a heatwave this summer, and we are already hearing state governments in our own country being briefed about the fire risk of the coming summer here. Our wildlife and our environment are suffering, and for years the community has been waking up and demanding action from our government to take seriously the threats of this climate catastrophe and to do what is needed. The business community have been far ahead of the parliament in recent years, much further ahead in wanting to tackle the climate challenge than previous governments. Well, now we have an opportunity to pass through this place this week a commitment not only that we acknowledge that climate change is happening but that we have to do something about it, and that something means cutting pollution.

What this bill doesn't include is the mechanisms by which we get there. We need a climate trigger in our environment laws to stop the expansion of big new projects that are going to continue to make climate change worse. We have a huge task in front of us to cut the amount of pollution that is currently being created, a huge task, but one we must tackle, in fact our survival as a community and a species requires us to tackle. But how on earth will we cut the amount of pollution currently being created while opening up avenues for more pollution to be created? You don't put out the fire by pouring petrol on it. A climate trigger in our environment laws is needed in this country to stop the expansion of those polluting projects that are going to make it harder and harder and harder for us to deal with climate change.

Debate interrupted.

There are many great causes and charitable organisations that we come across in these jobs. I do want to put on the record that Mr Scott Maggs, who is a longstanding friend of mine, has made a material difference to the lives of many by instituting a system of skin checks for people, which is something that they can easily control. Scott got onto this idea after a good friend of ours, Wes Bonny, unfortunately passed way from melanoma in his early 20s. One of the things that could have saved Wes's life was this idea of proactively going and getting your skin checked, perhaps once every six months or once a year.

Scott has done an incredible job, on his own steam, of establishing an organisation called Skin Check Champions, where people can go and have their skin checked. If you look at his testimonials, he has saved dozens and dozens of people from having very difficult health outcomes, just by virtue of them having gone and got the check. As I say, in our role we meet so many terrific people who do so many great things for the community. I do think the brilliance of the Skin Check Champions idea and concept is that it is easy to understand, it is easy to do, and Scott has done a great job by doing it. Scott is also known, strangely, as Jimmy Niggles. I've never understood that alter ego, but it's good to have a few strange people in your life. Well done, Scott, you've done a great job. You've changed a lot of people's lives for the better.

I want to speak about the important work of Union Aid Abroad APHEDA in supporting economic development in the Asia-Pacific. APHEDA was established in 1984 through the work of a young Australian nurse named Helen McHugh, a committed member of the Australian Nursing Federation, after she'd been working as a nurse educator with the World Health Organization in refugee camps in the Middle East.

I recently met with APHEDA's Executive Director, Kate Lee, and Lachlan Batchelor to hear about the important work Union Aid Abroad APHEDA does in the Asia-Pacific region. APHEDA's international program is about building solidarity and self-reliance for workers and their communities. Working with the International Trade Union Confederation, APHEDA supports energy transition programs in India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Nepal, and supports gender equality in Cambodia. Inequality in our region is at record highs. Inequality weakens communities, societies and institutions. It makes government work less efficiently. It costs more to do less.

Workers in our region experience subsistence wages, long working hours, poor conditions and hostile governments; there are also threats to the lives of union activists and their families. Trade unions are the backbone of communities in unequal societies.

The government has made the Asia-Pacific region the top foreign relations priority after a decade of neglect by those opposite. This government has been leading the charge to fix the damage done by those opposite, which has left us on the back foot in our own neighbourhood. For a few cents each we can immeasurably improve the lives of our Asia-Pacific neighbours and, at the same time, strengthen security in our region. They deserve our support and I commend the work of APHEDA to the Senate.

Just last week I had the pleasure of visiting Kindaimanna Community Kindergarten and Byford Community Kindergarten with my state colleague, the Hon. Donna Faragher. The commitment of parent communities, teachers and education assistants there is outstanding. They are truly passionate about educating and supporting some of the youngest members of our community.

The importance of early childhood education is often overlooked, and I believe that a community based approach is one way to really help those communities. It can make or break the support for children in their formative years. We discussed the importance of early intervention and the role that it can play for children who are having learning and behavioural challenges. It can be difficult for families to afford the appropriate services that are needed to support these children, but I'm encouraged that families in WA have the support of community kindergartens. Unfortunately, many community kindergartens are at risk of being shut down. The Western Australian government is making it more and more difficult for them to keep their doors open by raising the enrolment requirement and not providing sufficient resources.

Madam Acting Deputy President Cox, it is critical that we work together to provide our children with opportunities so that they can have the very best start in life, and this will set them up for success. It's not a case of just having more childcare places or more universal access to child care. What we have to ensure is that we have the appropriate services that are there, particularly for vulnerable families and particularly for vulnerable children, which I know you are also very committed to seeing. So I urge the WA government and, indeed, this government here federally to take the time to see the positive impact of programs like this, community kindergartens and other initiatives that rely on families who know what they need to support their children.

Australia is a committed and longstanding partner of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and it's now time for Australia to again play its part in the new replenishment round which is currently underway. The replenishment will happen on 19 September, and I know Australia is busily preparing to make its pledge later this month. The Australian government is indeed working closely with the global fund on implementation of their new strategic priority beyond 2023 to 2028. The global fund has saved millions and millions of lives—some 44 million—and lifted many, many more out of health poverty. More than 17 million lives have been saved in our own region, so it's time now for Australia to reinvest in this important multilateral.

The global fund pulls funding from donor countries, from philanthropic organisations, from the private sector and, importantly, from developing countries themselves. With every dollar given by Australia, we see $31 in health gains and economic returns. I'm really pleased to say that people with lived experience have always been at the heart of the global fund's activity, working with the private sector and governments to design, implement and monitor grants and really to address these health impacts in AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria on the ground. The global fund is asking Australia for an increased commitment of some $450 million over the next three years. I know that we're working very closely with them, and a strong commitment will get Australia and the world on track to defeat AIDS, TB and malaria. (Time expired)

Today is National TAFE Day, a day to stop and think about all the good work that TAFEs have done. My mum went to TAFE, I went to TAFE, my son went to TAFE. TAFE was a godsend for someone like me—someone who may not have been the best at school, but who likes to get stuck in and do things, practical things. Back in the day, TAFE was where things were at, but we've let things go over the years and now TAFE is a far cry from where it was. It's time to give TAFE a facelift and bring it back into the modern world, to make it 21st century.

The government made some announcements recently: 180,000 new fee-free TAFE places and $3.7 billion funding over five years to reform the VET sector. That money is a bit funny, given that Labor and the coalition teamed up three years ago and ripped the guts of $4 billion out of the future education fund. These announcements are all very well and good, but we need to overhaul how TAFE works and make sure it's effectively plugging the gap of our skills shortage. We need to look at the core structures. Some of the courses are outdated, or they take too long and have unnecessary red tape. We need to think about TAFE relationships with industry and how to add value with the private sector.

Don't get me started on the need to invest far more money into our TAFE schools. They're not fit for purpose. Every year that the schools are left without money, it's going to cost more money to get them up to scratch. We've got schools with rust on the floors and asbestos in the ceilings, and equipment dating back to the Cold War. One Tassie TAFE even has a bit of rabbit play going on. We can't provide proper equipment and classrooms to learn in, and that's if you can learn at all. A teacher shortage is causing courses to be cancelled left, right and centre. Twenty apprentice electricians on Tassie's north-west coast have had their training blocks cut because there isn't anyone to teach their course. The course won't start again until next year.

I'm sick of standing up here like a broken record banging on about this. We know these problems exist. Get them prioritised and get them fixed.

Ninety-seven is the number of times the Labor government, when in opposition, committed to reducing Australians power prices by $275 a year. This is a failed promise from the Labor Party. Not only is this causing enormous pain for Australian families, on a day when we are expecting to see another lift in interest rates it is causing enormous pain for small businesses, at a time when our small businesses—our retailers, those working in the hospitality sector and our manufacturers—need every bit of a leg up. The pain for our manufacturers with these rocketing electricity prices is absolutely appalling. This is going to drive manufacturers out of business. On top of that, what a great result was the Jobs and Skills Summit—when I say 'great', I am being sanctimonious—with the decision of industry-wide bargaining, which is taking us back to the Dark Ages. It was effectively abolished by the Keating government, and it is going to cause industrial chaos in every small business around the country if the Labor Party gets its way. This is appalling. This would never have been supported by Bob Hawke, by Paul Keating, by Kevin Rudd or by Julia Gillard, but this left-wing Prime Minister is determined to destroy small businesses around this country.

As Assistant Minister for Indigenous Health, I would like to give a short update on Indigenous health in the first hundred days of this government. The Australian government is investing $106 million to provide face-to-face support for older First Nations people and $115 million to provide culturally safe aged-care facilities. We're also progressing on our commitment to train 500 new First Nations health workers to fill gaps across the health system. The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, NACCHO, is working hand in hand with us to design the program to ensure it meets the needs of First Nations people and the health services which care for them.

We've invested in better outcomes and more appropriate care for people living with cancer across Australia. On Sunday we marked Polycystic Kidney Disease Awareness Day, and we know a large number of Indigenous Australians suffer from kidney disease and are on dialysis for end-stage kidney disease. It was an important moment last week when we announced that a life-changing treatment for chronic kidney disease is now available to thousands of Australians through an expansion of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme listing. It's the first new treatment added to the PBS in more than 20 years for Australians living with proteinuric chronic kidney disease, and thousands of Australians could benefit from a subsidised listing each year. It could also benefit any Australians living with chronic kidney disease. We know that the disease takes a heavy physical, social and economic toll on First Nations communities, with First Nations people being twice as likely to have the condition and much more likely to die from it.

Although these issues are complex and can't be fixed overnight, our government is committed to continuing this work because all Indigenous Australians—indeed, all Australians—deserve to live long, healthy and happy lives.

The Prime Minister fronted the National Press Club last week and gave the most pathetic response to a question about repealing the obscene stage 3 tax cuts. He said: 'We tried to amend them out. We weren't successful. They were legislated, and we made a decision to "stand by that legislation rather than relitigate it."'

Well, how far the once great Australian Labor Party has fallen! The stage 3 tax cuts that the Labor Party now supports were designed by Scott Morrison, introduced by Scott Morrison and confirmed by Scott Morrison as Prime Minister. They will give billionaires, CEOs and politicians a $9,000-a-year bonus and they will give people on the minimum wage absolutely nothing. Over the next decade, these obscene tax cuts for the top end will strip $244 billion out of the budget and put three quarters of that money into the pockets and wallets of the highest income earners in the country. With $244 billion you could put dental and mental health into Medicare, build affordable housing and make child care free.

These obscene tax cuts will obliterate Australia's progressive tax system. They are exactly the kind of policy that the Labor Party was formed to oppose. They should be repealed, and yet here is Mr Albanese and his colleagues in this place standing by them. Well, if the Labor Party is standing by these tax cuts, they are Labor's tax cuts. The stage 3 tax cuts for the top end are now the Labor Party's tax cuts.

Invasive species are wreaking havoc on Australia's ecosystems and threatening our biodiversity. There are huge costs not only to our biodiversity but to our farmers and our economy, costing at least $25 billion a year. We have let the destructive influence of invasive species into our country and now we are dealing with the costs. Invasives are threatening 1,267 Australian native plants and animals, and 82 per cent of all of our threatened species are being pushed towards extinction by invasive species. Australian mammals now represent more than a third of all mammals that have become extinct across the globe since the year 1500. The recent State of the environment report was clear: invasive species are putting pressure on Australia's biodiversity, and these pressures look set to continue and increase in the future.

We need to act swiftly if we are to halt this decline. In the ACT, action groups are working hard against ongoing extinctions. Members of my community have raised concerns about the development of grassy woodlands at north Lawson in the ACT and the impact it could have on endangered threatened species such as the golden sun moth. It is important to protect habitat where it still exists, and submissions for consideration under the EPBC Act close tomorrow. I look forward to helping ensure that our new environmental laws actually address the concerns of everyday Australians about the way that we are protecting and looking after our natural heritage.

Last week I was fortunate enough to be in Israel, hosted by the wonderful organisation known as AIJAC. We spent time both in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv, but what was potentially one of the most eye-opening parts of the trip that we did was a visit to Ramallah. Whilst in Ramallah, we met with the Palestinian prime minister and were given a tour through what is referred to as a refugee camp but is a settlement; these are permanent buildings. Perhaps one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen was pointed out by our Palestinian guide; to quote her, this monument we were looking at was to commemorate 'the suicide bombers who had killed Jewish civilians'. These people were being immortalised in monuments in this centre in Ramallah.

I spoke to the Prime Minister of Palestine from the PA in his office about this and asked how, by immortalising these people, by not even adhering to the basic principles of the rule of war, by actively killing civilians, they could ever expect a conversation. But the fact is that the Palestinians have a policy that is colloquially known—in fact, I think it's even a bit more formal than that—as 'pay for slay'. If you kill a Jewish civilian and get sent to jail, you receive circa 12,000 shekels per month. That is three to four times what the average teacher gets paid. If you happen to be killed, your family receives this money. This money comes from the international community. It is a disgrace. And this is backed by the ABC, hence the removal of Fouad AbuGhosh's Twitter account.

Yesterday, in questions without notice, I asked Senator Gallagher, the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Aged Care, about the availability of birth data. Her response included a statement to the effect that this information is available from the states. Senator Gallagher needs to be aware that it used to be available. New South Wales, South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory no longer publish this data. Queensland publishes data at the end of the year, meaning Queensland data is nine months out of date. Victorian data is already available for August 2022, so someone down there is doing their job.

Victorian births in August 2021 were 6,700. In August 2022, they were 5,900. Western Australia provides quarterly data for births: in the June quarter 2021, there were 8,750 births; in the same period this year, there were 8,060. That's all the data we have. How can we make life-and-death decisions with insufficient information? These variations could just be the lockdown babies working through the system. They could be anything. We don't know, and that is the problem.

When health policy has been as intrusive, expensive and controversial as Lib-Lab's COVID response, wouldn't this data be compulsory viewing for decision-makers? And yet the best the Commonwealth Bureau of Statistics can manage for births and cause of death is December 2020. That's 20 months behind. What are they hiding, as I asked? Data for provisional mortality is four months behind, while Victoria can provide their data in five days. All the states use sophisticated reporting routines. The data delay is not with the states. I have submitted a document discovery for the latest data the ABS has on births, deaths and cause of mortality. As long as COVID is said to continue, this data should be provided monthly—one month behind, not two years and nine months behind. We have one flag. We are one community. We are one nation.

When the Albanese government granted the long-suffering Murugappan family from Biloela a permanent visa last month, I found myself cautiously hopeful that it might signal a shift in the way we treat refugees in this country. How wrong I was. For many months, I have been advocating for the release of Ned Kelly, a 37-year-old Iranian refugee being held in detention in WA. Almost a decade ago, Ned sought our protection, fleeing his home country of Iran to Australia, facing persecution and in great danger. Our response as a nation has been to lock him up and to throw away the key.

Contrary to what the major parties might tell you, there is nothing illegal about Ned's actions. It is his right as a human being to seek asylum. It is our legal and moral obligation as a nation to provide it. In a letter in February, I wrote to then home affairs minister Karen Andrews, pleading with her to provide the necessary supports to Ned, whose torture by our own hands has resulted in PTSD, in self-harm and in several suicide attempts. The minister did not respond to my letter, nor has the new government responded to my calls for Ned's release. Sadly, this is not a surprise. Despite their claims of compassion for asylum seekers, the Albanese government's position is to support the depraved coalition border policies that keep people like Ned detained indefinitely. This is a national shame, and the Greens will push back against it until every single refugee in detention is freed.

Western Australia is home to a vibrant and diverse African community, and every year we celebrate a year of all things African and Australian. This year Africa Down Under, which is held annually in Perth, was held. It's the largest African mining event held outside of the African continent.

Last week the 21st conference was held after two years of COVID disruptions and it was the best yet. I had the privilege of joining over a thousand delegates to hear from over 60 presenters and view 70 exhibitions. In total, 355 international delegates participated from 14 African mining nations, including 15 government ministers as well as their heads of mission from Canberra.

As a Western Australian senator, I understand the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean Rim nations, including, of course, those across Africa, not just in their importance geostrategically but also in the rich cultural, social and economic benefits we provide mutually.

Pleasingly, this year's program had strong representation from companies developing projects in the battery and technology metals sector. Few here, and probably across Western Australia, know that there are more than 120 ASX listed companies actively operating or developing over 222 projects across 32 African nations, and 68 per cent of those are based in Perth, more specifically in West Perth. These companies are involved in projects across 21 commodities, and more than 40 of the projects are focused on gold, but there is considerable interest from Western Australian companies also investing in battery metals such as cobalt, copper, graphite, lithium and nickel.

Congratulations to the amazing Bill Repard and the Paydirt Media team for another amazing conference.

I want to rise to make a quick contribution. I don't know if anyone saw the 4 Corners show on Qantas last night. I don't want to hear all the bulldust and all the excuses about COVID. We know all that. The Qantas company is being driven into the ground by one of the worst boards and one of the worst CEOs, being led by a person and people who are happy to illegally sack 2,000 under-the-wing workers to outsource their jobs.

It gets worse. I have spoken with many Qantas cabin crew. As a lot of you interact with Qantas cabin crew, it's not hard to see how unhappy the workforce is. They come to me because they know my background. They know my background of Qantas trying to sue me for $94,000 for sticking up for transport workers. Men and women, to a tee, can't wait to tell me of the shocking conditions that they face at Qantas.

A lot of you over there wouldn't know that just within the cabin crew there are no less than 10 industrial arrangements. Ten! Talk about people mixing on the same planes on different agreements. Talk about labour hire, which is the scourge of the industrial arena scene. If I had another three hours, I'd tell you what I really think about labour hire!

The undermining of conditions that were negotiated with unions—how do I know? Because I was on Qantas EBA 3 and Qantas EBA 4 negotiating for the TWU members in Perth. They'd be standing alongside another man or woman who could be working for some $60 less per shift. Some of the workers on some of those grubby labour hire agreements do not even get paid if they have to stay overnight; they'll get the transfer, they'll get the accommodation, and they'll get nothing else.

I've got to tell you: you should watch Four Corners. It might open your eyes. Alan Joyce is not God. (Time expired)

I got into politics to help people through good government, not to judge them. However, there are some things that government should not be involved in, and that is especially so when it comes to parenting. If my children have issues with their sexual identity, my wife and I will deal with that, either by ourselves or with a properly trained psychologist outside of the classroom.

The legal age of consent in this country is 16. There is no need to be discussing or promoting sexual orientation or identities in the classroom. I don't pay taxes for the government to fund the education system to push indoctrination. Don't kid yourself. Indoctrination does influence our children.

Once you get to 18, you can do whatever you like. It's your business. But the government doesn't get to co-parent our children. That is solely the role of the parent. So I was surprised the other day when I was told that my son, who has only just turned 10, can wear purple socks to school to show his support for diversity.

I had another constituent contact me to ask further questions about this and he wants to promote the point of this. It was to promote supportive, safe, empowering and inclusive environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, intersex, queer and questioning young people.

Thank you, Senator Rennick. The time for two-minute statements has expired. We're now going to move to questions without notice.

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Senator Watt. United Workers Union secretary Tim Kennedy said that workplace laws should most definitely be amended to allow workers to hit major companies with strikes at the same time. Minister, will you guarantee that the Albanese Labor government will not allow this to occur?

Thank you, Senator McGrath, for the question. What is it about the opposition that all they want to do is talk about conflict? What is it about them? The simple concept—

Honourable senators interjecting—

Minister, resume your seat. We will just wait for quiet so we can all hear the minister's response.

Senator McKenzie! Minister Watt.

As I say, what is it about these people? They were in government for nine years. They delivered a wages and bargaining system that is completely broken. They had low wages as a design feature of their economic policy.

Minister, please resume your seat. Senator McKenzie?

What is it with this minister that he refuses to answer the most basic of questions?

Honour able senators interjecting—

Order! I remind senators, if you are seeking to make a point of order, that you stand and you indicate to the Senate that you are making a point of order. That is not a point of order. Please continue, Minister Watt.

It really is a shame, after an election, after a jobs and skills summit which saw the country brought together by a new government, that the only group that doesn't want to accept that people want to cooperate is the opposition. We know what it's like to be in opposition; we were there for a few years. The approach we took was that you pick your fights—you actually look for constructive opportunities when you can, and you pick your fights when you really have to. But this opposition—all they seem to do is: whatever the idea, they're against it.

Honourable senators interjecting—

They'd be against the sun rising in the east and they'd be against the sun setting in the west because they want to oppose everything that happens.

Now, the opposition want to continue fighting, just as they did for nine years. They want to continue delivering lower productivity and lower wages through a conflict driven IR system. But it's not just through an IR system that they want to maintain the conflict. I was very interested to see—

Senator Watt, please resume your seat. Senator McGrath?

President, I raise a point of order on relevance. The question was very tightly worded, and the minister has come nowhere near answering the question. In fact, he has gone anywhere but near answering the question. I would ask you to get the minister to come back and answer the question, please.

I would remind senators that question time should be conducted in relative quiet. It has been very hard for me to hear Senator Watt, despite Senator Watt being able to project his voice. But I will remind Senator Watt of the question and that he has 37 seconds left to answer the question.

The government have made very clear that we will be consulting employers, unions and a range of other people as to how this agreement will be implemented and will deal with all of those issues. But, again, I was very concerned to see some reports this morning in The Australian that, in response to COSBOA's comments about reaching an agreement on these matters, coalition backbenchers were 'out for blood' on the issue. Now, we've heard a lot about thuggery and intimidation from the other side when it comes to industrial relations. Well, who are the thugs now? Who's doing the intimidating now? In fact, some coalition MPs argued that COSBOA had betrayed small business owners, likening it to a snake. That's the kind of behaviour— (Time expired)

Senator McGrath, a first supplementary?

Minister, can you guarantee that there'll be no productivity losses caused by industrywide bargaining and strike action?

Senator McGrath, I don't know who's feeding you your questions, but you should have a read of them before you ask them. If you want to talk about lower productivity in this country, who was responsible for lower productivity over the last nine years? You. It was the opposition that was responsible for that, through a conflict driven IR system.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Minister Watt, please resume your seat.

It's pretty easy to guarantee it.

Senator Payne! I would ask the Senate to listen quietly so that we can all hear the response from the minister.

Thank you, President. It's good to good to know Senator Payne is still here. I had not heard much from her since the election, so it is good to hear from her. We want to talk about lower productivity.

Oh, you are back! You're back!

Order! Minister.

I'm welcoming more contributions from Senator Payne; that's what I'm doing. Now, seriously, lower productivity: if you want to talk about an IR system that delivers lower productivity, have a look in the mirror. You had nine years of delivering lower productivity through an IR system that was all about conflict and not about agreement. That's what we're trying to fix. We're trying to fix an IR system that is riven with conflict, and you want to drag us back to a system with lower productivity and lower wages That's why the Australian people voted against you, because they want more agreement and less conflict. (Time expired)

Senator McGrath, a second supplementary question?

Given rising interest rates, rising inflation and businesses battling increased costs of doing business, why is the Albanese government prioritising policies that will encourage economy-wide strike action?

Senator McGrath is correct. We do see cost of living pressures in this country at the moment and that's why we have a range of policies in place to deal with it, such as delivering wage rises. The best way to deliver cost-of-living relief is to get people's wages up.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Minister, please resume your seat. Can we please have quiet when the minister is answering.

Senator McKenzie, I just called the Senate up and Senator Wong for the constant interjections. I would appreciate it, when the minister is answering the question—your questions—to give him the courtesy of listening to the answer. Please continue, Minister.

Thank you, President. As I say, we recognise there are cost-of-living pressures in this country and that is why we are acting on them. We are acting on cheaper child care. We're acting on them in cheaper medicines. We are putting downward pressure on energy prices. That is part of our commitment, as we have said. More importantly, we are lifting wages at the same time. Which government supported a minimum wage rise? The Albanese Labor government. Who opposed it? The opposition. Which government supported a wage rise for aged-care workers? The Albanese Labor government. Who opposed it? The opposition. That is how we will fix cost-of-living pressures, not by dragging our IR system back to the past and then accusing people who have the right to stand up for it for being out for blood.

Senator McGrath, these were your questions.

Don't answer back, thank you. I'm asking you to respect the question that you asked and the answer that's been given.

My question is to the Minister for Women, Senator Gallagher. Can the minister outline how the recent Jobs and Skills Summit, which I was privileged to attend on Thursday morning, placed women front and centre to ensure gender equality is a core economic priority?

I thank Senator O'Neill for the question and acknowledge her advocacy in women's policy over the years. I acknowledge that today. The Albanese Labor government's Jobs and Skills Summit brought together Australians, including unions, employers, civil society and governments, to find common ground on some of our big economic challenges and to drive a consensus towards the solutions. Women's economic equality was a core focus of the summit. I've been really pleased by the response to date at the role of women at the summit: they were more than 50 per cent of the participants. They led the panels. They led the debate. There were some amazing speakers who attended the summit, full of talent. It was amazing to witness their contributions and the fact they were centre stage and a key focus.

Gender equality and women's economic participation were points of discussion across all the sessions at the Jobs and Skills Summit. The two-day summit's first session was focused specifically on this topic. Participants discussed the policy space, not only around equal opportunity and pay but also the care economy, boosting work and training opportunities for women, and examined how we can make all workplaces safer for women. And practical measures to reduce the gender pay gap were discussed at the summit.

One of the key outcomes of the summit, apart from the fact that the talented women at the summit were so amazing, was that there was agreement across all participants that women's economic equality should be seen as a key economic priority—something that I know many senators, like Senator McAllister and Senator Waters, have for some time been arguing for.

Senator O'Neill, a first supplementary question?

Can the minister highlight the measures for women that have been announced out of the Jobs and Skills Summit?

I thank Senator O'Neill for the supplementary question. Following the summit there were a number of areas where we did reach agreement. One of them was around modernising Australia's workplace relations laws to make sure bargaining is accessible for all workers and businesses, including those feminised industries where we have seen really low wages growth and the failure of the bargaining system to work for women. Another area was around improving access to jobs and training pathways for women, First Nations people, regional Australians and culturally and linguistically diverse people, including equity targets for training places, 1,000 digital apprenticeships in the Australian Public Service, and other measures to reduce barriers to employment. We're also making sure that the APS is leading by example by reporting to WGEA and setting targets on improving gender equity in the Public Service. There were also a range of agreements around reporting data to WGEA.

Senator O'Neill, a second supplementary question?

Thank you, Minister, for that report on the practical action arising. Can the minister outline how this builds on existing commitments made by the Albanese Labor government to advance the issues facing Australian women and to restore national leadership on gender equality?

I thank Senator O'Neill for her question. And she's right: for too long, women's policy was in the wilderness under the previous government. It's front and centre under this government. That's the big change. For everything we discuss, every policy developed and every consideration, we will have an analysis of what it means for women: how does it impact women? Is it good? Is it bad? How do we change it to make sure it deals with some of the issues that come out of that research?

I would note that it's no surprise that Mr Morrison didn't take on the Minister for Women portfolio when he was taking Senator Birmingham's portfolio! Poor old Senator Birmingham: he shared his finance ministry with the Prime Minister for the entire time he was finance minister—unlike Tony Abbott, who did take the women's ministry. But we are putting women's policy front and centre, and I look forward to working with all interested senators on doing just that.

My question is to the Minister representing the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, Senator Gallagher. Does the minister know of any Treasury portfolio precedent for removing transparency on payments through aggregation as has been delivered for the superannuation industry and trade unions in regulations released last Friday?

I would have to take on notice the precedent question that you asked, because I want to make sure that all my answers here are accurate, and I'm sorry, but I don't have all of that dating back to 1901, where your question leads me to. So, I would want to have a look at that.

I would also say that the regulations tabled by the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services had I think responded to some of the concerns that had been raised around transparency in this place from the draft regulations to ensure that those questions around transparency could be dealt with. I'm sure the Senate will have more to say on this as it debates these regulations, but I think the Assistant Treasurer responded to some of the concerns and that data will be provided. But, as you know—and I think I've heard it from you guys plenty of times over the years—making sure that reporting is transparent but is also efficient and effective is equally important.

Senator Smith, a first supplementary question?

Madam President, this is not my first supplementary, but just to query: does this mean—

Senator Smith, what are you doing?

that the information will be provided at the end of question time?

Senator Smith, you will recall that I reminded the Senate at the beginning of question time: if you are seeking a point of order, say it. I've invited you to make your first supplementary.

My query is whether or not Senator Gallagher will make—

Senator Smith, either ask your first supplementary question or I will have no alternative other than to move on.

Can the minister confirm that payments from super funds to unions could rise from $12.9 million in 2021-22 to $35 million in 2030? Can the minister further confirm that the details of these payments will now be hidden from super fund members?

I thank Senator Smith for the supplementary question. I'm not sure where those numbers are coming from, so I would want to check on those before going to the specifics. Look, we know you're opposed to super. We know you can't stand industry funds. We know you don't like unions. You don't like unions, you don't like industry funds, you don't like super. You can't bear it. The regulations will allow transparent reporting of information, streamlining some of the requirements. They will still be required to do a whole range of reporting.

I know you're obsessed with the fact you think that industry super funds make political donations, which is where this is going. They've been asked about that. They say they don't. We've asked the independent regulator, APRA, who have been poring over this issue. They have not found anything. So let's debate it. I'm sure we will have the opportunity to debate this when the regs come before the Senate.

Senator Smith, a second supplementary question.

The Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services justified the recently updated regulations on superannuation annual members' meeting notices by claiming that the previous disclosure rules were too onerous on funds. What is the estimated cost saving the industry may be able to benefit from as a result of these new measures?

I will take that part of the question on notice as well and will come back to the chamber, if I can provide further information. I would say that under the draft regulations—which, no doubt, this Senate will debate—funds will still be required to provide written notice to members which detail fund performance, their outcomes for the period, the total payments they make to industrial bodies, marketing and advocacy. If I can provide further information around this—notwithstanding the fact that we acknowledge the opposition are opposed to superannuation, really. If you were able to say it, you would.

Senator Rennick just said it was evil! You just said it was evil. We know what you're on about. You're obsessed with industry funds. You're obsessed with super. You're obsessed with working people actually having a decent retirement.

