If there is no objection, the meetings are authorised.

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Today, the Greens introduce a bill that will require both houses of parliament to vote before the Australian Defence Force can be sent overseas to engage in warlike actions.

War power reform bills have been proposed by the Greens for over 20 years and have been routinely rejected by the war parties—the Liberal Party, the Labor Party—over those two decades. With Australians being sent into another illegal US war, without any democratic debate or input, the Greens today are reintroducing the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill, introduced by my colleague Senator Jordan Steele-John in 2020. I want to thank Senator Steele-John and the community groups that he and his team worked with in developing this bill and presenting it for the parliament then.

There is extraordinary support from the community for these reforms. A 2023 poll found that 90 per cent of Australians support war powers reform. Let me repeat that: 90 per cent of Australians want this legislation to pass, and they want a binding parliamentary vote before the deployment of Australian troops and military personnel into overseas conflicts.

The announcement from the Albanese Labor government that it's sending more than 80 military personnel, an RAAF E-7A Wedgetail aircraft and medium range air-to-air missiles directly into another US forever war in the Middle East shows how easy it is for a handful of empowered individuals in the executive—the Prime Minister and the defence minister, maybe with a nod to the Foreign minister, but it's not required, so literally two people can make the decision to send Australia to war. That's what's happened in this latest announcement: the decision made in a closed room by a handful of cabinet members—not even the full cabinet—with zero parliamentary oversight, zero public engagement and not even the pretence of asking the opinion of the Australian people. Labor's defence minister has actually now finally admitted that this most recent deployment of Australian troops came after multiple requests from the United States.

Once again, we find that the war parties in this place don't listen to the Australian public, don't ask the Australian public, don't listen to the Australian parliament and don't ask the Australian parliament. Who do they ask? They ask whoever is in charge in Washington: Donald Trump, son of Trump—whoever is in charge in Washington, that's the person who has the say over whether or not Australia goes to war. That is a gross failing of Australia's national interests—a surrender of Australia's national interests.

When a handful of people in a darkened, smoke-filled room get a phone call from Washington and then send Australia to war, that's not democracy. That is a disaster waiting to happen. We know that that's how decisions have been made for decades and decades. That's how thousands of Australians went to Vietnam—hundreds were killed in Vietnam. That's how thousands of Australians went into a never-ending conflict in Afghanistan—which was apparently to depose the Taliban—only to return after two decades of appalling violence in Afghanistan. Millions of people from Afghanistan were displaced and hundreds of thousands were killed—so much suffering. That decision is never democratic—that decision made by a handful of people in a dark room in Canberra.

Take the Iraq war. You would think that, at moments like this, when Australia is doubling down on deployment into another illegal US war in the Middle East, there would be at least an echo, a memory, of the disaster that was the last time that Australia deployed troops into the Middle East, sending Australian forces into another illegal war, based on lies, in Iraq, and of the utter chaos that that produced for the people of Iraq, and then, as Iraq imploded, the chaos that then echoed throughout the region, with the ripping apart of Syria and the spread of conflict from that US war. And yet, none of those historical lessons have been learned by Labor.

To their shame, the coalition brought a motion into this parliament to congratulate Donald Trump on this war. The faux debate that happened in this chamber between the war parties of One Nation, Labor and the coalition was about whether we congratulate the United States and Israel for commencing this utterly destructive war, or whether—

Hear, hear!

I note the interjection from the Leader of the Opposition—'Hear, hear!'—cheering on this war. It's as though the coalition has no eyes, no ears and no heart. Millions of Australians are suffering right now from this war. They're suffering when they can't fill up their petrol tank, they're suffering because they're anxious about their job and they're suffering because they're seeing yet more carnage and violence coming across on their phone and in their newsfeed. And in this chamber, when we mention it, the coalition cheer that illegal war on; they cheer on Donald Trump. And they did it just then, from the Leader of the Opposition. No ears, no eyes and no heart—that's how decisions like this are made to send Australians to war. It's time that changed.

This is not a radical reform. Democracies around the world require a parliamentary vote, parliamentary approval, before going to war. France, Finland, Denmark, Germany and Spain all require a parliamentary vote and parliamentary approval before their countries can go to war and before they can deploy troops overseas.

Ninety per cent of Australians want this reform. In fact, when you ask Australians about it—when you say, 'Do you think the parliament should have to approve Australia going to war?'—you have to get over the disbelief that it isn't already part of the system. Australians can't believe that some of the most consequential decisions for our country have no democratic oversight and are literally just made in that darkened, cigar-smoke-filled room with a phone call from Washington. They cannot believe it, and they are right to be appalled.

The last time the Greens brought this reform to the parliament, we had an extraordinary position put from the Labor Party. The Labor Party didn't pretend to be interested in democracy. They didn't pretend to be interested in asking the opinion of the Australian people. I'll read what the Labor Party's Senator Ciccone, on behalf of the government, said about what's important before decisions like this are made. He said:

But it's also important to note that in the Westminster system of government, as we have here in Australia, it is within the purview of the executive to make decisions regarding the commitment of forces to engagements, be they within our borders or overseas. It is that way because, the way our Constitution is written, the Governor-General, as a representative of His Majesty the King, Commander in Chief of the Australian Defence Force, is constitutionally vested with this responsibility.

That's Labor's answer—that the decision to send Australia to war is made by the unelected representative of the King. You couldn't make this stuff up--this bowing to a great and powerful friend, this surrender of democracy from Labor, who literally come into this place and say they want to back in a system where the Governor-General, as a representative of His Majesty the King, Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Defence Force, makes the decision to send Australia to war. That is a betrayal of our democracy. That is a hearkening back to the colonial 19th century, when Australia wasn't an independent country—when we were, at least officially, under control.

Do you know what is remarkable? The Greens reject that theory that we should be under the control of a foreign power. We reject the idea that a representative of a foreign power should be making decisions about sending us to war. But the war parties—Labor, the Liberal Party and One Nation—lean into that. They're quite happy for the representative of the King—some foreign king who lives on the other side of the planet—to be making the ultimate decision about sending us to war, and they're quite happy—in fact, they are super comfortable—with the idea that the real decision about whether we get sent to war isn't even made by our notional king; it's actually made by their mates in Washington and whoever happens to be the President of the United States.

So what does this bill do? Currently, the Defence Act 1903 has no transparent decision-making—no scrutiny or debate—in relation to troop deployment. It is a decision for the Governor-General, and, on one reading of it, it could be a decision by the defence minister themselves without even having to go to cabinet. That is a broken process. The Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020 inserts a new section 29A into the Defence Act to require that decisions to deploy members of the Australian Defence Force beyond the territorial limits be made not by one or two members of the executive but by parliament as a whole. That means a debate in both houses followed by a vote.

It is likely that, with the war parties in control, that vote would have succeeded, because they all seem to back in this war. But it would have required the Albanese Labor government to articulate what their war goals were, what they wanted to achieve from this war. No doubt they would have parroted the lies of Washington. They would have said three weeks ago—as we heard in their press releases, as we heard in their backgrounding of journalists and as we heard in the endless cycle of lies coming out of Washington—that this was about regime change, it was about democracy and it was about preventing a nuclear weapons program. And we would've seen that on the record, and those lies would've been sitting there on the record being pulled apart by reality as the war went on, and then voters across the country would've seen if their MP voted for this disastrous war or not, and they could've held them to account.

As the lies unravelled—and they've all unravelled. This was never about regime change. Donald Trump, Anthony Albanese and Benjamin Netanyahu don't care about the Iranian people. This was never about democracy, and they've all back-pedalled from that. This was never about dealing with an illegal nuclear weapons program in Iran, because we now know—and the Australian prime minister would've had access to the Five Eyes advice coming from Washington—that the entire US national security services have said that Iran did not have a viable nuclear weapons program and that it was destroyed in June last year and Iran had not restarted it. So that lie has unravelled, and it's a lie that, to his utter shame, the Prime Minister repeated just last week in a press conference to the Australian people.

And now we're getting the new lie that this endless war—this continuing war that is unravelling our economy, threatening global stability, killing thousands in the region—is about opening up the Strait of Hormuz. Well, how did the Strait of Hormuz close in the first place? It closed with an illegal war—started by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu and backed in by their good mate Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his crew in the Labor cabinet. So, as those lies unravel, there is a continuing obligation on this house to scrutinise what's happening. This bill would also contain a section which provides that, once members of the Defence Force are deployed overseas, the Minister for Defence must report in writing to each house of the parliament every two months on the status, the legality, the scope and the anticipated duration of the deployment as well as on efforts to resolve the circumstance of the deployment and on any reasons why the parliament should allow the deployment to continue—ongoing democratic oversight.

I want to thank all of the community groups: Australians for War Powers Reform, IPAN, ICAN, the thousands of Australians across the country that have backed in war powers reform. They continue to have a sense of what Australia should be. Australia should be a democracy that makes decisions like this based on international law, on basic principles of humanity and on Australia's national interest—not on the national interest of the United States and not on the national interest of Israel but on Australia's national interest. And that argument, that fundamental argument, needs to be had right here, in the centre of Australian democracy, and, if the government don't have the courage to make their argument in parliament, they should never send Australian troops to another brutal, impossibly appalling US forever war. I commend this bill to the chamber.

The government will not be supporting the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020. Defending Australia, its people and its interests is the government's highest priority and most important responsibility. No decision to deploy the ADF into an armed conflict is ever taken lightly. The Albanese government has responded to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade's inquiry into international armed conflict decision-making. As the Deputy Prime Minister has said, it is appropriate that decisions to enter into international armed conflict and the deployment of the ADF overseas remain a decision of the executive.

In 2023, the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade's inquiry recommended that the power to send ADF personnel into armed conflicts should continue to be exercised collectively via the National Security Committee of cabinet. The Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee has previously determined not to progress this bill for a range of reasons, which are set out in its report. Existing arrangements allow the government of the day to act decisively and respond flexibly to contingencies when they arise. The Albanese government acknowledges that this should not detract from the important role of the parliament in holding the executive to account for the decisions it has taken. There must be an appropriate balance between enabling the government of the day to respond to challenges to our national interest and security and ensuring the government has effective mechanisms to examine and debate those decisions.

I rise on behalf of the coalition to speak in opposition to the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020 revised. Sadly, listening to Senator Shoebridge on behalf of the Australian Greens, the Greens like to talk about war parties in the Senate. But let's be very clear. History suggests—in fact, I would say it endorses—the fact that it is appeasement parties who are most harshly judged.

No party is pro war, but there is a reality—we are currently living that reality—that sometimes a nation must stand with its friends, with its allies, with the oppressed against the oppressor. The Greens like to say that they have the moral high ground when it comes to standing with the oppressed against the oppressor. I have to say shame on the Australian Greens. Shame on the Australian Greens for not standing with people of Iran, the people who would desperately like to have the same freedoms that the Greens here in Australia exercise on a daily basis. You are not standing with the oppressed. Quite frankly, your moral hypocrisy is sickening.

This bill would fundamentally change longstanding aspects of our government. This is not the sort of change which should come after an hour's debate on a private senator's bill. Sadly for the Australian people, the Greens are habitually reckless when it comes to national security. They mistake slogans for strategy, moral vanity for serious statecraft and protest politics for what actually is responsible government. Time and time again they approach questions of national security with ideology and naivety rather than with the seriousness and realism with which these issues should be approached. This bill, quite frankly, is a textbook example.

In the most dangerous strategic environment Australia has faced since the Second World War, the Australian Greens want to make it harder for the Australian government to act quickly, decisively and, most importantly, in concert with our allies. This bill does not reflect the realities of the world as it is today in 2026. Quite frankly, it reflects a fantasy version of international affairs in which threats move slowly, crisis arrives with notice and governments have the luxury of waiting for a parliamentary process before acting. In 2026, looking forward, the reality is that that is not the world we now live in.

