If there is no objection, the meetings are authorised.

I rise today to speak on behalf of young Australians, Australians who cannot yet vote and future generations of Australians. These are, technically, not the people who sent us here to represent our states and territories, but they will inherit every decision that we make in this chamber and in the other place. The Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill was the first private senator's bill I introduced after being elected as a senator for the ACT. It's something I've worked on with young people across the country, but I particularly want to acknowledge Anjali and Hannah, who are in the chamber here today, but also Daisy and Jess, who together make up the duty of care team. Young people understand the huge impact climate change will have on their lives, and they are courageously standing up to fight for a better future.

Every bill comes to this place with a history—a genesis—and I want to give a bit of background. In 2021, Anjali Sharma and seven young Australians applied for a declaration that the minister for the environment owed Australian children a duty of care when using her powers to approve an extension to the Vickery coalmine. They were successful. The court found that, indeed, the minister for the environment did owe young Australians a duty of care. The then environment minister, Sussan Ley, appealed the decision and, on appeal, the court found that a duty is not owed under current laws. In the judgement it was said that a duty of care was not for the judiciary but for the parliament to decide—for the parliament to legislate.

So here we are. This bill seeks to fix that. It does something very simple. It establishes a duty of care to consider the health and wellbeing of children when making decisions to increase greenhouse gas emissions. Since its introduction in 2023, the bill has been met with overwhelming support. Last year the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee held an inquiry to allow members of the public to make their opinions known. There were 403 submissions, and only one outright opposed the bill. The one was from the Institute of Public Affairs, the same IPA that continues to deny the reality of climate change and handed Gina Rinehart an honorary lifetime membership. Meanwhile, more than 26,000 people have signed a petition backing this bill. At the inquiry, doctors, nurses, midwives, scientists, young people, teachers, parents and grandparents provided submissions and gave evidence. They all agreed and all spoke clearly to tell the parliament we do have a duty of care to young people of future generations. That surely is a big part of why we're here—to make decisions that re truly good for our futures, not just good for the next election but good for our young people, who inherit the decisions we make. The most powerful submissions to the inquiry were from young people.

The government gave a two-page response to the report—a two-page dismissal of this effort, this urgency and this hope. Really disappointingly, there was no serious engagement with the evidence, no consideration of the recommendations of the dissenting report and no real engagement with the substance of the bill and suggestions for potential amendments, just a contemptuous brush-off. It was a stark contrast to when Labor in opposition and those young people took the then coalition government to court. I hear from young people that there was overwhelming support from many in the Labor Party when they were in opposition. Now they're in government and they don't seem to want to hear it.

Back in 2005, now prime minister Albanese said:

Climate change is one of the most significant challenges facing the global community and one of the greatest threats to Australia's way of life.

Fast-forward 20 years, and the need for a duty to protect young Australians from climate harm has never been greater. As Doctors for the Environment told the inquiry, 'Children suffer 90 per cent of the burden of death and disability caused by climate change.' The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners told us that 'the health of a child born today will be defined by climate change'. Doctors are a profession that understands duty of care very well. They understand what it means, and at the inquiry they saw a very clear translation to elected representatives to have a duty of care to the people that they represent, not a duty of care to the fossil fuel industry or a duty of care to donors but a duty of care to Australians—a duty of care to young Australians who cannot yet vote and a duty of care to future generations of Australians who will inherit the world that we shape.

Just six weeks ago, the federal government's national climate risk assessment confirmed what experts have warned us for decades—that we are hurtling towards catastrophe. On our current trajectory, we're likely to see around three degrees of warming by 2050. That will bring cascading, compounding and catastrophic impacts. According to the national climate risk assessment, we'll see four times as many heatwaves, leading to a 440 per cent increase in heat related deaths in parts of the country. We'll face 18 times more coastal flooding, exposing twice as many Australians to hazardous conditions along our coast. We're staring down the barrel of more than $600 billion in property value losses.

This is not just about numbers on a graph or economic figures on a balance sheet, though. This is about losing things that make Australia what it is. This is about the people and places that we love. This is about losing the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. It's about watching the places we love—our bushland, our coastline, our communities—become uninhabitable, unaffordable and unrecognisable. This isn't hyperbole or fearmongering. This is in the government's national climate risk assessment. This is in the ONI's national security climate risk assessment. It's all in there. The government knows this. And yet today decision-makers are under no legal obligation to consider how their choices to approve coal mines or greenlight gas fields will affect the lives of children 10, 20 or 50 years from now. I argue that this isn't just negligent. This is actually immoral. This lacks moral courage to do what is right by young people and do what is right by future generations of Australians and leave a legacy for people to look back on and say, 'That was the parliament that made the hard decisions, the hard long-term decisions, to look after us.' Australia can't solve the climate crisis, but what we can do is think longer term, have emissions reductions targets that are in line with science, have long-term thinking embedded in our law that forces ministers to take into account the impact that projects will have on young people and future generations.

We're obviously having this debate on this bill in the context of environmental law reform. We know that the EPBC Act is broken. Graeme Samuel reviewed it and basically said it should be torn up and thrown in the bin. We've got a government that has said so much on climate and on the environment but has gone on to approve 31 new or expanded coal or gas projects since taking power. We've got a Labor government who very cynically delayed the approval of the North West Shelf until straight after the election. At least the coalition had the decency to tell electors that it would be approved. Labor knew that Australians didn't want that. They knew that the people in the south of Canberra in Bean, a seat Labor held onto by 351 votes, probably would have seen the approval of one of the biggest fossil fuel projects in Australia's history as a bit of a red flag—a government that promised the world on climate and the environment but delivered the North West Shelf approval straight after the election.

This bill seeks to embed long-term thinking in our politics and in our legislation, and I want to say a few things to the young people who spoke to the committee inquiry, who wrote submissions, who sent letters, who made their first visit to parliament. I want you to know that you are being heard. You are right to demand more. You are right to say that this is not good enough. You are right to say: 'We are not the ones who created the mess. Do not leave it to us to clean up.' And while Labor and the coalition may lack the courage to act, the tide is turning. More and more Australians are waking up to the intergenerational injustice. More and more people are demanding change. More and more people want to see longer term thinking and decision-making. While you may not see a duty of care today, there will be one someday soon because, as one student told us, 'Our existence should influence your course of action even before we reach voting age.'

There's a clear choice in this chamber. We can refuse to hear the voices of the young Australians. We can deny the science of climate change. We can continue to have targets that aren't aligned with the science, and we can make up all sorts of excuses as to why it's just too hard to listen and to act. Or we can listen to young Australians, we can listen to climate scientists, and we can make changes to ensure that those who will live with the consequences of decisions made in this place look back on what we have done with pride.

This bill is a simple, powerful step forward when it comes to real climate accountability, to show young people that their voices matter and that their futures matter. I again quote now prime minister Albanese talking in 2005 about introducing a climate change trigger bill that would have amended the EPBC Act:

We cannot any longer afford to be complacent on this issue. We need action and one of the actions that we need, which has been acknowledged by the government for many years, is this amendment to the EPBC Act.

To the government I say this: will you stand with young Australians, or will you stand with the IPA and the fossil fuel industry, who clearly don't want a duty of care to young people and future generations?

Again, I want to thank the young people who've engaged on this bill. I want to thank the many Canberrans who have put a huge amount of time and energy into helping shape it and helping advocate for it. It may not be successful today, but, clearly, the tide is turning. Australians understand what is at stake. They understand that this is about the people and places we love, and they understand that it's political will that can actually change that. It is about the cold, hard numbers in this place, with enough elected representatives who agree and say: 'Of course I've got a duty of care to young people and future generations. Of course I do. I'm an elected representative. That's how I should be making decisions.' Again, I thank young people who've engaged, I thank the Senate committee of the last parliament for engaging on this bill, and I commend it to the Senate.

I thank Senator Pocock for bringing forward the Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill 2025, and I thank all those many young Australians who have advocated this bill. I am thankful for their protest. I thank them for walking the corridors of power in this place and seeking the support of the many parliamentarians, including myself. I wish to tell them and all those millions of young Australians out there that we care. We profoundly care. We are entirely focused on acting on climate change. We understand that this is the issue of our generation and that we have run out of time. I came into politics to be a good ancestor, and I belong to a Labor government, a team of people, who also wish to be good ancestors. We do this in order to leave a legacy and to leave this country in a better shape than what we found it in.

I know acutely what it was like when we came in. In May 2022, when we took government, energy was in a state of complete disorder. We had gone through nearly a decade of coalition rule, and we took the reins of a portfolio that was characterised by chaos, secrecy and 22 failed energy policies, where four gigawatts went out of the grid and one gigawatt went in. That in turn put pressure on prices as well as reliability. This was against a backdrop of 10 or 15 years of the climate wars, which the young generation now will not appreciate. If you're in your teenage years, you wouldn't really understand what that meant, but I remember what that was like. In this parliament, there were arguments about the science of climate change, and they went on for 15 years. Those opposite—the coalition of the Liberals and the Nationals—are still arguing about the science of climate change. But we're not disputing the science of climate change. We know it is real. We know that we are in the teeth of this climate emergency.

The climate imperative is bearing down on us, but we also understand that there are an economic imperative and an environmental imperative to act on that science, and I think the mistake that has been made over many, many years in Australia and elsewhere, globally, is that we have seen this purely through a scientific lens. If only it was just a scientific problem to be solved! That would be easy. If it's a scientific problem, you can create a vaccine to a disease. The disease goes away. Smallpox is a good example. Measles is another one. But this is not a purely scientific problem. This is as much a social problem as it is a political problem and a scientific problem, and that's what makes this hard.

We as a federal government, as a Labor government, are not here to dispute the science. We understand climate change. The arguments we have are really on how we best act. It's not 'why'. We don't talk about 'why'; we get it. It's not like those opposite, who are still arguing about the 'why'. For us, the debate happens around the 'how'. How do we get to net zero as efficiently as possible while maintaining this pesky little concept called energy security and while ensuring that we do not deindustrialise this country while we decarbonise? Why? Because people's jobs and livelihoods rely upon us getting this energy shift right. We must transition in an orderly fashion rather than a disorderly fashion, and we actually take our lead from the Australian people.

A survey of 6,800 Australians done by CSIRO and published in April 2024 showed that Australians want to have an orderly transition. They do not want blackouts, and they are completely intolerant of high bills. The way I see it is that those are the parameters. Those have been set by the Australian people. If I had my way, like Senator Pocock, I would flick the switch, and we would go straight away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. We would stop approving or expanding fossil fuel projects, if I had my way. But that's not the reality that we have to deal with. We are shifting from a nation—a species!—who has been entirely entwined in this toxic marriage with fossil fuels for 200 years to now becoming more reliant on clean energy, and that shift is well and truly underway.

When I go to schools and I talk to young people, they are genuinely shocked when I tell them that the amount of renewable energy in our grid is now approaching nearly 50 per cent. In the last quarter of last year, it was 48.6 per cent. They can't believe it. They mostly think that we're sitting at around 20 to 30 per cent. We're not. That's in the rear-view mirror. The momentum has begun, and it is unstoppable. It is being driven by policies that we put in place and that we are building upon—foundational climate policies that we put in place in our first term of government. While those opposite had 22 energy policies that all failed, left the grid in a mess and left this country overexposed and vulnerable to fossil fuels, we came in, and the order of the day, when we took government in May 2022, was passing our Climate Change Act.

We have one policy, not 22. That is the foundation of everything we do. We set targets in our first term of government—43 per cent by 2030. We've recently updated those targets. The 2035 target is now 62 to 70 per cent by 2035, and we need to do that, because, in the next decade, most of our coal-fired power stations—90 per cent or so—will shut. We're not waiting for some great white knight to come over the hill. We are putting in place the supports needed to ensure we have energy reliability that is underpinned by the cheapest form of energy, and that is renewable energy. Australians know that. That is why they're taking up rooftop solar in droves—4.2 million households already have rooftop solar. They are marching with their feet. They are voting with their feet.

Workers are losing their jobs.

Irrespective of the interjections from those opposite—

I'll make them louder!

Order!

Australians get it. They realise that renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy. That has been backed in by record uptake of home batteries. On 1 July, we announced our Cheaper Home Batteries Program. We've already seen 100,000 households take up home batteries. When you have rooftop solar, you reduce your bills by $1,500. If you slap a home battery on that, your bills come down another $1,000. Australians get it.

Yeah, so why doesn't it work for Tomago?

Senator McKenzie!

Despite the interjections from those opposite, who left this country in a mess and dare open their mouths, Australians understand that renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy and they are embracing it in droves. We have rooftop solar and we have home batteries, and what's next in that trinity? Electric vehicles. Australians have already bought 400,000 electric vehicles. When we came to government, sales were moribund—stuck at two per cent under those opposite—flat and going nowhere fast. We brought in tax breaks, thanks to the support of the crossbench, and we have seen an increase in electric vehicle sales of 12 or 13 per cent. That's 400,000 EVs on the road. And do you know where most of those sales are? Most of the sales—you'd be surprised—are actually in the regions and in peri-urban areas. Why? Because Australians in those areas have rooftop solar. They're now charging their cars at negligible cost, if any, and realising that these cars are a lot cheaper to run. The servicing costs are considerably lower than fossil fuel or ICE vehicles.