Minister!

Senator Scarr and Senator McGrath, I believe you were directing those comments directly at the minister. I ask them to be withdrawn, without repeating the offence.

I withdraw.

I withdraw.

Two weeks ago the government opened up 47,000 square kilometres of Australia's oceans for gas and oil exploration. The science is overwhelmingly clear—

Sorry, Senator Cox, I don't want to interrupt you, but to which minister is your question directed?

My question is to Minister Farrell representing the Minister for Resources. In order for us to avoid this climate disaster we simply can't open up any new fossil fuel or gas fields. What formula did the Minister for Resources apply in making the decision to ensure that the recent announcement didn't contravene the government's own 43 per cent emissions reduction target and Australia's commitments under the Paris Agreement?

I thank the senator for the question. I will preface my comments by saying that Minister King has been doing a terrific job in this space since she came into the portfolio—a very fine job. The Albanese—

An honourable senator: Do you have an answer?

With respect, Senator, if you'd let me finish my answer—

Government senators interjecting—

Order!

As distinct from the now opposition, the Albanese government went to the last election with a commitment that we would introduce—

Minister, please resume your seat. Senator Cox.

The question was quite direct: what formula did the minister apply in her decision-making in this recent announcement about oceans?

Are you raising a point of order?

On relevance, yes.

Minister, I draw your attention back to the question put by Senator Cox.

Thank you. The Albanese government went to the last election with a commitment to reduce emissions by 43 per cent by 2030, and that's what we're going to do. That's the commitment we made to the Australian people. That's the commitment we will deliver on, and in a short space of time you're going to get a chance to vote on that very commitment. In the meantime, we need to transition from the current position that we find ourselves in to that 43 per cent reduction, and the way in which we're going to do that— (Time expired)

Senator Cox, first supplementary. Order!

Considering we didn't get an answer to that one: can the minister provide a time frame in which the government will sign and implement the global methane pledge for a transition out of fossil fuels into a cleaner, greener energy future?

I thank the senator for her question. The minister, Minister King, has, of course, been dealing with all of these issues. They are important issues, they're difficult issues, they are issues—

Government senators interjecting—

Well, we took a series of commitments, we took a series—

It's not his portfolio. He's answering as a matter of courtesy. You're asking the wrong person.

Order, Senator Wong. Minister, please continue.

We took a series of commitments to the last election, and we were elected as the government of this country. One of those commitments was the 43 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030 and the zero-emission target by— (Time expired)

Senator Cox, second supplementary.

Let's try a different tack, shall we?

I don't know, Deb. Are you asking the question?

Order!

Minister, when will this government listen to the voices of First Nations people, who have not provided free, prior and informed consent for the destruction of their cultural heritage and continue to see disrespect for their self-governance and determination of economic development relating to resources projects on their country?

tor FARRELL (—) (): I thank the senator for her question. There is no government in this country's history that's got a greater commitment to dealing with the issue of Indigenous disadvantage than the Albanese Labor government. We intend to deliver on all of the promises that we made to Indigenous Australians in the lead-up to the last election and that, of course, includes a referendum on the Voice.

Minister, please resume your seat. Senator Thorpe.

Point of order, President: relevance. The question was on free, prior and informed consent. We don't want to hear about their flag-waving for black fellas.

Senator Thorpe!

We want to know how they got consent!

Senator Thorpe, resume your seat. I do remind you and other senators, when you put a point of order, it is about the question. It is short and sharp, and it does not include any additional comments such as those that you made. The minister is being relevant. Please continue, Minister Farrell.

Thank you, Madam President. This government has made a commitment to Indigenous Australians. That commitment includes, amongst other things, a referendum on the Voice, giving Indigenous Australians a voice in this parliament. That is what we intend— (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator Wong. Can the minister outline to the Senate the importance of ending the climate wars and legislating a target on climate change?

Thank you, Senator Grogan, for your advocacy on climate and other progressive issues over many years. Those on this side of the chamber understand that action on climate change isn't just good for the future of the country, it isn't just necessary because of the situation we see around the globe; it's also good for our economy and it's good for Australian jobs. That's what it's good for. I know this is difficult for those opposite to understand. After nine years of the climate wars being a centrepiece of their political project, it is hard for them to understand that there is actually a way forward that is about jobs and about dealing with climate.

Minister, please resume your seat. Senator Ruston?

Madam President, I am seeking advice from you as to whether this question is in order.

Is this a point of order?

No, I'm actually seeking some advice from you in relation to whether this question is in order given the matter that is currently before debate in this chamber in government business.

Thank you, Senator Ruston. I will seek some advice. Senator Ruston, as long as anyone answering the question does not go to the specifics of the bill before the Senate, then it is perfectly fine to talk in generalities in the way the minister is doing.

Thank you. I anticipated this might happen, actually. Can I tell you why? Because we know those on the other side will do anything not to talk about climate change. You will do anything not to talk about climate action. You will do anything not to debate the bill. You will do anything to ignore that the Australian people clearly voted for action on climate. You can't bear it, can you? You can't bear it. You can't bear it that the climate wars that you thought would continue to yield a political dividend might actually end. You can't bear it.

I would make the point, Madam President, that President Reid in 1999 made this point: that questions may not be asked on the detail of the bill or debate, but otherwise the topic is not barred from questioning. I know that it's a hard thing, isn't it? If you're a member of the coalition, you just don't want to talk about climate, because Senator Payne doesn't agree with Senator Canavan, and Senator McKenzie doesn't agree with Senator Ruston. They are utterly divided on this. They are utterly divided on this, and the voters know it. (Time expired)

Senator Grogan, your first supplementary?

Excellent response, Minister. Thank you so much. Can the minister outline the threats to certainty that underpin the investment needed to address climate change?

I thank the senator for her question. It's really interesting, isn't it, that the party that believes they're the party of business, the party that believes they are the party of investment, are actually more like the old Soviet Union. They're more like the old Soviet Union, standing in the way of progress, standing in the way of the market.

Those opposite presided over nine years of division and delay and dysfunction when it comes to climate. If you talk to the Business Council of Australia, if you talk to the National Farmers Federation and if you talk to ACCI, all of them are welcoming a government that is actually prepared to give the market certainty, something you could never deliver when in government because of your deep divisions on this issue. The climate wars can end. We on this side will see that as a step forward. I know it's deeply distressing for those— (Time expired)

Senator Grogan, your second supplementary question?

As you've pointed out, the Australians made a very clear choice at the election that they wanted action on climate change following a wasted decade under the Liberals and the Nationals. How will the Albanese Labor government climate policies deliver on action and put an end to the coalition's climate wars?

Before I call the minister, I'm going to ask for quiet when the minister responds. Minister.

Australians did send the parliament a clear message. They voted for action on climate change. Australians in Wentworth, Australians in North Sydney and Australians in Warringah, in Mackellar, in Goldstein, in Higgins, in Boothby, in Curtin and in Kooyong made their interests very clear. It's very clear.

Opposition senators interjecting—

I know those opposite really don't like to hear just how out of step with the Australian people they are.

Opposition senators interjecting—

Listen to them. This is the most animated they've been since the election!

Opposition senators interjecting—

I'm waiting for quiet. Interjections are incredibly disorderly, and people on my left are yelling. Minister, please continue.

They yell because they really have nothing to say on this. That's why they yell. They've got nothing to say.

They've lost their reason for being.

I'll take the interjection from Senator Watt—they've lost their reason for being, which is a decade of the climate wars preventing progress. Now what are you going to do? What are you going to do when the bill comes before the chamber? The question for the Liberal Party and the National Party is: will you learn from your mistakes? That's the question for the coalition. (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator Wong. Has the Clean Energy Regulator raised any concerns with the government about the integrity or design of two recent ACCU methods—the plantation forestry method and the landfill gas method?

Thank you to the—

An opposition senator interjecting—

Yes, I was getting some advice from Minister Bowen about the direct question. It's a dreadful thing to actually want to advise the parliament, isn't it? It's such a dreadful thing! I know it seems like an odd thing, that you'd actually want to try and advise the parliament!

Senator Pocock, thank you for the question, and thank you for your interest in this issue. I know that there have been a number of public concerns raised about the probity and the veracity of the units. Can I advise, from Minister Bowen's office, that the Clean Energy Regulator has not raised any concerns. However, concerns have obviously been raised externally by others, including, I think, the senator and others who have been in the media. I'm advised that these are being dealt with by the Chubb review, which I'm happy to give further information on when I can find that piece of paper.

Minister Bowen has commissioned a review by Professor Chubb, who, as you would know, is the former Chief Scientist, along with an expert panel. This was promised before the election. Minister Bowen, in opposition, indicated that we would, if we won government, commission an independent review to ensure the integrity of carbon credits and their consistency with our agricultural, biodiversity and other goals. Professor Ian Chubb has been appointed and is supported by three other experts in the fields of governance, science and carbon markets. The review will examine scheme governance and the integrity of key carbon crediting methods, including whether transparency could be improved.

Senator Pocock, your first supplementary question?

Thank you, Senator Wong. I find it strange that the regulator hasn't raised any concerns, when I've received a letter that acknowledges the need to reform the landfill gas methods from companies that represent over 80 per cent of the ACCUs generated under this method. Given the regulator hasn't raised concerns, despite the industry having concerns, are you worried there's an inherent conflict of interest in the regulator both creating methods and then regulating them?

I thank the senator for the supplementary question. I can say to him, as someone who, unlike some in this place, does believe in the benefits of utilising the market for good, rather than for bad, that we do need integrity in the system of carbon credits to ensure that there is additionality, that we're actually reducing Australia's emissions and using an incentive to do so. I have seen some of the reporting, including, as the senator says, from firms engaging in the market. I understand the concerns he's raising. Can I say to him that these are some of the reasons why Minister Bowen has taken the view that an independent review is appropriate, and that is underway.

Senator Pocock, a second supplementary?

Thank you, Senator Wong. As you pointed out, given the need for transparency and accountability and, ultimately, integrity in our carbon markets, will the government commit to including a review of the regulator as a function of the Chubb review?

r WONG (—) (): I'll raise with Minister Bowen the issue you raise, but I would make the point that if the review is looking at scheme governance and the integrity of carbon crediting methods then, obviously, we want all aspects of scheme governance to be appropriate. As I said, these are matters which are being discussed publicly. We understand the need for integrity in the market, particularly if, as we hope, the legislation which the opposition don't want me to talk about passes this change. Then, obviously, there would be a framework which would incentivise that. I think that the terms of the review as I understand them from the advice I've received do extend to scheme governance, and that's appropriate.

My question is to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Gallagher. In July this year the Reserve Bank governor issued a warning to the new government:

… an important consideration is how inflation expectations and the general inflation psychology in the community evolve. If inflation expectations shift up and businesses and workers come to expect higher rates of inflation on an ongoing basis, it will be harder to return inflation to target … It is in our collective interest that this does not happen.

Does the minister agree with the Governor of the RBA?

Yes, I do agree with the governor on those comments, but I would also draw Senator Patterson's attention to the comments that the governor has been making for some time about wages growth essentially being a handbrake on the economy and advocating for sustainable and sensible wages growth, which we haven't seen now for a decade, and that is a problem in the economy. So, yes, the governor is right to raise concerns around having wages rise exponentially and out of control, but that is not what we are seeing in this country. The problems with inflation are not being driven by wages, because wages haven't been moving anywhere because it was a deliberate design feature of those opposite to keep them suppressed and, at best, stagnant. We have to find the balance. We need sustainable, sensible wages growth for working people—

President, a point of order on direct relevance: the quote from the RBA governor that Senator Paterson read had no reference to wages growth, which has been the dominant feature of everything the minister has been going on about for close to a minute now in her time. The question and the quote relate specifically to broader inflationary impacts and expectations across the economy.

Thank you, Senator Birmingham. I, like you, have been listening closely to the minister, and I believe that she is being directly relevant to the question. I invite her to continue.

Thank you, President. I believed I answered the question. I'm happy to deal with it in the supplementary, but I think I have been directly relevant. I think that goes to some of the challenges facing the economy at the moment, which the RBA is dealing with on the monetary side and we are dealing with on the fiscal side: getting that balance right, making sure that we're not adding to inflationary pressures and also making sure that working people are getting a bit of a crack at it and getting some suitable compensation to deal with those increasing costs of living that they're experiencing from rising inflation. I would say the announcement being made by the RBA today will add to some of those pressures on households, and the challenge is for the bank and the government to work hand in hand to make sure we're doing what we can to ease those pressures on people.

Senator Paterson, a supplementary question?

I thank the minister for her answer to my primary question and her agreement with the RBA governor that we should not add to inflation expectations. But, only eight days after the governor issued this warning, the Assistant Treasurer said prices for goods could go up '10, 15 or 20 per cent' and went on to predict hyperinflation and strikes. He later predicted a very rocky 12 months for the Australian economy. Given that the Assistant Treasurer's language and his position add significantly to the market's inflationary expectations, have the Treasurer, the Minister for Finance or the Prime Minister counselled the Assistant Treasurer on the impact of his comments on inflation expectations?

I'm going to take a bit of a punt on the fact that Senator Paterson is quoting selectively and has crafted that question himself. The government's expectations for inflation are outlined in the Treasurer's statement that he made in July—that is, that we would see inflation peak at 7¾ per cent in the December quarter. That is the government's position on inflation, and I think it aligns with the RBA's.

Senator Paterson, a second supplementary question?

I welcome the Minister for Finance clarifying that the Assistant Treasurer doesn't speak for the government on inflation. Today the Reserve Bank has raised interest rates by 50 basis points again—the fourth rate rise now under this government. The RBA is having to lift interest rates to address skyrocketing inflation. Why are the Assistant Treasurer and his colleagues continuing to ignore the RBA governor's warning and predicting hyperinflation and economic tumult?

Honestly, the nerve of these questions really is staggering. We inherited an economy with rising inflation and rising interest rates. Let's not forget this. As a result of nine years of you guys, with wasted opportunities, wrong or failed priorities, 22 energy policies, an energy crisis that we also inherited, a skills crisis that we also inherited, terminating measures that just drop off into the ether and a budget in a mess that we also inherited, we are dealing with the realities of what happens when you have a Prime Minister with 10 portfolios or more because he didn't trust any of you. He didn't trust any of you, and we're dealing with the mess.

Minister Gallagher, resume your seat. Senator Birmingham, I've got a senator from your team on his feet, presumably with a point of order. Senator Paterson.

You have correctly anticipated that, Madam President. On relevance: the question was about the Assistant Treasurer disregarding the advice of the RBA governor about inflation expectations, not the other matters Senator Gallagher was going to.

The question was in part about that, but it was also about the Reserve Bank increasing interest rates today, skyrocketing inflation and a number of other things, so I do believe that the minister is being relevant. Minister, please continue.

Thank you, President. You're right in your ruling; the preamble was accusatory and ignored the fact that nine years of this mob had left the economy and the budget in a complete shambles, and nobody in the government is disagreeing with the— (Time expired)

My question is for the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong. Minister, let's talk about the Australian Future Leaders Foundation. It's a foundation with no website. It appears to have no office, no staff and no previous record. When the grant was approved there was no competitive process and a merits review wasn't done. Despite all that, the previous government promised the foundation $18 million to set it up and $4 million a year to run it. The Governor-General might think it's a great idea, but, with all due respect, Minister, there's no detail, let alone transparency. Where does your government stand on continuing the support for the foundation?

I thank Senator Tyrrell for her question and will say that I have a little bit of knowledge on this—although I suspect that my colleague Senator Gallagher, as in most things, has more. I am aware of this issue because it came to light, as you correctly identify, under the previous government and it was an issue at estimates that we asked some questions about, and some of the issues that you refer to were raised by people in the context of preparing for that estimates round. I understand that that measure, along with a number of other measures that were announced by the previous government, is under review and will be considered in the context of the budget preparation.

Senator Tyrrell, a first supplementary question?

The Morrison government gave the Australian Future Leaders Foundation 'deductible gift recipient' status last March. Apparently the amendments were written up and approved a lot faster than normal. Is your government reviewing that decision?

I can seek further advice on that, but I would anticipate that it would be relevant to the review in the context of the budget, as I've described.

Senator Tyrrell, a second supplementary question?

Minister, media reports suggest that the Morrison government's promise to give the foundation funding overlapped with the former Prime Minister's moves to take over more ministries. The Governor-General was involved in both decisions. I'm not suggesting he's done anything wrong, but aren't you worried about the public perception it creates?

I am not advised and nor am I aware of how those decisions correlate or don't correlate with some of the media reporting of the swearing in of Mr Morrison to a number of other portfolios, which has subsequently come to light. So, I'm not in a position to give you an answer on that. Obviously in relation to the issue of multiple ministries the Prime Minister has commissioned an inquiry. There is a view that many Australians have expressed, which I think you are referring to, that it would be a good thing if there was more transparency around those sorts of arrangements. But obviously the review will deal with that.

In relation to the DGR status, again, I'll take advice and see what I'm able to give you, but I would assume that that's likely to be relevant to the consideration of a measure through the budget process.

My question is to the Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher. The independent Reserve Bank just released its monthly interest rates decision. Can the minister update the Senate on what that decision was and what it means for Australians, particularly for those with a mortgage?

AGHER (—) (): I thank Senator Sheldon for the question. The government understand that Australians are doing it tough and that household budgets are under real pressure. The independent Reserve Bank has just announced its decision to increase interest rates by another 50 basis points to bring the cash rate to 2.35 per cent. This had been widely predicted, but we know that doesn't make it any easier for homeowners We know this means that families will have to make more hard decisions about how to make ends meet. What it means for an average homeowner owing $330,000 is that they will have to find about $95 extra a month for repayments, on top of the $310 extra in repayments since early May. For Australians with a typical $500,000 mortgage it's about an extra $145 a month, in addition to the extra $475 they've had to find since early May.

We know that interest rate rises mean that families have to make those hard decisions about how to make ends meet. But, as the Senate knows, it's not the job of the government to interfere with the independent decisions of the Reserve Bank. The Albanese government's plan is about steering the economy through this difficult period and building that better future that the Australian people deserve. We'll do this by investing in the productive capacity of the economy and making those sensible and considered policy decisions and investments that won't add to inflationary pressures. We will look, in particular, at the areas we focused on in the Jobs and Skills Summit around accessing cheaper and more affordable child care, cutting the price of medicines, fast-tracking those fee-free TAFE places, bringing forward to next year the increase that we would have seen in pensions, allowances and rent assistance and, of course, legislation— (Time expired)

Senator Sheldon, a first supplementary?

Can the minister explain what the government is doing to assist Australians with current cost-of-living pressures that have built up over many years?

Since we formed government, we've hit the ground running, implementing our policies that we outlined in the election campaign, to respond to the cost-of-living crisis that we inherited from you lot—those opposite. We can't solve 10 years of neglect and wasted opportunities overnight; we have to start by acknowledging that. But it is our job to do what we responsibly can to help Australians deal with these pressures in the short term and build a more resilient economy that is better able to withstand future shocks. That's why we are making child care cheaper through our $5 billion investment in the October budget. It's why we're making medicines cheaper. It's why we argued for a minimum wage increase and it's why we're starting to get the work going on getting wages moving again. It's why we're lifting the speed limit on the economy, with more investment in TAFE and more investment in cheaper and cleaner energy.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Do you like that? Cheaper and cleaner energy. (Time expired)

Senator Sheldon, a second supplementary?

Can the minister outline the importance of having a clear plan that will grow the economy? How will that help Australians through these challenging times?

I thank Senator Sheldon for the question. Unlike the previous government, which didn't have an economic plan—it just had a Prime Minister who wanted to grab any portfolio he could; that's the only plan that you guys had; you each didn't know what the other was doing—our economic plan is a deliberate and direct response to the economic circumstances that were left by those opposite.

Honourable senators interjecting—

You hate hearing about it, don't you, because you know it's true.

Minister, please resume your seat. Order! The minister needs to be heard in silence. Minister, please continue.

We inherited an economy characterised by high and rising inflation, flat and falling real wages and productivity paralysis. That is your record. We also inherited a budget with a trillion dollars of debt, deficits as far as the eye can see and billions of dollars trapped in the way of the National Party—and I hope that that keeps your coalition together. That's your record. We're not going to stand here and be lectured by you guys about any cost-of-living prices, considering we're the ones dealing with the mess that you left us, and you abandoned Australia in the process.

My question is to the Minister for Emergency Management, Senator Watt. Minister, as you're very well aware, the Liberals and Nationals, in government, made a commitment to the residents of Lismore that the entire $150 million allocation from the 2022-23 Emergency Response Fund would be directed to Lismore for its rebuilding and flood mitigation efforts. Do you intend to stand by this commitment?

The short answer is yes. Thank you, Senator, for the question. The good thing about answering the question quickly is that you can spend the next one minute and 50 seconds talking about other things—related things.

Senator Davey, I know that you have a genuine interest in the people of Lismore and the Northern Rivers. I think you've been there since your appointment as the shadow minister, as have I and, most recently, Senator Sheldon, the new Special Envoy for Disaster Recovery, appointed by the Prime Minister to ensure that communities who are experiencing disaster recovery are getting the support that they need.

In fact, Senator Sheldon was in Lismore just last week—on Friday, I believe it was—announcing additional support for the Northern Rivers in the form of around $50 million to support commercial landlords with grants. The importance of that, as Senator Sheldon so eloquently put it in the press conference that he undertook in Lismore, is that there are many small businesses who are located in commercial premises, and those small businesses are not able to reopen yet because the commercial landlords have not been able to afford to repair their properties. So that assistance, which is contributed to by the New South Wales government, will assist not just the landlords but the small businesses as well. Again, can I thank Senator Sheldon for the work that he's been doing there.

But the money that Senator Davey is talking about, of course, comes from the infamous Emergency Response Fund—remember that one? The Emergency Response Fund was set up by the government over three years ago with $4 billion in it. It accrued the former government over $800 million in interest, did not build a single disaster mitigation project, did not spend a cent on disaster recovery. It took the devastating floods we saw in the Northern Rivers and Queensland for any announcements to be made. And which government is going to deliver on them? The Albanese Labor government.

Senator Davey, first supplementary.

Thank you, Minister. I always appreciate a quick answer and I appreciate you being so succinct. Yes, Lismore, you get $150 million in this financial year. The Prime Minister recently announced $75 million of funding from the Emergency Response Fund to be spread across 62 local government areas in New South Wales. Can you confirm that this money is from the 2021-22 pool?

Another short answer: yes, I can. Just to assist Senator Davey, the previous question was about the allocation of $150 million from the unused Emergency Response Fund for 2022-23, and that money will be used for the Northern Rivers—not just Lismore, but for the Northern Rivers. The money that you're talking about there, the $75 million, came from the 2021-22 allocation from the Emergency Response Fund, and, as Senator McKenzie would know because I think she was involved in making the announcement as the then minister, the remaining $75 million from the 2021-22 allocation will be spent in Queensland, assisting them to recover from their floods. So it's $150 million for each of those two financial years. The first of those two years is being split between Queensland and New South Wales, and that will be spent in New South Wales across the whole state because, of course, there were other areas that experienced floods too.

Senator Davey, second supplementary.

(—) (): As I now understand it, you have just confirmed that the announcement made by the Prime Minister at the bush summit, claiming $75 million was new money for the people of Lismore, was in fact the same money as announced by the Liberals and Nationals in government in March this year, reannounced by yourself in June this year, and now announced for a third time by the Prime Minister. What message have you got to the people of Lismore who keep— (Time expired)

Honourable senators interjecting—

Order!

Thank you, President.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Minister, please resume your seat. Let's just give the minister a chance to answer before we start the disorderly interjections. Minister.

The message, Senator Davey, that I have for the people of Lismore is that they finally have a federal government who will actually deliver for them. They have a government that shows up, unlike the former government. Certain people from our opposition, as it was at the time, were in Lismore shortly after the floods, and we will deliver.

I do need to just correct one thing I said before: the funding that Senator Sheldon announced was $30 million for commercial landlords, as opposed to $50 million, so just to correct the record there. There's so much support that we're putting in, it's sometimes hard to remember exactly how much. There's so much money being put in, which is very much deserved.

The announcement the Prime Minister made in Griffith the other day was to announce how the money would be spent. We have worked with the New South Wales government collaboratively, something that the previous Liberal and National federal government was unable to do with a Liberal and National government, and we're now getting on with delivering the money. (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Watt. What are the latest figures from ABARES on the value of Australia's agricultural production and exports?

Thank you, Senator White. I'm really looking forward to seeing your sterling performances on the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee, which I know you will do so well. Senator White, I can confirm that I have good news for farmers and good news for Australians.

Today the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, otherwise known as ABARES, released their latest report on Australian crops and commodities. This year farm exports are forecast to worth a record-breaking $70.3 billion, which is a remarkable achievement. This is the biggest ever agricultural export in our nation's history. I am shocked that the National Party, of all parties, wants to yell at us when we have good news for farmers and good news for agriculture. But, then again, when you see what the—

Opposition senators interjecting—

Minister Watt, please resume your seat. Order on my left in particular. Minister, please continue.

It's a shame they hate good news, even when it comes to farmers and agriculture. But, then again, it's no surprise when we see what the Leader of the National Party has to say about the National Farmers Federation, calling them cowards and all sorts of other things as well. This is the biggest ever agricultural export our nation has seen. ABARES has also forecast a winter crop harvest of 55.5 million tonnes. This combination of high yields and high exports is good news for Aussie farmers, farm workers, rural communities and all of us in this country. It also means that Australia can do its part in contributing to global food supply.

Over on this side of the chamber, we like good news, especially when it comes to agriculture and our farmers. It's unfortunate we're not joined by the other side. We know that trade and exports make all the difference in times of stress and food scarcity. I couldn't be prouder to see Australia more than pulling its weight. I congratulate all the farmers and all the farm workers who have worked so hard to deliver these fantastic results. It's happening in all sorts of sectors. We know the industry has its challenges—

Thank you, Minister. Senator White, your first supplementary?

What fantastic news, Senator Watt. What is the Albanese government doing to support the agriculture industry to reach its goal of $100 billion by 2030?

Thanks again, Senator White. As I was just saying in answer to the last question, we know the agriculture sector has its challenges, and we're getting on with solving them. In the meantime, this data shows that the industry is in good shape, and that's a good thing.

In terms of the supplementary question, we are in lock step with the agriculture sector's ambition to become a $100 billion industry by 2030. We are doing this by working with all players in the industry, not by dividing them and not by fighting against them. We are bringing people together, not hurling insults from the sidelines, when it comes to agriculture. That started with the industry roundtables I held in my first weeks as minister, and it continued at the Jobs and Skills Summit, where we agreed on measures to help the industry deal with workforce shortages right now.

I am stunned. First it was the National Party getting stuck in about agriculture doing well, and now it's the Liberal Party getting stuck in about agriculture doing well. I thought you liked agriculture. I thought you liked rural communities. This is good news for the industry, and all you can do is yell. (Time expired)

Senator White, your second supplementary?

What are the main threats to agricultural productivity, and what is the Albanese government doing to support industry in addressing these challenges?

When it was suggested that I could answer a question about the threats to agricultural productivity, I took the high road and I decided to not comment on the threats that sit over on the opposition. But now, with all this feedback I'm getting, maybe I'll have to drop the script and revise the answer.

It will come as no surprise that one of the major threats to the industry—this is serious—is the risk of exotic animal diseases entering the country from overseas. We've implemented a three-pronged approach to help protect industry by supporting Indonesia to deal with their outbreak, strengthening our borders and ensuring we are prepared should an outbreak occur. It's really good to see cattle prices at sales across the country beginning the rebound in spite of the fearmongering we saw from those opposite over the last couple of months.

Another serious threat is the impact that climate change is having on farming, as natural disasters are more fierce and more frequent. Supporting the sector to adapt and improve its climate resilience is imperative to our future food and fibre security. (Time expired)

Senator Watt is doing such a good job that my question is also for the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. On 9 August, the Labor government announced a $10 million biosecurity cooperation package to assist Indonesia as it responds to foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease. Can the minister for agriculture outline how many staff have been trained on the ground in Indonesia?

Thank you, Senator Canavan, for giving me an opportunity to talk again about the support that our government is providing Indonesia to deal with its foot-and-mouth disease outbreak and its lumpy skin disease outbreak.

I was very pleased to make the announcement that Senator Canavan referred to. In partnership with Senator Wong, I announced that we would provide $10 million in international development support to Indonesia to assist them with their outbreak. That comes in addition to the support that we had already offered. Shortly after I was appointed to the role as minister I committed one million vaccines for foot-and-mouth disease to Indonesia, which I'm very pleased to say have arrived in Indonesia, have been delivered, and are in the process of being provided to farmers as we speak. On my return from Indonesia, we then went on to announce, I'm pretty sure the figure was $14 million, in additional support in the form of more vaccines, more technical assistance, diagnostics and other things.

Senator Canavan, on a point of order?

Just a point of order on relevance: the question was very specific about how many staff had been trained on the ground. The minister has mentioned a lot about the package but hasn't gone anywhere near answering the question.

I'll listen closely to the remainder of the answer. My understanding was that it's primarily about foot-and-mouth disease. Please continue, Minister.

The $10 million package that I announced at the National Press Club—and again I recognise Senator Wong for her contribution to that announcement—was a combination of measures. Some of it was staff, and I'm happy to take on notice for you the exact number of staff that are working there. It includes vets and other technical assistance as well. That money also involves another allocation of vaccines to Indonesia, which we are in the process of procuring.

I know there are some people on the other side who think that you should be able to snap your fingers and get those vaccines immediately. That's not how it works. There's a worldwide shortage of those vaccines at the moment, but we are actively engaged in procurement negotiations to obtain another round of vaccines, which will be delivered. As I said, that $10 million goes further than just vaccines. It includes things like providing vets, providing diagnostic assistance to make sure that Indonesia has the capability to undertake testing for foot-and-mouth disease, and a range of other support as well.

Senator Canavan, a first supplementary?

That goes to my supplementary question on vaccines. The minister has already outlined that the package includes vaccines, but can the minister outline if any vaccines that we have purchased have been administered in Indonesia to date?

