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

I rise to speak on the Australian Capital Territory Dangerous Drugs Bill 2023. Every Australian parent wants their children to grow up in a safe environment, every man and woman should be entitled to walk the streets without fear and every family should be free from the misery and pain of drug dependency. But these things are under threat in the Australian Capital Territory.

The ACT government's Drugs of Dependence (Personal Use) Amendment Act 2022 will commence shortly, on 28 October. It was a bill that was rushed through the ACT Legislative Assembly as a private member's bill to avoid scrutiny. On 28 October, the Labor-Greens government here in the ACT will roll out the red carpet to ice, heroin, cocaine, speed, acid and other drugs. In my very humble opinion, our nation's capital should not be our drug capital.

This bill does one very simple thing, and it is a very simple thing: it preserves the status quo. The single operative clause is short enough that I will read it into Hansard.

The Drugs of Dependence (Personal Use) Amendment Act 2022 (ACT) has no force or effect as a law of the Australian Capital Territory, except as regards the lawfulness or validity of anything done in accordance with that Act before the commencement of this Act.

In other words, my private senator's bill, moved on behalf of the coalition opposition, doesn't affect territory rights. It does not amend the powers of the ACT Legislative Assembly. It merely says that a bad law that will harm Australians has no effect.

The ACT Labor-Greens government has opened the door to dangerous drugs in Canberra and beyond. It is worth looking closely at the impacts of this ACT legislation. What have they done? In effect they've created a parking-fine scheme that applies to the possession of ice, heroin, cocaine, MDMA and speed, among other things.

The ACT drug laws that come into force shortly, on 28 October, do two things. First, they water down current drug offences. The current possession offence is punishable by an $8,000 fine and imprisonment for two years. This is now replaced by a two-tiered system. If you only have a 'small quantity of the drug', you face a penalty of just a single penalty unit and, for larger amounts, the fine remains but the potential sentence is reduced from two years to just six months. Second, under the new drug laws, if a police officer believes on reasonable grounds that a person has committed a 'simple drug offence' and is only holding 'a small quantity', they may issue an offence notice.

So, in effect, in but a few days what you will have in the ACT is a parking fine for drug-like situations. The notice requires a person to pay a penalty of nearly $100 or attend an approved drug diversion program—$100 and you never go to court. Colleagues, the bitter reality is that parking offences in Canberra are actually now going to be treated more seriously than dangerous drugs, because in Canberra you will pay more for parking across the lines in a shopping centre than being caught carrying ice. You will pay more for stopping your car near a postbox than for the possession of heroin.

Lawyers, police and pharmacists have explicitly warned against these laws. The ACT Law Society expressly said that the ACT drug laws would have 'a minimal effect on diverting drug users away from the criminal justice system'. The Australian Federal Police have given evidence about cycles of crime that link drug use to offences relating to assault, burglary, stolen motor vehicles, theft, justice procedures and firearms. They gave an operational example of how similar personal use schemes have been exploited to sell cannabis to Canberra schoolchildren as young as 12 years old. What government in its right mind (a) condones that and (b) is prepared to then pass legislation that actually extends this to more harmful substances? That would be the ACT Labor-Greens government here in Canberra.

Our pharmacists, who are on the front line of addiction and dangerous drugs use every single day, expressly said ACT drug laws would be 'counterproductive to the aim of harm minimisation'. The logic behind the ACT drug laws just isn't there. From 28 October, as I said, in but a few days time, among other things, a person can carry up to 1.5 grams of ice, 1.5 grams of cocaine or one gram of heroin. Let's now put that into context. According to the US Department of Justice, that is up to five times the average lethal dose of heroin. You'll be able to carry in the ACT five times the average lethal dose of heroin with little to no penalty, and it is meant to be for personal use.

Then you look at the operational issues that arise. They are absolutely diabolical for the police. There is no clarity for police whether the territory laws are consistent with Commonwealth legislation. This leaves police choosing between potentially conflicting laws and potentially facing professional standards investigation for misconduct and failure to exercise duties if they apply the wrong one. There is no clarity on whether the small quantities of drugs are mixed weight or pure weight. Is it one gram of pure heroin or can I carry two grams and cut it down by 50 per cent? I would have thought you would actually want to know that. In any case, how are police meant to tell? Will they all now carry scales and purity testing kits?

What is then the result? As ACT Deputy Commissioner Gaughan has said, when police see someone doing a line of coke—and you can now do about 15 lines—historically they may have intervened, but they are probably not going to now. As ACT Policing described in an inquiry's submission: 'The decriminalisation of drugs does not of itself allow individuals to be connected with a health-led response. There is a real concern that the health services just aren't there.' And, in the meantime, as they pointed out—and this is a really serious point for the AFP to make—'drug use can be a driver of crime.' Would you not take that into consideration when you're actually decriminalising hard drugs? Clearly not in the ACT!

Perhaps more importantly, and what seems to have been forgotten by the Labor Greens government here, is these decriminalised drugs themselves are incredibly harmful. The ACT Law Society has said, 'We do not support the decriminalisation of any quantity of ice given the threat such poses to the public safety.' That's the ACT Law Society. They referenced a physician statement from the Australian Medical Association, which said: 'There is clear medical evidence that methamphetamine, and particularly crystal methamphetamine, ice, is a very harmful drug at the individual, community and societal levels. Methamphetamine is not a recreational soft or party drug and should never be referred to as such. Every effort must be made to avoid normalising methamphetamine use or minimising its harmful effects. Acute methamphetamine psychosis is one of the most damaging health consequences of methamphetamine use. It presents a major safety issue for healthcare staff and the intoxicated patient and his or her family.' But, for some baffling reason, the Labor Greens government in the ACT has decided it is a good idea to, in but a few days, release ice onto the streets of Canberra.

We know ice induced psychosis leads to violent rages. According to the government's own advice on the dangers associated with ice: high doses of ice and frequent use can cause ice psychosis, which can last a few days, cause severe paranoid delusions and hallucinations and unusual aggressive or violent behaviour. Blind Freddie can tell you those rages risk the safety and welfare of emergency service workers, health professionals and bystanders. And to the suppliers of these hard drugs: Welcome to Canberra! They are organised crime figures and outlaw motorcycle gangs. They're the people who are going to be the beneficiary of the ACT government's laws.

People have asked, is there a case for federal intervention? This bill responds to the egregiously bad public policy outcomes of decriminalising ice and other hard drugs. It also responds to concerns raised by the Australian Border Force and the Australian Federal Police about the need for a national approach and about the cross-border impacts of the ACT legislation, because the ACT drug criminalisation laws create a problem that extends beyond Canberra's borders. It is a national problem, but the Prime Minister of Australia, the man who could do something, doesn't just sit back and do nothing but sits there and condones the legislation.

As a spokesperson for the Australian Border Force said, 'Effective drug policy reform requires all jurisdictions to work together to ensure the policy is holistic, coordinated and aligned to national approach that addresses supply, harm and demand reduction.' The AFP is on record saying the changes would lure recreational drug users into Canberra and spark an increase in drug-related deaths. In the words of Deputy Commissioner Gaughan, it would be 'naive to think people won't come down, even for a weekend, to get on the coke and not worry about the cops.' Make no mistake, colleagues, these laws will help line the pockets of criminals and organised crime groups, who will be lining up to sell to drug users in Canberra to meet the increased demands. This will send a clear signal to motorcycle gangs and organised crime all along the Hume Highway, but the jurisdictional issues and unintended consequences do not stop there.

Up until now the Commonwealth government has applied ACT criminal laws in a range of circumstances. We trusted the ACT to adopt a sensible approach to crime, but it now appears that that trust has been misplaced.

As ACT Policing expressly noted:

The current Bill would apply to JBT. Laws applying in this context may also apply on certain flights under the Crimes (Aviation) Act 1991 (Cth).

This now raises further concerns because, under the Crimes at Sea Act, criminal law in Jervis Bay also applies on Australian ships and to Australian citizens on foreign ships outside of what is called the adjacent area. Roughly speaking, this is a reference to areas outside of Australian waters.

The question has therefore been raised: as a result of these ACT laws, can Australian citizens now carry ice on ships, in international waters, facing nothing more than the threat of a $100 fine? I would have thought that, before you decriminalise, you would want to know the answer to that. Have Andrew Barr and Rachel Stephen-Smith now unwittingly created a cruise ship drug charter? Again, I would have thought you'd want the answer to that before you went down this path. What an absolutely absurd situation!

Let's now have a look at the actual impact. I don't want these ridiculous outcomes to distract from the very real harms of this badly-thought-out law. Three groups will pay for the ACT government's cavalier approach to drug policy. The first group will be the people who travel down the Hume Highway hoping to experience the ACT's party lifestyle. For many it will end in addiction and heartache—and, for some, even in death. The second group who will pay are the first responders—emergency workers and bystanders who will now find themselves facing a person in an ice induced psychosis. And the final group who will pay are the families. I acknowledge the presence in the gallery today of one of the Canberra mothers who lost her daughter earlier this year to an accidental overdose. Thank you for your courage in coming to see this bill be debated in the Australian Senate today.

Only misery will result from this terrible law. The ACT drug law is a bad law. It must be thrown out in the interests of all Canberrans and all Australians. I implore the government: please don't turn your back on people in the ACT.

What is proposed here by Senator Cash and the coalition is an extraordinary intervention into the affairs of the Australian Capital Territory government, and it should be rejected on that basis alone. There are some issues of substance here that are raised, and I won't take the artifice of simply asserting that it should be rejected on the basis of an interference in the proper affairs of the ACT; I intend to deal with some of those issues of substance over the course of this short contribution.

I would say at the outset that, at the very least, the threshold for the Commonwealth intervening in the laws of the Australian Capital Territory, or indeed of the Northern Territory, should be very high. It's possible for senators to disagree on how high that threshold should be; in this case, it's a lower threshold for Senator Cash and the coalition than it is for myself and the government. What has invariably happened when these interventions have occurred is that these interventions have occurred when conservative governments have intervened in the affairs of the Australian Capital Territory, and, indeed, the Northern Territory, when they have been motivated by social issues, and issues that go to some social questions. Previously, it has been about end-of-life care in both the ACT and Northern Territory. There have not been interventions in relation to economic policy or the building of bridges or important infrastructure; it has simply been in relation to those issues. I say through you, Deputy President McLachlan, to Senator Cash that it's not possible, in my view, to assert that this does not affect territory rights. The effective cancellation of legislation in the territory does have a chilling effect on the territory's capacity to make laws. It is the bluntest possible intervention into territory rights. The people of the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory have been very clear about this principle that self-government in the Australian Capital Territory means that they get to determine their own affairs, within the limits of what is provided for in state, territory and Commonwealth relations. And I do say, while I intend to address some of the issues of substance, this should be rejected on that basis and it must be rejected on that basis.

The truth is the states and territories will make good laws, they will make bad laws, they will make laws that are capable of criticism and laws that are imperfect and it is their right to do that. It is the responsibility of territorians and people of the ACT to argue and contest those propositions. Indeed, if Senator Cash or Senator Cadell or anybody else feels sufficiently moved, they should move to the ACT and perhaps run for the territory assembly. I'm told it is a very fine assembly and they would probably enjoy their participation in that assembly. I can see Senator Cabell's quizzical look but I'm sure he would enjoy it and they would enjoy it too. The truth is, intervening in this way doesn't just have a chilling effect on the capacity of the territory government and the territory assembly to make its own laws, it effectively—I use this word not in its pejorative sense, not to create offence—corrupts the governance of the way that laws are made. It means this place is being invited to interfere in a consistent basis with the affairs of the territory governments. We have enough work to do in this place. We have responsibilities to enact. We believe in territory rights and I think that is why the Leader of the Opposition in the ACT, Ms Lee, has rejected this effort to limit territory rights. She said:

The Canberra Liberals will always stand up for territory rights and I'm very concerned about any step to diminish that. I do not agree with this action taken by the federal coalition to seek to overturn legislation that was passed by the ACT assembly.'

That's the position that she has taken and that the Canberra Liberals have taken. I'm sure they have taken that position for two reasons. I'm certain their experience as ACT politicians means they actually believe in that proposition I also think it is a matter of pragmatic politics for them—the idea that the federal coalition steps in to effectively delete the self-government rights of territorians is a very unpopular position in the Australian Capital Territory.

We do have responsibilities as the Commonwealth government. We have the responsibility, through the AFP and our various agencies, to intercept illicit drugs and their precursors at the border. That is our responsibility. That is the weight of action dealing with organised crime, whether it is the outlaw motorcycle gangs that Senator Cash has referred to, who participate in the transport of illicit drugs and their precursors through our ports and our airports, or whether it is other organised criminal organisations that are a threat not only in terms of illicit drugs but in terms of our national security.

The Commonwealth, in order to get the best possible approach here, must focus on our responsibility here. We are not, at the Commonwealth level, responsible for regulating drug use and prosecuting individual users of drugs or, indeed, offering the health services or the whole matrix of approaches that the state and territory governments do. That is their responsibility. The moment we lose sight of our own responsibility—to deal with organised crime and the borders—and start intervening in the proper responsibilities of the territories and states, we lose the thread of what the governance arrangements are here, and that is more likely than anything else to lead to the undermining of the proper exercise of Commonwealth power here, which is to stop illicit drugs at the border.

Overriding this piece of legislation would also be inconsistent with the National Drug Strategy, which was announced in 2017 and launched by the then coalition government. It's possible to argue, of course, within the parameters of that National Drug Strategy, which is very broad. Pillar 1 goes to harm reduction. Pillars 2 and 3 relate to demand and supply reduction. The ACT government argue that, in their view, the Drugs of Dependence (Personal Use) Amendment Act aligns with those three pillars. That is their position. It is, and will be, the subject of discussion and debate. Every law that gets passage through a state or territory parliament or, indeed, this parliament will be amended. Over time, none of them is immutable. Indeed, I would say that within this area of policy within the framework of the National Drug Strategy, which was launched by—I'm not sure who the Liberal Prime Minister was in 2017. Senator Cash, you might help me here. I think it was possibly Mr Turnbull.

Senator McKenzie, you're out of order.

He and the premiers—I suspect it was Mr Turnbull but I'm not sure—announced this policy framework. It is broad and allows the states and territories to make different laws in this area.

There is, of course, no perfect response. That is the truth here. Each approach of each of the states and territories comes with risks, advantages and disadvantages. It involves the intersection of health and social policy and, indeed, the criminal law, and no approach is immune from criticism. I remember well the New South Wales drug summit that occurred in the 1990s and the controversy that accompanied that. I also remember that politicians from each side of the aisle in the New South Wales parliament, despite all of the misgivings and apprehensions, came together. They disagreed and agreed, but they came together in a genuine process. I remember how difficult the process was, particularly as there are very few families in this country that are not touched by these issues. The issues affect families and people in very difficult ways, and they would affect many of the people in this place who have come to this debate. I'm sure that in the Australian Capital Territory assembly those issues would have weighed heavily on the minds of those people who made those decisions. In fact, the National Drug Strategy says that it is best practice for states and territories to implement the strategy in the way that best suits their jurisdiction. On page 16, it says:

Jurisdictional implementation allows for governments to take action relevant to their jurisdiction with a national harm minimisation approach and strategies should reflect    local circumstances and    address emerging issues and drug types. Coordination and collaboration supports jurisdictions to develop better responses and innovations within the national approach that can inform and benefit all jurisdictions by sharing practices and learning.

That is the position, the agreed approach, between a conservative government and the states and territories. Adopting the approach that Senator Cash and her colleagues are asking the parliament for not just flies substantially in the face of that agreed approach between the states and territories and the Commonwealth but fatally undermines it. It undermines the national approach on drugs. It undermines the capacity of the ACT assembly to make laws in a way that it sees fit. It undermines the governance arrangements, where there are alternative approaches.

One approach is to work consistently with the rights and responsibilities of states and territories, to share responsibility and to work together to solve big national challenges. The alternative approach—exemplified by Mr Morrison, of course—was to point fingers, to look for arguments, to sensationalise, to fight and to argue. That is not the approach that this government will take. For our part in the Commonwealth government, we will focus—and Mr Dreyfus and the others who are responsible in this area will focus—on our responsibility, which is about stopping illicit drugs and organised crime at the border.

On behalf of the Greens, I indicate our strong opposition to another coalition attack on self-government in the ACT and another highly emotive febrile attack from the shadow Attorney-General when it comes to sensible, evidence based law reform in relation to drug use. The Drugs of Dependence (Personal Use) Amendment Act 2022 passed through the ACT Legislative Assembly after a nine-month-long inquiry. They received dozens and dozens of submissions and hundreds and hundreds of survey responses. The position of the ACT public in those submissions and those survey responses was overwhelming support for the ACT's reforms to decriminalise personal possession of a limited number of illegal drugs—not to legalise it but to decriminalise it—to provide a modest civil penalty if somebody is found in possession of illegal drugs and to permit the police to confiscate the drugs in the circumstances.

They're the laws that are backed in by pretty much every public health advocate and expert. They're the laws that have been backed in by report after report by both the New South Wales coroner and the so-called ice inquiry established by a Liberal premier in New South Wales. They're the laws that were backed in after a nine-month inquiry by the ACT Legislative Assembly which held five days of public hearings. They're the laws that the federal coalition want to overturn based on an extraordinary, anti-factual, deliberately inflammatory and misleading political attack from the coalition. What's fascinating is that the coalition, which, in this case, is being led by the shadow Attorney-General, is obviously hostage to the far right wing of the coalition and the Liberal Party. And part of who they've taken hostage are the poor Liberals in the ACT, who have said, time after time, 'Stop doing this because you keep burning the brand in the ACT.' Those people who might have been open to supporting the coalition in the ACT if they stuck to some kind of fact based, non-Trumpian approach to politics are being completely burnt off. They are once again seeing the federal Liberal Party use this Trumpian-style, evidence-free, angry form of divisive politics to try and tear down self-government in the ACT. And the poor old ACT Liberals in the assembly are saying: 'Please stop! Please stop! But obviously nothing's going to stop the Trumpian rise of the Liberal Party here.

There have even been calls from the leader of the Liberal Party in the ACT who said unambiguously and clearly that they don't want this to happen, that it's an attack on self-government. There's an internal war being played within the Liberal Party, led by the shadow Attorney-General, who has complete disregard not just for the concept of self-government in the ACT not just for the rights of hundreds of thousands of ACT voters to choose their own government and to map their own path, but also complete contempt for her own party who have asked her to stop this. The message coming from the ACT Liberals is: don't do it! But because of this internal culture war in the coalition, the shadow Attorney-General is pressing on regardless.

Let's be clear about what the ACT laws do. They decriminalise; they don't legalise. They follow the evidence. They were adopted by overwhelming support in the ACT Legislative Assembly. They're backed in by the great majority of the public in the ACT. They follow international best practice, such as Portugal, which has decriminalised personal possession of drugs for the past two decades. They mapped forward a pathway that, instead of treating people with addiction problems as criminals and putting them into jail—losing their jobs, hopes and future and driving them down further pathways aimed towards addiction—treat it as a health issue. The ACT Legislative Assembly has backed this by providing millions and millions of additional dollars in drug and alcohol treatment and putting in other safety measures supported by evidence, such as pill testing.

The real reason the coalition in this place is so angry and insistent about this is that they know it's going to work. They know that none of their scaremongering is going to come true, and they know that we're not going to see a rise in drug use in the ACT; we're going to see a diversion of resources away from police and courts and jails in health and addiction services. Every time that happens, Australia becomes a safer place; every time that happens, lives are saved. That's what they're really angry about—that this is actually going to work.

The disrespect for the people of the ACT that is inherent in the Australian Capital Territory Dangerous Drugs Bill is tangible. The Leader of the Greens and the Attorney-General in the ACT Legislative Assembly, Shane Rattenbury, said that the coalition's attempted federal intervention again treats Canberrans as 'second-class citizens'. He went on and he said:

We've seen a constant pattern of paternalism from the Liberal party when it comes to dealing with the ACT. Our citizens have elected their members of parliament in the territory. They deserve to allow those processes to operate.

Well, he's dead-on. He is absolutely dead-on when it comes to that.

I also want to acknowledge the hard work and the principled work of Johnathan Davis, our Greens spokesperson for this in the legislative assembly. He has constantly called out the lies, constantly seen a pathway forward so that the ACT can lead the country in this reform. I wonder if the shadow Attorney-General has been to Portugal and had a look at that jurisdiction. It is a small jurisdiction, surrounded by the EU, in some ways a kind of parallel to the ACT, a small jurisdiction surrounded by New South Wales and the rest of Australia. But, if you go to Portugal and you talk to the reformers and the policymakers in Portugal, which I had the benefit of doing earlier this year, they will tell you two things. They will tell you that, when Portugal decriminalised and moved from police, courts and jails to public health and addiction services, what they saw was a significant reduction of drug use on the streets, particularly in Lisbon. They saw resources going where they were needed. For the last two decades, they say, the sight of public drug-using in Portugal has basically disappeared. There was quite a disturbing level of public drug-taking at the time the reforms came through. The reforms were the way of dealing with that. And, for the last two decades, far from the weirdly unfactual, dystopian future that the coalition paints for the ACT, the lived experience in Portugal has been 180 degrees different. The public drug-taking has radically reduced, the streets are safer, people with addiction problems are having their health concerns treated, they're getting the treatment they need, and there has been no increase in drug use in Portugal—none. In fact, for a series of highly addictive drugs, the drug use has radically reduced in Portugal. That's two decades of lived experience.

Has the shadow Attorney-General gone to Portugal? Did the ACT police go to Portugal? No, they didn't. They went to San Francisco apparently. I don't know if the shadow A-G has been to San Francisco. It may not be her town. But they refer to San Francisco. What do we see in San Francisco? In some suburbs in San Francisco, we see the tragedy of the fentanyl disaster that's sweeping through the United States—a legal drug in the United States, being driven by some of the worst elements of the pharmaceutical industry. It is a legal drug being pumped out en masse by the pharmaceutical industry, which knew about its incredible addictiveness and potent impacts and was allowed to do that by federal regulators in the United States, in an environment where there are no constraints on acquiring what would be a prescription drug in Australia—and, in fact, with big pharmaceutical companies actively out there advertising, promoting and selling fentanyl. What we're seeing in the United States is a tragic failure of their privatised health scheme and their free-market mentality and the worst of big pharma, pumping out a legal product which is destroying communities in San Francisco. Did we hear the truth about what's happening in San Francisco and other places in the United States from the coalition? No, we didn't. We heard it being somehow equated with illegal drug use—use of heroin and methamphetamines.

No, in fact, it's the coalition's mates in the pharmaceutical industry, who donate to the coalition, who are creating that tragedy and disaster in the United States, along with their free-market mentality and their free-market-mentality approach to health care. It's those things that are creating the tragedy on the streets in the United States, not a rationally based, sensible, evidence based set of laws on personal possession of illegal drugs.

But of course, in the Trumpian world of the federal coalition, the truth is the first casualty, isn't it? There are optional facts, alternative facts, that they put forward. This is one of their alternative facts. They look at San Francisco and pretend it's not big-pharma, legal-drug, free-market craziness. It's anti socialised medicine, they'll no doubt tell us next. It's ignoring the truth; it's pretending that that is, in some ways, related to what's happening in the ACT. These are bald-faced lies from the coalition.

So what do we see here? We see another attack on self-government from the coalition because they don't believe that Canberrans and the people of the ACT should be able to map out their own future—largely, because they politically disagree with them. It's appalling to see them do this again. It's appalling to see their disrespect for the people of the ACT.

But we also see this Trumpian, evidence-free, febrile attack on sensible, considered, rational laws that decriminalise personal drug use and divert the resources of the state from police and courts and jails to health and addiction and a public-information campaign, to make the people of the ACT safer, to save kids' lives, to take people off a pathway to addiction and put them into treatment and treat them like our fellow citizens who deserve our support and respect and not like criminals.

Shame on the coalition for bringing this bill. I look forward to seeing it defeated in minutes.

I rise today to speak on Senator Cash's bill, the Australian Capital Territory Dangerous Drugs Bill 2023. Over the last few days, we've heard Senator Cash and her colleagues argue for the Senate to take a leading role in reviewing the laws of the Australian Capital Territory. It was only last year that this chamber voted unanimously to reaffirm the rights of the territories to self-govern and debate and make decisions for themselves, as the states do. It passed on the voices. Clearly, much has changed when it comes to the attitude towards voluntary assisted dying and the attitude towards the territories being able to make their own decisions, as, today, Senator Cash has reneged on that. Using this chamber to try and overturn a law made by a democratically-elected assembly can be seen in no other way than as trying to erode self-government in our territory. It is a clear, unmistakable breach of our territory rights.

In the ACT, we have the right to elect a legislature and a government and to hold them to account, just like the people in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and every state in Australia have. If we're unhappy with decisions made by the ACT government and the ACT Legislative Assembly, we have ways to let them know about it and ways to address it. The most obvious way, of course, is elections. Elections are the ultimate accountability mechanism, and I would expect the coalition to respect the people's right to have a say at elections and to respect the principles of democracy—particularly when you have the leader of the Canberra Liberals, Elizabeth Lee, also requesting, urging, her federal colleagues not to try and intervene.

The type of paternal control that the coalition is seeking to restore today is what set us on track to the ACT being unable to consider voluntary assisted dying for 25 years. It wasn't until each state had considered voluntary assisted dying for themselves, and after a change in representation in this place, that we were finally able to get rid of the Andrews bill. Of course, we remember that up until last year Senator Cash personally stood in the way of the ACT being able to consider voluntary assisted dying. The NT and ACT governments wrote to her as Attorney-General in 2021 to ask her to allow the territories to consider voluntary assisted dying, and she said no. When it comes to the territories—the ACT and the NT—Senator Cash and the coalition have a rich history of saying no. While this is a story for another day, I'll also point out that it's not just mainland territories. The coalition abolished Norfolk Island's rights to have a say on anything, removing their legislative assembly and installing Commonwealth administrators to manage their council. The states should breathe a sigh of relief that they have the protections in the Constitution, otherwise you could bet that Senator Cash and the coalition would have long ago abolished this inconvenient second level of government.

I worry that the coalition will try again to erase our right to consider voluntary assisted dying for ourselves. This is the first step in their long game that will stretch across this entire term of parliament, a game designed to challenge voluntary assisted dying laws. Despite calls to do so, Senator Cash has not ruled out a future challenge to voluntary assisted dying laws, so it remains firmly on the table. But I'd like to say to Senator Cash that the territories will not accept that. It is our right to decide, and we will not have senators representing other states and territories, who already have voluntary assisted dying laws in place, telling us whether or not we should be able to consider such laws. In the campaign to overturn the Andrews bill, we've lost advocates, people who dedicated the end of their life to making sure that we have the same rights as the states to make and consider laws. I hope that Senator Cash rules out any future attempt to invalidate the ACT's future voluntary assisted dying laws.

On the matter of drug policy, these are matters that we should feel genuinely concerned about. Alcohol related deaths have risen year on year over the past four years. I don't mean alcohol related deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents; I mean deaths that are directly attributable to alcohol. I don't know a single person who hasn't been touched by alcohol addiction at some point in their lives, whether that's a person grieving a mum lost too soon or a person trying to support a brother who is medicating with alcohol. Opioids are also a concern, although I note that pharmaceutical opioids account for the vast majority of opioid induced deaths. I too would like to acknowledge a Canberran here in the gallery today who has come to share her experience, and I would be grateful for an opportunity to hear that experience firsthand.

What I would say is that these are not issues impacting just the ACT; they are issues that impact all communities in Australia. Every state and territory is looking at alcohol and drugs in some way, looking at serious policy reform. Queensland are taking a health led approach to their drug policies. New South Wales are holding a drug summit to discuss ideas for drug reform. I have spoken with the sector, including police representatives, and there are clear issues across the nation when it comes to the supply of drugs and the demand for drugs, as well as issues with our systems to treat people for addiction and get them healthy. While issues are more prominent in our major cities, I've spoken to people in our regions who struggle to get sober in their home communities, because there aren't the services there to care for them.

Every time the coalition comes into this chamber to attack our territory rights, it does a disservice to our entire nation. By singling out the ACT for political gain, we won't hear the experiences of people in WA, Tasmania, Queensland or any other region of Australia. We won't hear what it's like for people living outside a major city to try to access treatment services.

The coalition enter this chamber claiming to have a sterling record on drugs, saying that their concern is genuine. In fact, I note that Senator Cash said this morning that we need nationally consistent laws and policies working in tandem with Commonwealth policies such as those applying to the border. I agree with that, but I find Senator Cash's statements questionable given the coalition defunded national infrastructure that supported collaboration between states and territories on drug policy. In 2013 they defunded the alcohol and other drug not-for-profit ADAC, which had existed for almost 50 years and had the most comprehensive library of alcohol and other drug services. In 2014 they defunded the Australian National Council on Drugs and the National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee, two independent bodies that were key advisers on alcohol and other drugs. They also disbanded the Ministerial Drug and Alcohol Forum in 2020. As a result, we're left in a situation where there are few mechanisms for national coordination of drug policy. There are few bodies that could look at exactly the issues that Senator Cash has attempted to raise in the Senate this week.

Of course, you'll rarely hear the coalition speak about the drugs that kill the most people every year. You won't hear them talk about tobacco, alcohol or prescription opioids. Since 2013 the Nationals have received some $215,000 from just a single member of big tobacco, Philip Morris, and that's given everything we know about the harms of tobacco and the cost of it. It's very difficult to separate gambling and alcohol interests, as there are many companies that provide both alcohol and gambling products, so I'll give you the combined amount, Madam Acting Deputy President. In 2021-22 the coalition received over a million dollars from companies that profit from gambling and alcohol products. Of course, there are also the donations from big pharma. These companies have unfettered access to this building, and clearly they've been successful in ensuring our attention is never focused on the harms caused by their industries. If the coalition would like to minimise harm in Australia, they might wish to consider supporting the crossbench's call for lobbying and political donation reform. You cannot tell me that the access to this building, the lobbying we see, the revolving door of ministers and staff, when they lose an election, flooding into companies working in government relations and into lobbying firms that work in a related—

Senator Pocock, resume your seat. Senator Cadell, do you have a point of order?

Yes. Under standing order 194(1), I ask the relevance to the bill that is in front of the chamber, which is entirely different.

Senator Pocock, are you responding to the point of order?

If I may, Madam Acting Deputy President. This is a bill about drugs. I'm talking about drug policy in Australia.

Senator Cadell?

In response to that response: he was talking about gambling, lobbying reforms—all sorts of things—and he was not being relevant at all to the private member's bill that is before the chamber.

Minister?

I can't see how Senator Cadell's point of order enlivens a direction on relevance. I think this debate has traversed both drug law reform and state, territory and Commonwealth relations in respect of a number of issues, and it's hard to see how Senator Pocock's speech goes outside those boundaries.

Senator Pocock, your remarks are related to the bill and related to territory and federal relations, and those matters are relevant. I'll be listening carefully as you continue your speech.

Gee! You just have to mention donations from big tobacco and you strike a nerve with the Nats.

We cannot talk about drug reform in Australia without acknowledging the huge influence that lobbyists have in this country and the lack of appetite to deal with that. We know how much of an issue alcohol and opioids are, but we're not seeing the focus on that. I would urge the major parties: let's have a serious conversation about this.

These matters are serious. Many people have lost loved ones to drugs and alcohol, and right now there will be Australians sitting at the phone wondering whether their loved ones are going to return to them. I think we do a great disservice by trivialising these experiences for the sake of some political theatre and to punch down on the ACT. It's simply not ever good enough to seek to dehumanise someone because they are living with addiction. We've seen what that stigma drives. It means that people don't go and get the support that they need. They feel isolated and they feel shame. Stigma kills, and it's been killing people with addiction for centuries.