The coalition is clear. Decisions to deploy the Australian Defence Force overseas must remain a function of the executive. This bill is a relic of a different era when wars were formally declared, conflicts moved more slowly and the line between peace and war was often clearer. Today the reality that faces us—we may not like it, but as governments you must live with the reality. We face fast-moving, complex and often asymmetric threats. Government must be able to respond in hours, not at the pace the Greens would like, the pace of parliamentary debate.

This bill is clearly modelled on the United States War Powers Resolution of 1973, legislation whose operations and effectiveness have long been contested. The Greens may also have forgotten that this is Australia. We are not United States. We do not have a separately elected executive president; we have a cabinet drawn from and accountable to the parliament. This is our system of government. At elections, Australians choose a government to govern. They choose through their elected representatives a prime minister and cabinet to make what are sometimes incredibly hard and incredibly difficult decisions that are required in moments of crisis. That democratic choice should be respected because it is respecting—even if we do not like it—the decision of the Australian people. We elect leaders to lead.

This bill would require parliamentary approval before the ADF could be deployed overseas. In practical terms, that means giving the Senate a veto over decisions that have historically and constitutionally rested with the executive. That is not consistent with our great Westminster system nor is it practical in the modern age. We are in 2026 looking forward, not 1973 looking backwards. The Prime Minister must maintain the confidence of the House of Representatives and secure supply through the parliament, so any decision of government already carries democratic legitimacy through the House.

What this bill that the Greens want to legislate does is not add accountability. What it does add, in a day and an era where sometimes speed is essential, is delay, uncertainty and, worse than that, operational risk. In matters of national security, delay and uncertainty carry real consequences. The bill itself exposes the problem. Much of it is devoted to trying to manage the practical chaos that its own model ironically would actually create. Did the Greens give thought to what happens if the parliament's actually not sitting at the time of a crisis? What happens if urgent action is required before the parliament can be recalled? What happens to troops deployed pending approval? What happens if approval is refused after a deployment has already begun? How are our Defence Force personnel supposed to operate under the cloud of uncertainty? How are our allies supposed to rely on Australia's support if it comes with an asterisk and a parliamentary contingency? Allies need certainty, the ADF needs clarity, and this bill sadly—but it is the reality of the Australia Greens' version of how to not protect your country and how to not stand with your allies—provides neither.

Parliament already has avenues to scrutinise debate and express its views on deployments and conflicts. This Senate has debated the situation in the Middle East multiple times in recent weeks alone. Governments can also be held to account when they lose parliamentary support. The classic historical example is the Norway debate in the United Kingdom, which led to the resignation of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain over the conduct in the war in Europe. Our current system already provides scrutiny, debate and accountability, but it also—and this is the important part, contrary to what the Greens believe—preserves the government's capacity to make timely decisions in the national interest. Ultimately, governments are accountable to the Australian people for their decisions at our elections.

As I said, the Greens like to sneer—you heard it again; you hear it every single day in this place—about the so-called war parties. The Greens don't seem to understand that government is tough. You've actually got to make really tough decisions. Nobody is pro war. Nobody is, but sometimes you actually have to make a decision that is in the best interests of your country and your national security and, quite frankly, that backs in your allies. History is not kind to those who confuse moral posturing with strategic judgement or theatrical dissent, as we have just seen and we see every day in this place, with responsible leadership.

No serious party is pro war. But serious parties of government understand that there are times when a nation must act. There are times when a nation must stand with its allies. A nation must defend its interests and stand, as I said, with the oppressed against the oppressor. Let's not forget that this ayatollah who is now dead slaughtered thousands and thousands and thousands of innocent Iranians over decades. The Greens clearly have not spoken to innocent Iranians who fled that murderous regime and have sought a better life in the great country of Australia. How the Australian Greens can actually in any way endorse the Iranian government and the IRGC having in any way, shape or form nuclear capability, quite frankly, defies any form of logic, and yet they are happy in this case to not stand with the oppressed but to back in the oppressor. Shame on you.

This bill would fundamentally alter a longstanding feature of responsible government in Australia. That is not the kind of change, quite frankly, that should be driven by a private senators bill and waved through. This is what the Australian Greens would like, and they'll do a press conference after this saying 'the two great parties of war' after a few hours of debate. And as I said, the opposition will oppose this bill because we are one of the two parties of government—the coalition and the Australian Labor Party—in the great country of Australia. We do understand that there will be times—and we did it during COVID—where, as a nation, we must act. Where, as a nation, we must stand with our allies. Where, as a nation, we must defend our interests, we must defend those great Western values that the Greens love to live on a daily basis, but God forbid anybody else, and in particular Iranians, ever seeks to actually have as a daily right like we do.

As I said, the Greens, sadly, are habitually reckless on national security, as is reflected in this bill. They have never understood that protecting peace, and peace is something that we all want, sometimes requires more than just rhetoric, more than just slogans in the Australian parliament. It requires strength, it requires resolve, but it also requires a willingness to act. This bill—I would say sadly, but I've been in this place a long time and the Greens rhetoric only gets worse on a year-by-year basis—is yet another example of the Greens putting ideology that they love to live by on a daily basis ahead of Australia's security interests.

I rise to speak to the Greens' Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020. For more than 40 years parties in this parliament have been pushing for oversight in the deployment of troops to fight in foreign wars. Sending Australians to war, and potentially to their death, is one of the most important decisions that politicians have to make, and it is a decision that should not be made with the unchecked power of the executive branch of government. It should require the approval of parliament—like much of the world's parliaments require—and, like, 90 per cent of Australians support.

Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq were all wars that Australia got involved in with those prime ministers exercising powers as though they were a monarch without even reference to cabinet. And all of those invasions were disasters. Yet, for more than 40 years both coalition and Labor governments have joined together to stop any requirement of parliament's approval to send Australians off to fight other countries wars. The Democrats introduced this bill in 1985, in 1988 and then in 2003. The Greens introduced it in 2003, 2014, 2020 and now in 2026.

We are an anti-war party. War will never deliver peace. This war will not bring safety to the brave Iranian people who are fighting for liberation from a brutal Iranian regime. At least 1,500 Iranians have been killed since this war began, the majority civilians—innocent people massacred, including 160 schoolchildren when a primary school was bombed. You cannot bomb your way to peace. The Iranian people deserve to be free from persecution and domination, both from the current regime and from foreign bombs. Trump and Netanyahu don't care about democracy for the Iranian people who are fighting for their own liberation, and bombing doesn't make democracy. All it makes is a power vacuum that leads to more fighting, worse repression and more harm to civilians. Parliament must be a counterweight to our government's drive to appease the likes of Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and others like them.

Australians don't want war. The war parties do, though. Labor, Liberal and One Nation are all in support of this illegal war—a war that is based on a lie, again. Our prime minister was the first in the whole world to support this illegal war, which is illegal because it's in breach of international law. Our prime minister, with his full-throated support of this war, said:

We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security.

Yet the US national security director later told the US Congress that Iran had not restarted its nuclear program—that same program that Trump had already said had been obliterated in June of last year. So this is yet another war based on a lie that Australian warplanes, equipment and now 85 of our people have been sent to. They are allegedly not engaged in offensive action, but there will be mission creep, and our presence and resourcing will free up the resourcing and the personnel of Israel and the US to launch yet more offensive strikes, which will punish civilians.

The Prime Minister then tried to backpedal a little bit on his support for this war while continuing our presence in the Middle East. As we've come to expect from Labor, they say one thing and do another. The gaslighting from this government is endless. Labor can't say it wants to end the conflict while actively fuelling it—allowing the US to use our bases, sending troops to the region and keeping Australians embedded in the military. Australians do not support Trump and Netanyahu's latest forever war on Iran, just as they don't want our government to support Israel's continued genocide in Gaza, where tens of thousands of people have been killed by Israel and many more are suffering a human made famine, legally imprisoned or missing. It is a genocide that has continued unabated. While we are now looking at yet another illegal war, that pain in Gaza and the West Bank has not diminished. Australians don't support Israel's shameful occupation of southern Lebanon either, where they're now striking bridges and civilian infrastructure and pushing people out of their homes in a horrific escalation that threatens to prolong this illegal war indefinitely.

Over a million people have been displaced by this illegal war, this war which is supported and resourced by Australia. Australians don't want war, but they weren't asked. And, because they don't get a say and neither does our parliament, we need the power to say no to war and to make sure that our government can't join a war on the whim of a deeply unstable US president ever again without approval from this parliament. We need to detach ourselves from this volatile administration and have an independent foreign policy that puts Australia's best interests first instead of asking, 'How high?' when Donald Trump says, 'Jump.' The only winners from war are the billionaires and the big corporations who back them—fossil fuel companies and weapons dealers. Their profits soar while ordinary people, whether in the Middle East or here at home, bear the financial and emotional pain of war. Donald Trump drags us into an illegal war based on a lie about nuclear power, and now you, as Australians, are paying more for fuel, for food and for energy—all so the top one per cent can get even richer.

The Greens are the only party that have opposed this war, and we are the only party who want to make the wealthiest one per cent pay their fair share. The second this war started, the price of petrol went through the roof, and so did the profits of the corporations who sell that petrol. Then interest rates went up, and so did the profits of the big banks. Food prices will be next, and guess what will happen to the profits of Coles and Woolies? And energy prices will be after that. We have seen this movie before. The only winners are the big corporations and the billionaires who profit from war. With their wealth, they buy more assets, like homes and more shares, driving up the cost of housing and further increasing inequality. You're drowning in a sea of rising costs because the system is designed to funnel money to the richest people and corporations in our society.

We saw it during the pandemic. We saw it during the invasion of Ukraine. And now, with another illegal war, we're seeing more wealth being concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people and corporations again. Wars and crises are exploited by billionaires and big businesses. Prices go up, wages go down and inequality continues to grow.

In the last decade, the wealthiest one per cent gained 10 times more wealth than the bottom half of the country. It is obscene. The average billionaire in Australia currently makes $25,000 per hour. In just four hours, they're making the same amount an average worker makes in a whole year. This is why people feel like they are drowning. The government like to pretend that the war has got nothing to do with them. They want to blame it for rising costs, and they claim they're doing all they can. Well, they are not. We could withdraw our personnel and our resourcing from this illegal war, and we could use our diplomatic pressure to urge an end to it, to urge for peace. We could make the one per cent pay their fair share so that you don't have to. We could use that money to make sure that everyone has the things that they need to live a good life.

Imagine if we used the billions going to Trump's nuclear submarines and his war machine to further reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Imagine if we invested in housing, in health care and in education so people can afford them. There's a lot that could be done if governments had some courage and actually made the one per cent pay their fair share. Australians deserve politicians who represent and work for them, not work for the interests of the big corporations profiting from death and destruction.

We owe it to our constituents to support this bill. It is their democracy, it is their armed forces, it is their neighbours and it is their loved ones who have to go off and fight. It cannot be another 40 years of brazen, unchecked warmongering before this bill finally passes and the parliament can finally have a say on who lives, who dies and who we trust to not violate the human rights of others in conflict situations. Australians do not want war, and the Greens stand with them.

I want to start with something very simple. Imagine some Australian, someone from your suburbs, someone your kids went to school with, someone you work with, signing up to serve in the ADF. They're proud, their family's proud, and then one day they're told they're being deployed overseas into a conflict situation that could turn deadly very quickly. Their family is left wondering who made that decision. Was it debated? Did anybody actually vote for it? Right now, the answer is no. At the current moment, the Prime Minister of the day can send Australian troops into warlike situations without a single vote in this parliament. There is no requirement for both houses to approve it and no obligation to lay out the case in full view for the Australian people. I don't think that passes the pub test, and, to those watching at home, I know you don't think that this passes the pub test either. This isn't just another policy decision; this is about sending people into harm's way. It's about lives, families and the consequences that can last generations.