Just before answering the supplementary question, I should also point out that the support that we're providing to Indonesia in the sense of personnel is also provided remotely. There will be additional Australian staff on the ground in Indonesia, but some of that support is already being provided remotely back here from Australia.

As I said, one million vaccines that Australia is providing to Indonesia have now arrived. That happened a couple of weeks ago. I'm happy to give you on notice the exact details as to how many of those vaccines have been administered, but my understanding is that the rollout is well progressed. We know that there's an urgent need to get those vaccines into cattle as quickly as possible. I'm happy to come back on notice with the exact answer.

Senator Canavan, your second supplementary?

The package also includes technical and advisory support to tackle outbreaks in Indonesia. Can the minister outline exactly what support has been provided to date?

Again, I'm happy to provide on notice the exact details of the support that has been provided to date from that package in the form of technical assistance. I think I've pretty much already answered what that technical assistance will involve. It's a mixture of veterinary assistance, diagnostics assistance to help with testing capability, and the manufacturing of vaccines because Indonesia have said that they want to manufacture their vaccines domestically. But, again, I'll come back with the exact details on notice.

I'm so tempted to keep going, President, but may I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice asked by Senator Paterson today relating to the Australian economy.

It's quite appropriate that that last hour or so of our parliamentary day is referred to as 'question time' and not 'answer time', because certainly if any good Australians were listening to what the Senate was discussing over this period, they would haven't any clearer answer as to what this government, the Labor Albanese government, is doing to address the rising inflation and cost-of-living pressures in this country.

We know that Australian households are feeling the pinch when it comes to the spiralling cost-of-living expenses and record high inflation. I note that inflation under the Albanese government is running at 6.1 per cent as of the June 2022 quarter. This is the highest rate of inflation in almost 32 years, since the December quarter in 1990. I was about six months old when inflation was last that high. I certainly expect that many people of my age and my generation would not really understand or would have experienced the pressures resulting from inflation this high in their lifetime.

Over the last few months, we've also seen the price of household goods skyrocket, increased costs of services and rising building costs. Australians feel these inflationary pressures every time they pass through the supermarket check-out, they head to their local medical practitioner or they want to treat their family to a day out to mark a special occasion. In my state of Tasmania, where we rely on air and sea freight services to transport essential household goods, such as groceries, the rising transport costs are only adding to the inflationary pain. All of these expenses add up and they make it harder and harder for Australian households to make ends meet.

Yet this government have failed to deliver any shred of a plan to immediately address the rising cost of living and the pressure of inflation on Australian households. They did have one idea. During the election campaign, we heard the Labor Party telling everybody time and time again that they would cut power bills by $275 a year for the average Australian household. Reducing the amount that Australians pay for their power would at least have provided some relief to household budgets, but they've abandoned that commitment. They've gone back on their promise, hoping that Australians wouldn't notice. Well certainly our job in opposition is to make sure that Australians notice that the Labor government have gone back on that commitment they made during the election. In abandoning that commitment, Labor have shown Australians that they have no real plan to tackle cost-of-living expenses and inflationary pressures. And while talk might be cheap for Labor, it doesn't result in cheaper power bills for Australians.

And what have Labor been doing instead of developing this plan to tackle rising inflation and the rising cost of living? Photo opportunities with American basketballers and moving to abolish the ABCC to appease their union mates. The Prime Minister was asked by reporters only this morning what he would do to address the cost of living. He responded with some sort of vague response about introducing legislation aimed at medicine prices and child care at some point in the future. I don't think that response is in any way going to address the immediate pressure of cost of living and inflation that is being felt by Australians. Australians expect an answer to this problem now, today. They don't expect one into the future. They don't expect, 'Oh, we'll look at this problem down the track,' or 'We'll think about it in the October budget'. These are pressures that Australians are feeling here and now on this very day. It certainly seems like the government are just making it up as they go along.

Adding further pain today to Australians paying off their homes, interest rates have continued to rise with the additional financial burden being felt by those making mortgage repayments. As the minister, Senator Gallagher, updated the chamber part way through question time today, the cash rate has increased by 50 basis points to 2.35 per cent, which signifies five consecutive months of rate rises, with borrowers starting to feel the pressure as they pay off their mortgages. Part of the great Australian dream has always been home ownership, and these rising interest rates are only going to add to financial impediments on those Australians looking to own a home of their own, looking to make ends meet at a time where cost of living and inflation are only getting higher.

As Australia grappled with the detrimental effects of the pandemic, the previous coalition government absolutely were aware that we needed a solid and multipronged approach to assist with Australia's economic recovery. That's what we did in government. That is our record, and it's disappointing to see this sort of response from the Labor government.

That contribution by Senator Chandler has completely ignored the last nine years of her government. On 21 May the house of cards that was your government came tumbling down, exposed for what it was: a government of waste, rorts and lost opportunities—and quite frankly, that's being kind to their government; that's being kind to nine years of a Liberal coalition government. Don't forget, we had 'sports rorts', we had cuts to aged-care spending and of course we had cuts to real wages—boasted about by the government of the day; they boasted about the fact that it was a deliberate design in their economic plan. They did haven't a plan. What they had was a Prime Minister who was focused on delivering for their mates, focused on rorting public moneys to go into areas where they thought it would be best for a political return, not an economic plan to put this country on the right path.

The Albanese government understands that people are doing it tough. They also understand that, as Senator Gallagher said in her response to the question today, that we have inherited from the Liberal opposition a cost-of-living crisis. You can't ignore that fact. So, no matter what Senator Chandler wants to talk about in terms of the plan that her government had, everyone knows—the Australian people know; that's why they punted them on 21 May; that's why the former government are on that side, because the Australian people got sick of their money being wasted—that they had no plan, just waste, rorts and lost opportunities. So yes, we inherited a cost-of-living crisis from those opposite—an economy and a budget in complete shambles. That's what we inherited.

The Albanese government does understand that Australians are doing it tough and understands the current cost-of-living pressures that have been built up over many years. But we have acted quickly, and Senator Gallagher, in her response to the question, mentioned some of the initiatives that the Labor government is putting in place. So we do say—and we're very up-front about this—that we can't solve the nine years of neglect and decay overnight. But it's our task to do what we can do responsibly to help Australians deal with these pressures in the short term and build a more resilient economy that is better able to withstand future shocks.

That's why we are making child care cheaper through our $5 billion investment in the October budget, and that's why we're making medicines cheaper, and that's why we successfully argued for a minimum wage increase and why we're starting work to get wages moving again—unlike the now opposition, who boast about keeping wages low. I mean, it is the very issue that goes to the heart of the family household budget, and they come in here and try to say that it's all our fault! A trillion dollars of debt, an economy and a budget in shambles, a cost-of-living crisis that we inherited from them—the gall! We have argued successfully, as I've said, and our job is to start to get wages moving again.

It is very notable that in Senator Brown's contribution on this debate she almost exclusively spoke about the past. She almost exclusively spoke about, in her words, the last nine years. It was all looking back in the rear-view mirror, and there was almost nothing in her contribution seeking to defend this new government about the future. And it is the future that is concerning Australians right now, because Australians can see this cost-of-living crisis coming down the track towards them. It is already quite difficult for many Australian families as interest rates have gone up significantly over the past six months: five rate rises in a row, which is the fastest increase in interest rates since the mid-1990s. It's very, very difficult for Australian families. Petrol prices have obviously gone up significantly over the past year, due to the European energy crisis and the barbaric invasion of Ukraine by the Russian President. That's already hurting Australians, but, unfortunately, we can all see and know that perhaps the worst is yet to come.

Later this month, petrol prices are set to rise by 22 cents a litre when the former government's excise relief comes off. That's something we have to do. We cannot afford to neglect our roads, and fuel excises pay for that. So that will be an increased cost for Australian families. The RBA Governor today, in raising rates, indicated that more rate rises are probably set to come over the next year; it's probably not the end of this tightening cycle. So while many Australians are already facing increased mortgage payment payments of $1,000 a month, that will be even higher, potentially, over the next year. Finally, electricity bills are about to skyrocket. We don't have enough reliable energy in our market and the increases in wholesale power costs this year—they have gone up four or five times—have not flowed through to retail bills. That will happen later this year.

In this context, you'd think you would have this government focussed almost exclusively on this cost-of-living crisis. Instead, they are distracted. I kind of miss Mr Bill Shorten. Do you remember Mr Shorten used to talk about the top end of town? Well, this government is one that is constantly hobnobbing with the top end of town. At last week's Jobs and Skills Summit held here, almost everybody was either from big business or big unions. They certainly had no issue with paying their mortgages and no issue with paying even skyrocketing energy bills later this year. There was almost zero talk from the participants at that conference about the major issue that Australians are concerned about today.

The government cannot talk about its cost-of-living plan, because it's already dumped the plan it took to the Australian people less than six months ago. Less than six months ago Mr Anthony Albanese promised the Australian people multiple times he would slash their electricity bills by $275. He said it time and time again: your bills would be $275 a year lower under a Labor government. In a matter of weeks, he walked away from that promise. The new Prime Minister has not mentioned that figure again since the election. It must be a world record for a government breaking such a key promise so quickly to the Australian people. The government doesn't talk about the power bill plan. If you're looking for relief on electricity bills, don't ask this new government; they have no plan.

Now they rest back on their childcare plan. Senator Brown mentioned $5 billion. The Labor government never talks about or reveals that that $5 billion is predominantly going to very rich people in this country. Under the government's childcare plans, they are going to raise subsidies for families earning up to $530,000 a year. If you're earning half a million dollars a year, you are very lucky. You will be even luckier, thanks to a Labor government, because you're going to get more money from them. The education department modelled this. They showed that a family on 360 grand a year will be $11,000 a year better off. Thank you very much, Mr Albanese. If you're on $70,000 year, you're only $1,700 a year better off. That is an 85 per cent lower benefit for those families. These are the priorities of this new government. The Labor Party are no longer the party of the working class. They're no longer the party that look after the downtrodden in this society. They are wholly and exclusively focused on the Business Council of Australia and on the large unions that get big kickbacks from big super. They are focused on those interests and those interests alone. They do not listen to, and do not represent, those Australians who struggle in this country and are struggling more because of this cost-of-living crisis ignored by the government.

I thank Senator Paterson for his questions without notice today on inflation and interest rates in this country and I thank Senator Gallagher for her answers as well. On these questions, it must be noted from the outset that the Albanese government has inherited an economy from those opposite with high and rising inflation. We have inherited an economy with rising interest rates as well. On top of that, we have inherited an economy with the slowest wages growth on record. In short, the Albanese government has come into office inheriting a full-blown cost-of-living crisis from those opposite.

One of the most important things that we need to do in the context of that crisis to help Australians get through it, to help Australians do well and to help Australians survive and thrive in this environment is to get wages moving in this country. We also need to deal directly with the rising cost of living. And we are already putting plans in place to do both. We need to get wages moving so that people have the resources that they need to deal with the rising cost of living, and we have hit the ground running to do just that. Right on winning government, we made a submission to the Fair Work Commission arguing for an increase in the minimum wage. Our submissions, along with the work of the Australian trade union movement, were successful, and there was a 5.2 per cent increase to the minimum wage. We also made submissions to the aged-care work value case, supporting a pay rise for some of Australia's lowest-paid workers—hundreds of thousands of workers—because we are committed to the women who work in the care economy and we are committed to getting wages moving in this country.

Last week we brought together 150 people from around the country in our absolutely historic Jobs and Skills Summit to answer the fundamental questions about the economy: How do we get wages moving? How do we improve productivity? How do we get the country moving in one direction together? There were a number of things about getting wages moving that were agreed by, really, everyone at the summit—except of course those opposite.

Everyone in our country agrees that we need to get wages moving, except the opposition. Everyone agrees that the bargaining system is broken, except, apparently, the opposition. Everyone agrees we should bring people together, we should bring unions and employers together, to focus on solutions—everyone, apparently, except the opposition and the opposition leader, who refused to turn up. Everyone agrees that women working in the care economy are the most in need of reform to our industrial relations system, except, apparently, the opposition.

We are focused on bringing people together. We are focused on the cost-of-living crisis. We are focused on getting wages moving to help people deal with that crisis, because getting wages moving is half the equation of dealing with the crisis delivered by the former government. That is exactly what we have hit the ground running doing and that is exactly what we will continue to do.

The second half of the equation is direct action to relieve the rising costs of living. We have just announced the biggest indexation of social security payments on record and that is going to help so many Australians deal with the rising cost of living that has been delivered by the previous government. We have also extended the paid pandemic leave that was due to expire under those opposite. We have introduced legislation to drive investment in cleaner and cheaper energy to put downward pressure on power prices. We, as Senator Canavan noticed, are going to make child care cheaper. We are dealing with the cost-of-living crisis bequeathed by the previous government.

At the outset, speaking to my colleagues about Senator Paterson's question to the Treasurer, Senator Gallagher, I want to address a claim that was made by Senator Gallagher that potentially the Assistant Treasurer had been verballed. I had an opportunity during question time to refer to my mobile phone to see the Assistant Treasurer, in fact, on his own website, stephenjones.org.au—if people want to refer to it—said:

Because we actually—this might sound bizarre to many of your listeners—

I should say it sounds bizarre to me as a senator in this place.

but if we have demand galloping ahead and galloping ahead and people just putting up prices for a limited supply of goods and services, then that is going to feed into hyperinflation.

That is from Stephen Jones's own website, and my colleague Senator Paterson was accused of not quoting the Assistant Treasurer appropriately in the context of this question. This is important. Language is important because it feeds into the confidence or lack thereof in the market. Using the term 'hyperinflation' was extraordinarily irresponsible by the Assistant Treasurer, because when people think of hyperinflation, they think of Germany, where in July 1920 one mark equated to US$40. By November 1923, US$1 equated to four trillion marks. That's hyperinflation, and it is grossly irresponsible for the Assistant Treasurer to use that term 'hyperinflation' in the current market. We are nowhere near hyperinflation. I don't expect we will come anywhere near hyperinflation. The RBA certainly doesn't think so. Treasury doesn't think so. So why do we have an assistant Treasurer who doesn't know such a fundamental term of economics, 'hyperinflation'? The textbook definition of hyperinflation is inflation of at least 50 per cent per month. We are nowhere near that but we have an Assistant Treasurer who doesn't know the actual definition of hyperinflation. Maybe they should keep him away from radio interviews so he doesn't scare the horses of the Australian economy so much.

We also have a government that doesn't want to live up to the $275 cut to power prices. This is from the Labor Party's own policy, currently on their website. It is called Powering Australia. It's still there. It says:

It will cut power bills for families and businesses by $275 a year for homes by 2025, compared to today.

That is what it says. The policy is still on the Labor Party website. As my colleagues in this place have referred to consistently, that $275 cut in Australia's power price was referred to over 90 times during the course of the election campaign. But when Albanese government is formed, there was no mention of this promise to the Australian people, absolutely no mention of it. There was ample opportunity during question time for it to be referred to. But this promise given during the election campaign by the Australian Labor Party on their own website—you can check it out yourselves, a $275 a year cut—there was no mention of it by the Albanese government. Albanese opposition: $275 price cut. Albanese government: no mention. It is still on its website, if you want to verify it.

We then have the introduction of the Climate Change Bill 2022, an urgent bill introduced earlier today, even though, by the admission of their own minister, it's not necessary. How can something be urgent if it's not necessary? It baffles me. The Climate Change Bill 2022 doesn't make any mention of the $275 price cut. They introduced the Climate Change Bill, though their own minister said it's not necessary, and it then became urgent. One would have thought that it would connect electricity prices to climate change, but, no, there's no mention of the promise of the $275 price cut the Labor government made when they were in opposition.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Trade and Tourism (Senator Farrell) to a question without notice I asked today relating to gas and oil exploration.

It is disappointing, but not surprising, to see the government patting themselves on the back for doing less than the bare minimum. In fact, we got no answer to the actual question during question time. In this instance, I agree with Senator Chandler. It should be called 'answer time' instead of 'question time', because it's all smoke and mirrors, and that's what we're getting at the moment.

Legislating 43 per cent is not enough, and opening up an expansion of new fossil fuel projects is inconsistent not only with the government's own target but also its commitments under the Paris Agreement, and that is what we heard. The science is pretty clear. A safe climate means no more fossil fuels, and they must go. If we are formally legislating the target, it should actually be 75 per cent by 2030, and we need to start phasing out fossil fuels. This includes methane. The Global Methane Pledge was at the heart of the supplementary question that I asked. We need to start doing that not tomorrow, not in the future and not in six months—we need to start doing it today. The Climate Change Bill 2022 was introduced earlier today. Therefore, we need that commitment.

Over 100 countries signed up to the Global Methane Pledge at COP26—everyone except Australia. That's because Australia skipped along to COP26 in Scotland hand-in-hand with Santos and talked about carbon capture and storage, which is technology that is completely unproven to work. Addressing methane emissions is paramount if we are to reduce our emissions. We need a robust plan. We cannot afford to have a minister sitting across in the other house doing policy on the run. We need sufficient investment to make sure that this occurs. We can't go dumping carbon—I won't call it colonial carbon capitalism—in the Timor Sea for the Timorese people to deal with after we've gone on a botched plan, thinking carbon capture and storage is about offsets in this country.

We need to make sure that we are making this government accountable for being good on climate, because they are not. You can't have fossil fuel donors and play both sides of the fence and then be good for the climate by expanding their projects. We need a robust plan to look at how we invest in the economy. The UK have done it. They've reduced their emissions by 40 per cent since 1990 and they have tripled the size of their economy.

I would like to respond to Minister Farrell, who spoke about what they are doing around First Nations. We know that this government is all talk and no action when it comes to First Nations justice in this country. It's okay to walk around saying black lives matter, but if you are not seeking free, prior and informed consent from those traditional owners whose country is about to be destroyed by Santos, then please do not say black lives matter. Please do not even fly our flag when you are destroying the land, culture, song and dance and ignoring traditional owners. You talk about a voice in this country. You don't even listen to traditional owners right now. What are you waiting for, a referendum to give you what? A group of people who you are then going to deny again? We are sick of the rhetoric of this Labor government. It's been going on for too long. We hear from a judge who is hearing from the Tiwi Island people, who says that their rights need to be listened to.

I am pleading with this government to also listen to the rights of those traditional owners instead of some of the dodgy corporations and organisations that they go to manufacture consent. That's what Labor do—they manufacture consent. They pick a few of their buddies to sign off on dirty deals that destroy country. They are dirty deals supported by industries that donate money to you, Labor, to ensure that you give them the favours that they want and need. That does not give any rights to Indigenous people or First Nations people in this country. You won't even agree to fast-tracking the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. You won't even have a reporting date on that, because you're scared of the rights that it will give us to stop you destroying us and our people. We are awake to this government. No, you're not our friends, because you continue to destroy country and ignore the real people that want to have a say.

Question agreed to.

I remind senators that the question may be put on any proposal at the request of any senator.

I move general business notices of motion Nos 23, 24 and 25 together:

GENERAL BUSINESS NOTICE OF MOTION NO. 23

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Treasurer, by no later than 3 pm on Thursday, 8 September 2022:

(a) any briefing materials provided by the Department of the Treasury to the Treasurer and/or the Treasurer's office since 23 May 2022 in relation to:

(i) potential pension changes, including changes to the Work Bonus Scheme, or

(ii) the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Pensioner and Workforce Participation) Bill 2022;

(b) any emails, file notes or other records of interactions between the Department of the Treasury and the Treasurer and/or the Treasurer's office since 23 May 2022 in relation to:

(i) potential pension changes, including changes to the Work Bonus Scheme, or

(ii) the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Pensioner and Workforce Participation) Bill 2022; and

(c) any emails, file notes or other records of interactions between the Department of the Treasury and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet or the Department of Social Services since 23 May 2022 in relation to:

(i) potential pension changes, including changes to the Work Bonus Scheme, or

(ii) the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Pensioner and Workforce Participation) Bill 2022.

GENERAL BUSINESS NOTICE OF MOTION NO. 24

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Prime Minister, by no later than 3 pm on Thursday, 8 September 2022:

(a) any briefing materials provided by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to the Prime Minister and/or the Prime Minister's office since 23 May 2022 in relation to:

(i) potential pension changes, including changes to the Work Bonus Scheme, or

(ii) the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Pensioner and Workforce Participation) Bill 2022;

(b) any emails, file notes or other records of interactions between the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Prime Minister and/or the Prime Minister's office since 23 May 2022 in relation to:

(i) potential pension changes, including changes to the Work Bonus Scheme, or

(ii) the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Pensioner and Workforce Participation) Bill 2022; and

(c) any emails, file notes or other records of interactions between the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Social Services or the Department of the Treasury since 23 May 2022 in relation to:

(i) potential pension changes, including changes to the Work Bonus Scheme, or

(ii) the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Pensioner and Workforce Participation) Bill 2022.

GENERAL BUSINESS NOTICE OF MOTION NO. 25

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Social Services, by no later than 3 pm on Thursday, 8 September 2022:

(a) any briefing materials provided by the Department of Social Services to the Minister and/or the Minister's office since 23 May 2022 in relation to:

(i) potential pension changes, including changes to the Work Bonus Scheme, or

(ii) the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Pensioner and Workforce Participation) Bill 2022;

(b) any emails, file notes or other records of interactions between the Department of Social Services and the Minister and/or the Minister's office since 23 May 2022 in relation to:

(i) potential pension changes, including changes to the Work Bonus Scheme, or

(ii) the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Pensioner and Workforce Participation) Bill 2022; and

(c) any emails, file notes or other records of interactions between the Department of Social Services and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet or the Department of the Treasury since 23 May 2022 in relation to:

(i) potential pension changes, including changes to the Work Bonus Scheme, or

(ii) the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Pensioner and Workforce Participation) Bill 2022.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Education, by no later than midday on Tuesday, 13 September 2022, tabulated information about applications for the following Australian Research Council (ARC) funding schemes:

Future Fellowships 2022

Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2023 Linkage Projects 2021, round 3

Laureate Fellowships 2022

Discovery Indigenous 2023

Discovery Projects 2023 Centres of Excellence 2023

Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities 2023,

for each scheme:

(a) the total number of applications;

(b) the number of applications for which the ARC CEO has requested at least one set of revisions to the national interest test statement;

(c) the number of applications for which the ARC CEO has requested multiple sets of revisions to the national interest test statement; and

(d) the number of applications that the ARC CEO has not recommended for funding on the basis of the national interest test statement.

Question agreed to.

(Quorum formed)

I inform the Senate that, at 8.30 am today, 33 proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the letter from Senator McGrath proposing a matter of public importance was chosen:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

The failure of the Albanese Government to have a plan that addresses the rising cost of living facing all Australians.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's discussion. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

I rise to speak on the failure of the Albanese government to have a plan that addresses the rising cost of living facing all Australians. It is indeed a matter of great public importance. Before the election, the members of the government were talking a very big game around the cost of living. In fact, the then Leader of the Opposition was unequivocal. He said this very straightforwardly: 'I'll say this very clearly. They will be better off under a Labor government.' That was backed in by the then shadow Treasurer, who was equally clear. He said that under Labor you will have a government which cares about the cost of living and has a plan to deal with it. But it has been more than three months since the election, and it's patently clear that Labor has done what Labor always does, and that is break its promises.

In fact, Australians are no better off now compared to the time before the election. The cost of living continues to skyrocket, and Labor still hasn't shown any plan to address it. Power prices are higher. Grocery bills are higher. Fuel is about to go up again in price. Today the RBA has once again raised interest rates. We feel it at the bowser, we feel it the grocery check-out, and we are certainly feeling it when we pay our mortgages. That suits the Assistant Treasurer just fine because the Assistant Treasurer is out there predicting hyperinflation and more strikes and further industrial action.

This is not what Australians need right now. It's certainly not what this government promised. They need a government with a plan to get the cost of living down, to drive down prices, but Labor keeps breaking its promise on the cost of living. The most resonating central tenet of Labor's election platform was to reduce power prices by $275. They said it over and over again. The Leader of the Opposition at the time said it, the shadow Treasurer at the time said it, they got into government, and now nothing. In fact, they repeated in the election campaign 96 times that they would reduce power prices by $275. Suddenly, once they were elected, everything changed. They went dead silent. You could hear nothing but crickets. Not only are power prices not going down by $275 but the Prime Minister, Mr Albanese, has not even fronted up, not once, and given an explanation to the Australian people as to why this promise, this fundamental tenet of the election campaign, this commitment to the Australian people, has been broken within the first 100 days of government.

Just today, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy popped his head up above the parapet, like a meerkat, and said that he stands by the modelling, but he still won't say that power prices will go down, having said 96 times during the election campaign that power prices will go down by $275. Now the Minister for Climate Change and Energy says nothing. He says he stands by the modelling, but he won't stand by the fact that power prices should, would and must go down by $275 to fulfil the commitment that Labor made to the Australian people. In fact, Mr Bowen, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, is using weasel words to get out of this fundamental promise.

But power prices are not the only promise that this government have already broken. In fact, they've also broken their election promise on wages. The Treasurer, Mr Chalmers, said it best when, before the election, as shadow Treasurer, he said, 'Our job is to get wages growing in a sustainable way, then get them growing strongly.' The now Treasurer said he could get this job done; he was the man to get this job done. He also said before the election: 'There are meaningful things that we can do about wages. We, Labor, have got a role to play in wages.' The Minister for Finance, Minister Gallagher, said that wages need to keep up with the cost of living. That was before the election.

Since the election, they've changed their tune. The Treasurer now admits that there is no credible economic forecaster who thinks that wages growth is going to keep up with inflation, although I guess that's something the Assistant Treasurer is happy to back him in on. In fact, the Labor Party went to the election promising to increase wages, but the fact is that increased wages have not kept up with the cost of living. We know that Labor has already broken promises to reduce the cost of living, to reduce the cost of power and to improve wages.

These broken promises affect everyday Australians, who are doing it tough with these increased costs of living. I've been out in the community, as have my colleagues, talking to business owners, talking to individuals, talking to families and talking to employees to understand just how Labor's broken promises on the cost of living are impacting ordinary Australians. Some businesses are planning, and indeed expecting, an economic downturn, and they're preparing to lay off staff right now. The cost of key supplies for some businesses has increased by as much as 30 per cent in a week. One business told me that they are planning for people to have less expendable income as inflation increases, so therefore they will sell fewer goods. Another business told me that they are absorbing some of the fixed costs because they're concerned that consumers will stop spending rather than wear those price increases.

Businesses are looking how to best manage their finances so they can absorb those increased power bills and grocery costs just so that they can keep staff on. One Sydney restaurant was reported in the newspaper of offering a $5,000 sign-on bonus just to get new team members for dishwashers and managers. Another Melbourne restaurant has resorted to recruiting staff from Dubai, and covering the costs of their visas and processing fees, at about $8,000 each.

The cost of living is causing real concern to Australian people. In fact, this week Suicide Prevention Australia reported that 40 per cent of Australians say that money issues have caused them more distress in the last year, with experts warning that it is the biggest risk to suicide rates. Suicide Prevention Australia referenced expected Reserve Bank rate rises, saying this is an economic issue that has overtaken social issues in levels of distress.

It's clear that Labor's broken promises on the cost of living are impacting all Australians, but we also have to remember that the Labor Party is the party of higher taxes; it always has been and always will be. There is a suite of new taxes on its way that the government's allies in the union movement have already proposed that will simply take more money out of your pockets: new taxes on workers, new taxes on businesses, new taxes on dividends and a retiree tax 2.0 proposed by the ACTU as part of this Jobs and Skills Summit.

The Prime Minister made it clear that he does not support the third stage of the coalition's personal income tax plan. In fact, when stage 3 is implemented in 2024-25, around 95 per cent of taxpayers will face a marginal tax rate of 30 per cent or less. But that doesn't matter to the Treasurer, who said: 'We're not big fans of the stage 3 tax cuts. We would think that they are the least affordable and least responsible,' yet they would put more money into people's pockets. Just last week the Prime Minister said that Labor actually tried to amend out the stage 3 tax cuts, but they weren't successful.

Here's the deal. We know that Labor did not cause the war in Ukraine, which has fed into high energy prices. We know that they didn't cause COVID, which induced the supply chain problems that we're seeing right around the world. The things that cause inflation are not of Labor's making. However, they are this government's problem. The Australian people look to their government to help them through a crisis.

The previous government's challenge was COVID, and our response to that crisis resulted in the best health and economic outcomes any country in the world achieved. This Labor government has faltered at its first hurdle, its first challenge. There will be more challenges that it needs to face. It's already broken promises. So far, you have stumbled. This is an opportunity now to recommit to helping ordinary Australians with the cost of living; recommit to that $275 cut in power prices that you repeated 96 times throughout the election campaign; recommit to tax cuts for ordinary Australians so that they can keep more of their own money in their own pockets; and recommit to helping ordinary Australians with the cost of living, which is their No. 1 issue right now in any survey.

There's a saying that you lead with your chin. On this occasion with the MPI not only have the opposition led with their chin; they've led with their head, their shoulders, the upper part of their body—the only thing they haven't led with is the toes on the ends of their feet. This is a prime example of people who have no idea of the pressures of cost of living and the stresses on people right across our community.

They said it quite clearly when they talked about the cost of living, when it was put down all that time ago, when the whole decision, the cultural change, was brought about by the opposition when they were in government. It was clearly spelt out by Mathias Cormann when he, as the Liberal finance minister, let the big one slip, when he said, 'Low wages growth is a deliberate design feature of our economic architecture.' That will live in infamy for years to come.

This government is clear about making sure that the mistakes the conservatives made whilst in government aren't continued. It's clear that we've made a decision that what Mr Cormann said quite loud was not loud enough. I think he needed to go one step further. He needed to say, 'We have a design feature of wage decline in this country.' Those people opposite were the first ones in the history of this country to actually wind back the middle class in this country, under their watch, their policies and their strategy.

Mathias Cormann went further than he could have even imagined to go to turn around and destroy wages, conditions and rights within this country. Wage cuts are a deliberate design feature of the coalition's economic architecture. It's funny: I don't remember seeing the phrases 'low wages growth' or 'wages cuts' on any Liberal Party election material, but that's exactly what they did, and those are exactly the policies they followed.