Instead of having contrived inquiries singling out the ACT, we could look to restore national coordination and infrastructure and have some very focused discussions on community safety and on the strategies that address supply, demand and harm reduction. I stand ready to have those conversations. But that's not what this debate is about. This debate is singling out the ACT, when we know that this is an issue across the country. As I said, we saw the coalition defund a whole lot of bodies who were tasked with dealing with the very problem that Senator Cash is now so concerned about.

I do hope that we'll have a more serious discussion about drug reform. Clearly, the status quo isn't working. This is an issue in communities. There are families grieving. For many this is urgent. I strongly disagree that this is the way to deal with this, and I believe that Senator Cash's bill should be rejected by the Senate. I would be very open to looking at a way to look at this nationally—to looking at the national issue that this is—so that we can come up with a more coordinated response that will ensure that, when people need the support, they know where to go and there's not as much stigma attached to it, so we're not seeing the awful outcomes that we can all agree we need to avoid.

I move:

That the question be now put.

Question agreed to.

The question is that the bill be now read a second time.

The time for the debate has now expired. We will move to consideration of government business.

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. Very regrettably, this bill comprises a poor and, frankly, chaotic response to the Universities Accord interim report. It is more about the government being seen to be doing something rather than the Minister for Education, Mr Clare, undertaking cohesive, considered policy reform of the higher education sector, underpinned by evidence based policy and proper consultation.

The coalition does not support this bill because it removes a vital cost-of-living safeguard for Australian university students—the 50 per cent pass rule—which protects students who are failing their course from incurring massive student debt with nothing to show for it. This bill also represents bad policy because it includes a rushed and haphazard support-for-students policy which does not properly support students, whether it be on holding universities to account for deficient courses, ensuring that students complete their courses successfully or keeping students safe on campus. This policy is a totally inadequate response to the many ways the government needs to be stepping up and holding universities to account for every single aspect of their performance in order to put students first. That is the government's No. 1 responsibility—to put students first—and this bill does not do this.

In opposing this bill, I want to make it clear that the opposition does support the extension of regional university centres, which was an important measure of the opposition when we were in government. The regional university centres are a very important part of our support for regional students and one of a raft of many different policies.

I want to turn, firstly, to the 50 per cent pass rule. Under the Job-ready Graduates program, the coalition introduced a provision which required students to maintain a pass rate of 50 per cent or above for units of study they undertake. Students who have a low completion rate and do not meet this requirement lose eligibility for Commonwealth assistance, a Commonwealth supported place, and they must either pay for their course upfront, transfer to another course or withdraw from their studies. The rule commenced on 1 January 2022. A low completion rate is when a student has a fail rate of more than 50 per cent of units of study after he or she has attempted eight or more units of study in a bachelor-level or higher course—or four or more units in a higher education course lower than a bachelor course.

The 50 per cent pass rule was introduced not as a punitive measure but to protect students from accruing massive HECS debts—

Trying to keep them out of university.

under circumstances where it's highly likely they will not complete their course, safeguarding them from racking up a massive HECS debt without any university qualification to show for it. I will take the interjection from Senator Faruqi, because, as part of this 50 per cent rule, there are very important special circumstances exemptions. Where a student hits difficulties—whether it be illness, a death in the family, some other disadvantage caused by the course provider, financial difficulties, changes to employment or any other relevant circumstance, Senator Faruqi—students can go to their university and say: 'These are my circumstances. The 50 per cent pass rule does not apply to me. But I am now on notice that I do need to make sure that I lift my pass rate to stay in my course, and I would obviously seek this exemption in relation to the rule.'

The 50 per cent pass rule is a rule that the universities hate because, of course, they lose students potentially and also revenue, and it was a measure that was not supported by and large in the interim report. One of the most disappointing aspects of the proposal to abolish the 50 per cent pass rule is that there is no evidence for it. We fought very hard for a Senate inquiry and for public hearings, which were initially opposed by the committee, and we had to bring it into the Senate to have that decision overturned so we could have public hearings. Mr Clare said, in his second reading speech for this bill in the other place:

More than 13,000 students at 27 universities have been hit by this in the past two years, mostly from disadvantaged backgrounds.

We actually know that there is not the data to support that conclusion. This comes from a Universities Australia survey that they asked not be made public because of its statistical unreliability. While they looked at the number of students affected, including those who were at risk of not passing all of their subjects, there is no data to show how many students lost their Commonwealth supported place. So it's very, very disappointing that, when we sought that data from the minister, from the Department of Education, and we wanted the breakdown, to look at the 27 universities and what data each of them had given to Universities Australia, that information was denied, which is wrong. They are under an obligation to provide that information to the Senate committee.

I particularly want to focus on this, because Universities Australia, in its survey, very clearly advised that affected students included those who had been put on a restricted study plan or those who were at risk of being affected, so perhaps students who had failed 30 per cent of their units but had not yet hit the 50 per cent pass rule threshold. This is a very deceptive proposal being put forward, underpinned by very little evidence. The government's attempts to claim that more than 13,000 students have been hit by this rule—effectively the minister was suggesting that these students have lost their Commonwealth supported place—have no credibility.

Also, claims by the government that equity students, including those from disadvantaged or low-SES families, were impacted disproportionately were not borne out in the data that we did receive. For instance, at Curtin University, 1,213 students were affected, which includes students, of course, who were potentially facing the risk of losing their Commonwealth supported place, but only 311 were from equity cohorts—around 25 per cent, or three per cent of total students. So the evidence we have received does not support the government's proposition. To make matters worse, the Senate inquiry established there are no requirements on universities to report the number of students who have lost their CSP. That should be remedied. Unfortunately, this is another example of policy on the run.

I also want to briefly mention the horrific cost-of-living pressures that so many students are facing as a result of Labor's cost-of-living crisis. More than three million Australians had their student debt increased by 7.1 per cent on 1 June this year. So many students can barely pay the rent or the power bill, let alone stay in their course. The government has done nothing to support students who are in crisis. Last year the indexation rate was 3.9 per cent. Next year it's forecast to be around six per cent. So there will be around a 16 per cent increase in student debt, and this measure was a vital measure to ensure that students did not continue to rack up student debt on courses or units of study that they were failing and did not leave university with nothing but massive debt. So I say shame on the government, because the suggestion that the support-for-students policy is an adequate replacement is totally wrong, and it is not borne out by the evidence.

I do want to briefly turn to the support-for-students policy. This is an attempt to patch the glaring hole in student protections for accruing unnecessary HELP debts, which would result if the 50 per cent pass rule were abolished. At the time of the bill's introduction, there were no details about this policy. This policy is an absolute shambles. We've just received the guidelines. These are regulations not encompassed in the bill, which, of course, could be changed or abolished on a whim without parliamentary oversight. The guidelines lack any substance, cohesion or accountability as to how the government and higher education providers will deliver the appropriate support to students to help them succeed in their studies.

In fact, Universities Australia is deeply concerned about this policy on the run. It says it won't achieve the stated policy intent of providing support for students. It will place further reporting requirements on universities, which equates to more red tape and risks diverting resources away from the core aim of supporting students, which universities are already fully committed to doing. There has been no assessment about the regulatory gaps that this policy is seeking to fill. There has been no assessment about the implementation cost. There has been no assessment about whether the universities can even possibly hope to introduce this by 1 January. Universities Australia has said they are deeply concerned about the time line and that, to expect universities to overhaul their existing systems or in some cases to develop entirely new ones—which might require the procurement of new IT systems or the upgrade—is just completely unrealistic. In its statement it says, 'It is our firm view that the guidelines, as they stand, will create additional regulatory burden for universities without driving better outcomes for students.'

It looks like there was some reference to support for students that need protection from sexual violence and sexual harassment. That looks like it was just tacked on the end. The really big issues in relation to protecting students on campus and the safety of students has not been properly addressed at all. That is a complete disgrace.

Less than two weeks ago the minister scrambled, realising that this is just a shambolic mass, and picked up the coalition's proposal that I have prosecuted very strongly over a number of months, for an independent student ombudsman—someone who will independently hold the universities to account and give students the right for redress and the right for justice. That now seems to have been patched together. Apparently that's going to be proposed to education ministers at the next education ministers meeting. But, again, that reflects the utterly incohesive policy in relation to student support. If the minister knows what he was doing, where is the student ombudsman proposal? Why wasn't this part of the bill? Why don't we receive comprehensive support for students? This is an example of the minister trying to be seen to be doing something as a result of the Universities Accord rather, as I said, than delivering cohesive and properly considered policy underpinned by evidence and proper consultation.

I also want to briefly raise concerns about the extension of demand driven funding for Indigenous students. Very disappointingly, the government has not addressed how universities are going to improve Indigenous completion rates. That is very concerning. Why have other equity cohorts not been included in the expansion of these uncapped places? As I said, principally, the minister and the government have got this fundamentally wrong, and this bill should be opposed.

I rise to speak to the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. This bill, while it is a step in the right direction, does fall short of what is actually needed. No-one can deny that our universities in Australia are in deep crisis. Universities are increasingly being run as big corporations where vice-chancellors earn millions and students are funnelled through like cash cows. Funding cuts, fee hikes, systemic wage theft and rampant casualisation have eaten away at the very foundations of our universities. Expensive degrees are leaving students in decades of debt—tens of thousands of dollars of it. From June last year to June this year, student debt increased by a whopping one per cent, just in one year, and it is rising faster than it can be paid off. Unpaid placements and unlivable PhD stipends are pushing students to the limit while the cost of living soars. Staff are in insecure, casualised jobs where they are routinely overworked and underpaid. And university spaces are unsafe, with hundreds of students assaulted every week and nearly one in three staff having experienced sexual harassment.

These crises have continued to worsen for years, and Labor is doing nowhere near enough at the moment to respond. Students and staff are suffering on campuses right now. They cannot wait for months or even years for the uni accords process to first be completed and then be implemented. Tinkering around the edges is not what we need here. Big, bold action is needed to reimagine universities as public places where staff and students can thrive and flourish. Labor can and must do much more right now to lift students out of poverty, improve staff working conditions and make campuses safe for all. We know that universities should be well-funded, democratic places of public good where students have fee-free access to a safe and effective learning environment and staff have secure jobs and excellent pay.

What I want to do is to talk a little bit more about aspects of the bill, about aspects of our education system that need to be reimagined, and about why this bill is a missed opportunity to fix some of these. I will start with Commonwealth supported places for First Nations students. This bill is a really welcome step to improve First Nations university participation by providing Commonwealth supported places for First Nations students in undergrad degrees. But education should be accessible as a lifelong pursuit, and we know that First Nations students experience pretty big financial barriers to participating at all levels of university, including at the postgraduate level. The average cost of postgraduate coursework degrees is $28,000 per year, and a significant amount of literature shows that financial barriers are often the primary reason why the number of First Nations students transitioning from undergraduate to postgraduate education is so low. Students in postgraduate degrees are generally older and have greater family and financial obligations, which makes paying for postgraduate study even more difficult. Current financial support and scholarships are inadequate and not available for part-time students.

So I will be moving a committee of the whole amendment to provide Commonwealth supported places for all First Nations students in postgraduate degrees, in addition to the undergraduate degrees. It makes no sense that we increase that support for First Nations people for undergrad degrees but not for postgraduate ones. The amendment is supported by the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Postgraduate Association, and it would deliver on the Universities Accord recommendation that all students, including postgraduate coursework students, should have access to sufficient financial support to support their study. Ultimately, university should be free and all student debt wiped, but lowering this financial barrier of entry for First Nations students at all levels of study will be an incredibly important step. If we are serious about improving First Nations university participation and about closing the gap and reducing the disadvantage that First Nations people face in this country, we have to listen to First Nations people and take a step towards reducing educational disadvantage. I hope that my colleagues in this chamber can support this amendment.

I now come to the 50 per cent pass rule. This bill removes the punitive 50 per cent pass rule introduced by the Liberals' Job-ready Graduates package, and that's really good, but the bill does nothing to reverse the absolutely disastrous fee hikes and funding cuts that were introduced at the same time. The Job-ready Graduates package cut government funding for student learning by $1 billion per year and increased student contributions by $414 million per year. Fees for arts and humanities degrees rose by a massive 113 per cent. Women, lower SES and First Nations students are hit the hardest by the fee hikes and the resulting unfair rise in student debt, so excuse me if I am cynical about the coalition then coming in here and crying with concern about the rise of student debt.

Excuse me! We are concerned.

The coalition is the one that increases student debt by thousands upon thousands of dollars.

Exactly, that is hypocrisy to the limit. If the coalition is really interested in addressing the burden of student debt then come and join the Greens' campaign to make university and TAFE free, to wipe all student debt. You weren't even willing to support the Greens. You opposed us even debating our bill on scrapping indexation. That is what you did, so please spare me this sudden concern right now about students.

Because it was irresponsible, like so many Greens promises.

Senator Henderson, you literally just had your opportunity to speak. Your interjections are disorderly, please desist.

University learning and research are a fundamental public good, and students should always be able to study what they want to study, not what the government of the day wants them to study, which is what the coalition was trying to do. Universities should not be seen as job factories but places of knowledge creation which hold power to push society forward. The Job-ready Graduates package was a shameful, shameful, punitive mess that was misguided from the start and must be immediately reversed.

I must say, Labor did speak a big game in opposition to that package when it was introduced, calling the scheme broken beyond repair, but they have done nothing to reverse it; it is a pathetic abdication of responsibility on the government's part. The government should have binned it the second they came into power but there was no action. All that scheme has done is condemn generations of young people to decades of debt and push universities further into strife. It has entrenched gender inequality, as women overwhelmingly study the courses which were hit hardest by fee hikes and are incurring more and more student debt, so it needs to go and it needs to go now.

No-one should ever have to experience sexual violence yet every week hundreds of students experience it in university settings, and nearly one-in-three university staff are sexually harassed. That is completely unacceptable. The government and universities have failed quite miserably in their duty to keep students and staff safe. It is clear the universities cannot be left to regulate themselves. The bill establishes the framework for support for student policy, and the content of the policy is being developed by the department here in parallel. This policy must explicitly address sexual assault and harassment as issues that impact a student's ability to complete their studies. It should require universities to offer academic accommodations for students and provide an appeals and complaints process for when university policies are inadequate or have been applied unfairly. This would be a first step to improving universities' failure to respond to sexual violence, but there is so much more work to be done.

We need a regulatory system that has expert-led oversight of universities, of the actions that universities take to end sexual violence, and meaningful accountability for universities when they fail to keep staff and students safe. We need complaints mechanisms that are trauma-informed, timely and that students can trust, and we need transparency on what each university is doing to respond and prevent sexual violence. Oversight, accountability, complaints avenues and transparency, these are the key functions of a system which are needed to address sexual violence in universities that campaigners like End Rape on Campus and Fair Agenda are calling for, and the government must deliver on that.

TEQSA is meant to be the regulatory agency for higher education but has been totally missing in action on sexual violence. It is shameful that TEQSA has failed to take any meaningful action in response to the countless complaints of sexual violence that have been put to them by students and student groups. We do need an independent review of TEQSA to understand why their regulatory response has failed to do what it was supposed to do. We must also recognise that international student survivors face particular difficulty in getting adequate support from universities, and that's something that needs to be specifically addressed. Every week students and staff are suffering from violence. There are more reports, more working groups and more meetings, and that's not good enough. I think the government needs to act right now to make staff and students safe right now.

University and TAFE should be fee-free for every student, and all student debt should be wiped. You will keep hearing this from me until we get there, because education is a fundamental public good and right. At the moment, more than three million Australians owe in excess of $74 billion in student debt, and this debt is rising faster than it can be paid off. The current annual minimum repayment income is just $51,550, which is only around $5,500 above the annual minimum wage. People are struggling to survive in this cost-of-living crisis. They desperately need this money to use for essentials, not to cover their student debt. It is a terrible political choice by the government to keep this system in place.

As to student placements, I have said this before and I will say it again: they are an exploitation of students. The exploitation of compulsory unpaid placements is putting tens of thousands of students under even more pressure. Students have shared shocking reports of having to choose between putting petrol in the car to get to their placements and having a meal. Unpaid placements are especially common in feminised fields of study, like teaching, nursing and social work, which is further entrenching gender inequality. Even international students are undertaking unpaid placements and are under huge pressure, especially at this time, because of the restrictions on their work rights, and we know how they are struggling to pay their rent or even find a proper place to live. It is also particularly difficult for students with parenting responsibilities and those already marginalised, including First Nations people and migrants. In inquiry after inquiry, the Labor government has heard how desperately in need of support these students are; the message has been loud and clear. All mandatory placements must be paid, and Labor must work with students and experts to explore other reforms to improve the placement system.

Another group of struggling students I want to talk about and shine a light on is PhD students. PhD stipends are not even at $30,000 per year, which is obviously well below the minimum wage. I know that some universities top it up, but data on 189 PhD programs shows that only 42 programs offer above the government stipend, and all do not meet the minimum wage. Students cannot effectively live in dignity in these conditions. Many are forced to quit their PhD programs, rely on their partner's income, cut back on food, or work extra jobs during the night. Despite conducting research full time, PhD students cannot access paid parental leave entitlements as other working parents can. This must change, and the Labor government has the opportunity to do this. They refused it earlier this year, when they voted against the Greens amendment to give PhD students parental leave, but it needs to change.

The last thing I want to say on the bill is about staff. Every month we see job cuts and underpayments at our universities. The corporate university model has completely and truly failed.

I stand in solidarity with the NTEU and their tireless campaigning on many of these issues. Labor must boost funding to universities and ensure this leads to increases in secure and well-paid employment for staff. University staff deserve the best conditions. My second reading amendment goes to the heart of these big, bold changes that we need to make to start addressing the current challenges facing universities. I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate calls on the Government to:

(a) make university and TAFE fee-free for all;

(b) wipe all student debt;

(c) pay students for undertaking mandatory vocational placements;

(d) raise PhD student stipends, and provide paid parental leave to PhD students;

(e) establish independent oversight of universities' actions to end sexual violence, and impose consequences on universities that fail to keep staff and students safe; and

(f) ensure university staff are in secure jobs and paid fair wages."

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. I'll say from the outset that it is disappointing to see that the Liberals and Nationals said in the dissenting report on the inquiry into this bill that they are opposed to this bill. However, we shouldn't be surprised. They were responsible for the introduction of the deeply unpopular Job-ready Graduates package. The Job-ready Graduates package massively increased fees for many students. In fact, according to the National Tertiary Education Union's submission, it reduced the Commonwealth contribution per student place on average by 14 per cent. As a result, Australia now ranks as the fourth-worst country in the OECD for public funding of tertiary education. The Job-ready Graduates reforms were widely opposed when they were introduced and rushed, by those opposite, through parliament.

The Tertiary Education Union and Alison Barnes' report made a number of observations regarding the implementation of those reforms: 'It rips billions out of public universities, while unfairly burdening many students with excessive and even lifelong debt. We also predicted that the changes under job-ready guarantees would be unsustainable.' Well, it turns out this was a pretty accurate prediction of the destruction by the Job-ready Graduates package unleashed on the sector.

In May 2023, the ABC reported on a student named Jess who started university in 2021. After the Job-ready Graduates package had been enacted, Jess chose to study arts despite the increasing fees. They reported that her HECS debt at the end of her studies would be $45,000—more than double what it would have been if she had commenced her studies a year earlier.

Bailey Riley, from the National Union of Students, summarised both students and institutions' views of the Job-ready Graduates reforms, saying: 'It's very unusual for universities and student unions to agree, and we all agree that the Job-ready Graduates was in terms of the funding very terrible for students and for universities.' There seems to be pretty clear evidence across the board that it didn't succeed in any of its marks.

Andrew Norton, from the Australian National University, in analysing the impact of the Job-ready Graduates package, told the Australian Financial Review in January 2023:

the Coalition's 2020 Job Ready Graduates package fail to shift student demand into its desired courses—

So not only did the Liberals and Nationals' university reforms make higher education less affordable and less accessible but it even failed to achieve its objective, which was supposed to be pour students into specific courses.

Those opposite have a disturbing anti-higher-education agenda here, because we already know that they are anti-TAFE. The shadow minister for skills and training, Ms Ley, said fee-free TAFE is 'wasteful spending'. The Leader of the Opposition hasn't even said the word TAFE in this place since 2004.

It's also clear that they're opposed to making university more accessible and affordable for middle-class families. In addition to making university more expensive for Australian students, the previous Job-ready Graduates laws also introduced a new rule that revoked Commonwealth assistance from students experiencing difficulties in their studies.

I'm very pleased to say that this bill removes that callous, inconsiderate rule. Since being elected in May 2022, we've started the process of writing the wrongs of those opposite through the Australian Universities Accord process. The interim report, led by Professor Mary O'Kane AC, makes five recommendations for priority action to make a difference to the experience of university students. We are urgently taking action on all five of these recommendations, and this bill deals with two recommendations which require a legislative response.

The first recommendation is removing the 50 per cent pass rule. That was forced upon students in the previous government's deeply unpopular Job-ready Graduates reforms package that was rushed through this place. The Liberals and Nationals' 50 per cent pass rule means that any student who cannot maintain a pass rate of 50 per cent of units studied will automatically lose eligibility for Commonwealth assistance. Let's be clear: the Liberals' and the Nationals' 50 per cent pass rule discriminates against and penalises those who are doing it tough—surprise, surprise! The interim report on the Australian Universities Accord, handed down in July this year, reported that the 50 per cent rule has a disproportionately negative impact on students from poor backgrounds and from the regions. Of course, we don't hear the Nationals saying anything about this. Heaven forbid they start thinking about the regions and the impact on their own constituency! We know that many—not all; there are a few people over there who have a bit of a conscience—on the opposite side don't think about people that are poor, as is clear from the policies they support and put forward.

The removal of this punitive action is supported by advocacy groups and institutions across the sector, including the peak body for the sector, Universities Australia. As of 19 July 2022, 13,000 students at 27 institutions are reported to have been affected by this rule. Its removal is supported by the University of Adelaide, Monash University, University of Technology Sydney, University of the Sunshine Coast, University of New England, University of Newcastle, Queensland University of Technology and Western Sydney University, among others, as well as the National Union of Students, which represents over one million Australian students, and the National Tertiary Education Union, which represents 27,000 academics and university staff. To be clear, not a single witness at the inquiry into this bill was opposed to removing the 50 per cent rule.

The 50 per cent rule is so deeply and widely unpopular that the only people opposed to its removal are those opposite, who introduced the requirement in the first place. They can never admit that they got it wrong. We all heard the former prime minister Scott Morrison finally being named in this place yesterday. They've run away from him for so long, but they still want to stick to his policies. The rule is universally reviled by students, their families, their teachers, student organisations and universities. Fundamentally, it is a policy which punishes people who are disadvantaged by where they live or by their background. The University of Newcastle found that, of the more than 1,000 students impacted by the rule, over 75 per cent were enrolled in enabling pathways, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and first-in-family students. We've had some pretty lively debates over this last week about the 'yes' campaign, and we've heard those opposite talk about 'what practical things we can do'. Well, guess what! This is practical, and you're opposed to it. You're opposed to helping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Everyone on the opposite side has to take responsibility, regardless of their history and background.

The 50 per cent rule is a policy that punishes people who have to work long hours to make ends meet while studying as well. It is a policy that punishes those with caring commitments while they are studying. It is a policy that punishes people who experience sudden trauma in their lives, whether it's a death, an illness in the family, a personal injury or anything else that limits the time a student can dedicate to studying. It is a policy that is indefensible, which is why no-one at the inquiry into the bill ever tried to defend it—except Senator Henderson and those opposite. They defended the indefensible, and what rationale did they provide? They said they were worried about students failing courses and racking up student debt. If they were so worried about student debt, why did they pass the Job-ready Graduates bill, which lumped students with the biggest increase to course fees in modern history? They don't care about student debt. They care about punishing students from working families and from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and keeping them out of universities. That's the effect of their policy. That's the reality. That's the practical result.

The Queensland University of Technology Guild's academic advocacy service reported that it has assisted 'a number of students who were extremely distressed about the prospect of being excluded from their course due to not having the means to pay full up-front fees'. Your bank account or what your parents do for work should not determine what educational opportunities are available to Australian students. It reeks of elitism, but those opposite think that revoking Commonwealth funding from students doing it tough is good policy.

The second recommendation this bill addresses is the extension of demand-driven funding to metropolitan First Nations students. Currently, only Indigenous students from regional and remote Australia can access demand-driven places. We want to change that to include Indigenous people living in metropolitan areas, and so do universities across the country. Increasing First Nations access to tertiary education is a priority for our government. It is estimated this measure will double the number of Indigenous students enrolled in universities in a decade. That's real practical change. A decade is the same amount of time the coalition wasted on inaction and making it even harder for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to attend universities.

The shadow education minister says the coalition are:

… very concerned about the government's decision to reverse the Coalition's 50 per cent pass rule, which was designed to protect students not punish them. We do not want to see more students burdened by massive HECS debts they will not be able to repay.

It seems that those opposite, including Senator Henderson, are quick to forget the systematic way in which they increased the burden on students and their HECS debt. The Liberals and Nationals government increased the average students HECS debt by eight per cent through Job-ready Graduates. They reduced the Commonwealth contribution per student place, on average, by 14 per cent. The tuition fee increased to over 110 per cent for humanities, arts and social science courses, making it more expensive under the previous government to get a degree in social work or journalism than to get a degree in medicine.

The National Teritary Education Union put it best:

Taking these factors into account, the Coalition's opposition to the Bill based on concerns over students' financial wellbeing appears to be at best highly selective, given the impact of the JRG and other changes to HECS-HELP that the former Government enacted.

Senator Henderson says pulling funding from students experiencing difficulty in their studies is a cost-of-living measure. That is quite outrageous! If you're doing it tough, those opposite want to strip away your university funding—but they say it's for your own good. It really sums up their atrocious approach to higher education, whether it's universities or TAFE.

I look forward to continuing to work with the government, on the work this government has started, to ensure that universities are accessible and fair for all Australians.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this bill, the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. I'm pleased to stand here and speak on this bill after we finally had the opportunity to examine it through the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee. It should be said that initially the Labor Party and the Greens didn't want this bill to have an inquiry. The Selection of Bills Committee report that came here did not include this bill being sent to an inquiry. A typical pattern we're seeing emerge with this government is one of not wanting to open themselves up to proper scrutiny. That is the role of this place here. The reason we have this house of review, the Senate, is to hold inquiries and look at bills to check that they're actually going to meet their stated objectives, to check that they're actually going to deliver effectively and, importantly, to check that there are not going to be adverse impacts on those the bill is designed to impact. It was very disappointing that the government didn't want to hold an inquiry into this bill, but I acknowledge the support of all the crossbench senators. We don't win many votes in this place now that we're in opposition, but this was one vote I was very pleased we were able to win in this place—to amend the Selection of Bills Committee report to ensure this inquiry was able to go ahead.

I thank the committee for the opportunity. We work well together as a committee. While we come at issues from very different perspectives, I think there is a real collegiality in the way we operate. I want to acknowledge the chair for the way that he conducted the hearings and, as deputy chair, I appreciate being able to work with the chair on that. As I said, we come at things from very different perspectives, but we do show respect to each other, including Senator Faruqi and the Greens. I just want to acknowledge that.

We held two constructive public hearings, and I acknowledge that some in the sector do support this bill. However, the gaps that are left that we've been able to expose through the inquiry leave us, as an opposition, in no other position but to oppose this bill. I guess the real key, and the main reason I want people to take home from this, is that there is an alarming lack of evidence to support the changes that are contained in this piece of legislation. The aims of the bill we can find some agreement on, but the way they're going about it, what they're doing and the lack of evidence to back up their decisions are very, very alarming. This is proving to be a pattern and a way of operating for this government. They do it in many other areas. We're seeing it in the committee I am on in the current inquiry into the closing loopholes bill. What we're seeing exposed there is the lack of real evidence behind, and justification for, some of the changes. That's what we're seeing with this bill as well. Policy should always be evidence based, and not based on flimsy evidence pulled out of the air.

The coalition introduced the 50 per cent pass rule to protect students who failed more than half their units from accumulating massive amounts of student debt with nothing to show for it. The shadow minister for education, Senator Henderson, who's still here in the chamber with me, outlined in her remarks the big issue, which is that students are encumbered with significant amounts of debt. That's fine if you've completed your course and gone on and got a job in the area you've been trained for, but if you're constantly failing courses you still end up with the debt. That's not going to help you get a job, so you're never going to be able to properly repay that. This is a big issue.

Students should be directed and cautioned of the fact that they'll be withdrawn from their course if they don't get a minimum pass mark over a period of time. To not have that is really setting a very low expectation. There's an old famous phrase that we shouldn't suffer people the soft bigotry of low expectations. That goes to the very core of my concern about this bill, which is that we're setting too low expectations for students that it's going to be okay. It would be fine if it was matched with proper support for students, but what we're seeing it that there's not enough going on to provide support to students, and ultimately students are just being left to themselves while accumulating debt with courses they're not able to complete.

Senator Faruqi belled the cat, in my view, with a remark that she made in her contribution before that universities shouldn't be just job factories. Frankly, that's exactly what they should be. They should be job factories. The whole reason for someone undertaking a university course should be so that they can add significant value to themselves, to their education, to their knowledge and to their skills so that they can take those and apply them in a future career. Or maybe they're in a career and they're wanting to grow in their knowledge and experience, so undertaking a university course leading them into a better and higher paying job is a good thing. That's really what it should be. That's primarily what the universities should be about. That's what public funding going into supporting students to be able to undertake these courses should also be aimed at. We shouldn't just be funding students to undertake leisure courses—things that just pique their interest in a fanciful sort of pursuit. They should be about research. They should be about developing a body of knowledge that's necessary for the future prosperity of our nation. That is what universities should be about. They shouldn't just be about allowing people to undertake a course to fulfil an ideological dream they might have. They have to be about real, tangible, hard things.

This bill has too many gaps in it. There's not enough evidence to back up the measures in it. The Senate inquiry— which, ultimately, the government didn't want us to have—revealed that the department went to Universities Australia, which conducted an informal survey of its members, and it came back with a number that Minister Clare is currently taking as gospel. When we asked what the evidence was behind this, the committee was told that a survey was done. The minister is using the results of that survey to justify this bill.

Universities Australia provided two key caveats. Firstly, they said that the data was 'indicative only'. So it's not concrete; it's not something that you can hang your hat on. That's the first thing. It asked providers for the number of students affected by the rule. 'Affected' did not mean that students lost their Commonwealth supported place. It also included those students at risk of being affected by the rule. So what's the problem we're trying to fix? Are we counting the number of students that were actually impacted by the 50 per cent pass rule and that actually did lose their Commonwealth supported place? Or were they measuring people that could have potentially been impacted by it? We found that it was the latter. They were people that were at risk of being affected by the rule. I cast no aspersions over UA. They do terrific work across the sector. But, by their own admission, the majority of students did not lose their place.

The coalition asked for evidence, provided to the department, but we were told that it simply did not exist. And it was a legislative requirement for the department to collect this data. Claims that this rule is punitive or disproportionately affected students from equity cohorts are also not based on any facts or numbers but, instead, on anecdotal data. If there were real evidence to say this is what was happening and equity students, in particular, were being impacted, we wouldn't be having this argument. But there's no data to support that claim. That is our issue. So don't come in here with legislation that doesn't actually match the reality of what is going on. If there are serious needs and serious issues, for sure, bring that in and show the evidence. It would then be very hard to argue against it.

I fear that we are lowering expectations. We are saying to students undertaking these courses that, by this sort of measure, it doesn't matter. I don't know about you, but when I was studying, you had to get at least 50 per cent, and, if you only just got 50 per cent, you were barely getting through. We're lowering the expectations. What is going on in this country? What is going on in our education system that we can't have higher expectations? Scrapping the rule is a knee-jerk overreaction by the minister. It's a rule that has been in place for barely a year. It will leave students vulnerable, without a new safety net. We know that the government has fudged the numbers and that it does not have the evidence to back its decision to scrap this rule. Labor only wants to throw this rule out because it knows it's getting a failing grade in education. That's what they're facing. If anyone's failing, it's the Labor Party—in terms of their grip on putting forward effective policies that will make a difference in our education sector.

