2020-10-19 46 1 4 House of Reps 0 1

Monday, 19 October 2020

The SPEAKER ( Hon. Tony Smith ) took the chair at 10:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.

DOCUMENTS 1 DOCUMENTS Parliament House 1 Presentation 1 10:01 The SPEAKER 00APG I present the Presiding Officers' statement regarding the condition of Parliament House. COMMITTEES 1 COMMITTEES Petitions Committee 1 Report 1 10:01 Mr O'DOWD 139441 Flynn I present the 16th report of the Petitions Committee for the 46th Parliament, comprising 119 petitions and 46 ministerial responses to petitions previously presented. The past week has seen an unusually high number of visitors to our parliamentary e-petitions website, resulting in some intermittent timing-out problems. The performance of the website continues to be monitored and our IT support team are on hand to fix any problems if they arise. The committee would like to thank everyone who has tried to sign e-petitions online for their patience and eagerness to engage with petitioning. It's great to see that in these times of COVID-19, when many people may be feeling socially isolated without face-to-face interaction with their communities, online activities, such as e-petitioning, can bring like-minded people together in support for issues of mutual concern. E-petitions can be easily shared to reach a wide audience. The House e-petitions system provides a unique URL for each certified e-petition, which can be shared via email or by posting it to social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Petitioners can then just click on the link and enter their details to sign the petition. Analytics reports for the petitions website show that sharing a petition URL via social media is by far the most popular method of promoting an e-petition. The online community is therefore a very important avenue to promote and share petitions and to foster connections during a time that is different for us all and difficult for many. While we hope that things can return to normal as soon as possible, and people are once again able to sign, by hand, a petition that they see at the local shops or at a community event, we, as the committee, are pleased that our e-petitions system is able to continue facilitating online interactions for like-minded communities with the parliament. I look forward to further updating the House on the committee's progress. PETITIONS 1 PETITIONS Education 1 Indigenous Heritage Protection 2 JobKeeper Program 2 National Anthem 2 Indigenous Australians 2 Environment 2 HomeBuilder 3 Independent Commission against Corruption 3 Cryptocurrency 3 Economy 3 Australian Parliament E-Petition Platform 3 Education 4 E-Cigarettes 4 Higher Education 4 E-Cigarettes 4 Australia Day 5 National Anthem 5 Law Enforcement 5 Health Care 5 Arts 6 Visas 6 Education 6 Aurora Australis 6 JobKeeper Program 7 Welfare 7 Consumer Rights 7 People with Disability Royal Commissions 8 Customer Service 8 Live Animal Exports 8 Visas 8 COVID-19: International Travel 9 Taxation 9 National Redress Scheme 9 Voting 10 Defence 10 COVID-19: International Travel 10 Environment 10 COVID-19 11 Department of Veterans' Affairs 11 Charitable Organisations 11 Donations to Political Parties 11 COVID-19 12 Taxation 12 Azerbaijan 12 JobSeeker Payment, JobKeeper Payment 12 Medicare 12 Australian Republic 13 COVID-19: International Travel 13 Education 13 JobSeeker Payment 14 COVID-19: Economy 14 Death Penalty 14 COVID-19: Employment 14 Intelligence Agencies 14 Family Law 15 COVID-19: Hydroxychloroquine 15 COVID-19: Vaccine 15 Consumer Rights 15 Medicare 15 COVID-19: Hydroxychloroquine 16 Education 16 Australian Red Cross 16 Australian Securities Exchange 16 Education 17 Royal Commissions 17 Visas 17 JobSeeker Payment 18 Visas 18 Parliamentary Representation 18 JobKeeper Payment 19 Lebanon 19 Health Care 19 Visas 19 COVID-19: International Travel 20 COVID-19: International Travel 20 Visas 20 Judicial Appointments 20 Environment 21 Banking and Financial Services 21 Charitable Organisations 21 COVID-19: International Travel 21 Banking and Financial Services 22 Gambling 22 Australian Republic 22 Visas 22 COVID-19: Health Care 23 News Media Bargaining Code 23 Family Court 23 Economy 23 News Media Bargaining Code 24 COVID-19: Vaccine 24 Australian Constitution 24 COVID-19: Vaccine 25 COVID-19: Vaccine 25 JobSeeker Payment, JobKeeper Payment 25 Employment 25 COVID-19: Vaccine 26 COVID-19: International Travel 26 Foreign Affairs 26 Banking and Financial Services 26 Superannuation 26 Aboriginal Flag 26 Climate Change 27 Pensions and Benefits 27 Environment 27 COVID-19: Hydroxychloroquine 27 COVID-19: Vaccine 27 COVID-19: Vaccine 28 Hong Kong 28 Perth Airport 28 COVID-19 29 Employment 29 Pensions and Benefits 29 Illicit Drugs 29 Visas 30 COVID-19: International Students 30 Medicare 30 COVID-19: Vaccine 30 Aboriginal Deaths in Custody 30 PETITIONS 31 PETITIONS Responses 31 00:00 Mr O'DOWD 139441 Flynn I present the following ministerial responses to petitions previously presented: Welfare 31 COVID 19: Economy 31 COVID-19: Migration 32 COVID-19: Migration 32 Pensions and Benefits 33 5G Technology 33 5G Technology 34 5G Technology 35 5G Technology 36 5G Technology 37 Mental Health 37 Australian Bushfires 38 Climate Change 38 Closing the Gap 39 Transport Industry 40 Transport Industry 40 Parliamentarians 40 National Emblem 41 Skilled Regional Visas 41 Transport Industry 42 Domestic and Family Violence 42 COVID-19 43 Taxation 44 Migration 45 Banking and Financial Services 45 Migration 46 COVID-19 46 Intellectual Property 47 COVID-19 48 World Health Organization 48 Education 49 World Health Organization 50 Gambling 51 COVID-19 52 COVID-19 53 Vaccination 54 Medicare 55 Climate Change 55 COVID-19: Arts and Entertainment Industry 55 Higher Education 56 COVID-19: Taiwan 56 Indigenous Australians 57 Charitable Organisations 57 Asylum Seekers 58 COMMITTEES 59 COMMITTEES Joint Standing Committee on National Capital and External Territories 59 Report 59 10:04 Mr SNOWDON IJ4 Lingiari On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories, I present the committee's delegation report to the Antarctic Parliamentarians Assembly, London, United Kingdom, 1 to 4 December 2019. I am pleased to present the report of the delegation from the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories to the Antarctic Parliamentarians Assembly. The inaugural Antarctic Parliamentarians Assembly took place in London on 2 and 3 December 2019. The assembly was conceived and convened by the UK parliament's All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Polar Regions. I represented the committee at the assembly, along with the then committee chair, the member for Hinkler, now Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia, Minister Pitt. The concept for the assembly was modelled to some extent on the Conference of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region, which has been in operation since 1993. The assembly was attended by 19 parliamentarians from 13 countries, along with officials from a number of other Antarctic treaty parties and an impressive range of Antarctic experts from various disciplines. Participants heard and discussed a range of high-quality presentations on matters including the success to date of current challenges facing the Antarctic Treaty System, the very significant impact of climate and environmental changes on the health and sustainability of Antarctica, its living species and surrounding ocean, the importance of Antarctica as a place of scientific research, the costs and benefits of the growth of Antarctic tourism and the need to ensure its sustainability into the future, and economic and geopolitical interests in Antarctica and how these might impact international debates about governance of the continent. Importantly, the assembly provided an opportunity for us to express our shared support, as parliamentarians, for the preservation of Antarctica as a natural reserve devoted to peace and science. The participants in the assembly issued a statement reinforcing key principles, which was issued publicly and is included in the delegation's report, which I've now tabled. Participants at the assembly agreed that the gathering had value and should become a recurring event, aiming to meet every two years and to alternate between the northern and southern hemispheres. There was strong support for Australia and/or New Zealand to offer to host the next assembly, in 2021. Our delegation considered that there would be value in this parliament hosting the next Antarctic Parliamentarians Assembly in either Hobart or Canberra. We recognise the need for more detailed consideration before such a commitment could be made, so in its report, Mr Speaker, the delegation proposed that this option be further considered by the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories, subject to your views and those of the President of the Senate. On behalf of the committee, I thank you, Mr Speaker, and your compatriot the President of the Senate for supporting our participation in the assembly. I also recognise the contribution of my co-delegate and the very capable former chair of the committee the member for Hinkler, now Minister Pitt. We were able to work seamlessly together and speak with one voice in representing Australia's achievements and perspectives on this important issue. We also, of course, extend our great appreciation to all those who assisted with arranging, hosting and supporting our visit, including the staff of the Australian High Commission in London. But I particularly want to acknowledge Professor Steven Chown, from Monash University, and Professor Tim Naish, from New Zealand's Antarctic Research Centre, for their professional advice, support and expertise during the assembly. I'd also like to thank, importantly, the committee secretary, Shennia Spillane, for all her work in helping us along the way, for organising the trip and for her support and friendship. I commend the report to the House. Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e). Public Accounts and Audit Committee 60 Report 60 10:09 Mrs WICKS 241590 Robertson On behalf of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, I present the committee's report, entitled Report 480.1: annual report 2019-20, together with minutes of proceedings. The Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit is required to ensure the accountability and transparency of public administration and expenditure of the Commonwealth. The committee's annual report is presented to the parliament under section 8B of the Public Accounts and Audit Committee Act 1951 and summarises the work of the committee in the 2019-20 financial year. One of the committee's key roles is to examine the reports of the Auditor-General tabled in the parliament. The committee periodically selects several of these reports for further inquiry. Like all committees, the work of the JCPAA was challenged by the circumstances of COVID-19. Despite this, the committee presented two reports in the parliament, containing 12 recommendations, and held six public hearings using a combination of face to face, video and teleconference. Four further inquiries were also underway as at 30 June. The committee's report on efficiency and effectiveness reviewed seven Australian National Audit Office reports on matters such as the Farm Management Deposits scheme, small business tax debt and the operations of the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the deputy chair and all committee members and participants for their commitment and flexibility over this time in conducting this inquiry. A highlight of the committee's activities during 2019-20 was hosting the 15th biennial Australasian Council of Public Accounts Committees conference, with the theme 'Changes and challenges over the last 30 years'. The conference presented an opportunity to strengthen existing intraparliamentary dialogue and discuss the workings of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit and its counterpart committees in each state and territory. International delegates from South Africa, Fiji and New Zealand also attended the conference. I look forward to continuing the important work of the committee over the coming year. I commend the report to the House. Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e). 10:12 Mr HILL 86256 Bruce I endorse the comments of the chair in relation to the annual report of the JCPAA. It's a pretty straightforward report. The committee, amongst other committees, does have a statutory basis and, I believe, an important role in the parliament. It's been around since the early 1900s, and by legislation we have a role in overseeing the work of the Auditor-General and the ANAO. By legislation we have to consider every report that the Auditor-General does. We oversee the Parliamentary Budget Office and also have a range of statutory responsibilities in the PGPA Act. I also want to thank the chair for her collegiate way of working and for continuing what has broadly been for many decades a bipartisan approach to the audit committee. Mr Speaker, I know you'd endorse some of those comments, as a former chair of the committee way back earlier this century! I want to make three remarks. They're not meant to be partisan remarks, but there's a degree of frustration. Firstly, the committee this year has done less work than in any recent year, and that's a matter of concern to me. Our previous reports used to contain a little table that tracked across a number of years the number of reports, the number of inquiries and the number of recommendations made. That table's been removed—probably, I think, for good reason: because it would be quite embarrassing to the current committee if we had a look at what the table actually said. We've tabled two reports and made 12 recommendations. Over the last five years, that is by far the lowest, and that includes election years. I do think that we need to pick up the pace. The second point I make is that it's not as if we're short of important work to do. The Auditor-General, for the first time in living memory, didn't get the money that he needed, and he's had his budget cut severely. We need to be spending more time on this. We should be making noise about this. I think there's a degree of urgency around some audit reports, and we haven't heard anything from the committee. On the $30 million land purchase, where the government paid $30 million to a Liberal Party donor for land that was worth, at best, $3 million, an audit report was handed down. That's the kind of thing that the committee should be looking at. On the Commonwealth contracting out, the Auditor-General tabled a report months ago into this ongoing privatisation and waste of taxpayer funds. This is the kind of thing that the audit committee should be looking at. And so I say with all sincerity: we need to pick up the pace, and I hope to see that in the coming year. We have commenced the 10-year review of the act, but there's also a backlog of many reports that we need to find the time for or be rightly criticised for failing our statutory duty. The final point I make is to record a concern that I've had for some time with regard to the resourcing of the committee, in two senses. I think COVID revealed the parliament's serial underinvestment in technology. Having worked in other environments I'm stunned, as many members are—I know that the presiding officers have been working to try and correct this deficiency, but we're still nowhere near where we should be. The availability of videoconferencing technology—the ability of committees to actually get airtime, the ridiculous fight over which two committees, on any given day, are going to be allowed to videoconference and broadcast their hearings—is pathetic. This is the national parliament. Mid-sized corporations and every government department in a state or territory can do better than we can. The committee has suffered because of it, along with other committees. The final point I would make is that I am deeply concerned by what I think has been the underresourcing of this committee by the House of Representatives. We've raised this with the assistant clerk. I know that there have been two positions filled, but they had been unfilled for months. I'm still waiting for a table tracking the FTE resourcing for the last 10 years for this committee, because I believe it has been underdone. All of these factors together add up to what has been an underwhelming year, and I hope we can pick up the pace in the coming year. Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit 61 Report 61 10:16 Mrs WICKS 241590 Robertson On behalf of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit I present Report 482, Review of the operations of the Parliamentary Budget Office 2019-20, together with Executive Minutes on reports Nos 476, 479 and 480. One of the key functions of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit is to provide oversight of the Parliamentary Budget Office. The committee's report on the review of PBO operations is presented to the parliament under section 64S and 64T of the Parliamentary Service Act 1999. The purpose of the committee's inquiry was to report on possible areas of reform to support the effective operations of the PBO, the PBO's implementation of recommendations of past reviews and stakeholder relationships and engagement. The committee concluded that the PBO is fulfilling its legislative mandate and is held in high regard by stakeholders. The PBO continues to inform the parliament by providing independent and nonpartisan analysis of the budget cycle, fiscal policy and the financial implications of proposals. At the time of the committee's inquiry and since the start of 2016-17 the JCPAA heard that the PBO has completed more than 6,460 policy costings for parliamentarians with a median response time of 13 days; published more than 25 reports to inform the parliament and the public about fiscal policy and the budget, all of which were reported in major media outlets; published the 2019 post-election report of election commitments, with new features including medium-term costing minutes and searchable online costings; and received formal and informal feedback from parliamentarians, government agencies and other stakeholders that its work is valued and its interactions are professional. To support the continuing effective operation of the PBO, the committee has recommended that the Parliamentary Service Act 1999 be amended to provide for an automatic referral process for independent review of the PBO after a general election. This significant reform will enable the committee to monitor PBO implementation of review recommendations over the life of the parliament and to serve to further reinforce the independence of the PBO. During the inquiry, the PBO provided the committee with a comprehensive update on its implementation of the recommendations of past reviews. The committee notes that the PBO has sought to address all of these recommendations and is working to improve further in each of the broad areas identified. I would like to thank the PBO and other agencies and individuals who participated in this inquiry. I would like to thank the deputy chair and all members of the committee for their cooperation in producing this report. I commend the report to the House. Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e). 10:19 Mr HILL 86256 Bruce I thank the chair for her words, and I commend the report as well and support the recommendations. As was noted, we have a statutory responsibility to decide consciously after each election whether we'll conduct a review of the PBO. This term, it was decided to conduct what I might call a modest review. There was a much more extensive, and expensive, review conducted only last term. I think a review on that sort of scale should be conducted every now and again; every two or three terms you might have a deeper-dive look, because it does cost a lot in both PBO resources and external expertise. So I think this review was fit for purpose. Overall, it's found the PBO is going well. The recommendations of previous reviews are being implemented. Stakeholder relations are positive—it's really important we have evidence of that. Stakeholders include every member of parliament, in particular members of the opposition and backbench MPs, who are probably the heaviest users, rightly, of the PBO; the Australian Public Service, a critical part that gets the costing inputs; think tanks; and research outfits. I think the recommendation to make a review automatic is appropriate, provided the JCPAA can set the terms of reference and the scope, which is part of the recommendation. I want to touch on two or three issues that were touched on in the inquiry and mentioned in the report. First was the possibility of an expanded scope of work for the PBO. In particular, it was the idea of having the intergenerational report, which is done every few years by the government, moved from the Treasury to be done by the PBO. It's an interesting idea. It's been around for a while. I think there's a strong case to examine this. The last IGR, frankly, was a joke. It was unfortunately completely politicised by then Treasurer Hockey and was widely discredited, based on ridiculous assumptions that were entirely political. Similarly, that flowed through even to last year's budget, where the surpluses were built on dodgy fertility and migration assumptions. But these are serious questions. Whilst there is a policy case to shift the production of the intergenerational report to the independent Parliamentary Budget Office—and this is the kind of thing that happens in other jurisdictions around the world, with the Congressional Budget Office and others preparing these independent forecasts—currently legislation binds the PBO to using Treasury's assumptions, so, to see such a change, they'd need to develop their own economic forecasting capability. I think that, at this point, the committee is right—and I say this despite Labor having had a policy at the last two elections to shift the IGR to the PBO—at this time to leave it as it is for now but to see what happens with the next intergenerational report. If, again, it's built on dodgy political assumptions and discredited then I think the case to move this to the independent PBO will be significantly strengthened. The other point I'd make, the second point, which I've touched on, is around submissions we've received arguing for a greater role for the PBO in gender based budget analysis, in particular to improve the articulation of gender distributional impacts on costings provided to parliamentarians, which we thought was a good idea and made a recommendation. There was also the suggestion that the PBO should be responsible for a women's budget statement. We didn't make a recommendation in support of that. I believe that should be done by the government. It isn't being done by the government, because Tony Abbott stopped it, but I don't believe it's a responsibility of the PBO. It should be done by the government. Of course, there's nothing to stop the PBO doing further gender based analysis on the budget. The final point I'll make, in relation to costings, which was an interesting discussion and part of the public hearing, is about the suggestion that the postelection report that the PBO has to produce should in some way encompass the commitments or fantasies of minor parties. It was an interesting issue, regarding the possibility of making costings compulsory for minor parties. In particular, it was seen by some members as having merit in that it might deal with the nonsense of people like Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson producing utterly ridiculous, outrageous policies and putting them on billboards as if they were somehow realistically costed or implementable. There is the suggestion that perhaps parties of a certain scale or number of members should be forced, as part of the transparency and honesty of costings, to submit their policies for costings. Of course that would be embarrassing at times for the government, given their dodgy little deals with Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson, but I think, if we could find a way to do it, it would potentially improve public discourse. It has been a great reform that the major parties now submit to costing discipline. In the election it has improved the quality of public policy and debate, so it's an interesting idea to look at this further to see if we could extend that. There are practical difficulties, of course. They'd have to comply in some way. I thank the chair and the PBO for their cooperation in the inquiry, which had an open-minded approach. BILLS 62 BILLS Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Financial Transparency) Bill 2020 [No. 2] 62

Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Financial Transparency) Bill 2020 [No. 2]

First Reading 62 Second Reading 62 10:25 Ms SHARKIE 265980 Mayo I move: That this bill be now read a second time. I wish to start by thanking the aged-care workers in my electorate for their efforts in recent months. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety's special report on the impact of COVID-19 on the aged-care sector highlighted that, while their interim report noted the aged-care workforce is underresourced and overworked, it is now also traumatised. My Centre Alliance colleague Stirling Griff has introduced this bill in another place. We have both long campaigned for staffing ratios in the aged-care sector, and the frequent reply from both government and the industry is that it's simply too expensive to implement. Estia Health, Japara, Regis Healthcare are all residential aged-care providers and all ASX listed companies. According to recent investigations conducted by The Saturday Paper, the trio have received a combined $8.4 billion in revenue from government subsidies and resident charges in the last five years alone. At the same time, these three companies have paid out more than $600 million to shareholders. We've heard stories of directors of aged-care companies who have had the ability to use their funds to buy luxury cars. There's money in offshore bank accounts. We hear allegations of where rent is more than double the commercial rate, with money being funnelled back into church coffers. At the other end of the spectrum, a report carried out by StewartBrown Advisory earlier this year, pre COVID, shows that 75 per cent of aged-care providers in regional areas are operating at a cash loss, and questions remain as to whether small community-based providers can remain viable. Clearly, something has gone horribly wrong in the aged-care sector, but, without shedding light on each aged-care facility, we won't know the extent of the damage. This bill requires aged-care providers to disclose their income; their spend on food and medication; the amount spent on staff and staff training, accommodation and administration; and how much they pay out to their parent bodies. The providers will be required to submit an annual report to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, who will make the report available to the public. Similarly, the bill also amends the Corporations Act 2001 to ensure residential aged-care providers include detailed financial information in their annual financial statements. This will enable families of loved ones, stakeholders and the public to have a clear view, for the first time, of the proportion of income that providers actually spend on the cost of care and how much is being pocketed or wasted. People were shocked by the extent of the abuse and poor care exposed in the interim report by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety—a report released almost 12 months ago today. The interim report showed that the government has deep systemic work to do to fix the aged-care system, and it also needs to increase its investment. In 2018-19, government spent over $20 billion on aged care, with approximately 66 per cent of this funding spent on residential aged care. But it simply can't keep pouring more money into a system without first asking for a more accountable and transparent framework from providers. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has got financial transparency squarely on its agenda. The interim report criticised the aged-care system for failing to publish sufficiently specific financial information, saying: There is no public information on the way providers use taxpayers' funds and individuals' contributions to deliver aged care services. Currently, there is no clear way to know how much a provider is spending on the provision of care. It is permissible for providers to spend their taxpayer subsidies pretty much as they choose. In an environment where our elderly are being subjected to systemic neglect, this cannot continue. This bill is about transparency and accountability. It's something that residents deserve, it's something their families deserve and it's something that taxpayers deserve. This bill simply seeks factual information from providers so the government and the public will have a clearer picture of how facilities are resourced. This will be crucial if we, as the parliament, are to engage in sustainable reforms to the sector that will improve the experience and the treatment of vulnerable elderly people living in residential aged care. Mr Deputy Speaker Zimmerman, with your permission, I would like to give my remaining time to the member for Warringah, who is seconding my bill. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 203092 Order. Is the motion seconded? 10:30 Ms STEGGALL 175696 Warringah It is with great pleasure that I second the member for Mayo's bill, the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Financial Transparency) Bill 2020 [No. 2]. This bill seeks to legislate increased transparency of expenditure by aged-care providers. The sector receives approximately $13 billion per annum in public funding and some $12 billion in private funding. Total profit for the sector in financial year 2018 was $1.1 billion. Not enough transparency is available on where the funds are spent, giving rise to questions of the quality of care in certain facilities, and this has never been more evident than this year during the COVID pandemic. At the outset, I'd like to thank the aged-care sector for their efforts in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Aged-care workers have been on the front line for over six months and are enduring very high levels of pressure and stress. The workers in these sectors are really in unfathomable conditions. So we must absolutely be focused on ensuring their work environment is as it should be. The care exhibited in the various aged-care homes and their staff that I've met with over the last couple of months have been exemplary. Many of the aged-care facilities in Warringah have yet to record even a single case of the flu this season. I've met with Anglicare, Twilight and Allambie village aged-care facilities in the electorate. They're feeling the strain, but they are pleased with how their staff and residents have responded to the pandemic. Those on the front line are supportive of the measures provided in this bill, and that's important. The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation strongly recommends that this bill be supported and passed by the parliament as a matter of urgency. This bill is important because it will improve transparency of financial records of aged-care providers. It will enhance the ability for stakeholders—including residents, families, suppliers and potential residents—to make an informed decision about the level of care provided at each home. An independent report commissioned by the royal commission into aged care has highlighted that there is insufficient financial transparency about the use of funds, from government and people in care, which totalled some $25 billion in the financial year 2018-19. At present, the financial reporting provided by residential care providers is only available to the Department of Health. Increasing the transparency of these records and specifying key areas of detail will increase confidence in the sector and allow for more public accountability. The Law Council of Australia raised concerns as well, regarding the transparency of funds distributed to residential aged-care facilities. Their concerns include: the use of allocated funding, because it is unsupervised; that there is insufficient accountability in the way the funding is used; and that funding is not intensively or routinely audited. Over 20 submissions have been received to the inquiry into a very similar bill introduced in the other place and have been largely supportive of the measures introduced in this bill. So this bill presupposes the final findings of the royal commission. It's consistent with the interim report and with the submissions provided to date and should urgently be considered by the government. It's been more than a year since the interim report was published, and I strongly support the initiative taken with this bill to act on the findings of the interim report of the royal commission and put in place some measures that will improve the accountability and transparency of the sector with minimal impacts on residents. The issues of where money is being spent, nursing ratios and quality of care—all these things are incredibly important, and we've seen, through this COVID pandemic, that this is an area where we have a crack: we are exposed as a society. Our elderly are our most vulnerable, and we have a duty to ensure that they are properly taken care of. I commend this bill to the House. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 203092 Order. The question is that this bill now be read a second time. The time allocated for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting. PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS 64 PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS Marine Environment 64 10:34 Mr FALINSKI G86 Mackellar I move: That this House: (1) recognises the Government's commitment to protecting Australia's marine environment including the Great Barrier Reef through the: (a) Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan; (b) $1.2 billion investment to ensure the health of the reef; and (c) $100 million Environment Restoration Fund which supports cleaner oceans and waterways; (2) opposes oil or gas drilling off the coast of Sydney, including by: (a) recognising that through Advent Energy's own admission on 29 December 2010, the exploratory well had failed to find gas; and (b) not renewing the Petroleum Exploration Permit 11 licence; and (3) notes the importance of Sydney's coastline and waterways to the ecosystem as well as tourism and investment. When I was a teenager, I would ride my bike from the family home in Belrose, through Oxford Falls and down Wakehurst Parkway to Narrabeen Beach. I have fond memories of sitting on the beach, sand between my toes, swimming in the ocean and the rock pools of Narrabeen, looking out at the surfers and thinking how lucky I was. When I looked out at the sea I would ponder, in awe, how it could be that in one generation the son of a migrant who'd fled totalitarian regimes behind the Iron Curtain could now get to call one of the most beautiful parts of the world his home. To this day I raise my family in Collaroy, and I continue to enjoy the very same coastline. From Palm Beach to Manly, from Bondi to Little Bay, and across Pittwater to Patonga, Sydney has one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. Its rich biodiversity and all-round stunning views make it a wonder to behold. Not only is it something we locals derive great pleasure from; it is a pivotal part of Sydney's tourism economy. In a post-COVID world it will be more important than ever. However, there is a shadow looming over the coast's longevity. Petroleum Exploration Permit No. 11, PEP 11 for short, like Damocles's sword, hangs over the head of our communities. A stretch of ocean covering 4½ square kilometres from Palm Beach to Newcastle, PEP 11 threatens to continue exploration activity off our coast when, after 16 long years, no useful data has been uncovered and no useful discovery has been made. There has been so much risk, so much worry, and never before has there been so little reward for all of this. This licence has been held by several energy companies since it was granted by the then Carr Labor government in 2004. During this time, various exploration actions have been undertaken. The last one, about three years ago, was when permission was given to undertake seismic testing. The results of those tests were clearly disappointing. Even the most generous reading of the actions of the current holders of the PEP 11 licence would lead any reasonable person to conclude that it was, at best, inconclusive and most likely demonstrated there was little of value in terms of exploration. After all, the holders of the licence, Advent Energy, themselves admitted, on 29 December 2010, that the exploration well had failed to find gas. Therefore, in moving this motion, I'm calling on the government to oppose oil and gas drilling off the coast of Sydney, and specifically in the PEP 11 zone. My community have spoken loudly and clearly. We do not want to see the renewal of the PEP 11 licence. Save Our Coast have been leading the charge in opposing this licence. They have collected over 76,000 signatures, many of which have already been presented to the parliament. Natasha Deen, Brendan Donohoe and many more locals have been very vocal in their opposition to the licence because it just doesn't make sense. After all, this government is one which is taking strong and appropriate steps to protect our oceans. The Great Barrier Reef, we know, is a global tourism icon, a wonder of the natural world and critically important to the Australian economy. Before COVID-19, it contributed around $6.4 billion a year to Australia's economy, along with 64,000 jobs. These actions are those of a government which cares about our oceans. We are an island nation, so it is our responsibility to look after the water around us. It is a hard argument to allow this issue to be swept under the rug. But it would be impossible to say it will just go away, because it won't. My community do not want gas rigs off our beautiful coast. We do not want to see the rich biodiversity that occupies our great coastlines put at risk for an area of ocean which clearly doesn't have anything to offer in terms of gas but has so much to offer our generation and future generations. Therefore, PEP 11 should not go forward. (Time expired) The DEPUTY SPEAKER 203092 Is the motion seconded? Mr Sharma 274506 I second the motion and reserve my right to speak. Opposition members interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 203092 I would remind those on my left that interjecting at any time is not permissible, particularly when you're in those cheap seats—it's even more offensive. Please constrain yourself during the course of this debate, particularly when the member for North Sydney is speaking later on! 10:40 Ms McBRIDE 248353 Dobell I rise to speak today to stand with my community and express my strong opposition to oil and gas drilling off the coast between Sydney and Newcastle, which includes my part of the world, the Central Coast. I call on the government to stop PEP 11 in order to save our coast. The Central Coast of New South Wales, home to my electorate of Dobell, is a beautiful part of the world. It is a place I am so proud to call home, my family having lived there for generations. As well as our friendly people and our relaxed way of life, our region is known for its iconic stretch of coastline. It's popular with visitors, too. Last year nearly two million people holidayed on the Central Coast, adding $692 million to the local economy, and more are expected this summer. This year, regional coastal communities like ours have shouldered the burden of bushfires, floods and COVID-19. There are currently 20 jobseekers for every vacancy on the coast, and tourism, hospitality and retail will have an important role to play as we recover from the economic impacts of the pandemic. Under this government, our valleys and our beaches—the stunning natural environment that attracts people to live in and visit the Central Coast—are under threat. First, the proposed Wallarah 2 longwall coalmine, which I have opposed since I was a councillor for Wyong Shire. It's a risk to our precious water catchment and to valleys like Dooralong and Yarramalong. This government weakened the EPBC Act's water trigger, and the former minister waved through the project, despite the opposition of our community. Now this government is looking at offshore drilling. My office has received over 470 emails, letters and phone calls from locals concerned about PEP 11 and the risk it poses to our marine environment, our coastline and our way of life and wellbeing. We love our coast. Glenn from Bateau Bay said: I have been able to raise my children here on the Central Coast, passing on to them a love for our ocean, coastline and marine life. The excitement at dolphins swimming close to them, their looks of amazement at the sight of a whale fully breaching the water still gives me a feeling of happiness to this day. Cathy from Berkeley Vale said: The beach is our happy place. We moved up from Sydney a few years ago to have a quieter and more relaxed life on the coast. We love it here. For our family of 5, we love going to the beach as our way to reset. She echoes the views of hundreds of other locals. According to the Environmental Defenders Office, the PEP 11 project could see drilling commence in a world-renowned whale migration route and dolphin habitat, risking devastating the marine ecosystem and exposing locals from Newcastle to Manly to the prospect of petroleum spills or gas rigs just kilometres from the coastline. Locals are acutely aware of this risk. Katarina from Wyoming said: I've spent my childhood growing up on the Coasts beaches and I can't imagine that someday due to the proposed PEP-11 operation our Coastal landscape will be severely damaged. Alicia from Long Jetty said: Our beaches are serene and blissful. I and many others don't want them to be interfered with. Locals, people like Glenn, Cathy, Katarina and Alicia, are deeply concerned about our environment and our way of life. Worse, the government wants recognition for protecting Australia's marine environment, yet this is the same government which ignored the findings of its own review. The Samuel review of the EPBC Act outlined the need for national environmental standards to set clear rules for decision-making. The government made no reference to these standards in the amendments to the act. When the amendments came before the House, the government guillotined debate, denying myself and others the chance to speak against changes that weaken environmental protection. It must be remembered: the responsibility for offshore drilling sits with the government. The Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia has the final say, as the federal representative on the joint authority. This decision isn't being made under delegation but by Minister Pitt and New South Wales Minister for Regional New South Wales, Industry and Trade, John Barilaro. I stand with my community in their strong opposition to offshore drilling off the coast of Newcastle between Sydney and Newcastle, and off the Central Coast. I'm going to finish with the words of Karen from Long Jetty: 'We ask you to please consider communities, the coastal ecosystem, the climate and the economy in this time of uncertainty and upheaval and urgently stop PEP 11 to save the coast that so many Australians love and depend on for their wellbeing and their livelihoods.' This motion today won't be voted on. What matters is the decision by NOPTA, the decision to be taken by Minister Pitt and Minister Barilaro. As I started, I will finish: I stand with my community in their strong opposition to offshore drilling off our coast. I stand with them in calling on the ministers to stop PEP 11, to save our coast. This motion will not be voted on. What matters is the decision by the joint authority, to be made by Minister Pitt and Minister Barilaro. I call on this government to make a decision in the interests of our community, our marine life and our way of life and to stop PEP 11 to save our coastal communities. 10:45 Mr SHARMA 274506 Wentworth Australia is an oceans superpower. We have the third-largest exclusive economic zone of any nation in the world—some 10 million square kilometres, larger than our landmass of 7.7 million square kilometres, and this gives Australia a unique responsibility, indeed, a duty, to protect the health of the world's oceans. Oceans cover almost three-quarters of the world's planet. They are a source massive biological diversity, containing upwards of 10 million marine species. They're a source of livelihoods. Over three billion people get almost a fifth of their protein from the ocean, making fish a bigger source of protein than beef. Fishing and aquaculture underpin the livelihoods of one in 10 people around the world. But, perhaps most importantly, our oceans and their interaction with the atmosphere do much to determine our climate and our weather systems. Marine phytoplankton, the plant components of the plankton community, produces 50 per cent of the oxygen on earth. Oceans have absorbed as much as half of all anthropogenic carbon emissions over the past two centuries, and blue carbon ecosystems, such as mangroves, seagrass beds, tidal marshes, and other marine and coastal vegetative ecosystems are among the most intense carbon sinks on the planet. But our oceans are under pressure—under pressure from neglect, under pressure from overfishing, under pressure from pollution and under pressure from climate change. Almost 90 per cent of fish stocks are fished at or beyond their sustainable limit around the world. By the middle of the century, the ocean could contain more plastic than fish by weight, causing immense damage to the animals and ecosystems that depend on the ocean. The warming of the oceans, caused by climate change, is doing damage to corals, including our own Great Barrier Reef. Greater concentrations of carbon dioxide are making it more acidic, making it less hospitable for creatures like crabs and oysters, with calcium carbonate shells. As the custodians of the Great Barrier Reef and of much of the world's oceans, Australia has a unique responsibility here. This is why the health of the reef, one of the subject matters of this motion, is so important. We have introduced the Reef 2050 plan to improve the health of the Great Barrier Reef. We have the $100 million Environment Restoration Fund, which is targeting the cleaning of oceans and waterways. We are spearheading efforts to get more plastics out of the ocean, including in cooperation with our neighbouring countries in the Pacific. And a bill that will be debated later today, the Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill, is one step further towards building a circular economy in Australia, where we take more responsibility for our own waste and process it on shore. We are also doing our part to tackle climate change, meeting our targets to reduce our emissions in line with our Paris commitments. People in my community of Wentworth, and, indeed, many of Sydney's residents, feel especially attached to the ocean. They live and breathe it every day, whether it's taking the ferry to work; volunteering at a surf club on the weekend; taking their kids down to Nippers; having a swim or a surf at the start or the end of the day; or doing one of the amazing coastal walks, like the Bondi to Bronte walk or the Hermitage Foreshore walk. We in Wentworth are all very attuned to the health of the ocean and want to do our part to protect and preserve it for future generations. That's why community opinion is so strong against the application to extend the petroleum exploration permit 11 licence, or PEP 11, covering the coastline off Sydney, the waters off the New South Wales South Coast between Newcastle and Wollongong. This is one of the most densely populated and trafficked strips of ocean in the world. It's also one of the most beautiful and most iconic. I think many people are surprised to learn that such exploration is even happening right in our backyard, never mind that there is a prospect of renewing such exploration. After 10 years of exploration nothing has been found. In those 10 years, as times change so do values and so do priorities. In the Great Barrier Reef, it was a coalition government that banned oil and gas exploration on the Reef. It was a coalition government that helped the Great Barrier Reef win World Heritage status in 1981. And it was a coalition government that expanded no-take zones to increase from five per cent to 33 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. I think this PEP 11 is a clear issue where times and values have changed and where what might've been acceptable 10 years ago is no longer acceptable. This is a joint decision of the New South Wales and Commonwealth governments. I will be making known my opposition and that of my community of Wentworth to both of them. The people of Wentworth stand for the protection of our oceans and waterways and against the renewal of PEP 11. 10:50 Ms CLAYDON 248181 Newcastle I'm very pleased to contribute to this discussion on the PEP 11—Petroleum Exploration Permit. I thank my Labor colleagues for agreeing to select this motion today. They know how important it is for me to be raising this issue, my concerns and those of my community on this critical matter, and I certainly welcome this debate. I also want to recognise the member for Mackellar—now Deputy Speaker—for raising this issue. He's right: oil and gas exploration should absolutely not continue in the waters from Newcastle to northern Sydney. But let's be real, this motion won't even go to a vote, let alone force the hands of Liberal governments in Macquarie Street or Canberra to act. So I do hope that the member for Mackellar has backed his words with action. Has he written to the two government ministers responsible? Has he met with them? Is he fighting to insist that this motion be put to a vote in the Australian parliament? These are the things that separate genuine political action from hollow grandstanding. Let's be clear, this permit should never have been granted in the first place. We don't need this project. We don't want this project. If anything goes wrong, we will more than regret it. Australia has plentiful energy sources. We don't need drilling rigs set up within spitting distance from major cities and towns. There are some six million Australians, almost a quarter of us, that live near the PEP 11 coastline. The argument for PEP 11 is even weaker now than it was in the beginning, with the Australian Energy Market Operator confirming that the cheapest source of new electricity is a combination of renewables and storage. The spectre of oil and gas fields off the coast of Newcastle has loomed over my community since PEP 11 was first granted back in 1999, causing enormous uncertainty and distress, and it hasn't improved since. Frankly, this project has all the hallmarks of an operation in disarray. We've seen a complex and confusing web of companies attached to it. Despite this, I found it near impossible to find somebody in authority willing to speak. Phone calls go unanswered. Meetings were cancelled at the last minute. Once when I tried to get in touch I even found that Asset Energy's phone had been disconnected and their website was down. If they can't even keep a website up why on earth should they be trusted with our precious oceans? My community has been subjected to botched community consultations and controversial seismic testing being rolled out with seemingly zero regard for the deep local concern. Despite two decades of exploration now, there seems to be no adequate evidence of viable oil or gas reserves to justify or attract further development. After years working to minimise the impacts of PEP 11 on my community—through ministerial representations, a parliamentary petition and working with government agencies on better community consultations and protections of our oceans—I awaited the permit schedule to February 2021 expiry with anticipation. If common sense had prevailed PEP 11 would have been left to die a natural death. The fact that it didn't, and that Asset Energy has instead applied for an extension, is disappointing. The fact that it hasn't been rejected out of hand by this government is worse. When I learnt about the proposed extension, I went back to my community to seek further feedback. The message I got from Novocastrians was loud and clear: no oil and gas rigs for Newcastle; no way, no how. As a coastal city, the ocean is at the very core of our identity, and Novocastrians feel any threat to it very deeply. I have shared my concerns and those strongly held views of my community with my Labor colleagues. I am confident that Labor understands just how important this issue is for the people of Newcastle and just how important it is for me to make this statement today. But it is not federal Labor who will make the decision on the future of PEP 11. Indeed, there are no avenues for public input or parliamentary intervention that could influence the outcome of the extension application. No, this decision rests solely with the joint authority consisting of the federal Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia, Keith Pitt, and his state counterpart. Minister, I urge you not to approve the PEP 11 extension. It doesn't stack up. It never stacked up, and it never will. Listen to the voices of the people and reject this application once and for all. 10:55 Mr ZIMMERMAN 203092 North Sydney I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this motion, and I want to congratulate the member for Mackellar for putting this before the House today, because it is an issue that is so important to the future of our marine environment but also an issue that I know has touched the hearts and minds of so many Sydneysiders and indeed Australians. That's reflected in the views that I've heard loudly and clearly from my own constituents. Australia is famously a nation girt by sea. Our coastline and our marine environment have shaped the development of our nation for tens of thousands of years, and that is the case no more so than in the area that is covered by the Sydney Basin and our coastal environment. Sydney is home to the most magnificent harbour in the world, and that joins what is the most magnificent coastline of any capital city in this country, I'm confident to say. But of course that has not always been the case. It's fair to say that, for more than a century, Australians and Sydneysiders treated their harbour and their coastline poorly. For too long our harbour was used as a drain for industrial waste and stormwater, which has been slowly addressed. Our coastline, our beaches and our seas were used as dumping grounds for sewage. It was those phenomena that led to great community activism. Sydneysiders were not prepared to tolerate a harbour that was increasingly becoming more and more polluted and not sustaining the incredible biodiversity which for so long it had sustained. Off our coastline we were certainly not willing to tolerate the fact that our swimmers shared the waters with—how can I put this euphemistically?—Mr Hankey, the Christmas poo. That's probably the best way to describe it! That led to incredible community activism which over the last three decades has seen phenomenal change in the way in which we manage our harbour and coasts, and that is how it should be. So, instead of seeing that pollution that once we witnessed, we now have a harbour that is home to seals and incredible marine diversity and we have a coastline today which is famous not for Mr Hankey but for the whales that migrate along the shoreline each year and are now a source of great inspiration to so many people. It's no surprise that our coastline and harbour are revered by all Australians, and it's equally no surprise to me, as someone who worked in the tourism industry before coming to this place, that it is one of the things that attracts international visitors to Australia most frequently. I know that when we survey those visitors from some of our major markets and ask them what was special about their visit to Sydney, the answer is so often, 'Clean skies and blue waters.' That is something that we have an obligation to protect. We have seen that incredible change, but we know that the risks still exist. We cannot put that at risk through activities such as exploration and drilling for gas. When I go to Barrenjoey Lighthouse in your electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker Falinski, as I did a few months ago, and sit in the serenity of the rocks overlooking the ocean, I want the chance to glimpse whales and dolphins. I don't want to sit there looking at drilling rigs marring the horizon which otherwise is so peaceful. I want to ensure that we, as a government, are making sure that that marine environment, which has so much improved, remains something that actually continues to improve and that the rich diversity of our marine ecosystems continues to flourish and to recover. And that's why I think this motion is so important: because the PEP 11 exploration licence does put those values at risk, not just from the impact, visually, from our coastline but also from the risk it poses to the very marine diversity that is such an important part of the Sydney experience. So I really want to say to the governments, the ministers, that will make this decision before February next year: you have the chance to make sure that what every Sydneysider loves about our great part of the world is preserved and protected, and you can do that by doing what we did, just as the member for Wentworth alluded to, with the Great Barrier Reef, in banning exploration and drilling there, under the Fraser government. We say that exploration and drilling for gas is not and will never be acceptable for the wonderful coastal environment that is our legacy and our responsibility to protect and preserve. The DEPUTY SPEAKER G86 I thank the member. The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for a later hour this day. Arts Industry 69 11:01 Mr GORMAN 74519 Perth I move: That this House: (1) notes that Australia's arts sector is an essential part of our economy, our community and our identity; (2) recognises that the impacts of coronavirus COVID-19 has destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of working artists in a diverse range of arts including, but not limited to, performers, writers, designers, illustrators, musicians, fine artists, filmmakers and children's entertainers; (3) further notes that many of the existing support mechanisms, including Jobkeeper and Jobseeker, do not recognise the unique needs or economics of the arts sector; (4) believes that protecting our arts sector now is vital for Australia to achieve a sustainable economic recovery from COVID-19; and (5) calls on the national cabinet to work urgently in collaboration with the arts sector to: (a) enact a tailored package of support to the arts sector; (b) ensure that working artists are able to access appropriate income support; and (c) consider how commonwealth, state, territory and local governments can assist the arts sector for the medium to long term economic impacts of COVID-19. Australia without an arts sector is a country without character, without a story. Arts is the sector, but today we're talking about the people—the artists, the musicians, the writers, the designers, the illustrators, the children's entertainers, and, as well, the catering staff, and the technical support staff, the back-of-house staff, that make the stage come to life. This year, we, in this place, treated our artists worse than we have in any other year since Federation, with JobKeeper denied to hundreds of thousands; JobSeeker to be cut in just a few short months; the Commonwealth arts department effectively abolished; support packages too little and too late. Our artists were among the first to have their livelihoods hit by the pandemic and they will be some of the last to recover. While we didn't have breakouts of mass COVID in Perth, we did have the recession. Four thousand, six hundred and sixty-three people in my electorate rely on the arts and creative industries for their employment—six per cent of the total jobs in Perth. The Australia Council for the Arts records some 2,055 cultural and creative industries and businesses in Perth alone. It's six months since I first moved this motion, and, sadly, despite moving it six months ago and calling for urgent cooperative action from national cabinet, this motion still rings true. Arts are an essential part of our economy. Six hundred thousand of our fellow Australians work in the creative and cultural sector: $117 billion of economic output. We know that, in Perth, the arts are key to our city and to our suburbs. Vibrant, active, safe and beautiful suburbs all rely on the arts. There have been two recessions in my lifetime, one under Labor and now one under the Liberal Party. While the government stood in this place on budget night and said: 'Mission accomplished; it's all on the up,' I don't think the arts sector believed that for a second. It was more of the same and not enough from this government when it comes to arts support. Even with the packages they have announced, the photo ops have been there but the money has still not gone out the door. I know this, because I've met with many, many arts and event-industry businesses in my electorate over recent months. Audio Technik is one of the best sound delivery businesses in Australia. You can't have Taylor Swift at Optus Stadium without Audio Technik. There's the Astor Theatre. If you are a performer, this is the best theatre. You can't have Elvis impersonators—and I've seen an Elvis impersonator at the Astor Theatre—in Western Australia without the Astor Theatre. I met with the West Australian Ballet; the AWESOME Festival; Perth Arena; Matrix Productions—and a shout-out to Darryl and the team at Matrix. I met with Indigenous theatre company Yirra Yaakin; the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance; the Perth fringe festival; Barking Gecko; RTRFM; the Chamber of Arts and Culture Western Australia. I even got to have a chat to Aurelio Costarella, someone I had never heard of at the start of this year. He is an amazing Perth constituent who has made some of the most beautiful dresses that have ever been worn anywhere in this country. They are all different businesses, but they are all still feeling the impacts of this recession. Even the Bluey stage musical has had to be delayed at Burswood theatre. I asked my community on Facebook what they wanted me to say to the government in this place. Christina said, 'Remind them that the arts are the face and culture of Australia.' Monica O'Neil asked me to say, 'The arts sector brings the heart and soul of our community to life.' Andrew Pearce is worried about Australian content. He fears 'a world where there are no more Aussie kids shows—instead just a truckload of imported stuff that doesn't represent who we are as a country.' I want to finish by saying an arts education is a quality education. Time and time again this government has tried to punish the arts. Two weeks ago we saw whacked through this place the job-ready graduates legislation—I think it's coming back today—more than doubling the cost of an arts degree. At the same time that they're doubling the cost of an arts degree, they are building what I must say is a very beautiful $600 million-plus Edith Cowan University Perth city campus in my electorate. But the students who go there are going to pay 113 per cent more for their degrees. So, again, it is disrespecting those who want to dedicate their lives to the arts. I'll finish by thanking our artists. You've given us hope in a miserable year. You've begun capturing this moment in history. You've helped people grieve and helped people find joy. Hopefully, we will soon help you. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 203092 Order. Is the motion seconded? Mr Perrett HVP The motion is seconded, and I reserve my right to speak. 11:06 Dr ALLEN 282986 Higgins I rise today in support of the arts community and the member for Perth's motion that highlights the importance of Australia's arts sector to our economy, to our community and, indeed, to our national identity. Support for the arts is not only a cultural imperative; it is an economic one. Astonishingly, cultural and creative activity contributed $112 billion—that's 6.4 per cent of GDP—to Australia's economy in the 2016-17 financial year. But the value of the arts cannot be reduced to a dollar figure. It is the quality and significance of the creative work that is of importance. The arts weave into our lives each and every day almost without us knowing it, whether it is a moving film, a beautifully designed building or simply an elegant teacup. The arts stimulate our mind and our imagination. The arts provide everyday lives with moments of beauty. This year has been a great impost on the arts. The restrictions imposed by COVID have been painful. In my electorate of Higgins, museums, festivals and libraries continue to be closed. Clubs and pubs, the thriving venues for bands, comedians and other performers, remain shut. Theatres are empty. This all leaves a big gap in the lives of our community. More than that: the pain is for those who work with great passion themselves in the arts sector. The arts community was hit early and hard by the COVID crisis, and this sector continues to face immense challenges and hardship. It is important that Australians understand that the Morrison government recognises this impact. In recognition of the economic, social and national importance of the cultural and creative sector, the government has provided around $700 million of additional, targeted support to the sector in response to the COVID pandemic. This support package includes $22 million to support Australia's national cultural institutions. These are institutions that have been closed through no fault of their own. There is $35 million for the COVID-19 Arts Sustainability Fund and $250 million to support artists and organisations to get back to business following the disruptions caused by COVID. Furthermore, the government's whole-of-economy measures have further worked to support the sector. They have literally been a lifesaver for many. The JobKeeper payment has worked to support countless employees in the sector, connecting them to their employing organisation. In aggregate, this support will end up being worth between $4 billion and $10 billion to the creative workforce, making it the single largest government investment to support our arts and creative sector that we have ever seen. We do this because we recognise the vital and important role of the arts in the lives of all Australians. Earlier this year I had the opportunity to meet with a new approach, an independent think tank championing the Australian arts and cultural sector. Following my meeting with the chair, Rupert Myer, and the program director, Kate Fielding, I championed the need for an inquiry into the impacts of COVID on the arts and how we as a government are responding. It's so important because not only are the arts important to us, they are important to our cultural identity. As announced in August this year, the standing committee will now undertake a parliamentary inquiry into Australia's creative and cultural industries and institutions, including but not limited to Indigenous, regional, rural and community based organisations. The inquiry will consider the direct and indirect benefits and employment opportunities of the creative and cultural industries; the non-economic benefits that enhance community social wellbeing and promote Australian identity; the best mechanism for ensuring cooperation and delivery of policy between layers of government; the impact of COVID on the creative and cultural industries; and avenues for increasing access and opportunities for Australia's creative and cultural industries through innovation and the digital environment. I encourage all those who are passionate about our arts sector to continue making a submission to the inquiry prior to the deadline this Thursday. I await the day when our venues can reopen in Victoria and get back to work. Thank you to all those in the arts sector. 11:11 Mr BURNS 278522 Macnamara [by video link] Despite the hollow words coming from the government, the truth is that the arts and entertainment sector has been on its knees for years. With the coronavirus, artists, who were already in a difficult position, have seen their industry and their jobs made worse by this government's neglect and failure to look after those in our creative industries. I want to go through some of that failure and neglect, but let's first go through some of the systemic things that happened before the coronavirus. First of all, we have seen cuts to the ABC—year in, year out, the federal government has reduced funding to the Australian national broadcaster. The federal government has systemically ripped funding away, which has meant jobs have been lost year after year, including at Southbank, in my electorate, where the ABC has one of its homes. We've also had cuts to the Australia Council. Year after year, the Australia Council is forced to try and fund more organisations with less funding, to try and produce more art with less funding and less support for the sector. And if you want to look at how this government treats the arts: they, in all their wisdom, decided to remove and delete the arts as its own department. This government, under Scott Morrison, didn't even think the arts was worthy of its own department. Instead, they decided to hide it and bundled it in with the department of transport and infrastructure. The arts are not transport and infrastructure. The arts there are their own industry. They deserve their own department, and they deserve a priority they are not being given by this government. In my electorate of Macnamara it is estimated that around one in 10 workers is working in the creative industries in some form. It is a remarkable achievement. It is one of the biggest industries locally. In Southbank we have the arts hub in Melbourne with some incredible theatres. We have the arts centre, the recital centre and the ABC—all the way through to St Kilda and everything in between. It is almost the home of the arts in Melbourne, and we couldn't be prouder. But all of these workers, the almost one in 10 in my electorate—from the major theatre companies, to our local independent and smaller theatre companies, to our musicians and visual artists—are being left behind by this government. The previous speaker spoke about JobKeeper. The truth is that JobKeeper couldn't have been designed in a way that left out artists more. JobKeeper from this government has left out artists systematically. The very nature of the creative industries and creative work means that artists do project work, short-term project work, which means that most people aren't in the same employment for more than 12 months. Literally thousands and thousands of Australians have been left off JobKeeper by this government. The JobSeeker payment, which is heading back towards $40 a day, will be all that's left for many, many thousands of people in the arts sector because of this government's failure to keep their industry alive. Despite having taken away the department of the arts, the Prime Minister, after basically announcing in March that the arts were going to be one of the hardest hit industries, took until July to announce a specific industry support package $250 million. For most of that—which is the concessional loans—the guidelines aren't even out yet. As for the RISE Fund, we know that the government is not going to spend a dollar until December. It's October. The pandemic has been going since the start of the year, and this government hasn't spent a dollar on the industry-specific payments for the arts. If you want to know what sector has been literally left behind at every single stage by this government—left off JobKeeper, deliberately designed in a way to leave off artists—it is the arts and entertainment sector. It is our artists. I'll finish with this. I have a local filmmaker called Ben Steel, who made a brilliant film called Arts in Lockdown, and it captured the pain that artists are experiencing during lockdown. But the truth is that this government had been attacking the arts systematically since before the coronavirus, and this virus has only made things worse. We need a change of policy, and we need a change of government, for our artists. 11:16 Dr GILLESPIE 72184 Lyne It's my great pleasure to speak on this motion. The creative part of the economy, the arts and creative industry, is a massive employer. There are over half a million people involved in this industry, and 6½ per cent of the gross domestic product comes out of this industry. Without a doubt, it is a really critical part of the Australian economy. But in no other industry did COVID have such an immediate and deleterious effect on operations. The gig economy was put into hibernation because of COVID; in performance venues, crowd numbers were limited, and the venues couldn't operate unless they had people there. It's just extensive. Whether they're metropolitan, regional or remote, all these creative pursuits lead to employment ; they are not just a hobby. The creative industries employ a lot of people—as I said, almost half a million. The official figures are about 410,000, but that doesn't count all the casual employment which can fly under the radar. That's what a lot of people have been telling me—because there's a committee of inquiry looking into this; the Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts put out a survey and we are having an inquiry into this very industry—and one of the take-home messages is that they are feeling left behind. But, when you look at it dispassionately, JobKeeper and JobSeeker are available, and there are a series of other initiatives. The previous speaker, the member for Macnamara, just mentioned a couple of them. But there were some before the June-July announcement, and subsequently, and I'll just run through some of them. This area of the economy has received enormous support. First of all, in April there was $27 million brought forward for targeted support for Indigenous arts, regional arts and Support Act, that wonderful group that supports people in this industry who are going through an adjustment period, including support for mental health issues and the social support needed when your income and means of support vanish. We also allocated or appropriated $41 million to tax and short-term red-tape relief initiatives, and there is an evaluation report coming through on that. The previous speaker, the member for Macnamara, mentioned the $250 million. That is a huge bonus. It's part of the JobMaker plan to restart Australia's creative economy, and there is a portion of funds for seed investment—the member for Macnamara mentioned the RISE initiative. That's a restart investment to sustain and expand the industry and get it back on its feet. There are states that are operating in a COVID-safe manner, and the $250 million of funding will be a great catalyst for getting things back on track. Then there's the massive Location Incentive Program, which was announced in July. That's $400 million. It's absolutely massive. Then there's a separate $50 million fund for temporary interruption, and that will operate for 12 months. It started on 1 July 2020. I'm just trying to think: which other section of industry has had such a comprehensive, extensive and significant fiscal consideration put in at such short notice? It's mind-blowing. And that is on top of improving cashflow initiatives, which every business is able to use, and there are the JobSeeker and the JobKeeper provisions, if they meet the criteria for them. So I thoroughly reject the proposal put forward by the member for Macnamara. We're all in furious agreement: it's a wonderful part of the Australian economy that delivers economic empowerment and it gives people a noble profession. The creative arts have a wide spectrum, from modern digital creative works through to traditional performances of classical music, and many of those have had their venues minimised or, effectively, shut down. They've been on JobKeeper or JobSeeker, and the best tonic for the industry is the lifting of restrictions, which is happening in some states. (Time expired) The DEPUTY SPEAKER 203092 I call the member for Calwell, who's looking a bit like a DJ ready to put a tune on the deck! 11:22 Ms VAMVAKINOU 00AMT Calwell Thank you, Deputy Speaker; it's appropriate for the speech. The private members' motion of my colleague the member for Perth raises the importance of the arts to the national economy and to employment, and highlights the constant fight by artists to be recognised and funded accordingly. However, in addition to Australia's arts sector being an essential part of the economy, the arts and, more broadly, culture are also intrinsic to what it means to be human. They are part of our identity and our expression of who we are as individuals, as a community and as a nation. COVID-19 has devastated the livelihoods of thousands of working artists, yet, ironically, the arts and artists have been crucial to keeping Australians connected and sane during the worst of the pandemic and will continue to play a vital role in rebuilding both our economy and our battered psyches. The arts and those who create and develop them deserve a national strategy of recognition, support and nurturing. Research from the Australian Council for the Arts has shown that prior to the pandemic almost every Australian, some 98 per cent of us, was engaging in the arts in some way, and 63 per cent of Australians believe that arts and culture should be financially supported. During the pandemic, 73 per cent of Australians have said that the arts have improved their mood and quality of life. These figures all suggest that a comprehensive public investment in arts and culture is indeed in the public's interests. The COVID-19 situation has resulted in the loss of billions of dollars of expected income across the sector. This is all the more alarming now, given that a great deal of the arts sector were not eligible for the various government subsidies. Data released from the Australian Bureau of Statistics in April showed that the arts and recreation sector has been the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with more than half—some 53 per cent—of businesses ceasing to operate. The coalition government's 2020-21 budget reinforced its disregard for Australia's arts and cultural workers. Despite the Treasurer's promise in the budget announcement last week to prioritise jobs, his speech made no mention of the job-rich arts sector, despite it being the first and worst hit sector. The $250 million support package committed in June 2020, which will do little to restore confidence in the arts sector, is yet to come to fruition for any arts organisation. This comes off the back of disproportionate exclusions from existing income support measures, cuts to local content quotas for Australian TV and heavy increases to fees for arts and humanities degrees. The arts and culture make a substantial contribution to the Australian economy that this government is supposedly committed to rebuilding. In Australia, there are 48,000 practising professional artists, 57,477 people employed in the arts and 600,000 people employed in the broader $111.7 billion cultural and creative activity sector. The arts-and-culture sector is a bigger industry than agriculture and employs more people than the oil, gas and mining industries. For every million dollars in turnover the arts-and-entertainment sector creates nine jobs, as opposed to just one in mining and 0.36 in oil and gas extraction. The central importance of the arts industry to the national economy is stressed further when you consider its intrinsic relationship with tourism, accommodation and hospitality. These industries rely on the arts and culture for their own success, especially in regional areas. The member for Perth's motion is focused on ensuring that professional artists and cultural practitioners, be they individuals or companies, are given adequate support to re-establish themselves and their livelihoods. This is not just about professional arts, however, but an important way to ensure that community art and cultural development is also kept alive and thriving. In my view, not only do we need to recognise the central economic importance of the arts but we need to move beyond that to broaden our horizons and to establish a separate department, and indeed a ministry, of arts and culture. At this critical time, our cultural maturity should be at the forefront of public policy. The pandemic has forced us, as it has all other nations, to consider our national identity and our place in the world. The growing demands to confront racism and inequality are matters that go to the heart of culture. Arts-and-culture policy is crucial to genuine reconciliation, multiculturalism, human rights and a truly inclusive nation. I commend the motion to the House. 11:27 Mr FALINSKI G86 Mackellar Artists across Australia have had to dig into their own savings to continue providing our communities with hope and inspiration when we need it most. One of the greatest casualties of COVID-19 has been our arts industry. Many have been left unemployed with few prospects in the immediate future. The arts sector in Australia is second to none but needs our support. Our country continues to contribute well beyond what many of our peers on the international stage do, simply because of our unique heritage, cultural and identity. I've had the privilege of meeting many of the talented artists in my electorate. Working in the arts industry is a difficult task, made all the more difficult at present by COVID-19, which is seeing so many small businesses and livelihoods destroyed. It is clear that JobKeeper and JobSeeker do not adequately engage with the unique nature of the sector or recognise the positive impact that the arts has on us all. We need to do more. Creating a tailor made package to help the arts is critical to supporting hope in Australian communities' local artists across this country, who are some of the hardest hit. I'm calling for emergency assistance—a much needed boost—for the arts industry, which needs to make it through the pandemic. I believe that the measure the minister for the arts has announced is long overdue, and I strongly encourage artists to take it up. The Australian dream has always been about having the freedom to pursue your conception of what is the good life, regardless of who you are or what your profession is. We cannot allow COVID-19 to put an end to the dreams of aspirational and creative Australians. The government should not be picking winners during a pandemic—deciding which industries will survive and which will fail—and we have not. We have provided support for all industries, but we must also recognise that the creative industries have specific and particular issues that they need to deal with. The long-term impact on the arts sector will already be great, and for many businesses recovery will be a long road. Nowhere has this been better seen than when Sydney's night-time economy was decimated, affecting many musicians and artists. Supporting the arts industry will disproportionately assist young Australians who are some of the hardest hit from COVID-19. I have great respect for the Australians who pursue a career in the arts. It is frequently a career which demands many personal sacrifices and has unique challenges, made all the worse by this pandemic. As government, our principle is to partner with hardworking and entrepreneurial Australians. It is a sad fact that younger Australians are the hardest hit when this industry starts going under. The effects of this pandemic will be felt for years by some of our youngest and most talented artists. The impact of this may not be known for some time to come. Yet, as government, we have a duty to act, especially when it comes to some of our country's most vulnerable. The arts sector is the beating heart of creativity and unorthodox thinking in our nation. Our message to artists across Australia is simple: 'We will not abandon you; we are here to help.' Urgent work is required to support businesses in the arts sector, from tax cuts, to grants, to incentivising Australians to go to their local theatre. It couldn't be more important. Failing to act in support of our artists and musical talent will only discourage some of our best and brightest from following their passion. I believe that, when individuals are empowered to pursue their passion, we all benefit. That is how the Macintosh computer and Microsoft came about. It is how Australian actors and musicians got started. It is supporting strategic risk-taking and not punishing failure. It is because aspirational Australians are enabled to pursue their dreams that our nation is renowned the world over as a source of global artistic talent. The arts sector has been crying out for our support. Many artists and SMEs have fallen through the cracks. The nature of the arts community is unique, which makes the task of giving the industry a boost sometimes challenging, but we look to support the arts sector not because it is easy but because it is right. At the end of the day, we can have the greatest economy in the world, but it is all for nothing if our artists are impoverished and the creative soul of our nation is vacant. It is all too easy to overlook certain communities in an attempt to save money in the short term, but this kind of real politics makes no sense economically and has no place in this nation. As government, we understand that there is a desperate need for us to take a leadership role in making decisive decisions to help struggling Australians. When the pandemic began, Australians rallied together to help their neighbours, support those in need and go the extra mile. Debate adjourned. International Pregnancy And Infant Loss Remembrance Day 74 11:32 Ms STANLEY 265990 Werriwa I move: That this House: (1) notes that: (a) 15 October 2020 is International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day; (b) on this day, parents, families, friends and healthcare workers will memorialise babies they have lost through miscarriage, stillbirth and infant death; (c) infant loss is a tragic and terrible event to go through for families, healthcare workers and friends, and International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day provides an opportunity to mark their shared loss; and (d) direct support for persons affected by pregnancy and infant loss is difficult at the current time considering the local health environment; (2) acknowledges that: (a) each year around 150,000 women in Australia experience some form of pregnancy or infant loss; (b) further issues are commonly faced by those close to these tragic events such as depression, anxiety, changes in relationships, development of unhealthy coping mechanisms and post‑traumatic stress disorder; (c) these effects, amongst others, are often underestimated and overlooked by healthcare professionals, friends, and even family members, especially concerning pregnancy loss related bereavement and subsequent grief; (d) greater research and understanding is required to aide in the creation and establishment of programs, resources and services that support and provide assistance to survivors of baby loss and their families, and enable them to overcome their trauma and integrate their bereavement into their life in a healthy, helpful, healing manner; and (e) services for people affected by pregnancy or infant loss have been continuing, as best as possible, their necessary and significant work during this recent and difficult period; (3) expresses sympathy to all families who have suffered a miscarriage, a stillbirth or infant death; and (4) commends every person who has supported parents and families through their journey from the loss of a baby. When a family loses a baby by miscarriage, stillbirth or in the first month of life, they lose what should have been. Every couple waiting for a child dreams of what their family will look like, what personality traits the baby will have—will they be sporting or academic; will they have brown hair or red?—the list goes on. But a baby's deaths puts a quick stop to those plans and leaves a void and destroys hope. It was International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day on 15 October 2020. It was a day for bereaved parents and families to remember the lives lost each year to miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death. It's also a day to remember those healthcare professionals whose words and touch make so many positive memories for families. I remember one particular midwife, so many years later, who, when she met our family, treated our baby not as a statistic but as a person. I didn't get to tell her then, because of everything else that followed, just how much of a difference she made to me and my husband. I can only imagine how difficult it's been for families and healthcare professionals, with the restrictions of COVID and the isolation, which would not have allowed families to make all of the memories which, in other circumstances, would be possible. I want to acknowledge all the healthcare professionals, doctors and nurses and other ancillary staff who've provided that support to families this year. Approximately 106,000 Australians will be touched by the loss of a baby. That is six babies yesterday, today and tomorrow who will not reach their full potential and who leave a missing piece in the families they leave behind. Recently, there's been much coverage about the tragic circumstances of the US singer John Legend and his wife Chrissy Teigen and the heart-wrenching images they shared after their loss of a third baby, a son, Jack. I acknowledge their heartbreak and sorrow. Their loss reminds us all that pregnancy, stillbirth or neonatal loss can happen to anyone, whatever their access to medical care. Overall, Australia is one of the safest places in the world to have a baby, but, even here, over 100,000 pregnancies a year will end without a healthy baby to take home. That's why groups such as Red Nose, Sands, Miracle Babies, the Stillbirth Foundation, Bears of Hope and Pink Elephants are so crucially important to support families grieving the loss of their babies. These groups support and help mothers, fathers, grandparents and siblings negotiate not just the first few weeks and months after the loss of a baby but subsequent pregnancies, which are often difficult as they bring back so many negative memories. Unfortunately, having a good record can also cause isolation and stigma when a baby doesn't come home. Stress, anxiety and constant worry never leave a family that has experienced the loss of a baby. The statistics tell us that six babies will die each day in Australia. That figure has not really changed since 1998. More research needs to continue to address these stubborn statistics. In 2017, 2,924 babies died in Australia in the perinatal period. Three-quarters were stillborn and the remaining 751 were neonatal deaths for many and varying reasons, such as prematurity, infection or abnormalities. For Indigenous Australian families, these statistics are much worse. They are almost twice as likely to experience the loss of a baby to stillbirth or neonatal death than the Australian population at large. Mothers who are considered economically disadvantaged are also more likely to have complications in their pregnancies that mean their babies will not survive. This rate also has not changed in the past two decades. More work needs to be done to improve the health outcomes for all mothers and to improve the outcomes for all families into the future. October and, specifically, 15 October recognises those families for whom someone is always missing to celebrate birthdays, Christmas, graduation and all the family memories. It is about supporting parents and grandparents, mums and dads, and recognising the loss that is rarely spoken about. Talking about their feelings and concerns will help families better cope with the future that lies ahead. I offer my condolences to all families that are touched by the commemorations this month. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 72184 Is the motion seconded? Mr Thistlethwaite 182468 I second the motion and reserve my right to speak. 11:37 Mr SIMMONDS 282983 Ryan I really appreciate the motion from the member for Werriwa as an opportunity to acknowledge that 15 October marked the International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I extend my support and comfort to every couple and family in the Ryan electorate that has gone through the tragedy of stillbirth or early pregnancy loss. The COVID-19 pandemic has made this year difficult enough but, as we mark the day, we acknowledge that, on top of the pandemic, too many of our families and our couples are dealing with the additional tragedy this kind of loss brings. I'm a passionate supporter of local families, and I want those who are struggling with this issue to know that I understand their grief and I am here speaking on your behalf to secure more support. There are six stillbirths each day, affecting over 2,000 families each year. I can't even begin to imagine their immense pain. To support parents who have lost a child to stillbirth, with the personal, social and financial impacts, the Morrison government's 2020 budget committed $7.6 million to address inconsistencies in payments for families impacted by this devastating event, irrespective of whether the child is stillborn or passes away within its first year and irrespective of whether it is the family's first or subsequent claim. I would like to thank Minister Ruston for her efforts on this issue. These changes will complement the improvements to unpaid leave entitlements through the fair work amendment bill which the Attorney-General has introduced to parliament. The changes will guarantee 12 months of unpaid leave for all eligible new parents, including those who have experienced stillbirth and infant death. I know the A-G is personally dedicated to these efforts, and I thank him on behalf of local families for that work. In addition to experiencing the horror of stillbirth, up to one in five women who know they are pregnant will experience a miscarriage. This is a significant number of women and couples every year who will struggle with this grief. It is an epidemic within our community that remains unacknowledged. In my maiden speech I spoke about the fertility journey that my wife and I have endured. It included early pregnancy loss, and, as a result, like so many others, I know firsthand the emotional effects it has on couples. Like so many women, my wife just powered through the shock of early pregnancy loss because we felt it was best simply to move on and distract ourselves. In retrospect, I wish we had taken more time to process our grief properly and as a family. This would be my advice to other couples going through the same circumstances. Recent research has found that 74 per cent of women who've suffer a miscarriage report feeling unsupported, and there is evidence that a shocking one in six women who experience miscarriage will go on to experience long-term post-traumatic stress as a result, yet the emotional impact of early pregnancy loss is little understood and not well enough supported. We need to do better, and we can do better. To that end, I would like to draw the attention of the House, as the member for Werriwa so eloquently did, to the efforts of the Pink Elephants Support Network, who I'm working with, and commend their efforts to those in the chamber for the support they are providing to local families. Pink Elephants was established in 2016 to address this gap and provide the latest resources, information and peer support for anyone impacted by early pregnancy loss. To address feelings of isolation and the temptation not to take the time to process grief, Pink Elephants has established the Leave for Loss campaign. The campaign seeks to ensure that Fair Work Australia makes available to women who suffer miscarriage and early pregnancy loss the two days of bereavement leave currently available for those who experience other forms of loss. In the case of early pregnancy loss, I can attest personally to people indeed grieving that loss. Having that grief recognised, as post-12-week stillbirth is and as other grief from loss is, would legitimise the pain that many of these couples are feeling. Thank you to Sarah-Jane, the COO of Pink Elephants, and board member Katrina for their engagement in and effort so far on the Leave for Loss campaign. As well as the good work of Pink Elephants, there are other programs that the Morrison government is supporting. There is Red Nose, for example, who provide online and telephone bereavement support for people who've experienced miscarriage, stillbirth and newborn death. There is a $43.9 million investment in mental health, $3 million for the Safer Baby Bundle program and $1.2 million for research. To all those women and couples struggling with pregnancy and infant loss: I can assure you that there are many voices in this House who understand, respect and share your grief, and we'll strive to provide more support wherever we can. 11:43 Mr GORMAN 74519 Perth This is a difficult motion to speak to, but, among the many things we do in this place, the difficult things we do are the important things. I want to thank the member for Werriwa for moving this motion and for her speech. I'm sure it was very difficult for her, but I was so pleased to be here for it. Similarly, I thank the member for Ryan for his speech and for outlining the number of support services that are available to people who might be listening to this debate and feeling either that it has triggered something or that at some point in the future they may need assistance. In moving this motion, the member for Werriwa has extended the hand of understanding and friendship to thousands of Australians, showing that there are people in this place who care about what they are going through. It's a time when even your best friends struggle to find the right words to say—they speak slowly, carefully; there are a lot of silences—but people do want to help one another. If you think about 2020, this is yet one more thing which the coronavirus has made more challenging for many thousands of families. For families separated by hard borders, international borders, virus suppression efforts have made it all the more challenging. I want to note again my thanks to health professionals. The member for Werriwa just outlined how important they are. Often—it's just one of those things—you don't get the chance to say thank you at the time they are assisting you or a loved one, but they do an amazing job and can provide a very good friend to your family instantly when they are helping you with something this difficult. Every family's loss is different and every family's loss is real. 'Welcome to the world's worst club' was the message my wife and best friend, Jess, received—a club that some 150,000 Australian women join every year, a club you never leave, a club we joined in November last year when we were still unpacking boxes in our new house—the big new house, as my son Leo called it, necessary for our growing family. When I found myself on the other side of the country in Townsville, on my way to Papua New Guinea, I got a phone call that no parent wants to get: that Jess was in hospital and things had not gone well. After the immediate grief, Jess and I believed it was important to share, especially as you discover that so many of your friends then share with you something that you'd never known had happened in their lives. I'll use some of Jess's words. She said: It's an incredibly normal, almost boring thing for a family to go through. But it happens to one in four women — so it's really unpleasant and had some really challenging moments to it but…we felt as supported and loved and cared for as was humanely possible. This is an ongoing grief that affects people in different ways. I took time off (in May) on what would have been the expected due date because I just decided that I didn't want to have to soldier on that day. It is important that you share and talk about these things. One of the things that 15 October reminds us of is that we do need to share and be open about all parts of people's health and families, not just those that are easier to talk about. We now have another bub due in December. We thought we would go and do the story—Polly has a baby, a very exciting time, talk to a journalist. We came to the conclusion that that would have been false. That would not have been telling the full story. I want to thank Lanai Scarr from TheWest Australian for enabling us to tell some of our story with our community in Western Australia. I also want to note that this place is sometimes more supportive than people recognise. On that, I want note the kindness of many of my colleagues, including the Leader of the Opposition, and on the other side the kindness of the member for Fisher. That brings us all to the question: what can we do in this place? We can invest more in mental health support, knowing that depression, anxiety and other health issues can often follow. We can do more to expand telehealth, protect Medicare, invest more in remote and regional health services and more in Indigenous health services, invest in research—how we actually help people, what actually works in the space, because, again, as others have noted, sometimes people just soldier on. In my home town of Perth, we need a new women's and babies' hospital. It's an urgent health priority for my electorate and for Western Australians. It's a project that should be bipartisan, should be being built and is well and truly overdue. We should also ensure that women's health services are available at all hours for all communities and for people of all backgrounds. We need to do more on parental leave and compassionate leave. I want to commend the leadership of Senator Keneally on this matter. We need to speak, share, understand and offer that hand of support when people need it. 11:48 Dr MARTIN 282982 Reid Sadly, every day there are six stillbirths, affecting over 2,000 Australian families each year, and up to one in five women who know they are pregnant will experience a miscarriage. Last week, on October 15 many Australians observed pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day. Parents, families, friends and healthcare workers paused to remember the babies that've been lost through stillbirth and infant death. Infant loss is both more common and more complex than many people realise. This year has been especially challenging for those grieving parents because of COVID-19, which has prevented many from accessing support at a crucial time. While all grief leaves an irreversible mark, infant loss is particularly difficult to cope with or to overcome. The Morrison government is committed to providing support for parents living with this terrible loss. As a government we have supported all recommendations of the Senate inquiry into stillbirth research and education in Australia. In many years practicing as a psychologist, I worked with parents who had experienced the trauma and grief of pregnancy and infant loss. It's not just the loss of the baby but often the loss of hopes and dreams that inevitably come when parents first discover they are expecting. For these parents, it's understandably difficult to let go of their loss. While a parent may never let go of the loss of their child, they can move through their grief. The Morrison government has made a $43.9 million investment in perinatal mental health, and there are many outstanding organisations that provide psychological support for parents experiencing pregnancy and infant loss. I recently met with Arabella Gibson, CEO of the Gidget Foundation, which provides support and counselling to parents who are dealing with perinatal depression and anxiety, especially when it relates to grief and loss. Other trusted organisations like Sands and Red Nose receive federal funding for online and telephone bereavement support for miscarriage, stillbirth or newborn death. It is important that we acknowledge these important services and resources that are instrumental in helping families cope with their loss. The Morrison government has also committed $7.6 million to ensure that all eligible families who experience stillbirth or the death of a child under 12 months of age will receive financial support through the stillborn baby payment and bereavement payment. No amount of money could ever erase the grief that parents feel after the loss of their baby. However, this payment offers practical support to bereaved families and validates the experiences of bereaved parents. While it is important to support families through their grief, it is also important that we invest in ways to prevent pregnancy and infant loss. Increased funding for research and prevention programs allows us to look to the future with great hope. As a government, we are committed to reducing the risk factors for stillbirth. We have delivered $3 million for the Safer Baby Bundle program, which aims to improve the management of pregnant women who may be at increased risk of stillbirth. In addition to this, $1.2 million has been dedicated for a research project to reduce preventable stillbirth using biomarkers and ultrasound in late pregnancy. The Morrison government continues to work on the National Stillbirth Action and Implementation Plan to reduce stillbirth in Australia and ensure that families affected by stillbirth receive high-quality bereavement care. Debate adjourned. BILLS 78 BILLS Treasury Laws Amendment (A Tax Plan for the COVID-19 Economic Recovery) Bill 2020 78