This is what Australians are doing, but this is not all we are doing. Also, as part of those foundational supports and climate policies, we brought in a suite of measures to help industry. One was the safeguard mechanism, which was passed thanks to the support of the crossbench. It's designed to help big industry decarbonise without deindustrialising. Every year, around 215 big emitters in this country will be forced to reduce their emissions by five per cent year on year. That has a strong incentive built in for them to electrify their power trains—the big miners, for example, and aviation companies like Qantas. With our assistance, sustainable aviation fuels are being backed in to enable our aviation companies to decarbonise. We brought in something called the Capacity Investment Scheme. It's getting into the weeds here, but the Capacity Investment Scheme was designed to underwrite large-scale renewable projects like grid-scale batteries, for example, and solar farms and wind farms. When we first came into government, we set the ceiling on that at 32 gigawatts. Because of the overwhelming interest in this scheme, we raised that ceiling to 40 gigawatts by 2030.

With these measures we have seen a huge uplift in renewable energy in our grid. Under those opposite, four gigawatts left the grid and one gigawatt came in, which left the grid unstable, unreliable and too costly. What we have seen under our stewardship is that 18 gigawatts of renewable energy has entered the grid—thanks to the suite of policies. We've also approved six offshore wind zones, which are designed to help electrify large industrial areas that are important for our country, noting that offshore wind has a much shorter transmission build-out than just about anything else. We established the Net Zero Authority, to enable those workers who are exposed to fossil fuel industries to have a transition into good, secure, well-paying jobs, like in the manufacturing sector, underpinned by renewable energy. Within the National Reconstruction Fund, which is a $15 billion investment vehicle, we have over $5 billion dedicated towards clean technologies. So you can see how, with a suite of policies, we are turning the supertanker that is this nation towards a much greener, cleaner future. But it's not going to happen by sloganeering; it's going to happen with policies—the how. This is how we get there.

Along with the 2035 target that we announced was also a net zero plan and a set of six sectoral plans. These sectoral plans are pathways for areas in our economy to get to net zero. It's a road map, effectively, and it covers energy and electricity, agriculture, the built environment, transport, industry and our resources sector. If you're interested in better understanding how we get to net zero, have a read of these plans. It's clear from reading these plans that there is an enormous economic opportunity for us to seize with this transition, with this energy shift that is already underway. Those economic opportunities are for our future generation, for our children. We're not necessarily going to be the beneficiaries—we're too old—but it's absolutely going to be yours for the taking. It'll be secure, well-paid jobs that are immune to the boom and bust of mining—a sustained prosperity in a high-wage economy. That is, effectively, the holy grail.

Australia, although it contributes one per cent to global emissions, has the potential to lower the world's emissions by 10 per cent. That's based on advice from the Climate Change Authority, who also set the 2035 targets which are achievable and ambitious at the same time. Unlike Senator Pocock, I actually am very optimistic about our future, as long as we stay the course. The foundations have been put in place by our government with support from the crossbench. Now we need to follow through and ensure we are not swayed by nonsense from the other side. (Time expired)

I rise to speak on the Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill 2025. This is an issue that I've spoken on before and is, frankly, the main reason that I am in this place. It is an issue that is both painfully simple and yet dangerously ignored. The decisions that we make today must reflect the interests of the children who will inherit them. I say it again because it bears repeating: the decisions we make today must reflect the interests of the children who will inherit them. That is the plain logic behind the concept of a climate duty of care—that, when the government or its agencies approve projects that lock in emissions and risk long-term harms, they must explicitly consider the health and wellbeing of our youngest Australians.

Anjali Sharma, who is here in the chamber today, and other brave young Australians took their government to court and won. They showed that protecting young people from climate harm isn't just good policy; it's a moral duty. But what happened next says everything. The then environment minister, of all people, challenged that win. They argued in court that the government doesn't owe a duty of care to young people. Honestly, if that is not your core responsibility in this place, then what is?

Let's be honest for a moment about who's making decisions in this place. We are, on the whole, a chamber of gen X and boomers making choices that will be lived with for decades by people who are currently not old enough to cast a vote. Maybe if climate action came with a seniors discount, the government would finally act. The mismatch between decisions and their outcomes is extreme. I want to acknowledge and thank the young people who are actively fighting for the idea that children must be a mandatory consideration in the decisions that shape their lives well into the future.

The contents of this bill—to consider the health and wellbeing of young people in our climate decision-making—aren't radical. It's common sense, and it's the bare minimum that we can do for the next generation. In many areas of public policy we already require decision makers to consider how a proposal will affect people's health and wellbeing before approvals are granted. Health impact assessments are standard practice in planning and major project approvals. We ask businesses and governments to assess the likely impacts on local communities before we give projects the green light. So why should the climate and health of children be exceptional? Why is it somehow beyond the pale to insist that the youngest and least powerful members of society be considered when approvals will shape their lungs, mental health, food security and futures.

To digress for a moment, if we were actually serious about putting young people at the centre of decisions that will define their lives, then our democracy should actually let them have a say. Right now, too many of the choices that will shape schooling, housing, jobs and the climate are made in a chamber whose average age is decades older than those it most affects. The Greens have long argued that 16- and 17-year-olds should be allowed to vote because they work, they pay taxes and they study, and the right to cast a vote about their future is a natural extension of these responsibilities. This isn't an untested experiment. Countries from Austria to Scotland, from Brazil to Ecuador, already allow 16-year-olds to vote, and the evidence is clear. Studies of Scotland and other places show that giving people the vote at 16 increases political participation in young people and can reset engagement patterns for life. It reduces that gap in turn-out between younger and older voters. If we want young people to care about what we're doing in this place, the most straightforward step is to let them vote on it.

Voting age aside, imagine for a moment if the substance of this bill had been made the norm a long time ago by a government much bolder than this one. If this duty of care had been front of mind when decisions were made about the large fossil fuel projects, would we have extended the life of the North West Shelf to 2070? It's a facility that will burn gas into the lifetimes of our children and beyond, until my own son is in his 50s. If we were serious about giving our children a fighting chance, would we have perhaps set ambitious 2035 emissions reduction targets that actually move us towards a cleaner and safer future? Might we choose to reject the interests of fossil fuel companies raking in billions of dollars by pillaging our land and paying next to nothing in taxes? These questions are questions that a duty of care would force decision-makers to ask.

The harms we are trying to avoid are toxic, physical and psychological realities that young people are facing right now. Young people are already reporting higher levels of eco anxiety, distress and despair. Doctors for the Environment and medical groups across Australia have documented rising climate related mental health harms, particularly among young people exposed to repeated disasters, chronic uncertainty and the sense of an increasingly hostile future. This manifests as anxiety, depression, trauma and a growing burden on youth mental health services—and not far into the future; this is happening right now in our communities.

More frequent, more intense heat waves are causing hospitalisations and worsening chronic conditions in children. Heat stresses young bodies, worsens asthma and other respiratory illnesses, and increases emergency visits during extreme weather. Changes in climate patterns expand the range and seasonality of diseases. Droughts and extreme weather disrupt crops and food supply chains. Air pollution, including from fossil fuels, is linked to increased risks of cancer and chronic respiratory disease. Climate driven shifts in disease ecology, coupled with stressed health systems, increase the drivers of antimicrobial resistance. These aren't dreamed-up events that might impact fewer generations; they are measurable impacts on children and young people living today and on those soon to be born.

A duty of care simply nails what good public health requires. When the evidence shows a risk of harm to children, governments must act to avoid it. We are told sometimes that this would stifle development, hobble regional economies and put jobs at risk, but a duty of care is simply rebalancing an unfair equation—one that currently privileges industry, short-term profits and environmental destruction above health, wellbeing and long-term economic prosperity. A due duty of care insists that we balance short-term gain against long-term human costs. If a project cannot meet a test that protects children's health, then we must question whether its benefits truly outweigh its harms.

We must also acknowledge those who too often bear the brunt of these harms: First Nations young people here in Australia and the Torres Strait, as well as across Aotearoa and the wider Pacific region. These people are already living at the intersection of cultural loss, rising seas, food insecurity and widening health disparities. But these are also the people that are leading the fight for climate justice, and their leadership, knowledge and priorities must be central to any duty of care. Let's be very clear. While the voices of young people are too often dismissed, the fossil fuel industry is never ignored by the major parties in this place. These companies shower political parties with donations, and the revolving door between government and industry spins relentlessly. Almost every single former federal resources minister now works in the fossil fuel sector—shame! I ask this chamber: how much time do you all spend with young people in your electorates versus time on industry lunch invites, in boardrooms or in policy briefings with big corporations?

The fossil fuel industry also targets children directly, hiding behind so-called educational programs in schools that prime our kids for careers shackled to coal and gas, without ever telling them the truth of the climate legacy they'll inherit. If we are serious about protecting children's health and wellbeing, we must stop letting fossil fuel money and influence drown out their voices.

We also have obligations under international law. The International Court of Justice recently confirmed that states must respect and ensure the effective enjoyment of human rights by taking necessary measures to protect the climate system and other parts of the environment. Australia cannot ignore this responsibility. We need domestic laws that reflect these obligations, laws that enshrine a duty of care. The voices of Pacific youth are especially instructive. Vishal Prasad, when testifying before the International Court of Justice, said:

… if greenhouse gas emissions are not stopped, we are not just risking our future—we are welcoming its demise.

Lilly Teafa from Tuvalu recounted the horrors of Cyclone Pam:

Nine years ago, during Cyclone Pam on the island of Nui, I saw my 16-year-old cousin cuddling towards her mother's bones. I saw a mother cry out to the moana [ocean] searching for the corpse of her son.

Cynthia from the Solomon Islands reminded the court that those who stand to lose are future generations. Their future is uncertain, reliant upon the decision-making of a handful of large-emitting states who are responsible for climate change. These testimonies aren't pleas for pity; they are calls for fairness, justice and urgent action.

Finally, this is about honesty. Young people didn't create this mess, but it is young people who will inherit it. Yet, time and time again, they are asked to litigate, to protest and to bear the emotional labour of demanding action where adults in this chamber are failing. I want to take a moment to thank the young people around the world who are leading the fight for our planet—from Greta Thunberg in Sweden to Vanessa Nakate in Uganda and from Ridhima Pandey in India to the Pacific island students fighting climate change, as well as our very own Anjali Sharma—for their courage and clarity in fighting and in lighting a way forward. They aren't just protesting; they are demanding justice, accountability and a future that honours their right to live in a safe and thriving world.

I think of my own children and what future they're going to inherit. My seven-year-old son had the pleasure of seeing the Great Barrier Reef. Much of that coral is already bleached, and there's a very realistic chance that my two-year-old daughter will never see those bright colours and those gorgeous ecosystems. About a month ago I had the pleasure of meeting the next generation of climate activists here in Parliament House, hosted by the Australian Democracy Network. They know we do not have time for incremental change and that we need action in this place urgently. They know their existence relies on us all acting with that urgency, putting vested interests to one side and listening to their crucial voices in this debate—which shouldn't be a debate.

To those in the chamber who have children, I ask this: when you go home at the end of this sitting week and look your kids in the eye, will you be able to tell them that you've done absolutely everything you can to give them a safe, clean world to inherit? To do that, we need to act right now. We need to stare down the climate-wrecking polluters. We need to sideline the fossil fuel interests who crawl the halls of this parliament. We need to listen to and act for the young people who will inherit this beautiful but increasingly fragile planet Earth.

I'll finish where I began. This is common sense and simply the right thing to do. Young people get it. Climate action isn't optional; it's survival. Young people, you have led this movement with courage and clarity. Now it's time for us in this parliament to step up. Let's commit to a climate duty of care for you and for all of us.

I rise to support the Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill 2025, and I thank Senator David Pocock for his work in bringing this bill before the Senate. I also acknowledge the presence of Anjali Sharma, a proud unapologetic young advocate whose courage inspires many of us in this chamber and across our nation. I also acknowledge the contributions of my colleagues before me in taking part in this debate.

A lot of you might be like, 'What's the whole significance? Why's Anjali Sharma here?' In October 2021, Anjali led a class action against the federal government, which found that the federal government had 'a duty to take reasonable care to avoid causing personal injury to the children and young people of Australia'. That landmark ruling gave hope to so many young Australians, who believed their government would finally be held accountable for the decisions they make, not just today but in the years to come, that will shape the world they will inherit tomorrow. In 2022 the Federal Court overturned this decision on appeal. Since then the Albanese government's efforts in the environment portfolio have been wanting to say the least.

