2021-06-16 46 1 6 House of Reps 0 1

Wednesday, 16 June 2021

The SPEAKER ( Hon. Tony Smith ) took the chair at 09:30, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.

 

MOTIONS 1 MOTIONS Member for Bowman 1 09:31 Ms THWAITES 282212 Jagajaga I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Jagajaga from moving the following motion immediately— That the House: (1) notes: (a) the Federal Government continues to ignore calls to develop a national response plan to help farmers and regional communities impacted by the horrific mouse plague; (b) the NSW Agriculture Minister has formally written to the Federal Government calling for a national response plan, but his request has been ignored; (c) the Minister for Agriculture remains silent about how the Federal Government can assist; and (d) farmers and regional communities continue to be ignored by this Federal Government; and (2) therefore, calls on the Acting Prime Minister to attend the Chamber and explain how he will take responsibility to help farmers and regional communities deal with the impact of the devastating mouse plague. The Prime Minister and the Acting Prime Minister are ignoring the voices of numerous women in the member for Bowman's electorate. What does that say about leadership in this place? What does that say about the standards we accept? 09:32 The SPEAKER 00APG The member will resume her seat. The minister has the call. 09:32 Mr HOWARTH 247742 Petrie I move: That the member for Jagajaga be no longer heard. The SPEAKER 00APG The question is that the member be no longer heard.

The House divided. [09:36]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 74 AYES Alexander, JG Allen, K Andrews, KJ Andrews, KL Archer, BK Bell, AM Broadbent, RE Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Coleman, DB Conaghan, PJ Connelly, V Coulton, M Drum, DK (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Evans, TM Falinski, JG Fletcher, PW Flint, NJ Frydenberg, JA Gee, AR Gillespie, DA Hamilton, GR Hammond, CM Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Irons, SJ Joyce, BT Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Leeser, J Ley, SP Littleproud, D Liu, G Marino, NB Martin, FB McCormack, MF McIntosh, MI Morton, B O'Brien, LS 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 Steggall, Z Stevens, J Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Thompson, P Tudge, AE van Manen, AJ Vasta, RX Wallace, AB Webster, AE Wilson, RJ Wilson, TR Wood, JP Wyatt, KG Young, T Zimmerman, T 68 NOES Albanese, AN Aly, A Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Burke, AS Burney, LJ Burns, J Butler, MC Butler, TM Byrne, AM Chalmers, JE Clare, JD Claydon, SC Coker, EA Collins, JM Conroy, PM Dick, MD Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Fitzgibbon, JA Freelander, MR Georganas, S Giles, AJ Gorman, P Gosling, LJ Haines, H Hayes, CP Hill, JC Husic, EN Jones, SP Kearney, G Keogh, MJ Khalil, P King, CF King, MMH Leigh, AK Marles, RD McBain, KL McBride, EM Mitchell, BK Mitchell, RG Mulino, D Murphy, PJ Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ Owens, JA Payne, AE Perrett, GD Phillips, FE Plibersek, TJ Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Smith, DPB Snowdon, WE Stanley, AM (teller) Swanson, MJ Templeman, SR Thistlethwaite, MJ Thwaites, KL Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wells, AS Wilkie, AD Wilson, JH Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 09:39 The SPEAKER 00APG Is the motion seconded? The member for Corangamite. 09:39 Ms COKER 263547 Corangamite It is a disgrace. The member for Bowman should resign now. The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Corangamite will resume her seat. The motion lapses for want of a seconder. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG No. The motion has lapsed for want of a seconder. Government members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG Members on my right, could you cease interjecting. It's no secret. We do a lot of these motions. They have to be moved. They have to be seconded. If they're not seconded, they lapse. I don't think it will mean there are fewer of them in the future. On that note, the member for Franklin has sought the call. Mouse Plague 3 09:40 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Franklin from moving the following motion immediately— That the House: (1) notes: (a) the Federal Government continues to ignore calls to develop a national response plan to help farmers and regional communities impacted by the horrific mouse plague; (b) the NSW Agriculture Minister has formally written to the Federal Government calling for a national response plan, but his request has been ignored; (c) the Minister for Agriculture remains silent about how the Federal Government can assist; and (d) farmers and regional communities continue to be ignored by this Federal Government; and (2) therefore, calls on the Acting Prime Minister to attend the Chamber and explain how he will take responsibility to help farmers and regional communities deal with the impact of the devastating mouse plague. Why won't this government help farmers with this mouse plague? Why are members of the National Party, who are meant to be supporting farmers— The SPEAKER 00APG The member will resume her seat. The Leader of the House? Mr Dutton 00AKI Given you've never been to a farm— The SPEAKER 00APG No. The Leader of the House will resume his seat. The member for Franklin has the call. Ms COLLINS HWM That is an outrageous slur by the member over there. This side of the House knows more about regional communities— The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the House— Mr Dreyfus interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Isaacs will leave under standing order 94(a). The member for Isaacs then left the chamber. The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the House has the call. 09:41 Mr DUTTON 00AKI Dickson I move: That the Member be no longer heard. The SPEAKER 00APG The question is the member for Franklin be no further heard. A division having been c alled and the bells being rung— The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order? Mr Albanese R36 The Leader of the House should withdraw. The SPEAKER 00APG I've made it clear— Government members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG I'm not going to have those on my right say 'no', or they can exit as well. I thank the Leader of the House. Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The Manager of Opposition Business? Mr Burke DYW The Leader of the House should withdraw the interjection and apologise. There are standards we keep. That should be withdrawn. The SPEAKER 00APG Members on my right. Once again, in this situation where people are interjecting and expecting me to simultaneously deal with that and listen to every word that's said, did the Leader of the House make an unparliamentary remark? Mr Burke DYW It is in the interests of the House that family members are not brought into debate. No-one wants us to change that principle. It should simply be withdrawn. The SPEAKER 00APG As members know, I've asked the Leader of the House whether he made an unparliamentary remark. It obviously places the chair in a difficult situation, where I'm not hearing every interchange that's occurring because I'm trying to manage all aspects of the House. I'd just say to the Manager of Opposition Business: I don't want to be in a position where remarks are interjections where—the Leader of the House said he didn't make an parliamentary remark. I don't want the remarks to be remade, in that sense. But I've asked the Leader of the House whether he made an unparliamentary remark. The Manager of Opposition Business has made his request. I've asked whether an unparliamentary remark was made. The Leader of the House has said he hasn't made one. I asked the Leader of the House a question. He answered it. The question is that the member for Franklin be no further heard.

The House divided. [09:46]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 73 AYES Alexander, JG Allen, K Andrews, KJ Andrews, KL Archer, BK Bell, AM Broadbent, RE Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Coleman, DB Conaghan, PJ Connelly, V Coulton, M Drum, DK (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Evans, TM Falinski, JG Fletcher, PW Flint, NJ Frydenberg, JA Gee, AR Gillespie, DA Hamilton, GR Hammond, CM Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Irons, SJ Joyce, BT Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Leeser, J Ley, SP Littleproud, D Liu, G Marino, NB Martin, FB McCormack, MF McIntosh, MI Morton, B O'Brien, LS 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 Tehan, DT Thompson, P Tudge, AE van Manen, AJ Vasta, RX Wallace, AB Webster, AE Wilson, RJ Wilson, TR Wood, JP Wyatt, KG Young, T Zimmerman, T 68 NOES Albanese, AN Aly, A Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Burke, AS Burney, LJ Burns, J Butler, MC Butler, TM Byrne, AM Chalmers, JE Clare, JD Claydon, SC Coker, EA Collins, JM Conroy, PM Dick, MD Elliot, MJ Fitzgibbon, JA Freelander, MR Georganas, S Giles, AJ Gorman, P Gosling, LJ Haines, H Hayes, CP Hill, JC Husic, EN Jones, SP Kearney, G Keogh, MJ Khalil, P King, CF King, MMH Leigh, AK Marles, RD McBain, KL McBride, EM Mitchell, BK Mitchell, RG Mulino, D Murphy, PJ Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ Owens, JA Payne, AE Perrett, GD Phillips, FE Plibersek, TJ Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Smith, DPB Snowdon, WE Stanley, AM (teller) Steggall, Z Swanson, MJ Templeman, SR Thistlethwaite, MJ Thwaites, KL Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wells, AS Wilkie, AD Wilson, JH Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

09:46 The SPEAKER 00APG Is the motion seconded? The member for Paterson. 09:47 Ms SWANSON 264170 Paterson I second this motion. At best, this government protects pests. At worst, it does nothing to eradicate them. The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Paterson will resume her seat. The Leader of the House. 09:49 Mr DUTTON 00AKI Dickson I move: That the Member be no longer heard. The SPEAKER 00APG The question is that the member be no longer heard.

The House divided. [09:50]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

73 AYES Alexander, JG Allen, K Andrews, KJ Andrews, KL Archer, BK Bell, AM Broadbent, RE Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Coleman, DB Conaghan, PJ Connelly, V Coulton, M Drum, DK (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Evans, TM Falinski, JG Fletcher, PW Flint, NJ Frydenberg, JA Gee, AR Gillespie, DA Hamilton, GR Hammond, CM Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Irons, SJ Joyce, BT Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Leeser, J Ley, SP Littleproud, D Liu, G Marino, NB Martin, FB McCormack, MF McIntosh, MI Morton, B O'Brien, LS 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 Tehan, DT Thompson, P Tudge, AE van Manen, AJ Vasta, RX Wallace, AB Webster, AE Wilson, RJ Wilson, TR Wood, JP Wyatt, KG Young, T Zimmerman, T 68 NOES Albanese, AN Aly, A Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Burke, AS Burney, LJ Burns, J Butler, MC Butler, TM Byrne, AM Chalmers, JE Clare, JD Claydon, SC Coker, EA Collins, JM Conroy, PM Dick, MD Elliot, MJ Fitzgibbon, JA Freelander, MR Georganas, S Giles, AJ Gorman, P Gosling, LJ Haines, H Hayes, CP Hill, JC Husic, EN Jones, SP Kearney, G Keogh, MJ Khalil, P King, CF King, MMH Leigh, AK Marles, RD McBain, KL McBride, EM Mitchell, BK Mitchell, RG Mulino, D Murphy, PJ Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ Owens, JA Payne, AE Perrett, GD Phillips, FE Plibersek, TJ Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Smith, DPB Snowdon, WE Stanley, AM (teller) Steggall, Z Swanson, MJ Templeman, SR Thistlethwaite, MJ Thwaites, KL Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wells, AS Wilkie, AD Wilson, JH Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 09:51 The SPEAKER 00APG The question now is that the motion moved by the honourable member for Franklin be disagreed to.

The House divided. [09:52]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

75 AYES Alexander, JG Allen, K Andrews, KJ Andrews, KL Archer, BK Bell, AM Broadbent, RE Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Coleman, DB Conaghan, PJ Connelly, V Coulton, M Drum, DK (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Evans, TM Falinski, JG Fletcher, PW Flint, NJ Frydenberg, JA Gee, AR Gillespie, DA Haines, H Hamilton, GR Hammond, CM Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Irons, SJ Joyce, BT Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Leeser, J Ley, SP Littleproud, D Liu, G Marino, NB Martin, FB McCormack, MF McIntosh, MI Morton, B O'Brien, LS 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 Steggall, Z Stevens, J Sukkar, MS Taylor, AJ Tehan, DT Thompson, P Tudge, AE van Manen, AJ Vasta, RX Wallace, AB Webster, AE Wilson, RJ Wilson, TR Wood, JP Wyatt, KG Young, T Zimmerman, T 66 NOES Albanese, AN Aly, A Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Burke, AS Burney, LJ Burns, J Butler, MC Butler, TM Byrne, AM Chalmers, JE Clare, JD Claydon, SC Coker, EA Collins, JM Conroy, PM Dick, MD Elliot, MJ Fitzgibbon, JA Freelander, MR Georganas, S Giles, AJ Gorman, P Gosling, LJ Hayes, CP Hill, JC Husic, EN Jones, SP Kearney, G Keogh, MJ Khalil, P King, CF King, MMH Leigh, AK Marles, RD McBain, KL McBride, EM Mitchell, BK Mitchell, RG Mulino, D Murphy, PJ Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ Owens, JA Payne, AE Perrett, GD Phillips, FE Plibersek, TJ Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Shorten, WR Smith, DPB Snowdon, WE Stanley, AM (teller) Swanson, MJ Templeman, SR Thistlethwaite, MJ Thwaites, KL Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wells, AS Wilkie, AD Wilson, JH Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 09:53 The SPEAKER 00APG The Manager of Opposition Business. Mr Burke DYW Mr Speaker, I have a question for you. The SPEAKER 00APG Yes? Mr Burke DYW I appreciate your comment earlier that when interjections are going back and forth you can't be expected to hear every interjection. I also appreciate that decisions on interjections and withdrawals have to be made at the time. Notwithstanding that, I ask whether you could examine the tape and, if you do find that an unparliamentary remark was made, that you could then privately counsel the member concerned. It has often been the case— Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG Members on both sides! Mr Hawke interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The minister for immigration is warned. Mr Burke DYW It's often been the case that members of parliament— The SPEAKER 00APG Just pause for a second. If members can't see the irony that the Manager of Opposition Business is raising with me a question where he's just said that he understands that with the level of interjections I can't hear every interaction that's going on and then, while he's on his feet, members are interjecting—it's a pretty poor reflection. The Manager of Opposition Business will proceed. Mr Burke DYW It will often be the case that members of parliament say, in the heat of the moment, more than they should, and then they withdraw it. It is also the case that if the convention of not going after family members is not to be maintained in this House then the House does change in a way that is way beyond partisan politics. So, I simply ask that the moment not be lost and that you examine the tape and, given that it will be too late to deal with it within the House, that you privately counsel the member concerned if you do hear an unparliamentary remark at that particular time. The SPEAKER 00APG I thank the Manager of Opposition Business. Speakers have made clear in the past that they don't go and examine tapes and all the rest of it. But I will say this. I've asked whether an unparliamentary remark was made. The Leader of the House has said that he didn't make an unparliamentary remark. That doesn't mean that things that are said can lead to disorder in the House, and all members need to reflect on that. It's always open, of course, for any member, having reflected on that, to deal with a matter if they so decide. I'll leave it at that at this point. COMMITTEES 8 COMMITTEES Selection Committee 8 Report 8 09:57 The SPEAKER 00APG I present report No. 33 of the Selection Committee, relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and private members' business on Monday 21 June 2021 and Wednesday 23 June 2021. The report will be printed in the Hansard for today, and the committee's determinations will appear on tomorrow's Notice Paper. Copies of the report have been placed on the table. The report read as follows— Report relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and of private Members' business 1. The Committee met in private session on Tuesday, 15 June 2021. 2. The Committee deliberated on items of private Members' business items listed on the Notice Paper and notices lodged on Tuesday, 15 June 2021, and determined the order of precedence and times on Monday, 21 June 2021 and Wednesday, 23 June 2021, as follows: Monday, 21 June 2021 Items for House of Representatives Chamber (10.10 am to 12 noon) PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS Notices 1   Mr C. Kelly: To present a Bill for an Act to protect the right of Australians to make their own health decisions in relation to COVID vaccination, and for related purposes. (No Domestic COVID Vaccine Passports Bill 2021)    (Notice given 26 May 2021.) Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142. 2   Mr Watts: To present a Bill for an Act to require the reporting of ransomware payments to the Australian Cyber Security Centre, and for related purposes. (Ransomware Payments Bill 2021)    (Notice given 15 June 2021.) Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142. 3   Mr Christensen: To present a Bill for an Act to protect children born alive (including as a result of terminations), and for related purposes. (Human Rights (Children Born Alive Protection) Bill 2021)    (Notice given 15 June 2021.) Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142. 4   Mr Katter: To present a Bill for an Act to require the repatriation of Defence data to sovereign Australian storage facilities, and for related purposes. (Repatriation of Defence Data Bill 2021)    (Notice given 15 June 2021.) Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142. 5   Mr Wilkie: To present a Bill for an Act to amend the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, and for related purposes. (Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Cleaning up Political Donations) Bill 2021)    (Notice given 15 June 2021.) Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142. 6   Mr Thompson: To move: That this House commends the Government on the delivery of the 2021‑22 budget, and in particular the measures to incentivise business investment, including: (1) extending temporary full expensing; (2) extending loss carry-back measures; and (3) establishing a 'patent box' for the biotechnology and medical technology sectors.    (Notice given 15 June 2021.) Time allotted—30 minutes. Speech time limits— Mr Thompson—5 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. 7   Mr Bowen: To move: That this House: (1) recognises that the Assyrian people, who are Christian by religion, are an original and Indigenous people of Iraq and encourages the Iraqi Government to reflect this in the Constitution of Iraq; (2) notes the aspirations of the Assyrian and Chaldean people for the establishment of an autonomous region in the Nineveh Plains and welcomes the in-principle agreement of the Iraqi Government to this request in 2016; (3) being aware of the Assyrian aspirations for the establishment of an autonomous province, calls on the Iraqi Government to take all appropriate steps to protect the human rights of minorities, including the Assyrian Christian people, and to support the continuation of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions; (4) reaffirms the rights of Christian and other minorities of Iraq to live in peace and freedom and calls for all steps to be taken to ensure that members of the affected communities can live in freedom in Iraq; and (5) calls on the Turkish Government to immediately cease its military campaign in civilian areas of northern Iraq which has resulted in the evacuation of dozens of Assyrian villages and the displacement of thousands of Assyrians.    (Notice given 15 June 2021.) Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 12 noon. Speech time limits— Mr Bowen—5 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. Wednesday, 23 June 2021 Items for Federation Chamber (10.30 am to 1 pm) PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS Notices 1   Mr Burns: To move: That this House: (1) notes that: (a) refugees transferred to Australia from Nauru and Papua New Guinea for medical treatment are still being held in immigration detention centres and alternative places of detention, such as hotels, in Australia; (b) many of these individuals have now been detained for over eight years and have suffered significant psychological harm as result of their prolonged and indefinite detention; (c) the offshore detention program will cost taxpayers $811 million alone in the 2021-22 financial year despite: (i) the impact on the physical and mental health of detainees, and; (ii) repeated offers to resettle asylum seekers from New Zealand; and (d) there is overwhelming community support for the fair and humane treatment of Medevac refugees, including their release from detention, as evidenced by the #TimeForAHome campaign of over 160 civil society groups and organisations; and (2) calls on the Government to: (a) immediately accept New Zealand's offer to resettle 150 refugees per year; (b) work towards resettling people languishing in indefinite detention; and; (c) move refugees transferred to Australia from Nauru and Papua New Guinea for medical treatment still being held in immigration detention centres and alternative places of detention into the community recognising that 'it's cheaper for people to be in the community than it is to be at a hotel or for us to be paying for them to be in detention and if they're demonstrated not to be a threat'.    (Notice given 3 June 2021.) Time allotted—35 minutes. Speech time limits— Mr Burns—5 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 7 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. 2   Mr Leeser: To move: That this House: (1) notes the death of His Royal Highness the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; (2) remembers his extraordinary life of service and sacrifice on behalf of the Commonwealth; (3) acknowledges his important contribution to Australia, through his visits, patronage of numerous organisations and establishment of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards; and (4) offers condolences to Her Majesty The Queen and members of the Royal Family.    (Notice given 12 May 2021.) Time allotted—30 minutes. Speech time limits— Mr Leeser—5 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. 3   Dr Leigh: To move: That this House: (1) acknowledges that July 2021 marks the 30th anniversary of South Africa's dismantling of its nuclear arsenal in early July 1991; (2) notes that: (a) this represents the only instance in history when a nuclear power has voluntarily renounced nuclear weapons; and (b) the decision to create nuclear weapons was made in the early 1980s, and the decision to terminate the program (which then included six weapons) was made by President FW de Klerk in 1989, and implemented over the following years; (3) commends South Africa on this momentous decision, which stands as a proud example to other nuclear weapon states; and (4) calls on: (a) all states that possess nuclear weapons to take measures that will lower the chance of nuclear war, including reducing the size of their stockpiles, taking weapons off hair-trigger alert, installing kill switches in all missiles, and committing to a no-first-use policy; and (b) the Government to work in international forums to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.    (Notice given 17 March 2021.) Time allotted—30 minutes. Speech time limits— Dr Leigh—5 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. 4   Mr Simmonds: To move: That this House: (1) acknowledges that 1 in 6 Australian families face difficulty when trying to start a family and for many this is not straightforward; (2) notes that this is a very distressing time for couples who face both emotional and financial strain throughout this journey; (3) further acknowledges the significant investment made by the Government in helping Australian couples start a family using In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) by: (a) the establishment of the Your IVF Website which helps couples navigate the complicated process of IVF, have an informed understanding of their chance of success and enable them to make the right decisions for them; and (b) investing $95.9 million for new tests on the Medicare Benefits Schedule for pre-IVF genetic testing for embryos for specific genetic or chromosomal abnormalities prior to implantation and pregnancy; and (4) affirms the commitment of the House to help Australian couples achieve their goal of experiencing the joys of parenthood.    (Notice given 24 May 2021.) Time allotted—45 minutes. Speech time limits— Mr Simmonds—5 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 9 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. Orders of the day 1   Family Law Amendment (A Step Towards a Safer Family Law System) Bill 2020 (Mr Perrett): Second reading—Resumption of debate (from24May2021). Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 1 pm. Speech time limits— All Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 2 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. Items for Federation Chamber (4.45 pm to 7.30 pm) PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS Notices—continued 5   Ms Owens: To move: That this House: (1) acknowledges the bicentenary of Catholic education in Australia; (2) notes that: (a) the first official Catholic school was founded by Fr John Therry in Parramatta in 1820; (b) Catholic schools have educated millions of Australians over the past 200 years; and (c) today, Catholic schools are the largest provider of schooling in Australia (outside of government) educating one in five Australian school-age children; and (3) congratulates Catholic schools and their teachers, staff and students on this incredible achievement.    (Notice given 25 May 2021.) Time allotted—30 minutes. Speech time limits— Ms Owens—5 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. 6   Mr Thompson: To move: That this House: (1) recognises the service and sacrifice of those who have served in the Australian Defence Force, along with that of their families; (2) notes: (a) the Government's 2019 election commitment to establish a network of Veteran Wellbeing Centres in Townsville, Perth, Wodonga, Darwin, Adelaide and Nowra; (b) that these centres, which are being developed in partnership with the ex-service community and state governments, will bring together a range of critical services relied upon by veterans and their families, including the health treatment, mental health support, employment and transition assistance and advocacy support; and (c) that the Government committed an additional $10.7 million in the 2021-22 Budget towards expansion of the wellbeing centre network into south-east Queensland and Tasmania; and (3) acknowledges the critical importance of such partnerships between governments and the ex-service community in supporting the health and wellbeing of Australia's veterans and their families.    (Notice given 25 May 2021.) Time allotted—30 minutes. Speech time limits— Mr Thompson—5 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. 7   Mr Katter: To move: That this House: (1) notes that: (a) in 2015, the Northern Territory Government foolishly awarded a 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin to Shandong Landbridge Group, a privately held company with ties to the Chinese Government and Communist Party of China; and (b) the foreign ownership of the Port of Darwin represents a significant threat to Australia's strategic interests; and (2) calls on the Commonwealth Government to: (a) immediately prioritise Australia's sovereignty and strategic interests; (b) take steps to force the immediate sale of the Port of Darwin to an Australian-owned company; and (c) ensure that the Port of Darwin stays in the hands of the Australians serving our national interest.    (Notice given 1 June 2021.) Time allotted—25 minutes. Speech time limits— Mr Katter—5 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 5 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. 8   Mrs McIntosh: To move: That this House: (1) notes that the Government has recognised the value of Australia's growing space sector by including space as one of the six national priority manufacturing sectors in the $1.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy; (2) welcomes the Government's goal of tripling the space industry by 2030 to $12 billion; (3) congratulates the new head of the Australian Space Agency, Mr Enrico Palermo on his appointment and notes his significant industry and corporate experience in the sector; (4) commends the Government for enabling Australian businesses to become part of international space supply chain and have a role in NASA's Moon to Mars mission; and (5) further welcomes the release of the Space Sector Industry Road Map and the opening of grants for this sector under the Modern Manufacturing Initiative's Translation and Integration streams.    (Notice given 22 February 2021.) Time allotted—30 minutes. Speech time limits— Mrs McIntosh—5 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. 9   Ms T. M. Butler: To move: That this House: (1) notes: (a) it has now been more than two months since the Member for Bowman said he would step down from all of his parliamentary positions; (b) the Member for Bowman remains the Chair of the Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Training, a role for which he is paid an additional amount in the order of $23,000 per annum; (c) the Prime Minister and his government have repeatedly voted to protect the Member for Bowman's position despite the Prime Minister's acknowledgement that the Member for Bowman's conduct had been inappropriate; and (d) that by protecting the Member for Bowman, the Prime Minister is tacitly endorsing his inappropriate conduct, and the Prime Minster is also putting his own political interests ahead of his responsibility to show leadership; and (2) calls on the Prime Minister to unequivocally reject the Member for Bowman's conduct by ensuring his removal from his lucrative committee chair role.    (Notice given 1 June 2021.) Time allotted—25 minutes. Speech time limits— Ms T. M. Butler—5 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 5 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. 10   Mr R. J. Wilson: To move: That this House: (1) notes the Government's ongoing commitment to improving connectivity for regional businesses, and better connecting regional communities through the Roads of Strategic Importance (ROSI) initiative; (2) recognises that the ROSI initiative upgrades key freight roads to efficiently connect agricultural and mining regions to ports, airports and other transport hubs; (3) commends the Government for its funding of $4.9 billion for projects nation-wide to deliver works such as road sealing, flood immunity, strengthening and widening, pavement rehabilitation, bridge and culvert upgrades and road realignments; and (4) acknowledges that the ROSI initiative is providing substantial social and economic benefits, including opportunities for greater regional employment and business growth.    (Notice given 15 June 2021.) Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 7.30 pm. Speech time limits— Mr R. J. Wilson—5 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes. each. [Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 5 x 5 mins] The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day. MR L. O'BRIEN MP Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives 16 June 2021 BILLS 14 BILLS COVID-19 Disaster Payment (Funding Arrangements) Bill 2021 14

COVID-19 Disaster Payment (Funding Arrangements) Bill 2021

First Reading 14 Second Reading 14 09:58 Mr LITTLEPROUD 265585 Maranoa (): I move: That this bill be now read a second time. This bill seeks to appropriate from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the purposes of making the COVID-19 disaster payment in the 2021-22 financial year. Recurring outbreaks of COVID-19 and subsequent state government 'lockdowns' have meant that many people have not been able to get to work and earn an income due to stay-at-home orders. The government is committed to supporting Australians impacted economically by COVID-19. The COVID-19 disaster payment is a one-off, time limited payment for eligible individuals who are unable to work and earn an income in an area under a state public health order for a 'lockdown' that lasts longer than seven days and that has also been determined to be a Commonwealth hotspot. The payment is delivered by Services Australia. The granted claims for the payment are currently being paid out of an annual appropriation. This bill seeks to make a special appropriation available to pay eligible claims for the payment. A special appropriation is the most suitable mechanism to fund the payment as it is a demand driven program where it is difficult to quantify how many people will be eligible as a person's unique circumstances will determine if they meet the criteria. While the situation in Melbourne continues to improve and they are thankfully no longer in lockdown, there is no knowing when Victoria or another state might need to use lockdown measures in the future. This means that expenditure associated with the COVID-19 disaster payment cannot be reliably predicted for the purpose of an annual appropriation. Introducing a special appropriation means that the government has secure funding for all people who qualify for the COVID-19 disaster payment should we need to use it. The bill also provides that the National Recovery and Resilience Agency will report on the COVID-19 disaster payment in their annual report. Australians are resilient and will do what needs to be done in terms of abiding by public health orders. Sometimes that comes at a personal financial cost. The COVID-19 disaster payment and the pandemic leave disaster payment are there to support those who need it the most. I commend the bill to the House. Debate adjourned. Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response) Bill 2021 14

Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response) Bill 2021

First Reading 14 Second Reading 14 10:01 Mr SUKKAR 242515 Deakin I move: That this bill be now read a second time. This bill makes some important changes to facilitate COVID-19 disaster payments. Schedule 1 to the bill extends the existing power in the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 that allows the Treasurer to declare eligible state and territory COVID-19 business support grant program payments to be free from income tax. This legislation will extend eligibility to grants provided in the 2021-22 financial year, in recognition of the ongoing economic impacts of COVID-19, as evidenced by the recent Victorian lockdowns. Under the existing measure, payments received by small and medium businesses under eligible state and territory grant programs are free from income tax. As this treatment can only apply to payments received in the 2020-21 financial year it is necessary to extend this to the 2021-22 financial year so that it can apply to future payments. These changes are consistent with the government's broader commitment to support those businesses and individuals impacted by the public health directives put in place from time to time to curb the spread of COVID-19. All states and territories are eligible to apply for the same tax treatment where they have grant programs focused on supporting small and medium businesses facing exceptional circumstances in relation to COVID-19. Schedule 2 to the bill amends the tax secrecy provisions in the Taxation Administration Act 1953 to allow the ATO to share protected taxpayer information with Services Australia to assist Services Australia with administering the COVID-19 disaster payment. To minimise the number of ineligible applicants receiving payments, Services Australia will conduct integrity checks on applications for disaster payments using data provided by the ATO. This amendment will help ensure that only those eligible for COVID-19 disaster recovery payments receive them and that COVID-19 disaster recovery payments are properly targeted to individuals impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Full details of the measures are contained in the explanatory memorandum. Debate adjourned. Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority Amendment (Governance and Other Measures) Bill 2021 15

Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority Amendment (Governance and Other Measures) Bill 2021

First Reading 15 Second Reading 15 10:04 Mr COULTON HWN Parkes I move: That this bill be now read a second time. Australia has implemented a best-practice donation system and is a leader in organ transplantation. Since the commencement of the Australian government's national program to increase organ and tissue donation for transplantation in 2009 there has been a trend of significant growth in donation rates, with more than 14,000 Australians receiving a life-saving organ transplant. For someone who is seriously ill an organ or a tissue transplant can mean the difference between life and death, between being healthy or sick, between seeing or being blind, between being active or never walking again. Transplantation enables people to resume an active role in their family, workplace and community. Organ donation gives someone who has organ failure a second chance at life. Few people have the opportunity to become an organ donor. An individual needs to die in hospital, with organs functioning well, to be a donor. Only around two per cent of people who die in a hospital are able to be considered for organ donation, and that's only around 1,300 people a year. The Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority, commonly known as the Organ and Tissue Authority, manages the implementation of the Australian government's national reform program to increase organ and tissue donation and transplantation in partnership with state and territory governments, the national DonateLife Network, the donation and transplantation clinical sectors, eye and tissue banks and the community. Under the current governance arrangements of the Organ and Tissue Authority the board is accountable under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, the PGPA Act, and reports directly to the responsible Commonwealth minister. The chief executive officer is a member of the board and is responsible for the day-to-day administration of the organisation. The board was established on 1 July 2017 following a review of the implementation of the national reform agenda on organ and tissue donation and transplantation conducted by Ernst & Young in 2016. Following the review, legislative changes established the board as an accountable authority of the Organ and Tissue Authority under the PGPA Act. This resulted in OTA becoming the first non-corporate Commonwealth entity to have a governance board as the accountable authority. In July 2020 the Organ and Tissue Authority governance board undertook an internal review as required under the board's charter. The results indicated a clear consensus from board members on the need for increased time and capacity to contribute to the organisation's strategic direction and provide advice and support to the CEO. This bill will transition the role of accountable authority from the board back to the CEO and replace the existing governance board with an advisory board under the Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority Act 2008. These governance changes will align the Organ and Tissue Authority with the governance structures of most other non-corporate Commonwealth entities. This bill will amend the functions of the CEO to include all functions of an accountable authority under the PGPA Act and establish the advisory board to provide advice and expertise to the CEO on organ and tissue donation and transplantation matters. There are no changes to the existing functions of the Organ and Tissue Authority. The advisory board will have skills based membership harnessing expertise, experience and knowledge from a broad range of areas from within the organ and tissue sector, including: public administration of business or management; hospital or health organisation leadership; health consumer of donation or transplantation services; promotion of donation and transplantation; community leadership and engagement; and clinical expertise in organ and tissue donation and transplantation. All advisory board members except the chair will be appointed by the minister responsible for organ and tissue donation and transplantation matters in consultation with the jurisdictions. The chair will be appointed directly by the responsible minister. These changes to the governance structure of the Organ and Tissue Authority will allow the board a greater strategic focus to provide expertise and advice to the work of the Organ and Tissue Authority. This will support the Organ and Tissue Authority to set the priorities for the future to improve organ and tissue donation, retrieval and transplantation outcomes. I would like to acknowledge the valuable work of the Organ and Tissue Authority since its establishment. The transition of governance from the board to the CEO will better support the authority to more effectively achieve its strategic goals of saving life and improving the quality of life for more Australians. Debate adjourned. Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals) Bill 2021 16

Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals) Bill 2021

First Reading 16 Second Reading 16 10:09 Mr WOOD E0F La Trobe I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals) Bill 2021 will amend the Customs Tariff Act 1995 (Customs Tariff Act) to incorporate three customs tariff proposals which provide for a 'free' rate of customs duty for a range of imported goods. Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 1) 2021, Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 2) 2021 and Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 3) 2021 were tabled in parliament in February, March and May of this year, respectively. The measures contained in these proposals have supported the availability of health and hygiene products in the Australian community, contributed to Australia's ability to fulfil international defence commitments and facilitated continued research and development in the automotive sector. The incorporation of the measure contained in Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 1) 2021 extends, from 31 December 2020 to 30 June 2021, the 'free' rate of customs duty for imported prescribed medical and hygiene products capable of use in combating the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Temporary concessional item 57 of schedule 4 to the Customs Tariff Act commenced on 1 February 2020, and, with industry support, the end date of the concession was previously extended from 31 July 2020 to 31 December 2020. As we continue to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Australian government remains committed to protecting the health of all Australians. This further extension will ensure that individuals and businesses continue to have access to the essential supplies required to keep themselves and other members of the community safe. Under this measure a 'free' rate of customs duty will apply to masks, gloves, gowns, soaps and certain disinfectant preparations, and protective eyewear. The second measure in this bill incorporates the measure contained in Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 2) 2021. This will insert new item 58 into schedule 4 of the Customs Tariff Act. This concessional item provides a 'free' rate of customs duty for imported goods that are for use in the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter Program. This measure supports Australia's participation under the Joint Strike Fighter Production, Sustainment and Follow-on Development Memorandum of Understanding, which was signed in 2006 and gives effect to the commitment to achieving tax neutrality made by Australia under the memorandum of understanding. Lastly, this bill incorporates the measure in Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 3) 2021 to insert new concessional item 39A into schedule 4 of the Customs Tariff Act. This item provides a 'free' rate of customs duty for imported prescribed motor vehicles and motor vehicle components imported by an automotive service provider who was previously registered under the Automotive Transformation Scheme (within the meaning of the Automotive Transformation Scheme Act 2009), where the time for working out duty is between 1 April 2021 and 30 June 2025. These goods must be imported for use in the testing, quality control, manufacturing evaluation or engineering development of motor vehicles designed or engineered in Australia under security. Item 39A extends the treatment previously provided to these goods during the operation of the Automotive Transformation Scheme. With the end of the second stage of this scheme, the concessional item ensures that companies previously registered under the scheme can continue to access the customs duty concession and are not subject to additional regulatory burden. Debate adjourned. Fuel Security Bill 2021, Fuel Security (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2021 17