What the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020 does is actually pretty straightforward, and I would argue it's basic common sense. This bill by the Greens says that, if we're going to deploy Australian Defence Force personnel overseas into warlike action, both houses of parliament should approve this decision—not one person, not a small group of people behind closed doors but the entire parliament. From the outset, let me highlight that this bill does not ignore the reality that sometimes decisions need to be made quickly. There is a clear emergency provision: if there is a genuine crisis, something very urgent, where waiting for parliament isn't practical, the government can act—the Prime Minister can make that decision—but it must then explain itself. Within 24 hours, the decision and the reasons for it must be made public. Within two days, detailed information has to be provided to parliament. And, if parliament isn't sitting, it has to be called back. We've done it time and time again, so it's not unheard of or controversial.

The bill also makes it crystal clear what information must be provided—like the legal basis for the deployment, where our troops are being sent, how many are involved, how long it's expected to last and why it is necessary—because Australians deserve to know what is being done in their name. It also doesn't just lump everything together with the vagueness that we see from the government at times. Routine, non-warlike deployments, training exercises, diplomatic roles, attachments to Allied forces—those aren't caught up in this. This is specifically about situations that could lead to hostilities, situations where lives are on the line. It doesn't stop at the initial decision either. Every two months, the government has to report back to parliament to give an update of what's changed, if the mission is still justified, what we are trying to achieve and for how long it will continue. That's what ongoing scrutiny looks like, and that's what the Australian people deserve.

As I've said, none of this is radical. In fact, most Australians out there probably assume that that's already how it works. In any other part of life, if you were making a decision with consequences this serious, where people's lives are on the line, you'd expect it to be tested, debated and justified. During the 2025 election, I heard this constantly, people saying, 'Why don't we get a say in this?' That's why we pushed the petition 'War should be debated, not dictated', because Australians instinctively understand that this kind of power shouldn't just sit with one person. We've seen what happens when decisions to go to war aren't properly scrutinised: long, drawn-out conflicts, unclear objectives, lives lost and, afterwards, a lot of questions that come far too late—and maybe a half-arsed apology.

This bill is about asking those questions upfront, right from the beginning. If the case for deployment is strong, then it should be able to stand up here in parliament. If it can't, then we need to seriously question why we're going down this path at all. Is it blind loyalty to our so-called allies, like the United States or Israel? Are we fighting someone else's war? Are we repeating the same mistakes of the past and selling off our sovereignty?

We need to focus on strengthening the legitimacy of the decisions we make in this place and on ensuring that they are always in the best interest of the Australian people. When parliament is involved, when the case is made publicly, when there is transparency and accountability, Australians are more likely to have confidence in the outcome.

At its core, this bill is about trust: trust in our democratic institutions; trust in the representatives elected by the people in both houses; and trust that, when we send Australians in harm's way, it's being done with seriousness, proper scrutiny and the collective responsibility it deserves. War should be debated, not dictated. I commend the Greens for putting up this bill, which is a practical, measured and commonsense step towards making this a reality—because Australians deserve better. Every single person out there who believes in democracy, who believes in our right to protect our people, especially those we're sending into warlike situations, deserves better.

At the outset, let me thank Senator Shoebridge and his team for today bringing forward this bill, the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020. It has created a moment for this parliament to debate a vital question. The question before us is this: what should be asked of politicians before politicians make an ask of the Australian community? In my mind, there is no more serious request that a government can make of its people than the request to send their children, their mothers and daughters and their fathers and sons into harm's way on fields of battle far from home. There is no more serious request.

The Australian Greens believe that, before politicians ask that of our community, they should be willing to turn up to the houses of parliament to which they have been elected, make the case as to why it is necessary for people to put themselves in harm's way and explain what the objective is that those service men and women will be asked to achieve, how they know that that objective will be achieved and what we will do to support them once they return. These are very reasonable expectations that the Australian community have of their leaders before a request is made of them to put themselves in harm's way.

For decades, both sides of parliament, when asked to take that expectation and put it into law, have resisted it at every turn. Both Labor and the Liberal Party, when asked to submit themselves to democratic scrutiny and democratic approval before they send us to war, have responded by asking for the community's trust. They have said to the community again and again: 'Trust us to make this call. You don't need to be involved. You don't need your members of parliament to have to vote on these questions of war and peace. Leave it to us. Leave it to us and our superior knowledge, our contacts, our connections and our experience with complex foreign policy matters that couldn't possibly be disclosed to the public.' And what has the result of this request for trust been for the Australian community? Again and again and again, we have been asked, our sons and daughters have been asked, to go overseas and fight American wars—Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Iran.

Time after time, war is entered into based on lie and deception. And, every single time, the full extent of the disaster of that decision-making process is laid bare to the public. Every single time, it becomes clear that this process of trusting politicians to make these decisions has once again failed. Those very same politicians rock up to this parliament and they make sombre speeches about the loss and sacrifice, the serious respect that they hold for the members of the armed services and the deep reverence they have for military service. And yet will they back that up with action? Do they take a moment to reflect on whether their decision-making led to that harm? No. Every single time, there is a collective forgetting.

When the Greens, on behalf of the community, raise the proposal, once again, that maybe enough is enough—that maybe the trust that you have asked of the community for decades has now been broken and it is time to turn the decision of whether to send Australian personnel into harm's way over to the elected representatives in the parliament—every single time, that is responded to with derision. It is resisted, because it is an attempt to actually hold people to account.

I can think of no better example, no better case study, of precisely why accountability is so desperately needed when it comes to whether or not we go to war than the current war in which we find ourselves. The Albanese government has led Australia into an illegal and immoral war, started by a tyrant president on a whim. He has put our service personnel at risk. Bombs rain down upon the people of Iran daily. Civilians are slaughtered daily, not merely with the complicity of this government but with the active enablement of this government, because not only is the Albanese government the current holder of the title of the world's first government to endorse this man's war; it functions to this moment to provide the American administration with the very intelligence capacity that it needs to continue this war—to continue to drop the bomb.

In the run-up to the last federal election, the Australian community was increasingly worried about what seemed to be the likelihood of the election of Donald Trump, and so the Australian community went to work. In seat after seat, vote after vote, they rejected the far-right politics. They tossed Donald Trump's political apprentice into the dustbin of history. They elected a government led by a man who, for most of his political career, had positioned himself as one of the few members of the Australian parliament willing to talk tough to the United States. They elected a progressive parliament with a progressive majority. They gifted this Labor government with the best opportunity in a generation to change course and to establish an independent foreign policy and a peace based defence policy. The Australian community could not have given this government more tools to avoid the crisis into which the community has now been plunged.

So they gave this government the opportunity, and what did you do with it? You saw this man get re-elected. You knew what he had been like. You knew what his aims were. You knew what his cabinet looked like. Nothing. Did you change a single aspect of Australia's foreign policy relationship with the United States? No. Did you modify our intelligence relationship? No. Did you rethink any part of AUKUS? No. Did you reassess the value or dynamic of the American alliance or the ANZUS Treaty? No. You continued us on the course that had been set for decades, and, in many cases, you deepened our relationship with this erratic and immoral tyrant. Look where it has landed us. Look where it is taking the world—not only countless murdered and many civilians killed or maimed for life, but a world teetering on the brink of a disaster, the potential likes of which we have yet to know.

When the history of this period is written, when the scholars look back and attempt to find who actually spoke out and what roles the people elected to represent the community played in this moment, what will they find? They will find an Australian community of whom 90 per cent believe the parliament should have a vote before we go to war. They will find a community where the vast majority oppose Trump's war on Iran. But they will find a government, a Labor and a Liberal Party, that—in the face of this man and his utterly unjustifiable, illegal and immoral war motivated by his own domestic political needs—did nothing. They continued the soporific sycophancy that has dominated Australian foreign and defence policy for nearly 80 years. They continued the lazy, intellectually vacant, fundamentally unimaginative and ultimately self-serving approach to the United States of America.

I don't think the people in this place understand how far out of touch with the community you really, truly are. The Australian people are friends to most people of the world, including the peoples of the United States. We have enjoyed, shared in and contributed to moments of cultural exchange, joy and fun together for decades. We are very happy as a community to collaborate with Americans and appreciate their culture and aspects of their values. But it is not an uncritical friendship. We understand the other side of the United States: that they can be, and often are—in terms of the actions of their governments—bullies. They're ignorant bullies. Yet, Australian governments continue to make an exception for this nation and its governments, administration after administration.

As Dr Emma Shortis described in her book of the same title, Australian governments have treated America, for 80 years or more, as an exceptional friend. This relationship must now be reassessed. It is time for this parliament to join with our community in leading us collectively away and into an independent and peaceful foreign and defence policy. That work begins with requiring this parliament and its politicians to get out of bed, put on a tie and bother to turn up to vote before they send our service personnel into harm's way.

Right now, we are watching in real time what happens when the power to go to war sits with a handful of people behind closed doors. Australia has been dragged—no, we haven't been dragged. Australia has chosen to go into an illegal US-Israel war in Iran—a war that began with strikes that have escalated across the region, killing civilians and destabilising an entire region; and a war now spiralling with missile exchanges, regional escalation and thousands of people already dead. And what say did this parliament have in Australia's involvement? None, zip, zero! And what say did the Australian people have? Zero!

The Albanese government has already deployed 85 ADF personnel, a Wedgetail surveillance aircraft and advanced air-to-air missiles into the region. Let's be clear, you do not deploy surveillance and targeting capability into a war zone and pretend you're not part of that war. No weasel words from the minister in this place, Minister Penny Wong, will negate the fact that we are at war. Flipping through her thesaurus of excuses and weasel words—the Australian people see through it, and they are disgusted. This is how war always starts—'support', 'assistance', 'defensive'—and, before long, we will be embedded in another forever war.

These decisions were not made in this chamber by the elected representatives from right across this country; they were made in closed rooms by a small group of ministers under pressure from allies. War should never, never be decided like that, not when the consequences are measured in human lives, because, when decisions are made in the dark, it becomes easier to ignore the civilians killed, easier to ignore the trauma carried by veterans and easier to ignore the families who pay the price for decades.

We are now backing in a war driven by Washington and Tel Aviv with no regard for the human cost—a war that is escalating every single day, with news today of more troops being prepared and no clear end in sight. Yet Australia is once again falling into line as that deputy cowboy, not because the public demanded it and not because parliament debated it but because that's what that group of a few ministers in their closed rooms, probably smoking cigars, as Senator Shoebridge alluded to, decided was best. Well, it's not in the public interest. The war parties in this parliament will tell you that it's necessary, and that is Labor, that is the LNP, and that is One Nation.

But we have to ask: who benefits from this? Because, when decisions are made behind closed doors, the public is shut out but the influence of the defence industry is not. In fact, it benefits from that darkness—billions of dollars in contracts, deep access to decision-makers and no democratic check when the drums of war start beating. Of course, then there are their mates in the oil and gas industry who are now poised to make billions in blood soaked profits. So many people benefit from war, but it is everyday people—the people with no voice in these decisions—who pay the ultimate price.

This bill changes that through a vote in both houses, open debate and ongoing reporting to parliament. Doesn't that sound pretty bloody straightforward? Doesn't that sound like the absolute bare minimum? It forces every single one of us in this place to take responsibility and accountability—no more hiding behind 'no, that was a cabinet decision' or 'we had no choice'. The public is already ahead of us. Ninety per cent of Australians support war power reform—90 per cent of Australians. Parliament must be a check on the rush to war, not a rubber stamp after the fact.