The words 'nature positive' are sure to send a shiver down the spine of some in this place. The nature positive bill package began with the dysfunction of the EPBC Act that pushed the former coalition government to begin the Samuel review. Based on the recommendations of that review, former environment minister Tanya Plibersek worked conscientiously towards a deal that would balance the political realities of this chamber with the environmental needs of our country. In the final moments of the negotiations in November of last year the entire proposal was blocked by the Prime Minister. The bills were brought up again at the start of this year, but the Prime Minister again ruled out enacting the reforms. He couldn't have a secure future for the environment hanging over his head—there was an election coming. We have the fixer, Minister Murray Watt. He fixed the CFMEU, if you ignore the resignations and the misconduct that are going on in the administration, and now he's going to fix the environment. Let me tell you, though, that we won't have an independent EPA, and we won't have a climate trigger, but he's going to fix it.

Under the environment protection reform bill 2025, we're told the government is taking a balanced and pragmatic approach, but when you look closer what you see is a blueprint for backroom exemptions and double standards. The so-called national interest exemption gives the minister power to approve designated projects even when they fail to meet environmental standards. In other words if a project is politically convenient it can be fast-tracked even if it causes unacceptable harm to our environment. It begs the question: If the environment truly belongs to all Australians, why should certain proponents, particularly those backed by international investors, get a free pass from the rules that apply to everyone else? Why should local communities and traditional custodians have to meet all these requirements—every condition, every test, every consultation requirement—while multinational corporations can bypass the standards in the name of national security? This sounds more like political discretion dressed up as policy than actual environmental reform.

That's why Senator David Pocock's bill matters so much. It is a crucial step in the right direction for the environment. This bill puts a positive obligation on the government to consider the rights and wellbeing of future generations of Australians—to treat their health, their mental health, their safety and their security as central to every decision we make in this place. Our first duty is not to the next election cycle and it's not to corporate investors; it's to Anjali and her generation and the many more generations to come. They shouldn't be invited to Parliament House just for photos and tours and lectures; we need to provide them with a seat at the table. We need to hear their voices and concerns through inquiry processes and consultations, especially on issues that will impact their futures and their lives.

And let's not just stop there. The UK recently had election reforms to lower the voting age. I think we as Australians should allow voluntary voting here for 16- and 17-year-olds to have a say, to elect their federal representatives and to really take part in our democratic process, because they deserve it. You young Australians out there, advocating and fighting for a better future: you deserve it.

We hear from the government about how they're leading the way on renewables and that the opposition is divided on net zero, yet at the same time the government is approving new coal and gas projects like a Liberal government in disguise. If you know deep down that you're not on track to achieve your own renewable energy and climate goals, then you can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. You need to change your strategy. You need to find a better way forward.

This duty of care and intergenerational climate equity bill is part of that better way forward. It's a reminder that the decisions we make in this chamber must outlive us because their consequences surely will. As Senator Hodgins-May outlined, our young people deserve better. Their psychosocial health is already being impacted by the lack of action that we're seeing by this government on environmental reforms. With that being said, I commend this bill to the Senate and look forward to the government's support.

I rise to speak to the Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill 2025. I do so in my own singular capacity as a senator, and I don't profess to speak on behalf of my party at this time. I support the bill and commend Senator Pocock for bringing it to the chamber for consideration.

The bill seeks to add to a variety of bills that relate to the environment. There are two statutory duties on decision-makers. They must consider the likely impacts of emissions on the health and wellbeing of current and future Australian children, and, in the case of decisions involving the extraction of coal, oil and gas, the decision-makers are prevented from making decisions where the resulting greenhouse gas emissions are likely to pose material risk of harm to the health and wellbeing of current and future Australian children. I think that's a noble ambition. I would like to think that, even without the duties in there, the decision-makers would be doing so at this time. But I think it's worthy of consideration that this Senate insert those statutory duties.

I'm always minded when discussing environment matters to go to one of my favourites and quote them, and it's Sir Garfield Barwick—not necessarily a friend of the Left in his day but someone who had a great passion for the environment. My point is that there has been social commentary, possibly post my outing on the front page of the Australian, that it it's ill-Liberal to care for the environment, it's ill-Liberal to support climate change initiatives or responses and it's ill-Liberal to support initiatives to drive down emissions and accept that we should have net zero—in fact, I probably have even a stronger position privately, but you'll have to wait for that in another contribution to this Senate—and it's not. It's very conservative. It's actually more conservative than a Liberal progressive position to care for the environment. So I want to push back on, particularly, some social media posts which tend to define what a Liberal is and isn't.

Garfield Barwick said:

The community has to learn to make less demand on the resources and particularly less demand through its own indulgence, its own extravagance, as we know we are extravagant and indulgent.

He went on to say, at the Lawyer in the Environment seminar in 1995:

… the problem of finding the balance between what this generation might lawfully, reasonably take from the resources and what it ought to leave behind and how it ought to restrain itself is a very, very large problem indeed …

So I commend the mover of this bill, who is trying to solve this problem by inserting duties. Perhaps, we should also give consideration in this line of debate to whether we should also be changing the nature of the duties of decision-makers to put nature first and then make economic considerations subsequently. Nature has intrinsic value—not just because we extract it economically.

I thought I'd conclude this contribution by leaving you with a quote from King Charles, not necessarily considered radical. He said in his 2023 Christmas message:

To care for this Creation is a responsibility owned by people of all faiths and of none. We care for the Earth for the sake of our children's children.

I feel my contribution may be too conservative for some in this chamber, but I support the bill and commend its passage.

Thank you, Senator McLachlan. Senator Ghosh.

I'm happy to defer to Senator Allman-Payne. I would like to be next on the list though.

You're not on the list, Senator Allman-Payne, but I'm happy to call you.

I move:

That the question be now put.

Sorry, but I'm not going to allow that. Senator Ghosh, please continue.

I understood that you wanted to speak. I said you were not on my list.

Honourable senators interjecting—

I had called Senator Ghosh, and Senator Ghosh was offering you a courtesy, which I extended on his behalf. Senator Ghosh, you have the call—Senator Pocock?

Can we get a clarification on that? We had a senator on their feet, and they asked to put the question. My understanding is that the Senate then has to deal with that before we move on.

I don't believe that that was the case, but I will check with the clerk. On advice from the clerk, Senator Allman-Payne is entitled to seek closure. If the chamber does not want to provide that, then we can vote against that. Senator Allman-Payne, if you would like to proceed down that path—and I seek the position of the chamber—the advice of the clerk is that the speakers list is a guide and it is not firm. But it is—

A courtesy is what it is, actually.

I believe what Senator Ghosh extended was a courtesy. But I will leave it to you now, Senator Allman-Payne, to decide which way we go.

Thank you. I was on my feet first, and I do wish to proceed down that path, so I do move that the question now be put.

The question is that the question be put on the second reading.

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

As no amendments to the bill have been circulated, I shall call the minister to move the third reading unless any senator requires that the bill be considered in Committee of the Whole.

I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

The question is that the bill be read a third time.

I rise to speak on the Commonwealth Workplace Protection Orders Bill 2025. This is the second piece of legislation to come before this parliament in the wake of the horrific attack on a Services Australia employee who was just doing her job. A public servant going about her day, doing a job, like public servants in every part of our country do, was punched in the face and stabbed in the back, leaving her with life-changing injuries. This is appalling. No Australian should be attacked at work. So, when former Victoria Police chief commissioner Graham Ashton made recommendations, following a review of security arrangements at Services Australia and in all Commonwealth workplaces, we took them very seriously. One of those recommendations led to the Criminal Code Amendment (Protecting Commonwealth Frontline Workers) Bill 2024. This was a bill to expand the criminal offences for assaulting a frontline worker employed by the Commonwealth. The coalition supported the bill and passed it through the parliament on a bipartisan basis.

Another one of those recommendations in the Ashton review led to this bill that we're considering today. As the Minister for Home Affairs said when reintroducing this bill—and we acknowledge his comments on the need for this and the constructive approach that all sides of politics have taken to this legislation—there were more than 1,700 serious incidents at Services Australia between July 2023 and July last year. All of us in this place know that Services Australia employees are not the only ones to face these threats. It is also the employees in the embassies, the contractors and subcontractors on our defence bases, private security guards routinely found on Commonwealth premises, officers of the Australian Federal Police and, indeed, the staff in our own electorate offices. As recently as May 2025, two Australian Border Force contractors were assaulted and stabbed while at work.

The potential risks faced by Commonwealth workers are not just limited to Services Australia; they are also linked to the broad definition of the term 'Commonwealth worker'. We believe that is appropriate. This broad definition means that the orders will be able to protect Services Australia employees, Australian Federal Police, contractors, security guards, volunteers and electorate office staff. This approach is sensible, and it warrants the support of this chamber. In terms of the substance of the protection orders, the bill will also allow a court to direct a person not to attend a particular Commonwealth workplace, not to go near an affected worker and to comply with other appropriate conditions. Only a court can make such an order, and it must be cancelled if the grounds for the order cease to exist. To make this type of order, a court must be satisfied that a person has engaged in personal violence or made threats of personal violence and that there is a real risk that the person will engage in further violence if the order is not made.

This legislation came before parliament last term, and we indicated at the time that we would support the bill after a quick committee inquiry. That committee inquiry was handed down on a bipartisan basis with a recommendation for minor changes. It otherwise supported the legislation. The legislation passed the House on 28 August this year with bipartisan support, and the coalition is pleased to facilitate the swift passage of this bill through the Senate today.

I rise today to speak in strong support of the Commonwealth Workplace Protection Orders Bill 2025. We often talk about workplace safety in the context of mining sites, construction sites or heavy industry, but we're here today because, even in Commonwealth offices, the risk of violence is very real.

As Joeanne Cassar set out for work on 23 May 2023, she thought it would be like any other day. As a team leader at Services Australia's Airport West Service Centre in Melbourne, she was preparing for the Biggest Morning Tea, with biscuits she had baked and decorated herself. But, that morning, a man previously identified as a risk, but with no legal means to be barred, entered the office. When Joeanne asked him to leave, he did, only to return later with a knife. Covering for a security guard on his lunch break, Joeanne was attacked. She was punched, chased and stabbed in the back—the blade missing her spine and kidneys by only centimetres. Joanne has suffered lifelong injuries from the stabbing. She said that she had known of a lack of safety measures and that they were a major concern for her before her life-threatening attack at work. She has said: 'We should all be safe at work. We all have family we want to get back to. It took me seven days to get home, and I am one of the lucky ones.'

That truth is at the heart of this bill. All Australians deserve to feel safe at work, to be safe at work and to return home from work, and no public servant should face violence or aggression for doing the really important work of protecting, helping and supporting our community.Sadly, Joeanne's story is not an isolated one. In the period between July 2023 and June 2024, Services Australia recorded almost 1,700 serious incidents across its face-to-face services. This is an unacceptable number. The staff who greet people at these offices are not faceless bureaucrats; they're mums, dads, neighbours, friends and community members. They are workers who are dedicated to public services, and there is never an excuse for aggressive behaviour. There is no excuse for violence or abuse.

This bill delivers on recommendation 17 of the Ashton review, which made 44 recommendations to improve safety for Commonwealth workers. It establishes a framework that allows Commonwealth entities to apply to courts for workplace protection orders. These orders can prohibit or restrict contact with a worker, prohibit or restrict access to a particular workplace or establish alternative service arrangements, such as phone-only appointments. This bill empowers the courts to issue a range of orders. Workplace protection orders apply to all Commonwealth workplaces from service centres to mobile pop-ups and from Commonwealth vehicles to a worker's home when they are working remotely. This applies to our own electorate staff in our offices right across the country. They are also included in the protections. This bill also provides that offences apply regardless of whether conduct occurs here in Australia or overseas and whether threats are made face to face, over the phone or online. That reflects the reality of modern work. Abuse and violence can come from anywhere and in many forms, and our laws must keep pace.

While worker safety is, of course, paramount, this bill also ensures fairness and balance. Where an order might limit access to services, agencies are required to propose alternative arrangements so that no-one is cut off from support they need or are entitled to. The breach of a WPO will be a criminal offence with penalties carrying up to two years of imprisonment. That is an important deterrent needed to stop repeat violence. We are really clear on our message. Assault a worker and you will be punished. Importantly, this new law will not just be set and forgotten. The legislation requires a full review after three years, ensuring we assess its effectiveness, learn from experience and keep the protections up to date.

When violence closes an office, when staff are traumatised, when services are disrupted, it is vulnerable Australians who lose out. This bill protects the community because safe workplaces mean safe and reliable services. It matters everywhere right across the country and particularly in regional and remote towns where Commonwealth officers are the first door people walk through to access Medicare, aged care or income support. If those offices are unsafe, it puts whole communities at risk.

This bill has been welcomed by my comrades at the Community and Public Sector Union, who do excellent work representing workers in Commonwealth workplaces. The CPSU's national secretary Melissa Donnelly called it 'groundbreaking' because it makes worker safety an integral part of public service delivery. She said, 'It's not just about protecting staff from threats and violence but also about making sure community members can access these services in a safe environment.'

This bill does not just stand on its own. It builds on a wider program of reform by this government. Last year, parliament passed the Criminal Code Amendment (Protecting Commonwealth Frontline Workers) Act 2024, which strengthened penalties for assaults on Commonwealth workers. With that foundation in place, this bill now creates a preventive framework so that we can act before violence occurs. In last year's budget and in the one before it, this government invested over $300 million in safety and security upgrades at service centres across the country. There has been additional funding for 606 new security guards and better designed and enhanced security at high-risk centres. With a centralised security operations centre, live CCTV monitoring and closer ties with local police, this is a real, funded, practical, safety package.