Treasury Laws Amendment (A Tax Plan for the COVID-19 Economic Recovery) Bill 2020

Returned from Senate 78 Payment Times Reporting Bill 2020, Treasury Laws Amendment (A Tax Plan for the COVID-19 Economic Recovery) Bill 2020 78

Payment Times Reporting Bill 2020

Treasury Laws Amendment (A Tax Plan for the COVID-19 Economic Recovery) Bill 2020

Assent 78 COMMITTEES 78 COMMITTEES Membership 78 11:53 The DEPUTY SPEAKER 72184 The Speaker has received messages from the Senate informing the House of the appointment of senators to certain joint committees. As the list of the appointments is a lengthy one, I do not propose to read the list to the House. Details will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings. National Broadband Network - Joint Standing 78 Reporting Date 78 11:53 Ms PRICE 249308 Durack by leave—I move: That the reporting date for the Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network be extended to 31 March 2021 and a message be sent to the Senate requesting its concurrence. Question agreed to. BILLS 78 BILLS Sport Integrity Australia Amendment (World Anti-Doping Code Review) Bill 2020 78

Sport Integrity Australia Amendment (World Anti-Doping Code Review) Bill 2020

First Reading 78 Family Law Amendment (Risk Screening Protections) Bill 2020 78

Family Law Amendment (Risk Screening Protections) Bill 2020

First Reading 78 Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020 78

Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020

Consideration of Senate Message 78 12:01 The SPEAKER 00APG The question is that the amendments be considered immediately. Senate's amendments— (1) Page 45 (after line 31), after Schedule 4, insert: Schedule 4A—Up ‑front payment discount Higher Education Support Act 2003 1 At the end of Subdivision 36 ‑D Add: 36 ‑50 Provider must not accept up ‑front payments of more than 90% of student contribution amounts A higher education provider must not accept, from a person who: (a) is enrolled in a unit of study with the provider; and (b) is entitled to *HECS‑HELP assistance for the unit; *up‑front payments in relation to the unit totalling more than 90% of the person's *student contribution amount for the unit. Note: For entitlement to HECS‑HELP assistance: see Division 90. 2 Paragraph 90 ‑1(f) Repeal the paragraph, substitute: (f) the student either:    (i) *meets the tax file number requirements (see section 187‑1); or    (ii) pays, as one or more *up‑front payments in relation to the unit, 90% of the student's *student contribution amount for the unit; and 3 Subsection 93 ‑15(1) Omit "all or". 4 At the end of section 93 ‑15 Add: (3) A payment made in relation to a unit of study for which a person is liable to pay the person's *student contribution amount is not an up‑front payment in relation to the unit to the extent that: (a) the payment; or (b) if other such payments have already been made in relation to the unit—the sum of the payment and all of those other payments; exceeds 90% of the person's *student contribution amount for the unit. Note 1: For when the Commonwealth pays one‑ninth of the up‑front payments made in relation to a unit of study, see sections 96‑2 and 96‑3. Note 2: It is a condition of grants under Part 2‑2 that a higher education provider not accept, from a student who is entitled to HECS‑HELP assistance for a unit of study, up‑front payments in relation to the unit totalling more than 90% of a student's student contribution amount for the unit: see section 36‑50. 5 Section 96 ‑1 (at the end of the heading) Add "—no upfront payment of student contribution amount". 6 Section 96 ‑1 After "education provider", insert "and no *up‑front payments are made in relation to the unit". 7 After section 96 ‑1 Insert: 96 ‑2 Payments to higher education providers—partial up ‑front payment of student contribution amount Up ‑front payments made for one unit of study only (1) If: (a) a student is entitled to an amount of *HECS‑HELP assistance for a unit of study (the relevant unit) in which the student is enrolled with a higher education provider; and (b) one or more *up‑front payments have been made in relation to the relevant unit; and (c) both of the following apply:    (i) the amount of that up‑front payment, or the sum of those up‑front payments, is less than 90% of the student's *student contribution amount for the relevant unit;    (ii) the amount of that up‑front payment, or the sum of those up‑front payments, is $500 or more; and (d) either:    (i) the student is not enrolled with a provider as a *Commonwealth supported student in relation to any other units of study that have the same *census date as the relevant unit; or    (ii) if the student is so enrolled in relation to one or more such other units of study, no up‑front payments have been made for any of those units; the Commonwealth must pay the amount of HECS‑HELP assistance for the relevant unit in accordance with subsections (3) and (4). Up ‑front payments made for more than one unit of study (2) If: (a) a student is entitled to an amount of *HECS‑HELP assistance for a unit of study (the relevant unit) in which the student is enrolled with a higher education provider; and (b) one or more *up‑front payments have been made in relation to the relevant unit; and (c) the student is enrolled with the provider as a *Commonwealth supported student in relation to one or more other units of study that have the same *census date as the relevant unit; and (d) one or more up‑front payments have been made in relation to one or more of those other units; and (e) both of the following apply:    (i) the sum of the up‑front payments made in relation to the relevant unit and those other units is less than 90% of the sum of the student's *student contribution amounts for the relevant unit and those other units;    (ii) the sum of the up‑front payments made in relation to the relevant unit and those other units is $500 or more; the Commonwealth must pay the amount of HECS‑HELP assistance for the relevant unit in accordance with subsections (3) and (4). Payment of loan amount (3) The Commonwealth must: (a) as a benefit to the student, lend to the student an amount equal to the difference between the amount of *HECS‑HELP assistance for the relevant unit and the *HECS‑HELP discount for the relevant unit; and (b) pay to the provider the amount lent in discharge of that amount of the student's liability to pay the student's *student contribution amount for the relevant unit. Payment of discount amount (4) The Commonwealth must, as a benefit to the student, pay to the provider an amount equal to the *HECS‑HELP discount for the relevant unit in discharge of that amount of the student's liability to pay the student's *student contribution amount for the relevant unit. HECS ‑HELP discount (5) The HECS‑HELP discount for a unit of study is an amount equal to one‑ninth of the *up‑front payment, or the sum of all of the up‑front payments made, in relation to the unit. Example: Robert is required to pay a student contribution amount for a unit of study of $2,745 by 31 January 2021, and makes an up‑front payment in relation to the unit of $900 on 20 January 2021. Robert is entitled to HECS‑HELP assistance for the unit of $1,845 ($2,745 minus $900), which the Commonwealth must pay to the higher education provider. The up‑front payment in relation to the unit exceeded $500 so there is a HECS‑HELP discount of $100 (one‑ninth of $900). The Commonwealth lends to Robert the remainder of the HECS‑HELP assistance in relation to the unit, an amount of $1,745 ($1,845 minus $100). 96 ‑3 Payments to higher education providers—full up ‑front payment of student contribution amount If: (a) a student is entitled to an amount of *HECS‑HELP assistance for a unit of study in which the student is enrolled with a higher education provider; and (b) one or more *up‑front payments have been made in relation the unit; and (c) the amount of that up‑front payment, or the sum of those up‑front payments, is equal to 90% of the student's *student contribution amount for the unit; the Commonwealth must, as a benefit to the student, pay to the provider the amount of HECS‑HELP assistance for the unit in discharge of that amount of the student's liability to pay the student's student contribution amount for the unit. Note: The student does not incur a HECS‑HELP debt in relation to the amount of HECS‑HELP assistance paid by the Commonwealth to the provider under this section. 8 Subsection 137 ‑5(1) After "section 96‑1", insert "or 96‑2". 9 Paragraph 193 ‑1(5 ) ( b) Omit "for the unit have been made totalling 100%", substitute "in relation to the unit have been made totalling 90%". 10 Paragraph 193 ‑5(1 ) ( d) After "to the unit,", insert "90% of". 11 Subclause 1(1) of Schedule 1 Insert: HECS ‑HELP discount has the meaning given by subsection 96‑2(5). 12 Application of amendments The amendments made by this Schedule apply in relation to an up‑front payment made in relation to a unit of study that has a census date on or after 1 January 2021.

[The House divided. [12:01]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)]

 52 AYES Alexander, JG Allen, K Andrews, KL Archer, BK Bell, AM Chester, D Conaghan, PJ Connelly, V Coulton, M Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Falinski, JG Fletcher, PW Flint, NJ (teller) Frydenberg, JA Gee, AR Gillespie, DA Haines, H Hammond, CM Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Hunt, GA Kelly, C Leeser, J Ley, SP Littleproud, D Liu, G Martin, FB McCormack, MF McIntosh, MI Morrison, SJ O'Brien, T O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pearce, GB Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Price, ML Ramsey, RE (teller) Robert, SR Sharkie, RCC Sharma, DN Simmonds, J Stevens, J Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Thompson, P Tudge, AE van Manen, AJ Webster, AE Wyatt, KG Young, T 44 NOES Albanese, AN Aly, A Bowen, CE Burke, AS Burney, LJ Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Clare, JD Coker, EA Collins, JM Dick, MD Elliot, MJ Freelander, MR (teller) Georganas, S Giles, AJ Gorman, P Gosling, LJ Hayes, CP Hill, JC Husic, EN Jones, SP Keogh, MJ King, CF Marles, RD McBain, KL Mitchell, BK Murphy, PJ O'Connor, BPJ Owens, JA Perrett, GD Phillips, FE Plibersek, TJ Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Shorten, WR Stanley, AM (teller) Steggall, Z Templeman, SR Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Wilson, JH Zappia, A 25 PAIRS Andrews, KJ Bird, SL Broadbent, RE Burns, J Buchholz, S Byrne, AM Christensen, GR Chesters, LM Coleman, DB Claydon, SC Drum, DK Conroy, PM Evans, TM Dreyfus, MA Goodenough, IR Fitzgibbon, JA Hogan, KJ Kearney, G Howarth, LR Khalil, P Irons, SJ King, MMH Joyce, BT McBride, EM Laming, A Mitchell, RG Landry, ML Mulino, D Marino, NB Neumann, SK Morton, B O'Neil, CE O'Brien, LS Payne, AE Tehan, DT Ryan, JC Vasta, RX Smith, DPB Wallace, AB Snowdon, WE Wicks, LE Swanson, MJ Wilson, RJ Thistlethwaite, MJ Wilson, TR Thwaites, KL Wood, JP Vamvakinou, M Zimmerman, T Wells, A

[Question agreed to.
Ordered that the amendments be considered immediately.]

 12:05 Mr HOGAN 218019 Page I move: That the amendments be agreed to. 12:05 Ms PLIBERSEK 83M Sydney Year 12s have had the year from hell this year and, right now, one in three young people is looking for a job or looking for more hours of work. It is the very worst time to be making it harder to get an education. We should be wrapping our arms around these year 12 kids and making it easier for them to go to TAFE or to university when they finish school. Those opposite are waging a bizarre ideological war on the humanities departments of universities around Australia, and it's so ironic—richly ironic—because you could make up an arts faculty from across their front bench. In fact, the Minister for Education himself has three arts degrees. He has spent more time in university humanities faculties than Noam Chomsky. And what about the Treasurer? The Treasurer has got two arts degrees himself. He's got a Master of Public Administration from Harvard and a Master of International Relations from Oxford. You can picture him there, can't you, in the black academic gowns, sitting there with a don at Oxford, explaining why it's such a waste of time to get a humanities degree. The Minister for Health has got two arts degrees. This Liberal Party arts faculty runs deep. The Attorney-General has a Bachelor of Arts with honours. The Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts has an arts degree. The Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business has a Bachelor of Arts. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has a Bachelor of Arts. The Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure has a Bachelor of Arts. And that's even before you get to the back bench. We've got the member for Mitchell—the only people who have spent more time on university campuses are the international socialists selling their newspapers. The member for Mitchell is a student politician from way back. He spent years at university getting his two arts degrees. Do these people think that their arts degrees are worthless? No. But they want to deny other people's kids an arts degree. What they want is for university to be a small, exclusive club. They're allowed in and their kids are allowed in, but other kids aren't. Other people's kids aren't allowed in. Can you imagine? What are they planning? They're planning arts degrees—arts/law degrees—for $14½ thousand a year. Do you people know what you are voting for when you vote for degrees that cost $14½ thousand a year? A degree like mine, a four-year degree, would have cost $58,000. As someone who graduated in the 1990s going into a recession at a very hard time, I can tell you what my parents would have advised me if I'd gone home to them and said, 'I'm going to take on a $58,000 degree, and I'm not sure that I'll get a job at the end of it when you look at the labour market,' they would have said: 'Save your money. Save for a deposit for a house. It's a tough world out there.' These are the decisions that working-class families are making right now. Do we want to take on an American-sized university debt? Given the employment market that those people opposite are delivering right now, we know that youth unemployment, high as it is now, will be persistently and stubbornly high for years to come. Year 12 kids sitting their exams—some of them today or later this week—are thinking about the fact that the degree that they set their heart on years ago is now going to cost them more than $40,000 and, in many cases, more than $50,000. That is the choice of those opposite. What they are voting for today—make no mistake—is $40,000, $50,000 and almost $60,000 degrees because those opposite don't see the value of an education for ordinary Australian children. 12:10 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler One of the great divides in Australian politics is attitude towards education. We see education as being about creating opportunity; those opposite see it as entrenching privilege. That's what we're voting on here today, because it isn't rich kids who'll be discouraged from going to university. It's not my son or the sons or daughters of other politicians. They can afford to go to university. It is those young people out there today who might be the first in their family to finish school and who are thinking about whether they will take up that opportunity—not whether they're smart enough, because they've got the marks to get into university, but whether they will go or not. For a working-class young person out there in the suburbs and the regional cities, a $58,000 debt at the end of that process is a real penalty to them. The member for Bradfield, who I was on Sydney uni SRC with—he had the same personality then as he has now—used to speak in those days about the importance of access to education, but he doesn't anymore. All the children who get the opportunity—and good luck to them—to go to those GPS schools will be okay. It's the kids in the local high school or the local systemic Catholic school who will be disadvantaged and discouraged from going to university. We on this side of the House support university education. We support TAFE. We support schools. And—guess what, folks?—we support early childhood education too. That's why that was at the centre of the budget reply just a week ago. We understand that, with education, you can begin at the beginning. What those opposite have done in ignoring child care and entrenching privilege in university is a double whammy at both ends of the spectrum. They've said, 'We're not going to give you the best start in life and we'll keep you down later on in life as well.' Dr Chalmers 37998 'Know your place.' Mr ALBANESE R36 They've said, 'Know your place,' as the shadow Treasurer says. That's their view of the world. They think they've made it and there's no need to allow access to anyone else. We think it should be on the basis of how smart you are. We already know that the truth is that, if you're from a background whereby you get to go to what they regard as the best schools, you have the best tutors and you have all of those advantages in life over a kid from a disadvantaged background who hopes for something better. Those opposite speak about aspiration, but in everything that they do they try to keep people in their place, to keep those chains of class attached to people, keeping them down, rather than giving them the opportunity to be raised up. The fact is that on the motion before the parliament now, the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020, have they advocated strongly here? Have you heard them? There's been not a single word in support of crunching this change through. Everyone's just kept quiet, because that's what they want. When the Prime Minister spoke about appealing to the 'quiet Australians', what he was really saying was, 'Everyone else should shut up and know their place.' That's what he said. And this legislation is about entrenching privilege and opposing the possibility that people might actually get access to a higher education based upon how smart they are, not based upon the accident of birth. This is consistent with the approach that they have to education all the way through, from early childhood through to schools, the $3 billion that's been cut from TAFE, the 140,000 fewer apprentices and trainees from when they were elected and, now, the ongoing attack on universities. The fact is that an education doesn't just benefit individuals; it benefits the entire society and our national economy, and we should be competing on the basis of how smart we are in the Asian century, not trying to compete, as they want, on the basis of the lowering of wages and conditions. 12:16 Mr GORMAN 74519 Perth This is a knowledge tax on the students at Edith Cowan University, it is a knowledge tax of the students at Curtin University, it is a knowledge tax on the students at the University of Western Australia and it is a knowledge tax on the students at Murdoch University, let alone the University of Notre Dame. You tell us you've got these really bright people. You get vice-chancellors to come and serve in this parliament. You've got people who've got one, two, three or four arts degrees. And what do you do for those students? You increase their fees by 113 per cent. It is outrageous. Not only are you content with reducing at the end of this year the income support for students and the income support for parents who might be working hard to study and get ahead for their family; you instead have gone and whacked a huge tax on students. You have left universities behind this year. You have 100 per cent ignored them. They said they needed JobKeeper, and you said, 'La, la, la—cannot hear it.' They said they needed support for research, and you said, 'Sure, sometime later.' And, in their soft, gentle, diplomatic way, the universities said, 'We need you to not pass this legislation,' and instead what happened? You're trying to whack it through. I sat in here when you whacked it through this parliament. You sent it up to the Senate. I've got to say I'm disappointed in some of the South Australian members of parliament, who have enabled this legislation to go through in the Senate. There is no longer any difference between Centre Alliance and the Liberal Party when it comes to university policy. There is no difference when it comes to whether they actually stand up for students or just use them to fix this government's bottom line. I think about Edith Cowan University in my electorate. Edith Cowan is a fabulous university. I note that I have in this chamber right now the first graduate of Edith Cowan University to serve in this place: the fabulous member for Cowan. She is from Edith Cowan and she represents Cowan. She is Cowan through— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 72184 The minister? 12:18 Mr HOGAN 218019 Page I move: That the question be now put. The SPEAKER 00APG The question is that the question be put.

[The House divided. [12:23]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)]

 50 AYES Alexander, JG Allen, K Andrews, KL Archer, BK Bell, AM Chester, D Conaghan, PJ Connelly, V Coulton, M Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Falinski, JG Fletcher, PW Flint, NJ (teller) Frydenberg, JA Gee, AR Gillespie, DA Hammond, CM Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Hunt, GA Kelly, C Leeser, J Ley, SP Littleproud, D Liu, G Martin, FB McCormack, MF McIntosh, MI Morrison, SJ O'Brien, T O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pearce, GB Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Price, ML Ramsey, RE (teller) Robert, SR Sharma, DN Simmonds, J Stevens, J Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Thompson, P Tudge, AE van Manen, AJ Webster, AE Wyatt, KG Young, T 47 NOES Albanese, AN Aly, A Bowen, CE Burke, AS Burney, LJ Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Clare, JD Coker, EA Collins, JM Dick, MD Elliot, MJ Freelander, MR (teller) Georganas, S Giles, AJ Gorman, P Gosling, LJ Haines, H Hayes, CP Hill, JC Husic, EN Jones, SP Keogh, MJ King, CF Leigh, AK Marles, RD McBain, KL Mitchell, BK Murphy, PJ O'Connor, BPJ Owens, JA Perrett, GD Phillips, FE Plibersek, TJ Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Sharkie, RCC Shorten, WR Stanley, AM (teller) Steggall, Z Templeman, SR Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Wilson, JH Zappia, A 25 PAIRS Andrews, KJ Bird, SL Broadbent, RE Burns, J Buchholz, S Byrne, AM Christensen, GR Chesters, LM Coleman, DB Claydon, SC Drum, DK Conroy, PM Evans, TM Dreyfus, MA Goodenough, IR Fitzgibbon, JA Hogan, KJ Kearney, G Howarth, LR Khalil, P Irons, SJ King, MMH Joyce, BT McBride, EM Laming, A Mitchell, RG Landry, ML Mulino, D Marino, NB Neumann, SK Morton, B O'Neil, CE O'Brien, LS Payne, AE Tehan, DT Ryan, JC Vasta, RX Smith, DPB Wallace, AB Snowdon, WE Wicks, LE Swanson, MJ Wilson, RJ Thistlethwaite, MJ Wilson, TR Thwaites, KL Wood, JP Vamvakinou, M Zimmerman, T Wells, A

[Question agreed to.]

 12:25 The SPEAKER 00APG The question now is that the amendments be agreed to.

[The House divided. [12:27]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)]

 52 AYES Alexander, JG Allen, K Andrews, KL Archer, BK Bell, AM Chester, D Conaghan, PJ Connelly, V Coulton, M Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Falinski, JG Fletcher, PW Flint, NJ (teller) Frydenberg, JA Gee, AR Gillespie, DA Haines, H Hammond, CM Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Hunt, GA Kelly, C Leeser, J Ley, SP Littleproud, D Liu, G Martin, FB McCormack, MF McIntosh, MI Morrison, SJ O'Brien, T O'Dowd, KD Pasin, A Pearce, GB Pitt, KJ Porter, CC Price, ML Ramsey, RE (teller) Robert, SR Sharkie, RCC Sharma, DN Simmonds, J Stevens, J Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Thompson, P Tudge, AE van Manen, AJ Webster, AE Wyatt, KG Young, T 45 NOES Albanese, AN Aly, A Bowen, CE Burke, AS Burney, LJ Butler, MC Butler, TM Chalmers, JE Champion, ND Clare, JD Coker, EA Collins, JM Dick, MD Elliot, MJ Freelander, MR (teller) Georganas, S Giles, AJ Gorman, P Gosling, LJ Hayes, CP Hill, JC Husic, EN Jones, SP Keogh, MJ King, CF Leigh, AK Marles, RD McBain, KL Mitchell, BK Murphy, PJ O'Connor, BPJ Owens, JA Perrett, GD Phillips, FE Plibersek, TJ Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Shorten, WR Stanley, AM (teller) Steggall, Z Templeman, SR Watts, TG Wilkie, AD Wilson, JH Zappia, A 25 PAIRS Andrews, KJ Bird, SL Broadbent, RE Burns, J Buchholz, S Byrne, AM Christensen, GR Chesters, LM Coleman, DB Claydon, SC Drum, DK Conroy, PM Evans, TM Dreyfus, MA Goodenough, IR Fitzgibbon, JA Hogan, KJ Kearney, G Howarth, LR Khalil, P Irons, SJ King, MMH Joyce, BT McBride, EM Laming, A Mitchell, RG Landry, ML Mulino, D Marino, NB Neumann, SK Morton, B O'Neil, CE O'Brien, LS Payne, AE Tehan, DT Ryan, JC Vasta, RX Smith, DPB Wallace, AB Snowdon, WE Wicks, LE Swanson, MJ Wilson, RJ Thistlethwaite, MJ Wilson, TR Thwaites, KL Wood, JP Vamvakinou, M Zimmerman, T Wells, A

[Question agreed to.]