I'd just like to say that this chamber has been debating this issue for nearly 40 years. The Australian Democrats first introduced a bill like this one, the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2020, back in 1985 and again in 1988. It was actually previous Greens senator Andrew Bartlett, who was a Democrats senator, who led that charge back in the day. I would also like to acknowledge former Greens senator Scott Ludlam, who introduced a very similar bill in 2008 around all the heat of the Iraq war. Senator Ludlam again introduced the bill in 2017 following the Chilcot review in the UK, a chilling account of how the UK went to war, just like Australia, with the wrong information and completely hoodwinked their people.

I'd like to acknowledge Senator Steele-John for the work that he's done. He also introduced a similar bill in 2021 and has done considerable work to the time that Senator Shoebridge has introduced this bill. This has been a long-running debate, and it's not going to go away. I'd like to acknowledge the Australians for War Powers Reform and the amazing people there that have been driving this now for many years as well as IPAN and other community groups. I acknowledge Jo Vallentine and the so many people who refuse to give up until we get democratic input into what is arguably the most important decision any politician can make. That is sending its citizens to war.

Right now Australians are feeling very frustrated and very helpless. As they go to the petrol bowsers and the petrol has run out, as farmers can't get access to fertiliser, as Australians are looking at the skyrocketing prices of groceries and as interest rates go up, they are feeling helpless because they are pawns in a game. They are pawns in a game that has been rigged by powerful men with their hands on the levers making billions of dollars. This is what frustrates people. They feel helpless. At least their elected representatives can have a say on their behalf if we get a war powers reform bill through. At least then it's on the conscience of each and every MP and senator.

The time for debate has expired.

():  I'm giving this attendance on behalf of Minister Ayres, who is returning from Queensland this morning. This order, as originally agreed, is for documents relating to the contingent liability of the Home Guarantee Scheme. I'm happy to advise the Senate that this modelling has been provided. I draw the Senate's attention to page 4 of the documents tabled on 23 December 2025 relating to this order. The document produced contains 10-year projections of contingent liability across all aspects of the program, including the First Home Guarantee, the Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee, the New Home Guarantee and the total Home Guarantee Scheme. As I'm sure Senator Bragg is aware, the contingent liability of the Home Guarantee Scheme is not the same thing as the home price impact modelling.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

It's very clear that the government has decided that it does not want to give the public access to the Treasury modelling and the detail surrounding the five per cent deposit scheme. That explanation from Minister Farrell on behalf of Senator Ayres on behalf of Minister O'Neil was a random set of words about the contingent liability in relation to the Home Guarantee Scheme, which has nothing to do with the five per cent deposit scheme price modelling, which the government know is the purpose of these motions. It has been the purpose of these motions going back to August 2025, when we first had the Senate adopt our motion that the price disclosures needed to be made.

The government will say that they have complied, as well, on the five per cent modelling. The five per cent modelling is largely redacted—in fact, almost entirely redacted. So we don't know, in fact, what was advised by the Treasury to the government. I make the point that it is clearly a huge affront to the public, after the Senate has ordered multiple times that these documents be produced, for the executive to say: 'We're refusing to give them to you, and we're refusing to acknowledge the fact that they even exist now. We'll change the subject and pretend that all the other senators and everyone else who's listening are too stupid to follow the debate.' That's effectively what their position is now. Last time Minister Ayres gave his explanation, he talked about the Liberal Party. That was his explanation in relation to five per cent deposit nondisclosure. Today we have Senator Farrell say that his explanation is about the contingent liability, which has nothing to do with five per cent deposit price modelling.

The substantive point here is that the Treasury did modelling for the government on the five per cent deposits as an afterthought. They did it in July, almost three months after the May 2025 announcement. The pieces of paper they've given us, which are mainly redacted, actually detail the work that Treasury had done. We just don't know what they actually said. For example, the Treasury says that they expected there were going to be 16,000 additional first home buyers in the first year, but we already know, based on the projections from the Home Guarantee Scheme after it was expanded on 1 October last year, that we're on track for over 66,000, an additional 30,000 people. So the numbers that were in this heavily redacted piece of paper from Treasury, which we're not allowed to see the rest of, are clearly wrong. The Prime Minister of the country has been going around saying that the changes that they're making to five per cent deposits will only result in a 0.6 per cent increase in prices. We know that's wrong, based on all the market analysis. We know it's massively wrong. It looks as if the reason they don't want to present this piece of paper without redactions is that they also know it's wrong. So they have massively misled the Australian community by lying and saying that their changes to this Home Guarantee Scheme or five per cent deposits will not increase prices, when they have and they knew about it before.

Order! Senator Bragg, please resume your seat. Minister.

My point of order goes to imputation. I think that it has been generally understood in this place that accusing other senators of lying is not appropriate language for the Senate.

I will ask you to withdraw, Senator Bragg.

I'm happy to withdraw, but I make the point that it's clear that the government had information back in July last year that was given to them by the Treasury that they knew was bad but they went ahead with the 1 October five per cent deposit scheme anyway. They knew that there were problems. It says here that there was factoring in of the supply response. That's all been redacted. They would have been told that there were problems and risks, but they went ahead anyway, without any warnings.

I feel for the people who've taken out these 95 per cent mortgages and who've now had to withstand two rate rises under this government because of its economic mismanagement and are looking at more. There were always going to be risks with a massive expansion like this, but you cannot have a country that calls itself a democracy where the Treasury department is doing modelling and risk analysis for the government and the government says, 'It's a secret; we're never going to give it to you.' This is a democratic chamber. It's asked for this information to be provided. I'm sure there were warnings. Why, otherwise, would it be that the government won't give us these pieces of paper? There must be a political reason, and we won't give up on this.

I too rise to take note of the explanation, or non-explanation. Senator Bragg has been seeking the modelling of the five per cent deposit scheme since August of last year, and the government still won't give it up, but I commend Senator Bragg's persistence. At least in his case he's got a response, or somewhat of a response. In a motion that I moved, the Senate sought more information on the five per cent deposit scheme in November of last year, and the Minister for Housing hasn't even responded to it yet. In 142 days, the only documents the Minister for Housing has provided are letters which ask for more time. Can you imagine going into work and giving your boss some 'dog ate my homework' excuse for a task that is 131 days overdue? It isn't as if the Minister for Housing has to do all the work by herself. Leaving aside the hundreds of public servants at Treasury at her disposal, the minister has 13 full-time advisers. It's just astounding. While the government tries to hide their modelling from people like me and Senator Bragg, this policy is clearly driving up house prices all across the country.

We're not trying to bring down house prices.

The minister said that on radio last year. The government is merely trying to achieve sustainable price growth. They've said it themselves. They're not here to bring down prices.

Let's get this straight. This government implemented the five per cent deposit policy, which it knew would increase house prices. It did not believe house prices were increasing fast enough to be sustainable. In January, it was reported that the median price of a house in Perth had more than doubled since 2019. This government looked at that and said, 'That can't be sustainable; prices need to be growing even faster, so let's add more fuel to the fire!' How does that make sense? How can this government say with a straight face that it is working to get people into their first home as it deliberately pushes entry-level homes further and further out of reach? Becoming a homeowner will soon change from a thing to be celebrated to a thing being mourned, as more and more Australians become homeowners as a result of their parents dying. We hear about how the government has its foot all the way down on the supply pedal. The $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund has built less than 1,000 homes. If Australians are going to see serious changes to housing affordability, then this upcoming budget in May must make bold changes that go to the heart of the housing crisis, with negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount right on top of that list. We've seen the doublespeak report of the Select Committee on the Operation of the Capital Gains Tax Discount, but Australians need to see actual movement of these tax rorts that are advantaging the investors who keep first home buyers out of the market.

The numbers are here. You don't need to read the budget. You could pass these reforms through the Senate today, and you would have our support. The major parties are always rushing things through this chamber without thinking, without scrutiny, so why not rush something good through for a change? When people have the security and the stability that owning their own home provides, it truly allows them to do more than just survive. They can plan for their future, they can start thinking about starting a family, and they can start to innovate. If we want to address this country's productivity woes, we need to create an environment where people feel safe enough to take those measured risks, not just make ends meet. In the meantime, it's super important that the minister complies with this particular order.

I rise to take note of Minister Farrell's response on behalf of Minister Ayres. I begin by expressing my continuing disappointment with the appalling response and the disrespect shown to the Senate on this repeated request to give us something fairly simple but very important—that is, the basic case and the estimates arising from a model about how the five per cent deposit scheme would impact on the critical question of house prices. We heard Minister Farrell this morning completely and deliberately misunderstand the nature of the request made repeatedly in this place, give us data on contingent liability, refer to that and not go to the key issue here, which is: What did the modelling show? How did it assess risk? What were the bounds of possibility for house price increases? This is not a trivial question. This country is in a serious housing crisis, and the Senate here is seeking information about the basis for decision-making.

We have a government which has contributed to the housing crisis through this five per cent deposit scheme. Of the scheme's modelling out of Treasury, the bottom line showed a 0.6 per cent increase or an additional $55 billion to property prices over the next six years. That in itself is a significant increase, but we know the reality has been way more significant and large and a real pouring of fuel onto a crisis in housing across our country. A record high $40 billion was given to property investors, taken out in loans by property investors, in the last three months of 2025, a absolute record take by investors, who poured it into investing in property, many of them already wealthy property investors, pushing that price up in advance, in their thinking, of the consequences of what this five per cent deposit scheme would do to house prices and rushing to get in ahead of that price increase and fuel their own wealth at the cost of first home buyers. So this scheme has actually been a disaster for house prices, as it is widely seen. What this Senate wants to know is what the thinking there was. What was the modelling? We have a clear right and an important responsibility to take that issue seriously.

Labor has to take its responsibility for making this crisis worse much more seriously. House prices have increased by 25 per cent in the last term of Labor over the four years. That is appalling. We need policy action and remediation of that crisis, which Labor is ducking. Mortgages have increased by $70,000 on average in the last 12 months. We've got people out there suffering with successive interest rate increases that are piling on stress to households already living in mortgage stress, not to mention the crisis of rental affordability. We're at record levels of rental unaffordability and low rates of available properties. Through the CGT and negative gearing, $53 billion has been wasted on tax concessions over the four years of a Labor government. There are policy instruments available to Labor to do better than to make the crisis worse.

So we want to know what's going on and how that modelling panned out. We want to see the workings of it, the assumptions, the impact and the risk assessments. The Senate's responsibility is to ask for those documents. To be treated in this way with this appallingly redacted document today is shocking. In a crisis, that Labor think they can come here repetitively, minister after minister, and give us a failed response, a nonresponse, to treat us like mugs is not on. In a crisis, we need better, and Australian people want us to do it. To refuse to acknowledge that the modelling exists and to fail to take our request for it seriously is a real breach of serious government action. The Senate is right, and the Senate needs to keep coming back and requesting the key documents and the arguments underpinning critical housing interventions that are having extremely negative effects on so many Australians who are trying to buy property, trying to deal with their mortgages and trying to find their way in an appalling rental circumstance. Labor has not taken the Senate seriously. It is a shame. It is shocking. It's on their conscience. We will be back seeking information to illuminate the crisis we're in, how to get out of it and the stats and modelling that underlie Labor's position.

I rise to take note also. This Labor government has made the 48th Parliament tough sledding if you're looking for truth and answers. It's a closed shop as they drive the country towards an economic cliff. The secrecy around Housing Australia is a huge concern to One Nation, not just from the perspective of young people that Labor have put in harm's way by selling them 95 per cent mortgages before two interest rate rises but from a wider economic perspective, where the huge liabilities from defaulting loans will fall directly on the Australian taxpayer.