Of course, we haven't just stopped at safety. This is also about rebuilding Services Australia itself, which, in the past, has suffered from government staffing cuts, leaving call waiting times and claims processing to blow out to unacceptable levels. Labor has been committed to fixing that. Last year we recruited 3,000 permanent staff, and in 10 weeks those teams cleared half a million outstanding claims. Medicare online claims dropped by 78 per cent. Low-income card claims dropped by 77 per cent. Seniors card claims dropped by 59 per cent. These workers that dedicate so much of their time to this work should be protected in their workplace.

Our government is investing in its people, investing in its workers and delivering for Australians. Commonwealth workplace staff right across our country, in our cities, regions and towns, do such an important job for our community, and they deserve our support. This bill ultimately, like any other bill about workplace safety, is about respect—respect for workers who dedicate their lives, in this case, to public service and respect for communities, who deserve safe and accessible government services. Minister Burke in the other place said:

A life of service should be honoured … It should never be ridiculed, and it should never be unsafe simply to go to work.

Everyone deserves to go to work safe and everyone deserves to come home safe. This bill draws a clear line that violence and aggression towards Commonwealth workers will not be tolerated by this government. That is the Labor way—safer workplaces, stronger services and a government that has the backs of people who do this work for the public. I commend this bill to the Senate.

I rise today also to support this bill, and I am honoured to present my reflections on the Commonwealth Workplace Protection Orders Bill 2025. This is a bill that speaks directly to the safety of those public servants who serve our communities with professionalism and compassion. Public service is not just a vocation; it's a privilege. That service must ensure dignity and safety. Between July 2023 and June 2024, frontline Public Service staff faced some 1,694 serious incidents across Services Australia's face-to-face service channel alone. These incidents included threats, aggression and violence. They're not mere statistics. They are harm against people who are doing essential work, workers helping Australians to access benefits, assistance and emergency support. When these staff are put at risk, our entire Public Service is weakened and we as a community are weaker.

This workplace protection orders bill builds upon the Ashton review's recommendation 17, which called for the adoption of an ACT-style protection order scheme for Commonwealth workers nationwide. Under the bill, agencies can apply for protection orders when a worker has suffered personal violence in the course of their duties and there remains a real risk of further harm. This measure is both compassionate and sensible. It preserves the dignity of public servants and allows agencies to act quickly and decisively.

If we look at some of the key features within the bill, firstly, it broadens definitions and coverage. The bill uses the term 'Commonwealth worker' in a very broad sense. That means it's inclusive of contractors, volunteers, security staff and all of those who are working under instruments such as the parliamentary staff acts. It also ensures protections extend beyond formal workplaces to other areas, such as adjacent parking lots, homes or even online encounters.

Secondly, the bill reduces the burden on individuals by allowing an authorised agency person to apply on behalf of a worker. That provides speed, efficiency and emotional relief for the affected worker. The difference is measured in hours instead of days. The staff member is protected without having to manage the process themselves—a huge relief.

The third feature is that the courts retain the discretion to issue orders specifying no-contact conditions, location prohibitions and any tailored restrictions that are deemed necessary, provided they ensure due process and rights are balanced.

Fourthly, it's a critical provision that mandates that service access must be preserved—even for those subject to orders, with courts required to ensure alternative, safe means of access for services to remain available at all times.

Finally, the bill includes a provision for review of its operation three years after commencement, which is sensible. It allows for assessment of outcomes and future improvements.

Let's begin by just recalling a simple reality. Frontline Commonwealth workers are the face of government for millions of Australians. They are the people who answer the door when tragedy strikes—when someone's lost their job, lost their home or just lost their way. They are the people who sit behind Centrelink counters, passport desks, call centre phones and mobile service vans across the country. They are not just administrators; they are listeners, fixers and responders, and sometimes, tragically, they become targets. When these workers face intimidation and violence, we're not just witnessing a failure of individual conduct; we're seeing a failure of systems to shield those who shield us.

That is why this bill matters so much. It moves from a reactive posture to a proactive and protective one. It allows agencies to act swiftly and legally to prevent harm. More than that, it embodies a value of our great Australian Labor Party: the dignity of work. Labor has always stood for the dignity of work—not just the right to work but the right to work in safety without fear. This bill is a natural expression of that core value. It affirms that the right to feel safe at work is not limited to police or emergency services; it extends to the often unseen but essential workers within our federal Public Service.

Secondly, it's about a fairer and safer society. Labor believes that government must serve the people, but it must also safeguard its own workers from systemic risk. That is what fairness means in practice—protection for the vulnerable and accountability for the aggressive. This bill does not vilify frustrated clients. It does not punish protest. But what it does is draw a clear legal line between expression and abuse and between discontent and violence. Drawing that line is overdue and necessary. It also recognises that workplace violence is not abstract. It's often gendered. It is sometimes racially motivated. It disproportionately effects women, casuals and younger staff, many of whom are employed in frontline public service roles. In that sense, the bill is also a gender equality measure and a diversity protection measure.

It's also about empowering our public institutions. Labor has always believed in the power of strong public institutions. We see the government not as a burden but as a mechanism for equity and compassion. Our institutions must be strong and responsive. They must be agile enough to address emerging threats like rising aggression in an age of social stretch, digital disconnection and declining trust. The bill gives institutions the legislative tools they need to act without needing to wait for police intervention or personal legal action.

I'll say this: no worker should have to navigate the court system just to feel safe at work. This bill lifts that burden and puts it where it belongs, with the institution itself. It's also about evidence based reform. Labor has governed through listening. This bill was born of that principle. It's a direct response to the Ashton review, which made it clear that Commonwealth workers are facing unacceptable levels of risk and that a legislative solution is needed. We didn't ignore that advice; we acted. We acted not with a blunt instrument but with precise, considered legislation, modelled on the ACT framework, adapted for national needs and balanced against legal rights.

It's also about public sector leadership. The bill reinforces our belief that the public sector should lead by example. We cannot in good conscience call on the private sector to improve their workplace safety if our own agencies are left exposed. We cannot push for domestic violence protections while ignoring workplace harassment of our own. So the Commonwealth must be a model employer. It must set an example, and this bill is a necessary step towards that goal.

The Commonwealth Workplace Protection Orders Bill declares that work should be free from fear and that our public servants deserve both legal protections and political recognition. This bill reflects those values that we hold dear as a labour movement—respect for work, compassion for people, belief in institutions and trust in evidence—so I commend this bill to the Senate.

I thank the other senators and members in the other place for their remarks and their strong support of this bill. Some may know that I am a former public servant. I worked at the Australian Taxation Office for 15 years, and, following that, I was an employee of the Community and Public Sector Union—the union that represents public sector workers.

The tragic incident that occurred at the Airport West service centre on 23 May 2003 was just horrific, and it could have been prevented. The Albanese Labor government does take work health and safety seriously. This bill is going to fill important gaps in the security and safety for Commonwealth public servants who are the heart and the backbone of government delivery and service delivery for the community. This bill, as we've talked about in this place, is the result of a stabbing in a workplace, something that should never have occurred but was, unfortunately, the result of a unilateral decision at the time of agency senior leadership to reduce security guards in service centres without adequate consultation with workers and their union.

I can inform senators and those that are watching and listening at home that CPSU members, delegates and health and safety reps strongly opposed these changes and control measures. The CPSU national secretary, Melissa Donnelly; our deputy national president, Matthew Harrison; and our section secretary Emma White worked tirelessly to fight against cuts to frontline safety and security, to push for better safety outcomes and to make sure that our members' voices were heard. I'm pleased to say that this bill is a result of the work of our union members and union leadership to be able to improve these systems and these controls.

I remember being a union official at the time following the stabbing at Services Australia. My direct responsibility was for members in Services Australia, looking out for their work health and safety interests and organising. There was a terrible amount of fear across the workforce of copycat attacks, and, unfortunately, there was a period of time where people were just numb to the thought of getting attacked, of getting yelled at, of being abused and of being spat on in their workplaces for doing their job of serving the community. I can tell people in this chamber that Centrelink workers genuinely care about their customers. Regardless of the risks and some of the abuse and some of the bile that has been put towards them, they have still performed their work tirelessly and amazingly, and I thank them for their work and their service and their dedication to serving some of most vulnerable people.

Following the stabbing, there's been a lengthy investigation by the work health and safety regulator, Comcare, and, on 23 May 2025, Services Australia was charged by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions for breaching our federal work health and safety laws. I have to mention that this was at a time when we were recovering from a decade of cuts to and degradation of the Public Service and when there were toxic, antiworker vibes in the senior leadership of some parts of the Public Service. I really commend the work of the government and Minister Gallagher, who have worked tirelessly to improve the culture in the APS and to improve the culture at Services Australia. I thank the new CEO of Services Australia as well for his work in engaging with workers and their representatives to improve the culture for workers at Services Australia.

Consultation about work, health and safety matters shouldn't be seen as a burden; it should be seen as an opportunity to improve the lives of working people. Whether we're talking about public servants or we're talking about workers—this morning I had the opportunity to hear from apprentices from the ETU—everyone should have the right to come to work and go home safely to their family and to their loved ones. This bill goes a long way to improving the lives of Centrelink workers and public servants in order to have that outcome—to be able to go home safely.

Workplace protection orders were one of 44 recommendations made by Graham Ashton to improve the safety and security of Services Australia workers. Many of those recommendations have already been implemented, and they have been very well received by workers in Services Australia. They include things like improved fit-outs of service centres, with safer layouts, safer uniforms and a more worker focused approach for when new people come into the offices. It's really important. The workplace protection orders were recommendation 17 of the Ashton safety and security review—to adopt provisions that are very similar to what have been in place in the ACT. The implementation of this legislation is going to provide Commonwealth public sector workers with safety and with certainty that it's not just them; if they suffer an incident of aggression or violence in the workplace, their employer, the Commonwealth, can take out a protection order on their behalf. Whether it is a worker or a workplace that has been affected, the workplace protection order can be taken out so that the worker doesn't have to look at individual restraining orders or individual orders. It allows the employer, the Commonwealth, to look out for our workers.

I note Senator Dowling's and Senator Whiteaker's comments in support of public sector workers. It's really heartening to hear, from colleagues, the sheer amount of support for the public sector and the Public Service. As I've mentioned, they are the backbone of our government and us being able to deliver for Australians. I'd also like to acknowledge the work of the former Senate committee who made recommendations, after consultation with stakeholders and community groups, to make sure that customers who are affected by workplace protection orders can still access government service delivery. This is not about cutting people out. People can still access, but it gives the workers certainty. We've also got in the bill, as a result of feedback from the unions, that workers who suffer aggression or abuse don't need to have been wearing a uniform and been immediately identifiable as a Commonwealth worker in order to be able to have a workplace protection order taken out on their behalf.

Violence, aggression and unacceptable behaviour have no place in any workplace in our country. It takes nothing to be kind. It takes nothing to say 'thank you' or to say 'hello' to a worker in the office. It takes more energy to be upset. It takes more energy to be angry at somebody or angry at the system. I implore people, when we are dealing with workers, to be kind, to be respectful and to be humble when we're seeking support, whether it's in a Centrelink office, whether it's in a supermarket or whether you're getting a passport. Kindness takes nothing, and everyone has the right to come home safely. I commend the bill to the house.

I thank my colleagues and senators across the chamber for their contributions to this debate on the Commonwealth Workplace Protection Orders Bill 2025. This bill will strengthen protections for Commonwealth workers and Commonwealth workplaces, where workers and visitors are at an increasing risk of violence and aggression while at work. Too often, violence and aggression have devastating impacts on workers and their families, as well as on the safe operation of Commonwealth workplaces and the delivery of Commonwealth services to the Australian community.

The bill seeks to protect public servants like Joeanne Cassar, who people have spoken about today in the chamber, who at 55 years of age and after decades of service, set out for work at a Services Australia branch, at Airport West, one Tuesday morning in May 2023, not knowing that her life was about to change forever. Later that day she was brutally attacked by a man whom Services Australia had identified as a risk to workers but had no legal authority to ban. He punched her in the face and stabbed her once in the lower back, just missing her spine and kidneys but leaving her with life-changing injuries and enduring pain. Unfortunately, the attack on Joeanne is not isolated.

We know that Commonwealth workers and workplaces continue to face an unacceptable risk of violence from members of the public. Indeed, in just a one-year period, Services Australia staff faced almost 1,700 serious incidents. These attacks should never have happened. All Australians have the right to feel safe and to be safe at work.

The Services Australia Security Risk Management Review was commissioned after Joeanne's assault. It was a comprehensive review led by former Victorian police commissioner Mr Graham Ashton, who made 44 recommendations to increase the safety of Commonwealth workers, and the government has committed to implementing all of those recommendations. This bill implements recommendation 17 of that Ashton review by creating a Commonwealth workplace protection orders scheme, and the bill complements the Criminal Code amendment which the government already passed last year to implement recommendation 18 of the Ashton review. That increased criminal penalties for harming a Commonwealth frontline worker.