 Services Australia Governance Amendment Bill 2020 87

Services Australia Governance Amendment Bill 2020

Second Reading 87 12:31 The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZY The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Dobell has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House, I'll state the question in the form that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question. 12:31 Mr ZAPPIA HWB Makin I continue my remarks in respect to this legislation. In my introductory comments on this legislation, I was making the point that the Morrison government's staffing cuts have forced many government departments to rely on temporary staff and subcontractors who don't always have the experience or training to deal with the complex social issues that Centrelink staff and other departments are confronted with on a daily basis. Adelaide's InDaily media recently reported on the mental health impacts on employees of those contracted staff, and, in particular, on employees of outsourced Centrelink call centres. One of those call centres is in my electorate of Makin, and it is a Datacom call centre. According to the InDaily report, Datacom Connect is 'one of a number of external labour hire companies awarded Centrelink contracts totalling more than $1 billion since 2016. one of a number of external labour hire companies awarded Centrelink contracts totalling more than $1 billion since 2016'. Firstly, it begs the question: if $1 billion has been awarded to contractors to do work that would otherwise have been done by government employees, public servants, then what have been the real savings for the government in having done that? Secondly, it goes to the heart of what this In Daily story is all about. It talks about not only the impact that the work has had on clients of government departments—and, in particular, Centrelink—but also the health impacts it is having on those Datacom employees and, very likely, other call-centre employees who have been contracted out to do government work. And I'm going to quote excerpts from the InDaily story directly, as they appear: A Datacom worker told InDaily that staff were paid lower rates than their public sector counterparts. "We’re on the contract call centre award and it’s just base award rates but … if we were in the public service system, it’s another probably $20,000 a year … That point is also critical in this debate. These employees are doing government work but being paid at call-centre award rates. That's a back-door method of cutting people's income. The worker goes on to say: There's no ongoing support. When we first start, we have half a day with a Services Australia social worker. So, you go through something like self-harm and suicide and then a couple of hours on domestic violence and things to look out for and things to handle in a call. …`…   … To have hundreds of people, who are fairly poorly paid and trained, taking calls from hundreds of people can lead to problems. The InDaily report goes on, with respect to comments made by another worker who was interviewed. This particular worker quit her job after only five weeks. The article states the worker said: "There's absolutely no incentive to learn the job, because learning the job takes time, and if you choose to learn the job then you'll be running behind and then you won't meet your quotas. "So you might be tasked with 30 tasks for the day and when you start not meeting that, you've got quality assurance coming down on you really hard. So there's no incentive to learn. …   …   … "I did not have a day when I wasn't screamed at by a client, I didn't have a day when I didn't hear from a suicidal caller. I was broken after five weeks. I'd lost about six kilos. "I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping. It was just existential dread. I was a wreck." There is more in the InDaily story that I would like to quote, but time won't allow me to do that. Those quotes highlight the two sides of this problem: (1) Centrelink clients are not getting the support and services that they require, because the staff are not adequately trained to deal with their queries and (2) it's having a real impact on the very people who are employed to deal with the Centrelink problems which, as I said earlier in my remarks, can sometimes be incredibly complex and incredibly traumatic, given the impact that they have on the individuals that are calling Centrelink. It also begs the question: how much is it costing society more broadly to deal with the employees of these call centres and these subcontracted staff who are put under incredible stress as a result of the work that they are doing for which they are not either properly compensated for or properly trained for? This issue and this legislation comes at a time when we have seen greater demands on government services than ever before. The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to that, but there have been other contributing factors. We now have around one million people unemployed. We have somewhere between 1.5 million and 2.5 million people underemployed. There's going to be more unemployed by Christmas—perhaps 160,000 or thereabouts, according to the government's own figures. We have an ageing society and, along with that, we have issues, such as fires, floods and droughts, which continuously add to the demands on Centrelink staff. We then have new programs brought in like JobKeeper, JobSeeker and now JobMaker, not to mention the issues that we just debated only a moment ago with student enrolments and the like. These programs, and what is happening in society, come at a time when the government has put a cap on public service employees and cut staff within those government departments. We should be doing the exact opposite. We shouldn't simply be bringing in outsourced staff. We should be adding to the team of people who are dealing with these complex situations. The government has announced an additional 5,000 staff. They announced that in March of this year. My question to the minister is: how many of those 5,000 have been employed and were they employed on a full-time, casual or permanent basis? I've never seen statistics to tell us exactly what the situation is but, quite frankly, I would doubt that we have added those additional 5,000 staff. Indeed, are they the people who have been subcontracted out to private call centre operators and the like? We simply don't know. The additional demands for those programs that I alluded to just a moment ago will mean that we will have very complex situations where people are trying to navigate through what their entitlements are and what support there is available for them at a time when they are dealing with some of the most difficult situations in their life, particularly because of COVID-19 and the likely loss of work. We know that over 600,000 people have already cleaned out their superannuation accounts. That probably means that they have nothing left in their savings accounts either, which means that the next step, in the months ahead, will see even more people become financially vulnerable and, in turn, look to government departments for assistance. Yet those government departments are not properly equipped to deal with them and provide them they support that they need, and that will, in turn manifest, itself in more psychological problems, mental health issues and the like. All of that costs taxpayers money and hurts people in the community, but, quite frankly, it causes additional burdens and costs on government as well. The health department of this country will actually find itself paying out more and more for health issues that arise because of them. So where are the real savings in all of this? I can't conclude my remarks without speaking briefly about the robodebt debacle. I note that the member for Maribyrnong is in the chamber, and I'm sure that he will have more to say about this. That over $700 million has to be repaid as a result of the robodebt bungle just highlights the incompetence of this government. I had people coming into my office who were improperly billed as a result of robodebt. They were people who were not only reliant on the welfare system but struggling in the first instance, and for them to then get bills saying they owed money to the government—bills that were incorrect—only added to their stress and the difficult situations they were in, so much so that we have heard stories of some of them taking their own lives. Nothing highlights not just the incompetence of this government but the callousness of this government like running the robodebt program when they knew what it was doing to people out there. I'm sure, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, you would have had people in your electorate coming to you, and every other member in this House would have heard the same as I did, that in many cases those debts were causing additional grievance and stress to families. Yet this government pursued them, knowing that it was doing that and knowing that the whole process was not only flawed but, frankly, illegal. It's a condemnation of this government and something that this government will never be able to walk away from, certainly in respect of those families that were left worse off as a result of robodebt, because of the trauma, because of the stress and because of the deaths this government should hang its head in shame. The public service of this country serves this country well. The government should appreciate what the public sector does, and instead of making cuts to it, which ultimately flow on to the rest of society, given the support people need, it should reinstate those people whose jobs it has taken. 12:42 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong It's good to be out of 15 days of quarantine to attend the parliament to talk on this legislation, the Services Australia Governance Amendment Bill 2020. This bill sets out the proposed framework, or structure, for the newly established executive agency Services Australia, which replaces the now abolished Department of Human Services. There are a number of changes that aim to both update terminology and streamline the reporting lines associated with transitioning DHS to Services Australia. Labor, as a principle, supports modifications to governance structures across the public sector that lead to improved outcomes for the Australian people and for the employees who deliver the services that Australians rely upon, but there is a problem while there is a cap on the number of permanent employees, as the member for Makin so eloquently just said. My colleagues, including the member for Dobell in the last sitting of parliament, have elaborated on the negative effect that the Morrison government's staffing cap has on both services and staff, so I will not dwell unduly on this particular aspect, but for present purposes let it be said that the stifling effect of the cap on the number of permanent employees is a reason for Labor's second reading amendment in the form presented. I want to talk about the rebrand that this legislation represents. When I look at the mass rebrand of the Department of Human Services to Services Australia I think of one of the most notorious tales from the mad men era of Madison Avenue advertising executives in New York in the swinging sixties. The story is half confected and half based on a real tagline proposed by advertising guru Jerry Della Famina. It features a grizzled adman, a returned veteran from the Second World War still carrying wartime prejudices against the Japanese. The adman is tasked with coming up with a tagline for a new Japanese electronics client, Panasonic. The grizzled adman and former veteran pauses for a while. He thinks contemplatively. He looks at the line of whiz-bang electrical products. And then he proposes: 'From those wonderful folks who gave you Pearl Harbor'. Well, when I look at this seven-year-old government putting Stuart Robert at the helm, promising a digital 'revolution' in the way that the old DHS services are provided, part of me hopes that his promise may come true. But another part of me can't help but think it's a pledge somewhere along the lines of, 'From the wonderful folks who brought you robodebt'. So let's talk about robodebt—because, goodness knows, the government won't. Robodebt—or, as its proud Liberal parents prefer to call it, 'the online compliance intervention scheme'—slouched into lamented existence about five years ago. It was introduced as part of the 2015-16 budget measure 'Strengthening the integrity of welfare payments' and the December 2015 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook announcement. Scott Morrison was Treasurer, Christian Porter was social services minister, and Ms Kathryn Campbell was human services secretary. In 2016-17, as more and more disquiet about robodebt's legality emerged, Alan Tudge was human services minister. Robodebt was the holy grail for these digital fetishists. No more pesky staffing costs! No more annoying human intervention! No more troublesome procedural justice or, indeed, that annoying presumption of innocence for Australian citizens—just a magic algorithm, just an averaging tool, that worked out that someone had been overpaid by Centrelink, maybe a decade ago, followed by a very official demand for payment on Australian government letterhead. Now, the averaging tool was fundamentally flawed. It did not account for changes in people's circumstances. It tried to compare a fortnight of a Department of Social Services payment with a year's annual income across the ATO. It took no account of lumpy income, of the vagaries of economic life in Australia. Many, scared by the official nature of the demand from the Australian government, just handed over the money that they didn't actually owe. But there was an immediate backlash from others, who knew for a fact that they didn't owe the money—people who stood up and said no to the standover racket authorised by the government. But what was the response from robodebt's architects to the voices of everyday Australians being persecuted by these claims? Well, it was bringing in so much money that it was helping carry the load for the ultimately fictional campaign to get the budget back in black. They were addicted to it in the government. They couldn't stop it. They ramped it up. They needed more of it. Veteran Centrelink and Services Australia staff proved too conscientious, and they were reticent to engage in this standover scheme on the Australian people. So the Libs did what they love to do: they went out and outsourced it to private companies. Boiler-room offices of casual recruits were set up, and their job was to pressure and compel Australians to settle their robodebts, or else. People who have worked in these boiler rooms have told us that they were forced to work on quotas; they had to basically threaten little old ladies and gents to pay the money, or the boiler-room staff wouldn't get paid. But these workers also had consciences. They recognised what the government had failed to: this process was fundamentally unfair, fundamentally wrong, fundamentally unsound and fundamentally cruel. Many of them quit. So far, the government must have had the following groups voicing, to some degree, their concerns about robodebt. There were the innocent Australians who didn't want to be hit up for fake debts, the public servants who were told to chase the innocent Australians for fake debts and the private contractors in the boiler rooms quitting because the work was so distasteful to their innate sense of fairness. And there were regular decisions by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal declaring individual robodebts not valid. There have been at least 82 cases in the AAT where decisions were clearly made: 'This was not valid.' But this government didn't want to hear. They didn't care how the money was got. They did not care how they raised the money, even if it was illegal. This is the worst undermining of the integrity of public service by a pack of rent-seeking, neoright, neoliberal vandals that we are likely to see in our lifetime. I certainly hope that we never see it again. Even last year, advice was leaked that revealed an early plan to expand the scourge of robodebt to groups including the homeless, the elderly and people in the regions. The last 16 months have been a very revealing journey when it comes to robodebt. As we in Labor have been sounding the alarm, the Morrison government's desperately been trying to hold onto its deformed cash cow and keep robodebt alive in some fashion. At every step, the Morrison government has moved the goalposts. They've trimmed their sails and they've performed some spectacular circus backflips. But they've only ever told us as much truth about the scheme as they've had to. In November of last year, the Victorian legal aid commission was finally successful in its case of Deanna Amato. The federal court said, 'This is unlawful.' The government services minister maintained that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with robodebt even after that court decision. This was despite the Commonwealth not even being able to come up with a defence to Ms Amato's claims. They consented to the judge's order in favour of Mr Amarto. Around the same time, behind the scenes, the Department of Human Services sent an email to all staff, saying that averaging alone would no longer be used to raise the debts. More humans would be brought back in to attempt to tame the malfunctioning robodebt process. On 15 November last year, the class action which I helped organise went forward. Gordon Legal sent a letter to Services Australia confirming the class action would be proceeding. Four days later, Mr Robert—again, with that habit of telling the truth only when you've been caught out not telling the truth—held a press conference and said they would make a refinement to the scheme, but it would only affect a small cohort. What that meant, in more honest language, was that they were finally heeding the legal advice and putting the brakes on the whole sordid scheme. I think you might remember Mr Robert rising in this place and saying, 'I will not apologise for robodebt.' Things have changed a little, but not completely. Continued pressure on behalf of the victims of robodebt has meant the Prime Minister has eventually expressed regret over this rogue scheme. Robodebt has been a fraud perpetrated by a government against its people. We should not forget that this is the worst scandal in the history of social welfare, and it's gone all the way to the top of the hierarchy of this government. Mr Morrison started robodebt when he was social services minister, he banked it when he was Treasurer and he's done nothing but whitewash it since being Prime Minister. He only says that he has 'deep regrets' now they've been caught red-handed. I suppose that is better than nothing, but true remorse would be accompanied by an action to remedy and rule out a robodebt reboot. Minister Stuart Robert has suggested that he isn't really responsible, because he's only been a minister for the last 15 months—at least in his current incarnation. He must be forgetting, though, that he was human services minister in 2015-16, overseeing a key stage of robodebt's rollout. This was, of course, before he resigned from Prime Minister Turnbull's frontbench after breaching the ministerial code of conduct. I'm not going to recount in great detail the member for Fadden's many bungles: the China trip, the Rolex watch incident and the home internet bills—what do you spend $40,000 on the internet? But he's back again in this frontbench, living proof that a souffle can rise twice. Now he's in charge of the robodebt cover-up and clean-up. As robodebt minister, Mr Robert has sent threatening letters to innocent Australians, when, in reality, it is the government that has behaved fraudulently. As minister for robodebt, a scheme that unlawfully accused Australians of stealing from the Commonwealth, the reality is that he's presided over a scheme where the Commonwealth was unlawfully stealing from Australians. We've been saying all along robodebt was immoral. Despite its inaccuracy and despite its lack of procedural fairness, the government still let it run amuck and upset the lives of countless Australians. When really bad examples of robodebt's toll have surfaced, Mr Robert has issued qualified apologies. I think a low point in this sad and sorry saga of robodebt was the experience of Anastasia McCardel being rung at home and drilled over her dead son Bruce's alleged debt. When they stand over a bereaved mum for a debt that, in all likelihood, never existed, that is sickening. We've raised it in parliament so the government couldn't hide from it, but, for the most part, thousands of sad and often tragic experiences of Australians coming a cropper with robodebt have happened quietly and out of the public eye. There was Norm Austwick, a recently widowed 79-year-old who was hounded for $67 from last century, which he never owed. There was 82-year old Canberra woman Wilma Spence who in July was hounded for $61 dating back to 1995. People officially questioned their robodebts, and, while they were under review, while the whole thing should have been paused, the government went and garnished their tax returns. Minister Roberts said they weren't robodebting disaster areas like Townsville after the floods. But guess what? They did. We've been saying for some time that not only is robodebt harsh, inaccurate and immoral; it is almost certainly illegal. On 29 May this year the Morrison government finally announced that it would scrap robodebt and repay a small cohort—470,000 wrongly issued debts, worth at least $721 million, to be repaid in full. If it weren't for the COVID-19 pandemic, this scandal and the amount of money would leave Australians with the their jaws on the ground—and it still does. In June, the Prime Minister finally found the words to apologise in this place for any 'hurt, harm or hardship' caused by the scheme—his scheme. If he's really sorry, then I guess there are consequences, aren't there. But there are no consequences for the architects of robodebt; they're all still there. In a pattern of only admitting what they are still denying when they are able still to deny, they no longer claim that robodebt works fine, as they did for a long time; they no longer claim that robodebt is accurate, as they did for a long time; they no longer defend robodebt's fairness or morality, as they did for a long time. They are even a lot quieter about robodebt's legality than they have been for a long time. These are the new battlelines that the government has drawn on robodebt. None of the cronies lose their jobs or get demoted. No-one admits what mourning parents have known for a long time, and will tell you if you're willing to listen, which is that young adults took their lives because of robodebt. And under no circumstances will the government agree to Labor's royal commission into the origins of robodebt. I said for a long time that resistance against robodebt was inaccurate, immoral and illegal. Today I say there must be responsibility taken for it and the consequences for those involved. The government owes it to grieving parents to admit the truth. The government owes it to the nation to have a royal commission into robodebt and its origins. For the moment, robodebt's architects are still all there. There is a bright new sign painted out the front of Services Australia. But has the culture changed? A lot of the top Liberal-friendly bureaucrats who like nothing more than outsourcing and ripping money out of these departments and agencies have moved onto pretty good jobs. And what is happening in the culture is that, apart from a few isolated cases of apparent whistleblowing, the bureaucracy has been forced to go along with a clearly immoral and illegal scheme. Where were the 'no' people, the people who were saying the algorithm was malfunctioning? We've taken away too many of the safeguards. Innocent people were harassed unjustly, and sometimes even to self-harm. I'm sure there are many outbreaks of this—the existence of this hollow Public Service treatment. Who is more likely to speak up? A casual worker? An outsourced worker? This is why they should lift the caps. (Time expired) 12:57 Ms MURPHY 133646 Dunkley The irony of this government introducing a bill called the Services Australia Governance Amendment Bill 2020! This government thinking that the announcement of a change of name—from Centrelink, Medicare and the Child Support Agency—to Services Australia would be worthy of a stand-up routine in a satirical comedy venue if it weren't so desperately important to the people of my electorate and the people around Australia that the federal government actually deliver services when they need it and does it in an upfront, honest and reliable way. It's not just ironic that this government thinks that perhaps it can hide what has happened with robodebt, that perhaps Australians won't think about the way they have attacked and undermined the Public Service. The government allows the purchase by the Public Service of a $3 million block of land for $30 million, to be leased back by the Commonwealth for $1 million, while the ministers are saying, 'I don't want to hear about it,' or 'Don't tell me.' They apparently think the Australian public will just forget about all that because they have has decided to use a phrase like 'Services Australia'. They won't. The Australian public aren't mugs. Certainly the people in my electorate aren't mugs. I'll tell you what this government should be doing. It should be standing up and acknowledging the amazing work that has been undertaken by Commonwealth public servants for years and decades but definitely in 2020, during this COVID crisis. The people who work at Centrelink and Medicare, those frontline workers who are dealing with the Australian public day in and day out, have an incredibly difficult job. They are dealing with people often in the biggest crisis of their lives and the worst time of their lives, and it is their job to help those people through and to help those people be able to access the government support that they need. Employees at the Department of Human Services at Centrelink and Medicare deserve not just praise—and praise is what they'll get from me and from this side of the chamber—but a government that values them in terms of their full-time and permanent employment and the wages that they get. It has been a time almost like no other in 2020 for the workload that staff at Services Australia, as it's now called, have had to deliver. We all remember the images of people lined up around the block to get to their Centrelink offices to get help, with many people for the first time in their lives needing to go to Centrelink to get help when the government was just too slow to realise that they needed to accept and introduce a wage subsidy. That period of time was devastating and stressful for so many people in my electorate, like elsewhere around Australia, who needed that help from their government. But it was also stressful and difficult for the employees at the Centrelink offices who were forced to try to help people who were in such despair. They deserve our greatest thanks for their efforts always but in particular for what has occurred. In my electorate, for example, between March and May of this year, the number of people on Newstart, which is now called JobSeeker, basically doubled to about 10,000. The number of people on youth allowance basically doubled to just over 1,000. And all of those people needed to receive help from staff at Centrelink. We know that this government has made announcements during COVID to increase the number of people who are working at Centrelink and on the frontline. We know that people have been redeployed from other parts of the Public Service. Of course, that's a good thing, but it's just not enough. It's just not enough when we look at a Commonwealth Public Service across the board, not just at Centrelink and Medicare, that has been undermined, undervalued, weakened, outsourced and politicised by a Morrison government and a Liberal government that, at its core, doesn't believe in the Public Service. One of the ways we in this place all agree on to stimulate the economy during a recession is creating jobs and investing in jobs. The Commonwealth as an employer has a great opportunity to directly invest in jobs, to directly invest in people, by employing public servants, who also, then, of course, benefit their communities by helping those people who need to access public services and allowances during this time of crisis. Back last year when COVID-19 wasn't even a bad dream in people's minds—we didn't know it was going to happen during the election in May—in my electorate of Dunkley we made an election commitment that should Labor win we would employ 40 more full-time employees at the Department of Human Services in Frankston. That would have injected $3 million into my local economy. That's the sort of thinking that we need from the government—not a government that continues to undermine and cut the Public Service. We know, because the Auditor-General revealed it, that the Liberals have spent over $2 billion on outside contractors since they first came to power. That doesn't save money; it puts a heavy burden on the Commonwealth budget whilst also undermining the Australian Public Service. This government has cut and cut Australian Public Service jobs. By the way—for the benefit of government members—public servants are people. They have families—husbands, wives and children. They have mortgages and other commitments. When you talk about cutting jobs in Canberra, you're actually cutting the employment of real people and affecting the economy. The government have cut and cut. Then what have they had to do? They've had to outsource. They've had to go to the big four consulting firms to get them to do the work that the Australian Public Service would have been doing if only it still had the capacity. This is a government that, at its core, doesn't believe in a properly resourced Public Service to serve the people of Australia. The Thodey report into the Australian Public Service was released midway through December last year, following a review that received over 800 submissions. The report was considered and deep and put out recommendations not just about how the Public Service could be supported and improved now but about how its capacity should be built for the future. It was essentially ignored by the Morrison government, by the Prime Minister. The range of really important reforms that were contained in that report will not, it would seem, be implemented. There was a very important recommendation that I am urging the federal government to reconsider, because COVID puts into stark relief the fact that the Public Service should not be focused solely on delivery. That's part of the job of the Public Service, but the Commonwealth Public Service is about more; it's about capacity-building and strategic planning. It's about planning for the future. It's about developing a preparedness to deal with the unexpected, to advise ministers and governments on how to deal with crises if and when they arise. Take, for example—I don't know, COVID? You can contrast the response to COVID this year with the way in which Treasury was able to advise the government during the global financial crisis. In the years leading up to the global financial crisis, Treasury undertook scenario planning. It had the capacity and the capability to undergo scenario planning so that, when the worst case did happen and there was a global financial crisis, it was able to provide swift, timely advice about how to respond to get Australia through that crisis, as the then Labor government did. But we know that there has been no pandemic planning under the Morrison government. For the community in my electorate of Dunkley, Services Australia is fundamentally important. It's important as an employer through the Frankston Centrelink, and many other constituents of mine work at the Mornington Centrelink. It's important as the agency that assists almost 25,000 locals who receive pensions—the 16,000-odd people in my electorate who are on the age pension, the more than 1,500 people who are on carer's payment, the 5½ thousand people who receive the disability support pension, the many single parents who rely on child support—and, now, the more than 10,000 people who are on unemployment benefits. It's really important that Services Australia works and works well, but this government's haphazard approach to dealing with government agencies does not fill me, on behalf of my community, with confidence that it is going to be able to work. We had the situation earlier this year where, with no consultation with the community and no consultation with the local council, apparently without even the courtesy of telling the federal member for Flinders—who, coincidentally, is the health minister and therefore responsible for Medicare—it was announced that the Mornington Centrelink and Medicare office was going to close. The government said it was because a lease had expired and they couldn't renegotiate the lease. Well, the community wasn't having that. It affects my community in Dunkley because of the people in Mount Eliza and Frankston South who go to Mornington Centrelink and Medicare but also because, if that office closes, where does everyone have to go? To Frankston Centrelink and Medicare, which is already overwhelmed. So, on behalf of the community, I got involved in the campaign. The Mornington Community Information and Support Centre also got involved in the campaign, as did the local community, to say, 'You can't shut down Medicare and Centrelink in Mornington.' Lo and behold, when we saw lines of people, out on the street, needing to access Centrelink for the first time ever because of the impact of COVID and the government's dillydallying in introducing a wage subsidy, and when those lines included Mornington Centrelink, apparently the government could renegotiate the lease after all and Mornington Centrelink got a six-month reprieve. We've recently heard, because the campaign to force the government to keep that centre has been re-enlivened, that it's going to have another six-month reprieve; they've managed to get another lease signed. This just smacks of decision-making on the run, rather than proper, considered, systemic thinking about what is needed for communities and what is in the best interests of people. We have a government, as the member for Maribyrnong so articulately covered in his speech, that is the architect of robodebt. We have ministers who presided over robodebt and still don't seem to understand the depth of the damage that caused people in our community—the anxiety and the frustration imposed on people on unemployment benefits and student allowances in my electorate and on women who needed to access maternity leave payments—and now they're overseeing this transition to Services Australia. Everyone in this country is allowed to be cynical about how this government is going to deliver, because it's shown no sign of delivering so far and it's shown no sign of learning its lessons. If this were a satire, it might be funny, but it's not. This is real. For people in my community who have lost JobKeeper and who are going to have JobSeeker cut to $40 a day, it's more than real—it's their lives. 13:13 Ms O'NEIL 140590 Hotham [by video link] I'm really grateful for the chance to speak on the Services Australia Governance Amendment Bill 2020. This bill is administrative in design, but it raises some incredibly critical issues, and that's why I want to start by thanking the members for Makin, Dunkley and Maribyrnong for what have been three really impassioned speeches about some issues of core importance to the people that we represent. Services Australia is probably the most critical part of the Australian government. The decisions that we make in this chamber, about policy and about who's eligible for different types of support, are basically conveyed and delivered to our constituents through Services Australia. If you are thinking about Centrelink, Medicare, child support, migrant support, disaster support or, crucially, JobKeeper and JobSeeker, you're depending to one degree or another on the way that Services Australia works. We are of course having this debate in the shadow of the biggest health and financial crisis that our country has experienced for many decades. How many decades, we won't know for some time. But I think it has really highlighted the fact that this is an organisation that has been neglected by the Morrison government. It has been underfunded and subjected to completely inappropriate staffing caps, and it has badly hurt many of the people that I represent, because of the inability of the organisation to flex in the way that it needed to do when the COVID-19 impacts hit us. I'm incredibly lucky. I have Oakleigh and Springvale offices of Services Australia. They do an amazing job. The staff that work there are committed public servants who show up to work every day to try to help other people. We need to be doing everything we can to help support them in the work that they do, which is actually incredibly difficult. We always need to remember with organisations like Services Australia that they're confronting people who are often experiencing the worst crisis they've ever had in their lives. Their jobs are difficult, stressful and important and the Morrison government has made them much harder by the arbitrary impost of staff caps. I'm going to talk a bit more about robodebt in a minute—which I think is the most flagrant example of the horrible impact of privatisation and under-resourcing of public services in Australia that we've seen in recent years—but before we do that I want to speak a little bit about the cuts to JobSeeker and JobKeeper, which have so dramatically affected the lives of the people that I represent in this chamber. About three weeks ago the Morrison government cut $300 a fortnight from the JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments. I want to say straight up that the cut in those payments is nothing short of a total scandal. I cannot think of one single decision that's happened in the seven years that I've been in parliament that has hurt the people that I represent as much as this one single decision. I have 8,000 people in my community who are JobSeeker recipients today. I have 30,000 who are JobKeeper recipients. What the Morrison government did on one day was take $300 a fortnight out of the pocket of every single one of those people. The people in my community are relying on those payments tomorrow to feed their children, to pay their rent, to get schoolbooks, to pay for groceries, to pay for energy bills, to pay childcare costs—all the essentials. This was an outrage in every state of Australia but particularly so in the state of Victoria. I am giving this speech right now from my electorate office in Clayton and I can see that the Prime Minister has forgotten about the 6.4 million people who live just to the south of where you are at the moment. Don't forget, we are still in lockdown here in Victoria. What the Morrison government has done is take away $300 a fortnight while my constituents can do nothing about their economic situation. I am fundamentally outraged at this decision. I am sure that Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister, has got a smart, little political answer for this. He will probably say this is all Daniel Andrews's fault, because he has put the state into lockdown. I have to say that my voters do not care about politics at a time like this. What they care about is the financial security of their families that the Prime Minister has put in jeopardy through these cuts. What sort of person would cut pandemic payments in the middle of a pandemic? We are right in the thick of this thing in Victoria. So I ask today that the government consider these incredibly harsh cuts. It should not be beyond the wit of a federal government to try to create some different policy for the 25 per cent of the Australian population in Victoria who are still stuck in some form of lockdown or another. The language that the government uses again and again when it comes to coronavirus is that this is somehow beaten and over. I can tell you, from the point of view of a Victorian, from the point of view of a Melburnian, that it is not beaten and over. Melburnians are working as hard as we can to try to get on top of this. We are actually doing a solid to the rest of the country because we know that if we don't get on top of this in Victoria then we're going to see the spread of coronavirus go through the country again and no-one wants that. But could we please have a bit of empathy, a bit of sympathy and a bit of understanding from the federal government, because 6.4 million people should not be left behind as this country attempts to recover from this crisis. I spoke to some of my constituents about the impact that the JobSeeker and JobKeeper cuts had had on them, and I want to share some of the reactions that they had. Matthew said to me, 'It's about time someone correlates the inflation in mental health calls for Victoria with the government's decision to roll back pandemic assistance during a pandemic.' Anita talks about the impact that the JobSeeker cut has had on her. She is an older female. She said there's nothing in the federal budget for her—just a big cut to her entitlements. There is not much good a tax cut gives you when you're not actually earning an income. Daniel says: 'Signing up for JobKeeper was due to events beyond my control. If I could do my job, I would. The reduction of JobSeeker is a kick in the guts. All it does is reduce my option of returning to work.' So again I say there are millions of people who are still in lockdown here. We need the support. We're in the middle of a pandemic. Why has the government taken away this essential support at the very moment Victorians need it most? It needs to be held accountable for that. We are talking about Services Australia today, and it would be remiss of me not to touch on the absolute scandal of robodebt, which so significantly affected the lives of thousands of people I represent in my electorate. Robodebt is what happens when you take the human out of Human Services. What we saw here was a government that is, frankly, completely incompetent when it comes to any type of technology let loose an algorithm without any human intervention to demand that hundreds of thousands of Australians pay debt to the Commonwealth that they did not in fact owe. In terms of public policy disasters, this one would surely be top 3 in the last decade and it deserves its own royal commission, as the member for Maribyrnong has talked about. I hope and believe that most of us in this chamber got into politics to make a difference in the lives of Australians. Imagine if you finished your political career and your legacy was a harrowing fearmongering campaign in the lives of hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable people in the country. But that is on the government and that is particularly on the minister who is in charge of Services Australia. It's estimated that by now $1.5 billion was unlawfully taken from Australians by their government through this scheme. We know from all the news reports how genuinely traumatising this was for Australians. As soon as this scheme hit a few years ago, we were flooded with phone calls by people who had been sent letters by the robodebt scheme telling them that they owed money to the Commonwealth. Of course, like many members of parliament, I spent a long time arguing for constituents who were then found not to have owed any money at all. But I'd like to talk about some of their stories. One of my constituents, Robyn, was first advised that she had a debt of $5,900 covering three-year period between 2013 and 2016. She was paying off $40 a fortnight towards that debt, not aware that in fact she never owed the money to the Commonwealth to begin with. She had wanted to appeal the debt, but she was told by Services Australia this would take months and months and she was going to have to pay the debt anyway. Robin contacted us because she lost her part-time job and was trying to seek assistance in working out how she was going to pay this claim, and we were able to assist her with the claim. We went with her through the process of dealing with Services Australia, and it turned out that the whole thing was a robodebt error. She'd been paying off this money in the very best of faith, because many Australians, when they receive a letter from government saying that they owe money, take it that this is being done in good faith. Now, the family has gone through horrible trouble over the years trying to repay this debt. It's had to go through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and a whole bunch of other processes, and the impact on this family has been untold misery for years while they've been trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare, trying to get rid of a debt that they never actually owed. [Inaudible] The DEPUTY SPEAKER 72184 The member for Hotham, we can't hear you at the moment. Apologies, Member for Hotham. We have a technical difficulty at the moment. On the advice of the Clerk, we will pause for a few moments till we work out what the difficulty is and take it from there. In fact, we will go to the next speaker, which will be the member for Macquarie, and the member for Hotham will have continuation when we resume the debate. 13:25 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie I am pleased to be speaking on the Services Australia Governance Amendment Bill 2020. For many people 2020 was the first time that they'd had to interact with Services Australia, and it wasn't because they had a baby or because they became a retiree but because they had lost their job. It was Centrelink that they needed, and they needed it urgently. They needed to access support to help them through a time when their sudden job loss meant they had absolutely no income completely unexpectedly and brutally. I hope we never see the lines outside Centrelink like we did in those weeks, but clearly the agency was not given the resources to scale up fast enough and to meet the need that was there right in front of them. It is operating on, in business, what we call 'no spare capacity', but its heavy dependence on labour hire means it's probably more accurate to say it operates with far too few permanent staff all the time, let alone when a surge in demand happens. I think this reflects how little the coalition government believes in this fundamentally important government department, which every single person in Australia relies on at some stage in their life, whether it is for Medicare claims, for sorting paid parental leave, for NDIS participation, for accessing the pension and—as those in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury know—for accessing emergency payments at a time of natural disaster. These are usually times of great stress. What we used to call Human Services and what we now call Services Australia needs to be appropriately staffed to meet those needs. I've spoken to many of the amazing workers in Services Australia across the NDIS, Centrelink and Medicare, and the message they tell me is they do feel under pressure. They are trying their best to deliver a first-rate service to the people who come in. They know the stressors that lead people to reaching out for help. I'm sure every member knows what happens when Services Australia and the different rules that are in place don't fit the needs of the people who've sought help there. They turn up at our offices. We are their place of last resort, which is why we've had so many people, in the years that I've been a member of parliament, come and seek help. They say to me: 'I've never before contacted a member of parliament, but I just don't know where else to turn on this.' And what they've met is a blockage in Centrelink. The blockage might be that they've been given different pieces of information based on different conversations with somebody within Services Australia. It might be that they just don't quite know how to provide the information that's needed. It might be that there's a delay in their pension application being processed—haven't we seen those? Or it might be that they've received a robodebt for a debt they don't believe they owe or, as so many members have said in this place, that they've started paying only to then find out it wasn't really their debt to pay. In this place we see the situations where things go wrong in Services Australia. We've seen a lot of those in the years I've been in this place. The frontline workers in these centres have had, in recent times, some of the most difficult conversations you can imagine. When I do speak with the public servants who work there, they absolutely demonstrate to me that they feel they are serving the public, and they want to do it to their very best. I invariably walk away reminded of their skill, the depth or the breadth of their knowledge and their desire to help people who can be extremely vulnerable, whether it's by providing financial relief to those unable to work, by helping people access counselling and social work services or by helping jobseekers to find meaningful occupations or prepare them to re-enter the workplace. But I also see that they have frustrations about the constraints under which they operate and their inability to be able to demonstrate compassion and to be able to find a solution that fits with the individual needs of every one of those clients that come to see them. That really goes to the core— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS 96 STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS Calwell Electorate 96 13:30 Ms VAMVAKINOU 00AMT Calwell [by video link] During this difficult COVID-19 lockdown period in Melbourne, when people have lost their jobs and are facing the loss of their businesses, our Calwell community has been blessed with local heroes who are always there to lend a helping hand with an abundance of generosity and dignity. Heroes like Khalsa Darbar in Mickleham have been delivering grocery hampers to those in need in our community throughout the lockdown. Fortunately for my community, there are many more organisations who deserve a very special shout out for their caring community work. I'd like to personally thank the following organisations for their ongoing supply of food packages, hampers, vouchers, toiletries and phone cards. I'd like to thank Anglicare Victoria in Craigieburn; St Dominic's, UnitingCare and Banksia Gardens in Broadmeadows; the Tibetan Buddhist Society in Yuroke; the Brotherhood of St Laurence; the Dallas Neighbourhood House; Hasene Australia in Campbellfield; the Northpoint Centre Food Pantry in Craigieburn; the Salvation Army; and, finally, the Tullamarine Community House. I'm very proud of the Calwell constituency for coming together and supporting one another, and I'm especially grateful to all service providers and volunteers who have worked tirelessly to provide for the welfare of the members of our community who at this present time are doing it very tough. I reiterate, this assistance is offered with great compassion, dignity and lots of care. I congratulate them all. Education 96 13:32 Mr YOUNG 201906 Longman As I visit many of the wonderful communities in Longman, I get to see firsthand the amazing work our principals, teachers and other educators are doing to prepare our kids for the future. Kids these days are growing up in a very different world to the one I grew up in and have access to technology I could only have dreamed about when I was young. With this in mind, it's important that we encourage students towards careers that have a future. According to the 2020 graduate outcomes survey, graduates in dentistry, medicine, engineering and teaching have the highest full-time employment rates three years after they've graduated. The degree holders with the lowest employment rates after three years were in creative arts, humanities, culture and social sciences, tourism, hospitality, personal services, sport and recreation, and communications. The Australian government is helping to give our young graduates the best opportunity of getting work by providing funding where it is needed most. We're also supporting the creation of 100,000 new apprenticeships and protecting a further 180,000 apprenticeships and trainees through our 50 per cent wage subsidy. Employers of any sized industry in any location can now sign up new apprentices and trainees and claim up to 50 per cent of their wage, capped at $7,000 a quarter, until 30 September next year. We've also extended an advanced apprenticeship pilot program that strengthens partnerships between industry and participating universities and teaches students the skills needed to prepare them for industry jobs of the future. We have launched the JobTrainer Fund in Queensland in partnership with the state government. (Time expired) Coalition Government 96 13:33 Ms O'NEIL 140590 Hotham [by video link] We are about two weeks on from the federal government's budget, and I have to say I don't think I've ever seen budget expectations pumped so high. We were even told by the Prime Minister that this was the most important budget since the Second World War. What a deflating exercise it turned out to be. It takes quite some acumen to spend quite that much money but have no vision; no big, bold ambitions for the country; and no real plan for Australia's future. How can we spend a trillion dollars in government debt and end up really with nothing much to show for it? The budget was a thudding disappointment in part because it failed to address one of the most important things that face the lives of my constituents at the moment, and that is the declining standard of living that they've experienced after seven years of this Liberal government. The government would have you believe that everything that's wrong with the economy today is the result of the coronavirus. It's not the case. We've had seven years of stagnant wages growth. We've had penalty rates cut and seen the government stand back and say that it's nothing to do with them. Mr Deputy Speaker, now they're coming after your superannuation, trying to take away the increase that Australian workers bargained so hard for. Mr Deputy Speaker, next time the coalition tell you what great economic managers they are, ask yourself what has happened to your household budget since they were elected seven years ago. If you're over it, you should be. Crockford, Ms Emily 96 13:35 Mr ZIMMERMAN 203092 North Sydney 'Bold', 'assured' and 'sensual' are all words that describe the work of Emily Crockford, who has been placed as a finalist in the 2020 Archibald Prize for her piece Self-Portrait with Daddy in the Daisies, Watching the Field of Planes. Emily is one of the many fabulous neurodiverse artists who work with Studio A in Crows Nest in my electorate. Emily is a 34-year-old Sydney artist with Down syndrome. I'm holding up—with your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker—a copy of the work Emily entered into the Archibald. I suspect it's the first time an Archibald entry has been shown in the House of Representatives chamber. Emily's portrait depicts her late father, John, who passed away in January of this year. She says that it is her 'dream come true' of being with her father once more. She said: I watched him flying his beautiful planes in the fields. He made amazing models. This painting is very special to me, because he's my lovely father. Run by the wonderful Gabrielle Mordy, Studio A paves professional pathways for artists with an intellectual disability so they can achieve their artistic and economic aspirations. Their work is truly outstanding, and I am pleased many of their artists are receiving major commissions from government agencies and the corporate sector. I had the pleasure of meeting Emily and the rest of the crew at Studio A last week and was treated to a sneak peek at what she's up to next. On behalf of the community, I want to congratulate Emily and thank her for making this world a more beautiful and colourful one thanks to her incredible art. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 I thank Emily for that wonderful picture that was displayed in the parliament. Workplace Safety 97 13:36 Mr BURKE DYW Watson Fifty years ago, at 10 minutes to 12 on 15 October 1970, workers on the West Gate Bridge heard a thunderous crack, and anyone living within 20 kilometres heard the same roar. Steel buckled, bolts snapped and the 112-metre span of the bridge, weighing 2,000 tonnes, plummeted to the ground below. It took only a few seconds, but in those terrifying moments 35 workers lost their lives and another 18 were injured. Twenty-eight women lost their husbands, 88 children lost their fathers, and dozens of people were left with a lifetime of trauma. Last week we marked 50 years since the collapse, which remains the worst construction industry disaster in Australia's history. Unions had repeatedly expressed concerns about the safety of the project, and I remind all those here: when unions, particularly those in dangerous sectors, are attacked, safety is attacked. Just two months earlier, a bridge designed by the same company had collapsed during its construction in Wales, killing four workers and injuring five more. When West Gate workers had been assured that the bridge was safe, they went back to work. While we haven't had a worse industrial disaster since that dark day, we can't be complacent. Only last week a 23-year-old construction worker, Jonnie Hartshorn, died when a roof collapsed at a site at Curtin University. Two others were injured. Just like at West Gate, workers had expressed safety concerns in the weeks leading up to that tragedy. Last year, 183 Australians died in workplace accidents. That's the first time it's gone up since 2007. The Boland review has been with the government now for two years. (Time expired) Bennelong Electorate: Multiculturalism 97 13:38 Mr ALEXANDER M3M Bennelong I rise to inform the House of a recent community event I attended in my electorate of Bennelong. Last Friday I joined leaders and teachers from many different communities who have been successful in applying for language school grants. We had in attendance representatives from language schools that teach Farsi, Mandarin, Cantonese, Eastern Armenian, Polish, Arabic and Telugu. As I often remark in this House, Bennelong is Australia's innovation capital, but it is equally one of Australia's shining examples of harmonious and rich multiculturalism. The government has been instrumental in offering support to these organisations, and it's wonderful to see financial aid being delivered to groups who provide so much benefit. One of the saddest, but nonetheless necessary, measures brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic is the almost complete restriction of international travel and migration. For a country as diverse and multicultural as Australia, the loss of new persons coming to make our shores home has been acutely felt. However, seeing our language teachers' passion and enthusiasm, I am encouraged that our multicultural communities will continue to thrive. I trust and pray that, once the crisis is over and the free movement of people is resumed, families and communities will be able to reunite. Until that time, we must continue to support our multicultural communities and foster the teaching of different languages. Veterans 97 13:40 Mr GEORGANAS DZY Adelaide Along with a number of my colleagues on this side of the House, I cannot for the life of me understand why, with the growing epidemic of veteran suicide, this government completely fails to act. There were 33 suicide deaths among serving and ex-serving ADF personnel in 2018, and 465 suicides between 2001 and 2018. But we know that the actual figures could be higher. If this were any other type of epidemic, there would be an uproar if people didn't receive the services they required and the treatment they needed. Can you imagine in any other area having so many deaths? The voices would be very loud, but not in this case, by this government. It's appalling. Our servicemen and servicewomen deserve better. Their families deserve better. People in my electorate, like Julie-Ann Finney and Angela McKay, who both lost sons under these dreadful conditions, have been calling—indeed shouting—for a royal commission for the last 20 years. I'd like to thank them for meeting with me recently and telling me about their ongoing fight for change. Since 2001, there have been 17 government reviews looking into this, all to no avail. The only way to get to the bottom of it is to conduct a royal commission. Our veterans deserve better. Alcidion 98 13:41 Dr ALLEN 282986 Higgins Healthcare services globally are moving to integrated and digitalised models of care to address the challenges faced by traditional paper-based systems. Patients want their information accessible in one place, and healthcare providers want their clinical care to be smart and efficient. New and smart health services companies are helping healthcare workers make the right thing to do the easiest thing to do. One such Australian start-up is Alcidion, an ASX-listed company based in my electorate of Higgins. The CEO of Alcidion, Kate Quirke, is also a resident of Higgins. Alcidion is a healthcare informatics company focused on using data and technology to provide safe and smart healthcare delivery across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Alcidion employs 118 people globally, and, despite COVID-19, the business continues to thrive and flourish. They have employed 21 new people in 2020 alone. I am delighted that Alcidion's unique technology platform, Miya Precision, was recently named one of the Australian Financial Review top-five most innovative tech companies, and CEO Kate Quirke was awarded a Women in Technology Executive Leader award. Alcidion is a great example of Australian innovation being taken to the world, and Kate Quirke is an example of how women entrepreneurs can do it with the best of them. Arts 98 13:43 Ms STEGGALL 175696 Warringah Much has been said in this place about the dire state of affairs of the arts and entertainment sector. Like many of my parliamentary colleagues, I've been advocating on behalf of local constituents who have been devastated by the sudden and far-reaching closures impacting the arts industry. Overnight, they were left without income, without social interaction, without purpose and, for too many, without hope. The resounding message I have heard is that they feel let down and forgotten by this government. Last Thursday, I was so pleased to be able to attend the opening of Les Sculpture Refusees at the Q Station in Manly. This exhibition features 11 installations by some of Australia's best sculptors. Whilst the iconic Sculpture by the Sea has had to be postponed, this exhibition will be in full display to the public until 19 November. I'd particularly like to thank the artists, Tania McMurtry and Simon Hodgson, who had the vision to suggest this exhibition and the dedication to make it happen. I thank the management and staff of Q Station in Manly, the very original quarantine station, for their warm and enthusiastic support of the arts. I also congratulate Anthony Battaglia, who was awarded Most Outstanding Work for his sculpture Without End. I encourage everyone to visit Q Station and see this exhibition. Again, I urge the government to put in place a more comprehensive rescue package for the arts sector. Bower, Mr Marcus 98 13:44 Mrs ARCHER 282237 Bass Today I want to pay tribute to a stalwart of northern Tasmania's theatre scene, Marcus Bower, who recently passed away after a long illness. Marcus was loved and appreciated for his support for and involvement in local theatre as an actor, writer, director and committee member. He first joined the Launceston Players in 1974 for The Sound of Music. He'll be missed by students and staff at Scotch Oakburn College, where his teaching career saw him direct over 40 performances. As well as the Launceston Players, Marcus worked for a number of local theatre companies, including CentreStage, Three Rivers Theatre, the Old Nick Company and the Encore Theatre Company, and played a role in launching the first Tasmanian Theatre Awards in 2014. In 2019, Marcus himself was recognised with a lifetime achievement award for his work. Marcus was a film critic for local newspaper The Examiner for more than 25 years and was the driving force behind the popular annual review at the Royal Oak pub, a tradition to end the week before Christmas. For other well-known identities in the theatre scene, Marcus was a valued mentor. Belinda King, president of the award-winning Encore Theatre Company, told The Examiner: When Encore first emerged he was forthcoming with honest reviews and knowledgeable critique, which helped to shape the company we've become. Above all, Marcus was a husband and father, and my thoughts are with his partner, Suzie, and his two children. Vale, Marcus Bower. Macarthur Electorate: Coalition Government 99 13:46 Dr FREELANDER 265979 Macarthur I rise today to speak about the Liberal and National parties' consistent and blatant refusal to support my community in spite of a massive population increase forced upon us by them. They consistently engage in rorts and pork-barrelling. They deal with spivs, urgers and chancers, yet they give nothing to my community. Between the economic policies of this national government and the Liberal government in Macquarie Street in Sydney, they're driving a wedge in our communities. They give $70 million to a north shore council to build a bloody park, but they give nothing— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 I caution the member about unparliamentary language. Dr FREELANDER 265979 I withdraw the word. They give nothing to my community. They're forcing us to pay up to $30 a day in road tolls on an already existing road just so people can get to work. They give nothing to my community. They're building the Western Sydney airport to the north of my community but not providing any public transport infrastructure. It is an absolute disgrace, and this government and the government in Macquarie Street are responsible. They've given millions of dollars to billionaires' companies, but they give nothing for the struggling families in Macarthur. It is an absolute disgrace, and those opposite should be ashamed. They're giving developers huge amounts of money but nothing to— (Time expired) Queensland Government 99 13:47 Ms BELL 282981 Moncrieff The good people of Moncrieff are working hard to build a better future for their families. They know that the Morrison government has their back. The federal budget delivers just that. There is, however, a lingering cause for anxiety as they look north to Brisbane and the Palaszczuk state government. They know that the Palaszczuk-Trad experiment that had ploughed Queensland well before the pandemic struck holds no hope for recovery now. They have also had a taste of Labor incompetence locally. In Australia's capital of tourism on the Gold Coast, the Assistant Minister for Tourism Industry Development, the member for Gaven, Meaghan Scanlon, appointed by Premier Palaszczuk, has been absent. Apologies, I misspoke. Let me correct the record. It's pretty clear that Palaszczuk's factional and union masters don't allow her to appoint ministers. Let's face it: even if the Queensland Premier does appoint more dud ministers, it's only a matter of time before she blames her chief medical officer for those decisions, just like with her callous border decisions. But I digress. I come back to my point—that the state member for Gaven has failed to stand up for the Gold Coast and for tourism jobs. She's failed to stand up for the very industry that she's supposed to fight for. Of course, on the Gold Coast, there's a different title for the Premier and her assistant tourism minister, and that's 'Palaszczuk, chief economy wrecker, and her assistant minister for tourism industry destruction'. Gold Coasters who care about jobs— (Time expired) Household and Personal Debt 99 13:49 Mr HUSIC 91219 Chifley Chilling fact: in July alone, over 300,000 young people took out a consumer lease or payday loan. This is a form of lending with few or no guardrails, exorbitant interest rates and outrageous repayment terms. The Treasurer and his predecessors have sat on reforms of this system of lending for over a thousand days. How they cannot be ashamed of that escapes me. This is the Treasurer who today lectures us about what we should do to support young Australians. What about protecting those same young Australians from loan sharks? In a meeting with the Consumer Action Law Centre recently—it was a distressing and very tough meeting—I heard from two distraught parents who lost their son after he got trapped in a debt cycle trying to repay four loans. For too long, we have seen payday lenders exploiting those who can least afford their finance. There is no place for predatory lending. We should have credit products that are safe and reasonable, but this is a government that protects not young Australians but the loan sharks that prey upon them. Worse still, on top of this, when you don't protect casual workers, when you cut JobKeeper early, when you make people raid their superannuation, when you limit options for financial support, you are actually driving desperate people to predatory payday lenders that are preying upon them. This is wrong. Enough is enough. End predatory payday lending now. Macleay Landcare Network Inc., Raeburn, Mr Bruce 99 13:51 Mr CONAGHAN 279991 Cowper I'd like to highlight the efforts of the Macleay Valley Landcare group and, in particular, one Landcare member's goal to rehydrate the landscape. Bruce Raeburn owns about 800 acres of cattle country at Moparrabah, which is just near Kempsey in my electorate. I walked across Bruce's property on Friday with about 10 other Landcare members and some of his neighbours. For more than 10 years, Bruce has worked to improve his property's creek catchment. He's planted native trees and shrubs in strategic places along the creek's bank. He's also built a riparian fence to keep the cattle out. Now the water flows slower and the water holes are deeper, which has improved fish life and biodiversity. Gradually, due to the water's slower flow, silt and gravel have been deposited into the creek bed, which has gradually raised its height. Bruce hopes that, in a flood, and in the future, the creek's waters will flow across his property—600 acres of flat property—which will water his pecan and poplar trees. Bruce's efforts have improved his own property. It now carries 300 breeders instead of 100 due to the pasture being improved. On a broader scale, Bruce hopes he's doing his bit to tackle the drying effects of climate change. Thank you, Bruce, for the tour across your property and for being so generous to share your knowledge through Landcare. COVID-19: Victoria 100 13:52 Mr WATTS 193430 Gellibrand I rise today to say thank you to Victorians. It's been hard to be a Victorian these past few months, and, frankly, if you weren't there, you wouldn't know what it's like—the dozens of members of my electorate who died in aged-care facilities; the social isolation and mental health toll of months of stringent health measures; children remote learning from home, and parents trying to do their day jobs beside them; and the devastating economic costs—jobs lost and businesses closed—that were compounded when the Morrison government cut JobKeeper payments to nearly 28,000 constituents in my electorate. But, as a state, we've achieved an incredible thing together. As Dr Norman Swan said today, 'I'm not aware of any place in the world that has done a second wave better than Victoria.' That's right, Vics do it better. I don't pretend that the state government hasn't made mistakes along the way. No-one does. And I don't agree with every decision that they've made about the response. When the decisions are this hard, reasonable people can disagree. But, like the overwhelming majority of Victorians, I'm thankful that this government ignored the cranks and the opportunists and listened to the health experts. Like the overwhelming majority of Victorians, I know that no-one wants to retain these stringent healthcare measures for a second longer than they are necessary to protect the health of Victorians and our economy. Victorians have crushed this second wave together, and along the way, they've given the big 'V' to the knockers and the doubters on the sidelines. Budget 100 13:54 Mr CONNELLY 282984 Stirling The Morrison government's 2020-21 budget and our emergency measures over the last year have been an economic lifeline to the nation. Just under 10,000 Stirling residents have received the coronavirus supplement. The $101 billion JobKeeper package is supporting 3½ million workers around the country, and 7,300 businesses in my electorate of Stirling, including Wayne from Cordingley's surf shop, Heidi from Cafe Collective, Nick and Anna from El Greco, and Andy from Perway Construction Services. But that was just phase 1, because we're now on the road to recovery. Over 101,000 Stirling residents will benefit from the tax cuts. Twenty-four thousand, three hundred businesses will now benefit from the stratospheric boost to the instant asset write-off, and the 15½ thousand Stirling residents who got the initial $750 payment will also get a further $250 in December and another in March next year. Forty-five million dollars is going towards the Stirling bus exchange. An additional $17½ million is going to the Stephenson Avenue extension. And just under $10 million is going to the City of Stirling to support local roads and projects. This was possible because we entered this crisis with the first balanced budget in 11 years, compared to being burdened with another $387 billion had Labor got in. Broadband 100 13:55 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie This government has created a disaster with the NBN in Kent Street, Bullaburra. For one resident, Angelo, the NBN node is 300 metres from his home, but that isn't the node that he or his neighbours are connected to. In a saga of trying to end the dropouts of his fibre-to-the-node service—a technology that should never have been rolled out in the Blue Mountains or Hawkesbury—Angelo has had five contractors sent out by NBN to try and fix it. Two different technicians have told him he's connected not to a node 300 metres away but to one 2,000 metres away. That's two kilometres! What he needs now is to change to the nearest node and put in a mini-node, but NBN won't approve it. And now Angelo is being told the approval could take up to six months. In the meantime, he and his wife have no internet. They're using mobile data. He can send and receive some emails, but he can't do zoom or videoconferencing. And that is a deal-breaker when you're trying to run a small business from home. This community shouldn't be on fibre to the node, and they should be a priority for a fibre upgrade. From North Richmond to Kurrajong Hills, from Freemans Reach and Wilberforce across to Pitt Town and McGraths Hill, from Lawson to Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains, they have a second-rate NBN, thanks to the Morrison government. My electorate shouldn't have satellite in areas 65 kilometres from the city. And wireless was never going to work. This is a Morrison mess! Education: Work Experience, Thyrd, Harrison 101 13:57 Mr ENTSCH 7K6 Leichhardt Last week, I had the pleasure of hosting a work experience student from St Andrew's Catholic College in Cairns, young Harrison Thyrd. He's in year 10 and is an aspiring politician. Harrison certainly picked the right week to attend work experience with me, as the Prime Minister joined us in Cairns. Not only did Harrison get to feel what life would be like as a politician; he also got to attend numerous media events and community meetings with me throughout the week. As we're all aware, school is not the same as the working world, and I believe we have an obligation to young people in our electorates to provide them with the experience necessary to help them enter the workforce. These critical skills, including teamwork, communication and cooperation, are amongst many other common skills required in the current and ever-changing workforce. Having work experience as part of the curriculum in schools is vital, to ensure that our students acquire introductory experience in their desired careers. It also assist students who are unsure of their future pathway to attempt avenues. In addition, undertaking work experience in year 10 assists students in choosing their subjects in senior years, a decision that will likely impact on them for the rest of their lives. It was an absolute pleasure to host Harrison. I'd encourage all members of this place to take the opportunity to host school students in their electorates. Multiculturalism, Abetz, Senator Eric 101 13:58 Mr GILES 243609 Scullin Australia is a vibrant multicultural society. Our diversity is our greatest strength. And we live in a democracy in which every citizen is equal. This is fundamental to who we are. However, last week, three Chinese Australians, all born in this country, had their loyalty to Australia questioned by a government senator. This is a disgrace. We cannot accept the loyalty or indeed the value of some Australians being questioned by reason of their ethnicity. The behaviour of Liberal Senator Abetz towards his fellow Australian citizens is nothing short of appalling. All political leaders have a responsibility to promote an inclusive community, not to divide—especially now. Chinese Australians are Australians. We shouldn't have to spell this out. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister said that Australia's Chinese community had been 'magnificent' in their response to the pandemic. He was right then. But now, while Labor stands with the Chinese Australian community and every Australian, why won't the Prime Minister condemn Senator Abetz's treatment of these Chinese Australians? The SPEAKER 00APG In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded. MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS 101 MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS 14:00 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I inform the House that the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs will be absent from question time today and for the remainder of the week. The Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure will answer questions on his behalf as the acting minister. The Minister for Education will be absent from question time today and tomorrow, and the Minister for the Environment will answer questions on his behalf. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 101 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Child Care 101 14:00 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston My question is to the Prime Minister. Under the childcare scheme the Prime Minister personally designed, the childcare subsidy is capped for families with a combined income of more than $189,000. Why does the Prime Minister consider families with a combined income of over $189,000 rich? 14:01 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook The reheat of the former Leader of the Opposition's rhetoric in this place, seeking to introduce class wars again, is of no great surprise. Our government has always believed that, when you're applying support across the Australian community, that should be means-tested. The program that we designed to put in place to support families across the Australian population was means-tested. The other thing we do is we ensure that, when we means-test these arrangements, we target it to those who need it most, and that is those on low and middle incomes. That is where our childcare support, which runs to $9.2 billion per year, is designed to help those who need it most. So we can target that support to where it is most needed. That is how you responsibly run a budget. You target your support. You target the challenges that are there to ensure that it has the greatest impact. That's what we do. Right across the government services, we means-test any number of services that are provided across the community and we will continue to do that. But I'll tell you what we do for all Australians: we give all Australians lower taxes. Whether you're on a higher income or a lower income, we believe all Australians work hard and we don't tell them how to spend their money, because they earned it. When they earn it, we want them to keep more of it. Last time we were in this place, the Leader of the Opposition made a whole bunch of promises totalling up billions of dollars and he wouldn't tell Australians how they'd pay for it. We found out soon after that, once again, the Leader of the Opposition wants to say to those Australians, for whom in this place we have made more tax cuts for them so they can keep more of what they earn, that this leader of the Labor Party, just like the last one, can't wait to get his hands on their money by taking away their tax cuts. Budget 102 14:03 Mr YOUNG 201906 Longman My question is to the Prime Minister: Will the Prime Minister outline to the House how the Morrison government's plan for economic recovery is delivering support for Australian business, especially small and medium businesses, to create more jobs and drive our economic recovery from the COVID recession? 14:04 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank the member for Longman for his question. It was great to be with him last week up in Queensland. And right across Queensland, I found—as indeed is the case right across the country—that the budget that the Treasurer delivered here the week before last has been extremely well received right across the country, so much so that, off the back of the budget that Australia needed and the budget that has been delivered for all Australians, confidence surged 12 per cent in October to its highest level in more than two years. Bill Evans, the well-known chief economist who is respected all around the country, said: This is an extraordinary result… Such a development must be attributable to the response to the October Federal Budget… He said: There was a stunning lift in confidence around job security. And that's what the budget, that was released by the Treasurer in this place, was designed to do and is already doing, but it wasn't just that. When I was in Queensland I went up to Caboolture Crash Repairs, in the member for Longman's electorate. I had the opportunity to meet Ian Wust. Ian has a small smash repairs business there with some 22 staff. Sadly, on the day before we announced JobKeeper he had already decided to let four of his employees go. He'd written the letter and he was going to lay them off the next day. The next day the Treasurer and I announced the government's decision on JobKeeper. Not only have those four young Australians still got their jobs, but he's also been able to keep in place all of his other staff. Since JobKeeper was introduced he has employed a fitter named Aliyah and one detailer, Darren Briggs. He's put jobs in place and kept jobs in place for young men and young women working in his business. That was a game changer. The other thing I learnt from Ian is his business has graduated from JobKeeper and he no longer needs it. He will no longer be needing it. He's paying all his staff. He's moving forward like so many other businesses. They're graduating out of JobKeeper as a result of the economic plan that our government has set out. Our plan is not to keep businesses dependent on the government. Our plan is to ensure those businesses can grow beyond the need of support by the government. The opposition wants to keep them cocooned by government. We want them to be able to go out there and build their businesses again, which those businesses are doing. Those opposite mightn't understand that but we do, and that's why the budget has been so well received by Australians all across the country. It's given them the confidence to plan for their future. Child Care 102 14:07 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that for many Australian families if the second income earner goes to work for the fourth or fifth day in the week they lose money because of the childcare scheme he designed? How did the Prime Minister rack up $1 trillion of Liberal debt and still not fix his childcare scheme, which holds Australian parents back from working extra days? 14:07 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook The childcare support that we put in place is some $9.2 billion a year. From the time we redesigned the scheme the cost of childcare, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, fell by just over three per cent. The level of labour force participation rose to record levels, and, in particular, labour force participation amongst women was raised to record levels. The gender pay gap fell to record lows. That was the impact of the childcare changes that we put in place. The member asks questions about what it means for Australians who want to go to work for that extra day and earn a bit more money. I'll tell you that the tax plan that we brought into this parliament, that we took to the last election, said to Australians—in particular earning just as much as $45,000 a year—that they would never have to see bracket creep in their lives ever again and that they would pay a rate of tax of no more than 30 cents in every extra dollar they earn. That's what we went to the last election on. That's what was supported by the Australian people. The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order. Mr Burke DYW The point of order is on direct relevance. The question asks about the impact of working a fourth or fifth day on a childcare centre. Both parts of the question refer specifically to that and I ask the Prime Minister be relevant to it. The SPEAKER 00APG Yes, but there was more to the question than just that. I think the Manager of Opposition Business would have a point if it didn't have the political commentary— An honourable member interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG I'm not going to repeat it. Even withstanding that, I think the Prime Minister's in order when he's talking about affordability. But when questions have those taglines on it does open it up. The Prime Minister. Mr MORRISON E3L Thank you, Mr Speaker. Under the tax plan that was supported by the Australian people at the last election, which was legislated in this parliament—with much back and forth from the opposition, who were for it and against it and for it and against it—Australians know they can trust the government when it comes to managing the economy. They know they can trust the government. They know that, when we say we want to ensure people keep more of what they earn, we will follow through on that. We legislated that here in this parliament, and Australians know that for every extra dollar they earn they'll get taxed less on it by our government than they would by the Labor Party. That's what they can have confidence about—the more effort they put in the more they'll be able to succeed. Ms Coker interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Corangamite. Mr MORRISON E3L Already, the Leader of the Labor Party has in his sights taking back the hard-earned earnings of Australians earning as little as $45,000 a year. Ms Butler interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Griffith. Mr MORRISON E3L He wants to take their tax cut off them—because you know that, when Labor want to spend, they always want to tax. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Eden-Monaro and the member for Whitlam. As we have more people in the chamber and the interjections are more frequent and loud, I'll deal with them in the normal way. The member for Flynn. Infrastructure 103 14:11 Mr O'DOWD 139441 Flynn My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development. Will the Deputy Prime Minister please inform the House how the Morrison-McCormack government's plan for jobs is supporting regional Australia, particularly my state of Queensland, through the continued rollout of infrastructure? 14:11 Mr McCORMACK 219646 Riverina I thank the member for Flynn for his question. Before he came into this place he was a fuel distributor for 20 years. His trucks rumbled along the Bruce Highway. They rumbled along the dirt roads. They rumbled along the bitumen roads. Rest assured, we're building better and safer roads and the member for Flynn is having something to do about that. He was a publican. He was a timber and hardware merchant. He knows how to employ people. He knows the value of small business. He contributes mightily to this place and continues to speak up for and on behalf of the small businesses in his electorate and for regional Queensland. The Prime Minister and I were in regional Queensland last week. We didn't see the Leader of the Opposition there. We were out there talking about the budget. We were out there talking about jobs. We were out there talking about what makes the regions tick. And they were very delighted to see us. They were delighted with the Treasurer's budget, with $110 billion of infrastructure rollouts supporting 100,000 jobs. Whether it's the little pub in a far-flung corner of regional Queensland that is benefiting from a grader driver staying there because we are upgrading the roads, or somebody in a high-rise metropolitan office block doing the geotechnics for a particular road—perhaps the Bruce Highway—they are contributing to our $110 billion pipeline. The Gladstone port access road extension in the member's electorate is delivering jobs both direct and indirect. It is delivering investment and economic security for the Gladstone region, just like the member for Flynn did when he was a businessman. As I said before, an investment in infrastructure is an investment in small business, local industry and manufacturing. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Griffith is now warned. Mr McCORMACK 219646 How dare they interrupt me when I'm on fire about infrastructure! They should be listening. They should be cheering at home because we know, and the people in Central Queensland know, just how important this is. They haven't heard it from the member for Grayndler; he wasn't there. The Prime Minister and I were there. We were talking it up. All we hear from those opposite is negativity. They should be out talking about the local roads and community infrastructure in their own electorates. In the member for Flynn's electorate, that means there is $29.6 million for the eight local government areas. Mr Albanese interjecting— Mr McCORMACK 219646 Yes we did, member for Grayndler. Every single one of the 537 councils across Australia is benefiting. If you won't take it from me, ask them. They are benefiting. As I said, there is nearly $30 for the eight councils in the member for Flynn's electorate. They will be able to upgrade roads, put a lick of town on the town hall, get on with it and employ people. That's what the member for Flynn knows— (Time expired) Child Care 104 14:14 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler My question is to the Prime Minister. Since this government came to power in 2013, childcare costs have increased, on average, by $4,200 a year for Australian families, while wages have stagnated. Wages stagnating, going nowhere; childcare costs going up—does that make families better off or worse off? 14:15 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I will ask the Minister representing the Minister for Education to add to the answer. I simply note that, under Labor, childcare fees increased by 53 per cent, and since our package of changes to child care were introduced— Mr Albanese R36 Mr Speaker— Mr MORRISON E3L I've only been going for about 15 seconds—not even that! The SPEAKER 00APG I'll call the Leader of the Opposition if he wishes, but, in fairness— Mr Shorten interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Maribyrnong, I can tell, is back! Because there can only be one point of order on relevance, I was listening to the Prime Minister, with his preamble— Mr Albanese R36 Mr Speaker— The SPEAKER 00APG Okay. Alright. The Leader of the Opposition, on a point of order. Mr Albanese R36 This was a very specific question that went to the government that he leads, the childcare system that he designed—not to any previous government. It went to what he is responsible for, which is Australian families being worse off because of his childcare system. The SPEAKER 00APG As I've said before, the Prime Minister was only a few seconds into the answer and he was comparing and contrasting, and I'm sure he'd just done the first bit and he was about to move on. That's why I was listening carefully. The Prime Minister has the call. Mr MORRISON E3L And, Mr Speaker, you indeed perceived that correctly, because I was about to say that, once the reforms and changes we introduced into child care were implemented, the cost of child care, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, fell by over three per cent. It actually fell. So, when the reforms came in, with the design changes that were put in place, the costs actually fell by three per cent. And that's what they were designed to do—to take that pressure off, to ensure that they were targeted and that they were means tested so that, more broadly, with the other arrangements we as a government put in place to support families and hardworking Australians all across the country, we would continue to support them by ensuring that they paid lower taxes. That's what our government's been doing. But I'm happy for the minister to add to the answer. 14:17 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer What this government has done is make national decisions about families, in the national interest. And, yes, the cost of child care for families has come down. Child care has become more affordable. Our once-in-a-generation reforms have delivered a three per cent reduction in out-of-pocket costs for parents since our package was introduced, and, more importantly, they've increased female activity levels. This is really important. The proportion of female parents reporting more than 48 hours of activity per fortnight rose from 56 per cent before the introduction of our package to 63 per cent in November last year. Managing a budget and managing the interests of families are difficult decisions that this government has made well. We did it this way: we had a Productivity Commission review, we took the advice of the Productivity Commission and we implemented the recommendations through the parliamentary process. That review recommended that means-tested and targeted funding be applied to child care and that a childcare safety net support those who need it. So it is means tested and targeted, with a childcare safety net to make sure that we support families who needed it. Labor's policy is lots of money for the top end of town. Opposition members interjecting— Ms LEY 00AMN Labor has baked in $6 billion for child care over the next four years, and I want to give you one example. A family— Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The minister will pause for a second. Ms Rishworth interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Kingston! The minister will pause for a second. I'm dealing with the levels of interjection. But what the minister can't do now—notwithstanding there are only 10 seconds left—is start talking about the opposition's policy, because that was not in the question. The Prime Minister of course did so by way of preamble, to lead into what the government's response had been. There was no question about what alternatives there were. The minister has the call. Ms LEY 00AMN Labor won't give a tax cut to a worker on $180,000 but they will give them $6,000 a year in subsidised child care. (Time expired) Defence Procurement 105 14:20 Mr WILKIE C2T Clark My question is to the Prime Minister. I have repeatedly called for the RAAF to use roll-on roll-off firefighting tank systems. For example, the US MAFFS system for C-130 Hercules aircraft is available, affordable and quickly deployed. In fact, this idea has now been embraced by the New South Wales government, which has accepted all 76 recommendations from the bushfire inquiry established after Australia's black summer, including that the Commonwealth work with the New South Wales Rural Fire Service to assess the feasibility of equipping our Hercules with such technology. So my questions to you, Prime Minister, are: does your government support this important recommendation? And will you direct the Air Force to immediately implement it? 14:20 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank the member for his question. I will ask the minister responsible to reply on behalf of the government. 14:20 Mr LITTLEPROUD 265585 Maranoa I thank the member for his question and his interest in this topic. It's important that we all understand that we have a nationally coordinated approach to the determination of the type of aircraft that is bought in this country for bushfires. That is determined by the experts, the fire commissioners from around the country, in terms of the suite of aircraft and the quantity that is required. The federal government has invested just under $26 million a year that will be indexed into the standing costs of those aircraft, to be there ready to go and any calls notice. But, effectively, it's important that we listen to the experts and the professionals and not politicians. COVID-19: Economy 105 14:21 Dr MARTIN 282982 Reid My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer please outline how the Morrison government's economic recovery plan is lowering taxes and providing jobs to help families through the challenges of COVID-19, particularly in my electorate of Reid? 14:21 Mr FRYDENBERG FKL Kooyong I thank the member for Reid for her question and acknowledge her prior professional experience as a psychologist working with children with autism and making a substantial contribution to our community in that regard. The member for Reid, like all members on this side of the House, understands that the budget was about one thing: creating more jobs across the Australian economy. In fact, it was about creating nearly one million new jobs in the coming years. We saw in the response to the budget that consumer sentiment increased by 11.9 per cent. We saw consumer confidence increase for six consecutive weeks. The economic recovery across the economy is underway, but there is still a long way to go. In this budget, which was all about creating jobs, we were doing so by tax cuts. We're doing this by: bringing forward by two years the stage 2 tax cuts, supporting more than 11½ million Australian workers; providing two additional $250 payments to pensioners, carers, veterans and others on income support; backing business, recognising that eight out of every 10 jobs across the economy are in the private sector, by providing an expanded instant asset write-off, which allows business to write off machinery and equipment all in year one, and by a loss carry back measure, which will be important for previously profitable businesses that became lossmaking during COVID. We are also bringing forward infrastructure projects, cutting red tape and investing in research and development. While I was in the electorate of Reid the other week, I had the opportunity to visit a local business—a business that is well known to Sydneysiders—Pasticceria Papa in Five Dock. They have an amazing story. Salvatore came to this country and set up a business with just one staff member. Today he is employing more than 170 staff. When COVID hit he saw his revenue and his turnover fall substantially, and he relied on JobKeeper to keep those staff employed. Now that the virus has been suppressed, people are coming back through the door and those jobs are back so he no longer needs JobKeeper. This is the success story across Australia, as we've built the bridge to the other side of this crisis. I can testify to that baked ricotta cheesecake, like so many other Australians, but it's really what Salvatore is doing for so many of his workers and so many other businesses across Australia. JobKeeper has helped them get to the other side so that we can rebuild our economy and secure Australia's economic future. Child Care 106 14:25 Mr DAVID SMITH 276714 Bean My question is to the Prime Minister. Under the Prime Minister's current childcare scheme, a family with a police officer working full time and a retail worker on three days a week with two children in child care would be no better off if the retail worker took on an extra day of work. Why won't the Prime Minister support Labor's working family childcare boost? 14:25 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer It's always interesting to paint a cameo where all the circumstances are not known, but there are important points we need to make about our childcare policy that may have been missed by members of the opposition. Top of the list is that 72 per cent of families pay no more than $5 per hour in day care centres, and within that subset 24 per cent pay no more than $2 per hour. What we have done is get the balance right between the importance of early education and care—often a significant location for that to be provided is the childcare centre—and affordability is key for those families. On the other end of the spectrum, for example, under Labor's proposal, under the Leader of the Opposition's proposal, for two children for 30 hours of care a week, a family on $1 million would get $28,000 a year from the taxpayer. We're proud to say that that's a challenge. So we've said that those families can afford child care. Labor has simply lifted the lid. Mr Albanese R36 Mr Speaker— The SPEAKER 00APG Has the minister concluded? Ms LEY 00AMN Yes, Mr Speaker. The SPEAKER 00APG The minister has concluded her answer. Mr Albanese R36 Mr Speaker— The SPEAKER 00APG You don't have the call, but, as you are well aware, you can address the matters you are seeking to address at the end of question time. Budget 106 14:27 Mrs McINTOSH 281513 Lindsay My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline to the House how the Morrison government's plan for jobs is helping business to get back on its feet, particularly in my electorate of Lindsay? 14:27 Mr FRYDENBERG FKL Kooyong I thank the member for Lindsay for her question and note her experience in the not-for-profit sector before coming to this place and being a great advocate for the people of Lindsay. The member for Lindsay, like those on this side of the House, understands that the Australian economy has been hit by a once-in-a-century economic shock, which we have responded to with unprecedented levels of support. JobKeeper is a $101 billion program that, in the words of the Governor of the Reserve Bank, is a 'remarkable' program that has been supporting more than 3½ million workers. The JobSeeker coronavirus supplement has helped cushion the blow. The cash flow boost of $32 billion has been supporting small and medium-sized businesses across the country. And there have been two $750 payments to veterans, to carers, to pensioners and others on income support. We recognised in this budget that we needed to transition to the next stage of our economic recovery plan, and that's why we put in place tax cuts for more than 80,000 taxpayers in the honourable member's electorate. That's why we are supporting investment in infrastructure projects as well as supporting businesses to write off major purchases of equipment and machinery. That's why we are also supporting apprentices, with $1.2 billion to help the hiring of 100,000 new apprentices across the country by providing a wage subsidy of up to 50 per cent. And that is why we have put in place the JobMaker hiring credit, to help support 450,000 jobs for young people aged 16 to 35 who may have been unemployed in one of the last three months. When I went to the honourable member's electorate of Lindsay, I had the opportunity to go to a manufacturing business—SpanSet manufacturing, with Kristian and more than 50 employees—that is making important safety equipment for construction sites. I also met with Frank, who runs a crane company with more than a hundred staff. In the cases of both Frank and Kristian, they relied on JobKeeper to keep their employees in place. But, now with the economic recovery underway and now with the business coming back to them and their doors being open, as the virus has been suppressed, they no longer need to rely on JobKeeper. This is the story right around the country. This is the story right around the country of the government's support for businesses—small, medium and larger sized businesses—and more than 3½ million workers across the country. We have built that bridge to help them get to the other side of this virus. COVID-19: Economy, Child Care 107 14:30 Mr GORMAN 74519 Perth My question is to the Prime Minister. Bec from Perth is a solicitor and mum of two who works three days a week because she says working four days a week left her worse off under the Prime Minister's childcare scheme. Bec's family has a combined income of $193,000. Why did the government rack up a trillion dollars of Liberal debt but do nothing to help women like Bec get ahead by taking on extra hours during the Morrison recession? 14:30 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I am asked about why the government has increased the debt at this time. That was the question I was just asked. I was asked about child care, and I have given answers already about child care— Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG Members on my left, I am about to start ejecting people. As is the case with so many questions, there was more than one question asked. If you want the Prime Minister or a minister to focus on the question you deem most important, don't ask more than one in the question. Mr MORRISON E3L I was asked about child care. Under our policy, 84 per cent of families are not impacted by the caps in our policy, and the threshold kicks in at about $350,000 a year for a family. They're the caps that kicked in for our policy. Our policy is means tested. That is our policy that we put in place, and it saw childcare costs come down since then. But I'm asked why we have made the investments that we have. The Leader of the Opposition often makes this point. I will tell you why we have invested at this time: because there is a COVID-19 pandemic that has stripped jobs and livelihoods—and, in many cases, lives—away from Australians. This might be a mystery to the Leader of the Opposition. I've heard how he talks about the recession. If you don't understand how the country got into recession, then you don't have a clue about how to get out of it. That is the failing of this Leader of the Opposition. This Leader of the Opposition walks around this country as if there has never been a pandemic. The SPEAKER 00APG The Manager of Opposition business? Mr Burke DYW I have a point of order on direct relevance. I think it is a pretty long bow to have him still in order at this point. The SPEAKER 00APG You might think that, but I do take very careful note of the questions. I take my own notes, and if you think I heard something different, now is the time to stand up, but what I've got here is: 'Why did the Prime Minister rack up a trillion of Liberal debt, and talk about the Morrison recession.' So, if it's in the question, you can't really expect me to insist that it not be referred to. Mr MORRISON E3L This is why the Australian public do not trust the Labor Party, when it comes to whether times are good or times are bad. Times are difficult at the moment, and the budget that was handed down by the Treasurer was the budget that Australians need, and it is a budget for all Australians. It's a budget that has given Australians hope and has given Australians confidence. It is a budget that says that Australians should be able to keep more of what they earn, and that businesses who are going to employ people, particularly young people—who have been hit four times harder through this pandemic recession, and we need to get them back into work as quickly as possible. But still the Labor Party baulk at that. The Leader of the Labor Party will have it each way on every single issue, and that's why the Australian people don't trust him. Even those on his own side don't trust him. He can't go to Queensland; they won't have him up there. And the member for Hunter won't travel all the way from Maitland to Newcastle to stand behind the— The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister is now straying from the question. COVID-19: Employment 108 14:34 Ms BELL 282981 Moncrieff My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business. Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison government is creating the right conditions for small businesses to grow and create jobs as part of our economic recovery plan from the COVID recession? 14:35 Mrs ANDREWS 230886 McPherson I thank the member for her question. We both know how important small businesses are. On the Gold Coast, it is well known that we are the small business capital of Australia. But there are many small businesses right across Australia, and some of those businesses have been doing it particularly tough over the last few months. That's why our support measures have been such a lifeline to those small businesses. We hear it over and over—that JobKeeper has allowed businesses to remain afloat. Our government know that small businesses are in fact the engine room of our economy and they are the real job creators that we need to drive our recovery from COVID. That's why our budget is all about getting the economic conditions right. We need to make sure that we have the right conditions in place so that our small businesses can grow, because when they grow they employ more people and that is exactly what we want them to do and that is exactly what this budget is about. Over the last week I've had the opportunity to visit many small businesses across South-East Queensland, and they have welcomed the initiatives in the budget. Some are taking on new apprentices. Others are expanding due to the instant asset write-off. Others kept their staff during the crisis due to JobKeeper and are now on their feet and expanding and no longer need JobKeeper. They're employing new workers. This is exactly what we want to see and exactly how our budget has helped small businesses right across Australia. It is very obvious that businesses are now energised, and they are determined to make the most of our initiatives—the instant asset write off, wage subsidies for those who need them, the loss carried forward to keep those who have been impacted afloat, skills investment, more support for research and development, better access to digital technology and of course our modern manufacturing strategy. As COSBOA, the representative organisation for small businesses, have said: … this is the budget we needed to have and there are some great things in it for small business people. They have recognised that this is an important next step in developing ways to adapt to the new world in which we find ourselves. Our businesses have been incredibly adaptive during the challenges that they have faced this year, and that's why the wisest investment that we as a government can make is in measures to support small businesses, because they are the engine room of our economy. Child Care 108 14:38 Ms MURPHY 133646 Dunkley My question is to the Prime Minister. Cecilia is a mum of four who works as a personal carer in an aged-care facility in Mount Eliza. Cecilia says she can't afford to put her youngest daughter in child care and might have to give up her job. Why is the Prime Minister making it harder for aged-care workers to go to work because of the childcare scheme he personally designed? 14:38 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer I thank the member for Dunkley for her question and for her support for the constituents of the Dunkley, and I make it very clear, through her, to those constituents that the government has had the interests of the people of Dunkley at heart throughout the pandemic that Victoria is experiencing. This is one of the reasons why we have extended special help to Victorian childcare centres and Victorian families throughout this pandemic. If I were measuring the success of the childcare system, I would look at a couple of things. I would look at whether the system itself is operating, whether operators have jobs, whether centres remain open, whether parents have access to affordable child care, whether out-of-pocket costs are going down and whether affordability is a key priority. I can tell you that this government ticks every single box. I can reassure the constituents of Dunkley and indeed all of Australia that we have done this properly. We have done this well—unlike the Labor Party, who have waffled on about, 'In the first term of a Labor government we might have an investigation and we hope we might one day get to 90 per cent, but we don't know because we are not actually coming out with anything solid or anything concrete, even though we've had a long time.' Mr Albanese interjecting— Ms LEY 00AMN Well, you said— Opposition members interjecting— Ms LEY 00AMN Yes, so what we've had to do is estimate this policy based on the Leader of the Opposition's words. But it's really, really important— The SPEAKER 00APG The minister needs to pause. No part of the question asked for anything to do with the opposition's policy or alternative policies. Ms LEY 00AMN Thank you, Mr Speaker. The childcare subsidy is means tested. We're proud of that principle. We believe that people who earn more should pay more. The childcare subsidy is means tested to ensure that those who earn the least receive the highest level of subsidy, up to 85 per cent. Importantly, we have a generous safety net designed to provide higher subsidies to families who are experiencing financial difficulties. We've approached this in a way that uses the Productivity Commission's recommendation, that introduces means tested and targeted child care, that puts a safety net for families in place, and that recognises the unique experiences in the pandemic and looks after every single worker and educator and family in that system. Gas Industry 109 14:40 Mr SIMMONDS 282983 Ryan My question is the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison government's plan for jobs includes a gas led recovery that will deliver the reliable and affordable energy that we need to come out the other side of the COVID recession? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches? 14:41 Mr TAYLOR 231027 Hume I thank the member for Ryan for his question. As someone who grew up in a small-business family, he knows how important affordable, reliable energy is for small businesses, as well as households and manufacturing, right across Australia. A gas-fired recovery is a key part of our JobMaker Plan, ensuring Australia is strong coming out of the coronavirus pandemic. Our competitive advantage as a nation has always relied on affordable energy, and we're taking action in three key areas to ensure that gas is delivered to Australians at the right place, the right time and at the right price as well. Those three areas are unlocking supply. As we've seen with the Narrabri project recently, the New South Wales government— Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Rankin! The member for McMahon! The member for McMahon will cease interjecting. Mr TAYLOR 231027 The New South Wales government has approved the Narrabri project: efficient transportation and pipelines empowering customers, making sure Australian gas is working for Australians. Gas is a critical enabler of our economy: 850,000 manufacturing jobs in this country. That includes crucial goods like fertiliser for food for Australians and people right around the world. PPE, from plastics, comes from gas. There's a lot of support for our plan. Business NSW has said it is a 'welcome boost' for business. Chemistry Australia says it will 'support the continued viability of Australian manufacturing'. Even the AWU has said of our plan, 'Anybody who wants to see an Australian manufacturing jobs boom should back it.' Even some members opposite understand that gas is central to delivering affordable, reliable energy—but only some. The member for Hunter loves gas. In response to our plan, he said, 'Hallelujah,' it's a 'win-win all around' and it 'will put downward pressure on energy prices'. But it seems that, on that side, if you like gas you get sidelined. Just last week, the Leader of the Opposition was in the Hunter Valley with all of his Hunter Valley favourites. The member for Newcastle was there, the member for Shortland was there—he was taking time out from 'running around the countryside supporting the Greens', as the CFMEU has put it. Mr Speaker, you'll be surprised to know that the one person who wasn't there was the member for Hunter. And who could blame him? The truth is: the Leader of the Opposition is paralysed by division and indecision when it comes to gas. While they're focused on themselves, we're getting on with delivering affordable, reliable energy. Child Care 109 14:44 Ms KEARNEY LTU Cooper [by video link] My question is to the Prime Minister. Liz from Reservoir works as a software professional. She and her partner together earn $200,000 and are paying $25,000 a year out of pocket for child care. Liz says she can't go for promotions at work because she would be expected to work more hours and would lose money paying for more child care. Why is the government holding back women like Liz from taking on extra responsibility at work? 14:44 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank the member for her question. As I have already remarked to the House, and as the minister has also explained to the House, the childcare subsidy program that was put in place by this government, that was changed by this government from that which we'd inherited under the previous Labor government that saw childcare costs increase by 50 per cent, resulted in more women in the workforce and the gender pay gap reducing to its lowest level. That's what occurred as a result of the changes that we made to child care that ensured that childcare costs, out-of-pocket expenses, fell by over three per cent after the design changes went in—that's what they were designed to do—means tested to ensure that those who needed them most—those on lower incomes and those who were disadvantaged in other ways—would get 85 per cent rebates back, and there would be no more limits on those who were on those low to middle incomes, up to a combined household income of around $350,000. That's what our program is delivering. Our program is targeted and designed to support women in particular get back into work and to be able to earn more, and that's what the facts demonstrate. But the other thing that has been helping not only women in the workplace but men as well is the fact that, under our government, they pay less tax. Under our government, the more they earn, we're not penalising them. We're allowing Australians to keep more of what they earn. We took that to the last election. The Australian people endorsed it. They endorsed the fact that those earning $45,000 should not pay any more than 30c in the dollar in tax, and we brought that into this place and we legislated it, and now we know the Labor Party want to claw it back off of them. They are not being upfront with the Australian people about this. What you know is: when you hear— The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order. Mr Burke DYW On direct relevance, Mr Speaker: this question doesn't refer to a trillion dollars of Liberal debt; this question doesn't refer to a Morrison recession— The SPEAKER 00APG The Manager of Opposition Business makes a fair point of order. It didn't ask for alternatives or have, can I say, the range of topics of some previous questions. The Prime Minister has the call. Mr MORRISON E3L Mr Speaker, I was simply making the point that all Australians, men and women, benefit from the tax cuts that Australia has now in place, and legislated for the future, as a result of the bold tax plan that was introduced by the Treasurer and legislated in this parliament. All I know is: the more you hear Labor spend, the more you hear them tax you. Vocational Education and Training 110 14:47 Mr THOMPSON 281826 Herbert My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business. Will the minister outline how the Morrison government's plan for jobs is supporting a skilled workforce to drive the economic recovery by investing in training and apprenticeships? 14:48 Mrs ANDREWS 230886 McPherson Before I answer that question, on behalf of every member of this place can I thank the member for Herbert for his service to our nation in his previous role. I understand that today is his 'Alive Day' and marks 11 years since he was badly injured by an IED in Afghanistan. Overcoming such adversity and going on to be an absolute champion for his local community in this place is a testament to his character. He stands up for his constituents, and I'm very proud to have him as a colleague. I of course thank him for his question today, and I know that he's also very passionate about apprenticeships and traineeships, and, specifically, opportunities to support people in North Queensland, and particularly those school-leavers who will graduate, will finish school, next month. The good news is that anyone looking to enter a trade or to continue vocational education now has more support and choice than ever before, because, from the start of this health and economic crisis, we've been backing our apprentices and our trainees, to make sure that they stay in work and training through our Supporting Apprentices and Trainees wage subsidy. This wage subsidy provides support for about 180,000 apprentices and trainees across 90,000 businesses. It's been essential to help keep young Australians in employment, and it's ensuring we retain the skilled workers we need to drive our economic recovery. But we know that more apprentices are needed to drive that recovery, and that's why, in the budget this year, we provided an extra $1.2 billion to support 100,000 new apprenticeship commencements. Employers will be eligible for up to half the wages for a new or recommencing apprentice or trainee until the end of September next year. This means more opportunity for jobseekers and for our young workers about to enter the workforce during this incredible period of uncertainty. Of course, we're also backing those older Australians who want to reskill, with our dedicated incentive to encourage adult apprenticeships, and there are currently more than 70,000 apprentices aged 25 to 45 and 15,000 apprentices aged over 45. In fact, when the Prime Minister was on the Gold Coast last week, at Neumann Steel in my electorate, he actually met an apprentice who had just become a grandfather. Neumann Steel is a fantastic manufacturing business. They currently employ six apprentices and envisage taking on more. We have a real plan for Australia's economic recovery. (Time expired) Child Care 111 14:51 Mr BURNS 278522 Macnamara My question is to the Prime Minister. Dominique from Port Melbourne works in the higher education sector. She says that half of her pay after tax goes straight to child care for her two children, which is almost the same as the family's weekly mortgage payment. Why did the Prime Minister design a childcare scheme in which fees are so expensive that they cost almost as much as a family's mortgage? 14:51 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer Can I thank the member for Macnamara for his question and remind him and the families that he represents of the $900 million that we have particularly dedicated to communities in Victoria when it comes to accessing child care. It's very important that those high-quality early learning and care centres are open at the other side of this pandemic. It's vitally important that the educators are supported, as they are, by JobKeeper, and it's vitally important for the constituents and the families that rely on child care that we as a government care about tax cuts, that we care about giving them back more of their money, that we care about affordability. That's why, when we designed the childcare system over two years ago, we had that very much in mind. We recognised that workforce participation was vital, and, as I said, that was part of the reforms that we had in mind. Our tax cuts reinforce these benefits for families because they recognise that there are women who don't have children, that there are women who choose childcare outside the system, and that there are mums and dads who stay at home, and that's why our tax cuts are supporting those families. The advantage is that they don't impose choices on families. I just want to mention that, side by side with the early education and care system that we introduced following the reforms in 2018, and make the point, as I have done previously—but Labor doesn't seem to be listening to it—that what we have done is deliver a 3.2 per cent reduction in out-of-pocket costs. What we have done is introduce a means tested model, because we recognise that these are difficult decisions for families and we should support them in the best way possible, but we should support families on middle and lower incomes for whom child care can be vital in the development of their children, and that's what we're doing with means testing. And remember that 84 per cent of all families never reach the childcare cap, so the vast majority of families are being extremely well supported by our government. Going back to female participation—I want to end on this point—in designing the system, of course female participation in the workforce was vital, so we are delighted that the proportion of female parents reporting more than 48 hours of activity a fortnight rose from 56 per cent prior to the introduction of the package to 63 per cent in November last year. We will continue to work with the wonderful people who are part of our early education and care system as we support them, their families and the people that the member represents. Budget 111 14:54 Dr ALLEN 282986 Higgins My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister please update the House on how the Morrison government is guaranteeing the essential services that Australians rely on through the provision of increased access to vital mental health services and support? 14:54 Mr HUNT 00AMV Flinders I want to thank the member for Higgins, who, as a nationally leading paediatric researcher, understands essential services and understands in particular that the provision of mental health is one of the most essential of services that Australia can provide. In particular, in any one year we know that mental health is a challenge for all of us in all of our electorates. Four million Australians have some form of mental health challenge. This year, of course, it has been harder than at any time since the Second World War. We have seen, in the four weeks just finished, a 31 per cent increase in Medicare mental health services in one state alone: in Victoria. We've seen a national increase of 14 per cent. Outside of Victoria that national average was balanced out by an eight per cent increase in New South Wales and a seven per cent average across the other six states. So what we can see is that there is a profound impact across the country, but in particular in Victoria at roughly four times the rate of growth of other states, and that's a significant and undeniable consequence that we all have to address, recognise and respond to. At the same time, when we look at the comparison of Kids Helpline we see a 31 per cent increase in Kids Helpline services in Victoria as opposed to other states and territories. We see a 77 per cent increase in Beyond Blue services in Victoria as opposed to the rest of the country. Against that basis what we've done is invested $5.7 billion in the budget, an increase of half a billion dollars, in mental health services to help meet these needs, to support these needs, to add to the capacity that's available. Telehealth, in particular, has been made available, with now well over 35 million services, of which we see that mental health is a very major component. In addition to that, what we've also seen, beyond telehealth, is the addition of $100 million for doubling the Medicare better access services in Australia for psychological support. Then in Victoria, where there's an additional need, there's $44 million which has been put over and above everything else, and that includes $17 million for services such as Beyond Blue and Kids Helpline to provide that support, to provide that belief that we can get through this most difficult of lockdowns in that state. What we see as well is that we've set-up, and we're operating, 15 new Head to Health clinics in Victoria—set-up over a period of three weeks. All of these things are helping to protect and support the mental health of Australians. Child Care 112 14:57 Ms CHESTERS 249710 Bendigo My question is to the Prime Minister. Lauren is a nurse from Bendigo and a mum of two who says she can only work two shifts per week because the cost of extra childcare is too high for her and her family. Why did the Prime Minister design a childcare system which holds back nurses in regional areas from taking on more work? 14:58 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook When the government designed the changes to our childcare system, which would see the amount of rebate for those on low and middle incomes rise to 85 per cent from where it was—a set of changes that saw the out-of-pocket expenses for childcare fall by over three per cent and saw the rate of female participation in the workforce increase and the gender pay gap fall to lows. When we put that proposal in a bill to this parliament the Labor Party actually opposed it. They opposed it. They didn't want to see those changes put in place. They wanted the previous system that they had run, which had been failing families. The Productivity Commission recommended that means testing remain an important part of this process. We took that advice and we put those arrangements in place. But we knew there was more that you've got to do to support Australian families and Australians working around this country. What you have to do is ensure that they get to keep more of what they earn by paying less tax. They need to work in an economy, particularly when it's been so hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic—a point that has completely mystified the Leader of the Opposition; he thinks the pandemic has played no role in the recession, none at all. He thinks it's all the product of government policies. He is the only person in the country who seems to think that is the case. But that demonstrates that, if you don't know how you got into a recession, you don't know how you get out, and that explains the Leader of the Opposition. That's why our policies have been about investing in, and getting all of these Australians back into, jobs—760,000 jobs coming back that have been lost during this COVID-19 pandemic recession, jobs that either have gone or were reduced to zero hours. Every single day through this crisis, our government has demonstrated that we've stood by the working people of this country, those who have lost their jobs and those who need to stay in their jobs. And, as I've moved around the country, particularly since the budget, I've seen that Australians understand that. They know that this government is doing everything it can to get Australians back into work and give them those opportunities, and that, as the budget plan—which is a recovery plan to come out of this COVID-19 recession—kicks over into building our economy into the future, whether it's in manufacturing or it's in the energy sector or many other sectors, it will get more and more people back into jobs. That's what's giving Australians hope and that's why there has been such a strong response from Australians to the budget that the Treasurer's handed down—because it is a plan for Australia to get out of this COVID-19 recession. That's what Australians needed. That's what Australians have got from this government. Budget 112 15:01 Mrs ARCHER 282237 Bass My question is to the Attorney-General. Will the Attorney update the House on how the Morrison government's budget is providing additional support for Australia's legal system to help people, particularly in family law proceedings, deal with the pressures of the COVID recession? 15:01 Mr PORTER 208884 Pearce I thank the member for her question and for her excellent work in advocating for funding in her electorate of Bass. I will be speaking about the $140 million worth of investment in Australia's legal system, but it's probably appropriate to start by saying that we were very pleased that, in the 2020-21 budget, we were able to provide $5.4 million in funding for the family law system, the Family Court and its registry. That's going to improve the security there, and the experience for all of the families in the member's electorate, and that funding would not have happened but for your advocacy, Member for Bass. That was part of the more than $140 million investment in the legal system that was announced in the 2020-21 budget, and much of that was directed to the family law system to improve the situation for Australians. The COVID-19 pandemic—as the Treasurer has noted, a once-in-a-generation economic shock—has put enormous pressure on Australian families right across the country, and, sadly, the consequences of that pressure are that at certain points families need more assistance from government services, not only court services directly but also services that aid the courts and, indeed, divert matters from the courts. It is notable that earlier this year, at the peak of the COVID crisis, we reacted immediately by providing an additional $63.3 million in funding for frontline legal services to respond to COVID-19. That included $20 million for matters involving family violence, and $13.5 million so that services could be delivered virtually and remotely. Whilst it wasn't without its stresses, the court system, with that extra funding, managed to cope very well, I think, during that period, and to help and support families. Then, in addition to that $63.3 million, in this budget there is $140 million worth of investment, and that includes, for instance, the provision of $87 million towards continuing family law services, which are critical at a time when families are dealing with the impacts of COVID. In fact, Family and Relationship Services Australia said: The reality of the funding commitment by the Government is that we can now keep our doors open and avoid significant job losses. This will see a collective sigh of relief from both those workers and the 100,000 Australians they help, who otherwise would not have been able to access family and relationship services … That additional funding goes right to services around the country, including those providing counselling to separating families. Also, in this budget, we've invested $35.7 million in our courts, with increased funding for the Federal Circuit Court. That will see matters resolved faster and more efficiently, including family law cases—that's four additional judges and five family law registrars. There's another $2.5 million supporting the Family Court and Federal Circuit Court to continue to operate their specialist national COVID-19 lists. So this was a budget which, apart from the very many large macroeconomic matters, focused in on families, particularly this area of family law and the Family Court. Child Care 113 15:04 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Isn't child care a productivity measure which boosts economic growth? 15:04 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook That is why the government invested $9.2 billion in our childcare changes that lifted female workforce participation to record levels, that reduced the gender pay gap in this country to lows. That is why we invested in it. That's why we put the changes in place. So the only question is: why did the Labor Party oppose it when we brought it into this place? Why would they do that? The design of the program, which was originally called Jobs for Families, was called that because it did just that. It got Australians into jobs. It got a record number of women into jobs. And I tell you what: we are a government that believes in getting Australians into jobs and we are a government that has demonstrated out. Before we hit the COVID-19 recession, which is a mystery to the Leader of the Opposition, 1.5 million Australians got back into work. They got off welfare and they got back into work. We had a 30-year low in the working-age population of Australians who were dependent on welfare. The reason why I believe that Australians have demonstrated such clear trust in our government during these difficult times is that they've seen us deal with the economic challenges that Australia has faced in the past. They've seen this government put in place policies that have got Australians back into work. They have seen this government get the budget back into balance by getting people off welfare and into work. So, when the crisis hit, our government could respond in the way we did, and we have responded in a way that Australia has never seen before. As a result of those actions, millions of Australians kept their jobs. Hundreds of thousands of businesses were able to keep on, just like Caboolture Crash Repairs up there in Caboolture. It is a business that was going to have to put workers off but has been able to keep workers on and employ more workers now in a smash repairs business that is now going forward. That's what our budget is doing. That's what our economic management is doing. Those opposite are not trusted by the Australian people on these issues, because their form is well understood. By contrast, they know— The SPEAKER 00APG The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business on a— Mr Burke DYW On direct relevance. There was nothing in the question about alternative policies. The Prime Minister shouldn't feel the need to look down on people at the end of every answer. The SPEAKER 00APG I don't need the commentary, but the substance of the point of order is correct. There was nothing about alternative policies and, as I was about to say, the Prime Minister is straying from the question. Mr MORRISON E3L Indeed, after the years the Leader of the Opposition has been in this role, I haven't seen an alternative policy yet that is anything to speak of that he can pay for. Employment 114 15:08 Mr CONAGHAN 279991 Cowper My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management. Will the minister outline how the Morrison-McCormack government's plan for jobs is supporting the Australian agriculture industry achieving its target of $100 billion in farm-gate output by 2030? 15:08 Mr LITTLEPROUD 265585 Maranoa I thank the member for Cowper for his question and acknowledge the contribution that the Cowper electorate will make towards agriculture's ambitious goal of $100 billion by 2030, and part of our budget was to clearly articulate our plan to support agriculture achieving that goal. It has seven key pillars in making sure we not only protect the 270,000 Australians who work in agriculture but grow more jobs in agriculture, particularly in rural and regional Australia. The first pillar is around exports and making sure we continue to invest in the modernisation of our export system, adding single-touch, getting the paperwork out of people's lives and making it more of a digital approach, getting rid of the 200,000 certificates that we issue in a paper based system and going back to just issuing them digitally, compromising nothing in terms of our biosecurity. There is a record $873 million spend in biosecurity to protect brand Australia. The stewardship of our land is the third pillar. We want to make sure we investigate ways to reward farmers for the stewardship of their land, and in fact there is an extra $14 million to explore soil carbon and the role farmers undertake in that. We are also looking at infrastructure. A key pillar of our agricultural plan is around investing in water—plumbing the nation and making sure we add the water. We will actually grow productivity. The story of agriculture is just to add water. On top of that, there is $1.3 billion in manufacturing, making sure that we look to go further through supply chains here in the agricultural sector, and also the roads. There's a billion dollars in roads, building on the connectivity and the rail right across this country, and getting our product to plate as quickly as possible. We're also looking at innovation, making sure that we're modernising our innovation systems and ensuring that there's more transparency on levy collectors and that those levies get back to the RDCs—the research and development—so that there's greater accountability and more money going back to research and development and investing in smarts. We're investing in our people. There's a significant investment in education, reducing the cost of agricultural courses by 62 per cent, to get the next generation of young people into agriculture. But we've also understood that there are pressures right here, right now—we have a shortage of seasonal workers. We've said to every Australian: these jobs must be market tested first. Australians get first crack at these. Up to $6,000 is being made available for travel costs, to get around this vast nation, to help us support farmers. We've also said to young Australians: this is your opportunity to lend a helping hand. We've said to them: we can accelerate your pathway to youth allowance. Go out and work in agriculture and earn $15,000 and you will accelerate to youth allowance. You will go to uni with money in your pocket for O week, and you will accelerate your way into youth allowance. Farmers have a real opportunity, after this prolonged drought, to make a real difference to our nation's economy. Now is the opportunity of every Australian to give a helping hand. (Time expired) Mr Morrison E3L Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper. DOCUMENTS 114 DOCUMENTS Presentation 114 15:11 Mr PORTER 208884 Pearce Documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings. Department of the House of Representatives, Parliamentary Budget Office, Australian National Audit Office 114 Presentation 114 15:11 The SPEAKER 00APG Pursuant to section 65 of the Parliamentary Service Act 1999, I present the annual reports for 2019-20 of the Department of the House of Representatives and the Parliamentary Budget Office. I also present a corrigendum to the annual report of the Australian National Audit Office for 2019-20. Ordered that the reports be made parliamentary papers. AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORTS 115 AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORTS Reports Nos 12 and 13 of 2020-2021 115 15:11 The SPEAKER 00APG I present the Auditor-General's Audit reports Nos 12 and 13 for 2020-2021. Details of the reports will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings. Documents made parliamentary papers in accordance with the resolution agreed to on 28 March 2018. PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS 115 PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS 15:12 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I wish to make a personal explanation. The SPEAKER 00APG Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? Mr ALBANESE R36 I do, Mr Speaker. The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the Opposition may proceed. Mr ALBANESE R36 During Question Time the Minister for the Environment made a number of comments about my speech in budget reply, where I announced Labor's working families childcare boost. The minister characterised that policy wrongly on each occasion, and, in addition, said at one stage that we didn't have a policy. Our policy is very clear: it's to remove the cap, increase the subsidy to 90 per cent, and it tapers off to $530,000. BUSINESS 115 BUSINESS Rearrangement 115 15:13 Mr BURKE DYW Watson I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020 being called on immediately and being given priority over all other business for passage through all stages on Monday, 19 October 2020, and if consideration of the bill has not concluded by 7.15 pm today, any necessary questions to complete consideration of the bill being put without delay. The government have been backgrounding all over the place that they have to get this bill through today. They put it in the papers that they have to get this bill through today, and then they walked out without trying to put the bill through today—doing absolutely nothing. They've got a media strategy, but no parliamentary strategy. So we're simply saying: we've been constructive the whole way through this crisis, and all the urgency is so that it can then get sent across to the Senate—which will not meet again for three weeks. But if that's the game they want to play, if they want to say, 'This is completely urgent and it must get through today,' but then not do anything about it, let's bring it on. Let's have the debate. Let's deal with the bill. Because they can't continue to just be running around the media gallery spreading information that is 100 per cent untrue. All the bluff, all the bravado that they were going to push this legislation through today, and then the moment question time's over, off they go. Nothing. Nothing about the bill at all—no attempt. You get the Notice Paper for what we're meant to be debating today, and guess what bill they never mentioned? Guess what's not on here at all. It's the same bill that they said they needed to get through today. An opposition member: It's the bill that dare not speak its name! Mr BURKE DYW That's right! The bill that's named Voldemort is what is in front of the parliament today. Never say its name out loud but go around the media gallery trying to grandstand and pretend that you're somehow reaching Labor. They're now off in the advisers' gallery working out whether they support their own bill being brought on. It's happening over there right now. They don't know whether or not to support a motion that would do what they've been telling the media has to happen today. They've got no idea across there. None of them know whether or not to support what they've been declaring all day must happen today. This morning they had their army out there on Sky News. They knew what to tell Sky News about the parliament. They'd done all their radio interviews. They knew what to tell the radio stations about the parliament. It was in the talking points, which get emailed around to say what needs to happen in the parliament. But they come to the parliament and they don't have a clue. They come to the parliament and they've got no idea. They're sitting on the front bench right now: do we support our legislation, or do we not support our legislation? This is really simple. Does anything you have said over the last few days count? Are you in fact in favour of what you've been advocating for? Were it not for Labor moving this motion, today would have come and gone and they wouldn't have had a clue whether they supported it or whether they opposed it. Today would have passed, but the bill would not have passed. So I say to those opposite: if you're going to tell the media that something has to happen today in the parliament, you need to do something about it. Legislation doesn't just magically waft through this place. Someone has to move it. Someone has to bring it on, and the legislation has to be dealt with. But they have spent their whole time— Opposition members interjecting— Mr BURKE DYW They still don't know! He's over there now: 'What to do I do? Do I support government legislation? Do I not support government legislation?' This wasn't about legislation; this was all about wedging the Labor Party. They thought: until it comes to the vote they can pretend that Labor doesn't support it; until it comes to the vote they can run a media line that somehow Labor doesn't want this legislation to happen. They have spent this day saying legislation had to get through today, but then they didn't bother to do anything about it. It's really simple: it's your legislation, and you're now the ones whose support it uncertain. There's now a motion for it to be put through today. Had this not been moved, it never would have happened. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 Is the motion seconded? 15:18 Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR 00AN3 Gorton The motion is seconded. The government has made very clear that this is a very important bill. In fact, it says it's critical for the economy, for businesses and for workers across the land. I was very surprised this morning when I woke to read in the newspapers the fact that this bill was being stopped by Labor, that Labor was not going to support this legislation being debated and passed through this chamber and being considered by the Senate. Of course, I thought: that's pretty ridiculous, because the Senate doesn't sit until November, so why would a story be running on the front pages of newspapers, suggesting that Labor would stop the debate and the enactment of a bill? What we've come to understand, since I woke to read that news in the papers, is that this is just spin. It's a stunt by those opposite to pretend they care about the issue. If they did care, if this were a matter of urgency, they would be agreeing to this motion. In fact, they would have introduced this bill into the House for debate today. They could have expedited it with the support of the opposition, and then we would have been able to allow the matter to proceed to the Senate. Let's be very clear about why we understand this to be a stunt. It's because, as anyone who follows the business understands, the Senate does not convene until November. The Senate cannot consider this bill. Nonetheless, we are ready and waiting to debate the bill that the government has been running around the gallery and telling the media they want to debate today. We understand. It's a bit like when we convened in March and the government had forgotten to have a wage subsidy policy. We asked the government, 'Do you want to have a wage subsidy policy for the economy?' To which the Prime Minister said, 'We don't need one.' They then had to reconvene the parliament and introduce JobKeeper. Now we have a situation where JobKeeper is going to be reduced in January and end in March and this is supposed to be the bill that's going to provide support for businesses from this month but particularly after March next year when JobKeeper ends. We believe that JobKeeper should have come in earlier, should have lasted longer for businesses in trouble and should have covered workers who've been excluded. The government has not chosen to do that. They have chosen, instead, to propose this proposition. We have some issues with the nature of this legislation. We want to debate it. We want to assist the government by providing support and advice as to how they could make this legislation better. We've very happy to have the debate today to discuss with the government in this chamber these important matters, but what we've realised is that we are all here in this chamber now but where is the government? Where is the Prime Minister? Where is the Treasurer? Where are those ministers who've been telling the media that this matter is a matter of urgency? If it is a matter of urgency then why are we not debating it? What is the minister at the table doing? Is he going to support this bill? Is he going to oppose this bill? Will we have a debate? The reality is this has been a stunt from the beginning. Briefing out to the media that it was an urgent bill while knowing the Senate doesn't convene until November shows this government is all about spin and not about substance. It's all about trying to play games instead of focusing on the needs of workers and businesses in this country. Frankly, we are here, waiting for the government to have a debate. We're waiting for the minister to commence the debate. We're happy to engage with them. Do you know what we're happy to do? We're happy to help them improve this legislation by providing advice as to how they could best support businesses and workers across the nation. There are some real issues around this bill we would like to discuss and debate today. We'd be more than ready to have that debate now. We're very happy, so, for those in the gallery who wrote those stories today or are on electronic media talking about the fact that Labor is holding up this legislation, be very clear now: the opposition is in the chamber waiting for the debate, and yet we don't have a minister to commence the debate on a bill that the government said must be debated today. That's the point. For those watching, what we understand now is that this Prime Minister is all about spin—shallow—all about playing games and not about focusing on the aspirations and needs of workers and businesses in this land. Today he has been exposed. He wants to play games. He doesn't want to focus on the needs of the economy. He doesn't want to look after workers or business. He should be ashamed of himself. 15:23 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler This is a government led by a marketing guy who spends more time working out what the slogan will be for any particular program than he does on how it will actually operate. I was actually surprised today that the childcare package he put together also had a slogan for a title—of course. During this program we've seen JobMaker, JobSeeker, JobTrainer, JobKeeper—they just roll off. They spend so much time on it, but what they didn't spend time on earlier this year was thinking through the fact that, if they doubled it Newstart without wage subsidies, they would send a signal to business that people could be laid off and the safety net would be there. So what happened? The queues formed outside Centrelink offices right around the country. At a time when Labor had put forward support for wage subsidies, they were opposed by this Prime Minister. This Prime Minister and this government said that they weren't necessary. In the lead-up to today, I was at a childcare centre with the shadow minister and the member for Bean this morning, and again I was asked: 'Is Labor going to hold up this legislation?' and I thought to myself, because I'd looked at the blue, 'They haven't even listed it for debate. So how do we hold something up that hasn't been listed?' I also pointed towards the fact that we have been constructive throughout this. We haven't held up any of their legislation, in spite of the fact that there were huge gaps in the wage subsidy program: for casuals, for university workers, for people in the arts and entertainment sector and for people at specific companies like dnata. We pointed out those flaws. But we didn't block their bills. We pointed out the flaws: that some people were earning more than they used to, at the same time as a single mum with a couple of kids, working in a casual job for 11 months, got nothing—got left behind. We pointed out that the superannuation changes would be abused and would lead to people being left with less income in retirement and being forced into circumstances whereby, as a result of that, there would be a greater burden on future budgets. On their so-called HomeBuilder program, we pointed out the weaknesses that were there. We pointed out that they should be investing in social housing. But we didn't block it. Here we are pointing out not that we have a problem with young people getting subsidies, but that we've asked questions over details, as is appropriate—including whether an older worker aged 36 could lose their job, to be replaced by someone aged 34 with a wage subsidy. We've asked about those circumstances, and the government haven't had any answers. We have pointed out that, in past recessions, it has been workers over the age of 35 who've often found themselves unemployed, not for a week or a month or a year but for the rest of their lives—forgotten; left behind. And we've pointed out that the government needs to have a plan for those aged 35. The government's responded that, if you're over 50, they have a plan. Yes, they do have a program—they have a program in which 40 per cent of participants have found themselves unemployed six months after they've participated in that scheme, and we've pointed out that flaw that's there for older workers. We have been constructive the whole way through. And that contrasts with what they did during the global financial crisis, when they sat on these opposition benches here and had more than 30 divisions, till 3 am, trying to block support for economic stimulus and jobs. That's what they did. This Prime Minister sat there looking at his phone while the budget reply was on, not looking up once, thinking, 'Oh, can I move he be no longer heard?' which is their standard. They don't want to hear any proper debate. So the reason this should be adopted is: let's have a debate about this. We're not blockers. We're constructive. They're the wreckers in Australian politics. They're the great dividers. Their only vision is division. They seek to divide the country, time and time again. And here we are exposing their stunt. They'll roll over here. They'll support this suspension, because they know that their position, and what the Prime Minister's office have briefed out, has no credibility. (Time expired) Question agreed to. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 I call the minister. 15:29 Mr HAWKE HWO Mitchell I'm pleased to speak to the bill before the House. I want to say to the opposition listening that of course the government welcomes the debate on our government legislation. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 Pause for a moment; the minister will take a seat. The bill hasn't been called on yet. If it suits the convenience of the House, can we move on to the committee business while the bill comes to the chamber. Mr Brendan O'Connor 00AN3 The parliament has just essentially moved to the start of debate. I'm next on the speakers list—I'm taking the call on behalf of the opposition. The minister has already introduced the bill and given a second reading speech, and I'd like to be able to respond. The SPEAKER 00APG I'd just say to members that, in terms of the cooperation of the House, the resolution has been passed, and whilst of course it stipulates all other business not proceed and this take priority—it might help that the Manager of Opposition Business was back here. The resolution has been passed; that's obviously not at issue. His motion stipulates that the House now deal with those matters. There are practicalities, as you've seen before at various times, where those on the left have argued certain numbers of bills should be present for people to be able to participate. Because it has come on very suddenly, the legislation just isn't here. The House staff are seeking to get it all quickly. I'm just going to put a proposition to the House and then hear from the assistant minister. If we want to just wait, we can sit here and wait and I can have whatever sort of discussion you'd like to have. What we do have is not government business—there's no government business left—but there are a couple of committee reports. Mr Gosling interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Solomon can leave under 94(a). I'm not going to have people barking at me from the back of the chamber. The member for Solomon then left the chamber. The SPEAKER 00APG The assistant minister has been seeking the call. Mr Hawke HWO A point of order: I just want to note that the government is ready to debate this legislation, but to give the clerks time, given that there was no notice or warning of this motion from the opposition, that it was a surprise for the parliament, I would propose to adopt deputy speaker's suggestion that we move to the committee business while we're waiting simply for an administrative point to come forward. Mr Burke DYW The resolution that I moved has been carried unanimously by the House. It is no reflection on the staff of the parliament that the bill is not ready. It is, though, a reflection on the government. The government have been telling and stating outside this parliament that this bill was ready to go, and they have been arguing that the opposition was what was holding it back. I think the only way to make the point that that is not the case is that I deny leave for us to deal with any other business and we wait until the government produces what they claimed was urgent. Mr Hawke HWO The bill has been introduced and the second reading has been issued. The bill is ready to debate. Speakers are here, ready to debate. The issue is purely a procedural one of the parliament. It's offensive for the shadow minister to introduce—he signed off on this motion to bring the bill on without notice. We've agreed to do that. All we are waiting for is an administrative procedure to go forward. The government is ready. You're ready. The speakers are ready. As soon as the bill is here, we'll debate it. If they want to do this without notice, that's the consequence. It's unreasonable for the Manager of Opposition Business to say we can't do committee business while we wait. As soon as administratively it's ready, we're ready to go. Mr Brian Mitchell interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG You haven't suspended standing order 94(a), I can promise you! You have not, okay? So, if I hear the Manager of Opposition Business correctly, basically the next item of business is that and we don't deal with the committee reports. That was the suggestion. Mr Burke DYW I respect the suggestion that you've made and the goodwill with which it's made, but the House has voted unanimously for a particular course of action. We would only be able to change that course either by leave being granted or through the fresh suspension of standing orders. The SPEAKER 00APG That's absolutely right. Mr Burke DYW And I'm making clear I'm not giving leave for a different course of action other than what the government have been telling people since they started briefing yesterday was going to happen today. The SPEAKER 00APG Yes. BILLS 118 BILLS Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020 118

Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020

Second Reading 118 15:37 Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR 00AN3 Gorton In one of the recent sittings, I spoke of a constituent, Rebecca, who emailed me about her deep concerns about the dire state of the job market. Rebecca is well educated and, like many Australians, is doing everything humanly possible to find work, particularly stable, secure work. She attached an email she received in relation to a job she applied for which said that there are currently 1,178 applicants for the position. Rebecca added: 'Thought you might be able to use this as proof of how bad the situation is on the jobs front. The LNP have no plan in place to improve the situation.' Just this weekend The New Daily reported on the state of the jobs market and included a similar example: 2,792 applicants for a job. It's been clear to those on this side of the House since the onset of this crisis that there was an urgent need for government intervention in the labour market to protect jobs and keep as many employees as possible attached to their employers. It was Labor that called for wage subsidies at the beginning of the pandemic to support vulnerable workers, businesses and communities, and we have been calling for broader labour market programs to encourage job creation and kick-start the recovery. We understand the importance of these programs, having implemented our own in response to the nineties recession and the GFC. It is important to note that the government initially was not going to have a wage subsidy in response to the economic shock at all. It was going to rely solely upon JobSeeker and closed the parliament until August. It did change its collective mind, and we welcome that. Labor welcomed that change of mind and change of heart by the government. But we pointed out the deficiencies in the JobKeeper subsidy and continue to do so. Too many people, including casuals, are left out and left behind, and it's been cut too deep and too soon. We don't want these Australians to continue to miss out. The government's budget was an opportunity to set out a plan for recovery and reform, but, unfortunately, what we got was a wasted opportunity. The budget racked up $1 trillion of debt but failed to include a comprehensive plan for jobs and locked in damaging cuts to JobKeeper in the face of rising unemployment. Australians can't afford a slow, jobless recovery caused by a government too eager to rip money out of the economy before the recovery takes hold. It is crucial that the government develops a comprehensive plan to get Australians back to work. The JobMaker hiring credit was one of the Morrison government's key budget policies. While we welcome the concept of wage subsidies, federal Labor are concerned the government will rip away substantial support for businesses and workers by ceasing JobKeeper and JobSeeker, replacing them with insufficient measures in the form of the JobMaker hiring credit. For reasons I'll outline later, under this new policy too many Australians are left behind. But, first, I want to make an important point. This bill does not create or implement the JobMaker hiring credit. Sure, 'JobMaker hiring credit' is in the bill title, but Australians are become increasingly aware of the market based approach of our Prime Minister. He's there for the photo-op, not the follow up. With this PM, a bill by any other name would be just as much spin. Not one single detail of the JobMaker hiring credit as announced on budget night is in this bill. The legislation does not specify any of the parameters or safeguards the government has publicly stated apply to the subsidy in the budget papers, the budget speech or the Treasury fact sheet. Instead, the legislation makes an amendment to the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Act 2020. This is also the JobKeeper-enabling legislation that authorises the Treasurer to make rules to provide payments for financial support to those directly or indirectly affected by the coronavirus. This bill, as drafted, allows the Treasurer to create payments—not just the hiring credit scheme but any new scheme—with the stroke of a pen. The only constraint on such amendment payments is that they are 'primarily for the purpose of improving the prospects of individuals getting employment in Australia' and 'increasing workforce participation in Australia'. Unsurprisingly, the opposition, businesses and stakeholders have not been presented with a copy of the draft regulations. Whilst similar powers were conferred on the Treasurer to create JobKeeper, those powers were narrowly time limited and were reasonably argued for on the basis of imminent economic collapse at the onset of the pandemic. The proposed two-year blank cheque for undefined employment and workforce participation programs under the same legislation is incongruous to the budget claims about an economy in recovery. The Prime Minister's press team have been busy nonetheless providing background information to The Australian and Sky News, demanding the bill be passed this week. Never mind the reality that the bill has been referred to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee to report on 6 November and that Senate estimates is happening this fortnight. And never mind the fact that the Senate doesn't reconvene until 9 November. There's probably a good reason for that. This is a Prime Minister that loathes scrutiny, a Prime Minister that cut funding for the office that uncovered sports rorts and uncovered a payment to a Liberal donor for land at 10 times the market value, a Prime Minister who does everything in his power to avoid implementing a federal anticorruption watchdog with teeth and a Prime Minister who wants to give this government a two-year blank cheque to use taxpayer money up to and beyond the next election with no parliamentary scrutiny. The government will argue changes to regulations are disallowable by a Senate vote. However, the process of passing a disallowance motion in the Senate gives the government an extra vote, in effect, compared to normal legislation. A disallowance vote requires an additional vote to pass, like an amendment. In this bill, there's nothing stopping the government handing itself a blank cheque to distribute to whatever businesses in whichever electorates it sees fit. A two-year blank cheque for undefined employment and workforce participation programs under this legislation does raise serious concern. What is to stop the government from directing payments to specific and politically favourable companies, donors or electorates? We know the government has a terrible track record when it comes to doling out taxpayers' money. I remind you again of the sports rorts. It is important that this new wage subsidy scheme is designed properly and with integrity, and we will continue to ask to see details of the proposed scheme from the government. The Senate committee and Senate estimates processes will delve into the detail—or lack thereof—in this legislation. Even without details on the legislation, without seeing the draft rules, let's discuss the hiring credit as it is announced in the budget. The government will provide $4 billion over three years from 2021 to accelerate employment growth by supporting organisations to take on additional employees through a hiring credit. The JobMaker hiring credit will be available to eligible employers over the 12 months from 7 October 2020 for each additional new job they create for an eligible employee. Eligible employers who can demonstrate that the new employee will increase overall employee headcount and payroll will receive $200 per week if they hire an eligible employee aged between 16 and 29 years or $100 per week if they hire an eligible employee aged between 30 and 35 years. The JobMaker hiring credit will be available for up to 12 months from the date of employment of the eligible employee, with a maximum of $10,400 per additional new position created. To be eligible the employee will need to have worked for a minimum of 20 hours per week averaged over a quarter and to have received the Jobseeker payment, youth allowance or parenting payment for at least one of the three months prior to when they were hired. The Treasurer's budget speech stated that Treasury estimates that this will support around 450,000 jobs for young people. This is a misrepresentation. Of course it is spin: Treasury has not actually done any modelling on the number of jobs this makes. Where did the number come from? If this figure is anything like other budget announcements—a big-dollar headline and no delivery—then Australia will almost certainly be disappointed. What we have been advised is that the 450,000 is those who are eligible for the scheme; it doesn't necessarily mean they will receive a job. There is a view within the media, and certainly among stakeholders, that there will be 450,000 jobs created. On a closer look, that is not what is intended by this legislation. If this figure is anything like other budget announcements—a big-dollar headline and no delivery—then Australia will almost certainly be disappointed. One need only ask bushfire victims about the promises that were made to them and the lack of follow-up. The Senate process will get to the bottom of this, we hope, and demonstrate that 460,000 is not the total number of jobs created, just the number of jobs that could receive the credit. Again, we'll obviously pursue that in Senate estimates and then, if there is a good reason to do so, propose potential amendments to the bill to provide an improved set of options available to the government if they take up those amendments. We need to see the Treasury's modelling—should it exist—of the distribution of types of jobs. For example, are they full-time jobs, part-time jobs, casual jobs? Is it more likely, because of the way the scheme is developed, that there will be more part-time jobs? The fact is that if you employ two people aged 29 or under, on 20 hours a week each, then you are going to get twice as much money as you would if you employed a full-time worker. Is that a deliberate provision that acts as a disincentive to employ full-time staff? We should hear from the government as to their intentions on these sorts of things. There is nothing wrong with casual, full-time or part-time work. But what is the government's expectation of what will be delivered in the labour market for businesses and workers by introducing this legislation? That's not really understood fully and it's something the government should consider explaining to businesses and the many other stakeholders. We need to see Treasury's modelling of how many people will lose their jobs at the end of the 12-month credit period. What is Treasury's modelling on the number of businesses overall, and by entity size, that will be eligible? How many workers who are currently on JobKeeper, which expires in March, are let go by these struggling small businesses while big businesses, who have done well through the crisis, continue to collect a large number of hiring credits? Certainly, Labor does not want to see anything other than increased employment growth. If we've got businesses that are fully recovered, or that haven't been impacted by the pandemic, it is absolutely a good thing that they could employ young people, people under 35, if it's additional. But I think one of the real potential weaknesses of this bill, given its initiative is seeking to stand in the stead of JobKeeper, is that many businesses currently using JobKeeper as their wage subsidy will not be in a position to employ additional staff when they're in recovery. Take, for example, a business that might have 10 employees, seven of whom may be on JobKeeper. They are not eligible for this new initiative until they've removed JobKeeper. By removing JobKeeper it's very hard for them to maintain the employment level at 10, let alone add an extra headcount, to 11, and then get any support from the government. So what Labor sees as possible here is that, once you strip away JobKeeper, many, many businesses that are in recovery are not going to be in a position to have a net additional amount of employees in their business. That's just not feasible for many businesses in recovery. For that reason, our fear is that replacing JobKeeper as the main support for many small businesses and medium enterprises, and indeed larger businesses, will not be fit for purpose for recovering businesses, whilst it might be perfectly suitable for those businesses who can add, in net terms, to their workforce. I think that's something the government should explore. Our concern is that businesses are going to fall between the stalls here, between a subsidy that goes direct to them when they're in need of recovery, as in JobKeeper, and then the new initiative, which really means that you have to be able to increase employment beyond what you had in September this year. I think it really is a great leap of faith to assume that the businesses who could recover would be sufficiently recovered to be able to employ a net increase in headcount of their staff. The government should (1) explain why they believe it would work; and (2) identify the businesses that are in recovery that will not get support as they will not be able to add to their headcount because of the design of this initiative vis-a-vis the design of JobKeeper. And I don't see any modelling or explanation by the Treasurer about that fundamental intersection between JobKeeper and this initiative, the so-called JobMaker hiring credit. It's something I think is really fundamental to the efficacy and effectiveness of this initiative that the government has to explain for Labor to be confident that this in any way will provide sufficient support for recovering businesses, whether in Victoria or across the country, in the many sectors of our economy that have been absolutely adversely affected by this pandemic. It's true to say that Melbourne has gone through harder times dealing with the second wave and that more businesses have been affected. But you only have to go and look at the tourist precincts of every other state to know that many of those areas are very badly affected too. Not being able to have people from Sydney and Melbourne go to Far North Queensland has meant those economies have been really affected. So, when people think it's just all about Victoria or Melbourne, that's not true. It's about sectors that have been damaged—aviation, hospitality. Even now they're damaged in a number of ways, because the restrictions have eased but haven't ended and because, even when consumers are in a position to patronise a business, they still do not go there, because they are going to be very cautious, even if we allow them to go there. People are not just going to return to certain businesses, certain cafes and restaurants, just because the restrictions ease. I think it's fair to say that there are sectors in our labour market that have been very hard hit. We don't believe JobKeeper did enough to support them, paradoxically, because the sectors most affected have a high proportion of casuals who hadn't worked 12 months, and yet those sectors didn't receive the commensurate support. So, too, we're worried about the way this initiative will operate and whether it has been thought through. Looking at the design of JobKeeper, there are flaws. It has been critical for so many businesses, without a doubt, and that's why we support it going forward, at least for a temporary period, beyond March next year. But because we saw the failure of the government to even think of a wage subsidy, then a government who excludes people and then a government who had some design flaws with JobKeeper, we are sceptical that they've got it right here. There needs to be a proper examination of those matters, which we'd expect to happen through Senate estimates and the Senate committee that will be considering the bill—which, by the way, will not delay one day the enactment of this legislation, because the reality is it can only be enacted when the Senate reconvenes in the second week of November. This whole charade today has been a stunt by the government. We're happy the matter's brought on. We moved the procedural motion to do so, but, again, we say to the government: stop playing games. If you put more effort into looking at the design of an initiative for businesses and workers, rather than playing stunts in the parliament, frankly, I think we'd all be better off. There are those questions that I have asked. I hope the Treasurer and the other relevant ministers consider some of the questions that I'm putting on this second reading speech, including: how many workers who are currently on JobKeeper, which expires in March, will be let go by their struggling small businesses while big businesses who have done well through the crisis will continue to collect a large number of hiring credits? As I mentioned earlier, what is the interaction between JobKeeper ending and the hiring credit? Buried near the end of the Treasury fact sheet is the caveat that you can't receive both JobKeeper and the JobMaker Hiring Credit. That's an important point, because in the six page brochure it took the last page in the second last paragraph for me to find the fact that they were not eligible if they've got JobMaker. So I imagine there will be a lot of small businesses who will listen to the announcements by the Treasurer on budget night, and the comments subsequently by the Prime Minister, about this initiative and not fully understand that they're not going to get a cent unless they get off JobKeeper. Then they're not going to get a cent unless they can employ additional staff or indeed increase their payroll. So the fact is these are tight conditions. Frankly, additionality in normal circumstances is absolutely critical. To that extent I think that's a conventional approach, but are we in a conventional situation? I would always push additionality as critical. But I'm worried that there will be those businesses who will not be able to get to that point. They'll be consigned to the dustbin, because they will not be able to recover, and yet with support they would. The fact sheets then detail an illustrative example of a firm that was struggling in one quarter and was eligible for JobKeeper. In the next quarter he's part of an economy going gangbusters, growing at such a rate that they not only keep their staff who were on but expand to get a hiring credit—all the while unemployment is forecast to rise to eight per cent in the government's budget forecasts. This week Deloitte estimated it will peak at 8.6 per cent. The government either doesn't care or doesn't want to know how many firms, if any, will one quarter go from struggling and needing JobKeeper to actually be able to expand their employment. They don't want to know about the firms that will face a cliff in March as JobKeeper is ripped away. The Prime Minister also needs to explain why there are 928,000 Australians who have been deliberately excluded from the Morrison government's new hiring subsidies in a move which will keep the unacceptably long jobless queues even longer. If Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister, was serious about driving down unemployment and kickstarting the recovery he would not be excluding almost one million Australians aged over 35 on unemployment payments from this new wage subsidy scheme. There are many questions about the operation and integrity of the scheme that need to be answered by the government. The eligibility criteria raises questions, including: narrow eligibility, for social security recipients below 35 there's no requirement for employment to be secure or permanent and the potential for contrived arrangements and unfair dismissals to maximise the credit. Australians over 35 are rapidly approaching the JobSeeker Christmas cliff with no certainty about the future of their support payments and will now find themselves competing with the subsidised, young workforce. That's not an easy thing to avoid, but our concern is that you'll have people over 35 possibly sacked unfairly and replaced by younger, subsidised workers. We want to know what the government is doing to ensure that doesn't happen and what would happen to a company that did that to workers over 35 who were working for them that couldn't be subsidised. As we did with JobKeeper we will work through the detail of the hiring credit through the upcoming Senate committee. We'll want to constructively point out the problem areas with the legislation to ensure Australians get bang for their buck. The government has a consistent approach to policy: give a big announcement and get the headline but fall on the detail and then forget to follow up on the program. It's a bit like the spin today about Labor stopping the debate. We moved the motion to actually bring on the debate, and the government took about 15 minutes to work out what they wanted to do because they didn't really want to do what they said to the gallery over the weekend that they wanted to do. That's the way this government operates. This government has a terrible track record when it comes to labour initiatives and employment programs, including the failed and exploitative Youth Jobs PaTH program. That program is widely criticised for a lack of outcomes, with little to no training and with it delivering wage subsidies to firms like Coles and Hungry Jack's, I might add, without additionality in those circumstances. The government seems to have just discovered young people. The hiring credit will not make up for all the damage done to them over the seven years of this government, with their cuts to TAFE and universities, cuts to penalty rates and exclusion of casuals, predominantly young workers on JobKeeper. And there's the damage done by early access to super—that is, people's retirement incomes. The government's wage subsidy for workers over 50 is just as much of a failure. In order to cover for their failure to include any support for older Australians in their budget, the government touts this failed program as a signature policy. But let me reiterate: the program has been an utter failure in getting older people into work. Not only has the program been unsubscribed but the federal government has spent less than half what it wanted to on this program. And it doesn't effectively help people into employment, with 40 per cent of workers under the program without work within three months—far from long-term, sustainable jobs. Only $254 million was spent to help 51,190 mature-aged people into work, despite the coalition promising in 2014 to spend $520 million to help 30,000 older Australians find a job every year. That has not happened. We don't want to see the same flaws in the hiring credit program. It's vital that this new wage subsidy scheme be better designed, better implemented and better monitored than JobKeeper, Youth Jobs PaTH, Newstart and many other programs. The hiring wage subsidy does nothing to encourage secure jobs, particularly at a time when we're facing record-high underemployment. The design of the subsidy encourages a company to double their subsidy by hiring two workers for 20 hours instead of one full-time employee, encouraging more casual and part-time work. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer need to assure the Australian workers that they will not be sacked and replaced by younger workers or have their working hours cut so that an employer can access the hiring wage subsidy. There are no new reporting requirements to prevent wage theft and other endemic exploitation that does disproportionately affect younger people. To date, proper regulatory oversight and integrity measures have not been made clear. We don't trust the government to put workers' interests first in this instance. The government has presided over insecure work and underemployment for too many years. The Prime Minister is leaving Australia with $1 trillion of debt, but unemployment and underemployment will remain too high for too long, with the jobless rate not expected to get back to pre-crisis levels even after four years. As I mentioned previously, anyone aged over 35 will now find themselves competing with a subsidised younger workforce. There are no plans there. This competition comes in the face of a deepening jobs crisis, with the government forecasting another 160,000 Australians expected to join unemployment queues by the end of the year. That's 160,000 workers and their families facing a very bleak Christmas. That's the government's forecast: an additional 160,000 workers losing their jobs. This government has a track record of making an announcement but failing to substantiate it. We have concerns there are major design flaws with the JobMaker hiring credit policy that will prevent businesses even taking it up. For that reason, we are glad for the matter to be brought on. We want this debate. This should be a matter of urgency. It should be about what we can do now that the government has announced the end to the cuts to JobKeeper. I'm not suggesting for a moment that this is the right initiative. We're going to support the government making the lives of businesses and workers better, even if the plan of the government is imperfect. Our job is to suggest improvements to a scheme that is deficient or to point out facts about the scheme if we do not believe, on evidence, that it will lead to the things the government says it will. That's our job. With JobKeeper and other initiatives of this government, yes, Labor have been constructively critical and at times we've disagreed with the government, but during this pandemic we have always supported Australian businesses and Australian workers and we'll continue to do that. In the meantime, we'll also do the job of holding the government to account, making sure they are doing what they say they're doing and making sure they're providing sufficient support for our economy—businesses and workers—in an unprecedented time. The worst recession since the Great Depression requires a lot of investment and a lot of dedication to tasks that we don't see the government exhibiting, frankly. Enough of the games! We have this matter before us. We should debate it today. It should be examined by a Senate committee. It should be examined rigorously in Senate estimates. We'll have another debate in the Senate, but what we won't do is put this on the backburner. This is a priority for Labor because it's about looking after working people and businesses. We just want to hold the government to account, improve their policies if possible and make sure there's sufficient support and succour for businesses and workers doing it very, very tough at the moment. I'll just finish on this, even though I might be repeating myself: the government has said there are 160,000 workers and families who are going to be lining up in unemployment queues before Christmas. That's tragic, and we in this parliament should be doing everything we can to make sure that we prevent that happening where possible and provide opportunities so that we can improve our economy and get out of this recession as quickly as possible. It doesn't have to be deeper than it need be or take a day longer, but it requires the government to focus on the issues, not play stunts as they've done with this matter. 16:06 Mr WALLACE 265967 Fisher The bill before the House today, the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020, is going to have a very significant impact across the country in every community and every business sector. Nationwide, it's going to help support up to 450,000 jobs, and I believe that few places will see more benefit than in my electorate of Fisher. That's because two of the largest industries in my electorate are tourism and construction. Both are sectors which employ more young people than most, and both are sectors which were particularly hard hit by the worst of the COVID-19 crisis. This measure is particularly well targeted by the government to support these impacted sectors, and, as a builder, I am focused on the difference it will make to the construction industry. It won't just be the construction industry, but that's the one I have a very significant connection with. I'm sure that all of us who have a connection to the construction industry in Australia, given that it employs over 1.2 million Australians, will remember how it felt to watch the events of March, April and May this year play out across the country. Housing Industry Association figures show that sales of new homes fell by more than 20 per cent in the three months to May. Project cancellations hit 26 per cent. Master Builders Australia's April COVID-19 survey indicated an average reduction in forward contracts of some 40 per cent. The picture for many on the ground was devastating. In those weeks, I received phone calls from many builders, some of whom I'd known for decades. They're builders with successful businesses who plan prudently and who ordinarily maintain a strong pipeline of work. These builders were telling me that come August, when their current jobs were finished, they would not have one project to go on with. Builds were being put on hold or cancelled, and the industry was on the brink of grinding to a halt. I knew that the government needed to act, and act quickly, to prevent this unthinkable outcome. I spoke with the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Housing and I was very pleased to find that he shared those concerns. I'm proud to have worked closely with the minister on the development of the government's response—that is, HomeBuilder. The impact of this policy has been dramatic. The same Queensland builders and finance brokers who contacted me in May, saying that they were facing an economic cliff in the second half of the year, have been in touch with me since to say that they are now receiving more inquiries than ever before. This is the same HomeBuilder package that those opposite ridiculed. On the Sunshine Coast, the demand for new land and for construction has been described as a feeding frenzy. As of 20 September, one development in my electorate, called Harmony, has sold 400 new lots since the grant's June announcement. Buyers were camping out overnight outside the sales centre to get the blocks that they wanted. HIA new home sales data for the three months to August 2020 shows that nationally sales have risen 61.3 per cent compared to the quarter in which HomeBuilder was announced. In August 2020, the number of loans for the construction of new dwellings increased by 22.9 per cent. Private sector house approvals are at their highest levels since February 2019. Thanks to the government's intervention, things are better in the construction industry than any of us could have expected at this point. However, there are still significant challenges facing the construction sector, which could derail the national COVID delivery. One of the most important challenges that lie ahead is the issue of workforce development, and it is this which the bill before the House will go so far to supporting. In order to service its growing pipeline of work, the construction sector must have the skilled workers that it needs. At the moment, that workforce is simply not there. The Australian government's most recent skills shortage report for the construction industry in Queensland noted that only half of available positions in the sector were being filled—just half. Bricklayers, plumbers, glaziers and tilers are in especially short supply, and the problem is so much worse in regional Queensland. Without these skilled workers, builders have to turn away jobs, projects experience lengthy delays and cost overruns and prices become inflated, reducing further demand. This federal government is alive to these challenges. We've introduced billions of dollars in incentives to encourage Australians, at this difficult time, to train in a new trade and to make it easier for businesses to employ people, particularly new apprentices. As part of our COVID-19 response, the government invested an additional $1.5 billion, expanding our Supporting Apprenticeships and Trainees wage subsidy. Under this scheme, from now until March 2021, small and medium-sized businesses with fewer than 200 employees who retain an Australian apprentice can apply for a wage subsidy of 50 per cent. This measure alone will support approximately 90,000 small and medium-sized businesses, employing around 180,000 apprentices. In the 2020 federal budget, we went even further. The Treasurer allocated a further $1.2 billion for an expanded Boosting Apprenticeships Commencement wage subsidy. This applies to new apprentices taken on between now and the end of September 2021. There is no maximum cap for the size of the company, and the only requirement is that the apprentice is not already receiving any other type of government support. Once again, this new scheme will pay 50 per cent of the apprentice's wages, up to $7,000 a quarter, until the end of September 2021. This scheme's 100,000 anticipated new apprentices, combined with the 180,000 supported under the government's COVID-19 wage subsidy, represents a significant boost to the skills base in the sector over the coming year. The government is also acting to ease skills shortages by additional training of existing workers in construction or other related sectors. The government's $1 billion JobTrainer package is going to pay for 340,700 job training places, which will be delivered at low or no cost to the trainee. Importantly, the specific skills and industries covered by the fund are going to be set by agreement between the states and territories and the National Skills Commission and will be based on data gathered by the commission on skills shortages in the economy. I'm confident many courses relevant to construction will be included in this package. I'm also pleased to say that the federal budget expanded this program too, adding another $252 million for up to 50,000 new short courses in sectors where there will be high demand for jobs in the future. Anyone who's worked in the construction sector knows that, in terms of training and workforce development, there is no substitute for on-the-job training and experience. We need to get motivated young people with good foundational skills into the industry and give them the opportunity to learn by doing. That is what this bill helps to deliver. The JobMaker hiring credit will make it much easier over the next 12 months to give young Australians a start in the industry. The $4.5 billion program enabled by this bill will help to create up to 450,000 new jobs not just in the construction sector but across all industries, including the construction sector. Eligible employers will be able to claim $200 a week for each additional eligible employee they hire between the ages of 16 and 29 and $100 a week for each additional eligible employee aged 30 to 35. Employers will receive the JobMaker hiring credit for up to 12 months from the date the new position is created. The eligibility criteria are very generous, with almost all businesses not currently claiming JobKeeper eligible. As long as the job is in addition to a business's existing payroll and the individual employed was previously on JobSeeker, it's very likely that the role will be supported with up to $10,400 from this government. Members opposite have decried this measure, but I expect it to be a critical boost for construction businesses and businesses right across the economy looking to increase their capacity, develop the industry's workforce and help this country to grow its way out of this COVID recession. This bill, alongside the budget's billions of dollars of other economic measures, will make a huge difference for this country's construction industry and many other industries too. I believe that, in response, the construction industry needs to work on its own initiatives to meet its critical challenges and to live up to its responsibilities to help us build Australia's recovery. Among other measures, it is time for the sector to help us make the most of the billions we are investing in apprentices and training. We all know where the skills shortages are. The funding needed will be available with the passage of this bill and others. The construction industry has a responsibility now to use the government's apprenticeship funding and JobMaker incentives and work with training providers to put on more young people and ensure that they are being given the foundational skills they need to deliver when they get into the workplace. Equally and importantly, it is time for the industry to work with the government seriously on industrial relations reform to protect the futures of those new young workers and stand up to the militant unions. This government has been rock solid on trying to get the criminal aspects of the CFMMEU under control. We held a royal commission. We reinstated the Australian Building and Construction Commission. We have brought forward laws like the protecting vulnerable workers act and the ensuring integrity bill. We have presided over a system that's handed down more than $17 million in fines to the CFMMEU. However, infrastructure projects continue to cost the taxpayer 30 per cent more than they should because of the misbehaviour of militant unions and, frankly, the weakness of the sector in dealing with them. I'm sad to say that, while the Labor Party continues to take more than $1 million a year from the CFMMEU, the construction industry will get no help from Labor. It's time for the industry to work more closely with this coalition government, follow the lead of Master Builders Australia and their CEO, Denita Wawn, stand up to the CFMMEU bullies and be a stronger ally with us in the ongoing process of industrial relations reform. The construction industry will be central to helping build our economic recovery, brick by brick. To do that, construction businesses will need a significantly expanded workforce of young, fit Australians ready and eager to learn a trade. This bill will facilitate the delivery of this government's JobMaker hiring credit and it will provide a pathway for thousands of young Australians into not just the construction industry but across all sectors of the economy. It will form a foundational pillar of Australia's economic recovery. I commend the bill to the House. 16:21 Dr CHALMERS 37998 Rankin A little while ago when I was watching the farce unfold on that side of the House when they couldn't decide whether to support the passage of their own legislation, I was trying to remember what it reminded me of and it came to me that it was a lot like one of the really great episodes of Seinfeld. What happened in that episode was that Jerry is with Elaine and they go to pick up a hire car that Jerry has booked. They go to the hire care place and Jerry says, 'Do you have my reservation?' The person at the hire car place says: 'Yes, we have your reservation; we just don't have any cars.' Jerry then says: 'You're quite good at taking the reservation but you're just not very good at holding the reservation. It's the holding of the reservation that matters.' The reason that reminded me of those opposite is that they are really good at making the announcements, they are really good at getting around the press gallery scurrying in and out of the bureaus up there telling people: 'We're going to put lots of pressure on Labor today. They've got to pass our legislation for the hiring credit through the House of Representatives and the pressure is going to be on them.' They were all around the gallery and we read and saw all these stories about how the government was putting pressure on the Labor Party to support the speedy passage of their hiring credits. They did all that really, really well. They did all the spin really well. But where they fell over was that they weren't actually ready to pass their own legislation through the parliament. They were able to spin that they were going to put pressure on us to pass the legislation through the parliament. But nobody thought: 'Hang on a second. If that's the case, we probably should be in a position to actually put the legislation to the parliament.' The Manager of Opposition Business suggested quite fairly, quite graciously, that if the government was that keen to pass the legislation through the House today—though they hadn't actually thought to put it before the House today—we would facilitate that. And we watched the absolute farce unfold as the member for Petrie and others tried to work out whether they would support the speedy passage of their own legislation. I think this speaks to a deeper truth about the government. This is a government which for more than seven years now has put all of the emphasis on the big announcements and none of the emphasis on actually delivering on the commitments and promises they have made. They are notorious for overpromising and underdelivering. We saw that again today when they said they were going to pass that legislation today but they weren't even ready to put that legislation before the House. The reason why all of this spin fell over with just a little bit of scrutiny is that the government can't get beyond one inescapable truth about this legislation, and that is that, whether it passes in the next couple of hours or tomorrow or on Wednesday or even on Thursday, it can't pass the parliament until the Senate reconvenes in November. So with all this pressure about the speedy passage, no genius on that side of the House thought: 'Hang on a minute, no matter what we do in the House of Representatives it can't pass the Senate until next month.' So all of this rubbish that we had to read, see and listen to has been exposed. It's fallen over at the very first hurdle. No matter what we do here today, it cannot pass the Senate until next month. What we've tried to do—and I think what the Manager of Opposition Business did a short while ago is of a piece with our efforts—is be as constructive and helpful as we can when it comes to implementing. If there's a good idea or something that the government needs help getting through here into a Senate inquiry and considered by the Senate then we have been prepared to be constructive throughout. But that doesn't mean just being meekly acquiescent. It means pointing out where the government may not have got things exactly bang on. It means asking questions about whether there are unintended consequences and whether there is the capacity for ideas like what the government is proposing to actually fall over in the implementation. That's why we want the senate inquiry. We've actually got the time. We've got a few weeks until it can be put before the Senate, so let's use that time wisely. Let's use that time to have the Senate inquiry and look at the detail of what's being proposed here. As the member for Gorton eloquently explained a short while ago, there are a few areas in this legislation that concern us. We will be voting for it here in the House this afternoon, but there are issues that we want a Senate inquiry to look at because there are some things that concern us. We are worried that there is the capacity to rort this. We are worried about the way the tests have been set up. We are worried that it might be possible—and the government hasn't adequately convinced us that it's not possible—for an employer to sack an older worker and replace them with two part-time younger workers in order to receive the hiring credit twice. It would be incredibly concerning if that were the case. So we want a Senate inquiry to look at that. We want the Senate inquiry to look at whether or not this policy will actually make a contribution to secure work or whether it's just kicking the can down the road, creating even more churn in the labour market, which has been defined not just in the last seven months but for the last seven years by insecurity, underemployment and a lot of precarious work—all of the things which have led to suboptimal wage outcomes and all kinds of other issues in our economy around consumption and the like. So we want to get to the bottom of that as well. We want to understand why the government chose the 35-years cut-off, recognising that 928,000 Australians who are on unemployment benefits will be excluded from the hiring credit that we are debating in the House right now. So we want to understand the impacts of all of that. As the member for Gorton again mentioned in his contribution, we want to understand where the government got this 450,000 people promise where they say the hiring credits will get 450,000 Australians back into work. That sounds to us to be a made-up number. So we want to get to the bottom of that. We want to understand it. We want to understand how that is actually additional people employed and not just part of the natural recovery in employment that you would expect to see after such a deep and damaging recession. So these are the sorts of issues that we want to get to. We also want to get to the implementation of an expensive policy. It is $4 billion, and we want to make sure that the government does it right. Even the most objective observer would conclude that the government's got form in stuffing up these kinds of big policies, particularly in the labour market. One of the reasons why the Treasurer will become known as the butterfingers of Australian politics is that he takes ideas like this and drops the ball. He drops the ball repeatedly. When the government has form, I think it's our responsibility on this side of the House to try and understand where things could go wrong and to try and help prevent things from going wrong. So that's the issue here—the government has form. Just think about that Restart Program. When the government were rightly criticised for excluding almost a million workers on unemployment benefits from the hiring credit, they said, 'Don't worry; we've got this thing called Restart for the over 50s.' We said, 'Okay, we'll have a look at Restart.' Restart has been hopelessly and woefully undersubscribed. It's nowhere near the commitments that the government made for the impact of Restart for workers over 50. It's hopelessly undersubscribed. We now know through the good work of Paul Karp at TheGuardian and others that so many of those workers on the Restart Program didn't even have a job three months after they had helped their employer get the hiring credit. So Restart has been a farce, and we don't want to see this go down the same path. Speaking of paths, what about the Youth Jobs PaTH program quietly cut back in this year's budget? The government doesn't want people to know that PaTH has been cut back. The funding has been cut back as part of a $1.4 billion cut to employment services in the budget handed down just a couple of weeks ago—another farce in the labour-market programs: Restart; PaTH. And there's JobKeeper of course—the $60 billion blunder; the biggest blunder in the history of this federation when it comes to the budget. It was $60 billion out. It excluded millions of workers on the basis that the program was full, only to have to fess up, in quite a humiliating fashion, that the Treasurer was $60 billion out in his calculations. So it's a government that has form in not getting these things right. There are parallels here between this hiring credit and the JobKeeper legislation, because this legislation that we're considering doesn't set all the rules; it doesn't set the eligibility or the rates and all that sort of thing. It basically gives the Treasurer a blank cheque to implement as he sees fit—to tweak the rules with the stroke of a pen on who gets it, how much it is and how they'll tighten it up if that's necessary. He hasn't been successful at doing that with JobKeeper, with so many people excluded and some companies receiving it that shouldn't need it—all of those sorts of things. So, once again, I think we've got a right to be sceptical about the Treasurer's capacity to implement this $4 billion program. This is a deep and damaging recession. It's the deepest, most damaging recession in almost a century. It's the first recession at all in almost three decades. We're in the teeth of a full-blown jobs crisis. Almost a million are unemployed already and another 160,000 are expected to join the unemployment queues between now and the end of the year. Thirty thousand jobs were lost in the last month alone. So this requires us to do the best we can to get people back into work. With a trillion dollars in debt and $98 billion of new commitments in the budget, we need to recognise that the country doesn't have a choice at the moment between borrowing or not, but we do have a choice about whether we get value for money from that borrowing or not. We measure that value for money by what it means for jobs. We measure that value for money by whether or not we actually have anything to show for the debt which has quadrupled on the watch of those opposite, despite them having spent much of the last decade running around Australia talking about debt and deficit disasters when debt was a tiny fraction of what it is today on their watch. So we want to get that value for money. The best way for us to do that is to carefully examine what's being proposed here, to hold it up to the light, to make sure that we do what we can to prevent the Treasurer, the butter-fingers of Australian politics, from getting this hopelessly wrong once again. That's our responsibility to the Australian people. Every single dollar here is borrowed. We want to get maximum bang for buck. The government has got this wrong too frequently for us to just roll over without this Senate inquiry to have a look at what's happening here. If there are amendments required in that process, that's fine. We'll be supporting it through the House today, to get it over into that Senate committee. It can't be passed until next month anyway, so let's try and get it right. 16:33 Mr KHALIL 101351 Wills [by video link] On the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020: I'll be corrected if I'm wrong by those on the opposite side, on the government benches, but, as I recall, this was one of the Morrison government's key budget policies. So the manner in which we've had to bring this forward for debate this afternoon after question time tells you everything about how this government operates. We're talking about the Prime Minister's office—or the marketing department, which is probably the entirety of the Prime Minister's office—working overtime to pitch to the media that Labor might not support this bill; they're trying to get all the smoke and mirrors happening and the sleight of hand, to play the political wedge. It's not about the actual substance of the bill; it's not about having it brought before parliament so we can debate it, so we can look at it and bring it up to the light, as the previous speaker, the member for Rankin, has rightly pointed out. No—they just want to play politics on this. And it tells you everything about this government that one of the key policies in their budget was used in this manner to play a political game in the Press Gallery corridors. In many respects, during this pandemic we have seen a very substantive argument made by our side of politics to be constructive around the packages put forward by the government—to hold them up to the light, as was said by the member for Rankin—but also to be supportive of what is necessary to get Australians through this once-in-a century tragedy and this once-in-a-century pandemic that has caused such devastation around the globe. Yet, the government wants to play politics with these packages. We have been calling for wage subsidies from the start of this pandemic, to support our vulnerable workers, businesses and communities. In fact, the member for Rankin was arguing for this back in March and February. I remember the Prime Minister was reluctant even to go towards a wage subsidy. Maybe he saw the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, go there and thought, 'Oh well, I better go there too.' Maybe it was the so-called national cabinet, where the premiers made the strong argument that we had to have a wage subsidy for this pandemic. But he was reluctant—let's not forget that—and he was pulled towards that policy package by those other factors that I mentioned. Of course, what do we get? We get a cookie-cutter package and a cookie-cutter approach. And the cracks that we've seen formed over the last several months have become chasms. The Grand Canyon of policy packages swallowed up a million casual workers, who are left behind. It swallowed up people like carers, people in the arts sector and people like temporary migrants—so many demographics have missed out or been left behind because of the way that the government has designed their JobSeeker and JobKeeper packages. I said to myself early on: 'It must be because they rushed it. It must be because they went headlong into this and it was all about responding to the pandemic.' You give them a bit of the benefit of the doubt, but when you look closely at the cracks that formed and the chasms that formed from them, it all adds up. It's clearly an ideological set of decisions to leave out big chunks of the Australian population—big numbers of people in Australia have been left out. It makes no other sense to me. In many respects, not only has the Morrison government's response been slow, reactive and somewhat uncoordinated; there's been a deliberateness in the manner in which they have made decisions about who gets support and who doesn't. And that deliberateness, for me, is what we have been arguing against: the decisions they made to leave out people. With JobSeeker, for example, we know that unemployment is on the rise. In my electorate, we've got 11½ thousand members of my electorate who've been relying on JobSeeker to get by, and another 26½ thousand in my community who've been reliant on JobKeeper through this pandemic. Again, we supported the packages for those very reasons. And there'll be more jobless as we head towards Christmas. Those numbers are going up. When we look at this JobMaker package—as the previous speaker alluded to—it has some similar problems in structural set-up to JobKeeper and JobSeeker, in the manner in which they've left people out. There are 928,000 Australians over the age of 35 on our unemployment benefits who were deliberately excluded from those hiring subsidies. They were deliberately excluded. Us pointing that out as an opposition doesn't mean we don't support the support package for young Australians. We know how hard they've been hit by the pandemic. We know that this is a generational issue for them. So of course we support those elements of it. But that doesn't mean we should ignore this or we shouldn't focus on this issue. The government is once again deliberately leaving out a big chunk of Australians from these packages. We don't want these Australians to miss out. The government's budget was a real opportunity to set out a plan for economic recovery and reform that actually tried to be as inclusive as possible for as many Australians as possible. They missed that opportunity, and I can only surmise it was for those ideological reasons that they deliberately left out certain numbers of people—excluded them. Everyone's been going on a bit about how the government is great: 'Look how much they've spent—we've gone a trillion dollars into debt, with $507 billion spent in the budget.' Hold on. It's not just how much you spend, right? They've never taken the lessons of understanding this. In relation to the manner in which the previous Labor government dealt with the GFC, they were very critical of the spend. But it's how you spend that money. It's how you go about putting stimulus into the economy to cover the most vulnerable in society, to make sure that you hit those sectors, those industries, those areas, to give those people a chance to recover. That's what it's about. That's what it's about for us as a social democratic party, where we intervene to make sure that we support the most vulnerable and those who need it, and to stimulate the economy so that, based on their hard work, they can keep going and survive and then flourish. But those opposite criticised us for that, for the selective spending that we made. Apparently that wasn't good enough all those years ago. Yet they've gone and spent money. We use the old cliche of a drunken sailor. It wasn't that at all—they were sober when they were making these decisions. There was a deliberateness about the manner in which they left certain people out of these packages, and they're doing it again. They are doing it again with respect to the JobMaker hiring credit. There is no comprehensive plan for jobs across the economy. The cuts to JobKeeper and the cuts to JobSeeker in the face of rising unemployment beggar belief. Again, the government are not understanding the need in the community. As the previous speaker, the member for Rankin, said, we're going to work through our own assessment of this particular bill as it goes through the Senate committee. But there are a number of issues with it which we have raised and will continue to raise. This get-the-headline approach that I noted—this big announcement with the big headline, the sleight of hand, the marketing department working overtime to win a headline in the papers or on the radio without any substantive follow-up—is one problem, of course. Let's look at the substance as well. It's not just all talk, no action. The government have alluded to their track record. Even this morning I heard members of the government talk about the Youth Jobs PaTH program or the Restart wage subsidy. Let's have a look at those. The Youth Jobs PaTH Program was widely criticised for a lack of outcomes. There was little or no training and there were wage subsidies to big corporates like Coles and Hungry Jack's. The Restart wage subsidy program, which they point to when we say, 'You've left people over 35 out of this' is another failure. It failed to get older people back to work and is undersubscribed. The government spent half of what it was meant to spend on the program, and 40 per cent of workers on the program were without work within three months. So we really hope beyond hope that we don't see the same flaws in this hiring credit program, but I won't hold my breath, given their track record. There are a number of questions that need to be answered around this bill. That's why we will be holding it up to the light. It will be examined as forensically as possible around the operation and integrity of the scheme. Again, looking at the track record of this government on some of this, I don't hold my breath. Let's start by looking at the eligibility criteria. For social security recipients below 35, there is no requirement for employment to be secure or permanent. It does nothing to encourage security at work and security of jobs. We know that this government has presided over an increase in insecure work and underemployment for many, many years—in fact, the seven years the government's been in power. We know the design of this subsidy encourages a company to double their subsidy by hiring two workers on 20 hours each instead of one full-time employee, encouraging more casual and more part-time work and more insecure work. And there are no reporting requirements to prevent wage theft and other endemic exploitation that disproportionately affects younger workers. We know that. The evidence base is there. The regulatory oversight to date and the integrity measures have not been made clear. And we don't even trust the government to put workers and their interests first. The government really love to point out that they are doing something for younger people. What they're doing, in fact, is once again pitting one demographic—one generation, if you like—against another, making younger Australians compete with older Australians. What's the plan for older Australians, apart from those opposite pointing out they have the Restart program, which I've discussed? The competition that's coming in the face of a deepening jobs crisis is real. The government themselves are forecasting that another 160,000 Australians will join the unemployment queues before Christmas. We know that. That's in their own data, their own statements. Another matter that is disturbing about this bill is the blank cheque element of it. Nothing is stopping the government handing out a blank cheque to distribute to businesses in whichever electorates they see fit. The two-year blank cheque for undefined employment and workforce participation programs under this legislation does raise concerns with us. Why? It's not rocket science. Again, we've seen the government's track record on this with sports rorts 2.0. We've seen how they go about it. It's important, then, that this new wage subsidy scheme be designed with integrity, to avoid the temptations the government have all too often succumbed to with respect to these types of rorts. So we're going to continue to ask questions around that and around the way the government implements this. Looking at the design of JobMaker as well, are there design flaws that will prevent businesses even taking it up? The intersection of JobKeeper and the hiring credit is of real concern as well. The hiring credit takes over from JobKeeper, and its design stipulates that a business has to have additional workers in order to receive a subsidy. The businesses that are reliant on JobKeeper will ask the question: will we have recovered enough to take on more staff beyond the JobKeeper-supported staff levels? I'm from Victoria. I don't think businesses in Melbourne are yet ready and able. Once they lose JobKeeper they are more likely to lose staff, not add them to their payroll. It's like this government—the marketing department in the Prime Minister's office—has suddenly discovered young people: 'Oh, wow, there are people under 35!' After seven years they've discovered them and they've gone out and tried to pitch a story that suddenly they have a concern for them. Again it's the sleight of hand, the smoke and mirrors. When you scratch the surface you see the cracks, and the cracks become a chasm. The flaws are so evident, and they really show what this government is about. Do you really have a care for the future of young people? It's not much of an ask. Australians can't afford to have this government play politics with their future, and that's why we'll continue to forensically examine this bill. (Time expired) 16:48 Ms MURPHY 133646 Dunkley I wish to start my contribution to this debate with a short lament for the disappearance of an old-fashioned concept. It is the importance of parliament—the importance of parliamentary debate and a democracy where the citizens of Australia can be assured their parliament is giving oversight to the legislation and the actions of the government of the day; that the government of the day is taking its responsibility to legislate and conduct parliamentary debates in good faith; and that, in the end, measures that are adopted have been through processes. We are debating this bill right now only because the opposition moved a suspension of standing orders to bring it on. It's an extraordinary thing for an opposition to do, really. Why did we do it? Because we have a government that briefed out some media and dropped to the media stories—which, it would seem, were reported in some cases without any scrutiny as to whether the facts bore out the story—that the opposition were blocking this piece of legislation going through. What is even more insidious is that, my colleagues have told me, people have been contacting them and saying that the government was briefing out in their electorates, telling young people in their electorates they were going to be stopped from getting the JobMaker subsidy because their member was blocking the legislation. No such thing is true. In fact, this legislation wasn't listed for debate today. It was listed for debate tomorrow, if we got to it. We all know what a moving feast the daily bills list is. Even more galling was that the government should have been well aware that, even if this legislation passes the House today, which it will because the Labor Party is being constructive, not destructive, it can't pass the Senate until November, because the Senate is currently conducting estimates, and it is not sitting. It's pretty easy to see why the Prime Minister and the government have a reputation for being all spin and no substance, for being very good at announcements and very bad at delivery—for being marketing, men predominantly. That's pretty much right, but there's a deeper point to all of this that should disturb all of us who have the privilege who serve in the parliament, let alone Australians, who need a functioning democracy. That point is that this is a government that appears to treat the privilege of governing this country and the responsibility of governing this country in a time of national and global crisis as if it is somehow a game, as if getting up stories that make the Labor Party look bad in the media is more important than devising legislation that is well crafted, is well written, is based on strong policy and has had the opportunity for the proper parliamentary processes of scrutiny to be engaged in. That is a corrosive attitude for democracy. That is a corrosive attitude for our communities' faith and trust in our parliamentary system and our democracy. It is no wonder that trust in politics and politicians has absolutely plummeted over the last two decades. It is no wonder that the green shoots of belief and trust in government and politics that we've seen during the COVID pandemic—because of the attitudes of most people about working together cooperatively and collaboratively to deliver for people in stress, which gave Australians a bit of confidence that, maybe, we politicians could do it—are browning on the ground today. Let's hope that this is a lesson for the Prime Minister, his ministers and everyone else who sits on that side of the chamber that this is not a time for political games and spin. This is a serious time for making sure that unemployed Australians don't stay on the dole queue for the rest of their lives, for making sure that the young, unemployed people that this legislation, this wage subsidy, is supposed to help don't face an early adulthood of no jobs, of insecure jobs or of low-paid jobs and for making sure that the older Australians who we know had lost their jobs before the pandemic and the recession, in addition to the some 900,000 who have now lost their jobs, haven't seen the end of their working lives. We know that when you're over 50 and you lose your job it is so hard to get another one. At least, we all should know that. When I doorknocked before the 2016 election and last year's election, I couldn't go a single session of doorknocking without coming across someone who was 50 or older, usually a woman, occasionally a man, who would talk to me in despair about how they had been retrenched. They'd lost their job through no fault of their own and they couldn't find employment. One woman told me about how she started putting in resumes without her age on it and would get interviews—she hadn't got them before when her resume had her age on it—and then never get past the interview stage. This was not someone who wasn't qualified for the jobs she was applying for. We in this country cannot let 2020 and all of its disasters and challenges mean that our younger generation might be the first generation in living memory, really, to face a future less positive than the future faced by their parents, and that our older Australians—and the closer some of us get to 50 the more we realise that 50 isn't that old!—face unemployment in what, for many, is the most productive part of their working lives, and then face a significant proportion of their retirement in an underfunded, underscrutinised, under-resourced, broken aged-care system. That is why this debate is important, why this legislation is important and why calling out the government for the way it has behaved today is important. The wage subsidies that are in this legislation are of course supported because the intention is to help younger people get into work and help younger people who have lost their jobs get back into work. Wage subsidies are something Labor are very familiar with, having implemented many of our own in times of crisis when we've been in government, and of course wage subsidies more broadly are what Labor called for time and again earlier this year, before the government finally agreed to introduce them in the form of JobSeeker. This so-called JobMaker wage subsidy is a measure that could be very successful, but it's our job here in the parliament not to assume it will be successful just because this government says it will be but to scrutinise it to make sure that it will be—because, unfortunately, this government has a history of employment policies that sound good in the announcement but don't deliver. We know that the previous attempt to help unemployed young people into work, called Youth Jobs PaTH, has been the opposite of success, and we know that the Restart program, which this Prime Minister has pointed to time and again as this government's so-called successful program to help older Australians into work, is also almost the opposite of success. It is not helping most older people get into work, and those it is helping get into work are often only in work for about three months. So it's really important that we make sure this legislation does what it says it will do. It's also very important—harking back to where I started this speech, on the role of this parliament and democracy—that this legislation be looked at because it gives this Treasurer a blank cheque in deciding what to fund, what employment programs to go with, over the next two years. That's not how things should work in the Australian parliament. Before this year, there had been a creeping and now there's a galloping move to put more and more legislation into regulations, which means less scrutiny, which means that governments are making more and more decisions that citizens don't even know are being made, because regulations are done simply by tabling, rather than introducing a bill; having a parliamentary inquiry, allowing citizens to make submissions; and really scrutinising the legislation—not to mention the increasing habit of not putting out exposure bills for consultation. COVID is an exception; we understand why legislation was rushed during COVID. So Labor isn't holding anything up. We are doing our job, and it is beyond high time that the citizens of Australia knew that their federal government was more focused on advertising itself than on doing its job. 16:59 Mr KEOGH 249147 Burt Debating this legislation, the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020, today really just demonstrates how much this government is all about the headline and not about the action. We are here today debating this legislation that the government said is vitally important to get through this House so the Senate can debate it urgently. It's urgent that we debate this legislation in here! It was all over the papers. Why is it urgent? Because the Senate needs to consider it—in November! But, taking the government at its word and wanting to be constructive and cooperative, making sure that we assist the government to make the best supports available to the people of Australia, we, the opposition, have made sure that this vitally important piece of legislation will actually be debated today. It's not because the government decided to bring it on for debate, no. It's because the Labor Party decided to bring it on for debate, because we understand that, when the government says to the Australian people that a piece of legislation is vital and urgent and important, we need to act cooperatively with the government. We understand the importance of these things, unlike the actual government, who decided to talk to the newspapers and talk to journalists but, when it comes to what they're actually going to do in the parliament—and the minister in the chair knows this all too well—had no plan whatsoever to have this legislation debated today. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 241590 Order! The member for Burt will resume his seat. The assistant minister on a point of order? Mr Howarth 247742 It's one minute 30 and he hasn't said anything about the bill. I ask that he be relevant to the bill. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 241590 I remind the member for Burt to be relevant to the legislation. Mr KEOGH 249147 I thank the minister so much for that erudite contribution to this debate. I know it's a difficult concept to understand that the circumstance in which the legislation was brought on for debate today is relevant to the issue under debate. I understand that's a difficult concept for him, so I will move on and remind the minister and all of the members of the government that this piece of legislation is part of a broader suite of packages that have been about supporting Australian businesses and Australian workers, starting with Labor's call for a wage subsidy scheme. This was a call that the government ignored. It then had to resume parliament urgently so that we could pass the legislation that we told you a month earlier you probably needed. But, no, you ignored us—why would we ever have a good idea on this side of the chamber?—and then decided to come back with JobKeeper. That was excellent. We were glad that you did that. But, again, did you listen when we pointed out a number of flaws, like the groups of Australians that would be missing out because of the design of the scheme? No, you didn't take that advice either. You were quite happy to let childcare workers, local government workers, university staff and casual employees all miss out on the supports that should have been made available through a properly designed wage subsidy scheme during this deep, deep recession. But we move on. It's important to recognise, as I said, the benefit that is being created here and to put that in contrast. Around 4,000 businesses in my community have relied on JobKeeper. They employ around 15,000 people, and they have all been grateful to receive the support that the JobKeeper supplement has provided during this recession. The thing that concerns them, though, is that the rate of that supplement is reducing, the availability of it to business is changing and the government is continuing to roll these reductions out. The government has said, 'Well, the economy's coming back, so businesses don't need the support.' If a business doesn't need the support, it won't qualify for JobKeeper; its revenues won't be 30 per cent down. If its revenue is still 30 per cent down, chances are pretty high that it still needs JobKeeper at the rate that it was being delivered. This legislation is emblematic of the approach that the government outlined in its budget. Despite the fact that we are in a deep recession, the government talks about coming out of this recession quickly. But it's not going to be able to deliver on that if it keeps removing demand from the economy. I know aggregate demand is a difficult concept for you on the other side of the chamber to understand; you just want to work on supply-side economics, but the reality is, as small businesses in my electorate tell me frequently, that people in the community will have less money to spend in those businesses, which will ensure that their turnover remains at below 30 per cent. They're going to have that reduction, and that's why they need JobKeeper in the first place. This is a self-fulfilling negative prophecy that the government is legislating here and moving forward in its approach to the budget. When the government stands in front of us, as the Treasurer did on budget night, to say that this budget is about delivering jobs, let us quickly check the facts. What this budget is delivering is 160,000 fewer jobs before Christmas. You can't go around and say, 'This is a job-creating budget,' when your plan is literally for 160,000 fewer jobs. But, if you listen to what we've been trying to tell you for months now, which is that you can't go around reducing demand like this and you can't go around reducing supports when the economy is still on its knees and instead should provide that support, maybe—just maybe—we wouldn't be faced with that sort of situation, we would see some job growth and we would see some wage growth in this country, which would, of course, support the economy to grow, which is what you keep telling us is what you are trying to do. Then we get to the JobMaker hiring credit, which is supposed to effectively take over from the end of JobKeeper. Let's look at what you've designed there. Oh, hang on a minute, members of parliament; we can't look at what you've designed there, because this legislation doesn't actually include it. You've explained to us what you think you are going to do. You then presented a piece of legislation to the parliament which is fundamentally a blank cheque to the Treasurer to provide support. So we can't look at what you're actually going to do, but we will rely—because that's all we've got—on what you've told us you are going to do. So let's have a look at this. You're going to provide a hiring credit to support the employment of people aged under 35. As someone who represents a community that before the COVID recession had youth unemployment at a rate of around 15 to 20 per cent, I'm very thankful that this government has finally realised that young people have trouble getting employment in Australia. It's taken you seven years to get to this point, to realise that this is a problem and to try to do something about it, but I suppose we should at least be grateful that you have recognised it. But what you are also doing in creating this scheme is creating an incentive for people not to employ people over 35. As the member for Dunkley just explained in talking to her constituents—and I have had very similar circumstances in my electorate of Burt, where I have been out doorknocking or had people approaching me in my office my mobile offices to talk to me about the concern they have. Largely, people over the age of 50 who have either become unemployed or have been retrenched because of the recession we are in now are very concerned that they will literally never have a job again. This was a problem before COVID. This was a problem that was made worse by this government in its 2014 budget cutting the support program that helped people over the age of 50 get into employment. This government's solution was to remove that program. Now, when we're confronted with the first recession in nearly 30 years, the government's response is a program that will only help people aged under 35. I don't take anything away from helping them, because they desperately need it, but what about the 928,000 people aged over 35 who are unemployed? That is nearly a million people that you're not going to provide support to to re-enter the workforce. We combine this situation with the JobSeeker Christmas cliff. If there were ever an example of a government being the Grinch, it is this government here. This government's current position is that, when we get to just after Christmas, for those who are unemployed—that's the 928,000 people aged over 35, for example—not only will there be no further assistance to try and help them get back into the workplace; they will return to a situation where they are only receiving $40 a day in JobSeeker payments. That is a situation that not just welfare agencies, not just community not-for-profit organisations, not just peak welfare organisations but nearly every economist and business organisation in this country has been telling this government for years is fundamentally flawed and wrong. And the government says, 'Oh, well we expect unemployment to reduce; therefore, we can reduce the amount that is paid for JobSeeker.' I think the government needs to wake up to what it is really telling people when it says that. What the government is saying is that it wants to solve a political problem. It's more concerned about the rate of JobSeeker, not whether it will mean that people live above or below the poverty line, not whether they're able to put food on the table for their children, not whether they're able to support themselves and pay rent. No, they're just concerned about how, if there are too many people on unemployment, it may mean that it becomes a political problem for the government. It's a welfare system. It's a safety net. Make sure it's an actual safety net. Having a safety net under the ground doesn't stop you hitting it. It is supposed to catch you when you fall. So the government has said in its budget to say to the Australian people, 'We know that it delivers a result under the poverty line, but we will still reduce it down to under that as we see things progress—in fact, just after Christmas.' As I said, this government is the Grinch when it comes to JobSeeker. Then of course all of these things are on top of the other support you would expect might be there to help people get back into work. So they have suddenly worked out that maybe they should do something for TAFE after they have been cutting funding from TAFE. They want to make getting into university more expensive at a time when people are going to be more interested in retraining and getting a qualification to give them better prospects of getting a job. As I mentioned before, because I know the minister at the table was very concerned that I stay very tightly relevant to this legislation, this particular piece of legislation is also effectively an admission of failure of the previous programs that the government had in place to support young people back into work. I know that as a fact because, when I go around my electorate, as I said, 15 to 20 per cent of young people are unemployed. So clearly what you were doing before was not working. But, in addition to that, you've designed a system—and I really want to focus on and belabour this point—where you haven't told us what the design of the system is. You assure us that this system will not result in employers sacking older workers to employ younger workers, but you haven't told us anything about how you're going to police that. You tell us that it won't create perverse incentives in the labour market, but you can't tell us how it is going to do that or not do that. And you have set up a system, like JobKeeper, where you've asked for our support. You said, 'Can you write us a blank cheque so that for the next two years we can do whatever we want to try and support these different employment credits?' It was understandable in the heat of a crisis, as we were with JobKeeper—when you were a month late and we'd told you to do it before—that instead of tying things up in legislation when there was a critical question mark over whether this place could meet we gave the Treasurer the power to write the Treasurer's rules on JobKeeper. We are not in that situation now. We could literally debate detailed legislation on this for the next two weeks and not hold it up, because the Senate doesn't meet until November. Yet you want us to write you a blank cheque. Seriously! King Henry would have been galled to see what you are trying to get through this parliament to that extent. If a Labor government walked into this parliament and said to a Liberal opposition 'We've got a great idea: we want to be able to provide additional support for hiring of Australian workers, but we're not going to tell you how much it is going to cost and we can't tell you what the rules are going to be, but that's okay; just give us all the power,' I don't think you would see anywhere near the goodwill that we are giving to you as a government, because we understand the importance of trying to support workers and unemployed people back into work. For all of the rhetoric from this government, it is actually continuing to fail to deliver. It all comes down to this fundamental point. While Labor want to see young Australians supported, we want to see all Australians supported through this crisis—through the health crisis and through the economic crisis. We want to see a return to employment in this country. But what we have been delivered by this government, time and time again, is that they are all photo-op and no follow-through. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 241590 Before I call the next speaker, I would remind the member for Burt to direct his remarks to the chair. There was a very liberal use of the word 'you' throughout that speech. I take it you were referring to the government of the day and not the Deputy Speaker. 17:13 Mr CONROY 249127 Shortland I am pleased to make a contribution on the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020 or the JobMaker wage credit bill, which is effectively what we are debating today. I will ask people listening to parliamentary proceedings on the net to remember these five numbers—2½ million, 1½ million, 160,000, 20,000 and 17,000. They are five very important numbers that have guided my consideration of this legislation and my approach in this House. Two and a half million is the number of Australians who are out of work or in work but desperately needing more hours. That is the highest number of underemployed Australians this country has ever seen—2½ million. There are 1½ million people in this country currently in receipt of the JobSeeker payment, formerly Newstart. The government predicts that 160,000 people will be added to the unemployment queues by the end of Christmas. So we'll have almost 1.7 million Australians receiving the JobSeeker payment. In Shortland, there are 20,000 residents in receipt of the JobSeeker payment and 17,000 in receipt of the JobKeeper payment. Those critical numbers are 2½ million, 1½ million, 160,000, 20,000 and 17,000. They point to the current weakness in the economy, the once-in-100 years recession, and the fact that the government is not doing all it can to get us out of it. An example of that is the 20,000 residents of Shortland who are on the JobSeeker payment. A few weeks back, they suffered a cut that took $6 million a fortnight out of the Shortland economy. And JobSeeker will return to its unacceptable $40 day on 1 January, so there'll be millions more dollars pulled out of the Shortland economy then and 20,000 Shortland residents will be returned to an unacceptable level of poverty. The 17,000 Shortland residents on JobKeeper payment saw the JobKeeper payment cut a few weeks ago as well, pulling another $15 million a fortnight out of the local economy—$15 million that could be keeping cafes, restaurants and local businesses afloat. Again, we have the JobKeeper cliff early next year, where we'll see that payment disappear. Those two payments disappearing, impacting incredibly negatively on 37,000 residents in Shortland, is symbolic of the philosophical approach of this government embodied in the budget delivered two weeks ago. It is really about passing the baton of the recession response from the government to businesses and consumers. It is a return to this government's fundamental ideology of small government. They are putting this country into net debt of $1 trillion and gross debt of $1.7 trillion and pumping that money into the economy through businesses and consumers in the hope that they will spend money to get us out of this once-in-100 years recession. This is an incredibly risky philosophy for a few reasons, and that is the context for the JobMaker wage credit that we are debating today. Firstly, it's risky because businesses will not spend if they don't think they've got customers who will buy the products that the investment will produce. They will not buy new capital equipment if they don't foresee a new stream of customers to take advantage of that new piece of capital equipment. Businesses won't spend the investment allowance readily unless they are very optimistic about the state of the economy, and the latest business confidence figures released last week indicate that businesses are very gloomy about prospects for recovery. Secondly, the investment allowance is a very blunt instrument. The industries most impacted by the COVID recession are not capital intensive. Five employment categories have had 50 per cent of the job losses during the COVID recession. No. 1 is retail assistants, No.2 is hospitality workers, No. 3 is retail and hospitality managers, No. 4 is personal service workers and No. 5 is plant operators. So four of the top five employment categories are in industries that are not capital intensive. An investment allowance may be attractive and important to some businesses. It will encourage, for example, a metal manufacturer to spend $1 million on a new laser cutting machine. But it is not really attractive to a cafe, whose biggest capital investment might be a new coffee machine, a new pie cart or a new van to deliver food. So a capital investment allowance is not the most focused way of getting businesses to spend money, even if you think businesses will spend money in the expectation that customers will buy. The second issue with the government's philosophical approach is putting the money in the hands of consumers and hoping consumers will spend that money. Well, consumers quite naturally, at this stage, are very cautious. I am very cautious myself. When you've got an economy where you've got 2½ million people out of work or desperately needing more hours, people are going to be very frugal, so a lot of the tax cuts, as embodied in this budget, are going to be saved. So there's a real question mark about whether this $1 trillion of debt we're going to be in because of this government's spending will actually achieve the stated economic stimulus impact. So it is a very curious decision to, at the same time, withdraw aggregate demand by cutting JobKeeper and JobSeeker, which is what this government is doing. That's the context for the JobMaker hiring credit that we are talking about now: a wage subsidy for those under 35. Look—this will obviously help get young people back into work, if the detail comes as promised. And we do recognise that young people are impacted by the recession. They are in the industries disproportionately impacted by the particular nature of this recession, in terms of the industries that are cut down. But the issue with this legislation is not who's included in it; it's who's excluded. Nine hundred and twenty-eight thousand Australians are excluded from this wage subsidy. Two in three JobSeeker recipients are excluded from this wage subsidy. Everyone aged over 35 is excluded from this wage subsidy. And this leads to huge issues. Firstly, the single biggest cohort on JobSeeker is that of women aged over the age of 45. There is a huge cohort on JobSeeker of Australians aged over 45. So they are going to be massively disadvantaged when this wage credit gets passed by this parliament because, if you're an employer and you're doing a job interview and you've got two people to hire, and they have equal skills and decent levels of experience, and one's 29 and you're going to get the $200-a-week wage subsidy to hire the 29-year-old, versus a 49-year-old person, who do you think they are going to hire? They're going to hire the 29-year-old, therefore excluding that 49-year-old. That's on top of issues around age discrimination that we know affect huge numbers of Australians aged over 45 in this country. So the targeting of this wage subsidy is problematic. I support young people getting into jobs. Assistance is desperately needed—all the assistance we can give—to help young people find new jobs. But it should not be at the expense of older Australians. So the question for the Prime Minister is: Why exclude 928,000 Australians? Why hasn't he designed a system that gives a wage subsidy to hire every single unemployed Australian in this country? The second issue with this wage subsidy is that it provides a perverse incentive for an employer to sack someone aged over the age of 35, particularly if they're in an industry where they've got weakened industrial-relations protections under this government. There's a huge perverse incentive for them to sack someone who's 37, hire a 29-year-old to do exactly the same job, and pocket a $200-a-week wage subsidy. Most employers won't do that. Most employers will do the right thing. But there are always dodgy employers that will do the wrong thing. And this has a perverse incentive. The other issue with the implementation of this is: the way the legislation is constructed, an employer has a much greater incentive to hire two part-time workers than one full-time worker, because he or she gets a much greater wage subsidy, per hour worked, if they do it on a pro rata basis. So, again, while part-time employment is very important and is attractive to many people in the economy, we should be encouraging full-time employment as much as possible, and that's why the way this is constructed is problematic. It also reinforces a huge issue this government has presided over, which is the rise of insecure work in this country. Last year was the first time in the economic history of this country where we had more than half of Australian workers performing jobs that weren't full-time with leave entitlements such as sick leave and paid annual leave. That points to huge economic insecurity in this country. It points to huge issues around trying to take out a loan to buy a house or take a holiday, and this legislation reinforces that particular rise of economic insecurity. The other issue with this legislation is the complete lack of detail. As previous Labor speakers have highlighted, this legislation is very light on detail. The government is effectively saying: 'Trust us and we will deliver.' I don't trust this government. Time after time they've demonstrated their complete inability to manage the economy and to manage administration of government programs. They've overestimated the cost of JobKeeper by $60 billion. They've bought a piece of land at Badgerys Creek for $33 million when it was worth $3 million. You've got the sports rorts affair. You've got issue after issue, highlight after highlight of this government's maladministration, so with this government 'trust us' is not an answer I feel comfortable with. This legislation is incredibly problematic. It has some things going for it. It is useful. I support anything we can do to help young people get into employment. We need to fight the scourge of unemployment. It is the greatest scourge in this land at the moment. We have 2½ million people out of work or needing more hours in this country. There are 20,000 residents of Shortland on JobSeeker at the moment. We need to get them back to work. We need to get out of the once in a century recession. We need to get out of a recession that this government, under the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has deepened and lengthened, because he was slow to act and he's prematurely removing government stimulus. This legislation is important, but we need to place it in the context of this government continuing to mismanage the economy. 17:26 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne [by video link] This government is contracting out the recovery from the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus. Their whole approach, of which this bill is another example, is to take billions of dollars of public money that could be going into direct investment in jobs and services and instead give it to big corporations and just hope that some of it will trickle down to everyday people. We saw with the budget, the centrepiece, which Labor waved through as quickly as it could, was giving above $20 billion to corporations in the hope that they would go and use that money to buy things that somehow stimulated the Australian economy when there were no conditions put on it. For all we know they could be going out to buy cheap office furniture from China or cheap computers that won't do a thing to get people in jobs, and won't do anything to support Australian manufacturing, but will just be another handout to big corporations. This bill continues that approach. This bill is going to give $4 billion to big corporations to help with their wages bill, many of whom may not need it at all. There are absolutely no strings attached on this bill. This is a blank cheque that taxpayers are giving to big corporations to part pay their wages bill. This could be a slush fund for wage thieves. We have seen many large corporations being brought before the courts, the commission and the media for underpaying workers, many of whom have been young. People have systematically been denied their penalty rates. People have systematically been underpaid, sometimes less than the award. It's taken some very brave unions and some individual workers speaking up, and some courageous journalists to do some digging, to uncover some of that. What we have learned through all that is that some of Australia's biggest corporations are wage thieves and they make their profit in part by underpaying workers, and doing it systematically. Under this bill those same corporations may now be able to get a taxpayer subsidy to part pay their wages bill, because the government doesn't care about which big corporations they are going to give billions of dollars to. They come with a bill that's only a couple of pages long, that says: 'Trust us. Let us give $4 billion to some of Australia's biggest corporations. They may pay no tax and they may underpay their workers, but we want to give them an extra handout.' Corporations who make their profits by doing the wrong things should be on the government's blacklist, but instead the government comes forward and says, 'Let us give them money to potentially part pay their wages bill.' Whilst the pandemic has clearly been a time of great difficulty for many businesses in Australia, including many small businesses in Melbourne, there have also been some that have done extremely well. Australia's 25 richest people have increased their collective wealth by $25 billion during this pandemic. A couple of weeks ago many of those people earning $1 million a year, thanks to the Liberals and Labor, got a tax cut. The Liberals and Labour said: 'Yes, let's give those people a tax cut. Don't put the million unemployed first. Let's put the millionaires ahead of the million unemployed.' That's what the Liberals, with Labor support, did previously, and it's now going to continue with corporations as well. What we have seen over the recent times of the pandemic is that, while many of us were, and in some instances still are, under lockdown, some of Australia's richest corporations got richer. The billionaires got richer. The top 25 increased their wealth by $25 billion during the time of the pandemic. What does this bill do? This bill says that, even if your corporation did well during the pandemic—say you were in charge of making the cardboard boxes that everyone is getting things shipped to their homes in during the pandemic because we can't go to the shops and we've ordered online; or perhaps you're a mining billionaire who's continued to make billions because state governments like the Queensland government give you a freeze on mining royalties every time you ask for it—and even if you are a company that has been paying dividends, you're going to be entitled to a subsidy to part pay their wages bill. Just think about that for a moment. This bill isn't just aimed at helping businesses that are doing it tough. It's going to go to businesses that are in rude financial health and that continue to make a profit during the pandemic. If a corporation is able to make a profit during the pandemic, why should the public be part paying their wages bill? That should not happen under this bill. This bill deserves the highest level of scrutiny. Instead, we've seen the strange spectacle today of the bill coming forward. It's only a few pages long. It's got next to nothing in it and no safeguards. The Greens have been demanding the release of the full scheme and the regulations before we vote on this bill, but the government hasn't done that. They've just said, 'Trust us.' Now we're debating it today because, oddly, the Labor Party has said this bill, which is only a few lines long, with no scrutiny and no protections, needs to be rammed through and gagged, if necessary today. With an opposition like that, no wonder the government feels happy that its budget is going to get through and they're going to deliver on their $99 billion a year in subsidies to the big corporations, including with this bill. Anyway, here we are. We're debating this bill today with next to no information about how the bill is going to work, because the government is just after a blank cheque to let corporations—some of whom might be underpaying employees and some of whom might be turning a profit already—now get part of their wages bill paid for by the public. The bill being put forward contains no safeguards. The purpose of the bill is supposedly to assist with young people being unemployed, but I'll come back to that in a moment, because that is a crucial issue. For all we know, this bill could result in young people being sacked. Why is that? It's because the detail in this is so thin that so much is left up to the minister on a 'trust me' basis. It says, 'Let me go away and write the so-called protections in afterwards.' Under this bill there seems to be nothing stopping a corporation sacking someone who's employed now, including a young person, and then rehiring two young people at the minimum wage on part-time hours. That way the corporation gets two lots of the subsidy, versus keeping one person on who might get zero lots of the subsidy. The way that this bill is drafted, because it contains no protections or safeguards, might actually work against people, including young people who've got a job at the moment. We shouldn't be, in this parliament, party to passing something that might result in people getting sacked. Why are we in this situation when we know that, with some of these schemes, if they don't have proper protections and processes built into them, they don't do the job that the government says they're going to do? When we have got record levels of unemployment—certainly in living memory for most people—and when young people are being hit extra hard, and young people are in the industries that are going to take longer to recover from the corona crisis as well, why are we in a position where the government's bowling up something that might actually work against young people getting a job in this terrible, terrible recession that we find ourselves in? It's because the government has an ideological opposition to doing the one that thing would create jobs and help us tackle the other crises that we're facing at the moment, like the climate crisis, the inequality crisis and the jobs crisis that is working against young people and women. The government, right now, should be directly investing in public schools, in public hospitals, in doctors and nurses and in university education. The government should be directly investing in aged care. The government should be directly investing in building more public housing. The government should be directly investing in public manufacturing to kick off a manufacturing renaissance in this country. That way, we would grow jobs, we would be able to do it quickly, and we would tackle the climate crisis and the inequality crisis that we're facing as well. When you go to the doctor and the doctor says, 'You've got three things wrong with you, and I can give you medicine that fixes one, or I can give you medicine that fixes all three,' you take the medicine that fixes all three. That's what a Green New Deal—investment by the government in public projects that would build the economy— The DEPUTY SPEAKER E09 Order! The member will resume his seat. Minister. Mr Howarth 247742 Just on direct relevance: the government is already investing in all of those things the member for Melbourne has just spoken about, and I'd ask that he bring his attention back to the bill. Mr BANDT M3C Speaker, that is not a point of order. The DEPUTY SPEAKER E09 No, it's not a point of order. The member will continue. Mr BANDT M3C The government are so sensitive that, the moment that you suggest that there might be something better to do with the money than give it to big corporations who might be wage thieves and who might be making a profit already—the government are so sensitive and have such a glass jaw—that they jump up. We are talking about what is wrong with this bill, and what is wrong with this bill is that it is shovelling billions of dollars into the pockets of big corporations and asking for nothing in return. Instead, that money could be used to create jobs and help tackle the climate crisis and the inequality crisis, if we had the guts to invest that money in building public housing and expanding free education and putting it into aged care and having free child care in this country. That is the way to get young people into work. That is the way to give young people some hope in the future. Instead, this government just kicks it off into the long grass and says, 'We'll write out a cheque for McDonald's and Hungry Jack's' and anyone else who wants to come forward—any other big corporation that might be donating to the Liberal and Labor parties come election time: 'Here, let us write you a big cheque to part pay some of your wages bill, even though you might be making some of the biggest profits you've ever made in your life.' When you dare to call them to account, what do they do? They jump up to the dispatch box and say, 'No, you can't talk about this and you can't talk about that, because that is not relevant.' What a narrow level of understanding from this government about how to recover from an economic crisis. History tells us one thing, and that is that, if government cuts areas like universities and childcare and the public sector during a crisis, it takes longer to recover from a recession. We should be directly investing to create jobs and to lift wages. In the last budget, the government basically baked in a decade of low wages growth. It wants six per cent unemployment, and then it'll start cutting again. Six per cent means two million people in this country either without a job or without enough hours of work, and the government says, 'That's a fine target—once we reach that, we're going to cut even more.' This kind of approach to the recession is going to make the recession last longer, and it is going to hit young people and women the hardest. What would be a better approach? A better approach instead would be direct government investment, because when you directly invest in free education and free health care and in manufacturing and building public housing, you create jobs and you meet community needs. But instead this government, because of its narrow ideological blinkers and because it takes money from the very same big corporations that are causing the problem that we're in at the moment, can see no other solution than to write blank cheques back to those corporations, and that is what this bill is about. This bill, like so much of the government's budget, which contains $99 billion in subsidies to big corporations, is payback to the big corporates who donate to this government and donate to the opposition. Now we get bills like this instead of direct government investment, which is what we should be doing. We are in an economic crisis, and we face a lost generation of young people if we don't have the guts to invest directly in nation-building, planet-saving projects that are going to provide a job guarantee for young people. We need not subsidies to big corporations but large-scale, nation-building, planet-saving projects where every young person in this country is guaranteed a job working on them, if they want one. That's what would help get us out of recession. Instead, the government by its own admission in the budget papers is locking in and choosing a high-unemployment future. As many commentators have said, much of the government's spending is based on borrowing. We've got a choice. What are we going to do? Are we going to borrow to give tax cuts to people earning over a million dollars, as the government with Labor support wants to do, or are we going to borrow to invest directly in public services that will give people jobs and meet needs? That is what young people in this country want, a government that's got the guts to stand up to the big corporations and invest to tackle the climate crisis and the inequality crisis, not the slush fund for wage thieves and already profitable companies that this bill could well be. 17:41 Dr LEIGH BU8 Fenner We know that the Prime Minister has a marketing background, and never has this been clearer than when the Treasurer announced the program we're debating tonight. The Treasurer's budget speech stated: Treasury estimates that this will support around 450,000 jobs for young people. Support 450,000 jobs: what would most people take that as meaning? I imagine most people listening thought, 'Beauty, 450,000 more jobs!' But, no, that wasn't what the Treasurer meant. The Treasurer meant that the total number of people who could be eligible for this program is 450,000. The maximum possible number of applicants is 450,000. Putting aside the fact, that, obviously, some of those people would have found a job absent the program, you have another example of the government's marketing spin over policy substance. The fact is we're not going to see 450,000 new jobs created. Just because 450,000 people are eligible for the program, it doesn't mean that that's actually going to be what happens when the rubber hits the road. Labor's concerns over the gap between the government's rhetoric and their actions goes to another wage subsidy scheme, the Restart Program, which pays a subsidy of up to $10,000 for hiring new employees over the age of 50. When it was announced in 2014, the coalition promised to spend $520 million to help up to 32,000 older Australians find a job every year. Yet, over the time it's been in place, just $254 million has been spent to help 51,190 mature-age people into work. Of those 51,190 people, only 30,000 remained in employment for 13 weeks or more and there were 21,000 who lasted less than six months. So the government has a very poor track record on follow-through with programs of this kind. The fact is young people have people have been hurt by this downturn. That's undeniable. We have evidence from Treasury which talks about the scarring effect, which suggests that the damage to the careers of young people graduating into a recession can be seen in their CVs up to a decade later. Treasury research, written by Dan Andrews and others, finds that the scarring effect of recessions on young people might have grown larger over time. But it doesn't follow from that that you want to do nothing to support older workers. It doesn't follow from that that you want to suddenly turn the tap off for anyone who passes the age of 35. The fact is the government's proposals need to be considered in their entirety. This holds true when we think about the government's accelerated depreciation measure—the instant expensing measure. I'm a strong supporter of innovation; I believe that we need to have more innovation in order to sustain productivity. But it's vital that that innovation go alongside investment in education. In their terrific book The Race Between Education and Technology, Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz argue that inequality is a function of how quickly innovation and education advance. When you have education accelerating alongside innovation, you get growth with equity. When you have technological advance but educational stagnation, the gap between the haves and the have-nots grows wider. That's because, as economists have long argued, technological change is skill biased. Skill-biased technological change means that automation tends to increase employment opportunities at the top end and decrease employment opportunities at the bottom end. It means that, as you have computerisation, that makes the most effective lawyers more productive but a robot vacuum cleaner can take the job of a human who is cleaning the office. That's why at the last election Labor had significant policies for investing in education alongside our proposals for accelerated depreciation measures. We recognised that those two went together and that, when you invested in schools, in vocational training and universities, at the same time you can encourage firms to invest in automation. But the budget didn't do that. In the face of the biggest human capital crisis in a generation, the budget encouraged investment in physical capital instead. In an article for the Australian Tax Forum, the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute's regular updates, Michael Coelli, from the University of Melbourne, warned of the risk this might engender. He pointed out: But many capital goods installed in Australia are purchased from overseas. He pointed out: According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures, Australia imported nearly $79 billion in capital goods in 2018/19, while total private investment in new machinery and equipment in Australia was $83 billion … He also noted: Many new capital goods use new technologies which require fewer workers to run than outgoing assets based on older technologies. He said: In some cases, new capital goods directly replace workers via automation. This includes industrial robots in manufacturing, automated warehouses, specialized software and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and driverless vehicles, among others. He concluded: The end result of bringing forward investments in new capital assets may well be fewer jobs in many cases. That means that it may be the case that the government's encouragement of firms to invest in new capital without commensurate human capital policies could lead to a bias away from jobs rather than towards them. Michael Coelli also said of the wage subsidies: We must wait to see whether these subsidies come at the expense of new hires among unemployed workers 36 and older, at the expense of full-time jobs by encouraging jobs just reaching the 20 hours a week threshold, and whether the jobs remain beyond the length of the subsidy program (one year). And that's a real concern for many of us given the government's track record on the Restart Program, given the fact that, when we looked at the Restart Program, we found that many of those who were assisted by the program did not remain in the program beyond 13 weeks. We also have a government which is rolling out loan schemes at a time when other countries are going for equity injections. A new paper by the OECD titled COVID-19 government financing support programmes for businesses notes that many other countries are choosing equity injections, recognising that there is limited appetite for borrowing among SMEs. They give examples: the German Corona Matching Facility, a two billion euro package; the Lithuanian Aid Fund for Business; Finland's investment stabilisation financing program; the British government's convertible loans program, which is able to turn into an equity injection; the Irish Strategic Investment Fund; and the Italian special fund for capital strengthening investments. The OECD's paper even argues that it might well be the case that the government return is greater for equity injections than it would be for low-interest loans. We can see this in the take-up of the government's SME loans program. During the course of this year, we've seen an increase in lending to large firms but an eight per cent fall in lending to small businesses. Small businesses aren't taking up those SME loans. The facility has been massively undersubscribed, and the government is failing to look at other alternatives, such as equity injections. We also have the misuse of the JobKeeper scheme, to which the government is turning a blind eye. We have seen at least three Australian billionaires receiving significant dividends when their firms received JobKeeper support. JobKeeper was meant to be a program to support the jobs of battlers, but, instead, it has ended up helping to line the pockets of billionaires. Overwhelmingly, Australian firms have done the right thing. Indeed, one firm reached out to me recently and said: 'We don't want to be named, but we were eligible for JobKeeper and we chose not to take the money. We decided we didn't need that money'. They might well have pointed out that, with 160,000 people slated to lose their jobs between now and Christmas, it makes sense for scarce taxpayer dollars to be spent where they're needed most. At a time at which the New Year's Day presents for a million unemployed Australians will be JobSeeker snapping back to $40 a day, it's not appropriate for firms to be receiving JobKeeper and paying out large executive bonuses. That's my view, but it doesn't appear to be the government's view. It is, however, a view that's shared by the Business Council of Australia. Their head, Jennifer Westacott, told David Speers on ABC's Insiders program that she didn't think it was appropriate for firms getting JobKeeper support to pay out executive bonuses. Yet, a slew of firms have done so, just as a large number of firms have used JobKeeper to pay dividends. As a recent example, just last week we saw bullbar-maker ARB getting $18.3 million dollars in JobKeeper. They qualified for JobKeeper because of an early downturn in their revenue. But, over the course of this year, they've seen an uptick in profits. Their profits are up on last year's, yet they're continuing to receive JobKeeper subsidies from the government. And they have paid a hefty dividend to shareholders. All this is happening at a time when the government is saying they can't afford to extend JobKeeper to a million casuals, they can't afford to extend JobKeeper to the university sector and they can't afford to extend JobKeeper to arts workers. It's all happening at a time when Volunteering Australia has said of the federal budget that it allocated no new funding to reactivate volunteering, at a time when many charities are feeling like they are the Liberal Party's forgotten people. Labor supports wage subsidies. We took a wage subsidy program to the last election. When the crisis hit, we looked around the world and saw that many other countries were putting wage subsidy programs in place, because that connection between employer and employee is harder to build than it is to break. Employment relationships, like romantic relationships, snap quicker than they are built in the first place. So it is important that government maintains that connection to work. We called on the government to implement a wage subsidy scheme, and they were slow off the mark. The Prime Minister initially said it wasn't necessary, but, eventually he came around and acquiesced to put in place the JobKeeper scheme. According to Treasury, that's now accounted for some 700,000 more people maintaining a connection to work than would have been the case otherwise. But we've criticised the government for excluding more than a million people from their JobKeeper scheme. In the case of universities, they changed the rules three times to exclude the university sector from JobKeeper. The result has been 11,000 job losses, with possibly another 10,000 to come. Universities are being brutally hit by the government at a time in which a clever country would be investing in education, at a time in which a clever country would be saying, 'We have fewer overseas students; let's ensure that every school leaver who has the smarts to study at university has a place there waiting for them.' Why would we want young Australians to be languishing, receiving unemployment benefits, when they have the smarts to go to university and where the university can take them on? That would be a smart play that would boost Australia's productivity in the future and would avoid the scarring effect of unemployment. And yet we have this hodgepodge of programs. We have capital subsidies without education investment. We have wage subsidies with a sudden cut-off at 35. We have a government which has a poor record on its youth PaTH program, which has been widely criticised for a lack of outcomes, little to no training and delivering wage subsidies to firms like Coles and Hungry Jack's. The fact is that young people have done it tough under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government, and this program is not the comprehensive support for young people that their generation so desperately needs. 17:56 Ms RYAN 249224 Lalor [by video link] It is my pleasure to follow the member for Fenner, who as ever gave us a detailed critique of the piece of legislation before the parliament. I will begin by suggesting that, with what we saw happen today with headlines this morning suggesting that Labor were going to be blocking this piece of legislation only to then find ourselves in the House with no legislation before us and in fact the legislation being brought on because of the contributions from the members for Watson and Gorton, we find ourselves now with a government sitting across from us in this chamber who misunderstand the difference between critiquing or seeking to improve something and blocking something. This government has a history of thinking that its first draft of anything is better than anybody else's thoughtful contribution might make it. It is years now that I have stood in this place—although today I am standing in my office in Werribee!—and listened to the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government try to tell us that its first brush at something will always get the best outcomes for this country. Rather than work with the opposition, particularly in this incredibly difficult time of a global pandemic and a recession, this government insists on playing political games with things that are incredibly important to the lives of all Australians, not least of which the lives of the community that I represent in Lalor. Of course Labor supports wage subsidies. Labor called for wage subsidies, and this government eventually came to the table and introduced the JobKeeper subsidy. This is a point of pride for Labor members. It is a point of pride in my community that Labor called for this. It is a point of pride in my community that the government took this action. It's an absolute point of pride that my community thinks that those of us who work in Canberra to represent them care about their day-to-day lives. That brings me to this piece of legislation. This piece of legislation, so quaintly named 'JobMaker' by the Prime Minister, needs caveats put on it already—'It's the JobMaker if you're under 35.' It doesn't speak to the people in my electorate who are over 35. It doesn't speak to the high number of now unemployed, becoming long-term unemployed, women over 50 who live in my electorate who face financial crises every day, who in this pandemic and this recession have now almost given up hope of ever working again. It gives them nothing. It makes no jobs for them. We want to critique this particular measure from the most recent budget exactly around that point: if you're going to call something a universal name like 'JobMaker' then make it work for everyone. Let's look closely at who this locks out, because it mirrors some of the people who were locked out in the first place, who were locked out of JobKeeper. Casuals—people who were working casually—who had not been employed for 12 months were locked out of financial support from this government. The university sector was locked out of financial support from this government. Dnata workers in my electorate were locked out of support from the JobKeeper program because, although they'd worked for Qantas for years, the company had changed hands and was now owned by a foreign company. They were locked out of JobKeeper by this government. Let's look at the New Zealanders who live in my electorate, who are still locked out of JobKeeper. Let's look at all of those people whom the government ignored then, and then let's have a look at their latest effort, which is JobMaker. What we see in this latest effort is that they have 'seen the light', if you like, in terms of youth unemployment and the impacts the recession will have on young people and people up to 35, but they have failed to see that this will be a doubling-down of loss for people over 35—people in electorates like mine, with very high numbers of people reliant on JobKeeper. The government need to go back to the starting place. They need to go back and review what they found with their own Restart program, which was aimed at finding employment for people over 50. They need to have a look at the figures they've managed to produce there. They need to acknowledge that they've spent only $254 million of a $520 million budget and they haven't helped the number of people they thought they would help with that program. They need to figure out why these things are occurring. They need to look deeply into their PaTH program, which was supposedly about youth unemployment but hasn't met the huge expectations around it; in fact, it has been widely criticised. And they have to look at this program—not just at who it excludes automatically but at what the impacts of its implementation might be, particularly around insecure work and the creation of part-time opportunities, not full-time opportunities, for the people who are going to find work here. What are they saying to young people? 'It's okay; you'll only be partially blocked out of your financial future, because companies will be able to get this for people who work 20 hours a week.' Well, a full-time job in this country is not 20 hours a week. Like other members on our side of the House, I hope the government look at these things seriously. I hope they don't walk out of this parliament, this piece of legislation having been passed at some point, think, 'That's the job done,' wipe their hands and keep moving. They are a government who need to learn the lessons of review and revision. They are a government who need to learn the lessons about listening. They need to listen to the people who are already critical of this, including those in the opposition. 18:03 Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B Whitlam (   We're in the middle of a recession. If you are under the age of 30, this is going to be the first recession in your lifetime. You probably have to be over the age of 45 to have a living memory of the last recession, so for many members of this place the concept of a recession is an academic one. It's not one they can personally remember; it's not one they've lived through. I'm not one of those people. I left school in 1983. That was the height of the second-last great downturn. I don't need to be lectured by anyone on the impact of a recession on young people and young people's life opportunities. I fully remember the young men that I went to school with. I remember their capacity as they made their way through year 9, year 10, year 11 and year 12, and I remember the discussion that would go on in the schoolyard about what they were going to do when they left school. If their dad or their brother worked in the mines, they wanted to go and work in the mines. If their dad worked in the steelworks, they were going to go and work in the steelworks. If their dad was a chippie or a sparky or working in building and construction, they had hopes and aspirations of following their father or their brother or their uncle into one of those trades. But the recession of 1982-83 ended all of those hopes and aspirations. In one 12-month period, the steelworks, then the largest employer in town, went from a workplace of 23,000 employees—engaging all of the ready, willing and able young boys and, in later years, girls of a generation into an apprenticeship or a traineeship—down to 13,000 employees. The downturn, the recession, had hit, and it hit the hopes and aspirations of all of those young boys. I talk about young boys because they're the ones that I grew up with, they're the ones I went through school with. So many of those young boys had lots of talent and ability, but their view of the world—the world that they knew—meant leaving school in year 10, 11 or 12 and following their dad, their uncle, their brothers and their mates into a trade or into employment in one of those places. When that was smashed, their capacity to envisage a different world, a different pathway, went with it. It wasn't that they lacked ability. It wasn't that they lacked aspiration in their lives. But the traditional pathway from school to work was no longer there. I keep in contact with all of the guys that I went to school with, not as much today as we did in the years immediately after. I see lots of guys who, but for the lottery of the year they left school, would have gone on to much different lives, having much different—dare I say better—outcomes in life than the ones they have. Two years earlier, they'd have been well into their apprenticeship. Two years later, the economy had started to recover and the support the government had put in place had started to kick in. But, for that group, their life course was irrevocably altered because of the lottery of the year that they left school. So I don't need to be lectured by anyone in this place about what it means to be a young person attempting to enter the workforce in the middle of a recession. It was the story of my generation. That's why we come to this debate focusing not on what is in the bill and what the bill seeks to do to assist young people—of course we support that. Of course we support government doing everything it can to ensure that we smooth that pathway, for young men and women, from school into employment so that they don't hit that dead zone of having months, if not years, of no training or employment and not engaging with the workforce. Of course we support that and of course we will do everything we can to support the government not only to pass this bill but to improve it. We want to ensure that the manifest shortcomings within the legislation itself are remedied so that, when it passes through the other place, hopefully at the end of this week, it does a better job of assisting that generation of young men and women leaving school. Of course we want to support them. It's not so much about what's in the bill but about what's not in the bill. And, if you truly are a government which is attempting to bring the country together, you wouldn't, through one piece of legislation, set up a dynamic that literally does the opposite. It sets up a dynamic where we have one group of potential workers pitted against another group of potential workers, one of which is going to be significantly disadvantaged, because the government will be saying to one group, 'Here's a subsidy,' and to the other group, 'You're on your own.' Now, maybe we wouldn't be so concerned about this if those workers over the age of 35 were a small and insignificant group. But they're not. They're not. As of today, there are 928,000 workers over the age of 35 on unemployment benefits, seeking work or more work. These are the workers whom we would disadvantage by the very measures that the government is putting in place to attempt to assist workers to get into the workplace. So it's not about what's in the bill; it's about what's not in the bill. I want to say something else. This Prime Minister is incredibly keen to convince the Australian population that history started in March 2020—that nothing that happened before March 2020 is relevant. It all started from March 2020. Now, he didn't have a good Christmas. We acknowledge the fact that he did not have a good Christmas, and, if it were just that, we might be more focused on the measures that are coming through the parliament. But it's not just that. This Prime Minister—and this government—has an absolutely appalling record when it comes to apprentices and assisting young people into trades. In the six years that the coalition has been in power, we have lost apprentices at the rate of 60 a day—60 a day—with total apprentice numbers plummeting from 403,000 in 2013 to 272,000 in 2019. The Prime Minister is always keen to claim credit for the good news and find a scapegoat for the bad news. On this one, he need look no further than the mirror, because it is on his watch that we've seen a devastation of the institutions that were put together over decades to support young people into trades, into vocational education and into work. I'm talking, of course, about the cuts to vocational education and training. The Prime Minister wants to convince Australians that history started in March this year and that nothing he did on vocational education and training or youth employment matters before then. That's because of the devastating assessment that has been visited upon his government and his decisions for everything that led up to March 2020. In late 2019, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research showed that the Morrison government funding cuts were equivalent to almost 11 per cent of total federal funding in the vocational education and training sector. In that year alone, $325 million was slashed from vocational education and training—in particular, from TAFE. It did not stand alone in that. Also in that year alone, $3.9 billion was slashed from the vocational education and training Education Investment Fund. So, when you put it all together, you see it approaching $6 billion that's cut, underspent and slashed from training opportunities and from training facilities. Is it any wonder that we have lost apprentices at the rate of 60 a day under this government's watch? I can understand why the government wants to try and convince people that history started in March this year. I can understand why the government bristles when we say, 'This is the Morrison government's recession.' The simple fact of the matter is this: Australia is less resilient, Australia is less able and Australia is less capable of employing, training and facilitating more apprentices, more traineeships and more young people, smoothing the path from school to the workforce, because of the very decisions of this government. Is it any wonder that it is young people who have been most vulnerable to losing their jobs over the recession of the last six months? It's because of the very decisions the Morrison government has taken. I want to give a shout out to those older workers as well. If you are a worker in your late 50s or early 60s and you have lost your job in the last nine months, there is a sense of desperation. There is a sense that you, like so many before you, have been thrown on the scrap heap. It is the role of government to reach out to these people, in some of the most desperate times of their lives, and say: 'We are not going to leave you on the scrap heap. We are going to assist you back into the workforce, because we believe in you'. You'd think a government that was going to do that might start in its own backyard, and yet they have done the very opposite. Over 14,000 public sector workers were slashed, cut, axed or removed from their jobs over this government's time in office. The vast majority of these workers weren't in their mid-20s. They weren't in their mid-30s. They weren't even in their mid-40s. The vast majority of these workers were in their mid to late 50s and early 60s. They were thrown on the scrap heap by this government, which says all the right things but does the very opposite. We've actually seen it happen in the last few months, when the ABC slashed hundreds of workers from its workforce as a result of direct decisions of this government. The vast majority of these workers were older workers as well. The government says one thing but actually does the opposite. It's trying to convince us that history started in March this year, but we know it's very different. I don't need a lecture from this government on what it's like to leave school in the middle of a recession; I've lived through it. I don't need a lecture from this government on the fact that we need to do more for younger people. What I want to see from this government is a commitment to those older workers as well. It's about bringing the country together, not leaving people behind. 18:18 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong In speaking on this amendment to the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020, having just gone through 14 days quarantine and 100 or so days before then under a restricted lockdown in Melbourne, what is most important for COVID-19 recovery in my electorate in Melbourne, Victoria, and nationally, is jobs. It has all got to be about jobs, jobs and more jobs—that is, saving jobs, training jobs, creating jobs and looking after the people who have lost their jobs. Labor led the debate by calling for wage subsidies at the beginning of the pandemic to support vulnerable workers, businesses and communities. We've been calling for broader labour market programs to encourage job creation and to kickstart recovery. There is one task of this government: to help COVID-19 recovery. And in Victoria COVID-19 is not past tense. It is something affecting five million of my fellow Melburnians right now. We've pointed out deficiencies in the JobKeeper subsidy, and we continue to. What on earth did early childhood educators in Melbourne ever do to deserve this government cutting off their JobKeeper? There are too many people who have been left out by the rules, such as casuals, and too many people left behind, such as people who might have started a company founded within 12 months of COVID-19. The cliff coming in December and the further cliff emerging in March make many people afraid. But, in speaking to this amendment, I want to talk about one group of people. If they are not the hardest hit, no other group is any harder hit. I talk about the small and medium-size businesses of the travel agency sector. They've been terribly hard hit in Australia, in Victoria and in my electorate of Maribyrnong and they are concerned that, without proper, targeted support, it will be the death knell for their businesses. I listen to this government sickeningly regurgitate a claim to be the party of small business, but I hear them not talk about travel agents. If it was Helloworld, maybe, but as a general rule the travel agency sector—we've heard about them, haven't we, over there in the government? If it was the travel agency sector more generally, they have been ignored. I recently met with a group of travel agents from my own electorate and Mr Darren Rudd of AFTA, their peak body. They made the directness of their plight very plain emotionally, truthfully, factually, painfully. Let's consider how the travel agency industry was travelling even just a year ago, with 12 years of consecutive growth, helping Australians travel for commerce, culture, leisure, family, friends and fun. Travel agents in Australia employ 40,000 Australians in metro and regional locations. Thirty thousand of the employees in the travel agency sector are women. They are the fabric of each community. They sponsor the local clubs and the local high street traders. They are part of our landscape. But let's have a look at what's happened to the industry since COVID has struck. The federal government rightly closed the borders eventually to save Australian lives—right call. But, of course, in doing so, they closed the ability of travel agents who deal in international travel to make an income. Australians cancelled $10 billion worth of travel where funds were sitting offshore with suppliers like airlines, cruise lines, tour operators and wholesalers. The refund machine—a machine that has only ever been designed to go one way—had to be put into reverse. Of the $10 billion in refunds the travel agents have spent their working days getting back, they've managed to get $6 billion back to the people who paid for their holidays at a time when no-one was paying them. There's still a further $4 billion to get back for Australians. But, in giving back this refund, the travel agent invariably has been asked to give back not only the price of the ticket but the income in the form of the commission. So the travel agent has the sunk cost. That is what the commissions paid for. It pays the rent. It pays the bills. But, in getting the refund, it's all had to go back, so the travel agent has been getting back the money not only for the portion of the holiday which hasn't been utilised but their own portion and refunding it. The federal budget assumes that travel won't recommence internationally until the last quarter of 2021. Let me put this story very directly. In the travel agency sector, payroll is down, hours are down, unemployment is up, international sales are dead, job ads in the industry are down and the mortgages that people working in the travel agency industry have to pay still have to be paid. The rent which travel agents have to pay for offices or franchises still has to be paid. I met with AFTA, and they have asked for sector-specific funding in the form of grants—a 12-month bridge back to business of $250 million plus concessional loans. That's AFTA's ask. The government will have to work out if they can afford it, which I suspect they can. But let's talk about what the government hasn't done properly for travel agents whilst taking the credit and saying they're the friend of small business. The loss carryback provision in the budget will help only 14 per cent of the large travel agents, but that's not until next year. Bad luck if you are a travel agent who is a unit trust, a family trust, a sole trader or, indeed, a partnership. AFTA estimates that there are 1,300 travel agents who are sole traders. There is nothing for them in this. Many have made losses last year and this year. The peak body of travel agents predicts: 'If no funding is provided, special sector assistance, we will lose over 50 per cent of our valuable travel agents, including 15,000 women from the sector who will lose jobs.' This, of course will lead to a flow-on for Australian consumers and travellers. You might remember that there is still $4 billion in refunds to claw back. And if the travel agents can't keep their doors opened, can't employ staff, that's $4 billion gone for Australian mums and dads, pensioners and holiday-makers. This will leave Australian consumers out of pocket tremendously. It is not as if the government is going to get this money back for them; it's been hard enough to get them to bring Australians back. So if you've paid for a holiday, good luck getting that out of the government! Some of the travel agents in my electorate have stories that are worth hearing. One said to me: 'Bill, in the 21 years that I've managed and owned a business, I've employed many Victorians. I've taken people straight from school. I've taken on an accountant who discovered her passion for travel at 50. I've even had several of my staff leave and open their own businesses, all travel agencies from the same franchise. I've paid tax every year and I've paid it in full and on time. I've paid my staff leave entitlements fairly and always on time. I've looked after my staff because without them I have nothing. In my team, three of us receive JobKeeper and two do not. If it were not for JobKeeper, there would be three more people looking for work. Although I have to be honest: as the JobKeeper rate is about to drop, I'm now considering, for the first time in 21 years, looking for a job. Yes, I receive JobKeeper. I don't get any of it. It tops up one of my worker's wages and it pays superannuation for her and another worker. It pays for the phone and the internet to keep us connected. It pays for our reservation system so we can keep cancelling flights for our clients and keep records of what we've cancelled. It pays for the bank fees on my overdraft, which has $3 in it for me to draw on. It pays the EFTPOS monthly fee. My JobKeeper pays for my bookkeeper, although not my accountant. That's a concern because I need to have my company financials done. It does not pay my rent, the outgoings. It does not pay me a wage.' Another travel agent wrote: 'Our sector has been very hard hit. With a 90 to 100 per cent loss of turnover, and having to refund most of our income, it is disheartening that the federal budget has not addressed the travel sector. Many industries have been hit hard. JobKeeper, tax cuts and the Victorian business grants have been very welcome and saved many businesses in the short term with their broad measures. Many sectors that have been able to continue in the last six months will be able to trade again in the coming months as we hopefully come out of restrictions and lockdown. But the travel sector, which includes travel agents, tour wholesalers and tour operators, has been one of, if not the, hardest hit. We been denied the ability to trade and due to ACCC regulations we have to pay back most of our income.' That's the commissions they have to pay back. 'We were the first industry hit in late January 2020. It will take years to recover, yet we are expected to chase refunds and credits on behalf of our clients, and trade with zero income. The airline aviation sector has received specific funding. So has retail, hospitality and tourism. But we're the travel sector.' And the stories go on. Another travel agent wrote to me: 'While JobKeeper has helped me offset some of the impact, the reality is that I simply don't have the losses in financial year 2020 to make the loss carryback provisions meaningful. This is because I did the responsible thing as a business owner and moved, immediately on the closure of the international border, to reduce as many of our overheads as possible. Additionally, not only has income been severely reduced, but the travel sector is the only industry that's had to give back last year's earnings in the form of commission.' This is why the travel industry deserves some support. Their particular payment structure means they've had to pay back not just the unused portion of the holidays but also their own commissions. People are desperate. They're getting knocked back. I think we need to be creative in this space to keep the sector alive. I've spoken with Labor's shadow minister for tourism, Don Farrell, who rightly believes the government can do much more in this space. And it's not just an issue for the federal government. State governments, local governments and any federal bodies should use domestic travel agencies, not multinationals. Governments should assist travel agents to change their business focus from international to domestic travel. The Australian Tourism Commission needs to redouble its efforts, refocusing on domestic travel. Senator Birmingham is doing finance and he's doing trade—busy man. He can't afford for tourism to be the unloved, forgotten child here. It needs more attention—perhaps a promotion for the minister at the desk. Let's get someone to give tourism more attention. State and territory governments need to ensure that travel voucher schemes work for agents. They do in the Northern Territory but not in South Australia. Again, I must stress, and this is not just a federal issue, where governments are using travel platforms—Expedia and the like—perhaps we could use domestic travel platforms. And if they don't exist, we could work with the Federation of Travel Agents to help give work to domestic travel agents—not extra money, but just using our money smarter. I was quite moved when I met the travel agents. Some of them fell into travel agency work coming out of school. For some it was their first job and it's remained a lifelong passion. Others have started businesses. They're all very committed to their staff. If you close your eyes, you can't think of a single shopping centre or high street in the nation which doesn't have a travel agent. They do their work. They turn people's dreams into memories and experiences. Now is not the time for spin. It is the time for substance. I think the fairly haphazard, ramshackle approach taken by the government belies their real priorities. We need a good JobKeeper scheme. There's nothing wrong with telling people what's going to happen to them next year rather than keeping them waiting until December. That's just cruel. What's wrong with recognising that the economic implication in certain industries is going to continue long past March of next year? We all like our holidays. We all like our travel. I think it's come as a shock to multiple generations of Australians that we can't simply get on a plane and go somewhere. But I think it will also come as a shock if, when the borders reopen internationally, we don't have anyone to help organise our trips and our memories. We can go to work every day, and what we do is important, but the things that our families remember in our working lives will be the holidays that week take them on, not necessarily the minutes we took or the meetings we attended. These travel agents, these small and medium sized businesses, deserve imagination. They deserve passion. They deserve a bespoke approach. They deserve respect. Forty-thousand people who helped make the rest of us have a much more enjoyable quality of life. Let us, who have benefited from the travel agency industry, not abandon the travel agency industry, because certainly if we booked with them they wouldn't do that to us. 18:32 Ms STEGGALL 175696 Warringah I rise to speak on the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020. The JobMaker Hiring Credit will give businesses incentives to take on additional young JobSeekers. This is designed to help young people access job opportunities as the economy recovers. The JobMaker Hiring Credit will be available to employers for each new job they create over the next 12 months for which they hire an eligible young person aged 16 to 35 years old. I do have some questions around the delineation of 16 to 35 years old, but I will discuss that in a moment—this age bracket could lead to some serious discrimination. The government has estimated that around 450,000 positions for young Australians will be supported through the JobMaker Hiring Credit at a cost of $4 billion from 2021 to 2022-23. I welcome a focus on youth. There is no doubt that they need it. The majority of the job losses in this recession have been lost by youth, with youth unemployment rising to double the official headline unemployment rate nationally. On the Northern Beaches the youth unemployment rate is 12.2 per cent—nearly triple the official rate of 4.5 per cent. The businesses most affected by social distancing restrictions throughout this COVID pandemic are those most likely to employ young people: restaurants, bars, retail outlets, gyms, recreation and tourism businesses. The Grattan Institute points out: Youth unemployment is always higher than general unemployment. The gap tends to widen during economic downturns and narrow when employment markets are strong. Young people tend to be the marginal employees – when employment demand is soft, employers are more likely to keep their existing (older) employees and not hire the same number of new (younger) employees. In the 1980s and 1990s youth unemployment soared. We saw that for fresh, out-of-school or uni youth with no experience it was almost impossible to find a job. The longer they were separated from studies in their chosen field to landing a job the less chance they had. We simply can't afford for that to happen again. Both recessions became known as a lost decade for a generation of young workers, consigning many to lower paid positions and sporadic employment for the rest of their working lives. This legislation aims to avoid that dire outcome for our youth in this recession, and I do welcome it—especially as a mother of teenagers in this very category. But the legislation could be improved through a number of mechanisms. More detail of the wage subsidy rates and eligibility could be included in the legislation itself, rather than putting it into a delegated instrument. More attention should have been paid to women in the budget, especially older women. And more attention could be paid to the industries that have most been impacted and that employ youth, rather than just a blanket program across the economy that discriminates against other age groups. This bill does not prescribe the rate of the wage subsidy or the eligibility criteria. The lack of substance in the bill itself is becoming an increasing trend in this government and it is giving greater discretion and flexibility with the implementation of the policy. The Scrutiny of Bills Committee raises this repeatedly. This bill has such little substance that it is difficult to assess the merit of the program. The budget papers, Treasury briefing documents and media announcements give only the detail of the rate of the subsidy or the eligibility. There's nothing in the legislation to guarantee against a variation of the rate or eligibility. I've been meeting with businesses such as Budgy Smuggler locally in Warringah. They are all asking me how this will apply, how they can apply and whether they will be eligible given their particular circumstances. I simply can't answer their questions. The Australian Taxation Office website itself says: We will provide further information on eligibility criteria and how employers can register for the JobMaker Hiring Credit as it becomes available. So in the interest of transparency and accountability I urge the government to give the detail required as soon as possible. We can't talk about this recovery without talking about the impact this recession is having on women. I would have to say they have been completely forgotten by this government. It's been stated many times that women, like youth, have been hard hit by this recession. Yet there was no tailored approach in the budget to addressing female unemployment in sectors as we are now seeing with youth through this bill. The response that has come from government has been, 'Well, ladies, you also get to drive on the roads.' With due respect, that's just not good enough. The budget was silent on measures to specifically address female unemployment, apart from the extension of the previously announced Women's Economic Security Statement. The response from the government is simply not good enough. Many women who have suffered job losses as a result of this recession work in sectors such as retail, hospitality, tourism, fitness and caring. They are essential service workers in child care and nursing. They will be competing against youth who will have subsidised wages as a result of this legislation. So I fear that this will result in discrimination against women who are over 35, and that will mean a range of consequences from this policy. I fear for women, particularly older women, as we progress through and emerge from this recession. Women over 55 years of age were already, prior to this pandemic, the fastest growing group facing homelessness in Australia. That is just a horrific statement to have to say to this parliament, and I simply don't understand why this is not resonating louder with the government. The Australian Human Rights Commission found that the number of women over 55 seeking support from homelessness services has increased by 55 per cent in the last decade. The Australian Bureau of Statistics found that the rate of homelessness in older women has increased by 31 per cent since 2011 alone. With them facing lower job prospects and without any tailored support for their demographic or the industries in which we know they work, I fear that older women will suffer further and this trend will be exacerbated. There's no doubt that, in our response to the recovery, we should be looking at industry-specific packages. The packages presented in this bill are tailored to address a demographic trend. I would argue that a fairer and less discriminatory approach to the problem that has been posed by COVID would be an industry focused recovery package. The arts, retail, hospitality and tourism industries have been decimated by the pandemic. They are also the sectors where a disproportionate number of women and youth are employed. A program tailored to assist those industries, rather than just a demographic approach, would be much fairer than the blanket youth demographic subsidy. There are many other programs that could have been considered and should have been the subject of the budget. Government could expand some existing programs, such as New Business Assistance with NEIS. They could expand the eligibility and assist those older people who might find themselves retrenched and without work, but far too young to retire. We've seen in previous budgets the government talk about encouraging people to work to an older age, but there are no measures to facilitate that. There is nothing to assist or encourage businesses to go down that road. So, while I welcome the government's efforts to address the impact on youth of this recession, I urge the government: to provide the parliament and the Australian people with the detail required to implement the policy; to do more for women, particularly older women, who could be even more disadvantaged by this legislation; and to do more for the industries impacted most by this recession. I met with a number of travel agents within Warringah, and they are desperate. They are calling on Minister Birmingham to do something about their sector. They're desperate that there either be some travel corridors or something to address it. They are in a situation of no pipeline of work for some 12 to 18 months, as we face worldwide uncertainty over what is happening with the pandemic. We can't just assume that a vaccine will be available and it will be a return to business as usual. We must prepare and have a long-term plan. These industries are crying out for assistance but, for the moment, they're cries are falling on deaf ears. I urge the minister to take note. 18:41 Ms SHARKIE 265980 Mayo I rise this evening to speak on the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020, a bill that's designed to incentivise businesses to hire young people. The COVID-19 recession has hit Australia hard, and my electorate of Mayo is no exception. It's no secret that it's more challenging for young people in the regions to find employment than it is for their peers in metropolitan areas. Add to this regional disadvantage, the effects of recent bushfires and then COVID-19, and one can safely say that the unemployed young people in my electorate of Mayo well and truly need some support in finding employment opportunities in our region. Mayo has approximately 13,000 small businesses, many in retail and hospitality, who've had a very difficult year. Talking with my small business owners, already I'm hearing that JobMaker will provide them with the incentive and confidence to hire, and that's what we need to do; it's about reinstilling confidence. In September this year, the national youth unemployment rate was 14.3 per cent, more than double the national unemployment rate of 6.8 per cent. These are not encouraging figures for young unemployed people, and the unemployment of young people has always been higher, sadly, than the main rate. When I speak to businesses in my electorate, such as in Myponga, Goolwa or Lobethal, their stories are deeply saddening. Some of these have made heartbreaking decisions to let their staff go and close their doors after pouring years of their lives as well as their life savings into their own businesses. Others are struggling just to hang on. But, lately, there has been a little optimism coming back into our community. As the border closures have eased and the Victorian case load has fallen, people have felt like we might get through the worst of this awful year—that things might finally get better. You can see it in the retail stores, which are getting more customers through the doors, in the cafes that are getting busier and in the faces of small business owners who are looking a little less tense and a little more hopeful. It will take a long time for the economy of Mayo to get back to where it was a year ago. Trade increasing, even a little, is welcome news, but it will be a long time before businesses have the demand or the confidence to invest in hiring more staff or expanding their businesses. So I welcome the support of the government in offering to help businesses to take a chance to commit to hiring. While this bill is about JobMaker, I often talk to businesses in my electorate about other supports available to small businesses to take on a new employee, including Restart. This program is not widely promoted, but it does offer subsidies of up to $10,000 for businesses who hire a mature-age worker. I know several small businesses in my electorate that have used this program, which combats unemployment among older workers, who sometimes face discrimination in their job search. NEIS, the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme, is another program that I believe should be promoted more. So many newly unemployed people dream of starting there own business but lack the courage or confidence to make the move to start a new business. The NEIS program could be the confidence boost that they need to take themselves from unemployed to self-employed with training, mentoring and financial support, including rent relief, to get a new venture off the ground. The government has recently relaxed the rules around NEIS so that part-time employees, people who perhaps have lost hours due to COVID and are keen to start their own business, also can access this program. The JobMaker program is designed to support the cohort that most likely lost their job during the pandemic, and that is young people. It is a huge commitment for a small business to take on a person who needs training and experience. The program will give young people the chance to build their skills, develop experience and provide an employer with a wage subsidy. Treasury estimates that JobMaker will assist approximately 450,000 people over the next two years. That is indeed an extraordinary number. If just one in four of the small businesses in my electorate were to hire one new person under the JobMaker scheme it would equate to over 3,000 new jobs, and that would make a huge difference to the local economy of Mayo and to our local unemployment rate. There is an age group where there are not a lot of incentives to employ people, and that is the age 35 to 50 group. Should this program get underway, I urge the government to consider extending the $100 wage subsidy to the age that Restart begins, which is 50. We need to look at greater training opportunities for older people to reskill. We have areas of critical need—aged care and the NDIS, to name a couple—yet getting into a certificate III to be qualified in aged care or NDIS is difficult. We should make that easier. This program is designed with flexibility and safeguards. The employer can utilise the scheme for either part-time, full-time or casual positions, but protections are in place to ensure new positions gained are not at the cost of others. For instance, in order to employ a new worker under the scheme, an employer must be able to show an increased staff headcount and an increased payroll, and the increase in the payroll must be greater than the JobMaker credit. I understand that some members of the House have concerns. I'm sure that we can address those concerns in the Senate. It's important that we don't stop this bill from getting passed in this place, and I look forward to my small businesses in Mayo being able to access JobMaker and to young people receiving employment, possibly their first job. 18:48 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie I don't think anyone in this chamber doubts that support for younger people who are out of work is an absolute necessity at this time. A wage subsidy is a concept that we have welcomed. In fact, I think it was our idea! We know the government had no intention of doing any wage subsidy a few months ago and were prepared to push through the consequences of needing to close the borders and close down businesses in order to put health first. They were prepared to push through and rely solely on unemployment benefits—in fact, by increasing JobSeeker when they did they sent a strong signal to employers to lay off staff—and they saw delivering assistance through Centrelink as the sole support that would be needed. That was until they saw the queues, of course, which reflected the consequences we were facing. Those queues exposed the assumption that the Morrison government had made, that there would be a short, sharp recession and then a snap back, remember that? So we were the ones who'd seen the signs of recession. We'd learnt from history. In fact, the Rudd government was the most effective in the world at beating the global financial crisis and sparing Australia from recession. We knew what that involved. We urged the government to move faster and do more. I would still be urging the government to do more than it is in this piece of legislation, the detail of which is still quite thin. The contrast between the government's attempts to support the economy and the approach that the Rudd government took was stark. When we were in government, trying to pass legislation to prevent Australia going into recession, they called on votes, for hours, against every measure that we proposed, and that urgent GFC stimulus package didn't get through till three in the morning. Their attitude, of making it all about political point-scoring, is not one that we have chosen to copy, because we're different from them—fundamentally different—and we do care about Australians and their jobs, not just our own jobs. We know what the priorities need to be, and we take that attitude into this debate on this legislation. But we won't just wave it through without trying to make it better—better to meet the needs of businesses and better to meet the needs of those who so desperately need a job and need to see jobs being created. So we will highlight the concerns and the questions that we have. I think one of the fundamental questions is why 928,000 unemployed people over 35 have been deliberately excluded from any new hiring subsidy. If the Prime Minister were serious about kickstarting the economy that he closed down, he wouldn't exclude them. There would be a genuine job creation plan that targets the needs of all the different workers who are impacted. You tell me why a travel agent who's not going to be able to keep their workers on—well, if they've been able to keep them on till now, they're doing an incredible job—and those workers, and all those employers who would really love to keep those workers on, aren't being given the incentives that they need to do it, with JobKeeper being scaled back so hard. Those opposite seem to think they've ticked the box on older workers, with their 2014 program, and that program, the Restart wage subsidy program, can really only be defined as a failure. The program has not resulted in significant numbers of older workers getting back to work. It's undersubscribed, and the government has spent less than half of what it planned on the program, which doesn't effectively help people into employment. Forty per cent of the workers under the program were without work within three months. That is far from long-term, sustainable jobs being created. We don't want to see the same flaws in the hiring credit program, and it's really important that the new wage subsidy scheme is better designed, better implemented and better monitored than JobKeeper, Youth Jobs PaTH, Restart or many of the other programs. Let's talk specifically about how this will help young people—and I should point out that the government's track record on helping young people into education and employment is not a fantastic one. The hiring credit doesn't make up for the damage that's been done to them over the last seven years, with the cuts to TAFE and universities; the cuts to penalty rates; the exclusion of casuals—predominantly young people and women—from JobKeeper; and the damage done by early access to super, really hurting young people's super for the future. I want to talk about the eligibility criteria, because, if you're an employer and you want to use this scheme, you have to employ someone who's already on social security. But there's no requirement for that employment to be secure or long-term or permanent. So there is a potential for contrived arrangements to be made, and we are concerned about that. Fundamentally, one of my concerns is around the way this may encourage insecure work, with people who have permanent full-time work and possibly older workers laid off and two other, younger, workers put on for only 20 hours a week, which is the minimum required. That is really just encouraging more casual and part-time work, and this pandemic has shown us what the flaws are in relying heavily on a casualised workforce. So I think workers need assurances. Older workers need assurances that they won't be sacked so that they can be replaced by two younger workers. There are no new reporting requirements in this legislation to prevent wage theft. We need to see how that will happen and what the checks and balances will be. We also need to make sure this isn't a two-year blank cheque for an undefined employment and workforce program under this legislation. We don't want to see a repeat of the sorts of things we saw with sports rorts. When I look at this from a small business perspective—and I've been in small business for 25 years—I worry about the requirements. As a small business, you have to be off JobKeeper before you can access this subsidy. I've got a lot of businesses in my electorate, in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury, who are worried about the cut-off of JobKeeper. They've been surviving, but they really worry about what will happen to their cash flow when they come off JobKeeper. To then be told that the only way they can access any extra support is once that happens is going to put some stumbling blocks in people's way. We really want to understand better how that will play out. The other key concern is: if a business has been reliant on JobKeeper, how ready are they going to be to invest in new staff, with the extra costs, time and energy that takes, and how much of an incentive will this be? We really need to be able to explore those ideas. While the government said it was absolutely urgent that this be passed through today, it is good that the Senate will not be meeting until November and that we will have time to explore these issues in a little bit more detail. This bill, which was so urgently required, does demand more scrutiny. That's what we should be doing in this place. We don't really have the opportunity to do that in a lot of detail, not having had access to many details of the program, but I look forward to the Senate being able to do that. Quite frankly, I don't trust the government to do the right thing. There's nothing that leads me to think that those opposite will make this a perfect scheme. I hope that they will listen to input from our side, from unions and, importantly, from businesses, particularly small businesses, about how to make this work. I look forward to hearing discussions and debate on those matters. 18:57 Mr THISTLETHWAITE 182468 Kingsford Smith A couple of weeks ago I met with some workers who had recently been sacked by our national airline, Qantas. They, along with 2½ thousand of their loyal fellow employees, had been shown the door by Qantas, but, in the ultimate insult to them, it's likely that Qantas is going to bring in a foreign corporation to take these workers' jobs and pay workers on lower wages and conditions. Many of these people have been working for Qantas for well over 20 years, and some of the workers that I met with said that, basically, aviation is all they know. They're in their late-50s and early-60s, they've just lost their job during a pandemic, and they're thinking to themselves, 'What hope do I have in the labour market? How am I going to get a job when all I've done in the past is work for an airline? Aviation has been decimated, and there's no support at all from the government for me.' Last week's budget confirmed that. This government has abandoned older workers in the budget. There's no support whatsoever for those that are going to find themselves without work, without employment, due to this pandemic. Let's face it: when it comes to making people redundant, it tends to be the older members of the workforce who end up in the redundancy situation when a business is shedding labour. That's going to be the experience in this pandemic. It's not going to be any different. Yet in this budget there is no support for older workers. Those Qantas workers I met with a couple of weeks ago are saying, 'What is the government doing to support us?' They ask that particularly given the Treasurer and the Prime Minister have said the focus of this budget is jobs. Last week they were out spruiking the budget and saying it is all about protecting Australian workers' jobs. I'm sorry, but you're not about protecting jobs when you allow the national airline to get rid of 2½ thousand of its loyal employees and bring in a foreign corporation with lower wages and conditions. You're not about jobs at all. You're not about jobs when you cut the penalty rates of some of the lowest-paid workers in the country so that they take home less money to their families each week. You're not about jobs at all. And you're not about jobs if you abandon older workers, which is exactly what this scheme does. It's poorly designed and targeted and it doesn't deal with some of the inherent problems that we have in the Australian labour market at the moment, which were there before the pandemic. I'm speaking, of course, of the increase in casualisation and part-time work: people not knowing whether they're going to have a shift the next day, whether they're going to earn an income that week and be able to feed themselves and their families, pay the rent or the mortgage, and continue to get by. I'm speaking of the chronic underemployment that we've had in Australia for many, many years now, which has caused such social problems and dislocation, with people feeling they've been left behind by the rest of the economy. This scheme doesn't deal with some of those problems. It doesn't tackle some of the issues we've had in the labour market. This pandemic is an opportunity to try to deal with some of these issues. It's an opportunity for us to look at some of the problems in our economy and fix them. But, once again, the government have rushed this. They're very short-sighted and, really, all about just getting money out the door. They're making poorly designed schemes aimed at getting money out the door quickly but not actually sitting down and solving some of the problems that we have in the labour market. For instance, under this scheme it is technically possible for an employer to hire two workers on 20 hours a week and receive the job subsidy twice, rather than simply employing one person on a full-time wage, as a full-time worker—providing that security of employment—and receiving the subsidy once. There's a big question about employers abusing this scheme by contracting out to another corporation, another company, work that's being done by the group of people they currently employ. By contracting that work out and allowing a contractor to come in, they would be able to get the subsidy, because the contractor might be increasing their payroll. That's a key point with this subsidy: the employer needs to demonstrate that they are increasing the numbers on their payroll. A contractor may be doing that, but one group of Australian workers will be out of work because they've been sacked and a contractor has been brought in, probably with lower wages and conditions. That is another one of the problems that exist in the labour market in Australia at the moment: workers are losing their jobs to people on lower wages and conditions. It should be 'same job, same pay and conditions'. It's a principle of equity, of fairness in the Australian labour market, that has been ignored by this government. Again: they say they're about jobs when really they're not. In the Treasurer's speech outlining this program on budget night, he said that it will support 450,000 jobs for young people, but the Treasury briefing points out that it could be 450,000. 'It could be' is very different to 'it will be'. That's something the Treasurer and the government need to come clean on with the Australian people, because this scheme has a cost of $4 billion. It's reasonable for us to ask—and this will be teased out in the Senate inquiry process—whether or not that $4 billion relates to the take-up of 450,000 employees or whether it 'could be' 450,000 employees that have been budgeted for. These are all of the issues that the Australian people deserve to know about and that have been rushed by this government and that really risk a good recovery for our economy and risk making sure that Australians are in good, decent work with fair wages and conditions post the pandemic. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer need to assure Australian workers that they won't be sacked and replaced by younger workers or have their hours cut so that an employer can access the hiring wage subsidy. There are no new reporting requirements to prevent wage theft and other endemic exploitation that disproportionately affects younger workers. To date, proper regulatory oversight and integrity measures have not been made clear, and we simply don't trust this government when it comes to putting the interests of workers first. When it comes to the labour market, when it comes to the jobs of Australian workers, we know that those on that side are always going to back the bosses. They're always going to back the employer against the worker. That's why Australian workers don't trust them on these sorts of issues. The government's presided over insecure work and underemployment for too many years, and we're going to end up with well over a trillion dollars worth of debt out of this. Unemployment and underemployment will remain too high for too long and the jobless rate isn't expected to get back down to pre-crisis levels even over the forward estimates period. So the Australian people are rightly asking, 'Well, for over a trillion dollars worth of debt, are we getting bang for our buck with a program like this?' The legislation also doesn't specify any safeguards that the government's publicly stated apply to the subsidy. The legislation makes an amendment to the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Act, the JobKeeper enabling legislation, which authorises the Treasurer to make the rules about payments for financial support to entities directly or indirectly affected by coronavirus, and the opposition haven't even seen a copy of the draft rules yet. And the bill allows the Treasurer to create payments with the stroke of a pen. The only constraint on such payments is that they are primarily for the purposes of improving the prospects of individuals getting employment in Australia and increasing workforce participation. Labor's been calling for wage subsidies since the beginning of the pandemic to support vulnerable workers, businesses and communities. But we've also been making sure that we call for payments and programs that are targeted and deal with some of the endemic issues that we have in the Australian labour market at the moment related to insecure work, underemployment, a lack of security in the workforce, casualisation of work—people without the protections and conditions that we all consider reasonable and that ensure that Australians have a high standard of living. None of those issues that have been endemic in the Australian labour force have been dealt with through this wage subsidy. That's why Labor will be recommending that this bill is referred to a Senate committee—so that some of these issues can be teased out. Hopefully, we can work in a bipartisan manner to improve some of the conditions in this program so that it's better targeted and achieves the aims which it has stated—that is, getting Australian workers back to work, protecting jobs and ensuring that we deal with some of those issues that have seen Australian workers feel like they're being left behind under this government. 19:08 Mr HAWKE HWO Mitchell Firstly, I'd like to thank all members who've contributed to the debate on this bill. Of course, it's been good that there has been a bipartisan agreement today to urgently discuss this bill and have it pass the House. It was always the government's view that this bill should, indeed, pass the House as a matter of urgency, and it's good that that may happen today. I also want to say that the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill does extend the prescribed period of the coronavirus payment framework from 28 March 2021 to 6 October 2022 to enable the JobMaker hiring credit. This, of course, will allow the creation of JobMaker hiring credit rules. I note members' supportive contributions on both sides for the principal purpose of this legislation. The JobMaker hiring credit will help to provide job opportunities to young jobseekers, who are particularly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, as the economy recovers. We heard powerful anecdotes from all sides about the importance of young jobseekers and the Commonwealth helping those young jobseekers through the difficult coronavirus pandemic. The JobMaker hiring credit is a key part of the government's economic response to coronavirus as outlined in the budget. It will help to support Australia's economic recovery, and I commend this bill to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced. Third Reading 150 19:11 Mr HAWKE HWO Mitchell by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Services Australia Governance Amendment Bill 2020 151