Let's start with young people and first home buyers. In November, I asked during question time if Labor had done any modelling on what the default rate of people on the 95 per cent mortgage scheme would be in the event of two rate rises. In typical Labor fashion, I got no answer. I got the inside of a doughnut again. Sadly, we won't have to hold our breath for the modelling. We are now living that scenario, with more rate rises on the horizon. Young Aussies won't have to wait to see the consequences; they will feel them in real time. First home buyers have stretched themselves thin to take out these enormous mortgages on Labor's promises that interest rates were on the way down. They're getting good at saying the opposite of reality—'There's no fuel crisis'—but just like every other economic shock, like when inflation spiked as One Nation said it would or when rates rose as One Nation said they would, Labor is caught completely unaware and unprepared. I always give people the benefit of the doubt—when people get it wrong, it's ignorance, not malice—but when I watch Labor walk first home buyers straight into financial crisis after selling them massive debts to prop up their real Ponzi scheme?

I wrote a question on notice last year asking for the age of the participants in the five per cent deposit scheme. The response I received from the government of transparency deliberately excluded the very scheme I asked for. It is an outrage that Labor is hiding from the public exactly who they have thrown under the bus. When the defaults start, when people are crushed by mortgages that they were sold under false pretences, we will know. So why doesn't Labor come clean now and release this information? The people they have claimed to help have become an inconvenient secret to sweep under the rug.

This has been a complete disaster for first home buyers, but what about the broader economy? Under the scheme, Labor has put the Australian taxpayer on the hook for 15 per cent of mortgages that the government guaranteed to avoid lenders mortgage insurance—full liability uninsured. This is tens of billions of dollars of guarantees backed by only the Australian taxpayer. In the MYEFO, the only liability recognised is a meagre $35.7 million provision. One Nation will be watching this figure like a hawk, as I'm sure the international credit raters will. You might not want to answer our questions, but at some point the chickens will come home to roost on your balance sheet and on your deficits. More liabilities mean a sickly balance sheet. A sickly balance sheet hurts our credit rating. Worse credit ratings mean more expensive borrowing. This is a diabolical situation you've put the Australian people in.

Successive Labor governments have completely forgotten the concept of responsible fiscal management, so now we face down record debts. In the MYEFO, we have the following debts expiring in the next seven years: $40 billion at 0.5 per cent, $87 billion at one per cent, $43 billion at 1.25 per cent, and hundreds of billions at under three per cent. Our 10-year bond rate is now above five per cent, with massive inflation on the horizon under Labor. We're going to be paying over four per cent more on our debt for hundreds of billions of dollars just as the Labor government creates a subprime lending crisis with their ridiculous five per cent deposit scheme, and today we see more appropriation bills full of taxpayer funding for Labor's green fantasy—more debt, more damage to the economy.

Australia's debts are not an abstract concept. These debts need to be repaid. They need to be refinanced, and the interest payments will continue to pile up. Every dollar that goes towards these debts is a dollar taken from the Australian people. It isn't going to fund schools, the police or emergency services, and when Labor runs out of money they will be going after everyday Australians like they do every time to pay for their mistakes. Not answering questions doesn't get us out of this nightmare. Come clean for the people being hit hardest by this economic disaster. But I won't be holding my breath for an answer. The last time I asked Senator Ayres a question, he was more interested in talking to a baby in the gallery.

Question agreed to.

The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Waters be agreed to.

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

I want to thank my colleague Senator Waters for making the case for this bill on behalf of the Greens and indicate again that the Greens strongly support this bill. But we're going into committee now to consider potential amendments to actually make this bill more than just a symbolic measure but make it a genuinely practical measure, and to consider amendments that would say the government needs to not just put a commissioner in place but treat the commissioner with respect, listen to the recommendations, take on board the recommendations that come from the commissioner and actually start implementing them in policy. So while we strongly support the creation and the formalisation of the commissioner and the commissioner's role, it's important that we look forward to making sure that the work of the commissioner actually informs decisions of the government and decisions of this parliament. No doubt we will hear from the commissioner the compelling evidence that we have heard, for example, in the youth justice inquiry that I'm grateful to this Senate for supporting and sending out across the country to hear about the youth justice crisis.

We're hearing from that inquiry that there is a youth justice crisis across the country. The submissions make pretty hard reading. In the Northern Territory there are kids as young as 10, 11, 12 being snatched in Alice Springs and the communities that surround Alice Springs—sometimes 100 kays from Alice Springs—because of the brutal laws that are in place in the Northern Territory that refuse bail, that incarcerate kids for minor offences. A 10-year-old kid caught shoplifting, maybe because they were hungry and didn't have any food, in a township outside Alice Springs is picked up by the police and the chocolate bar taken out of their hand. No-one asks if the kid's hungry. The kid's whacked into the back of a police wagon, driven to Alice Springs, thrown into a holding cell in the jail, put into a prison uniform, put in shackles, taken to the airport and then flown more than 1,000 kilometres to Darwin and held in a failing, brutal juvenile detention centre. That's the reality that is happening right now across this country and in the Northern Territory.

For the crime of being hungry, a 10-year-old kid is whisked more than 1,000 kilometres away from their family and put into a broken so-called youth justice system. There's broken connections to family, any education connection is broken, they're brutalised—that's the reality, and the federal government could stop it. The federal government could stop it by supporting measures such as Senator Waters put; by saying they should raise the age. Don't put 10-year-old kids into jail; raise the age. The minimum age should be 14 before even contemplating putting kids through the criminal justice system.

The federal government could intervene directly right now, listen to the voices that are coming from the Northern Territory and stop funding that cruel system. Eighty per cent of the police wages that are taking that 10-year-old out of their community and their township are paid by the Commonwealth. Eighty per cent of the airfare that is sending the 10-year-old kid from Alice Springs to Darwin, more than 1,000 kilometres away from their family and connection to country, is paid for by the Commonwealth. If the Northern Territory government decided to put a spit hood on that kid—and they do; they put spit hoods on kids causing suffocation, trauma, torture—80 per cent of the split hood would be paid for by the Commonwealth. And when the Commonwealth puts that child in a proven-to-be-brutal, failing so-called youth justice centre without education support, without medical support, without any of the care that a 10-year-old child needs, 80 per cent of the cost of that child prison is paid for by the Commonwealth. And we just tick and flick this in this place. We just say that's okay.

I think I know what the commissioner will say about a bunch of this stuff. The commissioner will say that the Commonwealth needs to step up. The Commonwealth needs to take action. The Commonwealth needs to be responsible when they're paying for that cruelty. They should be tying all of our funding with states and territories to say, 'You can't spend Commonwealth money torturing kids.' But unless there's some mechanism in place so that the parliament and the government is obliged to respond to the substance of those recommendations that come from the commission, it will just be more wallpaper over this disaster, more wallpaper over the tragedy that plays out.

We need to see the underlying drivers of so-called offending. If a 10-year-old kid is hungry, maybe don't put the 10-year-old child into that appalling, brutal system. Maybe look at the underlying causes. Maybe provide the housing that is needed particularly so that First Nations communities across this country are not living 20 people to a house or 30 people to a house. If a child is hungry, rather than put them in jail, why not put some breakfast in front of them? Why not ensure that there's food at school? Why not ensure that there's safe transport to get to school where you can have breakfast when you start school and a decent lunch? Imagine if we were investing into putting food on the table rather than kids in jail. That's at the core of this stuff. If we had a system that put food on the table instead of kids in jail, we'd have a system that kept our communities safe, that saved billions of dollars and that made us the kind of country we would aspire to be.

I want to commend the committee recommendations here to say that, when the commissioner speaks after hearing from the community, the government and the parliament must answer and must hear. It is abundantly clear, and we've seen it very recently with compelling legal advice given by two senior barristers—one a silk, one a senior junior—that made it very clear that there is an abundance of Commonwealth powers, constitutional powers, the Commonwealth could use right now to start dealing with the youth justice crisis and to start making direct beneficial laws to prevent the kinds of cycles of violence and disadvantage that we see in the youth justice system particularly and in the criminal justice system more broadly. The Commonwealth has entered into treaties for the protection of the child, for civil and political rights, for UNDRIP. There is an abundance of Commonwealth powers. The trigger under the external affair powers—the ability for this parliament to not just be a complicit bystander but actually take action to deal with the youth justice inquiry.

When our inquiry was down in Melbourne, we heard evidence about what would work. If the Commonwealth funded Aboriginal controlled and run organisations and, instead of putting billions of dollars into state and territory governments to be used to police and coerce and jail, that money was redirected to Aboriginal controlled organisations that know how to help their kids, that know how to connect culture and elders into systems that protect and support kids—we know that that would actually radically reduce youth offending. We know that that would put power where it should be—in the hands of elders and communities who know far better how to raise their kids than some DOCS worker or juvenile justice corrections officer or bureaucrat. That's where the money and the power should go, and we'll no doubt hear that from the commissioner after consulting and talking with the community, but, unless the measures are in place to turn recommendations into action, this bill risks being a feel-good moment changing nothing on the ground.

I respect the work of the minister in the space, and I've seen how this minister is connected to communities and brings that experience and perspective to it, but, as so often happens with First Nations issues, the notional responsibility is given to the First Nations minister, who has the connections and understands, but the power is always elsewhere. The power is with Treasury or with the Attorney-General's Department or with Finance. The ideas and the solutions lie in First Nations communities, but the power is always held over in those other ministries. It's about time that changed and it's about time that the power was bought back and the wealth was brought back and connected with communities, because that's the ultimate solution.

Again, I want to thank my colleague Senator Waters for the work she's been doing on this bill and for her work in this portfolio area. We can do so much more, and this amendment and this committee is a chance to do some of that. (Time expired)

I rise to note my support for the National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People Bill 2026 and also to associate my comments with those of Senator Shoebridge and Senator Larissa Waters, who I also want to thank for outlining our support and for putting forward an amendment with real teeth that would require the government to formally respond to recommendations made by the national commissioner and essentially give this the teeth that it needs and deserves. This bill enables the commissioner to independently conduct inquiries and make recommendations to government on the priorities that matter most to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and families.

For too long, communities have been calling for legislation that embeds a strong, genuine voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. For too long, the evidence has been telling us that same painful truth: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are 11 times more likely to be placed in out-of-home care. The system is failing our children. Data from just last week tells us that only one in three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child arrives at school developmentally on track. This figure is getting worse, not better. This is not a statistic that this chamber and this government should accept.

Let us be clear: this is a failure of successive governments. It is a failure to meet the targets set under the Closing the Gap agreements. Words on paper mean nothing without the outcomes to back them up. Aboriginal community controlled organisations lead the way in developing culturally safe, integrated supports that genuinely improve developmental outcomes for children and families, yet many of these organisations face significant pressures from workplace shortages, governance challenges and funding constraints that limit their ability to deliver and to grow. SNAICC's Early Years Support program provides the critical backbone support these services need, strengthening their viability and enabling the expansion of the community controlled early years sector that Closing the Gap demands.

Independent evaluation confirms what communities already know. Aboriginal community controlled organisations represent the absolute gold standard of culturally responsive early learning. Supported services reduce administrative burden, strengthen workforce capability and improve performance against Australia's national quality standard. This bill is a step in the right direction, and our children deserve nothing less. But adopting this Greens amendment will strengthen it, and strengthen it we must. Now the commissioner's work begins, and so does this government's obligation to not just hear the recommendations but act on them.

The plight of Aboriginal children is well documented. We know that from so many people. Senator Pauline Hanson has been raising this issue for around 30 years. Senator Nampijinpa Price has done an exceptional job as well, and Senator Kerrynne Liddle and indeed the minister there. The plight of Aboriginal children is an indictment on parts of our society and especially on the government. I'm not just talking about the Labor government; I'm talking about previous uniparty governments and the Liberal-National coalition.

I was visiting Badu Island a few years ago in the Torres Strait. A wonderful young councillor stood up and said, 'While there is a Closing the Gap initiative, the gap will widen, because so many people are feeding off the Closing the Gap campaign that they have become dependent on it.' I'm talking about the parasites who are pushing some of the Aboriginal industry. They're white as well as black. The bureaucracy is massive and self-perpetuating. So many of the campaigns are to keep bureaucrats in a job. The bureaucracy is massive, and that means no accountability, and there is the heart of the problem. We now have an Aboriginal industry.