Fuel Security Bill 2021

Fuel Security (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2021

Second Reading 17 10:16 Dr GILLESPIE 72184 Lyne This bill increases the fuel security outlook for Australia, which is a critical issue. We must have many more distributed sites of fuel storage. The whole nation depends on diesel and on getting it in the right place at the right time. Darwin and the Northern Territory could potentially run out of fuel with this just-in-time supply chain. Whether it is a natural disaster, like a cyclone; something inadvertent such as tankers being blocked up in the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal when things go awry there; or conflict in the South China Sea, we really need to ramp up. I note that adjacent to my electorate is the port of Newcastle, which has two areas for potential massive fuel storage, with Park Fuels, an Australian owned company, and Stolthaven. They both have facilities in the port of Newcastle and are strategically located for ease of distribution to the north and west of New South Wales. Using them would move a lot of the critical infrastructure for fuel storage out of the Sydney basin. There are also opportunities in Port Kembla, but I think the port of Newcastle, with its strategic links to a nearby international airport and to the mining industry, is a logical choice for some of this strategic fuel reserve to be located. I commend this bill to the House. 10:18 Mr JOSH WILSON 265970 Fremantle I'm glad to speak on the government's Fuel Security Bill 2021 and, particularly, to support the second reading amendment moved by the shadow minister, the member for McMahon. There is no doubt that fuel security is a critical issue. In fact, it's what I would describe as a serious security issue. We do have from time to time in public debate, in the parliament and from the government a lot of noise about security issues that are, frankly, much lower down the totem pole when it comes to meaningful security than is fuel security. It's a shame that we don't focus on areas like this more often. If we've learnt anything in the last year and a half, it is that areas like energy self-sufficiency, energy resilience, health resilience and climate resilience are really the kinds of serious risks to our economic, social and health wellbeing that we need to think about a lot more than we do. The beating of the drums in some other areas is disproportionate to the risks that something like fuel security presents to us. Most Australians would have little sense of the fragile position that we are in when it comes to fuel security. It's easy enough to give some examples of the circumstances that we're dealing with. The bottom line is that, in the data from 2019, consumption cover in Australia was equivalent to only 18 days of petrol, 22 days of diesel and 23 days of jet fuel. So it's somewhere between two and three weeks of coverage. At the moment, people go to the supermarket and the shelves are stocked, and they go to the petrol station and they fill up their cars, or, if they're fortunate enough to be able to travel from one part of Australia to another, they go to the airport, without really thinking that, if there were to be an interruption to our fuel supply, all of that would grind to a terrible halt in very, very short time. It would affect everything. The economic and social impacts of that would be hard to anticipate. And the risks of that occurring are not small. We are an island nation. We are a significant fuel importer. We are predominantly reliant on fuel imports. If there were to be some interruption of supply because of events in the Middle East or the South China Sea, we would find ourselves running out of fuel very, very quickly. And fuel is essential to everything. The risk of that kind of black swan event is not high, but the impacts of such an event are massive. The fact that we have done nothing to really address that vulnerability and that fragility is hard to understand. We fell out of compliance with the IEA in 2012. After the oil shocks that occurred in the 1970s, sensible countries joined together and said: 'Let's avoid that happening. Let's make some shared commitments to liquid fuel resilience, the easiest measure of which is 90 days of coverage.' Australia fell out of compliance in 2012, and we now have somewhere around 55 or 56 days out of the 90 days we should have. There are no other countries that are currently not compliant. In that period of time between 2012 and now, a couple of nations have fallen out of compliance by a few days, for a few days. I think Luxembourg is one of them, literally going from 90 days to 88 days, for a week or something. We've been mired down in the 50s for a long time, and we've not improved that position. To the extent that we've gone from the low 50s to the mid-50s, it's because the government has settled arrangements with other countries to spend millions of dollars purchasing oil tickets, which essentially mean that we can make a call on oil reserves in other countries. That's not really to deal with an oil crisis or a liquid fuel crisis in this country; that would just release supply into the market that would, in a sense, meet our obligations under the IEA. But nothing significant has occurred to address that problem. Even though these bills put in place some measures that are helpful, they come very late. It wasn't that long ago that Australia had seven oil refineries. It wasn't that long ago—literally 18 months ago—that we had four refineries. We now have two refineries. So the government has decided to come along and apply $2 billion—$2,000 million—of taxpayers' funds to underwrite the last two refineries. Unfortunately the largest refinery in Western Australia has gone under. It's salient, as we have this debate at the national level, to remember that, unlike most other countries, Australia is a continental landmass with capital cities—with the six states and two territories—distributed across a huge area. We might talk about 55 days of liquid fuel coverage for the nation as a whole, but it would be interesting to see what that breakdown is state by state. If there comes a crisis, what happens in Western Australia or in other more distributed parts of the country that have a liquid fuel crisis? They're going to need to get liquid fuel from other parts of Australia. How are they going to get that? The only way to really move it is by ship. Australia doesn't have a single fuel tanker. Think of all the kinds of security that we should be focused on in this country and the way that they've been either allowed to deteriorate, or, in the case of shipping, run down because the coalition in its current guise and the government before that, the Howard government, have an ideological dislike of maritime workers and Australian shipping because of its working foundation, which is the Maritime Union of Australia and the labour movement. As a result, we've now got about 10 flagged ships and we don't have a fuel tanker. So we're a continental landmass and an island nation that's entirely reliant on fuel being shipped here. If there were a crisis that put that in jeopardy, we don't even have the vessel that could transport the fuel to this nation. We've seen through COVID the government do deals that were contractual arrangements in relation to vaccines. A lot of confidence was put in those arrangements. But, when there was a need for vaccines that we supposedly had a contractual call on from Europe, did they actually turn up here? No, they didn't, because those countries held onto the vaccine. I tell you what, if there was an international oil crisis, do you think other countries would be in a big hurry to send liquid fuel here? Would they be in a hurry to free up their own merchant marine to transport scarce fuel to Australia? You can imagine how that conversation would go. So this government has known for some time about the scale of the problem. We are extraordinarily vulnerable in Australia. There is no other country that's in the same kind of parlous situation that we are in. We are an island nation. We now have only two refineries, and the problem with that is that refined fuel has a shorter shelf life, so our ability to bring in crude, hold it and refine it as we need is now decreased. We have the third highest per capita ownership of personal motor vehicles in the world. We have done an abysmal job, an appalling job, of moving towards electric vehicles, which the rest of the world is doing. We have one-seventh of the uptake by car-loving countries like Canada and the United States. Our mining and agricultural sectors are 90 per cent reliant on diesel fuel. If you think about the Australian economy, you will hear from those opposite about how we are dependent upon and we benefit from mining, resources and agriculture, which is undoubtedly true, but they are 90 per cent reliant on diesel fuel. We have about three weeks of diesel cover. If there were a fuel shock that prevented diesel coming to Australia, can you imagine what would happen to those industries? Our transport is 99 per cent reliant on liquid fuels, partly because we've made virtually zero progress in terms of the energy resilience that you get by moving towards the electrification of transport. And all those other countries aren't doing that for fun. They're not doing that because it's a woke manoeuvre or whatever it would be criticised as being by those opposite. They're doing it because it's smart—because it improves their security. One of the leaders of energy self-sufficiency in the United States is US Defense. Why are they doing that? It's because they know how risky it is to be reliant on liquid fuels. So, within Defense, in the various parts of marine, army and navy, part of their budget goes to new energy innovation because they want defence, as well as every other critical part of their nation's operations, to be free from the vulnerability that comes with massive reliance on liquid fuels. But what's Australia doing? We have campaigns from those opposite. When we talk about making a modest change towards greater electrification, those opposite decide to run a scare campaign about people not having their utes anymore. It is just ridiculous. It makes us incredibly vulnerable to future shocks and to black swan events in a way that no other country on Earth is. If it happens, I'll be really fascinated to see how those opposite reflect on what they haven't done in the eight years that they've been in government. Our defence department does have an energy related strategy. I think it's called the Defence Estate Energy Strategy. The last one ran from 2015 to 2019. We don't have another one. That strategy—look it up; get the PDF—is not a very impressive piece of work, because it doesn't have many commitments to using defence as a way of pioneering energy innovation. But it existed and at least identified a couple of things. It covered the period 2015 to 2019. As someone who has an interest in liquid fuel security, I've been looking for the next version of that, presumably the 2020 to 2024 version. It doesn't exist. The US Navy has a project that's looking to make the Navy shift towards things like hydrogen. We actually piggyback off that, so we have been a participant in that US-led project. I think the Australian Army has put a little bit of money into some off-grid sort of energy sources that it could use in certain circumstances; that's about the scale of it—virtually nothing in transport. Why is that? Why is the US doing it and we're not? It's because it's too woke. Imagine if Defence, God forbid, was looking at energy resilience. That would be too woke. Defence would have gone green. We would probably get the minister up here, telling them that in addition to having certain morning teas, they have to abandon any efforts to make Australia's security in a better, more appropriate 21st century shape by investing in energy resilience, self-sufficiency and a shift away from liquid fuels. What the government is doing now is very little and very late. The interim report of the Liquid Fuel Security Review was issued in May 2019. It received some further submissions and it closed. As I understand, it was provided to the minister towards the end of that year. We still haven't seen that. It follows the pattern of this government that it doesn't want to listen, it doesn't want to focus on the real issues but it wants to play political games and it wants to spend $55 million updating Christmas Island. It wants to spend six or seven million dollars keeping one Sri Lankan family on Christmas Island. These are the security issues, right? 'Our security is at risk, Australia. We have a Sri Lankan family that we need to spend more than $60 million keeping incarcerated until their younger daughter is gravely ill. That's how we will be strong and secure in this country. That's what we will do; that's brilliant!' Meanwhile, we've been out of compliance with our IEA obligation for eight years. We are the most liquid-fuel-vulnerable nation on earth and this government has done nothing—nothing—about it. What finally prompts them? It's a bit like the sort of fuel security equivalent of that poor little girl. We go from four refineries to two refineries and: 'Oh, we better do something. What will we do? We will spend $2 billion from the taxpayer purse to keep those other remaining commercial refineries going!' Investment in electrification, investment in storage, Australian shipping, doing something about Australian shipping, making sure we have, as an island continent, the ability to get things to and from here—don't worry about that. Beat the drums of war, talk about China, lock up young families until they're almost dead—that's how we will deal with security under this government. (Time expired) 10:33 Mr RAMSEY HWS Grey I do disagree with the amendments and support the motion as put forward by the minister. There is a lot of excitement and discussion around Australia at the moment—certainly where I come from—about hydrogen, about the possibilities of a hydrogen production platform, about electric cars. As the shadow minister was speaking about comparative investments, I note that $1.2 billion was committed by the federal government to encourage the uptake of alternative technologies to power vehicles, including electricity. I must also point out that he somehow managed to bring in the Sri Lankan family and Christmas Island into that comparative spending effect and noted that $6 million had been spent keeping this family on Christmas Island. I would point out to him that $6 billion was spent fishing people out of the water. I think it bears to keep that in mind. One of the things that we hope to do in Australia is transfer our energy consumption towards lower emissions and we are doing very well on that pathway. Oil, petrol, fuel and distillate are set to play a very important role in Australia for a long time to come. There is nobody who is sensibly suggesting that we will be able to phase out the use of these products in the short term, but we will be able to reduce our reliance on them. Oil production in Australia peaked around the year 2000. At that time, it was supplying 90 per cent of our local consumption. That was a pretty good time, for those of us who remember the great adverts coming from BHP, from the Bass Strait and how Bass Strait oil was powering Australia, as it were. That's tailed off considerably now. We are on the dregs of Bass Strait, and production today meets less than 25 per cent of our requirements. Even with that, the oils that we do produce aren't really the right oils to supply our local market. There was a time when we had 11 oil refineries in Australia, and we are now heading for two. Along with that oil refining capacity comes the storage. I'm from South Australia and well remember the tanks that sat at Port Stanvac. Those facilities are gone, so that ability to store diesel and store petrol in a refined form has largely disappeared. Of course, the problem with diesel and petrol is that they have a shelf life. For a refinery it's ideal: you feed oil in, you keep storage on site, it keeps feeding out and it meets the use-by dates. If you're just going to use these sites for storage, you are engendering a higher cost, because you have to turn the fuel over on a regular basis for no good reason apart from the fact that it's got too old in the drum. With that refining capacity going, the storage capacity has gone as well. The refining capacity, too, allows us to access a source of fuel that doesn't have a use-by date. It's called oil. Of course, the best place to store oil is whence it came: the ground. Australia now has limited supplies of its own oil. There are good prospects around Australia for exploration for new oil. One of them, of course, that's had a lot of interest is in the Great Australian Bight, which lies off my electorate of Grey, and at this stage the commercial interest in it has evaporated. There are other basins, though, and I think it's important that as a nation we understand just how important this fuel security issue is. If our supply lines are interrupted, we will grind to a halt in a very short time. We know that we have mandated to hold 90 days supply either on site—that is, in Australia—or in the pipeline, but that's becoming increasingly difficult with this loss of storage capacity that I have been referring to. So it's good to see that the government is making moves to address this issue. Primarily we are offering a subsidy to the two refineries that will remain on the condition that they remain until at least 2027. It's an interesting subsidy in that it's basically covering off on a cost basis so that, if their revenues fall short of making a profit, the taxpayer will move in to make sure the doors stay open. But it is constructed in a way that the companies will not profiteer from the taxpayer subsidy. When they go into the black, there's nothing coming from the taxpayer. I think that's a smart way to structure that subsidy. It means the incentive remains in place for that particular facility to be efficient and make a profit. That will give us some more breathing space, and we've also mandated lifting the reserves the importers and producers of distillate and motor spirits in Australia are to hold by 40 per cent, which will go some of the way to, once again, backfilling that 90-day holding capacity. But make no mistake: 90 days is not the magic mark. Nothing could be better for Australia than to actually have internal security. We have internal security when it comes to gas, when it comes to coal, when it comes to wind and solar energy. All those things are achievable. But we know, and all the hardheads know, that we will be very reliant on oil for some time to come for our transport, construction and mining fleets. Farmers, I think, are quite some distance from being able to put hydrogen cells in their tractors. Maybe it will come quicker than a lot of us anticipate, but, at this stage, it's diesel. If you want to dig up iron ore—or, in my case, copper—or mineral sands out at Jacinth-Ambrosia, out from Ceduna, or whatever else it may be, it is diesel. There is no substitute for it. It is important we keep that supply line open and well oiled, for want of a better word, so people can access what they need when they need it. I think this is good legislation. I think it addresses the issue of today. On the broader issue of how Australia transitions to new fuels, to lower-emission fuels, we need to be absolutely honest and realistic about our chances of achieving that in the short-term. For those who say, 'Well, we won't build any more gas-fired power stations; we won't build any more coal-fired power stations; we won't use any more fossil fuel,' that is a recipe for disaster. In the electricity field, without gas it will become increasingly impossible to build new renewable generation capacity. I made a speech about this last night in the Federation Chamber. You cannot keep building renewable energy unless you can backfill the gap for when the renewable energy is not generating. Gas is the most viable option at this stage. Of course, we're into pumped hydro and nothing is greater than Snowy Hydro 2.0—I'm never sure why they put a zero on the end of that. Let's say Snowy Hydro 2. These are good investments, as is the new transmission line from South Australia through to New South Wales, but you can't do it all on your own. You can't rely on one technology. There is no silver bullet. We are working on a number of fronts—on all fronts, it could even be said—but in the meantime we have to make sure that we mind the shop and that the distillate and petrol supply, the motor spirit supply, to Australian industries and families remains constant. These two pieces of legislation do exactly that. 10:42 Ms MADELEINE KING 102376 Brand How good is smiling for the cameras outside a Queensland fuel refinery when 600 devastated workers at the BP refinery in Kwinana are still in shock at losing their jobs just a few months ago? The images of a beaming Prime Minister Scott Morrison at a refinery in Brisbane, going the full 'thumbs up' alongside the workers he was motivated enough to save, serve as a reminder to Western Australians that we do not count in the political calculations of this Prime Minister. The announcement of a $2 billion rescue package for Australia's two remaining fuel refineries, one in Brisbane and one in Geelong, really is most welcome and Labor will support this package, and I support the amendments moved by the member for McMahon. It is a stark reminder of just how willing Mr Morrison is to leave many workers behind while he tries to shore up support on the east coast. I was disgusted—I felt ill—to see our smiling Prime Minister taking credit for saving jobs while, clearly, not giving a second thought for the 600 skilled workers and their families who derive their livelihoods from the Kwinana fuel refinery in my electorate of Brand. Then there are the 300 refinery workers at the Altona refinery, in Melbourne, who are also abandoned by a federal government that simply does not care about them. Before BP announced the closure of its Kwinana refinery after 65 years of operation, it had been sending out warning signs that this closure was imminent unless it received assistance. The media had been speculating for months about the closure of refineries before the hammer came down on Kwinana. Where was this government when the Kwinana refinery was in trouble? Where were Western Australia's federal Liberals in all of this? Why weren't they fighting for the fuel security of Western Australia within their own government? East coast backbenchers lobbied the Prime Minister and the minister for energy to get this important $2 billion support package for their refineries. But there was barely a murmur of protest or even disappointment from our local Liberals as they all waved goodbye to the capacity of Western Australia to maintain independent fuel-refining capabilities and therefore Western Australia's fuel security. The Kwinana refinery was the largest refinery in the country and arguably the most efficient—something worth saving, you might have thought. When it was built by BP in the 1950s the Kwinana refinery was the largest international investment ever made in this nation. It formed the cornerstone of the Kwinana industrial area which grew around it and which has continuously been at the heart of WA's economic development. Today the legacy of the Kwinana refinery is the creation of a world-leading example of industrial symbiosis whereby businesses exchange by-products—water and energy—rather than discard them. The Kwinana industrial strip is now home to facilities that will produce the ingredients to make batteries around the globe and help the world achieve net zero emissions. My father worked at BP from the start, from 1956, in the laboratory on night shift for years, to give our family a good life in the seaside suburb of Shoalwater, where we grew up and where my mother still lives. Until the refinery closed, this had been the story for so many workers and their families in my community. Many of my friends from Safety Bay Senior High School, where I went to school, used to work there. Some still do, although we know that the workforce has been reduced from 600 to 60. I want to say hello and give a tribute to my friends who used to be at BP: Ross Walker, Chris Greaves, Shane Kendall, Tony Crooks and the many others who went to Safety Bay. The Prime Minister has declared that maintaining Australia's refining capacity is a matter of economic and national security. But in choosing to back refining capacity only in Brisbane and Geelong the Prime Minister is choosing to maintain the economic and national security of just the east coast. Energy minister Angus Taylor has said that Australia must have sovereign refining capability. Well, I'm glad the penny finally dropped for this minister, but unfortunately it's too late for the sovereign refining capacity of the state that literally drives the national economy with its vast mining and agriculture industries that require this refined fuel to operate. The fuel security for the industry that underpins the Australian economy has been entirely cut adrift, and it looks like this government simply does not care. The question must be asked: how does this $2 billion fuel security package help Western Australia? When a plane lands in Perth from Sydney, we know it's out of avgas. We used to refuel it from avgas refined at the Kwinana refinery. Now the fuel will be imported from Singapore and will travel along the pipelines that used to carry locally refined aviation fuel. In the event of a crisis in Western Australia, how would refined fuel get across the Nullarbor? Does the government plan to truck it across and then up to the Pilbara in a crisis? Don't bet on it. My money is on all fuel staying exactly where it is, supporting the needs of east coast cities, towns and industries. Well, that's a positive result for them—and terrific. But we all know that this latest vote grabber will do nothing to help Western Australia. That's because this government's priority is saving its own skin. Frankly, there is little doubt that Australia's fuel security is worse than ever, and the Morrison government is still far from doing enough. We have arrived at this position after years of inaction and neglect. The Morrison government should have supported refineries and ensured adequate oil reserves years ago, yet they started only at the last possible opportunity and still had to be pushed, kicking and screaming all the way. These bills will have a positive impact for the remaining two refineries in Australia, but it is too little too late for the people of my community, for the BP workers and their families who live right across the electorate, from Baldivis to Rockingham, and even in nearby electorates. But they all derive their income from the employment security in the work they did refining fuel in Kwinana. The government has done too little too late for these workers. They have been left behind by a government that simply does not care about the people of Brand and particularly the people of Kwinana. On indulgence, Mr Speaker, I note that it is national bowel cancer day. I wear the ribbon today and I want to acknowledge the great tribute paid yesterday to the Queensland parliament Duncan Pegg, who suffered from and ultimately lost his life to this disease. My sister had bowel cancer when she was 49, many years ago now, and the price I pay for my sister having that disease—very thankfully, she survived it—is that I have to undergo colonoscopies regularly. It's not something you really want to do, but I totally acknowledge that it's a great thing to do to make sure we can resist the devastating impacts of a terrible, terrible cancer that kills many people in Australia. I urge everyone to do what they can on bowel cancer day to think about their health, go get the test if you're of a certain age and make sure you are proactive about your health and your bowel health. 10:50 Ms STEGGALL 175696 Warringah I rise to speak on the Fuel Security Bill 2021 and consequential amendments. This bill implements two measures from the recent budget. Firstly, it establishes a minimum stockholding obligation for industry to ensure they hold minimum quantities of transport fuels. Secondly, it enables a production payment for refinery operations, also known as the fuel security services payment, to provide a cents-per-litre payment to refineries. In return, they will guarantee to continue operating until 2027. The payment can reach a maximum amount of just over $2 billion by 2030 in a worst-case scenario—a massive amount; let's be very clear. The package will also support transitioning our refineries to reduce sulphur content, and that will cost $300 million. While not entirely against the fuel security package—and, specifically, the measures to reduce the sulphur levels of fuels, which I have called for—I am against the government not complementing any support of fuel refineries with a meaningful package to support transition to lower emissions transport, which is necessary for energy security and to meet our climate targets. The history of oil refineries is important in this debate. Most of Australia's oil refineries were built in the mid-1950s and mid-1960s. During that time, refinery operators enjoyed a sheltered existence with limited competition from others in the region, protective tariffs and price and demand stability. But those protections are gone. Despite investment in modernising the infrastructure and facilities, the sector is under pressure from lower-cost facilities in Asia, increasing capital and labour costs for operation and maintenance, and a tougher regulatory environment. As a result, Australia's oil refineries have been in decline for some years. We have to be clear about that. Business headwinds were exacerbated by the pandemic. In 2010-11, there were seven oil refineries in Australia. By early 2020, there were just four. This year BP and Exxon Mobil both announced they would close their refineries in Western Australia and Victoria, and the two remaining refineries were also threatening to go the same way, which is why we are now here debating such a prop-up by means of public funds. Twenty years ago almost all of our oil demand was met by domestic refineries. Now it is less than half. As oil refineries have closed, there have been some concerns about our overall energy security. That is, ultimately, the argument often put forward: having fewer refineries may reduce Australia's ability to refine fuels if shipping and supply chains are ever severely disrupted for any reason in the future. But that view is contested. For example, the Energy white paper 2012 saw no risk from refineries closing, for the reason that those risks are mitigated by diversified supply chains. This contention hasn't stopped the government from providing a subsidy package for the remaining refineries, but the question has to be asked: how long can we prop up a system that is not self-sufficient and is not economically viable? The Australian production of oil is not enough to meet our own demand. The oil produced from Australian wells is condensate, which is not readily available to be refined in Australia due to costs. It can be in an emergency, but it's not preferable. As a result, like many Asia-Pacific nations, Australia is highly dependent on importers. Over 90 per cent of our fuel is imported from countries in the Middle East, Asia and North America, which leaves Australia exposed to potential supply disruptions in our region, emanating from conflict, natural disasters and other pressures. Australia spends roughly $29 billion per year on imported fuel. From the making of consumer products, to chemical feedstock, to transport, which uses 75 per cent of our total fuel demand, many sectors are exposed to oil supply shocks. This trend is worsening. The Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources has projected that oil demand will increase to 2040 if we don't change policies. The dependence poses a long-term risk. Rather than thinking that we're just going to continue propping this up, we need to think about the transition away. As the Australian Financial Review editorialised, 'The refineries plan doesn't mean self-sufficiency, even with more than $2 billion in subsidy,' as Australia will continue to import most of its crude oil anyway. There are many other reasons to switch—in particular, reducing emissions. A fortnight ago, the International Energy Agency, one of the most conservative energy institutions in the world, released a landmark report called Net zero by 2050: a road map for the global energy sector. In it, the IEA modelled scenarios to get to net zero. The report sent shockwaves through the world, not least because it told Australia, one of the largest fossil fuel exporters in the world, that we cannot support any more fossil fuel developments from now on. But it also shone a light on other sectors, like transport. Transport emissions make up almost 18 per cent of our total emissions, or 90 million tonnes per year, the majority coming from light passenger vehicles. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, transport was our fastest-growing sector and source of emissions. The Australia Institute projects that emissions from transport could grow to 125 million tonnes per year by 2030. For perspective, that's the equivalent of almost eight Hazelwood coal-fired power stations. The IEA found that, to reach net zero by 2050, 60 per cent of global car sales will need to be electric by 2030. So there is a chasm between the goal and where we stand today, especially here in Australia, where there is a policy vacuum. Other countries are taking steps to reduce oil dependency and ambitiously attempting to meet climate targets. Today less than one per cent of new car sales are electric in Australia. That's compared to over 11 per cent in the United Kingdom and 80 per cent in Norway. We are far, far behind—global laggards. The Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics has modelled that, under our current policies, Australia will only reach 27 per cent of new car sales being electric by 2030—and that is putting a good gloss on it—putting net zero absolutely out of reach. Unfortunately there is no plan forthcoming from the government in relation to this. This antiquated fuel security package is yet another example where we're failing to do that orderly transition that's so required. The government needs to support this orderly transition. For the moment, we simply don't see it. For example, with the transition to EVs we need to overcome the barriers to purchase. There are many barriers that are getting in the way of uptake of EVs. It's highly dependent on the cost of electric vehicles becoming comparable to the cost of internal combustion engine vehicles, consumer acceptance of the range limitations of these cars and the charging infrastructure rollout. Let's be clear: the government uses this as a political weapon, come election time, to stir up fears around range and whether there are limitations. That is so negative. It is so counterproductive. Ultimately it is against our national interest, because we need to do the transition. The government actually has a duty to properly educate as to the opportunities in this sector. In forum after forum in Warringah I get asked about why the government is not helping overcome these barriers. One gentleman at a forum just last week in Balgowlah was puzzled that the energy minister, on the ABC's 7.30 program, would use convenient excuses like range anxiety as a reason to not support electric vehicles. People in Warringah want to do the right thing. In a recent Lowy poll, 77 per cent of Australians supported providing subsidies for the purchase of EVs. In New Zealand, just yesterday they announced that they're providing generous incentives for EVs. New Zealanders will get an $8,600 subsidy towards that. In Australia, it's quite the opposite. You get a very limited state based incentive—that is, a little of your stamp duty—and that's all. And we have a completely uncoordinated approach as some states go completely the opposite way and tax EVs. Current policies in the Future Fuels Strategy, the government's tokenistic attempt at spurring investment in low-emissions vehicles, is just not enough to overcome the barriers. The Future Fuels Strategy is $70 million of repurposed funding from ARENA. It's not even new funding. That stands in stark contrast to the package fuel refineries got. So, on the one hand, we take away funding—$70 million—from ARENA to theoretically go towards a Future Fuels Strategy, but we put $2 billion towards gas guzzlers. The strategy is unambitious and contains questionable modelling to justify no action. There is a do-nothing strategy. There are no vehicle efficiency standards or vehicle transition targets and there's no money for support towards those transitions. How could we expect any more from a government which, with due respect, is known for saying—and a Prime Minister who is known for saying—electric vehicles would 'steal the weekend' at the last election? It is so embarrassing and out of touch and it's so contrary to any principle of actually ensuring Australia is on the front foot of new technology and actually enabled to embrace opportunities. With a lack of federal government action, we're seeing a dysfunctional policy from state governments. We're seeing the Victorian parliament pass a bill that would institute the world's first EV tax and then we have just a completely disparate and uncoordinated approach around the country. That's because the federal government is not taking up the responsibility. It is shirking its responsibility. We need a coordinated and meaningful national plan to transition our transport. The other sad part is that the package doesn't ensure jobs. There's no bang for our buck on this one. The return on investment is terrible. There are way better ways to spend so much public money. There will be a maximum of 1,750 construction jobs and support for about 1,250 existing jobs, so that's about 3,000 jobs. With a package costing a potential $2.3 billion by 2030, that is almost $800,000 per job. If you spend $800,000, for example, on renewables, you could generate up to four times the jobs. Look at it another way: if you spent $2.3 billion on renewables, you would generate up to 12,560 jobs. This government is always claiming that it focuses on job creation, and yet time and again it ignores the industries, the mechanisms and the technologies by which more jobs can in fact be created. We have such enormous potential to win the transition race. We could actually be fuel secure, reduce our pollution and benefit economically. Last month we saw Queensland's Tritium list on the Nasdaq with a valuation of over $1.8 billion. The reason? Tritium are supplying the world with high quality Australian EV chargers. You can see the charging stations dotted around Europe and the United States. We have several in Australia, but we don't have anywhere near the policy mechanism to actually support the rollout. We can process minerals for EVs. We can make batteries. We can build charging infrastructure. We can build the software for the clean technology revolution right here in Australia, if there was just the political will to do it. If an equivalent amount of this fuel security package could be spent towards a transition and some vision for the future, we might actually have some opportunities. I don't disagree with supporting the oil refineries and fuel sectors more generally at the moment, but, at a time of record debt, good governance requires a sensible plan for an orderly transition away from this dependence on oil across all the affected sectors. If we ignore the problem and fail to do this, the transition will occur regardless of whether Australia likes it or not and regardless of whether politically it is palatable or not. That transition is happening all around the world. We have two choices for this government: it can be done in a highly disruptive way, because we failed to have a coordinated response and plan, or it can happen in an orderly way. For it to happen in an orderly way, it requires some planning and transition policy. The government policy must be used for a smooth transition and make it as least disruptive as possible on communities, on our economy and on our private sector. I implore the government, especially the Prime Minister: we need a parallel plan to support the transition and to explore the economic opportunities that come with it after coming back from G7, where we're positioning Australia. At the end of the day, our children will pay the price for the lack of vision and leadership in coordinating a transition. 11:05 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie There are a few of us—not so many of us right now sitting in this chamber—who would remember the 1970s and the big queues for petrol as a global oil crisis hit our country. I remember as a kid sitting in a car—I can't remember if it was odd or even days—on whichever day my parents were allowed to get petrol and thinking, 'This is strange. We are wasting an awful lot of time.' As kids, we sang a lot of songs sitting in the car in a petrol queue waiting to get petrol. I hope that is not a vision that the government wish to see repeated, but there's been such a delay in taking any action on the fuel situation we face in Australia that it's a wonder we haven't gone back to that and it is partly why I think our fuel security from a consumer perspective is so important. I live in a peri-urban area. We go everywhere by car. When fuel prices go up, we feel it first. We spend more on fuel and tolls and we don't have the easy option of public transport. So this fundamental issue of fuel supply security is absolutely essential for a community like Macquarie. Back in 2017 I sat on JSCOT and this issue ran adjacent to the context of Australia's international obligations to have fuel reserves. I remember there being questions about us failing to meet our global agreements around international fuel supplies at that time, and that continues to this day. I remember the department talking about our own sources of supply here, and we were reassured that we imported crude oil from 21 countries and we refined product from 47 countries, so there were multiple sources. But, even at that time, it didn't help us meet our international obligations, and there were real concerns about our long-term fuel security. That was 2017 and that goes to just how long this issue has been around and how slow this government has been to do anything tangible. When they do come up with something tangible like these bills, which are welcome, they are the consequence of failure. There is only action after there's been failure, after more Australian refineries have closed down. No-one questions that a secure fuel supply is critical not just to drivers and commuters in my electorate but to our whole economy, to our ability to move across this great land, to be able to—well, to mix my metaphors—grease the wheels of the economy. We need it not just for travelling by land but for flying, for the movement of groceries, construction supplies and medical equipment. We've seen that need grow even more. We saw extraordinary need in my electorate in March, when floods closed every route and the first road to open required a five-hour trip to get groceries delivered. We need to know that fuel is going to be there. It's only now we are close to nearly 100 per cent dependency on international supply chains and we're seeing job losses across the refinery sector. It is only as 50 per cent of our refineries close that we are getting action. As I say, this wasn't unforeseen. A Senate inquiry in 2015 was the first in recent times to recommend the government undertake a comprehensive review of Australia's fuel security problem. It took three years—until I did my parallel inquiry into our global obligations around fuel—before an inquiry happened. That wasn't until 2018, with a due date for release of 2019. It just seems odd to me that fuel security and the jobs of thousands of refinery workers only get noticed when things are really a problem, when things are really going bad. The interim report of the Liquid Fuel Security Review was delivered to the government two years ago, in April 2019, but we still haven't seen the final report. It was due late 2019, so we can't blame COVID for that one. We have not seen a report. The government chose not to act then, not even to deliver the final report. Thanks to that failure, we have been left almost entirely reliant on global supply chains for one of our most critical economic inputs. We do know, though, that the interim report identified a number of things that could have been acted on over two years ago—things like noncompliance with the International Energy Agency obligations for domestic fuel stocks, which I've already referred to, and our requirement to have 90 days of fuel stocks domestically to help protect against global and domestic oil shocks, which I've also mentioned. We weren't compliant then and we're not compliant now, but we could have done something about that. There have been very small steps taken to address that issue. When we talk about supplies now, we are at 58 days in our global agreement. That's 32 days short of the 90 days we've said we would have fuel stocks for. We're not just letting down Australians when we do that; we're not meeting our international obligations. The average Australian home spends the same amount of money on fuel as they do on electricity and gas combined. I haven't seen the data from my electorate, but I'd wager that we spend more because of the distances that we have to travel. We also need fuel stocks for industry. We need them for defence. We needed them when we had planes fighting bushfires. Aviation is essential, and the world is becoming increasingly volatile. For a government that seems to like to talk a lot about national security, it has, for the last eight years, been absent from the debate about how we secure our fuel supply. We have been an outlier. It's interesting to think about the fact that the government's policy makes us more and more dependent on fuel, as drivers of cars, because we don't have a policy on electric cars to encourage people to find an alternative. It's one of those ironies, when you think about it. Fuel security is more of an issue, yet we are more reliant than ever. Think about it: if there were a policy that encouraged people to buy electric cars, it would actually lessen our dependence on petrol, as consumers and as drivers, and ease up the demands on fuel. The Electric Vehicle Council notes not just a lack of policy but also the consequence of that, saying that it has created a market here where we are 'uniquely hostile' to electric vehicles. That's not the average punter, but they're the policy settings that we face. We used to try and be world leaders in Australia. We used to pride ourselves on being early adopters and being ahead of the pack, even inventing things and leading the world that way. We're not doing that now. We're not leading the world in terms of electric vehicles. We're certainly not leading the world in the development of vaccines and helping to meet the current demand. We are at the back of the pack in a whole lot of ways, and electric vehicles are one of them. Only 0.7 per cent of cars sold here are electric, compared to a global average of 4.2 per cent. In the United Kingdom and the European Union it's 11 per cent and in Norway it's 75 per cent. This isn't because Australians don't want electric vehicles. A majority of Australians say they would consider one for their next car, but they're not available at an affordable price. There are no electric cars available in Australia for under $40,000, and there are only five that you can buy for under $60,000. Compare that to the United Kingdom, where there are eight models that are cheaper than the cheapest model in Australia. That's because we've had policy settings that lock us into the old technology of petrol powered cars. It's because of inaction and scaremongering by those opposite. Who can forget that the Prime Minister and multiple frontbenchers were saying during the last election that electric vehicles would end the weekend, that they would stop people from being able to enjoy their weekend. What a nonsense that was, because we can see all the models that are coming out from the major car manufacturers. It's just that they're not coming here, because we don't have policy to support them, and they're not going to get here in any decent numbers until we do. That is going to make us more and more dependent on traditional fuel supply. Labor has an electric-car discount policy that is going to cut import tariffs and fringe benefits tax on non-luxury electric vehicles. That could be a game changer for our industry, but in the meantime, we are left with a bill like this that requires us to back in some things to support fuel security. We will do that, but we know this is not going far enough. One of the key problems with the bill before us is that it's all announcement and not so much delivery. I'm really getting sick and tired of hearing people on the other side talk about the pandemic as the reason that we have found ourselves in this situation, when we know there is a very long history going back to an inquiry by the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee in 2015, quite a few years before COVID. I really hope that those opposite don't try to pull this one off under the cover of COVID. Let us think about what was actually promised and compare it with what is being delivered. The Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Mr Taylor, and the Prime Minister—they are very good at announcements, just not very good at delivery—announced a fuel security package that was going to secure Australia's long-term fuel supply and was going to create over a thousand new jobs. Let's be clear about what we have seen since that announcement. We've seen the closure of two of Australia's only four remaining refineries, so half the refineries we had in this country have closed since their announcement. I don't call that job creation. In September the Prime Minister and the energy minister again claimed their package would 'back local refineries to stay open'. Then on 30 October—six weeks later—the Kwinana refinery in Western Australia announced it would close. On 14 December the minister claimed: … the Government was taking immediate and decisive action to keep our domestic refineries operating. 'Hear, hear!' we all say. But, no, within two months, on 10 February this year, Exxon also announced that its Altona refinery would close. What about the jobs? What about the people who no longer have a job in a refinery as a result? Those two refineries alone directly employ 950 people between them. So perhaps when the government was announcing a thousand new jobs it should have said, 'We're getting rid of nearly a thousand jobs.' There are also thousands more jobs in fuel-dependent industries that are on the line. The petrochemical manufacturers all rely on by-products produced from these refineries—the ones that have announced closures. I think that is just more proof that the government knows how to talk about jobs but doesn't actually know how to deliver them for this country and for Australians. It was clear to us when these announcements were made that it wouldn't be enough. We warned that it wasn't enough. It failed to address Australia's fuel security needs, just as we've been warning for years about our increasing dependence on foreign fuel imports in a changing world. Problems with our fuel security and the need to have greater onshore stocks existed long before COVID, going back six years. But this government, as always, chose not to act. It waits until the very last minute before it does something—always waiting, always too slow and never enough. 11:20 Mr ZAPPIA HWB Makin I speak in support of the amendment moved by Labor to the second reading of the Fuel Security Bill 2021. Liquid fuel is essential to the Australian economy. According to the Department of the Environment and Energy's April 2019 interim report on liquid fuel security, Australia spends $57 billion a year on liquid fuels, $38 billion on electricity and $37 billion on gas. Admittedly, that was a couple of years ago, but I suspect those figures would be reasonably accurate even today. Liquid fuel is the energy source we most rely on and will continue to rely on for years to come. It makes up 52 per cent of Australia's total energy consumption. Yet Australia is overwhelmingly reliant on overseas crude and refined fuel, with 90 per cent of our total fuels coming from overseas either as crude oil or refined petrol. Australia imports crude oil from around 40 countries and refined fuel from 66 countries, and it's imported on a just-in-time, free-market basis. So we have placed control of an essential commodity entirely in the hands of the private sector and, to a large extent, overseas based operators and multinationals. Even if all of Australia's produced crude oil were refined and used here in Australia, it would only account for and supply about 25 per cent of Australia's average annual needs. The fact is that much of our crude oil is actually sent overseas, because it's of a different standard to what is imported. Just as concerning is that Australian crude oil reserves account for 0.3 per cent of global oil production, and they are diminishing. That's all of our own reserves. So, if we had to rely on our own reserves at any point in time, not only are they not enough; they are actually diminishing, not to mention that we now don't have the refineries to process all of that oil. Australia is also a member of the International Energy Agency, which requires Australia to hold 90 days of liquid fuel based on annual consumption. Yet, according to the interim report on liquid fuel security, on average Australia has on hand around three weeks of consumption cover. According to the Liquid Fuel Security Review, consumption cover is the preferred measure of domestic fuel security as it counts stocks based on how many days they will last under normal demand. That three-week supply has been the case for about the last decade. Even if we count all that is on ocean tankers and at overseas ports and refineries, Australia still does not meet its 90-day fuel supply requirements. Australia hasn't done so for years. So the Morrison government has now belatedly caved in to public pressure and announced some measures to improve Australian liquid fuel security. It's done so by promoting limited assistance to the two remaining oil refineries—the one in Lytton, Queensland, operated by Ampol, and the one in Geelong, Victoria, operated by Viva Energy. It's also going to provide some financial assistance for the storage of fuels in this country. At it's peak, Australia had 10 major oil refineries and there were some small operators as well. We're now down to the last two and they are only operating on the basis that they will get government support if they are not profitable. It shows how much we have allowed this critical industry sector to diminish. And as they have diminished, as other speakers have quite rightly pointed out in this debate, not only has our reliance on overseas fuel increased but tens of thousands of jobs have been lost along the way. I remember the Port Stanvac oil refinery in my own state of South Australia. It's all gone. I can remember that, when it was built, it was considered to be a major asset for the state. It was promoted as something that was going to secure petrol supplies in South Australia for years and years to come. But not only is the refinery gone; so are all the oil tanks that held the fuel in the years it was in operation. That not only leaves Australia vulnerable and more dependent on overseas liquid fuels; it doesn't give me and the people I speak to much confidence that, in an emergency situation, we'll have the fuels that we need. And perhaps even more concerning is that unlike some of our counterparts—the USA, Japan and Korea—the Australian government does not maintain any oil reserves itself or even mandate that minimum reserves be held by the private oil companies here in Australia. I know that there has been some noise about doing that as part of this legislation but, right here and now, we have neither government reserves nor private-sector reserves mandated in this country. Even Australia's defence sector, which relies heavily on all of these fuels and which does have some capacity, only maintains its reserves at around 50 per cent capacity. You would have to wonder why, if we have the capacity to store more fuel—petrol, diesel or aviation fuel—we are not utilising those facilities at 100 per cent. I suspect it's all to do with money—the fact that storing fuel here comes at a cost. One argument for not maintaining a 90-day reserve is that we don't have a fuel shortage problem in this country and we haven't had one for 40 years, so why should we worry. The fact that things have been going well for 40 years doesn't secure the future at all. I think we should be thankful that we haven't had a petrol problem for the last 40 years. I can remember the fuel crisis in this country 40 years ago—for weeks on end, there was fuel rationing going on—and the problems that all caused. Having said that, I'm grateful that we haven't had to go through that again in the last four decades. Another argument is that storing fuel in this country would come at a significant cost. It is estimated by some that it would cost in the order of $6 billion to $7 billion to build storage facilities. If we can afford $270 billion in defence spending for national security purposes, why can't we afford to have storage facilities for our fuel, which is just as critical? Even for our defence services themselves, there is not much point in having all this defence equipment if they don't have the fuel to drive it. Another argument is that having a just-in-time free-market approach means we can minimise the costs to consumers and that the cost of creating additional reserves would inevitably be passed on to consumers. I expect that that would be the case but, at the very least, it would ensure that we have a much more reliable fuel supply in this country in the event of a crisis. The other aspect of all of this is that I recall some months ago the government stating that it was going to buy $94 million of fuel and then have it stored in the USA. It begs the question—indeed I recall at the time people literally laughing at that proposition as a joke. What is the value to Australia of having crude oil—not even petrol or aviation fuel but crude oil that then has to be processed—stored in a country on the other side of the world? It still has to be transported to Australia and, in the event of a serious disruption, that might not be possible. So storing it somewhere else simply didn't make sense. It certainly didn't make sense to me and the people who spoke to me about it. So now the government does want to impose what we call minimum stock obligations on Australia's 15 fuel importers in order to meet critical demand, and I think that's a good thing to do. We have obligations on the private sector to store fuel in order to meet critical demand. The problem, however, is this: when you look at the definition of 'critical demand', it is estimated to be 16 per cent of normal demand for diesel, six per cent for jet fuel and four per cent for petrol. It doesn't give me confidence that that's going to be a great amount of fuel that is being stored in the event of an emergency or crisis situation. Those figures are hardly reassuring. Indeed, I suspect that to most people they would not be reassuring. Whilst they might enable what I'll call critical elements of the economy to tick over, that's about all that amount of fuel would enable us to do. We have also heard from other speakers about what would happen in the event of a global conflict or serious global disruption of liquid fuel supplies. Given that we rely on the Middle East, an area or region of the world that is constantly in some kind of conflict, for about 40 per cent of all of our fuel supplies, it is not terribly reassuring to think that that is what we have to rely on. We are reliant on not only overseas oil but overseas refineries and overseas owned shipping vessels and tankers, and we have to rely on access through overseas or international waters that we don't always have control over. As we saw recently again, there was a disruption because one of those routes was interfered with because of a breakdown of a vessel. So, in essence, every step along the way of the process of getting fuel to Australia is dependent on everything going right with a party that is totally outside of Australia's control. Again, it doesn't give me a lot of confidence and nor does it give the Australian people a lot of confidence. Not surprisingly, it was public pressure that finally got this government to act in respect of this matter. As other speakers have pointed out, Australia has the third-highest per capita ownership of motor vehicles. Our take-up and marketing of electric vehicles lags well behind that of other countries, and I don't have to repeat the statistics that have been used in this debate time and time again. The reality is that we lag well behind with respect to conversion or take-up of electric vehicles. That would certainly diminish the need for fuels, at least for motor vehicles in terms of diesel and petrol, but the reality is that, even if we do that, it will be many years before our reliance on liquid fuels diminishes to the point that we feel comfortable that we can have the necessary supplies. I will quote from the Liquid fuel security review: interim report: … we need to be prepared for new and emerging threats … antiglobalist attitudes are rising and we face a diverse range of security threats, including foreign interference. In fact, for years Australia has not been adequately prepared. This legislation provides little confidence that Australia's liquid fuels will be secured into the future. I'll finish on this note. We also have a reporting system in this country that tells us how much fuel we have in hand. The problem with that reporting system is that it's already six weeks old at the time the reports are submitted, unlike other countries where the reports are about a week old. We have an increase in diesel usage in this country, and it will continue to be the case because of our reliance on mining, agriculture, transport and rail. Given that that is the case and that those matters are critical to the Australian economy, it is critical that we have secure liquid fuel supplies in this country. Whilst this legislation goes a small step of the way towards doing that, it does not go anywhere near far enough. We need to do a lot more if we are to be self-sufficient and have confidence in our liquid fuel supplies into the future. 11:35 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong It was in 1966 that the late Robert F Kennedy delivered a speech in which he said: There is a Chinese curse which says "May he live in interesting times." Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind. However, Senator Kennedy didn't know just how darkly interesting and dangerous the times would get when he said these words. Tragically, he was assassinated two years after he spoke them. In 2021, more than half a century later, much of what he said then applies now, to our times. To understand how interesting the times are getting, you only need to read the editorials of the Global Times newspaper, long considered to be a trumpet of the policies of the Chinese communist government. A recent editorial thundered that if Australia were to join a US effort to protect Taiwan from an invasion by China then China should consider long-range strikes against us. The editorial darkly stated that Australia 'must know what disasters it would cause to their country'. Whilst I acknowledge that such rhetoric doesn't automatically come true, we need to also look at the Middle East, where we've seen deep tensions break into outright warfare once more. It means two things: a tragic human cost for the Palestinians and Israelis and a financial cost at the bowser for consumers everywhere else. Even as we emerge from COVID, and, hopefully, put the worst of the pandemic behind us, we are reminded by our grounded jumbo jets and unvisited loved ones overseas that when the chips are down we are an island continent: on our own. I don't seek to paint a picture of doom and gloom or make the listeners of this debate sullen and depressed and frustrated at the state of the world. The women and men of this country are up to most any challenge that the fates can throw at us, so I'm an Australian optimist who's optimistic about Australia. This is why, for so long, I have fervently advocated for a national fuel reserve. I've been a believer in this vital undertaking for years, but the advent of these interesting times makes it more pressing than ever. Boosting Australia's fuel stocks is one of the important national security measures that can also protect our economy from global disruptions. Once upon a time, Australia was a net exporter of oil, but as we've become more reliant on the global fuel market we've also become more vulnerable to international risks and uncertainty. One answer is to increase our national fuel security; therefore, we need to increase our national fuel stocks. I acknowledge there are other solutions—moving towards electric vehicles, developing our hydrogen industry—but I do believe that whatever other policies this nation adopts we need to increase our national fuel stocks. I believe in this approach so much that I took it to the last election. The coalition refused to match it, saying it was too expensive. When we didn't win and the Morrison government was elected they came up with their own version of our fuel reserve policy. They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but the knock-off version here was so bad I didn't feel particularly flattered. The major hitch with the $94 million Liberal fuel plan announced by Angus Taylor in April last year was—and I ask listeners listening to the parliamentary debate to consider this—that the Liberals came up with the idea of an Australian fuel reserve to be based in the United States of America for the next 10 years. That's not very wise; it's not very Australian. If a pandemic or regional unrest cuts off supply lines from overseas then the Liberal fuel reserve will be about as useful as a concrete parachute. In June the Liberals and Nationals made vague gestures towards expanding domestic fuel reserves, but any advances in this direction have been ad hoc and incremental. I want to suggest in this debate that the government should again look at my vision for fuel reserves. It wasn't just for local fuel reserves but also for a national strategic fleet to secure our access to fuel supplies, particularly in times of global instability. Anthony Albanese was then my transport spokesperson. We worked on our shipping policy, and I'm very proud of the final result. Over time we would have built up a decent sized fleet of merchant ships, including oil tankers, container ships and gas carriers. The need for a genuine national fuel reserve was very strong and we had four domestic refineries. When I was an organiser with the Australian Workers Union in the fuel and oil industry we had eight refineries. In 2019 we were down to four refineries. Unfortunately, in the time since the election in 2019 the number of refineries in Australia, which was already too low at four, has been slashed in half. We now have two refineries remaining. Now the government is suddenly making noises that they care about these things—better late than never, but it really is five minutes to midnight. It would have been nice if the government had done what we're talking about now, perhaps by backing Labor's policies in a bipartisan fashion before the election or even coming up with theirs before the election, but particularly before ExxonMobil announced it was closing the Altona refinery in Yarraville and BP announced the closing of Kwinana in Western Australia. We may be an island nation largely on our own, albeit with a few good friends in our neighbourhood, but that should focus our energy or attention on the fact that if things get interesting no-one will be wanting to race to our rescue as much as ourselves. Good luck and hope are not plans for national security. A significant domestic fuel reserve is, in my view, an idea whose time has come. I wish to close by noting that today is the 78th anniversary of the sinking of the United States Army transport Portmar. The Portmar wasn't sunk in a far ocean; it was sunk 35 nautical miles east of Smoky Cape near Coffs Harbour. The Portmar was built in 1919. It was 125 metres in length and its beam was 17 metres. It was a big ship. On the morning of 15 June—78 years ago yesterday—it was loaded with ammunition and fuel. It left Sydney for Brisbane as part of convoy GP55. The convoy had 10 merchant ships and three landing ship tank vessels escorted by the Royal Australian Navy vessels Bundaberg, Cootamundra, Deloraine, Kalgoorlie and Warrnambool. Yet 35 nautical miles off the Australian coastline on the east coast, at 5.15 pm in the evening of this day 78 years ago, the Japanese cruiser submarine I-174 fired a spread of torpedos. One torpedo struck one of the landing ship tank craft and another hit Portmar. The Portmar sank 10 minutes later. Two merchant marine seafarers were killed. The 71 survivors were taken aboard other ships and headed to Coffs Harbour. People might think that what happened in the past remains in the past. But we're an island nation, we don't have enough ships, we don't have enough fuel reserves and all the great technology in the world and all the defence spend in the world is rendered meaningless if we can't actually keep running our vessels and our vehicles and we can't bring cargo to and from this country. We are an island and the world doesn't owe us a living. We need to stand up and start thinking for ourselves, and perhaps remember that 78 years ago Australian seafarers and Australian service people went in harm's way. We need to ask ourselves: if that could happen then, why are we sure it can't happen now and in the future? As the American sailors on the Portmar were killed defending this country, perhaps we owe it to their memory to do more to defend ourselves. 11:45 Mr KATTER HX4 Kennedy Those of us who read history books will be well aware that World War I was touched off by Winston Churchill purchasing, or getting his government to purchase, the shares in British Petroleum. So Britain owned Shell and it owned British Petroleum, with America. Shell plus British Petroleum was almost all of the world's oil reserves. When Churchill did this—enabling his navy, of which he was the minister, to outgun, outrun and out-protect any German vessel—the German government, the German people, said: 'The Anglos control oil throughout the world, and they will keep us as a third-rate power forever. So either we fight or we accept that we are going to be a third-rate power.' So Germany decided to fight. In the Second World War—the part that concerns us, with Japan—America embargoed the petrol going to Japan. So two world wars, resulting in the deaths of nearly 100 million people, if you throw in the Spanish flu, were precipitated by oil. We've fought a war almost every single year—since I left school, anyway. When I left school we were at war with Indonesia. I was wearing the uniform, and I was on my way as a platoon commander to fight in Indonesia—my platoon was on 24-hour call-up. What was it about? It was about oil. Sukarno had moved in and seized the oil holdings of British Petroleum. I think it was British Petroleum, but it was British interests that owned the oil in Borneo, and he'd moved in and taken them. Churchill had a wonderful phrase when Hitler invaded Russia. He chortled, 'Those that cannot learn the lessons of history shall be condemned to suffer again the lessons of history.' And that is exactly what occurred, of course: the Swedish king—Charles II, maybe; my memory fails me—Napoleon and, of course, Hitler all sank in exactly the same way. If we can't learn the lessons of history, and China embargoes oil into this country, a very simple thing I asked about the week before last—and the Middle Eastern people have embargoed oil on, I think, seven occasions. They've cut off the world's oil supply. Well, there were a lot of other sources in those days. Now there are not. We didn't have to worry too much, because we had our own oil. We were self-sufficient in oil. History will judge the free marketeers in its place, and future generations of Australians will spit upon the people in this parliament, just as people like myself spit upon the memory of Billy Hughes, because history tells you what really happened. I don't know how many different figures we've got, because no-one will come clean. But let me say that, on balance, it would appear that we are 25 per cent self-sufficient in oil, and we export it all because our refineries can't or won't refine it. It's light crude—'light' means it's light in aromatics. Aromatics give a lot more power, and they are carcinogenic. Everyone wants aromatics out, so they buy the light crude from Australia. Australians don't care how many people die, in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, from breathing in superfine particles. Every other country has gone to ethanol, of course, to overcome the superfine particle problems. It's five per cent throughout Europe, 12½ per cent—last time I looked—in America and 30 per cent in Brazil. Everyone has moved to ethanol for health reasons, but we don't seem to worry about that. The NRMA—God bless them—did their report and said we had effectively two weeks of petrol supplies in Australia, but I'm jumping ahead of myself. So we export all of our oil and we import all of our petrol, diesel and avgas. That's smart, isn't it: importing fuel that's carcinogenic and heavy in aromatics! Also, you don't get such a good burn, so you get the superfine particles going into your lungs and killing you. In actual fact, if you move from, let's say, Armidale or Tamworth to Sydney, your chances of dying of heart or lung disease almost double. They're the findings from California, and that's why America introduced ethanol and other renewables through its air quality control legislation, to replace the aromatics in petrol and to get a much better burn. Let's put that aside for a moment. I've been in parliament nearly 50 years. I'm the second-longest-serving member of parliament in Australian history. For the first time ever I saw a leader stand up and lead a standing ovation for Andrew Robb for doing the free trade deal with China. I was sitting next to my colleague Andrew Wilkie, and I said: 'This bloke will not be there in six months. The people of Australia will never accept the rubbish that he's putting out here, that the free trade deal with China is good for Australia. Free trade deal with China? Are you joking? China will do exactly what China wants to do, and you, like little puppy dogs, will do exactly as they tell you to do.' And that's exactly how it worked out. But I was wrong on the six months. I said, 'He won't be there in six months; there will be forces that will hear and listen to this, and they will get rid of him.' I was wrong. It wasn't six months; it was three months—three months after the standing ovation for Andrew Robb. There's Andrew Robb, the man who sold the Port of Darwin for 30 pieces of silver—$990,000 a year—and the Liberals are giving him a standing ovation. What a great man! Only $990,000 a year from the company for the Port of Darwin—no punishment, no retribution, no apologies to the Australian people for having sold the port. Reading the history books, you can see many intelligent people who are very determined, and I think in China we're dealing with very intelligent people who are very determined in their ambitions in the South China Sea and with Pacific nations. They are a flashing neon light. If you can't see that light coming down the tunnel at you and work out that it's a locomotive, then you are really dumb, to use Churchill's terrible aphorism. And I might add a couple of others, like von Clausewitz: 'A people without land look for a land without people.' If you take out what I call the 'golden nulla nulla'—starting at Cairns, 100 kilometres wide, coming down the east coast of Australia, through Melbourne to Adelaide—and take out a dot around Perth, you'll find that 93 per cent of the service area of Australia is occupied by under a million people. As a race of people, how much longer do you think that's going to go on for? Two hundred and fifty years ago, we thought it was alright to have 300,000 people here. We didn't need an army. We didn't need any right to protect ourselves. We didn't need to go and learn how to use a bow and arrow and all those sorts of things. No, we didn't need any of those things. She'll be right, mate. We Australians are very lucky to be alive today. Have we learned by our mistakes? Let's go back to the free trade deal with China. China got upset over a comment by our Prime Minister, so they just cut off everything going to China. Did we cut off everything coming from China into Australia? No, absolutely nothing. So the free trade deal is not worth two bob, like every other free trade deal. Do you think America are going to listen to tiny little Australia if they want to preserve their aluminium industry or their sugar industry or their dairy industry? Of course not. But the brainless imbeciles in this place, the free marketeers, have sold off everything that can possibly be sold. We own nothing, the Australian people. They sold the Commonwealth Bank. They sold the airports. They sold the seaports. Anything that has not been hammered down, they've sold. The only reason they didn't sell the Snowy was that there were two people sitting on the crossbenches, Andren and me, and we recommitted the motion. And God bless Alan Jones and John Laws, who hammered and hammered and hammered, and the Australian people rose up in rage because they'd had enough of it: 'You're not selling the Snowy!' So the Snowy wasn't sold. The only things we own now are Australia Post—which I reckon is under a very heavy cloud, with the sacking of that wonderful lady Christine Holgate—and the NBN, put in by the much-maligned Kevin Rudd. Let me go back. Twenty-five per cent of our oil can be used in Australia if those refineries are made and we ban the export of oil. Southern Oil is already working at a profit. The Premier of Queensland and the Prime Minister of Australia have both been into its factories. It is getting $27 million from both of them to build a giant plant at Ipswich in Queensland. It already has plants operating at Wagga Wagga and Gladstone, and they're running at a profit. They take waste from the garbage bin in your backyard and, through a process called pyrolysis, turn it into diesel. The Germans, in the latter days of the war, got almost all of their diesel from pyrolysis. We have the wherewithal, through waste recycling, to be able to meet 30 per cent of our needs. I don't want to denigrate people but I mean, honestly, building an emergency supply of petrol in America? It's on the other side of the globe from Australia. It's in the Western Hemisphere, and we're in the Eastern Hemisphere. It's in the Northern Hemisphere, and we're in the Southern Hemisphere. If you want the rest of Australia to laugh at you, just do things like that. Going back to this bill specifically, petrol prices are being held down by 4c a litre—and that is coming out of the ACCC, not from me—because United Petroleum is in the ball game. You've just given a golden handshake to their competitors, and they now have the wherewithal to wipe United Petroleum out, so you can kiss goodbye to that 4c a litre for the Australian people. You are the people who want a level playing field. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265967 I just remind the member for Kennedy that, when you refer to 'you', you're referring to the chair, rather than the government or other persons. I just remind the member for Kennedy of that. Mr KATTER HX4 I most certainly will go along with your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have sat in this place for nearly 30 years or whatever the hell it is, and in another chamber, the state chamber, for 20 years, and I've heard again and again that we must have a level playing field, that no-one has the right to a golden handshake. Well, a golden handshake's been given to bad guys, and of course a kick in the backside has been given to the good guys! So, what you're doing here today, in my opinion—and, I believe, in the opinion of the ACCC—will kick the price of petrol in this country up by 4c a litre. And we are still exporting our oil! I don't know what you think you're going to achieve by having the refineries here, when we're not refining our own oil. And I'm very curious to know why you're not moving with waste recycling; I'm very curious to know what is going on there as well. You've got to ask questions when someone is getting a big handout— (Time expired) 12:00 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne Fuel security is a terrific idea, and Australia, with our magnificent sun and wind, could be not only fully energy independent but also be exporting energy to the rest of the world. But this bill, the Fuel Security Bill 2021, isn't about fuel security; it's about subsidies to fossil fuel corporations and about picking out a couple of those, with no guarantee that one cent of the money will find its way down to the workers in any of those corporations. We know that in the rest of the world there has been a massive shift to electric vehicles. People not only have seen the pollution related benefits to switching away from oil or petrol towards renewable-powered electric vehicles but also have understood the security related benefits and the energy-independence related benefits. If your country is running on electric vehicles then you are not at the whim of geopolitics, of oil-producing corporations and of fights between countries that have very little to do with the people who just want to be able to get around and use their car, their bike or their truck. If your country is running on electric vehicles and generates enough energy to power itself and a surplus to export to the rest of the world, you're in the box seat both economically and environmentally, and you also have a security advantage. If the government had come in here and said, 'We want fuel security and we've understood, as other countries have, that the best way to get that is to make sure we're not dependent on other countries or big corporations and we are going to make sure our transport fleet can run on power produced here in Australia,' then they'd get a big tick from us. But that is not what this bill is about. This bill says that $2 billion goes to fossil fuel corporations without a guarantee that a cent of that finds its way down to the workers. And there will be no plan in the long term for making Australia more fuel secure by switching over to EVs—by switching our industry over, by switching our transport over. This comes on top of a budget that gave $11.4 billion in handouts to fossil fuels alone, another $1.1 billion for new coal and gas projects and now another $2 billion to some fossil fuel corporations but nothing for electrifying transport, nothing for electrifying industry—nothing for moving our country towards 700 per cent renewables, with our electricity running on 100 per cent renewables and all our other sectors running on renewably generated electricity while we're exporting it to the rest of the world through green hydrogen, or to Asia through direct undersea cable. That is what real fuel security would look like. Instead we've had a budget for billionaires and now more handouts for big corporations and billionaires without, I repeat, a guarantee that one cent will find its way to the workers in those corporations. This bill is a continuation of the government's approach of giving billions of dollars in handouts to big corporations and billionaires—the same corporations that donate to the Liberal and Labor parties—while leaving everyone behind. Apparently there's $11.4 billion in the budget to giving handouts to fossil fuel corporations but not enough money to put dental into Medicare for everyone or to make education free again. That's because this government is in the pocket of the big corporations and billionaires—many of whom pay no tax. We have a situation in this country where one in three big corporations pay no tax. Instead of making them pay, we have bills like this where the government lines up and says, 'How can we give you a handout?' At the G7 that happened over the weekend, they said that it's time to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2025. In other words, stop putting your hand in the public's pocket and asking the public to give money to big coal and gas corporations and oil corporations, many of whom pay no tax. Instead, address the climate crisis by using that money to get us onto renewables. You see this shift that's happening in the rest of the world in electric vehicles. By 2030 in Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK you won't be able to buy a new combustion engine car. That's when they are shifting over. By 2035, Japan will have phased out the sale of new combustion engines. France, Sri Lanka and Singapore will be selling only electric vehicles in 2040. Other countries are providing clear, up-front incentives for consumers, making it easier for people to shift to an EV right now. Here in the ACT, thanks to having Greens in shared power, you get incentives to switch over to an electric vehicle as well, but instead this government is taking us the other way. But, because of what is happening around the world, manufacturers are responding. The Electric Vehicle Council recently summarised some of those shifts. Major manufacturers like Ford, BMW, General Motors, Hyundai, Nissan and others have made clear commitments to offer more EVs or to transition their fleets entirely. Those radical environmentalists at General Motors have said that they are going to shift their entire sales range to electric vehicles by 2035. If you don't believe what the Greens are saying, listen to what General Motors are saying—all electric by 2035. What does it mean to have fuel security? It means to switch over to electric and generate the electricity here. Generate the electricity here, so we're not reliant on a big corporation or another country on the other side of the world for oil or petrol. That's what it means to have genuine fuel security. We have had such a lack of leadership from this Prime Minister. We were promised a national strategy in 2019, but instead it took two years for the Liberals to release a discussion paper in which the only thing they were willing to commit to was not offering any consumer incentives for electric vehicles at all. In that gap of federal leadership, we've seen a disjointed, and at times harmful, approach from state governments, including the Victorian government's tax on electric vehicles at exactly the time we need more of them. A group of 25 organisations ranging from car manufacturers to environmental groups published an open letter calling the Victorian tax the worst in the world. This is happening because of the tragic lack of federal leadership. They've had several years to act on fuel security—that is, to genuinely act on fuel security—and to make us not only energy self-sufficient but energy exporters from 100 per cent renewables. Instead, we have this bill, which was rushed out of the door without any proper process. There was no public exposure draft of the bill that the community could have input on. The government will presumably oppose any kind of scrutiny through a committee inquiry. We've got the rushed, artificial deadline of 1 July to hand over an enormous amount of funding without any scrutiny at all. That's why the Greens will be moving to amend this bill, to try and force the parties in this place to acknowledge that, if you are serious about fuel security and you are serious about tackling the climate crisis, you must have an electric vehicle strategy. The government is not serious about either of those things. Instead of spending $2 billion of the public's money on a subsidy, without any requirement to protect jobs, we could be investing that in a national EV strategy—in a clear plan to transition to EVs, with urgent, significant public investment in a national fast-charging network, which Infrastructure Australia has identified as a national priority. We think it's also appropriate that there be a review of how effective this subsidy is in improving fuel security, as opposed to lining the pockets of big corporations. We want to see a clear comparison with the benefits of an EV transition. We're not huge fans of trickle-down economics, economic rationalism and the market driven approach, but I know the Productivity Commission is. At the least, the government and the opposition should support letting the Productivity Commission have a look at whether you're better off giving a straight cash handout of $2 billion to big corporations, with no strings attached, or having a proper fuel security strategy based on electric vehicles. Let them run the ruler over it. When you look at what is happening in the rest of the world, you'll see that the clearest and best way to make Australia fuel secure is to stop our reliance on oil and petrol. That is how we do it. Make the fuel here from our sun and our wind. That's how we do it. Make the batteries here in Australia. Develop a domestic, 100 per cent renewable industry that can drive the transport in this country. That is how we make ourselves fuel secure. If any country in the world can do it, it's Australia. We are not short of sun and wind. We are not short of places to put solar and wind farms, and we are not short of the nous to make batteries and fuel like liquid hydrogen here. We can do all those things. That's where the $2 billion should be going—to driving that transition. Instead, this government is doing the bidding of its big corporate donors and stapling us to a technology that the rest of the world is rapidly moving away from. The government says it's for technology, not taxes. It's giving handouts to big corporations, it's letting one in three big corporations in this country pay absolutely no tax and it's using a technology that is rapidly being superseded and about which everywhere else in the world is saying, 'We've got to get off it because that is the way to address the climate crisis.' We also think—and this is why we're moving a separate amendment—that this bill should not apply until the government has taken some basic steps on EVs. That will be as simple as requiring them to state what their EV strategy is and provide some analysis of how it compares to that of other countries. I really hope that these amendments get the support of the government and the opposition. I have heard from the opposition that their reason for supporting this is that the $2 billion will guarantee jobs, but the problem is that it doesn't. We should have learnt from the way that the government handed out JobKeeper that, if you don't design the scheme right, billions of dollars can end up just lining the pockets of big corporations. That's what this is. This is another blank cheque. To be crystal clear: the Greens support fuel security. But we want a genuine policy, developed with public consultation, about how we improve our fuel security by making the fuel here, from the sun and the wind that we are blessed with, so that we are not reliant on other countries and big corporations overseas. We have the capacity to do this, but all this bill and this subsidy will do is prolong our dependence on big corporations, big multinationals and other governments, because we will still be reliant on hoping that things trickle into this country at the right point in time. But we do not have to be. We not only have the sun and the wind but also the smarts in this country to be powering and driving our whole country from renewables. This bill doesn't even have the pretence of a long-term plan. It's a short-term handout in the hope that giving more money to big corporations will fix the problem. Well, if there's anything the last 30 years has taught us, it's that giving public money in the form of handouts to billionaires in big corporations who don't need them doesn't work in the interests of people; it just makes them richer at the expense of everyone else. That's why this bill and this approach are wrong, why they need to be fixed and why the Greens will move amendments. 12:16 Ms CLAYDON 248181 Newcastle It's with great pleasure that I rise to speak in favour of the amendments moved by the shadow minister in the cognate debate on the Fuel Security Bill 2021 and the Fuel Security (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 202 today. While there are welcome elements, indeed, in these particular bills, we shouldn't be under any illusion; these bills are the result of an ongoing government failure on fuel security. That's how we have come to be here right now. I would just like to remind the House that, while I said at the outset that these bills are welcome, this government has actually been responsible for overseeing half of Australia's remaining refineries close under its watch since this initial fuel security announcement was made back in last September. That's the lived reality here in Australia. We are getting pretty used to seeing this, actually, from government, where everyone turns up for the announcement, everyone is there for the photo opportunity, but when you go to look for some follow-through, it's sadly lacking, and that is a pattern that is very clear and discernible for this government. Even if this package were to be implemented as predicted by the government, Australia will still be non-compliant with our International Energy Agency obligation to hold 90 days of oil reserves. This will mean that we would still be disproportionately impacted and disproportionately reliant on imports. This critically important issue to my home town of Newcastle is recognition of the fact that Australia still lacks a strategic fleet. Nothing that this government is presenting to this House today or on any previous occasion does anything to remedy the fact that we, as an island nation, completely lack a strategic fleet. It leaves us utterly reliant upon a fleet of foreign owned and operated tankers. Australia does not own a single tanker anymore. All of the shipping up and down our coastlines is now in the hands of foreign owned and operated tankers. If that doesn't ring some alarm bells for this government, I don't know what does. Yet despite this government's claims—when they popped up the announcement last September for fuel security—that they are taking action to secure our long-term fuel supply, there is little to suggest that is in fact the case. As part of that announcement by the government there was an enticement of sorts, an effort not only to seek to secure fuel security and some of the jobs attached to it but to ensure that some money was allocated to make sure that new storage facilities could be built in Australia. The port of Newcastle has a couple of applications in before the government. I was asked to go and visit the Stolthaven fuel storage facility in Newcastle, which is one of the applicants. Stolthaven are a leading independent provider of storage and distribution services for bulk liquid fuels. Their facility is a very important one in the port of Newcastle. It's a terminal that today has nine tanks, with a capacity of 130,700 cubic metres. They have development consent already for an additional 17 tanks to be installed, which would massively increase their capacity to store fuel. Those 17 tanks of diesel and motor gasoline would give an additional capacity of 224,650 cubic metres. That's nothing to be sneezed at. It is not a small increase by anybody's standards. It's development-application ready. They were asked to go through an expression-of-interest process, which they have done, as I know Park Fuels also have done. They have terrific access to a very deep water berth that would be adequate for LR2-capable vessels to be loaded from. So they've applied under this government's new fuel storage program for Australia. The application was submitted back on 15 June, and since then it's been crickets. Nothing has been said. Construction is actually meant to commence in July this year, which, according to my figures, is only a couple of weeks away, along with a recruitment process for workers in those facilities. I really wanted to use this opportunity today to say that if you were serious about putting any substance behind otherwise hollow announcements about fuel security in this nation then you would hurry up. You would attach a sense of urgency to the selection of successful applicants under the fuel storage program and you would look seriously at the port of Newcastle as an absolutely essential location. The location not only has strategic importance through its connections with the RAAF base to the north of Newcastle, which has a very large civilian airport co-located with it, and a very deep water port, which is required in order to have big ships fully loaded with these fuels, but is a clear, logical choice for a nationally important fuel storage facility. I urge the government to adopt some urgency on this matter, because it is a government that, to date, has quite a dismal record on following through on its announcements and on putting in place anything of substance that will lead to a secure, long-term fuel supply for this nation. Those opposite think that the announcements made back in September are going to create a thousand new jobs, but we have zero evidence of the delivery of anything at this point. We've seen nothing since that announcement. The government has had a lot of private sector players—as I just noted, the case of Stolthaven in Newcastle—working tirelessly to put forward proposals. They could not have done their work better for them. Yet government is still so slow to respond, leaving those facilities still wondering what on earth this government's commitment really is to the region. It's only now that the government seeks to bring these bills before us. You've got a start date for construction on some of these facilities of 1 July. The government is cutting time superfine in trying to get bills passed with just a couple of weeks out. It would be very good to see this government turn its mind to the ongoing issue of a lack of strategic fleet here in Australia. Newcastle would have been and remains an ideal location to have a permanent strategic fleet. The government recognises the strategic importance of Newcastle in so many ways yet fails to support the Port of Newcastle to develop and deliver its full potential. That is a shameful reflection on this government. This government's ideological opposition to ensuring that we have Australian flagged ships operating up and down Australian coastlines should be an issue of national security for this parliament but, no, this is a government that has undermined the Australian shipping industry and its workers at every opportunity possible. We are left with the situation of being the largest island continent in this world having zero—we do not have a single one—fuel tankers, and the number of Australian flagged ships currently operating on our coastline is dwindling on a daily basis under this government's regime. This is all because the government fears organised labour. It's driven by such profound opposition to a properly organised workforce that insists on safe, secure work conditions. What we are left with are foreign owned vessels cruising up and down our coastlines, carrying critical cargoes and no assurances that workers on board those ships are treated adequately. There is no value-add to our nation in terms of being able to build on our own capacity here. It is a shameful act of neglect by this government, to continue undermining the Australian shipping industry in this nation. I commend the opposition's amendments and ask that this government: (a) develop a sense of urgency about the work it has to undertake to ensure that there is a secure fuel supply in this nation, and (b) recognise the work and effort from so many fuel providers to take part in this bid for additional fuel storage in Australia. It should back in those companies, like Stolthaven and Park in the Port of Newcastle, and provide them with the kind of support that will be required to deliver on the government's intention of long-term fuel security for this nation. 12:29 Mr TAYLOR 231027 Hume I rise to close the debate on the Fuel Security Bill 2021 and the Fuel Security (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2021, and I thank the many members who have contributed to this debate. These bills are critical to ensuring Australia's long-term fuel security and our national sovereignty. The Morrison government's fuel security package, supported by these bills, will support our economy and keep our critical services running, particularly at critical times. I welcome Labor's support on these bills that will help secure the 1,250 jobs across the Ampol refinery in Brisbane and the Viva refinery in Geelong. The Fuel Security Bill addresses the need to safeguard our country against disruptions in the market while making sure that Australians have access to the reliable and affordable energy that is essential to keeping our economy moving. While our fuel prices have remained affordable during the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for petrol and jet fuel has declined significantly. This had a major impact on our local refineries and reinforced the importance of being prepared to handle unexpected but significant supply chain disruptions. This is why the government introduced the fuel security package in 2020, which these bills continue to build on. We've committed to investing $200 million to build new diesel storage facilities which are expected to deliver new storage by 2020 and see our diesel stocks increase. We're placing a minimum stockholding obligation on industry, requiring a mandated level of jet fuel, petrol and diesel stocks to be held in Australia. It will provide much-needed certainty to motorists and other major fuel users, including our miners, truckers, families, farmers and tradies, that we have these products on hand to support commercial supply chains during disruptions. The minimum stockholding obligation will not only improve domestic fuel security but also assist Australia to meet the 90-day net oil stockholding required by the International Energy Agency. Through these bills, the government has negotiated commitments from the Ampol and Viva refineries to lock in operations and protect jobs until at least mid-2027. These commitments will be secured through the government providing $250 million to help upgrade refinery infrastructure to deliver better-quality fuels in 2024. Those fuels of course will also play an important role in providing access to newer vehicles being put on the market and bringing down emissions, as well as in the legislated fuel security services payment. The fuel security services payment will be an adjustable cent-per-litre payment which is dependent on market conditions. The government will only make this payment to refineries during tough times, when they need the support. Payments will not be made when times are good and refineries are making a profit. We'll further protect taxpayers by ensuring this payment is capped at 1.8c per litre and implement a thorough monitoring and compliance framework. Securing our sovereign refining capability is absolutely essential. Without this, Australia would lose the ability to refine domestic crude oil in an emergency, and our onshore stockholdings would only be suitable for a definite period of time before they ran out. So this bill is critical. Any risk to our ongoing fuel supply and of critical jobs being cut is unacceptable. Without these measures, it is very likely that Australia's remaining refineries would close within the next five years, leaving our country 100 per cent dependent on international supply chains to meet our fuel needs. Through this package, we're protecting Australian jobs and livelihoods. These bills will protect 1,250 workers directly employed at the refineries and create a further 750 construction jobs through the major infrastructure upgrades. The agreement from Ampol and Viva to continue operating is contingent on these bills being enacted. Similarly, the Fuel Security (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill ensures that the minimum stockholding obligation and the fuel security services payment will operate as intended. The package also provides for the proper monitoring of both measures, reducing the regulatory burden on industry and enhancing the integrity of the system. Australia's future prosperity is dependent on a strong and stable fuel market. That is what these bills deliver. I thank my colleagues for their consideration and commend these bills to the House. The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D The original question was that these bills be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for McMahon has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be disagreed to. Question agreed to, Mr Katter dissenting. Bill read a second time. Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced. Consideration in Detail 36 12:36 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne by leave—I move amendments (1) to (3), as circulated in my name: (1) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 1, column 2), omit the cell, substitute: (2) Clause 71, page 62 (after line 8), after the paragraph beginning "This Part also", insert: Finally, this Part deals with the review of this Act by the Productivity Commission every two years. (3) Page 71 (after line 2), at the end of Division 3, add: 85 Re port by Productivity Commission (1) The Productivity Commission must report to the Minister on: (a) the operation of this Act; and (b) the matters mentioned in subsection (3). (2) Reports must be prepared in relation to the following periods: (a) the 2-year period starting on the commencement of this Act; (b) each successive 2-year period. (3) Without limiting the matters to be covered in the reports, the reports must include an analysis of the following: (a) the costs and benefits (including employment generated) during the relevant 2-year period of the measures implemented by this Act to improve security and confidence in Australia's fuel supplies; (b) the impact during the relevant 2-year period of the following on fuel security, economic activity and employment (including matters relating to industry, industry development and productivity): (i) the manufacturing, sale, purchase and use of electric vehicles, electric vehicle components and electric vehicle batteries; (ii) commodity value-adding in relation to electric vehicles; (iii) investment in fast charging network infrastructure; (iv) the manufacturing, sale, purchase and use of other forms of zero emissions transport (including transport powered by zero emissions fuels such as clean hydrogen); (v) any related matters. (4) The report must be provided to the Minister within 60 days after the end of the 2-year period to which the report relates. (5) The Minister must cause the report to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after receiving the report. (6) In this section: matters relating to industry, industry development and productivity has the same meaning as in section 6 of the Productivity Commission Act 1998. For the Hansard, as would have been apparent from the speech at item 2, the Greens opposed the bill. We're moving amendments that should be supported by everyone in this place because they're sensible amendments that will deal with some of the big problems that are in this bill. One of the main problems with the bill is that it talks about fuel security but completely ignores the best way of getting Australia to be 100 per cent energy independent, which is getting our country running on 700 per cent renewables: 100 per cent for electricity but not just electricity. It is getting our transport and our industry running on renewables and exporting it as well. Now, getting an electric vehicle strategy in this country will improve fuel security because we can generate enormous amounts of renewable electricity here. We know that. We are blessed with sun and wind—the best in the world—and we know we've got people who know how to make batteries here in this country. We had the capacity to make cars, and I'm sure that we could generate it again for the capacity to make electric vehicles in this country. We could be completely secure if we had an electric vehicle strategy, but we don't. We wouldn't have to rely on overseas governments or on big corporations who have interests only in profit and not in the security of the Australian people. One of the amendments that I'm moving is to delay the commencement of the fuel security components until passage of the electric vehicle accountability bill, which is being progressed through the Senate. It makes sense to have an electric vehicle strategy in this country. The rest of the world is moving. As I said during my speech, if you don't want to listen to the Greens, listen to General Motors, which is going to be moving to all-electric by 2035. We don't want to be the world's dumping ground, forced to rely not only on overseas producers for fuel-guzzling cars but also for the petrol, but that is where this government is taking us. They're taking us there and they're asking the public to dip into their own pockets and pay for it. We should not go down that road. We should go down the road of making Australia fuel secure by having an electric vehicle strategy. First, pause this bill until we've got one so that we don't just tip good money into the pockets of big corporations with no guarantee that it's even going to any of the workers. The second amendment that is being moved asks the government to do something that should be thoroughly unobjectionable, which is to ask one of their favourite commissions, the Productivity Commission, to use the driest of economic logic to assess the benefits of the 'tip money into big corporations' pockets' approach of the government verses having an electric vehicle strategy for fuel security. If the government has nothing to hide they should support this amendment. I suspect that the Productivity Commission will also find that the best way to ensure our fuel security is to minimise our reliance on oil and petrol. That is the way we can best ensure our fuel security, and we would get a better bang for our buck if we did it that way. And if we did that we would drive the electric car industry in Australia and the renewable electricity generation industry in Australia. If the government really thinks that the best way to go in order to deal with Australia's fuel security is to give $2 billion to a couple of handpicked corporations, then let's allow the Productivity Commission to run a ruler over it. They should have nothing to hide with respect to that amendment. I urge that these sensible amendments be supported by the government, the opposition and other members of the crossbench. There should be no problem with asking the Productivity Commission to look at it, unless the government knows in its heart of hearts that this is not the most efficient way of ensuring Australia's fuel security. It would force the government to come up with an electric vehicle strategy. It currently does not have one. It has promised us one. It has refused one. The only thing it came up with in 2019, after promising us an EV strategy, was a paper that said they are not going to provide any incentives at all. (Time expired) 12:41 Mr KATTER HX4 Kennedy People will be surprised that I am backing this amendment, but the argument put by the honourable member is a good argument. We don't have enough petrol. The very best we can hope for is 24 per cent self-sufficiency in petrol. If some of our transportation is met by electricity, that would dramatically help to make us self-sufficient; hence my support for what the honourable member is proposing here. I don't think many people in Australia are aware that almost all of our petrol comes from Singapore and South Korea. As I pointed out, the First World War and the Second World War—and every war we have been in for the last 50 years—were about Middle Eastern petrol or petrol from Indonesia. I was sent as a young man to fight in Indonesia. Thank goodness, I survived before we got over there. If China embargoes oil coming into Australia, there is no way in the world that Singapore and South Korea are going to defy China. So Australia would be left without any petrol. I mean no disrespect for the government on this issue but there will be queues four kilometres long in front of every service station in Australia, and your five weeks supply will be used within a few days. I've never been long on CO2 but I've never been a climate denier insofar as there is a problem that arises in the oceans with a change in the pH levels and the ability of shellfish to form their shells—and I quote the work done by Katharina Fabricius at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. There is no doubt that the institute and that scientist are correct in what they are saying. So we want a pullback. We've done some wonderful work with algae technology, and we believe that even coal-fired power stations can use algae technology. But it can only be used where you have a lot of water and a lot of flat land. Unfortunately, none of our existing power stations fall into that category. So, without going too long and too sideways on the proposals here, again I reiterate that I support the amendment on the basis that two corporations are getting a $2 billion golden handshake, and what is Australia getting in return? Well, it's an abolition of a competitive system. Suddenly two of the players have a massive head start, in the case of Ampol, against United Petroleum. The ACCC have advised me, unofficially, that United Petroleum are holding the price of petrol down by about four cents a litre. So if they are excluded from the marketplace then you can rest assured that the price of petrol is going to go up by four cents a litre. There is a very real possibility—I might even say probability—of the damage to United Petroleum here being very critical indeed. Hence my opposition to the bill in its present form, without protections for competition in the marketplace. I'm not the one advocating free markets and fair competition and not picking winners. Both sides of the House are in that camp. I'm not. But where there is an injustice and unfairness, the government should take cognisance of that. I applaud the government for taking cognisance of the point raised continuously in this place about fuel security—repeating that it arguably caused two world wars and has been responsible for almost every single war since World War II, with the exception of the African wars. So I applaud the reasons why the government is doing this, but the implementation is a huge flaw. Firstly, I'd like to see the minister in this place while we are debating this legislation. Secondly, I would like him to take into account the effect upon the other competitors in the market and the golden handshake that's being given to one— (Time expired) 12:47 Mr BOWEN DZS McMahon I'll just briefly detain the House to outline why the Labor Party will not be supporting the honourable member for Melbourne's amendments. Firstly, of course, the government's record on electric vehicles is utterly appalling—he's right to make that point—but I don't believe it is correct to link the two issues. We have our own electric vehicle policy in the Labor Party: to make electric vehicles cheaper and to give Australians more choice by taking taxes off them. I don't think you need to link this legislation with another bill in the Senate, which the Greens are only just introducing now. I think this bill should be passed or defeated on its merits, not linked to another piece of legislation. Secondly, while I'd have no problem with the Productivity Commission reviewing this legislation's operation after a period of time—I'd be quite supportive of that, in fact—there is a process for determining Productivity Commission referrals. It can be done in a couple of ways, but including it in the legislation is, I believe, not the appropriate way on this particular occasion. So we will not be supporting the Greens' amendments. The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D The question is that the amendments be disagreed to. Question agreed to. Bill agreed to. Third Reading 38 12:49 Mr ROBERT HWT Fadden I move: That this bill be now read a third time. 12:49 Mr KATTER HX4 Kennedy I rise to speak on the third reading. I'm entitled to, as I understand it. You may correct me, Mr Deputy Speaker Gillespie. I just want to comment upon the amendment moved by my colleague, the leader of the Greens, in this parliament. The second half of his amendment, I would very much like to have voted for, because the effect of the bill is very much cutting across a fair and competitive marketplace. I've spoken many times in this place how unfair the supposed free market is, with Woolworths and Coles holding the predominant position they have now in petrol as well as other in areas. So I think the second half of that amendment should have been looked at seriously by this parliament. I would plead with the minister to look seriously at the second half of the amendment moved by the leader of the Greens in this parliament. I remind the House again that all of our petrol, diesel and aviation fuel, the vast bulk of it, comes from Singapore and South Korea, both of which would acknowledge and agree to an embargo on those fuels into Australia if China demanded it. It's a simple, easy thing for China to do. I pointed out to the House that if there was really serious trouble, they would have boats coming in and out of the Port of Darwin, which they own, on all occasions. If one of those boats contained a battalion of marines then they would have the Northern Territory peripheral areas—the North West Minerals Province, Olympic Dam, which has almost all of our metals in Australia. They own the airbase at Merredin, which is across the terminus of the east-west railway and the east-west highway, about 100 kilometres this side of Perth. So now they've got Western Australia and all of the iron ore. Truly, I don't know whether the rest of Australia would fight for it. I mean, there is no-one living there; we don't care about it. People would not understand the importance of the metals and the iron ore industry to Australia, so I don't even know whether they'd fight for it. I am, of course, a North Queenslander. In the last war, we were handed over. There was not a Brisbane line, actually; all of Australia was handed over to the Japanese, with the exception of the golden nulla nulla—that area from Cairns down through Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and across to Adelaide and Perth. Take that 100-kilometre-wide strip out, and the rest of it was given to Japan, so there is precedent for this sort of action. If I am making Cassandra-like statements, it would have been good if the Trojans had listened to Cassandra, wouldn't it? Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Fuel Security (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2021 38

Fuel Security (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2021

Second Reading 38 Third Reading 39 12:54 Mr ROBERT HWT Fadden by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. COMMITTEES 39 COMMITTEES Northern Australia Committee 39 Membership 39 12:54 The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D The Speaker has received a message from the Senate informing the House that the following senators are to be discharged from attendance on the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia: Senator Siewert on 17 June 2021; and Senator Thorpe on 19 June 2021; and the following Senators are to be appointed as members of the committee: Senator Thorpe on 17 June 2021; and Senator Siewert on 19 June 2021. Joint Select Committee on Road Safety 39 Membership 39 12:54 The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D The Speaker has received a message from the Senate informing the House that Senator Sheldon had been appointed a member of the Joint Select Committee on Road Safety. Australia's Family Law System Joint Select Committee 39 Reporting Date 39 12:55 The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D The Speaker has received the following message from the Senate informing the House that the Senate has agreed to the following resolutions: That the time for the presentation of the final report of the Joint Select Committee on Australia's Family Law System be extended to 29 October 2021. The Senate requests the concurrence of the House of Representatives in this resolution. Ordered that the message be considered immediately. 12:55 Mr ROBERT HWT Fadden I move: That the House concur with the resolution of the Senate. Question agreed to. RESOLUTIONS OF THE SENATE 39 RESOLUTIONS OF THE SENATE JobKeeper Payment 39 Consideration of Senate Message 39 12:56 The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D The Speaker has received the following message from the Senate: The Senate transmits to the House of Representatives the following resolution which was agreed to by the Senate this day: That the Senate— (1) notes that the 2021-21 Budget delivered the Jobkeeper wage subsidy, which saw over $1 billion in Jobkeeper payments paid to companies that made a profit or paid executive bonuses; and (2) calls on the Federal Government to require companies with an annual turnover of more than $50 million that received Jobkeeper payments, and in the last 12 months did one or more of the following: (a) issued dividends; (b) made a profit; or (c) paid executive bonuses; to repay the Commonwealth an amount equal to the amount of Jobkeeper payments they received, up to the sum of profits made and executive bonuses paid. The Senate requests the concurrence of the House of Representatives in this resolution. 12:56 Mr ROBERT HWT Fadden I move: That consideration of the message be made an order of the day for the next sitting. 12:56 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne I move: That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "the message be considered immediately". I will speak very briefly on this. I understand we want to finish by 1.30, so I won't take too much longer. But we need to consider this now. We're talking about whether $1 billion in public money that has been spent should be recouped. This is $1 billion that went to corporations and billionaires that didn't need it. It is not every day that we have a message from the Senate that has passed the very significant divergent political positions that are in the Senate and has got majority support in the Senate requesting that the House agree. When it happens, it is significant. It is very, very significant. The message must be considered immediately because we are talking about $1 billion that could be made available for schools and hospitals, for JobKeeper in places like Melbourne, where we are still doing it tough. If we do not consider it immediately then we are turning a blind eye to the Senate's request that we ask some of these profitable corporations to pay their fair share. What the motion moved by the Senate asks the government to do is very, very simple. It recognises that during the pandemic the government made a number of payments for wage subsidies. The Greens was the first party in this place to call for payments to be linked to wages, and it was widely welcomed when the government decided to do just that. But it was JobKeeper, not 'profit keeper'. It was JobKeeper. It turns out that, because of the poor design of the system, which was left up to regulations and all in the hands of the Treasurer, the money went to big corporations and billionaires that just didn't need it. So you had corporations like Harvey Norman, with billionaire Gerry Harvey, having literally a captive audience during the lockdown. Everyone was in their homes. You were locked down. You couldn't go out. There was nowhere to go. So people were buying products from Harvey Norman hand over fist. That led to a more than doubling of Harvey Norman's profits. But, at the same time as Gerry Harvey's corporation was making record profits, the public also paid it $20 million in JobKeeper. He does not need it. Big corporations that are making record profits do not need public handouts. The government is responsible for the design of the scheme but the government can now recoup some of that money. At a time when every dollar counts, especially for people in Melbourne, casual workers are being asked by this government to go for up to three weeks, without work, on $325. Why is it that casual workers in Melbourne get $300 when they need much more but billionaires, who don't need anything, get a $20 million handout and the government turns a blind eye? Robodebt was a shameful chapter in this nation's history when the government hounded people for money they didn't owe, but when you pay a billionaire $20 million he doesn't need the government turns a blind eye. We are asking the government to apply one-tenth of the fervour that they applied to jobseekers to these billionaires and big corporations that took money they didn't need. Another one is Kerry Stokes with Seven West Media. They saw a big increase in their half-yearly profits. They took about $45 million in JobKeeper to help them along their way to increase profits and then went out, as well as making record profits, and bought a private jet. The chairman went and bought a private jet. If you can afford to buy a private jet, you can afford to pay back JobKeeper. It is as simple as that. If it considers this motion immediately and then supports it, this government has the capacity to send a strong message to those corporations that paid out executive bonuses or dividends or made a big profit to pay back the JobKeeper that they clearly didn't need. The Senate has thought about what is fair in the circumstances. It is saying, for example, that if you took $10 million in JobKeeper and made $3 million in profit, you don't have to pay back the $10 million. You have to pay back $3 million. That is fair, so no-one's going to fall behind. We're only talking about big corporations, with turnover of more than $50 million, so it's very fair. What people are voting on, right now—I say this to members of the crossbench, members of the government, members of the opposition—with this first vote is whether to even have the debate or not. I say to people: irrespective of where you would line up on this question of whether big corporations should be asked by the government to pay back JobKeeper, we should at least be allowed to have a debate on it right now. It is very rare that the Senate says it wants the House to concur with a motion about a policy matter like this. It is not often that you get people across the political spectrum lining up to say, 'Hang on, something has gone wrong.' We've paid at least $1 billion, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office, to big corporations and billionaires that just didn't need it. I believe—the Greens believe—that if you can afford a private jet you can afford to pay back JobKeeper. If you are paying profits off the back of JobKeeper, you can afford to pay it back. If you are paying dividends, you can pay back JobKeeper. If you are paying executive bonuses, you can pay it back. Even if you don't agree with all of that or you don't agree with every last word in the motion that has come from the Senate, I say to members of the crossbench, members of the opposition and members of the government: let's at least debate it. It is a critical debate that we should have. We should not gag debate in this House, as the government is trying to do by saying, 'Consider it another day,' because we know that if the government kicks this off into the long grass we will not come to this issue, that we will not come back to this resolution. I would urge all members of this place to, at least, let us have the debate and to vote for the amendment to allow this important motion to be considered immediately. The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D Is the motion seconded? Mr Wilkie C2T I second the motion moved by the member for Melbourne and reserve my right to speak. 13:03 Dr LEIGH BU8 Fenner The Labor Party will be supporting this motion, recognising the importance of ensuring that firms that received JobKeeper they didn't need paid it back. Yesterday the exclusive Australian Club voted on whether or not to allow women as members. Apparently, the memo hasn't gotten through to the Australian Club in Sydney that it's 2021. Of the 693 votes that were cast, 62 per cent were against allowing women members. Thirty-seven per cent were in favour. One per cent abstained—apparently, they couldn't decide whether or not women should be allowed into the Australian Club. But the one thing that 100 per cent of Australian Club members voted for was taking two million bucks of JobKeeper from the Australian taxpayer. And last year the Australian Club didn't do badly: they doubled their surplus. They're not the only exclusive club to have benefited from the JobKeeper scheme. The National Golf Club got $1.2 million of JobKeeper and paid $1 million more to their holding company than in the previous year. It costs $13,000 to join the National Golf Club. Healthia took $8 million in JobKeeper and paid bonuses of $221,000 to its executives. That is in direct contradiction of what the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Taxation Office and even Jeff Kennett says: if you're taking corporate welfare, you shouldn't be paying bonuses. And then there's Best&Less, which got millions of dollars in JobKeeper despite rising profits and then told investors, in candid terms, 'This sugar hit to profit is not repeatable.' I'll bet what they're thinking is, 'You only get one Morrison government in your lifetime, and we've had ours.' The member for Melbourne talked about $1 billion of waste, but that may be just the tip of the iceberg. When we look at listed companies, an analysis by Ownership Matters finds that a fifth of the money went to firms with rising earnings. If that's true across the scheme, we're talking about $15 billion to $20 billion of taxpayer money wasted. That's $1,000 for every Australian adult. Who did it go to? Well, it went to billionaires, who massively increased their wealth last year. For example, take Nick Politis, whose car dealerships raked in $130 million of JobKeeper and saw their profits go up, paying out a dividend worth $17 million to Nick Politis. And then there's Solomon Lew, who was on the phone tearfully pleading with the Treasurer to introduce the JobKeeper scheme. His firm went on to set record profits. It's paid back $16 million of JobKeeper, but it hasn't fully disclosed the total amount it received, which is probably in excess of $100 million. Premier Investments should pay back JobKeeper. And then there's Harvey Norman. Harvey Norman and its franchisees received some $22 million in JobKeeper. They have refused to pay it back, with Gerry Harvey describing what they've received as a 'tiny amount'. This is the very same Gerry Harvey who has been arguing against the Victorian mental health levy and advocating against a wage rise for minimum wage workers. Then there's 1300SMILES, which received $2 million in JobKeeper despite doubling its profits and paying shareholders a whopping dividend. Its majority owner, Daryl Holmes, just bought a $6 million mansion. It would have been nice if Mr Holmes could have bought, say, a $4 million mansion and paid the $2 million back to the taxpayer. The fact is that if we were talking about people who were homeless, helpless or jobless, the Morrison government would be after them like a rat up a drainpipe. I have here a notice sent to one of my constituents, which says: 'We have checked your JobSeeker payment and found that we have paid you too much,' and there's a bill for her to repay $180.48. But there's no similar bill going to the large corporates in Australia that got more JobKeeper than they ever needed. There's one rule for people with disabilities, who are being hounded by automatic assessments in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. There's one rule for robodebt recipients, who were being hounded and in some cases committed suicide. And then there is a completely different rule for the private equity firms, the hedge funds, the exclusive men-only clubs and the cashed-up firms that took taxpayer handouts and saw increased earnings. Some have done the right thing. Construction giant CIMIC has paid back all of the JobKeeper support, $20 million, received by its subsidiaries. We've seen Domino's repay its JobKeeper. Iluka has repaid JobKeeper. Cochlear has repaid half its JobKeeper—so, half a cheer there. Energy company Santos has repaid all the JobKeeper assistance it received. When the second commissioner at the Australian Taxation Office, Jeremy Hirschhorn, was quizzed in Senate hearings, he revealed to my colleague Senator Katy Gallagher that there are 20,000 small firms every month who said: 'No, thanks. We don't need JobKeeper.' They're small firms that have very quietly decided that the JobKeeper scheme is for firms that need it and not for those with rising earnings. The fact is that JobKeeper was paid to firms that didn't need it, and the Morrison government didn't lift a finger. It's been left to those on this side of the House. We've been the ones calling on these firms to repay the money. And so far over $100 million has been returned. It's strange, isn't it? The Prime Minister and the Treasurer talk about the politics of envy when Labor people try to improve their budget bottom line. It's very simple. These large firms should pay the money back that they didn't need. In doing so, they would be according with their own corporate social responsibility statements that say they're not just there for the shareholders and the executives but that they're there for taxpayers, customers and the broader communities. They would do the right thing. They'd burnish themselves in the eyes of the Australian people. They'd recognise that, at a time like this, the last thing we should be doing is giving billions of dollars to billionaires. The SPEAKER 00APG The question is that the amendment be disagreed to.