Services Australia Governance Amendment Bill 2020

Second Reading 151 19:11 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie As I was saying, those really go to the core issue that the Services Australia Governance Amendment Bill 2020 fails to address, and that is that there's an arbitrary staffing cap imposed across the public sector that's led to an over-reliance on labour hire to keep up with the demand rather than allowing people to become permanent workers who build up their knowledge over time so they can not only be efficient but also effective. I thank the CPSU for its ongoing work to support the workers at what we now call Services Australia. I'm very grateful for having been able to hear the experiences of some of those members of the CPSU. Like many of my colleagues, I do have concerns about the ongoing existence of Services Australia offices in my electorate and I've written to the minister to seek assurances that those in my electorate will not be consolidated or closed. We have three service centres: one in Windsor, one in Springwood and one in Katoomba. These towns are all at least 30 to 40 minutes by car from each other and much longer by public transport. In fact, you can't get from Springwood down to the Windsor office in anything less than half a day because of the different train lines. They all service a different need, a different group of people in their own geographic area, and the staff at those centres do their best with the resources that they have to provide advice on Centrelink, Medicare, NDIS, paid parental leave—every question you can imagine. That means that there are pensioners, carers, veterans, people with a disability, students, families and jobseekers in my area who absolutely depend on being able to talk to someone face to face, and I really don't think it's too much to ask that someone can have a face-to-face conversation with someone at a time that can often be one of the worst times that they're going through. Currently, anyone who's walked into a Services Australia knows that right now you are, wherever possible, headed off to a bank of computers, and that's not because the team don't want to help; it's because they are short-staffed and they don't have the time to provide that face-to-face. The offices have been stretched, and COVID has taken a heavy toll on the whole community. People have often ended up in a queue, feeling desperate and alone, to see if there's anything that Centrelink, for instance, can do to help them, and sometimes there is not. I think the numbers really speak for themselves when we talk about the level of demand there's been. In the fortnight from 23 March there were 6½ million busy signals for people trying to phone Centrelink offices. That's just Centrelink alone. It's not any of the other parts of Services Australia. There were two million congestion messages. There were 1.5 million unanswered calls. There was an average call wait time of over 40 minutes. The delays certainly extended to a whole range of inquiries. Of older people making inquiries, only 37,000 of them got through to speak with someone. Those sorts of delays are the evidence, if anyone needed evidence, of the numbers involved in the demand for the services of Services Australia. Those numbers tell the story. I think what is the most disappointing thing is the government knew the sorts of consequences its policies and decisions were going to have. Those were that people would be out of work and would need help in a very concentrated and intense period of time. They had plenty of warning of this. We saw what was happening overseas for months, and yet the minister did nothing—nothing—to increase the capacity of those offices to cope with the demand. When you look back at the track record of how the department has been run—I guess it isn't a surprise—you can look at the past IT system under preparedness and see that, back at the 2019-20 tax time, there was the MyGov outage just when people needed to put in their tax returns. And there was the total debacle of the 2016 census. Both of those incidents should have been something they learnt from, but clearly this government did not learn from its mistakes. It's not good at learning from its mistakes, and people then suffer. One of the most common issues that was raised with me around the recent queues was that people who were trying to get on JobSeeker, people who had never engaged before with Centrelink, needed a customer reference number—the dreaded CRN—and they just couldn't get one. They needed to have a conversation with someone to talk them through that process. That was an absolutely predictable consequence. The other incidents we've seen in the past were around robodebt, which was, again, something the government was far too slow to take the message of and far too slow to learn from. We know that Services Australia told the government in February that the robodebt program was not viable and they recommended it be scrapped, but it wasn't until months later that the minister finally admitted it. This is the track record. By the way, that had devastating impacts on the people who falsely thought they had robodebt. People will genuinely try and do the right thing, and many did, to their own detriment. They really suffered, until the government recognised and admitted to itself, let alone to the rest of the country, that it had made a serious mistake. This legislation really only goes part of the way to addressing the issues that are there. I think the whole country can expect more from this government, and certainly more from this minister. They have a track record of such dreadful stuff-ups—that's the only language I can think to describe them as—or maybe errors, mistakes, lack of preparation or things that are overlooked. Don't forget there was the time when, during the early COVID days, the system crashed. The whole site crashed and we were told it was because there were hackers hacking it—that was, until we were told, 'No, it wasn't hackers.' Not long after that we got a very deep apology from the minister. It was concise. It was just two words—'My bad.' That's the sort of thing a teenager tries to get away with when they've really stuffed up. It is not the sort of response that the Australian community deserves from the minister who was there not just to administer the systems but to try and make things better, to protect vulnerable Australians, to protect the people who turned to the government for help at their lowest point. A number of people have come into my office and said: 'I have never had to interact with a government agency like Centrelink before. I've never had to do that.' They've only done it because they've had absolutely no choice. While we will need to see these changes in this legislation, there are so many other things it fails to address. I would absolutely like to see a much greater effort put into equipping and resourcing this department to do the very best by Australians, to lift or do away with the arbitrary staffing cap that's been placed on Services Australia. In the times that we've just had, that would have allowed the agency to recruit and appropriately train up people to meet the demand that was being asked of them. I think what we are seeing is that, the more you hive away services and the more you refrain from employing people permanently in these government departments, the more you've essentially got privatisation policy by stealth. That's what it is. They are forced to outsource. They are forced to contract out. They spend huge amounts on consultants and they engage labour hire firms. They do that to make up for a lack of internal resources. There is way more value to the taxpayer from employing people permanently. In the time we are in, that's what we need. We need people with the confidence that they have a job and that that job will continue. (Time expired) 19:22 Mr HUSIC 91219 Chifley It's a pleasure to follow the member for Macquarie, who would have, through the lived experience of a constituent, known very much the value particularly of Centrelink from the way that communities in the member for Macquarie's area were affected so badly by the bushfires earlier in the year. I know through the course of the pandemic in my own community how much of a part Centrelink, under the umbrella of Human Services now as part of this move in the legislation we are debating at the moment, has played in helping out constituents from Mount Druitt to Blacktown. I want to put on the record my enormous gratitude for their dedication and commitment. These are very difficult times, and not everyone who approaches Centrelink for assistance necessarily will love 100 per cent the assistance they get, because the decisions that they are expecting won't necessarily get made in the way they would prefer or want—but that's life, unfortunately, in many instances. The hands of the people at Centrelink are very much tied by legislation, rules and regulations, and they do the best they can. They were really put under testing circumstances. As the member for Macquarie noted in her contribution, there were a lot of people who approached Centrelink for the very first time in their lives to get assistance at the start of the pandemic. They were required to get some sort of income support that they had never anticipated or thought in their wildest dreams they would be required to do, and at that point when they needed that help the system did not deliver. Again, it's completely understandable in many respects, with that huge overload, that that happened. I guess the Australian public would prefer that the minister just be upfront, direct and acknowledge that the system was overwhelmed. We got the excuse that it was hackers—the chief hack being the services minister himself, who had claimed there had been some sort of misdeed and that something cyber was happening that was affecting it. In the end, again as the member for Macquarie noted, he used the two-word apology of sorts of 'My bad,' which for a minister of the Crown was extraordinary. He should have just been upfront. He probably would have got a lot more credit for it. We are now seeing in this legislation a migration—or a change or a rebranding as it were—of Human Services into Services Australia. At its very heart though, in terms of making this change, there is one critical element that holds up Services Australia, and that is the fact that it's got to live by an arbitrary staffing cap. With demand for the help of Services Australia going through the roof this year, notably through Centrelink, it would surprise a lot of people that the government say they will not put on enough people; they have capped the number of people available to do the work. It doesn't matter if the work goes through the roof, the government won't put people on. They say they'll put them on through other call centres and other providers. So they're not putting people on within the public sector; they're putting them on through contractors. Those contractors do have a role from time to time but it is better, I argue, to have those people in house—trained, dedicated and committed to long-term service to the people of Australia through Centrelink and other arms. When jobs are under so much pressure, we could bring in many people who have capabilities that are easily transferable to the public sector or—and this is radical—we could actually train up our young people! We could bring them in and lead by example and give them a long-term future. In another debate here earlier, we talked about wage subsidies. Having looked at this space for some time, I can tell you there's a difference between a wage subsidy for someone you know, JobKeeper, and a wage subsidy for someone you don't, which is largely what is being pushed through this parliament. A lot of businesses want someone who they know has skill and capability already. The harsh reality is that they don't care about the wage subsidy. A lot of businesses say: 'I'm not interested. What I want more than anything else is a person who can come in on day one and do the job.' For young people, imagine having a structured career path through the Australian Public Service where you are trained up, you build a range of skills, and at some point you may go out into the broader job market and apply those skills there. You could do that within the Public Service. That's actually not a bad thing to do. It is an anathema. Ms Bird interjecting— Mr HUSIC 91219 It used to happen, as the member for Cunningham rightly points out, but it's an anathema to those opposite. They do not want more public servants. But the public wants service and understandably demands it at this point in time. It would give someone employment. In particular, it would give young people employment. Outside of Defence, Services Australia has one of the biggest IT requirements in the Australian Public Service. Imagine providing digital apprenticeships where you train up young people with the skills that will hold them in good stead in the longer term. Services Australia, through its IT budget, with its procurement and from what it does internally, has the potential for a huge beneficial impact not only in terms of internal employment, but outside employment as well. My comments tonight will be limited because of time, but I will return to this issue tomorrow. What is happening under one agency in particular, the Digital Transformation Agency, which comes under the minister's responsibilities, is an absolute tragedy. It's promise was to have a positive and meaningful impact on the way services are delivered to the general public. The transformation of the way those services are done—using a digital platform, in many instances, to do it—is a tragedy. This is something that definitely has to be followed up. But, having said that, within Services Australia in particular, at a time when joblessness is going through the roof and when we could give people the ability to get a traineeship, it is an absolute tragedy that the government have not thought laterally and provided digital traineeships to a greater extent, because they do it already, through the DTA or Services Australia, and train young people up, giving them hope for the longer term, for the future. Debate interrupted. ADJOURNMENT 153 ADJOURNMENT Morrison Government 153 19:30 Mr DREYFUS HWG Isaacs [by video link] Under the Morrison government, Australia is becoming a nation in which corruption is tolerated at the highest levels of the federal government. The Prime Minister is fond of quoting the former Chief of Army's statement that the standard you walk past is the standard you accept. From the Chief of Army, it was a statement of moral principle. From this Prime Minister, it's a hollow marketing slogan, because the Prime Minister has made it very clear that the standard he walks past includes conduct by a minister that Federal Court judges described as both disgraceful and criminal, it includes dodgy land deals by government departments to benefit Liberal Party donors and it includes the illegal use of taxpayers' money as if it were a slush fund for the Liberal Party's election campaign. The Morrison government is so terrified of an anticorruption commission that it refuses to even allow the need for such a body to be debated in the parliament. The work of parliamentary committees— Mr Hawke HWO Mr Deputy Speaker— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 Order, Member for Isaacs! The minister? Mr Hawke HWO The member for Isaacs needs to withdraw those remarks. An opposition member interjecting— Mr Hawke HWO I'm sorry, you do do that if the member has made remarks that need to be withdrawn. He is not allowed to allege that conduct by any member of this House, and he will withdraw those remarks. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 I ask the member to withdraw. Mr DREYFUS HWG Deputy Speaker, I understand that I'm being interrupted rudely by someone from the government bench. I'm going to continue. In the absence of an anticorruption commission, we've only been able to scratch the surface of those scandals because, using all the resources of government, the Prime Minister has done everything he can to stymie any rigorous and independent investigation of those matters. One of the Prime Minister's favourite talking points is 'if you can't manage money, you can't manage the country'. By that standard, the Prime Minister should have resigned long ago. Mr Hawke HWO Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: the member has been here long enough to know he is not allowed to say those words about the conduct of the Prime Minister. He is not allowed to allege that he is stymieing investigations into corruption. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 I ask the member to withdraw. Mr DREYFUS HWG He has never taken decisive action to get to the bottom of what happened or to hold any wrongdoers to account. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 Order! I ask the member to withdraw. Mr DREYFUS HWG I can't hear you, Deputy Speaker. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 I ask the member to withdraw. Mr DREYFUS HWG If I need to withdraw, I withdraw. Responsibility is something this Prime Minister dodges at every chance. So, too, the once-pivotal doctrine of ministerial responsibility has withered to a farce under this government. When a corruption scandal breaks, the Prime Minister's immediate reaction is always to deny and shut down all discussion of it by launching sham inquiries conducted by former Liberal staffers or, at best, by individuals or bodies with no powers and no experience in investigations. Those investigations are, of course, always carried out in secret. It has now been almost three years since the Morrison government claims to have started work on its weak, ineffective and secretive Commonwealth Integrity Commission, but all we've seen from the Morrison government is delay, broken promises and increasingly pathetic excuses. The so-called Commonwealth Integrity Commission proposed by the Prime Minister and his Attorney-General would be by far the weakest and most secretive in the country. It's the sort of integrity commission you establish if you don't really want an integrity commission. It wouldn't be able to investigate anything that occurred before its establishment, which means that every day of delay is another day of dodgy conduct which couldn't be looked at. It wouldn't be able to act on referrals from whistleblowers. It wouldn't be able to initiate its own investigations. It wouldn't be able to hold public hearings. It wouldn't even be able to make findings of corruption! What the Prime Minister is proposing is not an anticorruption commission. It's a cover-up commission. It's a sham, a bureaucratic bunker into which the Prime Minister could sweep evidence of his government's corruption, scams, favours for mates and other unlawful conduct. What the Morrison government is proposing isn't an integrity commission. It's a cynical marketing ploy designed to deal with a political problem—not the problem of corruption itself, but the problem of corruption being revealed. That's why the Morrison government's proposed integrity commission has been universally ridiculed by legal authorities and integrity experts across the nation as a sham body designed not to reveal corruption but to conceal it. The ever growing list of scandals surrounding the Morrison government, including sports rorts, 'grassgate', the member for Hume's forged document and the $30 million airport land rort demonstrate why Australia urgently needs a powerful and independent national anti-corruption commission, and why the Prime Minister and— (Time expired) Endometriosis 155 19:35 Ms FLINT 245550 Boothby Earlier this year I was diagnosed with stage 4 endometriosis. Endo might be a little known disease but it affects at least 1 in 10 Australian women, often causing pain, infertility and other serious complications, and stage 4 is as bad as it gets. To say my diagnosis was a shock is something of an understatement. During my time in parliament, I have been a leading advocate for women with endometriosis and, as such, I thought I knew more than most about the symptoms of this disease. Clearly, I was wrong. My experience goes to show how much we still have to learn and communicate about this debilitating condition, which causes cells, like the lining of the uterus, to grow outside the uterus in other parts of the pelvis. I am talking about the variety of symptoms and where to get more information today in the hope this helps other women identify if they might have endometriosis and seek the help they need, as I have now done. The clearest indication you might have endometriosis is bad period pain, but you need to understand what this means. For too long women have been told that period pain is normal and it's just part of being a woman. We all need to understand the difference between normal and abnormal period pain, which I certainly didn't before my diagnosis. I thought my pain was normal. I now know abnormal period pain is pain that doesn't go away even if you've taken over-the-counter medication like Naprogesic, ibuprofen or Nurofen, combined with paracetamol. None of that worked for me. I had to take codeine for my pain, and that didn't get rid of it, it just made it bearable. But I'm one of the lucky ones, because my pain never stopped me from doing anything. My pain didn't stop me from having a successful career in policy, writing a weekly newspaper column, getting elected twice to federal parliament in a marginal seat—including winning the 2019 election despite the very nasty campaign against me by the Labor Party, GetUp, the unions and a stalker. Many women, by comparison, miss school, study, sport and work because of their severe pain, which might not just be when they get their period but throughout the month. Many women, like me, have some level of pain or discomfort most of the time. Mine mainly related to my bowel and severe bloating. I say to those women: don't assume your problem is ovulation, or ovarian cysts, or you bowel or your diet, or back issues. Don't assume it's part of being a woman and that maybe you should just toughen up. Please seek medical advice. If you don't have bad period pain there are many other symptoms that might indicate endo. Please seek advice if you have one or more of the following: heavy periods with clotting and flooding, especially if you have to get up in the middle of the night to change tampons or pads; dark brown or old looking blood leading up to or after your period; obvious and uncomfortable bloating or bowel issues like constipation and diarrhoea around the time of your period; bladder pain, especially around the time of your period; painful sexual intercourse; an inability to get pregnant; unexplained miscarriages; unsuccessful IVF treatments; or a close relative who has endo. There are two very helpful books regarding endometriosis symptoms and treatments that I cannot recommend highly enough for any women out there right now thinking, 'Oh, my goodness, that sounds like me.' They are Dr Susan Evans' book: Endometriosis and Pelvic Painand Dr Graham Tronc's book: Endometriosis 101. There are also amazing organisations like QUENDO, the Pelvic Pain Foundation, Endometriosis Australia, EndoActive, the Canberra Endometriosis Centre and Canberra Endometriosis Network, Perth Endo Sisters and the Jean Hailes foundation who can offer you information and support. I never imagined back in 2017, when I started working on endo policy with now retired Labor MP Gai Brodtmann, that I would find myself diagnosed with endo. I have spoken publicly because I know how much I have been helped by the stories of other women, their partners and parents who have bravely shared their symptoms of pain, surgery, struggles to have children and search for answers. We have spoken out in the hope that we can help other women too. Before my diagnosis, I personally knew 30 women with endo. Since sharing my story, this number has risen to 54. Endometriosis is literally everywhere. We need the facts, the symptoms, the treatment, the research, the support and the stories of hope, recovery and resilience to be everywhere too. Western Sydney Airport 155 19:40 Ms CATHERINE KING 00AMR Ballarat Before I start my contribution, I commend the previous member on bringing that adjournment speech on endometriosis to the House. It was an excellent contribution, and it's incredibly important work that has been done. What a bargain that was! Eventually it will be hailed as a good decision. That was how the Deputy Prime Minister responded to an Australian National Audit Office report which found that his department spent $30 million on land worth $3 million. The price paid per hectare by the Morrison government was 22 times higher than the price paid by the New South Wales government for its portion of the same Leppington Triangle. According to the records of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications, the Morrison government had undertaken nine valuations of the land and the purchase price was four times higher than the highest of these valuations. On the date of the purchase—the date of purchase!—the agricultural land was leased back to the seller, Leppington Pastoral Company, for 10 years with an option to renew for a further decade. That land won't be needed for decades to come. What a bargain that was! When the Deputy Prime Minister's departmental secretary was today asked whether there was anything in the ANAO report or in any of his investigations into this land purchase to suggest that it was a bargain for Australian taxpayers, all he could say, 'Not that I am aware of.' When asked about it, the Prime Minister brushed off concerns about this purchase as 'merely process issues'. Since the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister made those statements we have found out that there are multiple internal investigations underway and that the Australian Federal Police are investigating potential criminal behaviour. This is an absolute scandal that goes to the heart of this government's Infrastructure Investment Program, but those opposite refuse to take it seriously. If this can happen on one of the government's flagship projects, the Western Sydney Airport, what is happening on the countless smaller projects scattered across the country, let alone other projects related to Western Sydney Airport and massive projects like Inland Rail? Today at estimates we learnt that the department of infrastructure had budgeted in the order of $30 million for the purchase of the Leppington Triangle, even before any of the dodgy valuations we saw and the acquisition process. They had budgeted $30 million in advance. Who made that decision? The acquisition of land should always be based on fair value, not on predetermined outcomes, which is what we have seen on this occasion. At the same hearing today it was revealed that the Deputy Prime Minister has known of the AFP investigation since 9 October, a fact which was only publicly revealed on Friday afternoon after diligent journalists made some inquiries. Even after these revelations, the Morrison government has shown no interest in getting to the bottom of what has gone on here and seemingly has no interest in ensuring things like this cannot happen again. According to the Australian National Audit Office, the department of infrastructure fell short of ethical standards, with public servants meeting landowners in coffee shops and failing to ensure proper probity measures were put in place. For the Deputy Prime Minister to tick off these processes as being a bargain is simply extraordinary and calls into serious question his judgement when it comes to billions of dollars of infrastructure spending across his portfolio. While the Deputy Prime Minister ticked off the deal, Minister Fletcher, who was then the minister responsible, admitted that he obviously was not up to the job at the time. The ANAO audit report stated that formal briefings omitted relevant information, but it seems unbelievable that Minister Fletcher would fail to ask basic questions about how much the land was going to cost and whether it was value for taxpayers' money. He's admitted incompetence. That's basically what he's admitted. Either the minister didn't read his brief or didn't understand his brief or he didn't care. At best, as I said, this is ministerial incompetence; at worst, I guess we're going to find out. The only way the Prime Minister can rebuild trust in his government to step up and actually make sure there is probity and transparency around these issues is with a national integrity commission and to restore funding that this government has cut to the Australian National Audit Office to make sure that these dodgy deals can never happen again, but of course, given this government's track record, I won't hold my breath. (Time expired) COVID 19: Western Australia 156 19:45 Ms HAMMOND 80072 Curtin Anyone travelling down Stirling Highway through Cottesloe in my electorate will come across a footbridge overpass which currently has hundreds of yellow ribbons flying from it. At first you might think these ribbons are flying for some festive occasion, but the reality is that each of these ribbons represents a Western Australian stuck overseas or struggling to meet the strict requirements to be able to travel back into Western Australia. Started by a constituent in my community, Jo D'Orsogna, it is designed to be a visual reminder, as we approach Christmas, that there are many families that cannot be together. Jo's son Stefano returned to Australia in March, as requested by the government, and quarantined with Jo and her husband for one month at home. In May, he returned to New York, where he owns a business, to restart the business after the lockdown in New York. He had a large sum of money invested in the business, plus he has a partner there, and it wasn't something he could walk away from at this stage in his life. Jo doesn't know when she will see Stefano again. Jo is not alone. Western Australians are very mobile people. We move about the country and world more easily and in higher numbers than in generations past. According to the ABS, in 2019 nearly 50,000 people from overseas and 32,000 people from interstate moved to WA. In the same year 29,000 people left WA to live overseas and 36,000 moved interstate. We are also a very multicultural country. Over one-quarter of people responding to the 2016 Australian census were born overseas, and in WA the number was closer to one-third. Close to 40 per cent of WA's workforce were born overseas. Needless to say, a vast number of Western Australians have family and friends living outside our beautiful state. When the COVID pandemic hit, restrictions on travel in and out of the country were a vital response to ensuring that we had time to build our capacity to deal with the virus from a health perspective. Similarly, it made sense to restrict movements within and beyond our state borders to help keep the virus contained. But now, six months later, when we are better prepared and we know more about what we are facing, it is time for us to be looking at whether we could be doing things differently. While I'm sympathetic to those who say our state border closures are a small sacrifice to pay, my office, as I'm sure all other Western Australian offices are, is hearing the firsthand the pain of these families in the ever-increasing number of people contacting us trying to come home from overseas to Australia or seeking to travel into WA from interstate. These are not 'toughen up, Princess' situations. These are real people, with dying relatives, job losses, illnesses, family breakdown, mental illnesses. These losses, these deprivations and this pain is real. I've had a number of GPs contact me and tell me they are desperately worried about a number of their patients, and they are begging governments to do something. Similarly, there are businesses who are struggling to find skilled workers, struggling to bring in vital equipment and technology, and struggling to manage business operations which span the country. I agree with those who say that we shouldn't prioritise the economy over lives, but a suffering economy damages people's lives. Assessing and comparing the economic consequences of potential courses of action is a vital part of the difficult and imperfect process of ascertaining the best course of action to take for all lives, both present and future. The reality is that the ability to move out and about within our country is how many of us live our lives and how our economy works. Any prolonged changes to that will have consequences on our economy and on our health, now and in the future. We need to be looking at ways that we can do this better, whether it be a variety of quarantine options, including home quarantine, or wearable monitoring devices. And we need, in WA, to go back to the fundamental plan: of testing, tracing and tracking—containment and suppression of the virus, not outright elimination, which, until we have a vaccine, is highly unlikely, and, even then, will be a while away. We need to be considering options for a sustainable, longer period of time. I'm a proud Western Australian, and I love that our daily lives seem almost the same as they were pre COVID. While being an island within an island may have served us well to date, the current measures are fracturing us and are not sustainable. The yellow ribbons that have been tied by Jo and many other members in my community highlight that fracturing. Blair Electorate: Community Services 157 19:50 Mr NEUMANN HVO Blair Bushfires, the drought, COVID-19, the worst recession in a century—it's been a tough year for individuals, families and businesses across Ipswich, the Somerset region and the Karana Downs region. Deferred rents—businesses' doors still open as a result—have to be paid. JobKeeper is being reduced. It's been a tough year for employers and employees. Tonight, I want to thank those people and thank the wonderful organisations who've supported them. Many individuals and families are using welfare services for the very first time in their lives. I've met some of the Salvation Army's Moneycare financial officers: Jillian McKinlay, Maria Teresa Newell and Rachael Taylor. Moneycare provides financial counselling to people, with no eligibility criteria to access the service. The counsellors are supported by the amazing work of Salvation Army Corps Ipswich officers Ashley and Rita Bierman, and they are working at capacity. Unemployment is exacerbating the financial strain, especially for those seeking JobKeeper and those who can't get it, like the 600 workers from JBS Meatworks in my electorate. They've been let down by the Morrison government, who failed to change the eligibility criteria, stubbornly. It's been a tough time for those people looking for work. My thoughts are also with our year 12s. They, in Queensland, were the first preppies; they're undertaking now their final assessment for what has been a disruptive year. In Queensland, those graduating year 12 are the first also to be in high school. What a big change! I want to thank local principals and teachers. They are incredibly proud of their year 12s. Schools such Bremer State High School are making the time special for their students. Bremer high school teacher Leanne Kitching is organising a mystery tour for the year 12s. She said that students have not just endured enormous disruption; their families have suffered financial hardship, which has hit those students hard. Some are despondent. But we cannot escape the fact that three-quarters of mental health disorders emerge before the age of 25 years. In addition, about a third of young Australians are reporting high levels of psychological stress. Tonight I want to also congratulate the local headspace in Ipswich, as well as those who are working in Caboolture, who come across into my electorate in Kilcoy. About 1,350 young people in Blair receive mental health and wellbeing support. Congratulations to headspace, and I hope you have a great day on 21 October, recognising the wonderful work you do. I also want to thank Pastor Fred Muys at the Tivoli Miracle Centre and his team—2,500 meals a week, or over three tonnes of food, are being delivered to those in need. There's been a 200 per cent increase in activity since COVID-19. They're also working with Kambu Health, who also need to be congratulated. But Pastor Fred and his team are delivering support services to 135 isolated Indigenous people—five meals a week. Congratulations, Pastor Fred and your wonderful team at Tivoli Miracle Centre. Cityhope Church, wonderfully led by Pastor Mark Edwards, has reported a 600 per cent increase in support services being delivered, in food, hampers, clothing and household support. Also congratulations to Ipswich Foodbarn—a 400 per cent increase in support provided. They're based in Darling Street East in Woodend, and they deliver great services to the people of Ipswich. The Vedanta Centre in Springfield is led by a man affectionately known as Swamiji. Congratulations to Swamiji—a holy man, a sincere man, a proud man in a sense, but also a very humble man. Thank you for what you do in the area. Congratulations also to Ashneel Padarath, who is the project manager for the centre. They deliver a soup kitchen and a cafe. Maa Sarada's Kitchen is the name of their kitchen, and they're delivering a hundred frozen vegetarian meals per week through partnerships with local churches. I was pleased to attend their annual multicultural festival—world-class entertainment. Thank you to all the organisations who deliver tremendous service to our local community. I am deeply grateful for the work you do and the support you've given to those most hard-hit during COVID-19 and the other calamities that we've suffered. Canning Electorate: Point Grey 158 19:55 Mr HASTIE 260805 Canning I'm a big believer in the principle of sovereignty. I've talked a lot about Australian sovereignty over the past year. It's simply the right and power of our country to govern itself free from interference. It's a principle that applies throughout all our lives, and in fact starts with the very building block of Australian society, the family. We respect the right and power of families to live and make choices for themselves free of government interference. In a free society, families are sovereign. Sovereignty also applies to civil society and local and state governments. We respect the right and power of local and state governments to make decisions on matters that fall within their jurisdiction. So tonight I'd like to say this: sovereign local communities should have the power and right to preserve their shared environmental assets not just now but for future generations of Australians. I am talking about the right of the Shire of Murray and local community members in my electorate of Canning to preserve Point Grey by opposing the dredging of the estuary by the developer Tian An Australia. I spoke on this last year. The background is that Tian An Australia has proposed a major development on Point Grey, on the eastern side of Peel Inlet and Harvey Estuary, opposite the City of Mandurah, right in the heart of my electorate of Canning. Central to this development is a marina that could accommodate 300 boat pens. The marina would be the focal point to a village precinct and an overall urban development of 3,000 dwellings. Currently, the site is natural vegetation and farmland. To access the marina by boat, a 2.5-kilometre, 50-metre-wide navigation channel would have to be dredged across the estuary to link the marina with the Dawesville Channel and the Indian Ocean. The dredge would have to be to a depth of 3.5 metres below sea level, which would result in the removal of 120,000 metres of dredge spoil and the disturbance of some 15 hectares of estuary bed. This development is opposed, for good reason, by members of my community. Local councillors, community members, businesses such as the fishermen who fish the estuary, Indigenous leaders and environmental groups have all opposed it out of concerns about the impact of this dredge on the estuary and the lifestyle of our region. There are two primary concerns. The first is the environmental impact of dredging, spoil disposal and continuing maintenance. The second is the potential ongoing public financial cost of maintaining the channel, which will be put upon ratepayers through the City of Mandurah and the Shire of Murray. Most troublingly, the dredge will disturb and destroy sensitive ecosystems and stir up sediments, creating more monosulpfidic black ooze in the estuary. This would threaten jobs in tourism and in commercial and recreational fishing, and the maintenance bill would be rather large. Since my speech to parliament last year, Tian An Australia have challenged the council's due diligence on their proposal before the State Administrative Tribunal. Their appeal was lost in November, and the Shire of Murray council has since prepared an amendment to its town planning scheme that would remove discretion for a marina as part of the Point Grey development. Public submissions on the draft amendment close on 30 October. Over the past several weeks I have received hundreds of emails from people concerned about the dredge. This builds on a petition I ran last year in opposition to the dredge, which received over 2,000 signatures in only a number of weeks. I've assured those concerned that I will remain opposed to the dredge, as are my local Liberal colleagues in the Peel region. The candidate for Murray-Wellington, Michelle Boylan, is opposed to the dredge; the candidate for the seat of Mandurah, Ryan Burns, is opposed to the dredge; the sitting member for Dawesville, Zac Kirkup, is opposed to the dredge; and I, it goes without saying, am opposed to the dredge. However, the decision on this proposed amendment by the council ultimately lies with the state government and the state minister for planning, the Hon. Rita Saffioti. The Western Australian Planning Commission must decide whether to endorse the plan, and the minister must decide whether to sign off on it. So tonight my message to the minister is: 'Please listen to our community. We love our estuary and the lifestyle it affords. Please do the right thing by our residents, businesses and environment, and oppose the dredge.' House adjourned at 20:00 NOTICES 159 NOTICES