I want to talk about student wellbeing and safety measures. We know that student wellbeing and safety deserves more than half-baked policy made up on the fly. Again, that's what this government's doing. How do we know that? Well, we know that, in the bill, there were measures to provide support for wellbeing and safety. But, when we actually went through it, we found out it was just a blank piece of paper; there was nothing there. To anyone listening: I'm not exaggerating; there was nothing there. So this parliament is being asked to put in place legislation for something that the government will, in the future, put in detail. Through the inquiry, we were able to highlight this fact.

You'd have to say that, on any analysis, the minister was dragged into providing some detail, and that was only after pushback from the sector as well. When we asked the sector: 'Do you support this measure to provide support for student wellbeing and safety?' they said: 'Well, we don't actually know. We can't, in all conscience, give you any substantial comment because we haven't seen the detail.' Because of their advocacy, and through our support, the government has provided some detail, but it's simply not enough. There needs to be more time for proper consultation on this, and just rushing a time line for implementation of this important measure is very, very concerning.

Concerns from the sector included not just the lack of consultation and the rushed time line for the implementation, but also the potential for regulatory overlap and inconsistency—this is the problem, when you don't properly spell things out—and that's going to be a big problem. Concerns included also the duplication in reporting and regulation, leading to more red tape and administrative burden for universities. Universities should be focused not on paperwork but on educating their students and providing a safe and supportive learning environment. That's what they should be focused on. Let's not burden them with more red tape and regulation.

But, in classic Labor fashion, the only thing that they were clear on was that they would fine universities $16,500 for noncompliance with a scheme that they didn't even have any detail on. So they're going to be fined, but they don't know what they're actually going to be measured against!

This is unacceptable. This bill is half-baked. There are some sentiments in it that I can agree with, but the implementation of it is poor, and it's just demonstrating the lack of understanding that this government has.

Thank you, Senator O'Sullivan. You've got just under two minutes, Senator Waters.

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023, and I endorse and echo the comments made by Greens Deputy Leader Senator Faruqi. Overall, this is a positive bill. We do welcome the changes to improve access to universities for First Nations students and to support students who might be struggling to complete their units. However, it is a missed opportunity to act on what we consider to be the most urgent issues in higher ed: making university free; wiping student debt, or, at the very least, easing the student debt crisis by abolishing indexation and raising the minimum repayment income to the median wage; raising stipends for PhD students to at least the minimum wage; and of course, crucially, keeping students safe from sexual assault.

The rates of sexual assault on university campuses and in residential halls are horrific. Two hundred and seventy-five students are reporting assaults on campuses across the country, every week—275 students, every week! That was according to the 2021 National Student Safety Survey. That survey was done during COVID lockdowns, when most students weren't even living on campus, so we know the rates are even higher.

We did have Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins's report into this, the Change the course report, in 2017, but it was largely ignored by the universities. We recently had the consent laws inquiry, run by the Senate, which shone a light on sexual violence on campus in particular, and, thanks to the tireless efforts of advocates like End Rape on Campus, Fair Agenda and the STOP Campaign, pressure has mounted. That pressure led, earlier this month, to the education minister's reportedly considering establishing a national independent student ombudsman. Those advocates have long called for an independent taskforce on sexual violence. Whatever you call it, whether it's a taskforce or an ombudsman, it must be robust and it must have four key criteria to actually improve student safety. When I'm in continuation I will regale you all with those four points.

Debate interrupted.

Pursuant to notice given on 18 October, on behalf of the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation, I withdraw business of the Senate notice of motion No. 2, for 11 sitting days after today, proposing the disallowance of the Insurance Exemption Determination No. 1 of 2023, and business of the Senate notice of motion No. 2, for four sitting days after today, proposing the disallowance of the National Anti-Corruption Commission Regulations 2023.

I present the 12th report for 2023 of the Selection of Bills Committee and I seek leave to have the report incorporated into Hansard.

Leave granted.

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

REPORT NO. 12 OF 2023

19 October 2023

MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE

Senator Anne Urquhart (Government Whip, Chair)

Senator Wendy Askew (Opposition Whip)

Senator Ross Cadell (The Nationals Whip)

Senator Pauline Hanson (Pauline Hanson's One Nation Whip)

Senator Nick McKim (Australian Greens Whip)

Senator Ralph Babet

Senator the Hon. Anthony Chisholm

Senator the Hon. Katy Gallagher

Senator Matt O'Sullivan

Senator David Pocock

Senator Paul Scarr

Senator Lidia Thorpe

Senator Tammy Tyrrell

Senator David Van

Secretary: Tim Bryant 02 6277 3020

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

REPORT NO. 12 OF 2023

1. The committee met in private session on Wednesday, 18 October 2023 at 7.14 pm.

2. The committee recommends that—

(a) contingent upon introduction in the House of Representatives, the provisions of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee Bill 2023 be referred immediately to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by

23 November 2023;

(b) the Protecting the Spirit of Sea Country Bill 2023 be referred immediately to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 28 June 2024 (see appendix 1 for a statement of reasons for referral);

(c) the provisions of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Support for Small Business and Charities and Other Measures) Bill 2023 be referred immediately to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 23 November 2023 (see appendix 2 for a statement of reasons for referral); and

(d) contingent upon introduction in the House of Representatives, the provisions of the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023 be referred immediately to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 9 February 2024 (see appendix 3 for a statement of reasons for referral).

3. The committee deferred consideration of the following bills to its next meeting:

Primary Industries Levies and Charges Collection Bill 2023 Primary Industries Levies and Charges Disbursement Bill 2023

Primary Industries (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023

(Anne Urquhart)

Chair

19 October 2023

Appendix 1

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Protecting the Spirit of Sea Country Bill 2023

Reasons for referra1/principal issues for consideration:

To hear from traditional owners and other stakeholders about the importance of protecting First Nations underwater cultural heritage both tangible and intangible.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Traditional Owners, environmental groups, academics, legal experts, relevant departments, NOPSEMA.

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Environment and Communications Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

April and May

Possible reporting date: 28th June 2024

(signed)

Nick McKim

Whip/ Selection of Bills Committee member

Appendix 2

S ELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Treasury Laws Amendment (Support for Small Business and Charities and Other Measures) Bill 2023

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Detailed Bill

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Various Stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Economics Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

Oct- Dec

Possible reporting date:

23 November 2023

(signed)

Wendy Askew

Appendix 3

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023

Reasons for referra1/principal issues for consideration:

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

5 February 2024

Possible reporting date:

9February 2024

(signed)

Nick McKim

Whip/ Selection of Bills Committee member

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023

This Bill amends the Paid Parental Leave Act 2010 to expand the Government payment from 20 weeks to 26 weeks by July 2026.

The Bill implements the second tranche of the Government's PPL reform announced in the 2022-23 October Budget. It follows changes commencing 1 July 2023 to make the scheme more accessible, flexible and gender equitable.

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

High public interest in the ongoing reform and enhancement of the Scheme..

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Women's Groups Unions

Business Peaks

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Community Affairs Legislation Committee (CALC)

Possible hearing date(s):

1 hearing—can accommodate in Canberra with virtual participation encouraged for accessibility.

29 January 2024 TBC

Possible reporting date:

9 February 2024

(signed)

Anne Urquhart

I move:

That the report be adopted.

Question agreed to.

by leave—I move:

That leave of absence be granted to Senator McCarthy for 18 and 19 October 2023, for personal reasons.

Question agreed to.

by leave—I move:

That leave of absence be granted to Senator Van for 19 October 2023, for personal reasons.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That general business order of the day No. 7 be considered during general business today.

Question agreed to.

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

I move:

That, noting that a fully empowered Royal Commission with appropriate terms of reference is necessary to learn from the unprecedented government response to COVID-19, the following matter be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References committee for inquiry and report by 31 March 2024:

The appropriate terms of reference for a COVID-19 Royal Commission that would allow all affected stakeholders to be heard.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Chisholm, I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that in response to orders relating to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Financial Sustainability Framework (orders nos 229, 253 and 315) ministers have:

(i) provided relevant documents,

(ii) advised that documents do not exist,

(iii) sought additional time to process or review documents, or

(iv) raised a public interest immunity claim on the established ground that release of documents would be detrimental to relations between the Commonwealth and the states and territories;

(b) notes that on 17 October 2023 the Minister representing the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme complied with the order of 14 September 2023, which required him to provide an explanation to the Senate in relation to these matters; and

(c) resolves that the Minister representing the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme is satisfactorily complying with his obligations to respond to its orders and discharges him from the requirement to attend the Senate to provide an explanation on the first day of each sitting week.

The question is that government business notice of motion No. 1, moved by Senator Gallagher in the name of Senator Chisholm, be agreed to.

I seek leave to amend government business notice of motion No. 2.

Leave granted.

At the request of Senator Chisholm, I move the motion as amended:

That the days of meeting of the Senate for 2024 be as follows:

Autumn sittings:

Tuesday, 6 February to Thursday, 8 February

Monday, 26 February to Thursday, 29 February

Monday, 18 March to Thursday, 21 March

Monday, 25 March to Thursday, 28 March

Budget sittings:

Tuesday, 14 May to Thursday, 16 May

Winter sittings:

Monday, 24 June to Thursday, 27 June

Monday, 1 July to Thursday, 4 July

Spring sittings:

Monday, 12 August to Thursday, 15 August

Monday, 19 August to Thursday, 22 August

Monday, 9 September to Thursday, 12 September

Monday, 16 September to Thursday, 19 September

Tuesday, 8 October to Thursday, 10 October

Monday, 18 November to Thursday, 21 November

Monday, 25 November to Thursday, 28 November.

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Leave is granted for one minute.

Labor has stuck out a draft sitting calendar for 2024 with only three sitting weeks in it before the budget. Now, embarrassingly, they've had to come into this place and add another week to the calendar, in an attempt to prevent us criticising them because of their absolute, blatant lack of transparency. For a government who were elected on a platform of transparency, they have made an art form of running away from transparency, as we saw in the last debate. This is another example of the contempt this government has for Australia. Examples include no details on the referendum, a half-baked COVID inquiry that lets their mates from the states and territories off the hook and now a calendar that avoids proper scrutiny. I quote:

… we acknowledge that the government have a very low number of sitting days for this chamber because they have lost control of it.

That was Katy Gallagher on 1 December 2021. Why don't you actually live by your own advice?

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Chisholm, I move:

(1) That estimates hearings by legislation committees for 2024 be scheduled as follows:

2023-24 additional estimates:

Monday, 12 February and Tuesday, 14 February (Group A)

Wednesday, 14 February and Thursday, 15 February (Group B)

2024-25 Budget estimates:

Tuesday, 28 May to Friday, 31 May, and, if required, Friday, 7 June (Group A)

Monday, 3 June to Thursday, 6 June, and, if required, Friday 7 June (Group B)

Monday, 4 November and Tuesday, 5 November (supplementary hearings Group A)

Wednesday, 6 November and Thursday, 7 November (supplementary hearingsGroup B).

(2) That cross portfolio estimates hearings on Indigenous matters and on Murray-Darling Basin Plan matters be scheduled for Friday, 16 February, Friday, 7 June, and Friday, 8 November, but not be restricted to these days.

(3) That the committees consider the proposed expenditure in accordance with the allocation of departments and agencies to committees agreed to by the Senate.

(4) That committees meet in the following groups:

Group A:

Environment and Communications Finance and Public Administration Legal and Constitutional Affairs

Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport

Group B:

Community Affairs Economics

Education and Employment Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.

(5) That the committees report to the Senate on the following dates:

(a) Tuesday, 19 March 2023, in respect of the 2023-24 additional estimates; and

(b) Tuesday, 2 July 2023, in respect of the 2024-25 Budget estimates.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That the time for the presentation of the report of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Legislation Committee on its inquiry into the Defence Capability Assurance and Oversight Bill 2023 be extended to 7 December 2023 in order to facilitate the appearance of Defence witnesses that have not yet been made available to the committee.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Davey, I move:

That—

(a) the Senate notes that:

(i) order for the production of documents no. 318, agreed to by the Senate on 6 September 2023, relating to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and due on 14 September 2023, has not been complied with, and

(ii) a further motion (general business no. 344) requiring compliance with the order, agreed to by the Senate on 16 October 2023, and requiring compliance by midday on Tuesday, 17 October 2023, has also not been complied with;

(b) the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water be required to attend the Senate, prior to the commencement of government business on Monday, 6 November 2023, to provide an explanation of the failure to comply;

(c) any senator may move to take note of the explanation required by paragraph (b); and

(d) any motion under paragraph (c) may be debated for no longer than 30 minutes, shall have precedence over all other business until determined, and senators may speak to the motion for not more than 5 minutes each.

by leave—I move:

Omit "prior to the commencement of government business", substitute "at the conclusion of Question Time".

This would require the minister to appear before the chamber at the conclusion of question time, as opposed to the beginning of the day.

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Leave is granted for one minute.

The government won't be supporting the amendment or the motion, but we appreciate Senator Davey's interest in the MDBA, and the government is working to comply with the order. Given the extremely broad parameters of the request, a considerable amount of departmental and agency resources is being expended to respond. An IT search of the department and MDBA systems identified over one million documents as being in the scope of the request. Within the department, the documents in scope number over 850,000. The standard assumption used in FOI requests is that it takes one minute to review each document. Based on this, to review each document would take one person working full time 8½ years. The department and the MDBA are working to narrow the scope of the search to identify a volume of documents that can be reasonably reviewed by officials while ensuring all documents that can be provided are provided to the Senate, given these constraints, to fulfil the intent of the order. Continuing to order these productions will not speed up this process.

The question is that the amendment, as moved by Senator Hanson-Young, be agreed to.

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 361 standing in the name of Senator Davey, as amended, and moved by Senator Askew, be agreed to.

At the request of Senator McKenzie, I move:

That—

(a) the Select Committee on Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements, appointed by resolution of the Senate on 5 September 2023, as amended on 7 September 2023, be reappointed on the same terms, except as otherwise provided by this resolution, so that the committee may:

(i) receive evidence at a public hearing from:

(A) witnesses who were unavailable prior to the committee's original reporting date, including Mr Alan Joyce AC; and

(B) government affairs representatives from Qantas, noting that Qantas' answers to questions on notice from senators were unsatisfactory; and

(ii) report on any matters arising relevant to the committee's terms of reference; and

(b) the committee or any subcommittee have the power to consider and make use of the evidence and records of the select committee appointed on 5 September 2023; and

(c) senators who were members or participating members of the previous select committee are appointed to the new committee; and

(d) the committee report by 15 December 2023.

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 363 standing in the name of Senator McKenzie and moved by Senator Askew be agreed to.

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.

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—

IDENTITY VERIFICATION SERVICES BILL 2023

Secure and efficient identity verification that protects the privacy of Australians is vital to the digital economy. It ensures Australians can access the services they need without exposing them to identity crime.

Identity verification services, such as the Document Verification Service and Face Verification Service, are the only national capability that can be used by industry and government to securely verify the identity of their customers.

These automated services are provided by the Commonwealth and are used every day by government and industry to verify the personal information on a passport, drivers licence, birth certificate or other government issued credential.

In 2022 alone, the Document Verification Service was used over 140 million times by approximately 2700 government agencies and industry organisations. In the 2022-23 financial year, there were approximately 2.6 million Face Verification Services transactions.

Today, there are more than 11.3 million myGovID accounts that people can use to authenticate their identity for government websites and services. All of these were created using the Document Verification Service, and one third were verified using the Face Verification Service, which provides access to Centrelink, the Australian Tax Office and other critical services.

The significance of identity verification services to our day to day lives will continue to grow as technology advances and the uptake of digital IDs increases.

Legislative authority for identity verification services

The Government is committed to supporting the effective ongoing operation of identity verification services, and ensuring they provide appropriate privacy protections and security safeguards.

The Identity Verification Services Bill 2023 will provide clear legislative authority to ensure the continued operation of identity verification services. It will limit the purposes for which requests can be made using the services, providing increased certainty and transparency for Australians about how the services can be used.

The Bill will authorise 1:1 matching of identity through identity verification services. This means that an individual's identity can be verified through particular biometric information such as a photograph or biographic information being matched with an existing government record.

The Bill will only authorise the use of 1:1 matching by public and private sector entities with consent of the relevant individual. This process will be enabled by the Document Verification Services and the Face Verification Services.

The National Driver Licence Facial Recognition Solution will also facilitate 1:1 matching identity services. This will enable the Face Verification Service to conduct 1:1 matching against driver licences and ensure more Australians can create digital IDs.

The Bill will only authorise 1:many matching for a very limited purpose. The matching of identity through a 1:many service allows a facial image like a photograph to be matched against other facial images. The Bill will authorise 1:many matching through the Face Identification Service for the very confined purpose of protecting the identity of persons with a legally assumed identity, such as undercover officers and protected witnesses. There is substantial public interest in allowing 1:many matching to be undertaken in these circumstances given the risks to such persons if their true identity is not appropriately protected.

All other uses of 1:many matching through identity verification services will be prohibited. Let me be clear—1:many matching will not be able to be conducted through identity verification services for law enforcement, intelligence gathering or community protection.

Privacy safeguards

The Government will ensure identity verification services are subject to robust privacy safeguards. This will give the Australian community confidence that the Government is protecting their personal information.

The Bill requires organisations who make requests through identity verification services to be subject to the Privacy Act 1988 or a state or territory privacy law. Alternatively. They must agree to be bound by the Australian Privacy Principles. Privacy impact assessments must be undertaken.

Where requests are made for the purpose of verifying a person's identity, that person's consent will be required. This must be informed consent, and the requesting agency or organisation will need to provide extensive information about, among other things:

The Bill will also require requesting agencies or organisations to have appropriate complaint handling processes, and data breaches must be reported. The Notifiable Data Breach Scheme under the Privacy Act 1988 and similar State and Territory schemes will apply.

These protections will be implemented through participation agreements between the Department and the requesting agencies or organisations, which can be suspended or terminated if terms are breached. These participation agreements will be made public, to ensure transparency.

Security and protection of information

The Bill authorises the Department to develop, operate and maintain identity verification facilities, and places a number of important obligations on the Department to protect the privacy of individuals.

The Department must:

The Bill further protects the personal information of Australians by:

Transparency

The Bill contains a number of additional transparency, accountability and oversight measures to ensure privacy standards are upheld. These include:

A statutory review of the Bill will be required within two years of the commencement of the Bill.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this bill will ensure the continued use of strong and secure identity verification, enhancing the privacy of Australians.

The Bill meets public expectations that identity verification services have extensive privacy safeguards and effective oversight and transparency requirements.

The Bill enables Australians to conveniently and securely engage with the digital economy and access critical services while minimising the risk of identity fraud and theft.

I commend this Bill to the House.

IDENTITY VERIFICATION SERVICES (CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS) BILL 2023

Information from Australian travel documents is an essential part of the identity verification services.

The Identity Verification Services (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2023 will amend the Australian Passports Act 2005 to allow for automated disclosures of personal information to a specified person via the Document Verification Service or the Face Verification Service.

This authorises the operation of the Document Verification Service and Face Verification Service in relation to Australian travel documents regulated by the Australian Passports Act.

In accordance with standing order 115(3), further consideration of these bills is now adjourned to 9 November 2023.

I rise to resume my remarks. As I was outlining to the chamber, this bill is a missed opportunity to seriously address the appalling rates of sexual assault on university campuses and in residential halls. We know from a 2021 study that every week, across the country, 275 students are reporting sexual assault on campus. This is an epidemic.

This is not the first time those horrific statistics have been highlighted. Back in 2017 the Sex Discrimination Commissioner did a whole report, the Change the course report, about the hideous rape factories that are happening on our university campuses. Sadly, it was largely ignored by the university sector. We then had the inquiry into consent laws and whether or not we should harmonise those around the nation—which is something I'd like to see—which was also an opportunity to shine a light on these appalling statistics and the lack of safety for students on campus. With all that pressure, and thanks to the tireless advocacy of End Rape on Campus, Fair Agenda and The STOP Campaign, the pressure has built such that we saw the education ministers say earlier this month that they are thinking about establishing a national independent student ombudsman. Those advocates I just mentioned have been calling for a task force to hold universities to account on sexual violence.

We hear from the government they're now considering an ombudsman. Whatever you call it, whether it's a task force or an ombudsman, it's got to have four key attributes in order to be successful, to actually improve student safety. The first attribute is that it must be independent and it must be expert led. It must have oversight of whether the universities and the residential hall policies and practices are actually meeting basic standards. Independence and expert oversight is the first facet that any ombudsman or task force must have for it to seriously tackle the real problem of rape on campus. The second attribute is that it must be transparent. We must have transparency around which institutions are providing appropriate and effective responses and prevention initiatives, and we do not have that at the moment. The third attribute that any such body must have to be a legitimate and purposeful body is an effective complaints avenue. Students need to have a complaints avenue they can have confidence in so that, when they raise issues of students or survivors or other stakeholders, those complaints are properly addressed and that the process can be trusted to lead to a justice outcome. The fourth attribute is that we need meaningful accountabilities both for universities and residential halls when basic standards are not being met.

Immediate action is needed to address the gaping hole that exists for students who have been harmed and failed, and so deeply let down, by their institutions. They currently have nowhere to even make a complaint or to have a complaint investigated by anyone with relevant expertise in the area. An expert led complaints system is a good and very necessary first step, but we also need to see a systemic response from government that delivers oversight, monitoring, transparency and accountability for both universities and university residences.

During the recent consent laws inquiry we heard horror stories not just of student trauma from the sexual assault they'd experienced on campus but of the compounding of that trauma by the universities' bungling of the treatment of those allegations. Some students said that the way they were treated by their institution caused more damage to them than the sexual assault in the first place, which was just so hard to hear and is utterly unacceptable.

We also heard during the course of that inquiry that Universities Australia had received taxpayer dollars to design—in cohort with students—a prevention campaign to tackle sexual violence. We heard that they unilaterally pulled the student-agreed version of that campaign, sanitised it such that it was going to be completely ineffective, and turned it into something completely different which replicated a resource that already existed anyway. So not only are universities bungling prevention but we heard time and time again that they are also bungling response. It is absolutely clear that universities are protecting their brand and not protecting students. It's also abundantly clear that both Universities Australia and TEQSA, which is meant to be the regulatory body, have not been up to the task of responding to sexual assault on university campuses or residential halls. We urgently need a review into TEQSA, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. We need a review into their response to sexual violence on uni campuses. I note that that was one of the recommendations of that consent laws inquiry, which was a unanimous, consensus and much-needed recommendation.

A member of Fair Agenda has asked me to read their testimony into Hansard, and I endorse and echo their call to action. They have said:

Sexual safety for all genders at universities is paramount to learning. There's enough stress to 'achieve' without feeling preyed upon by others in that environment. Having been stalked at university in the 1970s, I know first-hand the anxiety and stress this causes. Fifty years and more is more than long enough for all universities to have eradicated such shameful predatory practices … on campus, including other students, lecturers, administration and every one associated with these institutions. Wake up! The responsibility for cleaning up campuses rests on the shoulders of the universities' Vice Chancellors. No excuses! Act now! Anyone found guilty of sexual misconduct should be immediately dismissed: it's that simple.

We heard some even more horrific testimonies in the course of the sexual consent laws inquiry, so we know that there is an incredibly damaging and enormous epidemic of sexual violence on campus. This bill could have been the opportunity to help redress that, so we are keeping the pressure up on the minister and echoing those calls from groups to please take this issue seriously. Whether it's a taskforce or an ombudsman—we don't care what you call it—it has to be an effective body to tackle these issues, which have been sidelined, ignored and swept under the carpet for far too long.

Universities have ignored sexual violence on campus for too long and they must be compelled to take meaningful action, because they're certainly not doing it voluntarily. That action has to not only address violence and support for victims-survivors but also properly prevent sexual violence on campus. We are again, in our support of this bill, urging the government not to miss yet another opportunity to keep students safe from sexual assault.

This bill, the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023, amends the Higher Education Support Act to implement the priority recommendations of the Australian Universities Accord interim report, which was released by the minister on 19 July. It is of course not the sum of the government's response to the work of the Universities Accord team. A significant amount of work will be required to be undertaken by the government, by the university sector and by the stakeholders in the university sector.

The accord process is a significant process undertaken by the government. Apart from the policy outcomes that it is designed to drive—to listen carefully to the sector and groups in the community who have an interest in the sector and to undo the damage of almost a decade of hostility to the sector from the three previous governments of Mr Abbott, Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison—it is also designed to shift the tone and create an environment where the Commonwealth government—which has responsibilities in higher education—the state governments, the universities themselves, the relevant trade union in the sector, student organisations and others who've got a stake in the sector cooperate and don't finger-point and engage in the sort of culture war that those opposite engaged in when they were involved in government. It was all about sneering at the university sector, outrage politics—trying to find things to be outraged about and identify things in the curriculum that could be the subject of prurient interest—cutting funding and getting stuck into the sector, instead of actually finding points of agreement and a sense of common purpose, which is what the Universities Accord is about.

The outrage politics over there, which is all about getting a bit of an argument going at a Liberal Party branch meeting at Indooroopilly or the Bellarine Peninsula or whatever it is, is the opposite of what is required. Playing for the base and for approval at branch meetings is not what is required if we're going to build Australia's university sector, because of its importance, yes, for the education of our young people but also because, if we're going to tackle the big research questions that are going to drive Australian universities—in medical research, in agriculture, in the social studies that are required to build social cohesion and to understand more about the way that our societies and workplaces operate, and in the work that is required in engineering, in quantum mechanics, in robotics, in artificial intelligence, in space and in Australia's industry contribution in these areas—it requires not sneering and kicking at the universities, which Mr Morrison in particular specialised in, but building a cooperative approach.

The accord team is led by Professor Mary O'Kane AC, a very distinguished Australian and former chief scientist in New South Wales and former vice-chancellor of the University of Adelaide. It also includes Professor Barney Glover; Ms Shemara Wikramanayake, who's the Chief Executive Officer of the Macquarie Group; the Hon. Jenny Macklin AC; Professor Larissa Behrendt, who is the first First Nations Australian to graduate from Harvard Law School and is a professor of law and the director of research and academic programs at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology Sydney; and the Hon. Fiona Nash, a former senator for New South Wales and also a former minister for regional development and regional communications. The government has cast the net very wide here in terms of the participation in the accord process, because our objective is to get Australians working together in the national interest and not to play the politics of this.

There are many issues that the Minister for Education, the government, the accord team and others will work on. This bill represents the first tranche of dealing with some of the priority questions that were raised by the accord group. Those go to equity of access and our objective of ensuring more Australians go to university. That is our job here: creating more university study hubs, not only in the regions but in the outer suburbs; scrapping the 50 per cent pass rule—and I've spent a little bit of time on that—extending the demand driven funding currently provided to Indigenous students from regional and remote areas; providing funding certainty during the accord process by extending the Higher Education Continuity Guarantee into 2024 and with funding arrangements that prioritise support for equity students; and working with the state and territory governments to improve university governance. The government has confirmed that it will implement each of the interim recommendations. We will do all of these things.

I was horrified when the previous government introduced the legislation that went to the 50 per cent pass rule. I was horrified because I understood what it meant in equity terms, particularly for students who come from families who have never had anybody in their previous generations experience the benefits of participation in the higher education sector. I was horrified because I know people who have become professors at university, who could not and did not pass their first year of university and who left university in no small part because they were from the regions and because they were the first people in their family's history to have gone to university. If that rule were applied to them, not only would they have been denied the opportunity to complete undergraduate and postgraduate education without upfront fees but also the community and the universities would have been denied their service, their knowledge and their contribution.

I'm reminded of a speech. I have always thought Neil Kinnock is one of my favourite British Labour leaders. He said in a very important speech:

Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is my wife, Glenys, the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?

Was it because all our predecessors were thick? Did they lack talent—those people who could sing, and play, and recite and write poetry; those people who could make wonderful, beautiful things with their hands; those people who could dream dreams, see visions; those people who had such a sense of perception as to know in times so brutal, so oppressive, that they could win their way out of that by coming together?

Were those people not university material? Couldn't they have knocked off all their A-levels in an afternoon?

…   …   …

Was it because they were weak? Those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football?

The effect of the previous government's approach was to deny the people most likely to leave university in their first year, or to make a bit of a mess of things and not get through because they don't live at the university, they have to travel or their families don't have the experience or the resources to put them through. The previous government's approach said, 'Don't bother knocking again.' It drew up the stepladder of privilege and excluded those people from university. That's what it did. That's the message it sent. It sent the message, 'Don't bother to knock,' to young people concerned about whether they were going to make it through that first and most challenging year of the university experience.

I would have thought that, having heard the universal criticism not just from the sector but from ordinary people who saw that for what it was, there would have been a moment of self-reflection on the other side. That's what governments do when they leave office—they look at their mistakes, they reflect on them and they own up to them. That's part of a mature process that parties that want to form government ever again have to do. But no—what we've seen here is an affirmation that they believe that's the right thing to do. Well, on this side, we're going to stand with the sector. We're going to work in the national interest. This is part of the work that is in front of this government, but there is more work to do. We will make sure Australians are working together in this sector to get the university sector that Australia needs. (Time expired)

It's your turn now, Senator Scarr.

I'm happy to embrace my turn! I think it's very important that those listening to this debate understand what we're talking about when we talk about the so-called 50 per cent rule that was introduced by the previous coalition government. You're under this rule if you studied eight subjects in a bachelor's degree and failed five or more out of eight. Just reflect on that. Over the course of a year—your first year at university, say, or at the end of your second year, if you're going part time—you'd have to fail five out of eight subjects. Under that rule, the Commonwealth government was basically saying, 'We are not going to continue to provide funding for you to enter into further debt to study further subjects in that course where, to date, you have failed five out of eight subjects.'

That—which, from my perspective, is a quite reasonable policy position from the perspective of the Commonwealth government and the taxpayers who fund someone to go to university—is what Senator Ayres is outraged about. You tell me if you are really helping someone who has failed five out of eight subjects when they're undertaking a course. Are you really helping that person if you say you are going to continue to provide funding and increase their debt so they can continue studying and failing subjects? Where do you draw the line?

My father was the first person in his family to get a university education. There'd be many people here who were either the first person or whose parents were the first people in their family to get a university education. The concept that someone should be able to continue to fail, year after year after year, enter into further debt and be funded by the Commonwealth government to do so is just absurd. It could well be that they're not suited to that course. It could well be that it's in their own best interests to be doing something. But it can't be in their best interest to continue failing and continue incurring debt. That is the commonsense policy basis for the proposition that the coalition adopted in its last term of government. I fail to see provided special circumstances exemptions, which is coalition policy, for example, if someone has gone through the trauma of a sexual assault on a university campus, and Senator Waters referred to some of the horrifying evidence we received in the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee's recent inquiry into those issues. Of course there should be dispensation but, absent those special circumstances, for the life of me, I can't see how it helps anyone—the student, the taxpayer—except maybe the education institution that continues getting the fees to provide courses to students who are failing them. I can't see, for the life of me, how it is in the best interest, the bona fide best interests, of anyone to keep funding someone to keep failing subjects at university. There has to be a line put somewhere and, for the life of me, I can't see why a reasonable line is not achieving a 50 per cent pass mark in eight subjects, which means you are required to pass at least four subjects out of eight. You could have failed four of them and kept going but you have at least have to pass 50 per cent. For the life of me, I can't see how that is unreasonable. As for the faux outrage, that is ridiculous, absolutely absurd. The resources available for education, for health, for defence, for any of the things we do in this place are not limitless. There have to be boundaries and there have to be guardrails. The 50 per cent rule, from my perspective, is quite a reasonable basis upon which to proceed.