The House divided. [13:15]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 72 AYES Alexander, JG Allen, K Andrews, KJ Andrews, KL Archer, BK Bell, AM Broadbent, RE Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Coleman, DB Conaghan, PJ Connelly, V Coulton, M Drum, DK (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Evans, TM Falinski, JG Fletcher, PW Flint, NJ Frydenberg, JA Gee, AR Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Hamilton, GR Hammond, CM Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Irons, SJ Joyce, BT Laming, A Landry, ML Leeser, J Littleproud, D Liu, G Marino, NB Martin, FB McCormack, MF McIntosh, MI Morton, B O'Brien, LS 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 Tehan, DT Thompson, P Tudge, AE van Manen, AJ Vasta, RX Wallace, AB Webster, AE Wilson, RJ Wilson, TR Wood, JP Wyatt, KG Young, T Zimmerman, T 72 NOES Albanese, AN Aly, A Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Burke, AS Burney, LJ Burns, J Butler, MC Butler, TM Byrne, AM Chalmers, JE Clare, JD Claydon, SC Coker, EA Collins, JM Conroy, PM Dick, MD Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Fitzgibbon, JA Freelander, MR Georganas, S Giles, AJ Gorman, P Gosling, LJ Haines, H Hayes, CP Hill, JC Husic, EN Jones, SP Katter, RC Kearney, G Kelly, C Keogh, MJ Khalil, P King, CF King, MMH Leigh, AK Marles, RD McBain, KL McBride, EM Mitchell, BK Mitchell, RG Mulino, D Murphy, PJ Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ Owens, JA Payne, AE Perrett, GD Phillips, FE Plibersek, TJ Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Sharkie, RCC Shorten, WR Smith, DPB Snowdon, WE Stanley, AM (teller) Steggall, Z Swanson, MJ Templeman, SR Thistlethwaite, MJ Thwaites, KL Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wells, AS Wilkie, AD Wilson, JH Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

The numbers for the ayes and noes being equal, the Speaker gave his casting vote with the ayes.
Question agreed to.

13:20 The SPEAKER 00APG That vote was tied, so I need to exercise my casting vote. For the benefit of members who have come in, the debate that has occurred was on the amendment moved by the Leader of the Greens. The vote on the amendment was tied. In accordance with the casting-vote principles, I give my vote with the ayes, because there is not a majority for the amendment to pass. So I give my casting vote, under the well-established principles, to the ayes—that is, that the amendment be disagreed to. That means the amendment has failed. The question now is that the motion moved by the minister be agreed to.

The House divided. [13:22]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)

 74 AYES Alexander, JG Allen, K Andrews, KJ Andrews, KL Archer, BK Bell, AM Broadbent, RE Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Coleman, DB Conaghan, PJ Connelly, V Coulton, M Drum, DK (teller) Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Evans, TM Falinski, JG Fletcher, PW Flint, NJ Frydenberg, JA Gee, AR Gillespie, DA Goodenough, IR Hamilton, GR Hammond, CM Hastie, AW Hawke, AG Hogan, KJ Howarth, LR Hunt, GA Irons, SJ Joyce, BT Katter, RC Kelly, C Laming, A Landry, ML Leeser, J Littleproud, D Liu, G Marino, NB Martin, FB McCormack, MF McIntosh, MI Morton, B O'Brien, LS 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 Tehan, DT Thompson, P Tudge, AE van Manen, AJ Vasta, RX Wallace, AB Webster, AE Wilson, RJ Wilson, TR Wood, JP Wyatt, KG Young, T Zimmerman, T 70 NOES Albanese, AN Aly, A Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Burke, AS Burney, LJ Burns, J Butler, MC Butler, TM Byrne, AM Chalmers, JE Clare, JD Claydon, SC Coker, EA Collins, JM Conroy, PM Dick, MD Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Fitzgibbon, JA Freelander, MR Georganas, S Giles, AJ Gorman, P Gosling, LJ Haines, H Hayes, CP Hill, JC Husic, EN Jones, SP Kearney, G Keogh, MJ Khalil, P King, CF King, MMH Leigh, AK Marles, RD McBain, KL McBride, EM Mitchell, BK Mitchell, RG Mulino, D Murphy, PJ Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ Owens, JA Payne, AE Perrett, GD Phillips, FE Plibersek, TJ Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Ryan, JC (teller) Sharkie, RCC Shorten, WR Smith, DPB Snowdon, WE Stanley, AM (teller) Steggall, Z Swanson, MJ Templeman, SR Thistlethwaite, MJ Thwaites, KL Vamvakinou, M Watts, TG Wells, AS Wilkie, AD Wilson, JH Zappia, A 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