Now that the coalition are in opposition, they're acting constructively to deal with the low-wages crisis they created—heaven forbid! You'll be surprised to learn that they aren't—are they? No, of course they aren't. We had a summit with government, employers, unions and civil society last week to work on solutions to these issues. The only people who refused to show up were the Liberal Party. Poor old Angus Taylor was doing the media rounds demanding that he receive an invite, only for the Leader of the Opposition to tell him he wasn't allowed to go.

Last week was a great step forward on a real solution to the Liberal wages crisis. We saw agreements between the ACTU and COSBOA, even though the Liberals are threatening to have COSBOA's blood because they turned around and had the audacity to reach an agreement across the aisle, across the community and across business which is in the interest of all Australians. They just want to have the war and the fight because their deliberate strategy is to decrease wages, not only to keep them low.

We had agreements between the ACTU and the BCA. We had agreements between the unions and the National Farmers Federation. These are all things that couldn't be achieved by those on the opposite benches when they were in government. There were so many agreements at the summit, but the Liberals couldn't even agree on whether the shadow Treasurer would be allowed to attend. You don't think, when the government, good employers and workers come to consensus agreements that the opposition should get onboard? But that's what they think; they don't think we should be getting onboard. They think we should be tearing those agreements up.

We worked to make sure we had government, employers and unions coming together for the betterment of this country. That's the sort of Australia people want to see: consensus building, changes that mean that their real wages increase. There are no policies on the opposite side for that to happen. In fact, they have policies to make sure it doesn't happen, and they've stayed on the exact same program.

We've seen the attacks on the small business council. We've seen the Nationals attacking the National Farmers' Federation. It makes you wonder exactly who the coalition represent these days. They don't represent employers, who want to do the right thing; that's for sure. Good employers are coming to the table with the government and with unions and the community to work out solutions, because they know we need to see wages moving in the right direction again. They know that after a decade of Liberal wage cuts we need wages growth to kickstart our economy. They know that to get wages moving we need to fix our bargaining system, that we need to remove the barriers to enterprise and multi-employer bargaining.

But the Liberals don't represent the interests of good employers. Their new constituency is dodgy employers like Qantas, like Alan Joyce, who only know how to operate by ripping off their workers. Qantas is a textbook case for why single enterprise bargaining is not fit for purpose. Alan Joyce's enduring legacy will be that he proved that our enterprise bargaining system is broken and can be fixed only through multi-employer bargaining. He figured out that if you don't want to pay your workers the agreed-upon rates in your enterprise agreement then you can just outsource the work or, better yet, set up your own shell company to turn around and undercut your existing staff. Of course, Qantas has punted most of their workforce off enterprise agreements and on to agreements with creatively named shell companies, such as QF Cabin Crew Australia and Qantas Ground Services.

These shell companies exist only to undercut the agreements Qantas supposedly negotiated in good faith with their workforce. On one route you can now have five flight attendants who are employed by five different entities, each one on a worse deal than the last. One of the few cohorts still mostly employed directly by Qantas is their pilots. But just this year Qantas threatened their short-haul pilots with outsourcing if they didn't accept a multiyear wage freeze. And Qantas has the cheek to say:

We never said that a no vote would mean this flying would be outsourced.

They went on to say:

Had either pilot group not been able to provide us with the working arrangements needed to get a return on our investment, another entity would have done the flying.

That is just brazen. Qantas says it doesn't count as outsourcing if they set up a shell company themselves. Qantas made that exact same threat to their long-haul pilots two years ago. And on top of all the shell companies of Qantas there are third-party labour hire firms like Swissport paying workers so badly that they're underpaying the award.

The point is this: if Qantas workers are engaged through 20 or more different employers, single-employer bargaining does not work. If Qantas can tell its workers either to sign this agreement or they'll set up a new company to hire them, single-employer bargaining does not work. Alan Joyce has proven that multi-employer bargaining is the only way to protect and improve wages and conditions in aviation. You'll need a multi-employer agreement that cannot be undercut by another shell company or another Swissport. Otherwise, I can guarantee, there will continue to be a race to the bottom in the aviation industry.

It isn't just aviation. The Qantas blueprint is being adopted in other industries, such as mining. That's why there is a wages crisis in this country. If the Liberal and National parties really cared about wages and the cost of living, they would get on board with the government, unions and employers—good employers—to fix our bargaining system; they would get on board with multiemployer bargaining. But we know they never will, because, as Mr Cormann let slip, low wages growth is a deliberate policy agenda.

In actual fact, wage decline was a deliberate policy agenda under the opposition's watch when they were in government. That's why the opposition opposed a pay rise for aged-care workers. That's why the opposition were opposed to an increase in the minimum wage. But just as on climate and so many issues, the Australian public, employers and workers have moved on, past the coalition's internal culture wars.

We saw just last week a road transport industry round table convened by Minister Burke. There he had the Transport Workers Union; employer groups such as the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation, the National Road Freighters Association and the National Road Transport Association; employers like Linfox, Toll, FBT and ACFS; major clients Coles and Woolworths; truck drivers—employees as well as owner-drivers—and even gig platforms like Uber and DoorDash come to a settlement and a suggestion about what needs to happen in the future. That's the future for Australia.

Right across Australia, everyday Australians are struggling to make ends meet in the most basic of ways: rent, food, bills and health care. Too often, the people most impacted by these pressures are, in fact, First Nations people. In my electorate office in Perth, we have had a constituent contact us who was a victim of domestic violence. She left her abuser but could not find appropriate, safe and affordable accommodation in a timely manner. She was in fact advised that she would need to wait years for public housing, even if she were priority listed. This in itself is extremely traumatising.

Poverty is a vicious cycle, and we know that once someone is experiencing poverty it's unnecessarily hard for them to break out. We also know that poverty is a political choice. It is extremely bold of the opposition to suddenly come out and strongly advocate for cost-of-living relief after 10 years of the squandered opportunities of previous governments. The government of today needs a bold plan, which, unfortunately, we still haven't seen, to undo the impacts of the last 10 years of inaction.

If the current government wants to prove that they are actually taking this issue seriously, axing the stage 3 tax cuts is step No. 1. It is unconscionable that the government is continuing with this when we know the $243.5 billion that would benefit the most-wealthy people in this country could be used to make real change for those who need it the most. In fact, the Prime Minister, in response to the question of my colleague Max Chandler-Mather yesterday in the House, showed just how out of touch he is, jokingly comparing the lavish housing he gets whilst being one of the highest-paid politicians in the world to the public housing system that has people sleeping in tents because they can't access it.

The Greens took to the recent election a comprehensive policy platform that wasn't just about one policy and that will help to address cost-of-living pressures. The Greens know that a better future is possible. Currently, the only thing that's standing in the way of that is the lack of political will from the current government.

The matter of public importance that we are debating today is one that's in my name, and I think it's important to make sure that those listening at home because there's nothing else on the wireless are fully aware of the words of it. It is:

The failure of the Albanese Government to have a plan that addresses the rising cost of living facing all Australians.

The most important part of that is 'a plan', because it is pretty clear that this Labor government doesn't have a plan.

It's abundantly clear that the Labor government won the election in May of this year and my mob lost. Obviously, I'm workshopping my pain about that still, but that side are in power. What is interesting is how the new government—who have been in since May, so it's almost six months of being in power—are failing to understand that they're the government, that they have a responsibility to look after Australians and that they can't keep acting like a bunch of wannabe student politicians. They go around continuing to blame the previous government for everything from their bad haircuts to lost socks in the washing machine, but, in fact, they're the government and they're the decision-makers.

What is abundantly clear is that there is no plan. It reminds me a bit of that Monty Python skit about the dead parrot, in that there is no plan. It's a dead plan; it was dead on arrival. And we've got a government that goes around doing a lot of talking. They get a gold medal for talking. We witnessed that in question time today, where both Senator Wong and Senator Watt showed their hubris, their arrogance, their ego, their self-confidence and the self-congratulation party—I won't say orgy—that they are having in terms of how brilliant they are. But they're not delivering. They also regard a series of press conferences as a strategy or a plan. They regard sending some tweets out as a plan.

The former British Prime Minister David Cameron once famously said that too many tweets make a—well, it's a word that members of the CFMMEU would use when they're abusing females on a worksite, so you can imagine what the word is. There's no plan. There are a lot of tweets, a lot of press conferences, a lot of media releases being issued.

Those Australian families who went off to work today will come home and they'll get the news—depending on what time they listen to it, whether the radio is on in the car or they watch the six o'clock news—that the interest rate on their mortgage has gone up another half a per cent. So, if you live in one of the big cities and you've got a mortgage of, let's say, around $700,000 or $750,000—which is a lot money, but it's not uncommon in the big cities of Australia to have a mortgage like that—since May this year, since the election of this Labor government, your monthly mortgage payments have gone up by $800 or $900.

That is scary. That is very scary for the working families of Australia who are dealing with a Labor government that doesn't have a plan but is far more interested in playing politics, far more interested in media stunts, far more interested in having summits where people get together. I think a quarter of the attendees at the Jobs and Skills Summit last week were union officials or connected to the Labor Party, so this giant talkfest last week was a very broad, representative summit.

But for those Australians whose mortgages have now gone up today by another half a per cent, what is the message from this Albanese Labor government? It's arrogance. It's hubris. It's the laughing that we saw from the Labor ministers during question time today. It's the belief that they are invincible. This was particularly personified by Senator Watt, who is the new agriculture minister. Senator Watt was taking credit, as the minister, for the output of Australia's farmers. And I stand in this place as someone whose parents were cane farmers, whose grandparents were cane farmers and whose great grandparents were cane farmers. If you look at my hands, they clearly are not the hands of a farmer, and I think to myself: no politician, especially no Labor minister, should ever take credit for the work of a farmer and their family, or the work of a small businessperson and their family, because the work and the output that comes from the farm and comes from that business isn't because of some Labor politician; it's because of that farmer and that small businessperson.

What fascinated me was how Senator Watt was taking credit for the increased output of Australia's farmers. He was taking credit essentially for the good weather that we've had recently. I was thinking, 'Mate, you've got no idea about Queensland, a state which you claim to be a senator for. It's a state where some parts are still in drought. It's a state where, over a 10-year period, you might have one or two good years of good production, then you will have one or two years of average production and then you will have five or six years of very bad production.

If Labor are prepared to claim all the credit for the work that the farmers and graziers in Queensland do, I look forward to them standing up here when the drought comes back, which it will, and taking the blame for the hardship that has been wrecked upon and wreaked upon the businesses and farmers of Queensland. We've got a Labor government who don't understand how you address the cost of living. To quote one of their former leaders, who's now with my colleague Senator Hanson's party, it's not a conga line of press conferences; it's sitting down and doing the real hard work of government. It's sitting down and making decisions that will benefit the Australian people. It is sitting down and making sure—and I say this as someone who believes strongly in the cutting of taxes—that you continue to cut taxes.

It is making sure, also, that you deliver on your promises. One of the most interesting promises that Labor made during the last campaign was that they would reduce the power bills for Australians by $275. That was a pretty—

By 2025.

Here we go. The chitty-chat squad have started. They said they would reduce Australians' power bills by $275. The Labor leader promised to do that 97 times during the campaign. The Labor leader got up and said, 'We will cut Australian power bills by $275.' He didn't have a little footnote and speak in a little soft voice and say, 'It will be by 2025, and it will depend on what Penny Wong tells me and if I cross my fingers and brush my hair a certain way.' He promised the Australian people 97 times he would cut their bills by $275. How many times do you think the Labor Prime Minister and the Labor government have mentioned that particular promise since polling day? How many times? Zero. None. Zip. Niet. Non, if you're French. They haven't mentioned it at all, because they lied to the Australian people. The Labor Party lied to the Australian people. Not only do they not have a plan to reduce the cost-of-living pressures on Australians; during the election campaign they lied, and they knew they were lying.

The Labor leader says 97 times, 'I'm going to cut your power bill,' and then since that election he has recommitted to cutting people's power bills zero times. That's because what you see over there is arrogance, and it's the arrogance of a government who think they are invincible. It's the arrogance of a government who think they know better than the Australian people. It's the arrogance of a government who are snubbing their nose at the working men and women of Queensland and the farmers and the graziers. Shame on the Labor Party. (Time expired)

Australians are paying the price for a decade of missed opportunities and messed up priorities by previous Liberal governments, from Abbott to Turnbull to Morrison: a trillion dollar debt. The last senator's contribution was so disjointed, but they are trying to run away at a million miles an hour from the fact that they left us with a trillion dollar debt to the Australian community. High inflation, rising interest rates and the cost-of-living crisis are all the consequence of the previous Liberal government's mismanagement. Australians understand who created these challenges and the mess, because they know that the Liberals did nothing to address any of these issues until five minutes to midnight prior to the federal election. Petrol prices are up, groceries are up, rents are up, child care has become too expensive and the price of health care is up, all under the watch of the previous Liberal governments. As a government we understand what we inherited, but we're not going to deny it, making sure that the Australian people understand that that trillion-dollar debt was on their watch. But we've been elected to fix it, and that's exactly what we're going to do.

COVID exposed us to many weaknesses in our economy, and let's not confuse weaknesses for mismanagement by the Liberal governments. We know they allowed manufacturing to be shipped offshore, and what we want to do is invest in manufacturing and bring those secure well-paid jobs back here to Australia. Again, those opposite did nothing for the cost of living, and all they do is criticise the Albanese government. I'd just like to correct the previous member. He's obviously not very good with numbers. We've only been in government four months. It might feel like six months in opposition, but believe me you're going to get used to it, because you're going to be there for a while. We have an economic plan. We're a government that listened to the Australian community. They're sick of division. They're sick of disunity. What they want is to work together. They want the opposition, the government, business and unions to work together to resolve these issues. You can come in here and whinge all you like about how bad we are as a government, but what we really see is a stark contrast with a government that wants to bring people together. We want to listen to business, we want to listen to unions and we want to work together.

At the summit last week what did we see? Where was Mr Dutton, Mr 22 per cent? Where was he? He was nowhere to be seen, probably having a long lunch on Friday afternoon. We saw the Nationals leader come along to that summit with community leaders, NGOs, the union movement, premiers from each of the states and territory leaders. They want to work with the federal government on finding the solutions, because they understand how tough it is for families out there. What we've seen is a change in direction for pensioners. You don't have to go back to work, but if you're of pension age and you're fit and healthy and you want to go back to work to earn some money, we're going to support you to do that. Not only are you going to be earning additional money that will help you through this period but you will also be mentors for those people you work around, and that's a very good thing.

I've just meet with representatives of TAFE colleges from Tasmania, and they said to me that they are suffering because over the last decade the Liberal governments have tried to run and have successfully, unfortunately, run TAFEs into the ground. I see Senator Duniam over there smiling and laughing. As a fellow Tasmanian I'm very disappointed because his state Liberal colleagues have done exactly that. The Liberals are so afraid of what we might find out that they won't allow even Labor senators to visit the TAFE campuses. That's how paranoid they are. The reality is we will, as we've already committed, invest in TAFE. We will ensure Australians get the opportunity to get the skills and training they need for the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow. We know it's going to take more than just those Australians that can enter the workforce now, but we do have a plan, a plan that you can watch us implement from the other side. (Time expired)

I think this is a very important debate. I've got three minutes to talk on this issue. Listening to the debate that's going on here from either side, did I hear answers from the government then how they're going to address the cost of living? No; none whatsoever. All I hear are complaints about what the other side did. Let me remind the people that Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke said in the 1980s, 'No child will be living in poverty in this country by the year 2000.' When I watch TV, nearly on a weekly basis I see the advertisement for the Smith Family stating that there are a million children in Australia living in poverty, over a million children asking for help. I don't know if this chamber or the leaders of this nation in this place really can relate to the Australian people and how much they are hurting. When I turned on the TV this morning I saw that 40 per cent of people recognise the cost of living as being the biggest issue for them. What has the Labor Party done to address this? All they've spoken about is a robodebt royal commission and Scott Morrison's ministry positions. They have spoken about the jobs summit. What was that? Really? You know, about jobs.

Labor talk about the pensioners working; well, sorry, that was my policy. I'm pleased to see that the Liberal Party have taken it up but that was, again, my policy. You talk about the TAFE colleges; again, it's something I have been speaking about for years. The apprenticeship scheme was my policy to get apprentices working in 2018.

If you want to address the cost of living in this country, you address what is the cost of electricity in Australia, not only for Australian homes. The government is driving up the cost of electricity for normal households, industries, manufacturing. This is going to drive increased prices. Farmers have told me they can't afford electricity. This is a problem, yet the government is bringing in an emissions target that's going to drive up electricity costs. They have done it in England. They've done it in Europe. Guess what? It's failed. Beer in England now is $34 a pint. If you take away from the Australian people the ability to go to the pub with their mates and have a beer, you're destroying their whole life. That's what it is about. You don't realise what you're doing for the Australian people and the future generations of this nation. Don't talk to me about it. You have no idea. (Time expired)

I also rise today to speak on the matter of public importance regarding the failure of the Albanese government to have a plan to address the rising cost of living facing Australians today despite the government's repeated claims during the election campaign that they had a plan. How appropriate it is that we're discussing this today, the day the Reserve Bank increased the interest rates by a further 0.5 per cent, taking the cash rate to 2.35 per cent, the highest level since December 2014. This rise is the fourth 0.5 per cent rise in each of the four successive months since the election and it will send even more Australians into mortgage stress. In Tasmania, where the average mortgage is around $450,000, payments could be increased by an extra $130 per month. That's $130 less money for those families every month.

This interest rate rise comes on top of an inflation rate of 6.1 per cent as at June this year, which is the highest rate of inflation in almost 32 years. Coincidently, this peak in inflation in the December 1990 quarter came at the time of 'the recession we had to have', according to Labor back then. Then there's the rising costs of groceries and the rising cost of electricity. Tasmania's power bills increased by 12 per cent in July, which is an extra $200 a year. The cost of living is higher now than ever, but we're still waiting to hear of the Albanese government's plan on how they will deal with this crisis.

However, the Parliamentary Budget Office has some insight for us on Labor's policies. The PBO has confirmed that the government's policies will result in higher debt and deficits than the plans the coalition put forward ahead of the election. So not only are we in a worse position since Labor took government but we will be worse off in the future too due to the cost of their policies.

The Assistant Treasurer is predicting hyperinflation and more industrial action. We don't need predictions about doom and gloom; we need action from a government that actually has a plan to get the cost of living down for Australians. During the coalition's term, more than $1.9 million jobs were created, with over 1.1 million of those filled by women. Female workforce participation grew to 62.24 per cent under our watch compared to 51. 7 per cent when we took over government, and the gender pay gap reduced too. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.9 per cent, the lowest in decades, and the number of trade apprentices in training hit 220,000, which is the highest level since records began in 1963.

Besides creating jobs so that more people could earn their money, the coalition cut taxes. Low- and medium-income earners became eligible for a tax offset in July, something many people have already realised benefits from after submitting their tax returns in recent months. And we legislated the personal income tax cuts to ensure that around 95 per cent of taxpayers will not pay a marginal tax rate of more than 30 cents in the dollar in 2024-25. We also reduced the company tax rate for small businesses to 25 per cent—and remember, small businesses are what drives Australia's economy, and the people running these important operations were being taxed at 30 per cent under Labor. The coalition introduced the unincorporated small business tax discount and lifted this rate from five per cent in 2015-16 to 16 per cent from 2021-22. Combined, these change will deliver more than $21 billion in tax cuts to small business from 2015-16 to 2024-25, with around $2.6 billion estimated to flow through in 2022-23. Not only did the coalition expand access to small business tax concessions but we also provided tax relief and reduced red tape.

Then there's the coalition's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of the pandemic the coalition provided $314 billion in economic support to help Australians get to the other side of this huge economic shock. This support included JobKeeper, the program that saved 700,000 jobs and stopped the unemployment rate reaching 15 per cent. It was the biggest economic support program in Australia's history.

So where is the Albanese government's plan to address the cost-of-living rises that are impacting us all? There is no plan. The Prime Minister has already broken his election promise to reduce power prices for families and businesses by $275, but we all know that our energy bills are rising and look set to keep going up. Before the election, Mr Albanese said Australians would be better off under a Labor government. I don't think the people who are facing a 0.5 per cent interest rate rise on their mortgage today feel they are better off.

I'd like to thank Senator McGrath for putting forward today's MPI, because it allows us to outline the ways that Labor, in our first 100 days, have acted to help Australians with their cost of living and what we plan to do. This stands in bleak contrast with the actions of the former Liberal government, which ignored Australians as their costs went up, drove down wages and even delayed the release of a report on electricity price rises for their own political gain. Let's just think about that. The Liberal government had a report on electricity prices saying that electricity prices would rise, and they deliberately did not release it—for their own political benefit.

Australians are paying the price of a decade of missed opportunities and messed-up priorities under the coalition. Our government took office at a time of rising inflation, falling real wages, a skills-shortage crisis, rising interest rates and a trillion dollars in Liberal Party debt. These are the consequences of years of economic mismanagement by our predecessors. Australians actually do understand that we didn't create these challenges, but they did elect us to take responsibility for cleaning them up—and that's what we're doing. So, one of the first acts of the Albanese government was to successfully argue for the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. This helped 2.8 million Australians. We followed that with a submission to the Fair Work Commission that unequivocally supports a wage increase for aged-care workers. What did those on the other side do about aged-care workers in the nine years they were there? Zilch—not a thing.

Our budget in October will include our plans for cheaper child care and cheaper medicines, making a real difference to household budgets for millions of families. Labor will cut the maximum copayment under the PBS from the current maximum of $42.50 to $30. This represents a saving of $12.50, or 29 per cent. The changes to the PBS will take effect from 1 January 2023 and will save Australians more than $190 million a year in out-of-pocket costs.

Let me tell you about Labor's childcare plan. The plan means that 96 per cent of families with a child or children in care will be better off. That's 1.26 million families. Labor will lift the maximum rate of childcare subsidy to 90 per cent for families for the first child in care, increase childcare subsidy rates for every family that has one child in care and earns less than $530,000 in household income, keep higher childcare subsidy rates for the second and additional children in care and extend the increased subsidy to outside school hours care.

We on this side are working hard to deliver our commitment to lift the speed limit on the economy that those on the other side implemented. We are working hard to get wages moving again, with investments in cheaper and cleaner energy, advanced manufacturing skills and fee-free TAFE. In fact, the government is committed to providing 465,000 fee-free TAFE places and 45,000 new TAFE places in industries facing skills shortages. I'm pleased to say that this includes early childhood education. These fee free places will obviously be a massive saving for those looking to reskill or improve their qualifications and help them to increase their take-home pay.

Our guiding principles as a government are about ensuring no-one is left behind. More than 4.7 million Australians will receive a much-needed boost to their social security payments from this month to help ease cost-of-living pressures. The Albanese Labor government has announced the largest indexation increase to payments in more than 30 years for allowances and 12 years for pensions. The age pension, disability support pension and carer payment are all set to rise by $38.90 a fortnight for singles and $58.80 a fortnight for couples. The maximum rate of pension will increase to $1,026.50 a fortnight for singles and $773.80 for each member of a pension couple or $1,547.60 per couple, including pension supplement and energy supplement.

JobSeeker payment, parenting payment, Abstudy and rent assistance will also increase. The rate of jobseeker payment for singles without children will increase by $25.70 a fortnight to $677.20, including energy supplement, while parenting payment single will increase by $35.20. (Time expired)

Make no mistake, this cost-of-living crisis is being made far worse by the indifference of this government to those who right now are doing it the very toughest. After the biggest electoral win for progressives that this nation has ever seen, you would think that the new government would finally work towards supporting folks in our communities who are struggling to get by. They certainly talk the talk. This morning the Prime Minister said these exact words:

A compassionate nation like ours cannot simply allow the suffering of our fellow Australians to continue unabated.

Prime Minister, you are absolutely right, which is why it is particularly galling that this government, despite talking the talk, is continuing to sacrifice the most-vulnerable, most-struggling people in our community to the spiralling cost of living.

Yesterday the rate of support payments and pensions increased ever so slightly. The reality of this increase is that it amounts to an increase of only two per cent in CPI on these payments, compared to an inflation rate of seven per cent. Yet, in this context, the Albanese government is asking the community to congratulate it for this increase, to celebrate it, to treat it as evidence of a benevolent Labor Party policy, when in truth it is a fiction. All they have done is index these payments to CPI. People are rightly furious about this because people who struggle week by week, month by month, on these payments understand the difference between indexation and an actual increase, because they live it every single day. I have to ask where the government gets the gall to attempt to advertise this as a win while so many Australians are languishing in poverty, which it, in no uncertain terms, has chosen to maintain. It is particularly affecting those on the disability support pension who were left behind again and again by the previous government and can expect, it seems, no better under— (Time expired.)

Indexation increases to a range of payments were announced yesterday, including JobSeeker. Recipients will get an extra $1.80 a day from 20 September—an extra half a coffee if they're lucky. This lifts the daily rate from $46 to $48. Expecting people to live on $48 a day is expecting people to live in poverty. The price of food alone is soaring, with estimates suggesting it could be costing lower income households as much as 40 per cent of their take-home wage to buy a week's worth of food.

This comes at a time where the costs of rent are driving people to homelessness. We're having to talk about the working homeless here in Australia. In the last 12 months the average rent on a unit in Canberra increased by 11 per cent. It is the most expensive city to rent in in our country. Nationally, there are 164,000 people on the social housing wait list—164,000. It is not an exaggeration to call this a housing crisis.

We are in a cost-of-living crisis, too. In the pandemic, the COVID supplement increased the rate of JobSeeker and we understand now that it lifted people out of poverty. During that time, people reported improved mental health outcomes. It allowed people to eat better and keep a roof over their heads. The research now shows that four-fifths of people who were on JobSeeker were able to live above the poverty line.

Everyone deserves of a safe, warm place to live. Everyone deserves to eat fresh and healthy food. I hope the government will urgently consider raising the rate to at least $70 a day to help get people out of poverty. Thank you.

Australians are facing a cost-of-living crisis. People are being smashed on all fronts: rising rents and mortgage repayments, rising food prices, rising education costs, rising health costs. Neither the Labor Party nor the Liberals and Nationals are interested in turning the tide around. In fact, they're actively committed to making it worse by refusing to invest in vital services, by refusing to lift income support payments and by backing in $243 billion of tax cuts for the super wealthy. Of the $243.5 billion of Labor's stage 3 tax cuts, $188 billion, or 77 per cent, of the benefit will go to the wealthiest 20 per cent of the population. Even worse, you're giving the richest one per cent as much as you are giving the bottom 65 per cent.

The commitment to raw, unadulterated neoliberalism should bring shame to all of those on the Labor benches. Labor's stage 3 tax cuts for the super-rich will turbo charge inequality in this country and effectively destroy our progressive taxation system. At a time when the share of national income going to profit is at an all-time high and the share of national income that is going to workers' wages is at an all-time low, this is both economically and morally indefensible—and you know it! You know full well that this is an indefensible policy, which is why you try to blame it on the Libs. But you know what? When you vote for it, you own it.

We must do more to deliver cost-of-living relief to people. The Greens have proposed numerous policies that would meaningfully help people to live better lives. We've talked about freezing rent for two years and then capping rent hikes to two per cent every two years. It has been done in Victoria, British Columbia, New York and Germany. Let's do that here, too. We've talked about making public education truly free, with no fees: no public school fees, free university and TAFE, and free meals for schoolkids. That will help people with cost-of-living relief. We've talked about reforming tax loopholes, reforming the petroleum resource rent tax, introducing a windfall profit tax and closing existing loopholes that let big corporations and billionaires not pay their fair share.

We've talked about free child care. Child care is a huge portion of the household budget for many families. Free child care means an ease in the cost-of-living pressures for families. It would cost around $9 billion per year, much less than the stage 3 tax cuts, to give free child care to all families. We've talked about pausing the interest rate hikes at least until the October budget. Interest rate rises are hurting both renters and new homeowners, and they are doing nothing to address supply side inflation. Labor's stage 3 tax cuts will turbocharge inequality. We need cost-of-living relief now, not more tax cuts for the wealthy.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I rise to speak to Migration Act 1958 Commonwealth Ombudsman's reports Nos 20 to 22, 24 and 25 of 2022, as well as the government responses to those Commonwealth Ombudsman reports.

I want to be very clear here that the average length of time that people spend in immigration detention in Australia is a human rights calamity. When you compare us to other countries in the world, we imprison people in immigration detention in this country—in some cases for many years, and in a small number of cases for over a decade—for far longer than comparable countries around the world, whether it be the United Kingdom, Canada or the United States. We are a global outlier in terms of how long we keep people in immigration detention, why we put them in immigration detention in the first place and the way we treat them in immigration detention. That is why the Greens have consistently argued for a royal commission into immigration detention not just onshore but offshore, on what we did to people on Nauru and Manus Island.

I want to say right here that there are still over 200 people in either Papua New Guinea or Nauru who are in their 10th year of suffering. They were put there by the Labor Party in 2013, and they remain there now—after long years of Liberal government—under a Labor government, exiled in Papua New Guinea or Nauru. I know some of those people, and I'm in contact with some of those people, either directly or indirectly. I can tell you now that some of them are doing it incredibly tough.

There is no excuse, no reasonable rationale for leaving those people in exile in Papua New Guinea or Nauru for one day longer. They should be brought to Australia and settled here. Even if the Labor Party won't do that, what the Labor Party should do is bring them here to Australia and allow them to stay here in this country until they are resettled in a third country. That would actually be in line with Labor Party policy. It is unconscionable that in the 10th year of suffering they are still suffering so much and so grievously. In onshore detention, we have stateless people who've been locked up year after year, arbitrarily detained with no hope of ever being released, locked up in our onshore immigration detention system.

We have to have a royal commission into onshore and offshore immigration detention in this country because we need to make sure that the grievous suffering that has been endured by so many for so long—whether it be here in Australia, on Manus Island, in Port Moresby, on Nauru—that that suffering is brought to an end and that we never in this country write such a foul, dark and bloody chapter in our national story again. We need to hold people to account for what has happened here, for what happened on Manus Island, for what has happened on Nauru—the murders, the rapes, the child sex abuse, the deliberate dehumanisation, the deliberate imposition of suffering in an attempt to make people's lives so bad that they flee back to the persecution that they fled from in the first place. We need to make sure that never happens again in this country. We need to make sure that people are held to account for what happened, and the way we can do that is through a royal commission, so we can get the truth out about what happened and make the improvements that need to be made so that we can regain our human rights credibility. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Question agreed to.