Another point my colleague Senator Henderson, who is doing a fantastic job as spokesperson in this area for the coalition, has referred to is the fact that the minister, when he introduced this policy getting rid of the 50 per cent rule, quoted all sorts of statistics as to the number of students who have been prejudiced by the coalition's 50 per cent rule. But when the committee looked at the evidence it didn't support the minister's assertions. The minister asserted 'more than 13,000 students at 27 universities have been hit by this' in the past two years, mostly from disadvantaged backgrounds. This was proven to be demonstrably false, so this act as been put forward on false premises. The evidence doesn't support the basis upon which this act has been proposed. It simply doesn't support it whatsoever.

The other point I would make is this: what we're talking about is students incurring debt to continue studying courses at universities where they have failed more than 50 per cent of eight units. What does it mean for them to incur that debt? Let me give you these statistics. During the time of the coalition government, those HECS debts were indexed on average by two per cent a year. That was the annual indexation rate if you had gone to university and passed four subjects, failed four subjects. You have taken out a loan from the Commonwealth government to undertake the study. That is a debt that you will carry for the rest of your life when you are trying to buy a house, when you are trying to get ahead.

Under the coalition government, that debt was indexed on average two per cent a year. In 2022, in the Labor government's first year, it was indexed by 3.9 per cent, nearly double the average two per cent. This year it was indexed by 7.1 per cent. In 2024, students are expected to be hit with a further indexation of six per cent. So you can see in a high inflationary environment the diabolical trouble students can get into if they continually undertake subjects which they then fail. So they don't ultimately obtain the skills, the recognition of skills through graduation et cetera to actually generate the income to pay back the debt which is indexed at higher and higher levels because of high inflation. That is the trap. It isn't the intention but that is the trap which the government is setting for university students by getting rid of the 50 per cent pass rate. That is the trap that they are setting. Just reflect on this. Under the coalition government, funding would continue provided that you pass at least four out of eight subjects. Is that too much to ask? Four out of eight subjects? Seriously? And this is going to disadvantage all those people? You've got to be kidding me. It's outrageous. I commend Senator Henderson on the work she has done in this area. Senator Ayres called upon us to reflect. I think Senator Ayres needs to reflect on the arguments he put forward. I just think they don't bear any scrutiny whatsoever.

The second point I wish to discuss is the response of the sector and the government to a very concerning issue, the rates of sexual assault on university campuses. I note that Senator Green is here and Senator Waters made a contribution to the debate. Senator Green is Deputy Chair of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, and the report which that committee delivered on Australia's sexual consent laws was unanimous. All three of us agreed with the recommendations. One of those recommendations was that there needs to be a body with teeth—we in the coalition are calling for an ombudsman—to be able to look at issues of sexual assault on campuses in Australia. The statistics are horrifying. They truly are horrifying. Surveys indicate that the rates of complaints of sexual assaults on campuses are truly horrifying. As Senator Waters said, even more disturbing perhaps is that, when students have raised complaints with universities and with the regulator, they're saying they are actually being retraumatised by that process.

In relation to that inquiry, we received from TEQSA some answers to questions on notice which were provided to the inquiry very close to our reporting date, so we weren't able, as a committee, to incorporate the answers into our report. That was very disappointing. In those answers, TEQSA, the government regulatory body, said they had received 39 concerns in relation to sexual harm on Australian campuses for the period since September 2017. They said:

Of the 39 concerns raised since September 2017: all cases went through a preliminary and secondary assessment. One such assessment is still active. TEQSA did not undertake an investigation into any of these concerns.

So, notwithstanding the devastating results of the survey on the prevalence of sexual assault on Australian campuses, notwithstanding the fact that students and their wonderful advocates, including from End Rape on Campus, had made complaints to TEQSA, 'TEQSA did not undertake an investigation into any of these concerns.' How can that possibly be the case, when our university students are raising these sorts of material concerns on university campuses? Again I quote: 'TEQSA did not undertake an investigation into any of these concerns.' That's why we need an ombudsman in this area, an ombudsman with teeth who can look into these issues and actually investigate the students.

What impact does this have on students? I want to quote from a publication provided by End Rape on Campus Australia and Fair Agenda. This is a direct quote from a student:

In TEQSA's sense they did resolve the complaint. Yes, they did resolve it. They didn't do anything to resolve it. It took well and truly over a year for them to resolve the complaint by doing nothing.

That's how the student viewed the response of TEQSA—it took them well and truly over a year to resolve the complaint by doing nothing. What a damning indictment of TEQSA. What a damning indictment of TEQSA! I'll go on:

The original outcome of the complaint was not at all a satisfactory response. For starters when my complaint was submitted there was already a similar complaint from another person at the same university …

So in that situation, where two different university students had raised the same complaint from the same university, TEQSA still didn't engage in a proper investigation. I'll go on:

… the same assaulter, and both being handled by the help of EROC … The original outcome [from TEQSA] on the 20th of October 2020 combined both of our complaints together even though they were submitted in different years and have no relation to each other. This was very wrong on their behalf and incredibly inappropriate, and a big breach of privacy and confidentiality. The outcome was also never sent directly to me.

That's a direct quote from a student who has suffered sexual assault on campus as to the response of the regulator—absolutely outrageous.

So we do need an ombudsman in relation to this area. We do need an organisation with teeth to properly investigate these complaints on campuses. The university sector as a whole has failed, as Senator Waters said. Even when given $1.5 million in funding by the previous government to come up with an education campaign to address these issues, they came back to the government, cap in hand, and said, 'We were unable to deliver it'—unbelievable.

Certainly the coalition—and, I would hope, every senator in this place—calls upon the federal government to undertake action, introduce an ombudsman, provide some teeth for regulation in relation to the matter and address this scourge of sexual assault on our Australian university campuses.

I'm really pleased to be able to make some remarks today on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023, particularly because these amendments form part of the package of reforms by the Albanese Labor government in response to the Australian Universities Accord interim report. I come to this debate with two key concerns and specific issues that I wanted to raise.

First and foremost, it's the support of students that I am coming to this place concerned about, and I think that this bill will lead to students being supported more on university campuses. I'm also keen to talk about what our government is doing to support students and the action that we are taking—which has never been taken and was not taken by the previous government—when it comes to supporting students. I'm also very proud of the work that our government is doing, particularly through the work of Assistant Minister Chisholm, to support regional universities and regional students. That is some of the work that is done in this bill.

I don't think anyone in the community would ever consider that the Liberal and National parties are supporters of students, are on the side of students or have, in the very long time that they've been around, put forward policies that would lead to better student outcomes. We absolutely know that's not the case.

What we are doing here today is the methodical work that is required to support students and to build a university sector able to deliver for our country and for our economic future. The accord was commissioned by Minister Clare and led by Professor Mary O'Kane. It's the largest review of the higher education sector in 15 years, and the size of this review is for good reason. Projections suggest that the proportion of Australian workers with a university degree could jump from 36 per cent to 55 per cent by the middle of this century. We are going through a very important transition where we are going to need more university skilled people in our workforce.

That kind of pace means that we need to be intentional about the skills that we will need from future workers, and the quality of their university experience right now will lead to the quality of the workforce that we have in the next generation. What the accord report tells us is that people currently underrepresented in our universities will be central to this increase. The people that aren't getting access or don't feel supported are the exact people that we need to support through the universities to increase the number of people getting that skill qualification.

It comes as no surprise to me that university enrolment is stratified by geography, family income and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status. Meeting our future skill needs and bridging the enrolment inequality gap are mutually assured propositions, but they are very big tasks. What we are doing through the accord is responding to the recommendations by these highly qualified experts. This bill responds to parts of those recommendations because we want to start that work right now. We know that there is a lot of work to do. We are starting the work today.

The Accord Interim Report, handed down in July, made by five recommendations. I want to go through those quickly, because they are incredibly important to the overall work that this government is doing. The recommendations were: to create more university study hubs not only in the regions but also in outer suburbs; that we scrap the 50 per cent pass rule and require better reporting on how students are progressing; that we extend the demand-driven funding currently provided to Indigenous students from regional and remote areas to cover all Indigenous students—an incredibly important step that this bill takes; that we provide funding certainty during the accord process by extending the Higher Education Continuity Guarantee; and that we work with states and territories through the National Cabinet to improve university governance. They are five really important recommendations. They are interlinked, and we are working to progress through them, particularly in scrapping the 50 per cent rule to support students and make their experience a better one and to ensure we are supporting Indigenous students from all across the country, not just remote and regional areas.

Minister Clare has confirmed that the Albanese Labor government will implement all of these recommendations, and I'm really pleased that we are starting that work today. In the case of recommendation No. 1, the Albanese Labor government will establish 20 additional regional university student hubs. This is of particular interest to me because I live in regional Queensland and I know how important it is for us to have strong universities in the region so that people can stay in the regions, study in the regions and end up working in the regions. At the moment, around 25 per cent of 20- to 30-year-olds in the regions have a uni degree. That's 20 per cent lower than the national average.

There are already 34 regional university hubs across Australia, and evidence shows that they are really worth investing in. In regions where these hubs exist, more people enrol in university and attrition rates decrease, meaning students have more success in graduating. These hubs give students a place to study but they also provide wraparound support—academic assistance, health and wellbeing services and a sense of community. I am proud that the Albanese Labor government is making record investments in our regions through these university hubs.

In places lucky enough to already have some higher education options, I see the way that this can transform communities for the better. Regional Queenslanders love where we live. The investment means that more people don't have to choose; they can live where they love and also get a university qualification. So, again, I want to commend the work of the minister but also our assistant minister, a Queenslander himself, Minister Chisholm, on the work in rolling out these regional university hubs and the commitment that our government has taken to the regions to deliver those.

In relation to governance and the work that we are doing to make sure that universities are best placed to take care of students, the accord report shows that getting people into university is just one part of the puzzle. We also need to make sure that universities are operating at their highest standard. This feeds into recommendation No. 2, which is to scrap the 50 per cent rule and require better support of students. In addition to this important recommendation, we are also working with states and territories to initiate a working group on this really important work, to make sure students are safe and to ensure that university governance is placed around making sure that students can be protected on campuses and have their complaints dealt with.

In his second reading speech to the chamber, the minister outlined three priority areas for the working group, including that universities are good employers, providing a supportive workplace; making sure that they are a workplace where staff have the confidence that they will not be underpaid for the important work that they do; and making sure that governing bodies have the right expertise, including in the business of running universities of critical importance. The third priority that he outlined—one that is very important and dear to my heart—is making sure that universities are safe for our students and staff.

The urgency, the importance and the success of the working group was highlighted earlier this year by the Senate inquiry, which I initiated, into sexual consent laws across jurisdictions. It was a broad-ranging Senate inquiry, but, naturally, we were drawn to some of the awful statistics that we have seen as to campuses around this country. In 2022, the results of the National Student Safety Survey were released. It found that one in six university students had experienced sexual assault and one in 20 had experienced a sexual assault since they started their degree. Of those students who had experienced sexual harassment, only three per cent had made a formal complaint.

Sharna Bremner, the founder and director of End Rape on Campus, gave the following evidence to the Senate inquiry on sexual consent laws about the experience of victim-survivors that EROC had supported to make complaints. She said:

A really common theme among the students we've supported over the last eight-nine years now is, 'My rape was bad, but the way my university responded was worse.' We hear very often the effects of re-traumatisation once students have reported. They feel incredibly unsupported, even if they can find where to report in the first place …

When they are reporting, we are still seeing extensive delays in responses by universities, oftentimes of up to three, four or five months, sometimes even longer.

What we heard from the inquiry was that, when complaints are made, the response from universities is wholly inadequate. The inquiry found that, even when victim-survivors did try to seek support from universities, support wasn't easy to find. Consistently, half of all students reported that they didn't even know how to access support or reporting mechanisms from their university.

As EROC explained to the committee, the data and figures are likely underestimated. The national student survey data was collected at a time when most students were learning from home during the pandemic. It is concerning to consider that the next survey, which I strongly encourage Universities Australia to follow through with, will deliver data that reflects a regular return to campus life.

The best data that we have tells us that over 14,000 students will be subject to sexual violence in a 12-month period at Australian universities. Those are horrifying numbers. And it's not because universities don't want to help. They haven't been able to. You can't fix a problem without complete information. You can't fix a problem when some people declare that they have sorted it out, but they won't tell you how. And you can't really fix a problem with inadequate repercussions.

This is what advocates in the sector are up against, and it's why action is needed. It's why we talked about it through the Senate inquiry. These issues have been raised by these advocates for years and, yes, during the term of the previous government. We know that they have not been listened to, until now.

I'm very proud that our government is listening to these advocates and is taking action. I am pleased that the minister has announced that the working group on university governance includes Ms Patty Kinnersly, the CEO of Our Watch. I note that the working group has already started to meet, and I look forward to watching their progress. They have discussed a number of potential actions, including the idea of a standalone national student ombudsman. Final recommendations of this group will come to the education ministers in November—that is very soon, and that is really good, because we need to make sure that we stay on top of this.

I also want to note that this work intersects with the Minister for Social Services and the Minister for Women on the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children. Together, all of our ministers have taken this issue seriously and are responding with action, because this is no longer a time for these victims and their stories to fall silent. They were not listened to under the previous government, and that has to change. It is changing, under our government. This plan will go a long way to the addressing causative factors that led to such adverse findings in this inquiry.

Finally, I'll say why the accord is important and why these overall reforms are really important—why this legislation is important today. It's all about supporting students and providing a better university sector. Whether it's improving governance, making sure that we can have access for Indigenous students or giving regional students the opportunity to go to university, this is what this Labor government has committed to and what we are delivering through this legislation.

It is exciting and a welcome development that more working-class, regional and Indigenous kids will have an opportunity to go to university because of these reforms. As the accord outlines, getting kids to uni is just one part of our job here. We have to make sure that universities are set up in a way that keeps students there until they've got the qualifications that they need. We also need to make sure that universities are places where academics and the other people who work there feel supported and have good working conditions.

It's not just the students of today that we must act urgently to protect—it's the kids that will be there tomorrow and for generations to come. That is why I support these reforms and why I commend the minister on the work he is doing. I support this legislation, and I commend it to the Senate.

In our nation, higher education is transformative for individuals and for our communities. It brings countless social and economic benefits—research, and social and community participation. It embeds progressive change in our communities as they learn to adapt and transform for our communities' and our national needs.

Higher education is one of our most crucial economic exports around the world. We have many thousands of students come to Australia to participate in our higher education sector because of its quality and because of the experience it brings. It underscores the need for our own domestic students, but also for international students, to have a well funded and robust university sector. There's no way of getting around the fact that high-quality and equitable higher education is essential for Australians and essential for our nation.

Quality research shows that, by the year 2050, some 55 per cent of all jobs will require some form of higher education. It is why almost universally in the sector and many around the country were absolutely dismayed at the actions of the last government who capped the number of places in Australia's universities. This made them harder to get into, including for courses where there was growing industry demand, made it harder to succeed in progressing through your course and made it more expensive.

What we are doing today in this bill, the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill, is implementing the outcomes from the review into higher education, in which stakeholders from right across the higher education sector and the broader tertiary sector participated. We saw governments, business, community, professional groups, universities, students and industry groups all participate in bringing together the reforms that are with us today.

The review process had some 300 submissions. It engaged with experts, including Emeritus Professor Bruce Chapman, who was indeed the Higher Education Contribution Scheme architect. I must confess I was someone who protested against HECS increases, way back in the 1990s, when I organised a rally outside then minister for higher education Kim Beazley's office. We rallied outside his office, and Minister Beasley disarmed us all, quite charmingly, by inviting all of the students that were there inside his office for a robust discussion about higher education policy. He pretty much said to us, 'Half of you students, who are protesting outside today, would not be here at all if it wasn't for our capacity to expand the number of university places because of the Higher Education Contribution Scheme.'

But I have to say that under the last government the HECS and its new iterations became completely unfair and out of control in the way it targeted different cohorts of students for student debt. The work of the review from Professor Bruce Chapman and others who are clear experts in income equity, education and tax has really helped drive the reforms in this bill to bring balance and equity back into the system.

One of the unfair policy changes that the last coalition government introduced was indeed the Higher Education Loan Program. For example, it saw a dramatic increase in fees for humanities students, communications students and a whole range of arts and culture, including things like anthropology. Students were being charged by the university and being charged fees that they had to pay back through HELP at a higher rate than it actually cost to deliver that particular course. This was despite the fact that these courses continued to have strong employment outcomes and led to graduate pathways into other streams of education. This is why I am particularly pleased that this bill has, as one of its aims, addressed some of those unfair policy changes introduced by the last government. I'm also pleased to see the expansion of access to Commonwealth supported places for First Nations students.

I outlined previously in relation to HELP that the Job-ready Graduates Package, which saw massive fee increases, had a particular impact on regional students and First Nations students in our country, as well as many people going to university for the first time. This is because they are, in fact, more likely to be doing some of those humanities-type subjects in their pathway to university. The coalition government was warned that their Job-ready Graduates program would rip billions out of public universities while burdening students with excessive and even lifelong debt. They were warned that the changes they made would be unsustainable and would create strain on the sector. Even prior to the damaging impact of the pandemic, the university sector was indeed at breaking point.

The expert panel's undertakings and review are in fact the first meaningful review of higher education in more than 15 years. That review was scathing of the impact of the last government's legacy on universities and of the impact of the Job-ready Graduates program on our nation, universities, students and the higher education sector as a whole, including on our reputation and standing with international students and the sustainability of the courses they participate in.

One of the harmful and unnecessary changes under the Job-ready Graduates program was the decision to implement a condition that required students to pass more than 50 per cent of their total attempted units to remain eligible for access to the HECS-HELP scheme or a Commonwealth supported place. Students who failed to meet this condition—despite having succeeded in all the other years of their study, or despite having had a particularly bad year, picked the wrong subjects or had other life challenges—were faced with the choice of paying for the course upfront so they could keep going, transferring to another cause, or withdrawing from their studies.

The justification the last government gave for the policy was that it would prevent students who were not academically suited to their studies from continuing to accrue large student debts. It appeared more as a stick to force higher completion rates and/or to weed out early students that the former government arbitrarily deemed to be unsuited to academic study, saving government expenditure. I have to say it wouldn't be unlikely that some universities would have worked with students to find a way to bypass this, giving them a conditional pass and those kinds of things. I see it as an unhelpful policy if universities have to find a bureaucratic way around it. Meanwhile, students withdrew from university entirely, perhaps unnecessarily, fearing they were going to be locked out because they'd had a hard semester. There was no requirement under the 50 per cent rule for institutions to take action to assist students at risk of failing more than half their course load or to address issues around the quality of the education, which might have been part of the reason students were failing.

As we have seen, the previous government's policy of maintaining pass rates disproportionally affected people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Students without support systems to lean on to get through university experience additional pressures, which affects their studies. Under the last government, we saw HECS-HELP targeting of humanities, arts and social sciences—disciplines with higher rates of enrolment of student equity groups, First Nations students and women—with tuition fees increased to over 110 per cent for most courses, making it more expensive to get a degree in social work or journalism than in medicine. This is despite the fact that medicine is a vastly more costly course to deliver. It is despite the fact that, in the long term, medical graduates are likely to earn significantly higher wages. And it is despite the fact that, because of the way the scheme capped government contributions for medicine degrees, these perverse disincentives also made it harder for universities to deliver courses like engineering and medicine.

Today I welcome the legislation before us in the Senate. This bill vastly enhances our ability to support First Nations students in our universities, including in regional and remote areas across Australia. It improves education pedagogy and it introduces a wide range of equity supports so that our students are set up for success and have accessible pathways to education.

The Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023 is the response to the Universities Accord interim report. There are five recommendations, and, specifically, this bill will respond to two of them. We established the Australian Universities Accord to conduct a review of Australia's higher education system because the last time we had one was 2008, and we needed to look at how we develop and enhance the quality, accessibility and affordability of our higher education.

I remember the last review, in 2008, really well because I worked at the University of South Australia and worked on the university's response to that report. One of the things that has struck me is there are two similarities between the situation we were in in 2008-09, responding to that report, and the situation we find ourselves in today in 2023. The first one is that one of the first critical acts of a new Labor government was to look deeply at our education system. The second one is that we were coming off the back of a long period of time with a coalition government gutting our education system and ensuring it was focused heavily on providing for those who have as opposed to those who can.

I want to trip through, as a starting point, the list of people who are on the accord and who have delivered this interim report, and who will continue to work to deliver the final report at the end of the year. I think it is important to understand the depth of expertise and the spread of what these people have seen over their lifetimes, what they have experienced and what they bring to this job they have been given to do on behalf of our country to develop our education system. We have Professor Mary O'Kane, who is the former vice-chancellor of the University of Adelaide and the first woman to become the dean of engineering at any university in Australia. We have Professor Barney Glover, vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University. We have Ms Shemara Wikramanayake, the first female managing director and chief executive officer of the Macquarie Group. We have the Hon. Jenny Macklin, a former minister for families, community services and Indigenous affairs. We have Professor Larissa Behrendt, the first Indigenous Australian to graduate from Harvard Law School and who is a professor of law and director of research and academic programs at the Jumbunna Institute of Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology in Sydney. Finally, we have the Hon. Fiona Nash, a former senator for New South Wales, a former minister for regional development, regional communications, local government and territories, and now Australia's first Regional Education Commissioner. It's quite a spread of impressive people providing us with this advice on the back of their deep experience and the professional roles they have played out over many years. While we are looking at these recommendations, we should remember that.

The Universities Accord interim report makes very clear that over the next few decades we're going to need more jobs with university qualifications. In fact we know we are in a skills crisis and we are going to need more qualifications at the TAFE end of the market all the way through to higher education degrees within the university sector. We have to meet the skills challenge of the future. That is why this piece of work is so vitally important and why this bill is so vitally important. We know—and the accord team has totally entrenched this—that we must considerably increase the number of students we have that are currently underrepresented in our system. Students from outer suburbs, students from the regions, students from poorer backgrounds, students with disabilities and students who are Indigenous: these are the students that are really lacking in our system. These are the students who are there and who we can embrace, bring forward and provide with structures for them to succeed.

The interim report made five recommendations. This bill responds specifically to two of them. Let's be clear what those five elements are so that we're not looking at this in isolation. One is creating more university study hubs. They have proven so beneficial in our regional areas. In South Australia we've seen them grow from strength to strength. I thank Senator Chisholm for visiting the South Australian university hubs just a few weeks ago to show our commitment and talk about the future for those vital hubs. Another element that is actually included in this bill is the 50 per cent pass rule, and I will come to that more in a moment. Then there is extending to all Indigenous students the demand driven funding currently provided to Indigenous students from remote and regional areas—and I'll talk a little more about that as well; providing funding certainty during the accord process by extending the Higher Education Continuity Guarantee into 2024 and 2025; and working with the state and territory governments to improve university governance.

It is our intent to act on all of these, but this bill in front of us responds to two of them. The first is ending the punitive 50 per cent pass rule, given its poor equity impacts that we heard about extensively through the inquiry on this bill, and increasing support and reporting for students. It's support for students who are struggling, as opposed to cutting them off at the knees and throwing them out of university. It's providing support to develop their skills and to support them with the challenges they are facing so that they can succeed. The other part of the bill is ensuring that all First Nations students are eligible for a funded place at university, by extending that demand driven funding to metropolitan First Nations students.

The first of these actions is in response to the disastrous rule brought about by the previous government. Currently students must maintain a pass rate in at least 50 per cent of the units that they are studying in their course to remain eligible for Commonwealth assistance. I go to the points Senator Scarr made earlier. I think he missed one critical point. He stepped out that everyone should be able to pass in 50 per cent and it should not be a burden, but just the norm. That does not recognise the challenges that students may face, particularly early on in their courses. If they have come from a regional or a remote area, if they have come from a disadvantaged background and if they are not experienced in writing academic essays by nature of the education they've been exposed to, they need support and assistance and they need us to help them build those skills. If they're dealing with problems, they need to be supported. These are areas where we reach out and help. We don't just kick them out of university.

I myself failed a semester of university at one point because my father died and I was past the cut-off point. This may be an exemption in the current system, but there were all sorts of knock-ons. I was left in a situation where I had a lot of stuff to tidy up after we had got past the grief and I had a lot of support to provide to my family. This meant that I wasn't in a position to indulge all of my attention onto my studies. I'm not the only person who has been through drama, stress, grief or challenges. There are many, many things that students face but the current situation, where students who fail have to pay the cost of their course up-front, immediately cuts out so many people. Or they have to transfer to another course, or withdraw from their study altogether. We have to support students, not punish them. We have to encourage them, not isolate them.

We know from the submissions the Senate inquiry into this bill that more than 13,000 students at 27 universities have already been hit, have already been impacted by this punitive rule. The removal of the rule has been called for by universities right across the country. We heard from universities like the University of Adelaide, Monash University, the University of Technology Sydney, the University of the Sunshine Coast, the University of New England, the University of Queensland and Western Sydney University. That is quite a spread. It is not isolated that people think this is a terrible, terrible rule, so we intend to get rid of it. We need to look at how we identify students, we need to look at how we support them and that is what we will be doing as part of our process going forward.

The second priority action in this legislation is to extend access to demand-driven university places for metropolitan Indigenous students. Currently, if you are an Indigenous student from a regional area you have access but, if you are in the metro area, you do not. This goes against the entire push to have more Indigenous students in the university system. We know that often the pathway is different. The pathway and the advantages are not shared equally in our society and opening this up will genuinely make a difference. If you meet the requirements of the course then you will go to that course on a demand-driven place.

By following through on the recommended actions of the accord, I am very proud to say that we are improving the accessibility of Australian universities. We are ensuring that where you live does not affect your ability to get a degree. We are putting in place measures that will build our workforce, that deal with the skills shortages that we know we have right across our economy and right across our country. Dealing with those things, planning for the future, getting past the lack of planning for our future in skills and qualifications because that is where we stand right now.

We have been ill-prepared over the last almost 10 years of coalition government not looking to the future, not looking to see what skills would be needed into that future and not building for it, not making those provisions. The Albanese Labor government will plan for the future, provide the structures we need, the regulation we need, the environment we need to be able to fill those jobs of the future, to train and embrace the people of this country regardless of their background.

The interim report is an important first step. We are now taking the next steps. We are looking forward to the final report. The final university accord report will be out towards the end of the year and will address the other areas of concern. We look forward to those recommendations so we can truly see how we can build our future, truly do all the things that we need to do.

The measures in front of us today deal with two critical elements that are essential for us to build our university sector, to embrace everyone from across our beautiful country to fill the skills shortages to make us a stronger, smarter country that has a baseline of solid equity and inclusion.

I rise to speak to the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. I'm all for higher education. I think it's great that people should try to improve themselves and their lot in life and possibly go on to have professions. It is good for their families, good for the country and better for productivity. So, by all means, yes, I do, but I do question this bill and what's in the bill.

I want to talk about the proposal to extend the eligibility for demand-driven higher education courses to all Indigenous students rather than only Indigenous students living in regional and remote areas. Why are we again having a race-based policy with regards to this? I think that we should give a helping hand to all people in regional and rural areas who don't have the opportunity to go to university. There are a lot of Australians living in those areas who can't afford it, including a lot in the farming sector who have bad years and can't afford to send their kids to universities. If you're Indigenous, you can pick and choose which university you want to go to—some of the most expensive universities—and that is all paid for by the government. But we don't look after other Australians; it's based on race.

Now we're saying that we're going to open it up to those in metropolitan areas as well—and it's not on a need basis. If the Commonwealth is going to help pay for university course, let's do it on a need basis. Get away from the issue of race. The whole thing is that, if it's not means tested, then people, even senators in this place, can actually send their kids to universities and won't have pay for it because they're Indigenous. People like Marcia Langton or Noel Pearson—who is reported to be worth about $35 million—because they are Indigenous, will be eligible to have their kids' university education paid for. People here in this chamber who are Indigenous will be entitled to have it paid for.

In South Australia, 18 per cent of children in the schools there are living in poverty, and their parents are flat out paying for them to even go on school excursions et cetera. It's estimated that 30 per cent of people in this country are living in poverty, and they are flat out paying their bills. They would love to have the same benefits afforded to them for their children. How can you sit here and say, 'Just because you're Indigenous, there's no means test whatsoever,' when they might sit beside another child who is non-Indigenous who doesn't get that benefit? So one gets the benefits and the other child doesn't. That's causing division. It really is causing division. That is our problem. I've got no problem with supporting people, but, if you're going to do it for one, do it for all Australians; don't be selective. There are a lot of kids out there who would like a higher education if the government would pay for it.

As touched on by Senator Grogan and Senator Scarr, under this bill, the government wants to remove the 50 per cent pass rule, which, as stated in the Bills Digest:

.. requires students to successfully complete at least 50% of their units of study to continue to access Commonwealth assistance for their course.

If you want to remove that, give me a figure? What will the pass rule be—30 per cent, 40 per cent, 20 per cent? What will the pass rule be? I know people have their problems, and I know Senator Grogan talked about problems with the family. Her father died. That wasn't over the extent of her year or two years. For a short period of time, that may have an effect. But that's not over the full term of doing the course.

The fact is that you are going to dumb down these students. That's what you're doing. You're going to dumb them down. They won't have to put in the efforts to pass their courses. That's what it tells me. What you're actually saying is they're not going to put the effort in, because, if they don't put the effort in, what matters? 'Oh, we're going to prop you up, then, and we'll make sure that you get the assistance.' But you're not making them put in the effort in first place to ensure that they get the pass. What you're doing, then, is pushing people through an educational system to get a degree that they are not up to the standard of getting, so you have diluted that degree. What is happening is that these people are getting these degrees, leaving the universities and going to apply for jobs, but guess what? They're not up to standard for doing the job. We find that a lot with professional people these days. They're not up to the standard of the degree they have.

That is what's happened in our educational system, because you've pushed even teachers that aren't up to standard through the whole system. You're giving them the highest qualification—well, they don't actually have to have a very high qualification to get into university to study teaching, and they don't have to have very high pass marks to end up in our schoolrooms, teaching our kids. That's why a lot of these teachers have no idea. Even their spelling is atrocious. Their maths is hopeless. This is the new generation coming through. They don't know much about history, and they don't know much about how to teach kids. This is the new breed coming through. This is why the older teachers are fed up with the whole system and are leaving it. Our kids are being pushed through a system where we have real problems in educational levels.

I'll tell you another thing that's happening. Australia used to have a high standard for our education and universities compared to the rest of the world. Well, hasn't that dropped? It has bottomed right out. Now more foreign students are applying to go to other universities around the world because our standards in this country have bombed out. It's because of government policies. I've got to say—you want to sit there and criticise the Liberal Party of the last government? They did an excellent job, and so did Dan Tehan. He did an excellent job on education because One Nation worked with him. The Liberal Party had some good policies that they put through to address it. Don't talk to me about the courses and the skills and labour that we need. When I was in this parliament in 1996, I knew there would be a shortage of nurses. We all knew it. One of the Labor ministers was talking about it at the time and did absolutely nothing about it. That's why we've got these skills shortages. It's because you've never done anything about it.

You complained about the Liberal Party when they were in government. Where were the private members' bills from the Labor Party addressing this when you were in opposition? There was not one. You—through you, Chair—whinge and complain about what the former government did, but, when I sat in this chamber, I put up more private members' bills than the Labor Party ever did when they were in opposition. Where was your answer to all this? It was absolutely nothing. You have the audacity to sit back and complain and whinge, and you're bringing in this bill like you have brought in the family law bill. It hasn't been thought out. You're not thinking things through. You're rushing bills through this parliament when you don't even understand the grassroots. You don't understand the problems that we're having.

You want to get rid of the 50 per cent pass rule. As I said to you: what is the pass rule now? What responsibilities are you going to put on the students who continue in the universities?