BILLS 45 BILLS Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021 45

Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021

Second Reading 45 13:25 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin The Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021, as outlined in the explanatory memorandum, amends the Biosecurity Act 2015 by increasing the maximum penalties that a court could impose for noncompliance with requirements under the act. It increases the penalties for specified existing civil penalty provisions, to provide a proportionate regulatory response to the conduct covered by these provisions, and increases the penalties for specified criminal offences, to ensure appropriate punishment for those who jeopardise Australia's biosecurity status by breaking the law. The explanatory memorandum states: In the face of growing regional and global threats such as African Swine Fever and hitchhiker pests (such as khapra beetle) the current penalty regime needs reinforcement to provide an effective deterrent against non-compliance. The explanatory memorandum also states that, with trade and travel expected as part of the economic recovery from COVID eventually, it will accentuate these threats, making it imperative to send a strong message to those that are breaking Australia's biosecurity laws that it's not worth the potential commercial gain in doing so. Under the act, penalties for a contravention may include either a civil penalty or a criminal offence or both. The increases to the civil penalties are intended to deter noncompliance with the act and to ensure the maximum penalties available reflect the gains that individuals and businesses might obtain or seek to obtain from engaging in conduct that jeopardises Australia's biosecurity status. The civil penalties will be set at a level that means that the penalty is not merely perceived as a cost of doing business. This is particularly the case for corporations. There are 28 separate penalties that are being increased. For example, some will increase from 120 penalty units to 300 penalty units. Other increases include from 300 penalty units to 1,000 penalty units. I note that the explanatory memorandum states that this bill would have no financial impact on the Australian government budget. But, of course, there are concerns about the bill and about our biosecurity system more generally. It's clear that this Morrison government has shifted away from the biosecurity levy that was recommended in the industry review back in 2017 and moved to a penalty based system that relies on a court determining if a civil or criminal offence has taken place. This bill appears to be just another ad hoc measure reliant on the court system to apply penalties, rather than a genuine attempt to upgrade Australia's biosecurity arrangements. I've spoken to many farmers and other stakeholders across the agriculture sector, and they continue to raise concerns with me about Australia's current biosecurity system. It's clear there's been a huge policy void over the past eight years when it comes to the Morrison government doing anything of note about strengthening Australia's biosecurity system. It's been extremely disappointing, given the significant risk that pests and disease can have for Australian produce. I'd also like to put on record Labor's ongoing concerns in relation to the Morrison government's current management of the biosecurity system. We know that Australia's biosecurity system underpins more than $60 billion in agricultural production, $53 billion in agricultural exports, as well as $42 billion in relation to the country's inbound tourism industry. The cost of a single outbreak of disease or pest has been conservatively estimated at approximately $50 billion. So, with so much at risk, where has the government's urgency to update our biosecurity system been over the past eight years? We've already seen them axe the biosecurity levy that I talked out, a levy that was a recommendation of the Craik review in 2017. The Craik report included 42 recommendations and found that the system was completely underfunded. At the March estimates, the department revealed the government's response in relation to the Craik review. In four years, the government has completed only seven of the 42 recommendations. Indeed, the government is claiming that 12 recommendations require enduring effort, eight recommendations are in progress, four recommendations require no action, and one recommendation is already on hold. Given the serious risk to Australia's agriculture sector, this slow response is simply not good enough. This brings me to the biosecurity funding that was actually included in the budget. The budget commitments to biosecurity just make up for what the Morrison government was planning to take away from the biosecurity levy that failed. It's not good enough that farmers were left for years waiting to see what the government would do to update Australia's biosecurity systems and arrangements. The budget was a missed opportunity for Australian farmers, and they deserve better from this government. We've also seen quite a few amendments having to be made to biosecurity legislation lately. There was a bill that passed the parliament last month that was essentially fixing a past drafting issue. There must be confidence in Australia's biosecurity system given it protects the agricultural industry from pests and disease. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed. STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS 46 STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS Darwin GleNTi 46 13:30 Mr GOSLING 245392 Solomon This past weekend, the Queen's Birthday weekend, up in Darwin we had the Greek GleNTi festival, an amazing couple of days of Greek culture, food, dance, wine and song. It was amazing. It was the 32nd Greek GleNTi, and the clubs had their massive lamb and chicken spits and honey puffs, which are a favourite of my kids. The Hellenic Athletic Club's T-shirt said, 'GleNTi is BACK … Let's EAT! Opa!' A great time was had by all, so well done to all the clubs. As well as Hellenic, we had Olympic, the Kalymnian Brotherhood, the Greek school, the Cyprus club, the Macedonian association, the Greek community cultural trust, the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art's Rita Macarounas with a sketching stand, St John Ambulance and all the volunteers, musicians and dance groups. All the funds raised at the Greek GleNTi festival by the clubs are kept by the clubs, and they're a really important part of Darwin and Palmerston. The money raised by the GleNTi group keeps the church, the school and the community going. As well as that, they donated $30,000 to Police Legacy. Well done to all involved. Mallee Electorate: Queen's Birthday Honours 46 13:31 Dr WEBSTER 281688 Mallee Today I rise to acknowledge several members of my electorate of Mallee who have been honoured in the 2021 Queen's Birthday list in recognition of their outstanding service to their communities and their country. This year, 11 Mallee locals received honours in the Order of Australia. I'd like to recognise Mr Larry Perkins, from Cowangie, for his significant service to motorsport as a touring car driver and team owner; Mr Hadyn Bailey, from Swan Hill, for service to the community of north-west Victoria; the late Miss Mary Chandler, from Red Cliffs, for service to the community of Red Cliffs; Ms Pamela Cupper, from Dimboola, for service to education and to the preservation of military history; Mrs Joan Glen, from Birchip, for service to music; Mr Lance Netherway, from Quantong, for service to the community of Wimmera Mallee; Mrs Joanne Sheehan-Paterson, from Mildura, for service to the community through social welfare organisations; Mrs Shirley Smith, from Minyip, for service to the community of the Wimmera region; Ms Shantelle Thompson, from Mildura, for service to the Indigenous community of Victoria; Mrs Claire White, from Hopeton, for service to the community of Yaapeet; and Professor Alan Wolff, from Horsham, for service to medicine. Also, Peter Solly, from Rainbow, has been awarded an Australian Fire Service Medal. (Time expired) Corangamite Electorate: Environment 46 13:33 Ms COKER 263547 Corangamite On behalf my electorate of Corangamite, I stand today to urge the government to immediately rethink its plan to allow oil and gas exploration only five kilometres from the Twelve Apostles on the Great Ocean Road. The announcement from the resources minister is not in line with the views of my community who live on the Great Ocean Road. They overwhelmingly oppose any plan to drill for new gas along the pristine coastline. At the last election the community rallied against plans to drill in the Great Australian Bight. Even my predecessor, a Liberal member, joined demonstrations as they protested. I also voiced my strong opposition. Now, my predecessor and I do not have much in common, but one thing we both understand is that our local communities want investment in renewables and green energy. They do not want drilling in pristine environments. It is essential we invest in renewables to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The Twelve Apostles is one of the most photographed locations along the Great Ocean Road. Prior to COVID, about six million visitors each year would come down to this iconic destination. It is a major tourism drawcard for my region, driving the economy and local jobs. We must ensure we protect this beautiful, fragile coastal environment from inappropriate development. I once again urge the Morrison government to undertake an immediate rethink of this decision. Tasmania: Freight 46 13:35 Mr PEARCE 282306 Braddon In April this year Tasmania's capacity to transport freight the 211 nautical miles across Bass Strait was given a significant boost with the arrival of SeaRoad's new vessel the MV Liekut. Berthed dockside at Berth 2 East at the port of Devonport, the sheer size of this vehicle is impressive. She is 210 metres long, 33,000 tonnes and 26,000 horsepower, with space on board for 165 fully laden semitrailers. She is 85 per cent more capable than the ship she replaced, SeaRoad Tamar. If industry confidence is measured in the size of a vessel then Tasmania's business deserves its position as the most confident in Australia. Congratulations to SeaRoad's executive chairman, Chas Kelly, and his team for their long-term vision and their vote of confidence in a bright future for the Tasmanian industry. Whether it is agriculture, aquaculture or advanced manufacturing, the MV Liekut will provide a reliable increased shipping capacity across Bass Strait. And not only that; she will create more jobs across the electorate of Braddon and for Tasmania. This is about as good as it gets. Tasmania grows the very best produce anywhere in the world, and now that produce can reach the market quicker and more efficiently thanks to the MV Liekutand her crew. Australian War Memorial 47 13:36 Mr GILES 243609 Scullin I rise to pay tribute to an extraordinary constituent of mine: Connie Boglis, a woman who has done so much for so many. Today Connie has been in Canberra in conjunction with the announcement of a new sculpture to be installed at the War Memorial called Every Drop Shed in Anguish, which is for all those who experience trauma from military service, for those who have watched family members suffer and for visitors to reflect on these experiences. I acknowledge Minister Chester for his role in this. Some years ago, in respect of the circumstances of her partner, Jesse, a veteran, Connie asked, 'Where do I grieve?' That's a question none of us would like to ask, but it was a question that needed to be asked and, more importantly, it needed to be answered. Connie's selflessness, her courage in telling her story, has made a difference. It's made a difference within my party—she is the president of Labor for Veterans—and it is now making a difference more broadly. She made a powerful speech today in conjunction with the unveiling of this sculpture, and I would like to read her closing words into Hansard: To our ADF community across Australia, I'm sorry if you felt forgotten and your pain was just too much to bear. To the families, I'm sorry if your voices have not been heard and no-one knew what you have been through. To the partners who've seen it all, I'm sorry. Thank you all for your service. This memorial is for you. Grey Electorate: Mortlock Shield 47 13:37 Mr RAMSEY HWS Grey On Saturday I had the great pleasure of attending the Mortlock Shield on Eyre Peninsula. It started in 1936, so this is the 75th year—with interruptions for World War II and, last year, COVID. It is the longest-running regional Australian Rules football competition, not in Australia but in the world. Just think about that for a while! So it's a competition of quite some repute. It traditionally accumulates the leagues of Eyre Peninsula to play off for bragging rights. The Port Lincoln league has for many years been cut into two, so they field two teams. This year we had a changed format, with the dissolution of one of our leagues. At various times we have had teams come in from Roxby Downs, from Kangaroo Island and even a team of 'ex-Eyre Peninsularians' who have come back as the EP Sharks—they won it a couple of years in a row there. It was a great event. It was the first Mortlock Shield I've been to where I didn't need a ticket. We went all electronic this time round; that was interesting. Congratulations to Robyn Rowsell and her team who ran the competition. That was on Saturday. The shield was concluded on Monday. It was won by Great Flinders—they won their three games. On the Sunday, the Norwood Cup was run for the under-15s, and that also was won by Great Flinders. Well done to Port Lincoln and the team who run the Mortlock Shield. Pensions and Benefits 47 13:39 Mr GEORGANAS DZY Adelaide On Friday, Justice Murphy of the Federal Court ruled that the Morrison government's robodebt scheme was flawed, unlawful and a very shameful chapter in Australia's history. This was a disgraceful act by the government, pursuing the poorest of the poor through the welfare system, using the robodebt scheme they came up with, with some algorithm that compared tax returns. They relentlessly pursued these people—illegally and wrongfully, as was said by Justice Murphy—to recover money. They found that the government unlawfully raised $1.76 billion in debt. They settled out of court. They didn't want to be taken into court. If they had gone into court, Minister Roberts and Minister Porter would have had to front up and give evidence. This scheme was wrong and unlawful, and the government should apologise to the millions of people who were caught up in it. When will the Prime Minister hold someone to account for one of the greatest unlawful schemes that a government has enacted on its people? A few minutes ago in this place, we heard the debate about multimillionaires receiving JobKeeper handouts and the government turning a blind eye, not even wanting to investigate it or to have some of the money recovered, yet in this case they relentlessly pursued the poorest. (Time expired) State of Origin 48 13:41 Mr SHARMA 274506 Wentworth I want to congratulate the Coach Brad Fittler, a former Rooster; Captain James 'Teddy' Tedescoe, himself a Rooster; and some of the star players in the New South Wales Blues team last week, including Tommy Trbojevic and Latrell Mitchell. They played a historic game in Townsville and took the Blues to a victory of 50 points to six, eight tries to one. I particularly want to thank the 27½ thousand fans in Townsville who turned out to welcome the Blues and cheer them on. I know the member for Herbert was there. I saw him myself and spoke to him the next day. I think a few people were in touch with him that night. As you would be aware, Deputy Speaker O'Brien, game 1 of the State of Origin was originally scheduled to be held in Melbourne, but because of COVID related lockdowns it had to be moved at short notice. I want to place on record here my appreciation for the Queensland Labor government, who not only lobbied to get game 1 moved to Townsville but also contributed $8 million, very generously, to make sure the game could be hosted by Townsville. This is the first time an Origin game has been played outside a state capital city. I think, on the evidence, it's an experiment that we should repeat in future years. My best wishes to both teams for game 2 at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium on 27 June. Go the Blues! Mayo Electorate: Queen's Birthday Honours 48 13:42 Ms SHARKIE 265980 Mayo I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate the Mayo residents who were honoured in the Queen's Birthday honours. That list includes Members of the Order of Australia Anthony Phillips of Craigburn Farm, for service to optometry, and Maxine Weber of Mount Barker, for infant mortality prevention. The Medal of the Order of Australia was awarded to 10 inspiring people, including Chris Bastian of Nairne, for services to youth; Angela Weeks of Port Willunga, for service to the disability sector; Richard Willing of Myponga, for service to the environment; Sonya Ryan from the Carly Ryan Foundation, for her work in cybersafety; Kevin Curran of Victor Harbour and John Vander Veeken of Hawthorndene, for service to football; and Geoffrey Walk of Coromandel Valley, for service to Morris dancing. Some are so entwined in our community they could not be singled out for one activity, including Robert Finn of Goolwa, Joan Playford of Kersbrook and the much-loved Kevin Kleemann of Lobethal. I congratulate Michael Bohrnsen of Mount Barker, who received the Ambulance Service Medal; Sergeant Jarrad Mildrum of Mount Barker, who received the Conspicuous Service Medal in the military division; and Maxine McSherry of Kingscote, who received the Public Service Medal for service to Kangaroo Island and to education. I am so honoured to congratulate and recognise all of these Queen's Birthday honours recipients, and I wish them all the best. Queensland Government 48 13:43 Mr SIMMONDS 282983 Ryan In the last federal election, we saw that there was not much that the Labor Party didn't want to put a new tax on. They wanted to tax our houses, our cars and our retirement. Every member of the household would be hit with a new tax under Labor. But just when you think Labor has run out of things to tax—yesterday, with its state budget, the Queensland Labor Party and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said, 'Hold my beer!' They introduced Labor's wheelie bin tax in their state budget, and, in true Labor fashion, it was a broken promise to boot. Despite a commitment they had made not to tax household rubbish bins, yesterday's budget saw them guaranteeing the advance waste levy payments to Queensland councils for one more year. It's a broken promise. Without this payment ongoing, like they promised, households in the Brisbane City Council are set to be slugged with Labor's bin tax of $88 on their rates billed in 12 months' time. We know that when Labor run out of money, they come after yours; now they're coming after your rubbish. I want to add my voice to that of Brisbane Lord Mayor, Adrian Schrinner, the Sunshine Coast Mayor, Mark Jamieson, and the LGAQ and call on Premier Palaszczuk to keep her commitment she made not to tax our bins by guaranteeing to retain the advanced waste levy payments. For Brisbane residents, the choice is clear—you simply cannot afford Labor and their rubbish bin tax. Tasmanian Government 48 13:45 Mr BRIAN MITCHELL 129164 Lyons The residents of East Coast Tasmania have been severely impacted by the ongoing closure of the Tasman Highway, which is now in its third week. Last Friday, I drove from the airport to Orford and Triabunna to visit residents and businesses who are feeling the pinch. Trade is down 50 to 75 per cent across the board because of restricted travel. On Sunday, I was out at Swansea, which is a bit further up the East Coast, seeing the impact first-hand. Business owners there told me trade was down again between 20 and 50 per cent. Every single business owner I spoke to said they had put off staff or they had reduced shifts. It is a tough time for the people of the East Coast but the relief is not there. While the liberal state government finally responded to my calls for financial aid, they have not extended a business support package to workers. Workers have been left behind. The people who have lost shifts and lost wages have been left behind and that is not good enough. Workers who are losing shifts and losing pay need support to get them through the next few weeks. They can't wait. They need the support now. I am pleased to see the state government has announced its intent to seal Wielangta Road, something I called for in February last year, which the government at the time said didn't need to happen. But we need to see the details. They can't sit on their hands and say they've announced it and not deliver it. We've seen far too much of that from this government; let's not see the infection spread to the state government of Tasmania. Trade with United Kingdom 49 13:46 Mr STEVENS 176304 Sturt I rise to commend our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on the conclusion overnight of negotiations for the Australia-UK free trade agreement. This is an utter milestone moment. It will benefit so many parts of the Australian economy. As a South Australian, I am so excited about the benefit to our wine industry with the removal of tariffs on Australian wine being exported into the United Kingdom from the commencement of the agreement. I have the spiritual home of the Australian wine industry in my electorate, with the Penfolds Magill Estate in the heart of Sturt where the iconic Penfolds brand was born 167 years ago. Across South Australia, so many great wineries are going to benefit from their renewed market access back into the UK that we lost when they entered the Common Market in 1971. Some markets for Australian wine have become unreliable in recent times and it has demonstrated the importance of us having diversified markets for our wine and for so many other products. I don't make this comment as an aspersion; it is a compliment, I promise: they are great drinkers in the United Kingdom. They love Australian wine already. They will get a lot more because now we will be able to compete equally and evenly with the European competitors. We know Australian wine is the best and Australian wine will do very well out of this agreement. Renewable Energy 49 13:48 Mr KHALIL 101351 Wills Yesterday in this place the government voted to allow the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to invest in non-renewable technologies, to invest in what this government calls low-emissions technologies. Labor created ARENA in 2011 to improve the competitiveness of renewable technologies and increase the supply of renewable energy in Australia. As Labor's shadow minister for climate change said yesterday, the 'R' in 'ARENA' stands for renewables. While the government continues their climate-denialism, undermining the future of renewables in Australia, Labor has a vision for a renewable energy future. Our power to the people policy is a $200 million investment in community batteries for household solar. Over four years, a future Labor government will connect up to 100,000 homes to 400 community batteries around Australia, reducing power bills and emissions by making households less reliant on the electricity grid. In Australia more than one in five households have solar, the highest uptake in the world, but only one in 60 have on-site battery storage, because the upfront costs are still too high. Our plan will allow households that can't install solar, such as people who are renting or own apartments, to draw from excess electricity stored in community batteries. That is great news for people in my electorate of Wills—action on climate change and lower energy bills. Only Labor has a vision for our local communities. Only Labor will deliver real action on climate change. Only Labor will make Australia a renewable energy superpower. Herbert Electorate: Bureau of Meteorology 49 13:50 Mr THOMPSON 281826 Herbert The Bureau of Meteorology is returning to Townsville. It was fantastic to be able to make the announcement a couple of weeks ago that six new bureau staff will be based on the ground in our city as a part of the new Australian Climate Service. These staff will be experts in their field, helping Townsville to better prepare for, respond to and recover from natural disasters. Anyone who has lived in Townsville knows that natural disasters are a way of life, and having local knowledge on the ground when the rain is falling and the wind is picking up is incredibly important. Recently we were in a situation where a cyclone was headed to Townsville and we didn't have access to a meteorologist. This wasn't acceptable to me, and neither was it acceptable to the community. I spoke to the minister to see what could be done, and that's why I was extremely grateful that we were able to make this announcement. The best thing about it for me is that during natural disasters the roles of these experts will pivot to providing 24/7, on-the-ground emergency support to local disaster management groups. This means they will have a seat at the table at local disaster management meetings and be on hand to answer questions about rivers that will rise and where roads will flood and be the local community's voice. Recruitment is underway, and I look forward to welcoming these people and their families to Townsville or to acknowledging the people in Townsville who take up the role. Burt Electorate 50 13:51 Mr KEOGH 249147 Burt Quite offensively, last week Armadale, a suburb in the federal electorate of Burt was voted, and I'm quoting the precise language: 'Perth's shittest suburb 2021'. The poll criticised our fashion sense, our willingness to wear— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 Order! The member will withdraw. Just because it's a quote it doesn't mean you can use unparliamentary terms in the chamber. Mr KEOGH 249147 I was offended as well, Mr Deputy Speaker O'Brien. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 No. You will withdraw unreservedly. Mr KEOGH 249147 I'll withdraw. The poll criticised our fashion sense, our willingness to wear shoes or not and our intellect. It even criticised our 'towers of shopping trolleys', positively works of modern art— The SPEAKER 00APG The member needs to withdraw unconditionally or I'm going to sit him down. It's a simple fact. Mr KEOGH 249147 I withdraw, Mr Speaker. The SPEAKER 00APG Unconditionally. Mr KEOGH 249147 Unconditionally, and I agree: it was terrible language. That's why I'm offended on behalf of my— The SPEAKER 00APG No, you can just resume your seat. This is ridiculous. It's not a negotiation. You're not going to come in here and swear. The Practice is very clear. You're lucky you're not being named or ejected. It's not what schoolchildren come to hear, and there's no need for it. I'm calling the next speaker. Forde Electorate: Queen's Birthday Awards 50 13:52 Mr VAN MANEN 188315 Forde I want to take this opportunity to congratulate three winners of Queen's Birthday honours in my electorate of Forde: Heather Christensen, who received an OAM; Annette Mundt, an OAM; and Mick Noble, who was honoured in this years Queen's Birthday honours list. Heather has been recognised with an Order of Australia medal for her longstanding work with Quota Beenleigh. In her 29 years with Quota, Mrs Christensen has helped transform the lives of countless disadvantaged and at-risk children, youth and families. For more than 13 years she's spent hundreds of hours organising the Quota International Beenleigh eisteddfod. She's also played a major role in the Beenleigh Yatala Chamber of Commerce and the junior chamber since 2009. Annette Mundt also received an Order of Australia medal for her service to the Beenleigh community. She's been involved with the Beenleigh Show Society committee since 1971 and has played a leading role in making the annual show an important fixture of our local community. She has also been the senior vice-president of the South-East Queensland subchamber of the Queensland Chamber of Agricultural Societies and has also been involved in numerous other community organisations. Mick Noble has been involved in a number of community organisations, but importantly, he keeps the local Anzac Day services running and contributes to Relay For Life. All three thoroughly deserve their recognition. Frankston and District Basketball Association 50 13:54 Ms MURPHY 133646 Dunkley I rise to tell the House about the mighty Frankston and District Basketball Association and to congratulate them for recently being awarded as one of the two top associations of Basketball Victoria for 2020. The award recognised an outstanding association that experienced significant achievements during lockdowns. It's no surprise to our community that the FDBA was one of the top two associations, because it embodies inclusion and community. There are 905 teams in the domestic competition. The NBL1 South Blues men are five from six, the women are six from six and they're both at the top of the ladder. There are all-abilities holiday camps run by the association. The Blues 14.1 girls under-14 team is going to the national club championships. They've raised $9,000 so far for our local Frankston headspace through the push-up challenge. They ran a three-by-three street hustle event over three weeks, which was a national record breaking event. They've had Darcy, a young enthusiastic man with Down syndrome, come and coach the club, and his dance troupe, BAM, entertain people at home games. The Blues have raised money for the Breast Cancer Network Australia. They're hosting the Basketball Victoria mental health round coming up. I am on your side, Frankston basketball, and I will fight for the state-of-the-art facilities you deserve, because you're awesome. (Time expired) Economides, Mr Steven 50 13:55 Mr VASTA E0D Bonner It is with great sadness that I'd like to inform the House of the passing of one of Bayside's most influential businessmen, Mr Steven Economides. Steve was a larger-than-life character who would always greet you with his huge smile and handshake. A pioneer of the motor repair industry, Steve made his mark very early in life. When Steve was nine years old, he left his native Greece to settle in Brisbane. He was not one to ever shy away from hard work and help out his family financially. He sold newspapers, but it was the motor industry where Steve really made his mark. He operated one of the biggest motor repair shops in the country and was recently honoured at the Australasian Paint and Panel Successful Success Summit in Sydney. Steve's greatest success was his family. His wife, Jennifer, was his rock. Steve would often tell me how lucky he was to have her in his life. Devastatingly, Steve was diagnosed a few years ago with the insidious motor neurone disease. Despite being affected by this condition, it was impossible to keep Steve still. Steve remained active and, with the support of his family and many friends, was able to raise much-needed funds to fight MND and bring awareness to the Bayside community. His son, Paul, is making sure the business Steve started is continuously evolving, making it one of the best paint and panel shops in the country. Steve lived a full life surrounded by the love of his wife, Jennifer; his son, Paul; his daughters, Marie and Alicia; and his grandchildren. (Time expired) Asylum Seekers 51 13:57 Ms KEARNEY LTU Cooper Members of the government have provided many reasons why the Biloela family Kopika, Nades, Priya and Tharunicaa cannot go home to Biloela—something the family and their community so desperately wanted to happen. Grave words have been spoken about how their migration regime will be upended if one ounce of compassion was shown. The House should know that, over the years, immigration ministers have exercised thousands and thousands of acts of discretion. At the stroke of a pen, people have been freed from detention, their deportation has been stopped and they've been allowed to live in Australia. In 2015, the now Leader of the House freed three au pairs from immigration detention against the advice of the Australian Border Force. He did so as a discretionary and humanitarian act. He said his decisions were in the interests of Australia, as a humane and generous society. There were no furrowed brows on those occasions. There were no grave warnings. There were no delays. The Leader of the House let those au pairs go as an act of humanity. It's time for another act of humanity. It's time the minister for immigration let Priya, Nades, Kopika, and Tharunicaa go home to Bilo. Their community wants them and we want them to go too. Budget 51 13:58 Mr WALLACE 265967 Fisher The Queensland state Labor treasurer, Cameron Dick, handed down a state budget which yet again delivered very little for the Sunshine Coast. While the Morrison government is investing in the Sunshine Coast's economic recovery and supporting local residents, the Queensland state Labor government has run out of ideas and run out of money and could not care less about our region. On the other hand, in the recent federal budget the Morrison government invested significantly in my community, with $160 million for the Mooloolah River Interchange, $7 million for the Caloundra Transport Corridor Upgrade and $5 million for a study into the next phase of North Coast Rail Line duplication. Notice the common themes across these projects: every one of these projects is a state government responsibility, and yet in every case the Morrison government has been forced to step in and foot the bill because of decades of total neglect by Queensland Labor. Yesterday's Labor state budget was just more of the same—not one cent of new investment in transport infrastructure for the Sunshine Coast, not one cent more to deal with the gridlock on Caloundra Road, Nicklin Way or Kawana Way. That's the difference—$172 million in new infrastructure investment in our community from the Morrison government for state government projects. (Time expired) The SPEAKER 00APG In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 51 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Wages 51 14:00 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. Does the Morrison government take responsibility for real wages going backwards, workers being paid below the minimum wage, cuts to penalty rates and wage theft? Won't Australia's lowest-paid workers always be worse off under the Morrison government? 14:00 Mr McCORMACK 219646 Riverina Well, under the Labor government, there were 17 per cent funding cuts to the Fair Work Ombudsman's office, 20 per cent staffing cuts— The SPEAKER 00APG I just say to the Acting Prime Minister: he wasn't asked about alternatives. He was asked several questions, and certainly the last of those was very open-ended, but he needs to be relevant to the question. Mr McCORMACK 219646 The relevance in this question relates to jobs, relates to workers. There are more workers in a job now than there ever have been in Australia's history. The employment numbers are higher now than they have ever been in Australia's history, and that's a good thing. The Labor opposition should stop talking down the economy. The Labor opposition needs to talk the economy up. The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order? Mr Albanese R36 Yes, Mr Speaker, on relevance. The question was about real wages, people being paid the minimum wage, cuts to penalty rates of wages and wage theft. It's all about wages and the fact that this government is seeing real wages go— The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the Opposition can resume his seat. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: he's accurately restated four-fifths of the question but not the last part, which was very open-ended, about people always being worse off. That is kind of open-ended, so there is some latitude in that. Mr McCORMACK 219646 The unemployment rate is lower now than it was pre-pandemic. Wages are important, yes— Opposition members interjecting— Mr Hill interjecting— Mr McCORMACK 219646 Obviously. Thank you for the acknowledgement. The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Bruce will leave, under standing order 94(a). The member for Bruce then left the chamber. Mr McCORMACK 219646 People want work. They want hope. They want aspiration. And they are getting it under the Liberals and Nationals. Indeed, prior to the onset of COVID-19, the economy was on a very, very strong foundation. The government had delivered more than—wait for it—1½ million jobs. An opposition member: Wages! Mr McCORMACK 219646 And wages relate to jobs. I tell you what: I'd sooner have a job than be unemployed. The best form of welfare is a job. In regional Australia at the moment, there are 67,500 jobs, as identified by the Regional Australia Institute. They're not just in orchards. They're not just in the boning rooms of meat-processing plants. They are in health. They are in education. They are in law firms. They are in accountancy practices. They are good, well-paying jobs at the moment in regional Australia. But right across the nation we are putting in place the policies—as per the budget last October, as per the budget on 11 May—to incentivise employers to hire people, to pay them the wages. We are under the wage system that was set up under Labor. Under Labor, the Fair Work Ombudsman's office had its staffing slashed, had its funding slashed. Treasury forecasted that the unemployment rate would reach 7½ per cent in the March quarter 2021. Our budget for 2021-22 sees the unemployment rate reaching five per cent by the June quarter, 2022. There are other countries in the world which would love to have those figures. Jobs figures will be out later this week. The Treasurer will have more to say about that, but it will be very positive. Mr McCormack interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG Before I call the next question, the Acting Prime Minister will cease interjecting. The members on my left who regularly interject will be ejected. I'm not going to keep referring to the statements I've made. Trade 52 14:05 Mr O'DOWD 139441 Flynn My question is also to the Acting Prime Minister. Will the Acting Prime Minister inform the House of how the Morrison-McCormack government's free trade agreements are supporting the economic recovery in regional Australia? 14:05 Mr McCORMACK 219646 Riverina Thank you to the member for Flynn. It's 10 out of 10 for what happened at No. 10—Downing Street, that is. Today is another historic day in our trading nation's history. We are a trading nation. We know that trade equals jobs and more trade equals more jobs. Indeed, I'm very delighted to inform the House of the new free trade agreement agreed to by the Prime Minister of Australia and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement is not a deal at any cost. It's the right deal for Australia. It's the right deal for the UK. It's a two-way partnership between two great nations and longstanding friends. It's a $36.7 billion arrangement, which is about to get a whole lot bigger and a whole lot larger. This FTA will have a significant benefit for Australia and particularly, especially, notably for Australian farmers. We should all be very proud of Australian farmers. They are the best in the world—make no mistake—and, because of them, we can have the confidence to negotiate strong trade arrangements with the UK and with any other nation. Our farmers and our food producers will get greater access to the 68 million customers— Mr Perrett interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Moreton will leave under standing order 94(a). The member for Moreton then left the chamber. Mr McCORMACK 219646 Australian products, such as beef from the member for Flynn's electorate, as well as wine, rice, sheep meat, cheese, sugar and a range of other commodities will have greater access to the lucrative UK market. Australia, as I say, has always been a trading nation. We produce substantially more food than we can consume domestically. Australia presently has 15 FTAs in force. Nine of those FTAs have come into being since 2013, and we've a further eight FTAs under negotiation or about to commence. I say, 'Well done,' to the trade minister for what he has been able to do—along with the Prime Minister and a whole host of other ministers and government departmental officials—to clinch this historic deal. An opposition member interjecting— Mr McCORMACK 219646 Yes, Dave, the minister for agriculture! What a great job he's doing! His electorate of Maranoa, as large it as it is, is going to benefit, along with the electorate of the member for Flynn and every other regional member. Indeed, every one of the 151 members who sit in this House is going to benefit from the Australia-UK FTA. This financial year, $47 billion worth of our agricultural products will be exported around the world, and that's to get a whole lot bigger, right now, thanks to this deal. COVID-19: Vaccination 53 14:08 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. As of today, less than three per cent of Australians are fully vaccinated against COVID. When will all Australians who wish to be vaccinated be fully vaccinated? 14:08 Mr McCORMACK 219646 Riverina I'm going to ask the health minister to add to my remarks, but more than six million vaccinations have already been done. That figure was reached this week. Only yesterday, I spoke with Saul Resnick, from DHL, whose company is transporting, via trucks, the vaccines right around regional Australia. That is significant. DHL have travelled more than 24 million kilometres to make sure that those vaccines reached regional destinations. I am very proud to say that the Royal Flying Doctor Service—and I acknowledge the regional health minister and the involvement he had with this—is also making sure that those vaccines get out to remote communities, to 80 communities and 30,000 people. I'll ask the health minister to add to my remarks. 14:09 Mr HUNT 00AMV Flinders Our expectation and our objective is to ensure that every Australian who seeks to be vaccinated is given that access this year. That remains our intention and, indeed, that likelihood continues to strengthen. As the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned, we have now passed six million vaccinations in Australia. Yesterday it was 152,000 vaccinations. It was the highest Tuesday. It was the second-highest day that we've received so far. That is a very positive sign, in terms of Australians stepping forward to be vaccinated. I want to thank all of those that have come forward to do that. In particular, what we have also seen is that we are now at 62 per cent of the over-70s in Australia—or 1.8 million and a little bit more—that have been vaccinated and 45 per cent of the over-50s, just under four million, and we expect to pass that four million figure during the course of today. So six million vaccinations have been delivered. Last week we saw record weekly days, on average. Significantly, we passed five million Australians who have had their first doses two days ago. Now we have passed six million total doses for Australia. In addition to that, what's very important is that we are seeing Australians stepping up around the country. I want to thank them, to respect them, and to thank all of our health and medical professionals who are assisting in the program, as we continue to vaccinate the nation, with an expectation that in the next 24 hours we will pass 25 per cent of Australians who have stepped forward to be vaccinated. Trade with the United Kingdom 53 14:11 Mr TIM WILSON IMW Goldstein My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer inform the House how Australia's strong trading performance, with the Morrison-McCormack government's new free trade agreement with the United Kingdom, is helping to consolidate our strong economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic? 14:12 Mr FRYDENBERG FKL Kooyong I thank the member for Goldstein, a former Human Rights Commissioner, passionate about super and a fierce opponent of Labor's $57 billion retiree tax. More trade means more jobs. Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG Order, members on both sides. The member for Goldstein is about to be ejected when he's asked his own question! Mr FRYDENBERG FKL One in five Australians work in a job related to trade. That is why the coalition has pursued more bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, including trade agreements with Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Peru and the Trans-Pacific Partnership 11-nation agreement. Those agreements are helping to drive more jobs across the country. They've also helped sell more beef from the Burdekin, more dairy from Dennington, and more wine from the Barossa and the Margaret River. What we have seen is that Australia's current account surplus has increased by more than 14 per cent in the March quarter, to more than $18 billion. That's eight consecutive current account surpluses, the longest run on record. Today we're very pleased that we've been able to secure a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom, and well done to the member for Wannon, the trade minister. Well done to our Prime Minister. Well done to our ag minister. Well done to our DPM. Well done to all those involved in helping to secure this deal, a deal with Australia's fifth-largest trading partner, a deal with Australia's second-largest foreign investor, a deal with a country that we have shared more than $30 billion with in two-way trade. This deal will see 99 per cent of Australia's good exports enter the UK economy tariff free once this agreement comes into force. It will help cut red tape. It will help the movement of workers across our two great countries. It will help Australian businesses in the professional services sector to build on the success to date. Indeed, we saw more than $700 million of professional services exports in 2019, more than 13 per cent of our services exports. This deal will help create more jobs across our two countries. COVID-19: Economy 54 14:15 Dr CHALMERS 37998 Rankin My question is to the Treasurer. The government's budget assumes there'll be a one-week lockdown in Australia every month for the rest of this year. Hasn't Treasury been forced into these assumptions because of the government's failures on vaccines and quarantine? 14:15 Mr FRYDENBERG FKL Kooyong I thank the shadow of a shadow Treasurer for his question. The SPEAKER 00APG The Treasurer will withdraw. Mr FRYDENBERG FKL I withdraw, Mr Speaker. There haven't been many questions that have come my way from the shadow Treasurer. The reality is that the budget has a series of assumptions in it, as the shadow Treasurer said, about lockdowns. It also has a series of other assumptions, including the vaccine rollout and the gradual opening of international borders from mid next year. But with this budget we understand that we have put in place policies that take into account the fact that the pandemic is still with us. That includes $41 billion of COVID economic support measures, tax cuts for more than 10 million Australians, immediate expensing provisions and the loss carry-back measures that have been extended for another year and that have helped see machinery and equipment investment go up by more than 10 per cent in the last national accounts. That is right across the country, including extending the skills programs and including $15 billion of infrastructure spending. These are the measures that account for the fact that there could be further lockdowns, that there could be further outbreaks, that the pandemic is still with us. What this budget also says is that the unemployment rate will come down over time, and there's an expectation that by next year we will see unemployment come down below five per cent. And I point out to the shadow Treasurer that today unemployment— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Rankin on a point of order? Dr Chalmers 37998 Yes, on relevance: lockdowns, quarantine, vaccinations. Mr FRYDENBERG FKL I've referenced the fact that we are rolling out the vaccine. I've referenced the fact that there'll be lockdowns. I can also reference the fact that in the budget we put nearly half a billion dollars towards increasing the quarantine facility in Howard Springs. The reality is that this budget is predicated on the fact that the pandemic is still with us. That is why we've extended the LMITO, the low and middle income tax offset, a temporary measure. That is why we've extended immediate expensing. That is why we've extended the skills program. That is why we've extended and expanded the infrastructure program. And that is why we are seeking to drive unemployment down. But the inconvenient truths for the member for Rankin are that under us unemployment today is 5.5 per cent, that even after the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression the unemployment rate today is lower than when we came to government, that more than 900,000 jobs have been created since the pandemic started, that more people are in work today than when the pandemic began and that our economy is bigger today than when the pandemic began. These are the inconvenient truths for the member for Rankin. (Time expired) Water 55 14:18 Ms SHARKIE 265980 Mayo My question is to the Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia. On 28 May in Senate estimates the government advised that only 100 gigalitres of water is estimated to be recovered through efficiency measures. With water buybacks now ruled out, exactly how will the government secure the remaining 350 gigalitres committed to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan? 14:19 Mr PITT 148150 Hinkler I thank the honourable member for that question. The first thing I'd say is that we are not giving up; we are not running the white flag up the flagpole. There are three years to run. I've got billions of dollars to put towards the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and we intend to deliver on it. That is our commitment. We will deliver on it. I think it's important to recognise what's been done already. There have already been 2,029 gigalitres of gap-bridging water against SDLs recovered. That is 97.8 per cent of the water required to meet the SDLs under the basin plan. We have spent over $9 billion of a $13 billion commitment. We delivered a $270 million Murray-Darling Basin community investment package just last year, and it is rolling out as we speak. We will continue to deliver on those commitments. I'm asked particularly about the streams in terms of off-farm infrastructure funding for recovery. We have unequivocally ruled out further buybacks. Buybacks are bad for regional communities. They are bad for our irrigation centres. They are bad not only for business but for the individuals that live there. We have unequivocally ruled out further buybacks. We will not be buying back more water. I am once again giving that commitment. As for what we are doing, $1.33 billion has been moved to off-farm projects. I have been advised that that could recover up to 150 gigalitres per year. That is the advice that I have. They could also participate in a smaller on-farm initiative of around $60 million. But these are significant projects that improve efficiencies, recover water towards the plan and will absolutely ensure that we deliver on what we said we would. There is time to run. There is money to spend. We are in negotiations continuously with the states and territories because, quite simply, we are part of the plan along with other state and territory governments and with communities and stakeholders. We are working hand in hand with them to deliver what we said we would and we have made significant progress, particularly over the last 12 months. We have commitments from New South Wales. They have put forward their water resource plans to the MDBA for assessment. That is a significant shift in recent times. We will continue to do what we said we would; that is the bottom line. We know that we must continue on the journey around the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. There has been significant progress. It has made a significant difference not only to communities but to the environment, and it is our intention to keep doing that. DISTINGUISHED VISITORS 55 DISTINGUISHED VISITORS 14:21 The SPEAKER 00APG Before I call the next question, I welcome to the Speaker's gallery the President of the Legislative Council of South Australia, the Hon. John Dawkins. Welcome to question time. Honourable members: Hear, hear! QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 55 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Trade with the United Kingdom 55 14:22 Mrs ARCHER 282237 Bass My question is to the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Will the minister please update the House on yesterday's historic announcement that Australia and the United Kingdom have in-principle agreement on a new free trade agreement and what this means for Australians. 14:22 Mr TEHAN 210911 Wannon I thank the member for Bass for her question. I know that, as a farmer, she will be thrilled with the announcement of this historic FTA agreed in principle by our two prime ministers overnight. It is the most comprehensive FTA that we have negotiated with any country apart from New Zealand. It's ambitious, it's liberalising and it's comprehensive. Not only that; it covers goods, it covers services, it covers investment and it covers government procurement. For Australia, especially Australian agriculture, there are outcomes across the board when it comes to rice, when it comes to sugar, when it comes to dairy, when it comes to lamb and when it comes to beef. This agreement has been widely welcomed across the board. The President of the National Farmers Federation, Fiona Simson, said: We applaud Trade Minister Dan Tehan and our negotiating team on an improved set of market access outcomes. The UK deal will create new opportunities for Australian farmers as we work towards growing industry output to $100 billion by 2030. That was very nice of Fiona, wasn't it! Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The minister will pause for a second. I know it's difficult, but members need to try to contain themselves. Mr TEHAN 210911 The Australian Sugar Milling Council said, 'This is a positive outcome for Australia's sugar industry.' Sunrice chairman Laurie Arthur said: It is not an overstatement to say that this is the most significant market access outcome for Australian rice exports in any of the recent Free Trade Agreements that the Government has delivered The Australian Dairy Industry Council said, 'Concluding this FTA will now mean that Australian dairy manufacturers will be in a position to actively explore market opportunities that they would previously have never considered possible.' Meat & Livestock Australia said: This outcome not only enhances the long-term partnership between the British meat trade, British consumers and the Australian red meat industry, but also signals a strong commitment by both governments to the merits of delivering free trade. The Minerals Council of Australia said: The AU-UK FTA will help establish reliable and responsible supply chains for new technology materials such as lithium, providing mineral and metal inputs to support advanced manufacturing, highly skilled jobs, and the global clean energy transition. This is a world-class free trade agreement. It rights a historical wrong, when the UK turned to Europe 50 years ago. It means that the partnership between the UK and Australia will grow, it will enhance and, most importantly, it will create jobs in this country. Mouse Plague 56 14:25 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. The New South Wales agriculture minister said about the horrific mouse plague: It's incredibly disappointing to hear the Commonwealth admit they've got no national response and throw their hands up as our regions face this problem. Why is the Morrison-McCormack government abandoning farmers when they need them most? 14:26 Mr McCORMACK 219646 Riverina We are looking after farmers when they need us to look after them most. Overnight, if you haven't realised, Shadow Agriculture Minister, we signed a historic UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement that is really going to look after farmers. Opposition members interjecting — The SPEAKER 00APG Members on my left will cease interjecting. The Leader of the Opposition. The question was very specific, and it wasn't about trade. Mr McCORMACK 219646 The question also asked what we are doing for farmers. We're doing a lot for farmers, and we will always be the parties for farmers—the Nationals and the Liberals will always protect the interests of farmers. Indeed, I have spoken to Adam Marshall, the agriculture minister in New South Wales, on many occasions, and we stand ready to assist in any way we can, provided, of course, he puts the request in. But I have to ask, Shadow Agriculture Minister, have you been to north-west New South Wales and seen the devastation caused? It might behove you not to come into this place, when you move your motions, smiling all the way about these farmers who are doing it very, very tough at the moment. I live in a community where they are ravaged by mice as well, and there is nothing worse than the stench of mice. There is nothing worse than having mice eat your grain. There is nothing worse than having mice running rampant around your house, around your farm, around your factory. Then, of course, we have PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, coming out—and I didn't hear the member for Melbourne disendorsing them—saying that the mice, the poor little curious creatures, should be rehomed. I actually agree with PETA. They should be rehomed into their inner-city apartments so that they can nibble away at their food and their feet at night and scratch their children at night. But this is a disgrace by PETA. We always stand ready to help our farmers. The APVMA is considering a request for certain pesticides and herbicides for bait. It's called bromadiolone. The trouble with that bait is that it also has secondary influences on native birds and other animals, pets around the house and, indeed, livestock. That's what we don't want to see. But we would always take the best possible advice—in this case, from the APVMA. Farmers know who their friends are. The friends are on this side of the House. Farmers always know. An honourable member interjecting— Mr McCORMACK 219646 What about Adam Marshall? The states have always known that these sorts of things are the remit of states. They are addressing the issue. They've added $100 million to their $50 million original program to support those mice-ravaged farmers. I'm sure that the New South Wales coalition government will go on supporting farmers, and, if we're requested for any assistance, we will certainly take it into consideration. Mr Thistlethwaite interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The member for Kingsford Smith can now leave under 94(a). Talk about missing the moment! Trade with the United Kingdom 57 14:29 Mr DRUM 56430 Nicholls My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Drought, and Emergency Management. Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison-McCormack government's historic Australia-UK free trade deal will strengthen our economy by delivering more jobs and business opportunities to Australians through increases in export opportunities for agricultural goods, benefiting Australian farmers and regional communities. 14:30 Mr LITTLEPROUD 265585 Maranoa I thank the member for Nicholls for his question. He above anyone else would know the importance and the gravity of last night's UK free trade agreement. Mr McCormack interjecting— Mr LITTLEPROUD 265585 It's an historic agreement, as you say, Deputy Prime Minister. It builds on the other 14 free trade agreements that we've put in place that are supporting Australian agriculture. It's quite fitting that that agreement was signed last night, because today ABARES finalised the Australian agricultural export numbers, and it is $47 billion. The exciting thing is that they are now estimating for next year—despite not having signed the free trade agreement with the UK—and they are saying that it will go to nearly $50 billion next year. That's why we are continuing to put support around our exporters to be able to do it simpler and easier—digitising our export systems so they can do it easier, getting rid of physical certificates and making sure that there's only one application. We're also putting more boots on the ground: 22 men and women in high commissions and embassies around the world getting market access. Can I say to the agricultural councillor in the UK, who was working with the trade minister and DFAT officials: thank you, on behalf of the department of agriculture and on behalf of farmers. They were at the forefront of ensuring this agreement came to fruition. That is the real investment that has been made that is getting real results for people on the ground. We need to understand that they are getting real results and they are changing people's lives. The perfect example of that is to go to Central Queensland and to look at the story of Blair and Josie Angus, who live just west of Rockhampton. They were impacted when the high-quality beef quota was taken away from Australia and given to the US. But they continued to invest in their product and they decided to invest in a new abattoir on their property west of Rockhampton—not just producing but processing beef to send it into the UK. What this agreement means is that we have gone from just over 4,669 tonnes to now having a tariff-free quota of 35,000 tonnes. That underpins their business model. That is underpinning the jobs—the real, tactile jobs—that are going to turn up in central west Queensland. These are the real jobs that will drive regional and rural Australia, because, of the 334,000 Australians employed in agriculture, three in every four jobs are related to trade. What this has done is put the environment around those courageous Australians—those great Australians like Blair and Josie, who are putting their own money on the line—to have a go, to back themselves, to back their products and to back our country. This is for all of our agricultural producers out there and, on indulgence, Mr Speaker, particularly to those wonderful women in the gallery today as part of NFF's Diversity in Agriculture Leadership program. This will benefit them. This is the real story of agriculture and the people who will benefit from it. Mouse Plague 57 14:33 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin My question is again to the Acting Prime Minister. When strawberries and public health were under threat, this government pushed through urgent legislation in a single day. Why isn't the government treating the mouse plague, which is threatening farms across four states, with any sense of urgency? 14:33 Mr LITTLEPROUD 265585 Maranoa I thank the member for her question. I think it's important to understand that that was a malicious criminal act. This is a natural occurrence, one that's been happening since the First Fleet arrived. It's important to understand that, while this is within the state's remit of responsibility—and I congratulate the New South Wales government for the $150 million investment—the federal government hasn't walked away. Honourable members interjecting— Mr LITTLEPROUD 265585 I'm sorry, but the fact remains that the Australian government has provided farm household allowance to those farmers who are in financial distress. That is the equivalent of JobSeeker. That gives them the JobSeeker rate. It gives them the opportunity to put bread and butter on the table and to take away the stress. The federal government has made that available. In addition, as part of our efforts to support the New South Wales government in their responsibility in tackling this, the APVMA have approved six emergency permit uses of chemicals. We are currently assessing a further one, as we speak at the moment, to support the New South Wales efforts in this. I heard the interjections in the question about Adam Marshall, the New South Wales minister for agriculture. Only yesterday, we had a ministerial council meeting of agriculture ministers and Mr Marshall did not turn up. And no other minister even raised the mouse plague, because there is an understanding that this is their responsibility. They are sovereign governments with the responsibility, and the resources, to deal with it. But we will support them with things like farm household allowance, the APVMA and the science of the CSIRO to make sure we can address this. There will be more mouse plagues. There will be locust plagues. Since Federation, our states have done the job, and the New South Wales government has stood up and done the job. We should congratulate the New South Wales government for getting on with their responsibility—not passing the buck but doing the job of investing $150 million in solving the problem, partnering with the Commonwealth in the science but also in us giving dignity and respect to our farmers in their hour of need. Trade with the United Kingdom 58 14:36 Mr PASIN 240756 Barker My question is to the . Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison-McCormack government's historic Australia-UK free trade deal will strengthen our economy by delivering more jobs and business opportunities to Australians, especially in the manufacturing sector? 14:36 Mr PORTER 208884 Pearce I thank the member for the question. The member is obviously aware that in his electorate of Barker there are more people per capita engaged in food manufacturing than in any other electorate in Australia. The free trade agreement that we have just finalised with the UK is going to mean remarkable things for the people of the member's electorate—in dairy, wine and other food manufacturing. It's a fantastic thing for the people of the member's electorate. In general terms, there is a direct link between the health of exports in manufacturing, the health of manufacturing in Australia and the number of people employed in manufacturing. In general terms, that has been a very positive story under this government. What we will see with the FTA with the UK is further growth in manufacturing exports, which will mean further growth in manufacturing and in manufacturing jobs in Australia. To give you some concept of the scale we are talking about, the value of Australian goods exported to the UK is currently about $9.1 billion. Last year alone, we exported $117 billion worth of manufactured products, which was about 32 per cent of all of our exports. In the last five years, even accounting for COVID, we had a very strong and steady growth of 3.3 per cent in our manufacturing exports. In the March quarter of this year, the value of our manufacturing exports increased by a remarkable $400 million. Since we came to government, the price that our manufacturers get for their exports has increased by 28.5 per cent. So we've got a very positive story. And then we can look at the things we export to the United Kingdom that are going to have their tariffs reduced—wine and dairy, in the member's electorate. It is also things like motor vehicle parts. We export $36 million worth of radiators to the UK. It is things like hot-water heaters. Anyone who has spent any time in the United Kingdom would know that there is probably no country on earth that needs Australian hot-water heaters more than the United Kingdom. I'd argue that that's probably foreign aid or a human rights issue for the United Kingdom! Fashion is another area of manufacturing exports to the United Kingdom. If the United Kingdom needs something even more than Australian hot-water systems, it is Australian fashion! Our cousins in the United Kingdom will benefit from our wine, our dairy, our hot-water heaters and our fashion, and Australians will benefit from the employment that that will generate. We hear scoffing from members opposite, but that will mean great fashion, great cheese and hot water for our cousins in the United Kingdom, and jobs here. COVID-19: Vaccination 58 14:39 Mr BUTLER HWK Hindmarsh My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. The government announced that Australia's 360,000 aged-care workers would be fully vaccinated against COVID by Easter. How many aged-care workers are yet to receive two doses of the vaccine? 14:39 Mr McCORMACK 219646 Riverina I'll ask the Minister for Health to answer that question. 14:40 Mr HUNT 00AMV Flinders One hundred per cent of residential aged-care facilities in Australia have received a first vaccination; 94.9 per cent— Mr Burke DYW Mr Speaker— The SPEAKER 00APG No, the Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. We're not even 20 seconds in. I'm just going to listen to the minister for a bit longer. I'm well aware of the detail of the question. Mr HUNT 00AMV of residential aged-care facilities, which includes the vaccination program for aged-care workers, have received second doses. In terms of aged-care worker vaccinations, there have been 84,414 vaccinations, of which 47,407 have been first doses and 41,007 have been second doses. In terms of resident vaccinations, 160,543 residents have had first doses and 147,879 have had second doses. Trade with the United Kingdom 59 14:41 Mr CONNELLY 282984 Stirling My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry. Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison-McCormack government's historic UK-Australia free trade deal will strengthen our economy by creating more jobs and business opportunities for Australians and will open new export opportunities for defence businesses, further strengthening our defence industry? 14:41 Ms PRICE 249308 Durack I thank the member for Stirling for his question. It's always a pleasure to get a question from the member for Stirling. And I'd like to recognise and thank him for his outstanding service to our nation in the ADF. This historic FTA with the UK demonstrates our government's commitment to pursuing new and expanded opportunities for Australian exporters and small businesses, especially in our thriving defence industry. The Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement will deliver significant economic benefits, driving strong growth in the value of Australian exports. Opening up export markets is at the core of our government's economic strategy, and we're focused on delivering even greater access to global markets for our defence businesses. In 2018 our government launched the Defence Export Strategy. This strategy paves the way for Australian defence businesses to take advantage of the expanding export opportunities right across the globe. When I attended Land Forces last week in Brisbane I had the great pleasure of meeting with veteran owned and Brisbane based Guardtech. Guardtech was founded as recently as 2018 and is a small but growing small business. Guardtech joined me as part of a record Team Australia delegation in 2019 in London at the UK Defence and Security Equipment International trade show. It was there that Guardtech secured a $1.7 million contract with the British army to supply military training systems from Australia. It's companies like Guardtech that are taking advantage of the opportunities from our Defence Export Strategy, like participating in team defence delegations and pitching their work to customers overseas. And now they will reap the benefits of this FTA. Canberra-based ECLIPS, who also attended the 2019 UK DSEI trade show, caught the eye of the UK Ministry of Defence with their groundbreaking military logistics innovations and capabilities. To ECLIPS's surprise, at the conclusion of the trade show the UK Ministry of Defence literally backed up its truck to the bit of gear that ECLIPS had on display and purchased their product right there and then. Can you imagine the excitement of ECLIPS, a small Australian company, showing their wares in the UK? What a sight that must have been. ECLIPS and Guardtech are just two examples of the world-class Aussie ingenuity that we have at home and that is being exported to the UK. Our government's $270 billion commitment to defence capability is buying us much more than just the equipment that our men and women in uniform deserve every day. It's actually buying us credibility abroad, and we will see so many more Australians pitching their equipment and tools to the UK. COVID-19: Vaccination 59 14:44 Ms KEARNEY LTU Cooper My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. Yesterday the aged-care minister said: Every aged care worker who wants access to a vaccine right now has access to a vaccine right now. It is the government saying to all those aged-care workers who haven't yet been vaccinated, 'It's your fault'? 14:45 Mr McCORMACK 219646 Riverina That's drawing a very long bow, by the member who asked that question. We all have an obligation to talk up the vaccination race, to talk up the fact that people should get that first jab. We all have an obligation. As the minister for health has said, with aged care, all 2,566 RACFs have received their first dose and 2,436 of the 2,566 Commonwealth RACFs have a second dose—that is, 94.9 per cent. We want everyone to receive a jab, but, some people in aged care for some reason may not wish to receive the vaccination. It may well be that they have dementia and those decisions are being taken by their families, as distressed and worried as they are, or there may be people in palliative care who may not wish to receive the vaccination. Of course the workers are important too. The workers are important too. Certainly, we are making sure that the vaccinations are available, but let's not forget either that it is also state health public authorities— The SPEAKER 00APG The Acting Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order? Mr Albanese R36 It is on relevance. The question was solely about aged-care workers and about whose responsibility it is. I remind the Acting Prime Minister that aged care is a federal responsibility. The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. Certainly the question was specifically about aged care workers, and I call the Acting Prime Minister and ask him to be relevant to the question. Mr McCORMACK 219646 And we are looking after those workers as well. We are working with state authorities. We are working through the process to get everybody vaccinated. I urge and encourage all Australians to get that jab and get that second jab. It's so important. National Security 60 14:47 Ms FLINT 245550 Boothby My question is to the Minister for Defence. Will the minister please outline to the House how the Morrison-McCormick government's strong relationship with Australia's strategic partners is ensuring stability and prosperity in our region? 14:47 Mr DUTTON 00AKI Dickson I thank the honourable member for Boothby for her question, and I thank her very much for her support of the defence industry in South Australia. It's an incredible sight to behold when you go to Osborne and when you meet with the men and women there and see they work they're doing in our country's name to keep our country safe and make sure that our Defence personnel have the best equipment possible. We are absolutely committed to working with our strategic partners to secure a stable and prosperous future for our region. We want to make sure that we can work with those partners. This morning I joined with defence ministers from the ASEAN group of countries, and we were able to talk about priorities within the region. We were able to talk about upholding the rule of law and making sure sovereignty was protected. It's important that we have not only very dear and important partners in our own region, particularly at a time that is increasingly uncertain in our region, but also partners around the world. The Prime Minister's meeting last night with President Macron from France made clear that France stood by our side amidst increasing tensions in our region. The President went on to say: I would like to reiterate how committed France remains to defending the balance in the Indo-Pacific region and how much we consider the partnership we have with Australia to be at the heart of this Indo-Pacific strategy. France understands the increasing threat within our region, and so too does Germany, and so too does NATO. The British Prime Minister has made comments in recent days, at Cornwall as well. And the Prime Minister had a very significant meeting with the US President, as well as the UK Prime Minister, talking about how we have a very longstanding and unshakeable alliance between our countries—a friendship that has survived many decades and one that is more important than ever. We need to make sure that we can continue that cooperation. As we know, the United Kingdom's Carrier Strike Group, led by HMS Queen Elizabeth, will be coming to our region shortly, and the ADF is seeking opportunities to engage with the strike group at sea and with the air wing. Australia and her partners are united by our shared values, and we want to make sure we stand up always for the best interests of our country. The Prime Minister's visit to Cornwall, to the G7-plus and now to France has been invaluable in consolidating those relationships and for looking for opportunities as to how we might continue to work together in the future. COVID-19: Vaccination 60 14:50 Mr BUTLER HWK Hindmarsh My question is again to the Acting Prime Minister. The government announced that all aged-care workers would be fully vaccinated by Easter, but the minister just confirmed that only 41,000 of 360,000 workers, or one in nine, have been fully vaccinated as of today. Can the Acting Prime Minister explain why this document shows the tender to allow onsite vaccinations for aged-care staff has been extended and now does not close until the end of July? 14:51 Mr HUNT 00AMV Flinders That is in fact an additional tender over and above that which has already been in place. As I mentioned earlier, we have now delivered vaccines to 100 per cent of residential aged-care facilities through the four principal providers—Aspen Medical, SOS, Healthcare Australia and Sonic. All of those four have completed 100 per cent of first dose vaccination visits. At 94.9 per cent, they are currently going through the process of completing the last five per cent of that, three weeks after the first one. In addition, at the request of the sector, we have made sure there is also the capacity for those firms or facilities which wish to provide vaccinations to their own workers to do that. An example was TLC, which has done that in Victoria, I believe, across 13 facilities. It is one of five principal channels we have for vaccinations of aged-care workers. The first of those, of course, has been the provider in-reach. The second, which is being referred to here, is the capacity for individual facilities to do as TLC has done, and a number of— Mr Albanese interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG The Leader of the Opposition, the minister for health has the call. Mr HUNT 00AMV of providers have sought the capacity to do that, so we have responded to the requests of the providers. In addition to that, this week we announced the $56.75 in-home visitation fee for GPs. Further, there is the capacity for vaccination at general practices or Commonwealth general practice respiratory clinics. Finally, there is the capacity for vaccination at state-run clinics. All of those are being used. This was an extension to that which was already in place, over and above, and I'm a little surprised that the member was not aware of that. Trade with the United Kingdom 61 14:53 Dr WEBSTER 281688 Mallee My question is for the Minister for Decentralisation and Regional Education and Minister assisting the Minister for Trade and Investment. Will the minister inform the House how the Morrison-McCormack government's historic UK-Australia free trade deal will strengthen our economy by delivering more jobs and business opportunities to regional Australia, especially for primary producers? 14:53 Mr GEE 261393 Calare I thank the member for Mallee very much for her question. She gives voice to the people of Mallee and country Australia and is a true champion of the regions. When Britain left Australia for the European Community in 1973, it broke a lot of hearts. One of the hearts it broke was that of the late, great Doug Anthony, who became a republican because of it. With this new gold standard free trade agreement, Britain is back. It heralds a new era, and the benefits for country businesses, primary producers and country communities are absolutely enormous. I heard the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, saying on the television last night that he was looking forward to more Tim Tams and more Vegemite coming into the UK. Well, to that I would say: Prime Minister, you don't know the half of it. The best is yet to come, because we've got Chiko Rolls from Bathurst coming your way. Life is going to get much better! As the Acting Prime Minister knows, Bathurst is the home of the Chiko Roll. Across country Australia, there is excitement about what lies ahead. Woodward abattoir, in the electorate of Mallee, is one business that is very excited and delighted about the opportunities that this new free trade agreement brings with it. The wine industry is also very excited. One of the features of this free trade agreement is the immediate elimination of all tariffs on Australian wine. Ben Crossing, from Angullong Wines, near Orange and Millthorpe in the New South Wales central west, has welcomed this FTA. He says: 'It's a terrific opportunity to boost wine exports from our region and around Australia. It's great news, and this vitally important market to the Australian wine industry is going to be the better for it.' He gave it two thumbs up. Thank you, Ben. Another feature of this FTA is that working holiday-makers will be able to stay for three years, with an increase in the age limit to 35 years. With that, comes the advent of the ag visa. It something that we on this side of the House have been fighting for a long time, and good on the Prime Minister for delivering it when he was over there. The member for Maranoa has been passionate about it. Guy Gaeta, who heads up the Horticulture Committee of NSW Farmers, has said this: 'Our industry has been plagued by labour shortages in recent years. We've been fighting for an ag visa for a long time, and I think it's going to be a game changer for the industry as we come out of COVID. If we'd done nothing, we'd have fruit rotting on trees and shortages on supermarket shelves.' The new era has begun, and regional Australia will benefit. (Time expired) COVID-19: Vaccination 61 14:56 Ms RYAN 249224 Lalor My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. In April the government announced it would establish 13 dedicated pop-up clinics to vaccinate aged-care workers by the end of May. How many of those clinics are operating today and where are they? 14:57 Mr HUNT 00AMV Flinders At this point in time, we have 53 clinics, of which 50 are operating in Victoria. They did approximately 120 sites, as Commodore Young made known to the public on Monday. Last week there were, as I say, approximately 120 sites visited by the pop-up roving clinics to which Commodore Young referred. In addition, there are the New South Wales sites, and in addition to that, we have the complete vaccination in terms of visits to all residential aged-care facilities for first doses— The SPEAKER 00APG The minister for health will just pause for a second. The Deputy Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order? Mr Butler HWK On relevance. The minister knows we're asking about the 13 pop-up clinics promised, of which only three are operating and they're all in Sydney. The SPEAKER 00APG I just say to the Deputy Manager of Opposition Business that, when you take a point of order on relevance, you need to say how it's relevant and not provide the answer you'd like the minister to give. The minister for health has the call, but I do remind him it was a specific question. Mr HUNT 00AMV The correct answer is 53. We have 50 pop-up roving clinics in Victoria, which for some reason the opposition doesn't seem to believe is an important way to vaccinate workers. To put all of this in context: the goal of all of these vaccinations, the goal of all of the policies in Australia, is to protect lives. We have seen the world pass two million lives lost to COVID this year, 2021. The World Health Organization believes that the real figure is likely two to three times the official figure. In Australia, no person has caught COVID in this nation and died during the course of 2021. We have had one person who developed COVID in quarantine, having had it incubate there, having contracted it overseas. But having lost not one life in this country to COVID at a time when two million people officially, and probably closer to five million people unofficially, around the world have lost theirs is one of the most extraordinary public health achievements in Australia's history. I think that that is something that this nation can reflect upon with immense pride. And, yes, there are always challenges. But the fact that we have been able to offer vaccinations to residents in 100 per cent of aged-care facilities and second doses have been delivered to 95 per cent of facilities, and that not one Australian in this country has caught COVID and passed at a time when more than two million worldwide have lost their lives this year is one of Australia's great public health achievements. I want to thank all of our workers—our aged-care workers, our health workers, our medical workers and our GPs. Together they have saved lives and protected lives on a grand scale. National Security 62 15:00 Mrs McINTOSH 281513 Lindsay My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister please outline to the House why improving security at airports and seaports is so crucial for national security and community safety? Can the minister update the House on the progress of the Morrison-McCormack government's efforts to keep Australians safe? 15:01 Mrs ANDREWS 230886 McPherson I thank the member for her question and for her longstanding interest in national security matters. Every Australian understands that our airports and our seaports, as the entry points to our nation, are absolutely critical to our national security. They are critical to our efforts to make sure that we are keeping our communities safe and that we are protecting our way of life here in Australia, and there are a number of ways that we are keeping our borders secure. It was just last week that I had the opportunity to meet with some of the hardworking men and women of the Australian Border Force who work in the Torres Strait and do an absolutely outstanding job of keeping our borders to the north safe. So I thank you for the work that you have done and the work that I know that you will continue to do to make sure that all Australians are kept safe. It's very well known that this government has always been very strong on border security. We take it extremely seriously, whether it's managing biosecurity risks during the pandemic, whether it's discouraging people smugglers or whether it's making sure that criminals can't bring illegal drugs or illegal firearms into this country. Strong border security matters, and as a government we are committed to making sure that we continue to maintain the strong stance that we have had. Australians know and they understand the very clear position that this government has taken on border security, and they know that this government will always put Australians first. It was a great outcome just a couple of hours ago when we were able to finally make progress on the legislation to improve security in our airports and on our wharves with the passage through the Senate of our Transport Security Amendment (Serious Crime) Bill. It's a sad reality that criminal gangs attempt to use our wharves and our airports to traffic the drugs and weapons that make our communities less safe—and that's the bottom line. That's why the passage of that legislation through the Senate today was so important. What it means is that those who are working in the most secure areas of our airports and our wharves will have to meet much more stringent checks in terms of links to organised-crime activity. It means that we can protect the professional integrity of the 200,000-plus workers at our airports and wharves who do the right thing and take the responsibility of their trusted positions very seriously. COVID-19: Vaccination 63 15:04 Ms CLAYDON 248181 Newcastle My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. Aged-care residents across Australia were meant to be fully vaccinated by Easter. Is the Acting Prime Minister aware that the Department of Health says there are still 30,000 aged-care residents who have not received their second dose? Why has the government left tens of thousands of aged-care residents vulnerable to COVID in winter? 15:04 Mr McCORMACK 219646 Riverina I thought I might have got a question about the Newcastle Airport on infrastructure. I thought I might have finally got a question about an FTA. The SPEAKER 00APG The Acting Prime Minister will resume his seat. You might only be eight seconds in, but—the Manager of Opposition Business can resume his seat for a second. If you're a short way into the question and you're giving some context to the answer, that's okay, but no minister can simply start talking about another question they wish they'd been asked. The question was quite specific, with two parts. I invite the Acting Prime Minister to resume his answer and be relevant to the questions. Mr McCORMACK 219646 There is a vaccination rollout and we are getting on with the job of doing just that, doing it through Commonwealth officials, doing it through state public health officials, doing it for Australia. I have to say, as the minister for health has just indicated in his previous answer, we should be proud as a nation of what we have been able to achieve together to keep Australians safe, to protect lives, to protect livelihoods. We have lost 910 Australians through this global pandemic, and, indeed, it is a global pandemic. If you look at what has happened overseas, it is an absolute tragedy. It's a tragedy that we've lost 910 Australians—only one this year, but we mourn them with their families. We remember those people. But we have a vaccination strategy. We are rolling out the vaccine, whether it's through aged-care facilities for workers, for residents— The SPEAKER 00APG I would just say to the Acting Prime Minister the information he's giving is certainly context for the question, but I do need to point out to him that he's now quite a way in and the questions, as I said, were very specific—about whether he was aware of certain advice and, in another part of the question, relating to that, why that was the case. So the Acting Prime Minister has given some context but he needs to address the questions that were asked or wind up his answer. Mr McCORMACK 219646 To that point, I'm going to ask the minister for health to add some figures to my remarks. 15:07 Mr HUNT 00AMV Flinders To answer the member for Newcastle's question very specifically, 100 per cent of aged-care homes have had visits to offer vaccinations to residents; 94.9 per cent have already had second doses. There are some residents who, whether it is themselves or their carers, have not provided consent. This vaccination program is voluntary. If the member were advocating that it should not be voluntary, that would be a significant departure. So the correct answer is that 160,543 residents— The SPEAKER 00APG The minister will pause for a second. The Deputy Manager of Opposition Business, on a point of order? I will hear it and then rule on it. Mr Butler HWK On relevance. The minister was talking about people not giving consent. What we're talking about is the difference between the number of residents who've had their first dose and the number who've had their second dose. That difference is 30,000. The department has only just published it. The SPEAKER 00APG No, the Deputy Manager of Opposition Business won't debate the matter. The minister for— An opposition member interjecting— The SPEAKER 00APG No, he's not going to check his website; he's going to answer the question. The minister for health has the call. Mr HUNT 00AMV Of those residents who've received first doses but not the second, there are 13,000 in the last five per cent. Where the shadow minister is mistaken is he's not aware or deliberately not referring to the fact that there are approximately 13.8 per cent of residents who did not accept or were not given consent for or were unable to accept a vaccination the first time. Very importantly, 86.2 per cent of residents accepted first doses. In addition to that, we are also offering those residents who did not accept first doses opportunities to do so through in-reach clinics or through the general practice program we announced on Monday of this week, which will empower up to 30,000 general practitioners to visit clinics. So 86.2 per cent of residents have accepted first doses, 100 per cent of facilities have been visited and, within the next short period, 100 per cent of facilities will have had second doses. (Time expired) COVID-19: Vaccination 64 15:09 Mr RAMSEY HWS Grey My question is to the Minister for Regional Health, Regional Communications and Local Government. Will the minister outline to the House how the coalition government is working to ensure all Australians, including those living in regional and remote areas, will have access to the COVID-19 vaccine? 15:10 Mr COULTON HWN Parkes I thank the member for Grey for his question. All Australians can rest assured they will have access to vaccines and that's regardless of where they live or how remote they are. Regional Australia has done very well in managing the pandemic. Indeed, as I've said before in this House, probably the safest place on the planet for the last 18 months regarding COVID-19 has been regional Australia. The vaccines are rolling out. The Acting Prime Minister and the minister for health have mentioned that six million vaccines have been delivered right across Australia. I'm pleased to report that nearly 1.6 million of those have been in the regions and across 1,500 sites. In regional Australia, we're using a variety of delivery methods. We have partnerships with state and territory governments—they're doing a great job in providing clinics—the Royal Flying Doctor Service, community pharmacies and, of course, our ever-present reliable GPs in country areas. The Royal Flying Doctor Service is going to deliver to 80 remote locations, 30,000 Australians. The innovation of that service—they've developed freezers that can run on the electric supply of those Royal Flying Doctor planes to deliver the Pfizer vaccine to remote locations. Indeed, Eucla, out on the Nullarbor was the first place to receive that. Not only did the locals turn up but people travelled large distances by aeroplane to receive that. The member for Grey's electorate, which represents such a large area of South Australia—the APY Lands, Yalata, Oak Valley—will receive vaccines delivered by the Royal Flying Doctor Service. We're also turning to community pharmacy. Last Monday I was in the member for Wright's electorate at Terry White's Pharmacy at Boonah. I witnessed the first vaccine delivered in regional Queensland by a pharmacy. The pharmacies will fill in the gaps where general practice and other facilities might not be available. We will see that roll out across Queensland and ultimately in other states as well. We encourage all Australians to take up the opportunity. Just in finishing, last week a couple left Victoria and had a very long, in-depth and interesting trip through western New South Wales and visited many of the delights across the member for Riverina's electorate and my electorate. I have to say, those communities have stepped up. Large numbers of people are being tested. As of now, there are no positive cases. So regional Australians are doing their bit, they're stepping up when they need to, and the federal government is providing a way to make sure that the entire areas of regional areas of regional Australia are covered by the vaccine. Mr McCormack 219646 I would ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper, Mr Speaker. The SPEAKER 00APG I thank the Acting Prime Minister. The Acting Prime Minister indicated to me earlier he wishes to rise on a brief indulgence to be followed by the Leader of the Opposition. The Acting Prime Minister. STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE 64 STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE Brill, Mrs Jan Letchford, AM 64 15:13 Mr McCORMACK 219646 Riverina I wish to do something we don't often do in this chamber—that is, to say a few words of thanks and express our gratitude to Australians who are often overlooked. The speed of things in this place, the serious issues we confront, they all do matter. It's right we focus on the big issues, the big numbers, the nightly news. They can consume so much of our focus but sometimes we need to take a moment to draw breath to remember the people who build this country, who do so much every day, almost always without acknowledgement, to remember the heart and soul of the country we all love, the community leaders and volunteers who give of themselves for no other reason than it is the right thing to do. Today I want to remember and acknowledge the late Mrs Jan Brill. Jan served the Country Women's Association for 60 years. That is longer than most in this chamber have been alive. Jan is being buried as we speak. She passed away last week. The service was held at St John's Anglican Church in Wagga Wagga. Jan would not have imagined the parliament pausing for her, but we should pause for everything she embodies and the thousands of other Jans around the country—not just the CWA but chambers of commerce, sports clubs, Meals on Wheels, Legacy, Scouts and Guides, giving back to us, to society. Before there is even politics, there is citizenship, and good citizens are the glue that holds our town centres, our suburbs and our country together. 'I'm just an ordinary farmer's wife, but I've been lucky enough to belong to a wonderful organisation that has given me many wonderful opportunities.' So said Jan Brill in 2003, reflecting on then 42 years in the Country Women's Association, including the important position as national secretary from 1997 to 2000 as well as New South Wales secretary and vice-president. Jan, who passed away last Tuesday after a long life of serving others, very much understated her value to the community and, indeed, the fondness and wide respect people held for her. She was a do-er, a woman of action who got things done, a lady in every sense of the word who sought and achieved great things on the national stage—certainly for regional areas in general and rural women in particular. Meticulous, lovely and elegant, and gracious was the way current New South Wales CWA vice president Ann Adams remembered Jan. Eighteen years ago to the very week, Jan had been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia. This honour was thoroughly deserved. She continued her involvement with the CWA until the day she died. The only partnership in her life which endured for longer was her nearly 65 years of marriage to Alan, and my deepest condolences go to him; their children, Susan, Karen and Gary; their respective spouses, Peter, Mark and Robyn; 10 grandchildren; and 15 great-grandchildren. May she rest in peace. Farewell, Jan, and thank you. 15:16 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I join with the Acting Prime Minister in paying tribute to his friend and constituent Jan Brill AM. Through her words and, most importantly, her actions Jan Brill reminded us of the true meaning of the expression 'pillar of the community', and she did it through an organisation that has for so long helped so many in our communities: the Country Women's Association. At a local level she was group president, group secretary and group publicity officer. At a state level she was a representative to the state executive, the secretary and the vice president. At a national level she was national secretary. She won deserved recognition for her work in 2003 with her appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia. In 2015 she was named Riverina group patron. Speaking with her local newspaper more recently, Jan talked of following in the footsteps of the CWA's pioneering members and carrying on their vision of improving the conditions for country women and their families, especially in rural and remote Australia. This organisation has been around for a very long time. It's easy to take it for granted, but it is worth re-acquainting ourselves with what the CWA really means. In the words of writer Karen Pickering, the CWA is 'the beating heart of tiny towns'. It is an integral part of the fabric of country life and, crucially, it is women looking out for other women. It is an organisation governed by its rank-and-file membership and, when the going gets hard in rural communities, the CWA is always there. It played a crucial role, for example, in distributing drought assistance over recent years. Jan Brill and the CWA were the right fit for each other. Jan knew that she could help to change the lives of her fellow Australians for the better, and she did just that. On behalf of the Australian Labor Party I offer my condolences to her family and many friends. May she rest in peace. BUSINESS 65 BUSINESS Leave of Absence 65 15:18 Mr DUTTON 00AKI Dickson I move: That leave of absence from the determination of this sitting until 3 August 2021 be given to Mr Pearce for parental leave purposes. Question agreed to. DOCUMENTS 65 DOCUMENTS Presentation 65 15:19 Mr DUTTON 00AKI Dickson 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. MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE 65 MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE Climate Change 65 15:19 The SPEAKER 00APG I have received a letter from the honourable member for McMahon proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The Government's failure to act on the globe's climate emergency, which should be Australia's jobs opportunity. I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places. More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places— 15:20 Mr BOWEN DZS McMahon It might be an unusual way to start an MPI, but I note that the Prime Minister recently said some very good things about the jobs opportunity in moving to a renewable-energy economy. He said to the Australian newspaper: 'We want to create new, high-quality jobs, from Perth to Penrith, by signing up to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.' We on this side of the House say, 'Hear, hear!' We're very happy with that. The only bad news is that it wasn't the Prime Minister of Australia who said that; it was the Prime Minister of Great Britain. The Prime Minister of Great Britain gets it—that the world's climate emergency is Australia's jobs opportunity—but the Prime Minister of Australia doesn't get it. The Prime Minister of Australia doesn't understand that this is so important for our economic future, but a lot of other people get it. The entire G7 gets it. Every other developed country in the world is committed to net zero by 2050. Every state and territory in Australia is committed to net zero by 2050. Business gets it. The Business Council of Australia gets it. APPEA, the peak body representing oil and gas in Australia, is committed to net zero by 2050. BHP, 'the Big Australian', is committed to net zero by 2050. Orica, BlueScope Steel, the National Farmers Federation, the Ai Group, Unilever, BP and other key corporate groups, including Telstra and Woolworths, are committed to net zero by 2050. And the Australian people are committed to net zero by 2050. They get it. They understand. The Prime Minister is in London at the moment. The Prime Minister of Great Britain said he hoped Australia would commit to net zero by 2050 in the lead-up to the summit. Have you seen the footage? The Prime Minister of Great Britain got so frustrated he actually announced, on our behalf, that the Prime Minister of Australia was committed to net zero by 2050. You see the Prime Minister of Australia standing next to him, thinking, 'Where do I go? What do I do?' There's the sound of crickets. In fact, this government is committed to net zero, but, under the current trajectory of its policies, it will take 145 years to get there. Those opposite are committed to net zero by 2166. That's their big commitment. To be clear: Australia should commit to net zero by 2050 and outline a clear pathway to get there, not because the rest of the world thinks we should—that's not a good enough reason—or because it's our moral obligation, as important a reason as that is, but because it is economically reckless not to do so. The G7 countries and other forums aren't just talking about net zero by 2050; they're also moving towards carbon tariffs for countries that don't have a pathway to get there. There'll be an economic cost for those countries. This government talks about 'technology, not taxes'. Under their regime, we'll have a tax put on us by other countries. There'll be a carbon tax under the government he leads, but it will be put on us by other countries. That's what will happen because of this government's reckless behaviour. The member for Dawson recently said that net zero emissions equals net zero jobs. That just shows what this government is dealing with. They have people on that side of the House who are holding back ambition and stopping policies which will create jobs. They don't realise that every $10 million invested in renewable energy and energy efficiency creates 75 jobs, which is more than you get from investing in traditional energy generation, at 27 jobs. That's three times the number of jobs, and it's a great export opportunity. Australia is one of the world's largest exporters of energy, and we can continue to be. There's the Sun Cable proposal for the Northern Territory, which will have 24 million solar panels. There's the Asian Renewable Energy Hub in the Pilbara, which is going to create a whole new town in the Pilbara to take the 8,000 workers to staff it. That's where the jobs will be created, in the regions, which have powered Australia for so long. This government likes to say that climate change is an inner-city obsession. No—climate change is the key to a bright economic future for our regions, for the Pilbara and for all of the regions which have powered Australia for so long. We've seen more of this government's prejudice on display in recent weeks. The Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia vetoed an investment in a wind farm because, he said, it didn't have a battery. The problem was that it did have a battery. If he was so concerned about the windfarm proposal, he could have looked it up on the website. He would have found it is a 157-megawatt wind farm with approval for a 100-megawatt battery and a network upgrade. So it had the wind farm, it had the battery and it had the upgrade. That wasn't good enough for the minister for resources, because he's so prejudiced against renewable energy. He's not the only one. The Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, who is at the table, has just promulgated a regulation which gives him the power to declare that a technology is low-emission—him; this guy. No, not on our watch. We voted to disallow that regulation and we'll vote in the other place to disallow the regulation. And if those fail, I think the courts might disallow the regulation because he's breached the law, as he does so. This is what we have. We have a minister who tried to legislate the CEFC to invest in non-renewable energy. He couldn't bring that legislation back into the House. We still haven't seen it. Has anybody seen it? He said it was a milestone. It turned out to be a millstone, because it's been 'Barnabied'. We haven't seen it. So he thought he'd sneak around the other way this time and bring down a regulation. That's how determined these guys are. They are so prejudiced against renewable energy. They've got their lines. We all know the lines. They say, 'The sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow,' like they're the only people who've thought of it. It's about as logical as saying, 'The rain doesn't always fall, so we shouldn't drink water. We can't rely on water.' We store water and we can store energy. Part of our community batteries policy is to create 400 community batteries around Australia. It's part of the policy suite that we're rolling out. Electric vehicles: remember 'they're going to ruin the weekend' and 'they can't tow your boat'? They said that Australians don't deserve the choice. We think Australians do deserve the choice of electric vehicles. That's why we will cut their cost. We believe in technology and tax cuts. That's what we believe in—tax cuts for electric vehicles to make them cheaper. Take the tariff off electric vehicles. Provide an FBT concession for employers to provide their employees with electric vehicles, which will reduce the cost of a Nissan Leaf by $9,000 plus the tariff reduction, which is $2,000. That is up to $11,000 to drive behaviour, encourage electric vehicles and give people the choice. The government says we don't have enough affordable electric vehicles in Australia. I agree. It's because of them, because of their policies, because they don't believe in electric vehicles. This is another part of our policy that we're rolling out together with our rewiring the nation policy, a $20 billion investment. You can have a solar panel on every element of the desert and you can have lots of wind turbines. Unless you've upgraded the grid to get the energy where it's needed, where it's consumed—in the cities—we won't be doing the job. So we'll rewire the nation. That'll create thousands of jobs as we do so, upgrading transmission lines around the country in the regions, which have powered Australia for so long, making sure that we can get that energy out of those regions and into the cities and to export to South-East Asia and Asia more broadly. These are the great job opportunities that we have in Australia which the government simply refuses to grasp. Of course, there is the rebuilding the nation fund, at $15 billion, with renewable energy at its core as a key priority area, along with some others and renewable energy manufacturing. We as a country in Australia have put 60 million solar panels on roofs in the last 10 years. That sounds impressive, and it is, but it's small compared to what we will put on roofs in the next 10 years. Do you know how many of those solar panels have been made in Australia? A very small number. We can do so much better. There is one solar panel manufacturer in Australia on this government's watch. There can be many more as we build those solar panels to put on roofs. This is the message that the Labor Party has. In my time as shadow minister I've been to Emerald, I've been to Gladstone twice, I've been to Yallourn power station and to the Latrobe Valley. The message is: we believe in the jobs of the future. I have a message for this government as well about renewable energy. This solar panel is renewable energy. Don't be afraid of it. Don't run away from it. Don't be scared of it! The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The member for McMahon will put the prop down. Mr BOWEN DZS This is renewable energy. Those opposite have an ideological, pathological fear of renewable energy. There's no word for renewable energy phobia, officially, but that's the malady that affects those opposite. That's the malady that's afflicting the jobs and the towns and industries of this country because of their pathological, ideological opposition to renewable energy being an important part of our sustainable and more-certain energy future. You might have heard those words before, in a slightly different context. They were said by the bloke who's the Prime Minister of Australia, who's missing out on jobs opportunities for Australia. 15:30 Mr TAYLOR 231027 Hume I've sat here and endured rot and drivel from those opposite, because they will always take every opportunity to talk down Australia and Australians. They do it all the way through question time, and we've just heard 10 minutes of it. But let me give you the facts, because the facts are a really good starting place and these are facts that Australians can be proud of. Emissions are now at their lowest level since records began in 1990—20.1 per cent below 2005 levels. In 2020 they were more than 100 million tonnes, or just under 20 per cent, lower than forecast by Labor when they left government—with a carbon tax. Let me be clear about this. We took away the carbon tax, and emissions are more than 100 million tonnes lower for 2020 than they forecast. That's an extraordinary outcome and one that all Australians can be proud of. Between 2005 and 2019, Australia's emissions fell faster than in the OECD: faster than Canada's, faster than New Zealand's—indeed, theirs barely budged, when ours are now down by 20.1 per cent—and faster than the United States'. In electricity our emissions fell 5.6 per cent last year alone. That record low is driven by a record level of deployment in renewables, and we set a new record just last year. Last year alone we saw 7,000 megawatts of solar and wind being constructed—installed—in Australia. That's the equivalent of four large coal-fired power stations, last year alone. That is more than was installed in the whole time Labor was in power over six long years. So in one year we saw more installed than in six long years when Labor was in power, when we saw only 5,600 megawatts, as against 7,000 last year and 6,900 the year before that. So, twice over now, we've beaten Labor's record over their whole six years. And they like to boast about their achievements! Well, we deliver. Australia deployed renewables eight times as fast as the global per-person average and four times as fast as in Europe or the US. We on this side know there are ultimately only two ways to reduce emissions: technology or taxes, innovation or elimination. Those opposite want taxes and they want elimination. This is a shadow minister who is not committed to technology. He's committed to taxes. He wanted a retiree tax, he wanted a housing tax, he wanted a car tax and now he's decided that since he can't impose a tax himself he's going to ask other countries to do it for him. One way or another, he's seeking to impose taxes on Australians, and he's doing it gleefully. Our approach is technology based. That's why we're driving $80 billion of investment over the next decade through our technology investment road map—160,000 jobs, clean hydrogen, carbon capture, healthier soils, and low-emissions steel and aluminium. These are the things that are really going to drive the next decades of emissions reduction, just as we've seen dramatic reductions in emissions over the past decade. But we do need to get more horses in the race. We do need to make sure there are as many technologies available for those hard-to-abate sectors as we can possibly get. That means working with our trading and strategic partners. In the past few days we've seen Australia sign agreements as part of more than $560 million committed to technology partnerships. Australia has signed partnerships with Singapore, Germany and Japan, one of our biggest energy customers. We've signed agreements with them to advance technologies that are going to bring down our emissions and bring down emissions across the globe, because we in this country are an energy powerhouse and we can play a leadership role. Our special adviser on low-emissions technology, Dr Alan Finkel, is leading that charge, and he's driving those partnerships that will deliver real and tangible outcomes. Sadly, those opposite have nothing to contribute but hollow words. The member for Hunter put it beautifully when he said Labor hasn't made a single contribution to reduce emissions in 14 years of trying. That's damning, from their own side—not a single contribution to reduce emissions in 14 years of trying. You only need to look at their efforts in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, under the leadership of the member for McMahon, Labor voted against the creation of 1,400 jobs and $192 million of investment for ARENA. They voted against funding that would see ARENA deliver more electric vehicle charging stations—against supporting carbon capture technologies and supporting efficiencies in heavy industry and in heavy freight. Only yesterday, to take one of those technologies where we see enormous potential, Australia's former Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, who I mentioned earlier, said this about carbon capture and storage: The role of CCS … is being promoted by the IEA, the United Nations, the Biden administration: We won't get to net zero without CCS and the companies that can do it and can do it really well are the oil and gas companies of Australia and around the world … We saw the latest demonstration of Labor's hypocrisy when it comes to energy and emissions policy when they voted against funding for an agency that they established. They will stop at nothing to cosy up to green activists rather than take practical and responsible action. But, yesterday, where was the member for Hunter on that issue? He was absent. He didn't show up because he knows how absurd the member for McMahon's position is. As he rightly put it, it's just bad politics. The member for McMahon isn't interested in his own climate ambitions. He isn't interested in reducing emissions or creating jobs, seizing trade opportunities or export opportunities. He's not interested in supporting industries like hydrogen. He's not interested in driving down emissions in steel and aluminium. He's not interested in healthier soils. He's not interested in standing up for the interests of blue-collar workers across Australia. No, it's not about his climate ambitions. It's about his personal ambition, because since being sacked as the shadow minister for health—in the middle of a pandemic—he's been reinventing himself as the darling of the Left. He's donned the skivvy and he's become the No.1 ticket holder for Labor Environment Action Network. He's the No. 1 ticket holder. In the last month, he's been a regular on the LEAN speaker circuit. He's been to far more LEAN meetings than he's been to electricity generators. From Canberra to Gippsland, in Parliament House or on Zoom, he's there at the LEAN meetings in his skivvy, late-night tea and biscuits with the same crowd who oppose gas, who oppose oil, who oppose fossil fuels and who want to shut down our resources industry and shut down jobs. That's where he's focused. Don't be fooled, Mr Speaker. He'll say LEAN is a stakeholder he needs to manage, but it's more than that: he thinks he can have a shot at being leader. He thinks he can have a shot at it. Everyone sitting behind him knows it—that that's his ambition. Everyone in the press gallery knows it, and no doubt the Leader of the Opposition knows it as well. This is a man who knows his way around an attempt at a political assassination. He had a go. We all remember that one. He had a go back in the Rudd days. It turns out he can't count how many cylinders there are in his own car, but, I tell you what, he can have a crack at counting the votes when it comes to a political assassination. We will get on with the job, as we do every day, of delivering emissions reductions as we deliver affordable, reliable energy for all Australians in this great country. We'll do it through technology, not taxes. We're doing it through innovation, not elimination. Those opposite can't help themselves. We know what they want. They want taxes. They want to destroy jobs. We're getting on with the job of creating jobs for Australians, creating opportunities for Australians and bringing down our emissions at the same time. 15:40 Mr CONROY 249127 Shortland I love it when the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction talks about numbers, because the truth is the numbers he usually relies on are in fraudulent documents, like those relating to the City of Sydney. They're the only documents that he's genuinely interested in, and they're the only numbers that he relies on. But let's talk about a couple of numbers from the government's own documents. Their emissions projections reports show that, when Labor was last in government, we cut annual carbon emissions by 87.5 million tonnes. Off the minister goes, because he's afraid he'll actually learn something. I don't think he reads the government's own documents. He's too busy having his office make up other ones. Under Labor, 87.5 million tonnes of emissions, on an annual basis, were cut from our greenhouse gas emissions. Under this government, from 2014 to 2019, it was 22 million tonnes—less than a third of what Labor achieved. How did they achieve those emissions reductions? This is from their own reports. Principally, it was from the renewable energy target, from Labor's RET, which they tried to abolish three times. Now they're claiming credit for it, such is the chutzpah of this organisation. Secondly, they shut down car manufacturing—that's the second reason emissions fell between 2014 and 2019. Thirdly, it was because of the drought. So the three causes of emissions falling between 2014 and 2019 are Labor's RET, killing the car industry, and the drought. I wouldn't be bragging about that if I were the minister. The truth is that they did achieve emissions reductions last year. A massive 26 million tonnes was cut from emissions last year. Do you know how they did it? It was by the Morrison recession. If you shrink the economy by 6½ per cent, which is what they did, you cut emissions by 26 million tonnes. A recession led to that. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The member for Petrie on a point of order? Mr CONROY 249127 What? Mr Howarth 247742 First of all, there's parliamentary language, but I would ask that the member opposite refer to the Prime Minister by his correct title. Mr CONROY 249127 I did refer to the Prime Minister. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 I'll deal with the point of order first. Mr Conroy interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 You can go to the point of order, but I think I know what you're going to say and I'm going to address it. Mr Howarth interjecting— Mr CONROY 249127 I didn't refer to the Prime Minister. I referred to an economic recession. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 Order! I'm going to rule on this. I watch very closely the use of the proper titles of members. The member for Shortland was not referring directly to the Prime Minister. Regularly 'the Morrison government' is used by the government itself, so I'm ruling this in order. But I would also caution those on my left to be mindful of the way they use titles. Mr CONROY 249127 Thank you, Deputy Speaker. What a moronic intervention from the member opposite. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The member for Shortland will withdraw. Mr CONROY 249127 I'm not referring to the member. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The member will withdraw. Mr CONROY 249127 I withdraw, but this is the quality we have opposite. No wonder climate policy is so substandard under this government. Those opposite don't even understand the standing orders of this place, let alone climate policy. He's still denying it. This guy is so hopeless. He is so obsessed with his minor debating point; he can't even understand the Deputy Speaker's rulings. No wonder this government is hopeless. No wonder the only way it can cut emissions is by reducing the size of the economy. That is the truth of this. This is in the government's own document. And the sad truth is that, even with claiming credit for the drought, Labor's RET, killing the auto industry, and the Morrison recession, they still don't hit their 2030 target. In 2030, according to their figures, Australia's emissions will only be 478 million tonnes, still 35 million tonnes above their own target. The government's own papers admit they have failed, and it's because they're divided into two groups. There are the fossils, who deny the science of climate change—like the member for New England—and there are the bedwetters, who can't stand up to them, who can't take action and who are denying the economic opportunities for the future of Australia. They are denying the future. They are destroying the future for the next generation, and they will stand condemned in history. (Time expired) 15:45 Mr HOWARTH 247742 Petrie That's a terrible contribution from those opposite. They're ignoring the actual facts. Australia invested $7.7 billion in renewable energy just last year, almost $300 per person. As the minister said, Australia's emissions are falling faster than anywhere else in the OECD, including the US, Canada, New Zealand. They're the facts that those opposite conveniently ignore. We know that, yesterday, when the minister was talking about renewables, he said that there was 7,000 megawatts of investment in renewables in the last 12 months alone. We know that one megawatt is enough to power approximately 650 homes, so 7,000 megawatts was enough renewable energy to power over four million homes last year alone. That's more than what Labor did in the six years they were last in office. The facts are that their arguments are completely hollow. They're unfounded, and they don't have a leg to stand on. That's the absolute reality of what the facts show. A lot of that investment in renewable energy was also in rooftop solar. I want to commend the people of Petrie on their investment in rooftop solar. Almost one in three houses have rooftop solar, some 28,000 homes in Petrie alone. The government is also contributing to that as part of our renewable energy commitment. Recently, we installed renewables at the Redcliffe Surf Life Saving Club. We've also installed renewable energy at the Redcliffe Community Men's Shed and the Aspley Memorial Bowls Club. We've installed it throughout the electorate of Petrie, and I'm very proud of that. Businesses are also playing their part, like Packer Leather in Narangba, who have done a whole lot to help reduce their footprint by installing solar on their roof. Not only are those opposite ignoring the facts; they're also voting against more jobs in the renewable sector. Yesterday, Labor—every single one of them on that side of the House, and that flows on to their candidates—and the Greens voted against an additional 1,400 jobs in renewable energy. Labor voted against another $192.5 million going to ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. How is the $192.5 million that Labor didn't support going to be used? They don't support reducing industrial energy efficiency, because that's what that money was going to be used for. Agricultural trucks, for example, use 53 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres. Rigid trucks use 28 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres. Yesterday, they voted against ARENA's commitment to help support and increase heavy vehicle fuel efficiency and industrial energy efficiency. Packer Leather is an industrial energy user in my electorate, and ARENA would have helped them. Labor voted against it. Labor also voted against hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen fuel is used in vehicles. It has zero emissions when running. It can be used in passenger cars and buses. It has even been used in space. Labor voted against that. Labor voted against electric vehicle infrastructure too. I'd like to see some more electric vehicle infrastructure on the north side of Brisbane and in Redcliffe. Every single one of those members voted against it yesterday. They also voted against more microgrids throughout Australia. We know that diesel generators play a big part in pushing up emissions. In regional areas, microgrids could have been used in Indigenous communities, in remote communities, by farmers, in shearing sheds, and even locally in Moreton Bay, in places like Moreton Island, Bulwer, Cowan, Kooringal and Tangalooma, a resort just off the north side of Brisbane that uses a lot of diesel generators. ARENA was going to ensure that microgrids had a real part to play in further reducing emissions and helping with climate change. Let it be on the record that every single Labor member opposite voted against that $192.5 million extra. So don't complain if it goes through the Senate and you don't get extra electric vehicle chargers in your electorate. You shouldn't be getting any, if you vote against good policy like that. The fact is that— (Time expired) 15:50 Dr MULINO 132880 Fraser In 2006, Nicholas Stern wrote a report which has formed the intellectual bedrock for what most countries around the world have embraced as a framework for addressing climate change. Nicholas Stern said: Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen. What he was referring to there, in part, is the fact that carbon pollution imposes negative externalities on our society. That's an economic term for something that has a very commonsense meaning, which is that in a free market people pollute more than they ought to because they don't bear the consequences of that pollution. That's why it is so critical that government action is needed to respond to that. But what we're dealing with today is the flip side of that, and something which is becoming more and more prominent in climate change debates, which is that not only are there negative externalities from climate pollution but there are positive externalities from action to reduce that pollution. For example, the research and development that goes into clean energy is a positive externality. In a free market, it is underproduced, because the people who invent that technology don't capture all the benefits. So government needs to step in and fund that clean energy research and development. There are often networks—electric vehicle networks, for example—where, again, there are positive externalities. This is critical to this motion, because the government say they are 'for technology', as a cheap throwaway line, but they don't do what is necessary for society to benefit from all the positive externalities that energy, clean technology and clean networks will generate. What are the three elements that are needed for these positive externalities? Firstly, we need to agree on a destination, on a purpose. What is it we are using technology to achieve? Secondly, we need the right environment for that technology to flourish. Thirdly, we need to put the resources in to create that technology. What about the destination—something so basic? As many speakers have already outlined, this government can't even get that right. This government refuses to commit to zero net emissions by midcentury, when every economy in the G7 has done so. Time and time again, our leaders—our embarrassing leaders—go overseas to be pariahs yet again at conferences at which countries far and wide across the world have all committed to this destination. We all know that the research and development and the implementation of this complex technology require a long-term perspective. We will never implement or develop this technology if we can't even agree on where we are going. This government may end up committing to zero net emissions, but it will do so on the basis of a timetable for an early election, not on the basis of any genuine belief in the need for action. What about the need to create an environment where this technology can be developed and implemented? There's no certainty. We don't have the environment we need. There have been 22 policies over the last eight years. It is an absolute disgrace and an absolute disaster. What about the Business Council of Australia? They are hardly rabid socialists and hardly greens. They say: To create new jobs and lower our carbon emissions we need a laser-like focus on giving business the certainty they need to invest. What about the International Monetary Fund? Hardly greenies and hardly rabid socialists. They say that Australia's 'energy policy should further reduce uncertainty for investment decisions'. We are talking about orthodox economic policy development and orthodox economic policy implementation. They all say the same thing: you need certainty to underpin the development and implementation of the technology. This government uses it as a cheap, throwaway line but will never implement it in this country. What about that hippy Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock? He says: I have great optimism about the future of capitalism and the future health of the economy – not in spite of the energy transition, but because of it. This is about the positive externalities. But then he says: Given how central the energy transition will be to every company's growth prospects, we are asking companies to disclose a plan for how their business model will be compatible with a net zero economy … Again, this is about a plan, a path forward and a commitment. What about the funding? What about the resources? We have seen, because of this government's failures, investment in renewable energy projects collapse by more than 50 per cent in the run-up to the COVID crisis, so we're going to snap back to a situation that was a failure, that was a disaster. What about the 2021-22 budget, which created $1 trillion in debt but almost nothing for clean energy? The Clean Energy Council rightly said it was a missed opportunity. This government say they're for technology, but there's no destination, there's no environment and there's no resourcing. It won't happen under them. (Time expired) 15:55 Mr SHARMA 274506 Wentworth It's a pleasure to talk on this MPI and address the matter that those opposite have raised, of the government's alleged failure to act on addressing the climate emergency. Let's look at our record. The Clean Energy Regulator estimates that last year Australia installed a record 7,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity. That beats by 11 per cent the figure for 2019 of 6.3 gigawatts or 6,300 megawatts, which was itself a record. It means that one in four Australian households now has solar, one of the highest uptakes in the world. Australia's deployment of wind and solar renewable energy is happening at 10 times the rate of the global average, four times the rate of the US and the EU. In the first weeks of 2020, well over a year ago, we ticked past 25 gigawatts of wind and solar generation, meaning we're one of only three countries in the world to have more than one kilowatt per capita of renewable energy generation capacity. We've now got more solar capacity per person than any country in the world. We've got more solar and wind capacity than nearly every country in the world, and nearly 40 per cent of this capacity has been installed in the past two years. The integrated system plan published by the Australian Energy Market Operator, AEMO, predicted renewable energy will supply as much as 90 per cent of the national energy market by 2035. They said in that report: On certain measures, the rate of change in Australia is the fastest of any country in the world. What is driving this transition? It's being driven by the affordability and availability of new technology, by consumer appetite and by investor sentiment. The progress here is not linear, it's exponential. We've seen this in the continued fall in our emissions. In the year to December 2020, our CO2-equivalent emissions were 499 million tonnes. That's five per cent lower or 26.1 million tonnes less than in 2019, the equivalent of taking half our national fleet of light vehicles off the road entirely. It's also 20.1 per cent lower than our 2005 levels, the baseline for our 2030 Paris Agreement target. Those opposite were saying Australia does not stack up well internationally. Let's compare what we've achieved. The OECD's reduction in emissions, across the average OECD over the same period, is nine per cent. New Zealand's is four per cent. Canada's is less than one per cent. The United States' is 10 per cent. Australia's is 20.1 per cent. The G20 over the same period, 2005, increased their emissions on average. Just this past week the Prime Minister has been engaging with our foreign partners to act on climate. In Singapore, on 10 June, he and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee established a $30-million partnership to accelerate the deployment of low-emissions fuels and technology, such as clean hydrogen, to reduce emissions in maritime and port operations. On 13 June, in the UK, the Prime Minister and Japan's Prime Minister Suga announced the Japan-Australia partnership on decarbonisation through technology, which will provide for lower emission LNG production, transport and use; clean fuel ammonia; clean hydrogen; low-emission steel and iron ore; and carbon capture utilisation and storage. That same week, just a few days ago, with the German leader, Chancellor Merkel, the Prime Minister announced the Australia-Germany partnership initiative on hydrogen, which will, amongst other things, establish the German-Australian Hydrogen Innovation and Technology Incubator, funded with up to A$50 million, and industry-to-industry cooperation on hydrogen hubs. All these agreements, with Germany, with Singapore, with Japan, are part of the government's half-a-billion-dollar commitment to build new international technology partnerships. The clean energy future for Australia is also, I believe, a bright jobs future. The Australian hydrogen industry could generate more than 8,000 jobs and deliver over $11 billion in additional GDP by 2050. The clean steel and clean aluminium industry could, similarly, generate thousands of new jobs and industries for Australia. But here's the irony: the disallowance motion that those opposite moved yesterday would have prevented ARENA from supporting low-emissions technology. It would have prevented ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, from supporting low-emissions technology. It would have prevented ARENA from supporting things like energy efficiency, low-emissions transport on electric vehicles, all forms of clean hydrogen, soil carbon, technologies that reduce emissions from aluminium and steel, carbon capture technologies, including carbon capture and storage. The Business Council of Australia supports ARENA for doing this. The Australian Industry Greenhouse Network supports ARENA for doing this. The Investor Group on Climate Change supports ARENA for doing this, but not Labor. In the Sydney Morning Herald today there are reports that Rio Tinto was pushing into green aluminium and that the trial was being backed by the federal government with an injection of $600,000 into a trial of technology to help remove emissions from the carbon intensive production process. Well, if Labor had succeeded in passing that disallowance motion yesterday, that trial could not proceed. You cannot, in the same breath, talk about a crisis but not be willing to engage with the solutions. 16:00 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie I don't think I'm the only one in this chamber whose ears prick up when we hear a world leader talking about Penrith. I'm sure the member for Lindsay pays attention too. When we hear about jobs being created by renewable energy projects from Perth to Penrith, that's a great message. We want to see more jobs in Penrith. We certainly want to see them just across the border in my electorate of Macquarie and heading all the way through to Lithgow, which will need to see some really good job creation. Renewable energy will provide enormous opportunities if only we move on it now, if only we get started, instead of continuing a debate about denial. So I'm very grateful to Prime Minister Boris Johnson for his comments. He has nailed it in one. Business has always known that we need to take strong action in this place to encourage investment in technologies and all sorts of ideas around reducing our carbon emissions. I know this because, before I was here, I worked in the world of investment banking and listed corporates, and for more than a decade there has been a really serious conversation about what was needed from government policy. In around 2010 they were feeling really positive about what they were seeing. Sure, it wasn't all plain sailing, but there was an absolute intent since 2007 which carried through into action by a Labor government to do something that gives certainty to business. Of course, it was all thrown out the window in 2013. Then I saw big business, investment banks, people who invest all over the world, start to turn away from Australia and look to other places to invest in renewable energy. Here we are in 2021 and we still have business—not unions but business—crying out for action from the mob on the other side on something so fundamental to the future of our own economy and to the role that we play in the global economy. It is not just a climate emergency; it will become an economic emergency to see action on this. But, as always, this government, these Liberals, will just delay and delay and delay until it finally hits them in the face, and then they will do only just enough or not even enough. And we can't afford that. The facts are that we need to be working in this area now. Seventy per cent of Australia's trade is with countries that are now committed to net zero emissions by mid-century. We are so far behind, and that is going to cost us in GDP and in jobs. It is the biggest economic change that has happened since the Industrial Revolution, and those opposite will continue to deny it. This isn't niche; we've moved on from this being something that just nice people who like the environment are on about. This is hard-headed business people. This is people who care about jobs. And that's where our unions come in. They care about the jobs that their members will have in the future. And they're working hard to develop policy; it's a pity that those on the other side just can't be bothered. We know that some of our biggest export markets in Europe and the US are either considering or already working on carbon border adjustments, so it will be this government that sees Australia with a carbon tax; it's just that it won't be one that we have any control over, because it will be imposed on us by other countries. We will not be having any sort of control over the sort of future that we have; others will be making those decisions. In my electorate, people want to see action. My councils both have zero emissions targets by 2050. My community absolutely seizes the opportunity to have solar panels and now they want batteries. We have the capacity here to be manufacturing those batteries—not just mining the minerals but turning them into the batteries that will power our homes, especially in a fragile environment like the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, where we see the effects of climate change in the increasing number of harder and faster storms, floods and fires. My community knows that we need this; the kids in my community know we need this—kids who are involved in action, and I'm with them all the way. 16:05 Mr TIM WILSON IMW Goldstein Down, down, emissions are down, under this government. You just need to look at the most recent National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting scheme inventory, which shows very clearly that since 2005, on the December quarter of last year, emissions are now down by 20.1 per cent. This comes as a complete fiction to the members of the opposition, who want to ignore the practical reality. We met and beat our Kyoto targets. We're meeting and will beat our Paris targets. And we are laying the foundation for further emission cuts as part of a transition to build Australia's economic future while reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and achieving the decoupling we need in order to make sure we can have sustainable jobs for future generations. The big difference between those on this side of the chamber and those on the other side is that we want to create the opportunities for the next generation of Australians so that they can have a job—so that we can provide security today and opportunity for tomorrow. That is the approach the Morrison government has been taking every step of the way, because we see the enormous potential to transition the economy and utilise the power of technology. That's the foundation of how we've always seen productivity and economic opportunity. That's why we have a plan that is anchored in technology. And the great thing is that the Australian people back us every step of the way. We took a plan to the last election to put technology before taxes, and they backed us. Research that's come out overnight says that Australians back technology over taxes. That has been the fundamental problem that members of the opposition have, at every point, struggled to get over. They see the debate around climate change not as one about how we build the strength of the country. They have used it as a pursuit to drive their ideological madness, where they use their interests, their issues, as a vehicle to drive what they want to do, which is to concentrate economic power in the hands of the few and to empower the parliament to dictate to business, to industry and to workers in Australia—through taxes and higher regulation measures—how they should live their lives. We will stand up against it every step of the way, because we believe in the power of Australians to take responsibility. The success of this country doesn't come from Canberra down; it comes from families, citizens and communities taking responsibility. I note that the member who spoke before me talked about how her council was taking responsibility. Well, good on them, because they're enabling the potential to transition, understanding that responsibility begins at home. In the Goldstein electorate, the city of Bayside has taken exactly the same plan. So has the city of Glen Eira. But the critical difference between what the city of Bayside and the city of Glen Eira have done, versus members of the Labor Party, is that they actually have a plan; they're actually implementing measures and have a clear pathway for how they're going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not impose higher costs on households, and of course make sure that the next generation of Australians have sustainable jobs and a sustainable environment. The plan of the Labor Party is to use the position in emergencies as a basis to impose greater taxes, greater regulations. At the last election they tried to do the same, and they found themselves in a very difficult position, because they were saying one thing in Melbourne and another thing up in Macarthur. They were saying different things all over the country, because the basis of their policy is that they just want to tell people what they want to hear, rather than standing for things because they're right and because they understand the growth of the economy and the opportunity that we can build for this nation. We saw that in this parliament just yesterday, where there were motions to disallow decisions made around ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. This parliament decided to reject Labor's plan, because it wanted to undermine more investment in Australian innovation and Australian lower carbon and renewable technologies. Those opposite wanted to undermine investment in EV and hydrogen charging stations. They keep going on about how they want more EVs on the road but they want to suffocate the pathway to get them power. They want stranded assets all over the country in the driveways of the nation. I mean, it's farcical, to be honest. And they wanted to deny investment in energy-efficient and competitive heavy industry. If you understand the challenge of climate change, investing in transportable energy is a critical part of that conversation. 16:10 Ms RYAN 249224 Lalor For the information of the member for Goldstein, we on this side are quite pleased not to have you standing up for us, absolutely pleased about it, because the member for Goldstein represents the global laggards that are the Morrison government. We have seen this writ large this week at the G7, have we not? We saw Prime Minister Boris Johnson—not our Prime Minister, for those at home, but the British Prime Minister—say in the lead-up to the G7 he was hoping to see a positive announcement from Australia regarding net zero by 2050. He waited and he waited and then eventually he said, 'I will make the commitment for them,' and he did. Our Prime Minister didn't see fit to correct him. He didn't see fit to say, 'Sorry, Boris, we haven't done that. The folks at home on my side of the Australian parliament, they're not up for that.' But we had some good news. Senator McKenzie, as she does so well, outed not just the federal government but the Nats as well. She outed them both when she made the position very clear. She said the National Party, as the second party in this coalition government, has not signed up to net zero anything at any time. So it is never, as far as the good senator is concerned. We've sat here—it's been question time—and have had the Deputy Prime Minister being the Acting Prime Minister across the week. He has talked a lot this week about baristas, coffees. He's been trivialising this important debate. He's been selling out our future here at home. Today we have had lots of talk about the UK FTA. Well, as a member of the last Australian parliamentary delegation, pre-COVID, to go to the EU, I can tell you that, when we went to the EU, there was a lot of talk about an FTA with the European Union. There was a lot of talk. There was also a lot of talk from the EU about what they would require of Australia in terms of a zero-emissions target by 2050 as part of that FTA. So it's not surprising there's a lot of celebration about getting a UK FTA while not delivering, not doing the things we need to secure the much bigger market. Let's look at that market. The EU has a $15 trillion GDP and a population of 475 million. The UK has a $2.9 trillion GDP and a population of 66 million. Now, what would be our priority in signing up to an FTA, do you think? Where do you think the biggest market is? Where would we get the best bang for our buck? Where would we get the best deal? Well, just think, maybe it might have been the EU FTA, but this government are holding us back. They're holding us back because they can't come to terms with the economic reality that climate change is delivering the biggest economic change since the industrial revolution. They can't grasp it, so we're missing out left, right and centre. Where are we? We're sitting on the bench in the game of the century; that's where we are. I know the member for Nicholls hated sitting on the bench but here he is sitting on the bench. The game of the century is going on in front of us, and we're sitting on the bench. We're not going to get back in the game. We are not going back into this game. We know that some of our biggest export markets, Europe and the US, are either considering or already developing carbon border adjustments. These are tariffs on exports, and countries that fail to meet minimums in decarbonisation will be taxed. This country will pay tax to others to be part of what we now consider some of our largest trading partners. Taxes—there will be a price on carbon in this country. They will deliver it. After all the angst and all of the rage, we will pay a price on carbon. Deloittes estimates that unchecked climate change will cost Australia over $1 trillion by 2050 and over $3 trillion by 2070. That will cost over 300,000 jobs by 2050 and almost a million jobs by 2070. What should the government be doing? They should be making commitments to the future. They should be building good jobs in this country. They're missing the boat because they're stubborn, they're wilful and they can never say they were wrong. They're failing Australians, they're failing the next generation of Australians and they're failing the people of my electorate of Lalor. 16:15 Mr DRUM 56430 Nicholls This is an amazing debate in Australia today where the two extremes of this debate seem to want to hijack the normal common debate around where we take our power source into the future. All Australians want to have a greener future. We all want to have a cleaner atmosphere. We want to have less emissions, but we need to do it in a way that does not leave our fellow Australians behind. We need to talk about the transition period. We need to talk about a way to transition sources. We need to have a genuine, open and honest conversation about the use of gas as we start to walk away from coal. We need to be able to talk to coal workers and say, 'Your job is secure for the next 20 years, but you might not have a job for your children in the coal industry.' We need to find the middle ground in this debate. We need to talk about how we are going to transition our economy without leaving our people behind. We also need to talk honestly about where Australia sits at the moment in relation to rooftop solar. We never hear the doomsayers from the other side or from the ABC say that Australia is leading the world when it comes to rooftop solar. On a pro rata basis, we are on top of the world, the best country in the world, and we're so far on top that if you add the second and third countries together they still don't get to where we are. But we never hear this. We never hear about the incredible success that Australia is having with rooftop solar. If you want to throw in wind energy as well, we are still the top country in the world pro rata when it comes to wind and solar. Yet we never hear this. The other side keeps bellowing out the fact that we're not enough. Go back to a couple of years ago, and the only criticism they had of us was that we were going to use clever accounting to meet our Paris commitments. Well, now we're not. Now we're 20 per cent below. We are chasing 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels and we're sitting at 20.1. It looks like we're going to get there in a canter. But now they're saying that's not enough. The commentary keeps changing to make sure that somehow or other we can keep talking Australia down. It is just the most ridiculous concept. To think that we're going to be lectured to by all these European countries who use nuclear as a 20 per cent base for all of their energy needs. Give me a break. If we had 20 per cent nuclear, we could step right out of coal. We could have anything we want. But of course we need this balance in our power source because we don't have nuclear. We need this dispatchable power so we can turn the lights on, run our manufacturing industries and run all of our businesses when we need to run them. Obviously, we have a very delicate mix at the moment, and AEMO will tell you all that it's very dicey. Several times a month we nearly go into that blackout stage, and it's only because we have too much intermittent energy in the mix and we need to be careful about the balance. This is not about being luddites that just refuse to move with the times. We simply need dispatchable power in our grid, in our system, and we need to be able to transition across to these intermittent renewable energy sources. We need to transition across in a careful, considered and measured way and not leave our businesses and our people behind. This is a real risk that we don't talk about often enough. Australia has done so much better than so many countries in recent times. Our targets toward 2030 are going better than Germany, France, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. Between 2005 and 2019, our emissions fell faster than those of Canada, Japan, the United States and New Zealand, and yet these countries somehow or other want to lecture us about not doing enough. It simply doesn't make any sense. And there's the conversation around batteries. Batteries will be the answer, batteries are going to have a significant role in the way we can deliver dispatchable power, but the technology isn't there yet. So let's get behind the battery sources and let's invest in them. Let's invest in hydrogen, which the government is doing in a balanced and measured way. This is something we don't need to be locking horns on. We are roughly all on the same page, except that we have an opposition that just wants to try and pick holes wherever it can. (Time expired) The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 The discussion has concluded. COMMITTEES 75 COMMITTEES Human Rights Committee 75 Report 75 16:20 Dr WEBSTER 281688 Mallee On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I present the committee's report entitled Human rights scrutiny report: report 7 of 2021. Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e). Dr WEBSTER 281688 by leave—I'm pleased to speak to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights' seventh scrutiny report of 2021. As usual, this report contains a technical examination of legislation with regard to Australia's obligations under international human rights law. In this report, the committee has considered 26 new bills and commented on six bills and one legislative instrument, and has concluded its consideration of two bills and two legislative instruments. In particular, the committee welcomes the introduction of the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 1) Bill 2021, which strengthens protections around the use of restraints against vulnerable aged-care residents. The committee is particularly pleased that many of these changes reflect the recommendations it made in 2019 in the inquiry into the quality of care principles, particularly that restraints only be used as a last resort. The committee is seeking some further information as to how the amendments in the bill will operate in practice to ensure sufficient protection. The committee is also seeking further information about the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Streamlined Participation Requirements and Other Measures) Bill 2021. This bill would enable social welfare recipients to enter into job plans entirely online and would give the Employment secretary the discretion to suspend a person's payments for noncompliance with their social welfare conditions. The committee is seeking further information to understand how these changes may operate in practice. This information will also be relevant to the committee's current inquiry into the legislative instrument which makes certain parenting payments subject to participation in the ParentsNext program. In this regard, I can advise that the committee will be holding a full-day public hearing on this issue in Canberra next Friday, 25 June. The committee has also concluded its examination of two legislative instruments. The first caps the maximum number of parent and other family visas; and the second extends a requirement that certain visa types, including parent and child visas, require a sponsor and may require the payment of an upfront monetary bond. While states have a right to control their migration program, international human rights law requires Australia to create the conditions conducive to family formation and stability, and this includes family reunion where the family members form part of each other's core family. In relation to the cap on the number of parent and other family visas, while there may be many cases where the family member is not part of the core family, for those who can demonstrate there is a family bond to protect, the measure limits the right to protection of the family; and, where children aged under 18 are not able to be reunited with the parent, this also limits the rights of the child. The committee considers the cap on these visas is contributing to the significant delay in processing such visas and considers a 30-year wait for a parent visa renders family reunion effectively impossible. The committee considers that there is a significant risk that the measure is incompatible with these rights because it is not clear that it pursues a legitimate objective and there is no flexibility to consider the individual merits of an application once the cap is reached. Further, in relation to the instrument that extends the assurances of support determination, the committee is concerned that the right to protection of the family and the rights of the child are not considered when an assurance of support is imposed. As such, the committee considers there is a risk that requiring an assurance of support for certain family members who may not be able to meet the necessary income requirements may not be compatible with these rights. It has made three suggestions that may assist with the proportionality of the measure, such as ensuring the family circumstances of each case are assessed before an assurance of support is imposed. I encourage all parliamentarians to carefully consider the committee's analysis and, with these comments, I commend this report to the chamber. BILLS 76 BILLS Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021 76

Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021

Second Reading 76 16:25 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin Last week we had an Australian National Audit Office report on biosecurity in Australia. The findings of this report are incredibly concerning. The ANAO report concludes that the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment's arrangements to respond to noncompliance with biosecurity are 'largely inappropriate'. What does this say about the Morrison government's interest in biosecurity risks? The ANAO's findings in relation to the inadequacies of Australia's biosecurity system need to be taken seriously. A biosecurity system that is deemed to be inappropriately managed has massive implications for the agriculture sector, and it puts Australian farmers in a very vulnerable position. This is totally unacceptable. The ANAO report also validates numerous and serious concerns raised by farmers and producers and the agriculture sector. As already mentioned, biosecurity threats and the inadequacies of the current system are issues that are consistently raised with me. No doubt MPs across all parties hear these concerns in their local constituencies. Incursions of pests and disease are of great concern to farmers and producers, who know the significant risks if and when Australia's biosecurity system fails us. The Morrison government really must do better when it comes to the agriculture sector and Australia's biosecurity system. Of course, we know there are other issues impacting the agriculture sector that the Morrison government has also done nothing to fix, even though it knows they are impacting on Australian farmers. We've seen today an announcement about agriculture workers, and we know there has been a labour force issue on farms across this country for years—for years and years. This pandemic hasn't been going for just a few months, of course. Last year, the government promised 25,000 workers from Pacific nations. By the government's and the minister's own admission, less than 7,000 of those workers have made it into Australia and onto farms. We keep hearing the government talking about how they help farmers all the time, but the reality is that what we actually get is something very different. The farmers know the government is not delivering when it comes to the assistance it continues to talk about all the time. We know that they're not actually delivering on all of their announcements when it comes to assistance for farmers and regional communities. They talk a lot, they say a lot and they announce a lot, but they don't do much. This seems to be a consistent theme from this government. When we talk about the budget and we talk about the workforce and we talk about the ANAO's report on how inappropriate the biosecurity system is, the government says, 'Oh, but we put $370 million in the budget.' If that money hadn't gone into the budget, as I said earlier, then they would have actually gone backwards in biosecurity expenditure in this country—backwards! And that $370 million is mostly capital expenditure required to fix the ICT system, which we know is inappropriate. The government's talking more about relying on artificial intelligence. I have raised my concerns about that in this chamber before. We all know how the government goes when it comes to ICT systems. They haven't been very good at it, to date. So I hope that these investments in ICT, in our biosecurity system, that farmers and producers are relying on, actually work. They need to work, and the government needs to make sure that they do work before it introduces this system. It absolutely needs to make sure that this happens. In the meantime, as I said, we've still got farmers and producers who can't get their fruit and their produce off their farms because the government hasn't done enough about labour. The ag visa that was announced overnight and then talked about today was promised three years ago. Now the minister is saying, 'We might get it done by Christmas.' What is the point of having all of these workers ready when we don't have a national quarantine system, we're not all vaccinated and we can't open our borders? How is that going to help farmers who need workers now? When the government is asked this question, they don't have an answer. They just try and blame the states for not doing enough quarantining. Quarantine is their job. Quarantine is the federal government's responsibility; it's not the states' responsibility. They've been on alert about this for months and months. They know they need to build a national quarantine system, and yet we haven't seen it. We still haven't seen it. What we've got from this government is more ad hoc pieces of legislation, more trying to look like they're doing something when they're actually not doing much at all when it comes to Australian farmers and biosecurity and the risks that it poses to our agricultural sector. When you've got farmers talking about tens of millions of dollars in loss for not being able to get products off farm and you've got the government renouncing something they announced three years ago and saying, 'We're really going to do it this time,' farmers are a bit sceptical, to be blunt. Look at what the NFF said. It was interesting to see the minister for trade read some quotes from the NFF here today. He didn't talk about what they said about their ag visa. He said farmers need to see this delivered, because they're a bit sceptical, basically. And who could possibly blame them after what we've seen from this government? Seriously, all the time, talking, talking, talking, announcing, announcing, announcing and not really delivering. And then, of course, we've got the one thing they don't want to talk about, as we saw in question time today on the motion I moved earlier: the mouse plague. Here we have a very serious mouse plague—some are talking about it being the worst Australia has seen. We've got the New South Wales Farmers Association saying this is going to cost around $1 billion to production in New South Wales farms. You've got the four states—Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia—where this plague is now, and you've got the federal government saying: 'It's not our job. It's up to the states. Don't look here.' And then we had some bizarre response from the Acting Prime Minister today, which basically said, 'Why don't we catch them all and re-release them in the inner city so they can bite and scratch them?' It was the most bizarre thing I think I've heard here in a while. Mr Sukkar interjecting— Ms COLLINS HWM The point is he should be serious, the minister at the table. The point is that Australian farmers have been dealing with this mouse plague for months. Your government has done nothing about it. There's no national response plan to deal with the mouse plague. The farmers are crying out for this federal government to do something about it, instead of them sitting on their hands saying, 'Not our problem.' That's what's happening on this side of the House. The Australian farmers need to have confidence and certainty. They need to know that, when the government says something, they're going to actually deliver on it, and we don't have that today. When we have this legislation talking about the importance of our biosecurity system, I hope that the government is taking this with the utmost seriousness, as it should. We need to make sure that the biosecurity system delivers for our vital agricultural producers in Australia. We need to make sure that all of Australia can have confidence in our biosecurity system. We need to make sure that whether it's human biosecurity, plant biosecurity or animal biosecurity, this government is doing its job and we want to move a second reading amendment that reflects our ongoing concern about the government's inaction. I move: That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes the Coalition Government's ongoing delays to upgrade Australia's biosecurity arrangements". We have an ANAO report that says they're not doing enough. They're not doing enough at all, and they need to do so much better. The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZY Is the amendment seconded? Mr Husic 91219 It is. I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak. The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZY The original question is this bill be read a second time. To this the honourable member for Franklin moved an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting others. If it suits the House, I will state the question in the form that the amendment be disagreed to. 16:33 Dr ALLEN 282986 Higgins As someone who grew up in regional Australia, I understand how vitally important maintaining Australia's biosecurity is for protecting not only our agriculture sector but also our economic prosperity more broadly. That is why I rise today in support of the Morrison government's Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021. This bill brings urgently needed reform, upscaling penalties for relevant civil penalties and criminal offences, under the Biosecurity Act. The proposed increased maximum penalties will more appropriately reflect the impact contraventions may inflict on our biosecurity status, market access and economy. As a child growing up in Albury, on the border between Victoria and New South Wales, I saw firsthand the effect fruit fly could have on our local orchards and their economy. In order for Australia to drive growth in our export and tourism sectors and to continue along the road to economic recovery, it's crucial we keep both local and global confidence in our biosecurity laws strong. For this we need to tighten the regulatory framework and subsequent penalties for non-compliance with the Biosecurity Act. Anyone travelling overseas on an aeroplane will understand when they come back through an Australian airport, whether it's Tullamarine in Melbourne or elsewhere in the rest of Australia, how important it is to keep Australia safe. Our government is committed to a strong biosecurity system that protects jobs, grows our exports in agriculture and, importantly, maintains our environment and lifestyle from devastating pests and disease, which, with the correct system, we can insure against. We are an island nation, as we all know, and we have this opportunity. Swift action on these increased penalties will make Australia's position perfectly clear. Any perceived commercial gain from breaching Australia's biosecurity laws is a false prophet and entirely unacceptable. At the end of last year, khapra beetle was detected on several occasions in imported packaging, including that for refrigerators and highchairs. This beetle, also known as cabinet beetle, originated in South Asia and is one of the world's most destructive pests of grain products and seeds. It is one of the 100 worst invasive species in the world. An infestation by this beetle is difficult to control because the insect can survive for long periods without food and is resistant to insecticides. It's important that we protect our nation and our markets from pests and other diseases such as this because they threaten our nation's biosecurity, and the flow-on effects for the agriculture sector can be devastating. We are now also seeing the emergence of other examples—for instance, there is a new variant of African swine fever overseas—which adds to the timeliness of these amendments. It's important that Australia rises to the threat that this particular disease poses to our pork and related industries, and I commend Minister Littleproud and the Morrison government for quite literally saving our bacon with a commitment of $66.6 million to fight African swine fever. Although the original variant of African swine fever is yet to be detected in Australia, thanks to our strong biosecurity controls, either variant could have a devastating impact on our thriving pork industry and associated businesses. We need only to look to the state of the global pork market to know just how serious the threat is, and that is exactly why we must act now and increase penalties proportionately and appropriately. The new penalties outlined in this bill relate to the assessment and management of biosecurity risks of goods that are brought or imported into Australian territory. In the face of these growing regional and global threats, the current penalty regime is inadequate and needs to be significantly enhanced to provide an effective deterrent. The bill increases a number of civil penalties that a court can impose from 120 to 300 penalty units, or from $26,640 to $66,600, such as for contraventions relating to the assessment of the biosecurity risk of goods. Where the contravention is committed by a body corporate, the maximum penalty may be up to five times this amount, understanding that this is because of the corporate multiplier that can apply to penalties for bodies corporate under the Biosecurity Act because of the operational section 82 of the regulatory powers act 2014. This increase for fault based offences will allow for a proportionate and appropriate punishment for offences under the Biosecurity Act and will align maximum penalties across key provisions. This means that if a person obtains a commercial advantage by importing prohibited goods they will now face new maximum penalties of up to $1.1 million, an increase from $444,000. It is important to remember that our biosecurity system is a significant national asset and our biosecurity system is an important line of defence. As such, this bill is underpinning $60 billion in agricultural production. Moreover, the $49 billion in agricultural exports and $42 billion inbound tourism industry—each vital to jobs and growth for Australia—will be particularly protected for those living in regional and remote Australia. This means funding for our nation's biosecurity increased by approximately 40 per cent from 2012-13 to 2019-20. Further, we have announced significant additional ongoing investment to build a smarter, stronger and more resilient system. We're funding $29.2 million to streamline export processes by completing the delivery of a digital export certification management system, which will provide a modern and secure approach to assuring that produce meets importing-country requirements. We're also funding $11.4 million and an ongoing $2.4 million per year, from 2023-24, for Accelerating Horticulture Market Access, and a further $6.13 million for a Package Assisting Small Exporters extension. Amongst the additional funding, our government has been supporting the implementation of the intergovernmental response to the 42 recommendations of the 2016-17 independent review of the capacity of our national biosecurity system. From those recommendations, there are a number of important outcomes. The first is the establishment of a Biosecurity Innovation Program. This program is investing in accelerating the identification, development and implementation of innovative technologies and approaches that can enhance the capacity of the system to manage biosecurity risks. Secondly, we are establishing a national biosecurity data and analytics platform in the department, with $36.5 million funding from the government. This investment is allowing the department to create a secure platform for sharing biosecurity data and significantly advancing our analytics capability. This is important, because you cannot manage what you cannot measure. Thirdly, there will be the establishment of a Chief Environmental Biosecurity Officer, supported by a dedicated office, with $7.6 million of ongoing funding from the government. Fourthly, there will be the establishment of a standalone national biosecurity website, providing a central portal for biosecurity matters—again, a great resource for people to access in the one place. Fifthly, we're reviewing current biosecurity expenditure across governments and working to value the national biosecurity system through the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis. Again, in a changing world, particularly post COVID and with the changing world order as we move into the 21st century, with different ways of doing work, different ways of building businesses and different ways of trading, it's important that we understand this risk analysis so that we can prepare for the future that awaits. Lastly, we're adopting a systematic process of identifying and planning for national priority pests and diseases. As we've seen with COVID-19, we need to be alert and alive to factors that are being influenced from overseas. Though we might have the tyranny of distance, we also have the power of proximity. Australia needs to remain connected to the rest of the world, but also we need to be alive and alert to the fact that pests and diseases from overseas can come to this country and cause havoc. Importers, exporters, businesses and consumers all benefit from our risk based system and the enviable pest- and disease-free status that it protects. We must act now to see that these amendments to the act pass, to continue to strengthen our nation's biosecurity system. After all, it is a key defence system that we need to maintain and ensure that we bolster. I commend this bill to the House. 16:43 Ms SHARKIE 265980 Mayo I rise in support of the Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021 and wish to take the opportunity to speak about the importance of the bill to the agricultural businesses in, and in fact the whole of, my electorate of Mayo. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are 2,168 agricultural, forestry and fishery businesses in Mayo, making it the second-largest business sector in my electorate. The livelihoods of business owners, employees and those indirectly related to tourism and support services rely on a legislative framework to protect their interests—one that provides sufficient and robust deterrence by way of penalties to discourage individuals and organisations from putting the sector at risk. As a country, we enjoy the natural protection that our island nation provides us, but it requires diligence, education and constant work to prevent inadvertent or deliberate attempts to bring potentially harmful products into Australia, putting at risk the disease-free status of much of our agricultural production. Any member who's watched an episode of Border Security will realise that the battle to keep biosecurity threats out of Australia is real and ongoing. I thank the many men and women who work in those frontline roles for their tireless work and, I would also say, for their patience. It amazes me what people attempt to bring into our nation. They tick the declaration card to say that they have nothing in their baggage. Then border security opens up their baggage and pulls out all manner of things that they should not be bringing into our nation. We can't watch that show any more at home; it makes everyone too furious. However, border security is just the tip of the iceberg for the workforce involved in securing our agricultural industry. Our biosecurity officers outside of domestic and commercial points of entries—the scientists, in-field officers, state border patrols and departmental staff—all play a significant role in ensuring the biosecurity risk is limited. Many businesses in my home state of South Australia benefit from the premium value that disease-free status brings to their products. They have achieved great success in securing international market access, as well as supplying the domestic market with high-quality product. South Australia is an exception on several fronts. It is phylloxera free. The phylloxera is like an aphid, and it destroys grapevines. It's as simple as that. It was responsible for decimating up to 70 per cent of Europe's vineyards at the end of the 19th century, and it is regarded as the world's worst grape pest. Mayo is home to six wine regions, as Deputy Speaker Georganas knows, producing some of the best wines in the world. In South Australia, wine exports are valued at around $2 billion and account for 70 per cent of the total value of Australia's wine exports. The wine industry directly employs more than 8,400 people in South Australia, and it's one of our most important tourism drivers. Kangaroo Island is a beautiful island oasis in Mayo, and it's home to our famous Ligurian bees. Kangaroo Island has the last genetically pure population of the Ligurian honey bee, and it is about as far from Italy as a bee or a person can physically get. The natural isolation and strict biosecurity maintained their genetic purity. The history of these bees and the wonderful foresight of their apiarists are unique. The bees were first imported to South Australia from Bologna, Italy by the South Australian Chamber of Manufactures and brought to Kangaroo Island in 1881. In 1885, just four years later, Kangaroo Island was declared a bee sanctuary. Consequently, the genetic purity of the Ligurian bee was secured, and Kangaroo Island is now the oldest bee sanctuary in the world. We all recognise the importance of bees. Without them, horticulture ceases to exist. In the context of the Ligurian bee, any biosecurity breach would not only put the bee at risk but also destroy the world's purest genetic strain in this historically important sanctuary. South Australia's other exception is our fruit-fly-free status. Unfortunately, this is a fight we are potentially on the cusp of losing, with several localised outbreaks in recent months. Incredibly, in 2021 more than 10,600 vehicles were inspected at border points and nearly one in 10 motorists were caught flouting strict state fruit-fly laws. A total of 1,839 kilograms of fresh produce was seized and 944 fines were issued. The impact on our horticultural sector would be devastating without this intervention, and it reinforces the need, I believe, for an irradiation facility in our state. I've long advocated to government for an irradiation facility. I see it as an insurance policy so these crucial export markets are not lost in the event of a significant fruit-fly outbreak in our horticultural regions. Despite the valiant efforts of frontline staff, no-one can guarantee a fruit fly incursion will not occur. We need to be prepared for such an event. An irradiation facility, I think, would be an essential weapon in the arsenal available to protect the industry and its markets and reputation. When we talk about state borders, it is in a state context, and we need to do more to educate returning South Australians and visitors about the need to adopt better biosecurity behaviour. What is important is recognising the value of our agricultural sector—the jobs it creates, the export opportunities it realises, the tourism attraction to our regions and the international reputation of a nation that produces high-quality, high-value product. All members in this House, I believe, recognise the economic and social value of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and we must do all we can as legislators to protect them and the livelihoods they provide. Deterrence and enforcements work. Strengthening penalties, increasing the deterrents and increasing the protection for all Australians is so incredibly vital. I support this bill. 16:50 Dr WEBSTER 281688 Mallee This bill is urgently needed to strengthen the penalties for a number of civil penalty provisions and criminal offences under the Biosecurity Act. The proposed increases to maximum penalties will more appropriately reflect the impact these contraventions may have on Australia's biosecurity status, market access and the economy than the current provisions. Pests and diseases of all kinds pose a high risk to Australia's biosecurity in an increasingly complex trade environment. In late 2020 we had several detections of khapra beetle, including in packages for fridges and—believe it or not—high chairs sold to customers. We are currently seeing the emergence of a new variant of African swine fever. Although the original variant of African swine fever is yet to be detected in Australia, due to the strong biosecurity controls in our borders, any variant could have a devastating impact on our pork industry and associated businesses. I know that strong biosecurity controls are critically important to farmers in my electorate, such as John Watson, a pig farmer from Hopetoun. An incursion of African swine fever or any other disease dangerous to his animals could destroy his business and the entire industry. He told me he's very pleased this government is taking a strong stance on biosecurity to protect his livelihood. We are also seeing increasing prevalence of citrus canker in over 30 countries in Asia, South America and the United States. Citrus canker can spread quickly over long distances on citrus fruits and leaves as well as on people and equipment. There is no cure for the disease, so any infected trees must be destroyed and orchards replanted, at enormous cost. Let us remember that orange trees take seven years to grow to full maturity, so an incursion of citrus canker disease would have a devastating impact on the industry. The citrus industry is vital and provides employment and business opportunities in several towns and regions in my electorate. The value of citrus fruit commodities in Mallee is worth close to $100 million, with many more millions across our borders in the New South Wales and South Australian Riverland. If citrus canker established in our nation, it would decimate the regions and towns that rely on this vital industry. In the face of these growing regional and global threats, the current penalty regime needs to be significantly enhanced to provide an effective deterrent against noncompliance with Australia's biosecurity requirements. As the economy recovers from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, growth in international trade and travel is expected to increase the risk of biosecurity threats, making it critical the appropriate penalties are in force as soon as possible to send a strong message that breaching Australia's biosecurity law is not worth any potential commercial gain. An increase in civil penalties will deter noncompliance with the Biosecurity Act, so breaching the law will not be seen as a cost of doing business or otherwise worth the risk. The increase to criminal penalties for the fault based offences would allow for proportionate and appropriate punishment for offences under the Biosecurity Act and align maximum penalties. Importantly, this bill does not add any additional administrative burden on industry. That's what this government is all about. We are implementing measures across the board to secure the future of the agricultural sector through ongoing investments in industry without increasing red tape. Funding for biosecurity and export services has increased from $258 million since 2014-15 to now $888 million in 2021. The government is committed to a strong biosecurity system that protects regional jobs, grows our agricultural exports and maintains our environment and lifestyle in the face of the devastating impact of pests and diseases. In the 2020-21 budget the government announced $400.1 million in new funding for biosecurity to support industry to grow agriculture to $100 billion by 2030. This year's package of measures will reinforce the Australian biosecurity system to keep pest and disease threats offshore and respond to any pests in Australia. The measures will protect against threats while cutting red tape to ensure that goods and people can enter Australia smoothly and efficiently. The package complements the significant reforms we've already committed to across our biosecurity system to ensure that it is modern and efficient and keeps Australia safe from pests and diseases that would harm our agricultural industry. We will invest $84.1 million in critical frontline measures to better manage the risk of pests and diseases coming to Australia. This includes more on-the-ground resources to target known and emerging threats and make use of modern technology to better detect and respond to threats. We will also invest $80.9 million to build a modern, effective biosecurity system that is underpinned by the right technology and analytical capabilities. We will invest in technical solutions to keep biosecurity threats out of Australia, including through a trial of new screening technologies for people and goods at the border. We will also fund a series of groundbreaking trials to screen for biosecurity risks offshore and continue the development of modern, innovative detection systems. We will expand diagnostic capabilities to support the rapid flow of plant and animal based goods at the border while managing biosecurity risks. We will also improve digital capability to better manage biosecurity risks in international postal services. We'll commit $235.1 million to be allocated to strengthen partnerships and improve our ability to detect and manage threats offshore while increasing capacity to respond to incursions. Our investment supports more proactive management of emerging biosecurity risks, consistent with independent reviews of the biosecurity system by the Inspector-General of Biosecurity, CSIRO and other reviews. These are all hugely important measures to protect our regions and our farmers from dangerous pests and viruses. They will protect regional industries such as citrus and livestock farming in my electorate of Mallee. The government's support for agriculture doesn't stop there. Our government is committing $32 million to extend opportunities to reward farmers for the stewardship of their land under the Agriculture Stewardship Package. There are farmers in Mallee who are working hard to sustainably care for their land and plan for their future. Farmers like Paul and Sally Bethune, of Bethune Lane Dairy, are one such family. Not only do they make the best chocolate milk in the country; they work hard to ensure that their environmental footprint is as light as possible. Farmers like the Bethunes deserve to be rewarded for their responsible practices. Our government is also committing $129.8 million to deliver a National Soil Strategy. The red Mallee dirt is some of the most versatile and accommodating in the country but we are seeing our precious topsoil being kicked up in dust storms more and more frequently. There are businesses in my electorate that know how important our soil is. One of those is ALTSA, based in Merbein, an analytical laboratory that provides soil testing services to locals. They use cutting-edge technology to examine local soils, and they use their research to provide advice to farmers. It's an important service that is improving the longevity and sustainability of farming in the region. I recently spoke to Ray Harris, general manager of ALTSA, at the Mildura Field Days. He told me he's excited about the Agriculture Stewardship Package funding and wants to pursue opportunities to contribute to the implementation of the strategy. The focus on soil health is vital because if we don't preserve the health of our valuable soil our agriculture industry will suffer greatly. Biosecurity measures such as those contained in this bill are becoming increasingly important as our nation continues to expand our trade agreements with international partners. In positive news, this week Australia secured a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom. This is a comprehensive and historic agreement that is in the best interests of our nation and our primary producers. It's a truly liberalising agreement, one of the most significant we will ever sign. Australian producers and farmers will receive a significant boost by getting greater access to the UK market. I know this agreement is welcome news to growers in my electorate, many of whom I have spoken to today. Australian consumers will also benefit from cheaper products, with all tariffs eliminated within five years and tariffs on cars, whiskey and the UK's other main exports eliminated immediately. The UK will liberalise Australian imports with 99 per cent of Australian goods, including Australian wine and short- and medium-grain milled rice entering the UK duty-free when the agreement enters into force. All other tariffs will be eliminated by 2015. Another change will mean that working holiday-makers from the UK will be exempt from the requirement to work in a regional industry like agriculture to secure a subsequent year visa. The Nationals understand that this would result in a massive supply gap of harvest workers if a solution is not developed. That's why I'm so pleased that the Nationals have secured a new seasonal agricultural worker visa to meet the supply shortfall and create a more sustainable supply of agricultural labour. I've been calling for a seasonal agricultural visa for some time now. This visa will allow producers to get the right workers in the right place at the right time. The seasonal agricultural worker visa will allow workers from ASEAN countries—Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, among others—to come to Australia for seasonal work for nine months a year, three years in a row, for skilled and unskilled positions. Many growers have expressed to me their preference for workers from ASEAN countries, who they find ideally suited for the horticultural industry in Mallee. One farmer, Ian McAllister, told me today that they are passionate and dedicated workers and he loves having them on farm. This visa has been achieved through collaboration between industry and government. Our local industries have made it very clear to me that a sustainable source of labour is crucial to their survival. At every step of the way, I've repeated their concerns to my colleagues in government and fought for this reform. The creation of an agricultural visa was a recommendation of the report into the Growing Agriculture to $100 billion by 2030 inquiry by the standing committee on ag and water resources. As a member of the committee, I pushed hard for the inclusion of this particular recommendation, drawing from the close consultation I've had with industry. I understand that this visa will help local producers in Mallee. I'm thankful for the engagement of local growers and peak bodies, including the Australian Table Grape Association, Citrus Australia and the Australian Fresh Produce Alliance. Ultimately their feedback is what led me to push so hard for this visa. I also know that this visa is widely supported by the National Party as a whole. At the 2021 federal conference I raised a motion recommending the creation of an ag visa which was carried unopposed. The Commonwealth government will have the new visa in place before the end of 2021. This is a great result for Mallee farmers. There are further reforms that I wish to pursue. I want to see labour hire licensing reforms at a national level to rein in corrupt labour hire contractors who continue to dodge the patchwork of existing state regulations. I'm also calling for a one-off status resolution for undocumented workers in horticulture. This is an ambitious goal, but my feeling is that the debate on this topic has shifted. COVID-19 has provided a paradigm shift in how horticulture is viewing this issue. I am eager to support the ongoing sustainability of the agriculture sector in Australia. This government has demonstrated its commitment to the agriculture industry in the 2021 Commonwealth budget and continues to do so through the changes outlined in the bill before the House. 17:04 Mr BRIAN MITCHELL 129164 Lyons I stand to speak to the Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021 and the shadow minister's amendment. Labor recognises the immense value of strong and reliable biosecurity for Australian agriculture. We on this side know that strong and reliable biosecurity is vital for agricultural production and exports. Yet I also stand today with a damning truth: for eight years this government has demonstrated a complete lack of engagement with Australian biosecurity. This was evidenced just last week in a damning report from the Australian National Audit Office. On June 7 this year, the ANAO found that the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment compliance framework was largely inappropriate. It found that the department's arrangements to respond to noncompliance with biosecurity requirements were largely inappropriate. It found shortcomings in record keeping, random inspections and the department's ability to detect and act on noncompliance. The report concluded: There is no current plan to guide the department's biosecurity regulation, and the department is unable to demonstrate it has effectively implemented key reform plans. I wish I could say I was surprised, but the Morrison government has already demonstrated how little it cares about biosecurity. We saw that just today and this week. You need only look at the complete reluctance to act on the mouse plague that is sweeping our eastern states. My Tasmanian colleague the member for Franklin, the shadow agriculture minister, has exposed the fact that the Morrison government has no intention of implementing a national response to the plague, which is devastating farmers' incomes and regional communities. Three times now my colleague the member for Franklin has put a motion to this parliament to encourage the government to act. Three times this government has shut her down, not even prepared to have the debate. What instead occurred was a bizarre rant from the Acting Prime Minister, who today unleashed on activists and declared the mice should be 're-homed into their inner city apartments so they can nibble away at their food and their feet at night and scratch their children at night.' What on earth is going on? Why would the Acting Prime Minister, the Leader of the National Party, make light of a nationwide plague and a biosecurity hazard while his agriculture minister sits on his hands and continues the Morrison government's legacy of buck-passing? Labor knows that a national response to this crisis is needed, so, while Labor supports this bill, we have a duty to call out the government's ongoing failure to properly address biosecurity. Australian agriculture is worth $60 billion, and we all want it to get to $100 billion by 2030. It's a shared goal across parliament. It's an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of Australians and keeps all of us fed—some of us better than others! It's a core industry in my electorate. Mr Pasin interjecting— Mr BRIAN MITCHELL 129164 I'll take that interjection, Member for Barker. It's a core industry in my electorate, which covers 51 per cent of Tasmania and includes some of our state's most vibrant and productive farmlands. Agricultural production is what keeps us moving forward as a state and as a nation. We are a nation built on the sheep's back, but we aren't just producing for our own domestic consumption. Exports provide billions of dollars in revenue each year, and those exports put money in the pockets of regional families. That's food on the table, kids in schools and a roof over families' heads. Tourism—particularly regional tourism—is another core driver of our state's economy. It contributes significantly to Tasmania's economy, especially in communities in my electorate, and it puts money back into the hands of small, locally owned businesses. It is biosecurity that underpins the ongoing success and prosperity of both agricultural and regional tourism. We all know the risks of mismanaging and under-resourcing biosecurity. Few in Tasmania will have forgotten the fruit fly incursion that wreaked havoc on our agriculture sector in 2018. An outbreak detected in northern Tasmania led to millions of dollars being poured into last-minute biosecurity, with restriction zones imposed to prevent spread. The eradication program was tough on the sector but preferable to the impact of fruit fly ever establishing itself in our state. The Liberal government in Tasmania is keen to make people forget the fact that, in the years prior to the outbreak, it had cut Tasmania's biosecurity budget. It was a foolish and short-sighted decision and one they came to regret. The fruit fly outbreak as well as other pest incursions, such as white spot, show how easily Australian agricultural wealth can be put at risk. This is a message that should have been heard loud and clear by the Morrison government, yet it seems to be constantly turning a blind eye or a neglectful ear to properly resourcing Australia's biosecurity. It seems intent on staying in the slow lane. We all remember the last few years and the lack of speed at which they rolled out the recommendations of the Craik review, only to abandon them in the end and then come up with a last-minute save in this year's budget. Just look at the Morrison government's response to the mouse plague. On this side, we recognise the real danger this plague presents. New South Wales farmers say it could wipe $1 billion off the value of winter crops. It's no laughing matter. I don't know how to describe it—$1 billion off the national revenue and there is no national response from this government. The incompetence and neglect are difficult to fathom. Farmers in regional communities are desperate for help. The New South Wales agriculture minister, a National Party MP, has called for the federal government to 'come to the table and help'. On May 31, Adam Marshall told the Weekly Times: 'It was incredibly disappointing to hear the Commonwealth admit they have no national response and throw their hands up as our regions face this problem.' Mr Marshall has written to this government to ask for assistance, but his request has been ignored. This government's response? Today the Acting Prime Minister said that Marshall didn't attend a meeting—whatever that means. At Senate estimates, the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment secretary, Andrew Metcalfe, told senators 'at this stage' there would be no national response. He said: … the very longstanding arrangements are that each state and territory is responsible for pest and animal management within its jurisdiction. …   …   … it's their job and they should get on with it. There's a departmental secretary talking about the difference between national and state responsibility, yet we've seen over the past year just how much this federal government is willing to buck-pass to the states on just about everything—quarantine, vaccines, everything. Mr Metcalfe also said: Mice arrived with the First Fleet, and we've had mice plagues roughly every four years since the 1870s, so it's not a new phenomenon … This government lets the mice run rampant and passes the buck, again. It's an unsurprising response from a government that takes no responsibility for anything: 'I don't hold a mouse trap, mate.' They're happy to take the credit but they just don't want to do the work. This plague has run for more than 10 months and it is crippling the drought recovery. These pests are devouring new crops and destroying machinery. Mice are biting people in their beds. People have been hospitalised. It's sickening. It's deadly serious. It deserves more than derision from those opposite, and the heavy lifting has been left to the state governments. One billion dollars is at stake, and it's all been left to the states. So much for all those Liberals and Nationals who claim to represent regional Australia. Their neglect at the national level is destroying the lives of people on the land. Many farmers are losing most, if not all, of their first big crop since 2017 to this plague, and regional homes and businesses desperately need help. The government must develop a national plan to address this crisis. The government's not responsible for the mouse plague. We know it has natural causes. But this government is responsible for coming up with a national plan to help address it. It's a real biosecurity issue. Failing to come up with a national plan only furthers this government's legacy of inaction and incompetence. Remember 2016, when an outbreak of white spot disease devastated prawn farms in South-East Queensland, causing an estimated $50 million in production and associated losses? Remember 2019, when disgraced prawn outfit EB Ocean pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching the Biosecurity Act, for hindering inspections and storing prawns outside of the biosecurity area, but was fined just $80,000? The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment has shown no transparency and has declined to answer specific questions about EB Ocean. Even now, the department is considering proposals to allow lime imports from Mexico, where there has been a recent outbreak of citrus canker. Australia was only recently declared free of citrus canker, following an outbreak in 2018. That cost our country more than $19 million. The bill before us today seeks to increase the maximum financial penalties, both civil and criminal, that can be imposed for a number of offences that are already subject to penalties under the Biosecurity Act 2015. Labor supports strong penalties to deter people from putting Australia's biosecurity at risk. People cannot expect to walk through airport security with bags of uncooked pork and jeopardise our billion-dollar pork industry, which happened twice in 2019 under the Morrison government. But penalties cannot be the only instrument. We must do more to ensure that Australian biosecurity is strong and reliable on every front. Australian farmers have been put at risk by this government maintaining an under-resourced and underfunded biosecurity system. It's a system that is the last defence for industries worth billions of dollars to the Australian economy. This bill does nothing to better detect and identify pests and diseases that may be making their way into Australia. That's a significant deficiency. The bill does nothing to improve the capabilities of Australian biosecurity to ensure that Australia never faces a situation that puts at risk the billions of dollars made through our agricultural production, export and tourism industries. Australians deserve better. Farmers deserve better. We deserve biosecurity that is capable of protecting Australia's assets. This government has all the tools available to it to provide strong and reliable biosecurity, and it's got a willing opposition. We're willing to stand with those opposite on biosecurity. They just aren't utilising these tools. Australia deserves a government that gives a rat's about biosecurity. 17:16 Mr PASIN 240756 Barker I came to the chamber determined to tune out, but unfortunately I tuned in. I tuned in to the member for Lyons, who I have a high regard for, as I do for all members of this place, including those opposite, but this attempt by the Labor Party to throw scorn on the federal government on account of the mouse plague is patently ridiculous. In the middle of a one-in-100-year global pandemic and the recession caused by the herculean recovery that we have been through as a nation—guided so expertly by the Prime Minister, with the support of every single Australian—I appreciate that the Labor Party really do need to grasp at straws, but they should give up on this one. I think tomorrow at question time they'll all turn up with Mickey Mouse headsets on. Quite frankly, that's how laughable this has become. The member for Lyons knows, as you do, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, as I do and as anyone listening to this broadcast does—particularly those poor people dealing with the mouse plague—that the responsibility for plagues and pests rests with state governments. That is as it should be, and I wish all the very best to the people dealing with that plague. But to come in here and try to get some political mileage out of it—and I'm not necessarily just targeting this at the member for Lyons. I know he's been given his orders, because we come here, day after day, and member after member seems to make that contribution. It's patently ridiculous. It's almost as ridiculous as PETA—People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—intervening earlier on in this phenomenon and suggesting that people should be catching and releasing these poor mice. I'm happy for people to catch them. I just don't want them released in my house or anywhere near it. They need to be dealt with appropriately, and they need to be gotten rid of, not relocated. That's how patently ridiculous this campaign to throw scorn is, and the people of Australia look straight through it. I know the good constituents of Lyons understand that, and the member should perhaps think twice about trying to hoodwink them into believing this is in some way the responsibility of the federal government. In any event, I rise to speak on a matter of great importance that impacts primary producers in my electorate of Barker. Biosecurity is one of Australia's great advantages. We're an island nation. We're obviously an island continent. Our biosecurity prevention is the envy of nations across the world and provides us with a strategic advantage, but we can't take that advantage for granted. Like most Australians, I'm concerned about the egregious breaches and flaunting of biosecurity, as seen on the popular TV show Border Security. When I catch a bit of this on television, I cannot stop watching it, because I can't understand how people could believe that they could make that declaration, and then, when you open up their suitcase, it's full of plant material, cooked pork, uncooked pork—particularly given that these border entrance cards are provided in any language that people seek. In any event, our biosecurity must be bolstered. It always must be. The importance of such protections can't be overstated. We've seen through COVID-19 that viruses can have catastrophic impacts. It's not just human viruses that are of concern, of course. We also ought to be concerned about any and all diseases and pests that are foreign to our shores that can impact our capacity to produce livestock and maintain, in the case of my electorate, forestry and fishing stocks as well. Some of the diseases of concern—and these might send a shiver down the spine of some of my constituents listening who are heavily invested in these industries—are foot-and-mouth disease, African swine fever, avian influenza, anthrax, Hendra virus and rabies. I could list them all, but I won't. Our biosecurity laws have prevented the destruction of our agricultural sector, a fate suffered by many nations across the world, whether it be mad cow disease in the UK, or African swine fever which has led to eight million pigs being destroyed in China. I don't know what eight million pigs amounts to, but I think that's more pork then you can fly a rocket ship over. Our capacity to produce agriculture is a vital national asset, and any reduction has long-lasting impacts. Jobs and businesses impacted would include our world-class abattoirs, our value-adding businesses in food manufacturing and our regional hubs that service our agricultural regions. They wouldn't survive if they didn't service our primary industries. In real terms, our biosecurity underpins $65 billion in agricultural output. Of course, we've got an aim to get that to $100 billion, and we won't do that unless we protect these industries from biosecurity risk. There's $49 billion in agricultural exports and $42 billion in inbound tourism, each a vital contributor to jobs growth, particularly in my electorate. I go to forestry. In my electorate of Barker, as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker O'Brien, we have a vibrant forestry industry. As a co-convenor of the Parliamentary Friends of Forestry Industries I know that across the nation there is concern about the many biosecurity threats that this industry faces. These measures will help protect the forest industry and the tens of thousands of people employed in that sector across Australia. It will protect them from pests such as the Japanese sawyer beetle, commonly known as the Japanese pine sawyer. These pests, if they were to find their way into our forest estates, would wreak havoc by carrying nematodes from infested trees to new host trees—disastrous. These pests have been kept at bay, but the risk is ever present, and just one sawyer beetle can kill a healthy tree within months. Imagine that. The green of the south-east, the forest sector that we rely on—gone in a matter of months. What is concerning is that this is only one of any number of pests that the forest sector is concerned about. These amendments strengthen the Biosecurity Act and are essential in deterring noncompliance, through significant fines and even, I should say, criminal and financial penalties, to protect the livelihoods of the many hundreds of workers in the forestry industry in my electorate and the many tens of thousands across the country. What, then, about food manufacturers? Australia's agricultural sector provides high-quality local produce. It's the backbone of Australia's food manufacturing. You heard from the minister at question time that my electorate is the one in this place that represents more people actively engaged on a full-time basis in food manufacturing than in any other electorate in the country, so reliant are we on food manufacturing. Given the happy news that emanated overnight from the UK about the UK free trade agreement, we are looking forward to taking advantage of that agreement, but we won't be able to take advantage of that agreement if we don't have a strong biosecurity framework, which this act, of course, bolsters. Whether it's winemakers, meat processors, confectionery or other food manufacturers that add value to already premium produce, these amendments help protect our vibrant manufacturing industry. These legislative improvements do exactly that, and they of course underpin the thousands of jobs throughout my electorate. I am a livestock guy. I grew up on a farm. Originally we were horticulturists, but more recently we have turned to livestock. Livestock and the agricultural industry more broadly are industries that are at direct risk from biosecurity breaches. Any breach to biosecurity may kill off livestock, ruin our green credentials, prevent exports, potentially drastically reduce the capacity to produce stock and reduce the value of that stock. Like in many regional electorates, the livestock industry is a major employer in Barker. Some 4,000 people work in the livestock industry and some 10,000 or so work in agriculture directly. This doesn't even go to those who are employed indirectly in these sectors. This significant employer also supports many thousands of indirect jobs. For Australia to reach its ambitious stretch target of $100 billion in this industry by 2030, we have to maintain our clean and green reputation. Biosecurity is critically important in that; it underpins it, as I've said previously. Remaining pest- and disease-free ensures not only are we able to continue producing large amounts of stock but we are able to export that stock and its products as premium products with ease, unlike the import restrictions we place on many goods that are riddled with pests and diseases from overseas. If you want a better example of that then just look to the Riverland in my electorate, a part of South Australia I know you are familiar with, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas. Think about that pest-free status we enjoy in the Riverland and then think of all the other citrus-producing areas in Australia. They don't have that pest-free status and, as a result, those producers incur expense, whether it's by chemical treatment or by cold treatment, in order for them to access these premium markets. In some markets, no matter how you treat fruit fly, those markets simply aren't available to you because a premium is paid for fruit that comes from fruit fly-free regions. There might be a question about what these legislative changes do. They continue to protect our primary producers with biosecurity amendments rightfully increasing both the civil and the criminal financial penalties. The bill will increase the civil penalty a court can impose from $26,640 to $66,600—talk about an active general deterrent, not to mention a specific one. Where this contravention is committed by a body corporate, the maximum penalty can be five times that now. So, by my quick maths, we are talking about $330,000, a fair whack in anyone's language. The bill offers significant flexibility to allow courts to respond appropriately, reinforcing the message that breaching the law cannot and must not be seen as being worth the risk. It's just not worth the risk. That's where we have that general deterrent. With the specific deterrent, you will be paying the $330,000 fine as a corporate. But the general deterrent—others are going to know that that is what awaits them should they take the risk. For fault based offences, this is where it gets even stronger. The maximum new penalty under the bill, where a person obtains or may obtain a commercial advantage by importing a prohibited good, is increasing from $444,000 to a whopping $1.11 million. So, if a commercial producer is thinking about smuggling into the country some quantity of seed or plant or other material so as to give themselves a commercial advantage over other Australians in contravention of the law, they can expect to receive a $1.11 million bill. It is simply not worth taking the risk. Similarly, whenever these offences are committed by a body corporate, a court may impose punishment up to five times the amount. So let's imagine a corporate has done just what I suggested—that is, they've sought a commercial advantage by smuggling into the country an amount of plant material which puts our biosecurity at risk. They are staring down a $5.55 million bill. Like I said, there couldn't be a stronger general deterrent and the specific deterrent would see many of these businesses simply wound up immediately. The increased penalties will send a strong message to would-be offenders: Australia takes biosecurity seriously and is willing to back up our biosecurity regulations with penalties to match—real teeth ensuring that there is appropriate action when it comes to biosecurity risks. In the time remaining, I'll refer to recent budget announcements in this space. In the budget, our government underscored the importance of the agricultural sector, not by words but by actions, committing a whopping $400 million to build a more secure and resilient biosecurity system to maintain our clean and green reputation. This funding includes strengthening our critical frontline biosecurity resources, human resources, modernising our biosecurity systems, technologies and data analytics to better equip our frontline defences and specific funding for severe threats such as $66 million over two years to prevent African swine fever from entering Australia. This represents a 40 per cent increase in funding from 2012-13 through to the 2019-20 budget period—not including the additional funding in this year's budget—as well as funding $29.2 million for streamlining export processes through the digital export certification management. Biosecurity can be a productive exercise. We can make it more efficient, and that's what that funding does—$11.4 million over four years to accelerate horticulture marketing access, benefiting premium producers like those I mentioned earlier in Riverland in my electorate. This is all targeted at ensuring we maintain our vital primary industries. The Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021 has my full support as it is a win for our regions, a win for the economy, a win for producers, a win for Australian jobs and a complete and utter success for the electorate of Barker. 17:31 Dr HAINES 282335 Indi A strong biosecurity system is critical to Australia's prosperity. Biosecurity laws protect agriculture, tourism, plant and animal health, the environment, and our international market success and access. Indi farmers know that these laws are necessary to allow us to trade and for our economy to thrive. I'd like to spend some time talking about the agricultural industries in Indi that rely on a robust biosecurity system and bills like this one, the Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021. Firstly, I want to turn my attention to the wine industry. North East Victoria has a diversity and an abundance of exceptional wine across numerous wine regions, including the Alpine Valleys, Beechworth, Glenrowan, King Valley and Rutherglen. In the 1880s, Rutherglen was one of the world's great wine regions. With more than 3,000 acres of vines spread across 50 recognised vineyards, Rutherglen was producing about a third of all wine in Australia, winning prizes in London, Paris and Bordeaux exhibitions. Rutherglen would continue to prosper well into the 1890s, but local wine growers feared that a scourge would soon be at their door. Phylloxera, a root-sucking aphid that feeds on the nutrients of the vine, had been detected near Geelong in the late 1870s. At the time, there were no known remedies, and affected vineyards needed to be uprooted and burnt without delay. In May 1889, the news that many had been dreading swept the district: phylloxera had been detected in Rutherglen. The vine disease slowly but surely took hold across the district, decimating vineyard after vineyard and forcing many to turn to other agricultural pursuits or abandon the land altogether. The impact was devastating. There are no visible warning signs of phylloxera on grapevines. By the time stunted growth and leaf yellowing appear, an infestation can spread through entire properties. Productivity drops as the infestation escalates, and the infected grapevines can be dead within five years. Over a century later, Australian vineyards continue to be highly vulnerable, with 75 per cent of plantings on susceptible rootstock. Containing the spread of phylloxera is a key concern of the Australian wine industry, and biosecurity is the first line of defence. Research on phylloxera has been conducted at Rutherglen since the early 1900s, following the establishment of a viticultural college there in 1897, and continues to this day. Today, Agriculture Victoria research staff at Rutherglen lead the national research program, supported by investment from Wine Australia. The research program aims to improve containment through effective disinfestation, assess rootstock resistance to different phylloxera strains, and develop new infield diagnostics and more effective surveillance to detect weak spots. Vinehealth Australia also oversees the delivery of biosecurity programs and is doing an excellent job in educating the public to stop the spread of phylloxera. We must continue to invest in biosecurity measures like these. The potential economic consequences are immense. One recent cost-benefit study on phylloxera prevention found a return on investment of up to $9 for every $1 spent. This is critical to the wine industry, which contributes $45.5 billion to the Australian economy each year and nearly 164,000 direct and indirect jobs. It's not just the sale of wine that important biosecurity measures like this bill protect. It's also the industries that rely on that agricultural production. For places like Indi, that's regional tourism. The Winery Walkabout in Rutherglen is one great example of this. It was meant to be held this weekend past but has been rescheduled to 24 and 25 July due to the COVID restrictions in Victoria. From its humble beginnings in 1974, the Winery Walkabout has grown to be one of the premier wine events on the Australian calendar, attracting thousands of visitors each year. On Sunday I took the opportunity to visit Rutherglen wineries, I spoke with two winemaking families—Mike, Belinda and Joel Chambers of Lake Moodemere winery and Chris and Robyn Pfeiffer of Pfeiffer Wines. After tasting some of the many wonderful wines on offer, including the topaque, muscat and apera wines for which Rutherglen is world-famous, I can see why this is an industry we must and desperately wish to protect. Wine sales and new memberships from this event usually account for a significant proportion of total annual income for the many family owned businesses. COVID has hurt these businesses hard, and we should be doing all we can to make sure that biosecurity risks don't make that any worse. Turning to chestnuts, the local chestnut industry in Indi will also benefit from this bill. Chestnuts are grown in areas that are hot in summer and cold in winter, and over 75 per cent of Australian chestnuts are produced in my electorate of Indi, around the townships of Beechworth, Stanley, Bright, Mount Beauty, Wandiligong and Myrtleford. Chestnut blight is caused by a fungus that grows underneath the bark of chestnut and oak trees, resulting in cankers that surround the infected trunk or branch. Once a tree is infected it will eventually die. Chestnut blight was first detected in Australia near Eurobin in the Ovens Valley in September 2010. Another outbreak occurred in 2014. Despite extensive efforts to eradicate the exotic plant disease, it remains present in Victoria and in 2019 was labelled 'difficult to eradicate'. The industry is leading its own long-term management plan to make sure chestnut blight stays at bay, and this bill will help in those efforts too. Piggeries will also benefit from this bill. In 2018 the world saw an outbreak of African swine fever in China. Within a single year it had killed an estimated 25 per cent of the world's pig population. Concerningly, in recent months we've heard news that a second wave of African swine fever is estimated to have killed as many as eight million pigs in China since the start of the year, just as the country is aiming to rebuild its national herd. African swine fever spreads rapidly via infected pork, stock or products. The introduction of the disease to Australia has the potential to devastate businesses such as Rivalea, which produces stockfeed and pork for both the domestic and export markets and employs more than 1,200 people across Victoria and southern New South Wales. We must do everything we can to prevent its spread. Increasing penalties is one deterrent, but we could be doing a whole lot more. One area where we could be doing more is at the intersection of climate change, habitat loss and animal health—animal-human health, indeed. Changing temperatures, bushfires, drought and loss of habitat all drive wildlife, feral animals and insect vectors into new areas and closer contact with domestic animal and human populations, bringing existing diseases to areas where they were previously unknown and new diseases to the fore. In 1994 for example, Hendra virus was first described at a location outside Brisbane. Moving from flying foxes to horses, the virus can then pass to humans and, with a 60 per cent fatality rate in infected people, poses a huge risk to veterinarians, horse owners and workers in the equine industries. Changing environmental conditions have seen this disease move steadily southwards, with a detection seen as far down as the Hunter Valley in New South Wales in 2019, which I know would be of interest to you, Madam Deputy Speaker Claydon. Biosecurity events like this one will become even more frequent due to climate change. An increase in penalties may deter some would-be criminals but it won't stop climate change. Finally, I'd like to welcome the in-principle free trade agreement with the UK overnight. Biosecurity protection measures are essential to free trade. The agreement will provide additional access and expand export opportunities for farmers in north-east Victoria, who produce high-quality beef, dairy, sheepmeat and wine. The UK is a relatively small but important market for beef and sheepmeat. Over time, the FTA will help to expand export opportunities and provide additional options for our producers. I encourage the government to work harder to secure, for our beef, greater access into the European Union, which has fallen away in recent times. This important market needs to be rebuilt. The wine industry has recently taken a massive hit from China, after they imposed tariffs on Australian wine in November 2020. Australia exports 36 per cent, by volume, of wine to the United Kingdom. The FTA will improve our competitive position and put more money into the pockets of winemakers in my region, which will allow them to invest further in their businesses. But we can't have any of this without strong biosecurity measures. This bill is a pretty basic way to achieve that, but there's so much more that we could be doing, especially when it comes to climate change and biosecurity risks, and I call on the government to do much, much more in that space. 17:41 Mr HASTIE 260805 Canning I rise to conclude debate on the Biosecurity Amendment (Strengthening Penalties) Bill 2021. This bill will amend the Biosecurity Act 2015 to provide stronger civil and criminal penalties for those who expose Australia to biosecurity risks through noncompliance with the act. The bill will increase the maximum financial penalties that apply to a number of civil and criminal penalty provisions across the Biosecurity Act, and the increased civil penalties will serve as a deterrent to anybody considering undermining our biosecurity laws and thereby our fruit growers, farmers and other people who make a living in this sector. The criminal penalties will allow appropriate and proportionate punishment for offences under the Biosecurity Act. The penalty amounts in this bill more appropriately reflect the impact that contraventions may have on Australia's biosecurity status, market access and economy than the current penalty regime. Deterring noncompliance with the Biosecurity Act will help maintain Australia's favourable biosecurity status and protect our $71.2 billion agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries and valuable and unique environmental assets. Back home in my electorate, I think of all the fruit growers, and the beautiful forests in places like Dwellingup, in the Perth Hills, that need protecting. This bill will do just that. This is particularly important in anticipation of growing biosecurity risks, with anticipated growth in international trade and travel. The member for Indi just mentioned the in-principle FTA with the United Kingdom, a great boon for our economy. Given that this will protect our growers from biosecurity risks as the economy recovers from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, I commend this bill to the House. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Franklin has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be disagreed to. Question agreed to. Original question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Third Reading 89 17:44 Mr HASTIE 260805 Canning by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Transport Security Amendment (Serious Crime) Bill 2020 89

Transport Security Amendment (Serious Crime) Bill 2020

Consideration of Senate Message 89 17:45 Mr HASTIE 260805 Canning I move: That the amendment be agreed to. Question agreed to. Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2021 89

Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2021

Second Reading 89 17:47 Ms KEARNEY LTU Cooper I rise to speak on the Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. I'd like to indicate that the opposition will be supporting the passage of this bill, although I also foreshadow that at the end of my remarks I'll be moving a second reading amendment. This bill fixes an important anomaly for the independent practising midwives to be covered by indemnity insurance. It amends the Allied Health High Cost Claims Scheme and the Allied Health Exceptional Claims Indemnity Scheme to ensure businesses that employ midwives, regardless of endorsement status, will be covered by the schemes. By endorsement status I mean it covers both those midwives registered to provide midwifery care only as well as those registered and endorsed to prescribe scheduled medicines. The bill extends the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme, or the MPIS, to cover midwives employed by private practice and removes the requirement that midwives must be the sole owners of a practice to receive the cover offered by the MPIS. Importantly, it will allow Aboriginal community controlled health services, or ACCHOs, to employ midwives without the barrier of having to pay excessive insurance premiums. This is vitally important in order to run the Birthing on Country program in First Peoples communities. Birthing on Country is an important step forward in improving maternity care and birthing outcomes in those communities. The changes here were actually made some time ago, but the language in the original version was imprecise. The proposed amendments are a rewording that clarifies the intent of the original amendments. The Run off Cover Indemnity Scheme and changes to eligibility requirements for the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme are welcomed by the profession as they make it easier for midwives to move into private practice alongside midwives already working in private practice and make it easier for them to cease private practice without continued financial burden. The amendments however, do not cover home births. This is an outstanding issue for midwives, and extensive consultation must continue on this as many people in the community would prefer a home birth to hospitalisation. This issue of independent midwifery practice goes back a long way. I'm proud to say that I sat on a committee established by the then health minister, Nicola Roxon, to look at what was viewed by many as a controversial decision to allow midwives to practice independently and to prescribe scheduled medicines. For some in the medical profession this was akin to heresy. Perhaps many doctors still believe it to be so. I was the federal secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation at the time and I knew, along with all of the others, that midwives were and still are highly skilled, highly responsible and worthy health practitioners. A healthy, normal birth can indeed be attended by a midwife without an obstetrician. In fact, I've got to say that I have had four children from three pregnancies and an obstetrician only attended one birth, which was a complicated twin breach. The other two children were delivered competently by midwives. Now women can choose to have an independently practising midwife deliver their babies. Some hospitals offer collaborative arrangements with midwives doing the antenatal and delivery as part of a hospital program and these collaborative arrangements are incredibly successful. We need more independent midwives. I recently spoke with the Rural Doctors Association and part of the answer to poor access to healthcare in rural and regional areas is to better support the top of scope of practice of health practitioners like midwives and nurse practitioners. Hopefully, fixing this anomaly in the legislation will help attract more midwives to areas where they are needed and to improve women's choices for birthing. I'd like to acknowledge the ANMF and the Australian College of Midwives, who fought gallantly on behalf of their members to achieve this important outcome. Insurance for midwives has long been vexed. This became a major problem when the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, APRA, made a requirement for all practitioners to have indemnity insurance in order to practise. Whilst obstetricians may well be able to better afford the excessive costs of the indemnity insurance, which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars a year, for midwives who earn considerably less than obstetricians, it was out of the question. While we acknowledge the gap that still exists for home births, we support this bill. Fixing issues in the health system is not something this government is renowned for. We all know that successive Liberal governments have worked consistently to break down the provision of public health, to make patients pay more for health care, to try to dismantle Medicare. In my home state and elsewhere, conservative governments have tried to privatise public hospitals, mostly unsuccessfully, thanks to community outcry and campaigning by health unions and the Labor Party. I personally, as a nurse, lived through the devastation caused to the Victorian health system by Jeff Kennett and his government, who reduced the nursing workforce by over 10,000 nurses and who wanted to privatise the Austin Hospital, a great public hospital where I worked. It took over a decade to rebuild the number of nurses working in public hospitals back to pre-Kennett numbers. As the then president of the ACTU, I saw firsthand the horror of the Newman years in Queensland, attacking public hospitals, cutting services and wreaking havoc on health practitioners in the public system. The trauma the Queensland nurses felt waiting for that letter to appear in their letterboxes or pigeonholes at work that signalled their redundancy was just awful. The effect on their health and wellbeing during that time was terrible, but the impact on the Queensland health system was dreadful. It meant the people of Queensland removed Newman's government as quickly as possible. Both Victoria and Queensland, with good Labor governments, have restored their public health systems. Victoria and Queensland have implemented nurse-patient ratios that ensure safe nursing care. On a federal level, conservative governments have tried to introduce a co-payment for Medicare. They've set up a privatisation committee to examine how best to privatise public health. They've undermined the provision of services with unexplained changes to the MBS that is causing havoc amongst the community. They've run down the administration, with cuts to the Public Service, which helps the community with access. You just can't trust the coalition with Medicare and public health services. As I said yesterday, I received an email from a constituent just this week. She is 37 years old. She wrote: 'I'm writing to you because I'm very concerned about the recent media reports of changes to the Medicare rebates for a range of procedures. I don't have some groundbreaking, tear-inducing personal story to support my concerns.' She had had a number of minor surgeries in her lifetime, which she'd been able to afford through a combination of Medicare, private health and family support. She wrote: 'I'm worried by the death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach to universal health care and have major worries about the slide towards an American inspired, horrendously expensive and inequitable approach to health care. I see this as another way that inequality is becoming entrenched in Australian communities. The people proposing and supporting such changes come from an economic position of great advantage and will never feel the true impact of a high medical bill. I hope you are working hard in Canberra to ensure that relatively younger Australians, such as myself, don't continue to have the rug pulled out from under them as they grow older—pulled out by a generation of people, mainly politicians, who are undermining the Australian values of equity, compassion and universal access to health care.' This constituent of mine is just one of the vast majority of Australians who care deeply about the universal health system and are troubled by the cuts. Another example of the government running down our health system is the disaster that is aged care. The royal commission found that aged care, the responsibility of the federal government, was suffering from deep neglect. Much has been said in this House and beyond about the complete disregard for, and bungling of, the aged-care system—a system so neglected that the pandemic forced open the cracks, creating a cavernous disaster when COVID raged through our communities. The bungling attitude and incompetence continued when the vaccination rollout began, which is, again, the sole responsibility of the federal government. The minister responsible, incredibly, said that he felt comfortable with the rollout of the vaccine in aged care. We know that he was the only one in the entire country who was feeling comfortable. Aged-care residents and their families were not feeling comfortable, and I can guarantee that the aged-care workforce were far from it as well. As well as neglecting aged care and bungling the vaccine rollout, the federal government has totally abrogated its other main responsibility in a pandemic, which is quarantine. The constitution clearly states that this is a federal responsibility. Time and time again we have seen that hotel quarantine is not the ironclad protection Australians need and deserve. 'Oh,' says our Prime Minister, 'it's 99 per cent safe.' He said this while Victorians faced a fourth lockdown because a man contracted COVID in a South Australian hotel and he travelled, infectious, back to Victoria. This lockdown has been very hard. Businesses are so stressed, especially small, sole trader businesses. I've had so many contact me, just in my electorate, desperate for help. Workers once again have to cope with little or no income, depending on whether or not they were eligible for support. Billions of dollars were lost to the economy, and all because of the one per cent that the Prime Minister doesn't seem to worry about. I know there has now been a commitment to build a facility in Melbourne, but it's too little too late. Why has the Prime Minister been dragged kicking and screaming to make any important decisions that benefit Australians, whether it was the banking royal commission, the aged-care royal commission, implementing JobKeeper, increasing JobSeeker, aged-care funding, changing—over and over—who and how the vaccine rollout was being handled, building purpose-built quarantine facilities or funding child care and mental health? All of these things the government have been brought to kicking and screaming. It's as if they are sitting there, thinking: 'If we say nothing, if we just sit on our hands and pretend we can't do anything, nobody will notice. It might go away. We can carry on doing nothing.' Then, of course, when the ALP and the community cry out in outrage, they think, 'Crikey, we're in trouble; we'd better do something.' But it's never enough. They are artful, that lot over there on that side of the House, putting bandaids on haemorrhages. But we are wise to that. We, on this side of the House, will expose those inadequacies constantly, and the people of Australia can see through the smoke and mirrors. To the government, politics is a game of tricks. 'Who can we trick,' they say, 'with our smirks and our slogans? Who can we ignore with diversions and big photo opportunities? Which workers can we make believe we care about them with crumbs and small handouts and weasel-worded pieces of legislation that seem good but, all the while, take away rights and services? Who can we kid about tax cuts being for everyone when they are mostly for high-income earners?' It goes on and on. But we on this side know that politics is about priorities. Labor has Medicare and the public health system at the very heart of its priorities. Australians know that very well. With those remarks, I move: That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House urges the Government to deliver policies to better support the health of families and healthcare workers". The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 Is the amendment seconded? Ms Rishworth HWA I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak. 18:01 Dr GILLESPIE 72184 Lyne I rise to support the Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. As we all know, in the last 20 or more years there have been a couple of insurance crises. First of all, in public liability in the late nineties, a lot of huge claims went through and bankrupted many entities, not in the health system but councils and the like, that had accidents on their public spaces. It stopped a lot of stuff from happening in Australia—and finally it was sorted out. Then came the medical indemnity crisis, where some of the claims were exceptionally high, leading to premiums of a couple of hundred thousand dollars per year in obstetrics in particular—and we fixed that too. And then there was a problem with that same sector of the health market: one couldn't afford to retire because your premiums in your run-off cover were higher than what you were earning or winding down. Obviously, when markets fail, the government has to step in—so they did that. In 2010 this parliament introduced two schemes to cover a similar situation with privately practising midwives. There are two existing midwife schemes—the run-off cover one, which is similar to medical indemnity, and the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme. The government basically assists the nominated eligible entity—Medical Insurance Group Australia are the nominated provider of the indemnity product—and this covers exceptionally high claims. Eligible midwives who are insured through them—if they make a claim, their insurer will obviously deal with the matter. For a very high-cost claim—above $100,000—the scheme supports 80 per cent of it. But some of the claims are absolutely astounding. Some of them are in the millions of dollars. Clearly, if you don't have insurance it would be a really bad outcome for the healthcare system, for the midwife and for the people taking the action. So, if there's a claim above $2 million, the scheme picks up 100 per cent of it. There were changes in 2019 where we were strengthening primary care and guaranteeing Medicare. And there was an anomaly when they created the Allied Health High Cost Claim Scheme and the Allied Health Exceptional Claims Scheme in a similar vein. In all these changes, Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services were left in a bit of a limbo, and some employed midwives were similarly in a bit of a limbo. These amendments correct those anomalies so that, whether you're an employed endorsed midwife or a privately practising midwife, you will be covered by this scheme. Employed or privately practising, there will be a scheme that will cover you. The one thing it won't cover, at this stage, is homebirths. They have looked at the reasons why they don't. The insurers think the risks don't add up. But that is a very select part of the obstetric services market. The main people that were being hampered by this were some of the more remote Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services that deliver obstetric services in remote and regional Australia. We want good health outcomes across the nation. Hence the initiative to correct the anomalies. There's a lot of machinery in this bill, but it's very important. All of us have been brought into this world by a midwife. It's a very well-trained profession, and they deserve the support that everyone else gets from the government through the Medicare system. We want everyone to be able to have good, safe obstetric care, wherever you are in Australia. I support the amendments in this bill. 18:06 Ms WELLS 264121 Lilley I rise today to support the Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2021, because it amends the Medical Indemnity Act 2002 and the Midwife Professional Indemnity (Commonwealth Contribution) Scheme Act 2010 to expand the coverage of professional indemnity insurance schemes to the midwives who are currently excluded. This bill will open up the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme to all endorsed midwives, irrespective of their employment status, and provide access to an insurance policy for this class of midwives that includes intrapartum care. It closes an inexplicable gap in the scheme, so that independent practising midwives can be covered by indemnity insurance. Importantly, this bill will enable midwives working with Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations to be covered for Birthing on Country models of care, which will be an important step forward in improving maternity care for our First Nations communities. The cumulative effect of the bill's amendments will mean that claims against all privately practising midwives will be eligible under the Commonwealth's medical and midwife indemnity insurance scheme if an eligible indemnity claim is made. Hopefully, fixing this anomaly in the current indemnity scheme will help to attract more midwives to our regional and rural areas, where they are desperately needed, and will improve birthing choices for all Australian women. Empowering women with the option to access independently practising midwives to deliver their babies is so important. It gives them autonomy over their own bodies and the right to make informed decisions about their own health. I welcome this opportunity to talk about midwifery and maternal health care in Australia. After the birth of my own twins late last year, I received an absolute influx of messages and emails from Northside families and families across the country who were relieved to have a representative who understood the economic and social costs of having a family—particularly a family with multiples. I'm proud to be here today as a voice for them on these issues: on improving our public healthcare system, instead of tearing it down; on expanding extended parental paid leave; on increasing the affordability of child care, making childcare universal and making it the best that it can be; and on tackling the rising cost of living so that families aren't scraping by, living from pay cheque to pay cheque. In my electorate of Lilley, there is one place where you can give birth to babies, and that is where I gave birth—the North West Private Hospital, which has been helping to welcome new lives into the world for over 30 years. I can vouch for how wonderful the midwives of North West hospital are from my own experiences there, giving birth to Celeste, Ossian and Dashiell. I'll spare the House the gory details of childbirth and the things that midwives have to do. But, really, these people could not be paid enough for what it is that they see, what it is that they do, the counselling that they have to provide, the extended services, and the extended know-how and skills that they bring to what is often a dramatic scene, despite all the best Taylor Swift Spotify playlists you can prepare ahead of time for labour. I think what I experienced with Celeste was being an ordinary mum, living in Chermside and having my first baby, and I could not have felt more supported and cared for than I did with those midwives. The second time I was at the hospital, also as the member for Lilley, giving birth to twins, at one point, at 4 am, one of the twins had gone down to sleep and the other one was refusing to settle. I was breastfeeding on one side—I hadn't learnt to do it tandem yet—so the midwife had to hand-express the other side so that we could all try to get 45 minutes of sleep before the first twin woke up again. That's part and parcel of being a midwife. She probably did that for about 15 minutes, and then at minute 16 she said, 'While I've got you, can I just talk to you about some workforce issues that we have?' Up to that point she hadn't let on that she even knew I was an elected representative. But she perfectly chose her moment to lobby on behalf of her colleagues for better working conditions for healthcare workers. To be honest, at 4 am, with her helping me to secure 45 minutes of sleep, she could not have found a more receptive audience to that call. God bless midwives. But I do recognise, in telling this story about midwives at North West Private Hospital, that all of that comes with a certain level of privilege; it is certainly not a universal experience. My hope is that having people like me, with babies, in the parliament will help improve that experience for all mothers across Australia. While our universal healthcare system is arguably one of the greatest achievements of any Australian government, like all public policies it needs to be constantly built upon and constantly reworked as our community evolves. In the Australian public health system, pregnant women must choose either a six-week postnatal attendance by a participating midwife when the baby is six weeks old or a postnatal professional attendance with an obstetrician or a GP. They can't have both. A six-week postnatal attendance by a midwife is $55.05, with an 85 per cent benefit. It includes a comprehensive examination of the mother and baby to ensure normal postnatal recovery and referral of the mother to a GP for the ongoing care of mother and baby. A postnatal professional attendance with an obstetrician or a GP is $73.95 with an 85 per cent benefit. It must include a mental health assessment, must be in a hospital and can occur between four and eight weeks post birth. Comparatively, an expectant mother in New Zealand can choose a midwife or a specialist doctor to provide maternity care during pregnancy, during labour and up to 46 weeks after the birth. Care from a midwife in New Zealand is free. Services that the midwife or specialist doctor will provide include developing a plan for labour and birth, giving advice on staying healthy during pregnancy, being with them during labour, providing referral to a specialist for support if that is needed, and making hospital or home visits at least five times after the baby is born. When the baby is six weeks old, care is transferred to a Well Child/Tamariki Ora provider. They will get free regular health checks from a nurse until the age of five. They also get assistance in enrolling at a local GP for doctor and practice nurse services. The New Zealand experience shows us that there is a blueprint for how to roll out effective, comprehensive, compassionate maternal health care—just over the ditch. I implore the Morrison government to take that example and implement it in our own health system. If I have a small grievance about the legislation that we are seeking to amend tonight, it is that it doesn't go further and use this opportunity to do these kinds of things. When we support women in getting the perinatal care that they need, we improve women's health, we support Australian families and ultimately we boost women's participation and re-entry into the workforce. On that note, I would like to use this opportunity to throw my support behind the work of the member for Reid, who presented a petition last year to reinstate the MBS item for abdominoplasty surgery for women who have abdominal separation caused by pregnancy. As a woman who has given birth to three children, including two at once, I know the toll that pregnancy and childbirth can have on both your physical and mental health. One in three Australian mothers experience birth trauma and they sustain physical injuries that they must live with long after they leave hospital, and while caring for a newborn. Abdominal separation is particularly prevalent in petite women, those carrying multiples, those who have had more than one pregnancy, those who fall pregnant later in life and those who have poor muscle tone or sway-back posture. Abdominal separation in pregnant and post-natal women is first treated through physiotherapy, where the condition may resolve naturally, but evidence has shown that this treatment has limited success in severe cases. Recent studies have shown that abdominoplasty surgery has high success rates for this type of injury, but for many women this life-changing surgery is out of reach because it costs up to 15 grand out of pocket. No woman should have to live with severe abdominal injuries, chronic pain and incontinence after they give birth—particularly because they can't afford surgery. I join the member for Reid and the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons in calling on the Morrison government to relist abdominoplasty as a Medicare item, to restore the dignity and quality of life for women living with birth trauma. Unfortunately, fixing issues in the health system is not something that the Liberal and National parties are known for. Consecutive Liberal-National governments have worked consistently to break down our public health system, trying to dismantle Medicare and make Australians pay more, out of pocket, for their health care. In 1983 the Liberal and National parties opposed Medicare, claiming it would bankrupt our nation. They went on to four elections—in 1984, in 1987, in 1990 and in 1993—promising to dismantle it if they were elected to government. In 2013 the Liberal-National government floated the idea of a $4 tax to visit your GP. In 2014 they cut $1.7 billion from Medicare. They proposed a $7 tax to visit your GP while cutting company tax by 1.5 percentage points. In 2015 they cut almost $1 billion and continued to pursue the privatisation of Medicare. In 2021, amid a pandemic, the Liberal-National government snuck in almost 1,000 changes to the Medicare Benefits Schedule. These changes will directly impact the doctors, the nurses and the healthcare workers at the Prince Charles Hospital. With only two weeks until the changes come into practice, we still don't know exactly what rebates are changing. But we do know that the changes include general surgery, cardiothoracic surgery and orthopaedic surgeries, all of which are surgeries that happen at the Prince Charles Hospital every single day. Northsiders in my electorate of Lilley now face the prospect of life-changing surgeries being cancelled at the last minute or risk being left with huge US-style medical bills that they did not expect. Healthcare costs are spiralling for northside families. In 2013, when the Liberal-National government first came to power, it cost northsiders $27.65 to see their GP. Today it costs $39.35 to see the GP. While real wages growth has flatlined over the past eight years, the Liberal-National government have waved through a 41 per cent increase in the cost of going to see your doctor. Healthcare costs take a huge chunk out of household budgets. Not long ago, I had a constituent named Leonie write to me to say that she went to an eye specialist and had to pay $530 for the appointment and only got $97 back once the Medicare claim was processed. You shouldn't have to wait until payday to book in to see your doctor. Going to see a specialist or a GP should not be a luxury; it should be a basic human right. The only card you should have to pull out at the doctor's office is your Medicare card. It's what generations of people have fought for, to have this as standard practice for Australians today. I will fight to protect Medicare because we know what happens when the health and the safety of Australians is privatised. Just look at our private aged-care system that is in absolute crisis right now. I also want to use this opportunity, while we're talking about the role of midwives, to talk about stillbirth being a significant mental health issue that does not get the attention and dedicated public policy that it deserves. Every day, six Australian babies are stillborn. This number has remained unchanged since records were first kept, around 20 years ago, while the rate of stillbirth in other countries has dramatically dropped. It is long past time we break the silence and make stillbirth a national health priority. As Senator Keneally explained in the other place, collectively, as a country, we have considered stillbirth too sad to talk about; we have viewed it as a private tragedy rather than a public health problem. The Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education inquiry chaired by Senator McCarthy was the first national inquiry to report on the impact of stillbirth on Australian families and the Australian economy. The recommendations delivered by that inquiry are relatively simple and inexpensive, such as small changes in clinical care and education projected to reduce the stillbirth rate in Australia by 30 per cent. It is imperative to take swift action on the recommendations to reduce the terrible tragedies of lost pregnancy this country, especially those that are stillbirths. Our communities are already leading the way here. In my electorate of Lilley, Susannah Holmes is a coordinator at Peach Tree Perinatal Wellness, a community organisation which provides educational and support services to expecting and new parents. This is one example of the type of service that saves babies' lives and one example of the type of service we need to see rolled out on a national scale. We must make haste in doing so, because with every day that passes another six babies are being lost to stillbirth. The Australian parents who live with lost pregnancies show some of the greatest courage in our communities, and this parliament should honour them by doing the same and making stillbirths a national public health priority. With my remaining time, I would pay tribute to the Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence located at the Mater Hospital in South Brisbane, who are a fabulous group, you would appreciate, of strong fantastic women and some very supportive men who work on stillbirth research in this area and on what needs to be done. They have been rolling out the Safer Baby Bundle across the country since just prior to the pandemic. They do excellent work. They don't get enough credit. They don't get enough funding. They don't get enough support. With my remaining time, I congratulate them on their work and recommit myself to doing what I can to further that cause with my time in this place. 18:21 Dr MARTIN 282982 Reid I rise to speak on the Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. Having had four children, I can tell you midwives matter. Midwives matter because they assist with the health care of pregnant women and babies, and help bring new life into the world. Midwives matter because every pregnancy and birth is unique and different. Midwives matter because there are real risks in childbirth. Even in an advanced country like ours, maternal deaths still occur. Birth trauma, unfortunately, is quite common, and sometimes babies are born needing immediate assistance to stay alive. Midwives matter because a healthy mother-child attachment is the foundation for a healthy relationship. We know that perinatal depression and anxiety are a frightening reality for many parents and can get in the way of forming a healthy bond early on. In Australia, there are approximately 33,500 registered midwives. In 2019, approximately 306,000 babies were born. The Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2021 contains important measures that will ensure privately practising midwives have coverage under the Commonwealth's medical and midwife indemnity schemes. The Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme commenced in 2010 and enables Commonwealth contributions to be paid to eligible insurers for the cost of claims against eligible midwives. Under the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme, the government assists in providing affordable cover for eligible midwives through a contracted insurer by covering 80 per cent of the costs of indemnity payouts over $100,000 and 100 per cent of payouts over $2 million. The first measure will broaden eligibility to the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme and the Midwife Professional Indemnity Run-Off Cover Scheme to all eligible midwives in private practice, regardless of how they are covered under insurance policies—for example, their own insurance policy or that of their employers. Currently, these schemes are limited to privately practising midwives endorsed by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia to prescribe scheduled medicines covered under their own insurance policy. All midwives who are endorsed by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia to prescribe scheduled medicines will have access under the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme and the midwife professional indemnity run-off cover scheme if they enter into an appropriate insurance contract with the eligible insurer under the scheme. This expansion in eligibility will enable the current provider of the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme to provide for critical Aboriginal community controlled health services. This will include a choice to take up appropriate indemnity insurance for their employed midwifes who are endorsed by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia to provide scheduled medicines. This bill will close an eligibility gap that has resulted in the exclusion of all registered midwives indemnified from liability through their own insurance contract from the allied health schemes. The second measure in this bill will rectify this exclusion. Without change, any claims lodged by insurers relating to the affected midwives will not be eligible to receive the Commonwealth subsidy. These practitioners had eligibility under the Commonwealth high-cost claim scheme and the exceptional claims scheme before 1 July 2020. It was always intended that registered midwifes would have coverage under the newly formed allied health schemes from the 1 July 2020 implementation, and this bill rectifies this anomaly. A bill like this does not come about easily, and there was much consultation before the government arrived at this point. The Commonwealth consulted with the Australian College of Midwives, medical indemnity insurers currently participating in the indemnity schemes and three Aboriginal community controlled health services who were seeking an indemnity solution for their midwives. The federal government also assisted in preparing thousands of additional nurses to ensure our healthcare system had the workforce, depth and capacity to respond to challenges during the pandemic. In March 2020 the Australian government funded 3,000 scholarships for registered nurses to undertake online education to enable them to refresh their clinical skills. Over 5,000 nurses registered interest in taking part in this program, and all 3,000 scholarships were awarded. This was all about taking the action required to ensure our healthcare system was properly supported in the wake of a one-in-100-year event. The Commonwealth's medical and midwife indemnity legislation does not preclude home births. However, the insurance product offered by Medical Insurance Australia under the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme does not cover this type of practice. Under the current arrangements, there is nothing preventing a midwife from approaching a medical indemnity insurer to request cover for home births under the Allied health schemes; however, it will be a matter for an insurer to determine whether they will provide this coverage, and this is because the Commonwealth cannot compel an insurer to cover this type of midwifery practice. The Commonwealth currently only maintains an insurance contract with one eligible insurer under the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme to ensure eligible midwives have access to affordable professional indemnity insurance. There is no comparable arrangement under the allied high cost claims. Rather, this is a claims reimbursement scheme whereby the Commonwealth subsidises eligible insurers for 50 per cent of their costs of the claim above a threshold of $500,000. The amendments in this bill will also support key Aboriginal community controlled health services to consider accessing appropriate professional indemnity insurance for their employed midwives who have been endorsed by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia to provide scheduled medicines. The Aboriginal community controlled health services sought remedy from the government for access to an insurance product for their employed midwives. Through this bill, the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme will be opened up to all endorsed midwives irrespective of their employment status to support the current provider of the midwife professional indemnity scheme to provide insurance policy to these employed midwives under these arrangements should they wish to. These legislative amendments will broaden the type of insurance arrangements that are eligible under the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme and enable appropriate insurance products to be provided to these health services. Without these amendments, no insurer has been willing to offer indemnity insurance to cover the scope of midwifery practice required by these services. Following royal assent, these changes in schedule 1 of the bill to ensure all registered-only midwives have eligibility under the allied health service schemes will take effect retrospectively from 1 July 2020, while measures in schedule 2 of the bill, to remove all employment limitations in the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme, will commence on 1 July 2021. I commend this bill to the House. 18:29 Dr FREELANDER 265979 Macarthur I would like to endorse the comments of the member for Reid and the member for Lilley, who both expressed their appropriate support the Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. I support the bill, although I think it is still quite a complex matter, and I think the bill itself doesn't go far enough in providing adequate insurance for practising midwives in Australia. In this place, I've been a somewhat repetitive speaker about support for the health of children and young Australians. I think this bill will go part of the way to encouraging better pregnancy care in Australia, but there is certainly no real, comprehensive policy on perinatal care in Australia, and that is a great deficiency. Since I came into this parliament in 2016, I've been trying to promote a child health policy called The First 1,000 Days. This provides health care for children, from preconception, through pregnancy and up until the age of two years. If we can provide the very best health care that we can for children in that time frame—the first 1,000 days of life—then we know that the health and economic outcomes will be much, much better than trying to retrofit health policy once children are older. The First 1,000 Days, in particular, looks at the work that we can do for things like preventing stillbirth, which has already been mentioned; improving pregnancy outcomes; reducing premature birth; reducing the incidence of low-birth-weight babies; and reducing the number of preventable causes of neonatal disability, such as rubella, foetal alcohol syndrome and other infections during pregnancy. People are talking about a particular virus that can cause injury to an unborn child, cytomegalovirus, which there is a developing immunisation for. All these things mean that the outcomes for children are much, much better and therefore the health costs over life are much reduced. Pregnancy is a dangerous time. Pregnancy loss amongst already recognised pregnancy is as high as 15 per cent, but unrecognised pregnancy loss is certainly much greater. Up to 50 per cent of all fertilised eggs are lost even before implantation. Miscarriages occur in up to one in five confirmed pregnancies before 20 weeks. However, having said that, Australia is one of the safest places in the world for a baby to be born. Perinatal death occurs, including stillbirth at term, about eight times per 1,000 births in Australia. There were 2,790 babies who died in the perinatal period in Australia in 2018. Three-quarters were stillbirths and the remaining almost 700 were neonatal deaths. We estimate that, with appropriate care, up to a third of the stillbirths and a third of the neonatal deaths could have been prevented. Part of the way that we can prevent it is by providing good pregnancy care. I've worked with many midwives over many years who have provided wonderful care to women during pregnancy. But pregnancy care includes many other things. It includes things like advice about when to get pregnant and about contraception. It includes advice about how to stay healthy during pregnancy, avoiding toxins such as alcohol and cigarettes, avoiding recreational drugs, avoiding things like infections that could be prevented, avoiding poor diet, and treating illnesses that occur during pregnancy and trying to manage things like gestational diabetes. All of these are managed mostly by midwives. Whilst they can be managed through GPs, obstetricians and gynaecologists, in this day and age the gap costs of seeing doctors and midwives privately are quite expensive and beyond the reach of many of Australians, so people are having to resort to being seen in public hospital obstetric outpatient units. These are very good and they're staffed by excellent midwives, but waiting lists are long and in some of the rapidly growing suburbs they cannot cope with the load. There's the cost of investigations during pregnancy. The gap cost for an obstetric ultrasound is as high as $100 in many areas of Australia, so people are avoiding them because of those gap costs and are not getting adequate investigations during pregnancy, and this can have outcomes for health care. There is no overall plan from this government and certainly from many of the state governments about Australia-wide obstetric care, and that's a huge deficiency in Australia. In other countries, it's totally different. The Scandinavian countries have fantastic electronic records and fantastic pregnancy health care which is all provided by the state, free of charge. This includes midwifery care during pregnancy; it includes postnatal care, and that's very important; and it also includes hospital care. Yet, in Australia, if people want to see an obstetrician privately during their pregnancy and have regular follow-up care, the cost can run into many thousands of dollars. Again, that is prohibitive for many people, certainly in my electorate of Macarthur. The government has no plan to be able to reduce this, which is a great tragedy and which I think is not leading to the best possible care. We rely on our midwives. This bill will improve the pool of midwives available for obstetric care, but it doesn't go far enough. We need an Australia-wide plan and Australia-wide support for this policy. There's nothing from the government on this. This tweaks that a little bit, but it doesn't really change the outcomes for many pregnancies. The other thing that is very important in midwifery care is postnatal care. We've heard, from the member for Reid and the member for Lilley, about the problem of postnatal depression, but there are many other postnatal problems that can be avoided with appropriate midwifery care. They include postpartum infections, postpartum bleeding, postpartum iron deficiency and other vitamin deficiencies, difficulties with breastfeeding, difficulties with maternal infant bonding, problems with post-delivery contraception et cetera. These are things that can be managed very well by our very good midwives. As I said, I've worked with many, many of them, as a team, and certainly many of them have saved my bacon on a number of occasions. Because they have very good personal relationships with the mothers and also with the babies, they know when things are not right and they know when treatment is required. So the more we can do to support midwifery care the better. This bill doesn't go far enough and there's much more we could do. This bill will support midwives who provide hospital care. It doesn't support those involved in homebirths, and, while I'm not a supporter of homebirths, it is a reality and we need to do more to support midwives who are providing homebirths. By doing that, I'm sure we can avoid some of the problems that can occur. We also need to do more with our Indigenous population. For them, it is very important to have birth on country, and we need to do more to support our Indigenous population to provide those services. In a couple of weeks time, I'm visiting the Shoalhaven area to look at a birthing unit run by the local Indigenous community. It's staffed by midwives and they provide a fantastic service to the local Indigenous population, and we need to do everything that we can to support units like Waminda around the country. We need to do much more to improve obstetric services in our country towns and regional centres. It's been very difficult to recruit obstetric care, even to outer metropolitan electorates like my electorate of Macarthur, because the costs of insurance are high. The gap cost for providing obstetric care is prohibitive for many people, so fewer and fewer people are using private obstetricians and more reliance is put on the public hospitals. Many of our outer metropolitan, rural and regional obstetric services are not able to provide the levels of care that we would expect in 21st century Australia. There is much, much more to be done, and from this government, again, we have no overall plan. They are nibbling at the edges but are not really providing a comprehensive policy solution to obstetric care in Australia, and it's time that we had it. It's all right if you live in the centre of Sydney close to the big teaching hospitals: North Shore Hospital, Prince Alfred Hospital, Prince of Wales Hospital. I've worked at all those hospitals, and they have wonderful obstetric services, but we need to look at ways of replicating those sorts of services in outer metropolitan, rural and regional areas. The only way we can do that is by improving the number of midwives available for services. Recently the midwives at my hospital at Campbelltown threatened to go on strike because of underfunding and understaffing. They were persistently made to work hours—double shifts et cetera—that they believed were not allowing them to provide the service that they wanted to their clients. We need to do much, much more, and it requires a policy solution. It doesn't require just nibbling at the edges. There needs to be a comprehensive obstetric-care management plan for the whole of Australia, and that should include not just the teaching hospital inner-city areas. It needs to be in outer metropolitan, rural and regional areas. If you go to any rural area, you will find one of the biggest health complaints from young couples is that they cannot get obstetric care close to where they live. Many families have to relocate to the city to be able to have their babies. For poorer people that is prohibitively expensive. We need better outreach services from our major obstetric units. They need to take responsibility for the levels of care not just in their local areas but in the rest of the country. It's no longer reasonable that health care should be better if you live next door to North Shore Hospital or Prince Alfred Hospital than if you live in country New South Wales or the South Coast or the North Coast. We need to do much better with providing comprehensive care around Australia. We need to recruit more midwives. We need to make it viable for them to provide a service to people in the community, and we need to make sure that people can afford their care. My personal view is that all obstetric care should not come at a cost to the patient, because we need the very best care for our children. I've mentioned the first thousand days. This is a comprehensive policy that provides health care from prior to conception, through the pregnancy and afterwards to the age of two and includes a whole range of things like child development, infant nutrition, breastfeeding, developmental assessment—a whole range of health issues that we can do through an appropriately trained and appropriately funded midwifery workforce. Some of the biggest supporters of the first-thousand-days policies have been midwives. Indeed, they have been Indigenous midwives, because they know how important those early times are for the future of their children and the future of their communities. So, whilst I support this bill, it's only a very small part of the solution. All of us who are parents and grandparents understand how much we invest in our children, but the country needs to do that as a whole and make sure that all our children have access to the very, very best health care that they can get. I'd like to say at the end how grateful I have been for all the midwives who have helped me in my career. The work they do is just fantastic. I have been privileged to work with some fantastic obstetric carers, including midwives and obstetricians. Long may they continue to provide the care that they do. Thank you. 18:44 Mr SHARMA 274506 Wentworth It's a privilege to talk on the Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2021, which is fundamentally about giving mothers-to-be and parents-to-be choice and control. It's about supporting the principle that mothers-to-be should be at the centre of maternity care and the birthing process and that they should have access to a wide range of choices about how they give birth. The amendments made by this bill will mean that all privately practising midwives can access one of the Commonwealth's medical or midwife indemnity schemes. The bill implements the 2021-22 budget measure in two distinct ways. Firstly, it expands the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme and the Midwife Professional Indemnity Run-off Cover Scheme to cover claims made against midwives in private practice whose registration has been endorsed by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia to prescribe scheduled medicines—so-called eligible midwives—irrespective of whether the midwife is covered under a professional indemnity insurance policy as an employee or in an independent capacity. This addresses an anomaly that had arisen depending upon what sort of insurance policy midwives held, either as an employee or in an individual capacity, to make sure that both categories of midwife can nonetheless access the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme and the Midwife Professional Indemnity Run-off Cover Scheme. This was a particular request of the Aboriginal community-controlled health services, who sought government support to ensure access to an insurance product for their employed midwives, and this amendment will help ensure that. This cohort of midwives had been unable, up to this point, to obtain indemnity insurance to extend their services to intrapartum care under an indemnity insurer. The second thing this bill does is amend the Medical Indemnity Act 2002 to ensure that claims made against midwives in private practice whose registration is not endorsed by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia to prescribe scheduled medicines—so-called registered-only midwives—are nonetheless eligible under the Allied Health High Cost Claims Scheme and the Allied Health Exceptional Claims Scheme, where the claim relates to incidents that occurred on or from 1 July 2020. Previously, claims against some registered-only midwives were not eligible for the allied health schemes, based on whether the midwife could be expected to be covered by an employer's indemnity arrangements. What this does is create parity of arrangements for all other registered allied health professionals under the allied health schemes. It means that employed endorsed midwives currently not participating in the midwife schemes will have the choice to stay under their current arrangements, and if an eligible claim is made in these circumstances the allied health schemes will respond. This flexibility supports midwives to work in a variety of different arrangements without their indemnity insurance being a barrier. Amendments made by this bill will mean that claims against all privately practising midwives will be eligible under the Commonwealth's medical and midwife indemnity schemes if an eligible medical indemnity claim is made. Continuity of midwifery care is the gold standard of maternity care because it leads to the best possible outcomes for mothers and babies. As we know from research, care from the one midwife throughout pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period results in better satisfaction with the birth experience for mothers, greater likelihood of carrying the baby to term, reduced birthing trauma for the mother and the baby, an increased chance of breastfeeding successfully and better outcomes for babies. The end result is happier parents, happier babies and less cost to the health system. Fundamentally, that is what this bill is about. I have been a partner to three births in my own family, all of which were facilitated by midwives. The first birth was done in the midwife's home, the second birth, in the United States, was done at home and the third birth was in a midwifery centre attached to a hospital here in Australia. My wife and I are both great supporters of and believers in the valuable services that midwives provide and the level of care and support they provide to parents-to-be, both mothers and fathers, and of course to the babies. I know personally—and certainly my wife does as well—that we would not have had the birthing experience we enjoyed with our three children without the care and support, the attention and the nurturing love and affection of the midwives with whom we worked, both in the United States and in Australia. We had our first two children in the United States, where many people would know that the practice of obstetrics is a highly medicalised one. My wife and I, having our first child, were quite put off by the directness of the obstetricians we dealt with and their insistence that things would have to run a certain way and that the birth would occur on a certain day in a certain fashion. That's why we sought out other assistance. We found midwives who practised at a clinic in Alexandria, Virginia. That's where we had our first baby, Diana. That experience was immensely positive. The midwives were thoroughly professional, caring, attentive and nurturing. They did their job exceptionally well, with a high level of care and to a high standard of care. That experience led us on to having our second child at home in Washington DC, with midwives in attendance, and then in Australia, because that was not an option, having our third child at a birthing centre attached to the hospital just down here in Deakin in the ACT. As I said, midwives deserve all the support they can get from us here in the parliament and us in Australia. This bill, by helping to give mothers-to-be and parents-to-be choice and control, supports the principle that women should be at the centre of maternity care and birthing choices and that they should have access to a wide range of birthing choices. The amendments made by this bill will go some way to addressing some anomalies and ensuring midwives continue to play an important role in our society, in the life of families and in the arrival of new children into the world. I commend this bill to the House. 18:51 Dr HAINES 282335 Indi I rise in support of the Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. This bill amends the Medical Indemnity Act 2002 and the Midwife Professional Indemnity (Commonwealth Contribution) Scheme Act 2010 to expand eligibility for claims against privately practising midwives under the Commonwealth's medical and midwife indemnity schemes. Specifically, this bill amends the Medical Indemnity Act to ensure that claims against midwives in private practice whose registration is not endorsed by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia to prescribe scheduled medicines, registered-only midwives and midwives covered under their own insurance contract are now eligible under the Allied Health High Cost Claim Indemnity Scheme and the Allied Health Exceptional Claims Indemnity Scheme where the claim relates to incidents that occurred on or from 1 July 2020. This bill also amends the Midwife Professional Indemnity (Commonwealth Contribution) Scheme Act 2010 to expand the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme and the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme Run-off Cover Commonwealth Contributions Scheme, also known as the midwife schemes, to remove criteria relating to the employment arrangement of midwives that have resulted in certain privately practising midwives being excluded from the midwife schemes. Importantly, this amendment will enable key Aboriginal community controlled health services to choose to access professional indemnity insurance for their employed midwives who have been endorsed by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. These changes support flexibility in arrangements and supports midwives to work in a variety of different engagements without their indemnity insurance being a barrier. This bill provides certainty to insurers of the Commonwealth's ongoing commitment to subsidise the costs associated with medical negligence claims against privately practising midwives, further incentivising insurers to provide professional indemnity insurance in midwives in private practice. This bill is being developed in consultation with the Australian College of Midwives. I want to congratulate the minister and his office on bringing forward this bill. I want to note the minister sharing with the House that he is the son of a nurse and a midwife. I want to note that that shows, because he seems to truly understand the role of a midwife. I know that, because of his comments when he said, 'This is about giving mums-to-be choice and control. That's what is so fundamentally important as well as protection.' Midwives know that, and the minister knows that too. He went on to say, 'This supports the principle that women are the centre of maternity care and they should have access to a wide range of birthing choices.' I note, the comments from the member for Wentworth and his very heartfelt appreciation of the role that midwives played in the birth of his three children. He highlighted the role that midwives play in providing a choice for home birth. I commend him for his words. I appreciate them, as a midwife and on behalf of many midwives across the nation. Importantly, this bill enables indemnity insurance for midwives working in ACCHOs. This is so important to ensure that culturally sensitive, enabling maternity care can be provided by midwives working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in these settings, programs such as Birthing on Country. There is an urgency to redress unacceptable maternal and infant health outcomes for First Nations families in Australia, and Birthing on Country programs are a way forward to address this. The terms 'birthing on country' and 'birthing on country models' are generally not well understood. The Australian College of Midwives describes them as: … a metaphor for the best start in life for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies and their families which provides an appropriate transition to motherhood and parenting, and an integrated, holistic and culturally appropriate model of care for all. Birthing on Country models can be described as maternity services that are designed, developed, delivered and evaluated with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and that encompass some or all of the following points: they are community based and governed; they provide for the inclusion of traditional practices; they involve connections with land and country; they incorporate a holistic definition of health; they value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as well as other ways of knowing and learning; they encompass risk assessment and service delivery; and they are culturally competent. Accordingly, Birthing on Country models can be incorporated in any setting, whether in a rural setting or in a metropolitan one. I want to highlight this evening a study reported in the Lancet Global Health journal in May 2021. It reported on a multiagency partnership between two Aboriginal community controlled health services and the Mater Mothers public hospital, where they designed, implemented and evaluated a new Birthing in Our Community service. Between 1 January 2013 and 30 June 2019, 1,867 First Nations babies were born at the Mater Mothers public hospital, and women receiving the Birthing on Country service were more likely to attend five or more antenatal visits, more likely to have exclusive breastfeeding on discharge, less likely to have a baby born preterm, and their outcomes were seen as being highly satisfying for the women. This study has shown the clinical effectiveness of the Birthing in Our Community service. It was co-designed by stakeholders and underpinned by Birthing on Country principles. The widespread scale-up of this new service should be prioritised. I want to pay tribute to Professor Sue Kildea and Professor Sue Kruske, who have an enormous canon of work in this space and have contributed a significant evidence base to underpin public maternity services policy for First Nations women. They are truly champions. Dedicated funding, knowledge translation and implementation science are needed now to ensure that all First Nations families can access Birthing on Country services that are adapted for their specific context. I want to congratulate the government on the $15 million budget line for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mothers and babies grant opportunities for Indigenous led research that translates into culturally safe pregnancy, birth and postpartum care. This is really important. There's been a dramatic impact of COVID on women's choice and control during pregnancy and childbirth. This bill could assist in increasing women's access to the models of care that they really seek in order to feel safer and feel more in control of their births. Midwives are essential providers of public health care, and they contribute to enormously improved outcomes, especially for women who may not experience equitable access to maternity care. Midwives provide care, counselling, screening, vaccinations and sexual and reproductive health care in addition to pregnancy, birth and postnatal care. There's a lack of understanding about the impact and the value of midwifery practice on public health outcomes. The WHO's State of the World's Midwifery 2021 report calls for the expansion of midwifery led models of care to promote the health and wellbeing of the globe's mothers and babies. This has never been more evident and important than during the COVID pandemic. To understand the impact of COVID on birthing women and their families, last year the Australian College of Midwives conducted a survey of women's experiences of maternity care at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. They wanted to explore and gain insight into women's experiences as well as their challenges, uncertainties and fears. Almost 3,000 women completed that survey. Those respondents reported feeling isolated, alone and unsupported by the evolving changes of the pandemic, which led to anxiety, concern and distress. Wherever I meet them, midwives tell me that they have never before seen as many calls for help for mental health support for the women they care for. Many women expressed concern for their mental health in this survey. The results revealed that women were seeking alternative options to mainstream maternity care in an unprecedented way, and this included an exponential shift in looking for and asking for midwifery continuity-of-care services such as midwifery group practice, birthing centres and homebirth, either publicly provided or public-private provided. Despite seeking other options, a large proportion of women indicated that they have not been able to find the kind of care they were really looking for. Alarmingly, three per cent of the more than 1,000 women who had reconsidered their care were considering birthing without any assistance at all at home—something known as free birth—and that's really disturbing. It's imperative that the results of the survey and the views expressed by the women who contributed to it be considered in informing maternity policy in both the post-COVID-19 recovery phase and, importantly, a longer-term future. It's now clear that many low-risk Australian women consider homebirth a safe option when attended by qualified clinicians. The evidence on whom homebirth is safe for is now very well-established. Large population based studies and subsequent systematic reviews and meta-analyses consistently demonstrate that planned homebirth is a safe option for women with low-risk pregnancies. This evidence means that there are real opportunities for service choice expansion and cost reduction. However, there remain many barriers to achieving this. On 18 September 2019, when speaking on the Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2019, I highlighted the need to include intrapartum care for homebirth in the indemnity cover for privately practising registered endorsed midwives. Unfortunately, this amendment has still not addressed this aspect of midwifery practice. Right now, section 284 of the national law has a transitional period of exemption until 31 December this year. My understanding is that this will be extended until 2023, but that does not solve the fundamental issue of no insurance for intrapartum care in a home setting when women wish to choose this—and what we know is that more women do wish to choose this. Meeting the needs of women is a hallmark of a high-quality maternity system. A decade of Australian maternity service reviews have highlighted that women want increased access to models of care that include homebirth. The majority of women who access homebirth options do so through engaging a privately practising midwife—and that's very expensive. Medicare is available for antenatal and postnatal care but not for the birth. The average out-of-pocket costs for women giving birth at home with a privately practising midwife is around $5,000. While there has been growth in publicly funded models across the country, with really reassuring evaluations, very few women can access this care. This bill will certainly help optimise midwifery care, but there is much more policy tidying up to be done to ensure midwives can provide the care women want in the settings where they want it. For example, there is a practical safety problem when it comes to MBS item No. 82120 for the management of labour in a health service by a participating midwife. Anyone who has ever worked in a continuity-of-care model for birthing women—and I am someone who has—knows that the 12-hour rule is deeply problematic for any midwife who may be called to care for their client in labour when they have spent all day working in antenatal or postnatal care. The midwife must fulfil the 12 hours before transferring care to another participating midwife. This could easily be remedied by a change to the regulations around that item number. I'd be most pleased to work with the minister's office to set that right. In summary, this is a good bill and it addresses some deficiencies in the last one. But there is still a lot to be done to make sure that, as the minister himself highlighted, women truly have quality of care, control and choice. A few more policy levers need to be pulled to make sure women have the safest, highest-quality care—and we know that, for low-risk women, that is continuity-of-care models. There is overwhelming evidence that continuity-of-care models, with midwives, lower the rate of stillbirth, lower the rate of birth interventions, increase the rate of breastfeeding and increase the woman and her family's satisfaction with the care that they have. Midwifery group practice, birthing centres and homebirth can make that happen. So we need more publicly funded models of homebirth. We need to fix the Medicare issue with homebirth by having privately practising midwives. We need to continue to grow the birthing-on-country models in both urban and regional settings. And we need to include indemnity cover for intrapartum care in the home by a privately practising midwife. I wish to acknowledge the extraordinary work of midwives as champions of public health, as guardians of safe birth, as guardians of women's health and wellbeing and as the firm and loving hands that see a baby born into our nation and set them up for a high-quality healthy life into the future. I commend this bill to the House. 19:05 Mr LAMING E0H Bowman Another strong supporter of these amendments for midwives—and it follows two decades of law reform both at the Commonwealth level, in indemnity, and through state tort law reforms for what was an escalating crisis 20 years ago. I found myself flying over the Gulf of Carpentaria when one of the largest medical indemnifiers collapsed in 2001. We landed, with the health minister, and we picked the phone up and discovered that we had an indemnity crisis that had been predicted by doctors. Government at the time had been slow to respond, mostly because there was some shifting of blame as to whether state or Commonwealth law reform was required. It was recognised that New South Wales was probably the worst jurisdiction in the world for medical litigation. That tort law reform in that state came far too late and was very much something that the rest of the nation was waiting for. There's a bit of a story behind that for midwives. While we've seen plenty of lip service for midwives, it was during the Labor administration that there was insufficient evidence to protect homebirth midwives, and legislation that was passed put those midwives at significant risk. This side of the chamber fought very hard, in opposition, to ensure that that coverage occurred and that there was a victory. But today's not a day for pointing out what the other side of politics may or may not have done. That was done a little bit earlier, by an earlier speaker, a former president of the ACTU. In essence, Australia has a very good record of having made changes to medical indemnity for both doctors and nurses, and today is about fixing up some minor anomalies in the legislation. It was always intended to cover midwives and now will, as a result of the passage of this bill tonight. But I want to spend a little bit of time just to make very clear the history of reforms, back in 2001 through to 2004, involving Kay Paterson, Helen Coonan and of course Prime Minister John Howard. The reason it's important is that those very same models not only have stood the test of time but now are being applied to midwives in this country. Australia had these unique challenges, which I'd like to run through very briefly, because doctors two decades ago faced the same concerns that midwives would today about inadequate coverage—a concern that obviously the insurers of doctors two decades did not capture, under AHPRA; they were basically mutuals, making their own rules, setting their own premia and reluctant to increase those premia, because they wanted to make sure they kept their customers. There was a time there to set up a medico-legal committee to make some of those tougher decisions. Australia was witnessing, in the nineties, an increase in medical litigation. We could see the problem coming. It was like a train coming down the tracks. Prior to that, at the time of my graduation and in the late eighties, it wasn't a big issue for doctors; it wasn't seen as a major concern. But the failure to appropriately price in the changes to premia created an emerging gulf. So, the collapse of United was obviously expected to occur at one stage or another. The HIH collapse that came a couple of years later further compounded it because of the reinsurance model that involved other insurers. A claims-incurred basis represented about three-quarters of the challenge here and hadn't been reported. So, Australia had to set up an exceptional-claims scheme, a high-cost claims scheme, an incurred-but-not-reported scheme and a run-off-cover scheme. And, as has been pointed out by a previous member on my side who's also a medical specialist, there was this invidious situation whereby, as you were winding down your practice, you simply couldn't earn enough money to pay your own indemnity cover. That is a big problem, because many of the cases that come before an insurer could be well after you've retired. This 'tail' that we talk about in indemnity is utterly important to cover as well. At the time, there was an indemnity review. I remember the work of Kay Paterson in particular. I remember the work of the chief of staff and the senior advisers in this space, getting advice from the doctors as much as from insurance experts in Helen Coonan's area about how to design a solution. At the time, as I recall, UMP was insuring about 90 per cent of New South Wales doctors. This explosion in claims was a massive concern, and there was frustration that New South Wales wasn't taking the tort law response seriously enough to put some caps on these claims, which were increasingly viewed within the community as utterly ridiculous. The IBNRs were contributing to this crisis. We could see that there was a devastating effect on medical confidence and the willingness to even continue practices. There was a case with UNP where, when they asked—to survive—their members to pay a year of premia in advance to keep some liquidity in their system, many members simply refused to pay and walked, which further compounded the situation. This is a classic example where the only solution is for government to move in and fix what effectively is a genuine failure in the market. Things took a turn for the worse, as I said, when we also lost HIH. As an early provider myself around the year 2004, it was so encouraging to know that, after a certain threshold, a certain percentage of your annual income, any further premia were covered—80 per cent of them—by the government. These same mechanisms will be there for midwives. Of course, midwives operate in an even more fraught environment. Not all of them are employed in the public sector. Many do work in the Aboriginal community controlled sector. To them, I say: this legislation is for you. We want to make it possible that, in this large and dispersed nation, if you are in the care of an Aboriginal community controlled service and choose to have your baby on country, we can provide the most highly trained midwives with full confidence that they will have their medical indemnity up to date and effective. That's important, and it should be available to all endorsed midwives, irrespective of their employment status—and that is very important as well. In conclusion, there were always, I think, very, very good intentions with this legislation. A very small anomaly has been identified that does get closed with this legislation. But, for every reason, both sides of this chamber can say to the nation that these laws provide the coverage that midwives deserve. 19:11 Ms PAYNE 144732 Canberra I rise to speak on the Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Bill 2021. This bill will amend the Medical Indemnity Act and the Midwife Professional Indemnity (Commonwealth Contribution) Scheme Act. It will expand the coverage of professional indemnity insurance schemes to a group of midwives who, due to gaps in the current legislation, have been excluded unfairly due to their employment status. In Australia, midwives are registered under the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. Midwives are characterised as either registered or endorsed. Registered midwives are registered to provide midwifery care only, while endorsed midwives are registered to provide midwifery care and to prescribe medicines. Currently, if you are a midwife in Australia, you have two options when accessing professional indemnity insurance schemes. These are allied health schemes available to registered and endorsed midwives, and the professional midwife scheme, which only covers endorsed midwives. However, both schemes exclude midwives in certain circumstances. If you are a registered midwife who holds insurance through your employment contract, you are ineligible for the allied health scheme. In the professional midwife scheme, if your employer is not also a midwife and the other stakeholders and directors of the company you work for are not midwives, you are excluded. This has particularly impacted midwives working in Aboriginal community controlled health services and has meant that the range and quality of midwifery services being accessed in remote Indigenous communities has been restricted. The changes made in this bill will be an important step forward in improving maternity care offered to First Nations communities and in closing the gap in outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous mothers and babies. We must continue to do more to ensure that First Nations mothers are fully supported with culturally sensitive support and care throughout their pregnancies. It is important that all midwives, irrespective of their personal employment contracts, have access to indemnity schemes. This bill will ensure that they do. These amendments bring our legislation into line with the established Commonwealth policy to ensure that claims made against all registered midwives have coverage and that there is parity in the arrangements for all registered allied health professionals. This bill explicitly ensures that all midwives who have previously been excluded will be able to access the scheme regardless of their individual employment status. Key stakeholders have been advocating this change for a significant period of time. The College of Midwives in particular have been key to ensuring that this change is introduced, and I want to thank them and their members for their hard work in seeing this through. I'd also like to acknowledge the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Foundation, who have supported the implementation of the expanded access for midwives. However, there is still work to be done. Unfortunately, this bill fails to cover homebirths, largely as a result of resistance from insurance companies. I note and welcome the commitment of the minister to continue to work towards homebirth coverage and encourage Australia's medical insurance industry to engage constructively with the government and other stakeholders to ensure that this is achieved. When it comes to midwifery and birth in Australia, homebirth isn't the only issue that requires more attention from this parliament and legislatures across Australia. I want to talk about continuity of care and the care that we give more generally to mothers here in Australia. These issues became more apparent to me because of two things. One was when I became a mother myself. The other was when I was preselected and then elected. It became apparent to me that these issues are so important to so many people in the community. They talked to me and asked if I would advocate on these issues. The key issues are around choice for mothers. Mothers want some choice, and homebirth is an issue there. Midwives don't have the coverage to enable more women to have that choice if that's what they want. When you're a first-time mother, you are very vulnerable to what you are told and the access to care that you have. In particular, women in First Nations communities, in remote Australia et cetera, are at the hands of whatever is available for them to have that care through pregnancy and birth. I met with a wonderful group in my electorate called Maternal Health Matters. They were previously called Safe Motherhood. Their goal is for all mothers to have respectful care and safe motherhood. I had never thought about the concept of safe motherhood before. When we have our babies we are quite vulnerable. There is much that can be done to improve the care for women, and midwives are such an important part of that. I want to acknowledge the work that midwives do every day. They come into a moment that is incredibly transitional in the life of a family, not just for the mother but for the partner and baby as well. Midwives deal with what can be an incredibly stressful and challenging—and usually wonderful—situation. I want to thank them. In particular, I want to acknowledge the midwives at the Canberra Hospital who helped me give birth to my two beautiful babies. When I met with Maternal Health Matters, early on, we talked about the care that mothers receive, particularly the call for continuity of care, which, evidence supports, is the most important thing for a mother to be able to access in terms of their outcome and that of their baby. The evidence points to this as being incredibly important for the health of mother and baby, during and following birth. Here in Australia we do very well, in terms of mother and infant mortality, with the exception of First Nations communities. But we don't do so well on the comorbidities around motherhood. We have high rates of postnatal depression. Around a third of women describe birth as traumatic. There is a lot more we can do for that. Continuity of care with a known midwife throughout your pregnancy and birth can help a lot. As a relatively recent first-time mother, I can say that to have the same person that you were seeing throughout that pregnancy means so much. For me, that was my GP because I couldn't access the continuous midwife care here in the ACT—simply because it's so popular. So many people want to access that. In discussing these issues with Maternal Health Matters they said we judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable. A penny dropped for me: we don't see new mothers as vulnerable in this country. We see babies as vulnerable, not so much mothers. And they absolutely are. This is a huge transition in their lives that can really go either way. It's that support from their community, from doctors but also from midwives, that we could have through this continuity-of-care model. Many constituents have also written to me about this issue and about a new documentary that's come out, called Birth Time, in which Australian mothers share their journey. I've not yet been able to see this, but I'm going to a screening of it with Maternal Health Matters in July. I hope many in our community will be able to come along to that. It highlights some of the shocking realities that women face, and it shines a light on the unspoken epidemic of postnatal depression. Suicide is the leading cause of maternal death in the developed world. There is more that the federal government can do about this issue, because only eight per cent of Australian women have access to this model of care. I really hope that, as a parliament, this is something we can consider further and work further on. Again, I'd like to acknowledge all the people in my community who've written to me about this issue, the great work that Maternal Health Matters does and the midwives who support new mothers and their babies every day. 19:21 Mr KEOGH 249147 Burt It's my privilege to be able to speak on this very important bill, the Medical and Midwife Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2021, before the parliament today. Of course, we're happy to support the outcomes that are sought by this legislation, to make sure that we are extending the availability of insurance arrangements to this very important cohort in our medical and health system across Australia, in particular our midwives. Ms Kearney LTU Hear, hear! Mr KEOGH 249147 I hear the support from the member for Cooper and gratefully receive it, given her great history in that profession and of representing that cohort in our health professions. As a father of two, I have experienced the great work of midwives in our hospital system, but I'm very well aware—through friends and family who have utilised and sought to utilise midwifery services in a range of different modes—of the importance of making sure that they have that access to midwifery care and that it can be properly insured and made available to as many people as possible. The member for Canberra was just remarking on continuity of midwifery care. I think this is really important. I've also been contacted about this issue by groups from across our community, including midwives who live in the electorate that I represent and work in the hospitals in and near my electorate. Indeed, some people I knew when I was in high school who are now midwives have raised this issue. Frankly, it was something that I had not thought that much about, even going through the birth of my own children. But, when the issues that relate to continuity of care were presented to me, as well as the better outcomes—not just for the babies but also for the mothers and the entire family—as a result of that different mode of care, it became very clear to me that we need to make sure something is done differently in terms of the funding mechanisms and models for midwifery care to enable and encourage the states, in their delivery of that care, to make sure that families get better outcomes as they go through this critical time. As the member for Canberra was just remarking, often we can take for granted in 21st-century Australia—especially in our urban centres and cities, where we may be able to live very proximate to great hospitals and healthcare systems—just how dangerous and stressful the entire pregnancy period is, for the mother, for both the parents involved and for the soon-to-be siblings in that changing family environment. We forget how dangerous pending motherhood, pregnancy and childbirth actually are. It's really only very recently in our development that we've been able to take these great leaps forward in our medical care and in the availability and changing modes of midwifery care. We've learnt more about how we used to deliver that care and we've made sure that the modes that were available and have since become unavailable are available again but in a safer environment. It was dangerous. We lost many mothers through childbirth. There were conditions that simply don't exist anymore or, where they do, we know how to treat properly. We know how to identify the risk factors involved and make sure that different types of care or child birthing procedures are used so that we don't place the mother or the child at risk. They are things that we didn't know 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago but can pick up on now. If there is continuity of care, we can pick up on them better and we can relieve stress for mothers. We can relieve stress for mothers more by making sure that the way they wish to deliver is available to them and that we can meet families where they are at. That is not just about whether they get to utilise these services in a hospital, a birthing centre or at home but also about remembering that we don't all live next to or near tertiary or secondary hospitals. We should remember that many in our community who are giving birth, as they should quite rightly be able to do, are doing that in remote communities many thousands of kilometres away from the nearest hospital. Making sure that we're able to send out, make available or have locally available that midwifery care is so very important so that people can give birth on country, in their community, so that they can be surrounded by family and their key supports. Think about the experience of the last 18 months, particularly the middle months of 2020. Many women were giving birth in hospital on their own because others weren't allowed to be in the hospital with them because of COVID. Many in our modern, 21st-century urban society experienced some of the difficulty, stress and anguish experienced by those who have to travel far away from country in order to give birth utilising the improved medical facilities that are available to support families in our cities but often are not available in regional areas, remote areas or on country. We need to make sure that we are able to support those different modes by making sure that there are insurance and indemnities available via the passage of this legislation is vitally important. More broadly, we need to remember that there are conditions that we are now better able to treat and keep a better monitoring eye on. We continue to think about those in the context of physical ailment, whether it's increased blood pressure or other physiological conditions experienced by pregnant mothers. But it's important to recognise the very important role that continuity of midwifery care can and does play for mental health through being able to pick up and discern minor differences of disposition and demeanour or to ask key questions of an expectant mother, whether they are a first-time mother or this is their fourth or fifth child. It means being able to identify that—hang on!—there is something not quite right, asking key questions and getting them to do the scale test on a regular basis so that stressors on the family and particularly on the expectant mother are identified and that appropriate services are brought in or appropriate referrals are made. It means being ready to catch that family post childbirth so that we can make sure that the right services are available to them where there may be postnatal depression or related issues that can occur. It's important that we reflect and acknowledge that postnatal depression or postnatal mental health issues or illness are not limited to mothers. They are also experienced by fathers. Whilst there can be stigma associated with any sort of depression, it is important to acknowledge here in the parliament that that is not something that fathers should feel stigmatised about. If they feel depressed, if they feel that they are suffering or are not able to cope with the pressures that come with fatherhood, whether it's their first time or their umpteenth time, they should feel able to seek help. They should feel that it's okay to do that. We should better fund those services as well so that entire families are supported, because, as we know in so many walks of life, it's not just the person who may be suffering from mental ill-health but the family, the friends and the support systems around them who may also need support to help them. That's why I am very happy to support this bill. ADJOURNMENT 105 ADJOURNMENT Aged Care, Child Care, Griffith Electorate: Roads 105 19:30 Ms BUTLER 248006 Griffith Our aged-care system is in crisis. The Prime Minister has neglected older Australians for far too long. There is a reason people avoid putting their parents into aged-care facilities for as long as possible, and that is that the Liberals and Nationals, who have been in power for eight long years, have cut $1.7 billion from the system. Aged care is under increasing pressure, but it doesn't have to be like that. There are changes the government can make now to make the system better. In fact, there are 148 recommendations from the recent royal commission. The government has a blueprint for change. Now they need to deliver. The Commonwealth is responsible for the aged-care system, but, as with so many other things, the Morrison government has just failed to step up to the job. They'd rather point the finger at the states or anyone else. The Morrison government is responsible for the $1.7 billion in federal funding cuts and the terrible neglect described in the royal commission. The Morrison government was asleep at the wheel when 685 older Australians died in aged-care homes during last year's coronavirus outbreak. They were asleep at the wheel when almost 30,000 Australians died while still waiting for a home-care package. On top of the already stressed system, the Morrison government is now bungling the vaccine rollout. Families are really concerned, and residents are frightened. My electorate office hears—as I'm sure yours does, Deputy Speaker—from community members all the time, with worries about what is happening in aged care. At one of the aged-care facilities in my electorate, half of the residents were fully vaccinated, while the other half were waiting for months to receive just their first dose. It was only when I raised the issue in this chamber during question time that the government took some action. Another issue that people are constantly raising with me—and this has been the case in the entire time that I've been the member for Griffith—is child care. Unfortunately the Morrison government missed an opportunity in this year's budget to make changes to the childcare system that would make it work better for working families. The Morrison government's childcare system has failed to keep costs down. It has also failed to support second income earners in a family to work more than three days a week. People tell me that, if they go back for the fourth day, they will be paying for the privilege of going to work, after childcare costs are taken out. Parents who want to work shouldn't be discouraged from doing so because of the financial impediment. But, when putting your child into care costs more than you make to go to work that extra day, families are left with no choice. Labor has a plan to change that. An Albanese Labor government will introduce our Cheaper Child Care plan, which will cut childcare fees and put more money into the pockets of working families. Labor's plan will provide more support to more families and for longer. It will allow more second income earners to work more and contribute to this nation's economic recovery through paid employment. Experts have been calling for an investment like this for a good long time. It's good for parents, it's good for children and it's good for the economy too. In answer to those calls, though, the Morrison government has missed the mark. If you have one child in care, the Morrison government will not increase your subsidy, and, for any of the families lucky enough to receive any lift in subsidy under their plan, it will only be temporary. Labor's plan, on the other hand, will make child care cheaper for 97 per cent of families in the system, for the entire time that their children are in the system. Our plan will also make outside hours and vacation care cheaper because the subsidy lift won't just apply to families with children five years and under. Childcare fees and out-of-pocket costs are out of control under this government. Labor will fix the system for good. Deputy Speaker Vasta, another issue that you and I share is our concern about traffic congestion on the south side of Brisbane. It remains a big issue. I've spoken in the parliament many times about the need for serious funding and considered plans when it comes to managing traffic congestion. Everyone knows what it's like to be stuck in traffic. Each minute in traffic is a minute away from the important things like work, friends, downtime and, most importantly, being with family. There are a couple of huge traffic snarls in my electorate, including the Cavendish Road level crossing, which is one of the south side's worst snarls. Deputy Speaker Vasta, in your electorate of Bonner, the Morrison government has committed funding to fix the Linden level crossing, which of course I support. But we in Griffith shouldn't have to see a fatality at the Cavendish Road level crossing before something is done about that level crossing as well. It's really telling that the Morrison government's Urban Congestion Fund— (Time expired) Running Wild 106 19:35 Mr LAMING E0H Bowman The idyllic Moreton Bay islands are amazing places to visit, but thousands of local residents in my electorate suffer significant isolation challenges through lack of services. You can understand it's hard to deliver services on an island, but this particular population faces unique challenges because of the expense of travelling by water, obviously, and the distance to the services. And then, when you fund or contract a provider, the amount of money they spend getting to the island means that there is less time and less activity being delivered. That's why I want to recognise today Julie 'Chook' Larson, Terry, Emily and the team at Running Wild for the amazing work that they do. Running Wild goes to exceptional lengths to make sure that those who are most disengaged have an opportunity to connect and to be pulled in through supported employment to give them a chance at real and long-term engagement in the real economy. Chook has been doing this for many groups for many years, and she understands, on Russell Island, the unique challenges right across the Southern Moreton Bay Islands for many of these young people. In particular, some struggling with mental health challenges or other disabilities couldn't be further away from the supports that you and I take for granted. So it's Chook Larson and her team, operating from a suburban location. Tragically, after a complaint that they're operating a nonprofit in a residential area—on an island where there simply is no suitably zoned location for their work—they're facing potentially thousands of dollars of council fees as remedy. Of course, we're hoping that Redland City Council can find a way through. That's only to find that Running Wild are now struggling to get the ongoing funding that they need to do their great work. We just seem to assume here that goodhearted people are going to run nonprofits in some of the most isolated parts of Australia on the smell of an oily rag, in the hope that the next grant will turn up. That's why I'm delighted that the federal government last week, through the Department of Social Services, committed to nearly half a million dollars that basically backs Running Wild as doing the job we need to connect the most disconnected people on the Moreton Bay islands to employment opportunities. And I love the way they're doing it. They're basically forming cadetships in two teams of six and arranging conservation-like activities, ranging from setting up tackle bins in fishing locations to cleaning up foreshores. My great vision is that one day people can, through active transport, travel along boardwalks all across my electorate, including the islands. These could also potentially be constructed in the future, but for now it's the cadetships idea for employment. I do want to mention today that Running Wild is part of a larger network of high-quality providers thinking hard about how we in Queensland deal with the high number of youth justice challenges that are not even seen in other states. I've said before—the member for La Trobe will know this—that there is three times the level of vehicle related crime in Queensland compared to the average for the mainland states. We have unique crime challenges, and part of that is in the southern Brisbane area, the Caboolture area and of course Townsville. These isolated tragedies are something we can only fix right back at Children's Court level, engaging youth as early as 10 to 12 years of age, before they get on the drug journey—diverted into a resume of crime before they can even develop a resume of capability. It's groups like IntoWork that are doing great work in this space, and yourtown, BUSY At Work, Workways, Cape York Employment right up in North Queensland, Worklinks, Hope Centre, Skill360 and Mylestones Employment. They're serving all parts of this state, and it is my dream that we form a network of Commonwealth support, taking youth aged 15 to 19 into genuine and real employment. Now, you don't do it overnight, and we can turn to Minister Leanne Linard and her youth justice state department, who have done good work. From assessing the Transition to Success program, it's had good results, albeit in small numbers. But what we know from that review is that this is not a fast process. We've got to be prepared to invest in the long term. It does mean fully understanding these candidates' backgrounds and family income methods; identifying what's good in their life, what their positive influences are, what they need to change; identifying what they're doing right and wrong; and looking at living skills even before work skills. Then it's encouragement and building confidence, and tailor-making opportunities for them in the real employment world, on the ground, and their being able to relate to and be supported by other employees—because many have never had that in their upbringing. It's a challenging area. Chook Larson is doing it for the bay islands in my electorate, and I commend Running Wild for the great work that they're doing and the near half a million dollars of federal government support to deliver it. Sikh Volunteers Australia 107 19:40 Mr BYRNE 008K0 Holt I rise tonight to speak about an amazing community organisation, which I proudly acknowledge as based in my electorate. It's an organisation that has become a beacon of hope for many people in my area and in Victoria—a Victoria which has been ravaged by bushfires, the COVID-19 pandemic and now flooding. This organisation has become synonymous with the essential Australian spirit of mateship and helping out those in need. I speak of course of Sikh Volunteers Australia. On Australia Day this year, Sikh Volunteers Australia was one of four local organisations to be awarded a 2021 Holt Australia Day Award, for their response in supporting families in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given their ongoing efforts, which continue even as I speak here, I think it's appropriate to continue to acknowledge them. I want to talk just a little about their extraordinary work and the inspiration that they provide to us all. During those awful bushfires in late 2019 and early 2020, amidst the trauma, the grief and the fear, Sikh Volunteers provided hope. Let me cite the words of a Victorian police officer whose job it was to evacuate those in the bushfire ravaged areas. He said: 'The community of East Gippsland were significantly displaced during the fires, with emergency relief centres set up to provide assistance to displaced people. In my role as a police officer, knowing the devastation that the areas from Mallacoota to Bairnsdale had endured, to see the Sikh Volunteers on the ground providing hot meals to the community was a relief, knowing that the public and the emergency workers were being cared for in support of the emergency response.' He said, 'This makes me so proud, and demonstrates that each of us, no matter how small or insignificant we may feel, can do things to change people's lives through care and compassion.' Another example of the great works and feats of this group was experienced in the second lockdown in Melbourne last year, when 3,000 residents living in public housing estates in suburbs adjacent to the city were placed in hard lockdown. Sikh Volunteers again sprung into action. A team of 12 volunteers went with their vans to the towers situated in Kensington and Flemington to deliver over 1,000 much-needed meals a day. They serve vegetarian meals—for many, it was the first time in days they had been served a hot meal—and they continued to do so during the period of the lockdown. Sikh Volunteers believe that it is their duty to serve people when they need it the most. They understand that these people in the towers were very vulnerable, and that's why they went. They drove every day from Devon Meadows, which is about 70 to 80 kilometres away, to provide their, help, support, food and hope. They did that also for the frontline staff who were supporting the residents. Imagine being a resident of those towers, under siege, and seeing these great community activists and people with delicious nutritious food—hot food—who were there to provide support for you. As I said, Sikh Volunteers drove over 70km to the towers. I looked at some of the stats on their website tonight, before I spoke. I was stunned to see that Sikh Volunteers Australia had delivered, in the period of time between 18 March and 31 December 2020, 142,600 free meals for the needy during the COVID-19 crisis support period. It's just unbelievable, and they're doing this out of a large kitchen at the Sikh Community Gurmat Centre in Devon Meadows. It's just absolutely amazing. Again, in the recent two-week lockdown from 28 May to 10 June, Sikh Volunteers have been providing countless free vegetarian home delivered meals for the elderly, for single mothers, for the self-isolated, for the unemployed, for international students, for the homeless and for those in need. And they were doing that on top of a service they've been running from 21 February, which services seven council areas, including: Casey, Frankston, Mornington Peninsula, Dandenong, Cardinia, Kingston and Monash. This is an ongoing service each week to help those in need in those seven council areas. I will close by quoting that police officer I quoted before. He eloquently summarises what our community feels about these fine Australians. He said: 'The Sikh Volunteers Australia have personified the Aussie spirit, helping out our communities near and far during fire, floods, storms and COVID. When times get tough, this fine organisation stood up and still continuously stands up to this very day, and demonstrates the best of humanity in trying conditions. They provided meals to all, ensuring no-one goes without, providing for some a glimpse that in some uncertain times the spirit of kindness and compassion is very much alive. Disaster always brings out the very best in people. This organisation has earned itself a place in the heart and soul of this nation.' They certainly have, and I'm proud to speak about them in this House. Liberalism 108 19:45 Mr TIM WILSON IMW Goldstein The course of human progress is driven by empowered individuals, not acceptance by group identity. In 1853, abolitionist pastor Theodore Parker identified the necessity of perspective against the background of frustration in pursuit of a just cause, with this sermon: I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice. Parker saw the practical effect of dehumanising people into classifications over their common inherent individual dignity. Sadly, it is a lesson that much of humanity has failed to heed as it continues to learn. As political practitioners, our role is to grasp the compounded weight of history to lead to a better future. As Friedrich Hayek argued, all political ideologies have one thing in common—to empower central authorities to impose for rationalised conformity except one, liberalism. Only liberalism differs because it absorbed the lessons of lived history to understand that progress depends on empowering people. Each generation must rediscover these values, even when they've become unfashionable as a society and as an economy's default setting. Populism is merely politics without principle. Popularity has no integrity when it lacks a moral purpose. That is why it is so refreshing to hear the Prime Minister recently rebuke the populism of identity politics, stating: You are more than your gender, you are more than your race, you are more than your sexuality, you are more than your ethnicity, you are more than your religion, your language group, your age. There is more weight in this statement than superficiality. The contest to respect people for their individuality or identity is a contest between conformity and diversity. The foundation of our equality is limiting our conformity to respect for our common humanity. Thereafter, tolerance is respecting people's diversity, whereas imposing acceptance based on group identity extends a person's worth based on the sanction of others. It is ultimately a pathway to dehumanisation, as the Prime Minister rightly argued. We then define each other, if we go down that other path, by the boxes we tick or don't tick, rather than by our qualities, skills and character, and we fail to see the value that other people hold as individuals, with real agency and responsibility. That is the divide that rests between the two sides of this chamber. Politics is about power and, critically, who is empowered to take responsibility. To define people by groups is to empower those that claim leadership through the disempowerment of others, whereas to respect agency and responsibility empowers individuals and the organic institutions that they form—family, community and enterprise. As Liberals we want Australians to determine their own future and have the freedom to secure reward through risk and responsibility. We empower Australians to form the organic institution of family as the building block of society because we know it is the greatest form of social welfare across all stages of life. We empower Australians through voluntary community organisations as the first stitches in our broader social fabric, because we know ownership is the best means to encourage action today and to conserve its benefits for tomorrow. We empower Australians to own their home as the foundation of their economic security in their working life and retirement because we know that you can save for retirement after you own a home but you can't save for a home in retirement. We seek to empower Australians to pursue enterprise to drive innovation, growth and opportunity for themselves and as a pathway for employment for others, because there is no greater selfishness than dependence on others when you can stand and help others, too. The extent that we seek to empower central government is to ensure these ends, because we believe the strength of our nation is built from the citizen up, the community up and commerce up, not from the Commonwealth or state capitals down. But it all depends on a simple truth, as articulated by the Prime Minister: We must never surrender the truth that the experience and value of every human being is unique and personal. …   …   … You are more, we are more, individually, more than the things others try to identify us by, you by, in this age of identity politics. It is that, our common humanity, not identity, which defines our worth and individuality and is the foundation of our nation's success. Thank you. Intergenerational Reports 109 19:50 Dr CHALMERS 37998 Rankin We now know that the fifth Intergenerational report will be handed down after parliament rises in the last week of this month. It's a really important opportunity for long-term thinking about how we make our economy and our society stronger after COVID-19 than it was before, how we create a new generation of growth and more opportunities for more Australians in more parts of the country. There was a deficit of vision in last month's budget—generational debt without a generational dividend and not enough to show for all of that spending apart from a return to the stagnation of the economy in the years leading up to the pandemic. The IGR can help rectify this short-sightedness but only if it's a serious document taken seriously by those opposite. Mr Speaker, the Intergenerational report has a chequered history. It began as a great idea, and I know that you know that, because it was hatched in your time in Peter Costello's office. The goal was to detail economic and democratic trends over the next 40 years and to analyse their impacts on government finances. The first IGR was released in 2002 and the second in 2007. I worked on the third in 2010. We took a slightly broader approach, supporting productivity through investment in infrastructure, skills and education; overhauling our health system to ensure it delivers value for money; adhering to a disciplined fiscal strategy; and addressing the challenges of climate change. Both sides delivered three quality documents. They were a credit to the Treasury. But the extreme politicisation in 2015 of the fourth IGR by the Abbott government was a very disappointing development. That was just a political exercise to justify the horror 2014 budget and to score political points over fictional Labor policies. It was clear even before COVID-19 that the government had also got some of its projections wrong. Productivity growth, rather than ramping up to the 30 year average growth rate of 1½ per cent had stagnated, and continues to stagnate, driving wages growth to historic lows. Over the five years since the last IGR was published, productivity grew by just half a per cent a year on average and wages growth averaged at just 2.1 per cent per year. The projections for real economic growth were also way off. Annual growth slowed in the ensuing five years to just 2.4 per cent on average each year. Growth in output per person slowed to just 0.8 per cent per year in the five years since the report was published. The last IGR also ignored key challenges, like climate change, altogether—one of the key intergenerational threats to our economy and budget. This month's IGR has been delayed by a year and we've barely heard peep about it. This doesn't give me confidence that it's treated as a priority or as an opportunity. Given the form of those opposite, we have low expectations for anything other than another partisan exercise designed to justify harsher cuts to Medicare and the NDIS, and that would be very disappointing again. This IGR should be an opportunity to improve long-term thinking and drive a resurgence in growth, job security, wages and broad based prosperity. It could, and should, be a pivot point to modernise our understanding and our thinking on climate and energy, on the care economy, on work and family, on digitisation, on population and on our place in the world. That's why we need to elevate and refocus the IGR. It could be released in the middle of each parliamentary term, on an agreed, consistent template, supplemented by more topical analysis. It could do a much better job of measuring what matters, like a permanent focus on intergenerational disadvantage, geographic disadvantage and economic mobility alongside all of the usual traditional economic measures. Climate change and energy should be a permanent feature as well. It could better evaluate which policies work over time, which ones represent true value for money and which ones don't. For the second time in just over a decade, Australia risks overperforming in a crisis and underperforming in the aftermath. Without a comprehensive vision for economic reform, it's unlikely that economic growth, living standards and incomes will perform any better over the next 40 years than they have in the last five. We won't get that comprehensive vision without a comprehensive IGR. That's why this Intergenerational report can't be another missed opportunity like the government's budget was. O'Connor Electorate: Western Australia Day 110 19:55 Mr RICK WILSON 198084 O'Connor The Western Australia Day long weekend is an opportunity to celebrate who we are as Western Australians. In my enormous electorate, O'Connor communities come together and celebrate in a variety of different ways. This year it was my privilege to spend the WA Day long weekend in the Northern Goldfields, where I gained a firsthand appreciation of how small communities think big when it comes to delivering for their residents and visitors. The town of Menzies has fewer than 100 residents, but on the WA Day long weekend the Shire of Menzies hosted the 92nd Menzies Classic Chas Egan Memorial Cycle Race. The Menzies Classic is the first leg of the two-stage Goldfields Cyclassic. Since 1938 this road race between Kalgoorlie and Menzies has traced the route taken by the courier cyclists of the 1890s. These courier cyclists carried messages around the goldfields before the telegraph line arrived. The first race had 24 participants, but this year over 250 cyclists, supporters and friends descended on the town to celebrate at the finish line and into the night. A sit-down dinner for several hundred people was catered for, with home-cooking by the ladies of the Konkani Volunteer Association. Then the Menzies shire put on a spectacular fireworks display which would rival any of the best pyrotechnics anywhere in Australia. Music from DJ Rev rocked the town until the last cyclists rolled their weary bodies into their swags ahead of a chilly goldfields night and another 100 kays of hard road racing the following day. The Sunday morning kicked off with a hearty community brekkie and DJ Rev rocking the start line. Cyclists hailing from Esperance, Albany, Perth and as far afield as Queensland and Tasmania headed off across the Jeedamia plains. Their route, peppered with goldmines and ghost towns, led to the finish line of the 10th Leonora Golden Wheels leg of the Goldfields Cyclassic in the main street of Leonora. Kudos goes to the Eastern Goldfields Cycle Club for their terrific organisation and promotion of this event after its cancellation last year due to COVID-19. Leonora's main thoroughfare, Tower Street, was not only the finish line for the Leonora Golden Wheels; it was also the actual running track for the 19th Leonora Golden Gift, Australia's second-highest stakes foot race. With $65,000 in prizes, along with a gold nugget for the elite event winners, there was plenty of local participation in the race as we saw young kids of all abilities running, barefoot and shod, along with novelty events like the women's and men's workboot sprint in the lead-up to the elite athletes event over 600 metres and the mile. Managing Tower Street required the precision timing of an air traffic controller as the running races were paused to allow the four classes of the cyclassic cyclists to finish across the line at speeds of up to 60 kilometres an hour. Meanwhile, up at the Leonora Bowling Club, there was a bowls championship with $26,000 in prizes and the Leonora Inland Art Prize for those with an appetite for something a little less athletic. There was something for everybody over the Leonora Golden Gift Carnival weekend. Full credit goes to the Shire of Leonora who put on a terrific weekend with free bands and children's entertainment, fireworks, street stalls and breakfast at the historic Hoover House, once home to mining engineer Herbert Hoover, who later became the 31st president of the United States. An important part of the Golden Gift Carnival weekend in Leonora was the dedication of the JG Epis Centre, named after shire chief executive officer Jim Epis, who has dedicated 40 years of his life to service to the shire. Starting as a grader driver in 1982, Jim worked his way up to the CEO by 1986 and has continued to strive to secure important infrastructure and social outcomes for his community ever since. So it's my absolute pleasure to offer my words of congratulations to Jim, who has demonstrated not only a passion but also a proven track record which could rival any of the sporting events on the weekend. Last, but by no means least, I headed back to Menzies, where a core group of cyclists and friends of Dr Ruth Murdie, a goldfields resident geophysicist, had reconvened for another special event—a citizenship ceremony Menzies style. In the council chambers, we gathered for shire president Greg Dwyer to preside over the official bestowing of citizenship on Dr Murdie. I'd been called upon to help make this ceremony possible as Dr Murdie was not a resident of any of the Goldfields local government areas. My thanks go to Minister Hawke for helping to make British-born Ruth's dream of an outback ceremony a reality. From the smiles on Ruth's face and the frenetic flag waving of all her assembled friends, I think we welcomed a proud new Aussie to our family, in true goldfields style, on the WA Day long weekend. House adjourned at 20:00 NOTICES 111 NOTICES

Wednesday, 16 June 2021

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr L O'Brien) took the chair at 10:00.