This bill will enhance the Australian government's ability to protect its employees, particularly those in frontline service delivery roles. The bill was first introduced in 2024 and passed the House of Representatives in February 2025, before the 2025 election. The bill was then quickly reintroduced in the first sittings of this parliament, to prioritise the establishment of a framework to enable a Commonwealth entity to apply to a court for a Commonwealth workplace protection order, or WPO, to protect a Commonwealth worker or workplace from threats of or actual harm. The bill defines a 'Commonwealth worker' to include Commonwealth employees and contractors, such as security officers.

Before issuing a workplace protection order, the court must be satisfied that the respondent has engaged in personal violence in relation to a Commonwealth worker or the workplace and that there is a real risk that the respondent will engage in further personal violence if the order is not made. 'Personal violence' means conduct that causes or threatens to cause harm or a reasonable fear of harm. A court would be able to apply any conditions or restrictions if determined necessary to prevent any future risk of personal violence to a Commonwealth worker or workplace. Conditions could include prohibiting or restricting contact with a Commonwealth worker; prohibiting or restricting attendance at a particular Commonwealth workplace; or a restricted servicing arrangement, such as phone-only appointments, to allow ongoing service delivery as required.

A WPO is available for all Commonwealth workplaces, extending to anywhere a Commonwealth worker is conducting official Commonwealth work. This includes, for example, an office of a particular Commonwealth entity, mobile servicing such as pop-up shops in shopping centres, Commonwealth vehicles or a Commonwealth worker's residence when they are working from home. The safety of Commonwealth workers comes first, but we also want to ensure individuals can continue to access necessary government services. The bill ensures that imposing conditions that would limit the person's ability to access services or contact electoral representatives. The applicant is required to provide the court with information on alternative procedures or arrangements for how the respondent may access or maintain those benefits or services. The court would also be required to consider the personal circumstances of the respondent when determining the conditions attached to an order and ensure that the person still has the ability to access essential services and retain the ability to engage in political communication.

The bill would allow either party to apply to the court to vary or revoke an order. The court would be able to vary the conditions in the order and/or the period for which it is in force. This would allow flexibility where the circumstances of either the Commonwealth entity or the respondent change. The bill also provides that either party would be able to appeal a decision of the court relating to the making, varying or revoking of a final order. Breaching a condition of an order will be a criminal offence punishable by two years imprisonment or 120 penalty units or both. The penalty will act as a deterrent for non-compliance with conditions while protecting workers from any future threatening behaviour. The bill also requires a review three years after commencement.

In conclusion, this bill sends a strong message that the government values the contributions made by Commonwealth workers and that violence and aggression towards those workers and workplaces is never acceptable. This bill creates a whole new act and is a serious reform of worker safety. The bill is a further step to creating safer workplaces for Commonwealth workers and allowing the community safe access to Commonwealth government benefits and services, and the bill offers new protections to all Commonwealth workers, just like Joeanne, who we've been speaking about today, who had dedicated her life to helping others. Public servants devote their professional lives to serving the public. A life of service should be honoured. It should never be scorned, it should never be ridiculed and it should never be unsafe simply to go to work. Every Australian worker deserves to feel safe, to be safe and to come home to their loved ones each day.

I table a replacement explanatory memorandum relating to the Commonwealth Workplace Protection Orders Bill 2025.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

As no amendments to the bill have been circulated, I shall call the minister to move the third reading unless any senator requires that the bill be considered in Committee of the Whole.

I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

I rise to make a contribution to the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Bill 2025. This bill amends the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 and also the Surveillance Devices Act 2004, along with the Crimes Act 1914, to ensure key provisions operate as intended and makes technical amendments following the government's decision to reconstitute the Home Affairs portfolio following the federal election.

Schedule 1 of the bill permits a protected network activity warrant and warrant intercept information to be used, communicated and recorded to meet disclosure obligations. It also allows the information to be admitted in evidence where necessary to ensure the defensible prosecution of criminal activity while retaining the intelligence-only purpose of network activity warrants.

Schedule 2 of the bill amends the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to transfer the statutory function of the Communications Access Coordinator, otherwise known as the CAC, from the Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department to the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs. This change is only necessary because this government prioritised party politics over the protection of Australians by dismantling the Home Affairs portfolio after the 2022 election.

Following the last election, this year, the Albanese Labor government restored the Home Affairs portfolio to its original structure, established under the coalition, by returning the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre to Home Affairs from the Attorney-General's portfolio. This came after the coalition took this commitment to the election while Labor made no such commitment. The decision to reconstitute the Home Affairs portfolio following the election and the Prime Minister's acknowledgement that there were issues with information-sharing during the Dural caravan incident are admissions that the national security architecture that he put in place by dismantling Home Affairs had failed at a critical time. The government should, frankly, apologise to Australians for putting party politics over Australia's national security by changing the Home Affairs portfolio three times in three years in a pointless factional tug of war.

Schedule 3 amends the Telecommunication (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to permit limited access to stored communications to allow agencies to undertake development and testing activities in circumstances where they would otherwise have been authorised to intercept the same communication if it were still passing over a telecommunications system. These changes will ensure the framework remains fit for purpose in the modern operating environment where stored communications may pass over the telecoms system and become indistinguishable from live communications.

Schedule 4 corrects a technical issue with the operation of interception international production orders in the T(IA) Act that was preventing international production orders from being given to US based prescribed communications providers in certain circumstances, under the agreement between the government of Australia and the government of the United States of America on access to electronic data for the purpose of countering serious crime. The amendments clarify that interception orders issued to Australian law enforcement and national security agencies may be used to obtain prospective content data from communications providers in a country with which Australia has a designated international agreement, regardless of the technical method by which that prospective data is sent to the agency.

Schedule 5 amends the Crimes Act to clarify the threshold for authorising varying controlled operations and the circumstances in which a participant is protected from criminal responsibility and indemnified against civil liability. The anonymous nature of online crime means law enforcement may lack information to assess potential risks when deciding whether to authorise or vary a controlled operation. The amendments will clarify that authorising officers must consider the direct and reasonably foreseeable consequences of controlled conduct when authorising or varying a controlled operation. Schedule 5 also provides clarity around legal protections for officers involved in undercover operations targeted at taking down sexual abuse syndicates. In the 2024-25 financial year, the ACCCE Child Protection Triage Unit received 82,764 reports of online child exploitation. This equated to an average of 226 reports per day. The need for strong action against these predators has never ever been more acute. These amendments ensure that the law is fit for purpose in addressing the most abhorrent online crimes where the persons under investigation are anonymised, including on the dark web and encrypted communications platforms.

The changes in the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 provide essential clarifications to ensure that the agencies that keep our nation safe can continue to do so in an era of rapid technological development. The coalition will always support sensible reforms which ensure that the men and women serving in intelligence and law enforcement roles have the tools they need to take down criminals no matter where they're hiding. The opposition will be supporting this legislation without amendment.

I rise on behalf of the Greens to indicate our opposition to the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. The minister, in the second reading speech, and also the opposition described these as 'technical amendments', but I think we should be clear that the bill massively expands surveillance powers without any consideration of adequate safeguards or any adequate consideration of accountability. Whenever Home Affairs or parts of the security agencies talk about technical amendments, it always pays to look closer. In my experience, when Home Affairs say 'technical amendments', normally, it's anything but. That's a deeply concerning pattern of behaviour from this government and from Home Affairs.

The Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, the INSLM, tabled, barely a month ago on 1 September, a report on the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Act 2021. It would have been essential to properly consider that report from the INSLM before passing yet another bill granting yet more extended surveillance powers and the extended use of information obtained under existing surveillance powers to the parliament. Of course, parliament hasn't properly considered the INSLM report, nor would Home Affairs have been able to adequately consider the INSLM report before bringing forward this legislation. Indeed, it gets better. As we're pushing to rapidly adopt this bill, without reference to the INSLM report even, we also know that Home Affairs is conducting a major review of the entire electronic surveillance framework.

We're being asked on the one hand to expand surveillance powers before any consideration of the INSLM's report—which had many critical concerns about the lack of proportionality between powers that have been given to security agencies over the last two decades and basic expectations of due process and rights—and it's in the middle of Home Affairs undertaking a major review of the entire electronic surveillance framework that it's responsible for. Of particular concern for my party, the Australian Greens, is schedule 1, which expands network activity warrant disclosure powers. In that regard—and I'll reference it shortly—I really am grateful for the considered submission that went to this bill from the Internet Association of Australia—not what you'd call a radical group. It is a very carefully reasoned and considered submission from the primary industry association responsible for managing the core infrastructure of the internet in Australia.

I will deal with their concerns about the bill shortly, but their concerns in relation to schedule 1, the expanded disclosure of the existing information obtained under warrant and the absence of robust safeguards—they are right to raise very real concerns and to ask the parliament to press pause on that. Schedule 3 also lets agencies access stored communications while testing and developing interception tech. That means real people's private messages are going to be accessed not for a security purpose or a public interest purpose but just so that they can be guinea pigs and have their information used for testing. The government promises this information can't be used for investigations, but there's almost no oversight of this. It all happens in the dark. This is another part of the function creep that the Internet Association of Australia points out in relation to this entire bill.

Schedule 4, another so-called 'technical amendment', significantly expands the IPO scheme, which currently only exists between Australia and the United States. When you look at what the impact of that will be, it's quite clear we are talking about a potentially significantly expanded flow of Australians' data going to US law enforcement just at a time when the United States judiciary is being weaponised for political purposes. As we're literally watching the Trump administration politically weaponise the US criminal justice system, the Albanese government, with barely a blink, without a pause, is proposing a radically increased amount of information that can be given directly to the United States law enforcement agencies, directly impacting Australians' privacy. It's almost as though this government hasn't realised there is a change happening in the United States—a change that is harmful to basic principles of human rights, harmful to due process at law and, indeed, harmful to what the Greens think is a democratic and prosperous future for the planet. Putting that all to one side, the Albanese government, without really telling the public, has decided, with this bill, to massively increase the amounted of information going to the United States on the request of the Trump administration.

The Greens are joining with the Internet Association of Australia to say this bill should be paused. It should be pulled at the moment. There should be proper consultation before this legislation is passed. The Home Affairs comprehensive electronic surveillance review should be finished before we grant extended powers. Someone should probably read the INSLM report before they bring in fresh legislation that seems directly contrary to the concerns raised by the INSLM as recently as 1 September. Perhaps even do a regulatory impact analysis because the industry says none of that has happened with them. Instead, what are we seeing? We're seeing the coalition and Labor join together, as they always do, to remove rights, to increase the surveillance state, to hand yet more of our information over to the Trump administration in the United States, and to do it without even a blink. That's what's probably going to happen today.

I want to put on the record the concerns of the Internet Association of Australia. Again I want to credit them for being one of the few organisations that really came to terms with this bill—a complex, difficult, technical bill—and I want to read their concerns from their communication to the PJCIS. Of course, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security operates in secret and deliberates in secret, and sometimes we can only find out what happens because of the occasional public submission that is published by the PJCIS. The Internet Association of Australia said:

We reject the framing of the TOLA Bill as being primarily technical or administrative corrections in nature as suggested in the Explanatory Memorandum. As will be further detailed below, in particular, Schedules 1 and 3 represent a function creep by expanding the admissibility of information gained via extraordinary electronic surveillance powers, and expanding the scope of stored communications access.

…   …   …

IAA strongly recommends … that the TOLA Bill not be passed until a full public consultation process and Regulatory Impact Statement has been completed. At the least, the TOLA Bill should be split so that only the administrative adjustments proposed under Schedule 2 are passed, while Schedules 1-3 and 4-5 to the TOLA Bill are delayed for further consultation and scrutiny.

We further note that the electronic surveillance legislative framework is currently subject to a major review by the Department of Home Affairs. It is thus concerning that there are changes being proposed by the TOLA Bill seemingly without reference to the ongoing work.

Of course they are right in doing that. Part of the departmental review is looking at some of the human rights and privacy issues that are obviously at play in this TOLA bill. According to the department's website, the department review is looking to develop a single electronic surveillance act that:

…   …   …

You would think all of that would be necessary before you massively expand the use of information obtained under already quite extraordinary surveillance powers. But no—this government presses on regardless.

The IAA point out the importance of the INSLM's most recent report under the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Act, the SLAID Act. The IAA submission says:

The INSLM report made many recommendations to ensure the use of powers under the SLAID Act is fit-for-purpose and better balances providing agencies with the legal authority to combat serious crimes while also upholding core democratic principles. With many of the recommendations pertaining to bolstering the safeguard and oversight mechanisms, we are highly concerned that the TOLA Bill seeks to increase powers without regard to the INSLM's call for corresponding safeguard measures.

IAA strongly recommends that the Committee recommends the TOLA Bill not be passed until the INSLM report has been thoroughly reviewed and considered by Parliament, and the Department.