Monday, 19 October 2020

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Vasta) took the chair at 10:30.

CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS 161 CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS Maribyrnong Electorate: Arts 161 10:30 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong Under normal circumstances, my electorate of Maribyrnong plays host to some world-class events. But COVID-19 has changed all of this. It remains to be seen what sorts of crowds, if any, will be permitted for the Melbourne Cup in my electorate and, indeed, the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley. The race which stops the nation on the first Tuesday in November, held at Flemington Racecourse, will confront a set of circumstances that it has not experienced before. Because of COVID the Royal Melbourne Show, which is again located in my electorate, was cancelled outright this year, as were so many other annual shows around Australia. There are the big ones—the Royal Easter Show in Sydney, the Ekka in Brisbane—but there are so many other shows around the nation that are the lifeblood of towns and communities, from Central Queensland to coastal New South Wales. With the cancellations come serious challenges for those whose livelihoods are involved in bringing the magic and fun of a carnival and a show to a town, be it big or small. I speak, of course, of the travelling showmen and showwomen of Australia. I have had a fair bit to do with the Showmen's Guild over the years. The Victorian Showmen's Guild is based in my electorate. I was able to assist them with their School for Travelling Show Children some years ago. I was touched by their gratitude for what we did. They made me a life member of the travelling showmen's guild of Australia. Travelling showpeople are the salt of Australia. They are salt-of-the-earth Australians who work hard. They love their families. They run family businesses. They vigorously value their independence, and they seek to make their own living and pay their own way. Some of the show business families of the travelling showmen's guild have been in the same families for five or six generations. They're exactly the sorts of Australians to whom governments at all levels should be giving a helping hand in these tough times, because they are the people who turn up in tough times for so many of our communities. I am grateful to members of parliament on all sides, including Nationals members who have taken an interest in meeting with the showmen. I have been trying to draw attention to their plight because their businesses travel between states. I thank the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and the minister for agriculture, as well as state ministers in Victoria and Queensland—Ministers Carroll, Pakula, Dick and Bailey—amongst others. But progress is still very slow. Travelling showmen, rodeos and circuses face a litany of issues. The showmen pay crippling fees on the registration of the vehicles they use. They are charged registration as if they are truck drivers on the road every day. They are struggling to get insurers to underwrite their public event insurance, their public liability insurance. Travelling showmen will have difficulty getting engineers to inspect— (Time expired) Moncrieff Electorate: Schools 161 10:33 Ms BELL 282981 Moncrieff I do enjoy visiting the schools in Moncrieff, because it's very impressive to see the dedication of the teachers and the parents, the tangible benefits of funding to students and to families, and the enthusiasm of so many students. Last week I was pleased to visit Nerang State High School to see how they put $25,000 in additional federal funding to really good use. From the stronger communities fund, the school received $15,000 from the Morrison government to match $15,000 from the P&C to upgrade a courtyard used by the special-ed unit. In Mental Health Week the school has equipped their wellbeing chill-out zone, an important mental health resource, with $10,000 from the Local Schools Community Fund. Well done to the P&C president, Tracey Spiers, for her commitment, delivering results for students at Nerang State High School. I thank the principal, Scott Ison, and his staff for all their great work teaching and the many things they do beyond teaching to support students. It was fantastic to see the generosity of the school community in hosting a charity fundraising morning tea event when I visited last week to support Dolly's Dream. Many in this place will be familiar with Dolly's Dream—the national conversation about bullying and cyberbullying. The program is delivered by the Alannah & Madeline Foundation. Southport State School also received funding from the Local Schools Community Fund. The school received $15,000, which has funded the installation of an outdoor fitness station, contributing to the physical and mental health of the students. The principal, Mr Taylor Haley, took time to answer my questions regarding the school, including the impact of the pandemic. Along with many happy families and students, Mr Haley and his dedicated staff spent a great deal of time supporting students who would struggle to make the most of their education without intervention. Unfortunately, the pandemic has caused an increase in social problems for many families, underscoring the importance of government support measures. One of the great things that Southport State School has implemented is a better way for students and families to access mental health support. They recognise that many families find access difficult and don't have access to a vehicle. The school has arranged a psychologist to visit two days a week for sessions referred by a GP. The budget has invested $101 million to make available an additional 10 psychology sessions to all Australians who may need extra support at this time. I commend the principal, Mr Taylor Haley, not only for his dedication to his students but for his local leadership in guiding community members to available support measures. It was wonderful to visit the school and hear firsthand about how families in Moncrieff are doing. Greenway Electorate: Infrastructure 162 10:36 Ms ROWLAND 159771 Greenway One of the most prevalent themes that comes out of north-west Sydney is a lack of foresight and a lack of delivery when it comes to essential infrastructure. This is a particularly pronounced problem where you have such huge rates of residential growth, where you have population explosions, where you have paddocks that once were home to a few cows and which have become all of a sudden suburbs in their own right, seemingly overnight in some cases. One of the key reasons for this is this goes directly to peoples' quality of life—how long it takes for the commute, how hard it is to do the school drop-off and pick-up and, overall, how this impacts on their life and daily wellbeing. So today I want to talk about this stifling lack of infrastructure investment by both the federal and state Liberal governments that continues to pervade north-west Sydney, and it's an issue I've raised many times in this place. People of north-west Sydney deserve nothing but the best local infrastructure. I've got rafts of suburbs in my community without access to reliable internet. They're saddled with patchy mobile coverage, and they're forced to take slow public transport on congested roads because their governments have left them behind. That's why a couple of months ago I launched my Let's Kickstart Greenway's Economy petition, calling for cooperation at all levels of government to stimulate our economy by bringing forward infrastructure spending. And I identified what I thought were a couple of transformation projects that could really make a difference, and I sought feedback on these. I want to thank the thousands upon thousands of residents who have engaged in this process with me. Projects like the Bandon Road upgrade in Riverstone and actually delivering the twice promised but yet to be constructed hospital at Rouse Hill would really help keep local tradies on the tools and money flowing to local small businesses, and that's what an infrastructure-led recovery is all about. It's not about flashy advertisements in local papers or electronic billboards in our shopping centres. I want to acknowledge the thousands of residents who not only gave support to this petition but have been fighting for many, many years to upgrade the Prospect Highway. The Prospect Highway is essentially where the M4 and the Great Western Highway meet Blacktown. Essentially, it is a goat track; it is a bottleneck that just will not quit. And it is long overdue for an upgrade. I'm so pleased that, thanks to the pressure from both state representatives and Greenway residents, we got $120 million committed in this federal budget for an upgrade, and I won't stop until we actually see this delivered. Stirling Electorate: Veterans 162 10:39 Mr CONNELLY 282984 Stirling As we approach Veterans' Health Week next week, I would like to commend the Morrison government for the ongoing investment that this budget makes to veterans and their families. The 2021 budget aims to support veterans as they transition to civilian employment and also to support veterans' ongoing health, both physically and mentally. In Stirling we have a very rich ex-service community. There's a number of active RSL sub branches, including the North Beach RSL, where my wife and I have been members for the last decade. This budget responds to a number of issues and recommendations that members of the veteran community have raised with me and others. Many more businesses are now realising that hiring a veteran is simply good for business. These ADF personnel were initially selected for their skills and their attitudes and Defence has constantly invested in their professional development. So those hiring a veteran are able to tap into the skills and attitudes, the experience, the team work, the discipline and the leadership abilities of these fantastic men and women. To assist ADF members transition to employment, we're investing $23 million in a joint transition authority and also expanding the Prime Minister's Veterans' Employment Program to provide further support to veterans who might be interested in starting their own business. I especially commend those in my home state of Western Australia who are helping veterans and businesses to connect. This includes Karyn Hinder and her wonderful not-for-profit organisation Working Spirit; Tex Houston and his veteran-owned business, ERS; and RSL Western Australia, who have commenced their veterans employment program, which has federal funding support. I know that Matt Moran and Jamie Cooper-Maitland from Defence West are also striving hard for policy and practical measures that help veterans to connect with employers. Whilst the majority of veterans leave the ADF in excellent physical and mental health, some do struggle—and, sadly, there were 33 deaths by suicide in 2018. Minister Chester has made clear, as do I, that responding to that is an absolute priority for the Morrison government and that, whilst the annual figure is lower than in 2017, we still have much work to do. So I am pleased that the Morrison government is providing more than $100 million to further bolster medical and mental health support for veterans. I am confident that, with these and other budget measures, along with the continued support that myself and other veterans enjoy and the Morrison government's commitment to listening to and acting on reforms, we can deliver practical outcomes in support of those who have given so much for our nation. Gilmore Electorate: Bushfires 163 10:42 Mrs PHILLIPS 147140 Gilmore Our community on the New South Wales South Coast has had one of our toughest years. The bushfires that ravaged our towns and villages, starting in November and continuing all through summer are imprinted on our memories. In the time since the bushfires, I have met with so many community associations and local organisations to talk about their experience and hear their ideas for what comes next. I was pleased to see many of these discussions reflected in the 13 recent interim recommendations of the Senate's inquiry into the bushfires. The report called on the government to urgently invest in resilience and mitigation works; to review, with a view to increasing, the Disaster Recovery Payment, a payment of only $1000 when you lose your home in a natural disaster, and the Disaster Recovery Allowance; to review the way the insurance industry deals with climate related events; and, importantly, to reverse funding cuts to the ABC and ensure its emergency broadcast services are properly funded. I welcome these recommendations and I call on the government to act now to help make sure we never experience another bushfire season like the last one. I was however appalled at the government's dissenting report on this inquiry—a report which, among other things, chose to lecture those in my community about 'personal responsibility' and pushed for a cut in the Disaster Recovery Payment and the Disaster Recovery Allowance. When you have lost everything—your home, your clothes and all your belongings—$1,000 is hardly an incentive against getting insurance. To imply so is nothing more than insulting and shows that the Liberals and Nationals have absolutely no idea about the lived experience of people impacted by bushfire. Families are now trying to work out what they will do at Christmas this year when their temporary accommodation runs out. It has been almost a year since the bushfires hit the South Coast, and most insurance policies only have 12 months of temporary accommodation included. With the clean-up taking longer than expected and many people still months away from rebuilding, this is a real concern. And $1,000 is hardly going to help you in a situation like that, is it? Local people have had to beg and beg this government for help at every step, and it's simply appalling. The government simply has not done enough to address the daily reality of those who have lost everything. They have broken promises on the clean-up, they have broken promises on recovery and mitigation funds, and now they are using this report to insult bushfire impacted families. This is just not good enough, so I will keep fighting every day to make sure we get the help we deserve. Recycling 163 10:45 Mr ENTSCH 7K6 Leichhardt We know that plastic waste is a blight on our natural environment. Not only is it found littered across the world's beaches but also atop the highest points of Mount Everest and the depths of the Mariana Trench. The work that we are doing here in Australia—the work of our agencies, partnering organisations and industry—is beginning a seismic shift within the domestic recycling landscape. I would like to especially acknowledge the work of the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation and Planet Ark and the work that they're doing through the Australian recycling label rollout. Last week marked the beginning of a new phase of their work with the launch of a new federally-funded national consumer education campaign: Check It! Before You Chuck It. The need for a national recycling education campaign has been one of the main recurring themes that I've encountered through my discussions with experts, industry groups and consumers. We know that incorrect recycling is a major driver of contamination, which results in valuable recycling material being sent to landfill. This new campaign encourages consumers to check the new recycling information labels on their product packaging to ensure they're recycling right and avoid such contamination. It's critically important that we improve recycling rates so that we restore Australia's faith in the recycling industry. I couldn't be more happy to see the national campaign finally coming to fruition. Admittedly we won't be able to entirely recycle our way out of this problem; more needs to be done to help curb the amount of unnecessary waste that's entering landfills across the country, particularly in our regions and in remote communities. There's no doubt that we have got big challenges ahead of us, but we're making equally big investments to help Australia reach a much cleaner and greener future. The Morrison government has invested $190 million through the Recycling Modernisation Fund, driving $600 million in recycling investment and bringing about the industries-wide transformation that we need. I commend the work of the Morrison government in putting waste on the national agenda and committing to tackling the many challenges we face in this area. In particular, the efforts of our Minister Ley and Assistant Minister Evans should be commended. They are both very passionate advocates for working actively to bring forward these much needed changes. It's our government's relentless focus on waste and improving recycling that will help us establish a more circular economy and enable us to better protect our natural environment from the blight of plastic waste. Beirut: Explosion 164 10:48 Mr HAYES ECV Fowler (): By not engaging with the roots of dispossession and conflicts, international powers promote short-term versions of resilience, stability and humanitarian protection. This papers over dysfunctional institutions and deteriorating livelihoods. This is a statement by Tamirace Fakhoury, an associate professor of political science and international affairs at the Lebanese American University. It puts into perspective the need of international communities to assist in the long-term transformation of Lebanon. In August this year, Lebanon was rocked by a catastrophic explosion which ripped through the heart of its capital, Beirut. At the time we saw an outpouring of support by the international community to assist Lebanon and its people to get through this catastrophe. Unfortunately, it has now been more than two months since the calamity and Lebanon and its people seem to have disappeared into a distant memory. The explosion in Lebanon was the last straw when considered alongside the ongoing turmoil of a dire economic situation—an economy on the brink of collapse—widespread corruption, homelessness and poverty. The collapsing Lebanese economy is testing the Lebanese people like never before, with the value of the Lebanese pound reduced fivefold and with inflation so high that people are unable to afford the basic necessities and put food on the table. Despite this, Lebanon has been extremely generous, opening its borders to over a million refugees who have fled the decade-long civil wars of both Syria and Iraq. Added to these issues it has also had to grapple with an unprecedented health crisis, as the already overstretched Lebanese healthcare system attempts to provide care and support to those impacted by the coronavirus. If these issues are not strong enough to command the attention of the international community then we must question our collective humanity. As part of the international community we must show an enduring will to help and to return a stable and independent government in Lebanon, one that is focused on its people and their welfare and one that will help Lebanon achieve the transformative changes that it so desperately needs. Given the fact that Lebanon is still hosting millions of refugees and struggling to cope with its own mounting internal issues, as part of the international community we must be prepared to lend our ongoing support and share in this humanitarian responsibility. Boothby Electorate: Volunteers, Boothby Electorate: Girl Guides 164 10:51 Ms FLINT 245550 Boothby Supporting hardworking volunteers in my community is one of the most important things I do in my role as the member for Boothby. I'm delighted that a number of projects in the Belair area have recently been completed to help many wonderful community members to care for our built and natural environments and to continue their work for our community. In August I, along with the state Minister for Environment and Water, David Speirs, and the state member for Waite, Sam Duluk, visited the Long Gully Volunteer Centre in Belair National Park to open their new kitchen facilities. The kitchen facilities have had a full makeover and the centre is now well equipped to support the Friends of Belair National Park and other volunteer groups who use the centre. The new kitchen will make it much easier for the friends to cater for visitors to the Belair National Park, which is Australia's second-oldest national park and just a short drive from the Adelaide CBD. I wish to sincerely thank the Friends of Belair National Park, including President Mark Pedlar; Treasurer Carol Parrot and her husband, Malcolm, who stretched the budget as far as possible and even did the tiling in the kitchen; and long-serving Secretary Tina Gallasch, for their ongoing work. Nearby, in the heart of Belair National Park, is the historic Old Government House, which served as the summer residence for South Australia's early governors. It is a stand-out example of our state's early built heritage and is carefully cared for by the wonderful Friends of Old Government House. In the coming weeks the old coach house and garden will be reopened after kitchen renovation works and landscaping in the garden, including new trees. These works will make it much easier for the friends to continue to care for this incredible historic building and surrounding grounds and to more easily cater for local visitors and tourists alike. I know that the Friends of Old Government House, led by their new president, Wayne Gallasch, are really looking forward to taking me and the state Minister for Environment and Water, David Speirs, to see their wonderful work and the new upgrades. It was wonderful to join the Belair Girl Guides for afternoon tea in September to celebrate their brand-new kitchen. The girl guides finally have a safe and modern kitchen to support their activities. Belair Girl Guides leader Jan Childs showed me around their fabulous new facilities. Jan is a tireless community volunteer and she had been desperately trying for many years to secure funding to upgrade the 1950s kitchen. I was so pleased to be able to support Jan, her wonderful girl guides leaders and all the girl guides to finally have a safe and modern kitchen facility to use. It was lovely to speak with girls of all ages on the day about the activities they have been doing, the skills they have been learning at girl guides and the work they are doing in and around our local community. Congratulations to them all, especially Jan Childs, who has worked tirelessly for the kitchen upgrade over many years. Morrison Government 165 10:53 Mr HILL 86256 Bruce Liberal Party members love to talk on occasion of the forgotten people, echoing Menzies's famous phrase. I want to record a few words on who I think are the real forgotten people—the nearly 200,000 people in south-east Melbourne who have been overlooked and left behind by this government as it drifts pointlessly into its eighth year in power. For these people I represent the Morrison recession will be deeper, longer, harder, harsher and darker than it should be, because of the deliberate decisions of this Prime Minister and the government. They're obsessed with spinning and announcements. He loves announcing things. Every day there's a new announcement. Sometimes he is announcing things he had already announced but didn't actually do. But they're blinded by 40 years of failed conservative ideology, and we see it in this budget and in his behaviour during the pandemic. Because of the Prime Minister's failures and decisions, we didn't see a wage subsidy when it should have been put into place, and many tens of thousands of Australians lost their job who shouldn't have. We see criminal neglect of aged care and their pathetic efforts to blame everything on the Victorian government. No doubt there was a serious failure there in the quarantine, but it's criminal neglect when you ignore what the reports are telling you for months and you're responsible for aged care. There is no paid pandemic leave. There is waste and gaps with JobKeeper, which deliberately excludes public universities, childcare workers, who have been kicked off, casual workers, local government workers and people in the arts. There are people in my electorate, the most disadvantaged part of Melbourne, a city of five million people, who cannot get emergency relief. The government says, 'We gave $200 million to four big outfits.' Well, it doesn't land on the ground in the most disadvantaged suburbs. They're not there. You're telling people they have to catch a bus, in a pandemic, because you refuse to fund the little $2,000 vouchers for places like the Doveton Neighbourhood Learning Centre, a place where people can actually get to to get food. Unbelievably, in the budget they're running up $1.7 trillion of gross debt, which still is not going to create the jobs that Australia needs. That is $1.7 trillion of gross debt and nothing to show for it. They are an incompetent bunch of bandits. By Christmas there will be another 160,000 Australians unemployed. Even they admit it. Even in their forecasts, unemployment won't return to where it was, even on their dodgy assumptions, for four years. There are 928,000 Australians over 35 years of age excluded now from the hiring subsidies under this mob. The people I represent look on with fear about what's coming down the pipe from this government. Unemployment benefits are going to be cut to $40 a day, pushing hundreds of thousands of Australians into abject poverty again. There are cuts to JobKeeper, with no plan for jobs or the recovery, just a fantasy that things will snap back if only we give out some tax cuts. They miss the other part of the equation: government has a role in creating jobs. They should be funding social housing, picking up Labor's policy on child care and getting women into the workforce, actually doing things to create jobs instead of cutting super, cutting wages and making things harder. Brown, Ms Helen, Murphy, Mr John ('Spud') 165 10:57 Mr HOGAN 218019 Page I'd like to recognise Helen Brown of Yamba, an Indigenous woman doing wonderful work in our community. Helen won the Senior Volunteer of the Year as well as the overall Volunteer of the Year at the 2020 North Coast Region Volunteer of the Year Awards. Helen is involved with many groups in our community. She is a board member of the Aboriginal Legal Service North Coast Region, a committee member for the Wirringa Baiya Aboriginal Women's Legal Centre, a volunteer for the Justice Advocacy Service and attends meetings of groups focused on drug and alcohol abuse. Importantly, she also does consultancy work between police and Aboriginal peoples. In all aspects she does everything she can to assist others. Helen helps write resumes, provides meals and clothes and helps get people to medical appointments. Recently Helen has started a social group of Indigenous women who have moved from across Australia to Yaygirr country. She said it's about ensuring Indigenous women don't feel isolated or a loss of identity when they've left their own communities. I want to pass on great thanks to Helen's family, who have also supported her throughout her endeavours. I know spending time with her grandkids and great-grandkids is very important to her. Helen, you're a woman of empathy, dedication and true community service. I want to thank you for what you do for our community, and congratulations on your award. I'd like to recognise an icon of the Glenreagh community. John Murphy, or 'Spud', has retired after 60 years of service to the bush fire brigades in Australia. He joined the bush fire brigade in Dural, Sydney, at 19 years old and served there for 20 years. Then, when Spud moved to Nana Glen in 1980, 40 years ago, he joined the Glenreagh fire brigade, where he served for another 40 years. He has held a position in the brigade the entire time he has been there, serving as brigade captain twice. His peers have considered him as a mentor and leader to the entire brigade. Spud says that how the brigades operate has changed drastically. It's much more high-tech now. There are lots more rules and regulations. Whilst he won't hold a position, members of the brigade will still be seeing Spud at the station regularly. He had retired before the recent bushfires but was still in the brigade shed on the radios and the phones. The admiration of his peers was on full display when they passed the hat around and proudly presented him with a gold watch at the brigade's AGM. He has also been recognised as a life member. Congratulations and thank you, Spud, for everything you have done in keeping our community safe. The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded. PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS 166 PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS Aviation Industry 166 11:00 Mr HUSIC 91219 Chifley by leave––I'll speak on this motion. A number of us on this side of the chamber have been deeply concerned about the fact that while some decisions had to be made through this pandemic, particularly in relation to international borders, the big concern that we had was the follow through in being able to determine how you look after people whose livelihoods would be affected when you make the decision to shut the borders. In this case, and what the member for Ballarat will move in her motion, is the impact on aviation workers. This has been huge. Some of it is understandable, but what is unforgivable is the fact that when the calls have been made to look after people whose jobs have been affected in the area, it has been neglected. I know from constituents in my area who work for air services group dnata, for instance, who desperately wanted to be included in JobKeeper and had anticipated they would be. Finally, at the last minute, the Treasurer, who lectures us today about what we should support based on what's good for us in our electorates, when we approached him to support dnata workers, the Treasurer refused to do the right thing. It has been the same where people have been waiting for things to happen in Qantas or other parts of the aviation sector. I notice the member for Kingsford Smith is here. He is deeply concerned about the effect on the jobs of his constituents. We've been hearing nothing but silence. It is completely unacceptable, and I want to flag my strongest support for the member for Ballarat's motion. We have to have this on the floor of parliament to be debated. There are too many people depending on this to be fixed up that are being ignored by this government. 11:02 Ms CATHERINE KING 00AMR Ballarat I move: That this House: (1) recognises: (a) the critical role that Australia's aviation sector plays in the lives of all Australians; (b) that 45,000 Australians work directly for airlines in Australia and hundreds of thousands more in related industries including aviation and tourism; and (c) that the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a huge toll on the aviation industry in Australia and around the world; (2) notes the: (a) Government's ad-hoc and piecemeal approach to Australia's aviation sector during the COVID-19 response, putting thousands of jobs at risk; (b) Government's failure to take an equity stake in Virgin resulting in the company collapsing into voluntary administration, putting at risk the livelihoods of almost 16,000 workers; and (c) inequitable treatment of the 5,500 workers of aviation support company dnata, who were told on 1 May 2020 that they would not be eligible for Jobkeeper payments; and (3) calls on the Government to outline a comprehensive plan for aviation to ensure the best outcome for both the travelling public and the thousands of workers whose jobs depend on a vibrant aviation industry. When I first gave notice of this several months ago, the aviation sector was in absolute crisis. Dnata workers, 5,500 of them, were being denied access to JobKeeper payments and basically were on no money at all. We had Virgin just going into administration despite desperate pleas to the government to resolve the issue prior to going into administration. We had Qantas starting to say that they were under enormous pressure and they needed to look at shedding jobs and outsourcing some of their workforce. We had regional airports across the country, many of them owned by local councils, saying they were ineligible for JobKeeper payments and were in trouble and worried about being able to keep on really qualified security staff, in particular. We had regional aviation saying it was in trouble. We had corporate air saying they were in trouble financially. We know this is a sector where there are 45,000 people employed directly, but overall the entire sector is 200,000 people. It is a massive jobs generator. This sector was the hardest hit, the hardest hit first, alongside tourism, because of the nature of COVID-19 and the shutdown. The government's response has been entirely piecemeal throughout this process. It decided that it didn't want to pick winners. It decided that in essence it was going to fix and patch holes where it saw them. But it decided, in essence, that it was going to pick winners; that it was going to say, 'We'll rescue some parts of the sector but we'll leave others to work it out themselves.' That's what we've seen with the government's approach. The end result of that is what we are seeing today. It is absolutely critical to Australia's economy and in the long-term interest of jobs in this sector that we have an aviation industry that is made up of two full-service airlines underpinned by budget carriers, underpinned by regional airlines, with a mix of those to ensure that regional Australians continue to have access to capital cities and other regions and other markets; underpinned, obviously, by a strong freight sector, both domestically and international as it relates to aviation; and all the other ancillary workers and workforce that supports aviation, whether it be in the corporate air space or other services at airports. That is the structure of the industry that is vitally important, but that is also the structure that this government has decided it is going to completely abandon, including the thousands of workers who rely on this industry for their employment. We saw just recently the government taking the decision that they were not going to intervene in Virgin going into administration. They said, 'We're going to let the market go. There will be a market solution.' 'We're very happy that there was a market solution,' they said. Well, be careful what you wish for, because what we are now seeing is that it is very clear that the market solution is about to deliver a significant change to the aviation industry and a significant change to that structure that underpins the aviation industry but also underpins the jobs of thousands of workers. We've already seen Qantas shedding workers. We've seen Qantas taking a decision to outsource many of those workers and potentially seeing a downgrade in pay and conditions for that workforce. We've seen the conditions at Swissport. We do not want to see a replication of that for the many hundreds of Qantas workers who have worked for the sector for so long. Virgin, if reports are true in the media, is about to become a budget carrier, not a full-service airline, and that will again see the shedding of hundreds of jobs across the sector. It will also lessen competition. It is long past time that this government understood that the market is not working at the moment. It is not working anywhere in the world and it's not working in any industries, but it is particularly not working in aviation. They need to have a very clear vision about where they want aviation to be when we emerge from this crisis and they need to do the work now to make sure that there are good jobs available in this sector, but so far, what we've seen from this government is that they've picked winners—in particular, giving large grants to certain airlines and not supporting others—and have literally abandoned the thousands of workers who work in aviation across this country. The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D Is the motion seconded? Mr Thistlethwaite 182468 I second the motion and reserve my right to speak. 11:07 Mr VAN MANEN 188315 Forde I thank the member opposite for bringing this motion to the House, because it gives me the opportunity to speak about the range of measures the government have undertaken to ensure that we support the aviation sector through the coronavirus crisis. To date, the government have committed more than $1.3 billion in support for the aviation sector through this pandemic. I note that in the member's contribution opposite there weren't actually any solutions provided, just commentary. To date, over $934 million worth of invoices has been paid. We understand the importance of the aviation sector to a country the size of Australia, both for commercial and domestic travel but also for regional travel as well as freight movement and international travel. It's important that we do support it. I've got a list here of measures that we've undertaken over the past six months or so to support the aviation industry. In March, the government announced $715 million in an airline assistance package to provide immediate and significant relief from fees in waivers for over 70 air operators. We've also provided the JobKeeper package. I note from public statements that Qantas received approximately $267 million in JobKeeper payments to, I believe, 30 June, and there were approximately $156 million in payments of JobKeeper to Virgin to the end of August. We've also provided that support to the smaller airlines. That support has been provided right across our economy. The member opposite mentioned dnata, as did the previous speaker. When the JobKeeper payments were set up, entities owned by foreign governments were excluded, as were councils. Those foreign entities can be supported by their owners. On 28 March, the government also provided two regional aviation support packages to support 12 air operators fly more than 220 weekly return services. In April, the government announced the international freight assistance mechanism to support the recovery of critical supply chains. As at September, that mechanism had contributed to supporting over 5,900 flights, representing nearly 150,000 tonnes of exports worth $1.95 billion to the Australian economy. In April, the government also announced the minimum international network for Qantas and Virgin to bring Australians home. In April, the government announced the domestic aviation network to support both Virgin and Qantas to support more than 140 domestic return flights per week. These examples, and many others in addition to them, go to show the support that this government has provided to the aviation sector to keep it flying. I note with interest the comments from the CEO of Rex airlines. He expressed his gratitude to the government for its support in ensuring that Rex kept flying on regional routes. I notice that Alliance Airlines have also been quite successful during a difficult period and haven't had a loss over that time. The measures this government has taken are in line with ensuring that the airline industry is kept afloat and flying. As all of us sitting in this place know, we need to fly to get to Canberra. That has been difficult over the past few months, but it is now starting to return to some level of normalcy. We will keep working with the industry, as we are with many other industries across this country, to ensure that we put the packages and supports in place to keep them viable, both through this coronavirus and into the future, so that we have a viable, profitable airline industry, a viable, profitable manufacturing industry and a viable, profitable agricultural sector. We are continuing to support all of these industries in our economy to get through the coronavirus and to create jobs and opportunities for the future. 11:12 Mr THISTLETHWAITE 182468 Kingsford Smith A couple of weeks ago I met with a group of Qantas workers who live in the community I represent. These loyal, hardworking Qantas employees had recently been sacked, along with 2½ thousand of their co-workers, in what I believe was one of the greatest acts of corporate immorality in Australia by our national airline. It's corporate immorality for this reason: these loyal, hardworking employees who were sacked are facing the prospect of their jobs being replaced by a foreign corporation with lower wages and conditions. It's evident that Qantas are doing all they can, and using the pandemic, to get rid of some highly skilled and valuable workers. In my view, that is immoral. Many of these workers have given over 20 to 30 years service, loyal service, to this airline. A few of them I met with said to me, 'I'm in my late 50s'—or early 60s—'and all I've ever done is work in the aviation sector. How am I going to get a job now, particularly during a pandemic when the aviation sector is shut down?' If you look at the government's budget last week, what support from the government was there for these loyal Qantas workers, and others throughout the country, particularly those in the latter stages of their working life, for them to get back into the workforce? There's nothing, absolutely nothing. That says everything about this government's lack of commitment to the aviation sector in Australia. We've seen what they've done, not only to Qantas workers but to the dnata workers as well, as was mentioned by the member for Ballarat. Some 5½ thousand of them have basically been thrown on the scrap heap by this government. Loyal, hardworking people who have worked for this company and provided support services for our airlines, who live in Australia, who pay their taxes in Australia and who have their families in Australia have been completely abandoned by this government, which lacks a plan to support one of the most vital employment sectors in our economy—our aviation sector. Where is the respect from this government for those that work in this industry? This is a government that says it's all about jobs. I had to laugh last week when the Treasurer was out there, on the day of the budget, spruiking the budget and saying: 'It's all about jobs tonight. This is going to be a jobs budget.' I'm sorry, but you're not all about jobs if you stand by and allow our nation's national carrier to sack 2½ thousand of its loyal employees and then bring in a foreign corporation so that they can undercut their wages and conditions by paying lower wages and fewer conditions. You're not for jobs at all! You're not for jobs if you leave the 5½ thousand loyal workers of dnata out in the cold by refusing to provide support for them through JobKeeper, simply because of the structure they work under. The member who spoke before me, the member for Forde, is wrong when he says that foreign corporations are excluded from JobKeeper. There are examples of where the government have amended the rules to ensure that can occur. We've seen the risk they pose to the 16,000 Virgin workers by refusing to support the airline during its difficult period of administration. The message that sent to the rest of the aviation sector, the travel sector and the tourism sector was that the federal government were not interested in supporting one of the most vitally important industries in our community. In the community that I represent, our largest employer is Sydney Airport. Anyone who goes to Sydney Airport at the moment knows it's a ghost town; it's on its knees. The shock wave of that has been felt in the community I represent. There are close to 30,000 direct jobs associated with the airport. It provides support for a lot of families in our community. Those families are struggling at the moment, particularly those left behind by this government, with no support or JobKeeper. They're asking this government, 'Where is the plan for aviation to make sure it gets back on its feet as quickly as possible?' At some stage, when we do start flying again, particularly internationally, we're going to need a hell of lot of workers to make sure this industry can ramp up quickly. But a lot of those workers have left the industry because they simply cannot survive, particularly those who work for a company like dnata. You can't be without income if you've got no government support, so they've left the industry. How are you going to get them back quickly to make sure we can get this important industry back up and running, and support jobs not only in my community, but throughout Australia? That's why this government needs to develop a plan for aviation. I thank the member for Ballarat for moving this important motion. 11:17 Mr RAMSEY HWS Grey I'm a bit bemused by this motion actually, but I thank the member for Ballarat for putting it forward. In fact, I did wonder when it was written because it calls for the government to immediately intervene in the administration of Virgin. Well, we've seen that the government actually held its nerve, and we've seen a very suitable response to the situation that Virgin found itself in. We've got a new investor. They are refashioning the airline, and hopefully, when we can get international travel happening in Australia again, Virgin will return to their pre-COVID position. But right across the board, I've actually been pretty happy with the response of the government, particularly as a member who represents regional areas. We saw an imminent crash of services in regional areas. The government stepped up to the plate and put $198 million in to ensure places like Coober Pedy, Kingscote, Port Lincoln and Ceduna all had at least two flights a week being provided by Rex. That was the deal with the company, that they actually did run those. Since that time, in some of those centres the frequency of services has been rising. We've seen Qantas services to Whyalla and Port Lincoln pick up. South Australia is in a fairly fortunate position. We've had a good government there that has managed the virus very well, I would have to say. But right across the board, we've seen some good performances from the government. I had meant to mention, when I was speaking about the intervention with Virgin—I have a report here from 2013 when the then opposition leader, Bill Shorten, was asking the government to intervene and rescue Qantas from immediate failure, if I remember rightly, when they stood down 300 workers. At the time the member for Maribyrnong was calling for urgent government intervention to save this failing international icon. Of course, within two years they were making record profits, which is why governments shouldn't be lured into knee-jerk reactions. Across the board we've put more than $1.3 billion into the aviation sector. The JobKeeper platform has been so important for providing some stability in aviation. It's absolutely tough out there. It's tough for travel agents, for people, for councils that own airports—of course it is. But we can't magically fill in all the gaps that have happened because of the COVID virus. There is not an inexhaustible supply of money at the federal level—I suppose we have got printing presses! But the answer of some would seem to be to keep pouring money we don't have into enterprises, even though we don't know what their long-term viability will be. We've had the international freight assistance mechanism, which has been very important in my electorate. We export a lot of seafood out of Grey both in aquaculture and wild caught fisheries terms. Their ability to get to the market on time—it is not the kind of thing you can put on sea freight; trying to get crayfish into Hong Kong, for instance, is time critical. When the passengers stop coming into Australia we run out of freight, because, as you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, the freight travels in the cargo holds of passenger airlines. So the government has put money into providing aircraft and services so that these people can keep those businesses afloat, interacting with all their markets. That service has primarily been focused on Asia and South-East Asia. I have had calls from constituents and companies saying, 'We need that kind support into Europe as well.' I hear those calls but we don't see the same kinds of tonnages trying to get in that direction, so it becomes a little more problematic. But by and large those industries are very, very happy with what the government has done; that's the kind of feedback I get across the board. The passengers flying out of Coober Pedy and Ceduna are very happy that the government has intervened and kept those services in the air. I understand Rex is on the verge of putting on more flights to Ceduna now, because that traffic flow has built up; it got them through the tight spot. After all, that is what so much of the government intervention around COVID has been—temporary, to get businesses and people through the tight spots. 11:22 Mr DAVID SMITH 276714 Bean I support the motion moved by my colleague the member for Ballarat, and I commend her for taking overdue leadership on this critical issue. I support every worker across this essential industry, particularly those laid off, on reduced hours or facing uncertainty about their future. I support the broader union movement—their members, delegates and organisers—who are fighting to secure a better future for their colleagues and our economy. I support those airline executives who actually endeavour to pay their staff properly, support regional tourism and provide a quality service to the people of Australia. And I support all those in related industries that have suffered the flow-on impacts of COVID-19 on the airline industry. Australia's aviation sector exists in the lives of all Australians. The workers in this industry quite literally carry the nation. It is therefore imperative we have a vibrant and competitive airline industry and an airline for those in regional Australia. Our national capital has two competitive performing airlines, and we do not have another cut-price budget carrier as a replacement for a full-service airline. The airline industry is an essential plank in the make-up of our economy. In 2018 aviation had an estimated annual revenue of $46 billion, adding an estimated $18½ billion to the Australian economy. Significantly, over 45,000 Australians work directly for airlines in Australia, with more than 93,000 workers' livelihoods depending on the industry's five main subsectors. Those in Canberra and in my electorate of Bean benefit greatly from the existence of competitive performing airlines operating in and out of the national capital. For the year ending December 2019 the ACT saw $2.5 billion contributed to the local economy through tourism. This is an economic boon that was flown in and out by our pilots, catered to by cabin crews and had belongings moved by baggage handlers. Furthermore, all this was done smoothly with the efforts of a plethora of other workers right across the industry. Further afield, the communities in our regions will rely upon more regional services with lower fares bringing in more tourists and visitors to these communities, which in turn creates vital jobs. Unfortunately, the impact of COVID coupled with the inaction of the Morrison government has seen service numbers and fares headed in the opposite direction, hitting our already struggling communities hard. On 7 October, I was proud to stand alongside ACT and New South Wales colleagues in the rain with local members of the Transport Workers Union. Qantas has stood down these workers, many of whom had provided decades of loyal service. Dammingly, when the industry takes off once more, these workers face the very real threat of having their jobs outsourced to a third party or in some cases offshored. The unprecedented pandemic is being used as a shameful cover to change these dedicated workers' employment status. Labor, the unions and myself will stand with these men and women and fight for a reversal of this mean-spirited approach by Qantas management. Above all, Australia needs leadership that will work with workers, pilots, baggage handlers, avionics technicians, air traffic controllers and the multitude of others who rely upon this industry, but unfortunately, when leadership was needed most, this government vanished. The Morrison government rejected eight letters from Virgin asking for assistance. They preferred the airline fall into administration rather than take action to protect routes and jobs. This cannot be characterised as anything less than a betrayal of these workers. Conversely, the government decided to support the majority foreign owned airline REX with $54 million in untied funding, allowing them to quickly move from fighting for survival to announcing entry into the east coast markets. This ad hoc approach only serves to exacerbate uncertainty and worry across the industry, and yet this is simply a hallmark of the Morrison government. We know that Virgin received mixed signals from those around the cabinet table regarding potential support for the airline. In truth, it's just been the picking of winners and losers. This government picked 16,000 workers to lose, and they still can't answer why. This government's chronic undervaluing of our commercial airlines hardly comes as a surprise. After all, who needs a commercial flight when you can simply bill the taxpayer for a private jet to the Melbourne Cup. Right now, what we need is a comprehensive plan for aviation. We need certainty and the best possible outcome for both the travelling public and the thousands of workers whose jobs depend on a robust and vibrant aviation industry. I commend this motion. 11:27 Mr JOSH WILSON 265970 Fremantle I'm very glad to support the member for Ballarat's motion which recognises the critical contribution made by Australia's aviation sector to our way of life as a nation of people who live on a distantly populated island continent and who in the past have relied on air travel to keep us connected with one another and connected to the rest of the world. There's no doubt that aviation is facing some of the sharpest impacts of the present crisis, but whatever happens we cannot allow Australian aviation to be jeopardised. It's essential to our social and economic wellbeing. That means we must have a clear plan for the survival and revival of Australian aviation, a clear plan that protects air services and protects the workers who deliver those services. Unfortunately the plan to date has been far from clear and the government's response has been patchy at best. It's one of the paradoxes of the Liberal Party—very friendly with big business but just not good at managing big business issues. Our taxpayer money flows out, but it's often not clear what we're going to see for it. The job losses mount; somehow the executive bonuses continue. We see commitments made, but, as with the case of the new owners of Virgin Australia who did commit to maintaining the operation of a full-service airline, it's not clear that those commitments will be kept and the government's silent about whether they will hold multinational companies to their promises. I want to acknowledge Labor's shadow minister, the member for Ballarat, and my WA colleague in the other place Senator Sterle for their leadership in this area. I know their constructive suggestions and their unstinting advocacy in holding the government to account on this issue are important, especially for the thousands of workers who sustain this vital part of our transport capacity. As others have said, the industry directly employs 45,000 Australians and serves to connect our families and communities, it underpins our two most significant service exports in tourism and international education and it provides air freight capacity for some critical exports like chilled sheep carcasses into the Middle East and seafood into the Asia-Pacific region, both of which are very important to my home state of Western Australia. It was utterly predictable—by everyone—from the outset that COVID-19 would smash aviation. It's regrettable on that basis that the Morrison government appears to have reserved some of its shoddiest mismanagement for those parts of Australian life most affected by the pandemic—aged care, universities, the arts and creative sectors, and of course aviation. As a result, we've seen far too much uncertainty. It puts our carriers at risk and it puts our future way of life at risk because Australia simply must have a healthy and competitive aviation sector. For all the people who work in aviation it has been a disruptive and extraordinarily bleak time. I know a little bit about what that means because, like most members in this place, I've heard directly from pilots, cabin crew, engineers, airport staff and people in the freight and logistics part of the business. They're all people who fear for their livelihoods. Many of them have suffered impacts already, and all of them suspect it's going to remain difficult for some time to come. It's fortunate that in Western Australia the maintenance of the resources sector activity has meant a continuation of flights to support our fly-in fly-out workforce, which in turn is critical to Australia's overall economic performance. It's a shame more hasn't been done by the Morrison government to support the return of stranded and vulnerable Australians. I want to acknowledge the formidable Transport Workers Union for all their tireless work in speaking up for the aviation sector and in fighting for aviation workers. I particularly note the TWU's resolve in defence of dnata workers—the men and women who provide crucial ground-handling, logistics and catering services. They are essential workers. They deserve much better than their collective experience to date. I don't know that there's a worse example of mismanagement than the situation of dnata's 5,500 Australian employees who were told in May that they would be excluded from JobKeeper payments because dnata is controlled by its parent company that is overseas. With a little bit of common sense this could have been fixed. Despite the workers' pleas and despite the union's steady and sensible argument, the Morrison government remains deaf to all reason, which means that thousands of dnata workers are left in the lurch. The aviation sector was at the front edge of the COVID-19 disaster and, all things considered, it will be among the last to fully recover. It needs to be in a position to resume its vital function as soon as possible to the maximum degree and to the highest standard of service. That will only be possible with careful support and stewardship from the government. So far we haven't seen that. So far we have seen the reverse. What we have seen with aviation and other key sectors—the arts, universities and local government, among others—is the government's hands-off, we-don't-hold-a-hose type of approach. What does that do? That risks long-term damage. It will harm Australian workers and impact all of us. 11:32 Mr HUSIC 91219 Chifley I want to pick up on what the members for Fremantle and Kingsford Smith mentioned—the workers at dnata. I spoke earlier about the fact that there were people in the electorate I represent who had approached me about this, in particular Adam a dnata worker from Lethbridge Park and a couple of blokes out at Blacktown who had been affected. I want to respond to some of the government speakers who said, 'JobKeeper was designed not to support companies owned by other governments.' This is a rewriting of history because the Treasurer made a last-minute decision that affected those workers. As the Transport Workers Union and my colleague the member for Fremantle have rightly and strongly pointed out, these workers were being denied at the last minute. Before anyone gets the notion that these workers somehow are working overseas I point out that they're not. They're Australian workers on Australian soil, paying Australian taxes. They would have expected that the Australian government would have backed them in, but it didn't. The only other remark I would make on this is that it's clear that when we've had competition in Australia in the domestic aviation market it has meant that mums and dads could get a better deal on the costs of travel in this country. If one carrier collapses, everyone knows what's going to happen. The cost of tickets is going to skyrocket. The suggestion is now that Virgin is going to be a cut-price carrier. We already had some of them. It will be interesting to see if they emerge. By all accounts it will not be the same Virgin airline that once operated. It will be different. You have to wonder what the state of the aviation market will be. On top of that, from time to time, the government says that it is willing to put money into coal-fired power stations, but it won't put money into a sector that has been here for a while that is providing and injecting competition. Also—and I note the presence of the member for Bennelong—where is the money for high-speed rail? We have one of the busiest airline corridors on the planet, which goes from Brisbane to Sydney to Melbourne, and the government won't provide another alternative in terms of transport and investment—which I know the member for Bennelong champions quite a lot—that would open up opportunities for workers that might move from one sector, aviation, to another. We need to be able to think long term about the creation of jobs. All this short-term thinking will deny people employment when they need the security of that job longer term. That is why I commend the member for Ballarat's resolution. 11:34 The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZP The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. Diabetes 172 11:35 Ms FLINT 245550 Boothby I move: That this House: (1) recognises that 120,000 Australians live with type 1 diabetes, and the: (a) cause of the disease is unknown; and (b) majority of people with the condition are diagnosed before they are 19 years of age; (2) acknowledges the many Australian families raising children diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and the incredible efforts they make to support their loved ones; (3) supports the important work of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) in raising awareness and funds for vital research and prevention of the disease, which includes $152 million invested in Australian research to date; and (4) notes that: (a) 1 October 2020 marked the beginning of the JDRF One Walk Step Challenge, encouraging participants to raise funds by walking 120,000 steps in October for the 120,000 Australians living with the disease; and (b) 14 November 2020 is World Diabetes Day, promoting the role of nurses in the prevention and management of diabetes. The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZP Is the motion seconded? Mr Craig Kelly 99931 I second the motion and reserve my right to speak Ms FLINT 245550 Over 120,000 Australians currently live with type 1 diabetes, a condition which requires careful lifelong management, cannot be prevented, has no known cure and can be fatal. Type 1diabetes is an autoimmune condition causing the pancreas to create very little or no insulin at all. Formerly known as juvenile diabetes, the majority of people with the condition are diagnosed before they reach the age of 19. With such a high proportion of those impacted at such a young age, there is a clear and significant burden on these individuals and their families with children affected by type 1 diabetes. In response, these families undertake incredible efforts to support their loved ones. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, or JDRF Australia, is one organisation that provides families with the necessary tools to support and care for people living with type 1 diabetes—and I am wearing my very best JDRF blue jacket here today. Formed by a small group of families in 1982, JDRF Australia is a not-for-profit organisation with a mission to accelerate life-changing breakthroughs to cure, prevent and treat type 1 diabetes and its complications through a variety of fundraising efforts. They collaborate with academic institutions, policymakers and corporate and industry partners to develop and deliver a pipeline of innovative therapies for people living with type 1 diabetes. To date, JDRF Australia has raised $152 million, which has been invested in type 1 diabetes research across the country. This is an incredible effort. I recently met with local Boothby residents Andrew Supple and his son Hayden, along with Kylie Greenfield and her son Ethan to catch up on the valuable work that JDRF Australia does. Ethan and Hayden both have type 1 diabetes and, since their respective diagnoses, the two families have become fierce advocates for all those living with the condition. Both families are regular visitors to my office, letting me know what life is like for members of our community living with type 1 diabetes and what policy changes they would like to see in this area. Becoming ambassadors for JDRF Australia, the Supples and the Greenfields have been assisting in fundraising drives and advocating for new and emerging treatments for Australians with type 1 diabetes. The JDRF One Walk Step Challenge forms just one part of their many fundraising efforts. This year, the challenge began on 1 October and it runs for the entire month. Participants are challenged to walk 120,000 steps, raising awareness for each of the 120,000 Australians diagnosed with the condition and raising funds for research into type 1 diabetes prevention, improved treatments and working towards a cure. Kylie Greenfield is one of the many participants in this challenge, walking for her son Ethan, and, as at this morning, Kylie had already reached 144,000 steps. So she is absolutely overachieving. Rose Supple is walking for her son Hayden Supple. Rose is fast approaching her target steps and has already smashed her fundraising target of $500. JDRF Australia also plays an important role by providing a range of support services to parents and families who may have a child newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The federal government has long recognised the importance of type 1 diabetes research and the need to support sufferers and their families. In 2016, we initially committed $54 million to subsidise continuous glucose monitoring and $35 million to diabetes research. Our investment in CGM now totals more than $300 million, and in 2019 we committed a further $56 million of funding towards research. Of this, our government has allocated $31 million worth of funding to JDRF to support its type 1 diabetes clinical research network. In 2018-19, the government also provided $690,000 for JDRF to administer the Insulin Pump Program. This program provides fully subsidised insulin pumps and subsidised insulin pump consumables for financially disadvantaged families who have children aged 18 years and under with type 1 diabetes. In the 2018-19 budget, additional funding of $6.2 million was provided so that 280 children with type 1 diabetes can access fully subsidised insulin pumps each year. The Supples and Greenfields have raised with me the potential for other new, improved technologies. We know that there is always more to do. I will keep working with them to do whatever we can to support all families with type 1 diabetes in our communities. 11:41 Mr ZAPPIA HWB Makin Around 120,000 Australians live with type 1 diabetes. For every moment of every day of their lives, these people, from infants to adults, live a much more difficult life than most other people, constantly having to make choices about food as well as having regular health checks, insulin injections, associated health conditions, social exclusion and so on. Diabetes is a life-limiting condition that burdens the people affected and their family members. Their likelihood of developing other serious medical conditions, including eye problems, kidney damage, cardiovascular disease, loss of limbs, damage to their nervous system and so on, is many times higher than for most other Australians. Worst of all, they have a shorter life expectancy than others, by some 12 years. For these people and their families, their hope lies in medical research—research that has already made a difference to giving them a better quality of life. This research is being critically supported by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's type 1 diabetes clinical research network, with around 250 researchers across Australia in 65 institutes. The ongoing work of the clinical research network is vital to ultimately curing this debilitating and life-threatening disease and, in the interim, improving the quality of life for all of those impacted by diabetes. Research, however, is dependent on funding. The total yearly cost of people living with type 1 diabetes is estimated to be about $570 million. It therefore makes sense for governments to increase the research funding that is currently available. In my electorate of Makin there are over 700 people with type 1 diabetes. One of those people is young Julian McLeod, who is a national advocate for JDRF. Julian was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes before he was two years old. Julian and his family—dad, Damien, mum, Angela, and siblings, Felicity, Gabriel and Elliot—know what it's like to live every moment of his life with diabetes. They also know that research holds the key to a better life, and they have all enrolled in the ENDIA research program. Two years ago, Julian came to Canberra with his dad to the JDRF's Kids in the House event. I have been so inspired by his courage and positive attitude to life. But we could and should be doing more for Julian and every one of the other 120,000 Australians with type 1 diabetes. The government should consider raising the carers allowance for young people from 16 years of age to at least 18 years of age. At 18, these young people are still very likely to be in their families' care. Ketone strips, which cost around $14 for 10 strips, should be subsidised just as blood glucose test strips are. When your blood sugar level rises above around 15 parts, it's important to have the ketone test. It's just as important as the blood glucose test, and yet those strips aren't made available. In Julian's case, he's also now under a mental health support program—and I suspect most other kids are—which has helped him immensely. There's an ongoing list of other support measures that these young people need that are not subsidised or, if they are, aren't subsidised sufficiently. Again, the needs are there, and governments should be doing much more. I note that 14 November is World Diabetes Day. It's a day when we focus on diabetes around the world and the people who provide support. The focus of this year's World Diabetes Day is the nurses in our society. In fact, more than half of the medical workforce around the world is comprised of nurses. They are the people who, in most cases, are the direct connection between families and the care that the patients need. They are the ones who most patients, including diabetes patients, often have the greatest interaction with. I say to those nurses: thank you for all you are doing, each and every day, to not only support people who need all kinds of health support but, in particular, support those who are trying to manage diabetes. It's an illness that affects so many people each and every day of their lives, as I said. People can live with diabetes so much better if they know that they have that kind of support there for them when they need it and have people with them who have the expertise, and many of the nurses do, to give them the guidance and care that they need as they live through this terrible illness. 1:46 Mr ALEXANDER M3M Bennelong I would like to thank the member for Boothby for bringing forward this important debate. I spend a lot of time here talking about preventable disease and about how getting out and keeping active helps people be healthier and connected, leading to longer, happier lives. Type 2 diabetes is exactly one of those conditions which is eminently preventable by a healthy lifestyle. But type 1, which we are talking about today, is not. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that destroys the body's ability to process sugar by attacking the beta cells in the pancreas that produce the hormone insulin. While we don't know why people get type 1 diabetes, once it is diagnosed in young people it is with them for life. There is no cure. But there are treatments. Some are tried and true; some are new and cutting edge. The best known of all is coming up for a significant birthday. Next year will be 100 years since insulin was discovered as a treatment for diabetes. It was first developed by Frederick Banting and Charles Best, who took insulin from a dog's pancreas and treated a diabetic dog with it, keeping the dog alive until their limited supply of insulin ran out. From there, a purer form of insulin was developed from the pancreas of a cow. In 1922, a 14-year-old Canadian boy named Leonard Thompson became the first person to receive an injection of insulin, which rapidly saved him from a certain and imminent death. This led to the 1923 Nobel Prize for developers and, soon after, one of our local Bennelong companies, Eli Lilly, started making insulin. Later, in the early eighties, they also developed a biosynthetic human insulin. Bennelong is Australia's capital of innovation. Local Bennelong firms, like Sanofi, have continued in this tradition, with continuing investment and innovation in medicines to help overcome type 1 diabetes. Their efforts are giving hope to thousands around Australia. They have been joined in this effort by the Australian government, which continues to fund initiatives to make life better for those with diabetes. Continuous glucose monitoring, or CGM, is one such area. The government has invested more than $300 million to ensure over 58,000 people have free access to continuous monitoring. CGM replaces the arduous finger pricking and provides reports on their condition, even when sleeping. I'm pleased to say, from 1 March, the FreeStyle Libre flash glucose monitoring system has been added to the range of products subsidised by the CGM initiative. I am even more pleased to say that this is made by Abbott, another company based in Bennelong. Further benefits are added with an insulin pump which automatically provides insulin to the body as needed. This is subsidised to the tune of some $6.2 million, and locally based Medtronic are one of the companies that makes them. I have mentioned a lot of local companies. They are helping to make life better for those with type 1 diabetes, but more important than local business are the local residents they do this for. Maddie Minard, an 11-year-old who is in year 5 at St Gerard's primary school, has lived with type 1 diabetes, a chronic illness, through no fault of her own for six years. Maddie uses an insulin pump and the government funded CGM program and other technologies have changed the way Maddie manages her diabetes. Kids like Maddie need to be constantly monitored. No two days are the same, and her type 1 diabetes can have devastating complications if not managed correctly. Ultimately, Maddie's mum, Catherine, looks forward to the day that her daughter used to have type 1 diabetes. Maddie and her mum have become dedicated JDRF advocates and fundraisers, and this year they are participating in the JDRF One Walk Virtual Step Challenge. I started this speech noting that people with type 1 diabetes can't prevent it through exercise, but through this challenge we can all exercise to support JDRF's wonderful mission: treat, prevent and ultimately cure type 1 diabetes. Maddie and her mum have completed 80,000 steps so far, raising $784 and hope to reach their personal goal of $1,000. It's inspiring to see businesses, individuals and the community coming together to help people like Maddie. I wish Maddie all the best with her campaign, and I look forward to meeting with her once she has completed her step challenge. Thank you, everyone, for pulling together for this important issue. 11:50 Dr ALY 13050 Cowan I'd like to start by commending the member for Boothby for bringing the attention of the Chamber to type 1 diabetes and, in particular, World Diabetes Day on 14 November, as well as the work that the JDRF, the juvenile diabetes research fund, does. It's very easy in this time of a global pandemic to forget about the families that are living with ongoing conditions, including type 1 diabetes. Even through the pandemic, JDRF and other diabetes foundations are continuing the work of their research and their fundraising. While we don't know what causes type 1 diabetes, researchers are currently looking for triggers, such as viral infections or molecules within the environment and foods. It's important to note that 90 per cent of people living with type 1 diabetes have no family history; it doesn't appear to be a genetic disease, and the majority of people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes are diagnosed before the age of 19. I'd like to pay heed to Mike Wilson, the CEO of the JDRF, the juvenile diabetes research fund, and Richard Goyder and the Goyder family. Richard Goyder is the co-chair of the JDRF. Normally around this time of the year, my husband and I would be attending the JDRF gala in Perth, lending our support to the JDRF and their mission to continue their research into juvenile diabetes and to find a cure for juvenile diabetes. Normally at this time JDRF would be doing a number of fundraising activities, and COVID hasn't stopped them in their efforts. Last year, I attended the JDRF walk in Perth; I MCed the event as well as completed the walk with a team. This year the walk is still going ahead, but people are welcome to join the walk from their own home. The JDRF note that diabetes doesn't stop for a pandemic, so they've got to keep fighting in the most COVID-safe way. People are able to join the JDRF One Walk online. It's a global movement of over a million people with the goal of raising $85 million for type 1 diabetes research. So far, 5,765 soldiers have enlisted in the JDRF Blue Army. They've raised $1,017,637, and a total of—I hope I get this right!—271,597,321 steps have been marched across Australia in support of JDRF. I also want to make mention of the Type 1 Diabetes Family Centre in Perth, which is staffed by volunteers. It gets no government funding. It's a facility to support families of children and people living with type 1 diabetes. This year I'm really, really proud that they awarded their Superstar Siblings award to Kaitlyn Reynolds, who lives in my electorate of Cowan. The Reynolds family is just such a beautiful, loving family. Their son Lachlan was only recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. It's a really proud moment for Kaitlyn to be awarded Superstar Sibling for 2020 by the Type 1 Diabetes Family Centre. I want to read a little bit about why Kaitlyn got this award. The Type 1 Diabetes Family Centre states that Kaitlyn, who is 16 years old, has shown an enormous amount of strength with the recent loss of her father. She has stepped up and helped with her little brother Lachlan's care through his type 1 journey. Lachlan has significant needle phobia and sensory issues and she has been his support person with every set and sensor change. She holds his hand, hugs him tight and reassures him when he feels like he hates his condition. Lachlan loves his big sister. He calls her his best friend. Kaitlyn is constantly researching and learning about type 1 and how she can help her little brother, whether it's by preparing simple healthy snacks or sensory toys, which she uses her own pocket money to buy, to make him feel comfortable throughout his journey. She goes without so many times so that her little brother never feels left out. Congratulations Kaitlyn, Patricia and Lachlan, and to the Reynolds family. 11:56 Dr WEBSTER 281688 Mallee There are many thousands of people across Australia that carry the burden of type 1 diabetes. It is estimated that more than 463 million people live with diabetes around the world, including more than 1.1 million children. The Commonwealth government appreciates the difficulties that type 1 diabetes imposes on a person's daily life. That is why the coalition continues to fund a range of initiatives to provide support and assistance to people with type 1 diabetes. In 2015-16, around $2.7 billion, or 2.3 per cent of total disease expenditure in the Australian health system, was attributed to diabetes, and this support has continued to grow. In February 2019, the Australian government announced $56 million for research into type 1 diabetes through the Medical Research Future Fund. Half of this will be dedicated to diabetes research under the $125 million Medical Research Future Fund Targeted Translation Research Accelerator program to help progress— A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 11:57 to 12:31 Dr WEBSTER 281688 The other half will support JDRF Australia, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, to advance its Type 1 Diabetes Clinical Research Network with an additional $6 million over four years, to be provided to further assist with the strategic vision and national leadership of the Australian Type 1 Diabetes Clinical Research Network. I recently caught up with a young man from Birchip in my electorate, Blair Gould. Blair has been living with type 1 diabetes since the age of 10. Now 18, Blair has started an organisation called Mallee Kids T1D and is a strong advocate for people living with diabetes. At Blair's request, I met with Mel from JDRF Australia to discuss the foundation's ongoing work to cure, treat and prevent type 1 diabetes. Mel told me that there are 980 people living with type 1 diabetes in Mallee, with 120 of these people being under the age of 18. To these people, I say that I am with you, I appreciate the challenges you face and I offer my support in every way possible. Mel also told me about the foundation's environmental determining factors study, which currently has 1,500 participants. The study is an example of the foundation's world-leading research and is looking at people with a family history of type 1 diabetes, aiming to discover if there are environmental factors that cause the disease. One of the challenges facing the foundation is how best to translate their laboratory research into clinical trials. I understand there is a gap between the research conducted in the lab and that which is conducted on people with the disease. One of the foundation's main aims is to identify talented young researchers to help bridge this gap and lead the research into the future. The $31 million funding being provided to JDRF Australia over four years will help to improve the lives of people living with type 1 diabetes. Mel told me that she is confident we will see significant advancements in JDRF's research over the next four years, which I am really excited about. The Commonwealth government also continues to support eligible people with fully subsidised continuous glucose monitoring products, which equates to a $300 million investment over four years. Eligible people include people under the age of 21 years; other children and young people with conditions similar to type 1 diabetes who require insulin; women with type 1 diabetes who are pregnant, planning for pregnancy or immediately post pregnancy; as well as people over the age of 21 who have concessional status. Currently, approximately half of all people living with type 1 diabetes have free access to continuous glucose-monitoring products. I know that access to these products has been a life changer for Blair. He said, 'With CGM products, type 1 diabetes is much easier to manage, making it easier overnight and helping out when it comes to physical activity and sport. I hope the other 120 young people living with type 1 diabetes in Mallee are being supported as well.' Whether it's through funding for world-leading research, or support for people with type 1 diabetes, the Commonwealth government is committed to reducing the burden on people living with this disease. I support this motion and commend it to the House. 12:35 Mrs PHILLIPS 147140 Gilmore Type 1 diabetes is indeed a common disease, one that most people have heard of. While it's true that the majority of people are diagnosed before they are 19 years of age, that by no means makes this a children's disease. Type 1 diabetes is a lifelong condition that can be very difficult to manage, and can be deadly, as well as having serious complications like kidney failure, nerve damage, heart disease, stroke and blindness. Organisations like the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation are doing great things in our communities, raising awareness and funding for research into this terrible disease. They are also inspiring young locals to do their bit to help. Last year, Nowra's Ailssia Hughes started raising money for the foundation with a pledge to hike the Kokoda trail. Ailssia is an inspiring woman who, after experiencing a severe hypoglycaemic episode, wanted to make a difference in the lives of people living with diabetes. The truth is that we need to understand this disease better, but we also need to fund the treatment of it better. There have been a number of advancements in the technologies available to treat diabetes, but, for many people, the costs are prohibitively expensive. Continuous glucose-monitoring devices are small, wearable monitors that measure and display glucose levels throughout the day and night. They send alarms and warnings if your glucose levels are outside the set target range, and let you know if your levels are rising or falling. The National Diabetes Services Scheme does provide some subsidies for CGM products for those under the age of 21 years, those with concession cards and pregnant women. If you aren't receiving a subsidy though, these products can cost $4,000 to $5,000 every year. As I said, diabetes might be diagnosed in childhood, but it is far from a children's disease. I'm regularly contacted by local people who are struggling with the costs of treating their diabetes, or that of their children. Three years ago, at the age of 20, Kia's daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Kia's daughter is studying to be a nurse—absolutely fantastic news!—but, because of her age, she could only receive funding for CGM for eight months, until she turned 21. Since then, Kia has had to find $250 a month to pay for this critical piece of equipment, which she sees as vital to keeping her daughter alive. Sadly, that wasn't the end of it for Kia and her family. This year her son was also diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Unfortunately, he was four days short of qualifying for the government's subsidies under the National Diabetes Services Scheme. Kia's son is an apprentice, something we all should be encouraging in today's world, but he earns just too much for a low-income healthcare card. Now, Kia's family is looking for $500 every month to help her children manage their health conditions. Due to COVID-19, Kia was stood down for six weeks. Both she and her husband have had their hours reduced, and they are struggling. As Kia said in her email to me: 'Unfortunately, the risk of fatal hypos do not diminish the moment you turn 21. But our priority will always be with providing the best care we can for our children.' Helping local people manage chronic health conditions like diabetes actually saves the government money in the long run. When chronic health conditions are managed, it keeps people out of doctors' surgeries, out of emergency rooms, out of our hospitals. It means people can go to work and contribute fully to our economy, instead of spending time away from work trying to manage the complications of their condition. We know we can manage diabetes and we know that, when it is properly managed, people living with diabetes can live full and healthy lives. Another constituent I spoke with was told by her doctor that she should say she wants to have a baby, that way she could get help. At 21 years of age, this was unsurprisingly an upsetting and inappropriate thing for a young woman to have to do. So, while we are seeing great things in the private sector from organisations like the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, there is a huge gap being left by government in this space. We need to be helping and supporting our community to deal with their diabetes, not only to help them but also to help our health system. The government has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for real reform. This is just one area where they could be focusing their attention to help people like Kia and her family. 12:40 Ms LIU 282918 Chisholm I second the member for Boothby's motion highlighting the continuing public health challenge type 1 diabetes presents to many people across Australia, including in my own electorate of Chisholm. This year has been a challenging one for Australians at large as well as for the health sector in particular. COVID-19 has taken up much of the energy and resources that would in normal times be directed elsewhere. But we must not forget the many other serious conditions that haven't gone away, the many other Australians who still need and must get our help. At least 120,000 Australians live with type 1 diabetes. The cause of the disease is unknown, and most sufferers will be diagnosed before they turn 19 years old. This government acknowledges the quiet, diligent, inspiring efforts made, day in, day out, by families and loved ones in supporting those affected by type 1 diabetes. Having always being deaf in one ear, I understand how much of a difference it can make to have the understanding and support of friends and family in dealing with a permanent health condition, and this is even more the case for those suffering from type 1 diabetes, a condition that necessitates consistent and careful management. I know I join my colleagues in praising and supporting the vital work being done by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, an organisation devoted to the kinds of therapies, treatments and policy initiatives that make such a difference in the lives of those 120,000 people living with type 1 diabetes. Like so many across Australia, I am taking part in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's One Walk Step Challenge this month, helping to raise money for research into type 1 diabetes prevention, treatments and eventual cure. But it is not just the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation that we support, vital though their work is; this government has already committed to $56 million in research funding for type 1 diabetes through the Medical Research Future Fund. This includes $31 million towards the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation as well as a further $25 million dedicated to broader diabetes research under our $125 million chronic disease fund. This backing is essential for progressing early stage health and medical research discoveries and moving them forward to clinical trials. This government continues to fund Diabetes Australia to administer the National Diabetes Services Scheme, and that funding, we are proud to say, will total over $913 million over the 2019 to 2023 financial period. This government is dedicated to responsible increases in funding each year for the continuous glucose monitoring initiative. Indeed, changes spearheaded by Minister Hunt this year mean that half of all people with type 1 diabetes will have free access to CGM products, again helping those who are most vulnerable. And, of course, this government will continue to fund the life-changing Insulin Pump Program, providing fully subsidised insulin pumps as well as subsidised insulin-pumped consumables to those disadvantaged families with under-18 diabetic children who have no other means of securing the funds for insulin pumps themselves. Finally, I join the member for Boothby in looking forward to World Diabetes Day on 14 November, celebrating the indispensable work done by nurses on the front line in preventing and managing diabetes. 