 

CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS 112 CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS Watson Electorate: Community Groups 112 10:00 Mr BURKE DYW Watson My mob celebrate the feast of All Saints in the Christian church at the beginning of November, but in the Orthodox Christian Church it's celebrated on the first Sunday following the feast of Pentecost. I want to acknowledge the All Saints parish and community in my electorate as it celebrates the annual patronal feast of All Saints, a very important event in the Orthodox calendar. His Eminence Archbishop Makarios of Australia will be represented by His Grace Metropolitan Seraphim and will celebrate Matins in divine liturgy on this day at All Saints church in Belmore. I want to congratulate the congregation on this blessed feast day. I want to also acknowledge the Korean Society of Sydney in Croydon Park in my electorate. The Korean Society of Sydney was established in 1968, and they provide a range of social services, community activities and cultural events for the Korean-Australian community locally and beyond. Last year in the height of the pandemic the Korean Society donated surgical masks and hand sanitiser to the Chinese Australian Services Society, known as CASS, for the residential aged-care facility that they've got in Campsie. Currently they're working hard to organise the Korean festival later this year, and we hope that social distancing restrictions allow it to go ahead. I want to thank Kwang Hong Yoon, the outgoing president of the Korean Society, and the incoming president, Hung Won Kang, and vice-president, Jung Hyung Noh, and the committee for their tireless work and ongoing dedication to our community. I would like to congratulate Metropolitan Basilios from the Antiochian Orthodox community, who I recently caught up with at St Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church in Punchbowl, on the blessing and sod turning ceremony marking the start of construction of St Nicholas's new 80-bed aged-care project. Having residential aged care available for people from various cultural backgrounds is a really important development in my part of Sydney. In my time as a local member I've seen community after community make sure that they are able to provide their elderly with facilities where the language is familiar, the food is familiar and the faith is familiar in their surroundings. I also want to acknowledge Hajeh Maha Abdo, CEO of Muslim Women Australia. She's stepping back from her role after 38 years. Hajeh Maha has overseen the growth of the then Muslim Women's Association, still operating from their premises in Wangee Road, Lakemba, from a small operation to now specialising in a range of services from supporting victims of domestic violence to providing TAFE courses and qualifications. It's an extraordinary organisation which has gone from strength to strength, and the legacy of Hajeh Maha is a great legacy for the organisation and for the whole of the community. Goldstein Electorate: Queen's Birthday Honours, Goldstein Electorate: Infrastructure 112 Blair Electorate: Aged Care 113 10:06 Mr NEUMANN HVO Blair I rise to speak on behalf of old and frail constituents in my electorate of Blair who are not getting the help they need from this government. They've been ignored, neglected and abandoned. Violet Franz is a 96-year-old hard-of-hearing, legally-blind widow from Leichhardt in Ipswich. Her son, Trevor, and other family members provide some assistance but Violet is a strong-willed and independent woman who's determined to live at home. Violet has been getting some minor help through the old Commonwealth Home Support Program following a referral from the regional assessment service, or RAS, but she needs far more than someone helping her shower; she needs help to live her life. Before she can receive a home-care package she needs a more complex assessment from the Aged Care Assessment Team, or ACAT. However, the RAS has told the family it couldn't even refer her for an ACAT assessment. Why? Because 'there is no money for an aged-care package'—no money to support a blind 96-year-old woman so she can age with dignity in her home. Trevor tells me his mother will fade away if no-one can assist or cut through the red tape. I spoke to an out-of-town RAS assessor at one of my recent mobile offices at a country show in Blair. She admitted to me the system is abysmal, with some people waiting for up to three years for a package and some people never receiving their care. Keith Whitfield was 91 years old, bedridden, legally blind and deaf when he died in December 2020. In 2019 he was allocated a level 2 home-care package while waiting for a level 3. He received this last year, by which time he was eligible for a level 4 package. He died before he could receive the aged care he needed and for which he was eligible. His 62-year-old son Francis was his full-time carer, living off his superannuation before qualifying for a carer's payment. Since his father passed, Francis is now unemployed and living on JobSeeker. There was no dignity for Keith in life and there is no dignity for his son and carer, Francis, following his dad's death. Then there is Daphne Muhling from Brassall. Daphne is a 92-year-old stroke survivor and widow. She calls my office regularly. She has been languishing on a level 2 package for two years while she waits for a level 3 package. Several care providers and agencies do their best to help, but it's inadequate for Daphne and for the community organisations forced to use their funds to top up services for neglected older Australians who are simply waiting for home-care packages. The system is failing. It's abysmal, cruel and unfair to frail older citizens. The response from the Morrison government was inadequate, and they squandered an opportunity in relation to the aged-care royal commission. We've got community organisations shuffling funds from various buckets while older residents wait for more substantive care that should be given to them now. It's clear this is a failed wreck of a government with no plan, no care and no responsibility for older Australians. It will be up to a Labor government to correct this problem. Moncrieff Electorate: Queen's Birthday Honours 113 10:09 Ms BELL 282981 Moncrieff It gives me great pleasure to pay special tribute to Moncrieff constituents and fellow Gold Coasters who were recognised in the Queen's Birthday 2021 Honours List just this last Monday. Dr Charles Steadman was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his significant service to tertiary medical education and to gastroenterology. Tony Cochrane was also appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his significant service to sports administration and to entertainment production. Gary Edwin, Robyn Porter, Dr David Rowlands, Kobe Steele and Alan Thomas were all awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia. Gary Edwin was awarded for his service to golf. Gary has been teaching golf since 1961 and is recognised as one of Australia's most influential golf coaches. Robyn Porter was celebrated for her service to science and the community, Dr David Rowlands for his service to medicine in general practice and Kobe Steele for her service to conservation and the environment. Kobe is the founder and president of the Orangutan Foundation International Australia. Following a visit to Borneo in 2008, Kobe decided to start up her own not-for-profit Borneo orangutan ecotours so that she could help fund the OFI care centre and support the work of its founder, Dr Birute Mary Galdikas. Under Kobe's leadership, OFI Australia has raised funds to purchase and protect further tracts of land in Borneo, extending what is now known as the Orangutan Legacy Forest. I'll move on to Alan Thomas, who was awarded for his service to horseracing. Alan's broadcasting career started on the Gold Coast in 1971. He has called 22 Magic Millions, 34 Stradbroke Handicaps and countless other feature races. Alan retired from race calling in 2015 but he continues to run the academy for young racing commentators which he founded during his time behind the binoculars and the microphone. I'd like to highlight three other Gold Coasters, well known to me, who have contributed to the Moncrieff electorate through their good work in our community. Cornelia Babbage OAM, from Multicultural Families Organisation in Southport, was highlighted for her services to the multicultural community and to domestic violence prevention. Soheil Abedian AM, founder of Sunland Group, is a Gold Coaster who has shaped the modern Gold Coast skyline, including the iconic Q1 in Surfers Paradise, through his contribution to property development. His support, passion and philanthropy for youth and education—together with that of his wife, Anne—was indeed honoured. Finally, well done to Sandra Doumany OAM and her husband, Sam, who must be very proud. Sandra is known to me as a great northern Gold Coaster, celebrated for her services to Rotary International over very many years. Congratulations, recipients, your spouses and your families for your contributions to our community in Moncrieff and across the Gold Coast more broadly. I commend you for your efforts and for your well-deserved recognition in the Queen's Birthday Honours. National Archives of Australia 114 10:12 Mr WILKIE C2T Clark The preservation of our most precious historical records is at risk. Without effective long-term federal government funding, the National Archives of Australia will at least need to cut corners and may ultimately be forced to close. This is a shameful turn of events. Our archivists collate and preserve the most important moments in Australia's history, keeping them safe for future generations. Moreover, complete and reliable records are essential for transparency and accountability in government decision-making and are critical for good policy decisions. To simply stand by and let the National Archives fade would be short-sighted and dangerous. The important historical records contained in the National Archives include examples of the development of Australia's liberal democratic system, like the 1967 referendum results, the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, the appointment of the first female Prime Minister and the evolution of our multicultural policy. These are records of our progress as a nation and must be preserved. The Archives also include thousands of records documenting the stories of people who have immigrated to Australia since 1924. The community can access these documents to trace their family's migration history, and the documents are obviously a treasure trove for those seeking to learn more about their family's path. Heavens, Mr Deputy Speaker; instead of cutting we should be celebrating, mindful that in 2011 UNESCO selected the National Archives of Australia as laureate of the UNESCO/Jikji Memory of the World Prize and, in the same year, the International Council on Archives recognised our National Archives as a global leader in responding creatively to digital record keeping and preservation. Yet, regrettably, since 2014, annual funding to the National Archives has been cut by $7 million and staff numbers slashed by 14 per cent, which is an alarming reflection of the disdain this government and previous governments have for cultural institutions in Australia. In March this year, a review of the National Archives was released in which 20 clear recommendations were provided to government, and the National Archives are on standby to digitise the most at-risk collections of historical records, which could be lost as early as 2025 without an urgent cash injection. Shamefully, the government hasn't even bothered to respond formally to the review, which shows a woeful misunderstanding of the value of preserving our history. Protecting the National Archives should be a federal government priority, not just for the countless visitors and tourists to the galleries and research centre or to protect the jobs of the 300-plus staff, but also because it's important to us as a nation. It's the very record of who we are and what we are and how we got there. Surely it must be preserved at all costs. Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art, Warrandyte Festival 114 10:15 Mr ANDREWS HK5 Menzies There have been many casualties of the COVID pandemic, especially in Victoria, where abject failure of administration to provide for adequate quarantine, to put in place workable contact tracing and even to put in a QR code, until recently, are highlights. Amongst those casualties have been the arts community and festivals that normally happen in local communities. So it was very pleasing to see that the Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art continued again this year, in its 17th iteration. The winner of the prize, who was announced at the exhibition on 6 May, went for the first time to a digital artist. James Nguyen of Murrumbeena was presented with the $20,000 prize in the open category for his moving image The Camellia Economy. This 20-minute video tells the story of a handful of seeds given to the artist by his late grandmother on his return to Vietnam. In Australia the family grew the seeds into tea plants, which they used to trade and swap in the community, symbolising for them the preservation of their culture, storytelling, care and entrepreneurship, which survived both war and exile. The local prize was won by Eltham artist Nusra Latif Qureshi for Remnant Blessings-1, an acrylic, graphite, gouache and gold on illustration board, and $10,000 was presented for that prize. The Mayor's Award went to the sculptor Clive Murray-White, an artist in residence of Dunmoochin art collective, who took home a $500 award for his work Assisted Suiseki No:9. The finalists exhibition is open currently at Montsalvat. I encourage not only constituents in my electorate but people from all around Melbourne to visit. Montsalvat, an iconic institution so far as the artists community in Melbourne is concerned, has had it tough as a result of the lockdowns from COVID. The exhibition is open from Thursday to Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm, until 1 July. I encourage people to go along, and they can also vote for the People's Choice Award. I was also delighted to be able to note that this year's Warrandyte Festival, having been cancelled last year, is likely to continue in October. 'Together Again' will be staged at Stiggants Reserve from Friday evening, 22 October, through Saturday 23 October. It has been cut down—it usually goes over into Sunday as well. The festivities will kick off on Friday night with a short film extravaganza. Saturday will feature a solid music program: kids and community choirs and the full thrust of an epic Battle of the Bands. Two major acts will play on the stage on the Saturday evening. All news about this will be found in the Warrandyte Diary, which is a wonderful newspaper in my electorate. I urge everybody to get along to the festival this year. Renewable Energy, Manufacturing 115 10:18 Ms BIRD DZP Cunningham This week, of course, we've seen the G7 meeting take place. The leading nations of the world that met reaffirmed their commitment to net zero by 2050—except, of course, Australia. We see reports today in the media about surveys of the Australian population saying that the majority of the population also supports us committing to net zero by 2050. This is a really important context in the challenges that our nation faces. For a region like mine, which has a long history of mining and manufacturing, this is particularly important. We will, of course, continue to have a role to play in those industries, but it is important to acknowledge that, as regions like mine face the international challenges of transitioning the economy, we need to be looking at and supporting new energy and manufacturing opportunities. In my area, the hydrogen industry has become particularly important. In recent years we've seen announcements, including about a hydrogen car manufacture proposal by H2X. We've seen Squadron Energy's new dual-fuel power station, which will have the capacity to move to full operation on clean hydrogen as supply becomes available. We've also seen Coregas announce earlier this year that they will develop a hydrogen refuelling station for hydrogen fuel cell trucks. We, of course, also have BlueScope Steel, which is increasingly playing its role in its energy use, looking towards more renewable energy sources. It, with its production of steel, is an important component of other sectors, such as the wind farm industry. There is the potential for new businesses from research being done at the University of Wollongong in batteries and solar and retrofitting buildings for sustainability, which are all opportunities where research can translate into new business opportunities. But this does require government policies that support the development of new energy and manufacturing capacity in regions like mine. I want to acknowledge that the government announcement in the most recent budget of $30 million for the hydrogen power plant is welcome. But we do need a broader government policy response. It's got to include local made and manufactured policies, such as the National Reconstruction Fund that Labor has announced and a future made in Australia. It's also got to include the Rewiring the Nation transformation to get the energy grid connected to the growth of renewables, the Power to the People community battery program, the electric car discount policy and very importantly announcements around the skills program to ensure local people have the skills and knowledge to take up those jobs, such as our new energy apprenticeships that we have announced. This will give young people and indeed re-training people an opportunity in those growth areas. Forde Electorate: Road Funding 115 10:21 Mr VAN MANEN 188315 Forde It's with great pleasure that I rise to speak about the latest round of black spot road funding announced in my electorate of Forde late last week. We all know the importance of road safety, and this announcement builds on a number of recent announcements by this federal government of additional funding for state and local governments for road upgrades and safety upgrades across the electorate of Forde. There are the upgrade of the Howard Creek crossing on Tamborine and Oxenford Road, the upgrade to Beaudesert-Beenleigh Road between Beenleigh and Beaudesert, with a number of sections along there, and also the upgrades to Beenleigh Redland Bay Road for safety provisions, new services, new guard rails and a range of safety improvements such as clearing vegetation from the side of the road to make visibility better. These black spot road funding announcements build on those safety initiatives already in place. These four intersections are increasingly busy and, as we know with the black spot road funding program, have a history of accidents. The intersection of Mandew Street and Leda Drive at Shailer Park will see a $120,000 upgrade to the traffic signals to amend the flow of traffic, CCTV for traffic management and a signalised left-turn slip lane. I know, as I go through that intersection regularly, how busy it is and the near misses that occur because you don't have signalised turn lanes and people try to cut in quickly because they don't want to sit in the queue. I'm sure that is a problem right around this country in a range of areas. It's interesting to note that a lot of new main road designs are putting traffic signals on left-turn lanes to prevent those very issues. Chambers Flat Road, Pleasant View Road and Kenny Road at Chambers Flat will get $400,000 for an upgrade. The intersection of Clarke Road and Lindenthal Road at Park Ridge will get a $955,000 upgrade to signalise that intersection. We were speaking about this particular intersection yesterday and, with the big new industrial estate there and the truck traffic that will start to come out of there, as well as all the residential development in that area, that will make an enormous difference. The last one is the intersection of Chambers Flat Road and School Road at Park Ridge with a $1.1 million upgrade to that intersection for signalisation. That hopefully will be done in conjunction with the existing duplication road project on Chamber Flat Road as well as other work that's being done in that area. But these projects, along with many others across the electorate of Forde— (Time expired) Nguyen, Mr Ted, Green, Mrs Oriel 116 10:24 Dr ALY 13050 Cowan I rise to acknowledge the contributions of two valued members of the Cowan community. Mr Ted Nguyen is the president of Westnam United Soccer Club. It's my pleasure to award Ted the Australian Government Certificate of Appreciation for Australian Volunteers 2021. As a young man, Ted played social football, or soccer, for the Vietnamese united team in the 1980s. He had a vision to expand the Vietnamese united soccer team, and with his leadership and drive they eventually incorporated and became the Westnam United Soccer Club. The Westnam United Soccer Club now has over 300 members and annually hosts the WA Asian cup at Westnam's home ground in Koondoola in Cowan. The team has also diversified its cultural base, and now includes a multitude of nationalities, including one-third refugees and migrants to Australia. As president of the Westnam United Soccer Club, Ted has also assisted other not-for-profit organisations by sponsoring them as the auspicing body to help them secure community grants. Ted has been a member of the WA chapter of the Vietnamese Community in Australia for the last 10 years. During that time, he has volunteered in a myriad of ways, including for the annual Tet festival, attending local government multicultural meetings and supporting Vietnamese senior citizens. Congratulations, Ted. Mrs Oriel Green from Girrawheen was recently awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the Indigenous community of Western Australia. Oriel Green is a valued and beloved elder in our community. She excels in bringing people together and making them feel a strong bond of belonging to Australia as an ancient land. In 2018 she led a cultural tour for local residents, including teachers and public servants, to increase their understanding, participation and appreciation of Indigenous connection and respect for the land of our ancestors. Oriel's work in the Northern Suburbs Reconciliation Group and the City of Stirling Reconciliation Action Plan has been at the forefront of ensuring First Nations issues and respect for First Nations people have developed. Her wise counsel is often sought. Her participation in the Follow the Dream program has been recognised throughout Western Australia. Her dedication to the local community has seen her awarded the Aboriginal Elder of the Year at the Mirrabooka NAIDOC event. I'd like to send my congratulations to both Ted and Oriel. You embody all that is great about the Cowan community. I thank you for the service that you have done for our community and the service that you continue to provide for everyone in our community. 2NBC, 1st Oatley Bay Sea Scouts 116 10:27 Mr COLEMAN 241067 Banks I want to talk today about 2NBC, an incredibly important part of our local community in the St George area. Founded back in 1983, 2NBC has provided fantastic radio coverage for almost four decades now. Just recently I met with Paul McGrath, the general manager of 2NBC. We talked about some of the great initiatives that are happening at the moment. One of the things that 2NBC is really keen to do is get more women involved in the station and more women broadcasting on the air. There's a mentoring program going on at 2NBC at the moment, which the federal government is providing a $20,000 grant towards. That's a great initiative by 2NBC. 2NBC serves so many people in our community, broadcasting in so many different languages, Mandurang, Indian, Greek, Macedonian and a range of other languages; and providing 24-hour community radio to the people of St George. To Paul McGrath and everyone at 2NBC, thanks so much for what you do for our community. 1st Oatley Bay Sea Scouts is one of the most popular scouting groups anywhere in southern Sydney. It does have the advantage, of course, of having a great waterside location on the Georges River and access to canoes. Lots of kids take advantage of the opportunities of joining 1st Oatley Bay Sea Scouts: the 11- to 15-year-old scouts; the cubs, from eight to 11; and of course the joeys, from five to eight. Mark Connell, the president, who's been associated with this club for many decades, does a tremendous job, and it's great to be able to acknowledge him today. It's also great to be able to acknowledge John Vickery, the cubs leader; Jen Attard, the scouts leader; and all of the very many parent volunteers. Scouts is an absolutely fundamental part of our society, of our community and of our country, and the 1st Oatley Bay Sea Scouts is a great example of scouts being very active in our local community. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 In accordance with the resolution agreed to on 3 June, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded. BILLS 117 BILLS Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2021-2022 117