On behalf of the Chair of the Economics Legislation Committee, Senator Walsh, I present the report of the committee on the provisions of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Electric Car Discount) Bill 2022, together with accompanying documents.

I rise to take note of the Senate's Economics Legislation Committee report on the electric cars discount bill. I would like to commend the committee for this—

Senator, I've been advised that this is part of the selection of bills report, and you don't normally speak on it at this time. You wait until the bill comes before the chamber.

On behalf of the Chair of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, I present the 85th annual report of the committee

On behalf of the Legal and Constitutional References Committee, of which I'm the chair, I present additional information received by the committee on its inquiry into the application of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Australia.

The President has received letters nominating senators to be members of committees.

by leave—I move:

That senators be appointed to committees as follows:

I ntelligence and Security—Joint Statutory Committee—

Appointed—Senators Birmingham, Ciccone, Paterson, Marielle Smith and Walsh, pursuant to the Intelligence Services Act 2001

Northern Australia—Joint Select C ommittee—

Appointed—Senators Dodson and Green

We have a related motion that we will be seeking to move and make some contributions to, but we'd obviously rather not get in the way of first speeches.

I understand you have an amendment. Would you like to move that now?

Yes, we are willing to do that, unless the government would like to delay this until after first speeches. It's up to you, as a gracious thing to do.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESID ENT: I'm just waiting for some clarity. Do we delay it until after the first speeches? I'm in the hands of the government. Senator Waters, you should move your motion.

As per the motion that's been circulated in the chamber relating to membership of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I move, as an amendment:

That the motion to appoint senators to committees be amended as follows:

At the end of the motion add:

, except in relation to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, and that in relation to that committee:

(a) the nominations advised by the Leader of the Government in the Senate not be approved, as the Leader of the Government has not consulted the leaders of each recognised, non-government, political party in the Senate about the membership of the committee (as required by subsection 14(4) of Schedule 1 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001); and

(b) nominations for membership of the committee not be further considered until the Senate is notified by the Leader of the Government that:

i. this consultation has occurred, and

ii. as required by subsection 14(5) of Schedule 1 of the Act, due regard has been had to the desirability of ensuring that the composition of the committee reflects the representation of recognised political parties in the Parliament.

I now seek to speak to that motion, assuming that I have the right to continue on and do that.

We've got less than two minutes.

Yes. This is why I suggested that we delay it until after the first speeches.

I'm seeking some guidance from the chamber. You did offer that courtesy, Senator Waters.

Acting Deputy President, perhaps the best way to proceed would be if I could get an indication from Senator Waters that she would speak for five minutes prior to the first speeches. I'm trying to arrange the speaking times and arrange that you be afforded a chance to speak prior to the upcoming first speeches. Then we'll continue with speeches in relation to this after the first speeches.

I might note, for the chamber's benefit, that I imagine a number of other folk will also want to speak to my motion, so it may well be neater to do it after the first speeches. I am once again offering that for everybody's—

I will be guided by the chamber, but I think that, in light of the fact that we have the two senators ready, we should proceed to the first speeches.

Debate adjourned.

e PRESIDENT (): Pursuant to order, I now call Senator Tyrrell to make her first speech, and I ask senators that the usual courtesies be extended to her.

This is the strangest experience, being a senator—calling myself one, even. It feels like I'm a kid playing dress-ups, like there's been a mistake. Any minute now, someone's going to come grab me and tell me I actually lost. I didn't grow up writing and rewriting my first speech in my head.

I grew up hanging out with my Nanna French, swimming at Gunns Plains or Spellmans Bridge, wearing knitted clothes, going for a barbecue and collecting firewood for winter. I was an average student. I struggled with maths, and truthfully I still struggle with it. In high school, I was the chubby, geeky, weird kid. I liked hanging out in the library, going through books about the world outside of Tassie. After school, I fell into the trap of bad perms, short skirts and high heels—go on, you know you all did! I worked on a farm, going out to the paddock, collecting the hay bales and throwing them onto a truck. It's not glamorous work, but a girl needs money. That Garfield-orange XD Falcon with a column gear shift wasn't going to pay for itself. You can buy one now for two grand; it's a collector's item.

Mum passed away 23 years ago, too young. All she wanted was time with the people she loved. She knew what it meant to struggle. I think we all do. I hear politicians talk about it. The words that get used always sound foreign to me—phrases like 'putting bread on the table'. You don't work just so you can put bread on the table; you work because it gives you something else. I'll tell you how I know that. I didn't go to university. I worked in paddocks, like I've said numerous times, factories and offices. I raised a family. They would judge me harshly sometimes, but that's okay.

I've been unemployed. In between, I worked for 15 years in employment services, helping the long-term unemployed back into work. This is what I saw. When you first lose your job, people will ask you, 'What do you do for a living?' and you say your old job like you still do it. It's just out of habit. At least when it starts, it's habit. Then you're out of the job a little longer, and it's out of convenience. It's a white lie, but it's simpler, because it's what you'll be doing again in no time at all. Then a bit of time passes, and you realise that maybe you won't be. You start to say you're between jobs, which is like saying you're adrift, but land is in sight. You say it to reassure the person you're saying it to. But then a little while passes, and you're still saying you're between jobs. You end up saying it a few too many times to the same few people. You keep telling them land is in sight, but you never make it there. And it gets embarrassing, so they stop asking, and you know why they're not asking you anymore. You ask a kid what her dad does, and she'll tell you what his job is.

Tasmania has places where people grow up watching their parents be unemployed, and it breaks my heart. I've seen bright, funny, confident people get broken by a long stint out of work. They get humiliated by it. It's like coming last in a beauty contest every single day. It's a kind of trauma, and it's bloody hard to come back from. Decent people deserve decent work for decent pay. That's what I care about. When you're out of work, you deserve help to get back on your feet. You deserve a lift up and respect for the strength it takes to lift yourself up off the floor. If you can't work, we should be working for you to make your life better.

Jacqui and I come from the same place. I started working for her in her Burnie office about eight years ago. I was terrified, cacking my daks. Two weeks in and I'm talking to a brand spanking new senator and—you've all met her. I didn't want to show how terrified I really was. The first thing she heard me say when I walked through her door was, 'Honey, I'm home!' I don't think I've really stopped that ever since. Her huffing and puffing up the hallway every morning is my wake-up call.

Working in a political office, you spend a lot of time helping people make sense of the rules. One thing that the job helped me appreciate is that, these rules are made by people. It seems obvious to say but when you're a member of the public and you're bumping up against them, you get told 'that's just the rules', and that's the end of the conversation. And when I started, that was my approach too. But when you do the job a while, you learn the rules enough to know when you can work around them. Sometimes you have to. Sometimes the rules are bloody dumb. Rules are set by people. They're not handed down from on high. And if they don't work for people, people can change them. We can, right here, if we want to.

The other thing I saw working with Jacqui was just how rough it can be on the crossbench. People are passionate about issues but they're passionate on both sides, for and against, and that passion can be horrible when you're caught in the middle of it. Please don't be horrible to us here in the crossbench. When the crossbench is in the balance of power, it's because the parliament can't agree to anything. That's okay. That's normal. That's what we use politics for. But it gets ugly when we don't just disagree but we take it further. Half the country represented by half the parliament thinks the other half isn't just wrong but bad.

I've never heard someone put their hand up to run for politics because of their burning ambition to make Australia a worse place to be. Everyone here is here because they have an idea of what would make our country better. Those ideas clash with each other and that's alright. We have to start by agreeing that the person who holds the idea you disagree with isn't a bad person for not agreeing with you. I've never met a person who thinks their own views are immoral. Everyone thinks their views are the right ones, and the immoral ones are the people who disagree. That's a really toxic way to approach political debates. People who disagree aren't bad. They're not evil or less than human. They have a different view of what a good country looks like but that doesn't mean they're the devil incarnate. I want to disagree nicer.

With that in mind, I want to offer my respect and admiration for the person whose seat in this place I'm now perched. Former Senator Eric Abetz had a vision for what would make Tasmania an even better place to live and, for nearly three decades, he committed himself to making that vision a reality. It's not my vision, though, and I don't share his politics. I think he was wrong about what Tasmania needs, but he had an honestly held view that what he was fighting for was what's right for our state, and I admire him for that. It's what I want to do. I am just going to do it a bit differently.

My friends are a lot like me: they're very plain and simple. They're not classy but they're not nasty, and you'll never be left wondering what they are thinking. I like people who are straight with me and that's how I always try to be with them too. Most people are like that. Politicians don't seem to have the same reputation, and I am sorry about that, I really am. I campaigned on the idea that we want more regular people in politics. I still reckon we do. But we can't say we want it then get grumpy when we get it. That's the thing about normal people: they do normal people things. They laugh at inappropriate jokes—even though I can't tell a joke because I can never remember the punchline. They wear fat pants on the weekend—I have a few pairs. They'll try to say something clever and end up with their foot in their mouth. They get nervous talking to big crowds. They get self-conscious when there's a camera in their face—yes, that's you! They doubt themselves. Normal people change their minds about things. It's one of the things I like about Jacqui. She's not the Jacqui she was when she was elected the first time because she has not been afraid to learn.

I want to learn, and I want to change my mind. That's who I am. I change my mind about things all the time—be quiet, Tim! The reason I'm here is because I changed my mind about whether I wanted to be a politician. I like that about myself. I like being modest enough to say, 'I've learned more, and I was wrong.'

I don't want this job to change me. I don't want the normal to get drained out of me. But politics is the only place where, if you change your mind, you're punished. You're a 'flipper-flopper'. You can't be trusted. I'm telling you now: I will get things wrong. I will make calls on how I vote and then I'll live to regret them. I know that. I'm just hoping that I'm always open to learning how I got things wrong, and I'm hoping I won't be afraid to acknowledge it. Or, even if I am a little afraid, I do it anyway.

But everyone, from out on the streets to up in the Press Gallery, you've got to be prepared to cut us some slack. Politicians won't acknowledge they've got something wrong or acknowledge that they've changed their minds if you go after them. If you want politics to change, you've got a role to play too. If you've ever criticised a politician for flip-flopping or reversing their position on something or looking like a dork—I do that a lot—or feeling nervous about a media appearance—wait for it; that's happening soon—you're making it impossible for regular people to get involved in politics. Because you're marking them down for doing something regular people do.

I don't want to start acting like a politician. Please don't try and make me. I don't want to lose that part of me that gets awed by the building every time I walk through the marble hall. It's an amazing place to be. I want to show people that regular people can be good at this. I want people like me to look at me here and say, 'If she can do it, so can I.' Because you can. And you should.

I know the office of senator is a rental. It's a six-year lease, and if you're a good tenant your landlord might give you an extension. But it's never yours; it's always theirs. And if you forget that, they'll remind you.

I'm hoping I can look back years from now, when people ask me what it was like to be a senator, and I'm able to say good things. I hope people feel like they got value. Most of all, I want it to be something that's a source of pride for people: the ones who bent their backs to put me here. I want them to feel like they backed me to do good, and it paid off. I did good.

I don't want to seek out the limelight. I want to be able to give the limelight to the rest of us. I want to make it hard for the rest of Australia to ignore us. I want it to be impossible to focus anywhere else.

When they swear you in as senator, they give you a little pin to wear, instead of the tags everyone else has to wear. It's a little bit bougie. It's a way of saying, 'Look at you!' It's also to help the security guards know that you're somebody who needs to get somewhere in a hurry. They gave me a few. I guess they knew I'd lose them. I'm sorry if this is going to get me into trouble, but I gave them to a few people who helped make it possible for me to be here. But they didn't give me enough pins to give to everyone who got me here today.

So I want to give a shout-out to Sally. She volunteered during the election for two weeks straight. She was getting the bus for an hour to come and help us out. She's a cleaner. She doesn't make a lot of money. But she was baking me Anzac bickies at pre-poll in Launnie. Sally is the best kind of person.

Then there's Frannie. She's a pensioner who's survived domestic violence. She can't get in to see doctors and she can't afford basics that others might take for granted. She was there helping me out on pre-polls, and would bring Jacqui and me banana cake and coffee—with Kahlua icing, wasn't it? I know it was good!

Ron was our 'soup man'. He's a postie. He kept us warm with homemade soup, and he got extra brownie points for not forgetting the bread. Ron crashed his car on election night and totalled it, but he still managed to make it to our event—that's how keen he was to help.

And there's Brendan. Brendan spent six hours a day every day for two weeks helping us out on pre-poll. Brendan's got a disability, so he's not eligible to vote. But he wants to be involved. He didn't want to be ignored, and I'm so proud he turned up for us.

Wendi is one of our biggest supporters. She's the one you'd turn to when you need help with anything. She waved signs, dropped pamphlets in letterboxes, knocked on the doors of total strangers to talk about us, and handed out flyers on election day.

She's doing all this while she's raising children on the autism spectrum and trying to find long-term housing.

There's Catherine, who made us a brilliant umbrella billboard. There's Bruce, who kept up a steady dose of Tim Tams. There's Robert, who helped us more with signs than any small-business owner has time to do. There's Daryl, who's put his hand up to do everything, so long as it didn't involve a computer.

I'd also like to give a shout out to my patient and supportive family who backed me, stood up for me and gave me a healthy dose of reality, sometimes telling me to suck it up, buttercup, eat that concrete and build a bridge.

There's my baby bears, Liam and Jackson, who have one of the loopiest mamas on the north-west coast of Tassie.

There's Ree, my stunt double—thank you, you got me lots of votes. And there's Tai Tai and Kens—thank you so much for going out on pre-poll.

There's brother Gary, dad and Valma—thanks for giving me permission to disappear from your lives for at least the next six years.

And Timmay! Thanks for putting up with me on my bad temper days, my gaga days, and basically helping me to look like a normal person on a daily basis. And thanks for letting me buy a new puppy. I've already bought it.

My work family, old, current and new: you are legendary. You have given me the best advice along the way and, trust me, most of it stuck. You've also shown that brilliant and clever people want to work to mould politics but not necessarily for a major party.

You chose us and I will be eternally grateful for that, for a very long time. I'm hoping we can do amazing things into the future.

Yes, I'm going for the tissue right now. Thanks, Senator Lambie. I appreciate that, girlfriend.

As you can see, I didn't get here on my own.

I didn't get here because of Jacqui.

We got here together. And I love her to bits.

Because we're a team. Jacqui, me, Catherine, Sally, Brendan, Ron, Wendi, Daryl and Fran. We're a team.

We don't get union money. We don't get invited to business forums. I don't know why, Jacqui. Why is that!

We don't have billionaires cutting us cheques.

We have our team. We have the rest of us. And the rest of us are tired.

We're always told there's no room in the budget to help us out.

We've got to fund something else to make up some money, and we'll use that money to help us out.

So we wait. We're polite. And we're at the back of the queue, and we're watching the queue getting longer, and we're not getting any closer to the front.

We're never the next cab off the rank. We just wait.

And we're sick of waiting.

So we're cutting the queue. We're next.

My friends, they're next. And in my six years, I want to make Sally's life better, Wendi's life better and Brendan's life better. They deserve better. They're why I'm here.

That's what I promise. To stick up for them. To stick up for us. For the rest of us.

I can't promise I'll get everything you need.

But I promise I'll give you everything I've got.

Thank you so much for letting me be here and supporting me.

Six years!

I rise to present my first speech—finally! I begin with the universal Islamic greeting of Assalaamu Alaykum, which translates to: may peace be upon you all.

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri elders and knowledge holders who have paved the way for those here now, those following proudly in their footsteps and those yet to come as custodians and owners of country. I would also like to acknowledge Whadjuk country as my home base where I live, care for and maintain continuing reciprocal relationships with all who share this land. Sovereignty has never been ceded. These always were and always will be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands.

I recognise the resilience and strength of all First Nations people of Australia and appreciate their knowledge sharing and stories, which influence the lives of many new Australians like me. It is time to recognise a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament as a significant and practical reform to get long overdue outcomes for First Nations people. I am so proud to be part of an Albanese Labor government who will implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart, emphasising our support for voice, for truth and for treaty.

I congratulate you, President, on your election as the second female President of the Senate and the first Labor woman to hold your position. Your incredible sense of justice and fairness will make you perfect for the role. I wish you every success.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my late father, Abdul Wakil, whose selfless sacrifices will never be forgotten and whose advice about hard work, perseverance and integrity I will hold on to as pearls of wisdom.

To my mother, Shogufa: your unconditional love has given me the strength to get through my toughest moments. Thank you for always supporting me and trusting my ambitious journey.

To my three amazing siblings, thank you for making life that extra bit bearable. Horush, you have made me so proud of all your achievements as a mother, a wife, a make-up artist and a soon-to-be pharmacist. Salman, I love your sense of humour and enjoy our spontaneous kitchen-counter philosophical discussions. Sina—who is preparing, like so many young Australians, to sit the final year 12 exams—your wisdom is beyond your years and I know you have a bright future ahead of you. I wish Sina and all the year 12 students out there sitting their final exams the best of luck!

For me, there's no such thing as a first speech without dedicating a section to my incredible mentors and support network. I would not be here without you.

The WA Labor Party office team, former State Secretary Tim Picton and current State Secretary Ellie Whitaker—thank you all for your efforts in supporting my campaign.

Jacob Stokes—congratulations on running the best Senate campaign Australia has ever seen, with a great deal of strategic direction and management. Thank you for putting up with my highs and lows on the campaign trail.

Dom Rose—I know you couldn't be with us today, but thank you for being an older brother who saw potential behind my crazy ideas and supported me through my breakdowns, and of course introduced me to the Dockers!

Carolyn Smith—thank you for your generosity, guidance and goodwill.

The Honourable Pierre Yang MLC—thank you for giving me the opportunity to prove myself and for taking me under your wing of guidance on this political journey.

Terry Healy MLA—thank you for the contagious energy and interest you brought to my campaign, always full of amazing ideas and inspiration.

Janine Freeman—thank you for the long chats and for providing me with a platform to speak my mind.

I want to extend my appreciation to every federal WA Labor colleague who supported my campaign and encouraged me to keep striving. I wish I had time to name you all.

I'm also grateful to my dear friends and my state Labor colleagues present here in the gallery, who travelled from WA and across the country to be with me today.

I am thrilled to have a wonderful team in Lena Hee, Alex Tilenni and Rose Lockhart, who have helped me adjust to this new role. I look forward to the awesome things we will achieve together as a team in the years to come.

A final thankyou to my beautiful home state of Western Australia for putting your trust in me and the Labor government. We will work hard for you and with you every day.

President, and fellow senators: I stand before you tonight as a young woman, as a Western Australian, as a Muslim devout to her faith, proud of her heritage and grateful to this beautiful country. This is a country that offers so much to so many. People travel from all parts of the world in the hope of calling Australia home. My family and I also had that hope. On a cold winter evening 8,852 kilometres away from Perth, I was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1995 as the first child of a young couple thrilled at the prospect of what the future held for their little bundle of joy. That excitement did not last longer than a year, followed by the collapse of Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban. With no hope in sight, my parents had to make the tough decision of fleeing to Pakistan with my newborn sister and me. Resettling was difficult, but not as difficult as what my mother was about to urge my father to consider—to migrate to Australia.

In 1999 my late father risked his life and left his family behind to traverse the Indian Ocean for 11 days and 11 nights on a small boat in stormy weather, in the hope of finding safety and security for his wife, two daughters and a son on his way. Anxiety and ways of doubt flooded my mother's thoughts as she waited and waited for any news of my father arriving safely in Australia. Four months later, we finally received the good news, and from there on for four years my father worked around the clock as a kitchen hand, a security guard and a taxi driver while learning English as a second language and saving up enough money to sponsor my mother, my two siblings and me.

In 2003, we were finally reunited with my father and settled in the northern suburbs of Perth to begin our new life together. As we adjusted and adapted, I witnessed the struggles my parents went through to put food on the table, to pay for our education and to provide a roof over our heads. As it does for many hardworking Australians, this came as second nature to my parents, who just wanted the best future for their children.

From discrimination and abuse to job insecurity and low wages, my father endured those hardships without complaining or seeking compensation, and when my youngest brother started kindergarten, that's when my mother embarked on a journey to start her own small business, a driving school to empower other women. Despite the unfamiliarity of the venture, my mother strived to alleviate the financial burden on my father to make ends meet. You see, my parents always encouraged us—encouraged my siblings and me—to aspire to greatness, to study hard, get a secure job and be a respectable member of society, to always stay true to your roots and to stay humble, to praise God and be grateful for his bounties, to be generous with our wealth and time towards those who are less fortunate.

However, life took a bitter turn when my father was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in 2017. He went through 11 months of intense chemotherapy, bone marrow transplant and endless cycles of medications, but his health continued depleting. My once fit, independent and healthy father became frail and weak and required assistance to move around. Despite this, my father was still the strongest man I have ever known. Losing him at the age of 47 was the most difficult reality of life I've had to face. He may have passed on, but his memories and teachings will forever remain, like 'little drops make a mighty ocean', or 'there is no substitute for hard work', or 'learn good manners from those who don't have them', or 'seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave'.

Life is short and very unpredictable, so we cannot take even a moment for granted. I have realised that, in order to live a productive and impactful life and to contribute towards my father's legacy, I must seize every opportunity that comes my way. Carpe diem—easier said than done, though.

I have realised that in order to live a productive and impactful life and contribute towards my father's legacy, I must seize every opportunity that comes my way. Carpe diem! Easier said than done, though. Life has its own way of throwing figurative punches. The onus is on us to see every challenge as an opportunity, as a chance to grow, as a lesson to learn and as a part of life.

When my attempts to study medicine were not successful, I took my late father's advice to pursue pharmacy, with the perception that the medical field was the only way to serve humanity. Cruising in my own world of endeavours, I stumbled upon my first experience of being made to feel like the 'other' at a university tutorial, when a young man ridiculed my hijab. You see, I never felt different growing up. Perth felt like home from the get-go because home is where the heart is and my heart was with my family, so I didn't feel different or strange. I felt like any other Aussie kid growing up in the northern suburbs of Perth, catching public transport to university and hoping to become a productive member of society.

But comments like, 'Go back to where you came from,' or inferences to extremism forced me to feel like I didn't belong. So I started volunteering in the hopes that, being part of the change, if I was seen to be spreading goodness in society, perhaps then I will be accepted as an equal member of this nation. I joined the Edmund Rice Centre and became involved in youth leadership through the guidance of Joe Moniodis. I joined the WA Police Muslim Community Advisory Group as the youth representative. I served as the President of the University of Western Australia's Muslim Students Association for two years and worked hard to have an active presence on university grounds to break down those barriers of the unknown.

Through my community work, I met the Hon. Pierre Yang MLC, upper house member for North Metropolitan Region in WA. That is where my journey in the Labor Party began. I finally found a space where I felt seen, appreciated and like I belonged. I made friends with people who shared the same core values. I remember my father always encouraging me to vote Labor, not because he was very well versed in Australian politics. But he had a firm belief that Labor cared for the working-class people and ensured the wellbeing of everyone on the economic spectrum.

It was Labor who established Medicare so that people like my father had access to the best treatments and medication without the financial burden being on the families to bear. It was Labor who abolished the White Australia policy to acknowledge, respect and celebrate the diversity of our growing multicultural society, so families like mine don't feel ostracised. It was Labor who pioneered superannuation and fought for workers' rights, ensuring everyone was afforded a fair day's pay, so hardworking Australians like my father weren't taken advantage of. And it is Labor who advocates strongly for education at all levels to be accessible to each and every Australian, to have the same opportunities to start life on the front foot.

It was a proud moment when I finally joined the Labor Party as a member, and from there on my experience as a union organiser at the United Workers Union solidified my Labor values and motivated me to spend every day fighting for fairness, justice and equality. I realised that my father was not alone in receiving poor treatment at work, so I strived to give the voiceless a platform to share their concerns and help to shape the policy that impacted their lives. Thousands of vulnerable workers in industries ranging from aged care, disability care and early childhood education to enrolled nurses and paramedics, to hospitality workers are all being underpaid and overworked and find themselves in very poor working conditions with little to no annual or sick leave. I knew they deserved better, and I wanted to be part of fighting the good fight for them.

After years of volunteering and dedicating myself to the movement, I finally felt my calling. This was going to be my way of serving humanity in my own community.

In 2021 I was asked to run for the Senate, and after many conversations with my former boss, Dom Rose, and the United Workers Union Secretary, Carolyn Smith, I decided to go for it. I wanted to be a representative for all Western Australians, including First Nations people and our cultural minority groups, who remain unrecognised for their contributions.

We needed our ideas and concerns to be considered. We needed a government that cared and listened. We needed a Labor government to restore that justice and clean up the mess created by almost a decade of poor decisions and policies from the previous government.

So, as the daughter of a refugee who came to this land with dreams of a safe and better future, I gave myself that audacity to challenge the system and to see how far I would go, to see how much ground I could break, to see how much change I could initiate.

I knew it wouldn't be an easy fight winning the third Labor Senate spot in WA; 1984 was the last time it was ours. But I gave it my best shot anyway and worked hard on the election of an Albanese Labor government. It was only when the numbers started creeping in and the seat was in contention that I felt the responsibility weighing on my shoulders.

I am honoured to have been elected as a Senator for Western Australia. And here we are today, as I give my first speech, celebrating 108 days since the election of a new Labor government, focusing on a better future for all.

Australians elected representatives who are focused on tackling the spiralling cost of living, and we will make health care, child care and housing more affordable. Australians showed us their appetite for a parliament that reflects our society, because you can't be what you can't see. Australians chose a government that values integrity, transparency, equality and fairness for all.

I am proud to say that the 47th Parliament, under the leadership of our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, will focus on closing that gap, bringing the nation together and ending the politics of division. What a proud moment for Australia! What a proud moment to put hand on heart and call oneself Australian!

This parliament is finally starting to reflect the nation envisaged by the current Leader of the Senate, Senator Wong, in her first speech:

I seek a nation that is truly one nation, one in which all Australians can share regardless of race or gender, or other attribute, and regardless of where they live, and where difference is not a basis for exclusion.

I am small in stature, but my potential is limited only by how far my determination will take me. I am here to see that what matters to ordinary Australians is what matters to our politicians.

As a Labor senator for WA, I want to continue standing up for my beautiful home state as your voice and representative in Canberra, and I promise to never take you for granted. I want to work towards better representation in our federal and state parliaments by engaging with women, people of colour, faith and all walks of life to take up the opportunity, because if I could make it, so can you.

I want to ensure that young people are acknowledged and considered when decisions about their futures are being made. Inspired by James Charlton’s book, 'Nothing about us without us' will be a slogan that I will embrace when advocating for accessible housing, education and employment opportunities for Australian youth.

I want to eradicate stigmas around mental health and make professional help more accessible. As someone who suffered from grief, anxiety and depression after my father’s passing, I appreciate the importance of maintaining my emotional and mental state.

I do not know what it will take to end homelessness, but I want it gone. In a progressive First World country, we must aim to remove poverty and homelessness from our streets and ensure that everyone has access to basic human needs.

I want to see people in jobs with dignity, having quality time to spend with their families, being able to give their children a good education, and being respected members and citizens of a country that appreciates their contributions and respects their uniqueness. I want to give this opportunity my best shot by staying hungry and humble, because not many 27-year-olds can say that they have the honour and privilege of serving our nation as a senator. It is so important to acknowledge that privilege because only then will we appreciate our purpose, responsibilities and duties to the people who elected us here, to this parliament, hoping for a better future.

Hope is an amazing thing. Hope can help you endure work in a foreign land with a foreign language so that you can save up enough money to sponsor your family. Hope can make you work multiple jobs and endless hours, all with a smile, knowing that you are building a better life for your kids.

There are many immigrants who turn to this great country of ours in hope of finding a better place to call home, to raise a family, to start a life. They bring with them their talents, skills, phenomenal work ethics and their families in hope for a better tomorrow. They add to our diversity, to our society, to our culture, to our cuisine and, of course, to our economy.

Whilst at times and even in this very chamber xenophobia has raised its ugly head, fear mongering and divisive sentiments have been shared about our immigrant population, the simple truth remains that as a nation, we need a humanistic and optimistic approach, a policy which will help solve many of our skills shortages, grow our economy and strengthen our diversity and link to the world.

I am a proud daughter of an immigrant and there are millions more like me. In fact, this great nation of ours was built on immigration. The service of my ancestors, the Afghan cameleers, allowed us to navigate the plains of this land. They were pioneers and I, too, will be a pioneer and walk in their footsteps to serve our nation as they did.

As a nation, we have the potential, we have the drive and we definitely have the appetite to support, grow and nurture the future leaders to come. So let us quit the bigotry, racism and discrimination. Australia is way beyond that.

Let us not settle on multiculturalism being just a brand we associate with or take pride in as a nation but rather fully embrace it by caring for one another, by accepting each other for who we are and what we can become, and by ensuring all voices are heard at the table.

It is time to love, care and respect one another. It is time to unite, not break away and divide. It is time to use our diversity as our strength and seek wisdom in our differences because we all know, beneath it all, we all belong to the human race.

I will finish by sharing the poem 'Bani Adam' by Saadi Shirazi, which translates as 'Children of Adam', a truly timeless piece that my late father would always recite to me in Dari.

Senator Payman then spoke in Dari

It translates to:

Human beings are members of a whole

In creation of one essence and soul

If one member is afflicted with pain

Other members uneasy will remain

If you have no sympathy for human pain

The name of human you cannot retain

I thank the Senate.

This motion amends the government's motion to appoint senators to the PJCIS and the Northern Australia committee in the terms circulated in the chamber. The Greens are calling for these nominations to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to not to be approved because the current proposal fails to comply with the requirements of schedule 1 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001; namely, that nominations should not be considered or finalised until after the Senate is notified by the leader of the government that appropriate consultation has occurred, and that the committee membership reflects the representation of recognised political parties in the parliament.