12:45 Dr FREELANDER 265979 Macarthur I'd like to congratulate the member for Boothby for bringing on this motion. It's a very important one. Indeed, I thank her for the details in her motion that support the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, of which I have been a longstanding supporter. I have a little bit of a history lesson. It's 99 years since Frederick Banting and his colleague Charles Best were able to purify bovine insulin for the first time, in 1921, and then subsequently use it for treatment of type 1 diabetes. Frederick Banting was somewhat of a medical hero of mine. He was a polymath, a fantastic artist, a poet, a writer, a promoter of indigenous health of the Alaskan people—he pointed out that the lifestyle factors that were impacting upon them and their children were having lifelong health effects—and a painter; some of his paintings that I have seen are absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, he was tragically killed in a plane accident, in his 40s. I think he would have had a lot more to contribute in medicine if he had survived. He also had a longstanding interest in aviation medicine. He was, with his colleague John Macleod, the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Prize in medicine, at age 32, and he remains the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Prize in medicine. His discovery of bovine insulin led to the treatment of type 1 diabetes. Before that, people with diabetes died a slow and lingering death, as there was really very little treatment other than diet and fluids. Now, of course, they survive for many, many productive years. Frederick Banting should be remembered as one of the greats in world medicine. In fact there is the Flame of Hope, opposite the Frederick Banting House in London, Ontario, in Canada. It was lit by Queen Elizabeth II in 1989, and that flame will not be extinguished until a cure is found for type 1 diabetes. I hope to live long enough to see that cure and see that flame extinguished. There have been many, many changes in diabetes management over the more than 40 years I have worked as a paediatrician. When I started medicine, diabetes was managed using pork or beef insulin. The testing was done by urine testing; people with diabetes used to have their urine tested rather than their blood. When I first started work as a resident in a children's hospital in 1979 was when they first developed home blood glucose monitoring; this is now standard practice. Some years ago bioengineered human insulin became available, and this led to a lot fewer side effects, less development of insulin antibodies and much better management of childhood diabetes. I remember incredibly well the hardships that families faced in managing their young children with diabetes. I have seen newborn infants with type 1 diabetes and even toddlers presenting with type 1 diabetes. I have seen the trauma that this has put families through. I remember a little girl, Renee. She was just a gorgeous little toddler who, at 15 months, presented with type 1 diabetes. People who have toddlers know the difficulties of trying to get a toddler to eat regularly, to have their blood tested regularly and make sure they get their insulin regularly without screaming; it is incredible. With this family I went through the traumas of having a toddler with type 1 diabetes. She is now, I am pleased to report, a young woman with a family of her own and is very healthy, thanks to the advances of the insulin pump and flash glucose monitoring. She is really doing fantastically well and it was an absolute delight to see her, but I remember the traumas that those families used to go through. I would also like to pay tribute to my nursing and medical colleagues. I helped set up a diabetes clinic at Campbelltown Hospital, in my electorate. This was a way of giving comprehensive overall care to those with type 1 diabetes in childhood. My colleagues did a fantastic job. In particular, I would like to pay tribute to our diabetes educator, who for over 20 years ran the clinic almost by herself: Sister Terri O'Sullivan. She is still doing it now. I pay huge tribute to her and the support she gives to families. I support this motion and I thank you for listening. It really is a great story. Debate adjourned. Young Australians 178 12:50 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston I move: That this House: (1) recognises that young Australians have disproportionately felt the economic and social pain that the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and recession have brought; (2) notes that young people:    (a) are facing an extraordinary jobs crisis, and:       (i) in March 2020, 15 per cent of all jobs were filled by young people yet 40 per cent of all jobs lost since then were young Australians aged 14 to 24;       (ii) there are now over 345,900 young Australians out of work; and       (iii) nearly 2 in 5 young people are now unemployed or need more work;    (b) are struggling to afford life’s essentials, and:       (i) 70 per cent of young Australians are now concerned about their financial wellbeing;       (ii) young people have missed payments for household bills at a rate of 2 to 3 times the general population; and       (iii) 52 per cent of young renters and 45 per cent of young mortgage holders were concerned about their ability to make housing payments in July 2020;    (c) are suffering severe social disruption, and:       (i) many have missed out on once in a lifetime milestones and rites of passage;       (ii) more feel isolated due to lockdowns with some schools closed, campus life extinguished, and social gatherings restricted or prohibited; and       (iii) 51 per cent of young people felt their mental health had worsened during the crisis;    (d) are grappling with disruptions to education and training, and:       (i) many feel their motivation and career plans have been dented; and       (ii) 53 per cent feel their study has been negatively affected; and    (e) feel they don’t have a voice in politics—52 per cent of young people felt they had a say ‘none of the time’ in public affairs; and (3) calls on the Government to work with young people and urgently design a comprehensive COVID‑19 youth recovery strategy that gets young Australians through this crisis and builds their futures. There is no doubt that this pandemic has affected all Australians. All Australians have been doing it tough, but it has been young Australians that, in many ways, have felt the significant brunt of the lockdowns and the things that we've had to do to keep our community safe. There have been both short-and long-term impacts on their economic security but also their way of life, which has been disrupted. When I have talked to young people around this country, and I have had ongoing Zoom conferences around this country with young people, they talk about a number of issues, but are very clear that they're all interconnected. Young people are seeing the connection between their mental health and their economic insecurity. The disruption to their lives is interconnected. What they have been calling for, and rightly so, is a coordinated, holistic response from government. We are more than seven months into the crisis and, unfortunately, this government has provided no holistic plan to support young people through this difficult time, to help build their futures for the long term and to give them hope. It is disappointing that the minister for youth has been completely silent. We haven't even seen a press release since the budget, talking about young people and making sure young people's voices are heard. When we look at some of the challenges, we see that young people held 15 per cent of all jobs in March but accounted for around 40 per cent of the job losses. One in three young Australians are now without a job or in need of more hours. The longer this goes on the more it will hurt these young people. Fifty-one per cent of young people feel their mental health has worsened and 53 per cent feel their study has been negatively affected, according to headspace data. There is some extraordinary strain and they aren't getting the support they need. Forty-four per cent of young people living out of home could not make rent or mortgage repayments in May, according to ANU data. One reason is that 26 per cent of workers are casual and with less than 12 months service, making them ineligible for JobKeeper. Many of these young people missed out, and this is compared to 6.5 per cent of all other age groups. This has meant that those aged 18 to 24 were also more likely to make early super withdrawals. According to ME Bank, 30 per cent of young people have done so, compared to the population average of eight per cent. It's hard to overstate the long-term challenges that young people will face. This generation, unfortunately, may well have the odds stacked against them. They will try to enter the workforce and the housing market, and they will recommence or commence education in the midst of a recession for the first time in 30 years. This has long-term impacts. A Productivity Commission report found that those entering the workforce during a weak labour market are offered lower starting wages and young workers are pushed to take part-time work and roles for which they do not use their qualifications. Modelling by Ernst & Young found that this meant that 21-year-olds are likely to miss out on up to $32,000 of income over 10 years. This was in the wake of the GFC and, of course, we are now seeing the challenges of the current recession. We need to act urgently. Unfortunately, we need more than the marketing slogans and short-term measures that the Morrison government has been offering. The government's hiring credit subsidy scheme is not really a plan for the long term. While it may help some young people in the short term, it is not a long-term plan. We need a youth recovery strategy that's a comprehensive analysis of how policy areas interact and impact young people and we need a clear plan of what needs to be done by government to get young people through the COVID recession and the many years that lie ahead. What young people need now is hope. This government and the minister for youth are not providing that. I call on the minister to deliver a youth recovery strategy, because that's what young people want. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 198084 Is there a seconder for the motion? Dr Freelander 265979 I second the motion and reserve my right to speak. 12:56 Mr SIMMONDS 282983 Ryan I'm pleased to speak today on the member for Kingston's motion as it gives me a chance to rebut the convoluted claims that the Morrison government is not delivering for young Australians. If Labor members opposite took the time to read the budget properly, they would see that this government has delivered for Australians right across the board. No amount of creative licence from the Labor Party can distort this simple fact. The Australian people know better than to listen to the Labor Party's fraudulent claims regarding economic management. They have learnt the hard way. The Labor Party have an inexcusable track record of reckless spending, with no plan to create jobs for our youth. The Morrison government, on the other hand, is committed to supporting young Australians through the challenges associated with COVID-19. We understand that young Australians have been adversely affected by the pandemic, which is why we developed the 2020 budget and the economic recovery plan that pave the road to recovery and secure the future for all Australians, especially our young people. Since the beginning of the pandemic we have delivered more than $126 billion in initiatives to provide for all Australians, including young people, in areas like employment, income and mental health support. With the addition of JobKeeper and JobSeeker, more than $300 billion has gone out the door to support all Australians, including young Australians, during the economic crisis of this pandemic. The next step of our nation's economic recovery is the 2020 Morrison government budget, which is all about jobs. The Morrison government's JobMaker plan in the 2020 budget in particular will invest in Australians for Australians, without increasing taxes and imposing unnecessary financial burdens on our next generation. The intergenerational theft that has occurred through reckless spending under previous Labor governments is not part of the Morrison government's agenda. You heard it again from the member for Kingston. While those opposite are yet to say whether they will support the JobMaker plan when it comes to the House and the Senate, they're happy to stand in this place and ask for more support for young Australians without offering to support the measures that are currently on the table. The member for Kingston outlined in her speech that she really wants to see another plan—more documentation, a plan to make a plan to make a plan. That's what the Labor Party loves so much. At the end of all that they really want to bake in billions of dollars worth of spending for the next decade or two, which will leave an ongoing financial burden for future generations— Opposition members interjecting— Mr SIMMONDS 282983 whereas the Morrison government, with the 2020 budget and the JobMaker scheme, is providing targeted support to get young people back into jobs this financial year and the next financial year. That is the support that's on the table right now. Labor members opposite should spend less time interjecting and more time walking into the House or the Senate, or walking in front of TV cameras, and saying that they will support young people through the JobMaker initiative to help them get a job, just like the Morrison government is doing. The JobMaker plan will stimulate employment uptake. It will support more than half a million jobs for young Australians. The credit will invest in skills and training programs to ensure that young people who are struggling to find work at the moment get back on their feet before we lose this generation to long-term unemployment. The JobMaker hiring credit constitutes approximately $4 billion in support, providing a wage subsidy of up to $200 a week for 12 months, to support those young people into employment. It will incentivise businesses to take on additional employees—above and beyond their current FTE level—that are young jobseekers. It targets those aged 16 to 35, because we know the scale of the challenge. The ABS shows that young people aged under 35 are four times more likely to have lost their jobs or have had their hours cut. So, when the Labor Party stand up here and say that we're not providing enough support for all ages and all Australians, they can't escape the fact that young people aged under 35 are four times more likely to have suffered over the COVID pandemic. It is important that they get specific support to enter back into the workforce before we lose them to long-term unemployment. The need is greatest in Labor electorates—the electorates of those who are yet to commit to supporting this important financial measure. Of the 45 electorates with an average age of 35 and under, only 10 are in coalition seats. The electorates that need it the most have Labor MPs that are currently refusing to get out and publicly back the JobMaker plan that is here. The support is here and ready to go as part of the 2020 budget. So, if anything good comes out of the motion, I hope it is that the Labor Party will support the Morrison government's JobMaker scheme. 13:01 Mr WATTS 193430 Gellibrand Young Australians are being devastated by the current COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying recession. In my electorate young people are doing it particularly tough. I recently held a forum in my electorate with the Foundation for Young Australians to hear from young Australians in the electorate—and it was heartbreaking to hear their stories. That first decade after leaving school should be a time of hope and opportunity, a time when young Australians set out in the world, plan for the future and chase their dreams. But COVID-19 means that it is currently a time of fear and anxiety. The Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us that the national youth unemployment rate is now 14.5 per cent. Analysis from the Foundation for Young Australians suggests that the youth unemployment rate in my electorate may be closer to 30 per cent—more than four times the overall unemployment rate. Eight months, three weeks and two days—that's how long ago this pandemic began in Australia. It's been almost 9 months of seeing this pandemic and recession devastate young Australians and almost 9 months of financial stress. Yet we still see no comprehensive plan from the Morrison government to support young Australians. We've seen, at best, short-term bandaid fixes and marketing slogans from the Morrison government. Nine months into the COVID pandemic, at the federal budget, we finally saw one policy for young Australians. We saw one 12-month hiring subsidy for young Australians, with a marketing slogan and much media fanfare—no comprehensive strategy for job creation or skills investment, but an announcement. Sadly, though, we've seen this before from this government—and it doesn't end well. In 2013, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government needed an announcement for older unemployed Australians. Their answer was another wage subsidy, with a marketing slogan—the Restart Program. When it was announced, Restart was a $520 million program to help 32,000 older Australians into a job every year. But, in the delivery—and it's always the punchline for the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government; the delta between announcement and delivery—the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government spent less than half the money, helped only a third as many people into jobs in total and kept only half of those who did get work in work for more than six months. It is what happens when you have a one-off policy instead of a comprehensive plan. It is what happens when you spend more time on the marketing than on the delivery. Now they are recycling this failed policy as a solution for unemployed young people. In the seven years that those opposite have been in power we have seen Australians increasingly pushed into insecure work, with no security and no entitlements. Nowhere have we seen this more starkly than in the industries where young Australians are most often employed—retail, hospitality and the arts. They are the industries hit hardest by the pandemic and the health restrictions, and they are the industries with the highest rates of casual workers. It shouldn't surprise us then that, while 15 per cent of all jobs are filled by young people, 40 per cent of jobs lost during the pandemic were those done by young Australians. But the Morrison government in designing its JobKeeper package chose not to support them. Almost one million casual workers are not eligible for assistance, because they are short-term casuals. More than a quarter of short-term casuals who don't meet the eligibility criteria for JobKeeper are young Australians. But the Morrison government isn't just slugging young people in the present; it is also mugging their future. What would the Morrison government have a young person do who has lost their job, can't pay the bills and is not eligible for JobKeeper, like many of the 30 per cent of young unemployed in my electorate? Their answer is: drain your super account, which could leave you up to $100,000 worse off in retirement. Mortgage your future. What's the Morrison government's plan for young Australians who want to invest now in the skills that they will need to get a job in the future? Double the cost of a university degree. Yes, in the middle of a global pandemic and recession those opposite want to saddle students who will be graduating into the worst recession in a century with even more student debt. Young people are bearing the brunt of this pandemic and recession, and they are being left behind by the policy decisions made by the Morrison government. Is it any wonder that 52 per cent of young people don't feel they are represented in public affairs in this country? That is why this motion is so important and why I am rising to support it. Young people deserve better than marketing slogans and policies that leave them worse off than when they started. Young people deserve better than the Morrison government. Young people deserve a comprehensive plan to address the impact of this COVID-19 pandemic on them specifically—a plan that is designed with them, not just for them; a plan that listens to the needs of young Australians, involves them in our democratic process and gets them through this immediate crisis and builds into their future. 13:06 Dr ALLEN 282986 Higgins It is well known that when an economic recession hits, the young are the most likely to be affected. With COVID, predictably, the young have born the brunt of job losses. However, the good news is that we know that job losses, particularly youth unemployment, could have been so much worse were it not for the actions of the Morrison government. I am proud that the Morrison government was quick to recognise the need to provide support through the COVID-19 pandemic to help those who have lost their jobs. These are jobs that people lost through no fault of their own but because of a crisis brought to bear upon this country by COVID-19, not seen by most of us in this chamber in our lifetime. JobKeeper has been central to the Morrison government's plan for young people. JobKeeper is helping to ensure that young people have a job to return to. In my home state of Victoria, where COVID has been the most devastating, the Morrison government has delivered more than $27 billion in economic support. We've also extended JobKeeper for another six months, which is estimated to see an additional $16.8 billion to be paid to Victorians in the December and March quarters. This will benefit the young in my electorate, and it will benefit the young right across Victoria. But it is not just JobKeeper that is providing support for those doing it tough. Tax relief is also for the young, as it is for all Australians. We are providing tax relief for more than 11 million hard-working Australians. Significantly, those tax cuts are going to those who are on low- and middle-income salaries. This means more money in the pockets of those most likely to spend it into small businesses across the country. Spending into the economy will help create more jobs, particularly for the young, and the virtuous cycle continues. Our budget was designed with a view to the future. We understand that getting the young onto the escalator of having a job is key to their future. It is the key to preventing them falling into the trap of becoming long-term unemployed. Our budget provides hope for them and for all Australians as we face this COVID crisis together. Our economic recovery plan for Australia will create jobs, rebuild our economy and secure Australia's future, particularly for the young. A key feature of this year's budget which supports young people is the $4 billion JobMaker Hiring Credit. This provides businesses with an incentive to take on additional employees between the ages of 16 and 32 years of age. Around 450,000 positions for young Australians will be supported through the JobMaker Hiring Credit. The government is also investing an additional $1.2 billion through the Boosting Apprenticeships wage subsidy to support 100,000 new apprentices and trainees. This is a plan for the young and for their future. The establishment of a $1 billion JobTrainer Fund will support up to 340,700 additional free or low-fee training places. We need our young to be employed, but, more importantly, we need them trained and ready for their future, for the future that awaits them. We will continue to invest record amounts into skills and training to make sure that Australians have the skills to get the jobs for now and into the future. We are also investing $252 million over two years to support the delivery of 50,000 higher education short courses in areas including teaching, health, information technology, science and agriculture. These are the jobs of the 21st century. We know these jobs are going to be here for our future, and we need our graduates to be job ready for that future. I also continue to hear daily from my electorate of Higgins that the youth are doing it especially tough as a result of the second lockdown in Victoria, and I'm proud that our mental health services are being further funded to include more funding for Lifeline, Beyond Blue, headspace and Kids Helpline and that Medicare-funded psychological services are being lifted from 10 to 20. I wish to conclude by saying to all young Australians, particularly those in my electorate of Higgins: I am here for you, I proudly represent you, and the Morrison government and I will back you all the way. 13:11 Ms ROWLAND 159771 Greenway I rise to support this very important motion from the member for Kingston. We know that no other young generation has gone through what this generation of youth are going through in Australia and right around the world. We know that young Australians have been disproportionately impacted as a result of this pandemic and what it means socially, economically and in terms of people's futures—how they think about what they want to become, how they think about where their place is in the world. As young people move from adolescence into adulthood, they will face a range of short- and long-term consequences that are going to impact on their social, economic and emotional security. Here are some shocking statistics. Young people held 15 per cent of the 40 per cent of jobs lost in March at the onset of the pandemic. Nearly two in five young people are unemployed or underemployed. Fifty-one per cent of young people have felt their mental health worsen. Fifty-three per cent feel their study has been adversely impacted. According to the ANU, 44 per cent of young people living out of home could not make rent or mortgage payments in May. Thirty per cent of young people have made early superannuation withdrawals compared to the population average of eight per cent overall. Of course, young people are far more than mere statistics. Greenway is a relatively young electorate. By median age, it is among the top 25 youngest in the country. What we are facing locally is the possibility of a lost generation if nothing is to done help our young Australians. This is a government that has abandoned young people over the past seven years, and we're seeing it again in this parliament. This government's American-style university fee hikes will see more and more young people saddled with increasing debt, just for trying to get an education and get ahead. They're facing shocking unemployment, and many of them are missing out on invaluable work experience in the formative years after school. They are grappling with disrupted education and training and severe housing stress, not to mention the toll on their mental health that all these challenges are causing. These aren't abstract buzzwords. These are real experiences. Recently I engaged with a young Australian in my electorate, Harmony from Quakers Hill, as part of the Foundation for Young Australians Local and Vocal initiative. She explained to me how keenly the impacts of this pandemic were being felt by young Australians and how she believed more needed to be done to support them. Her key message to me was threefold: we need a plan; there needs to be a comprehensive strategy that is capable of being implemented; and governments need to think long term about young people. I'm very fortunate to represent constituents like Harmony in Greenway, but there are thousands upon thousands of Harmonys right around the country crying out for help, and it seems, unfortunately, that this government have turned their back on them. Since the beginning of this pandemic, Labor has been calling for a COVID-19 youth recovery strategy. It must be genuinely co-designed with young people, include a comprehensive consideration of how various policy areas interact and how they impact on young Australians, and outline clear short-, medium- and long-term goals and targets—precisely what Harmony told me. The last time a federal government implemented a national youth strategy was in 2010, a whole decade ago, which could well be a million years ago now. Young people are now living through conditions and facing challenges that were inconceivable then. Rather than a coordinated response to support young Australians, what have we seen from the Minister for Youth and Sport? Mostly just silence. When Labor and large cohorts of the public pointed out the government's stunning failure to articulate support for women in the budget, the Minister for Families and Social Services flagged that women benefit from road construction, so there's nothing to see here: 'Just more bubble talk,' it was asserted. What an insult! Equally insulting is young people having to wait with bated breath to hear what, if anything, this embattled, missing-in-action minister for youth has to say about them. We aren't holding our breath, but I certainly hold out hope for the next generation of young people. In essence, young people need more than marketing slogans and short-term measures from their governments. Whilst this Prime Minister loves a flashy photo-op, it's not going to get young people into work, nor will it deliver affordable housing or accessible education. They need a holistic, long-term plan to get them through this crisis and into secure careers and a comfortable life. 13:16 Mr CONAGHAN 279991 Cowper I'd have to say that the last 12 months for youth in Cowper have been difficult. Over the last nine months through this pandemic we've seen massive job losses, particularly in the hospitality and tourism sectors in Cowper. In addition, the youth of Cowper, particularly those in high school and year 12 this year, have had their education, their sport and their social life interrupted. It must be absolutely devastating for them to have to go through a pandemic in their final year and not be able to enjoy what we enjoyed over the years. But I've made it very clear to the young people in my electorate that I intend to and am doing things for them. Prior to the pandemic, I'd arranged for a youth forum for employment, which morphed into a youth jobs forum. Unfortunately, we were in the throes of organising that when this pandemic hit, but it hasn't been forgotten. We're bringing it back to ensure that we return to what we saw prior to this pandemic, with the unemployment rate of over 23 per cent for youth in Cowper having fallen to 13 per cent just before the pandemic. That's something that I will continue to work on—to get those numbers back down to what was the national average. That is my commitment to the young people of Cowper. This government has also shown a commitment to the young people of Cowper through many key measures. Firstly, there is the JobKeeper program. I've spoken to a number of young people who worked for one of the local hotels or sporting goods stores, who've told me that JobKeeper kept them in touch with their employer, kept them afloat, and allowed them to keep their dignity during this pandemic such that they could say: 'I'm not on JobSeeker; I'm still with my employer; I'm still out there working'—if they could, if the doors hadn't been closed as per the restrictions. I've had many young people, and not just young people, come to me and say, 'Could you please pass on our thanks for JobKeeper, otherwise we wouldn't know what we would be doing right now'. This government provided that lifeline. For those who fell through the cracks, this government also provided JobSeeker, the coronavirus supplement: an additional $550 a fortnight. That has now been reduced to $250 a fortnight. Many of those, clearly, were young people. Anecdotally, I had shop owners tell me that they had their biggest months ever because people had that money and were able to spend it; they were able to support themselves. In some instances, the biggest problem that business owners faced was not being able to get stock in because everything had been shut down. So that JobSeeker program also supported our young people throughout Cowper. Two weeks ago we had the federal budget, and this government introduced the JobMaker hiring credit program. I've already had businesses ring me to say that they're going to put on additional employees. In fact, Damien Campbell from PRD Real Estate in Coffs Harbour said he would create three new positions. In addition, we had the 10,000 additional places for the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme. Ms Sarah Robins is one of these young people. She's a 34-year-old psychologist who said she would have had to wait a few more years to buy her first house but because of this program she's already been made eligible. And, of course, we made a record investment into mental health. I'm very pleased to say that Kempsey in my electorate has received funding for a mental health program there. So, I'm supportive of this government's measures to support young people, and I'll continue to do the same in my electorate. 13:21 Ms BIRD DZP Cunningham I'm pleased to support this motion before the Chamber today. For context, the motion discusses the importance of understanding the impacts of the COVID pandemic on young people and calls on the government to take an holistic national strategy around dealing with that, but I'll make the point here that for many young people there were already issues that were playing out significantly for them that they were talking to members of parliament and attempting to get messages to government about pre-pandemic. There were three key issues that came through to me at the various forums and events that I attended when I talked to young people. The first is climate change. Young people were very concerned about their future in a world where we weren't taking our responsibility for doing our part to address climate change seriously. I believe that that continues to be an area of concern and, indeed, is a missed opportunity in the government's response to the pandemic—that is, not seeing this as an opportunity to look at where we can use response to climate change to actually create jobs, create new industries and build up employing industries. The second thing that young people were already talking to me about was education. We know the story of the massive loss of apprenticeship numbers under the Abbott, then Turnbull and now Morrison government. No matter how many times they make announcements in this space, they never deliver. In, I think, the 2018 budget there was a big announcement on apprenticeships. They were going to create 300,000 new apprenticeships. The following year there was the same announcement but they downgraded the number to 80,000, because we still hadn't reached that, and still we're seeing over 140,000 fewer apprentices in training and taking that opportunity compared to when the Liberals came to government in 2013. The third big area that young people have been talking to me and the local media and the local trade union about is the casualisation and exploitation of them as young workers in the local economy—and I believe this is translated across Australia. Young people are not being given information on their rights at work. They are being exploited and doing unpaid stints at work. They are being left vulnerable. They're not even being sacked; they just don't get any more shifts if they stand up for themselves or their rights. These were issues that were in our communities prior to the pandemic. The reality is that the pandemic has highlighted where these big equity gaps are in our communities, and, as other speakers on this side have indicated, many of those are particularly where young people are. We've seen young people particularly hit by the industries that were affected by—what had to happen—a responsible health response to the pandemic because, of course, they were in industries that heavy rely on casualised workforces. Hospitality and retail are the obvious ones, and tourism more broadly. In my area we have the major university, the University of Wollongong. I've consistently met with students, particularly, I have to say, international students who were really left on their own. Those young people were in a desperate state, and I really thank our local Rotary who stepped up to provide support with the student bodies over at the university. But young people were right there at the forefront of that, and now they're concerned that the government's proposals will simply take them back to continuing ongoing, casualised, exploitative, unreliable work, whereas we should be seeing this as an opportunity to create a better workplace for young people where they can have meaningful jobs, safe jobs, properly remunerated and protected jobs and long-term careers established from those. Obviously the other big issue young people have been lobbying myself about locally is the university reforms that the government's put in place. So many of them with their dreams of following careers are looking at fees that have doubled for their university course. I acknowledge our wonderful year 12 students. They go into their HSC studies next week, and as so many people have said as part of the campaign, 'You've got this,' and 'We want to hear from you.' The DEPUTY SPEAKER 198084 The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the next sitting. Proceedings suspended from 13:26 to 15:59 STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS 184 STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS Tasmania: Greyhound Racing 184 15:59 Mr WILKIE C2T Clark The head of Tasmania's Greyhound Adoption Program has been found guilty of racing a drugged dog and is currently suspended. I would have thought it to be a reasonable community expectation that the Tasmanian government would now step in and review having this trainer continuing to run the taxpayer-funded GAP animal welfare program. Obviously it's deeply worrying that the dog in question was drugged, even if it was unwittingly. In my opinion, having any trainer running GAP is a huge conflict of interest, but, when that trainer is suspended for a drugged racing dog, it turns the industry's flagship public relations exercise into an unmitigated PR disaster. Moreover, questions remain: was the unregulated meat referred to in the steward's decision horsemeat? Certainly we know that many of the racehorses that don't run fast enough are butchered and turned into dog food. Again, we see how gambling underpins the cruel animal-racing industries, each with their own entirely unacceptable animal death tolls. In July the Tasmanian Office of Racing Integrity released figures that show 1,412 greyhounds were euthanised in the past five years. That's almost one dog a day killed just because it didn't run fast enough. Indeed, the evidence just keeps stacking up that this unethical and cruel industry must be shut down immediately. Leichhardt Electorate: Cape Gateway Motel 184 16:01 Mr ENTSCH 7K6 Leichhardt On 28 September I had the pleasure of officially opening the brand-new Cape Gateway Motel in Mareeba. An esteemed long-term friend of mine and Weipa resident, Mr Greg Williams, had a vision many, many years ago to provide a hospitality service to those in the Atherton Tableland or heading to Cape York, and I was honoured to see it reach fruition. The motel comes fully equipped with the comforts of home and a relaxing atmosphere amongst the gum trees. There is a delicious meal option for breakfast, lunch and dinner and friendly smiles and knowledge from local employees. But the best part is Big Willie's Bar, with locally brewed beers. It's no easy feat building a motel, but, with the help of his daughter Mandy, a legacy has been built for his family and the future of Mareeba and surrounding areas. After a few nights' stay in the Cape Gateway Motel, you can venture north to Cooktown or make your way to the tip of Australia through Cape York. There are many beautiful sites along the way, and I encourage you to stop and see roadhouses along the Peninsula Development Road and small remote areas. It's no secret that COVID-19 has impacted on our tourism industry in the Far North, and I urge everyone who is planning Christmas holidays or a getaway—if you can get outside the state and get back into Queensland, and I hope you can by Christmas—to consider Far North Queensland and Cape York for your holiday this year. Gellibrand Electorate: Electorate Name 185 16:02 Mr WATTS 193430 Gellibrand The names of our federal electorates are intended to recognise the outstanding contributions of Australians to our nation, yet the contributions of women who have helped make Australia the country it is today are dramatically underrepresented in the names of our federal electorates. As Professor Clare Wright has pointed out, there are many women who have made outstanding contributions to our nation, but only 17 of the 151 federal electorates in this place are named after them. We can do better. In 2018 the Australian Labor Party, Victorian division, and I argued that the namesake of my electorate, Joseph Gellibrand, as John Batman's lawyer and the drafter of the Batman treaty, was not an appropriate namesake for a federal electorate in 21st century Australia. The AEC is currently considering public suggestions on the redistribution in Victoria, and I am again saying that Gellibrand ought to be renamed and, in the spirit of moving towards greater representation for women in this place, ought to be named after a great Australian woman. I can think of no woman in Melbourne's west more deserving of this honour than Joan Kirner OAM, AC. Joan Kirner was not just the first female Premier of Victoria and the second female Premier of any Australian state; her citation for the Companion of the Order of Australia, the nation's highest honour, makes clear that Joan made outstanding contributions to the nation as a whole in the fields of politics, conservation and gender equality. She would be a fitting choice for the namesake of the seat of Gellibrand, and I encourage all residents of my electorate and Australia to make submissions to the AEC to make this case. Higgins Electorate: Murrumbeena Community Hub 185 16:04 Dr ALLEN 282986 Higgins The federal government is getting on with the job of delivering new local infrastructure projects like the brand-new Murrumbeena Community Hub in my electorate of Higgins. The Murrumbeena Pavilion has served the Murrumbeena Cricket Club and the Murrumbeena Football Netball Club since 1965. The current pavilion is now no longer fit for purpose, and I am delighted that the Morrison government has committed $4 million towards the redevelopment of this much-loved community sporting hub. I want to thank CEO of Glen Eira City Council, Rebecca McKenzie; the mayor, Margaret Isakoff; and the local sporting clubs for working together so wonderfully on this project. The designs have now been finalised after extensive community consultation. We are pleased see the much anticipated new change rooms for women. With the explosion of women participating in sport in Higgins, indeed right across Australia and Victoria, girls and women in Higgins know that we are listening to their needs. I'm thrilled that the new design concept incorporates numerous environmentally sustainable design initiatives. These include a roof-mounted solar PV system, rainwater harvesting tanks, water-sensitive urban design providing cleaner and better quality stormwater to reduce the levels of pollution flowing into Port Phillip Bay, and of course lots of cyclists' racks. Construction is anticipated to commence early next year. Congratulations to all involved. I can't wait to see how the Murrumbeena hub is going to help our local girls and boys, men and women thrive in a sport they love to do. Gilmore Electorate: Roads 185 16:05 Mrs PHILLIPS 147140 Gilmore I rise today to thank the Currarong community and particularly the Currarong Community Association for their years of hard work advocating for improvements to Currarong Road. This notorious road has been in desperate need of an upgrade for years. The Currarong community has simply seen too many tragic accidents and too much heartache along this stretch of road. So I was absolutely delighted that $3.6 million in joint Commonwealth and New South Wales stimulus funding will finally go towards fixing this road. I have raised concerns in this place with the minister and in the media about Currarong Road over and over again—another of my broken records. For years I supported the community in their calls to fix the Currarong Road, and I am thrilled to see those calls are finally being listened to. Not only will this make the road safe for our community but it will also create local jobs and help to stimulate our economy. I would like to thank Shoalhaven City Council and the member for South Coast Shelley Hancock for their work in progressing this issue. But most of all I want to thank the Currarong community, Tony Lund and all the members of the Currarong Community Association for your years of advocacy on this issue. There is no doubt that without you this would not have happened. This is a true win for our community. COVID-19: Economy 186 16:07 Mr TED O'BRIEN 138932 Fairfax According to the IMF, the global economy dropped by 0.1 per cent during the GFC. During COVID-19 they expect it to drop by 4.9 per cent—0.1 per cent, GFC; 4.9 per cent drop, COVID-19—suggesting COVID-19's recession might actually be about 49 times as bad as the GFC. This brings into stark relief why we need this business-led economic recovery that the government has outlined, and manufacturing is key to that, which is why we have the Modern Manufacturing Strategy and an investment of $1.5 billion. To ensure we are converting that strategy into real action on the ground, I was delighted last week, together with Sunshine Coast Regional Development Australia, to host a roundtable with 20 local manufacturers ranging from food and beverage through to pharmaceuticals and therapeutics, construction, design and engineering and others. We talked about the need for us to come together and take real action on manufacturing, and the starting point is the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund. Four companies were successful in the last round, and I am hoping as many local businesses on the sunny coast as possible will go after this next round to prove we are indeed the entrepreneurial regional capital of Australia. Morrison Government 186 16:08 Dr LEIGH BU8 Fenner Under the Morrison government we've had sports rorts, 'Watergate', Jam Land and Paladin. We've had the 'big stack' with over 60 former Liberal staffers, ministers, candidates and donors appointed to the AAT. The Federal Police want to know why taxpayers paid a Liberal donor 10 times as much as the land was worth, and all Australians want to know why Stuart Robert and Angus Taylor are still ministers. Yet, rather than cracking down on rorts, the Morrison government is cracking down on the Auditor-General. After his office revealed sports rorts and air rorts, the Auditor-General asked for a $6 million funding boost. Instead, the coalition's budget cut the Audit Office by $1 million, and that'll mean one-fifth fewer performance audits. Meanwhile, the government's budget contained over $4 billion of new slush funds. If there is one thing they're more excited by than rorts, it's cover-ups. When Labor proposed a federal ICAC, the Prime Minister called it 'a fringe issue'. Finally, at the end of 2018, he promised legislation on an integrity commission within 12 months. It's nearly a year on from that and there's still nothing. The Morrison government's preferred model is nothing like the New South Wales ICAC that held Premier Berejiklian to account. It wouldn't allow a federal ICAC to initiate its own inquiries, conduct surveillance or make findings of corruption. It wouldn't be a watchdog; it would be a gummy shark. Manufacturing 186 16:10 Ms BELL 282981 Moncrieff When most Australians think of the Gold Coast they think of tourism. Gold Coasters are acutely aware of the role played by our $5 billion tourism industry but are also aware of the role played by construction, health, education and small business when it comes to the economy and to jobs. Many, however, may not be aware that manufacturing is one of our key economic pillars on the Gold Coast. It contributes an astounding $7 billion and 14,000 direct jobs to our local economy. Just over a week ago I joined the PM, the member for McPherson, the state leader of the LNP, Deb Frecklington, the member for Currumbin, Laura Gerber, and the LNP candidate for Gaven, Kirsten Jackson, on a visit to local manufacturers. Each business told their story and spoke about the number of employees in each business, and hearing about how many apprentices or trainees they were skilling was indeed a highlight. Each job comes with a beaming, smiling face and a bright future, and watching them beam with pride at their achievements while they spoke with the PM underscored to me the vital importance of protecting and creating jobs. Each person has a special story and provides inspiration to others. The Morrison government's modern manufacturing strategy, architected by Minister Andrews, will see many more Gold Coasters with a bright future and a big beaming smile. My priority for Moncrieff is jobs, and many of them will be in manufacturing. COVID-19: Arts 187 16:11 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston In my home state we have amazing arts festivals. Indeed, South Australia is often known as the festival state. Our city is alive with festivals—Fringe, the arts, cabaret, the Feast Festival. There are so many wonderful festivals to enjoy which attract significant economic benefits for our state. Unfortunately, the COVID period has been a very difficult time for those in the arts. Despite how important the arts sector is to South Australia, the state and federal Liberal governments have shown that they just do not value the arts. The Premier and the Prime Minister left over 200 Adelaide Festival Centre staff in limbo. Disgracefully, the Liberals have refused to acknowledged these workers. There was no JobKeeper available for them from the federal government and there was no extra support from the state government. With no plan in place, there are so many people that are worried about the future. They are incredibly skilled. They have wonderful skills. They would be a real loss if we don't continue to have them. Unless someone steps in now, this loss of passionate and knowledgeable staff will be really tragic. The Adelaide Festival Centre lost more than 77 show bookings, with the centre having to refund $2 million. This is terrible, and needs action from the government. Stirling Electorate: Surfing WA 187 16:13 Mr CONNELLY 282984 Stirling As a very amateur surfer and a father to three surf crazy kids, last week was a really exciting milestone for the future of surfing in Western Australia. Surfing WA successfully obtained a ground lease from the City of Stirling to enable delivery of a $4 million election commitment that I secured in 2019 so that they can build a brand new facility. I want to thank the team at Surfing WA, Mark, Mike, Graham and Justin, who went all out to consult closely with their local community and also to ensure that the building fits well within the natural environment—because, as surfers, we know how important it is to maintain out beautiful coastline. Surfing WA train around 33 young people in surfing and in water safety every single year, but they operate out of what is essentially a converted kiosk. So a new facility is a huge win. Rarely is any new development supported unanimously and there are typically counter arguments. So I want to thank councillors for the Coastal Ward, Karen Caddy and Felicity Farrelly, for listening to their local communities, weighing up the pros and cons, and making a measured decision about what's in the best interests of the local community. I very much look forward to seeing a whole new generation of surfers, supported by this important Morrison government initiative and commitment within my electorate of Stirling. Jordan, Mr Ray 187 Mr HUSIC 91219 Chifley . Today I want to acknowledge Ray Jordan, true champion of our area. He and his wife Claire married in 1957. They built their home together in Mount Druitt, raised four kids and welcomed six grandchildren. Ray was a hard-working railway worker during his time. He always advocated for improved safety and working conditions. When he retired he was a volunteer with the Mount Druitt Senior Citizens Welfare Association, where I got to meet him. For over a quarter of a century he served as their president and secretary or was connected with the association in some way. He took great pride in being the instigator of a club which had close to 200 members and which was open five days a week and offered a wide variety of activities. I can recall on many occasions when Ray was kind enough to let us use the rooms for an annual seniors forum, where hundreds of people would be in attendance. Ray and Claire were jointly recognised in 2006 as Blacktown senior citizens of the year. Ray's work didn't stop with the senior citizens association. He received countless awards and assisted with many activities and events for Blacktown City Council, Cancer Council Relay for Life, Softball New South Wales, P and C associations and various local sporting organisations. Ray, we want to thank you for everything you did and the positive impact you made on your community. Rest in peace. Robertson Electorate: Gosford Men's Shed 187 16:16 Mrs WICKS 241590 Robertson Gosford Men's Shed do some fantastic work in our community. Recently I visited them to see the nesting boxes they have built to donate to Australian wildlife rescue organisations. With so much of our natural environment damaged in recent bushfires, these boxes will assist our native Australian animals by providing a place for nesting, breeding and shelter. The hand crafted boxes are being distributed to people across New South Wales who are caring for animals injured or orphaned during bushfire. Ray Crawley from the New South Wales branch of the Australian Men's Shed Association said that the project was a mammoth effort, with over 150 boxes constructed in just three weeks. WIRES will receive over 540 nesting boxes from six men's sheds across the Central Coast and Newcastle region, including 85 from Terrigal Men's Shed and 50 from Erina Men's Shed. Ray said that a number of other sheds are keen to be involved and they can't wait for the next order from WIRES. I want to particularly thank Ray, and also Larry Lloyd from Gosford Men's Shed, for their leadership of this initiative and for their genuine care for our environment. Projects like this are so important, and that's why I would encourage local community organisations across the Central Coast to apply for the Bushfire Recovery for Wildlife and Habitat Community Grants Program. This initiative offers grants from $5,000 to $150,000 to deliver recovery activities for native flora and fauna, which I know will benefit not only my community but many around Australia. National Disability Insurance Scheme 188 16:17 Ms McBRIDE 248353 Dobell The NDIS was designed to support people living with disability and improve their quality of life. But just last week I have learned of the latest way it is letting people down. The so-called concierge model of supported disability accommodation is sold as being available quickly to a number of dwellings inside the one building. In fact it is leaving higher-needs NDIS participants out just as they thought they could move into a new home that they had waited for years to be built. Matthew is a 40-year-old with quadriplegia who lives in The Entrance in my electorate. In September 2019 he applied for supported disability accommodation, which was approved finally in January this year. After repeated follow-up with the NDIA by his mother, Christine, the supported independent living package to go with his housing was approved on 25 September. The funding was to be in his plan within 48 hours. It never arrived. Matt was told he could move into his new home on 12 October. He was ready. He had sold his furniture, packed up his old house and had the phone and power connected at what was to be his new home. Then came the news about the concierge model, which can't meet Matt's needs. He was devastated. Matt said that after hearing the news he thought about throwing his bus pass into the lake and catching a one-way ride into the CBD, because he was sick of being a burden on his own family. Matt deserves better. The minister must come clean about the secret trial which is leading people with disability out in the cold. This government, which ripped $4.6 billion out of the NDIS, is still trying to slash funds and squeeze plans at the expense of Australians living with disability. Bennelong Electorate: Epping Scouts Boatshed 188 16:19 Mr ALEXANDER M3M Bennelong I know that everybody in this chamber has been waiting with bated breath on the progress of the Epping Scouts' Meadowbank boatshed. I'm delighted to announce the keys have been handed over and this state-of-the-art facility will be opening soon for the Scouts. The Meadowbank boatshed has been the hub of local Scouts for decades, but those years are starting to show between the forces of children's chaos and Mother Nature's tide, not to mention concrete cancer. The old boatshed's time was up, but building a boatshed, wharf and jetty over the Parramatta River is not as simple as a standard Scout shed in the bush, and many long years had passed between the need arising and the funds being found. I'm delighted to have been part of the process with this government delivering $350,000 towards the project and more delighted with the speed with which the building went up in the following months. I am yet to visit the completed building. I was there in September as the decking was being laid. It looks fantastic with its graceful lines mirroring the ferry wharf next door. Congratulations to Epping Scouts for getting this up so quickly and especially to Peter Buckley and Alan Cunningham for their tireless efforts. They have a great resource which will enrich the experiences of Scouts across Bennelong. I look forward to seeing it shining there for many decades to come. Moreton Electorate: Coopers Plains Railway Crossing 188 6:20 Mr PERRETT HVP Moreton The previous member for Morton, the Hon. Gary Hardgrave, called for funding from his coalition government to remove the Coopers Plains rail crossing throughout this time in office. I too have been calling for the removal of this dangerous crossing, the fifth-worst crossing in Queensland. I was pleased to announce, alongside the member for Grayndler, at the last federal election that Labor would provide one-third of the cost to get it done, and to their credit the coalition matched that commitment with $73 million of federal funding. Brisbane City Council has recently pledged $40 million, or about 15 per cent, and now the Palaszczuk Labor government has also committed its share, $73 million, to make sure the project is delivered. So I congratulate my good friend, the state member for Toohey, Peter Russo, and the state member for Miller, Mark Bailey, for their advocacy on behalf of local residents. However, the LNP at the state level are hopeless when it comes to this crossing. Here, we have an LNP senator using taxpayer money to bag Labor for not getting this done, yet his own LNP candidate doesn't even have a commitment to build it. There's nothing from the LNP leader, Deb Frecklington. Typical LNP: there for the stunts and the ads, but nothing when it comes to delivery. It's all muckraking. Locals run the gauntlet of this dangerous crossing every day. They know it needs fixing and it needs fixing now. I give a big shout out to the Deputy Prime Minister, who promised, 454 days ago, that he would visit the Coopers Plains rail crossing so he could see for himself how dangerous the crossing is, yet I'm still waiting, and he has my number. North Sydney Electorate: Burns, Mr Bruce 189 16:22 Mr ZIMMERMAN 203092 North Sydney I represent an electorate which is bordered by our beautiful Sydney Harbour. It is an international icon for good reason, but so often it has been threatened by inappropriate development and infrastructure. It remains fringed by beautiful bushland, parks and places of Indigenous and modern heritage. This has been no accident. The protection of our harbour has so often been the result of long struggles led by communities and individuals determined to ensure its heritage and natural attributes are retained. Today, I want to pay tribute to one of those individuals and a great Australian, Bruce Burns, who recently lost his fight with cancer but has left in his wake an enormous legacy. Bruce and his wife, Carol, have been residents of the Lower North Shore, particularly Waverton, for 45 years. For much of that time, they have been defenders of what makes the character of our area so special, from fighting proposals for second harbour crossings to the dedication of former industrial sites as parkland, to the most recent affront, a giant marina proposal in beautiful Berrys Bay. The hand of Bruce has been so often present. In a calm and yet determined way, he worked with the community, not just to protect what we have but, in fact, to ensure we improved our local environment. The magnificent Coal Loader Centre for Sustainability is an example of this. To Carol and their children, I extend my sincerest condolences. They have every right to be proud of what all they achieved together for our community and, indeed, all of Sydney. McLaughlin, Mr John 189 16:23 Ms STANLEY 265990 Werriwa I rise to acknowledge the recent passing of John McLaughlin, one of my community's stalwarts. John was a wonderful gentleman, who was encouraging and supporting of me during my time in the party. As the president of local units when I was secretary, I found his counsel to always be wise, supportive and, more importantly, encouraging. John McLaughlin was also one of South Western Sydney's greatest advocates for Aussie Rules football. Moving from Melbourne to Sydney with his family almost 60 years ago, he settled in Campbelltown, founding the Campbelltown Blues Australian Football Club. John was determined that his sons would be able to play Aussie Rules in their new home, so he founded the club. He also played a key role in the establishment of the Aboriginal AFL academy in Western Sydney and the formation of Sydney's second AFL team, the GWS Giants. John was known in the community as a family man, as an AFL man and as a Labor man. He was an admirer of the greats—Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke. John would always be in the background, never seeking glory, only looking for what would be of benefit for our community. I join with the former members for Werriwa Laurie Ferguson and Chris Hayes in extending my condolences to Jan and John's family and friends. John's friendship and support will be sorely missed. Bribie Island Tigers Football Club, Walking Football 189 16:25 Mr YOUNG 201906 Longman I love my sport, but as time goes by, it's becoming harder to get out onto a football pitch and kick a ball around. Last Friday I spent time with one of the fantastic local sporting clubs in my electorate, the Bribie Island Tigers Football Club. While these ageing legs don't work as well as they once did, they didn't stop me getting out onto the pitch for a game of walking football. Walking football is becoming increasingly popular among men and women who want to keep active and participate in sport, like I do, but prefer something that's a little bit more slow paced. It is a low-impact, modified version of the game, which is suitable for all levels of ability and fitness. Games are played at a slower pace, which reduces the risk of players getting injuries. It offers many health benefits like reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke. It can also improve balance, bone density and blood pressure, while lowering cholesterol. Of course, the social benefits of participating in a team sport cannot be overstated. I thank the Tigers for a fun night and for providing an opportunity for us on the other side of the Pine to keep active. The Tigers are a true community club that has endured some significant hardships in recent years. Despite this, they just get on with it and play an important role in bringing the Bribie Island community closer together—and the beers afterwards certainly helped with the pain in my legs! Cambodia: Human Rights 189 16:26 Mr HILL 86256 Bruce This week, 23 October, marks the 29th anniversary of the Paris peace accords in Cambodia. Australia, of course, played a key leadership role in bringing the accords together. The world made a promise through the accords to the Cambodian people to support peace, democracy and human rights and to support Cambodia to remain non-aligned in the community of nations. Twenty-nine years on, peace, I think it's fair to say, has largely been achieved, ending the violent conflict of the Khmer Rouge and then the Vietnamese occupation. But, sadly, Hun Sen's gangster regime is leading the country further away than ever from a country that respects human rights and implements true democracy. There's growing evidence of China exporting the authoritarian model holus-bolus, propping up Hun Sen and his CPP cronies. The 1991 accords have a formal mechanism, article 29, which signatories to the accords can trigger, which would bring together the countries in the event of serious violations of human rights. They're still in force. The current approach of the international community is clearly not working. The Cambodian people are suffering. I call on the government, 29 years on, to honour our promise, to honour the signature that we placed on the documents, to make it mean something, to honour that promise to the Cambodian people, and to consider activating article 29 and looking at tougher measures from Australia—asset freezes, visa bans—on people from Cambodia and other countries who commit serious human rights violations. Queensland State Election 190 16:28 Mr SIMMONDS 282983 Ryan Early voting begins this week in Queensland, and I commend to the community of The Gap, Ashgrove and Bardon the LNP candidate Trent Wiseman. Already he is getting things done, having secured much-needed funding for an upgrade to our local and iconic GPS and Valley cricket clubs. GPS and Valley cricket clubs have played a historic role in the community, and almost every local family has positive memories of their time involved in these clubs. The upgrade plans that Trent has been able to secure funding for will deliver much-needed facilities for the growing number of female players, a larger function space for club members and a new gym, so that they can continue to produce some of the best competition players in Queensland. I, together with Trent Wiseman, am committed to supporting the GPS and Valley, and I'll be working to leverage the funding needed and provided by the state LNP team to see the upgrade project completed. Locally, I've seen Labor let the community down by not managing the budget correctly, and only an LNP government will provide Queensland with the financial security to get this project delivered. I'm also working with Trent to address congestion on the Metroad 5. Here the inaction of the state Labor government could not be more stark. Despite the federal government handing the state Labor government $10 million to investigate upgrades to this congested road corridor, they have done nothing—nada, zip, zilch. They haven't done a thing. Only an LNP team at the federal and state government levels, working together with Trent Wiseman as the local LNP member and myself as the local federal member, will ensure that our local community gets the upgraded facilities and roads that they deserve. Western Sydney Airport 190 16:29 Mr BOWEN DZS McMahon There's been a lot of talk recently about land in and around Badgerys Creek airport, as there should be. But one piece of land we should focus on is Horsley Park and Cecil Park. The rights of landowners in Horsley Park and Cecil Park are being removed retrospectively and without consultation by the Berejiklian Liberal government in New South Wales, presumably in consultation with the Morrison government, because it's the SEPP in relation to the Western Sydney Airport and aerotropolis. Horsley Park and Cecil Park are wonderful communities, rural communities, which I represent. They are five acre and 2½ acre blocks, a wonderful part of Sydney. It's often been the case that people with a five acre block choose to subdivide it and make it two 2½ acre blocks for their families. These rights have been removed by the Berejiklian government with not one word of consultation. Most people heard about it on Facebook through reports from the mayor, Counsellor Carbone. The people of Horsley Park have not been asked their views. Take the Trajkovic family: their parents bought a five acre block in 1994 and were planning to subdivide it for two children. Those rights have been removed. Gone. Why? Because a second runway will be built in 2064. Yet the rights of this family and other families at Horsley Park are being removed by the Liberal and National Parties. There has not been a word from the state member for Mulgoa about it. There's been no representation from the Liberal Party for this community. Well, they will be represented by the council, and they'll be represented by me here because this is a disgrace. Roads 190 16:31 Mr RICK WILSON 198084 O'Connor The Morrison government understands the importance of road networks and we demonstrated our commitment to boosting roads safety and regional jobs in the Goldfields region of O'Connor. The recently announced $30 million upgrade of the Coolgardie–Esperance Highway will be delivered on the 25-kilometre section between the Goldfields high intersection and Emu Rocks South, supporting approximately 90 jobs. The project will include constructing northbound and southbound passing lanes north of Emu Rocks, upgrading sections at Goldfields Highway and Kingswood Street, and widening and sealing road shoulders. The Coolgardie–Esperance high forms part of the Perth-Adelaide route on the National Land Transport Network, making it a vital road network for the movement of people and goods. By investing in this stretch of the highway, we are building a safer road network for the families and communities that live and work here. We're also supporting the productivity of regional industries on what is a major freight route through the Goldfields-Esperance region, with about two million tonnes transported each year. Construction is due to start in December 2020, and completion is expected by April 2022. While highways are vital to the operation of our nation, main streets in regional towns are every bit as important. Main streets give small business a place to thrive. They offer a sense of place, an insight into a region's history and create spaces for the community to gather. To this end, I'm pleased to have secured over $900,000 for the upgrade of Bayley Street, the main street of the historic town of Coolgardie. This funding will be used to improve the safety and aesthetics of the street for both drivers and pedestrians. Budget 191 16:32 Ms MURPHY 133646 Dunkley The recession that Australia is going through presents not only significant challenges for families, communities and businesses but a once-in-a-generation opportunity for governments, communities and families to reflect on the sort of future we want and the country we want to build. It is an opportunity for the federal government to take a breath and say: 'What is it that we want in Australia? What do we want to measure in addition to GDP and economic growth?' As Senator Robert F Kennedy said in 1938, GDP 'measures everything except that which is worthwhile'. I propose, as does the shadow Treasurer, that we start to look at concepts such as wellbeing. These have been popular in years gone by and around the world, but the government and the federal Treasurer have rubbished them. We need a quadruple bottom line for the budget where we measure the wellbeing of our economy, our environment, our democracy and our people—our society. And that is why it is so important that we properly fund child care. It's good for the economy. It's good for women's participation in the work force. It's good for children. But this government and Mr Morrison cannot see that. The Leader of the Opposition's policy to support child care properly is what we need to be part of a future for Australia that is bold, that is visionary and that is positive. Zeeman, Mr Pieter Rudolph (Rudy) 191 16:34 Mrs ARCHER 282237 Bass Pieter Rudolph Zeeman, known to most as 'Rudy', has led a remarkable life—one that is worth noting here today. Born in Holland on 10 November 1919, Rudy was just shy of 21 when Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. At the time Rudy was undertaking his mandated national service, and when his country surrendered after just four days of conflict he was determined to get out. After acquiring German papers from the Underground, Mr Zeeman and a friend managed to make it to Paris through what was known as the Dutch-Paris escape line. He was apprehended by German officers, one who didn't believe his German papers were genuine. Fortunately those German officers got lost, and Rudy jumped out of the car and escaped. Walking through the Pyrenees in the middle of winter, he eventually found his way into Spain and then on to Portugal and Gibraltar, where he travelled with British troops back to the UK before heading to America on board the Queen Mary. Rudy's life took another unexpected turn when he came to Australia for the first time to help aid the US and Australia military campaigns in the Dutch East Indies. He trained as a navigator, touring in the wake of MacArthur's campaign, and eventually settled in Northern Tasmania with his wife, Berna. If Rudy's life sounds like it would make a good read, I would encourage you to find a copy of his newly released book, Luck Through Adversity. Victoria: COVID-19 191 16:35 Mr GILES 243609 Scullin I rise in this place to say thank you to the people of the Scullin electorate, the people of Melbourne and the people of regional Victoria for the extraordinary work they have done through what have been extraordinarily challenging times. It is important that this be acknowledged in this place, because all the sacrifices that have been made, the good decisions that people in Victoria have made—from the Premier to throughout the community—are now paying dividends. In this place, it is important that we recognise that only those of us who have been in Victoria understand what it has been like to have been a Victorian through this pandemic. It has been incredibly unhelpful to see so much sniping from the sidelines. This should not be a question of partisan politics. What we should all be concerned about is ensuring that we have a recovery that works for everyone and that respects everyone in the community, in particular that respects the sacrifices that so many members of the suburbs I'm proud to represent—and, equally, the suburbs that my friend the member for Bendigo is proud to represent—have made. In this place there are so many things we can be doing to respect those sacrifices and help people rebuild. Every effort that is made, whether it is by this government or by those of us in opposition, should be welcomed. What isn't welcomed is criticism without foundation. Those with nothing to say on these matters should say nothing. Mallee Electorate: Horticulture 191 16:37 Dr WEBSTER 281688 Mallee Recent rainfall has lifted the spirits of many farmers and growers in my electorate of Mallee and will lead to bumper crops for upcoming harvests. But, despite low case numbers and easing restrictions, the impacts of coronavirus continue to impact the horticulture industry in Mallee in concerning ways. A new report by consultancy firm Ernst & Young suggests there could be demand for over 36,000 workers in the horticultural sector over the next 18 months. The horticulture industry is desperate for solutions to workforce challenges. In my view we need a three-pronged approach to address looming seasonal workforce shortages. Firstly, we need to incentivise local workforce participation—and I welcome the federal government's initiative to provide a new relocation payment of up to $6,000 for locals to take up work in the agricultural sector. Secondly, we need to urgently restart the seasonal workforce program in a COVID safe way. I note the agreement between the federal government and the states and territories to restart the program. I have written to the Victorian Minister for Agriculture, Jaclyn Symes, requesting she urgently outline her plan to reintroduce the program as per the agreement. Finally, we need to resolve issues with undocumented workers in the horticultural industry. COVID-19 provides a unique opportunity to implement measures to address seasonal workforce challenges to benefit the entire industry and the wider community. Women in Parliament 192 16:39 Ms CHESTERS 249710 Bendigo Jacinta Allan, Maree Edwards and Mary-Anne Thomas are the three women state representatives who cover my electorate of Bendigo—and there is myself as the federal member. At a local government level for the past four years we have had also had women in the role of mayor. I would like to acknowledge, as they come to the end of their term, Sharon Telford, Janet Pearce, Jennifer Anderson and Bronwen Machin, as well as Marg O'Rourke, for the great efforts they've made. It is rare to be able to stand here and say, at a local state and federal level, women are the elected leaders of our region. It is something that is not common in this country, and that is disappointing. We've quite often talked about why it works in Bendigo and why it works in central Victoria. It's not by chance; it's by hard work. It's because we belong to parties and communities that support women. If you pre-select women, women get elected—it's as simple as that. The women that I have mentioned at the federal and state level are all Labor women. The women at our local government level who have been supported by their communities are progressive women who stood up and made a contribution. We do not know what will happen in our next council term, but I did want to place on record that in the last four years we've achieved something in central Victoria that not many other places in Australia have. I congratulate them on their term. Fisher Electorate: Roads 192 16:40 Mr WALLACE 265967 Fisher Eighteen months ago I cycled around my electorate on my first 'Tour de Fisher' and I saw again how dangerous the Steve Irwin Way between Beerburrum and Palmview can be for motorists and particularly cyclists. Local residents at my many listening posts confirmed that something had to be done. I lobbied Minister Bailey, aka Blister Bailey, and the Queensland Labor government to fix this dangerous state government road for more than a year. They did nothing. So, instead, I had to turn to my colleagues in the Morrison government to step in and do state Labor's job in our region yet again. The Deputy Prime Minister came through for the coast and provided 80 per cent of the funding to finally build the safety improvements we needed. Thanks to the Morrison government's funding, the road will be widened, roadside hazards will be cleared and dedicated right-hand turn lanes will be installed. Now that someone else has done all the heavy lifting, Blister Bailey was all too happy this week to put out a press release about the works without consultation with the federal government, who happen to be paying for 80 per cent of them. Whether it's the Steve Irwin Way, the Bells Creek Arterial Road or the duplication of the North Coast rail, that is what Blister Bailey and this hopeless Queensland Labor government are all about. You might be wondering why they call him Blister Bailey; it's because he comes out after all the hard work's been done. COVID-19: Northern Territory Centre for National Resilience 192 16:42 Mr GOSLING 245392 Solomon When Australians needed us, Territorians put up our hand to help. At the start of the coronavirus crisis, we got Aussies out of Wuhan and we brought Aussies home from Japan from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. It's fantastic news that the NT Chief Minister, Michael Gunner, with the Prime Minister have reached an agreement to bring more stranded Aussies home by Christmas. The Northern Territory Centre for National Resilience in Howard Springs will quarantine about 500 Australians returning per fortnight. Our quarantine system is the gold standard. We are the safest place in Australia but we've also got the best quarantine facility. The evacuees will be cared for by the incredibly highly skilled health professionals at the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, and I spoke with the executive director, Professor Len Notaras, last week in Darwin. They're doing a great job, and I commend them to the House. As the NT Chief Minister has said, we are the best at this, and our strong partnership with the Commonwealth means we can work together in the national interest to bring even more Australians home whilst keeping Territorians safe and our vulnerable Aboriginal population safe from this virus. Darwin has also got other facilities that can be used to bring even more Australians home, such as the former immigration detention centre at Blaydin Point. We look forward to doing everything we can to bring Aussies home before Christmas. Budget 193 16:43 Mr VASTA E0D Bonner Since the Treasurer handed down the 2020 budget, I've been inundated with some tremendous feedback from my electorate of Bonner. I've been out in the community, visiting local businesses and listening to their feedback, and I'm pleased to share with the chamber that this budget has restored confidence in the small business community and confidence in job security. Arriving back in Canberra last Friday, I headed straight to a local food manufacturer Casa Motta after Alessandro emailed me in support of the budget. He said it was great to see food manufacturing given priority status in the manufacturing sector and was very pleased with the instant asset write-off measures, which will help him purchase new vats and a stretching machine for his delicious mozzarella, and he will be employing a new apprentice because of the budget measures. Our government is supporting businesses that help create jobs and grow our economy. JobKeeper has supported more than 5,600 businesses in Bonner to retain staff and keep afloat during this difficult period. On Wednesday, I visited several manufacturing businesses with Minister Karen Andrews and to hear firsthand what local businesses are doing. We visited Steve at Couplemate Trailer Parts, who want to bring more jobs back to Australia and only use local part manufacturers. Tritium at Murarrie was another great visit and is home to the world's largest facility for R&D of electric vehicle chargers. CEO Jane Hunter was also supportive of our budget measures and how they will further their latest technology. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded. PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS 193 PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS Climate Change and the Economy 193 16:45 Ms STEGGALL 175696 Warringah I move: That this House: (1) notes: (a) as a result of the 2019-20 bushfires more than 400 people died of smoke inhalation and over 4,000 people were hospitalised; (b) the Australian Medical Association warns that global warming will lead to significant health impacts, including but not limited to, rise in respiratory illnesses, heat-related illnesses, cardiovascular disease mortality, asthma, spread of disease vectors, reduced labour productivity, food insecurity and under-nutrition, displacement, and mental ill-health; (c) the interim report of the Royal Commission into Natural Disasters Arrangements states that further warming is inevitable and that Australia is likely to experience more frequent and intense extreme weather events such as floods, bushfires and drought; (d) University of Melbourne modelling projects that if we fail to meet the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement, the Australian economy will suffer an estimated $2.7 trillion in cumulative damages over the next three decades; and (e) that the 2019-20 bushfires resulted in an estimated $20 billion in lost economic output and over $2.4 billion in insured losses; (2) further notes: (a) Australia is in recession for the first time in 30 years; (b) the effective unemployment rate is at 13.3 per cent and may remain over 10 per cent for the next several years; (c) that young people will now face the dual challenges of climate change and the economic recovery from this pandemic, which will limit their quality of life and future employment; (d) before COVID-19, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation estimated that limiting emissions to net zero by 2050, amongst other factors, could result in 2.75 to 2.8 per cent GDP growth annually—as opposed to 2.1 per cent under less ambitious scenarios; (e) that acting on climate change will lead to a jobs boom in clean technologies like energy efficiency, manufacturing, renewable energy, and electric vehicles; and (f) in order to unleash investment in clean technologies, investors need a bipartisan climate change framework and policy certainty; (3) acknowledges: (a) countries and jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Fiji and the State of Victoria have enacted framework climate change legislation; (b) in the United Kingdom, there are now more than 396,000 jobs in low-carbon businesses and their supply chains with the low carbon economy growing at 11 per cent, per year—four times faster than the rest of the economy; (c) framework climate change legislation supports reducing emissions, protecting against climate risks to health, and accelerates investment in a growth economy; and (d) Australia has no Commonwealth framework climate change legislation; and (4) calls on the Government to adopt framework climate change legislation. As the facts set out in this motion establish, climate change is the biggest challenge that we face as a society. Last summer's bushfires showed us the worst of climate change's impacts. Over 400 people died, over 4,000 were admitted into hospital with respiratory illnesses and still more have mental scars from forced evacuations. Over 5,900 buildings and 18.6 million hectares were incinerated. There was an estimated $20 billion lost in economic output and $2.4 billion in insured losses. Three billion animals were wiped out. The fires left no person on the east coast untouched. Economists like Professor Tom Kompas are warning that, if we do not meet our Paris targets, the cumulative economic impact of damage to the Australian economy of these kinds of disasters and other factors will be $2.7 trillion over the next three decades. Others are warning that significant uncertainties about climate impacts over the next decade and a lack of planned measures for adaptation to these impacts will impede our economic recovery from this recession. We must address the pandemic and climate crisis simultaneously. While some of the measures of the budget were great and will help, including the temporary full expensing measures, it was also a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lower emissions and safeguard our jobs and communities from the disruptions that are coming. Australia is in a recession for the first time in 30 years. Sensible future forward policies are what is required to lift us out and ensure our competitive advantage going forward. While so many countries around the world are embracing opportunities, our government seems determined to put the brakes on our transition and undermine our opportunity to be a leader in the world. In the last few months, the government has offered to build a gas peaker, is attempting to change the CEFC mandate to underwrite gas projects, has directed funds to open up five new gas basins and has released over 100,000 square kilometres of gas exploration acreage. The funds for ARENA and the CEFC, whilst welcome, are only about one-tenth of what is needed to transition to net zero. These are effective agencies that are essential in our transition to net zero. Some of the facts are staggering. Economically, since 2012, ARENA has supported 566 projects, with $1.63 billion in grant funding, unlocking a total investment of almost $6.69 billion. The CEFC has deployed $6 billion and has leveraged over $27.3 billion in private capital to support over 18,000 projects. Jeopardising these entities is going to put a brake on our recovery. Countries around the world like the UK, Germany, France, the European Union, are all recognising that acting on climate change will lead to a jobs boom in electric vehicles, energy efficiency and renewables. These countries have realised that the best way to leverage private investment is to set a climate change framework, to legislate net zero by 2050 and to provide policy certainty. That's why I'll be presenting the Climate Change Bill on 9 November, to offer that opportunity for Australia, for the Australian markets, to have that policy certainty. Modelling by the Investor Group on Climate Change released recently shows that a long-term framework and a net zero target by 2050 will attract over $64 billion in private investment by 2025 and much, much more by 2050. We know that there is a global race on to attract private investment to ensure that we are future focused in our recovery. We need to stop putting the brakes on that with policies like a gas-focused recovery and actually embrace where we have advantage and where we have the opportunity. In the UK, where they have enacted a climate change bill establishing into legislation net zero by 2050, they have now seen over 400,000 jobs established in clean industry sectors. Low-carbon industries could grow from around two per cent of UK total output in 2015 to up to around eight per cent by 2030. So it is clear that the case is there for why we should do it. The question is: do we actually have the motivation to get out of this recession and future proof our jobs and economy? There is no doubt that building more gas-fired power stations, in this talk of a gas-led recovery, will be poor economic management. The private sector knows this. There is a global race to attract investment and, if we continue with the government's current fixation, we will miss out. 16:50 The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 Is there a seconder for the motion? Dr Haines 282335 I second the motion and reserve my right to speak. 