Basic management shows that this commission will have negative effect. It won't help. It will hamper and hurt. The aim is to look good, not do good. There are so many things we see every year in the House of Representatives. The Prime Minister—it doesn't matter who it is, whether Liberal or Labor—and the opposition leader stand up and tell us things about how Closing the Gap is going backwards, and we've still got work to do, but it's all rosy. It's the stuff that comes out of the south end of a northbound bull.

Minister, surely basic management shows that a system that is clogged like the Aboriginal industry is, with so many people feeding off it—consultants, activists, politicians, lawyers, academics—will be only clogged up further. What are your intentions for managing this properly so that it doesn't clog up the system?

Thank you, Senator, for the question. I certainly reject the assertion about 'Aboriginal industry' being a negative, Senator Roberts. We have, in fact, just this morning, certainly come together with the Coalition of Peaks—bodies that are clearly defined in the way that they work with local communities on the ground.

You mentioned Badu Island in the Torres Strait. I certainly commend our new convener—the joint convener, with me, on the joint council—and that is Donnella Mills, a Torres Strait Islander woman who is very passionate about wanting to ensure that, on the ground, in terms of local people having local solutions and support, they are supported by community controlled organisations.

And those community controlled organisations are accountable, Senator Roberts. They're accountable every year, just like any other business in this country that's provided with either federal or state or territory funds. They are accountable. They're accountable to the parliaments. And they are certainly accountable to this Senate. That accountability is about transparency, Senator Roberts. So I would just caution you, if I may, around the language that you use that really stereotypes, in a very negative way, the good work that is being done by First Nations organisations and individuals across Australia.

I'll just take this moment, Temporary Chair, if I may, to acknowledge the commissioner, Commissioner Hunter, in the gallery, and members of the Coalition of Peaks, and those who came this morning for the launch of our latest peak body.

Thank you, Minister. And welcome. Senator Roberts.

You mentioned the Coalition of Peaks, Minister. There's part of the issue. This is a massive bureaucracy. You've got to have representatives of the peaks. There's no audit. And I'm speaking now on behalf of taxpayers, as well as Aboriginal children and Aboriginals.

I've been to every one of the communities, white and black, on Cape York, and I've asked: What's Close the gap? What do they know about Close the gap? What do they think about Close the gap? Some of the communities there don't even know about Close the gap, because they're not getting the benefits of the funding that's coming from the taxpayers; it's getting hived off by the parasites, white and black—activists, lawyers, consultants, lobbyists, academics, politicians and bureaucrats—along the way.

How is this additional bureaucratic load, this additional constipating layer in the middle, going to strengthen coordination across government? It's adding more people into the middle of this government mess. As I said, it's not just your mess; it's previous governments' messes as well.

Then these are going to be 'advising the Commonwealth'—this is from your own bill. 'Advising the Commonwealth'? How many more people do you need to get advice from? This is getting ridiculous! People across the country, especially Aboriginal people, are laughing at this. Some of them are crying at it.

And then there's the third activity: 'undertaking and commissioning research into systemic issues and barriers'. There's no doubt there are systemic issues and barriers. We can see them. Why do you need yet another group of researchers? This is just going to confuse the mess again.

Then there's 'providing and commissioning educational programs'. Children won't know which way is up, they'll have so many different messages from so many different bureaucrats—so many different parasites.

Next there's 'undertaking public advocacy' to promote the rights and interests of children and young people. We've got so many people in parliament doing that. We've got so many people outside parliament doing that. You've got so many bureaucrats, tripping over each other, doing that.

They're 'to amplify their voices and strengths'. Oh, really? Really? It's not working so far. The nanny state is not working so far.

As to engaging with children: how many more people are going to engage with children? These kids will have their heads spinning.

What about basic needs? Get to the core of the problem. There are, clearly, crucial human needs, and they're being bypassed by these people looking after their own administrative jobs. I also remain concerned about two things. One is that this is a divisive piece of proposed law that is defined by race. It draws distinctions and promotes divisions by race, which makes it racist. It overtly continues and entrenches the them-versus-us mentality that prevails in conjunction with the patronising mentality of victimhood status.

In Aboriginals—and you're an example of this, Minister—we have four per cent of Australians who are Aboriginal; we have 11 per cent of parliamentarians who are Aboriginal. Aboriginals have high potential, but so many are being locked into victimhood. Surely what we need to do is free up Aboriginals to fulfil their enormous potential. They're leading in the NRL, the AFL, business, sport, academics and science, and yet some of the communities are terrible. I think we need to start celebrating Aboriginals rather than locking some victims—

Stop calling them parasites, then. What about all the taxpayer money you're defrauding? You talk about parasites. You lie, you steal—

I'll take that interjection from Senator Waters. I'll make it very clear: she misrepresented me then, because I am not calling Aboriginals parasites. I'm calling Aboriginals fantastic human beings with huge potential. I'm calling them parasites in the bureaucracy—the activists, the lawyers, the administrators, the bureaucrats, the consultants, the academics—who are living off the money that's going from taxpayers to the Aboriginal industry. That's what I'm talking about. This is just going to add more complexity and more bureaucracy.

One Nation policy is to get rid of the Aboriginal industry, to save $15 billion, and instead provide real care through government grants based on real needs, regardless of skin colour. This bill has an aim, I believe, to look good, not to do good. In trying to look good, you do a lot of harm. You just add more to the constipating layer of bureaucrats. Minister, isn't this an option to start celebrating Aboriginals, rather than casting them as victims, and to start giving grants based upon real needs? Isn't that what's really needed here?

Senator Roberts, firstly, I agree that we should celebrate First Nations culture in this country. I agree that there are many outstanding athletes, as we saw with the Rabbitohs recently and the great score trier that everybody roamed the field on with AJ. But there are many, many others, whether they're athletes or otherwise. There are professionals in business, in the sciences and in our schools. We've even got our young woman here from Yirrkala, who's doing very well—Siana, I'm watching you as a bit of a trailblazer for us.

You're right that we should celebrate First Nations people and culture, Senator Roberts. But that's probably about as far as our similarities might go, because I certainly reject the assertion that there is no accountability or transparency. As I said in my previous response to you, every organisation that is receiving funding does get audited, whether it's from the Australian National Audit Office or having to provide their annual reports to this parliament. I certainly have many statutory bodies whose reports have to be delivered to the Senate.

That is accountability, Senator Roberts. That is where we differ. You keep asking for audits. Well, audits actually happen as an annual event for organisations, and those organisations that are not doing well obviously get picked up in this as well. Like non-Indigenous organisations and businesses, there are some across the country that don't do well, and they need extra support to get them back on their feet or, like many, they go out of business. The accountability structure is there in terms of the audits, and, as I said, I agree with you in terms of the celebration of First Nations people, but the way we do that is also about lifting families. This is why this bill is incredibly important. It's important because we are listening to what the communities have been asking for for a long time.

I might walk you through just a bit of that history. The Bringing them home report in 1997 actually raised this back then, and we've had subsequent organisations through the Coalition of Peaks. There are 70 organisations who've given guidance on this. I would not dismiss—and I am sure you, as a senator for Queensland, would not dismiss—those who come to us to give advice. That's what this parliament asks for in terms of the Coalition of Peaks and the agreement that we've signed with every state and territory to that Closing the Gap agreement.

We've got organisations like SNAICC, which cares for the children. We've got VACCA, the Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency, and the Korrie Youth Counsel. All these organisations have come forward to say there needs to be this national commissioner. There needs to be a role where the national First Nations commissioner is there for the children who are being taken away, who are in out-of-home care. We've seen those figures rise staggeringly, especially in states like Victoria. Having the ability for the national children's commissioner to work with each state and territory and to inform this parliament is absolutely critical.

Senator Roberts, there are some things we kind of see a bit of similarity on, but probably most not. But I do appreciate your interest. You have shown that at estimates as well in the questions that you've raised around communities. I would urge you and your party to get behind this bill. What Commissioner Hunter will be able to do is know that she has the support of this parliament behind her to work with our kids across the country.

I might move us on from the language of racism and division and the use of the term 'parasites'. Before I move my amendment I want to take the opportunity to commend the launch this morning of the first community controlled peak body, the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander family, domestic and sexual violence peak. I very much welcome community controlled organisations leading the way. I'm also very conscious that we still have a funding gap for frontline services dealing with family, domestic and sexual violence, and we know that funding gap is even more pronounced for First Nations organisations. I commend the work of the FVPLS, the family violence prevention legal service, and their state organs right around the country. They deserve full funding and funding security, but today is a good start with the launching of that first peak.

I move the Australian Greens amendment (1) on sheet 3659:

(1) Clause 16, page 13 (after line 19), at the end of the clause, add:

Government response

(4) If a report given to the Minister under subsection (2) sets out one or more recommendations to the Commonwealth Government:

(a) as soon as practicable after receiving the report, the Minister must cause to be prepared a statement setting out:

(i) the Commonwealth Government's response to each of the recommendations; and

(ii) if the Commonwealth Government has not accepted a recommendation—the reasons for not accepting the recommendation; and

(b) the Minister must cause copies of the statement to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the report is given to the Minister.

This amendment would require the government to actually respond to the recommendations of the commissioner that this bill is establishing as an independent statutory position. The bill allows the commissioner to seek information from governments to inform her reports and recommendations, but there is nothing in the bill to compel the government to actually respond to those recommendations. I think that is tragic and I think it is very easily fixed. The optimist in me thought it was an oversight; however, it seems to be by design, and I think that is heartbreaking. On a day when we are doing a good thing, to establish a commissioner to look into the needs of First Nations young kids, why the backhand to say, 'Yeah, but we're not actually going to be compelled to respond to your recommendations'?

This amendment would fix that. It would say that the Commonwealth does, in fact, have to respond to the recommendations. They don't have to accept them, but, if they're not going to, they have to provide some reasons why they're not going to accept them. We've given them enough time to do that: 15 sitting days after a report is tabled. That is time enough for considered contemplation and a proper response to what could be a really important role. As we've seen, shame is not enough to compel governments to respond. We've seen the powerful statements from the First Nations children's commissioners around the country, and in my second reading contribution on this bill I spoke into the Hansard the words of Queensland's commissioner Natalie Lewis, who asked, again, what it's going take for the Commonwealth to actually step in? Is it going to take Don Dale levels of human rights abuses? What about the winding back of the protections for kids being locked up in prisons like we've seen in many jurisdictions? What is it going to take for the Commonwealth to step in?

The New South Wales advocate Ms Robinson said a similar thing. She said that nobody gets hurt unless they yell and scream, and she was begging for the Commonwealth to fix that. So, when stakeholders called for this national commissioner, they didn't just want a figurehead. I'm sure Ms Hunter will do a great job, but they didn't want her to oversee business as usual. We need this role because successive governments have let down First Nations communities for so long, and we need this because the gap is not closing. It's getting bigger. That's why I moved a second reading amendment to say we should raise the age of criminal responsibility, because deaths in custody and the incarceration rates, including of young people, in First Nations communities are going up. That is not closing the gap; it is widening it. So we will be supporting this piece of legislation, but surely as a matter of courtesy if nothing else the government should be obliged to respond to the recommendations that the commissioner makes to government.

I did put this to government. I asked them to support this amendment. Unfortunately, their reason for not doing so—which they may well have changed in the meantime; I certainly hope so—at the time was, 'We don't have to respond to the Human Rights Commission either,' as if two wrongs make a right, and as if it's okay to ignore the Human Rights Commission, so it's okay to ignore the First Nations children's commissioner. Well, it is not okay. This is not a requirement for you to sign up holus-bolus to their recommendations. It is simply a requirement to consider them and give a response to them, and that is a reasonable ask.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: The question is that amendment (1) on sheet 3659 be agreed to

I move:

That these bills be now read a third time.