Commonwealth supported places have half the cost paid for by the Commonwealth and the other half is a debt, and the debts that have been run up in this country over HELP and HECS are over $60 billion. That's what's owing to the taxpayers—over $60 billion! I'd like to know what you have done, really done, to try and recover that, because I can assure you that taxpayers are quite happy to help other Australians to actually further themselves to get the better education—it helps the country in the end and it gets people in jobs, hopefully—but, in the system we have at the moment, a lot of people are being pushed through to get their university degrees and then become professional students. They stay at university, but then, finally, when they do get a job, a lot of them that I speak to now are actually driving taxis or working at McDonalds or other retail shops. They've got these degrees, but it gets them nowhere because they don't really have the qualifications because they failed at university. They're pushed through a system where they just give you a pass. We don't have the standards. So what you've done is devalue the standards in this country for people who have these university degrees.

I'll go back to the $60 billion debt that's there. Senator Faruqi has put up an amendment where, basically, she wants to wipe the debt. It's her bill here to actually wipe all student debt. Who do you think is going to pay for this?

Go and tell the workers out there. Go and tell the tradies—they're the kids who leave school and start by getting a job and becoming tradies. They're paying their taxes and all the rest of it. But to the mate next door that they went to school with, you say: 'Listen, mate, you go to university. You have this way of life, and I'll pay for it for you. Go and do what you want to do. Become a professional student. You don't have to pay it back. We're going to prop you up.' Do you think the Australian people are going to accept that? Do you really believe they are?

You've got to put something in from your own pocket to make it worthwhile, and, if they don't pay for it and put some skin into the game, it means absolutely nothing. That's the problem. With these handouts all the time, you don't get results. When you've got skin in the game, you'll get results. So this is a stupid amendment, as far as I'm concerned.

Then, you have here: 'ensure university staff are in secure jobs and paid fair wages'. My god! Has anyone really looked at what these university people get paid? They get paid an enormous amount. Some of these chancellors are on $900,000 to over $1 million. They're paid fantastic wages. Even the staff there are not on poor wages, I can assure you. To ask that they're paid fair wages—I think they're on a fair wage system already. Again, it's a cost to the taxpayer.

Let me also say that the government funds university to the tunes of tens of billions of dollars, and these universities are classified as charities. So, they get government funding and they get funding from the foreign students, but they don't pay tax because they're charities. They're on a pretty good wicket, aren't they? And you want the taxpayers to fund them more, to keep funding and funding and funding.

One Nation will not be supporting this bill. I think it hasn't been properly thought through. You're not considering the taxpayers out there, the hardworking taxpayers who want to see a return for their money. I think that we need to rein in the $60-plus billion debt we have out there. You need to have a responsibility. And get rid of the race based policies. If you want to fund kids in this country, do it right across the board for everyone who would dearly love to go to university. Stop picking and choosing and playing your race based policies in this country, because people have had a gutful of it. That was proven last weekend with the referendum. You will come unstuck with these policies, Labor, because I'll tell you what, the people have had enough. They'll start voting for the ones that are standing up for all Australians and are standing up for equality for all Australians, not this race based stuff that you keep throwing up in this parliament.

Unfortunately, the 1.30 cut-off is going to prevent me from correcting a lot of the misinformation we just heard from Senator Hanson. One thing that is important to talk about is the number of Indigenous students at our universities. The accord interim report makes clear why this recommendation has been made.

The starting point for this was what the previous government introduced, which was demand driven funding for regional and remote Indigenous students, which we supported and is important. What we know about the Indigenous populations of Australia is that the fastest-growing Indigenous populations are actually in the greater cities—for example, greater Brisbane and greater Sydney—where there is significant population growth amongst Indigenous Australians. The accord interim report makes clear why this recommendation was necessary, because Australia isn't on track to achieving the Closing the Gap target that, by 2031, 70 per cent of First Nations people have a tertiary qualification. At the moment, 47 per cent of First Nations people aged 25 to 34 have completed a tertiary qualification. The interim report says that addressing these targets is crucial and recommends that the current demand driven funding arrangement, which is already operating in regional and remote Australia, is expanded to all Indigenous Australians. That's why we're doing it—because that is where a significant percentage of the Indigenous population of Australia lives.

The other important thing to correct from Senator Hanson in the time I have is that a Commonwealth supported place is exactly what the name suggests—the Commonwealth helping make a university place available by making paying part of the cost of making a place available to a student. The student remains responsible for their student contribution amount, which they will usually cover through a HELP loan, just like every other Australian had to do and I had to do when I went to uni when it was called HECS. That is what is proposed here. The government will guarantee the Commonwealth funding to Indigenous students who meet the academic requirements for entry, but the student will remain responsible for paying their share, most likely through a HELP loan like everyone else has. That is why we think that it is significant. That is why I hope it gets the support of the chamber. We are confident that it will enable more Indigenous students in this country to obtain a degree, and that will be a great outcome for the country.

The other thing that is clear that Senator Hanson didn't understand the full breadth of the bill is what we're doing in relation to regional university study hubs. Not everything the previous government did was a negative. The one thing that they did get right, even though it was done in an ad hoc way, was with regard to regional university study hubs. The interim report said that we would establish 20 additional regional university study hubs across the country. The first 10 of those are open. I've been to a number of them that have already opened around the country. I think we're up to 34 that are open. I've seen firsthand the opportunity that that's providing people in regional and remote Australia.

We know there's a shortage of teachers and nurses across the country, but that is felt acutely in many regional and rural locations. My hope from these study centres is that the next teacher or the next nurse is already living in those communities but that the establishment of these centres gives those people the opportunity to study and stay in their local communities. That's important for a number of reasons. One is the cost of moving away or moving to a capital city in the current environment would be quite daunting for many Australians. The ability to stay and study at home in your local area is fantastic.

The other significant part is that, if you are able to study in your remote or regional location, you're much more likely afterwards to stay and work there. When you think about those challenges that we're facing in health, in education and in other care industries across the country, having the ability for those people to study and stay in their local community means they're actually going to help meet that workforce challenge of the future. So you can see, from the interim report and the trajectory of the government in regard to higher education, the direction that the government are going. We're doing what we can to tackle disadvantage and give people an opportunity. We're giving more opportunity to those students in regional and remote locations. We know that the final report, when it comes down, will be focused on how we can make it more affordable as well. So there is a clear government direction. I really encourage people to support this bill.

I remind senators that we have a guillotine, so the time for consideration of the bill has expired. After I have put the question before the chair, I will put the questions on the remaining stages of the bill and the other bills listed in the order agreed to yesterday. The question is that the second reading amendment on sheet 2122, moved by Senator Faruqi, be agreed to.

The question is that the bill be now read a second time.

I will now deal with the Committee of the Whole amendments, beginning with the amendment circulated by Senator David Pocock. The question is that the amendment on sheet 2134 in the name of Senator David Pocock be agreed to.

Senator David Pocock's circulated amendment—

(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table), omit the table, substitute:

I will now deal with the requests circulated by the Australian Greens. In accordance with the usual practice, the statements accompanying the requests will be incorporated in Hansard. The question is that the requests for amendment on sheet 2119 be agreed to.

Australian Greens' circulated requests for amendments—

That the House of Representatives be requested to make the following amendments:

(1) Schedule 1, page 3 (after line 3), before item 1, insert:

1A Paragraph 36-30( 1)( aa)

After "*undergraduate course of study", insert "or a *demand driven higher education course".

(2) Schedule 1, page 3 (after line 7), after item 1, insert:

2A Clause 1 of Schedule 1 (paragraph (b) of the definition of demand driven higher education course )

Repeal the paragraph, substitute:

(b) either:

(i) is leading to a *higher education award that is a bachelor degree or bachelor honours degree; or

(ii) is a non-research*postgraduate course of study; and

2119-EM

Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023

_____

Statement pursuant to the order of the Senate of 26 June 2000

Amendments (1) and (2)

Amendments (1) and (2) are framed as requests because they amend the bill to expand the scope of demand driven Commonwealth supported places for Indigenous students to include non-research postgraduate courses of study.

The amendments would expand the categories of courses of study that are demand driven higher education courses and expand the circumstances in which Table A higher education providers must enrol students as Commonwealth supported students. This will have the effect of increasing the amounts payable to Table A providers for grants in relation to Commonwealth supported places under Part 2-2 of the Higher Education Act 2003 and increase the number of students who are Commonwealth supported students eligible for HECS-HELP under that Act.

The effect of the amendments would increase the amount of expenditure under the standing appropriation in section 238-12 of the Higher Education Act 2003.

Statement by the Clerk of the Senate pursuant to the order of the Senate of 26 June 2000

Amendments (1) and (2)

If the effect of the amendment is to increase expenditure under the standing appropriation in section 238-12 of the Higher Education Act 2003 then it is in accordance with the precedents of the Senate that the amendment be moved as a request.

The question now is that the remaining stages of the bill be agreed to and the bill be now passed.

The question now is that the remaining stages of the bills be agreed to and the bills be now passed.

The question now is that the remaining stages of the bills be agreed to and the bills be now passed.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a third time.

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong. In response to a question from Senator Waters yesterday in relation to the explosion at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, which has resulted in further tragic loss of innocent lives, you correctly at the time noted:

There are obviously conflicting reports about what has occurred.

Overnight, President Biden has stated that, based on US information, it appears to be as a result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza. A spokesperson for the United States National Security Council further clarified:

… our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts, and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza …

Minister, what is Australia's assessment or understanding of responsibility for the tragic explosion at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza?

I thank Senator Birmingham for the question, and I start first by again saying that we saw devastating loss of life in the heinous attacks on Israel by Hamas and we have also seen tragic loss of life in the explosion at the hospital in Gaza. There has been, clearly, a devastating loss of civilian life, and I want to reiterate what I said yesterday and what the Prime Minister said: every innocent life matters, whether Israeli or Palestinian. We express that our thoughts are with those killed or injured and their loved ones, that the protection of civilian life must come first and that respect for international humanitarian law is paramount, and we join with others in doing so.

My response is to the question about the attack itself. Obviously this is a conflict zone. Assessments are difficult. I think it is probably most appropriate, again, to refer to the US National Security Council's words, which Senator Birmingham referenced. The statement that was made was:

While we continue to collect information, our current assessment … is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday.

What I would say, however, is that we recognise the great distress that so many in the Australian community are feeling at this time—from the Jewish community, and also from the Palestinian community and the Muslim community more generally. I think everybody looking at what has occurred, and most particularly or most recently the deaths of civilians at the hospital, would agree this is a tragic set of circumstances. (Time expired)

Senator Birmingham, a first supplementary?

Minister, are you aware of any progress towards the release of Israeli hostages that continue to be held by Hamas some 12 days after their brutal and bloody assault on Israel? Further, are you aware of any progress to ensure humanitarian supplies, including food, water and medicines, are made available to innocent citizens, civilians, in Gaza?

Thank you to Senator Birmingham. In relation to the first question, I have no update to provide to the Senate in relation to the situation regarding hostages. I simply indicate that Australia has privately and publicly called for the release of hostages, and I'm sure we are joined by all in this chamber.

In relation to humanitarian assistance, this has remained challenging, as has the related issue of foreign nationals and civilians being permitted to exit Gaza by the limited number of crossings into the Gaza Strip which are available. We have obviously seen, on many days, indications that this might happen. I spoke to the United Nations coordinator for the Middle East peace process about this, just yesterday. I note some statements overnight from President— (Time expired)

Senator Birmingham, a second supplementary question?

I refer to statements also made overnight by ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess regarding people from the neo-Nazi cohort and the Sunni violent extremist cohort consuming and commenting on extremist or inciteful material. What steps is the government taking to ensure that Australians of Jewish faith, of Islamic faith, or of any background, are safe and are able to feel that they are safe and welcome in our country?

The first thing that we all must do—the government is doing, but all of us must do—is to recognise that our words matter. This is a moment where feelings and attitudes in our country are affected obviously by the events we are seeing but also by the words of leaders, by the words of politicians. So the government is working to engage with members of the Jewish community and with members of the Palestinian community and the Muslim community more broadly. I think it was very important. I thank the opposition for their support of a bipartisan motion on this. We may have different political views, but there are times when it is very important that the parties of government speak together, because our multicultural community—our diverse community—which is hurting, really need politicians to be able to speak as one on the key issues that matter, and I thank you for that. (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Wong. Can the minister update the Senate on the situation in the Middle East following the abhorrent attacks on Israel by Hamas?

I thank Senator Smith for her question. I know so many Australians are deeply concerned over the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We welcome the statement from the Israeli Prime Minister's office following President Biden's request that Israel will not prevent humanitarian assistance entering Gaza from Egypt. We welcome the United States commitment to provide $100 million in humanitarian support, and we understand large-scale international humanitarian aid is on standby at the Rafah border crossing ready for distribution once the border is open. This includes the supplies that our trusted partners, such as UNICEF, have been able to ready thanks to Australia's initial $10 million humanitarian commitment. I would also like to acknowledge the generous contribution from the Minderoo Foundation, pledged by Andrew and Nicola Forrest, who have committed a matching donation of $10 million in humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.

The government is deeply concerned by violent protests across the Middle East, including in Lebanon. I want to be very clear that the government has serious concerns for the security situation in Lebanon. To Australians in Lebanon: please, please know that we have today upgraded Australia's travel advice for Lebanon to level 4—Do not travel. This means that, if you are an Australian in Lebanon, you should consider leaving now if it is safe to do so. I repeat: if you are an Australian in Lebanon, you should consider leaving now if it is safe to do so. Commercial departure options remain available, but this may change with little notice during a crisis. Again, I encourage people to monitor the Smartraveller website for the latest advice.

Senator Smith, first supplementary?

Thank you, Minister, for your response. Can you update the Senate on efforts to help Australians who want to leave Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories?

Thank you, Senator Smith. Overnight, an Australian government assisted departure flight landed in Sydney with 252 passengers onboard, including 126 Australians. A Royal Australian Air Force flight landed in Dubai from Tel Aviv, carrying 59 passengers. Subject to security conditions, we are planning an assisted departure flight from Tel Aviv to Dubai today. We strongly encourage Australians who want to leave to consider this flight and do not wait for another option. As I've said in this place this week, we have had a lot of empty seats on flights. This will be our last flight for the foreseeable future. I repeat: today's flight will be our last flight for the foreseeable future.

We continue to assist Australians who wish to leave the occupied Palestinian territories, including working to secure Australians' safe passage out of Gaza. I appreciate this is extremely difficult. We understand how dangerous the situation is, and we are working very hard with partners on this.

Senator Smith, a second supplementary?

Can the Minister explain to the Senate the government's role internationally and at home?

In the context of the crisis unfolding, obviously one of our key priorities is to work with other countries to prevent this conflict from spilling over. Yesterday I spoke about this. That is also why we are so clear in our call that civilian lives must come first and respect for humanitarian law is paramount. That is why our priority is supporting Australians in Israel, in the West Bank and in Gaza and in securing a humanitarian corridor to Gaza for the safe departure of civilians.

Here at home, our role as a government and, I would say, our role as a Senate is to do all we can to keep our country unified and to make sure our community feels heard, and I ask all senators to be part of that effort. There are times when it is important that we put aside partisan politics and differences of views because there is a greater purpose to what we are doing.

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Senator Watt. Did the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government meet with Mr Alan Joyce on or around 23 January 2023?

I answered a very similar question from Senator McKenzie yesterday, to which I said that Minister King has already put on the record that she did meet with the former CEO of Qantas as well as the CEO of Virgin. That is her usual practice—to speak to the CEOs of major airlines on a regular basis. I know that this is something that Senator McKenzie is determined to keep asking questions on, no matter how many times they are answered, so I can only repeat the answers that I gave yesterday. Senator McKenzie, of course, is entitled to ask whatever questions she wants. We will continue providing the same answers, as we have done now for probably the best part of three months.

I note that overnight, or in the last 24 hours, Minister King has also made the point that the government will be reactivating ACCC monitoring of air passenger services. That was intended by the former government to end on 30 June this year. The former government had agreed to the finalisation of that in June, but of course they're much wiser in opposition than they ever were in government.

A government senator interjecting—

I take the interjection—not a lot wiser. And I also note that the 12 ACCC reports that occurred under the previous government found declining services standards and higher prices by the airlines but were not acted on. Again, it seems to have taken the opposition losing government to actually start caring about any of these issues and continue asking questions which have been answered many times.

Senator McKenzie, first supplementary?

Of course she's meeting with the CEOs of both our major airlines—one would hope she would be—but I asked about 23 January, and that hasn't been answered. Minister, next week, as it's estimates, you will be appearing before the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport committee on Minister King's behalf. Will you undertake to seek the relevant information from Minister King's office so that you can provide the committee with a satisfactory answer to what is actually a very straightforward question?

As Senator McKenzie knows, it's always my practice to assist the opposition in answering questions. I'm actually looking forward to estimates next week. I think most people have worked out that many of our ministers enjoy appearing at estimates. I'm seeing a lot of nodding heads here. We've got a lot to say next week at estimates. We've got a lot to remind the opposition of about their time in government as well.

The matter that Senator McKenzie is asking about—unfortunately I will not be able to represent Minister King at the infrastructure estimates, because I'll be representing Minister O'Neil in the home affairs estimates. I look forward to seeing Senator Scarr and a number of others there. But Senator Chisholm will do a fantastic job answering those questions.

Minister Watt, please resume your seat. Senator McKenzie?

Well, yes, actually that's what I was looking for. As funny as Mr Watt thinks he is—

Senator McKenzie, why are you on your feet? Do you have a point of order? No. Minister, did you want to add to your answer?

As I was saying, I know Senator Chisholm will do a terrific job representing Minister King, and Senator Brown will be doing that as well.

Order, Minister Watt. Senator McKenzie, please don't call out 'point of order' as you are getting to your feet. Senator McKenzie.

On relevance: whoever is representing Minister King, will they be prepared to go to Minister King and have the question answered?

Senator McKenzie, you did ask specifically in relation to Minister Watt, and he has informed the chamber that he will be elsewhere. Minister, did you wish to continue your answer?

I'm sure that Senator Chisholm and Senator Brown will do a much better job of answering than Senator McKenzie ever did about sports rorts and various other matters. (Time expired)

Senator McKenzie, a second supplementary?

Prior to the election, the Prime Minister promised to bring transparency and integrity back to politics, claiming that only a Labor government would deliver on that promise. How are Australians expected to believe that you have kept your promise, when the Albanese Labor government won't even be up-front about who a minister met let alone reveal the reasoning behind major decisions impacting our economy and the Australian travelling public?

Order! I remind those on my right that repeated interjections are disorderly.

You do know it is Thursday question time when Senator McKenzie, of all people, wants to talk about transparency in government. Have you still got those spreadsheets? Are they still coloured? I mean, seriously, we're going to take lectures from Senator McKenzie or anyone over on that side of the chamber about transparency? Senator Cash has a lot to say now. Of course, Senator Cash was the Attorney-General who didn't introduce a national anticorruption commission. That is how committed Senator Cash was to transparency. Senator Cash of course refused to co-operate with a police investigation. That is how committed she was to transparency in office and they now want to lecture us.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Order! Order across the chamber. I have a senator on her feet.

Not going for the person, Murray!

Senator Cash! When I call order across the chamber it also applies to you. Senator McKenzie, on a point of order?

Minister Watt is reflecting on other senators in this chamber. He has been called to account several times previously not just by yourself but by other presidents. It is absolutely against standing orders, this continual behaviour. When he feels under attack, he makes it personal every time.

I don't believe Minister Watt was using inappropriate language but I will seek the advice of Clerk. Minister Wong?

I have a submission on the point of order. I think there is a distinction between a personal attack and a criticism that goes to someone's behaviour as a public official. The latter is not a personal attack, no matter what others may say.

The Clerk has confirmed my understanding. I don't think, and I am also advised by the Clerk, that the language breached the standards but I will continue to listen closely because I am well aware of the rulings I have made in the past—thank you, Senator McKenzie. Minister Watt.

I'm not sure why it is that Senator McKenzie and others think it is appropriate to accuse various Labor ministers of lacking integrity and lacking transparency yet when their own record is pointed out it seems to be against the rules. It is a double standard that seems to apply on these matters.

As I say, this government has delivered on transparency. We have introduced a national anticorruption commission. Senator Farrell is doing work on electoral donations. There are any number of examples we could give. Unfortunately, Senator McKenzie is never happy. (Time expired)

My question is to the Special Minister of State, Senator Farrell. The Liberals and the no campaign unashamedly used and amplified disinformation and misinformation in their campaign to defeat the Voice referendum. It was straight out of Donald Trump's playbook. Until we have truth in political advertising laws, those tactics can be used again, likely on migration. The next election will be a horror show of scare campaigns and misinformation. Polling released today shows that 87 per cent of Australians support truth in political advertising laws. Does the government want to confront the issue of misleading political advertising or is avoiding that and doing a deal with the Liberals on electoral changes more important to them?

I thank Senator Waters for her question. I have made it very clear, especially in respect of your last point, Senator Waters, that it is my intention to consult with all parties, including the Greens, about electoral reform. We do have a process in place. That process has announced an interim report, and you would be fully aware of many of the items that have been raised in that process. I intend to continue that consultation process with all of the parties, with a view to trying to get a consensus position on reforms to our electoral system. We know that a whole lot of things need to be done to increase transparency and we know that a whole lot of things need to be done to limit expenditure by really rich Australians to buy election results. In that process we are going to give some consideration to the issue of truth in political advertising. I agree with you 100 per cent about a lot of the messages that were sent out to the Australian people.

So much for free speech.

If it were to proceed, Senator Canavan, then it would not be me making those decisions. I can tell you, Senator Canavan, it certainly would not be you who would be making— (Time expired)

Senator Waters, first supplementary?

Minister, the government is reportedly in discussion with the Liberals on electoral reform, which has grave implications for the one-third of Australians who didn't vote for either of your parties. Around half the money that Labor and Liberal receive is not disclosed—it's dark money that comes from exclusive cash-for-access events, donated through business forums as memberships, and undisclosed sources. Will you close these major-party loopholes and act on secret money or will this cosy arrangement that protects the two old parties stay in place?

I thank Senator Waters for her first supplementary question. I reject the premise of your question. I don't know how many times I can say it—I intend to have discussions with all of the parties about what electoral reform might look like. I have done it with you, Senator Waters, and I expect that we'll be doing it again shortly. I have done it with Senator David Pocock. I would be very happy to do it with the Jacqui Lambie Network. I've done it with the teals. In fact, I've done it with anybody who has asked to meet me to have a discussion about it. Would you believe I've even talked to Chris Ketter? (Time expired)

Senator Waters, second supplementary?

What assurances can you give that the Labor and Liberal parties will not stitch up a secret deal that will give themselves more public money, keep the secret corporate slush funds in place and enable more misinformation in election campaigns? Will we end up with electoral reform or an electoral rort?

I thank Senator Waters for her second supplementary question. Again I reject the underlying implication in your question. The objective of this government is to bring about transparency in the Australian electoral process. One of the ways the committee has recommended we do that is by bringing down the $16,000 ceiling for disclosure of electoral donations to $1,000. That will very significantly add to transparency in electoral processes. One of the other proposals, Senator Waters, is to have real-time donations so that any voter can know within, say, seven days who has donated to the political candidate they are considering supporting. (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Aged Care, Senator Gallagher. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety found that unacceptable staffing levels in aged-care homes had created horrific environments of substandard care. The final report recommended that registered nurses be required on site in residential aged-care homes 24 hours a day seven days a week. It also recommended the introduction of minimum care time from registered nurses, enrolled nurses and personal care workers. Could the minister update the Senate on the Albanese government's progress in implementing these recommendations?

I thank Senator Payman for that question on the important issue of aged care across the community. The final report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety told a shocking story of neglect, inaction and a lack of ambition to plan for growing demand in the aged-care sector. It called for urgent action to help a sector that was in crisis. The Labor government recognised that aged-care workers had to be at the foundation of our reform. Aged-care workers are the heart of the system caring for vulnerable older Australians, and that's why the very first piece of legislation introduced by the Albanese government was a bill to require 24/7 nursing, to make sure aged-care residents could get the clinical care they required around the clock.

This positive step forward was met by ridicule and criticism from those opposite, who ran an irresponsible year-long scare campaign that requiring more nurses in aged care would lead to the collapse of the aged-care sector. But 1 July came and went, the sun is still in the sky, and our first set of data for the 24/7 nursing mandate revealed significant improvements. On average, there is a nurse on site 98 per cent of the time, or 23½ hours a day. Eighty-six per cent of all homes that reported data have a nurse 24/7, and the majority of remaining homes are extremely close to meeting the target. Two months on, the data has continued to improve, with 88 per cent of homes now having a registered nurse on site 24/7. The royal commission also recommended mandatory minimum care minutes, which took effect from 1 October. Data collected from when minimum care minutes came into effect show that older Australians are receiving an additional 1.8 million minutes of care every single day under the Albanese government.

Senator Payman, first supplementary?

Can the minister advise how the government is working to ensure the growing aged-care workforce is adequately skilled to deliver high-quality care?

Making sure we have a skilled workforce to deliver the high-quality care is a critical component of the aged-care reforms. The system that we inherited was described under the title Neglect by the royal commission in its first interim report. We are steadily improving the quality of care, and the skills and training, and encouraging more people into the aged-care workforce based on the work that we are doing through the skills programs, through Minister O'Connor, through the leadership of the Prime Minister and the states and territories. We now have 7,869 Australians enrolled in Certificate III in Individual Support to work in aged care or disability care, and another almost 8½ thousand Australians have enrolled in a Diploma of Nursing. There is more work to do, but having a skilled workforce is essential to making sure that we can improve the quality of care for those elderly Australians who rely on residential aged-care services.

Senator Payman, second supplementary?

Can the minister inform the Senate how the government's work to build the aged-care workforce is helping to deliver Labor's promise to lift the standard of aged care in Australia?

I thank Senator Payman. The government's desire is to work with the aged-care sector to deliver on all of these important reforms. I met with a group of ACT aged-care providers in the last couple of weeks to talk about what they're seeing post these changes. They're seeing stability in their staff. They're seeing less turnover. They're seeing more applications for vacancies in the sector and fewer agency contracts, which means more continuity of care for residents in residential aged care, who are seeing and benefiting—

Senator Ruston!

I don't know what Senator Ruston doesn't like about improved aged-care services, but she has been interjecting and complaining about the improvements that we have made, things that they never did. They couldn't find the room, couldn't find the investments, couldn't find the human capital, to actually invest in that system. We're doing it, and you're still complaining about it. Residents are seeing improved care, and that's because of the work that the minister has been doing.

Minister, thank you. Senator Ruston, your constant interjections are disorderly, and I am asking you to discontinue—and Senator Colbeck.

My question is to the Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher. I am sure nobody in this chamber needs convincing as to the value that staff bring to each of our offices. It is not a secret that this place would fall to ruin without them. Personal staffing allocations are determined entirely by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister decides how many staff he or she gets along with how many staff the opposition gets and how many any crossbencher gets. The Prime Minister of the day can also decide to give staff to individual parliamentarians or take staff away. The Prime Minister may provide additional staff for valid reasons or for invalid reasons They might also threaten to cut a parliamentarian's staff allocation for any reason they may choose. Does the minister agree that this discretionary power, which is not subject to disallowance and is not required to be published anywhere, represents a possible corruption risk?

I thank Senator Tyrrell for the question. This falls across Minister Farrell's and my portfolios, as we are implementing the Set the Standard review and the recommendations from that.

I think it has been longstanding practice that the allocation of personal staff is a decision that's made by the Prime Minister of the day. I understand that has always been the case. I would however say to the Senator Tyrrell that we do acknowledge how hard our staff work in this building for any member of parliament or any senator. The demands, particularly in a sitting week and in estimates, and the hours that we expect them to work are particularly onerous, which is why we have been so keen to put in place the recommendations of the Jenkins review into providing better support for staff through the measures that we have introduced and legislation that passed this parliament last session.

The PWSS, an independent statutory authority, commenced on 1 October this year. One of the recommendations from the MOPS review was that the PWSS, once established, should do a resourcing review of members of parliament offices. We have funded PWSS to the capacity that they are able to perform that review. The resourcing that they were provided through the budget provides them with the budget to do all of the things the legislation requires of them and to act on that resourcing review. I understand that that is an immediate priority for the PWSS. That will be a new piece of information that will be provided. I don't think that's been done before. It will be independently managed by the PWSS under the rules that we have passed through this parliament. (Time expired)

Senator Tyrrell, first supplementary?

Can the minister provide an example of any other field where one organisation in a competitive market is given the sole discretion to determine the extent to which its rivals can compete?

I'm not sure that I'm in a position to answer that. But I would just repeat the answer I gave to the first question. The allocation of personal staff, as far as I'm aware, has been at the discretion of the Prime Minister of the day. I know that members and independent senators have had discussions with the Prime Minister around allocation of those personal staff.

In terms of the perceived lack of transparency around that, which I think you raised in your last question. I would point out that the details of those arrangements are published and they are tabled at every estimate sitting, as far as I can recall, through the Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee. So the arrangements that are put in place are public and they are transparent. They are available to any member of parliament or indeed those that follow the tabling of reports at Senate estimates.

Senator Tyrrell, a second supplementary?

Noting that the current Prime Minister has reduced personal staff allocations for crossbenchers, the minister surely agrees that prime ministers historically have not always afforded parliamentarians a reasonable allocation of staff. If that's the case, isn't there a role for an independent body to determine what's reasonable, to make sure it's done at arm's length, transparently and without prejudice?

The resourcing review is certainly at arm's length, and it's independent. It was a recommendation of the MOPS review, and this was an issue that was raised through that MOPS review, so I think that is absolutely appropriate. The government supports that work being done. We have resourced the PWSS so that they are able to do that work. I understand that it's a priority for the organisation. They're aware that this is an issue that has been raised through the parliament. I have no doubt that, when that work is complete and is available to people, people will be able to see the results of that. Let's see what that comes up with. It's an important piece of work that's been recognised, and I know that it's been raised by a number of independent senators and crossbench senators in particular.

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong. Mr Albanese's failed referendum campaign hurt our country no matter how people voted. Members of the Prime Minister's hand-picked referendum working group suggested that voting no was based on a foundation of racism or stupidity. Prominent 'yes' advocates declared that 'no' voters were dinosaurs, wreckers or worse. Sixty-one per cent of Australians voted no, but Australians on both sides of it were hurt thanks to its mishandling. Is the Prime Minister going to make an apology to the Australian people, regardless of their vote, for his role in dividing our great nation?

I thank Senator Liddle for her question. It is true. There were things said and done during the campaign which were hurtful. There were things that were done and said that particularly our First Nations people found hurtful. There were things that were done and said which many Australians found hurtful, particularly people from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, regardless of their views. We have seen a lot of pain, which is why the Prime Minister spoke about the importance of coming together on the night of the referendum, when he accepted responsibility, when he said very clearly to Australians that we're neither 'yes' voters nor 'no' voters, we are Australians.

I did say in this chamber that, when asked questions prior to the referendum, people bring to this campaign and bring to these questions their history and their experience, and there is a place for respecting that and for speaking with respect and acceptance and some graciousness towards each other. I think now is the time for graciousness. Now is the time to recognise those that are hurting, even if we don't agree with what they might say. Now is the time to recognise that all of us have a role in bringing Australians together. What I'd say to you is: we come to this with that spirit. I would invite you and others on that side to respond in kind.

Almost always, and with everything, the most vulnerable are affected the most. The Albanese government spent $450 million on a referendum doomed to fail. This could have doubled annual funding for child and family services in the Northern Territory, where notifications of harm to children continue to go up, not down. Why do you continue to oppose an audit into Indigenous program funding and a royal commission into child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities when, in the Northern Territory, the torment and trauma of those children at risk—

Senator Liddle, the time for answering has expired.

is often silenced.

I'm happy for you to finish.

Senator Liddle, do you want to finish your question? The minister has invited you to do so.

Yes, thank you. I appreciate that. In the Northern Territory, the trauma and torment of those children at risk or of those who have already been harmed is often silenced but is definitely not invisible.