At the last election a third of the population of Australia voted for someone other than the Labor and coalition parties. They elected a diverse parliament, including a record 16 Greens. It was a clear message that people are ready to move beyond a limited two-party system and towards a parliament whose decision-making reflects the diversities of the communities that we represent. Before nominating the members, the Leader of the Government in the Senate must—according to that schedule 'must'—consult with the leader of each recognised political party that is represented in the Senate and isn't currently in government. This has not happened. The Intelligence Services Act 2001 is clear that the Prime Minister must consult with the leader of each recognised political party—so not just the Leader of the Government in the Senate, but the Prime Minister must consult—that is represented in the House and does not form part of government. That has not happened either.

Instead of consultation, we've received a letter with the government's proposed nominations. It's simply a statement. It's not a consultation, and so it's not what the act requires. The act also requires:

In nominating the members, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Government in the Senate must have regard to the desirability of ensuring that the composition of the Committee reflects the representation of recognised political parties in the Parliament.

A committee comprised entirely of Labor and coalition members clearly fails that requirement—that statutory requirement.

Mr Adam Bandt, Leader of the Greens, and I have written to the Prime Minister and to the leader in the Senate to alert them to this. We've proposed that Senator Shoebridge, who holds the relevant portfolios on behalf of our party, be included on the committee in compliance with the act. But this has been ignored. Not only have the Greens been ignored but the whole crossbench has been ignored. The PJCIS has long been a stitch-up by the two big parties without a single dissenting voice to the old party consensus, and we need that dissent because all too often complex national security legislation is presented to this parliament with a phone book of amendments coming out of the PJCIS, with little to no warning, and is often rammed through this place in a matter of hours. When we on the crossbench raise concerns with that or want to refer it to a Senate committee for scrutiny, we're refused because the bill's already been through the PJCIS. But we don't get to participate in that inquiry. We don't get to properly weigh the impact of these laws and the ramifications that they'll have—serious ramifications, in many cases, which often involve the curtailing of rights to procedural justice, rights to privacy and other very significant civil liberties. So, when it comes to protecting rights, when it comes to ensuring that we hold our security agencies accountable, when it comes to protecting the rule of law, it is critical that all voices in this parliament are able to fully participate in the process of deliberation on those laws.

But instead, the PJCIS, the closed shop of the Australian security state, the two-party stitch-up in this creeping surveillance state, makes all of these decisions without any dissenting voice or any third-party input. And that is not good for democracy. It is certainly not good for protecting human rights. It is not good for the parliament. It is not good for the people that we are put here to represent. For all of these reasons, we are moving this amendment, because we're sick of the two big parties thinking that you own committees like this, ones that make crucial decisions that impact on people's rights and daily lives. It's not good enough, and it's in breach of the act. So vote how you will, but this isn't over.

The government opposes the amendment to the motion moved by Senator Waters, and I think we would disagree strongly with Senator Waters's presentation in her remarks that the government has not complied with relevant clauses of the Intelligence Services Act. The Leader of the Government in the Senate has consulted with all leaders of each recognised non-government political party in the Senate about the membership of the committee, as required by clause 14. It might not have been the consultation process that you were after, but we have met the requirements of the act. We have consulted as required by clause 14 of schedule 1.

Yesterday the Leader of the Government in the Senate sent correspondence to Senator Waters, as Leader of the Australian Greens in the Senate, in accordance with statutory requirements. The correspondence was also provided to the Leader of the Australian Greens, Mr Bandt. No response to that correspondence has been received from Senator Waters. The Leader of the Government in the Senate sent the same correspondence to other party leaders, including Senator Birmingham, Senator McKenzie, Senator Lambie, Senator Hanson and Senator Babet.

I can assure Senator Waters that extensive consideration was also given by the Prime Minister to the desirability of ensuring that the composition of the committee reflects the representation of recognised political parties in the parliament. I table the correspondence sent by Senator Wong to Senator Waters.

I don't wish to detain the Senate, as the appointment of members to this committee should be a relatively straightforward process. I think Senator Gallagher has just outlined the government's actions in relation to compliance with the provisions and requirements in relation to appointments to this committee. This committee is unique in relation to the functions it fills and the way in which appointments processes are undertaken with the stewardship of the Prime Minister and the government in that regard. The opposition respects the processes that have been put in place in that regard in terms of ensuring that this committee is composed in a way which can enable it to fulfil the very sensitive undertakings that it is tasked with. The opposition also respects the process that the government has applied and the conventions attached to that process. It therefore does not support the amendment proposed by the Greens and would urge the Senate to proceed to ensure that this important committee can get on with the work that it is tasked with doing. I thank the Senate.

It's not a good start for a new government to directly flout the law in relation to one of the key committees that it seeks to establish in the life of a new parliament that has, if I might remind members of this chamber, about one in four senators from the crossbench, who are totally excluded from this committee. About 15 per cent of the other place is on the crossbench and is totally excluded from this committee. As Senator Waters said, one in three Australians voted for non-government and non-coalition representatives in this parliament, and then this government and the opposition—Labor and the coalition—have this old-boys club stitch-up to start the new parliament. That's not the parliament that Australia voted for.

Limiting the membership of this committee to just the Labor and Liberal parties is more than the closed-shop politics as usual we saw under the Morrison government. It's remarkable, though, because the law requires full consultation, in clause 14 of schedule 1 of the Intelligence Services Act:

In nominating the members, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Government in the Senate must have regard to the desirability of ensuring that the composition of the Committee reflects the representation of recognised political parties in the Parliament.

That's what the law says, and you have directly flouted the law. We hear these mealy-mouthed comments from the opposition, seemingly okay with the government breaching the law. We have this nonsense proposition from the government that they have consulted. The problem with not consulting is that it is mandatory. You can't choose to consult or not consult, because the law requires you to consult. In relation to the Senate, it says:

Before nominating the members, the Leader of the Government in the Senate must consult with the Leader of each recognised political party that is represented in the Senate and does not form part of the Government.

The Greens put you on notice of your legal obligations to do this, in correspondence co-singed by the Leader of the Greens in the Senate, Senator Waters; by Mr Adam Bandt, the Leader of the Greens in the parliament; and by me. We sent you that correspondence, trying to be helpful, on 26 July 2022. We said, 'These are your legal obligations.' We tried to be helpful. We didn't want you to be breaching the law. We were worried that you were just going to do the usual old boy's club thing and exclude the crossbench. We were trying to be helpful and trying to tell you what you had to do, but you just ignored it.

The offence isn't ignoring the correspondence we sent; the offence is ignoring the law and acting unlawfully in setting the membership for one of the key security and intelligence committees in parliament—acting unlawfully in establishing the committee membership of a core legal oversight committee. There's a deep irony in what the government has done here. And the opposition signed on meekly. They just want to keep the club going, so that when they get into government they can hand out the bounty just between the two parties. You think the rest of the country thinks this is acceptable, but it's not.

Then we get the specious argument from the government that they have consulted--because they sent a letter. Let's read the letter and work out if anybody in the world, apart from Senator Gallagher, thinks this is consultation. This is what it says: 'Dear Senator Waters, re appointment of members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. In accordance with clause 14 of schedule 1 to the Intelligence Services Act 2001, I advise that I intend to nominate the following senators to be members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security: Senator the Hon. Simon Birmingham'—he has an interest in this—'Senator Raff Ciccone, Senator James Paterson, Senator Marielle Smith, Senator Jess Walsh'. If that's consultation, there's a lovely little bridge in Sydney that I'd like to sell you.

This is nonsense. It's unlawful. It's a stitch up. It's the worst of the kind of politics that the electorate rejected just 108 days ago. This is an unlawful stitch up. I have to say, it may not end here in the Senate. You can't just choose which laws you comply with and which laws you don't. There's nothing super special about being a senator that says you can act contrary to the laws. This isn't just the Senate committee established under rules of this place. This is a statutory joint committee established under laws passed by both houses of parliament and signed off by his nibs the Governor-General. This is the law which you are directly breaching. You think it might end here. Well, it may not end here. This is not going to go away. You can't start a new government by flouting the law and signing on to the old boy's club and think we're just going to take it. We won't.

I just want to observe that this is a continuing pattern from this new government. Let's be really clear with the public as to what is happening here tonight. The government and opposition have come into this place—as Senator Shoebridge has clearly outlined for the chamber—with flagrant disregard of their obligations, legally, under the relevant parliamentary pieces of legislation, as to the composition of one of the most important bodies within the parliament: the oversight committee which provides recommendations to the parliament in relation to, particularly, security legislation. It is an incredibly influential committee in this place, because of the way in which the major parties operate a closed shop between the two of them on matters of so-called national security.

When it was my privilege to have the portfolio for the Greens of IT and digital rights, I witnessed firsthand the ways in which the recommendations of this committee are manipulated and utilised to close down the debate of this place in relation to legislation impacting on the privacy of Australian citizens. I lost count of the number of times, in my role as the digital rights spokesperson for the Australian Greens—whether it be metadata retention or whether it be backdoors into encrypted messaging applications—I would ask question after question on behalf of some of the most intelligent and engaged stakeholders in our community as to the blatant technical flaws within pieces of government legislation, opening the Australian public up to heinous violations of their privacy, and the answer from the government and the opposition was, 'That was addressed during the PJCIS inquiry, and the recommendation addresses it.' Can I see the minutes? Can I see the content? Was I able to be part of the deliberation? 'No. Just trust us; we had a chat about it. Accept the recommendation to pass the legislation, sit down and shut up.' It is one of the key mechanisms of this closed shop operation, which is not just in relation to this security committee, by the way. In the last sitting of the parliament, the very first time we came together since the election, the first vote this Senate took was to ensure there was no ability for the Greens to chair the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, to maintain the closed shop there too.

Here's the reality that everybody watching at home understands about Australian politics—both sides, Liberal and Labor; and let's not forget the Nats too, those great country cosplayers who come into this place pretending to represent the voices and the needs of rural and remote Australians. The deal is this: whichever side wins the election, there are a certain number of gifts and rewards that each side are able to hand out to the factional players, the people that were able to get the donations, the people that want to advance their careers, within the internal mechanisms of the parliament and of the party. There are a second set of rules that operate together at the same set of times, particularly in the Senate, which is, let us remind the entire place once again, the house of review, created manifestly to review legislation on behalf of the community. This place has within its power the ability to properly scrutinise many pieces of legislation, demand the attendance of ministers and act as a true check and balance upon the executive of the government of Australia, yet again and again the ability of this Senate to play that oversight role is given up because on key questions of integrity and oversight the Senate leaders of both sides get together and say, 'It's been a longstanding practice of the so-called parties of government in this place that we shall observe this convention, meaning that there is no need for us to depart from the previously established process. That would be to upend convention. It would be to let anarchy reign. Scrutiny may break out in the halls. Accountability—nay, responsibility—may become part of our culture. We can't have that. Sunshine might come in from the roof, and we would burst into flames.' So they maintain the closed shop and the shadow of this place.

Quite seriously, in these times there is so much in our political debate that is silenced based on two words, national security. It is so easy to shut down a debate in this nation, in this political system, by mentioning the words 'national security'. So much is able to be swept under the rug and out of the way. Now more than ever alternative perspectives are urgently needed to scrutinise legislation in relation to national security policy, particularly in the context that one in three people who voted at this election voted for a party which was not the Liberal, Labor or National parties. You people are not trusted by growing and greater and ever greater portions of the Australian public for very good reason, particularly because of the decisions you make in relation to national security, whether it is the exorbitant expenditures on defence programs such as the submarines, such as the frigates, such as the various pieces of military capacity which are purchased without any thought of value for money to the public or what we might otherwise do with those funds; or whether, indeed, it is the pieces of national security legislation which are rammed through this place, making Australia one of the weakest nations in the world in relation to its human rights structures and in relation particularly to the digital rights protections that are available to its citizenry.

We will only have the capacity to understand exactly what is being done, and the public will only have the ability to access the information that they need to make informed decisions in relation to national security and security policy, when parties that are not part of this closed shop are able to access the information available to members of committees such as the PJCIS. I commend the amendments put forward to the Senate by Senator Waters, our Senate leader. Senator Shoebridge would do a fantastic job in that role. It is exactly the type of independent oversight offered by the addition of crossbench members to such committees which is so urgently needed to inform properly these debates.

The question before the chair is that the amendment to the motion to appoint senators to committees moved by Senator Waters be agreed to.

I now intend to put the original motion, moved by Senator Ayres, that senators be appointed to committees, as set out in the document available in the chamber and listed on the Dynamic Red.

I move:

That these bills may proceed without formalities, may be taken together and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a first time.

LL (—) (): I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

MILITARY REHABILITATION AND COMPENSATION AND OTHER LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (INCAPACITY PAYMENTS) BILL 2022

Making sure our veterans and their families are well supported and looked after as they transition from the Australian Defence Force is an important task and responsibility of government.

The Australian Government is committed to supporting our veterans.

The unique nature of military service justifies rehabilitation and compensation arrangements specific to the needs of the military.

The government is committed to continuously improving and adapting to the needs of veterans, serving and former members and their families.

The Military Rehabilitation and Compensation and Other Legislation Amendment (Incapacity Payments) Bill 2022 will maintain access to the beneficial calculation of incapacity payments for eligible veterans.

These arrangements provide targeted support to those engaged in approved full-time study under a Department of Veterans' Affairs rehabilitation program.

Incapacity payments are compensation paid for a loss of earnings because of physical or mental health conditions related to military service.

These payments reduce or 'stepdown' to 75 per cent (or a higher percentage depending on hours worked) of normal earnings after a period of 45 weeks.

Under a four-year pilot, for veterans participating in a rehabilitation plan, and in approved full-time study, their incapacity payments were not reduced after 45 weeks.

These arrangements ended on 30 June 2022. It meant this cohort of veterans face an immediate payment reduction of up to 25 per cent.

Veterans in the pilot had indicated that they valued the extra financial support these incapacity payments provided.

The payments assist with their transition from military service to a rehabilitation program focused on gaining sustainable employment in the civilian workforce.

The Bill will enable veterans undertaking an eligible course of study to access the beneficial arrangements for an additional year, to 30 June 2023, where the calculation of incapacity payments is based on 100 per cent of the individual's pre-injury earnings.

The Bill will amend both the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 and the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-related Claims) Act 1988 to provide for all eligible veterans covered under these two schemes.

Application provisions will ensure that student veterans who should have been eligible for the higher rate of payment can receive back-payments to cover the period from 1 July 2022 until the day the Act commences.

Our serving men and women put themselves in harm's way and they do so in our national interest to protect our national interest.

We want our service men and women, veterans and their families to know that Australia is proud of them and that our country will always be there for them.

These proposed changes will result in a positive outcome for many in the Defence and veteran communities.

I commend the Bill.

NARCOTIC DRUGS (LICENCE CHARGES) AMENDMENT BILL 2022

I am pleased to introduce the Narcotic Drugs (Licence Charges) Amendment Bill 2022.

The Bill amends the Narcotic Drugs (Licence Charges) Act to clarify that the Narcotic Drugs (Licence Charges) Regulation may prescribe matters that will be the subject of multiple separate charges, which may be incurred by a licence holder during a particular charging period, and to enable a simpler method for working out the amount of charge prescribed.

The Narcotic Drugs Act provides, among other things, a licensing and permit scheme for regulating medicinal cannabis cultivation, production and manufacture in accordance with Australia's obligations under certain International Drug Conventions.

The medicinal cannabis regulatory scheme is cost-recovered in accordance with the Australian Government Charging Framework, through fees prescribed in the Narcotic Drugs Regulation. Charges are prescribed in the Narcotic Drugs (Licence Charges) Regulation pursuant to the Narcotic Drugs (Licence Charges) Act.

The Narcotic Drugs Act was amended in 2021 to simplify the medicinal cannabis licensing and permits framework, so the existing charges are intended to be revised to align with the new framework.

The Bill enables the regulations to prescribe matters that will be the subject of multiple separate charges, which may be invoiced at multiple times during a particular charging period. It also enables the regulations to prescribe a charge by reference to a method for working out the amount of the charge. These changes support the regulations being able to prescribe charges that more accurately reflect the particular matter to which the charge relates.

The amendments in the Bill are intended to provide sufficient flexibility for the regulations to appropriately prescribe charges, supporting the effective recovery of the costs associated with administering the Narcotic Drugs Act.

Ordered that the bills be listed on the Notice Paper as separate orders of the day.

Debate adjourned.

I move:

That the Export Control (Animals) Amendment (Northern Hemisphere Summer Prohibition) Rules 2022, made under the Export Control Act 2020, be disallowed [F2022L00537].

On 5 April, the ban on live sheep exports to the Middle East was rolled back by the former Morrison government. This was just before the height of the northern summer. It was cunning timing, just before a federal election being called, as it meant the Senate was denied the crucial opportunity to scrutinise or to act on these last-minute changes. This motion seeks to reverse those changes which unwind the northern summer ban—which wasn't perfect in the first place, but did provide protection to animals in some of the hottest months.

Let me make clear at the outset that the entire live export industry should be shut down, and it should be shut down as soon as possible. It is beyond repair. Its social licence has well and truly expired. It cannot be made safe for animals. The Greens have fought long and hard to ban the cruelty that is the live export trade and this disallowance is one small step in the journey for animal welfare.

It is worth reflecting on some of the history to see how far we've come and how much further we have to go. In 1985, a review of the live sheep trade by the Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare reported that if a decision were to be made on the future of the live export trade purely on animal welfare grounds, there was enough evidence to stop the trade. Since 1985 at least 10 government and parliamentary reviews have examined live export, and the evidence in support of that statement has only piled up.

The death toll has been enormous, with tragedy after tragedy: in 1980, 40,000 sheep died aboard the Farid Fares; in 1986, 67,000 sheep died aboard the Uniceb; in 1999, 800 cattle died aboard the Temburong; in 2003, 5,000 sheep died aboard the MV Cormo Express; in 2014, 4,000 sheep died aboard the Bader 3; in 2016, 3,000 sheep died aboard the Al Messilah; in 2018, 2,000 sheep died aboard the Awasi Express. The sheep on the Awasi Express died in shocking conditions that were broadcast to the world on an unforgettable 60 Minutes episode, which showed sheep crammed into dirty pens, panting from heat stress and leaping over each other to access food. Piles of sheep carcasses were also shown. These disasters grab the headlines, but the reality is that every year thousands of sheep and cattle die on live export ships.

It is important to remember that it's not just the cruelty of deaths but that, while surviving, thousands of sheep and animals suffer unbearable heat stress and distress; laboured breathing, open-mouthed panting and extreme discomfort is experienced by animals. Deaths are caused by a range of factors, from heat stress and disease to injuries developed on board. This is considered routine and fine as long as exporters keep their voyage mortality rates under what the government considers an acceptable level. However, those accepted mortality rates translate to thousands of deaths. How is that acceptable? And since 2006, there have been at least 70 occasions where that so-called acceptable mortality level was exceeded.

Animals suffering from heat stress literally cook from the inside out. They can suffer for days as their organs shut down one by one on these crowded floating ovens. Whistleblower live export vet Dr Lynn Simpson says she once took the temperature of a fallen sheep on the ship and was blown away to find it was 47 degrees Celsius—almost 10 degrees higher than normal. 'Their fat was melted and like a translucent jelly,' she said. 'They were cooking from the inside. After that, any animal that looked like it was about to collapse, I killed.' Lynn is one of the many brave whistleblowers who have exposed the cruelty of the live export trade at great personal cost. Trainee navigator Faisal Ullah is another, and I pay tribute to them today. Their courage led to the northern summer ban in the first place.

The ban officially came into force in 2019, in recognition of the fact that the risk of heat stress for sheep on live export ships to the Middle East during the northern summer months is simply too dangerous. Unfortunately, the ban only prevented live sheep exports from June to September. The science clearly tells us that it should be from 1 May to 31 October. Nonetheless, the ban has been important in reducing mortality rates and in keeping sheep off ships at the most dangerous time of the year.

And now, instead of listening to science and expanding the ban, the department of agriculture has wound it back. The Export Control (Animals) Amendment (Northern Hemisphere Summer Prohibition) Rules 2022 reduces the ban on exporting sheep to Red Sea destinations by two weeks in June, and reduces the ban on exporting sheep to Qatar by 10 days in May. Animal welfare experts agree that this reduction is alarming. In its submission to the Northern Hemisphere summer prohibition review, RSPCA Australia stated:

The RSPCA does not support the proposal to reduce the prohibition to, or through, the Red Sea by a further fourteen days because the Indian Ocean equatorial region is hottest in May and June. Updating the Animal Rules in support of this proposal would be irresponsible given the scale of known animal welfare risk and the government's responsibility to protect animal welfare. The RSPCA understands that Red Sea destinations … represented 22.6 per cent of the sheep exported from Australia under the current regulations in the three-year period between 2019-2021.

The Alliance for Animals, whose members include Animals Australia, Voiceless, and Humane Society International Australia, were also firmly against these changes, stating that allowing sheep to be exported through the Red Sea in June would push them to their biological limit and risk a significant mortality event.

Perversely, the department claims that the instrument is a win for animal welfare because the rules also, ostensibly, introduce stricter conditions for a 10-day period in May for some Persian Gulf destinations. However, there are no additional monitoring and enforcement measures to ensure these conditions are met. Given that the current monitoring and enforcement framework is already inadequate, we can safely conclude that these conditions will be meaningless.

Again, the Greens aren't alone in this view. The RSPCA were also critical of the effectiveness of imposing additional conditions, stating:

… such conditions have not proven to protect animal welfare to date due to inadequate inspection requirements and insufficient enforcement.

The insufficiencies are significant. For example, the additional new conditions include that each individual sheep be of a certain weight and have a certain length of wool to mitigate against heat stress, but the enforcement framework does not require sheep to be assessed individually. They are assessed in groups, which makes it impossible to ensure that necessary heat mitigation conditions are actually being met. There is also a lack of independent third-party inspection arrangements and a lack of independent and appropriate veterinary care. Only one accredited veterinarian is required on long-haul voyages that can carry tens of thousands of sheep at one time across multiple decks.

The department of agriculture justified rolling back the ban based on climatology data, but in a warming world this is a patently laughable excuse. In fact, the department didn't even consider the increasing temperatures associated with climate change before deciding to send more sheep to the Middle East in the hottest times of the year. Predictive climate analysis on expected future temperatures was also not considered, despite this being an important indicator of the level of heat that sheep would be exposed to. Even worse, the department made these changes before it had even finished its own review into the ban, which we are still waiting on.

It's hard to conclude that the changes were based on anything other than the commercial interests and profit margins of live exporters, who have been lobbying the department to wind back the ban. Sadly, the department's capitulation is not surprising. It has a long history of failing to adequately prioritise animal welfare. The department is inherently and fundamentally conflicted because it is also responsible for promoting the interests of farmers and exporters. Animal welfare will always come second to profit-making.

I don't make these assertions lightly. In 2018, Philip Moss released a comprehensive independent review into the regulatory capability and culture of the department. The review found that there had been a catastrophic failure to regulate the live export industry and that a culture of fear within the department meant staff were not reporting their concerns about animal welfare within the industry. It was a pretty damning indictment. The report found:

On occasions, in our view, reportable mortality reports were revised or redrafted to dilute or expunge findings which adversely reflected on the regulatory framework.

Following the Moss report, John Lawler was appointed to investigate whistleblower allegations that staff were dissuaded from reporting the full extent of animal welfare breaches. This investigation stopped due to whistleblower protection laws. Those accused of wrongdoing have never been forced to explain their actions, nor do we know if the culture of secrecy and fear within the live exports regulator has been adequately addressed. The community should have no faith in the ability of the live export industry to operate ethically or the regulator to oversee animal welfare. The rot is set too deep. What we desperately need is an independent office of animal welfare to protect animals from cruelty and exploitation. As long as animal welfare remains the responsibility of the department of agriculture, the interests of animals will be ignored.

The end of the Liberal-National government is welcome news from any perspective, but particularly from an animal welfare perspective. Labor may have gone to the election with a promise to end live sheep exports, but they have refused to commit to a time line since coming to office. Prime Minister Albanese has ruled out an end to the trade in this term of government. That is a bit of a slap in the face of anyone who cares about animal welfare. It would be another slap in the face if Labor voted against this motion. It would practically guarantee that the Morrison era changes to the ban would continue, and it would seal the fate of thousands of sheep.

Senators here, and especially the Albanese government, have a chance today to show that they care about animals by supporting the Greens motion and by introducing a new instrument which expands the northern summer ban so that it extends from 1 May to 31 October, just as experts are calling for. Then let's quickly move to end this brutal trade once and for all.

But whatever happens, the Greens will keep pushing for a clear and swift time line for the end of live exports, with a careful transition for workers and a plan to transform the live sheep export trade to a locally processed chilled meat trade. The clear majority of Australians agree with that position. Fifty-eight per cent of people in Australia support a ban on live sheep export within this term of government, according to a poll conducted by Lonergan Research in June. RSPCA Australia commissioned an independent poll in January 2022, and the results show that around eight out of 10 people in Australia are opposed to reducing the northern summer prohibited period for live sheep exports. Two-thirds want an end to the live export of animals, including 66 per cent in rural or country areas and 70 per cent in Western Australia.

So I implore the government to listen to our communities. Don't unwind the northern summer ban; commit to a deadline to end live export in this term of government. The Greens have been steadfast in our position. We first introduced legislation to end live exports back in 2011. In 2018 my bill, co-sponsored by then senators Hinch and Storer, to ban live sheep export passed the Senate but languished in the House. In 2019 we again introduced legislation to end live exports. We will continue to fight for animals in this term of parliament because animals are not mere cargo. They are living, breathing, sentient beings. They are capable of fear and suffering. They have meaning and work beyond their commercial value.

Today this Senate has the power to undo these cruel cuts to the northern summer ban and insist that sheep deserve better than to be shipped off to cook at sea in torture chambers at the hottest time of the year. I urge everyone in this chamber to make the right choice and support this motion.

ARRELL (—) (): The government is committed to protecting animal welfare, and that is exactly why we are opposing this motion. At the May election the Australian people endorsed Labor's policy to phase out the trade of live sheep by sea. Labor is committed to ensuring that live animal exports are well regulated while we work with industry to implement this commitment.

We were surprised to learn that the Greens were seeking to move this disallowance. If this motion were to pass it would produce worse outcomes for animal welfare. In April this year, amendments to the Export Control (Animals) Amendment (Northern Hemisphere Summer Prohibition) Rules 2022 were made to improve the management of heat stress risks for sheep exported in late May. The rules introduce a 10-day conditional prohibition period, preventing export to some Persian Gulf destinations off the back of new data that showed an increase risk of heat stress during this period. That change to the rules strengthens animal welfare. The rules further impose additional conditions, targeted at heat stress risk reduction, that must be met during the designated period. Again, those changes strengthen animal welfare. To disallow this instrument would force the regulators of the live sheep exports to find new and likely weaker measures to protect animal welfare. The government does not want that. The Australian people do not want that. So why are the Greens voting for it?

Voting for this disallowance is a bad outcome for both animal welfare and exporters. The government's commitment to phase out the trade of live sheep by sea reflects community sentiment. Balancing community expectations and the Australian industry remains a key priority for this government. That's why we will continue to support regulators to protect animal welfare as we work with industry to phase out the trade of live sheep at sea.

Well, we know what the Greens actually want to do. The Greens want to ban all live export, and we know what a lot of the organisations that the Greens have quoted in their justifications for this disallowance actually stand for, and that is to end all livestock industries. If you are quoting from the Alliance for Animals or Voiceless or Animals Australia, you are really scratching at the anti-livestock-industry's barrel. But, as Senator Farrell quite rightly said, disallowing this instrument will lead to worse outcomes. Disallowing this instrument will also disallow new animal welfare standards, and, let's face it, Australia's live export industry now has the best animal health and welfare standards in the world, bar none.

Since 2018, the former Liberal-National government, working with industry, with the veterinarians and with the department, developed some of the strongest animal welfare standards in the world. We have used new technologies, where we can now actually count the amount of pants per minute a sheep does. We have decreased the amount of sheep per pen on boats. We have constant monitoring. Every ship has to have an accredited vet on a long-haul journey. And we have significantly improved animal health outcomes. But the Greens don't accept that. While the Greens say we've got to listen to science, 'listen to science', they only want you to listen to science that supports their argument. They don't want you to listen to the many vets who have seen the improvements in animal health and welfare standards that we have put in place since, yes, that dreadful, dreadful event on the Awassi Express, which Senator Faruqi mentioned. But that was four years ago. We can't live in the past. We've got to move forward.

The other issue that disallowing these amendments would create is that we would just be exporting our problem. I can promise you that the countries we export to, the countries that culturally and practically rely on a live animal market, will look elsewhere. They won't go, 'Oh, Australia is not going to send us sheep anymore, so we'll pick up the phone and order a couple of boxes of frozen meat.' They won't do that, because it doesn't work in their countries, it doesn't work for their culture sometimes, and it's not practical. Some countries don't have refrigeration. They don't have easy access, like we do, to a Coles or a Woolworths, so it's not practical for them. So they will go elsewhere to fill that live market gap, and that elsewhere will have worse animal health standards.

But this is typical of the Greens. The Greens are very much 'not in my backyard'. They're like, 'As long as we don't see it and we don't do it here in Australia, then it's all good.' It's like their stance a few years ago that we shouldn't grow rice in this country. Someone else will have to grow the rice that we grow to feed the world, but that's okay. Because it's not happening here, it's not our problem. It is a bit like former Leader of the Greens, Bob Brown, with his NIMBY stance on wind farms, 'I want the world to move towards renewable energy, but not if you're putting a wind farm off the coast of Tasmania, because that's too close to home for the Greens.' That's what the Greens mentality is.

I must commend Senator Farrell and the way he outlined the position of Labor on this disallowance motion, and I must commend Labor for their stance on this motion. But I also must highlight that Labor are still threatening our live export with the closure of the sheep industry, particularly impacting Western Australia, although they say 'not this term'. Well, I hope they use this term of government to get on the ground, to talk to the live export industry in Western Australia and to really understand what closing that industry would do. I hope Labor learnt from the debacle of the closure of the live export industry under the Gillard government, which saw a very successful class action and record payouts having to go back to the farmers, who were absolutely crippled due to an ill-conceived reaction, instead of working with industry, which is what our government did after the Awassi Express. The Liberals and Nationals in government worked with industry to identify the problems, to find solutions, to implement the solutions, to regulate the solutions and to make sure that we became now the envy of the world.