It's interesting—isn't it?—to watch the debate between the government and what goes for a opposition. Of course, when it comes to national security, it's not an opposition; it's a bunch of people in suits acting as a cheer squad for the government. It's interesting to watch what goes for debate on this. There's no reference to the INSLM report. There's no reference to the review being undertaken by Home Affairs. There's no reference to privacy. There's no reference to core democratic principles. There's no reference to any restraint. Instead there's just a big fat rubber stamp from the so-called parties of government, who have never seen a demand or a grasp for power by executive government that they haven't been willing to cheer through this parliament. It goes to show why there are so many concerns about the way this place operates and why there are so many concerns about the creep of surveillance powers, the expanding reach of surveillance powers and the diminishing spaces in which citizens can act without the intrusive hand of the state reaching in, surveilling without notice and impacting upon our privacy. The core reason this happens is because there's a culture in this place of never questioning the next executive power grab that comes, particularly from agencies like Home Affairs and ASIO. It is dangerous to civil liberties, and, in the long term, it's dangerous for democracy. For those reasons, we oppose this bill.

I move:

Omit all words after "That", substitute "further consideration of the bill be postponed until the day after the Senate passes a resolution that it is of the opinion that each of the following conditions has been met:

(a) a full public consultation process and regulatory impact analysis of the bill has been conducted;

(b) parliamentarians have had the opportunity to thoroughly review and consider the recommendations in the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor's report of the review of the extraordinary powers for the Australian Federal Police and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission under the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Act 2021, published on 1 September 2025; and

(c) the bill aligns with the wider electronic surveillance reform agenda, including the Department of Home Affairs' review of the electronic surveillance legislative framework".

I commend it to the house because it's excellent.

I thank honourable members for their contributions to the debate on this bill. The Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 remedies defects preventing agencies from exercising powers in the manner that parliament intended. The bill makes five key amendments across the Telecommunications Act 1979, the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and the Crimes Act 1914.

Schedule 1 of the bill contains amendments to ensure the Commonwealth is able to comply with its duty of disclosure owed to courts while preserving the intelligence-only nature of network activity warrants. The bill will also permit the admission into evidence of information obtained under a network activity warrant where necessary to support a fair trial, operate with sophisticated levels of anonymity online and target those most vulnerable in our community.

In conclusion the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 will address defects preventing agencies from exercising powers consistent with parliament's intent when enacting the relevant provisions of the Telecommunications Act 1979, the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and the Crimes Act 1914. I commend the bill to the Senate.

The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Shoebridge be agreed to.

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

For the benefit of the chamber, I understand that amendments have not yet been circulated to everyone. We're waiting for the hard copies of the amendments to be circulated. In the interim, I see Senator Shoebridge on his feet. Are you content to proceed at this point?

I'm content to proceed. I have a few short questions for the minister that may resolve all of my concerns. Minister, obviously one of the concerns that's been raised by the Internet Association of Australia is that this legislation is being brought forward before the conclusion of the Home Affairs review into surveillance. Are you in a position to provide the parliament with an update on where that review is and what the expected timeframe for the provision of the recommendations from that review is?

The review is underway, and I can confirm that we're expecting progress on that in this term of parliament.

One of the terms of reference for the review—at least according to Home Affairs—is to 'better protect individuals' information and data, including by reflecting what it means to communicate in the 21st century'. Minister, given that this legislation proposes a significant increase in the sharing and distribution of private data obtained under surveillance warrants, did the government consider holding off on this bill until you had the maturer reflection from Home Affairs on that issue?

We believe that it is necessary to progress this bill urgently. It's necessary to address the technical issues that are preventing agencies from exercising existing powers in the manner that the parliament intended, required to support prosecutors and agencies to comply with disclosure obligations and to support a fair trial, and required to finalise machinery-of-government changes following the making of a new administrative arrangements order on 13 May 2025.

Well, of course, this goes beyond just changing the names and the entity that can use existing powers. This significantly increases how information can be shared and expands the purposes for which information can be shared. It's not the government's contention—is it?—that this is simply a technical change to deal with the re-establishment of Home Affairs. That's not a serious contention for the government, is it?

That was one of the components that I mentioned, as well as preventing agencies from exercising existing powers in the manner that the parliament intended, and it's required to support prosecutors and agencies to comply with disclosure obligations and to support a fair trial. So there were additional reasons for the urgency.

The PJCIS report deals at some modest length with the proposed changes to IPOs, or international production orders. It's true that Australia has an arrangement with the United States for IPOs under the Australia-US CLOUD Act Agreement. Is that the arrangement, the existing arrangement, under which this expanded amount of information will be provided to the United States if this bill is passed? Would it still be the Australia-US CLOUD Act Agreement?

That is still the agreement, and it doesn't expand the ability of those agencies to gain increased information from Australians.

Minister, I hear what you say. The problem I have is that what you've just told the Senate is starkly at odds with what the PJCIS has said. I'll read from their report.

The International Production Orders (IPO) framework in Schedule 1 … enables Australian law enforcement and national security agencies to obtain an IPO … where Australia has a designated international agreement with the foreign country—

and that's where they reference the Australia-US CLOUD Act Agreement.

This means that Australian law enforcement and national security agencies can ask communications service providers in the US to provide content or data to investigate or prosecute serious offences in Australia, and allows US law enforcement and security agencies to similarly request access to content or data held by Australian-based communication service providers to investigate or prosecute crimes in the US.

That's them describing the current arrangements. But they go on to say:

The bill seeks to amend Schedule 1 of the TIA Act to replace the term 'intercepting' with 'accessing' in relation to IPOs.279 The effect of this is to broaden when an IPO may be issued—an eligible judge or nominated administrative review tribunal member must consider the agency's 'access' to communications, messages, voice calls or video calls in relation to IPOs, rather than the technical method by which the information is captured, stored or retrieved.280

So is PJCIS right when it says it broadens when an IPO may be issued, or are you right when you say there's no change?

The amendments are necessary to give effect to the original intent of the legislation, allowing for the interception international production orders to be used to receive prospective content data. In the course of operationalising the international production order framework, it became evident that the framework does not accurately cover the technical methods used by some providers to collect, store and return prospective communications. In essence, the existing provisions assume data will be delivered to agencies in real time, but in reality providers may be unable to provide real-time interception, and it could, instead, occur on a periodic basis. The amendments, therefore, provide certainty that international production orders may be used to receive prospective content data regardless of the technical method used to create, copy and send prospective data and that, as I said before, this does not expand the ability of the US to access information from Australians.

I think I might have said that that reference was from PJCIS. It's actually from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human RightsReport 5 of 2025. I just want to clarify that—sorry. Again, Minister, what you say and what the unanimous report of the parliamentary committee says are somewhat at odds. The human rights committee says at 1.231:

In relation to proportionality, broadening when an IPO may be issued, and allowing prescribed communication providers to share stored communications, exacerbates the previous concerns identified in relation to the IPO framework and the right to privacy. In particular, in relation to B-party orders where an order is made in relation to services used by an individual who is not the target allowing a prescribed communications provider to provide stored communications regarding this person appears to greatly broaden the amount of personal data that a provider can share even where the person is not the target of the investigation.

Now, is that right? Is the unanimous report from the parliamentary joint committee—which says that these amendments appear to 'greatly broaden the amount of personal data that a provider can share even where the person is not the target of the investigation'—right? That's the effect of this bill, isn't it?

With regard to the human rights committee report and the amendments, they do not affect Australian providers or how incoming orders from foreign partners may be handled. The amendments only relate to the compliance by foreign service providers with Australian orders.

You see, at no point has your government clarified with the human rights committee that that's the case. Indeed, it's my understanding the human rights committee came to this conclusion on a thorough review of the legislation, including with the assistance of information from Home Affairs. We are left, again, in a difficult situation where a unanimous report of the human rights committee that considered this bill at length says that it appears to 'greatly broaden the amount of personal data that a provider can share even where the person is not the target of the investigation'. Against that, we have the rhetoric of both the government and the opposition that this is all technical, there's nothing to see here and, 'Don't you worry about it.'

I've got to say, on behalf of the Australian Greens, we find the unanimous recommendation after careful deliberation of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights more persuasive than the bare assertions that have been provided by both the government and the opposition. Can you explain, if what you say to the Senate is true, how it is that at no point has the minister sought to clarify what looks like, on your version—and, I've got to say, I think there's a credibility gap—such a significant mischaracterisation by the committee?

What I would point out is that the PJCIS has recommended that this bill be passed without amendment, and that's what the government intends to do.

Sometimes you know you're tilling some barren ground, so I might move on. Have the amendments now been circulated?

Yes.

I move the amendment on sheet 3474:

(1) Schedule 4, page 13 (line 1) to page 15 (line 16), to be opposed.

I think it might be addressed in how the question is put.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: That's right, and it will be.

I might quickly explain the amendments. Schedule 4 changes the language of 'intercepting' to 'accessing' in certain circumstances which, in our understanding—which is informed by cogent submissions by the Internet Association of Australia and the conclusions of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights—is intended to broaden the issuing person's considerations to access of the information. It qualifies the use of the expression 'interception in some instances' by 'interception as permitted under an international production order', and that's about an issuing person needing to consider the broader concept of a target's information and therefore potentially significantly expanding the operation of the IPOs, and it does so in the context of the US agreement. As I think we heard earlier, the only country that Australia has an agreement with for the IPOs is the United States. Indeed, I might just close that gate. Minister, is that right? Does Australia have an agreement with anybody other than United States for IPOs?

Yes, I can confirm that's correct.

It's only the United States that we have an arrangement with—I see you nodding.

Correct.

In fact, I even heard, 'Correct.' I won't repeat what I said in the second reading contribution, but I will just make it very clear that the Australian Greens do not trust the current United States administration. We believe the Trump Administration is erratic and dangerous. We see it weaponising and politicising its criminal justice system, and we see the erosion of basic rights within the United States in the democratic and legal systems happening at pace. We are deeply concerned that, while that is happening, the Albanese Labor government is proposing to significantly increase the amount of information that they are willing to give to the United States about Australian private citizens that has been obtained without their consent and without their knowledge using existing surveillance laws. We are deeply concerned that the proposal here will greatly broaden the amount of personal data that can be shared with the United States, including when the personal data is of a person who is not the target of an investigation, and we rely upon the conclusions of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights to confirm those concerns. We think it is reckless and dangerous to be providing such a large expanded amount of secretly obtained surveillance data from Australian citizens who are not the target of an investigation to the Trump Administration at this point, and that is why we move these amendments to try and remove schedule 4 of the bill.

The government will be opposing these amendments for the reasons that I set out earlier, and we intend to pass the bill unamended.

The question is that schedule 4 stand as printed.

I move:

That the bill be now read a third time.

Could I have it noted that the Greens oppose the third reading, but we won't be insisting on a division, because we're such nice guys.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

I rise today to speak on the Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Amendment Bill 2025. This bill makes a series of technical administrative amendments to ensure the national joint replacement register levy operates in line with its original policy intent. Specifically, the bill redefines who is responsible for paying the levy, ensuring it applies to the current responsible person for a medical device listed on the prescribed list of medical devices and human tissue products, not just the original applicant. This is a sensible and necessary change. It ensures that the levy keeps pace with commercial changes over time, including where responsibility for a device listing is transferred between companies. The bill also includes validating provisions to mitigate risks from past levy collections.

The national joint replacement registry, or the NJRR, plays a vital role in monitoring and improving patient safety and surgical outcomes for Australians receiving joint replacements. The registry, administered by the Australian Orthopaedic Association, collects and analyses data from all relevant hospitals across Australia to help define, improve and maintain the quality of care in joint replacement surgery. The Australian Orthopaedic Association receives Commonwealth funding for aspects of the registry's administration, through a grants agreement, and these costs are efficiently recovered through the levy imposed under the Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Act 2009.

The bill ensures that the levy continues to function effectively and consistent with its original purpose—to support the continued collection and analysis of high-quality data on joint replacement outcomes. Therefore, the coalition supports the bill. It is a sensible, technical measure that improves the operation of the levy. These amendments are administrative, and they are consistent with the coalition's longstanding support for the efficient, transparent and accountable administration of Australia's healthcare system.

While the coalition supports this bill, it is also worth noting that greater action is needed by the Albanese Labor government to ensure that Australian patients have timely access to elective surgeries such as joint replacements, including ensuring that our hospital systems have funding certainty, going forward, and addressing the underlying causes of bed block in our hospitals.

Reports from the states and territories about the ongoing negotiations on the next National Health Reform Agreement, the agreement that determines the Commonwealth's contribution to hospital funding, are deeply concerning. The Prime Minister has already broken his promise on hospital funding. He promised to deliver a new five-year National Health Reform Agreement with the states and territories for 1 July 2025, but he has failed to negotiate it, leaving our hospitals in a state of uncertainty at a time when they're facing enormous pressure.

Instead of fixing this failure and securing the future of our hospitals, the Prime Minister appears to be sending them backwards. The Prime Minister needs to be honest with the Australian public about whether he intends to break another promise, and that is his promise to fund 42.5 per cent of hospital costs by 2030. If he does, that would not just be a broken promise; it would be a betrayal of patients, families and frontline health workers, who rely on certainty in hospital funding. The Albanese Labor government is clearly failing Australian patients at a time when our health system needs stability and confidence more than ever.