I think we would all agree that all of us want children to be healthy and safe and no-one seeks that abuse is ever invisible. I think you opened your question with 'doomed to failure'. You would know, Senator Liddle, that your party, for quite some time—until the decision earlier this year—supported this process. Mr Wyatt supported this process. Mr Morrison and Mr Turnbull were engaged in this process. Until recently, this did have bipartisan support.

That's not true.

People have a democratic right to change their view. In relation to the second question, the safety and wellbeing of First Nations children is a priority for us. There is a lot of work being undertaken. (Time expired)

Senator Liddle, second supplementary?

Has the Prime Minister or Minister Burney read the Productivity Commission report on expenditure on children in the Northern Territory and the report of the NT Office of the Children's Commissioner, which clearly outlines the rising incidence of harm and notification for children? What is your answer to changing the lives of families and their children in the Northern Territory, and what evidence are you relying on to say no to an audit and a royal commission?

Firstly, as I answered yesterday, it is the case—and I think Senator Gallagher answered the day before on a similar question—that the National Audit Office did find previous compliance systems were clearly deficient in the area of Indigenous affairs, and we agree that strong governance and accountability are vital to delivering high-quality services and better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, which is what we all want.

As Senator Gallagher told the chamber on Monday, I believe, and as I repeated again yesterday, the NIAA has agreed to all recommendations from the Auditor-General and is in the process of implementing them. I also can advise that the minister has asked the agency to establish an integrity branch to protect and detect fraud and compliance systems. We may disagree on the how, but all of us want the gap closed. All of us want better outcomes. What I would say—and I would invite Senator Liddle—is that we would prefer this were done in a non-partisan— (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Communications, Senator Watt. Former special forces commando Heston Russell repeatedly asked for a correction and an apology for stories the ABC published that defamed him and November platoon, accusing them of committing war crimes in Afghanistan at a time when they weren't even in that country. He offered to settle the case for $99,000, which the ABC refused, and proceeded to trial. The defamatory articles were brought to the attention of Minister Rowland, the Minister for Communications, by a 26,000-signature petition, which she acknowledged on 20 March and on which she failed to act. Minister, what is the cost to the taxpayer for the ABC's legal fees in this matter so far?

Thank you, Senator Roberts, for that question. I will have to take on notice the exact details of that question that you've asked. Presumably, these are matters that you'd also have the opportunity to ask the ABC at estimates next week. So I am happy to come back to you with any details that I can provide on that. The broader issue around any defamation action taken against the ABC is really a matter for ABC management. Of course, this government believes in the independence of the ABC and, in particular, its editorial independence.

You mean the bias.

Senator Rennick, on the other hand, thinks that it's a biased organisation. That's a very disappointing remark to make about the national broadcaster but perhaps one that we're used to after years of ABC cuts under the former government. It would appear that Senator Rennick isn't the only member of the opposition who regards the ABC as biased. Again, it's a very disappointing view to express about the national broadcaster—the only publicly funded broadcaster. Again, it probably indicates why the ABC suffered such severe funding cuts under the former government.

So, Senator Roberts, you'll obviously have the opportunity to ask those questions of ABC management at estimates next week. I know Senator Henderson always has questions for the ABC as well, so she will no doubt do that again next week.

Sorry, Senator Ruston, we get to answer the questions, and I've already—

Honourable senators interjecting—

Order, across the chamber! Minister Watt, please refer to me when you're answering the question. Senator Henderson?

On indulgence—

No, Senator Henderson. Resume your seat. Minister, please continue, or have you finished your answer?

I actually answered the question in the first five seconds by saying that I'd take those details on notice. But I'm obviously able to then comment on the question more broadly, and that's what I've spent one minute and 55 seconds doing.

Senator Roberts, a first supplementary question?

The judge in this trial was scathing of the ABC journalists involved in the case, saying they became defensive and considered any criticism as merely part of a culture-war attack and this inhibited 'a proper remedial response to criticism'. The ABC journalists thought they were part of a culture war, and that prevented them from acting impartially and reasonably, leading to a potential multimillion dollar bill to taxpayers. Minister, what consequences will the journalists involved face for eroding people's trust in the ABC, and why hasn't their employment already been terminated?

Senator Roberts, I'm pleased to inform you that Australia now has a government that doesn't have political interference in the ABC and so we have no intention of repeating the sort of intervention that we've seen—

Opposition senators interjecting—

Where's the accountability?

Order!

from some of the people who are yelling across the chamber now in matters involving the ABC. These are matters that are the responsibility of ABC management, and we respect their independence. I understand, Senator Roberts, that the Federal Court has obviously handed down its decision in these defamation proceedings. There do remain several settlement matters before the court, so I probably shouldn't be commenting any further on what might happen there. And, as I've said, the ABC is responsible for managing its legal matters, including defamation claims and litigation, just as any media proprietor, whether it be publicly funded or privately owned, is responsible for managing its legal matters, including when it's sued for defamation. We believe that the ABC is a trusted source of news, information and entertainment for all Australians and we support it.

Senator Roberts, a second supplementary question?

Minister, Heston Russell was a victim of disinformation published by the ABC in an ordeal that he has called the 'hardest battle he has ever fought'. Can you please confirm that Minister Roland's misinformation and disinformation bill would not cover the ABC and won't protect people like Heston Russell from government disinformation?

Senator Roberts, I'm very pleased that you've taken an interest in matters involving misinformation and disinformation. I welcome your sudden interest in misinformation and disinformation, and I hope that that's something that you will retain an interest in when it comes to election campaigns that you're involved in, Senator Roberts. I really do hope that you do that. We'd like to hear more about that.

Mediscare was a great example!

And, Senator Canavan—he's a big fan of misinformation and disinformation as well, so I look forward to Senator Canavan supporting us in tackling misinformation and disinformation.

Where's this greenhouse that you keep talking about? Talk about disinformation—

Oh, and Senator Rennick. We've got everyone! We've got all of the kings of misinformation and disinformation up commenting today!

Hello, Gerard; how are you? Of course, the government does have legislation before the parliament to deal with misinformation and disinformation. We think that it is an important issue in today's media environment, particularly in the social media environment that we're operating under, and we think that it's an important piece of legislation to deal with.

My question is to the Minister for Emergency Management, Senator Watt, on a very serious subject. Minister, currently my state of New South Wales is being impacted by around 50 fires that are burning at advice level. In the past four weeks we've seen significant fire activity across New South Wales, Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia. And, in Victoria, we saw concurrent fires and floods. Can the minister please advise the Senate on what the Commonwealth is doing to support these communities?

Thanks, Senator Sheldon, for your ongoing interest in these issues. Can I start by acknowledging that there are a number fires currently burning at advice level in New South Wales, and of course there are also bushfires underway in Queensland and the Northern Territory. In terms of the New South Wales fires, Senator Sheldon, while at this stage there is no immediate threat to communities, it is important that people who live in the vicinity of those fires monitor the NSW Rural Fire Service's website or Hazards Near Me app in case there is a change in conditions. I've seen some weather forecasts for the next week which indicate quite a lot of hot and windy weather coming across the continent, so we all really need to stay aware of conditions in our local communities.

In addition, as you would have seen, this week we received the very sad confirmation that a man died in a fire near Kempsey, in New South Wales. While investigations are continuing into the circumstances surrounding that incident, I'd like to send our deepest condolences to that man's family, friends and community. That death is a stark reminder of the types of fast-moving and erratic fires we are expecting to see this fire season, and I really do ask everyone to have a plan in place in advance of fires and, wherever possible, to avoid bushfire risk areas on days of catastrophic fire risk.

In addition, earlier this month we saw fires in the Bega Valley, which impacted upon four homes, and at the very same time we saw in Victoria severe weather and flooding occurring in Gippsland. The Commonwealth has worked with the New South Wales and Victorian governments to activate support for those incidents through our disaster recovery funding arrangements. In New South Wales, assistance has been made available in the Bega Valley shire for eligible people who need assistance following those events. There is essential financial assistance made possible and concessional interest rate loans. In Victoria, assistance has been made available as well.

Senator Sheldon, a first supplementary?

I thank the minister for the update. I'm sure the Senate also sends their condolences to the family of that Kempsey man who lost his life. While fires and floods have already begun impacting on Australia, we know that the season has only just begun. What work has the Commonwealth undertaken to ensure that we are prepared for the natural disaster season?

The Albanese government is highly cognisant of the increased level of risk facing communities across the country in the upcoming high-risk weather season. We are continuing to support those communities who are still recovering from two years of successive record-breaking floods, but we've also been preparing for the drying conditions that we're now seeing from El Nino and the switch back to dry and hot conditions that that is causing this summer.

In fact, the Albanese government, through the National Emergency Management Agency, began preparations for the coming disaster season before the last disaster season had even finished, because we knew we were going to be facing difficult conditions this summer. Since then, NEMA has been pressing ahead with an expanded high-risk weather season preparedness program, which has included a disaster recovery funding arrangements roadshow, focused on informing and supporting disaster impacted local governments. Late last month we also held the inaugural high-risk weather season summit here at Parliament House, and I thank all of those who attended.

Senator Sheldon, a second supplementary?

We know that Australia will face longer and more intense natural disaster seasons due to climate change. Many of us in this room have experienced those consequences in our home states. What work is the Commonwealth undertaking to build a more resilient Australia and ensure that we are prepared for future challenges?

Of course, the Albanese government are tackling the root cause of increasing extreme weather—climate change—by legislating much more ambitious emission reduction targets than we saw previously and doubling our renewable energy projects, because, unlike those opposite, we accept the science of climate change. This week I met with bushfire survivors—

Explain it to me.

Order!

It's really sad that in 2023 there are some members of the opposition who still don't accept the science of climate change, but there they are. Even when we're talking about bushfires you reject the science of climate change.

That's the weather.

Unbelievable. This is the man who was supported in his preselection by the opposition leader, Peter Dutton.

Senator Watt, I remind you to direct your answers to the chair and invite you to finish.

How are you going to stop it?

Unbelievable. And now Senator Canavan is chiming in about the science of climate change when we're talking about bushfires. This week I met with Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action—people who lost their homes and their properties from climate change induced bushfires. It's a real shame that more of you don't take the effort to do it. (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister for Trade and Tourism, Senator Farrell. Is it correct that you instructed Austrade to overturn a merits based selection process for Australia's Consul-General and Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner in San Francisco that had already been completed and had recommended the appointment of a highly skilled trade expert, Ms Kirstyn Thomson, to fill that role?

I thank Senator Hume for her question. I am a little bit surprised that this question is being asked at this time, given the announcement in respect of former senator Ketter was made some months ago. We very publicly announced that the vacancy that was open in San Francisco was going to be filled by Mr Ketter. We have followed all the usual processes—

You might not like this, Senator Canavan, but we have followed all the usual processes that apply in the selection of people who represent us in these missions overseas. I'm very comfortable, I have to say, with the appointment of Mr Ketter. His—

Senator Birmingham?

A point of order on direct relevance: Senator Hume's question did not raise Mr Ketter at all. Her question went specifically to the merits based process that had led to the selection, apparently, of Ms Kirstyn Thomson, a fact that had not been made public, notwithstanding the minister's insinuations, and whether or not it is correct that he had overturned that process. I ask you to draw him to the detailed part of the question, which is clearly about the merits based selection process that was undertaken.

Senator Wong?

On the point of order, the minister clearly was responding to the appointment, which was the nub of the question. I put to you that he was being directly relevant in accordance with the standing orders.

I do believe the minister was being relevant to the question, because it did go to the nature of overturning what was alleged to have been a decision. But I will listen carefully to the minister's continued answer, and if he strays from the question I will draw his attention to that, Senator Birmingham.

The government, when they're making these sorts of appointments, considers—and I in particular consider—a number of factors where there is a clear advantage to be represented by people who've had distinguished careers beyond the Public Service, such as businesspeople and former parliamentarians. I'd note that that was frequently done by the former government. That's the process that—

Senator Hume?

On a point of order, the question was specifically about whether the minister overturned a merits based process.

And the minister is being relevant to the question, Senator Hume.

Opposition senators interjecting—

He did not answer that question. He has not answered that question.

Senator Hume, there is ample opportunity after this, in take note, to pursue your point of view, but the minister is being relevant. He's talking about the selection process and the reason for the decision. I am listening carefully, and if there is a deviation from the question I will remind him and draw him back to it.

I followed the usual processes which apply in respect of these sorts of appointments.

Senator Hume, first supplementary?

Minister, when did you advise Austrade of your intention to overturn the process? Had Ms Thomson already been advised of her selection at that time? If so, how long after her selection was she advised that you had overturned the process?

My understanding is that Ms Thomson made an application for a number of positions, and she is now representing—or is about to represent—Australia in Singapore. I am very confident that she will do a terrific job in that regard. All these processes were conducted in the proper way. I made a decision based on what I thought was in the best interests of Australia in its San Francisco mission.

Senator Hume, second supplementary?

As a result of overturning the merits based process following the selection and notification of a preferred candidate, has Austrade had to provide an alternative opportunity to Ms Thomson to avoid paying compensation for ministerial cancellation of that merits based process? Is it true that Ms Thomson even had to train her replacement, Senator Farrell's former union and Senate colleague Chris Ketter?

Well, can I say Ms Thomson will be a wonderful representative, like so many hardworking members of Austrade, in—

Thank you, Senator Farrell. Senator Hume, on a point of order?

I didn't ask how good Chris Ketter is going to be. I just want the question answered.

I will remind the minister of the question, Senator Hume.

I've answered your question, Senator Hume.

Minister Farrell, please resume your seat. Senator Birmingham, on a point of order?

President, it is not directly relevant for a minister just to say, 'I've answered the question,' when the question has so blatantly not been answered. It was a very clear question about whether or not Ms Thomson had had to be offered an alternative role to avoid compensation payments. Senator Farrell has not come remotely close to answering that question.

Thank you, Senator Birmingham. Senator Wong?

I would make the point that my recollection is that in a previous answer, in fact, there was a reference to which appointment had been made. I make the point that, if Senator Birmingham is correct and reference to a previous answer is not appropriate, there'd be a lot of former ministers on that side who did not comply with that order for many years. So I submit to you that—

I'll take the interjection from Senator Cash. She seems to think—

Senator Wong, you're on a point of order.

pointing out how they behaved is—

Order! Please resume your seat. I will remind senators that interjections are disorderly.

Senator Cash, I've just reminded the chamber—

Senator Wong and Senator Cash, order! I have just reminded the Senate that interjections are disorderly. In relation to your point of order, Senator Birmingham, just before you rose I did remind the senator of the question, and he has given the response that he believes, from recollection, he followed all processes.

As I said, Ms Thomson has been appointed to a position which I understand she applied for, and she will do a fantastic job representing Australia, as all of the Austrade workers do.

I ask that further questions be placed on notice.

Pursuant to standing order 74(5), I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Defence for an explanation as to why an answer has not been provided to question on notice No. 2312, asked on 27 July 2023, relating to the decision of the ADF to place an SAS reserve officer in charge of the combined joint special operations taskforce for Operation Talisman Sabre despite serious outstanding concerns regarding his conduct as commander of 2 Squadron in Afghanistan in 2009.

I thank Senator Shoebridge, who did contact my office, but I understand it went to the electoral office. Maybe we can have a chat about what would be easier in making sure we are aware of such notice.

I regret to say that the Minister for Defence is, obviously, on ministerial business overseas. It's not been possible to obtain an answer during the course of question time about the question.

The question relates to a specific allegation against an individual member of the ADF. I trust the senator will understand that it's important that he and the government handle this matter sensitively. I will follow up with the Minister for Defence. I am advised by his office that we believe we will be in a position to table an answer prior to estimates for this portfolio next Wednesday.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

We've now been waiting for some three months for an answer to a question about Exercise Talisman Sabre. Exercise Talisman Sabre, of course, is a biennial exercise, primarily between Australia and the United States. As part of that, Australian and United States troops regularly operate under a joint command structure. The United States have made it clear, in correspondence to the Chief of the Defence Force, that they have very real concerns in relation to the United States Leahy laws, which prohibit United States troops and any part of the United States military from having any combined operations with any foreign military unit that is suspected of serious human rights abuses or breaches. They indicated within months of the Brereton report that they had very real concerns about operations involving the United States military with the SAS and, in particular, the Special Operations Command. In raising those concerns, the United States made it clear that they were pausing any cooperation between the United States military and the Australian SAS, and they did so because the Brereton report outlined dozens and dozens of serious war crimes, including unlawful killing and appalling abuse of the laws of war, by SAS troops in Afghanistan.

A number of those allegations involve 2 Squadron of the SAS, including in the rotation in 2009 in Afghanistan. The then major who was in charge of that squadron was given a show-cause notice in relation to, amongst other things, appallingly unethical conduct at the unauthorised Fat Ladies Arms pub that was set up by Australian troops in Tarin Kot—conduct that I don't even want to describe here. It was appalling, disgraceful conduct, now notorious, which was a stain on the reputation of the ADF—appalling behaviour. For that and other matters, a show-cause notice was issued. In the face of the show-cause notice being issued, that officer resigned their commission and became a reserve officer.

Then—without the show-cause notice being responded to, without the matters being addressed, and in the face of our closest ally, the United States, saying clearly they had Leahy law concerns regarding those SAS units and their conduct in the Afghanistan war—the ADF placed that officer in charge of the combined joint special operations taskforce for Exercise Talisman Sabre, which just happened. The ADF knew the allegations against the officer. Indeed, they'd sent a show-cause notice sent against them. The ADF knew that the United States had Leahy law concerns about the conduct of a series of SAS officers, and, despite that, they appointed this officer from the reserves to the command of the combined joint special operations task force for Exercise Talisman Sabre, and that included command of United States troops.

We asked the minister some three months ago: given the United States has previously warned the ADF that allegations against Australian soldiers of war crimes in Afghanistan could prevent US forces from working with Australia's SAS under the US Leahy laws, was the US informed of the identity of the officer who would be in command of US special forces troops? No answer—three months on and no answer. We asked: did the United States agree to the officer being in charge of the combined joint special operations taskforce for Exercise Talisman Sabre? No answer, and no explanation for failing to answer that for month after month. We asked: was the Chief of Defence Force aware that the officer was being placed in charge of the combined joint special operations taskforce for Exercise Talisman Sabre? No answer, just this wall of silence and secrecy that the ADF erects. We also asked if the minister thought it appropriate, given what we know—the conduct, the show-cause notice, the US raising of Leahy law—that the officer was placed in charge of the combined joint special operations taskforce for Exercise Talisman Sabre. Why won't the minister answer? Has the minister raised this with the CDF, and how on earth did this happen? How on earth do we continue to spread the smear that's created by appalling conduct by a minority in the ADF? If that minority in the ADF are not held to account, their conduct smears the whole of the ADF.

There's a reason we have laws against war crimes. There's a reason why we have laws constraining the operations of Australian troops. The first is to comply with international law and to ensure that troops on deployment uphold the standards we expect of them. It's fundamental to a deployment. As the Brereton report made clear, those standards were grossly breached by a significant number of personnel in the SAS—grossly breached. As we're here today, the only person who's standing trial for that is a whistleblower. David McBride is the only person standing trial for that conduct. And then, far from the wrongdoers being held to account, in cases like this they get promoted up, even though our closest ally has raised concerns about it—and they're promoted up and put in charge of forces from the United States!

The second reason we have these standards in place is to protect the good people in the ADF, to protect the reputation of the ADF, to ensure that wrongdoers are held to account and to show that the Australian Defence Force will uphold those critical humanitarian and legal standards that we expect of our troops. When this kind of behaviour happens, it tarnishes the whole of the reputation of the ADF. When the minister has been given notice of this for three months and fails to provide an answer, it does the ADF no credit and no service, it does Australian troops no credit and no service, and it does the minister no credit to not face up to these things and be honest with the Australian public and with our closest ally, the United States. Let's not forget: this happened only two short years after the United States put the former minister and the CDF on clear notice that they did not want—and, in fact, legally could not have—their troops side by side with officers of the SAS where there was significant evidence to show that they had committed such gross abuses. Contempt of the ADF, contempt of the public and contempt of the United States—what an extraordinary situation.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by coalition senators today.

Today we saw the early, fresh signs of hubris on the part of the government, and we saw it in two forms. We saw the dismissive nature in which Senator Watt pushed aside legitimate questions from Senator McKenzie on questions that are still unanswered on the government's decision to deny Qatar Airways increased access to Australia, the benefits of which would have come to Australian aviation consumers, to freight users and to many, many others.

Then, in the last question, we saw Senator Farrell, the Minister for Trade, brush aside fresh revelations with regard to the government's decision to appoint its factionally preferred candidate for a very senior diplomatic and trade post in San Francisco—their preferred factional candidate being former Senator Chris Ketter—over a professional diplomat, someone schooled and skilled in trade matters, who was in fact the preferred candidate through a merit process. Wow!

After what we saw over the weekend, when Australians overwhelmingly said that the government's preferred model with regard to constitutional recognition was wrong—and not just a little bit wrong; it was very, very wrong—the government started the week trying to say to Australians, 'We have learnt our lesson and we are going to focus on some other issues, like the cost of living.' But, by Thursday afternoon, they are wearing the cloak of hubris—not shyly, not hiding it in the cupboard; they are wearing it for the whole Australian Senate to see.

Today we saw Senator Watt's decision to brush away legitimate concerns about his ability to bring to the Senate estimates process next week answers to questions that officials refused to bring during the Qatar Senate inquiry process, and we saw Senator Farrell try to brush aside legitimate queries about proper due process with regard to the appointment of a senior trade position, representing Australia's interests overseas. Mark this date: the beginning of Labor's decision to wash away the concerns of electors with regard to cost-of-living issues and the deterioration of the economy. Instead, they are wearing the cloak of hubris.

Over the last few weeks, there have been some very important economic revelations that should be the focus of the government's attention now. Australians are already living with escalated cost-of-living challenges—interest rate rises and inflation pressures. While the country was thinking about its position on Labor's preferred model for constitutional recognition of First Australians, the OECD was saying that Australia is about to experience a second consecutive downgrade with regard to economic growth. In addition, the OECD is saying that inflationary pressures are likely to be persistent in the Australian economy.

The Reserve Bank of Australia, in detailing its reasons for not increasing the cash rate on this occasion, just recently, has given Australians are very serious warning, and that is that, because the government has not tackled inflation in our country, the Labor Party's Christmas gift to Australian families is likely to be another interest rate rise in November. Their Christmas gift to Australian families is likely to be another interest rate rise in November. The RBA has said 'members noted that inflation remained well above target and was expected to do so for some time. Services price inflation remained sticky, and fuel prices were adding to headline inflation. At the same time, members observed that the labour market had reached a turning point and output growth had slowed'. The country is getting into perilous economic times and today we saw Labor's hubris.

I also rise to take note of the questions raised by the opposition. There is a great deal of interest in this. My colleague next to me said we have just received a lecture from the opposition about what has been discussed during Senate question time today. Not at any point was there a question raised about the cost of living. What was particularly galling was the question asked about the Qatar circus. I say 'circus' because of the way it has been handled with the so-called investigation—the 'circus'—taking place in today's question time, in yesterday's question time and recently in Senate committee hearings. It has been an absolute circus.

But before I get into the 'circus', let's talk about the track record of those opposite. There were 12 ACCC reports handed down under the previous government that found airlines were delivering declining service standards and higher prices. But did those opposite act? No, of course they didn't act. The big difference on this side is we have acted. We established an important inquiry into the green paper and the white paper. As everyone in the Senate would know, they were significant reports that looked at the implications, the consequences of what was happening in the aviation industry. Those opposite don't ask about that because the last time there was an inquiry into the aviation industry to deal with consumer rights, to deal with aviation efficiency, to drive better standards in aviation and to take opportunities that arise was in 2012. For 10 years, those opposite never carried out an inquiry into aviation regardless of having 12 ACCC inquiries saying it is a dud, it is not working and it needs to change.

On the good news front, just this afternoon Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines announced a number of flights to increase capacity to Adelaide—a very good outcome. Premier Malinauskas said, 'This means a lot more seats are travelling to and from our state to represent the fact that we've got all this extra activity, we're investing in major events.' He said, 'All this additional activity is providing South Australia jobs at a time when our economy is already running pretty hot.' Well, do you know what? The reality is that aviation is expanding in a number of areas. I haven't always been a great fan of Rex but I need to give Rex a bit of a leg-up too. They will start their inaugural Brisbane flights on 30 October.

On the point of the 'circus', I was actually at the Senate inquiry into the bilateral air service agreements. In that inquiry the government didn't get told who the witnesses were literally until they turned up because the chair of the committee, the person asking questions today and yesterday, wouldn't tell us, no matter how many times we requested it from the secretariat. The secretariat were acting appropriately; they were not doing anything improper. They were directed, as the chair confirmed, to not give us the information. That was the inquiry. They wanted a star chamber, a circus, where you never knew what act would come out next.

That's transparency for you.

That's transparency. That is actually trying to find answers. Then we saw the sorts of conventions that they dumped doing that. It became quite clear in the dissenting report that the only bit of information that came out about any conflicts of interest about Qantas was the previous minister for transport, Michael McCormack. That came out during the inquiry. That became clear.

When you start coming up here and asking questions about Qatar and aviation, when you start doing a circus at question time both today and yesterday, when you try to use the veil that people aren't serious about dealing with matters before this government and this country and when you start raising the issues of cost of living, turn around and actually raise them in question time, because—guess what?—I know why you've stopped raising them, because we have the answers for the ones you raised in the weeks that have passed.

It's good to rise and talk about what a debacle this Labor government is. Last weekend, we had a referendum that divided the country.

Government senators interjecting—

I'm sorry, I can't think because of the yodelling over there. It's distracting me.

Order on my right! Senator Rennick.

It's the yodelling. I'm not used that sort of yodelling!

The comments weren't directed towards you, Senator Bilyk. They weren't spoken personally to you. Let's please get back to it, Senator Rennick.

What a disgraceful effort by the Labor Albanese government in the first 16 months of its term. It has wasted $400 million on a divisive referendum that has sought to undermine democracy. Those same people talk about giving people a voice and everything like that—well, the people spoke on the weekend. And what did the Labor state premiers do? They turned around on Monday and said, 'Well, we're going to push ahead with a treaty anyway.' The member for Gaven in Queensland said that she didn't learn anything from the Voice—so much for having a voice to actually listen to the people.

The thing is that we already have a voice. It's called the ballot box, and every three years we get to line up and vote for who we want to represent us. If you join a political party, you get to vote in the preselections—or at least you do if you are in the Liberal Party. That is what the Labor Party try to do. They tried to divide the people through identity politics by getting into their personal space. Do you know why they do that? Because they don't have a plan for how to deliver essential services. They don't know a thing about delivering the things that matter because this is the party of command and control. The Labor Party aren't interested in serving you. They are interested in controlling you. Meanwhile, hardworking Australians are doing it tough. They have rising rents. They have rising interest rates. They have rising power prices. They have rising cost of living. What's Labor's answer to this? It's to push identity politics down their throat for the first 16 months of their term, and that is an utter disgrace.

Then we have the issue of transparency and accountability. When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was opposition leader, he came out and said that his government was going to be so transparent and accountable. What have we got for that? We've got some dodgy dealings going on with Qantas, and the minister won't release the minutes of the meetings that she had with Qantas. But that's not news! Prime Minister Albanese said he would release the minutes of national cabinet when he became Prime Minister. Did he do that? No, he did not do that. Did he support our motion for a quarterly pricing report into the cost of energy and how that cost of energy is formulated? No, he didn't support that. Did he hold a royal commission into COVID? No, he didn't support that. He supported a few COVID alarmists to do a dodgy inquiry that's going to be released in about 18 months time. He's not going to have anyone that is publicly elected scrutinise what went on. No, no, no! He is going to sweep it under the carpet. This is evidence of a Labor Party that is full of hubris, actual hate, guilt and fear-mongering but refuses to deal with the issues that matter to everyday Australians, which are, of course, the cost of living, energy prices et cetera et cetera.

As we move forward, have we talked at all this week about what Labor want to do? No. We've passed family law legislation which seeks to divide families. Why did Labor do that? Well, that's all they know how to do: to walk into the family home, the bedroom, the classroom, the doctor's waiting room, the corporate boardroom—and didn't we see that with the Voice? Didn't we see the corporates make utter fools of themselves? They spent millions and millions of dollars, wasting shareholders' money, on pushing a 'yes' vote that the people didn't want. They had no authority to spend that money. Did any of those companies actually get board approval for that? I doubt it. But that is so typical of the Labor Party and their mates in big business and big unions and big super funds. It was the same with superannuation. There was never an election to see whether or not people wanted 12 per cent of their wages stolen from them. No, no. This is the party of dictatorial one-style government, where they look after the elites and don't care about the battlers.

It's always interesting when you have to sit and listen to Senator Rennick! I didn't have the option of leaving today, because I'm speaking now, but there you go. I will say that Senator Dean Smith's contribution was quite interesting today, too, because he started talking about the cost of living. Perhaps he was in a different question time to me, because I didn't hear one question today about cost of living—not one. If you're that concerned about cost of living, ask us some questions. As Senator Sheldon said, we know why you don't, because you know that we have the answers to that.

But I actually want to speak about the questions to Minister Farrell. Like Minister Farrell, I was pretty surprised today when he was asked about former senator Ketter's appointment. I remember reading months ago about that appointment. Are you just trawling back through old newspapers? What are you doing to get your questions today? It's quite bizarre. I'd just like to remind those opposite of these people: former minister George Brandis, former minister Mitch Fifield, former senator Arthur Sinodinos and Peter McGauran, just to name four. All those people were appointed to positions by you when you were in government. But the classic one was when former Tasmanian senator David Bushby was appointed to a position one hour after his resignation from the Senate. Don't tell me that there was due process taken there. That's ridiculous. We know that you stacked the AAT. You put former politicians into the AAT. The list is endless. I didn't even bother writing the list down so I could remember them to say. You stacked the arts council. And yet here we have Senator Farrell, who went through due process. Those on the other side have got nothing to offer us, so they come in just trying to claim a scalp—and doesn't it backfire on them?

Those on the other side remind me of a story I read to a group of children the other day. It just keeps coming back to me, especially through question time, in relation to those on the other side. The story was about Henny Penny. I'm not going to say who I think Henny Penny was. For those that don't know the Henny Penny story, Henny Penny was walking through the forest, an acorn fell down, and she thought the sky was falling, and so she started repeating this. This is what they do on the other side. They just create mayhem and distort things to try and win their own ways. They have alarmist stories. They make alarmist comments. They stoke fear amongst people. Henny Penny was convinced that the sky was falling. She kept walking through the forest and met all her friends. She met Goosey Loosey, Ducky Lucky and Turkey Lurkey. They all joined with her. Gee, what does that remind me of? That reminds me of those on the other side. Someone gives them a line, and they just follow it straight down the line. They all join together to repeat the alarmist stories. First of all, we were going to have all the pharmacists close. I haven't seen that happen since we brought in 60-day prescriptions.

We know that those opposite are defined not by what they support but by what they oppose, because all they can say is 'no'. They say no to anything. It's not called the 'no-alition' for nothing. It's led by the Leader of the Opposition, who the Prime Minister has said has nothing positive to offer Australia. You don't come in and offer solutions; you don't have policies. I remember when we first took government. There were people on your side saying very clearly—it's in the Hansard'We don't do policies; we're the opposition.' What a disgrace. Don't come in here and try to gain a scalp over something that is completely legitimate when you guys just have no policies, you say no to everything, you object to everything and you don't want us to progress anything. I think you probably think that's the way you will win government back, but, let me tell you, you won't. (Time expired)

It's a great pleasure to rise to make some remarks in relation to this debate following question time. There were questions on the economy and the recent Voice referendum, and it is regrettable that the Voice referendum went the way that it did. I think it would have been much better if there had been a process which could have maximised the centre ground. There were many efforts to try to encourage the government to consider whether there were opportunities to have, for example, a long-running committee process that could have looked at different constitutional reform models and provided an exposure draft bill to deal with a lot of the issues around the detail. I think that ultimately, though, the problem with this process was that the government never wanted to entertain any compromises at any point in time. The failure to compromise to build common ground has led to the defeat of this referendum.