The question is that the bills be now read a third time.

I move:

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

Question agreed to.

Bills read a first time.

I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

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

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

APPROPRIATION BILL (NO. 3) 2025-2026

Today, the Government introduces the 2025-26 Additional Estimates Appropriation Bills. These Bills are:

These Bills underpin the Government's expenditure decisions made since the 2025-26 Budget that relate to the 2025-26 financial year, including decisions made in the 2025-26 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO).

Appropriation Bill 3 seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of $9.2 billion. This provides funding for the 2025-26 financial year costs of measures announced since the 2025-26 Budget, and ensures there is sufficient appropriation to cover variations in existing programs, for example, due to changes in costs for demand driven programs.

The Bill provides funding to support the following significant items.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water will receive over $2.9 billion, predominantly to continue support for the Cheaper Home Batteries Program.

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing will receive over $1.5 billion for various programs to improve the wellbeing and social and economic participation of people with disability, continue to ensure access to medicines, deliver evidence-based health policy, improve access to comprehensive and coordinated health care, and protect the health and safety of the Australian community. Funding includes $876 million for the National Disability Insurance Agency to provide reasonable and necessary supports for National Disability Insurance Scheme participants. The Department will also receive $101 million to support Strengthening Medicare reforms.

The Department of Defence will receive over $1 billion, including $985 million brought forward for updated expenditure requirements to implement the 2024 National Defence Strategy and 2024 Defence Integrated Investment Program.

The Department of Home Affairs will receive $881 million to implement various programs to ensure Australia's security, prosperity and unity by safeguarding Australia's domestic interests from crises and threats, supporting the Government Response to the Antisemitic Bondi Terrorist Attack, and delivering on the Government's 2025 federal election commitment to maintain Australia's cohesive multicultural society.

Full details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the Schedule to the Bill, the Explanatory Memorandum, and the Portfolio Additional Estimates Statements.

I commend this Bill to the chamber.

APPROPRIATION BILL (NO. 4) 2025-2026

This Bill seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of $3.5 billion for the 2025-26 financial year. These appropriations will support the following significant items.

The Department of Defence will receive over $2 billion, including $1.5 billion brought forward to support the delivery of capabilities prioritised within the 2024 National Defence Strategy and 2024 Defence Integrated Investment Program.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water will receive $411 million, mainly to fund further voluntary water purchases to support water recovery targets under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

The Department of the Treasury will receive over $325 million to provide loans to Housing Australia to support social and affordable housing projects as part of the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), including HAFF Round 3, which was announced in the 2025-26 MYEFO.

Full details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the Schedule to the Bill, the Explanatory Memorandum, and the Portfolio Additional Estimates Statements.

I commend this Bill to the chamber.

APPROPRIATION (PARLIAMENTARY DEPARTMENTS) BILL (NO. 2) 2025-2026

Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill 2 provides additional appropriations of $9.2 million for the operations of Parliamentary Departments, specifically the Department of the House of Representatives and the Department of Parliamentary Services, for the remainder of 2025-26.

Full details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the Schedule to the Bill, the Explanatory Memorandum, and the Portfolio Additional Estimates Statements.

I commend this Bill to the chamber.

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2025-2026, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2025-2026 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2025-2026, which, for the purpose of this debate, I will refer to collectively as the additional appropriation bills. At their core these additional appropriation bills are a blank cheque for yet another round of Labor government spending on top of an already bloated budget in deficit. The Albanese Labor government is the highest spending government outside of a pandemic in 40 years. That means they are the highest spending government outside of a pandemic in my lifetime.

While the opposition will not stand in the way of government funding, that doesn't mean that we are going to stay silent about what this spending in these appropriation bills means. We will not oppose these bills. We will not delay these bills. But that cooperation should not be mistaken for a waiver of scrutiny or accountability, because Australians want to understand exactly what is going wrong under this government, and they only need to look at where the money is going to figure out why. The fastest way to understand the failures of this government in terms of its economic management and its budget management is to follow the money through these additional appropriation bills that we are debating here today. When you do that, a very clear pattern begins to emerge.

Taken together, these three bills add more than $22 billion to spending in a single financial year. Appropriation Bill (No. 3) alone loads around $12 billion onto the budget, while Appropriation Bill (No. 4) adds close to $10 billion more on top of what was already approved at the budget last year. Even the parliamentary departments bill adds hundreds of millions of dollars in extra funding. Let's be very clear. This is not fine-tuning. This is not restraint. This is a government that cannot keep its spending promises to Australia. This is a government that has a spending problem. This is a government that is unable to exercise fiscal discipline to try and get its budget under control. The largest increases in funding are the result not of new priorities announced at the budget but of substantial revisions to the government's original spending estimates, which demonstrates just how far those projections have shifted within a single financial year. Each of those decisions might be defensible in isolation, but, taken together, they tell a very clear story about a government collecting record revenue but spending record amounts and still running record deficits.

This is why inflation remains entrenched throughout the economy, why interest rates are remaining high for longer and why Australian families are paying more at the supermarket and more on their mortgages. Just last week, we saw the 14th interest rate rise under the Albanese Labor government. We know that inflation is being grown at home. Yes, there are concerns about what is happening currently in the Middle East, and, that will undoubtedly have an inflationary impact on our economy as we see petrol prices go through the roof. But the reality is that this government was overspending long before then and that that overspending was contributing to inflation. The RBA have said that themselves. That is why it is time for this government to take responsibility and admit that it has a spending problem.

These bills that we are debating here today do not show a government in control of spending. They do not show a government that can exercise fiscal discipline and make the hard decisions around the cabinet table. These bills show a government that is lifting its spending limits first and confronting the fiscal impact later. Despite collecting record levels of revenue from Australian taxpayers, the government is delivering record spending and continuing to run large deficits. That places the budget in a vulnerable position when productivity growth remains weak and revenue gains are not being driven by stronger underlying economic performance. In particular, it places the budget in a vulnerable position when we are dealing with external factors beyond our control, as we currently are with the national fuel crisis as a result of the conflict in the Middle East. That reality completely shatters this government's carefully crafted narrative.

I note that the Treasurer, Dr Chalmers, talked about restraint. He has said, or at least backgrounded publicly, that the upcoming budget in May will be one where government spending gets under control. But, as I've said previously, I have serious doubts about this government's ability to do that. You only need to look at their track record to know that they can't exercise fiscal discipline, and nothing in these bills or the broader budget resembles restraint in practice. The Treasurer has been telling Australians that the government has found savings and is exercising restraint, but, if that were true in any meaningful sense, the government wouldn't be here today asking parliament to authorise more than $22 billion in additional spending. You cannot credibly claim restraint while simultaneously lifting your own spending limits halfway through the year. Any savings that the Treasurer talks about have clearly been more than swallowed up by new and higher spending, because otherwise these bills simply wouldn't be necessary. The government isn't just asking for more money; it is conceding that its original deficit and spending projections were not credible.

The consequences of that disconnect are now being felt across the entire economy. Inflation in Australia is not a mystery. It's not an accident. It is a direct result of deliberate government spending choices. Australians are experiencing inflation in their daily lives because of this government's budget decisions and this government's inability to get its own spending under control. Australians pay for it when they fill their trolley at the supermarket, when they open their power bill and when they try to make their mortgage payment each month. These inflationary pressures flow directly through to higher interest rates, leaving families paying more not just today but for years to come. This is the true cost of the Albanese Labor government's spending addiction. Australians are paying more today through higher prices and higher mortgages. Future generations, Australians my age and younger, will be left to shoulder higher debt because this government refuses to live within its means. It seems abundantly unfair that, at a time when all Australians are tightening their own budgetary belts, this government seems incapable of doing the same.

In conclusion, again, these additional appropriation bills aren't a technical adjustment; they are a clear admission that the government's spending has once again exceeded its own promises. While the opposition is not going to stand in the way of funding government services, we are not going to simply pass these bills through this place today without calling out the consequences of the choices of this government and the consequences within these bills.

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2025-2026, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2025-2026 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2025-2026. Australians want a government that works for them. When the budget is predicated on poorer productivity forecasts, Australians know that means living standards will stay lower for longer. Combined with low growth, rising inflation, rising interest rates, the recent fuel crisis and the general cost-of-living crisis, Australians are not optimistic about the future. Polling from Ipsos in February found that 56 per cent of Australians think the country is on the wrong track. The budget in May must turn that around. It must address inequality in as many ways as possible. It must change capital gains tax and negative gearing and work towards changing housing from an investment back into a place to live. It needs to look at spending and say, 'Is this value for money?' If it isn't, that money needs to be deployed where it can do the most good.

Here's one example: last year, wage theft became a criminal offence, and I'm proud to say that I supported this reform. Wage theft has been a big problem in Australia—at the Commonwealth Bank, in the university sector and in many other sectors. In fact, it still is; $49.5 million over four years was allocated to empower the Fair Work Ombudsman to investigate wage theft cases and, where they meet the threshold, refer them to police. For over a year, an office of 16 full-time equivalent workers has been investigating criminal wage theft cases. Over $10 million has already been spent funding this office, but not a single case of wage theft has been referred to police. Is that value for money? It's really disappointing, given how prolific wage theft has been and still is in Australia. Thankfully, the Senate yesterday supported my referral of this matter to an inquiry, which is due to report in June. Then, yesterday, we learned that the contractor that turned the BoM's, the Bureau of Meteorology's, $4 million website redesign into a $96 million downgrade is back for more. A $16 million contract was awarded to Accenture to build a platform for the Australian Climate Service. How is that company, which went 2,400 per cent over budget, even allowed to bid for Commonwealth contracts, let alone win one, so soon after such a massive blowout? If the budget for the contract is blown out by as much as the last one, taxpayers will be on the hook for $384 million. Anything less than that is a huge improvement.

The government is very reluctant to give up on contractors. Last year, Deloitte produced a $400,000 report that was littered with AI generated mistakes. When this was revealed, Deloitte paid only part of the fee back and then released a new report, which had even more AI generated errors. The bar is on the floor, but I'm confident that Accenture will somehow be able to squeeze under it.

Speaking of AI, I would like to turn to the government's AI policy. The policy, which runs across the whole Public Service, is administered by the Digital Transformation Agency, which sits in the finance portfolio. The policy for the responsible use of AI in government requires more agencies and departments to publish statements about how they use AI and how they manage the inherent risks of AI, as well as appointing a high-ranking officer to serve as the accountable official for AI.

Dozens of agencies have failed to publish AI transparency statements and appoint officials responsible for AI by the deadline. According to DTA correspondence, released under an OPD, bodies that fail to meet the deadline include the Future Fund Management Agency, the Federal Police, the Federal Court, the Australian Research Council, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency and the Australian Law Reform Commission.

There is such little interest in this policy that some organisations have given evidence in estimates that conflicts with DTA records. The Organ and Tissue Authority, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the Commonwealth Grants Commission and the Office of the Inspector-General of Aged Care have all claimed to have appointed an accountable official within the deadline, but DTA's records list them as having been non-compliant some time after that deadline. The National Health Funding Body, the Commonwealth Grants Commission again and the Royal Australian Mint claim to have published an AI transparency statement on time, but, again, DTA's records disagree.

Conversely, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research openly admitted to not meeting the AI transparency statement deadline and refused to explain why. In the case of the Australian Accounting Standards Board and the Auditing and Insurance Standards Board, the Digital Transformation Agency wasn't even able to speak to either organisation about their obligations. Throughout March 2025, DTA attempted to reach out to the two boards, but to no avail. The most extraordinary case was the National Competition Council, which did not know the policy existed until more than six months after the deadline passed.