Across the country, waiting lists are growing, hospitals are stretched and patients are waiting months, sometimes years, for procedures that are critical to their mobility, independence and quality of life. Part of this challenge is the growing issue of bed block, where older Australians who are ready to be discharged from hospital cannot leave because they are waiting for access to home-care packages. This is not only distressing for the patients and their families; it also has a direct impact on the availability of hospital beds and the ability to perform elective surgeries. The Albanese government must address the underlying causes of bed block, particularly by ensuring older Australians have timely access to the aged-care support that they have been determined as needing.

Most urgently, waiting times to access home-care packages have skyrocketed under Labor. Before the election, the government promised to deliver 83,000 new home-care packages from 1 July 2025, but, instead of following through, they withheld that support, even though the sector and the department said that they were ready to deliver these packages. As a result, not a single home-care package was released into the system for the first quarter of this financial year. This failure has had devastating consequences. The priority waiting list of Australians who have been assessed as needing care to keep them in their homes has blown out to 121,000 older Australians. Waiting times have tripled and, tragically, many thousands of Australians have lost their lives while waiting to get the care that they've been assessed as needing.

It was only after a coordinated campaign between the coalition, the crossbench and the Greens in this place that we forced the government to cave and start releasing some of those 83,000 packages recently. We demanded that all of those packages be released by the end of the financial year. We also demanded that they immediately release 20,000 of them. This was a win for older Australians. A further 20,000 will be released before the end of this calendar year. As I said, this is a win for older Australians, but it should never have needed to happen. It shouldn't have needed our pressure for this to take place.

Labor faces a choice: listen to older Australians desperately in need of assistance or vote against us and continue to deny vulnerable older Australians the support they desperately need. The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, his health minister, Mark Butler, and the aged-care minister, Sam Rae, still need to explain to Australians why it took the coalition, the crossbench and the Greens holding their ground in the Senate for them to release this much-needed support. As I said, this should have happened months ago, but at least it's happened now.

It is a black mark against the government that they were purposefully withholding support from over 100,000 older Australians who had been assessed by this government as needing that care. The coalition has stood up for older Australians across the country, Australians who the government had abandoned. The money was in the budget. The capacity was there. The only thing standing in the way of older Australians getting aged-care packages was the Labor government. This was a crisis of the government's own making.

There's still much work to be done. We know that as we stand here there are nearly 120,000 additional older Australians who are waiting to be assessed for a home-care package. They aren't even reflected in the figures that we see of the 121,000 older Australians who have been assessed for a package and are waiting for one. So we are talking about nearly 240,000 older Australians who are being denied the care that they need because this government is actively choosing not to make it available.

The coalition will continue to fight for older Australians, with one clear goal—that no-one should have to wait for the care that they have been assessed as needing. So, once again, as I said, the coalition will support this bill because it represents a practical policy to improve the efficiency and integrity of a key health administration process. But we will continue to hold the Albanese Labor government to account for its failures on hospital funding, elective surgery access and aged-care delivery. Australians deserve a government that delivers on its promises, not a government that says one thing and does another. Australians deserve access to support they need when they need it, whether that's in our hospitals, through our aged-care system, at home or in residential care. That is why I am tabling a second reading amendment as circulated in my name to call out the government for this hospital crisis that they are perpetuating.

Today I am speaking in support of the Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Amendment Bill 2025. It makes a small but important administrative amendment to the operation of the National Joint Replacement Registry. Now, the registry plays a vital role in collecting data on joint replacements, including hip, knee, elbow, wrist, ankle and spinal disc replacements, and it collects data from hospitals across Australia. It's one of those quiet yet essential pieces of our healthcare system that many people never really hear about, yet it is critical to keeping our Australian community healthy.

Joint replacements are life changing for many who in their lives have been dealing with chronic pain or disability. This registry helps surgeons, healthcare professionals, governments and the companies that manufacture joint replacements to understand what is working well and what is not. It helps doctors improve surgical outcomes, track complications and strengthen accountability in joint replacement surgery. The bill before us doesn't change the registry's functions. It simply clarifies who is responsible for making payments and ensuring that the right entity—in this case the manufactures and importers of joint replacement prostheses—contribute to the cost of running a robust oversight system. We support the principle that underpins this legislation: the principle that corporations that profit from medical devices should contribute to maintaining the systems that keep people safe.

Maintaining a strong and transparent national joint replacement registry is vital. While this bill may be small in its scope, its impact matters. Accurate data and proper accountability underpin trust in our system. This registry has supported the recording, and analysis of performance outcomes for joint replacements for decades. This collaboration between government, health professionals and the health industry has driven patient safety and improves outcomes for people. While we are on joint replacements, many in this chamber will know Frenches and family who have expressed and shared an experience of a joint replacement and know what a relief having a successful replacement can bring. I also know that for many people who are living with pain day in, day out, experiencing the challenges of being able to afford or access in in a timely way joint replacement surgery, it's really tough. For many in our community, people facing long wait times and in our public hospital system, so many are being pushed to the brink. This year in my home state of WA, we are seeing category 2 and category 3 surgeries rescheduled because our hospital system is at breaking point. Because the system is under so much pressure, because overworked emergency departments are creaking under the strain, people are seeing every single day their vitally needed surgeries delayed or postponed. In recent reporting, we learned the story of a person called Debbie. Debbie is a woman who is based in regional WA, in Albany, who had her double hip replacement cancelled—

Senator Steele-John, it being 12.15, I now need to proceed to senators' statements. You will be in continuation.

Women should be safe everywhere, always, but, as two horrific attacks on women running in Mulligans Flat in Tuggeranong earlier this year made painfully clear, that is still not the reality for women here in the ACT or, indeed, across Australia. Like so many Canberrans, I was shocked and saddened by these attacks. In the aftermath I joined hundreds of women who gathered in Mulligans Flat in an act of solidarity. Many of them had their own stories of fear, of constant vigilance and of the daily compromises women make in order to feel safe.

It was the collective voices of these women and their experiences that prompted me to launch the 'Safe. Everywhere. Always.' survey in a bid to give all women and girls in our city an avenue to share their experiences directly with government and, importantly, to tell us what changes they think would make the most meaningful difference to their lives. More than 2½ thousand women and girls in Canberra generously took the time to complete the survey, and their responses are as powerful as they are confronting.

Through the survey, 86.6 per cent of women reported changing their plans or behaviour to stay safe, and 43 per cent of young women aged 15 to 24 take safety precautions every single time they leave home. Civic, Braddon, Dickson, bus interchanges and nature reserves were the most frequently reported unsafe areas. There were 1,164 mentions of inadequate lighting, especially at bus stops, interchanges, parks and pathways. Forty-nine per cent of women said they lacked confidence in current reporting structures, and over 500 women called for education campaigns focused on changing men's attitudes and behaviours.

The women who completed this survey didn't hold back, and I thank them for that. One survey respondent wrote:

As a female runner I take a lot of precautions to stay safe—I have headphones that don't cover my ears so I can hear my surroundings. I will tell someone where I am going and have my location shared for some family and friends. I will only run in daylight, and I will often have my dog with me. Conversely, my male partner doesn't consider these things when he goes out for a run.

Another respondent articulated the frustration many women feel:

I should be able to move through this world without having to adjust my behaviour—sometimes with costs attached such taxis—or devote as much mental energy to planning my route or attire, just so that I feel safe getting from A to B.

This is the lived reality for women not just here in Canberra but across Australia—the mental load of constant vigilance; the financial cost of choosing safer, more expensive transport options; the abandonment of exercise routines and social activities. When women avoid public transport after dark, abandon exercise routines or spend money they can't afford on alternative transport because they fear for their safety, we are failing as a community. When 43 per cent of young women aged 15 to 24 in Canberra take safety precautions every single time they leave home, we are denying an entire generation of young women the freedom to fully participate in city life. The findings in this survey are confronting. Women have identified specific locations where they feel unsafe, like bus stops and parks, and pointed to infrastructure issues that leave them vulnerable, like the lack of lighting.

As a direct result of this survey, I've written to the Chief Minister of the ACT, seeking to work together to improve safety for women in Canberra. I've also written to the CEO of the National Capital Authority, requesting an urgent update on the lighting review which is currently underway, as priorities coming out of the survey focus heavily on improved lighting to move around the city after dark.

Women have told us clearly that they must be taken seriously when they make reports about behaviour that makes them feel unsafe or when they have experienced them. They told us consistently that women's safety is not solely a women's issue. One respondent put it this way:

This is a men's problem—their behaviour is making women feel unsafe. It is a small number of them but it is still men who make us unsafe. The solution needs to involve men advocating and calling out other men.

While we must continue to improve infrastructure, lighting and transport safety, we cannot engineer our way out of a cultural problem. We can improve lighting and take other public-safety steps, but we also have to focus on changing the harmful attitudes towards women. We need to continue to focus on efforts to change men's attitudes and behaviours so that there is no longer a risk of violence for women to fear.

I want to acknowledge every woman and girl who participated in this survey. I know how difficult talking about this can be, so thank you for sharing your experiences of feeling unsafe, of being harassed or threatened and of having to change your behaviour to stay safe. These are not easy stories to tell. Thank you for believing and caring enough to push for change and to push for improvements. I can assure you that your voice matters, your safety matters and that your demands for change will drive action. As your local senator and the federal Minister for Women, I'm committed to taking these results with me as I work for change, because every woman should feel safe and be safe everywhere and always.

I'd like to start by addressing the Labor government's Defence Amendment (Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal) Bill 2025. This is a stinker of a bill. This bill has rightly caused deep concern and anger across Australia's veteran community. Let me be absolutely clear. This is a bill that should never have made it this far. It is an unnecessary and mean-spirited attack on our veterans and the Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal and puts a use-by date on the words 'we will remember them'.

This bill would impose an arbitrary 20-year time limit on reviewable decisions made by Defence about honours and awards. So, in practice, if you served your country decades ago, your right to have your service properly recognised could simply expire. This is wrong and it is unfair. There should be no expiry date on honour and gallantry. Labor should hurry up and admit they got it wrong and abandon this legislation completely.

A Senate inquiry into this bill was due to report this week, but the reporting date was yesterday pushed back until 21 November because Labor's proposal has triggered outrage. Put simply, the Albanese government should just bin it. Labor has managed to unite 62 of the 63 submissions to the inquiry in opposition against this bill. Veterans, their families, historians and ex-service organisations are all saying the same thing: this legislation is unnecessary, inappropriate and offensive to those who have served.

The Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal itself opposes the bill. Its chair gave scathing evidence to the inquiry:

… in what parallel universe can Defence even contemplate claiming that the wellbeing of its people is enhanced by stripping them of their present rights to challenge Defence decisions …

The tribunal—an independent body established, ironically, by Labor in 2011—has also been clear that this bill would abolish existing rights of ADF members and veterans and their families. How can this possibly be justified? The New South Wales RSL told the Senate inquiry, 'We feel this bill will be completely detrimental not only to veterans but to their physical and mental health. It will also devalue their service.'

These are the voices of people who have served our nation—the people who ensure that we sleep safely in our beds at night. These are the voices of the organisations who support them and of the families still fighting for overdue recognition. Yet, despite this, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs is missing in action and the Prime Minister is silent. Labor is yet to provide a single compelling reason for why this change is needed. This bill doesn't honour service; it undermines it. It doesn't strengthen trust in Defence; it erodes it. It doesn't matter how much they try to polish this bill; it still stinks. The coalition stands with our veterans. We will not support legislation that puts an expiry date on remembrance or on recognition. If Labor had any sense or any understanding of what it means to serve for this country, they would withdraw this bill.

I stand before you today to highlight the teal hypocrisy that has emerged in the wake of the 2025 federal election. For six years now, Australians have been hoodwinked by the so-called teals who present themselves as grassroots community candidates when, in reality, they are anything but. Recent funding disclosures show that donor network Climate 200, which bills itself as a community crowdfunding initiative, distributed close to $11 million to 35 individual teal candidates during the election. But here's the kicker: that fortune was made up of donations from high-flying business moguls, hedge-fund managers, share traders and private equity. So where are the climate-conscious grandmas that Simon Holmes a Court would lead us to believe are the majority donors? Where are they?

These donations are well and good. Private individuals and organisations should be able to donate to the political candidates and parties they choose. However, the hypocrisy of the teals is beginning to be shown to the Australian people. Perhaps that's why they went backwards at the 2025 federal election, despite their top funded 10 candidates spending between $1.2 million and $2.1 million per electorate. These hypocritical teals preach accountability, transparency and a commitment to a clean and green Australia, yet laid out bare now is the reality that they are overwhelmingly accepting large donations from millionaires whose wealth is generated and supported by investments in fossil fuels. One such donor provided $666,000 to a Climate 200 backed teal candidate. This person manages an asset firm whose fund holdings include oil and offshore drilling companies, including Karoon Energy and Noble Corp.