16:51 Mr SIMMONDS 282983 Ryan I am very glad to be able to speak on the motion tabled by the member for Warringah and speak to the hard work that this government is doing to take climate action and our commitment to ensuring that future generations of young people have opportunities for work and to succeed in the economy. The Morrison government knows the heavy impacts that this country has felt as a consequence of the bushfires and COVID, which is why we have made record investments in the recovery efforts. The government has been dedicated to action on climate change and waste reduction. Under the leadership of Minister Sussan Ley and the Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management, Trevor Evans, the federal government has invested millions of dollars in improving our environmental practice and, in doing so, creating jobs for our future. I would particularly like to point out the significant efforts that have been made by the federal government in the recycling and waste reduction space. These investments have been truly transformative for our environment in encouraging more responsible waste management and facilitating industry to be more innovative in creating new technologies to solve the issue of waste. This government is leading the charge when it comes to innovative and creative solutions for waste reduction and, in doing so, we are limiting the amount of waste that is getting into our environment and landfills and we are stimulating the future employment of our young Australians who are looking for work. By partnering with industry, this government is helping businesses to get on with their day-to-day activities but in an environmentally friendly way. We have worked with industry so that they can lead the way in finding innovative solutions themselves in their own industries to modern problems and providing reasonable and responsible time frames for this change to occur. By 2024, non-processed waste product will no longer be exported overseas. We have taken responsibility for our own problems and found a way for Australians and our environment to benefit in the process. It has been through working with private enterprise in a collaborative manner, rather than slogging industry with heavy-handed taxes, that we have found the most effective solution when it comes to tackling and improving our environmental management. The Morrison government is committed to finding solutions like these that improve our environment and lower emissions through new technology, not new taxes. But that isn't all—we are investing in sustainability and we are serious about doing it. The Morrison government has, in this budget alone, the 2020 budget, invested $674 million into oceans and marine ecosystems; $319 million into parks and heritage areas; improved research and development in the Great Barrier Reef and the Antarctic; and waived the environmental management charge for tourism operators on the Great Barrier Reef to continue to support our eco-tourism industry and to showcase this beautiful environmental wonder to the world. These investments are just a few of our commitments to take action on climate change and improve sustainability in Australia. We have targets which are in line with the Paris agreement and we are set to beat those targets. Australia beat our targets for Kyoto and we will beat our targets for Paris. We have a plan to invest in technology that will allow us to meet and beat our targets that we have set in the Paris agreement—and, unlike the Labor Party, we are doing it all in a way that doesn't cost Australians an enormous number of jobs or impose on them taxes that simply can't be quantified. This government knows that in the COVID-19 recession this country is facing the greatest economic challenge it has seen since the end of the war. We are also aware of the importance of continuing our work to protect our local environment and Australia's environment. Only the coalition can be trusted to be responsible stewards of our economy, and it's only through responsible economic management that we can meet our international targets and continue to protect our economy and our environment. Only the coalition has responsible plans for Australia to meet its international targets without destroying jobs that we so desperately need to retain as we get out the other side of the COVID recession. We are taking climate action to ensure that Australia reduces its emissions, and we will protect our economy at the same time. 16:55 Dr HAINES 282335 Indi I rise to support this important motion because the summer bushfires that my electorate endured have shown in stark fashion that climate change is a health issue. Last summer, beautiful towns like Bright, Walwa and Harrietville edged out the world's megacities like Beijing and Delhi for the sad record of having the planet's most toxic air. For weeks and weeks our kids, our pregnant women and our elderly breathed in this toxic mix of carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. Researchers are identifying the impacts of this exposure. Across Australia, last summer's bushfire smoke resulted in over 1,100 hospitalisations for cardiovascular problems, over 2,000 hospitalisations for respiratory problems and 1,300 for asthma presentations in emergency departments. On top of this, 445 deaths can be attributed directly to the deadly smoke—445 deaths! These health costs are estimated to total almost $2 billion. That is almost 3.5 times higher than the next worse bushfire season in 2002. But this is not about dollars and cents; this is about people. Today I will focus on our youngest people. A few days ago I spoke to Dr Rebecca McGowan, a local GP based in Albury-Wodonga. Dr McGowan had phoned me, alerting me to this story, a story that she said entailed a recent case review of one of her patients who had given birth after spending the summer in the alpine region of north-east Victoria, which was badly affected by bushfires. This woman's baby was small, Dr McGowan said, but the horrifying thing was her placenta. She had worn a mask, and she has never smoked in her life, but her placenta looked like that of a pack-a-day smoker. The placenta was in such bad condition—grey, grainy and coming apart—that the woman needed surgery to remove it. As a midwife, I am familiar with seeing such placentas in smokers or in people with severe hypertension, but not in healthy women such as this. We can't jump to conclusions. An n of one does not make a study. But perhaps it wasn't just a one-off. When we look to the literature, we can see that there is more than one. The Royal Australian College of GP's news from February reported an almost identical story from a GP whose own baby was born with low birth weight, with a shocking granulated placenta, after weeks of bushfire smoke exposure. Again it is just a case study, but the article goes on to quote multiple similar cases reported and observed by midwives. It is such cases that lead to much bigger studies being undertaken, like the 2019 study by Abdo et al. of almost 600,000 pregnant women in Colorado who were exposed to wildfire smoke in their second trimester. This study found a significantly increased risk of preterm birth. This large study concluded that as climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of wildfires, so too it will increase the health burden on expectant mothers and their babies. The government's own royal commission found that our warming climate will drive more intense bushfires into the future. It's crystal clear that if we are serious about protecting the health of our kids, building the resilience of our communities and avoiding mounting health crises in the future, tackling climate change should be our top priority. The member for Warringah has put forward her climate change bill, which would set a framework to drive down emissions in the long term and grow new, clean industries. This is an important and practical bill that we can all get behind. The member for Warringah is leading here in Australia what the entire UK government achieved over there. This is a huge accomplishment. She's good at winning medals, and I reckon she should get a gold medal and for this one! I've put forward my own local power plan, which would build locally owned renewables in regional Australia. You see, we actually have some solutions in front of us, and the regions stand to benefit the most from taking climate action seriously. So, for the sake of protecting the health of our kids and the liveability of our communities, I commend this motion to the House. 17:00 Mr CRAIG KELLY 99931 Hughes I'm pleased to see the member for Warringah raise the issue of air pollution in this chamber. It's something that I have long discussed, over a number of years, and something we need to do a lot more about. But the reality is we live with the Australian bush. The Australian bush burns. It burns regularly; it burns frequently. In fact, part of its health requires it to burn for regeneration. So, unless we are going to wipe out our bushlands, air pollution from bushfires is something we need to understand. We need to understand the risks and, especially during times of high particulate matter, we need people, especially vulnerable people, to shelter. But that doesn't mean we should be misleading the Australian public. Unfortunately, when it comes to climate change, we saw a shocking example of deception and lies from none other than the United Nations themselves. Last week, the United Nations put out a report, which was titled The human cost of disasters: an overview of the last 20 years (2000-2019). They put out a press release with it titled, 'UN Report charts huge rise in climate disasters'. And we had the chief of the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, state, 'Extreme weather events have risen dramatically over the past two decades.' The only problem with that is, when you go to their report, they've got a chart in there that shows the exact opposite. In fact, since the year 2000 the number of climate related disasters has actually been declining. And yet here we have the head of the United Nations saying something that is completely false and deceptive, and misleading the world. Now, how did they actually come up with such a deceptive and dishonest statement? They went to what's called the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, known as CRED, and looked at the number of disasters between 1980 and 1999, so the last 20 years of the previous century, and the first 20 years of this century. They said that data showed the number of disasters in the past 20 years is greater than the number of disasters in the 20 years prior to that. But what they failed to mention was that the database itself admitted that, before 1995, it did not capture all the disasters, and that it was down to an underreporting. In a 2009 report it said: 'CRED is fully aware of the potential for misleading interpretations of figures by various users. This is a risk on all public datasets.' Before interpreting the upward trend in the occurrence of weather related disasters as completely unprecedented and due to global warming, one has to take into account the complexity of disaster occurrence, human vulnerabilities and statistical reporting and registering. So we had the United Nations, one of the most respected and trusted organisations, misleading and deceiving the population of the world on climate change. We had the head of United Nations himself, none other than the UN Secretary-General, making false and misleading statements, deceiving the world. This is simply not good enough. It's not only the number of disasters that is declining. Let's look at some of the other parameters. Let's look at the number of deaths. Let's compare the number of deaths in the 20 years of this century to those in the last 20 years of the last century. What does that show? Even the CRED data and the underreporting shows a more than 50 per cent decline in the risk of death for someone living in the last 20 years than in the last 20 years of the last century. When do you ever hear that reported on the likes of the ABC? Never. The public is misled with complete false information. It's exactly the same thing on the insurance data. Insurance losses from weather related disasters have also declined over the last 30 years. We are being deceived. We are having lies told to us by none other than the United Nations. This is a disgrace, and it needs to be called out. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 72184 I thank the member for Hughes for that scintillating presentation. I call the member for Fenner. 17:05 Dr LEIGH BU8 Fenner For the sake of our children it's time to set aside childish things. It's time to set aside the coalition's denialism on climate change. Climate change is happening and humans are causing it. Since the industrial era, temperatures have risen one degree on average and 1½ degrees in some parts of the world. Mr Craig Kelly interjecting— Dr LEIGH BU8 Thank you, Mr Hydroxychloroquine. I appreciate the interjections. Australia is the developed country most at risk from unchecked climate change. Australia has the most to lose, as the bushfires have shown and as the damage to the Great Barrier Reef has demonstrated. As temperatures rise, more parts of Australia will become unliveable and unviable for agriculture, so we need to be urgently leading the world in measures to cut emissions, not blocking serious climate action, as the government did. In Madrid at the very time Australia was on fire the minister blocked other countries from acting. The reasons for acting are optimistic too. Ross Garnaut's terrific book Super-Power outlines the great opportunities to be had for Australian renewable energy. Rebecca Huntley's How to Talk about Climate Change in a Way That Makes a Difference outlines a positive case for climate change action. Yet Marian Wilkinson's The Carbon Club demonstrates how the denialists and the coalition have chosen the opposite path. They're choosing to follow the denialism of the US Republicans rather than the sensible centralism of conservatives in places like New Zealand and Britain. The rest of the world is moving. China will aim to hit peak emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. President Xi has called for a 'green recovery' of the world economy post COVID. Europe is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050. If Joe Biden wins, as the betting markets and polls currently suggest, the US will aim for a 100 per cent clean energy economy and net zero emissions no later than 2050. In early 2021 the European Commission will adopt a more ambitious plan, focusing on climate proofing, resilience building and prevention. We have recently seen South Australia produce all of its energy from renewables for the first time in history. The ACT has 100 per cent renewables. The United States, were Joe Biden to win, would chart a path to zero carbon pollution in their electricity sector by 2035. The Democrats plan to invest in clean rail systems and zero emission public transport in every American city with more than 100,000 residents by 2030. That would leave the Morrison government increasingly isolated on the world stage. Indeed, over 60 countries have pledged commitments to net zero emissions by 2050. Every Australian state and territory has done so. The Business Council, the Australian Industry Group, our largest airline, our largest miner and our largest bank support net zero emissions by 2050. The Morrison government is increasingly appearing out of touch. Here in the ACT the Canberra Liberals had their chance to move towards the centre and chose to stick with the extremes. They expressed gestural sympathies for climate change, but they voted against the Energy Efficiency Improvement Scheme in the ACT. They opposed the climate change strategy that will get the ACT to zero emissions. As an article in The Canberra Times put it, Alistair Coe 'could not detail how his party would do that'—that is, cut emissions—'aside from vague references to advancements in electric car technology'. Gary Humphries has belled the cat today in The Canberra Times, saying: The Liberal Party has been locked into a crippling, paralysing conservatism that is robbing it of any chance to speak to the aspirations and values of the Canberra community. He said: ... the more they looked at the Liberals, the more uncomfortable they became at the prospect of voting Liberal. Here in the ACT, the Canberra Liberals have seen the results of moving to the hard Right and siding with the Prime Minister and his pet rock, the Deputy Prime Minister, and his attack on woke greenies rather than the sensible centrism of the ACT. I congratulate the Barr government on their re-election and the climate change strategy that was at the core of that campaign. 17:10 Mr TED O'BRIEN 138932 Fairfax I hope you too loved the platitudes from the member for Fenner. Typical Labor on this issue of climate change. We talk technology; they talk taxes. We talk policy; they talk platitudes. We're all about action; they're all talk. And we've heard it yet again from the member for Fenner, who leaves the chamber now, I am sure very embarrassed about the words he's just spoken in this chamber. The Labor Party, if I'm not mistaken, started this term of government wanting to declare a climate emergency. That emergency is so great that the first action they want to take is focused on three decades from now. That's how big an emergency the Labor Party put on climate change. They have a vision for 2050. What are they going to do this year? Don't know about that. Next year? Don't know about that. Policy for the next election? Don't know about that. How about 2030? Don't know about that either. The Labor Party are full of platitudes. They talk big. They love talking emotion. They'll talk about climate emergency, but it is shallow and they are empty promises, because they have not one policy plank for the next 30 years. Deputy Speaker Gillespie, I don't know about you. You're a young, good-looking bloke. I'm not going to be here in 30 years, I'm afraid. You might be. Maybe the members of the Labor Party will be. Maybe that's why they're so fixated on 30 years from now without any merit whatsoever for a policy today, tomorrow or the next year—zip. We hear nothing. We're in footy season, as you know, Deputy Speaker, so maybe for those opposite, to make it a little bit more clear: the footy season and the grand final—are you focused on being on the field and tackling climate change with Team Australia? No, you're not focused on that. You're not even focused on next season. You're focused on the season of 2050. If you look at the scoreboard today, what does it tell you? Kyoto 1: done; tick; delivered. Kyoto 2: done; tick; delivered. As for Paris: absolutely on track; shall be done; shall be ticked; shall be delivered. The National Electricity Market, the NEM, is today delivering the lowest emissions in its history. We have $18 billion committed to low-emissions technology which shall unlock an extra $50 billion from states and territories in the private sector. They don't want to look at the scoreboard of climate change achievement in Australia because it says Team Australia is delivering, and they're not on the side of Team Australia. They have vacated the field, ashamed of the fact they are disunited in this key policy area. They have no unity whatsoever, and why would they? The last time they had a policy, they promised to strip Australian jobs, promised to cut over 400,000 jobs from this economy and promised to cut $9,000 from average wages. It's an absolute disgrace from the Labor Party on this topic. Yet the member for Fenner—the shadow Assistant Treasurer, no less—just stood in this Chamber and tried to lecture this parliament about climate change and the virtues of Labor's approach. Now, I haven't heard the member for Fenner on this topic before. He is known to me and probably most people in this place as the warrior for industry super funds; that is his usual champion cause. Today The Australian Financial Review has an article about Australian industry super funds. The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors has called out ASX companies who have made a net zero commitment to 2050, saying: … it is not good enough to make a 30-year commitment and then leave the detail for later. Maybe the member for Fenner and those in the Labor Party should be listening to the very industry super funds they support so vocally. It is very clear that they have vacated the field and are not prepared to tackle climate change front-on. If they were, they would have the courage of their convictions and name a target for 2030. 17:16 Ms McBAIN 281988 Eden-Monaro I acknowledge the work and commitment of the member for Warringah, Zali Steggall, who has brought forward this motion for discussion. Unlike the member for Fairfax, people around Australia hate politics for politics' sake. They actually want people to work together. The impact of climate change looms large around Eden-Monaro. Climate change is a day-to-day reality from Tumbarumba to Tathra. At the end of the hottest and driest year on record, sparks of lightning lit the fuse of a defining chapter in our history. I've spoken about the 750 Eden-Monaro homes destroyed in the angry flames that followed, so today I'll use this opportunity to explore a couple of other experiences. As the member for Warringah says, 400 people died of smoke inhalation as a result of the 'black summer' and 4,000 people were hospitalised. The sky was orange and the air was thick with smoke as I stood in evacuation centre after evacuation centre with thousands of people during January. Time and time again people asked me about the health impacts of breathing in air from our traumatised environment. Our volunteer firefighters were also worried. The women and men who went running into the smoke often did so without the very best protection. We even saw crowdfunding campaigns spring up to buy local firefighters better-quality breathing protection. These are questions and situations we really haven't had to comprehend on this scale before. But as climate change bites these are the shoes we will walk in again, and we need to know more and have better protections in place. I recently met with researchers from the Australian National University in my Queanbeyan electorate office. They are looking at the effects of prolonged bushfire smoke exposure on the physical health, mental health and lifestyle of residents in Eden-Monaro and the ACT. The health impact on pregnant women and their children is a particular focus and an area of work that remains unfunded. The findings of this study will be used to influence health advice and procedures for future events. Researchers are currently looking for more people, especially women who were pregnant at the time, to take part in this research. Details are available through the ANU website. Parts of Eden-Monaro—around 75 per of our national park estate—were burnt out. Members don't need to travel too far from here to see the harsh devastation for themselves. On Friday I visited the Two Thumbs koala sanctuary at Peak View, near Cooma. Tragically, three American aviators lost their lives trying to protect Two Thumbs when their massive firefighting air tanker crashed to the ground in January. Since that time James Fitzgerald and a tribe of volunteers at Two Thumbs have rescued 41 koalas from their burnt habitat—but, as James told me on Friday, he estimates that hundreds more perished. In the days that followed the flames he remembers hearing koalas crying out in pain at night. A Go Fund Me campaign was set up to assist him, and he has kindly donated $100,000 of that money to the ANU koala research project that is also supported by the Minderoo Foundation. The project will examine how koalas recover after fire and how fire impacts their environment. It is knowledge we need now in order to safeguard the future of this precious species. But I fear the momentum of climate change might beat us to that knowledge and the work we need to do to protect the koala. This research shouldn't need to be funded from a Go Fund Me account. It should be backed and funded by this government. While the people, environment and economy of Eden-Monaro have waited for this government to act on climate change, koalas and their habitat have burnt. While the people, environment and economy of Eden-Monaro have waited for this government to act on climate change, our lungs have filled with deadly smoke. As the member for Warringah says in her motion, countries like the United Kingdom, Germany and even Fiji have moved towards a decarbonised economy. They are reaping the benefits, with almost 400,000 new jobs created in the UK's new low-carbon economy. I look forward to working with the member for Warringah and my colleagues in the Labor Party to prepare our community for the impacts of climate change, to limit the toll climate change takes on our health and environment and to make the most of the jobs and opportunities that come with action on climate change. 17:20 Mr JOYCE E5D New England I wasn't going to speak on this motion but, having listened to some of the piffle, I will. First of all, if you want to completely destroy the Australian economy then 'decarbonise' it. Australia's largest export is fossil fuels, whether you like it or not, and there's nothing on the horizon that looks like it's going to take their place. If you want to be earnest and honest about this discussion then you must suggest what you're willing to give up, when you have a budget that doesn't have nearly the capacity to pay for the social services you expect, after you take away the coalmining industry, the gas industry and the LNG industry. What is your solution? There is no point—in fact, it's just plain rubbish—to say, 'Oh, there'll be jobs in the future.' We need to see the jobs now. I'll take you to one example. One of the largest sectors of renewable energy is in my electorate, in Glen Innes, where we've had $2 billion of investment in wind towers. In the last census, the population of Glen Innes went up by one person. This goes to show you that the rhetoric is a long way from the reality. If people believe that there's something morally appropriate in their electorate having renewable energy then they should be advocating for it to be positioned in their electorate and lead by example. There is absolutely no reason why we can't have wind towers off the beaches of Manly and Warringah—it's technically possible—but, of course, the member wouldn't want that because she wants to see them somewhere else. Then we can go to some of the issues that have been happening lately. I read with great interest that Dr Bob Brown and Christine Milne are now fighting against wind towers. I'll repeat that: they are now fighting against wind towers. They do not want Tasmania to be the battery of Australia. In fact, they're fighting against the interconnector. Why? It is because they believe wind towers are an eyesore. How things change! Just wait, and the situation changes. I've seen it in my own electorate. There are protests in Nundle and Kentucky, where people—who in some instances, I would say, voted for the Greens—are now fighting against wind towers. If you just hang around and wait, the sentiment changes. The same thing is happening around Euroa. They're fighting against solar farms because they don't want to be next to a large mirror. So how do we solve this? We solve it, if you earnestly believe in it, by putting it in your electorate. That's what you should do. But, of course, if you want zero emissions— An honourable member interjecting— Mr JOYCE E5D You can giggle, but if you came out and advocated for it, it would be much braver. Member for Warringah, if you believe in it, stand up and say you want it in your electorate. You could do it, but, of course, you won't. The issue is that if you want zero emissions—I've got no problem with that—the most logical way to do that is nuclear. That's the way to do it. But, of course, once more, they all line up and say they don't want nuclear. Let's go through it. They don't want windmills. We can see the lead being taken by Dr Bob Brown, formerly of the Greens, and Christine Milne, to whom the baton had subsequently been passed. She also doesn't want it. They don't want gas because it relies on fracking. They don't want coal because they just don't want coal; it's against their religion. They don't want nuclear because they seem to be stuck in the mindset of the 1980s, with Chernobyl. We all know about that, but that was 1950s Soviet technology. If you've ever driven around in a 1950s Soviet car, you know how that is. So where do we go? How does this work? They deny the fact that in the Australian economy our largest export is fossil fuels, and they've got no suggestion of what's going to take its place. They put up China as a good example—China! China is building in excess of 600 coal-fired power plants as we speak; they're building them right now. And then they say, 'Well, Germany.' Germany are refurbishing their brown coal-fired plants, so what I suggest you do is have a look at the most efficient way and the cleanest way to produce power from the food stocks that are available at the moment—high-efficiency, low-emission coal-fired power—and show the world for our largest export the best technology and the cleanest technology in how it is utilised. We have a schism that's happening in the Labor party because we've got the Joel Fitzgibbon faction that believes in the coal industry and we have Pat Conroy, the member for Shortland, who doesn't believe in the coal industry even though many of his workers are in the coal industry. I think an epiphany will come Pat Conroy, the member for Shortland's way very soon. 17:25 Mr THISTLETHWAITE 182468 Kingsford Smith Last summer changed Australia. The cumulative effect of severe drought and global warming and climate change produced the most severe bushfires that our nation has ever seen. We all remember the choking smoke that infected the east coast of Australia and changed our summer lifestyle forever. Instead of Australians being outdoors and enjoying the summer period, we were advised to actually stay inside on a litany of days when the smoke was simply too much for many to bear, particularly the young and the elderly. We were advised to restrict exercise to only one hour a day and to stay indoors as much as possible. And, of course, those with medical conditions, particularly lung related medical conditions, suffered severely during this period. Our emergency services were under unprecedented pressure and struggled to cope, and we had the tragic loss of life and property. Towns were devastated by the bushfires that we saw over the last summer. This was symptomatic of what's going on throughout the world at the moment. This was symptomatic of the fact that our nation and this world is in a climate crisis. We need to realise that and wake up to that and make sure that we're taking stronger action to reduce the impact of climate change on our community. In Australia, we've seen over recent years some of our natural resources under unprecedented pressure. The Great Barrier Reef is under enormous threat from, again, episodes of coral bleaching related to increases in sea temperature. The Great Barrier Reef is an important part of the Queensland economy: it's a vitally important part of the tourism sector for our nation and a leading attraction for tourists to come to our nation. If it doesn't survive, then Queensland is in a parlous state. The Murray-Darling and all those towns that rely on the adequate flows of the Murray-Darling are under extreme pressure. We saw that with the fish kills in the Menindee Lakes over recent times. Australia has the unenviable record of the highest rate of mammal extinctions of any nation of the world, yet some of those opposite want us to believe that climate change is not a threat and that we don't need to take it seriously and that we don't need to take action on it. COVID-19 may have diverted the attention of the Australian public from this issue, but it certainly hasn't removed the urgency from the need to act and take this matter seriously. We have a moral obligation to our children to take stronger action to combat climate change and boost renewable energy if our kids are going to have any chance in the future of a liveable lifestyle in this environment. And this is the area where the Morrison government has failed dismally. The evidence of that is simply in the fact that, for the first 7½ years of this government, carbon pollution in Australia went back up. When Labor was in government, when we had a scheme in place to reduce carbon emissions, they were going down. But as soon as the Abbott government got elected in 2013 and removed the price on carbon emissions, guess what? Carbon started to go up again in our economy, and they've failed ever since because we know that they still don't have an energy policy. Australians are paying too much for electricity, carbon emissions are going up again and they're using dodgy accounting tricks to try and meet the Paris commitments by using carryover credits from Kyoto. The great shame about this government is that they allow the biggest polluters in the country to get away with increasing their carbon emissions, to get away with increasing carbon pollution, whereas the average Australian—the average Australian family, pensioner, small business—are expected to take action to reduce their carbon emissions, and that's exactly what they've been doing. They've been installing energy efficient lighting in their homes. They've been installing solar panels and batteries to reduce their carbon footprint and using water saving devices. The average Australian household and small businesses are acting, but, under this government, if you're a big polluter, don't worry. You can get away with increasing your carbon pollution footprint. That is not fair, and that is putting an impost on the people of Australia rather than the people who are causing the problem. That is why we need to get serious about a framework and ensuring that this country has a goal of zero emissions by 2050, and that is exactly what Labor has. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 72184 There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order for the next sitting. Burrows, Mr Donald Vernon, AO MBE 201 17:31 Ms BELL 282981 Moncrieff I move: That this House: (1) recognises the passing of Don Burrows AO MBE on 12 March 2020, especially noting his: (a) lifetime contribution to the Australian music industry; and (b) contribution to music education and Indigenous communities; and (2) further recognises the: (a) contribution that creative arts and culture make to Australian society; and (b) impact of COVID-19 on the creative arts sector. It is appropriate that the House recognise the passing of Australia's legend of jazz, Donald Vernon Burrows AO MBE on 12 March in this year of 2020, aged 91. I pay tribute to my good friend, Don, on behalf of all Australians. Don's friendship, patience and deep love for musicianship, the art of jazz and his extraordinary gift of music profoundly impacted the lives of thousands, including my own. At 14, he nicknamed me 'Zootina' after the sound of the American jazz saxophonist, Zoot Sims. Don was born on 8 August 1928 in Berowra in Sydney to musical parents. In 1937, a visiting flutist Victor McMahon inspired him to start on flute. At age 12 and during his early teens, he played in Victor's band on various reed instruments in clubs. Don told me that he played more than two dozen woodwind instruments—26 to be precise. He went all the way to the top on flute: Carnegie Hall, the Newport Jazz Festival at Montreux in '72 and he recorded the album Flute Salad in '92 with Dutch flutist Chris Hinze, one of his 40 records. By 1942 Don had begun his love affair with the clarinet, which he learned in three short weeks before a radio appearance. He told me that during the war years due to cane shortages that he fashioned his clarinet reeds from wooden toothbrushes just so he could keep playing. In '68, the year I was born, he played a residency at the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney with Ed Gaston, Alan Turnbull, Julian Lee, Jude Bailey, Errol Buddle, John Sangster and George Golla, with whom he played for some 38 years. I pay my respects today on their behalf, as I have met all of them, Don's jazz contemporaries. Don studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as a young man and soon became principal clarinettist with the ABC's Symphony Orchestra. In '73—it was a big year for Donnie—he won the first gold record for an Australian jazz musician for his record Just the Beginning. It was the first to win a Keating, a creative fellowship scholarship. He was awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire and instigated the first jazz program in the Southern Hemisphere at the Sydney Conservatorium. In '87 he was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia. Don worked over the years with jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson—excuse me, Deputy Speaker—Tony Bennett. Stephane Grappelli, Cleo Laine and the Sydney Symphony. Can I just have a moment? I'll get there. Thank you. For six years he presented his own TV series—Australians will remember The Don Burrows Collection. In 1991 he was inducted into the ARIA Music Awards Hall of Fame. In 1989 and 1999 he was named one of Australia's living treasures. With two honorary music doctorates from the University of Sydney and Edith Cowan, and one in education from CQU, he also received the Ted Albert Award for outstanding services to Australian music at the APRA awards. In 2007 he was inducted into the Australian Jazz Bell Hall of Fame. Visiting Don at his Church Point home, he shared stories of his life over a glass of Scotch and showed me his cherished photographic collection. Don was passionate about educating Indigenous children in regional and remote communities through the power of music. Later he suffered from arthritis, and once he could no longer play woodwinds he joined his local community brass band. He picked up the trombone, having never played it before. Not knowing who Don was, a young girl in the band offered to teach him all seven positions. He said to me, 'I sat next to her and she taught me how to play the trombone.' In the 1980s I was a member of John McKenzie's Adelaide Connection jazz choir. We toured Sydney and played the Manly jazz carnival and the Don Burrows Supper Club. We played in the South Australian Riverland with James Morrison, George Golla, Craig Scott and Laurie Kennedy. The connection recorded the albums Makin' Whoopie and Nice and Easy, of which I am proud to say I was a part. I was honoured to stand beside Don on a few occasions and follow him to do a solo on the tenor sax, a very hard act to follow. Life can be truly amazing, and Don's certainly was. The last time I saw Don was at the Gold Coast City Jazz Club at HOTA in my electorate of Moncrieff, the very club of which I am now a patron. I took him a bottle of Scotch to thank him for his kind and enduring friendship. Rest in peace, Don Burrows. Dr Gillespie 72184 I thank the member for that wonderful speech and eulogy. Rest in peace. Is there a seconder for the motion? Ms Hammond 80072 I second the motion and reserve my right to speak. 17:37 Ms MURPHY 133646 Dunkley I am very pleased to support this motion. Before I start my remarks, I would like to thank the member for Moncrieff for her beautiful speech on behalf of her friend. This motion talks not only about the amazing Don Burrows but the role that creative arts and culture play in Australian society. That is something that we should treasure. Clearly Don Burrows was a man that not only treasured that but contributed greatly to it. I didn't have the pleasure of knowing the great Don Burrows, so I did research before speaking on this motion. I found this quote of his which, the member for Moncrieff may well have been there for—I'm not sure. I understand, as we have just heard, that jazz education was one of Don's passions, and I understand that he said this: Jazz is music that is passed on to each new generation by playing it, you can't learn it from the written page, or even by being told about it – you have to jam together. This means that most musicians of this genre have a mentor, and I was lucky enough to have the best. Certainly the list of names that the member for Moncrieff read out sounds like he really did have the best. Thinking about that quote really resonates—that connection between arts and culture and community and education. It is really important that governments support all of those sectors individually, but also because of the way they mesh together to make life bigger and better than it would otherwise be and make our society something more vibrant and happier than it would otherwise be. Of course 2020 has not been a great year for the cultural and arts industries, like it hasn't been a great year for anyone. We know that those industries were pretty much the first hit. For many people who work in those industries they will be some of the last industries to be able to recover. Hearing about the life and legacy of Don Burrows, I am sure he would want to see live venues able to open their doors again after we get through COVID and have the financial means to be able to continue to operate, and who would like to see our institutions that educate about the arts and music and the humanities able to continue to do that, and, most importantly, for Australian to be able to continue to access them after we get through COVID. The arts industry is of course important for our souls and it's also important for our economy. It contributes some $111 billion a year and employs around 600,000 people, which I understand to be more than the mining and aviation industries combined. So, although there may be people out there who don't see the value of the arts for what they bring to our souls, the arts certainly also bring money to the bottom line of Australia and to our economy. One of the things about arts and culture that I think is fundamentally important and we should never lose sight of is that it doesn't have to be for everyone. You don't have to be someone who wants to go to the opera. You don't have to like jazz or even understand it. You don't have to be someone who reads poetry. But your life is enriched because there are people that do those things and because those things exist. Everyone's life is in some way touched by our creative industries. If you're a gamer, the games that you play have been designed by creatives. If you read books, that's obvious. If you watch television, apart from reality television most other shows have some contribution from someone who's got a role in the creative arts and the cultural industry. So many people can't live without dance, and I just want to take this opportunity to say that I know that the dance studios in my electorate and many others are really struggling, and the young girls and boys and older participants who love dance are missing it. We know that that's an industry that needs government support to be able to get back on its feet, because it's so important for so many people. I want to end this speech not by being critical of the government but by calling on them to think about the legacy of legends like Don Burrows and others and how important it is to make sure that every Australian has the opportunity, no matter how much money they have or where they come from, to study music, literature, humanities, history and all those things that make us richer from day to day. 17:42 Ms HAMMOND 80072 Curtin I, too, thank the member for Moncrieff, otherwise known as 'Zootina', for moving this motion and recognising the great life of Don Burrows and his contribution to the creative arts in Australian society. Don's was clearly a rich life, from a boy lapping up the sun on the beach at Bondi in the 1930s to playing with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman and Nat King Cole. He clearly was one of those truly unique and wholly unmatched talents. Pioneering Australian jazz music on the world stage, entering the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1991, being named a National Living Treasure twice and having released 32 albums certainly demonstrated that Don wasn't just good; he was great. Don's place among the jazz greats is most definitely assured. Indeed—and I hope this is of some comfort to his friend the member for Moncrieff—it's not hard to imagine him right now up there in some celestial smoke-filled bar, playing with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald, with I was going to say a glass but perhaps a bottle of Scotch by his elbow. In reflecting on the life of this giant, this man who brought music listeners so much joy and who dedicated so much time to not only promoting jazz but also providing opportunities for young musicians, we are reminded once again of the importance of the arts to our lives and our culture. Earlier this year, as the social distancing and restrictions kicked in, our theatres fell silent, acts stopped touring, movie releases were delayed and, for so many hardworking artists, including my sister, months of planned future work disappeared in days. As I've said before, the arts are vital, not only to our nation's culture but also as a mechanism through which we express ourselves and understand ourselves. This year we've been reminded, both through the absence of live shows and also in tuning into our TV shows to binge, just how vital the arts are. They challenge us. They help us to look at the world in a different way. But they also delight us, distract us and bring us moments of joy. I am aware that sometimes, in certain company, just saying the phrase 'the arts' might cause some people to immediately conjure up images of experimental dance pieces performed to beat poetry. While I am sure that experimental dance performed to beat poetry has a loyal following, which I respect—I don't understand but I respect—we know that the arts are so much more. The arts contribute to our economy and create jobs. A report from the Chamber of Arts and Culture WA this year estimated that the creative industries contributed an estimated $3.3 billion in industry value-add to the WA economy and employed approximately 53,000 people. According to the ABS, across Australia there are 600,000 people working in the cultural and creative sectors. You can see the way that the arts contribute to our economy in events such as the Perth Festival, which this year had a $30.3 million direct economic impact on the WA economy and an $84.7 million multiplier effect. This was despite having to finish early because of COVID. Earlier last month, I had the wonderful opportunity to discuss the challenges of 2020 with a number of wonderful arts organisations in my electorate of Curtin and in WA. I was pleased to be joined with representatives from the Chamber of Arts and Culture, the Australian Council for the Arts, Perth Festival, the Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company, Steamworks Arts, Aura Film Finance, Barking Gecko and PICA. Being in a room with these passionate, intelligent and driven individuals was helpful and allowed me to gain further insight into what 2020 has meant for them. It also allowed me to also discuss the future of the arts in WA and how we could work together as a team to not just grow the industry but promote our unique voices and stories. I want to thank them all for the constructive discussion we had. I'm really looking forward to working with all of them and doing what I can to advance the arts in WA. I recognise that there are still lots of challenges ahead, but, just as we've had to look at all of our industries this year, we need to take 2020 as an opportunity to look forward and think of new ways in which we can support the arts and also ensure their sustainability. I thank everybody in the arts for what they do and for their passion. What was present in the life of Don Burrows is shared by all artists. On behalf of the member for Moncrieff, I would like to finish by proposing to everybody who listened to the speeches today to put on a Don Burrows album—perhaps Cool Yule at Christmas to remember those we have lost during this coronavirus period. 15:47 Mr GEORGANAS DZY Adelaide I too rise to support this motion and acknowledge the member for Moncrieff's speech as well, and those of others who have spoken about Don Burrows in this place. I would also like to pay tribute to the great jazz musician, Don Burrows, who sadly passed away this year. Don leaves an undeniable legacy for Australian music and the arts in general. His achievements are many and varied. He was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame, the first jazz musician to be given this honour. He was twice named as one of Australia's living national treasures. He was responsible for taking Australian jazz to the world stage through his countless TV appearances and recordings. He was the first Australian act to perform at the great jazz festivals around the world. But it was his passion for education and fostering a love of jazz and music in general that will be one of his greatest legacies. Don Burrows helped establish the first jazz course in Australia at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and he was responsible for putting together one of the first jazz studies programs in the Southern Hemisphere. Don Burrows understood the importance of having a strong and vibrant arts scene. He understood this and he used his public image to champion the next generation of young musicians. But it wasn't only students at the conservatorium who had the opportunity to learn from this passionate musician. Don Burrows also spent a great deal of time providing music education to all sorts of people, but especially people in remote communities. He usually visited each place for a week and loved witnessing the children's joy and exhilaration when he played to them or with them or participated in events with them. Don Burrows understood that a world without music and the arts is unimaginable—and I think most of us understand that as well. He understood the importance of our creative industries, and I am certain that he would despair at the current state of the sector. Our creative industries and the arts sector, play such a vital role in our culture, our community and our economy. The culture that we produce in this country is about who we are. Whether it be music, movies or authors that write books, culture is very, very important. The arts sector is very, very important. It is the way that we see ourselves through the prism of arts, and Don contributed greatly to that area. It is really sad at the moment to see some of our artists suffering the loss of their jobs overnight. We heard the member for Dunkley, the member for Moncrieff and others talk about how our arts sector is just starting to get up and about the theatres and musicals that were shut and how the everyday life that musicians like Don would have had basically been locked down—and then, of course, there were the mass job losses overnight. We pay tribute to Don. He contributed greatly to the jazz industry. At a time when Australian jazz was not frowned upon but we weren't known that well around the world—jazz normally came from other places around the world—he put Australia on the map through his jazz music and through his work as a performer and a whole range of other things. He was one of Australia's greats. He was a legend to the jazz industry. From what I was reading earlier, he didn't like being called a legend of jazz and music. Nevertheless, he was, and Australia will miss him dearly. The jazz music industry will miss him and so will the arts sector. 17:52 Mr FALINSKI G86 Mackellar I rise today to recognise the passing of Don Burrows AO MBE. On 20 March 2020, the iconic and, arguably, the greatest Australian jazz musician and flutist passed away at the age of 91. His death marks the end of an incredible era of music in Australia. Oscar Wilde once said that he would rather be ashes than dust; that he would rather burn out than die out. I think that Don summed that up beautifully throughout his life. His passion for jazz began when he was a teenager. Filling in with jazz bands during World War II, with time and passion, Mr Burrows became a multi-instrumentalist. He continued to tour the world with his jazz repertoire. Burrows was the first Australian musician to garner international acclaim within his genre. Whilst his contributions to the world of jazz is commendable, his lifetime contribution to the Australian music industry deserves special recognition. After Don had toured the world, he returned home to share his love of jazz with the next and future generations—and, for those of us on the northern beaches, most notably James Morrison. By starting the Sydney Conservatorium of Music's first jazz program, Don wanted to pass on to the next generation what he had developed. For more than 40 years, he travelled the outback regions of Australia to share what he saw as the gift of music with Indigenous children and all those who otherwise did not easily have access to music. His enthusiasm was appreciated and absorbed by so many who never thought that they would ever have the chance to learn more. Those he educated and mentored zealously, as some of his mentees have told me, really appreciated Don's time. Don was but one member of the creative arts industry, but a vibrant example of how the arts contribute to Australia's society, enriching the lives of so many by fostering response, engagement and creativity. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts are also significant, as they are often an expression of their culture and their history. For many Australians the arts foster a richer and more meaningful life by supporting the expression and production of creative thought and new ideas. The COVID-19 pandemic has confronted all Australians, especially the cultural and creative sector. In recognition of this hardship suffered by so many in the industry, the government has provided in response approximately $700 million of additional targeted support for the sector. On 26 September the government dedicated $22.9 million in 2020-21 to support Australia's national cultural institutions during COVID-19. In Don's final years, which he lived out in Terrey Hills, in the electorate I represent, he was cared for by James Morrison. It was an act of kindness to return to him that which he had been given so freely by Don. Don spent his last years on the Northern Beaches at the Terrey Hills Nursing Home. His passion never faded. He led several small ensembles at the nursing home. Don Burrows's music touched many lives in his 91 years of life, and his spirit lives on in the dazzling body of jazz music he has left for us to listen to. The ancient Greeks used to say that art, when done at its apogee, provokes, stimulates and beckons all of us to do better. It demands that reason lead our passion, because together they make us better. This, I believe, sums up Don entirely. Vale Don Burrows. Thank you for the music. 17:57 Dr ALLEN 282986 Higgins Like the family unit, music is central to the human experience. It has a capacity to convey emotion and bring individuals together, whether for entertainment or for ritual. As a paediatrician I also know and understand the important role that music plays in the cognitive development of children, including language and literacy abilities, spatial reasoning and fine motor coordination. The passing of Don Burrows earlier this year marked the end of an era for Australian music. Australian jazz fans will forever be grateful for his remarkable cultural legacy. Don was born on 8 August 1928 in Berowra, Sydney, to musical parents. He first picked up the flute in 1937—three of my four children play the flute, so I know how much he must have loved it!—after meeting flautist Victor McMahon. In the early 1940s he also picked up the clarinet and studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. My colleague and good friend the member for Moncrieff, who is also a world-class saxophonist, has reliably informed me Don played more than two dozen woodwind instruments. He would go on to release 40 albums. By 1942 Don was fast becoming a key figure in Sydney jazz circles. He performed in dance halls, in nightclubs and on radio, including The Youth Show on Macquarie Radio. In the sixties and seventies Don's talent took him all over the world. In 1973 Don put Australian jazz on the map when he became the first Australian jazz musician to win a gold record for his record Just the Beginning. Many will remember Don for his later work on The Don Burrows Collection, which ran for six years during the 1980s; I certainly do. Don collaborated with many artists over the years, including household names such as Frank Sinatra, the great Nat King Cole and Tony Bennett. He also had a notable partnership with James Morrison, who recently said that Don 'touched so many lives and inspired generations of musicians and audiences alike'. Don was also an accomplished photographer, and received honours from the Australian Institute of Professional Photography in 2008. This passion complemented his travels as a musician. Don was also passionate about education. He spearheaded the establishment of the jazz course at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and was chair of jazz studies—a pretty cool job, if you ask me. He also used his passion of photography to support those making a career in music. For many years he travelled to regional and remote locations to perform and to photograph the sights and people along the way. Some of his favourite photos were of Indigenous children. These images were never included for sale; however, an idea was put to the department of Indigenous affairs in Canberra that he sell some of these images and put the proceeds towards a fund to support any Indigenous person seeking assistance for a career in music. That's what happened. Don understood the power of investment in the arts and in particular music. The Morrison government also understands the importance of investing in Australia's arts sector. We recognise the valuable contribution it makes to our community, to our economy and, indeed, to our national identity. Earlier this year I championed the need for an inquiry into the impact of COVID on the arts and how we as a government must ensure that our cultural identity not only thrives but prospers. An inquiry was announced in August this year. A standing committee will now undertake an inquiry into Australia's creative and cultural industries and institutions, including but not limited to Indigenous, regional, rural and community based organisations. This is important to build upon the important contribution of those who have gone before us, such as Don. Australia will forever be indebted to Don for his cultural legacy. He is a true national treasure. Jazz biographer Bruce Johnson said of Don: … his importance to Australian jazz extends beyond his musicianship. He has been central in the acceptance of jazz as a musical form to be treated with the same seriousness accorded other performing arts … I'd like to mention that my uncle Mark Stephens, also known as Lazy Harry, is a country musician. I've watched his career over many decades and know how difficult it can be to make it in the music scene. We thank Don Burrows for the work he has done. He has made Australia a little more worldly and a little more sophisticated. Rest in peace, Don. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265967 There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. Marine Environment 205 18:02 Mr CONROY 249127 Shortland The beaches and the ocean environment of the Central Coast and Lake Macquarie are renowned for their natural beauty and abundant sea life. It's one of the reasons so many of us choose to live there. I remember spending my youth jetty jumping and fishing for flathead. I remember learning to catch waves as a nipper. It was an immense privilege to grow up in a fibro worker's cottage with a beach at the end of the street. I was thinking about this as I was standing in the water at Redhead Beach nine days ago watching my seven-year-old daughter using her bodyboard for the very first time while my five-year-old son ran through wave after wave. It struck me how different it would be if I could see an offshore gas drilling rig from that position. It struck me what a tragedy it would be if my kids were unable to swim at the beach due to an accident on that rig. It saddened me to think about if the only fish the families fishing along Nine Mile Beach saw were dead ones washing on the shore. This is what is at stake when we debate the petroleum exploration permit 11 licence and the application by Advent Energy to begin exploration drilling off Redhead Beach. I stand with my community in saying no to PEP 11, no to endangering our beach and coastline, no to endangering the lifestyle we love, and no to endangering the fishing and tourism industries that employ thousands of people. There is no justification for drilling to extract gas and oil off our beautiful coast. From a local jobs perspective this development will probably employ fewer than 100 people—most of whom will likely not be locals—but will risk thousands of jobs locally in tourism and recreational and commercial fishing. I simply will not risk our jobs in whale watching, bait and tackle shops, fishing charters, surf schools, cafes and accommodation for this development. There are thousands of direct jobs and tens of thousands of indirect jobs that depend on our pristine beaches and maritime environment. From an economic perspective, the clear answer must be no to drilling. With regard to energy security, in the short to medium term, New South Wales does need to produce more gas, but there are projects, some of which are in advanced development now, that will produce gas more cheaply and in less sensitive environments without endangering existing industries. Beyond the short-term need for adequate gas supplies, the answer to Australia's energy security is more renewable energy—renewable energy firmed by batteries and pumped hydro for electricity generation, leading to lower power bills and lower emissions; renewable energy exported to the rest of the world, either directly through cables or indirectly as hydrogen, or embodied in clean steel and clean ammonia; renewable energy generating hydrogen as a feed stock for industry. This is the answer to Australia's energy security, not drilling within sight of the most densely populated region of the nation. I've never seen a proposal generate such deep and broad opposition from all segments of our communities as I've seen with PEP 11. I've met with recreational fishing industry advocates deeply opposed to this. I've been approached at markets by 80-year-old grandmothers worried about this development. I've had local engineers spontaneously raise this issue when I've talked to them about other matters. On the same day I was at Redhead Beach, I held a stall at Pelican Markets, where a young mum came up to my stall with her 10-year-old daughter and expressed to me her fervent opposition to PEP 11. I want to say thank you to everyone who has expressed their opposition to PEP 11. Thank you for your passion. Thank you for your commitment to our beautiful environment and for fighting against climate change. Thank you for your commitment to our coastal way of life. To those who are concerned about how we create jobs in our region, I say this: this project is not the answer. Growing jobs in Lake Macquarie and the Central Coast is my first priority, and it always will be, but this project will not grow jobs. Instead, it has the potential to destroy thousands of jobs. This motion is a good start, but the future of this project rests in the hands of the New South Wales and federal Liberal governments. The current PEP 11 application for a secondary work program variation and a suspension and an extension of year 4 of the permit are currently sitting with the offshore petroleum joint authority. The joint authority is the decision-maker for offshore petroleum title matters, and its sole members are the federal minister for resources, Keith Pitt, and his New South Wales counterpart. They can kill this project right now, and they should. Let me finish where I began, by saying that I stand with my community in saying no to PEP 11. I say no to PEP 11. I say no to endangering our beaches and coastline. I say no to endangering our lifestyle. I say no to endangering the fishing and tourism industries that are the bedrock of local employment. PEP 11 must be stopped because it is the wrong project in the wrong place. 18:07 Ms OWENS E09 Parramatta I'm always intrigued when a member of the government stands up and tries to spruik their credentials when it comes to conservation, particularly when it comes to the Barrier Reef, because quite frankly you can't protect the Barrier Reef without talking and acting on climate change—and this is a government that don't. In part, I kind of understand the circumstances they're in. Since first forming the Liberal Party in 1944, they've never governed in their own right. They've always had to form a coalition, and a number of members of their coalition partner do not believe in climate change, so I understand the pressure they are under. We've seen that relationship teeter. We've seen all of that. But climate change is real, and we need a government that will act on it. If you are talking about the Barrier Reef, you have to talk about climate change. You have to talk about the three devastating mass bleaching events in the last five years. You have to talk about that, no matter what you do. There's much to be done when it comes to the Barrier Reef in terms of run-off, including run-off from fires, which are becoming more devastating because of climate change. There are lots of things you need to do about the Barrier Reef, but the single thing you have to do for the long-term health of the reef, after you've done everything else, is care for the climate and worry about climate change. This is a government that can't even have a climate change policy. They've been trying for a while, and they can't. I guess they thought to themselves: 'Well, we can have an energy policy. We can at least do something about transitioning,' in the way that some of them know this country needs to, but they haven't managed to do that either. They've had 22 energy policies in the last eight years. They can't even settle on an energy policy. So to get up and talk about the Great Barrier Reef in this way, to talk about it as if the government is protecting it, when for seven years they've done virtually nothing except hand over $444 million to an oddly selected organisation that has essentially failed to do the job it was funded to do—this is a failure coming right at this government. And the reference to protecting the Great Barrier Reef in this motion is really quite absurd. I also want to talk today about Petroleum Exploration Permit 11, known as PEP 11, which is a permit to explore for oil and gas in what is known as the offshore Sydney Basin. That's the little bit of ocean between Manly and Newcastle right off Sydney. When you stand on any Sydney beach, you're looking at it. This motion, this private member's business, says that the government opposes oil and gas drilling off the coast of Sydney. Well, the decision hasn't been made, and two people can make it: the minister federally and the minister for the state. So, if they do oppose it, it's time they made that decision. Of course it's nonsense to drill for oil and gas so close to the Sydney shore and Newcastle that you can actually see the rigs in the ocean. That would be absurd. I can tell you that even though I don't live in one of the ocean-side suburbs that most of the speakers today live in—I live in Parramatta; we're kind of landlocked—I get more contacts from my community when we talk about marine health than anything else. It's the marine parks; it the Coral Sea, it's the PEP 11, it's the Great Barrier Reef—you name it. The people in Parramatta come out in droves—hundreds of them in a few days—if they believe there is any threat to this wonderful ocean that surrounds our country. So I'd say to the member who's moved this motion that, if he genuinely believes the government opposes oil and gas drilling off the coast of Sydney, if he honestly believes that PEP 11 should be rejected, then let him convince his government to vote for this, actually vote for it. It's not good enough when you're talking about something this serious to get up here in this Chamber and pretend you care about it and not act. If you're in the government, you wear the government's actions. It's that simple. You don't get to walk both sides of the fence. This is an incredibly serious matter. Whether it's his first sentence about the Great Barrier Reef or whether it's about PEP 11, he should really put his vote and the government's vote where his mouth is. This is just not good enough. Our oceans are incredibly important and the single act that protects those oceans from the federal perspective is the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and we've got a government that's about to delegate that authority to the states. That's how much this government cares about this issue. (Time expired) 18:13 Ms STEGGALL 175696 Warringah I thank the member for Mackellar for tabling this motion. Earlier this year I tabled a petition with 60,000 signatures to this parliament opposing Petroleum Exploration Permit 11, PEP 11. PEP 11 covers 4,500 square kilometres of ocean, from Newcastle through the Central Coast to Manly. The permit area exists adjacent to the coastal boundaries of Warringah, and many constituents have written to me with their concerns. Offshore oil and gas exploration and production through PEP 11 could have dire consequences for our ecosystems, tourism businesses, coastal communities and climate. Under no circumstances should it proceed. The Central Coast and Newcastle both have a gross regional product worth an estimated $14.33 billion and $35 billion respectively. It's beyond ludicrous that this coalition government could put those economies at risk with their obsession with fossil fuels. We must protect these coastal economies. PEP 11 is due to expire next February, so the projects proponents, Advent Energy Ltd and Bounty Oil & Gas NL, are seeking a renewal of the permit and a variation of the conditions to allow for exploratory drilling. I wrote to Minister Pitt asking him to reject the renewal and variation in June and was advised that it was with New South Wales Minister Barilaro and himself. I wrote to Minister Barilaro, and he advised the decision was with Minister Pitt. So Minister Pitt was not forthcoming about any decision he had made. And, unfortunately for all the communities, we don't know what recommendations NOPTA has made to the ministers for their decision. So I say to Minister Pitt, and to the government, once again: coastal communities do not want gas platforms off their coasts through PEP 11. But do we really expect the minister to not back a gas project when all the government's rhetoric to date has been about a gas-led recovery? The government, throughout the Independent Planning Commission's planning process for Narrabri, lent on the commissioners in public statements, put Narrabri on a list of 15 major projects to be fast-tracked and has dedicated $50 million to accelerate the development of the basin, alongside four other projects. We can only hope that good sense will prevail and that investors, insurers and financiers will see the risks inherent in supporting Santos and projects like this. In August, Minister Pitt, seemingly completely deaf to community concerns for climate and oceans, released approximately 100,000 square kilometres of additional gas exploration acreage, spanning coastal waters from Western Australia across to Victoria and Northern Territory. An Australia Institute report found the existing pipeline of 22 gas projects alongside the new prospective gas resources could emit up to three times annual world emissions, so Australia's gas resources alone would chew up 28 per cent of the global carbon budget at a time when we need to reduce it. When releasing the acreage, Minister Pitt said it was a key component of the government's strategy to promote and encourage investment in petroleum exploration for the benefit of the Australian community. So, it seems we are on a continual march to become the world's largest gas producer, despite the science stating that we must leave it in the ground. So, I welcome the member for Mackellar's motion against a deeply unpopular development in his backyard, and I thank the members for Wentworth and North Sydney for speaking up against PEP 11. But will those same members nevertheless support government extension into other people's backyards, gas extraction and exploration in other electorates? It's time to pull back the curtain on how MPs vote. It's time for MPs to be held accountable, for their electorates to know that it's not good enough to say one thing to your community, but then vote in this place in support of expanding fossil fuels and, in fact, voting the same way as climate deniers. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation Amendment (Grid Reliability Fund) Bill 2020 will come to the House in due course. I expect it shortly. If this is enacted, it will pollute Australia's clean bank by allowing it to invest in gas and loss-making projects. So my question to the MPs who don't want PEP 11 in their backyard is this: will these MPs, if they're genuine in opposing this kind of project, withhold their vote or vote against the legislation? For our oceans, businesses, climate and wellbeing, PEP 11 must not go ahead, not in our backyard, in anyone's backyard. No gas off the coast. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265967 Order! Props are not allowed in the chamber. I warn the member against using props in that circumstance, as the last page of a speech. It shouldn't be done. There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. Liquefied Natural Gas Sniffing 208 18:18 Mr RAMSEY HWS Grey I move: That this House: (1) recognises that: (a) Patrick Ryan, aged 16 years, from Port Lincoln South Australia died in February 2020 at a party with friends as a result of inhaling Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) from a barbecue gas bottle; (b) a number of young Australians have died from intentionally inhaling LPG; and (c) inhaling LPG can cause dizziness, coughing, nausea, vomiting, skin irritation, fever, numbness and death; (2) notes that there is presently no label on LPG bottles warning inhalation may cause death; (3) calls on the relevant Minister to: (a) establish an inquiry to investigate the circumstances of such deaths; and (b) develop recommendations to ensure LPG bottles are required to display a warning label which explains the gas is poisonous and of the dangers of inhalation; and (4) asks that the relevant Minister consider the recommendations and urgently bring forward legislation, that if passed, will ensure all LPG cylinders in Australia carry the recommended warnings. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265967 Is there a seconder? Dr Gillespie 72184 I second the motion, and reserve my right to speak. Mr RAMSEY HWS On 9 February this year, Patrick Ryan, called Paddy, was out having a great time with his mates, when it seemed like a good idea to the rest of his crew, and he joined in, to huff the gas out of a nine-kilogram LPG bottle. It killed him. Quite frankly, there's no other way to put it. You can imagine the challenge this has been for his family. It's just the worst nightmare of any family, to have your kid going out having a good time and then their life cut off for no good reason. There has been a committee formed in Port Lincoln by Paddy's father, Adrian, and friends to try to bring about some change, to warn on the bottles that this is a very dangerous exercise. At the moment, I don't think people had even thought of it before. But the idea that there is no warning on the bottle that if inhaled it may kill you—it's an inflammable gas; you shouldn't light it in an enclosed space; we've got all that stuff. There is a whole range of different things that they can tick off on the bottles, but it doesn't actually warn you that if you inhale it it may kill you. Whether or not that would have stopped the kids that night we don't know, but it would have given them a fighting chance of actually making the right decision. I have spoken to a high school counsellor in Port Lincoln who has seen over 90 students since this time, coming from the same school, and only four of them denied ever having done the same. We are given to believe that there is more widespread use throughout Australia. I quote from Adrian's letter to the South Australian government: 'One in six children in Australia 16 and under will have tried inhaling aerosols or LPG products. America has 1,500 to 1,600 children a year that die from huffing, and it is thought that about 200 a year die from inhaling LPG products. In the period from 2002 to 2014, New Zealand had 60 children die from LPG abuse.' I also point out that Adrian pointed out in his letter that he found an article dated 2007 of exactly the same death of a 15-year-old in the northern suburbs of Adelaide—just one breath. I thank Connie Bonaros from SA-BEST. She has brought the issue to the South Australian government through the Legislative Council. The House of Assembly, though, at this stage has elected to defer it for some time. I've spoken to the Premier, and he believes, and I believe, and Gas Energy Australia believe that it would be better if we had a national approach on this particular issue, so that when your caravan goes over the border it's not carrying the wrong labelling. We don't want states going off willy-nilly all over the place doing their own thing. I have spoken to the Attorney-General and have advice from him that he doesn't believe that he has the ability to legislate this at federal level. I accept that advice. But he does say to me that he would be minded to take a leadership role at the next meeting of Commonwealth, state and territory ministers on industrial relations and work health and safety to raise the issue and advocate for reform. I thank him for doing so. In the view of the people of Port Lincoln, in the view of Paddy's family, in my view, something needs to be done and it needs to be done urgently before we lose one more young Australian. As I said, it may not fix the issue. We can put all kinds of warnings on all kinds of things and it doesn't necessarily change the behaviour as we would hope. But, as I argued when we dealt with country-of-origin food labelling, if you don't have the information you can't make a sensible decision. If we have the information on the bottle, then at least people know it is a dangerous substance to be inhaled. It could be as simple as requiring every retailer in Australia, when they sell the bottle or when they refill the bottle—this is where it comes a little more complex, of course—that they have a pile of stickers and they just have to make sure that a legible sticker goes on that bottle when it is returned for refill or swap and go or whatever it might be. I think the answer can be simple. Maybe the path to get there is difficult, but I want this looked at the highest level ASAP. 18:23 Mr PASIN 240756 Barker I rise to support my good friend and colleague the member for Grey and his private member's motion. I congratulate him on his speech and his passion to ensure that we don't see further cases of loss like that of Patrick Ryan. I support this because it does come on the back of the tragic loss of Patrick Ryan, a 16-year-old from Port Lincoln in the member for Grey's electorate. Patrick, by all accounts, was a talented young man with a passion for footy and basketball. He could be just like any young lad of his age. He had his whole life in front of him. As a parliament, we must do all we can to prevent this tragedy from occurring to another family. The proposal today is effectively to make mandatory labelling outlining the dangers of inhaling LPG gas. I'm prepared to concede in this place that I didn't even realise this was a thing until Patrick's circumstance came to my attention. Labelling of this nature is standard across a range of other gas and aerosol products to prevent other forms of hazing or gas inhalation. Current regulations regarding the wholesale distribution of LPG have similar warnings, but there's a gap in the current regulations when LPG gas is sold in small amounts for domestic use, like gas cylinders for barbecues. Although LPG may have a pictorial showing that it is a flammable liquid and it contains gas under pressure, it doesn't require information about the dangers of inhaling the substance. In my view, this is a regulatory gap and it must be fixed because Patrick is by no means the only casualty of inhaling LPG. I'm advised and verily believe that roughly one in six people under the age of 16 have tried inhaling an aerosol of some form or an LPG gas protect. Looking internationally to countries that have collected statistics, Patrick's family also suggests the situation is dire. In America, it is estimated that 200 children a year die from directly inhaling LPG. Closer to home, in New Zealand, between 2002 and 2014, 60 lives were taken from LPG gas misuse. If labelling changes are needed to prevent these practices, then I fully support those regulatory amendments. This also impacts my electorate, as, I expect, it impacts across all our electorates. This is a phenomenon that is sneaking up on us as young people and their behaviours change. Patrick intended to have a fun night out after having a barbecue with friends. He attended a friend's party. Patrick made a mistake. If he were aware of the risks, I'd like to think, and indeed I believe, he would have made a different choice. But, to be quite frank, he wasn't aware of those risks. As you've heard from the member for Grey, one huff, as they call it, can be enough to extinguish a life. This regulatory change would give young people the information they need to rethink this dangerous situation—at least stop and reflect before it's perhaps too late. Preventing avoidable death is why these labelling changes are important. Patrick's uncle and his father, Adrian, have so far fought hard and I commend them for their fight. I am proud to support their efforts by supporting these changes. They lost a beloved family member, which can never be undone. Patrick's family are now pursuing these changes to prevent this tragedy affecting another family and another community like Port Lincoln. In my view, we should do all we can to ensure that this grief is not visited on another young person or their family and we need to act before it's too late. I want to conclude by commending Adrian and Andrew for their campaign and pass on my family's condolences to Patrick's family. I genuinely pray with all my heart that I don't have to give a speech on this topic in this place again. 18:28 Dr ALLEN 282986 Higgins Is there a better way to do things? Can we help in some way? Could we save a life? In this place, we must always ask these questions. I commend the member for Grey's motion as it is indicative of this approach. As a paediatrician and someone who has worked in public health my entire career, I've always fought for there not to be an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff but for measures taken to go to the top of the cliff to prevent people falling off in the first place. This is often very hard to do, and that's why I recommend this motion, because it's all about prevention. The member for Grey's motion highlights a really tragic case. as indicative of this approach. Being contacted by the father of Patrick Ryan, a 16-year-old boy from Port Lincoln who died in February from huffing liquid petroleum gas from a backyard gas bottle, the member for Grey endeavoured to take action. This is sadly all too common an issue that is costing young lives. The school counsellor at Patrick's school has noticed that the practice is widespread. Unlike other misused substances, they are readily available and easily accessible and there is no warning label. The member for Grey's motion is not a silver bullet to addressing this devastating problem; however, if it would save one life, it is something worth doing. Those watching at home may not know what huffing is. It's a form of volatile substance abuse involving inhaling solvents or other household chemicals to get high. Inhalants are central nerve system depressants—meaning they can slow the workings of the brain, particularly breathing and heart muscles. It is necessary to understand that the short- and long-term impacts of huffing can both be devastating. People who are regular or heavy huffers can find it difficult to concentrate on everyday activities, even when they're not inhaling. They may experience nose bleeds, have bloodshot eyes, a frequent cough, constant tiredness, bad breath and sores on, in and around their nose and mouth. Often the person is very weak and unable to think clearly. They lose weight and may become aggressive or feel paranoid. Huffing has also been known to cause brain damage and sudden death, as has occurred in the case we have just discussed. Which members of our community are most affected by huffing? International research has identified inhalant use as a problem with prevalence among young people but particularly amongst those from lower-SES and Indigenous groups. The highest rates of use have been identified in the US, the UK and Australia. Australian studies have identified that prevalence peaks early compared to other drug use and is possibly a gateway drug. It is highest amongst 12- to 14-year-olds, probably because of its ease of accessibility and its cheapness. In fact, for many it is just free. It diminishes afterwards but then these children can go onto other forms of drug-taking. Studies of school-aged cohorts indicate that a significant minority is involved, but this data is quite chilling. In 2002, 21 per cent of Australian 12- to 17-year-old students surveyed reported having used inhalants, compared with 25 per cent reporting having used cannabis. As a paediatrician, I know of these case reports. I have four young kids between the ages of 16 and 24 and they tell me that, in schoolies, this is what kids do. So what needs to be done? Deodorant and other aerosol cans containing butane have the dangers of inhaling gas clearly marked on them, including highlighting the possibility of death. LPG bottles have no such warning. The member for Grey's motion calls for the relevant minister to establish an inquiry to investigate the circumstances of such deaths; to develop recommendations to ensure that LPG bottles are required to display a warning label which explains that the gas is poisonous and the dangers of inhalation; and to consider the recommendations and urgently bring forward legislation that, if passed, will ensure all LPG cylinders in Australia carry the recommended warnings. As I have said, this is not the whole solution, but it's an important first step. Is there a better way to do things? Can we help in some way? Could we save a life? Yes, yes and yes. It is high time that we took this issue seriously, and I thank the member for Grey for his important motion. 18:33 Dr GILLESPIE 72184 Lyne I'd like to commend the member for Grey on putting up this motion. This is a really critical, sad and emotionally draining issue for so many people. As we have learned from the other speakers, it is, unfortunately, not an isolated problem. The tragic story of Patrick Ryan and the mission that his poor father, family and uncle are carrying on is to be really commended. Unfortunately, it's not just LPG that causes the damage. LPG should have labels on it and we should be educating young people on the dangers of it, but it's not just LPG. Glue sniffing is a common teenage pastime—petrol sniffing as well. It's also called snuffing, huffing, chroming and hazing, and is seen as something cool. I did, for one period of my life, work in a brain damage unit where we saw people who'd drunk with alcohol, their brain, their balance and their nerves away. But you can do it express with cans of deodorant, with paint cans and, like I said, by glue sniffing. All the solvents go into your lungs and immediately they're displacing oxygen, which is pretty important for your brain, your body and your lungs. It can not only reduce oxygen, it can replace all the oxygen in your lungs. And then it goes into your bloodstream and it has the propensity to go into fatty tissue. Up here in your brain and in your nerves, you've got lots of lipids and fats, and it just dissolves it. In fact, the best description I've ever seen was by an academic who was talking about it being like melting plastic. That is what these solvents do to your brain and to your nerves. Unfortunately, I've seen young kids who didn't die but, almost worse, they're trapped in an uncoordinated, brain-damaged, simple body because of glue sniffing. We really do need to get on board with an education program, because it's young people who are doing this. By the time we get to our age, we work out, 'This is not such a good thing,' But it's cool amongst the kids: 'Let's go round the back and get something out of the cupboard or out of the shed.' Next thing you know, there's a tragedy. So paediatric teenager-level education as well as parental education—because most parents wouldn't know about this. It is all under the radar, and it is a really tragic story. So, whether it's the states that have to label it or whether it's us to drag them to the table to regulate and label it, I thoroughly agree. I don't care who does it; we just want it done. I totally support the member for Grey. It would be so simple to get a label done. We've got people and organisations like Healthy Harold going around, and all these other organisations that get involved in early adulthood support and education. A lot of people at that adolescent stage do crazy things. We've all done crazy things. In fact, I think of all the crazy things we did, but they were nothing like this. I was too scared to do drugs. I don't know, I must have had a sensible gene from my great grandfather or something. But, going through adolescence is a really dangerous period of a person's life, and some of these things happen because of peer pressure, some of them get sucked into doing it, some have depression and anxiety, and getting out of it by glue sniffing becomes habitual. So it doesn't happen in a big bang, like it happened with poor Patrick Ryan; it can be gradual and very progressive and the next thing you know is they're hooked. They're a brain damaged person and their life isn't what it should be. We've seen the figures in America. It's mind-boggling, and that's just with LPG deaths. There are probably more than 1,600, and a greater figure for damaged ones. So I do support any minister anywhere, whether it's a federal minister going to COAG encouraging his state colleagues to do it or we have to pass some sort of regulation, I don't care. We just need to do it, because it's really important and we don't want to have other young people suffering the same fate. 18:38 Dr WEBSTER 281688 Mallee I rise to support this motion and to offer my condolences to the family of Patrick Ryan and to all the families who've lost loved ones as a result of inhaling LPG. I have not met Adrian Ryan, but I have read his letter outlining the tragic death of his son Patrick, Patty Ryan, aged just 16 years, who died after inhaling liquefied petroleum gas, LPG, from a nine-kilogram BBQ gas bottle. Patty's dad said, 'Just one breath killed him.' This could happen to any child. Adrian understandably wants no other parent to go through what he and his wife have gone through in losing their son. He is looking for safety labelling to be introduced to discourage kids from thinking it's just a bit of fun but not too serious. Adrian says that too many children have died from what is called huffing for decades, and yet labelling has been inadequate and there appears a strange lack of conviction on the part of the South Australian state government to act to rectify this. It begs the question as to whether it is appropriate and timely to investigate a national inquiry and legislation. Adrian wrote that one in six children in Australia 16 years and under will have tried inhaling aerosols or LPG products. America has 1,500 to 1,600 children a year die from huffing, and it is thought about 200 a year die from inhaling LPG products. In a period from 2002-14 New Zealand had 60 children die from LPG misuse. Aerosol cans such as deodorant, which contain butane, have the dangers clearly labelled, including the highlighting of possible death. LPG bottles have no such warnings. Standards Australia says LPG is considered to be both a dangerous good and a hazardous chemical. Inhaling LPG can cause dizziness, coughing, nausea, vomiting, skin irritation, fever, numbness and death. There are strict state legislation and rules about labelling of LPG which apply to manufacturers, transporters and suppliers. Once LPG is supplied in small amounts for domestic use, however, the rules are less clear. There is also no nationally consistent approach to the regulation of LPG cylinders in Australia. In South Australia, where Paddy tragically lost his life, the Dangerous Substances (General) Regulations 2017 regulate the labelling of any LPG cylinder being stored by a person in South Australia. These laws require the appliance to which the gas bottle is attached to have a warning label. In addition it should include a pictogram which indicates that LPG is a flammable liquid and a pictogram that the gas bottle contains gas under pressure. However, there is no clear regulation that requires information about LPG as a possible asphyxiant. I understand the Attorney-General is interested in raising this issue with his state and territory counterparts to advocate for reform in this space. I encourage the Attorney-General to do so. I would recommend the adoption of a nationally consistent approach to the labelling of LPG cylinders to improve the communication of health risks and to prevent further tragedies from occurring. The inhalation of LPG follows a worrying trend that is damaging the health and safety of young people in our communities. Other inhalation trends include paint huffing and chroming as well as nitrous oxide, or nangs. These practices are viewed as cheap ways to achieve a quick high but are hugely dangerous and can lead to death, just like the inhalation of LPG. I stand with the member for Grey and commend him in calling on the relevant minister to: (a) establish an inquiry to investigate the circumstances of such deaths; and (b) develop recommendations to ensure LPG bottles are required to display a warning label which explains the gas is poisonous and of the dangers of inhalation; and (4) asks that the relevant Minister consider the recommendations and urgently bring forward legislation, that if passed, will ensure all LPG cylinders in Australia carry the recommended warnings. Adrian Ryan and parents all over the world who have lost children to this tragic practice will be watching and hoping for change. Debate adjourned. Federation Chamber adjourned at 18:44