Version 2.0 of the policy came into force in December, requiring agencies and departments to develop a strategic position on AI adoption by June. I'll be keeping an eye on this during estimates later in the year, because it is really important for us to see what takes place. We've seen artificial intelligence technology advanced at a very terrifying pace. When the government makes the rules around artificial intelligence optional, there are serious consequences. We do not want another robodebt.

It was recently reported that the AI advisory body will no longer be going ahead. This followed a 15-month recruitment process, which cost nearly $200,000. The government is preaching fiscal responsibility in the lead-up to the budget, and yet massive sums of money—of your money, of taxpayer money—are being wasted. Not only has that money gone to waste, but we'll no longer have an AI advisory body. As the AI revolution is going on all around us in our workplaces, in our schools and in our homes, the regulation is not keeping up. We won't have an AI act. We won't have specialists advising an AI policy. The government doesn't even comply with their own policy. It would be funny if it weren't so dangerous.

I'll now pivot from one cancelled agency in the industry and innovation portfolio to another. In February, it was announced that the Australian Space Agency Advisory Board, which had spent a year with no meetings and no members, would be dissolved. The board had its members removed in 2024 after a review into the Australian Space Agency's governance began. After another lengthy recruitment phase, the government gave up and got rid of the board entirely. That's more taxpayer dollars down the drain. Katherine Bennell-Pegg, the first Australian to qualify as an astronaut under Australia's space program, was Australian of the Year this year. What is the next generation of young Australian astronauts meant to think as they watch this government slowly strip away the very infrastructure of our space industry before it's even had a fair go?

These advisory bodies have had millions of dollars allocated to them. The money for the AI Advisory Body was allocated in 2024. If the government wasn't going to use the money, it should have put it somewhere else. Instead, it ummed and ah-ed about what it was going to do before shutting these boards. I think a lot of Australians are expecting a budget that doesn't tinker around the edges but that engages in wholesome reforms which set Australia on a path towards higher living standards and a lower cost of living. The whispering and leaking campaign of doublespeak is all well and good within the Canberra bubble, but Australians around the country shouldn't believe it until they see it. We need more action from this government in this May budget.

Australians are struggling. Young Australians don't feel confident in the future, and that makes me very sad, because they should. It is our job to ensure that we hand over to the next generation a life and a country that are better and easier than the ones we have had, and we're not doing that. Our legacy for them is for it to be harder for them, for them to have a greater debt burden, for them not to be able to own their own home and for them to have to work more to be able to maintain their standards of living. That's not okay.

This Labor government hasn't been upfront with Australians. Our economy is weak. We've seen every single day further confirm that fuel supply in our country is not guaranteed. In my home state of New South Wales, we're hearing different reports today from the premier of between 500 and 600 petrol stations without fuel. That's from the New South Wales Labor premier. That's not from the Liberal Party. It's not from the opposition. It's from the New South Wales Labor premier.

Australians are hurting because of the actions and the inactions of this Albanese Labor government, and enough is enough. Australians are working harder but falling behind. We have had the largest collapse in living standards in the developed world. That should be something that is front and centre for this government in terms of its actions with the upcoming budget. Think about that. We have had the largest collapse in living standards. We have fuel instability. We have a weak economy. We have interest rates that went up a couple of weeks ago because our inflation is higher than our contemporaries. And what is this government focused on? Are they focused on solving these problems? I don't think so.

My understanding is, at the moment, they're working very hard on plans to expand our parliament, to put more politicians into this building both in the Senate and in the House. The view of the coalition is they should be working to bring down inflation, they should be working to bring down interest rates, and they should be working to ensure productivity increases and that the living standards of Australians increase.

Australians have now endured 14 rate rises under this Albanese Labor government in some four years—14 rate rises. As will often happen, there will be the pushback from the other side that will talk about interest rates that they inherited—every story you can imagine. However, let's be clear, these 14 rate rises from this government are completely out of line with our global contemporaries. This is the legacy of this government, but there's another side to this. There have also been three rate reductions under the Albanese Labor government—14 rate rises, three rate reductions. But guess what? The Prime Minister and his Treasurer are more than happy to take credit for the rate reductions, but they don't want to be held responsible or accountable for the rate rises. Can somebody explain that to me? I'd really like to understand that.

Families are paying around $27,000 a year more on a typical mortgage. Despite working harder and harder, they just keep going backwards. That's not rhetoric, that is a fact. That's $27,000 a year on an average mortgage that Australians have to pay because of the decisions of the Albanese Labor government. Our inflation here is higher than every single major advanced economy, and it is being driven by the decisions made by this government in this place, not just by global events. Because of this, our consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest levels since records began, stretching back over 50 years, since 1972. I was two years old in 1972, so that was a really long time ago! It's even below the COVID-19 pandemic low of 2020. That is the legacy of the Albanese Labor government.

Our country is heading for a lost decade of productivity, leaving every Australian around $35,000 a year worse off. Productivity has declined under this government by about five per cent. Who is going to pay for that? Young Australians, young people who will likely never be able to afford their own home. So they have the legacy of declining living standards, they have the legacy of declining productivity, they have the legacy from this government that they can't own their own home, they have the legacy of an increased debt burden into the future. No wonder young Australians are fed up and sick and tired of the people in this place.

We are focused on three imperatives: cutting unnecessary regulation, beating inflation and getting energy prices down. That is our job. That is what we have to do in order to improve the lives of Australians. This government is running deficits because record levels of revenue are being outstripped by record levels of spending. That leads to the concerns I raised before. We have higher inflation and higher interest rates in significant part because of the spending of this government. The Treasurer talks about restraint regularly, but he doesn't demonstrate restraint. We don't need words, we need action. This is setting up the next generation to have to pay off the debt of this Albanese Labor government.

I spoke about increasing interest rates. The RBA has had to raise rates in part because of this government's high spending. That's a reality. Inflation in Australia, in the 12 months to January 2026, was 3.8 per cent. In the UK, it's three per cent. In the US, it's 2.4 per cent. In Canada, it's 1.8 per cent. In Japan, it's 1.5 per cent. In Germany, it's 1.9 per cent. The government cannot point to global factors because global factors do not impact Australia in isolation. What do impact Australia in isolation are the poor decisions of the Albanese Labor government. That is what impacts Australian primarily. That does not have an impact on those other economies.

Senator Chandler made an important point that this was the highest spending government in this country in 40 years outside of a pandemic. We may laugh, but it is a reality. It is a sad reality.

Tell the truth. Don't tell lies.

No, no, no. Senator Farrell, you're experienced enough to know that that is not an acceptable interjection. Please withdraw.

Could you please withdraw on your feet?

Sure. I withdraw on my feet.

Thank you. Senator Kovacic.

I'll quote then from some of Australia's most eminent economists. AMP's chief economist Shane Oliver said:

A lot of the factors driving (inflation) relate to government spending.

That's not me making it up. That's not the opposition making it up. That's one of Australia's top economists. I have another one for you. IFM Investors chief economist Alex Joyner said:

We already have fiscal policy getting looser, but it could be even looser than we expect. The fiscal guard rails have come off.

The government has even lost support from its friends from the industry super sector. But I have more. HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham said yesterday:

… the primary driver of the pick-up in inflation is not strong demand. To the extent that demand is playing much of a role, it is that public demand growth has been strong, due to government spending.

Again, that's not me. That's yet another economist.

That is the legacy of the Albanese Labor government—spending growth running at four times the rate of the growth of this economy and debt set to reach $1 trillion. Since coming into office, this government has added $100 billion to the national debt. Despite what those on the other side think, this government cannot escape the laws of economics. High government spending always results in higher inflation, and higher inflation demands higher interest rates. Australians are paying more when they have to pay their mortgage and when they have to pay their rent because this government is spending much more money than they have. The impacts to Australians are such that their standards of living have crashed to amongst the lowest in the developed world. The Prime Minister and his Treasurer have a lot to answer for, but ultimately what we need them to do is start doing their job and start protecting Australians' way of life because Australians cannot take any more of this. Australians are struggling. Our economy is weak, our fuel supply isn't guaranteed and Australians absolutely are hurting.

The government has advanced a suite of appropriation bills covering an additional $9 billion of spending for this financial year. These appropriation bills provide allocations of taxpayers' money to maintain the government's recurring expenditure on operational matters and on the many, many, many schemes the government is using to funnel taxpayers' money into the pockets of their donors and friends in the net zero scam, the parasitic net zero scam.

Of the approximately $9.2 billion in spending in these bills, $2.9 billion is for net zero measures—one third. Of that, $130 million is for additional departmental expenses and the rest is funding projects. This is on top of the $1 billion allocated in the previous appropriation bills for departmental expenditure and on top of $5 billion for funding projects this financial year. And this is on top of the $24 billion that has been spent so far in off-the-books expenditure for net zero measures and the additional $9 billion which has been allocated to fund projects in the near future, for a total off-the-books spending of $33 billion. For clarity, these figures are to date, not just this financial year.

Off the books is an accounting trick the uniparty has come to rely on. It's based on the premise that, if the government borrows money and then on lends that money to other people, that is not a budget expenditure and, as such, does not form part of the budget spending or contribute to the deficit. Now, $33 billion is a huge amount of money to have sitting off the books, much of which will result in financial loss to taxpayers when these projects fail and their mates' projects fail. If these projects were any good, private enterprise would be building them. The fact the government has had to stump up $24 billion so far, with another $9 billion expected over the forward estimates, suggests the private sector knows something the government doesn't know—that is, that these projects are boondoggles which will never recover their full or lifetime cost.

This includes not only the cost of the solar panel, the wind turbine, the battery transmission line and such like; it includes the installation cost, maintenance cost and replacement cost—batteries last 10 years; solar panels last 15 years, being generous; and wind turbines last 15 years. This means every piece of net zero generation and storage we have in Australia right now will have to be replaced before 2050, some twice, and replaced three times before 2060. The cost won't end in 2025; it keeps going forever and ever, because these things have to be replaced. They have short, limited lifespans. In addition, lifetime costs include the thing net zero idealists never talk about: the disposal and remediation costs. New wind turbines are massive to tear down. They're up to 250 metres tall, and the installation cost per turbine is over $1 million. Plus, removing them when they are damaged, catch fire or reach the end of their life costs $1 million each.

If a company wants to open a new mine in Australia, it must put aside money or a surety to cover the cost of remediation: a bond. This bond payment has been law in mining for years, and it should be there. No such law, though, exists for wind and solar installations. I can understand why. Blowing the top off a mountain to create the flat area necessary for the massive footprints these things require is permanent environmental damage. No remediation can fix it. One can't come along after the projects have been shuttered and glue the mountain back together again. The damage, the vandalism, is permanent. In these appropriation bills, the government has made provision for subsidising the build of these things, although not removing and remediating afterwards.

Nobody has added all these expenditures together to compile a whole-of-government cost of net zero. One Nation has asked the Parliamentary Budget Office for that figure, so stay tuned. The total economic cost of the transition out to 2026, government and private sector, has been estimated at between $7 trillion and $9 trillion. These people in the government do not even know, and these people in opposition did not have a clue when they started this transition. This information is from the independent Net Zero Australia, a project of the universities of Melbourne, Queensland and Princeton. Bloomberg puts the figure at $2.4 trillion out to 2050. Net zero spend is up 400 per cent under this government, between 2022 and 2026. The expectation is that this government will keep throwing money at an imaginary, confected problem for as long as the public think humans can change the weather on a global scale. This is insane.

Decarbonisation now extends right through the bureaucracy and agencies. There are decarbonisation offices in every government department plus the net zero reporting, plus government grants to industry—

Senator Roberts, you will be in continuation. It being 12.15, we will move to senators' statements.

The Senate transcript was published up to 12:15. The remainder of the transcript will be published progressively as it is completed.