When we are talking about the live export industry, it's not just the ship owners and it's not just the sheep producers; we're also talking about the truckies, we are also talking about the wharfies and we are also talking about the stock men and women. You need go no further than the Young Live Exporters Network, which have shining examples and case studies of men and women from around Australia who are proud to work in the live export industry, who are proud to say that they are very concerned about animal health and welfare standards and who are proud to know that their industry strives every day to improve those standards. We can't rest on our laurels. We did a lot from 2018 to today. We have done an awful lot to improve standards, but that doesn't mean that we're stopping or that the industry will now throw their hands up and go, 'That's it; there's no more to do.' Every day they are working to make sure we continue to have the best record for animal health and wellbeing in the live export industry. The work we have done and the work industry has done on new developments in heat stress management for the live export of sheep should always be considered as it becomes available. This is what I mean when I say industry is constantly striving and working, to the point that we now have the lowest mortality rates in sheep export ever.

When people say the live export industry is in decline, I beg to differ, because in March 2022 the forecast export value for this financial year was $107 million. That's a pretty impressive figure. But that's going to grow to $119 million for the 2022-23 financial year, and that was before any ban was proposed. The northern summer hemisphere trade is important, particularly to Western Australia, where the majority of this annual live export is met. Industry believes live export is key to the preservation of the entire Western Australian sheep industry, and there is a huge demand for those sheep from Western Australia in the Middle East. As I said, this demand is not only on the cultural basis but also on the basis they don't have the cold storage facilities. This is about food security in these nations, this is about food security across the world and it's also about industry security here at home. If the live sheep export industry was shut down then countries with poorer animal welfare standards will fill the void and take Australia's market share.

I implore the chamber not to export our problems, not to push issues offshore and then pretend it doesn't happen but to work with industry and with our trading partners. The other thing that a ban ignores is we have people onshore in our trading markets working with the purchasers of our animals to ensure that our animal welfare standards go from Australia to the ship, to the port where they are exported to and even into the markets because that is our commitment to animal health and welfare. So I implore the chamber: don't export our problems. Don't hide your head in the sand and think that if it's offshore—out of sight, out of mind—it doesn't happen.

We have a responsibility as a trader. We have a responsibility to our international friends and colleagues to make sure that we retain not only the best animal health and wellbeing statistics but also that we do our bit to feed the world and we don't do it ignoring cultural and practical issues.

We will not be supporting this motion in any way, shape or form. I am pleased to hear that nor will the government. I urge the rest of the chamber to not support this disallowance.

I thought I would rise this afternoon to make a few remarks in support of this matter also and to follow Senator Davey, who made it very clear that the coalition will not be supporting this position put by Senator Faruqi and the Australian Greens. I speak as a West Australian senator. This is an agriculture industry very important to the livelihood of Western Australia, Western Australian regional families, Western Australian communities. To quantify that for people, in 2021-22 the industry was worth in excess of $100 million to Western Australia and, in 2022-23, in excess of $110 million, so it makes a sizeable contribution to the welfare and prosperity of our state.

There is a very important point to be made and, indeed, a point to be reiterated—that is, if the position of the Australian Greens is to be supported and is to be upheld, then we have this perverse outcome that countries with poorer animal welfare standards will be lifted and raised in the global trade to fill the void left by the Australian and the West Australian trade. That's a very important point. As Senator Davey remarked, if Australia, and Western Australia in particular, was to leave the live export industry, it does not mean that the trade would get better. In fact, the very, very real outcome would be an industry, a global industry, that has lower standards than currently exist. It's the participation of the Australian live export industry, I believe, that maintains very, very high standards across the world. Indeed, it's the existence and participation of Australian traders that ensure that the highest standards are in fact replicated.

Over the last few years, I think the industry has met and understood the changing community expectations that exist around the live export industry. The trade generates important wealth and income for the Australian economy, supporting thousands of people employed across associated industries throughout rural and regional communities in my home state of Western Australia, in particular. The ongoing success of the trade depends on the very hard work of producers and exporters and their strong and continuing commitment to world standards in regard to animal welfare and their very, very strong endorsement of robust rules that are based on science and evidence.

It's an important point that, when I think about the live export trade in Western Australia, I am reminded that the industry has been very alive to changing community expectations. I'm alive to the fact that they have used an evidence based approach to lift standards. In particular, new developments in regard to heat stress management for the live export of sheep should always be considered as they become available, and that is an experience and a practice that the Australian industry does endorse. These amendments take into consideration new data on managing heat stress. The focus on animal welfare has resulted in historically low mortality rates in sheep exported in recent years. Labor have indicated they will ban the live sheep export trade, but not in this term of government. That's a very, very stark warning. It should be an alarm bell for Western Australian agricultural producers that, while Labor has said that they will not ban it, that is not their future position. Labor have indicated that they will ban the live sheep trade at some point in the future, just not in this term.

In June, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry claimed that there was no evidence the animal welfare issues with live exports could be addressed. That's a position that Western Australian senators like myself and, indeed, other members of the Western Australian federal parliamentary party, including Rick Wilson, Slade Brockman, Senator Matt O'Sullivan and others, all agree with and all support. Labor have also indicated that the industry is declining. I invite them to travel across regional Western Australia so they can see for themselves just how important this industry actually is. With those brief remarks, I add my support and my strong endorsement for the success of the Western Australian live export industry and the great work that they do not just in meeting and exceeding community expectations but in rising to the challenge of making sure that the trade is based on the best possible science, is evidence based and is making a really important contribution to Australia's agricultural wealth and the wealth and prosperity of every Western Australian town and family.

I want to make very brief remarks this evening on the disallowance motion that's been put before the Senate tonight by the Australian Greens, echoing the comments that we have heard not just from Senator Dean Smith and Senator Perin Davey but also from Senator Don Farrell.

The motion before us fails to deal with the substance of the policy area which we need to really deal with, which is animal welfare. The point that has been missed by some of the contributors to the debate tonight is that the animal welfare standards in this country are the strongest that we've ever seen. Yes, there have been Senate inquiries and other reports and reviews into animal welfare standards in this country and for good reason, too. We should be using world's best practice, in my opinion, when we export live animals overseas, but we also should do it in a way that supports industry, supports the economy and supports jobs. Many regional jobs are really reliant on this industry. That's not to say that the industry hasn't got issues and has not had times when it needs support in dealing with how we best export, in this case, sheep. We've seen some very distressing footage aired through the media on how some animals have been treated—quite frankly, it's shameful—by those operators who have done the wrong thing and brought great shame to an industry that many people, many workers, rely on for their livelihoods .

If the Senate were to pass this motion it would actually produce worse, not better, outcomes for animal welfare. Earlier this year, in the previous parliament, amendments to the northern summer prohibition rules were made in order to improve the management of heat stress for sheep exported in late May. We heard I think unfair comments earlier this evening, attacking the department, the officials who not only do a fantastic job upholding the rule of law but also have animal welfare close to them; it is central to their job, to make sure that when animals are exported it is done so with the highest standards. But it is also good to see that, at the state and federal level, governments have worked together to address the shonky operators that have given the industry a bad name. It is important that the changes to the northern summer prohibition rules were based not just on science but also on data—updated climatology data that indicated that changes were necessary to reduce the risk of heat stress.

The rules introduced a 10-day conditional prohibition on exports to some Persian Gulf destinations. The rules also imposed additional conditions during the designated period, designed to reduce the risk of heat stress. These include shorter fleece length, maximum sheep weight limits, minimum pen air turnover rates and increased pen space allowances. These actions all strengthen animal welfare based on science and data that we have available to us. That's why I think many of us were surprised when this disallowance motion was brought before the Senate. I think that the Greens, in moving this disallowance motion, really fail to understand the real issue that they're trying to deal with here. We do hear from time to time that they are somehow the champions of animals. As we heard in the contributions from this evening, in looking at animal welfare we need to look at not just one part of the disallowance but the whole disallowance.

What is being proposed by the Greens tonight would just hurt animal welfare standards in this country. It would reduce the standards and also impact the livelihoods of many around this country, particularly from the state of Western Australia, as outlined in the contributions that Senator Smith and others have made this evening. So, I was very surprised to find that we are dealing with this disallowance motion tonight. It is actually quite shocking that we have to deal with something that would override and fail to improve animal welfare standards in this country.

But let's also not give this instrument the chop. Important rules and enforcement mechanisms are contained in this instrument. Presumably the Greens want us to think that if we were to scrap it then the welfare of sheep would just magically improve. But, in reality, this would force the regulator to find new—likely weaker—measures to protect animal welfare. Is this what we want—weaker measures to protect the animals we are trying to export? Well, I don't think we should stand for it—a stunt that not only would waste this chamber's time but, if it were to be successful, also would likely have a detrimental effect.

Are we surprised by the hypocrisy of some here in the Greens? Well, they're trying to act high and mighty for their own political gain while they're actually damaging the cause they claim to be supporting. And I haven't even mentioned the economic pain that would be caused by trying to rip up the live sheep export trade overnight without any consultation. That is something this government has committed to do—to consult the industry, to consult the WA government. That's what a party of government does. We sit down and we talk. We talk to the industry. We talk to those who are concerned about animal welfare standards. We talk to our friends over in Western Australia, the Western Australian government, about the impacts of phasing out this industry.

But we are committed to supporting the regulators to protect animal welfare while we consult with the industry. We cannot just pull the rug out from under the industry. Like any change that responds to concerns from the community, this change has to be made in a way that is sensitive to the impact on individuals and communities that currently rely on the live export of sheep. Careful consultation and a considerate approach might not get as much traction on social media, but good government and sound decision-making is more important than likes and shares.

I stand with my colleagues tonight to oppose this motion brought forward by the Greens. I am a senator for the Northern Territory. I also represent the concerns of those in the Northern Territory. Make no mistake: when the Greens want to shut down live export of animals they won't stop at sheep. They will move beyond that. Our grave concern is not only for the sheep export traders of Western Australia, who will be the most detrimentally affected by such a motion, but also for the Northern Territory and our vast cattle industry.

The coalition put the work in place to ensure that Australia now has the highest standards for animal welfare in terms of the live export industry. It's the highest standard in the world. What concerns me is the fact that the Greens fail to consider the livelihoods of everyday Australians—those that work hard to ensure that there is food on our tables as well as a strong economy. In the Northern Territory, in excess of 40 per cent of the nation's live cattle export trade goes through the Darwin port, so it is close to me. The latest comprehensive economic assessment completed as part of the Northern Australian beef situation analysis indicated that Northern Australia's cattle industry's estimated economic value is worth approximately $5.03 billion, of which $3.7 billion was attributed to the production at the farm gate level. This is what the Greens propose to put at risk when they put up motions such as the disallowance motion we're debating tonight.

I find it ironic that instead of standing here and debating this I would like to be over in the Great Hall where tonight the AgriFutures Rural Women's Award gala dinner is taking place. I would urge the Greens to go over there and speak to those women farmers who live this. This is their livelihood. This is the way in which they pay for their children's futures and their children's education. This is the way in which they uphold our communities—not just the Western Australian communities and the Territory's communities but also communities right across Australia. That's the way they contribute.

Just recently, the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association released a statement speaking to live export bans, remembering what took place in the Northern Territory. In their statement, they reminisced about the then minister for infrastructure who is now our prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and his comments made on ABC's Q&A in defence of the decision for the live export ban at the time. He stated that it was the right thing to do. I'm glad he has changed his position on this—I am—but if you continue to read their statement, and if you can imagine that, instead of Labor, we're talking of the Greens, it's just as relevant now. These concerns are huge. At the same time as Mr Albanese made these comments, Northern Australia was in turmoil. Members of the NTCA and beef producers across the north had been forced into letting their staff go, bringing their children home from school and university while desperately trying to decide what to do with a business that no longer had a market to sell to. Even before the ban, many of these families were struggling through drought, something the government knew at the time. As the ban continued, trucking companies—

Senator Nampijinpa Price, you will be in continuance on this motion.

A wise man once said: 'Breaking someone's trust is like crumpling up a perfect piece of paper. You can smooth it over, but it's never going to be the same.' In 2022, Australians have a right to feel this way about many institutions they used to trust. Our government departments are now highly politicised. They subscribe to ludicrous ideological claims along the lines of race, gender and sexuality and refuse to deviate from them for fear of angering the intolerant diversity, inclusion and equity brigade. Yet they can't even tell us what a woman is. Why? Because they're highly politicised. Sadly, leftist political ideology has invaded every sphere of life, from sports teams being forced to wear Pride guernseys and bending the knee for Black Lives Matter to the entertainment industry relentlessly pushing propaganda onto our children and our educational institutions seeking to erase every hint of our great heritage from the curriculum.

We've also witnessed our educational institutions and once trusted academic journals become captured by ideological zealots. The key to understanding this phenomenon is understanding 'the long march through the institutions', a term coined by German Marxist intellectual, Rudi Dutschke, who advocated for Marxist revolution—not by violent means as Marx did but by a gradual infiltration of Western institutions and subversion of their principles from within. The revolution would take place not by tearing down buildings but by changing what occurs within them. They've gradually infiltrated the universities, the media and the bureaucracies where these theories don't have to work to be taken seriously. It's also why Marxists are interested in controlling our educational institutions, which shape the minds of future generations. There, left-wing curriculum makers seek to deny children the opportunity to learn about their Western heritage and replace it with a false notion that Australia is a racist country. This disrupts social cohesion and fosters resentment, making it easier to replace our heritage with a Marxist worldview of the power struggles between groups.

The long march has been successful. The principles of our institutions have been dismantled and replaced by a left-wing ideology obsessed with oppression and oppressors. People who don't subscribe are vilified and face social penalties for not conforming to the woke status quo, even losing their jobs.

You're right to question your institutions. The Therapeutic Goods Association told you that the experimental COVID mRNA shots were safe and effective. But they were neither. Your public health bureaucrats locked you in your homes, and it didn't work. Professional bodies have swapped professional advocacy for professional activism. All have failed because, rather than focusing on their work, these institutions have become exploited by politics. Public health is now politicised. The education system is now politicised. Sport is now politicised. Entertainment is now politicised. Advertising is now politicised. The corporate sector is now politicised. Even your job is politicised.

They're wrong to tell you that you're a racist for believing every Australian should enjoy equal opportunity. They're wrong to call you a transphobe for knowing what a woman is. They're wrong to call you homophobic for believing that our children deserve a mother and a father in the home. Their isms and phobias are meaningless insults, used to intimidate you into silence so that their revolution can proceed. The woke brigade lose their unearned credibility when we deny them the high moral ground. They attack people for opposing equity and social justice while trying to destroy their connection to history, their right to speak freely and their right to protect their children from these influences.

In South Australia at least, a grassroots movement is changing the trajectory, with the aim of building institutions that receive the wisdom of the past with gratitude. Many quiet Australians who hold the true values of the Liberal Party are joining our political ranks to support like-minded types and take back political ground from the radical left. The movement is one of regeneration—building up rather than tearing down and treasuring the traditions that our forebearers gave us rather than carelessly discarding them. We are slowly regaining ground. We will win back the institutions. We will straighten out that crumpled piece of paper and we'll win back people's trust.

Last week the government held the Jobs and Skills Summit and congratulated itself for inviting everyone to the table and for being open to all ideas to upskill Australia and address workforce shortages. Equal opportunity, visa changes, training opportunities and skilled migration were hot topics on the table. But in fact not everyone was at the table and the equal opportunity talk was pretty superficial because, as usual, refugees and people seeking asylum were ignored.

In recent weeks my office has been inundated with messages from refugees and people seeking asylum who are desperate to upskill, study, work and contribute to society. Many of them sought asylum a decade ago and have long been recognised as refugees. Known as the 'legacy case load'—as if they were not people with feelings, hopes and dreams—they have spent years under the cruelty of the offshore detention regime and then in limbo, trapped in a cycle of endless visa renewals and often without access to basic rights. The cruelty is calculated and deliberate. Both Labor and the coalition refuse to treat refugees and people seeking asylum like humans who deserve dignity, because they want to use them as examples to discourage more people from coming to our shores. Effectively, these governments have said, 'Look here: this is how badly we will treat you if you dare to come here.' Such is their level of cruelty that they would rather people suffer persecution than find a safe haven here.

The dehumanisation does not end when refugees are finally allowed into Australia. The thousands who are living in limbo here are effectively kept handcuffed in the margins by virtue of their temporary visa status and strict visa conditions, which force them to exist as second-class citizens. The most heartbreaking injustice is how the government denies young refugees the right to higher education. Denying people their right to study and learn is nothing short of sadistic.

I want to speak about two young women who have reached out to me and whose experiences illustrate this cruelty that so many others are encountering. I won't name them, to protect their privacy. When she was nine years old the first of these women came here by boat and was immediately sent to Nauru. While detained she was subjected to trauma which no child should be subjected to, including witnessing suicide attempts. Her mental health was severely impacted. She was finally evacuated from Nauru in 2018 on medical grounds. Once in Australia and in community detention, this woman—a recognised refugee—began attending school, where she excelled. Last year she was granted a full scholarship to a university. Then she turned 18 and the government stripped her of her study rights because of her temporary visa status. She had to forfeit the scholarship and, just like that, her window of hope for a better life slammed shut.

The second of these women has a similar story: arriving 10 years ago as a 19-year-old and then being sent straight through to offshore detention on Nauru. On Nauru she was subjected to horrific treatment including solitary confinement. No-one was ever held accountable for these injustices. She was finally evacuated on medical grounds and has spent the last two years repeatedly urging the government to let her study. Before she fled her country she was studying medicine. I understand that these women have both contacted the minister, but to no avail as yet.

There is a simple fix: transition people onto permanent visas and grant them the right to study, work and live here. This is consistent with international law, which recognises that everyone has a right to an education, including refugees. So many young refugees are being denied study rights by this government. They are full of promise and potential. They have had many of their childhood and adolescent years stolen by the Labor and Liberal governments, but they are determined. As Saba Vasefi, a refugee advocate, wrote in the Guardian recently:

But some who are now adolescents continue to experience the punitive effects, legal limbo and structural violence of Australia's deterrence system.

They are not asking for compensation or an apology or a handout; they're just asking to study. But both Labor and Liberal governments should hang their heads in shame.

The women I met are some of the most passionate and strong people. They and others like them have suffered too much at the hands of Australia's cruel policies. Earlier this week Senator Wong expressed dismay that girls in Afghanistan could no longer go to school. We should be extending the same concern for refugees and those seeking asylum in Australia who want to study here. So I urge the Labor government and Minister Giles to urgently make the changes needed to allow them to study. This country, any country, would be lucky to have them. Let them study; let them stay.

Last month, the Deputy Premier of South Australia, Susan Close, announced the appointment of Richard Beasley as the inaugural South Australian Commissioner for the River Murray. Mr Beasley's important is so important to South Australia and so important to the health of the river in general. As we push for real action on the River Murray and aim to get passed the significant number of years that the health of the river has been ignored and commitments in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan over 10 years that have not been delivered, the commissioner is going to make a fundamental difference to how this is going to be dealt with. We've heard from the Peter Malinauskas, the South Australian Premier. He believes that this appointment sends a clear message that South Australia is serious about defending our water rights and protecting the river, including delivering on the 450 gigalitres that were promised but not delivered.

I've said numerous times in this chamber before that the Murray River is the lifeblood of South Australia. The agricultural sector, the community and the environment are all dependent on the river, and all can live together in harmony if we have enough water in the river to keep it healthy. If we stop that flow and we do not allow the river to be healthy, then, our agricultural sector will not thrive either. This is not a binary decision about whether we wish to prioritise the environment or whether we wish to prioritise agriculture. This is a scenario where we need to have everything working in harmony. Delivery of that water is critical.

I have a huge amount of faith in Richard Beasley, and I have a huge amount of faith in what the South Australian government has committed to in terms of his role. His role will encompass a whole range of engagements, including working with community and the federal government, helping secure that flow that has been promised to South Australia for so long. From the Lower Lakes to the Coorong, across the whole gamut of the river, his work will make a fundamental difference. It will help us get that water. Now that we have a federal government that is determined to deliver on the promises in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, I have great hope that the South Australian government, the federal Labor government, the commissioner and the relevant ministers can, in concert with the stakeholders and those people whose lives depend upon that river, work together to get an outcome that will protect the environment and will also protect our agricultural sector.

I look forward to working very closely on this project that Mr Beasley is about to engage in. I really look forward to seeing some genuine outcomes delivered and reported on in this place about how we will improve the health of the River Murray.

I want to ring a warning bell this evening, a warning bell that should be ringing a lot louder than it is across our land. Last week, our major energy regulator, the Australian Energy Market Operator, revealed that we couldn't guarantee that the lights would stay on in Australia over the next three years. We're a developed nation. We're a nation blessed with energy reserves. We're the world's largest coal and liquified natural gas exporter. Yet, in the next three years, we cannot guarantee to Australians that their lights will stay on. It is a damning indictment of the policy settings that we have been obsessed with over the past decade in this place, and I have been critical of my own side on those settings. We've been with installing unreliable, renewable energy, and our energy system is about to crash unless we do something about it.

We are installing solar and wind in Australia faster than anywhere else in the world, by a large margin. Don't listen to the rhetoric from the new government that somehow the coalition government didn't invest in renewable energy. That is a lie—that is a total deadset lie. The Australian Energy Market Operator also said a few weeks ago in their integrated system plan that here in Australia we are installing solar and wind at a rate four times higher than Europe or North America. We have retired 4.1 gigawatts of reliable power—dispatchable power, in the jargon—over the last decade. That's about four major power stations, and we have only replaced that with less than one gigawatt of reliable power. We have a reliability deficit in this country; when the sun sets and the wind doesn't blow, we are in big trouble. In this latest Australian Energy Market Operator report, they say that over the next three years, three states will fall into deficit in being able to meet the reliability standards to keep the lights on all the time in this country. The first is South Australia next year, the first on the chopping block, then Victoria and, the year after that, New South Wales. Queensland also has some issues later in the decade.

We need to change now and change fast. Yet, instead, this new government is doubling down on the failed policies of the last decade—the failed policies in Europe, the failed policies in California. As I speak today, California has had blackouts, another region leading the world in renewable energy that's not doing so well. We are doubling down on this despite the warnings of people like Paul Broad, who has resigned as the CEO of Snowy Hydro because the new minister, Chris Bowen, won't listen to common sense. If the lights do go out in the next three years, if we do get blackouts, we can blame one group of people in here. The one group of people we can blame is the Australian Labor Party, who are ignoring the expert advice.

Chris Bowen is clearly ignoring the advice of Paul Broad, who said to him in no uncertain terms and has said publicly since in an interview with the ABC that green hydrogen cannot be added to the Kurri Kurri gas plant next year and we should proceed with that gas plant just on gas to start with, as per the original plan. Instead, Chris Bowen has effectively sacked Paul Broad—and the rumour around the industry is that he was effectively told to go by the minister, which is totally scandalous ministerial intervention in what should be an independent statutory authority. He's ignoring that advice and persisting with a technology which has not been tried anywhere—putting hydrogen into a gas plant. We don't even know if it's going to be safe. It's a very flammable material. This is ridiculous. We need to keep our lights on. Further to that, I give credit to Paul Broad for having the courage to resign his position, instead of being asked to do something he knew would increase risks and would not deliver results to the Australian people. But his further advice to the Australian people when interviewed was that it's not just Kurri Kurri; we should be building more gas plants—more than just Kurri Kurri.

That is clearly shown in this Australian Energy Market Operator report I started my contribution with tonight. That report says we'll have inadequate investments in reliable power in the years ahead to guarantee electricity supplies. When are we going to listen? When are we going to wake up? Are we going to wait until we have another South Australia, and the lights go out everywhere? Are we going to wait until thousands more manufacturing jobs leave these shores to benefit the Chinese communist party and Vladimir Putin's Russia? Are we going to wait until we end up in a situation like the United Kingdom's facing, where people's energy bills are A$6,200, or 3,549 pounds, and they're estimated to go to over A$10,000 over the next year? Are we going to wait until Australians are suffering in poverty and energy deficiencies before we act and make common-sense decisions to guarantee the basic essentials in a developed country blessed with energy resources?

I rise tonight to use my voice in this place on behalf of the community in Western Australia to urge Labor: do not continue with your plans to give $243.5 billion to billionaires. From the university student living in the Perth CBD, to the dad living in Bassendean, to the FIFO worker I met in my local shop in Baldivis, all are united: billionaire do not need more money from this government—not now, not ever. Labor's plan, the so-called stage 3 tax cut, would see them give again—just for the record, folks—$243.5 billion to the megawealthy over the course of the next 10 years. It is hard to imagine just how big that amount of money is, so let me break it down for those following along tonight.

With that money, we could end homelessness and build enough accessible housing in the next 10 years to ensure that every single person on the public housing waiting list has a home to live in. We could improve the mental health and wellbeing of our community by investing in prevention, ensuring everyone has access to a psychiatrist, a psychologist or a peer worker, with cost being no barrier. In addition to that, we could give everyone the opportunity to go to the dentist and get the services they need to put a smile back on their face. And we would still, after all of that, have money left over to be able to do additional things—to increase the level of pension support payments, for instance. Together, as a community, we would have the ability to provide a home, support, free mental care and trips to the dentist—for me, for you, for everybody who is eligible for Medicare—and there would still be money left over.

This parliament is all about choices, and Labor is choosing to side with the billionaires instead of providing the community with the things we need right now. Getting dental care is made to feel like a luxury. It is out of reach for too many members of our community, and it is simply too expensive. This is a political choice. The system has been designed in a way that locks people out. I have heard from members of the community, particularly in Western Australia, who say that they have been unable to eat properly or have missed work due to tooth pain. They have, for instance, delayed the removal of their wisdom teeth, living for months with head and neck pain as they attempt to save up the hundreds of dollars necessary for the treatment. They have failed to have teeth removed or have not been able to have them replaced because they cannot afford restorative work or a new tooth. And they are sitting right now with, for instance, a seriously loose set of teeth, their only current avenue being to hope that they do not fall out.

Our community deserve of better than this. It is time for Medicare to be expanded to include our teeth. The Greens have a plan to make dental care free. We must move to a universal dental system that tackles dental disease proactively. Everybody could go to the dentist for free under this scheme, ending the worry of paying for dental services. Importantly, it would include a broad range of services. Whether you have a tooth that needs restoring or a cavity that needs filling or whether your kid needs orthodontic work, the Greens want it to be covered by Medicare.

If you're listening to this and thinking to yourself, 'Well, that sounds nice, but it's surely not possible,' I am here tonight to tell you that it is. It is a matter of choices, and the Labor Party has a big choice to make. Right now they are choosing to continue with their plan to give over $243 billion to billionaires. That is more than three times the amount that it would cost to give everyone free dental care. Shame on them!

I rise to speak about the care economy and about Professor Rajiv Khosla and his work in the robotics and innovation space. The tireless work of Professor Khosla and other stakeholders is now coming to fruition, after more than a decade of hard work and professionalism and following a commitment to help people within our community.

The work of Professor Khosla started many years ago at La Trobe University, and now he's the CEO of Human Centred Innovations. Professor Khosla's work is cutting edge. He has accomplished things that no-one else has done before. It's something he and the team should be very proud of. More importantly, he is improving the dementia journey for many and bringing joy to people living with a dementia diagnosis. It doesn't matter your age, we all want to experience joy at different times in our lives, and just because you have a dementia or disability diagnosis does not mean you can't experience joy and fulfilment in your day.

During my advocacy over many years for the aged-care sector, and as a senator for Tasmania and former assistant shadow minister for aged care, I've mentioned Matilda and Professor Khosla to countless people. I do admit, though, that Matilda is often difficult describe to people—how exactly she functions and what she brings to someone's day-to-day experiences—without them seeing her in action firsthand. Matilda isn't just a social assistance robot; she is an embodiment of a decade of research and development, an embodiment of the people who created her. I think it's fair to say that Professor Khosla has developed Matilda in his own image. She is intelligent, innovative, caring and compassionate. Therefore I think it would reasonable to say that she is almost a sentient being. She has the qualities of a human being. She responds to what she interprets and perceives in her surroundings, and those interactions with individuals shape her ability to help who is in front of her and who will utilise what she can offer in the future.

Matilda isn't just Professor Khosla and his team's innovation; it's an empowering tool for individuals, families, researchers, business and the sector, and it inspires them all to do better, to strive to make aged care better, to strive to improve dementia-friendly communities. The government believes that every older Australian deserves love and care in their senior years. Our parents and our grandparents deserve to have someone, or Matilda, to sit and engage with, so they can feel wanted, needed and, most importantly, respected. A study found that Matilda can remind people living with dementia about their daily schedules, communicate to them the news of the day and the weather, engage with them through music and bring back those memories that are still deep within them.

We can't just look at Matilda in a binary way. She is multifaceted because she can also provide respite for carers. In the disability sector, she has improved the social and communication skills of children with autism. Matilda is working in the care economy and, by the sounds of it, she is like every aged-care worker across the country: she deserves a pay rise. For those who want to know more about this innovative and evidence based research, the findings have been published in the International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction.

I would like to congratulate Professor Khosla and the team at Human Centred Innovations for continuing to evolve and progress Matilda and her work. Already they have advanced so much that she can interact without being online and she can speak 34 languages, which is really innovative when it comes to people on that dementia journey who revert to their first language. It's encouraging and it's inspiring.

I think it also says something about this government, the Albanese government. We are about reforms. We want to improve the aged-care sector. We want Professor Khosla's plan for further innovation to work in unison. We have a strong ambition to provide high-quality and dignified care for older people and people with disabilities. This will not happen overnight, but we have started the process and it will be a journey that we will see through to the end. I encourage people in this chamber and anyone else listening to invest a bit of time. My husband has already said he wants a Matilda as we age at home. I think it's a fantastic tool and I congratulate them for all their work and research.

It's been cold here in Canberra, but when it's cold like this in Tasmania, that's when Tasmania really hits its stride. The ground might be covered in slippery white frost, the days are shorter and the thermometer hits minus territory, but that's when Tasmanians come out to play. Instincts might be to stay in and rug up, but anyone who has visited Tasmania during the cooler months knows that getting outside to enjoy the state's cultural events has become a popular winter pastime.