That, frankly, goes to the government's competence. I regret to say that running a process that was so important to so many people in such a poor way really does reflect very poorly on the government's ability to run things and do things. I think that is disappointing for many Australians, irrespective of how they may have voted in prior elections or how they may vote in future elections. That is the question now—its a question of competence. Can this government bring itself together and address the major economic issues of inflation and productivity? Can it address the major issue of housing in this country? Certainly, we know that the Housing Australia Future Fund won't do very much to solve the major issues in our cities and towns. We should get serious about ensuring that the Commonwealth is doing everything it can to drive more supply, because that is going to be the most consequential factor, here. We should drive more supply by incentivising the states and local governments to provide denser housing in the cities, to release more land and to ensure that developers are not squatting on land. All of those things are going to be important.

Furthermore, there is no reason why we shouldn't let Australians, particularly millennials and zoomers, use their own money in superannuation for a first home deposit. We need to find a way to tilt the scales in favour of younger Australians so that they can also get access to a first home. The greatest determinant of whether or not an Australian will have a successful retirement is whether they live in their own house. If you are a retired renter, you will, by definition, have a much tougher retirement than someone that owns their own house. Putting homeownership on the agenda should be the No. 1 priority for the government. That's alongside combating persistently high inflation—which is much higher than that of our competitors—and flagging productivity. Until we see something very serious on housing supply and addressing the demand issue, this will continue to be a problem.

For many people, the super issue is a big issue. The reality is that Labor feel so conflicted about superannuation because the funds and the people that are involved in the sector are so intimately involved with their political movement that they can't see that this is impeding many millennial and Gen Z people from being able to gather the means for a first home deposit. This is why I very much welcome that we have, on our agenda, the $50,000 policy so that people can have 50 grand of their own super for their first home. I think that policy should be significantly expanded because it is, after all, the people's money. It doesn't belong to the government, the banks or the unions. There's no reason that people who have a large mortgage shouldn't be able to use their own money in super as an offset.

These are some of the ideas we want to see the government pursue. Otherwise, what's the point of being the government? It's all well and good to be the dog who caught the car but we need to see some serious attention on housing and a bigger effort to rein in inflation, and we need to get the government to at least open the Productivity Commission reports on what they can do to improve productivity. That is the most important thing the government can do right now.

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 asked by the Leader of the Australian Greens in the Senate (Senator Waters) today relating to political donations.

We've just seen in the referendum campaign some of the worst abuses of political messaging—active misinformation and active disinformation being driven by the proponents of the 'no' vote in the referendum campaign. It was literally straight out of Donald Trump's playbook, and it was funded by corporate interests and unknown sources that pumped out on social media across the country plain straight lies about the referendum, plain straight lies about the legal impact of the changes and repeated lies about the opinions of First Nations peoples.

We've just seen a little insight into what the next federal election will be like in this country unless we take a step and put in place truth-in-political-advertising laws. Almost nine out of 10 Australians, 87 per cent, support truth-in-political-advertising laws. They do so because they're sick of being lied to. They do so because they want laws that hold the political class to account. When Minister Farrell, representing the Albanese government, was asked what is the government's view on truth in political advertising—does the Labor government align with the nine out of 10 Australians who want truth-in-political-advertising laws, or does the Labor government align with the forces who want to have another mis and disinformation campaign of Trumpian proportions in the next federal election?—the minister squibbed it and said, 'Oh, there's consideration of truth-in-political-advertising laws.'

Why did the minister squib it? Because there is very likely cooking up as we speak a deal between the Labor Party and the coalition to change our political donation laws, to change our broader electoral laws, so that they can continue to receive bucketloads of corporate donations, so that they can continue to hide the sources of the money with loophole after loophole—dark money from cash-for-access events, political front groups and other undisclosed sources—and allow that money to continue to find its way through dark and grubby paths into the bank accounts of the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, and the National Party, and to also come up with a scheme that'll see the Labor Party and the Liberal Party get extra public money and not close any of the loopholes.

Of course, we know what the price for the coalition is for entry into that little deal—it's don't touch truth-in-political-advertising laws and it's don't touch our corporate donations. That's a real threat to democracy right now. It's a threat to the fundamentals of an open democratic system when two players with such an obvious conflict of interest—they're already in receipt of bucketloads of corporate donations and already working the system to get dark money to come into their campaigns—sit down again to cut another deal to shut down the moves that the Australian public want for truth in political advertising and to find new pathways for dark money and corporate donations to fund their campaigns going forward.

There's a real choice for the Labor Party now. Does the Labor Party want to fundamentally reform our laws, to close the disclosure loopholes and to have genuine real-time disclosure in the lead-up to the next federal election? If you do, the Greens are here and I know the progressive crossbench are here to make that law as soon as possible. If the Labor Party want to get rid of the misinformation and disinformation, to have laws that hold politicians to account for lying and to de-Trump our politics, there's a pathway there too with the Greens and the progressive crossbench. Tragically, it looks like the pathway that Labor is choosing now is instead through the coalition—the kings and queens of misinformation and disinformation and their corporate mates. You choose.

Question agreed to.

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I present Human rights scrutiny report: report 11 of 2023.

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I present the 212th report of the committee.

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present reports of the committee relating to the Counter-Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023 and a review of regulations relisting Islamic State East Asia as a terrorist organisation under the Criminal Code Act 1995.

Pursuant to order and at the request of the chair of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, I present the report on the provisions of the Statutory Declarations Amendment Bill 2023, together with accompanying documents.

Pursuant to order and at the request of the chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, I present a report on the Defence Capability Assurance and Oversight Bill 2023, together with accompanying documents.

Pursuant to order and at the request of the chair of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, I present a report on the Customs Legislation Amendment (Commercial Greyhound Export and Import Prohibition) Bill 2021, together with accompanying documents.

On behalf of Senator O'Neill and the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, I present the interim report of the committee on Australia's tourism and international education sectors. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

On behalf of Senator Ciccone, I present the report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee on the performance of the Department of Defence in supporting the capability and capacity of Australia's defence industry, together with accompanying documents. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

I present Delegated legislation monitor12 of 2023 of the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation, together with ministerial correspondence. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

Delegated legislation monitor 12 of 2023 reports on the committee's consideration of 51 legislative instruments registered between 9 September 2023 and 18 September 2023. This includes 46 disallowable instruments and five instruments exempt from disallowance.

I first would like to draw the chamber's attention to the National Anti-Corruption Commission Regulations 2023. The committee first raised scrutiny concerns in relation to this instrument in September regarding issues such as the conferral of discretionary powers and availability of independent merits review. I thank the Attorney-General and his department for their constructive engagement with the committee on these matters. Further, the committee welcomes the Attorney's undertaking to update the instrument's explanatory statement to address the issues raised. I am pleased to advise that the committee has resolved to conclude our examination of this instrument, and today I did withdraw the notice of motion to disallow this instrument.

Additionally, I would like to draw the chamber's attention to two instruments, the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Environment) Regulations 2023 and the Competition and Consumer (Gas Market Code) Regulations 2023. These instruments raise a number of similar scrutiny concerns, including the availability of independent and judicial review, the use of significant penalties in delegated legislation and the inclusion of strict liability offences.

The committee raised concerns that both instruments contain significant penalty provisions that are higher than the committee's expectations for what is appropriate for inclusion in delegated legislation. The committee's longstanding view is that significant penalties should be included in primary rather delegated legislation. The committee's guidelines state that the usual expectation is that penalties in delegated legislation should not exceed 50 units for individuals and 250 for bodies corporate. These expectations align with the Attorney-General's guide to framing commonwealth offences.

For both these instruments, the committee has previously sought advice as to why it was appropriate, as a matter of principle, to include significant penalties in delegated legislation. I thank both ministers for their constructive engagement with the committee on this matter and for providing detailed responses to the committee's request for information. However, the committee reiterates its expectations in relation to the inclusion of significant penalty provisions in delegated legislation. As such, the committee will continue its engagement with relevant ministers about this issue in the future.

Regarding these instruments, the committee has also raised concerns about the inclusion of no-invalidity clauses, which have the potential to limit judicial review. In particular, the offshore petroleum instrument contains four no-validity clauses relating to the requirement for NOPSEMA to make decisions within a set time frame.

Following the committee's first request for information about this matter, the minister advised that the main intent of the clauses is to increase regulatory certainty for titleholders and to ensure the validity of NOPSEMA's decisions. Further, the no-invalidity clauses only impact a person's review rights to the extent that NOPSEMA fails to meet their decision-making time frame. The minister concluded that the provisions are therefore unnecessary. While I thank the minister for her advice, it remains unclear to the committee why the no-invalidity clauses are necessary as there are existing provisions in the instrument which allow NOPSEMA to extend decision-making time frames.

No-invalidity clauses are a serious matter as they can restrict an applicant's capacity to seek review of relevant acts or decisions. For this reason, the committee expects that they should only be used when necessary and appropriate. Further, they should be accompanied by safeguards to ensure that a person's right to seek judicial review is not unduly limited. As such, the committee will continue its engagement with the minister on the issue.

Finally, I would like to draw the chamber's attention to the Higher Education Support (Other Grants) Amendment (National Priorities Pool Program and Regional Partnerships Project Pool Program) Guidelines 2023. This instrument amends the Higher Education Support (Other Grants) Guidelines 2022 to remove the annual spending cap for the National Priorities Pool Program.

This instrument appears to significantly broaden the minister's discretionary power to determine grant amounts under this program. For this reason, the committee requested the minister's advice as to why this step was necessary and appropriate. The minister advised that removal of the spending cap was in response to the reprofiling of uncommitted funds, which resulted in more funding being available for the program. Further, the minister clarified that his discretionary powers remain limited by the general maximum payment determinations made under the enabling act. I thank the minister for his advice on this matter and for clarifying why this instrument was considered necessary and appropriate. Noting the importance of ensuring appropriate parliamentary oversight of the expenditure of public money, the committee requests the minister amend the instrument's explanatory statement to include further information on these matters.

With these comments, I commend the committee's Delegated legislation monitor 12 of 2023 to the Senate.

I rise to take note of the report and seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

On behalf of Senator Dean Smith, I present Scrutiny digest12 of 2023 of the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, together with ministerial correspondence. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

On behalf of the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, I table the interim report of the inquiry into Australia's tourism and international education sectors, Quality and integrity—the quest for sustainable growth. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and as Chair of the Trade Subcommittee, I present this interim report into international education, titled Quality and integrity—the quest for sustainable growth. With 29 recommendations, the report explores the future of Australia's international education sector post-COVID as well as options for sustainable growth in the sector.

While this interim report focuses on the international education aspect of the inquiry, it lays the foundation for the broader consideration and discussion of the significant intersection that exists between international education and tourism in modern Australia. It did come as quite a shock to the committee, Madam Acting Deputy President, that there was considerable data poverty about exactly how significant that intersection between tourism and international education is. Figures range from those in the 30s to nearly 70 per cent, so clearly it's a very, very important intersection and it will inform the continuing work of the committee. In 2019, international students contributed $40.3 billion to the Australian economy, including through education related travel, tuition fees and living expenses. The pandemic saw this number almost halve, to $22.5 billion, in 2021. Since international borders reopened in December 2021, there have been very significant signs of a recovery towards pre-pandemic levels of enrolments and commencements.

Beyond its contribution to the Australian economy, international education is an important soft power initiative. Our international alumni who return home are our greatest ambassadors and ideas brokers in both official and unofficial capacities. In this way, the international education market provides Australia with an invaluable opportunity to educate the future leaders of many of our neighbouring countries and contribute to the development of an informed and critical mindset.

The study experience of international students has a substantial impact on Australia's overall reputation, including its position as a high-quality higher education provider, and is essential in order for us to remain competitive with other countries. If we are determined to maintain our profile as a preferred nation of study, Australia must deliver on a world-class education accompanied by positive student and student family and friend experience. The relatively high cost of living and unaffordability of housing were some of the factors that were raised as negatively affecting student experience of international study here in Australia.

To address the issues raised, the committee has recommended the government encourage the expansion of domestic investment in purpose-built student accommodation. We also urge that the government work with local and state government authorities in developing appropriate local accommodation models, including homestay. Further clarification of the roles and responsibilities across the Commonwealth, state and local governments may further enhance the oversight of areas impacting international student experience.

I want to acknowledge the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Mr Neumann, who joined us for hearings on the Gold Coast, where we gathered really important information about the way in which the local council worked with education providers to overcome an immediate need for homestay, and for the quality of that project.

This is a committee that has taken evidence not just here in Canberra or in the cities; we have travelled to make sure that we captured the variations across this country in regional Australia. Acting Deputy President Polley, I know your passion for regional Australia in north Tasmania, and I note the whip from north-west Tasmania is here as well. The shape of international education looks very different in different places, and we need the full suite of responses to make it a great experience for those who come and spend time with us. Regional Australia is an amazing place for students from other contexts to come and experience Australia.

The first half of this inquiry has demonstrated that international students make really significant contributions to the communities that they stay in. This is particularly the case for regional Australia, as I was saying, where the committee heard that international students play an important role in supporting industries in those areas, such as tourism, and consumers can help fill critical skill shortages in sectors such as health.

Noting that only four per cent of all international students are actually in regional Australia, the committee believes that the government should consider additional incentives to support the promotion of the non-metropolitan areas as study destinations. This evidence was really backed in just a couple of weeks ago, when we took the committee to Victoria. I want to acknowledge the very good roadworthiness of my colleague Mr McCormack, the deputy chair, on our journeys around this country to gather evidence. We certainly heard there that there was an effort to try and integrate study with work in a way that enabled students to fill those work placement requirements to grow their skills but also to get work and payment in learning as they go forward. This is an area I think the government is giving very serious consideration to. It's very much welcomed as a model by employers in regional parts of the country who are looking for people who want to come and contribute and be part of a community as they study in a very sincere and authentic way. Such an arrangement would deal with some of the issues that we've heard about the challenge of having to have a car to get around in regional Australia, which is a very significant dissuader for some of our international students. One thing is clear: there's a great deal of interest in getting to these areas, but there's not always the opportunity being provided.

In relation to marketing Australia's higher education system abroad, the committee believes that the international education sector will be well served by adopting a 'team Australia' approach to marketing and branding. The committee hopes that this recommended initiative will not only build and maintain a national platform for the promotion of quality education offered in our country, but it will also address the issues of fragmentation, duplication and, in some cases, divisive competition that currently exist in the marketing of Australian education to the world. This is something that we hear in the trade committee all of the time. People might not know too much about Australia's federated system. When they think that they're accessing education in Australia but they're actually just talking to people from South Australia or from New South Wales, that adds to a great deal of confusion. There needs to be some smoothing over, more careful coordination and deliberate consideration of how 'team Australia' might really improve the quality of our communications to the world. Keeping in mind the current issue that the sector faces with the high concentration of students from a handful of source markets, the committee believes that 'team Australia', as proposed, should take the lead in prioritising the development of a diversification plan.

The committee heard concerning reports of fraud and criminal activity in the international education sector, including the misuse of the visa system. It cannot be denied that a minority of providers, particularly in the private VET sector, have systematically exploited Australia's education system and broken migration law to funnel vulnerable and unwilling international students into sophisticated operations that in almost all cases lead to labour exploitation and, in the worst cases, indentured slave labour and sex trafficking. This cannot be allowed to continue.

I note the recent announcement of reforms to curb the exploitation of the international education system. This report has put forward a number of measures to further assist the Australian government in stamping out unscrupulous providers and non-genuine students. Some of these measures include reviewing the settings and the framework for the international education regulatory bodies to ensure they empower proactive risk analysis and on-the-ground quality assurance practices.

The committee understands that, in addition to the fragmentation of regulatory arrangements, the lack of coherent information sharing and analysis hampers the ability of the Commonwealth agencies to detect and respond to fraud and criminal activities. It is the committee's opinion that the government should look to implement a more substantial information and data-sharing platform that has the capability of identifying potential trends and supports forward planning across agency risk mitigation.

Finally, given the Department of Education and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations have policy oversight of the higher education system, it's the committee's view that both departments should be empowered to take the lead role in advising the Minister for Education and the Minister for Skills and Training respectively on whether policy objectives are being achieved in full, including those that are dependent on actions in other Commonwealth portfolios and agencies. Both departments should ensure that appropriate and wholistic measures are include in its annual performance statement.

On behalf of the committee, I extend my thanks to the many stakeholders and submitters who contributed their time and experience to the inquiry. In particular, I want to thank the international students who engaged with the committee for this inquiry. I also thank the deputy chair and all the committee members, particularly Mr Hill for his knowledge, and their general collegiate approach, and the secretariat for their support during this inquiry. I commend the report to the Senate. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

I rise to take note of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee's interim report on the performance of the Department of Defence in supporting the capability and capacity of Australia's defence industry, and I thank Senator Urquhart for moving that the Senate take note of the report.

I called for this inquiry because recent events, such as COVID-19—the pandemic that caused devastation not just here but also around the world—and Russia's unjust and illegal invasion of Ukraine, have exposed the vulnerability and the volatility of poorly secured global supply chains. It is essential that Australia critically assesses the resilience of our supply chains and considers how to strengthen areas of sovereign capability that are essential to our national security.

The prospect of a major power competition in the Indo-Pacific has the potential to threaten Australia's interests and increase the risk of conflict. When undertaking capability acquisition we can no longer take for granted the peace and prosperity in our region that was underpinned by the leadership of the United States. Developing our understanding of how much the Australian Defence Force can fulfil its needs and support our allies through domestic industry is essential if we are going to make smart choices about defence policy and adequately fulfil our role in the Indo-Pacific.

From the inquiry, it is apparent that the existing capabilities of Australia's defence industry are poorly leveraged and there are opportunities to enhance the national security contribution of these capabilities. A consistent theme from submissions to date to the inquiry is that sovereign industrial capability priorities are significantly flawed. The abundance of priorities listed leaves our defence industry without direction. When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Consolidating and narrowing our sovereign industrial capability priorities would provide industry with the clarity and confidence that it needs to invest in research and development, innovation and commercialisation.

Developing and maintaining a skilled defence industry workforce capable of achieving Australia's sovereign capability ambitions is essential.

The interim report notes the committee's view that we should examine the idea of creating a dedicated plan to develop Australia's defence and adjacent industry workforce capacity. It was great to see Minister O'Connor earlier this week announce the new National Skills Agreement, which identifies developing skills for our national security as a top priority.

A comprehensive national strategy on sovereign capability requires a robust assessment of Australia's supply chain strengths and vulnerabilities and needs to identify what Australia can design, build and sustain locally and what can be sourced from our international partners. It is important to note that strengthening our sovereign capability does not require abandoning foreign military sales, as this would not be desirable. Sovereign capability is not just about developing our own domestic industry, though this is, of course, important. It is also about strengthening our relationships with trusted allies and partners to boost the capabilities available to Australia through resilient supply chains.

Something identified consistently across many submissions was the number of barriers and challenges faced by Australia's defence industry when it engages with the Department of Defence's procurement processes. Defence-adjacent industries—including private technology, manufacturing and universities—are also not adequately brought into the defence procurement process. Throughout the inquiry we heard that Australian industries were eager to participate in the supply chain, but because of the lack of clarity and guidance they have been unable to make investments in the areas that are most essential. What is clear is that Defence has work to do to improve its communication and collaboration with industry.

As the committee continues to work, it is important that it focuses on which priority areas of sovereign capability Australia should maintain and develop, as well as identifying how we can alleviate deficiencies in our current defence procurement processes. I thank committee colleagues for the work to date on this inquiry. There are still many months to go to hear from individuals and organisations who have made a written submission. I look forward to further engagement and contributions to the inquiry through the upcoming public hearings.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

I rise to speak on document No. 9, the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee report Adequacy of Australia's biosecurity measures and response preparedness, in particular with respect to foot-and-mouth disease and varroa mite and the government response. From the outset, I'd just like to say that the federal coalition absolutely welcomed this report and the work that the committee undertook from July 2022 when foot-and-mouth disease was on our doorstep in Indonesia. The committee's report, which was published in December 2022, outlined a wide range of notes and recommendations that we appreciate.

It then took nine months for the government to prepare their response. It would've been good to have seen the response much earlier, given that we face the incursion of varroa mite, that we have seen red fire ants start to cross containment boundaries and that we still have the threat of both foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease knocking on our doors.

This report and this issue of biosecurity are so important because having a strong and robust biosecurity system in our island nation is crucial for protecting our nation against the threats of pests and diseases. Biosecurity is a critical pillar of our national defence, and having an efficient system in place allows our nation to prepare for, to militate against and to respond to the serious risks to our environment, our economy and our very way of life.

Exotic pests and diseases are spreading around the world, and they're putting serious pressure on all of our borders, especially with the likes of foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease. This year alone, we've seen Indonesia putting export bans on some of our live export ships because they've suspected lumpy skin disease. Thankfully, we've been able to prove that that did not occur in Australia and we have been able to regain those export markets. But that just goes to show how serious and significant is the risk of not addressing biosecurity adequately.

I want to note that the majority of the government's response to this report identifies a number of really important biosecurity measures—measures that the federal coalition, when we were in government, had already committed to. They included the measure for millions of dollars that we invested in establishing the pests and weeds program, with the annual cost established for the vertebrate pest animals program to amount to around $800 million, with about $4 billion in terms of production losses that could be faced without an adequate weeds program.

Our government committed to the establishment of a Chief Environmental Biosecurity Officer. We coordinated the national action for established pest animals, and we committed $68.4 million over four years from 2021-22 to develop a national approach to improve traceability. We also committed $1.1 million for horse traceability and $2.3 million to support the Modernising Agricultural Trade traceability grants program, which helps embed technology and innovation into our agricultural supply chain and traceability systems. And we established the Biosecurity Training Centre via an agreement with Charles Sturt University. We were a government absolutely committed to biosecurity and ensuring that our biosecurity processes were top of the line, were keeping up with international best practice and, importantly, were funded.

As I said before, when this inquiry commenced in July 2022, when foot-and-mouth disease was right on our doorstep, we knew what the cost would be had foot-and-mouth disease entered our nation. The cost to our farmers and livestock industry would have been an $80 billion hit to the Australian economy. When the disease was first detected—

Senator Davey, your time has expired.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

On behalf of the Minister for Government Services, Mr Shorten, I table a ministerial statement on the Security Risk Management Review into staff safety at Services Australia.

I table documents relating to an order for the production of documents concerning the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

I move:

That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

I table a revised explanatory memorandum relating to the bill and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

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

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

At last year's federal election, Labor made a promise to deliver the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

We promised to deliver it in full, as it was designed, in line with the science.

And with this legislation today, we are fulfilling that promise to the river system and every Australian who depends on it.

Two weeks ago, our government struck an historic agreement with New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia the ACT.

It was an agreement to deliver the plan, the full plan, after a decade of sabotage and delay.

It's a reasonable agreement, a balanced agreement.

An agreement that took more than a year of detailed consultation to piece together.

We've worked with states and territories, with farmers and irrigators, with scientists and experts, with environmentalists and First Nations groups.

We have discussed these matters in good faith and at considerable length.

Now is the time to act.

This bill offers more time, more options, more money, and more accountability. It delivers more water for the environment.

More certainty for farmers and industry.

More financial support for affected communities. More protection for native plants and animals.

And more hope for the future of Australia's most important river system.

W e can never forget why Australian governments designed the Murray Darling Basin Plan in the first place.

When the rain is falling, when our dams are full and healthy, it can be tempting to push the reality of drought out of our minds.

But drought is part of the Australian condition.

We can pray for more respite. We can hope for more breathing space. But as long as we live on this continent, it will always come back.

We only have to cast our minds back three years, to our last drought. When the Darling River stopped flowing for more than 400 days.

When farming communities were brought to their knees, desperate for water.

And when millions of native fish died, all at once, in gruesome environmental massacres that were broadcast around the world.

That is why we have a Murray Darling Basin Plan in this country. To help us through the dry years.

To make sure there's enough water flowing through the river system in its lowest moments. To make it to the next rain.

And while we've just experienced three years of flooding rain, we know that can't last forever.

In fact, we have good reason to fear that the pendulum is already swinging back.

We're living through the shift right now, from La Nina to El Nino. Parts of Australia are already experiencing drought conditions.

And across much of the Basin, we're observing less rainfall, higher temperatures, and a landscape that is visibly drying out beneath our feet.

R esponsible governments plan for tough times.

They don't wait for them to arrive, when it's too late. They prepare their defences well in advance.

And that is what we're doing with this legislation.

Unfortunately, that is not something I can say for the previous government. The truth is—this plan should be almost delivered by now.

The original deadlines were set for June 2024.

And in the early years, we were well on track to hit them.

But since then, the Coalition has waged an insidious war against the plan.

They tied up projects in impossible rules, so they couldn't deliver water savings.

They blocked water recovery programs.

And they tried to cut the final recovery targets, to keep them below scientific recommendations.

As a result, progress slowed to a dribble under the previous government.

With all that stalling, all that sabotage, it's now impossible to deliver the plan in our original timeline.

That's what the Murray Darling Basin Authority advised me, in July this year. We're too far behind, we've wasted too much time.

Which is why this legislation is necessary.

This bill is needed to reset the timelines, to loosen the rules that are strangling water recovery, and to offer a new path to delivering the plan in full.

It's about making the necessary changes, to finish the job that we started.

And the first of these changes is altering the rules around the 450 gigalitres of environmental water.

Nothing expresses the Coalition's contempt for the Murray Darling Basin Plan like their record on the 450.

In nine years, they delivered just two gigalitres of the 450.

Which put them on track to complete the plan sometime around the year 4,000.

We delivered more in nine months than they did in those nine years.

And now we've delivered or contracted 26 gigalitres in total.

This parcel of water was always part of the plan, despite what the Coalition has said.

It's there because the river needs it.

This 450 gigalitre target has its own funding mechanism: the Water for the Environment Special Account.

There's less than a year to go in its original term, and only five per cent of the recovery task is within sight—and yet $1.3 billion remains in the account.

That is a scandal.

The Coalition knew it wasn't working.

They were told it wasn't working, again and again. They were told in the first WESA report.

And they were told in the second WESA report, which they kept secret.

They knew the program had stalled completely, but for nine years, they kept the handbrake on water recovery.

What this legislation does is remove that handbrake, so we can finally deliver the water.

That means giving the account more flexibility, in line with the Water Act's objectives.

With these changes, we are opening up the full suite of water recovery options.

We'll be able to invest in on-farm water infrastructure, in land and water purchases, and in other novel water recovery mechanisms, where it's sensible to do so.

We will be able to count recovery above Bridging the Gap targets towards the 450 gigalitre target.

And we will be able to purchase water from willing sellers, where it's needed to deliver the plan.

Water purchase is never the only tool in the box, it's not the first tool at hand, but it has to be one of them.

I acknowledge that this is a sensitive topic.

And our government will always approach it as sensitively as possible. Farmers in the Basin produce 40% of Australia's agricultural output.

This is critical, nation building work. And when a community is affected by change, we will never leave them behind.

We will provide significant transitional assistance, if these voluntary water purchases have secondary impacts on communities.

The pool of assistance available to Basin communities is more than any previous government has provided.

It will help communities respond to change, while also developing new economic opportunities.

These amendments offer us a way forward, on the largest remaining component of the plan.

They are reasonable, they're sensitive to river communities, and they're something all parties can support.

The second major change in this legislation is to the Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism.

These projects are designed to achieve environmental outcomes, while keeping water in productive use.

Currently, 16 of the 36 these projects are not forecast to be ready and operational by July next year.

And of the 605 gigalitres the projects are meant to keep in productive use, more than half may not be realised.

It's clear that some of the original projects will never be delivered.

If we're to going to achieve the full plan, we need to give the states more time to complete the viable projects.

That is what the states have asked for.

And this Bill gives them that extension—until 31 December 2026. The onus is now on Basin states to finish projects they have started.

And it's on Basin states to bring forward any new ones that can be completed by the new deadline, to reduce the amount of water we will need to purchase.

Some of the projects aim to relax constraints on the way rivers run, so they better mimic nature.

This agreement allows for a package of 'no regrets' constraints measures to be delivered by 31 December 2026—and supports its full completion beyond 2026, subject to the recommendations of the Basin Plan Review.

It includes an implementation roadmap, to be developed next year by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, in partnership with NSW and Victoria, that will help guide and drive progress on relieving constraints.

I recognise that more time will not solve everything.

That is why we are abolishing another impediment to achieving the plan.

Currently the Commonwealth can purchase another 270 gigalitres of water before the 1500 gigalitre cap is reached.

This Bill includes an amendment to scrap that cap.

As with the 450 gigalitre target, voluntary water purchases are not the government's first choice, but they need to be on the table, if we're serious about meeting these Murray Darling Basin Plan targets.

Success also rests on stronger assurance and accountability measures.

Which is why this bill also clarifies powers of the Inspector-General of Water Compliance.

This will help the Inspector-General effectively monitor states, and to hold them to account, if more water is extracted from our rivers than is allowed.

And the Commonwealth will also be more accountable, with an additional independent review scheduled for 2025.

This review will assess progress in delivering the remaining $1.3 billion in the Water for the Environment Special Account.

The third part of this bill involves substantial and overdue reform to Australia's water market.

Water markets are an important part of our agricultural system. But as things currently stand, they lack integrity and transparency.

There are no laws against market manipulation. The insider trading prohibition is too narrow.

And the legal requirement to maintain proper records is too weak.

As a result, there's been widespread mistrust in the system, across regional Australia.

Two years ago, the ACCC examined this market in some depth, and found that its rules were inadequate and needed to be reformed.

And there's widespread consensus, across government, across the farming sector, across this parliament, that we need to improve this regulation.

And that is what this legislation will do.

Making the sector more transparent, more open, more accountable.

The Bill introduces the framework to create an enforceable, mandatory Code for water market intermediaries.

It introduces civil penalties for market manipulation and doubles the penalty for insider trading.

And as the Code and conduct regulator, it will allow the ACCC to monitor water prices and investigate misconduct allegations.

This will bring water markets into line with the standards in other markets.

These changes will penalise bad behaviour. And they will also increase public transparency.

This Bill also requires the Commonwealth, Basin States and Irrigation Infrastructure Operators to make water market decisions available publicly.

There will be new obligations on Basin states and territory governments, irrigation infrastructure operators and water exchanges, to generate, record, collect and report water markets information.

The Bureau of Meteorology will collate this information from across the Basin and make it publicly available on a Water Data Hub, with live market updates on a new Water Markets website.

And the Inspector-General of Water Compliance will have new powers to monitor and enforce the new data reporting obligations.

T hese changes will help secure Australia's water future, through the next dry stretch, and beyond.

That is how we will be judged as a parliament. Not by how we do when the rain is falling.

But how we prepare for when it's not. And that is what we're doing with this bill. Listening to the science.

Working with states and territories. Supporting communities through change. Delivering the plan.

And keeping this river system healthy and sustainable for our kids and grandkids.

This is not a question of prioritising the environment over agriculture, or agriculture over the environment.

Because the truth is, we need both, and each depends on the other to survive. We can't have a healthy rural economy without a sustainable river system.

And we won't have a prosperous Basin without secure farmers.

These farmers understand the immense value of water. They're as adaptable and efficient as any in the world.

Despite having less water available since 2005, Basin irrigators are producing the same agricultural output.

These communities have pushed hard, they've made sacrifices. And the Basin Plan is already making a difference.

In 2019, during another record drought, we managed to restart the Barwon- Darling River with environmental water.

Hundreds of kilometres of river benefited from this water—and every town along the way celebrated its journey south.

We know it's working. But it's not enough.

The 2019 release offered hope, but it only dribbled into the Bourke weir pool, leaving the downstream river dry for more than year.