Despite their repeated rhetoric about grassroots community campaigns, a commitment to political transparency and being strong backers of climate action, the teals have proven themselves to be hypocrites of the first order. In the lead-up to the 2025 election, the ABC offered all 35 teal candidates backed by Climate 200 the opportunity to declare where they were getting their money from. Only 19 were willing to provide some information on the record about their donors. Perhaps this had something to do with all that money coming from fossil fuel investors. It is a classic attitude of do as I say, not as I do that they've inherited from their elitist donors.

Australians deserve to know, when a teal candidate speaks of ending fossil fuel subsidies, whether they can trust them if their campaign is funded by a major investor in a fossil fuel company. When they say they stand for community, is that credible if their funding comes from high-rolling donors whose interest is not the local kitchen table but global investment portfolios. The teals promise grassroots community campaigns, but instead we had slick, multimillion dollar campaigns funded by deep pockets and vested interests.

When it comes to misleading the Australian public, Anthony Albanese and this Labor government really do take the cake. During the most recent Senate estimates, the Foreign minister and officials from the Prime Minister's own department refused to provide basic details about the return of ISIS brides and their children to Australia from Syria. This is despite Mr Albanese previously denying reports that a number of ISIS brides were set to return to Australia by the end of the year. Not only has the Prime Minister not told the truth about the fact that ISIS brides were returning to Australia; his own department and Foreign minister were refusing to provide basic details about the repatriation of radical jihadis to our shores. This is a deliberate attempt to keep the Australian people in the dark.

These ISIS brides are individuals who decided to, of their own accord, join a radical Islamist death cult with the express aim of developing a global caliphate. The fact that such individuals have returned to Australia under a cloud of Labor secrecy is a matter that is highly concerning to all Australians. The public has a right to know basic details, including exactly how many ISIS brides have been resettled in Australia, where they are residing, if they're a security risk, if they are facing criminal charges and if they've been let free into our communities. The government's secrecy on such a serious national security issue is unacceptable. Australians deserve to feel safe not just in their own homes but in their community. But, instead of being transparent and upfront with Australians, Labor is quietly bringing home individuals who once turned their back on our country—people who willingly joined a terrorist organisation that sought to destroy our very own way of life—and the worst thing is that the Labor Party do not want you to know about this.

Australians are rightly proud of our healthcare system. For decades, Medicare has been a lifeline for millions of people, giving access to life-saving cancer treatments, surgeries and essential health care when needed. At its heart, Medicare is built on two fundamental principles: universality and comprehensive coverage. But, sadly, these very principles are under threat. Successive governments from both major parties have cut funding, failed to expand coverage and allowed out-of-pocket costs to soar. As a result, too many people in our community are being forced to try to find other ways to pay for vital, often urgent, medical treatment. For some, that means draining their superannuation, maxing out credit cards, turning to buy-now pay-later schemes or relying on predatory lenders that sometimes charge up to 47 per cent interest. No-one wants to do this, but it's what people are having to resort to because the government has failed to invest in our healthcare system.

Last year, more than 63,000 people in Australia withdrew some $1.4 billion from their superannuation just to cover medical costs—$817 million of that amount was for dental care alone. We are in a cost-of-living crisis. Going to the dentist is completely and wildly unaffordable. Even the most basic dental treatment is out of reach. People are being forced to raid their financial future to pay for essential health care. We know that when you take money out of your super you don't just lose the amount that you need to withdraw; you lose the compound growth that it would have earned over your working life. That means that every dollar withdrawn today could cost you twice as much, if not more, in retirement. No-one should have to drain their superannuation to access health care. Labor must reform dental care so that it is affordable and accessible for everyone.

As this gap in public health coverage continues to widen, capitalism's worst actors are moving in. We're talking about predatory lenders, profiteering credit schemes and buy-now pay-later companies, exploiting people's desperation to turn a profit from pain. So let's talk about buy-now pay-later vendors like Afterpay and Zip Pay. You can stroll into dentist offices and psychologist clinics today and often see advertisements encouraging people to use these services to cover treatments that Medicare doesn't cover. This kind of marketing is borderline predatory. After all, we would not accept advertising for credit cards or high-interest loan sharks in a healthcare setting. If you need further proof that these companies are exploiting people to turn a profit, consider this: they've actually hired executives with titles like 'Head of Healthcare Payments'. There are currently no obligations to stop these companies from targeting healthcare providers and their patients directly. And the result? Members of our community are being left thousands of dollars in debt simply because they need to access essential health care. I totally get why people turn to these services, but—let's be clear—they shouldn't have to.

The latest Australian Healthcare Index found that three-quarters of Australians said that cost-of-living pressures had caused them to delay visiting a GP, seeing a dentist or even buying prescribed medicine. That's 76 per cent of Australians making decisions about health care based on cost. Amongst young people, that number jumps to 86 per cent. Of those, 44 per cent are now using buy-now pay-later services to fund their health care. These aren't just statistics. They represent real stories of real people.

One such story brought to my team's attention was a constituent struggling to pay for healthcare services that their child desperately needed. They shared with me that they had to take out a loan of $6,000 so that their child could undergo urgent dental surgery under a general anaesthetic. After the interest, the fees and commissions, the total repayment will reach around $10,200 over three years—all so that their child doesn't have to live in pain. No-one should ever have to choose between their health and financial ruin.

Let us talk about the money involved here. Block, Inc. the parent company of Afterpay, made $8.89 billion in gross profits in the 2024 financial year—all while Australians are being forced to raid their life savings just to access essential health care. Billionaire corporations are making massive profits at the expense of our literal pain and suffering. This ends now. This government must act. It must do more to regulate buy-now pay-later schemes and other credit providers that are embedding themselves in our healthcare system and preying on people in crisis. No-one should have to risk financial ruin to get the health care they need when they need it.

The Greens have been out there, knocking on doors, talking to people about just how broken our healthcare system and our hospital system have become. We have a healthcare system that no longer has universal coverage and a public hospital system on the brink of collapse. Healthcare workers are fleeing the sector and patients are taking on thousands of dollars in predatory debt. At Royal Perth Hospital, in my home town, the drinking water is unsafe because of the presence of legionella bacteria. And, almost every month, we seemingly break a new record for ambulance ramping. We can no longer just sit here and say, 'If we don't do this, the health care system will collapse.' It is literally collapsing before our eyes.

We saw during COVID that, when a government commits to serious and significant investment, it can get it done. It is a question of political will. The Albanese government must find the political will to fix our healthcare system and to fix the broken hospital system. If they are looking for money to do it, may I suggest that they consider redirecting some of the many tens of billions they are currently committing to passing off to US arms dealers to keep the Trump administration happy.

It doesn't have to be like this. We can make Medicare the pride of our country once again and make our hospitals world leaders in patient care and research. All it takes is the right initiatives and a bit of political courage. We must get dental care and mental health care into Medicare. We must lower the cost of accessing urgently needed care where those cost barriers exist. Many love to call Australia the lucky country. Many in here love that quote and use it often. But I'm here to remind you that so many people in this country do not share the luck of the powerful in this place. (Time expired)

This morning I was very pleased to hold a briefing in Parliament House with Sall Grover entitled 'Protecting women's rights; no laughing matter'. As many Australians would be aware, Sall is the respondent in the Tickle v Giggle court case. In that 2024 Federal Court case, the judge found that Roxanne Tickle, a transwoman, was indirectly discriminated against when Tickle was removed from a women's-only app, Giggle for Girls, by its CEO, Sall Grover. The judge concerningly said that sex is changeable. Sall, I'm very pleased to report, is now appealing the 2024 decision. I want to wish Sall all the very best with her lawyer, Katherine Deves, who was also in the briefing this morning, in their plight to correct an absurd injustice in our justice system. As Sall said very clearly, we want to see common sense returned to the Sex Discrimination Act.

I'm pleased that we were also joined by Drew Hutton, the co-founder of the Greens along with Bob Brown, who is enduring his own battle to restore common sense on this issue. Because of Drew's defence of women, the protection of women-only spaces, women- and girls-only sport and keeping biological men out of women's jails, Drew has been inexplicably expelled from the party he founded. He is now challenging that expulsion in the court. He is rallying against what he says is extremist ideology which has taken over the Greens. These decisions are not just unjust; this is insanity. The importance of the briefing this morning was that we could see this was not about politics and what side of politics you're on. This is a very strong message that Drew and Sall and Katherine sent today.

I do want to make a very important point. One of the opponents of Sall Grover in her litigation to protect women's-only spaces is Equality Australia, which appears now to care very little about the equality of women. Its patron is the Governor-General, Her Excellency Sam Mostyn. Because Equality Australia is now caught up in this controversy, I think it is incumbent on the Governor-General to step down as patron of this organisation.

It is beyond time for our nation to have a reckoning with the politicised and ideological trans movement. First, I want to say something about transgender in general, a topic requiring nuance. In Galileo's Middle Finger, published in 2015, bioethicist Alice Dreger discusses intersex. She notes that in America about one in 2,000 babies is born with indeterminate sexual organs requiring consultation with specialists. It's impossible not to feel compassion for these babies and for these people, or for their parents, who often must make very difficult decisions.

It's also impossible not to feel sympathy for someone who feels they've been born into the wrong body. It's understandable why such individuals may choose to dress as the alternative sex or, as informed adults, exercise their free will to undergo surgeries to alter their genitalia. I draw a distinction here between informed, consenting adults and impressionable, vulnerable children. As we've seen in cases around the world, children have been prescribed hormone-altering treatments and permitted to have irreversible, life-altering, transformative surgeries. In some cases, treatments and surgeries have been foisted upon children by ideologically driven clinicians or parents. In other cases, children have imbibed ideologies and been allowed to proceed with treatments and surgeries against their parent's will. A study, published in February, of more than 100,000 patients with gender dysphoria found those who undergo gender-affirming surgery are at significantly higher risk for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and substance-use disorder. It's no wonder there have been law suits in Western countries against those who have prescribed such treatments and surgeries.

With this context in mind, it's important to draw a distinction between, on the one hand, people who are trans and simply want to get on with their lives quietly and with dignity, and, on the other hand, the loud, politicised and ideological trans movement which is driven by something much more sinister—a delusional movement which wants to deny biological sex, a dangerous movement which wants to infect vulnerable children with poisonous ideas, including in the classroom, and a dogmatic movement which wants social overhaul and everyone to kowtow to the religion of genderfluidity. As Douglas Murray wrote of so-called social justice movements, their desire is not to heal but to divide; not to placate, but to inflame; and not to dampen, but to burn.

Frankly, too many people in positions of authority have jumped aboard the politicised and ideological trans train under the false pretences of compassion, tolerance, diversity and inclusion. The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, is one such leader. Look no further than the Victorian premier's supine response to the case of Hilary Maloney. Maloney sexually assaulted his five-year-old daughter on at least 19 occasions. In 2023, Maloney sent videos of his monstrous acts to a paedophile in the United States. Shockingly, Maloney received a reduced sentence of just 2½ years. The Victorian county court judge showed leniency to Maloney because the defendant had commenced a gender transition in 2021. The judgement was woefully inadequate and contemptible. Here's the kicker: in the state of Victoria, and in other states, corrections policies allow criminals to be incarcerated based on the gender with which they identify, not their biological sex. That's why Maloney, a biological man and a convicted child sex offender, was imprisoned in Victoria's largest women's prison. Premier Allan looked the other way. Her silence was deafening. Her deflection was disgraceful. Her inaction has ramifications for the safety of women.

Beyond the prison system, there are alarming revelations about Victoria's education system. The Australian's Rachel Baxendale—and I have to commend the incredible work of Victorian MP Moira Deeming, who's been a champion of these issues—has reported that Victorian teachers are advised they must not tell parents about a child's desire to change their gender without the permission of the child and that Victoria's curriculum has been updated to teach children as young as five that their body parts may not match their gender.

Premier Allan is abrogating her duty to protect women and children. I want to contrast her lack of leadership with the principled leadership of Lia Finocchiaro—the Northern Territory chief minister who has banned trans women from being placed in the Territory's women's prisons. I also want to commend the Queensland government and its decision that—blow me down with a feather—women are adult female human beings and also the commendable decision to reinstate the ban on puberty blockers, which was announced today.

Across Australia we need to see so much more of this common sense, and we need to see much more of this common sense here in Canberra, including from the appalling Australian Human Rights Commission and its Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Dr Anna Cody, who said in Senate estimates, as a result of excellent questioning by Senator Chandler:

I don't understand the term 'biological men'.

Just think about that. Our Sex Discrimination Commissioner, which is meant to uphold sex based rights, refuses to acknowledge biological sex. It's positively Orwellian, but we should not be surprised. The Sex Discrimination Commissioner is part of the Australian Human Rights Commission, which has now become an activist organisation. I say to those in this place: we need to get a grip. The law is completely out of control. Australians can see with their own eyes the damage that this ideologically extreme movement is causing, particularly to women and children. My message to Australians is simple. Your voice matters. Do not be silent. Be resilient. Resist this in workplaces, in schools, in every institution. Do not let the ideologues win. We've got to defeat this. (Time expired)

The Senate transcript was published up to 12:51. The remainder of the transcript will be published progressively as it is completed.