Mainlanders and international travellers are following Tourism Tasmania's advice to come down for air in droves. Marketed to visitors as the off season, the most recent tourism campaign positions the state as a must-do winter experience. Not only does this support our tourism and hospitality industries, both of which were hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it shows off Tasmania's wintry attractions to a new audience, or to those who already know how good a winter party can be.

Celebrating Tasmania's cool climate has been a tourism campaign winner since the late 1800s. The state was marketed as a health destination for mainland Australians and visitors from India and England escaping warmer climes. Indeed, the Tasmanian Government Tourist Bureau promoted the opportunity to 'Cool off in Tasmania' in 1929. This tourism campaign by artist Harry Kelly features a man pointing to a thermometer hitting 62.3 degrees Fahrenheit, or around 17 degrees Celsius. The same artist produced the 'Switzerland of the South' poster for the bureau in the 1930s, which depicted Mount Ida and Lake St Clair.

Some of the biggest attractions are our winter festivals, where we don our 'Tassie tuxedos', huddle around log fires and watch as creativity comes out of the dark. Starting the winter festival season with a bang was Dark Mofo's 2022 offering, Resurrection, which celebrated the opportunity to come together again after the forced isolation of COVID lockdowns. Dark Mofo included the Winter Feast and live performances of dance, song and light that culminated in the Nude Solstice Swim. Crowds flocked to Dark Mofo events at both ends of the state this year, with more than 300,000 attending festival venues. Visitor numbers in 2022 were just shy of 2019's pre-COVID levels. Revenue generated topped $3.5 million, and, at Dark Mofo's 45 ticketed events, 65 per cent of tickets were bought by interstate visitors. The revenue and visitor statistics from Dark Mofo alone show just how popular Tasmania is in winter.

But the cold season is not just about Dark Mofo. There is much more on offer throughout winter. Festival of Voices take up the baton with a mission to improve lives through singing. This was the event that started the idea of celebrating Tasmania winter culture 17 years ago. In fact, Tourism Industry Council Tasmania chief executive Luke Martin considers this festival of song, choirs, composers and stories to be the unsung hero of winter tourism.

Then there is the Huon Valley Mid-Winter Fest at Willie Smith's in Grove, with live music, poetry, storytelling and the wassail ceremony to awaken the Huon's apple trees as the bonfire crackles and Big Willie burns. The temperature drops again for the biannual Australian Antarctic Festival in Hobart, the gateway to Antarctica. This festival aims to inspire Antarctic adventures and careers, while sharing stories about the pioneer who explored the continent and raising awareness of the work to conserve Mawson's Huts. Smaller in size to the other events but big on flavour, the Tassie Scallop Fiesta celebrates the north-east region's fishing and maritime heritage. There is plenty of produce to eat and drink, chef demonstrations and wine masterclasses, live music and a full program of fringe events.

Science and art come to the fore during the Beaker Street Festival in August. This event challenges our ideas about the way the world works and allows us to engage with scientists and innovative art at talks and dinners and join the Tassie Science Road Trip. Science of a different kind steps up during Tasmanian Whisky Week. More than 30 of Tasmania's whiskey distilleries share their stories and spirits with whisky lovers via tastings, dinners, meet-the-maker events and the Tasmanian Spirit Showcase. And this year, for the first time, the Winter Light Festival was held at Hobart, at the Salamanca Arts Centre, during August. This arts festival was created to attract a new demographic to Tasmania, by celebrating the end of winter and the 'coming of the light'.

These events have truly transformed what was traditionally Tasmania's quiet and dormant off-season, providing a welcome glow for visitors near and far.

Given that you fellas always want blackfellas to provide cultural awareness training for you all, today I thought I'd teach you a little bit about our language and our culture. Today I'll talk about the term 'gammon'. Labor are really great at being gammon. They've got that down pat. Committing to 43 per cent emissions reduction while opening up over 46,000 square kilometres of our ocean for oil and gas exploration—now that's gammon. Approving the Barossa project gas drilling in a marine protected zone, despite the clear opposition of Tiwi Islands traditional owners—that's gammon. Committing to 43 per cent emissions reduction and protection of cultural heritage while fracking in the Beetaloo basin, poisoning our water—that's gammon. Committing to First Nations justice and protection of cultural heritage while approving the Perdaman fertiliser plant on the Burrup Peninsula, railroading traditional owners and destroying sacred Murujuga art sites which are under consideration for—get it—World Heritage listing—well, Labor, you're too gammon. Committing to give First Nations people a voice to parliament but not actually listening to traditional owners—that's gammon.

Saying 'black lives matter' and talking about closing gaps and reducing Aboriginal deaths in custody while three decades have passed since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody with no indication from this new government, the new deadly Labor government, when they're going to review those recommendations that they never implemented when they were last in power, which is however long ago that was—not only that, they have never given us any information about implementing them—is completely gammon.

And talking about achieving justice for First Nations people but not committing to the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous people and free, prior and informed consent, not even having a reporting date for what we have been fighting for—for how long—to have our rights observed and respected in this country, the new Labor government are trying to push it down the road as far as they can because they know what it means for First Nations people and that shows how gammon Labor really are.

Gammon, if you haven't worked it out in our little cultural awareness session this evening in the Senate, is pretending. Gammon is fake. Gammon is pretending that your someone's friend when you're actually not. You become gammon.

Well, the Greens aren't gammon because what we say we actually act upon, and what we say is what we mean. We'll put our bodies on the front line to protect country, but Labor, because they're so gammon, won't do that. Labor will wave the flag and have 'black lives matter' posted on the front windows of their electorate offices yet they're stabbing us in the back at the same time—that's gammon.

Well, for those gammon Labor mob that want to continue to be gammon and wear your Aboriginal earrings and Aboriginal flag T-shirts and look all deadly, looking like an ally, it's actually gammon, and black fellas see right through gammon allies who pretend to be our friends while they destroy the very essence of who we are as First Nations people in this country. So Labor, give up the gammonness and get on with the real action.

I have a confession to make and I would confess my sins in a church, but Lambie in a church and worrying about the ceiling falling in, it is a bit too much. I've made a mistake. In the first days of the last parliament I was asked to vote on the Morrison government's tax cuts stages 1, 2 and 3 all together in a bunch, no splitting, no picking and choosing—all or nothing, 1, 2, and 3. In case you missed it, I supported the package. I want to run through why. This is what I said in my speech on my tax cut bill before the vote happened:

If the economy gets worse between now and then, as this has, it takes a week to change the tax rates. If, in six years time, the economy can't handle a huge tax cut, then people expect their politicians to say so, be up-front and be honest. If the risk is too big to justify, people will understand rolling it back or putting it on hold for the time being.

The only way you can think that the worst bits of this tax bill are permanent is if you believe that nobody in this place can do the right thing and the responsible thing. I'm not prepared to give up on the possibility that parliament can show a little bit of guts and do the right thing when the time is right. I'm not prepared to walk away from tax cuts for low-income workers starting next week simply because we don't know if we'll be able to afford tax cuts for everybody else five years from now. If we can't afford it then, we don't go ahead; it is that simple.

I look back at those words now and I think how optimistic I was. On the other hand I say how bloody naive I was. But I sincerely thought at the time that there's no way a government would barrel through with a tax cut that the budget could not afford. Fast forward five years, and look what we have. Look where we are: a government barrelling through with a tax cut the budget can't afford. It's not even a tax cut they like. They agree it's bad for the budget, they agree it's bad for the economy and yet they're still doing it. They say it's not their policy, but when you're given the chance to change something and you decide to keep things the way they are, then your policy is to keep things the way they are.

This is not complicated. If Labor put a bill into the Senate today to delay or amend those stage 3 tax cuts it would pass without even breaking a sweat—easy job, no worries. But you know what? They won't, and I think that's really bad policy. So why are they insisting on inflicting bad policy on the Australian public and the Australian economy? What's the point? This puts the budget further into the red. We're told we can't afford anything, because Labor's got a budget mess to clean up. It's like a garbage bag has split and fallen all over the floor of your kitchen and you're wiping down the bag—fair go. Don't forget this is the government that started this parliament saying we had to cut crossbench staff by 75 per cent to save $3 million a year, but they are going to plough through with a tax cut that is going to cost $3 million an hour—arrgh, you've got to be kidding me.

But look, I said I made a mistake, and I did. The mistake wasn't backing the tax cuts; the mistake was believing that five years into the future we'd have a government with a bit of guts that'd show some courage. It's this Labor government that has been handed the keys to stop the cuts coming through, and they're too goddamn scared to take them out of their jeans pocket—fair go. You don't get to say that, just because the other team legislated them, somehow you're completely helpless to do anything about it, because that's rubbish. When Labor won the election they wanted to be more ambitious on climate change, so they increased the emissions reduction target. The previous government didn't want a royal commission into robodebt; Labor did, so they called one. The previous government didn't want to increase the skilled migration target; Labor did, so guess what, they changed it—hip, hip, hooray.

They changed things because they wanted things to change. You wanted things to change. They're not changing stage 3 tax cuts, because they don't want things to change, not because they can't. I want every Australian person out there to know it's not because they can't; it's because they do not have the will. They don't want to. They're too frightened to. They don't have the guts to. Three months in, they don't want to remove those stage 3 tax cuts, because they don't have the courage. They know that is the best thing forward for this country in the economic climate we're in right now, but they lack the guts, three months in. I can tell you now, if you're not going to change the stage 3 tax cuts, because you don't want things to change, that's a decision for the Labor Party, but you wear it.

Prior the election the coalition government was supporting our regions and agricultural sector with record levels of funding for water infrastructure. This investment was especially critical in my home state of Queensland, where there's been I don't think a single dam built in the last 20 years. When you think of the record amount of rain that has fallen on our state and gone to waste during this La Nina cycle, would it not make sense to invest in water infrastructure to improve water security and drought resilience? At present the jewel in the crown of Queensland water projects is undoubtedly Urannah Dam, which the former coalition government supported to the tune of $498 million. This 970,000 megalitre dam is part of the visionary Urannah scheme, which includes the Bowen Renewable Energy Hub, the largest renewable baseload energy project in north Australia. Once operational, it will generate over 1,400 megawatts and reduce carbon emissions. The pumped hydroelectric plant has a storage capacity of eight hours and is co-located with solar, wind and a hydro equaliser to support export scale hydrogen production.

Not only this, Urannah Dam will feed the 20,000 hectare Collinsville Irrigation Scheme. This will deliver affordable water for the agriculture sector and open up opportunities to grow high-value crops on a large scale and facilitate export opportunities. Water security enables communities in Central Queensland to drive economic growth within their local communities and create long-term jobs in the regions.

Urannah Dam alone will create 1,800 ongoing jobs. However, the benefits will be felt far beyond Central and North Queensland, with the project to deliver $10.5 billion in economic benefits to Australia. Given all these benefits, it is exciting to see investment interest flowing in from all over the world. A Danish fund, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, are in advanced talks to partner in the project, which would power up to half a million Queensland homes. Copenhagen Infrastructure has identified the Bowen hub component as one of the most promising investments of its type in Queensland and is working closely with Bowen River Utilities and renewable energy partners on co-development and equity partnerships.

This is the future of water and energy in the great state of Queensland. This is nation-building infrastructure that any good government will support. So I call on the Albanese government and the state Labor government in Queensland to support the Urannah project in whatever way is required to get it built. Queensland's future prosperity depends on it. The project stacks up. It is good for Queensland and it is good for Australia. Let's get Urannah Dam built.

On the Saturday just gone, I had the absolute honour of attending the opening of an exhibition called the Public Exhibition on Crimes of Communism hosted by the Queensland chapter of the Vietnamese Community in Australia and also the World Victims of Communism Association of Australia.

It was a great honour to attend that exhibition and to make some comments at the opening, just as it is an honour every 30 April for me to attend in my capacity as a senator the commemoration of the fall of Saigon to the Communists on 30 April 1975. And it was great and deep honour to be presented by my good friend Dr Cuong Bui AM a tie with the colours of the Republic of Vietnam. This is still worn with great honour and dignity by members of our Vietnamese community in Queensland. Dr Bui has been an extraordinary leader for the Vietnamese community, the broader multicultural community and the whole Australian community in my home state of Queensland. He fled Vietnam many years ago in 1975. He knows many, many individuals who lost their lives during that flee from communism in 1975.

At the exhibition, you can see the horrors of communism: photos of people who were seized from the Baltic state of Estonia and sent to starve in the gulag archipelago in the Soviet Union; the killing fields of Cambodia; the devastating consequences of the so-called great leap forward in China where millions upon millions of people died in the devastating famine that was triggered by the policies of the Communist Party of China; a Hungarian flag on display which had the hammer and sickle carved out of the centre, so that the Hungarian flag had a hole in the centre. This of course is the flag that was used by those who rose up in Hungary against the Communists in 1956.

Perhaps most movingly we heard a presentation from a Hong Kong democracy activist who told us about the horror of what is happening on the ground in Hong Kong today under the rule of the Communist Party of China.

At the exhibition I made a number of reflections. The first was in relation to the inherent evil of communism and how it is an absolute anathema to the fundamental freedoms of the individual—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association—that all of us in this place hold sacred. I reflected on how the evil of communism is a total anathema to the family as the essential building block of our society, putting the state above all else in our society, and how the evil of communism is an anathema to economic progress and prosperity.

The second reflection I made was that Australia has become the home to so many people and generations who have lived and prospered here having fled the horrors of communism, whether from those Baltic states, including Estonia, that I referred to, or from Poland, Hungary, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba or other countries all over the world that have suffered the scourge of communism. So many people have lost their lives fleeing communism, including hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people.

The third reflection I made was on the importance of the exhibition in shining a bright light on the horrors of communism. In that respect I had a conversation with a member of the Vietnamese community called Tony, who explained to me how he is in the process, with support from the United States government, of exhuming the remains of one of his family members from a re-education camp gravesite in modern-day Vietnam and that it is occurring in darkness, at night, because the Vietnamese government doesn't want photos of the exhumation to be taken. That surely is the best example of why it is necessary to have exhibitions such as this, to shine a bright light on the evils of communism and all those who have suffered from communism over generations.

So, I say to the people of my home state of Queensland: take your children to see this exhibition and show them the horrors of communism. Not only that, but take your children to see this exhibition so they can talk to the survivors of communism about what they experienced and how much it means to them that they've found safety in our beautiful country of Australia.

I should note that I said a few words earlier in the week about the fact that the Greens member for Ryan, Ms Elizabeth Watson-Brown, refuses to display the Australian flag in her electorate office. That's the member for Ryan, Ms Elizabeth Watson-Brown MP. And my good friend Senator McGrath has drawn attention to this fact that Ms Elizabeth Watson-Brown MP, the member for Ryan, refuses to display the Australian flag in her electorate office. Well, I suggest that Ms Elizabeth Watson-Brown should make her way to that exhibition on the evils of communism. Ms Elizabeth Watson-Brown MP, the member for Ryan, who refuses to display the Australian flag in her electorate office, should go to that exhibition which has been put on by the Vietnamese community in Queensland. She should go to that exhibition. She should consider that exhibition and she should consider the fact that the Vietnamese community at that exhibition is proudly flying the Australian flag and the fact that I and Mr Milton Dick MP, a member of the other party and Speaker in the other place, presented the Vietnamese community with an Australian flag that had flown in this chamber. And the Vietnamese community—that wonderful community, hundreds of thousands of people, who have made their way and prospered in this country, who sought and gained refuge in this country—are displaying our beautiful Australian flag in that community centre, because they understand the significance of the flag and what it means to them, because this country provided them with safety.

How appalling it is that the Greens member for Ryan, Ms Elizabeth Watson-Brown, refuses to display the Australian flag in her electorate office when the Vietnamese community across the river in Darra is displaying proudly, with honour, at their community centre an Australian flag that has flown in this Senate chamber. They display that flag because they, our Vietnamese community, appreciate the values of this country and what it represents to all those people who've fled from persecution and the evils of communism and other extreme authoritarian regimes all over the world. They appreciate the significance of that flag.

Dr Bui, who Milton Dick MP and I presented the flag to, appreciates the significance of that flag. But the Greens MP for Ryan, Ms Elizabeth Watson-Brown, can't bear to display the flag in her electorate office. What an absolute disgrace. I say to Ms Elizabeth Watson-Brown, Greens MP for Ryan: come across the river to Darra. It used to be in the federal electorate of Ryan. Hopefully, it is again at the time of the next federal election, because I look forward to talking to the Vietnamese community about Ms Elizabeth Watson-Brown MP, who refuses to display the Australian flag, so she can see the significance of that flag for one of our wonderful communities who have found refuge from persecution in this beautiful country.

We should always remember the horrors of communism, the evil of communism and the 100 million people who have died at the hands of communism. We should always remember that so many people found refuge from communism in our beautiful country, and we should acknowledge and honour our wonderful Vietnamese community, who have been so successful in our beautiful country since fleeing from communism and are now part of our wonderful Australian story.

Tonight I want to talk again about the lack of safety testing that was carried out with the vaccines. I also want to discuss the biochemistry once again because there are a lot more elements that I need to discuss that I didn't get to last time. If you want to look at my last clip you can still see it on my website, but I will recap the finer points of it.

Effectively, this vaccine produces a spike protein. It's unlike a normal vaccine, which produces 28 proteins, and the virus, which has 29 proteins in it. This vaccine only takes one of those proteins. Because of that, it is a much smaller molecule and it can cross via the endothelium into the capillaries and go throughout the bloodstream.

We know this because in the TGA non-clinical report on page 45 is a distribution table of the rats that shows the distribution of the spike protein—sorry, not the spike protein, the lipid nanoparticle—throughout all the organs in the actual rat. I did say 'spike protein', but that's not true, because they never actually tested the spike protein at all. That's like testing a bomb without the actual explosives inside of it. What is the point of testing the vaccine if you didn't put the spike protein in it? No, what they did was use a benign enzyme called luciferase, and they tested that in the rats. Anyway, long story short, it went throughout the whole body, despite the fact that we were told initially that it was only going to stay close to the injection site.

The second point we need to know about—and I'm going to come back to this in a minute—is the fact that they use this process called transfection. What that means is it makes the lipid cationic, and that means it bypasses the ACE receptor and the transmembrane serine protein that is required for the virus to actually enter the cell. Therefore, it is a lot more infectious.

The other thing is that the spike protein that they did deliver is not the same as the spike protein in the virus. The vaccine spike protein replaced uridine with a synthetic molecule that's not found naturally in the human body called methylpseudouridine. Studies showed they used that because they wanted to evade the immune system when the actual lipid nanoparticle was delivered to the cell membrane—step one. It was also shown to have greater self-amplifying properties—in other words, it made more of the protein.

It also had another 70 adenine nucleotides stuck to its polytail, which meant it lasted a lot longer in the body, and it also had two proline insertions—proline is an amino acid—in positions 986 and 987, to give it greater strength and stability. In other words, it's going to take longer to break down in your body than the normal virus.

The other thing we need to touch on is that the studies actually showed that your body delivered an IGG response, which is the antibody that you see that—basically, it's the prime antibody in your blood. The problem with that is that it's a respiratory airborne virus, so it comes down through your mucosal system, and your dominant antibody in your mucosal system is immunoglobulin A. So it's all very well getting an immunoglobulin G response or a T cell response, but that's only one half of the equation.

The other half of the equation is that you need to see that it's actually going to sterilise the antigen. It's like a football team. My son's football team runs off the field and I say, 'How did you go, son?' and he says, 'We scored 10 points.' That's great, but what we need to know is that he actually beat the other side. If the other side got 30 points, it doesn't mean that you won. So you can produce an antibody, but you've got to demonstrate that it actually sterilised the antigen. I touched on that before, and I'll leave it at that.

What I also want to touch on is that some of the press cracked it the last time I spoke about this because I made the mistake of comparing the lipids to sausages and they thought I oversimplified that issue. I should just clarify that wasn't actually my terminology; that was the terminology used by the head of the TGA, Professor Skerritt, to me in estimates. I will quote what he said to me. I asked a question about the lipids. He said:

The dose of the lipids in the vaccine is below the threshold that internationally is assessed for genotoxicity and carcinogenicity.

In other words, and I have said this before, they didn't test it for genotoxicity and, basically, cancer. Now these lipids—this is where Professor Skerritt, head of the TGA, has misled me—are commonly used in a range of other human therapeutics, and even at a higher level there isn't evidence of anything. Let me say this: an absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. You need to demonstrate that there are no ill-effects.

He then goes on to say:

… the lipids are hydrolyzed, destroyed by the body fairly rapidly, as are dietary lipids.

He also said:

And they are distributed through a range of parts of the body, as are lipids that you have if you had a sausage or a steak for breakfast.

Okay? So before you start having a crack at me, Ray Hadley and Alice Workman, just make sure you go and read what was initially said in estimates.

Now the reason why I say Professor Skerritt has misled me on that is that, right here, I have documents from Pfizer that are on their website. These documents talk about how they developed their own raw materials to ensure a steady supply for the COVID vaccine. It goes on to say:

… Melissa French—

who worked for Pfizer—

got the message: Pfizer needed large quantities of something called a cationic lipid that was critical to the COVID-19 vaccine. "This isn't an everyday lipid that's readily available …

Well, well, well, well, well. So we have Pfizer actually admitting on their own website that the lipid that's being used isn't an everyday lipid. So when Professor Skerritt said that it's something that's in your sausage or steak and it has been used in higher levels previously, that is not correct. This article goes on to say how the Pfizer team had to work overtime to actually get this lipid into production and get it manufactured. I find it very concerning that Professor Skerritt would mislead a senator on that in estimates.

We need to talk a little bit further about these cationic charged lipids. They can be toxic; they can disrupt the mitochondrial and cellular respiration that's responsible for consuming oxygen for producing energy. If this activity is disrupted, then the oxygen is not reduced all the way to water, but instead to some intermediaries that are called reactive oxygen species. Okay? Wow. Big term, right? Now, reactive oxygen species are intrinsic to cellular functioning, and are present at low and stationary levels in normal cells. However these can cause irreversible damage to DNA as they oxidise and modify some cellular components and prevent them from performing their original functions. This suggests they have a dual role, and they can be harmful or protective—depending on the balance between their production and disposal at the right time and place.

You have got to ask the question: why wasn't this tested in humans before it was rolled out? There isn't anything new to this. If we go and look at TGA disclosure log 2389, there's a risk management plan that these guys came up with in January 2021. I want to go to table 3. This is from the TGA website, so Facebook fact checkers don't get upset at me for actually quoting Pfizer's own source documents and the TGA's own source documents.

Table 3 is entitled 'A summary of safety concerns in the EU RMP'. The first row says, 'Important identified risks: anaphylaxis.' The second row says, 'Important potential risks: Vaccine-associated enhanced disease.' Right? Lovely, charming. So they actually knew about this. Even though they knew this was a risk, their response to all of this was to say it could lead to adverse responses and it needed to be carefully evaluated once the COVID vaccine rollout commenced. I don't know about you, but if there was a risk of having a vaccine enhanced disease, wouldn't you test it before the rollout commenced?

I will give another brief description:

Vaccine-associated enhanced disease (VAED) occurs when an individual who has received a vaccine, develops a more severe presentation of that disease when subsequently exposed to that virus …

This is a well-known phenomenon with dengue fever. There are four different strands of dengue fever. If you get one strain of dengue fever then your body will basically produce antibodies to that. If you get another strain of dengue fever later on, those initial antibodies will kick in but, because it's a different strain, your immune system won't react the way it should as quickly as it should. That's because the different strain will have a different spike protein. With all of these different mutations going around at the moment, if you keep boosting in, you are basically running the risk of pathogen priming, which is effectively where the viruses that mutate have a greater chance of surviving because your body only has the antibodies to the initial spike protein and not the nucleocapsid. So you should always have antibodies not just to the S protein but to the N protein. If you look at people who have had antibody testing after they had COVID, they have antibodies to both the S protein and the N protein. That is very important.

I will leave it at that because I'm just about to run out of time. It looks like I'll have to come back next week.

Today I have the privilege of sharing four stories of people who are struggling to survive on meagre income support payments and navigating our broken social security system. To start, here is Nicholas's story in their words about living on income support.

'Hello, my name is Nicholas. I'm 24 years old, and unfortunately in 2020, just before full COVID lockdowns, I was diagnosed with a prolactinoma—it's a brain tumour on the pituitary gland.

'They found it as I was having and still do have constant head pain, headaches, migraines and nausea. I've been on JobSeeker since, as I've had to stop working full time and also studying. I have applied for the disability pension three times now, and I've been declined every time, as there is a chance I could get better.

'This is completely unfair. I have supplied all the relevant information from my doctors, but they refuse to allow me to be on it. My doctors don't want to do surgery as currently it's not life threatening, just life impacting—quality of life has plummeted. The medication I'm on is helping a little bit, not enough that I could return to how my life was before.

'Not only does the amount need to increase but there needs to be an in-between payment between JobSeeker and the disability support pension. I have to constantly supply three-month medical certificates from my GP that I am still unwell to work, but if I'm delayed by not even one to two days, then the JobSeeker agencies swoop in and demand I see them, otherwise my payments may be cut. It is a shameful, humiliating experience having to deal with them and Centrelink.

'Being on JobSeeker, I receive approximately $700 a fortnight with rent assistance. My rent has just increased to $360 week. I live out of home with no chance of being able to move back home to my parents, as there just isn't any room.

'I am lucky in that I have a partner that's happy to support me, but it's humiliating having to live off your partner's income. My money from Centrelink goes straight into rent as well as trying to help out wherever I can with other bills. I can't even afford my own groceries, as the majority of it goes to my side of rent, and whatever is left generally gets eaten up by other bills—electricity and car-related expenses. I have gone through any savings I had, and most weeks I am left with not even $10 to spend on myself.

'Something needs to change, as our most vulnerable are living in poverty. How could anyone actually look for work that would help them improve their lives or their children's lives if they can't even provide food or a roof over their heads?

'How is anyone that is sick but not sick enough for disability supposed to focus on getting better when they are too busy trying to figure out how they are going to eat, where they are going to sleep.

'We should be doing everything we can to make the lives of everyone around us better. If something happened to you and you suddenly found yourself with no income but Centrelink, how would you feel? How would you feel if you were stuck on Centrelink because you couldn't work due to illness and could barely afford your rent?'

This is Kelly's story:

'Hi, I'm currently 45 years old, on the disability support pension, with chronic health issues and severe mental health issues, and I'm currently homeless due to my very limited income. It's near impossible for me to find another rental. I was evicted six months ago from my previous rental of nine years because the real estate wanted to double the rent and couldn't do so with me in the property.

'I'm currently staying in a caravan park, which is dangerous and very unsafe for my health, paying $350 per week, with no cooking facilities, no heating, no in-home bathroom facilities et cetera, and my health and mental health have never been so bad.

'I'm also now separated from my carer and my family members—again, dangerous to my health, as there isn't enough room here.'

And, now, this is Elizabeth's story:

'I'm a 33-year-old woman on the disability support pension. I get the privilege of paying about 7½ thousand dollars a year out of pocket for my treatment, and live in an NRAS studio apartment, which is $13,000 a year in rent. My annual income, according to Centrelink, for this financial year was $23,000.

'As a disabled person, that leaves me $3,000 a year to eat, pay utilities and travel for treatment. Homeownership is not a possibility for me. I've resigned myself to the fact that I won't be able to have a family, because I can't even afford to socialise with peers, let alone date.

'Yet I've had to endure robodebt collections; job service providers cancelling my payments because they didn't attend the meeting they set; being told to search for eight to 10 jobs a week, when I've supplied documents saying I'm in hospital recovering from having an organ surgically removed; threats of being forced into certificate 1 vocational training classes, when I have an undergraduate degree.

'The problem is not that I don't want to work or that I can't navigate recruiting processes. The problem is that, to the Australian government, my value as a human is tied directly to my productivity and the amount of income tax I can pay. I want to work. I know I've got skills and experience in communication, advocacy, event planning and executive assistance. I've run my own business in the past. I've got a tertiary education.

'Job service providers would tell me to apply for factory work, despite physical impairments, an inability to get to the job for the 5 am start time and my inability to actually complete that type of work. Recruiters wouldn't consider my application seriously anyway, yet I'd be bullied by the provider into applying to meet my obligations and not have payments cut.

'How can any government say they are representing the people who vote for them when they intentionally look at a group of people who are physically incapable of work, through age, impairment or an inaccessible job market, and decide to intentionally force them to endure being bullied by service providers, or to have to call Centrelink and beg to receive payments well below the poverty line. Quality of life is non-existent. It's humiliating, dehumanising, psychologically harmful and, as proven by robodebt, potentially fatal to have to endure.

'I've thought on more than one occasion: I literally cannot afford to be alive right now.'

Finally, I would like to share the experience of someone who was on income support while they were studying:

'I left a full-time position in 2016 to attend university, relying on Centrelink to support my studies, as I was unable to find an appropriate part-time position willing to be flexible around my uni schedule.

'Despite dumpster diving for food and living in cramped shared accommodation, income support was so low that I often couldn't afford the bus to class, which severely affected my ability to study.

'Due to my poor standard of living, I got really sick and could not access the diagnostic tests my GP recommended, as there were out-of-pocket expenses that were not covered by Medicare.

'I suffered with an undiagnosed treatable illness for nearly five years because Centrelink is too low to access medical care. This obviously prolonged my degree and therefore cost the government more money to support me while I finished it.

'The income support over COVID meant that I could access the tests I needed. I was diagnosed and went through surgery in late 2020. Since then I've been able to finish my degree, get a job in my field and resume paying tax.

'My heart breaks for people still trapped in poverty while the cost of everything skyrockets around us. Please do something.'

Thank you to Nicholas, to Kelly, to Elizabeth and to everyone who has shared their stories with me and given me the opportunity to share them here in the Senate tonight. These stories reveal an income support system that is broken, a system that is punishing people in poverty and failing to dismantle barriers to employment.

It is time for the Albanese government to listen to people on income support. It is time to raise the rate of all income support payments to above the poverty line and to abolish punitive mutual obligations. Come on, this new government. It is time.

Senate adjourned at 20:36