Now the iconic Murray Cod may never return to this stretch of river.

And down in the Coorong, flows over the last decade have been persistently below targets.

We have to keep going. We have to finish what we started.

Because water management is only going to get more difficult in this country. Rainfall patterns are changing. Temperatures are changing.

Climate change means that we'll get more variable rain in the north and less rain in the southeast.

Which means that Basin flows could fall by as much as thirty percent by 2050. Water will always involve difficult discussions in this country.

But that can't be an excuse to shy away from making the necessary decisions.

We don't want to wake up one day to a dead river system and realise that we could have done something to stop it.

We don't want to sleepwalk our way into an environmental and social catastrophe.

That is not a future anyone here should be willing to contemplate. We need to act now.

We need to protect this river system. For the communities that depend on it. For the families who farm it.

For the native plants and animals that draw life from it. I commend the bill to the House.

In accordance with standing order 115(3) further consideration of this bill is now adjourned until 8 November 2023.

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.

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—

PUBLIC HEALTH (TOBACCO AND OTHER PRODUCTS) BILL 2023

Today I am introducing the Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Bill 2023.

This Bill builds on the pioneering tobacco control reforms introduced by past Labor Governments, including Australia's world-leading tobacco plain packaging reforms.

It's an honour to stand here today to build on the legacy of my predecessor Nicola Roxon. Tobacco plain packaging was bold policy achieved in the face of some often savage legal and rhetorical assault. It was imaginative policy. And it was world- leading policy. We know that because 26 countries since then have followed Australia's example. It's a· policy that has saved lives and will continue to save lives.

When my predecessor the honourable Nicola Roxon introduced plain packaging, around 16% of Australians smoked, and today that rate is down to just under 11%. The equivalent of 1 million fewer Australians smoking.

The health impacts of that are just enormous. These reforms will mean tens of thousands of families will never have to struggle through the tragedy of seeing a loved one suffer with lung cancer, and the vast range of other diseases caused by smoking. Hopefully, countless lives saved.

But the gains of those world leading reforms have been squandered. We were a world-leader in 2011. We are a laggard today.

Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death and disability among Australians. It is estimated to kill more than 20 thousand Australians each year. It is also the risk factor that is the greatest contributor to the health gap between First Nations people and other Australians.

While Australia's plain packaging measures have made it harder for the tobacco industry to promote its products via packaging and brand design features, Big Tobacco has found new loopholes to promote its products and increase their appeal, particularly to young people.

It again falls to a Labor Government to close the loopholes that undermine our tobacco control measures and shield Australians against the tricks and tactics of the tobacco industry.

The tobacco regulations that were put in place by the Labor Government in 2011 sunset on 1 April 2024. As such, the current suite of regulations for plain packaging and tobacco advertising will lapse unless we take action now.

Australia's Commonwealth tobacco control framework, including the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act, the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act and their associated regulations, have been the subject of a thematic review.

The thematic review involved a comprehensive analysis of options to modernise the existing legislative framework for tobacco control, ensuring it remains fit-for-purpose, addresses current gaps and limitations, and assists with tackling future challenges in tobacco control.

This includes identifying options to enable Australian laws to keep up with the changing tobacco and technological environment, to address challenges such as novel and emerging products and marketing strategies.

Feedback from two broad consultations undertaken in 2019 established that there is a need for ongoing regulation to achieve the Government's objectives with respect to tobacco control, and regulatory improvements are essential. To this end, on 30 November 2022, the Government announced a suite of reforms (in the form of this Bill and proposed regulations) to bring together current legislation and introduce new measures to reduce tobacco prevalence, with a particular focus on youth and young adults.

Public consultation, including the release of an exposure draft of the proposed reforms for 6 weeks from 31 May 2023 to 14 July 2023, has informed the content of this Bill. These reforms represent a renewed focus on improving the public health of Australians by discouraging smoking and the use of tobacco products, while also being in lockstep with the vaping measures that I announced in May.

This Bill consolidates the existing Commonwealth tobacco control framework into one Act with associated regulations, thereby streamlining the operation of the laws. It modernises and simplifies the existing provisions and introduces new measures to discourage smoking and prevent the promotion of vaping and e-cigarettes.

The Bill reflects the Australian Government's ongoing commitment to improving the health of all Australians by reducing the prevalence of tobacco use and its associated health, social, environmental costs, and the inequalities it causes.

This commitment is consistent with Australia's obligations as a Party to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the FCTC, the international treaty which aims to protect present and future generations from the harms of tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke. These reforms also reflect the best available evidence and experience of other international regulators, such as Canada, New Zealand and Uruguay.

The Bill will complement the 2023-2030 National Tobacco Strategy, which aims to achieve a national daily smoking prevalence of less than 10% by 2025 and 5% or less by 2030, and prioritises tackling smoking in First Nations communities, to reduce the daily smoking rate to 27% or less by 2030.

Without further action by governments, current settings and tobacco control measures are unlikely to achieve these targets.

Among other things, this Bill will provide for:

The Bill will allow the introduction of regulations to provide for:

The powers provided in the Bill to make new regulations will allow the Government to be responsive to any new approaches introduced by the tobacco industry to promote smoking, and to ensure that policies can continue to be informed by best practice and emerging evidence.

The main objective of these reforms is to reduce the daily smoking prevalence by discouraging uptake among people who do not smoke, and increasing cessation among people who do smoke.

Additional objectives include ensuring that Australia's tobacco control regulatory framework aligns with international best practice and that Australia meets its international obligations.

Globally, we have seen the momentum on tobacco control continue with more than 20 countries implementing plain packaging in the years since Australia led the way.

At the same time, we have seen international regulators build on Australia's model for plain packaging through the introduction of standardised cigarette pack sizes and products, and regulation of product design features. We have worked closely with these countries to ensure that we learn from their experience and create strong legislation that is effective and appropriate to the Australian context.

This Government is determined to see Australia reclaim its position as a world leader on tobacco control because quite frankly, lives are at stake. Disadvantaged Australians are paying the price for Big Tobacco's profits.

The Bill also allows Australia to be agile and adaptable, via the regulations, to the ever-changing landscape that is tobacco control.

This ensures that Australia is well placed to apply new policies and adjust controls to further reduce smoking prevalence and address new and novel challenges in the tobacco market.

Although these reforms seek to regulate advertising and promotion of e-cigarettes, they do not address the broader regulation of e-cigarette availability and supply. This will be regulated separately.

The Government has committed to introducing new controls on e-cigarette importation, contents and packaging and is working with states and territories to address the black market for e- cigarettes through the therapeutic goods framework and stronger border measures.

This Bill signals the dedication of Government to reignite the fight against tobacco, and eliminate the health, social and environmental inequalities caused by smoking and nicotine addiction.

It provides the foundations for the successful implementation of a number of policies and activities, as outlined in the National Tobacco Strategy, to improve the health of all Australians.

I conclude by saying again that the Government is determined to do all we can to tackle the harms caused by smoking.

I would like to thank those organisations who continue to drive further tobacco control reform in Australia. We want to ensure that, in the future, people don't take up smoking in the first place.

Make no mistake, just as with Labor's world leading plain packaging reforms, these reforms may be hard fought. We wouldn't be doing our job if they weren't.

The tobacco industry continues to have deep pockets and powerful friends.

This Government is up for the fight because we fight on behalf of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society, who bear the brunt of these tobacco company profits.

We're going to bring the same spirit of courage, spirit of action, the same clarity of thought, and I hope the same conviction that Nicola Roxon brought to plain packaging reforms 12 years ago, and we're going to reaffirm Australia's reputation as a world leader in tobacco control.

PUBLIC HEALTH (TOBACCO AND OTHER PRODUCTS) (CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS AND TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS) BILL 2023

The Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) (Consequential and Transitional) Bill 2023 contains consequential amendments and transitional provisions which are required to give effect to the consolidation of the tobacco control legislation in the Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Bill 2023.

This Bill contains a number of amendments to existing Acts that are required as a consequence of changes to current references to legislation.

The Bill also sets out the timing of transition to the new requirements.

While the Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Bill 2023 consolidates and improves on the existing tobacco framework into one Bill with associated regulation, thereby streamlining the operation of the laws, this Bill facilitates the transition to the new regime.

The Bill repeals a number of instruments including the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011 and the Tobacco Advertising and Prohibition Act 1992 as a result of their consolidation in the main Bill. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts to update references to the new legislation.

The Bill provides application, saving and transitional provisions to allow a smooth transition to the new requirements, including the ability to comply with either the new or old regime during the main transitional period.

It provides for a main transitional period of 12 months along with a retailer transition period of a further 3 months to allow for sell-through of stock.

In conclusion, this Bill supports the main Bill in modernising, simplifying and consolidating our efforts in tobacco control.

In accordance with standing order 115(3), further consideration of these bills is now adjourned to 22 November 2023.

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

by leave—I move:

That senators be appointed to committees as follows:

Electoral Matters—Joint Standing Committee—

Appointed—Senator Reynolds

National Anti-Corruption Commission—Joint Statutory Committee—

Appointed—Senator McGrath

Question agreed to.

I recall this debate well. I think I had a minute and—oh, more than I thought.

More than you need.

More than I need, and probably more than my colleagues deserve to hear.

This motion, as I was indicating a few weeks ago, is in Senator McKenzie's name, and it references transparency and accountability and then goes on to use the phrase 'rank hypocrisy'. I think I indicated a few weeks ago that the gravitational force of that name and those phrases being in the same paragraph together is probably enough to make planets collapse and solar systems collide. Senator Scarr has a contribution here.

Senator Scarr?

Acting Deputy President: personal reflection on Senator McKenzie. Perhaps, just for the benefit of the comity of the chamber, Senator Ayres might be willing to withdraw.

Senator Ayres, considering I was reading materials for what's about to come and I wasn't listening as closely I might normally be, I ask you to assist the chamber by withdrawing.

I'm very happy to withdraw, on a Thursday afternoon, anything I might have said that might offend anybody in any way. There is a high level of sensitivity on the other side of the chamber, I have to say, at any point where there is a collision between the things that they complain about today and the things that they did over the course of the nine sorry years between 2013 and 2022. Those were very sorry years for Australia indeed.

Of course, while all the partisan points have been made in relation to Qatar Airways, the government has been getting on with the job. The decision that the minister made in relation to those questions was uncontroversial and, in fact, identical to decisions made by previous coalition ministers before her. The government has considered carefully the issues and has directed the ACCC to continue monitoring developments in the aviation industry, and that will be in the interests of aviation passengers.

I rise to make a contribution on this matter, if I could. First I acknowledge that Senator Ayres was gracious in his withdrawal late on a Thursday afternoon. The point I will make is this. This is not like previous decisions, on a number of bases. The first is that the department contacted the minister and recommended or sought a negotiating mandate with Qatar, and that negotiating mandate was not pursued. It simply didn't make sense, in a context where there are capacity issues in terms of flights out of major hubs in Australia such as Sydney, Melbourne and, in my home state of Queensland, the airport of Brisbane—which Senator James McGrath is very familiar with, as he spends a lot of time there, as I do—for at least some of the sought-after additional flights not to be granted permission. It simply didn't make any sense.

In the context of my home state of Queensland, it is probably one of the few occasions when Senator McGrath—I think I can speak for him on this—and I agreed with the Labor Deputy Premier, Steven Miles, who made the point that Queensland needed those additional flights. The department advised the minister that negotiations could be entered into with Qatar so that perhaps some—not all but some—of the flights sought by Qatar could be granted landing rights. The minister did not take up that negotiating platform and simply refused to allow any flights to be given those sought-after landing rights at the airports in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. That is the issue.

The question is: what happened in the discussions between the minister and Qantas and, in particular, the then chief executive officer of Qantas? What happened in those discussions? In the name of transparency—which is referred to in my colleague Senator McKenzie's motion that is before the chamber—the Australian people have a right to know the bases upon which the minister refused to grant those additional flights. Why do they have a right to know? Because they're paying too much to go overseas and visit relatives or for tourist purposes or for whatever purpose. They're paying too much. That's the basis upon which the Australian people have a right to know why those flights were denied. This isn't about us. It's about the Australian people having access to cost-effective flights in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. This is a real, material issue for the people in my home state of Queensland. This debate has been going on for some time. On that point, I agree with Senator Ayres. But the reason it has been going on for some time is that the information, the relevant explanation, hasn't been provided.

At one stage, the debate was distracted by human rights issues arising from an incident in Qatar a number of years ago, but it didn't make any sense at all that the minister would say that there is an opportunity for Qatar to have flights out of Adelaide but not out of the airports of the more populous cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane because of human rights issues. If human rights were the issue, the decision should have applied across Australia. It just didn't make sense. The Australian people want to know what is going on here, because they have a right to, and we have an obligation, as the Australian parliament, to make sure, as far as we can, that the Australian public have access to cost-effective plane travel. That's the whole crux of the issue here.

We're still debating this after several months, at the end of a sitting week, on a Thursday afternoon, because that information, that explanation, has not been provided in a way that makes sense—not to us but to the Australian people. This issue is only being pursued because the Australian public are still asking questions. What is going on? Why did the minister make that decision? Provide the information. Tell us the basis for the decision. It is simply not good enough to respond to the legitimate questions which have been raised by senators in this place by saying, 'My decision was made in the national interest.' I'm sorry; that's not good enough in circumstances where, when you look objectively at the evidence, it doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make sense why you wouldn't have provided a competitor to Qantas with those landing rights, which would have meant that Australians could have accessed flights at a lower price because of the resultant competition. That's the crux of the issue. No more, no less—that's the crux of the issue. That's why we on this side of the chamber have been diligently prosecuting this issue. We will keep prosecuting this issue because it is of great significance to the Australian people and because the Australian people have a right to know why this decision was made. This decision has had a negative impact on their ability to book air travel at the lowest price practicable. That's why we're raising the issue, and we will keep raising the issue. I commend my colleague Senator McKenzie for taking such a leadership role in terms of the prosecution of this issue.

The question is that the motion moved by the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate be agreed to. We cannot divide, as it is after 4.30, so the matter will be considered in a deferred vote in accordance with the usual processes.

For those listening in their offices, they should note that the adjournment debate has commenced.

Don't tell them!

I'm a gracious person, Senator Ciccone, just like you. I can't help it. I can't change who I am. It's good to end the week with a good news story, especially after the last few weeks we've had in terms of what's going on in the world. In terms of my adjournment contribution tonight, I rise to pay tribute to tribute to a wonderful sporting club in South-East Queensland, in my home state, the Slacks Creek Rugby League Club. It has been an absolute privilege on my part to get to know the members of the Slacks Creek Rugby League Club. I'm just so impressed at the culture and the spirit within the Slacks Creek Rugby League Club. Madam Acting Deputy President O'Neill, Senator Ayres, Senator Ciccone and Senator Smith, all of us have the privilege as senators to get to know organisations, sporting organisations and community groups that do such a wonderful job and are so selfless in terms of their contribution to our community, and the Slacks Creek Rugby League Club fall four-square within that definition.

In this adjournment contribution, I wish to refer to three recent events that exemplify the wonderful community spirit of the Slacks Creek Rugby League Club in my home state of Queensland. The first was on 12 August earlier this year. A fundraiser was held for Mr Timothy Burke. The Slacks Creek Rugby League Club has described Timothy as—and I quote—'one of our own local community legends'. Timothy was the Zone 4 coordinator for the Brisbane Rugby League Referees Association. He was passionate about mentoring young referees. That is just so important in this day and age. To have sporting competitions, we need referees. To have a pipeline of refugees, we need young referees. So it is important to give young people as much support as possible to become referees. That's what Timothy did, as well as refereeing himself.

Timothy recently received a devastating diagnosis of motor neurone disease. In response to that, the Slacks Creek Rugby League Club wrapped their arms around him and his family and put on this fundraiser on 12 August 2023, which I had the privilege of attending—and it was a privilege. Where would you put the politicians when they attend search an event? With the referees at the referee table so that we could share stories of how we receive criticism for doing our work. I want to pay tribute to each of those referees who were there that night who attended in solidarity for Timothy and his family, including his beautiful wife, Tracey, and also other clubs represented there, including the Springwood Suns Cricket Club, netball clubs and football clubs. The whole community rallied to attend that fundraising event for Timothy Burke because of the esteem in which Timothy is held by that community.

The second event which occurred recently in terms of the club was that the under-16s made the grand final. I want to quote what Mr Shayne Western, who is in the leadership team at the Slacks Creek Rugby League Club, wrote about them making the grand final:

These young teenagers made the club proud with the way they conducted themselves all year, and just to make the grand final was a wonderful achievement.

Congratulations to the under-16s. They went down 24-12, but they went down fighting. They are a wonderful group of young Australians.

Lastly, I note that Harrison Western and Thomas Burke, two young junior international referees from Slacks Creek Rugby League Club, were chosen to go to Sydney and enjoy an NRL referee engagement day. Not only that; Harrison Western had the well-earned privilege of being chosen by the NRL to hand out the Adam Gees Medal, the NRL referee medal, at the end of the game. Congratulations, Harrison! Congratulations, Slacks Creek Rugby League Club! You're a wonderful institution and you do great work for the community.

The recent episode of Four Corners gave a disturbing insight into the insidious influence of the gas industry on the Western Australian government and its institutions. In my home city of Boorloo Perth, all you need to do to find out who really runs this town is to look up. We live our literal lives in the shadows of Woodside, Rio Tinto and BHP—and let us not forget good old Chevron! Their giant logos inscribe our skyline, glowing as bright as bushfires and as brilliant as the wealth they accrue by ransacking sovereign country. A shockingly meagre slice of that wealth buys this industry incredible control over our decision-making processes and the government and institutions meant to help us. For the bargain basement price of a few hundred thousand dollars donated to the major parties each year, they snap up the loyalty of ministers, the protection of police and the complicity of media, and they leave the rest of the Western Australian community to pick up the real tab.

The former Labor leader, Mark McGowan, who resigned as Premier, has made the rapid transition into the corporate world, quickly taking up positions with companies that, only weeks before, he had been legislating in relation to. Isn't that perverse? Premier one day, regulating a corporation, paid member of the board the next. When we look at this situation more broadly it is no wonder that WA is lagging behind the rest of the country when it comes to environmental protection laws. It is no wonder that back in 2019 Mr McGowan commanded the head of the EPA to withdraw ambitious new emissions guidelines. You wouldn't want to muck up that nice transition pathway, now would you!

On the other side of that same dirty coin, Four Corners gave us a first-hand insight into the effect this state capture—let's be really clear; this is state capture—has on our democratic system that is meant to serve the community. In Western Australia, peaceful climate activists are facing the full brunt of an industry absolutely livid that their authority is being challenged. These industries have rolled out and called in the political favours owed to them, due to those donations, and the full tactical defence of their industries and their interests by public institutions that are under their control. They have called in the debts in their defence and they now go into battle against climate activists calling for government to respond to the reality of the climate crisis. So the system springs into action to threaten peaceful activists, protesters exercising their democratic rights, applying to them weapons of fear, silence and submission. In at least one case, in Western Australia in 2013, a gun was pulled on a young university student with more conviction in his pinkie finger than the entire Western Australian government put together.

The scientific consensus has long been conclusive. We have a moral and existential obligation to transition away from fossil fuels. The mining and burning of coal and gas is a key reason that we now face a climate crisis. In this critical decade for climate action we need to keep the stuff in the round. Woodside's Burrup Hub mega project in Murujuga, in the north-west of Western Australia, is a disaster for climate and culture, and the Greens will continue to be in solidarity with activists that are calling out that reality and engaging in nonviolent direct action to oppose it.

As is relatively well known, I carry in my handbag a copy of two important things that matter a great deal to me, the United Nations declaration on human rights and my rosary beads. But, after my experience on Tuesday evening, I believe I might need to make a regular small addition of a small blue booklet commonly known as the Australian passport. I have always appreciated it, but the way it was revered by fellow Australians on Tuesday evening at Sydney Airport gave that little blue book a brand-new tinge in my eyes.

At Sydney Airport, in a specifically sealed terminal, I saw elated Australians waving their small Aussie passports with tears in their eyes, tears of joy, and happiness on faces, beaming with the knowledge that they had finally come home. I saw them reunited with their loved ones, safe in Australia. You can imagine, colleagues, the full range of emotions that were on display. They were people of all shapes and sizes, people of different faiths, people who were on holidays, people living right near the border with Gaza in kibbutz and people who were of deep faith, old and young, and friends of ours from the Pacific who had returned on the plane as well. As the families embraced each other, I witnessed the great weight that they had been carrying melt away and the worry that murder might be on the other side of a door slipping away with the importance of peacefulness in Australia. They understood in body and spirit that they were safe at last.

I also witnessed the great strength of community welcome and the support for those who were arriving. I want to acknowledge the leadership of my colleague in the New South Wales parliament, Premier Minns, and the amazing service team who gathered around that evening at short notice to provide an incredible service to these returning Australians. Rabbi Mendel Kastel stood alongside a Hebrew translator. DFAT were there, and the returnees were full of praise for what DFAT and the Australian government had done for them. The Red Cross, social workers from the New South Wales government, Superintendent Hart, of the New South Wales Police Force, Australian Border Force and the National Emergency Management Agency were all there ensuring that every single person was accounted and cared for. Rabbi Mendel Kastel, I might add, was also anxiously waiting for his daughter to arrive on the next emergency flight, and he gleefully showed us the images of her that the foreign minister, Minister Wong, had tweeted just days before.

I echo every single one of the arrivals when I say thank you to DFAT, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, the Prime Minister and particularly our colleague in the Senate, Senator Penny Wong, for their tireless efforts in getting our citizens home. It was truly a monumental effort, and I know it is ongoing as we try to offer our support to the Australians still in Israel and trapped in Gaza in this very difficult situation. I note that there are 45 Australians known to still be in Gaza, and we are doing everything as a government to bring them home.

I sincerely hope that I too might get to welcome them home, because an Australian is an Australian is an Australian. It doesn't matter your race, creed, profession, ethnicity or background. We're all united in our faith in our democracy and in the equal dignity of each person in this great continent that Dorothea Mackellar called our 'wide brown land'. The Australian government will always stand up for Australians. That is what this beautiful country guarantees you, and, on Tuesday night, holding up their blue passports with the emu and the kangaroo, I couldn't have seen a prouder bunch of Australians.

I congratulate my coalition and crossbench colleagues today for finally getting up an inquiry into the terms of reference for a royal commission into COVID. It's long overdue, and it's no thanks to the Labor Party and the Greens, who are trying to cover up the complete and outrageous mismanagement of COVID by the state governments. There are many things that we need to look at in this inquiry, and I want to outline them today to give a few points of reference to my fellow colleague here, Senator Scarr, who will be chairing it.

The first one we really need to look at is the origins of coronavirus. We well remember when our former colleague Senator Marise Payne said that we must have an inquiry into the origins of coronavirus—where it came from—and then suddenly it all dropped off a cliff. It's quite interesting, because, over in the United States at the moment, congress is holding an inquiry into the origins of coronavirus. What's happened is that a senior-level CIA whistleblower has come forward to allege that the agency bribed analysts to change their opinion that COVID-19 most likely originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. That's quite concerning. According to this whistleblower, at the end of the review, six of the seven members of the team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low-confidence assessment that coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The whistleblower further contends that, to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position.

Who knows if that's true or not; that's what congress is currently investigating, but we know that, in a speech at Georgetown University back in January 2017—the day before Donald Trump was sworn in as President of the United States—Anthony Fauci said that there would be a surprise outbreak in the term of Trump's presidency. I find that a completely bizarre statement to make. It's been fact-checked, by the way, so when I put this up on social media, fact-checkers, Reuters have already admitted that it's true. Who on earth would come out and predict the outbreak of a virus within the term of a politician? What has the term of a politician got to do with a virus? It is completely bizarre. That's something we can consider.

Then, we've got to look at the PCR testing. I have asked the TGA for the genomic sequence used in the PCR tests to determine whether or not this testing correlates with the genome, the 29,000 base pairs, in the coronavirus, because what I want to know is: How long is this sequence that the PCR tests use. Which part of the 29,000 base pairs do we use? Are those base pairs also in other types of viruses?

I've got a reply back that the TGA won't give them to me because it's commercial in confidence, which is really strange because I would have thought a virus, if it wasn't made in a lab, wouldn't be commercial in confidence. I didn't know that something that was naturally evolved could be commercial in confidence. It's all very strange. So it's another one for your list there, Senator Scarr.

Then, there's the coding by the World Health Organization that said that anyone that tested positive using a PCR test had to be coded as U.701, which basically indicated that if this person tested positive to coronavirus they therefore died of coronavirus. There's another code called U.702 that said, yes, the person may have tested positive to coronavirus, but you don't code to U.701 unless you've actually done an autopsy and the doctor actually says this person died from the virus and not some other comorbidity.

That was totally swept aside, and the World Health Organization just said, 'No, just code everyone with a positive test from a PCR test to U.701,' so everyone is dying from coronavirus. This is interesting, because the number of people who died from the flu suddenly went to zero throughout 2021. Do I know? I don't.

Then, we've got to look at the lockdowns, the lock-ups and the lockouts by the crazy state premiers. Who can forget Dan Andrews' statement about why we've got to take this vaccine? Because, if we don't take this vaccine, 'we're going to be lining for machines that help us breathe.' Oh, my god! I am so scary!

The, we've got the Queensland premier, who was saying there was COVID in the sewage and that Queensland hospitals were for Queensland people and New South Wales hospitals were there for their people. So I look forward to this inquiry. (Time expired)

First responders and emergency service workers must be supported by the governments that employ them. Unfortunately, there is not a consistent approach around Australia and, disappointingly, my own state falls down in this regard, especially in addressing the effects of their service on their mental health.

These women and men risk their lives to keep us safe. They are not just ordinary employees of the state. They are asked every day to rush into dangerous situations and either resolve them or provide care to those in need. Many are even volunteers, such as those serving in regional ambulance stations or in the Country Fire Service. As a veteran, I am acutely aware of the nation's moral obligation to care for the soldiers that have served in conflict. This is an immutable concept. The identical moral compact must be extended by state and territory governments to their first responders and emergency service workers.

The federal government is proposing in its Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill that first responders, at the federal level and within the ACT, who are suffering PTSD no longer be required to prove that their work significantly contributed to their condition when making a claim. While my party has difficulty with other aspects of this bill, I personally support this initiative.

My former colleague from the South Australian Legislative Council, the Hon. Frank Pangallo, has a bill before that chamber that seeks to likewise change these laws in my state. It is my hope all parties support the passage of Mr Pangallo's bill.

Honourable senators will be aware that I know many in the paramedic community through my volunteering with St John Ambulance and my subsequent advocacy for their noble profession. I have been consistent in my advocacy and even went so far as to march alongside my paramedic friends in 2021 when they joined together to protest against ramping levels under the then state Liberal government.

Studies have demonstrated that paramedics have one of the most dangerous professions in Australia, working under extreme pressure and in high-risk environments. Paramedics face burnout as a result of their service. They regularly experience sheer physical, emotional and mental exhaustion. They face high levels of workplace violence. They are twice as likely to develop PTSD than any other emergency service worker. They are twice as likely to suicide in comparison to the general public. To expect paramedics to endure a challenging and stressful claim process for their injuries is unacceptable and, in my view, an act of cruelty. It is critical that first responders, emergency service workers and volunteers can access treatment before a workers compensation claim is accepted. There will be the petty in my state parliament who may argue against such a proposal because of the cost. I ask that the South Australian Legislative Council ignore them. Members of this unhelpful disposition, such as the former Liberal Treasurer in the last government, have been consigned to the irrelevance they deserve. Morally, I do not see how South Australian parliamentarians of any persuasions can stand in the way of this legislation, given there is broad acceptance of its need at the federal level. It is time to properly address our obligations to support those who keep South Australians safe.

Further, with a greater focus on early intervention and prevention mechanisms, combined with helping workers and volunteers build resilience through training programs and support structures, there should be a reduction in the reliance on workers compensation claims. With improved programs supporting wellbeing, we can aspire to rely on workers compensation only as a last resort, and at the same time have our first responders, in their respective services, remain healthier and for longer periods of time.

There is already some fantastic work being done in South Australia to support paramedics. I recently toured Flinders University paramedicine department and the Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health. Both have exceptional leaders, teachers and researchers. I thank the Vice-Chancellor of Flinders University, Colin Stirling, and the university's distinguished alumnus Anastasia Bougesis for facilitating these visits. The paramedicine department is very mindful and focused on preparing its graduates for a career in which they will be constantly experiencing trauma and stress. The institute is undertaking incredible research in sleep science which will yield significant benefits for paramedics handling shift work. Studies show that lack of sleep increases the risk of mental health problems.

We need a whole-of-government approach. I thank all the first responders and emergency service workers and volunteers in my state for their incredible commitment.

What a week it's been, with the tragedies that have unfolded in Israel and the pressure that Israelis and Palestinians are experiencing. However, I think it's important that we also look at what's happening in our own country. I've spoken many times in this place about the cost-of-living pressures and what the Albanese Labor government is doing to address those in relation to reducing the cost of child care. I can say, for my home state of Tasmania, that $2,000 is going to be saved by parents using childcare centres and the benefits of that will go to 22,000 families in Tasmania. We've opened urgent care clinics, and the one in Launceston is doing a fantastic job. We've given relief during the winter for bills. We know how expensive heating and energy are, so we're doing what we can to help people with their heating and energy bills.

Where we have seen a huge increase is in the demand for secure food. We know that there are too many people, families and individuals, living rough in this country. I was fortunate enough to attend a briefing this week from national food relief sector organisations that operate across this country, including in my home state. Foodbank Australia, SecondBite and OzHarvest gather food from farmers and producers and they do a wonderful job. They are delivering more than 1½ million meals every month in this country.

The message that we need to get out—and which they've asked for us to get out—to the community is: don't be afraid to reach out if you need help. What they have experienced is that people from middle-income families and people who have never sought assistance before are reaching out. But they fear there are still too many others who aren't reaching out to make sure they have essential foods and a nutritional diet. What these organisations are asking us to do as politicians is to get the word out. There is no stigma attached whatsoever to seeking help. They're encouraging people to seek help and they do a fantastic job. So I want to call out to people who are doing it tough and ask them to reach out. Whether it's a not-for-profit or it's Foodbank Australia, SecondBite or OzHarvest, they have important support mechanisms to help you.

We know that it is tough and we know how hard it is now, with interest rates that have gone up over the last 12 months or so.

What we are doing is making sure that we are getting people prepared for the workforce. We're investing in education. Labor is all about health and education. We have committed more funding to ensure that there are 300,000 additional new places for free TAFE courses to get people working in those essential areas that we need them in. We are doing everything we can as a government, and there are organisations out there to give you the support that you need, but this is not going to happen overnight.

We know the difficulties that families are facing, and that's why we're investing in child care, and that's why we are doing we can in terms of reducing the cost of medicine. We're certainly reducing the cost, supporting GPs to see more patients and making sure that people can get their health needs met when they need to. As I said, we've now introduced the 60-day scripts, which means less visits to your pharmacy, less visits to your doctor and cheaper medicines.

These are real, tangible benefits, and Australians are being supported by this government. It's just such a shame that reducing the cost of medicines was neglected by those opposite when they were in government. They were not prepared to make the tough decisions, but we have done that because we are here to support the Australian people. We want to make sure that those people who need a helping hand get that helping hand and that those people who need additional skills and new skills can get them so that they can get employment.

What we've also done is stand up for Australian workers and ensure that they are getting better pay. What we want to see is equal pay for those doing an equal job, and we are closing the loopholes that have allowed Australian workers to be taken advantage of. I commend the union movement in this country for being there and backing Australian workers. You've now got a Labor government who is standing shoulder to shoulder with you to make sure Australians get the best deal they can.

I remind honourable senators that legislation committees will meet to consider estimates commencing on Monday 23 October at 9 am.

Senate adjourned at 17:42