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2021-2022

Consideration in Detail 117 10:30 Mr ROBERT HWT Fadden The Morrison government's budget is securing Australia's recovery through protecting jobs today and making it easier for Australians to get a job or, frankly, hire an employee tomorrow. We have a plan to set up Australia's workforce for the long term, not just for the coming months but for the coming decades. We're doing this while keeping Australians employed and getting more Australians into work. The unemployment rate has recovered to pre-COVID levels. It is at 5.5 per cent today. There were over 13 million Australians in jobs before the pandemic. There are now more Australians in work post the pandemic. This is the only advanced nation in the world that can claim that. It is clear that our plan is working. The budget ensures Australians can upskill and reskill to get a job, setting them on the path to success while also securing Australia's economic prosperity. We're building the workforce Australia needs today and tomorrow through putting in place programs that will help Australians achieve their aspiration and realise their potential. The budget includes a commitment for an additional $1.5 billion investment to extend the highly successful Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements program. There will be a wage subsidy for a further six months to support new apprentices and trainees who will commence by 31 March 2022, picking up the raft of school leavers for this year. It's also critical we connect as many Australians with jobs as possible. To do this, the government will deliver the biggest transformational reform of employment services in two decades, committing do get Australians on payment into work. As part of the reform, we're investing $481.2 million to support vulnerable and disadvantaged young people to transition to or into work or education, including apprenticeships or traineeships. In securing our recovery, the government will continue to support small and family businesses, which are the backbone of our economy. We get what it takes to own and operate your own business. Make no mistake, you'll find no better friend in small and family business than the Morrison government. Our economic recovery is paramount. With a jobs led recovery at the heart of this budget, the Morrison government is securing Australia's future by getting more Australians into work and supporting them on that journey. 10:33 Mr MARLES HWQ Corio Employment is completely fundamental to our society. It has been accepted throughout our history as a nation that employment, and the living wage that comes from it, is the passport to being able to enjoy all the benefits, services and opportunities that the fantastic Australian community provides. But, for that to be the case, employment needs to be secure. It needs to be appropriately paid. It needs to pay a living wage. We can look at statistics, which are a headline, which often don't tell the whole story. Small business is a profoundly important part of that equation. Small business, in truth, has been taken for granted by the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government since the time it came to office. All the original thinking about how to improve the circumstances of small business in this country has emanated from this side of the parliament. But the critical question is making sure that we are getting people, either through small business or through being employed, into a situation where they have secure, well-paid employment which enables them to get a mortgage and which enables them to raise children, to have a family. The ABS data in terms of unemployment is one question. When we look at the question of underemployment, it has been persistent under this government since before COVID-19 hit. So we have a situation now where there are something like two million Australians who are looking for work in this country. No amount of self-congratulation on the part of the government gets past that very disturbing fact. But perhaps the most critical stat in all of this—the one that doesn't get enough attention and the one that speaks to the way in which our society is failing to give people employment, that passport to the opportunities of Australian society—is what's happening with the long-term unemployed. Since this government came to power, all the stats in relation to the long-term unemployed have been going the wrong way—all of them. The number of long-term unemployed, no matter which way you look at it, is growing at a rate which can lead to no other conclusion than that we as a society are, in fact, leaving people behind. That is exactly the challenge which this government is failing to address. The number of long-term unemployed hit 245,000 in March of this year. That's up almost 70,000 over the past 12 months. More than half of those who are receiving unemployment benefits now are classified as long-term unemployed. Of the recipients of unemployment benefits, 64 per cent have been on JobSeeker for more than a year. That is the issue. There is, of course, a critical role for the system to play in getting the short-term unemployed back into work. It's very important. But it's the question of the long-term unemployed, those who the system ultimately is leaving behind, where we need to look at how we are coming up with proposals and coming up with policy which actually makes a difference to that number and starts turning the trajectory of that around, because over the last eight years it has been going in precisely the wrong direction. Whenever this government comes up with a program to try and do something about it, it doesn't cut the mustard. We were told that JobMaker was going to heroically create 450,000 jobs. The truth is that, nine months down the track, it's fallen 449,000 jobs short of the target. There are only about 1,000 jobs that have been created by that particular wage subsidy program, so it's making no difference at all to the most profound issue which is affecting those who are looking for work in this country—in a sense, the most profound question around the whole way in which we see work in this country. So my question to the minister is this: when will this government actually deliver on real and meaningful change to produce a plan which will deal with long-term unemployment in Australia? 10:38 Mr PEARCE 282306 Braddon I'm very proud to be the representative for the rural electorate of Braddon in the great state of Tasmania. I'm also a proud former employer and small-business owner in the agricultural sector within the state. I understand, like most business owners understand, the connection that we have to our employees. I know what it's like to employ people when work downturns mean it's difficult to pay them each fortnight. But I also know what it's like to make them a priority. I would like to commend all the small-business owners and employers that we have within the great state of Tasmania and the wonderful connection that they've maintained with their employees. They've stood by them, and they've looked after them. To bolster this, so too have the Australian federal government, the Morrison government, supported our small businesses in doing that. Our initiatives have been aimed in keeping people in work, keeping them connected to their employment—keeping that job open so that when this downturn finally remedies itself then those employees can resume life as normal. Minister, I applaud your work and all that you've done to make that happen, particularly in my electorate. Our budget this year, 2021-22, is focused on creating jobs, and rightly so. We understand that small business is the engine room of our economy; it is paramount. Our employment pathways have been designed to get people back into work, and they include assistance for those who face greater risks and challenges in the labour market. The government, as part of the budget, will deliver a new, streamlined employment service model. This model will create a modern and sophisticated service to replace jobactive. It will be an effective, efficient digital service to support and enhance face-to-face engagement with providers in linking jobseekers to employers. I'll admit that, in the past, this process has been clunky, and to that end I congratulate the minister on improving and streamlining it. We've tried to make it easier for jobseekers to connect. As part of our budget there will an $80.8 million investment in the Digital Services Contact Centre to enable responsive, person-to-person assistance for jobseekers in the digital services area, for those who wish to self-manage their way back into employment. Under this new reform, the government is investing $481.2 million to expand and strengthen the government's youth specialist employment service. It's a great initiative. It's a transition back to work for them. This service will provide extensive, time limited assistance for an average case load of around 40,000 young people who are at risk if they don't transition into employment or further education. We need to link them to a light at the end of the tunnel. In addition to this, $129.8 million will be provided to redesign and streamline self-employment and small business support under the new model. Under the New Business Assistance with New Enterprise Incentive Scheme, services will be simplified. There will be enhanced eligibility, with the number of places expanded to 12,000. This can only be a positive thing for young people getting into work. Our 2021-22 budget also targets measures to support local solutions, to better connect jobseekers, employment service provides, employers and training organisations. Minister, I'll take this opportunity to thank you for taking part in the jobs fair that we conducted in the Devonport region in my electorate of Braddon. It was very well received. The positive feedback that I received was overwhelming, so I thank you for that. We are doing what we can, where we can, and I congratulate the minister on making this a tailor-made fit for our regions in particular. We understand that they have peculiar difficulties when it comes to connecting jobseekers to jobs. Minister, I will close with a question. My question to you is: how will this budget continue to create jobs, continue to promote small business and continue our economic recovery, particularly in the state of Tasmania? 10:43 Mr KEOGH 249147 Burt After eight long years, the Morrison government is still playing catch-up on apprenticeship numbers. Based on the latest data from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, there are 150,000 fewer apprentices in training than there were under the former Labor government. The numbers are unequivocal. In fact, what the latest data shows is a fall in apprenticeship numbers between the most recent quarters, the June and September quarters. You could be fooled into thinking that when the Treasurer, on budget night, said that the government 'will create more than 170,000 new apprenticeships and traineeships' it would do just that: create additional apprenticeships, above the usual number of around 150,000. At Senate estimates we asked the department for clarity, yet, despite all the chest beating from the government, we were met with doublespeak from officials, who could not tell us just how many new apprenticeships would be created from the Morrison government's apprenticeship funding—whether it would be 170,000 in total commencements, which is not too different from business as usual under the Liberals and actually lower than under Labor. In fact, the budget papers make it clear that apprenticeship funding from the Morrison government in the current budget is lower than in 2020-21 and that in the last budget that funding will fall dramatically from current levels down through to 2024-25. We know that when it comes to apprentices and this government there are big flashy announcements but never any follow-up. We know the government has access to apprenticeship numbers before the rest of us do, but what is unclear is why it finds it so hard to explain what its apprenticeship numbers in the budget actually mean. Supported apprenticeships and apprentices are vital for small and large businesses around Australia, so why isn't the government coming clean on its apprenticeship plans, Minister? Also this government claims it is the party of small business, but look at the hundreds of thousands of small businesses who lost income, staff and, for many, their entire livelihoods through the COVID crisis. I'm only speaking about the businesses who managed to keep their heads above water as a result of the JobKeeper supplement. We're yet to see the true impact of the recent lockdown in Melbourne that came post-JobKeeper and what the reality for them is. We're happy to see that from the Victorian government there was some support offered for these businesses, though many were left still struggling. There have been reports that small businesses and sole traders were ineligible for those supports because they didn't earn enough. It is of course good that the Victorian government provided some support for these businesses, but, as we in this place are all very well aware, vertical fiscal imbalance means it really falls on the federal government to pick up the economic and financial requirements during a pandemic like this and to provide that support to small business, as it was eventually dragged kicking and screaming to do through the JobKeeper program. We have seen some payments—welcomed, though clearly inadequate—being made available to individuals, yet there hasn't been any support provided in the same way that was available under JobKeeper to the small businesses being affected by the lockdown in Victoria. In Victoria in particular, because of the unique nature in which they have experienced spread and lockdown, their businesses have been uniquely vulnerable to further lockdowns as this COVID pandemic has progressed, yet they don't have the opportunity to claim JobKeeper and they don't have the opportunity to be afforded any additional support by the federal government as they go through this further lockdown—a lockdown that has extended for more than seven days. In this lockdown businesses are struggling to pay rent because there are now no rent holidays and mortgage relief. Businesses are finding themselves in one of the most vulnerable periods as they continue to experience lockdown in this regard, so why doesn't the government support small businesses in Australia when they are in their time of greatest need, Minister? 10:47 Mr YOUNG 201906 Longman Australia's recovery from the global COVID-19 pandemic continues in the right direction. We've seen over the past seven months or so that more and more people are getting back into the workforce. The most recent employment figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that Australia's unemployment rate for April was 5.5 per cent. The peak last June was at 7.4 per cent. Employment data for May will be released in a couple of days, and there's no reason to expect this downward trend won't continue. These figures are not a happy coincidence; they are a direct result of the government's initiatives to help business bounce back from the pandemic and get people back into work. There's tax relief for more than 10 million Australian families, as well as initiatives like the expanded and supercharged instant asset write-off program. These initiatives, along with others like the JobMaker hiring credit and the SME Recovery Loan Scheme, are helping push unemployment down to levels not seen since late 2019. But there's still more to do. In my electorate of Longman I regularly hear from local business owners. Their feedback reveals a strange tale. People are looking for work yet businesses often can't find the staff that they need to fill certain roles. To help solve this issue the government's 2021-22 budget is investing an additional $2.7 billion in the skills sector. This will expand and extend the Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements wage subsidy to encourage more businesses to take on new apprentices and trainees. The most recent apprentice data for my electorate of Longman revealed that there were 1,300 apprentices and trainees working across a whole range of different sectors, from boilermakers, to chefs, to construction, to auto repairers. The expanded Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements wage subsidy program will open the door for even more people to get on-the-job training in Longman. Apprenticeships and traineeships are so important to giving people a solid grounding in skills to carry them through for the rest of their lives. These entry-level positions are a key pathway to employment, particularly for younger people but also for adults looking for a career change. The wage subsidy will help get more people in skills training and help prevent any future skills shortage. Given the program's massive success since being introduced, it made sense to lift the cap on places and extend it by a full 12 months. On top of this investment an additional $500 million over two years will go towards extending the JobTrainer Fund, delivering around 163,000 new free or low-fee training places. This program is helping people in my electorate to reskill or upskill for an in-demand job to provide them with the best chance of getting into a job once they complete their training. Participants can choose from a range of accredited diplomas, certificates and short courses in areas like health, IT and trades. It also includes around 33,800 aged-care places to enable existing and new aged-care workers to improve their qualifications. To help young people make informed decisions about education and training pathways, the 2021-22 budget also provides $7.6 million over two years to extend the National Careers Institute's 1800 CAREER information service. This service will now be in place until 30 June 2023. Through the service, school leavers can get advice to help them navigate the current education and workforce landscape. It may even open the door to career options that suit their skills and interests that they hadn't even thought of yet. The Morrison government also recognises the need for specialist skills in emerging areas like artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, data analytics, game design and animation. The budget recognises this need, and through the digital skills cadetship trial we are creating new avenues for young people to move into these digital careers. An investment of $10.7 million over three years will support up to four industry led trials to develop new and innovative pathways. The government is also providing $285 million as part of its commitment to skills reform. This will ensure governments, employers and students invest in the training that delivers the best outcomes to strengthen Australia's skill base. Key reform initiatives include establishing 15 industry owned skills enterprises, which will strengthen the role of the industry in the VET system. This will mean qualifications are aligned to the skills that are in demand by employers, increase workforce productivity and get more learners into jobs. The reform also provides increased support for foundational skills training, including expanding the Skills for Education and Employment program. Will the minister please explain how the Morrison government's investment in skills and apprenticeships will help guarantee the pipeline of skilled workers that Australia needs to continue our economic recovery? 10:53 Mr KEOGH 249147 Burt When the idea of employment services in Australia was first contemplated, it was based on the question: how can we get the best result for our society and economy by creating more productive jobs and businesses and linking them to the people who need them? We know Australians want to work. But well-paid, secure jobs simply are not there, or at least they don't seem to be available. Only one country in the OECD has more casual jobs than we have here in Australia. When it comes to employment services, there are four things the New Employment Services Model has missed. The Treasurer talked a lot about full employment before the budget, but when it came to the delivery of the budget it was nowhere to be found. The use of technology should be about doing things better, not just efficiencies using digital platforms as a tool for cost cutting. So much good work was done as part of consulting on the new system, but it looks like the findings of the review of the current system have been forgotten. There is limited investment in longer-term unemployment. We know that well over half of the people on unemployment payments are long-term unemployed. Addressing this means creating more well-paid, secure jobs. Nothing we have heard from the employment minister since his appointment offers any confidence to anyone looking for a job that this government is on their side. If the best the Morrison government can come up with for close to two million Australians looking for work is a hotline for employers to report people who haven't agreed to a job regardless of the reason, they really are showing the hallmarks of a tired and empty eight-year-old government. We know from the most recent round of estimates that just eight cases have been subject to compliance activity under the new hotline. What a bargain! We're not opposed to reform, but that must be fair and improve outcomes for people accessing employment services and the people providing them. The government needs to explain why it is rushing through the New Employment Services Model instead of spending some time to get it right. The best path to employment is more job creation, and yet industries are experiencing workforce shortages. How is it that the government has got it so wrong over its last eight years that it hasn't managed to ensure enough Aussies are suitably trained for the jobs that are available and needing to be filled? Getting skills and employment policy right has never been more important. And, after eight long years under this tired, old Liberal government, we are in the midst of a skills crisis with one in five businesses reporting difficulty finding suitably skilled staff. At the same time the number of long-term unemployed in the job hunt has never been greater as part of the employment services case load. The minister was appointed as minister for education, skills, employment and small business on 30 March this year. Since then, the department has entered into 579 contracts worth millions of dollars. We have rightly raised concerns about whether processes are in place so that we do not end up in a situation where government contracts end up being shrouded in concerns over conflicts of interest. At Senate estimates we were advised that there is an annual process as part of the development of the department's financial statements where ministers, coordinated through the Department of Finance, are required to declare related transactions. We heard that there is an annual process where any ministers from the department that had a relationship with any of the transactions or entities that the department is dealing with are declared and ministers would be assessed through a process so that the department became aware of any potential conflicts of interest. Our concern here is not one of politics but the need to always ensure that appropriate processes are in place so that the millions of dollars in contracts are not awarded inappropriately, as seemed to be the case with the same minister back in 2016. The department has advised there's a process for assessing these potential conflicts with regard to the minister at the end of the year. If that is the end of the financial year, all the better, because that is only a few weeks away. We need to know that this process is undertaken and that this will be a transparent process so Australians can have confidence in the integrity of the decision-making and procurement processes of this government. After sports rorts, the Leppington Triangle and a proposed integrity commission with absolutely no teeth, when will the conflict of interest review in relation to Minister Robert take place? 10:58 Mr ROBERT HWT Fadden The Labor party hasn't changed—more grubby lies and smears from them. If they were any lower in the gutter they'd be covered in mud from head to toe. You'd expect the opposition to come forward to commend the government as the only advanced economy on the planet that has more of their citizens employed now than pre-pandemic, but, no, we don't hear of that. We don't hear of saying to the government the economic growth in the last quarter, the March quarter, is at 1.8 per cent quarter growth, one of the leading growth targets in the OECD. No, we don't hear a whole lot about that. But then, again, we don't hear a whole lot from the opposition anyway. The budget is securing Australia's recovery through protecting jobs today and making it easier for Australians to get a job or hire an employee tomorrow. The government's committing more than $2.7 billion in the already successful Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements program and the subsidy we paid for a full 12 months from commencement so that we can ensure employers and apprentices realise the full value of this excellent program. We're also expanding the billion dollar JobTrainer Fund to continue the delivery of low-fee or free training places in areas of skill needs. JobTrainer will ensure Australians can access critical skills and will support more than 450,000 new places to upskill jobseekers and young people across the country. We're also ensuring as many Australians are connected with work as possible. That's why the Morrison government will deliver the biggest transformation of employment services in the last couple of decades to better support Australians into jobs, commencing from 1 July next year. The model places jobseekers in the driver's seat of their journey from welfare into work, with safeguards to ensure that we don't leave people behind. We're committing $481 million in support for vulnerable and disadvantaged young Australians, providing them with tailored support as part of the Transition to Work program. The Morrison government's Local Jobs Program will significantly expand, at a cost of $213 million over four years, almost doubling the number of regions in the Local Jobs Program. The budget will also ensure Australians can upskill and reskill to get a job and set up our future workforce. We'll invest $30 million to develop a new training register, and a national digital Australian apprenticeship portal will be established as a one-stop shop to help employers manage their apprenticeship workforces and for apprentices to understand their entitlements. In securing our recovery, the government will continue to support small and family business, because we all know they are the engine room, very much the backbone, of the economy. There is $45 million in tailored programs, including $8 million for a two-year Go Local First campaign to encourage all Australians to shop locally. This budget will see us through the crucial next steps in our economic recovery, and it's a budget that will set us up for the next decade. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 The Federation Chamber will now consider the education and youth segment of the Education, Skills and Employment portfolio, in accordance with the agreed order of consideration. The question is that the proposed expenditure for the Education, Skills and Employment portfolio be agreed to. 11:01 Mr TUDGE M2Y Aston This has been another very good budget as far as the education sector is concerned, right across from early childhood through to schools and higher education. I want to take the opportunity to speak very briefly on a few of the key measures in the budget which are delivered across those few areas. To start with I want to mention the early childhood area, an area which is very important. This budget has been delivering in spades for the preschools and for the early learning centres, the childcare centres. This budget, for the first time ever in Australian history, locks in long-term funding for preschools across this nation. This hasn't been done before by our government and hasn't been done before by the former government. A four-year agreement will be put in place. That four-year agreement will provide some surety for the sector. We'll also be introducing some reform elements along the way to effectively put in place attendance measures down the track. We want to ensure that there are some performance based measures in there as well in years to come. I'll be negotiating these with my state and territory counterparts in the months ahead. In the child care area, people would be aware that we announced this just before the budget, but it's an important budget measure: we have added $1.7 billion to the overall funding for child care. We've made two significant changes. Firstly, we've removed the overall fee subsidy cap, which is something people have been calling for for a long time, including in the most recent review which has been done. Secondly, and I think more substantially, we're providing additional subsidies for families who have two or more children in child care. That is because (a) that's when your expenses start to add up, and (b) it's also when you have the highest effective marginal tax rates, for want of a better term, where it becomes almost disadvantageous, in some cases, or not as advantageous as it could be, for a person to do, say, the third or fourth or fifth day of work. These measures really address that. So it's a huge boost for those families with two or more children. We've scheduled that to begin in the middle of next year. As I've said repeatedly, if we can bring that forward, we will. Just quickly on schools, we've again provided record funding for our schools. It will be $23.4 billion in this calendar year, which is how we fund the school system, and that's $289 billion over the 10-year period. There has never been a better friend of our school system than this government. Opposition members interjecting— Mr TUDGE M2Y We've increased our overall funding by 80 per cent since coming to office. We've increased our overall funding to government schools by 100 per cent—that is, we have doubled the funding which we have provided to government schools. So I'd say to those opposite who are interjecting: we don't believe the rhetoric which you put out that we've somehow cut funding. The facts speak for themselves: a doubling of funding overall for government schools and an 80 per cent increase for the funding for schools overall. The numbers do not lie, as Minister Gee beside me has just pointed out. We have some specific measures in the budget to complement that overall funding package. Finally, I'll mention higher education. We have very considerable funding to our universities and to the other higher education providers. I specifically mention an important package of $53 million for the private higher education providers to assist them with some of the financial difficulties which they are going through as well as to provide additional short courses for Australians. Of course, this complements the extra $1.5 billion funding that we gave to the public universities in our October budget last year. 11:06 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston This budget was a missed opportunity when it came to early learning and care, and I find it interesting that the minister would like a pat on the back for putting in the forward estimates for preschool funding. It's a basic accounting measure that should have been done some time ago. I reject the premise—there was a national partnership. It was a four-year agreement set out by the Gillard government; that's obviously escaped his memory. Childcare fees under this government have now gone up 37 per cent. But, importantly for families, out-of-pocket costs have risen to the highest that they have ever been. So I ask this question of the minister: what is he doing to actually curb these out-of-pocket costs for all families? We know in this budget that 75 per cent of families will miss out on any extra support as a result of the subsidy changes. That is many, many people. So I ask the minister: why is it that he has left so many families out of increased support, which he, in his own words, said was the most significant part of the changes? This seems to be a population measure, so my question also to the minister is: was that his plan? How much was the minister involved in designing this policy? Why didn't the minister, when designing his childcare support, actually listen to all the information from what many, many organisations were calling for and design this around productivity? We know in the last quarter alone that childcare fees have gone up by more than 2.2 per cent—that's three times the CPI figure. Over the past 12 months childcare costs have soared by 3.7 per cent. Childcare costs are eating into the budget of every family that is using child care and are putting a huge strain on them. Twenty-three per cent of parents have said that they are not working, mainly due to the cost of child care. Really, this plan outlined by the minister does nothing to help many, many families with the cost of child care. The budget papers also show that workforce participation rates will decline. So my question to the minister is: how could he possibly have an early education childcare policy that actually delivers lower workforce participation? That is a feat in itself. I would like the minister to answer that question. The government announced a new childcare policy that doesn't come in until 1 July 2022, after the next election. So it is disingenuous to suggest that they are somehow delivering support now. I would like to hear from the minister about what the IT changes are—what are the impediments to bringing this in earlier, particularly around the cap? While I understand that changing the subsidy rates now to identify the first child, the second child and the third child in child care and when those arrangements change will require significant investment in IT, removing the cap doesn't. Removing the cap can be done overnight, and so I ask the minister, particularly when it comes to the childcare cap: what are the impediments to actually removing that right now? In addition to that, the minister was unable to explain whether or not a five-year-old in OSH would be considered under this first or second child arrangement. He wasn't able to answer that in a television interview. I would like to know the answer now. With after-school-hours care, if a child is four-and-a-half, for example, and in out after-school-hours care, will that child be considered to be still the first child, or the second child, and will that benefits flow on to those families? I think that's an important question. Will it be determined on the type of service the child is using? The minister and the government have repeatedly said 'five and under', or 'under five'. A lot of parents want to know practically how that will actually be determined. Will that apply to after-school-hours care? Of course, they also receive the same percentage subsidy, but, under the minister's proposal, it will have a significant impact because, once that child goes to school, the subsidy will jump for that child still remaining in child care. Families want some clarity on this. Families also want relief. Every family deserves relief, and my final question to reinforce this is: why won't the minister provide relief to every family? 11:11 Mrs ARCHER 282237 Bass Of course, child care provides more than an opportunity for parents and carers to train and work, and it can set children up to thrive in school once they reach school age. The early years matter. There are countless studies that point to the lifelong impact on the intellectual and emotional development in the first five years of a child's life, and child care can provide critical support in this development. As I've said in previous speeches on this issue, as someone who lives and works in a rural community and as a mother of five children aged six to 17, I'm well acquainted with child care and I've seen and felt the cost impact of it across a whole range of governments of different colours, including under Labor when fees went up by 53 per cent with a one-year spike of an incredible 14½ per cent. Since we came to office, we're spending 77 per cent more than the opposition did during their time, with a record $10.3 billion this year, including $9 billion to subsidise the fees set by childcare services. It's this government that has delivered on changes for working families that target and assist those who need it most. We introduced the new childcare package in 2018, which was a once-in-a-generation set of reforms that saw out-of-pocket costs fall. We've kept out-of-pocket costs down, and they're still almost a dollar an hour cheaper on average than before we introduced the package. In my home state of Tasmania out-of-pocket costs are the lowest, at $3.28 per hour for centre based day care. In this budget we'll provide an additional $1.7 billion to further help Australian families with more than one child aged five and under in those years that are the most tough on the hip pocket for families. Our budget investment is targeted and will boost the national economy by $1.5 billion per year from an estimated 40,000 Australians working just one extra day a week. These targeted and proportionate measures remove some cost barriers for second-income earners, especially women who want to return to work or to work an extra day a week. By increasing the subsidies for families with a second or third child aged five and under, families will benefit by up to $183 a week. In the Northern Tasmania electorate of Bass, which I represent, there are around 700 families who will benefit from this significant budget investment, including local mother of two Tayla Ralph, who told local media that she was thankful for the changes which will benefit her when her second child begins child care. Additionally, the annual cap will be removed altogether for families across Australia as part of this year's budget investment, which has been supported by the childcare and business sectors alike, with the Business Council of Australia stating that the policy is 'good for mums and dads, good for businesses and good for the economy.' This record and targeted investment will make a difference to the bottom line for thousands of families who have young children in child care across the country. This childcare package is critical to supporting working families. Of course, as I have raised previously, the costs of child care is not the only issue that affects working parents. Accessibility to suitable child care is a particular challenge in regional communities, particularly for those who are employed or wish to be employed in shift work. For example, in my Northern Tasmania community I have been contacted by parents who are interested in undertaking seasonal work but aren't able to do so because they don't have the ability to get their children into care early enough or they don't have care close enough to where they need to work. Most recently I met with a solo parent who has a thriving business in three states, including Tasmania, and is struggling to find overnight care options to meet her needs. These are challenges that I'm committed to working to address. I thank the minister for his willingness to listen and work with me on the accessibility challenges facing my electorate. I also thank Minister Tudge for his recent visit to Northern Tasmania, where I hosted a forum with representatives from our local childcare industry to discuss a range of topics, including the benefits of the recent budget announcement; some challenges facing local facilities, such as skill shortages; and the relationship between long day care and preschool. I appreciate the time that the minister took to listen to their concerns. I've committed to hosting further roundtable discussions with the sector. I look forward to working with the minister further to address the issues raised. Would the minister please expand on how the Morrison government is supporting parents to get back into work and to take on more hours? 11:15 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston We now turn our attention to young Australians in the budget. I've some questions for the minister. This budget has no evidence that young Australians have a vehicle to be heard by this government. We know that when the coalition were first elected then Prime Minister Tony Abbott abolished the Minister for Youth and the Office for Youth. I am pleased that there is now a minister for youth. Unfortunately, his policy development seems to have disappeared. I assume he is a magician. In 2019 the Youth Taskforce was announced. As we heard in estimates some time ago, it was working to develop a national youth policy framework. That report was due to be handed down in December. It was not handed down in December. What we know from the most recent budget estimates is that the Youth Taskforce has been disbanded, but there is no policy framework. That's still being worked on, despite the final report being due in December. It is clear there is a problem here. There seems to be a lack of urgency. I would like the minister to talk about why the Youth Taskforce was disbanded before a national youth policy framework was delivered. I would like to know where the national youth policy framework is up to in its development. I would love to know, as it was not tabled in December, when we will actually see this national youth policy framework. It would be good for the minister to give us a preview of some of the issues we can expect to see. Will it outline a way that young Australians can have a direct voice in government? Will it outline a structure or some sort of mechanism within government to allow young Australians to have a direct say in the decisions made by them? Will the minister commit to listening to young Australians? These are important questions that many young Australians have been asking me lately. My next question is: how much money has been budgeted? We couldn't see any budget line item that would be delivered as part of the national youth policy framework. How much money will be allocated to that framework? What programs might be associated? Obviously the job hiring credit, after promising 450,000 jobs, resulted in 1,000 jobs. We know that the PaTH program has been a bit of a disaster, with young people not choosing to take it up because it doesn't lead to employment. We know the ability to put extra into your super to save for a deposit has been undersubscribed by young Australians. Certainly the runs on the board are not good for this government. That is symbolic of the fact that they are not listening to young Australians. I would love the minister to give us some time frames about when this policy framework might be developed and tell us how the consultations are continuing to progress, considering that the Youth Taskforce has been abolished; what programs we can expect; when we might expect it; what the government's commitment is to listening to young Australians; and how that will be achieved. These are questions that young Australians are talking about with me. They are feeling disenfranchised as a result of this government's lack of engagement. They are feeling like they've got nowhere to turn, especially after the very tumultuous time that many young Australians have had during the COVID period. They would like to see a plan from this government. That's certainly what they're telling me. I'm very keen to hear from the minister about what that plan might be. 11:20 Mr GEE 261393 Calare I also thank the Minister for Education and Youth for outlining to this chamber the record expenditure on education that this government has delivered, and the very important, life-changing budget initiatives that have been delivered through the federal budget process. The minister's doing an outstanding job. To use a sporting analogy, I think he's got the ball on a string at the moment. This budget builds on our record investment and support for the regions, strengthening our economy, creating jobs— Opposition members interjecting— Mr GEE 261393 It's a rugby analogy. Infrastructure investments, guaranteeing essential services and delivering educational opportunities. They are the hallmarks of this budget. I know it's lost on the other side. Building our capability as a nation is the cornerstone of our economic prosperity, and we know that rests with education. Our government believes that every Australian should have access to a world-class education, and we on this side of the House are particularly passionate about ensuring that country people achieve the same level of education as their city counterparts, that they have the same level of opportunity and educational opportunity as those in the cities. This week marks the one-year anniversary of the government response to the National Regional, Rural and Remote Education Strategy, or the Napthine review as most people know it. The government accepted all the recommendations of that report and committed over $400 million over four years through the more opportunities for regional Australia measures of the job-ready graduates reforms. These measures commenced in January 2021. Some of the highlights over the forward estimates include $177.8 million for the tertiary access payment, which defrays some of the cost of tertiary education for outer regional and remote students through payments of $5,000 for tertiary students; $146 million to increase Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding for regional campuses by 3.5 per cent per annum; $48.8 million to enhance the research collaboration capacity of regional universities; and $21 million to establish up to eight additional regional university centres across regional and remote Australia and to strengthen the existing program. There is $17.1 million for demand-driven Commonwealth supported university places for 1,700 Indigenous students from regional and remote areas; the introduction of the Indigenous, Regional and Low SES Attainment Fund, which includes the expansion of the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program, to allow universities to provide additional support to students from regional and remote backgrounds; and a new regional partnerships project pool worth $7.1 million for universities and regional university centres to undertake outreach activities in country areas. Those initiatives are why our regional universities all backed in the job-ready graduates reforms. We consulted the sector, we listened to the sector and the country universities backed in these game-changing initiatives. Our government has laid out its plan to close the educational gap between regional students and their city based cousins. We're creating more university places for Australian students, with more support for regional students and universities. We're focused on stronger relationships between higher education and industry and less expensive degrees in areas of expected job growth, including the community health disciplines, Deputy Speaker Gillespie—I know that's something very close to your heart. The government is investing a record amount in our primary and secondary schools, as the minister has just outlined. On average, funding per student in regional, rural and remote Australia will grow by 3.8 per cent per year through to 2029, and 2021 sees the start of the $7.5 million Future Leaders Program pilot, which supports high-achieving teachers to become school leaders in rural, remote or disadvantaged schools. I'm immensely proud of this budget. It's an excellent budget, which delivers for Australians and continues our determination to place regional Australia at the heart of our economic recovery. Make no mistake: our regions are driving this recovery. They are strong and they are vibrant, and we are seeing people move to the regions in record numbers. Last year there was a net gain of 43,000 people moving to the regions from the cities. This budget will help sustain regional communities, create jobs and grow key regional industries. 11:25 Ms RYAN 249224 Lalor I'm pleased to be part of today's consideration in detail of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2021-22. It gives me an opportunity to speak directly to the minister responsible for school education, and I'll focus most of my questions in that space. Obviously, it's now been eight long years of a very tired Liberal-National government, particularly in the space around schools. There was a lot of activity in the early years of this government, like the immediate 30 per cent cut to the schools budget delivered by Tony Abbott when he was Prime Minister. I know many of those opposite think that the care factor around this has died during the pandemic, but some facts can't be changed, and they need to be reminded of those. The government's schools policy is not needs based, it is not sector blind and it is certainly not fair. The government is providing just 20 per cent of the schooling resource standard to public schools, while non-government schools will receive 80 per cent of their SRS from the federal government. Under this approach, 87 per cent of public schools will never reach what was determined to be their fair level of funding, yet two-thirds of private schools will be funded over the SRS. And, in an electorate like mine, we are already seeing this disadvantage to the public sector being played out, purely and simply, in schools' budgets. The government's record has been extraordinary, and to claim there's been no cut to education spending is extraordinary, particularly from a government that has played with the very important algorithms that determine the SRS and made the cutting decision that the federal government would only provide 20 per cent of the SRS to state schools, which was a complete turnaround from what it was. The minister might like to go through some of the data on the My School website and explain to the secondary school families in the Lalor electorate why their school receives less from the federal government than the private school down the road does. They should know why government made the decision to cap federal funding to support state schools to 20 per cent of the SRS. During COVID I've visited all of my local schools. I obviously have a keen interest, with my history in state education and as a principal. I'd like to ask the minister how much he appreciates the fact that our Victorian state schools, given the COVID situation, were able to very quickly implement an online learning program. A lot of that was to do with some old policies from a former Labor government that ensured we had one-on-one capability, in most Victorian schools, in terms of IT equipment. I'd like the minister to consider how important that funding was to ensure that, when this pandemic hit, Victorian schools were able to go to a one-on-one learning from home model. I'd like to express my appreciation to the teachers in both the private and public sectors for their incredible work during the pandemic. They actually doubled their workload, in terms of preparation, delivery, being in the online environment, creating videos after hours and doing all of those things. But I want to ask the minister what he can tell us about the fact that the Victorian and New South Wales governments have both made large commitments—$250 million in Victoria and $337 million in New South Wales—to support schools to support those students who have fallen behind due to the pandemic. Of course, the online environment wasn't perfect for all students. I know that I've visited my schools and seen the testing that's being done, the judgements that are being made and the tutor program that's being rolled out. I want to ask the minister why the federal government aren't making a contribution to that across the country—why it has been left to states to determine that—which, obviously, leaves children in some states not as well off as others. I'd also ask this minister if there is any conversation going on within government about ensuring that our school teachers, in both public and private schools, are going to get to the front of a queue in the vaccination rollout across this country. I'd like to hear what he thinks about that. I would close by saying that I know the consequences of the government's poor record on school funding, and I will always fight for fair funding for our local schools. 11:30 Ms HAMMOND 80072 Curtin I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak in consideration and detail with respect to the education portfolio. As the minister well knows, our higher education sector in Australia is relatively diverse, both in terms of providers and in terms of students. There are 40 Australian universities, one university of specialisation, one university college, one operating overseas university and approximately 142 higher education providers. In 2019 there were 1.6 million people studying in higher education in Australia, and 67 per cent of these were domestic students, 69 per cent were undergraduate, enabling or non-award courses and 55 per cent were female. We all know that shutting the borders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on universities. International student enrolments in 2020 decreased, and this decrease will pipeline over future years. We also know that this has significant impact on universities' financial bottom lines and, again, this will have impact over the coming years. However, a point which I don't think has been aired sufficiently is that university providers have not been hit by the pandemic as significantly as some predicted last year or as some still appear to believe. In February 2021, Universities Australia put out a press release stating that operating revenue across universities fell 4.9 per cent from 2019 to 2020. Of course this varied across universities, but, interestingly, I also note that three universities have reported an increase in revenue over the time period 2019 to 2020. The decrease in revenue for those who suffered it is undoubtedly causing challenges. But I would also note that this decrease is significantly less than that felt by so many businesses and organisations across the country, and, more significantly, it is far less than the various thresholds which were applied for JobKeeper, being 50 per cent or 30 per cent, depending on turnover. Further, it is significantly less than the 15 per cent which applied to smaller charities. I make this point because there have been a number of occasions over the last 12 months where those opposite have said that the threshold of 15 per cent should have applied to universities. My point is this: even if it had, the universities wouldn't have qualified. The overall drop in revenue was 4.9 per cent. Of the four Table A universities in Western Australia, the range of turnover decrease was between negative one per cent to negative eight per cent. I also note that at least one university in Western Australia recorded an increase in revenue from onshore fee-paying students in 2020. Student data for 2020-21 this year thus far shows that domestic student enrolments are up five per cent on last year. Yes, international enrolments are down, but the domestic students are up. I make these points not to say that universities or higher education providers more generally are not facing challenges. They are. I am also not saying they don't need support. They do. But I'm making this point because I believe that quite often the debate in higher education comes down to those opposite portraying the university sector as poor, struggling and hard done by and, further, that this government has abandoned universities. The truth is universities are not poor or hard done by. Their combined annual revenue is well over $30 billion, and the average annual revenue for a university is $800 million. More than 50 per cent of that comes from government—that is, from taxpayers. In 2021 that amount is going to be $20 billion. As a sector and individually, universities are in charge of large amounts of money. Their assets are collectively worth over $60 billion. They have an enormous amount of independence and autonomy, and they are sophisticated organisations with access to experts and advisers, which many businesses and organisations in Australia simply dream about. Furthermore, the allegation that this government has abandoned universities is demonstrably false. Universities do not exist to serve themselves. They exist to serve the local, national and international communities through providing higher education to individuals and through engagement in research. This government is focused on supporting the core purposes of higher education: on teaching and on research. This leads to my question to the minister: can the minister please update on how the Morrison government is investing in our higher education sector and creating more places for students to study? 11:35 Mr PERRETT HVP Moreton To the minister: according to the ABS data last year, more than 65 per cent of Australian school students were enrolled in public schools. That equates to around 2.6 million young Australian students at our wonderful state schools. There were 240,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school students enrolled last year, so that's about 83 per cent of First Nations students in public schools. We know that public schools have a higher proportion of students with a disability, receiving either extensive or substantial levels of adjustment when compared with Catholic and independent schools. For the record, Australian public schools are educating more Australian children, overcoming disadvantage for more Australian children and achieving excellence in education. Public schools are managing to educate their students despite the coalition government failing to properly and fairly fund them. Public schools are being propped up by the blood, sweat and tears of hardworking educators and parents. The Liberals were elected in 2013 on a promise to match Labor's school funding promise dollar for dollar. I saw the corflutes. Instead in 2017 the Liberals changed the funding arrangements for public schools. They unilaterally ended five signed state and territory agreements on school funding, refusing to deliver the final two years of funding. They legislated to cap the Commonwealth contribution to school funding at 20 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard, the SRS. This change to funding was made when the Prime Minister was the Treasurer. The change will adversely impact public schools into the future: 99 per cent of public schools will be below the SRS by 2023, and half of all public schools won't even reach 95 per cent of the SRS by 2023. Total underfunding of public schools over the next four years is $19 billion. Starving our public schools from the resources needed to educate our children, including some of the most disadvantaged children in Australia, will just entrench inequality. I know that staff in public schools do incredible work educating every child in their classroom. I know that, regardless of the funding available, teachers do their best to educate every child in front of them. But I also know that the current system is unfair. It's unfair that public schools will never be funded to the standard that was recommended by the Review of funding for schooling: final report in 2011, known as the Gonski review. This is what the review said about the Schooling Resource Standard for public schools: In recognition of the role of the government sector as a universal provider of schooling, all government schools would be fully publicly funded to the level of the schooling resource standard plus any applicable loadings. Gonski didn't say '80 per cent of the SRS'—that's what the Northern Territory public schools are currently getting. Gonski didn't say '95 per cent', which half of all public schools won't ever reach. Gonski recommended 100 per cent of the SRS for every child in every school and said: Every child should have access to the best possible education, regardless of where they live, the income of their family or the school they attend. Adam Rorris is an educational economist and policy analyst who's worked for the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO and DFAT. He recently wrote an article about the Liberal government's 7½ years of neglect of school funding. In the article, he described the SRS as: … an independent technical estimate of how much total public funding a school needs to meet its students' educational needs. The SRS is not an aspirational standard of school funding, as it is so often painted … Fair funding based on need is what I want for my children, and it's what every parent wants for their child. So this is my question to the minister: why has the Morrison government locked in inequality by capping funding for public schools at 20 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard? Please, Minister, don't just talk about the annual increase due to the fact that there are more students in Australia. Go to the heart of that question—the SRS and how it applies to Queensland and Australian schools. My next question is: why does the Morrison government think it is fair for children attending public schools to never reach 100 per cent of the schooling resource standard as recommended by the Gonski review? Remember that was an economic review of education looking at boosting productivity. Minister, what educational resources do you suggest public schools should go without because they will never be fully funded? How do you expect to attract new teachers to public schools if they are starved of resources? We are already seeing that in electorates like mine on the edge of Brisbane; they still can't get enough teachers. I will repeat that: 'The SRS is the minimum amount of funding required to have students reach the minimum achievement benchmarks. When governments fail to reach this funding level, they fail the students of this country'. I look forward to your answers, and I know my colleague from South Australia does as well. 11:40 Mr HOWARTH 247742 Petrie Young people are critical in our post-pandemic recovery and have every reason to feel optimistic as we emerge from the pandemic. The Morrison government's budget in 2021-22 outlines our plan to secure our recovery and rebuild our economy to support the essential services Australians rely on. In this jobs-led recovery more Australians are in work than ever before. More Australians are in work than before the pandemic. But we understand young people have been hit particularly hard during the pandemic. That's why the budget investment is getting young people into employment, with the youth unemployment rate falling recently. It's not just getting young people into employment but also into training and education, and supporting their mental health is so significant. In the 2021-22 budget, the government is investing a further $481.2 million in the Transition to Work employment service to ensure young Australians have the best opportunity to secure employment. Since 2016, under the coalition government, Transition to Work has helped more than 145,000 young Australians with assistance to move into work or education. This practical support—up to 12 months of intensive pre-employment support—means work experience, study and skills. It builds the confidence and work readiness for youth aged 15 to 24 at risk of long-term unemployment. These outcomes make a real difference, because time spent disengaged and not in employment, education or training increases the likelihood of long-term unemployment. That's not what we want for Australian youth. It can impact a young person's physical and mental health. For more than 3.2 million young Australians, the most practical thing that we can do to support them is to give them access to improved educational outcomes, financial literacy and job opportunities that help build the success and independence they need. That is why the Morrison government has targeted budget measures to better educate young Australians, helping them find employment and supporting their mental health during this critical time. I do note some of the states too are rolling out financial literacy training as well, which is really important for youth. The Morrison government is making it easier for young people to become apprentices. Businesses can claim a 12-month wage subsidy for new apprentices through the $2.7 billion in funding to extend and expand support for apprenticeship commencements. It's making it easier as well to get access to affordable or free training, and we are investing $500 million in the expansion of a JobTrainer fund to deliver around 163,000 additional low-fee or fee-free training places over two years. The states decide where that JobTrainer funding is spent. In my state of Queensland, most of it is being invested in TAFE. I have no problem with that. I went to TAFE myself. But they are completely missing the RTO sector in Queensland in relation to hospitality training because of their one-sided one-eyed view that TAFE is the only option. That doesn't help our youth. The 2021-22 budget is also supporting youth engagement with $11.1 million in programs assisting young people, teachers and parents to foster a great sense of social cohesion, diversity and a sense of belonging. Together for Humanity and the Duke of Edinburgh are two examples. There's $1.2 million to co-sponsor the Young Australian of the Year awards. There's $1 million to strengthen civics and citizenship education. There's so much happening. Changes to JobSeeker and youth allowance are supporting participation, including increasing the income-free area of the JobSeeker and youth allowance payments to $150 per fortnight. The Morrison government knows that the health of young people influences the further health and wellbeing of adults and the next generation. Young people are experiencing higher rates of mental ill-health and that's why we are investing millions of dollars in mental health, whether it's $280 million in the national headspace program or $13 million to support ReachOut for online youth mental health services or $26.9 million for treatment of eating disorders. So there's a lot happening. I will just say as well, in relation to education—for the member opposite—it has gone up to 80 per cent and we are continuing to support our young people in this country. Mr Perrett interjecting— Mr HOWARTH 247742 It's going up, mate—80 per cent. Put that in your— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 Order! The member for Bean has the call. 11:46 Mr DAVID SMITH 276714 Bean I would like to frame some questions to the minister as part of this consideration in detail in relation to the higher education sector. Despite earlier speakers' views, my conversations with stakeholders and advocates in this sector affirm the view that this government has abandoned our university sector. Because of the decision to prevent universities getting JobKeeper and not providing appropriate support to the sector, despite the catastrophic consequence of COVID for revenue, at least 17,000 jobs at universities have been lost. Hundreds of those jobs have been lost here in Canberra across the Australian National University and the University of Canberra. We're talking about world-leading researchers, lecturers and tutors who have lost their jobs and many more that go to the everyday functioning of universities. Last year, the government did provide extra funding for research due to the shortfall in international student revenue. However, months later, the borders are still closed, with no end in sight, because of this government's failure to manage quarantine facilities, and there's no further additional funding for universities. Instead, what do we have? I will quote from page 170 of Budget Paper No. 1: Expenses under the higher education sub-function are expected to decrease by 8.3 per cent in real terms from 2020-21 to 2021-22, and decrease by 9.3 per cent in real terms from 2021-22 to 2024-25. That means that, over the next four years, your government is ripping one dollar from every $10 out of the universities. Your government has made it harder and more expensive for Australians to go to university. The cut to university funding is mainly from research but affects teaching as well. You can't gut our research funding, trash our academics, and then expect them to lead the world in commercialising their research. The government says: 'We want more young Australians studying STEM subjects. We want more people going into science as a career.' Because of this government, universities will receive 32 per cent less to teach medical students, 17 per cent less to teach maths students, 16 less to teach engineering students, 15 per cent less to teach clinical psychology students, 10 per cent less to teach agriculture students and eight per cent less to teach nurses. How do you come up with a mess like that while saying that you want to encourage people into these disciplines? When you cut the money that supports engineering and science courses, either you are going to get lower quality courses or you are going to have universities changing their offerings to students. You will get fewer scientists and fewer engineers from a failure to support these departments and faculties. You can't stem the brain-drain if you don't invest in STEM teaching and research. And we are talking about our kids graduating from university with debts of around $60,000 for a basic degree. Further, as a consequence of the mismanagement of the vaccine rollout and quarantine, we still have no idea when international students will be able to safely return. The contribution of international students makes the university sector one of our top exports but they also play a critical role in our local economy. I've heard directly from the business chamber here and local businesses about labour and skill shortages that are directly affecting their bottom line. The budget really shows such a bad contrast between what the government says it wants and what it does in practice. On average, under this budget, students will pay seven per cent more for their degrees—over a billion dollars more over the next four years—and 40 per cent of students will have had their fees more than doubled. Minister, because of the Prime Minister's decisions, universities are being forced to abolish and merge courses and cut faculties across the country in areas such as neuroscience, engineering, maths and Asian languages. These are areas that will be essential to Australia in coming years and decades. If we are to be serious about productivity in this country, these are areas that were highlighted by the Finkel brief to the COVID committee. My questions to you, Minister, are as follows. We don't want Australia to be like America, where kids have to get a lifetime of debt to get an education. Why does your government keep making decisions that take us down that path? Why does your government ignore the advice of our own COVID committee and not invest in science and research through our higher education sector? 11:50 Mrs McINTOSH 281513 Lindsay There are over 12,000 children in Lindsay in child care and well over 30,000 attending school, and I'm passionate about making sure each and every one of them, as they go through school to further education, has the opportunity to be educated and trained in the jobs of the future, particularly in emerging industries such as science, mathematics, engineering, manufacturing and technology. We all want to make sure that the next generation have more opportunities than we've had, and that's why the Morrison government is investing a record $24.8 billion for all Australian schools next year. The Morrison government has a 10-year plan to once again put Australia among the top education nations in the world. By 2030 we want to lead the way in mathematics and science. In Western Sydney we are already working hard together collaboratively to achieve this. Recently, the Minister for Education and Youth and I joined a passionate group of local principals who talked about their unique teaching experiences and how we could give our kids even more opportunities. We talked about how we could provide more support and work with our local educators to improve outcomes for students. It's important for me and my community of Lindsay to see how our national policies are making a positive impact in our local communities, and it was valuable to have such a robust discussion with these hardworking principals who care deeply about the education of their students. We know that the investment in Western Sydney international airport and aerotropolis will create over 11,000 jobs during construction and over 26,000 long-term jobs—jobs in STEM, industry, retail, hospitality, construction, manufacturing and so many more growing fields. That's why it's so important that we continue to invest in our kids, making sure they are equipped with the skills they will need to take on these challenges and propel Western Sydney into the future. The minister for education also joined me at The Lakes Christian College to officially open the new outdoor learning centre. The Morrison government invested $20,000 under the Local Schools Community Fund to create an outdoor learning area, and it was wonderful to see the kids enjoy this. We want to see more healthy active living for our students, and this upgrade means better spaces to get outdoors. More than $30 million has been provided through the Local Schools Community Fund to support schools across Australia fund projects just like this and to make an impact on local kids, helping them have the high-quality facilities and equipment they need to reach their full potential. The Morrison government is investing record funding of $315.2 billion in all schools between 2018 and 2029 under the Quality Schools package. We don't just want high-quality schools; we also want our students to succeed. In 2020, 89.4 per cent of 20- to 24-year-olds had attained a year 12 or a certificate III or above qualification, the highest result every received. Year 12 retention rates are also increasing, particularly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. In Lindsay we have over 6,000 Indigenous people living in our community, and I want them to have the best opportunities at school. Supporting local kids to get to school is so important. That's why I delivered $40,000 to the Cranbrook breakfast club to help with the purchase of a second van for their morning school run, which picks kids up from their homes and gets them to breakfast club and school. This extra vehicle means that the centre will be able to double the number of kids being picked up and dropped off at school. The tireless efforts of Joy, Bronwyn and the team at Nepean Community & Neighbourhood Services make an incredible difference to the lives of these students, and I'm really proud to be supporting them. These are vulnerable kids who normally have a very low attendance rate, and attending this breakfast club is having a positive impact on their school attendance, which is so important. Across Australia, year 12 attainment rates for students from low and medium socioeconomic backgrounds in remote areas are significantly lower. We know that there's more work to do to increase this, and that's why we are providing record school funding. The Morrison government is working together with the states and territories on their future funding needs, which will result in even more growth across the different levels of government. This will ensure the 30,000 students in Lindsay can reach their potential now and long into the future. Can the minister please provide an update on how the Morrison government is investing in the education of Australian kids to boost standards and return Australia to the top group of education nations in the world? 11:56 Mr PERRETT HVP Moreton Following on from that dorothy dixer on steroids and the question from the member for Bean, the Morrison government has turned its back on universities during their hour of need. At the peak of the COVID pandemic, when universities were crying out for assistance, the Morrison government gave JobKeeper to private providers but changed the rules three times to exclude public universities. This has led to more than 17,000 jobs being lost, hundreds of courses being cut and regional campuses closing. We are talking about academics, tutors, admin staff and cleaners—everyone who keeps a university up and running. There are now 17,000 people without jobs, all with families and bills to pay. The Prime Minister could have prevented thousands of livelihoods from being destroyed but he callously and deliberately said no. A prime minister who cared about jobs would have prevented 17,000 uni workers from losing their livelihoods. A prime minister who cared about Australian families would have supported families relying on our wonderful universities so that they didn't lose their jobs. Australian universities used to be this nation's third-biggest export earner. Those universities lost $3 billion last year. The recent Morrison budget made it worse for universities by including a 10 per cent real funding cut in coming years. Despite still being in a global pandemic, emergency funding to keep researchers in their jobs was cut off. It's very short-sighted to lose our world-class researchers. We've never appreciated them more than during this pandemic. Brian Schmidt, vice-chancellor of ANU, has raised concerns about losing research capacity in universities that will take decades to recover—when people go they don't come back. With the rise of gas exports, education is now Australia's fourth-largest export earner. A government with vision would care about protecting fair dinkum exports like this, instead of just having photo ops with Boris and a Tim Tam. The Mitchell Institute's research indicates that a third academic year of no international students would cost Australia about $20 billion, or half of the pre-pandemic value of the sector. That $20 billion is enough, with $3 billion over, to cover the annual interest on the Frydenberg debt. This hit isn't just a problem for universities. The economic value of international students is far wider. Mr Howarth 247742 Order! The member should refer to the Treasurer by his correct title. Mr PERRETT HVP Sorry, you're right, I mean the Treasurer's debt of $17 billion per year—I do take that interjection. To have $17 billion on the country's credit card is an incredible debt, and I take the member for Petrie's interjection very seriously. To have a $20 billion hit to an industry like education is significant. The blame for this hit to the international student sector rests with the Morrison government. It is failing in its responsibility to set up successful quarantining facilities—horses and cows, yes; international students, no. Had it been done 12 months ago, international students would be back on campuses right now. There's no getting around it; it's the responsibility of the Morrison government, try as it might to pretend differently. Quarantine is a federal responsibility—it's in the Constitution. There was a perfectly reasonable proposal in Queensland to set up quarantining next to Toowoomba's Wellcamp Airport. The facility could have been up and running in 12 weeks or less, but the Prime Minister has continued to dismiss it. He came up with all sorts of excuses, including that planes had to go to Brisbane, even though his own plane had landed at Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport. The Prime Minister said there was no hospital close by, but the Toowoomba Hospital was built in 1880. Ironically, back in 1916, around the time of the last pandemic, an open-air isolation ward was constructed at the Toowoomba Hospital for the care of those with infectious diseases. Neglecting quarantine facilities in the sunshine state is another slap in the face for Queensland universities. And doesn't it show how hopeless that team Queensland group is? They've been mute about this insult to and economic attack on Queenslanders, and every one of them should hang their head in shame. They should hang their heads in shame to call themselves 'team Queensland'. My questions are: Minister, why have universities been undermined during the pandemic? Will the Morrison government take the lead and provide appropriate quarantine facilities so international students can return to Australia, particularly to Queensland? Why has it taken so long for the Morrison government to provide quarantine facilities for international students to return? Why aren't they doing something proactively? Sadly, the coalition has demonstrated it's happy to sign students into debt but it won't do the correct thing to protect one of our great export earners. 12:01 Dr ALLEN 282986 Higgins I rise to seek further clarification from the minister for education regarding investment in our children's education. I want to start my comments by quoting the great Sir Robert Menzies, who in addressing a Parents and Citizens Association conference in 1964 said: Our great function when we approach the problem of education is to equalise opportunity to see that every boy and girl has a chance to develop whatever faculties he or she may have, because this will be a tremendous contribution to the good life for the nation. I'd like to commend the minister for education and the work that he is doing to back in this great Menzian tradition, in particular when I talk about early childhood education. As a paediatrician and a mother of four, I was absolutely delighted that the minister for education came to my electorate of Higgins to make the announcement about $2 billion of funding over the next four years for this very purpose. He came to the Estrella Preschool in my electorate of Higgins to make this very, very important announcement. We all know that these significant reforms will help make Australian children better prepared for their first year of school. As a mum and as a paediatrician, I know how important those first 1,000 days of life are, not just for the health and wellbeing of children but for their brain development. We know that those early years are so important for getting right the approach that they have to school; their openness, their curiosity, their excitement about the challenges of education are so incredibly important. We know that preparing our children well for the first year of school life means that they're better prepared for their educational future, and that means our nation is better prepared for the future with regard to these children going on to have jobs. The Morrison government is unlocking $2 billion of opportunity because it's so important that this sector has a process going forward that's going to enable it to have guaranteed funding for all stages of education in Australia. There are three aspects of this new reform and funding that are incredibly important. The first is that the $1,340 per child is given regardless of whether they attend kinder, preschool or a preschool program in a centre based day care. That provides opportunity and choice, so that families are in control of what they do to provide education for their children. I really welcome this, and this has already been rolled out in my home state of Victoria with great success. The second aspect that's very important is participation. The current universal access national partnership gives children access to 600 hours per year. That is already benefitting 350,000 children. What this new program is doing is giving, in the forward estimates, four years of funding, so for the first time in our history the Commonwealth is funding preschools in forward estimates, not just on an annual basis. This is incredibly important for the sector. It means that there will be 12,000 preschool services that will benefit. While we've seen the number of eligible children enrolled in preschool increase from 12 per cent in 2008 to 96 per cent in 2019, only 72 per cent of children make full use of the available hours. What is really important about this new reform is that the Commonwealth will work with states and territories to develop and implement these preschool outcome measures to ensure that we have excellent attendance. This is based on children in places not only where they have advantage but also where perhaps they're less well advantaged. We know, for instance, that attendance rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are only 60 per cent, and disadvantaged children have an attendance rate of only 66 per cent. We know from Closing the Gap that this is an incredibly important target that we need to work on with the states and territories, to ensure that we close the gap not only for Indigenous families and children but also for those less advantaged. Commonwealth funding for preschools will grow from $453 million in 2021-22 to $520 million in 2024-25. Will the minister please update us on how the Morrison government is investing in Australian children and their education, including for kids in my electorate, so that we can make sure that education is a force for good, a force for equity and a force for change? 12:06 Ms COKER 263547 Corangamite Early childhood education and care should be a fundamental building block of Australia's economic and social success. It should be recognised as a springboard that enables all children to reach their potential. Sadly, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government's lack of investment in the crucial early years is failing our children in the education system. We know the first five years of children's learning are vital to their development. They set our children up for life. Under this government we've seen Australia's reading, maths and science scores plummet on the world stage. The OECD results confirm this. We're on track to have some of the worst scores in the developed world, threatening Australia's status as an economic powerhouse. We need to invest in our early-years education to ensure our children are prepared when they enter primary school. Unfortunately, that is not how this complacent government sees early-years education. This government likes to talk a big game when it comes to child care. When it launched its so-called once-in-a-generation child care reforms in 2018 it claimed families had never had it better. Two new education ministers, a change of prime minister and 2½ years later the verdict is in: the system is not delivering for Australian families. It is not investing in our children's futures, nor is it delivering for the hardworking, female dominated workforce that makes up this sector. In my electorate of Corangamite, childcare costs have risen substantially over the last 12 months. In some areas of my electorate, childcare costs have risen by up to 21.5 per cent. That would equate to the cost of child care doubling every 3½ years. The result is a system that is way too expensive for many families. For many families it means facing the impossible decision over whether to return to work or stay at home and look after children. Instead of working full time, a parent—generally the mother—will often work only three days or not at all thanks to the current cost of child care. This is a federal responsibility. The government is choosing to underfund child care and not to fund three-year-old kindergarten across the nation. It's shameful, and so is the Morrison government's half-baked plan that won't come into effect until 2022. Families need real help now. The scope of the Morrison government's plan is too limited and does not include out-of-school-hours and vacation care. What is most frustrating is there's nothing in the plan to put an end to the soaring childcare fees. On the other hand, Labor have a comprehensive plan. We have a real vision that will actually help families. We will scrap the $10,560 childcare subsidy cap, which often sees women losing money from an extra day's work. We will fix the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent and we will increase childcare subsidy rates and taper them for every family earning less than half a million dollars a year. Labor's policy will benefit one million Australian families. In contrast, the coalition's plan will benefit only about 250,000 families. Labor's childcare plan will pump about three times as much extra funding into the system. The data backs it up. The McKell Institute estimates that the subsidy boost would deliver a return on investment of at least 100 per cent. It is evident that Labor's plan is a greater investment that will result in a greater reward. The one thing this tired government really doesn't seem to grasp is that early education is an investment that delivers massive returns, so today my question to the minister is simple: how much is it going to cost Australia later on to overcome this government's failure to invest today? 12:10 Mr TUDGE M2Y Aston Can I start by saying what a pleasure it is to get a question on education from the opposition, because we haven't had one in the main chamber since 11 November last year. I welcome the questions from the other side of the Chamber and certainly welcome the questions from my side of the Chamber also. I'd like to address a few points in the time I have available. Firstly, let me address the issue in relation to school funding, a very precise question phrased by the member for Moreton. We have increased funding to public schools by 100 per cent since coming to office. It's a doubling of funding. Mr Perrett interjecting— Mr TUDGE M2Y I'll take that interjection. The member for Moreton just said that of course there's been some population increase. The per capita funding in government schools since we came to office has increased 80 per cent in those eight years. That is a very significant per capita increase to government school funding in anyone's book. I also know that the member is concerned, quite rightly, about disadvantaged students, including Indigenous students. The model that we have put in place, agreed to by every state and territory minister, including the Queensland government minister, has specific loadings for Indigenous students and disadvantaged students. Those loadings can sometimes end up doubling the overall funding that a student might attract at a particular school—a government school or, indeed, a non-government school—which is exactly as it should be. So, far from failing government schools, we have been the best friend ever to government schools. I'd also like to address a key theme which has arisen in relation to the university sector. I take the points which members have raised. They say—and I quote them—that we have 'abandoned the university sector'. Nothing could be further from the truth. Right now there is $20.4 billion worth of funding, in direct funding and in HELP loan funding, going to the university sector—a record amount. There are a record number of students at our universities right now. Sixty per cent of those students, under our Job-ready Graduates Package, are paying either the same fees or lower fees. They're paying lower fees particularly in those courses where we need more people, because that's where the jobs are going to be in the future. Of course, in the budget last October we provided an additional $1.5 billion to our public universities—a billion dollars in extra research funding and half a billion dollars in additional courses. So to address the precise points that the opposition have been raising I'd just say: that is absolutely wrong. The universities make a very important contribution to our society in educating our students and in delivering research. In the same context, the question was also raised as to what the borders being closed to international students means for our universities. Thankfully, the impact to date has not been as great as many anticipated. In fact, when you look at the aggregate enrolments of international students today versus those in 2019, prepandemic, they are down only 13 per cent. International students constitute about 27 per cent of all university revenue. That means that, to date, aggregate revenue is down only three per cent from international students and the borders being closed. We're going to watch that, but three per cent down is not anywhere near some of the very significant declines that we may have been anticipating earlier. The opposition constantly says that they should have got JobKeeper. Can I point out again to the opposition that in order to be eligible for JobKeeper you had to have a 30 per cent decline in revenues and, if you're a large organisation of a billion dollars in revenue or more, you had to have a 50 per cent decline in revenue. Three per cent doesn't get anywhere close. Proposed expenditure agreed to. Consideration in Detail 134 12:16 Mr SUKKAR 242515 Deakin It's a great honour for me to be able to speak about the government's budget this year, which forms the expenditure in the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2021-2022, and to reiterate what I think we've been speaking about in this place for nearly 18 months now, and that is the extraordinary economic outcomes that Australia has been able to achieve under the stewardship of the Morrison government. We did a number of years of hard work to ensure that the Australian budget was able to get back into broad balance. That then ensured we had the fiscal fire power that the economy needed to commit $291 billion, nearly 15 per cent of GDP, in direct economic support for individuals, for households and for businesses throughout our country at the height of the pandemic. It's quite remarkable, particularly when you consider comparable economies around the world, that there are now more people in work than there were when the pandemic hit, and that does not happen by accident. That has happened due to the economic stewardship led by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to support businesses to support individuals, and now we're seeing the fruits of that support. What Australians saw in the budget was a budget that consolidated those gains, that kept our foot on the economic accelerator to ensure we could lock in those gains and move forward. At the centrepiece of this year's budget, which Australians are seeing as characteristic of the Morrison government, we saw tax relief. We saw that more than 10 million low- and middle-income earners will enjoy a tax cut. For single income families with the low- and middle-income tax offset that's $1,080 in savings, and for dual income families that's $2,160. This, in the end, puts more money in Australians' pockets. It enhances aggregate demand, and we're very keen to see the fruits of that tax relief very soon. What we've also seen throughout the pandemic, going back to emergency measures put in place last year, is the benefits of temporary full expensing, and we saw that they were extended in the budget. What temporary full expensing has done, and I think every member in this place, even members opposite begrudgingly would need to admit, is the order books of the country are being filled, and every single Australian based manufacturer or business will tell you that. This measure supports 99 per cent of businesses with a turnover threshold of $5 billion, ensuring that it covers some 11½ million employees. So there are 11½ million Australians working in businesses where temporary full expensing is ensuring that their customers are demanding their products, and that is one of the reasons why we can now say again that we have more Australians in work today than at the beginning of the pandemic. In the budget we've also put in place a number of measures to enhance homeownership. We obviously did an incredible job during the pandemic in turning around the quite frightening situation for the residential construction industry, with over half a billion jobs being at risk. The HomeBuilder program led to the industry being at least 32½ per cent busier than they were at the beginning of the pandemic, so we've not only protected those jobs but we've grown those jobs. We have built on that as well in the budget with the Family Home Guarantee, which will support single-parent families to purchase a home with a deposit of as little as two per cent. We've increased First Home Super Saver Scheme contributions from $30,000 to $50,000, again helping first home buyers with the most critical aspect of making that purchase—getting a deposit together. We have put in place the JobTrainer Fund, which is providing 163,000 new job-training places. Then there is the patent box. This has not been significantly remarked upon in the media, but I think it's going to drive huge economic advances in this country. There's $110 billion for infrastructure and $1.7 billion to enhance child care. This budget locks in those gains, keeps our foot on the economic accelerator and gets more Australians into jobs. (Time expired) 12:21 Mr CLARE HWL Blaxland I have two questions I'd like to ask the Minister for Housing. The first question is about land supply. In 2017 the minister promised to release surplus Commonwealth land for housing development. The 2017 budget documents state, 'The government is committed to making underutilised and surplus Commonwealth land available for housing.' That statement was made in budget papers that are now four years old. My question to the minister is: has any surplus Commonwealth land been released for housing since that promise was made four years ago and, if so, how much? My second question to the minister is about the Family Home Guarantee. My question is: will you commit today to lift the price cap for this scheme? No answer there. This was exposed as a problem in the Launceston Examiner three weeks ago— Mr Sukkar interjecting— Mr CLARE HWL Well, I'm asking you a question. You're the minister. Are you going to answer the question? I'm going to give you a bit more detail and then I hope that you'll give me an answer. The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZP Members and Minister, we don't debate the process across the chamber. The member has five minutes. The minister will have a chance to answer the question. Mr CLARE HWL I asked the minister about this when we debated this legislation in the parliament recently and all I got was him with his head down, pretending I wasn't there. I asked him: is there a 10,000 hard cap on this scheme? There was no answer. I didn't get an answer in estimates about that either. Maybe you will give an answer to that as well. Is it a demand driven scheme or is it a hard cap? I don't get an answer on that. Will you lift the price cap for this scheme to make it work? It will be interesting to see if we get an answer on that today as well, because it was revealed in the Launceston Examiner three weeks ago that, if you're a single parent in Launceston with a couple of kids looking to use this scheme to buy a three-bedroom house, there's not much you can buy. I checked on realestate.com.au today and there are four places in Launceston, so there are only four places you can buy if you're a single parent looking to use that scheme to purchase property there. I asked the minister in the debate in parliament if he would lift the cap. That seems to be the obvious thing you need to do there to make sure that people in Launceston can access this scheme. I didn't get a response from him, but I did get a response from the member for Bowman. In speaking in the debate after me, he said, 'If you can't find a place in Launceston then get in the car and drive until you can find somewhere under $300,000.' Is that really the government's policy? Is that really what we're telling people—'If you can't find a place where you live at the moment, where your job is and where your family is, you should just move'? Surely not. The simple easy way to fix this is to lift that cap. One of the places in Launceston that's for sale under $300,000 has an ad that says 'renovate or detonate'. It doesn't have walls. But the government is saying this is a scheme for single parents with kids. And it's not just Launceston. I had a look on the internet today; in Nelson Bay, just north of Newcastle, the cap is $450,000. How many three-bedroom homes do you think there are under that price in Nelson Bay? The answer is none. The answer's the same in Byron Bay. There's not one three-bedroom home there under the cap that the government has set. It's the same in Coffs Harbour; there are zero places there. It's the same in Moruya on the south coast; zero three-bedroom homes that you can buy under the cap. It's the same in Narooma. In Bega, there's one place. In Ballina, there are two. It's not just the east coast of Australia; it's the same on the west coast. In Karratha over in WA there is only one. It's the same in Port Hedland; only one three-bedroom home that you can buy under the cap that the government has set for this scheme. They're just a couple of examples. It's obvious that price caps are way out of whack with the cost of housing in Australia. It's also obvious what the solution is: lift the cap. I'm sure the minister knows this. I'm sure the member for Bass knows it. I'm sure they're having private conversations about how to fix this mess. It's simple; raise the cap. So I ask you to make a commitment today to raise the cap. (Time expired) The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZP Was the minister seeking to answer? Honourable members interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZP I'm assuming the minister was seeking to answer the questions earlier. Is that correct? Mr Sukkar 242515 If he said it in his time, I was very willing to. But I'm not going to deprive— The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZP In that case, I'm just going to say to all present that I'm finding it very hard to hear people with the constant conversation backwards and forwards. I'm giving the call to the member for Fisher. 12:26 Mr WALLACE 265967 Fisher I just want to acknowledge that the member for Moncrieff is allowing me to jump in; I thank him very much. Budgets can be a time when political discourse is in most danger of becoming separated from the real on-the-ground consequences of the work that we do here. Try as we might on this side of the chamber, the reporting of budgets is all too often about telephone-number-sized figures, percentages and complicated acronyms. However, at its heart the 2021 federal budget is about real outcomes for people in our communities that are going to result directly from the Morrison government's actions, and that is what I would like to ask the Assistant Treasurer about. A great budget like this one means a strong economic recovery, and a strong economic recovery means more opportunities and greater prosperity for everyone in regions like mine, the good seat of Fisher. So I ask: will the minister inform the chamber of how the Morrison government's plan to secure our economic recovery is ensuring that Australia leads the global recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic? Last year in Fisher, we saw the significant and instant impact that the Morrison government's investments can have. As the Assistant Treasurer knows, the construction industry is central to the Sunshine Coast's prosperity—an industry that I have been involved with for the last 30 years. Last year, as the COVID-19 crisis began to be felt, builders in my community came to me and said that from August they had no future work. An industry generating $6.1 billion in our region and employing some 20,000 Sunshine Coast locals was about to be shut down almost overnight. I reached out to the Assistant Treasurer and I supported him in putting together a Morrison government investment which would make a real difference to tens of thousands of people in my electorate. The HomeBuilder program that resulted is a perfect example of what this government has been able to deliver through a strong economic response to this pandemic. Those on the opposite side all said it would never work, didn't they? The impact was tangible and immediate. Builders who had come to me saying that they had no work found themselves quickly receiving more new inquiries than they had ever before. Hundreds of new lots were opened up for homes at the Aura and Harmony developments, and people even camped out overnight to try and snap them up. Nationwide, this past financial year will end up producing a record of 137,170 starts of detached homes, an increase of 34.2 per cent on the previous year. But 'it will never work' apparently. HomeBuilder is supporting $30 billion worth of construction work, saving thousands of jobs in my community, and its effects will be felt in the back pockets of Sunshine Coast locals for many months, if not years, to come. I ask the Assistant Treasurer: what will the tangible outcomes for ordinary Australians resulting from HomeBuilder be? Unlike the Queensland Labor state government, which yesterday yet again handed down a budget which included precisely no new investment for infrastructure on the Sunshine Coast, the Morrison government understands that building a strong economic recovery involves investing in new road and rail projects. Investing in road and rail projects creates hundreds of local jobs in construction in the short term for Sunshine Coast workers, who spend money in local businesses. In the longer term, it improves our region's economy by helping locals to move around more quickly and safely, and by providing a more attractive experience for our many tourists. Once again, while the Queensland state Labor government does nothing, and pats itself on the back for it, the Morrison government's federal budget will have real positive consequences for working Australians on the Sunshine Coast. This federal government's budget made $15.2 billion in additional infrastructure commitments this year, supporting an extra 30,000 jobs across the lives of those projects. On the Sunshine Coast, this included $160 million for phases 1 and 2 of the Mooloolah River interchange to deal once and for all with an intersection which has become a total deathtrap. It includes $7 million for the Caloundra transport corridor upgrade, extending Third Avenue to Nicklin Way and finally taking pressure off the Nicklin Way/Caloundra Road roundabout. This year the Morrison government also invested $5 million for a study into the next duplication of the North Coast rail. What do all these projects have in common? The one thing they have in common is that they are state government projects, yet we in the federal government are continually tapped—'Please, Sir, can you give us some money?' How about the Labor government put money into their projects. 12:32 Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B Whitlam My questions are to the Minister representing the Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy. First, some background. In the lead-up to the last election, the government promised to leave the superannuation guarantee levy alone. In fact, the Prime Minister was adamant that he wanted to see more of workers' super going into workers' superannuation accounts, and he was on the record saying that very, very clearly. He then spent the next 18 months campaigning against his own election promise. As so often is the case with this Prime Minister, he says one thing and he does another. He makes a big announcement but he doesn't follow through. This time he made an announcement and then spent the next 18 months campaigning against his own announcement not to cut workers' superannuation. So it was with some relief that we saw in this budget that the government has left the superannuation guarantee levy alone for now—although members of their own backbench are campaigning against their government's own budget, which agreed to implement the government's own pre-election commitment. We learnt over the last 48 hours that there are some unscrupulous large businesses in this country that are refusing to pass on those superannuation guarantee levy payments to their workers without demanding a wage cut from their workers. This is unconscionable. My question to the minister representing the minister for superannuation and the government in this chamber is: does he support these big businesses doing that? Does the government support big businesses cutting workers' wages to implement the superannuation guarantee levy? That is what they are threatening to do, and they should be condemned for doing it. This government and this minister should stand up today, use the opportunity and the forum that he has in this chamber today, to condemn those big businesses for doing that. I want to remind the House that these are workers that have supported the Australian economy through some of its darkest days. These are workers who have not seen a real wage increase in over 10 years under this government. Real wages are going backwards with no plan in this budget for real wages to go forward. But, worse than that, some of these big businesses are threatening the unconscionable—to slash workers' wages to implement the superannuation guarantee levy rise. The government has a choice: do they back the big businesses or do they back the workers? It's a fairly simple question to answer. Whose side are you on? Labor is on the side of the workers. Mr Sukkar interjecting— Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B I understand by the noise that is being made by the minister that he doth protest much. He has the opportunity to jump up right now and say, 'I am on the side of the workers, not on the side of big business,' but he's not. He won't do that because secretly they're cheering them on. Secretly, they are cheering on big businesses to slash their workers' wages to pay for superannuation. I want to remind all of those workers that this is a minister who is pulling in 15.4 per cent himself but saying to the workers, 'Nine and a half per cent is enough for you, and if the superannuation guarantee levy goes up you're going to get a wage cut as a result.' I mean, is this the best the government can do after 10 years? After 10 years of wages being frozen, at the first opportunity the workers have to get ahead, they say: 'It's going to cost you. You're going to cop it in the neck.' It's a very simple proposition: are you on the side of big business or on the side of workers? I want to hear from the minister on this one. I want to hear whose side he is on. He's got the opportunity in a few minutes to stand up and say which side he is on. Will he make a clear statement, on behalf of the government, to condemn the threats that are being made by big business today to go after workers' wages so as to pass on the lawfully implemented superannuation guarantee levy? There are a range of other measures before the House today that, if we get the time, I would like to ask the minister about. But this is a very important issue, so I'll actually sit down early to give the minister the opportunity to stand up now and say, quite clearly: 'I'm on the side of the workers. I condemn what big business are threatening to do.' 12:36 Ms BELL 282981 Moncrieff I thank the member for the extra time in the chamber. I, for one, am proud, as a government member, to stand and speak about the budget measures from the Morrison government that are securing Australia's economic recovery. I say to Australians who may be listening that we on this side of the chamber have a plan. We have a plan to deliver more jobs and to rebuild our economy. We have a plan to set the country up for a very bright future. Since the pandemic struck at the very beginning of last year, the Morrison government has provided $291 billion in direct economic support to keep businesses in business and Australians in jobs. I say to those opposite: JobKeeper was a key plank of the last budget. Without that support, for 10,400 small businesses in the Moncrieff electorate alone, we would not be in the positive and confident position that we are in as our economy moves forward. It's certainly kept the doors open on the Gold Coast, so I thank the federal government. My constituents and small businesses in Moncrieff thank the federal government, all 32,000 of them that have been supported—10,400 of them on JobKeeper alone. There is still much work to do. The pandemic is not over yet and we must not let our guard down. We must keep working and keep supporting our recovery, and that's why these 2021-22 budget measures are so important. I want to talk about just a few areas of the budget. Firstly, as promised by the Treasurer, more than 10 million Australians, over 71,400 of them individuals in my electorate, will this year receive $1,080, for singles, or $2,160, for couples. That helps with the bills. This money—about $75 million will go back into my electorate alone—will be spent in coffee shops; it will be spent in restaurants and tourist attractions; it will be spent in hotels. It will go to school fees for families; it will go to sports fees; it will go to car maintenance and to bus fares. It will help create the economic environment that creates more jobs. That's what the Morrison government is about: more jobs and more support for the economy to create a strong future for all of us. Another area I want to talk about is business tax cuts and incentives, which are so important on the Gold Coast, the home of the entrepreneurial spirit. Business owners need only wait less than a month for their permanent tax cut on 1 July, which will take the corporate tax rate down to 25 per cent. And all of that helps in our economy, especially on the Gold Coast. In addition, the instant asset write-off or temporary full-expensing measure will now be extended—again, it's music to our ears in Moncrieff. What we are seeing now in the economy is the outcome of this measure from last year's budget—that is, business owners are investing back into their own businesses. They are buying cars, they are buying coffee machines, and they are buying plant and equipment for their manufacturing businesses and their small businesses. As result of last year's budget we are seeing record investment back into small business, not seen for seven years. That's a great outcome for the engine room of our economy that is small and family business. The proof is in the pudding, and that proof is that more Australians are in jobs today than when the pandemic hit. That is an outstanding result and something to be very positive about moving forward. The loss carry-back measure will support those businesses that may not have been profitable this year, and it will allow companies with a turnover of up to $5 billion to offset losses for the 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 income years against previously taxed profits from 2018-19 or subsequent years and generate a refund. That's 11,900 businesses in Moncrieff. Multiply that around the country and how many businesses is that? I see those on the other side are a little bit bored with my speech because they don't get small business. They don't understand that 11,900 businesses in Moncrieff can now have the opportunity for that loss carry-back that keeps Australians—and Gold Coasters—in jobs. I'm absolutely thrilled about that. It's a great opportunity for Australia. This is a time when we are rebuilding our economy. The Morrison government stands behind business, we stand behind income tax cuts for individuals across the country and we stand behind our Treasurer. How are these Morrison government investment incentives and tax cuts backing Australian business to drive our continued economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and is the Treasurer aware of any alternative approaches? (Time expired) 12:42 Ms WELLS 264121 Lilley Even with all the weeks to prepare for consideration in detail, the best question asked then was, 'Are you aware of any alternative approaches?' Honestly, you do a disservice to this process. The Morrison government can run but it cannot hide from the numbers. Australian women earn less than men in any job. So my first question to the minister is: what is your plan to fix that? This Morrison budget glossy is full of buzzwords without any substance. It's not a budget even trying to fix the systemic inequality faced by Australian women. It is a budget for political recovery, not for pandemic recovery. Half of one per cent of this $589 billion budget, or $3.4 billion, is going towards women's economic security. Gender Equity Victoria conducted analysis comparing how the federal budget's investment in women measures up in comparison to some of the other big-ticket items that it announced. Specific funding for endometriosis is $5 million, but the gaming industry receives $20 million in tax breaks. There is $29.3 million set aside to improve migrant and refugee women's safety over the next three years, but $464 million is being sprayed around to bolster immigration detention. There is $57.6 million being set aside for family violence services for First Nations women—that's terrific, but $474 million is being spent upgrading military training facilities, all in the Northern Territory. From those numbers it is pretty clear how much the Morrison government actually cares about women's economic security—it doesn't. There is little support for women working in traditionally female dominated, undervalued care sectors like aged care, child care and retail. You can throw as much unconditional money as you like at aged-care facilities, but you are not going to fix aged care if you are not fixing the systemic workforce issues in that industry. If you have a female dominated workforce that is underpaid, underappreciated and overworked, you will not fix aged care, no matter how many billions you throw at private centres to do so without any strings attached. We agree that new skills spending is good, but skills do not create jobs, they do not boost wages and they do not improve existing works conditions. Poor wage growth hurts everybody, including workers and small-business owners, but it hurts women the most, because 65 per cent of all jobs undertaken by women are in low- and middle-income service industries like hospitality, retail, health care and social services. This inequity is only further widened by the gender pay gap, which is currently at 31 per cent and only getting wider as the prevalence of insecure work continues to grow. An honourable member interjecting— Ms WELLS 264121 I'll take that interjection. It's the lowest possible figure you can use, not factoring in casual work, part-time work or time taken over the course of a lifetime. It's 31 per cent when you are realistic about the kinds of systemic discrimination and time off that women take in the workforce. This budget offers no substantial change to policy settings that block women's economic security. So my question to the minister is: why not? In terms of addressing parity in retirement incomes, yes, the budget abolished the $450 a month earnings threshold for super, which will predominantly benefit women in low-paid casual work. Great. But, with one in three women retiring with no superannuation at all and the average super balance of women being roughly half that of their male counterparts, this measure is small; it is insufficient. It is just a drop in the ocean. Perhaps some of the $29.5 billion in tax concessions handed out each year to boost male super could instead be used to pay super on paid parental leave. As economist Alison Pennington put it, 'Pink-washing' the budget 'cannot hide the powerful disequalising forces that this government has set in motion.' This budget cements rising inequality in the structure of our post-COVID recovery. The short-sighted, insincere, PR focused policy decisions being made by the Morrison government today, being defended in this chamber today, will affect Australian women for generations to come. So my question to the minister is: what is the Morrison government doing to improve the quality of work, the pay and the conditions for undervalued women working in our care economy? Further, my question to the minister is: will the Morrison government support Labor's policy to strengthen the ability and the capacity of the Fair Work Commission to order pay increases for workers in low-paid, female dominated industries? Until we have answers to those questions, I don't see how Australian women can rely upon this Morrison government at all. 12:47 Ms HAMMOND 80072 Curtin I'm very happy to speak in consideration in detail on the budget. From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic early last year, this government has understood it and dealt with it on two fronts: as a health crisis and as an economic crisis. It has been and continues to be an extraordinary challenge for all of us, all around the world. It has been testing our health systems and our economies, and it's been testing us all individually and collectively. There's no hiding from the fact that our response to COVID-19 has come at significant fiscal cost and that net debt is anticipated to grow to 40.9 per cent of GDP by June 2025. The dollars involved are enormous and, again, there is no hiding from the fact that it's going to impact on all of us for a long time. But, as the Treasurer said in his budget speech last month, the 2021-22 budget is one designed to secure Australia's economic recovery. It is a budget which is focused both on the here and now, and the future. A lot of money is being spent, but it is being spent in direct and targeted ways. This budget and the economic plan which underpins it will continue to create the right environment for the creation of more jobs, more innovation, more investment and greater confidence, all of which are needed to ensure we continue to deliver essential services and to rebuild our country. As I suspect many in this chamber do, I have vivid recollections of March and April last year, when we were all leaping into the unknown. I recall speaking with local business owners in my electorate whose anxiety was understandably at peak levels. They were being required to shut down their operations for a significant period of time—in fact, they didn't know for how long. The overwhelming majority of them then had to make significant changes to the way they operated so they at least could be doing something and getting some money in. Many of those same business owners still come up to me now and tell me that the introduction of JobKeeper was not only their financial lifeline; it was also their morale and wellbeing lifeline. While they remained stressed, JobKeeper gave them sufficient comfort and confidence to keep going. It eased the level of their anxieties. During COVID last year, over 9,000 businesses in Curtin accessed JobKeeper, and 24,000 people were supported by this mechanism to stay in work. About 6,600 businesses also benefited from the tax-free cash flow boost, which again was a key factor in helping to ease anxiety and bolster confidence. The range of things that this was spent on by businesses has been extraordinary, and I've gone and visited many of my local businesses to see what they did with it: updating old kitchens, replacing out-of-life equipment, putting in new technology. It's been used across the length and breadth of the businesses in my area, and this budget continues to deliver benefits to those businesses in my electorate. More than 25,000 businesses will be able to write off the full value of any eligible asset they purchase and around 12,000 businesses will be able to use the extended carry-back measure to support cash flow and again build their confidence. Despite being severely impacted by the pandemic—and let's face it, in WA, where we get shut down if somebody sneezes, they are still very stressed about how to run their businesses in these times—the measures that we're putting in place will give them confidence to keep going, not to simply shut up shop and walk away for the fear of the unknown and being shut down again. The local business owners have told me directly that they've been given the confidence to back themselves and back their businesses. Of course, this budget is also supporting individuals. We've got the tax relief measures, which the member for Moncrieff described. Again, about 52,400 taxpayers in Curtin are going to benefit from those particular tax relief measures. There are other things supporting individuals: childcare changes, more listings on the PBS, extensions to telehealth, more funding for mental health and aged care. All of these measures have a direct impact on people in my electorate. As the Assistant Treasurer well knows, the people in my area, like many Australians all across the country, are aspirational and, if they don't already do so, many of them want to own their own home. In many ways this yearning for owning your own home has been magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions on us, so my question for the minister is to inform us how the government is backing Australian jobs through our economic— (Time expired) 12:52 Mr THISTLETHWAITE 182468 Kingsford Smith Australians are facing a perfect storm when it comes to their insurance premiums. The cumulative effect of climate change and COVID has led to dramatic increases in the cost of almost all forms of insurance in Australia. It's the cost of climate inaction. That's the cost of this government's lack of action on climate change manifesting itself in an increase in everyone's insurance premiums. So when this government says that there's no cost to its policies on climate change, it's wrong. You're all paying for it through your insurance premium and it's only going to get worse. In many regions throughout Australia insurance has now become completely unaffordable, particularly in the north of Australia. In the member for Eden-Monaro's electorate, you can't get insurance for bushfire coverage any more. In the Hawkesbury floodplain in New South Wales, on the Central Coast, in Bundaberg in Queensland, in Tasmania—in basically every state in Australia—there are regions where, because of the risk associated with climate change, it's now impossible to get insurance and it's going to get worse. The government recently announced their northern Australia reinsurance pool. It's a $10 billion guarantee that they say will drive down premiums. My question to the government is: why has it taken eight years to take some action for the people of the north of Australia? They've been crying out for some action for the past eight years, and this government has done nothing. There have been numerous studies—three ACCC reports, a Productivity Commission report, a Small Business Ombudsman report—but all of their recommendations have been ignored. Every single one of those recommendations has been ignored, and they've made this announcement about the reassurance pool for which there is very little detail. Now the people of northern Australia are starting to say, as many people are saying about many things with this government: 'We think that they're all talk and no action. This isn't what it's cracked up to be.' The day after the announcement was made, my office received a phone call from a small business on the Central Coast, and that small businessperson on the Central Coast said, 'We face the risk of flooding here on a daily basis, on the Central Coast, and my business is now facing the prospect of not being able to afford insurance.' The question they asked us was: 'Will this reinsurance pool be extended to other regions where insurance is now unaffordable,' and that is my question to the minister. Will the reinsurance apply to the Central Coast, to Eden-Monaro and to other electorates throughout the country where insurance is now affordable? My second question is: when will this reinsurance pool come into effect? The government's announcement says that it will be on 1 July 2022. But government officials in estimates started to crab walk away from that commitment. It means that the residents of northern Australia could be waiting for many, many years longer before they get any relief from their skyrocketing insurance premiums. The people of northern Australia, given that they've been waiting for so long for action on this by this government, deserve a better answer. The Morrison government says that it hopes that the northern Australia reinsurance pool will reduce premiums. The government is estimating that it will be $1.5 billion for household strata and small businesses north of the Tropic of Capricorn over 10 years. That equates to about 10 per cent. Let me tell you: if you're trying to insure your home and contents and the premium is about $9,000, I don't think 10 per cent is going to cut it. I don't think you're going to dispel that anger up there with a 10 per cent reduction on a big announcement like this that they've been saying would be the saviour to their issues. Where is the detailed policy work that you're supposed to do in government? The second issue is that the government says that this will be cost neutral over many years. So my question to the government is: if it is cost neutral, will this be paid for by a levy on the rest of the insurance holders throughout the country? Is the rest of Australia going to pay for this reinsurance pool? The third element is building in risky areas—in areas where there are floodplains and there is a known risk. What incentives are built into this scheme to ensure that people aren't encouraged to just build in risky areas because they've got the comfort of the reinsurance pool? Will there be incentives, like those outlined in the ACCC report, for new building standards around resilience—for a voluntary resilience register for insurers? Will any of these incentives be built into the scheme? (Time expired) 12:57 Mr SUKKAR 242515 Deakin I want to thank everyone that's participated in today's CID, particularly the members for Fisher, Moncrieff and Curtin. What we've heard today—in particular, through questions from the member for Moncrieff—is in relation to small businesses and how we're supporting them. From 1 July small businesses in Australia will have a tax rate of 25 per cent—a significant achievement for small businesses throughout this country. This builds on the temporary full expensing that we put in place during the pandemic; the tax loss carry-back, which injects funds into businesses really quickly rather than having them wait years in some cases to recover those tax losses; and the patent box, which we announced in the budget. These are all measures to support businesses in Australia to invest, and, as I said in my initial remarks, we saw that lead to an unemployment rate of 5½ per cent. There are more people in jobs now than there were at the beginning of the pandemic. I want to thank the member for Fisher for his great advocacy and support for the residential construction industry. He asked questions about how we continue to support them. We announced in the budget an additional 10,000 new home guarantees, a subset of the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme, which encourages first homebuyers who want to purchase a home with a five per cent deposit guaranteed by the government and leads them to purchasing new homes, which, again, supports the residential construction industry. There were 500,000 jobs supported through HomeBuilder. Those jobs continue to be supported through the new home guarantee. The member for Curtin asked questions about first home ownership. In extraordinary times we've seen first homebuyers at 155,000 to March—a 55 per cent increase on the long-term average. We see the number of first homebuyers at its highest level in nearly 15 years. The First Home Loan Deposit Scheme, which we put in place before the pandemic, has supported thousands of first homebuyers. We will continue to do so, with another 20,000 places released on 1 July—10,000 in the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme and 10,000 in the New Home Guarantee. We announced a new program—the Family Home Guarantee, which supports single parents to purchase a home with a deposit of as little as two per cent. Some of them will be first home buyers. Many of them will be purchasing a home again, having perhaps lost a home in a family separation. I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate. The fact that the Australian economy is the envy of the world isn't an accident; it's because of the policies we've put in place. We'll continue to do so. Proposed expenditure agreed to. Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 16:00 Consideration in Detail 141 15:59 Mrs ANDREWS 230886 McPherson The budget investment in the Home Affairs portfolio underscores our belief that a safer Australia is a stronger Australia. Our first priority is the safety and security of every Australian. We know that continued vigilance and an emphasis on national security is what will underpin economic growth following the pandemic. Australia is a safe place to live and work. It's one of our strengths as we lead the world in post-COVID recovery, but we can't take anything for granted. That's why the 2021-22 budget provides an extra $2 billion to build an even more secure and resilient nation. This funding will boost national security, maintain our strong borders, improve emergency management, make our community safer and help protect our children from the monstrous crime of sexual exploitation. Other speakers in this debate will go into further detail on these. With record funding for our national security agencies we will be better able to combat threats of terrorism, espionage and criminal gangs. We saw just last week the tremendous achievement of the Australian Federal Police's Operation Ironside in getting dangerous criminals, drugs and guns off our streets. Our government is determined to give our law enforcement and national security agencies the resources they need to tackle crime and to make our community safer, whether that's funding or new laws to ensure they can carry out their work. The 2020-21 budget provided a record funding boost to the AFP. The centrepiece of this year's budget is a record $1.3 billion to boost ASIO's capabilities, and this of course will help secure our sovereign interests and counter the threat of foreign interference in an increasingly complex world. On that note, we're investing more than $40 million in delivering new reforms to protect Australia's critical infrastructure and secure their supply chains. We're also tackling cybercrime and ensuring that security and trust are built into the foundations of Australia's growing digital economy. This is really where the nexus between security and our economic interests is obvious and critical. In an increasingly digital world, the threat of cybercrime has real economic implications, and that's why I've elevated the delivery of our $1.67 billion Cyber Security Strategy 2020 as a priority. Our strong borders are more important than ever before, and we're continuing to invest in border protection with an extra $38 million for Operation Sovereign Borders and over $460 million to strengthen our immigration detention network. It's a little understood fact that the majority of people in immigration detention are those who have arrived legally and had their visas cancelled, normally because they've committed serious crime. The vast majority aren't people seeking asylum. In fact, more than 80 per cent of people in immigration detention have criminal records, so detaining them before they are deported is a very practical and necessary step to ensure both the integrity of our migration system and our community is kept safe. When it comes to community safety, we're also tackling the monstrous crime of child abuse with close to $60 million for the Australian Federal Police for new frontline activities that will help protect children and further the great work being done at the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, which is doing world-leading work. Importantly, as part of our ongoing commitment to women's safety we're providing more funding to support refugee and migrant women, especially those at risk of domestic violence. Every Australian can be assured that with the investments in this year's budget, our government is focusing on what really matters: keeping Australians, our borders and our economy safe. 16:04 Mr GILES 243609 Scullin This is a government of tactics and not strategy, of reaction and not decision, of politics and not policy—much less purpose—and of cruelty and not compassion. After eight long years the administration of the Home Affairs portfolio fundamentally speaks to this. The question for the new minister is: how can she? She has said that compassion comes in many forms, but can she show it in any form to Australians stranded overseas, to Australians who have been the victims of racial abuse and attacks, and to a four-year-old girl in hospital in Perth? Can she show competence in administering her portfolio, which has never been more important than it is right now as we look to re-engage with the world and emerge from the pandemic? I have a series of questions that go to many aspects of her portfolio, as do my colleagues, and hope she'll be able to answer in this forum or afterwards. I will talk about the very recent decisions made by the government, including the decision made by Minister Hawke to reunite the Murugappan family. We welcome that, but it must be the start. It can't be regarded as an excuse for so many years of neglect. I ask the minister: what further steps will be undertaken by her or the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, who doesn't appear to be here yet, to ensure that this family are where they belong—in Biloela? Perhaps government members can say their names, including Tharnicca. When it comes to the humanitarian responsibilities of the Australian government—and I note the recent comments by the minister—what is proposed in respect of New Zealand's generous offer of resettlement, which has now been on the table for eight long years? Perhaps the minister can also advise us about the extraordinary confusion and concern that relates to the heavy-handed administration of the so-called fast-track processing of people seeking asylum. Where is the evidence in this statement that regard is being had for the recommendations of the Halton review or the constitutional responsibilities of this government when it comes to quarantine? Perhaps the minister can reflect on the comments of the former Minister for Home Affairs in relation to the Victorian proposal for purpose-built quarantine, which I note it is too late for but which has ultimately been accepted by this government. I ask the minister to reflect on the fact that there are still more than 30,000 Australians stranded overseas, many of them in India. Australians in India are threatened with jail simply for wanting to come home—to meet the promise this government made to them as citizens. It was a promise reiterated by the Prime Minister when he said that every stranded Australian would be home by Christmas. In the area of multicultural affairs—and I do hope the minister will be here—I note that the lessons of last year appear not to have been heeded. Last year this government did not listen to the voices of multicultural communities when it came to public health messaging. This year the same problem has been replicated when it has come to advertising the vaccination rollout. We know there has been no meaningful campaign across the board, but, given the appalling performance of the government in respect of vaccination more broadly, it is particularly concerning that no effort has been made to look at the particular issues within particular communities and to harness the strength and expertise found within those communities, as so many other governments around the world have done. Through the pandemic, on this side we have recognised that there has been a disturbing upturn in right-wing extremism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and racism more generally. What has been done by this government? We note that the Race Discrimination Commissioner has put forward a framework, which is a starting point. What is the government going to do with this framework? What is the government going to do with citizenship processing delays? What is the government going to do with the 330,000 people on bridging visas who have been left in limbo? What is the government going to do about visa privatisation? There has been $170 million wasted, and core functions of government are simply not up to scratch. After eight years it's a sorry record for this government. It's time for the minister to start correcting it. 16:09 Mr LEESER 109556 Berowra I'm pleased to speak today and put some questions to the minister in consideration in detail on the Home Affairs portfolio. I particularly want to look today at the issues around migration in the COVID context and also at a particular program that is very important to me, the Adult Migrant English Program. I know Minister Andrews knows that program well, because, when she was the Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills it was a responsibility that she had, which has now been transferred to the Home Affairs portfolio. The COVID-19 pandemic has created all sorts of strange sets of circumstances for our country and for the global economy. One of those circumstances has been the fact that we have had so many migrants leave our country as a result of COVID. Indeed, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had half a million temporary visa holders leave these shores. That has created skills shortages and significant job vacancies. In November last year, job vacancies reached a record 254,000. That's higher than at any point in the last 10 years. I have the privilege in this parliament of chairing the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. We have been taking evidence in an inquiry on skilled migration as to the effect of COVID, and we delivered an interim report back in March. It was interesting to hear from some of the business groups about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on their ability to attract people and about those skills shortages that have occurred as a result of so many temporary migrants leaving the country. Business NSW told the committee that half of the businesses in New South Wales are currently experiencing skills shortages. In Western Australia it's one in three businesses. More than a third of businesses in the Northern Territory have identified attracting staff as their greatest challenge over the next three to six months. One of the strange things about COVID-19 is not only does it create shortages; it also creates opportunities. When people look around the world and see the relative freedom that we have in this country and the good management of the health and economic effects of the pandemic, it means that Australia is even more attractive than it usually is as a place for people to consider migrating to. There are many countries that are looking at resetting their migration programs at this time, including competitor countries like Britain and Canada and New Zealand, whose migration programs we often compare ours with. It's important for us to be thinking about the settings that we have in the migration program at this particular time. I think the challenge for us as we enter this recovery period is to ensure that we streamline our processes to ensure that we get the skilled workers that Australian businesses need, enabling those businesses to grow and to create more Australians jobs. So my question for the minister on skilled migration is: can the minister explain how the government is planning to address the skills shortages using the migration program as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic? I wanted to look at another issue that the Joint Standing Committee on Migration handed down a report on last year, also related to COVID—that is, the Working Holiday Maker program. Back when COVID started there were 150,000 working holiday-makers in Australia. The most recent figures I have seen from Minister Littleproud suggest that there are 40,000 working holiday-makers in Australia. Working holiday-makers play a vital role. They are wonderful cultural ambassadors. It is a cultural tourism program. It was good to see yesterday, in the announcement of the new free trade agreement, Boris Johnson and the Prime Minister agreeing to increase the age limit for working holiday-makers from the United Kingdom to 35. Working holiday-makers represent, at their peak, a $3.1 billion industry in Australia in terms of the money that they spend on tourism here. They also play a vital role in a range of different sectors, whether it is tourism and hospitality as workers or whether it is agriculture in particular, and, in thinking about coming into another harvest season, their role has been particularly missed. So I wanted to ask the minister if they could explain what migration levers are being used to address worker shortages, particularly for the upcoming harvest season. Moving to the Adult Migrant English Program, last year the then Acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, Minister Tudge, announced some major reforms to the program to improve English outcomes for migrants and humanitarian entrants; to enable more migrants to access English classes for longer until they reach a higher level of proficiency; to modernise the program and increase flexibility for students by providing greater access to online classes and resources; and to encourage greater participation by introducing English language requirements to partner visa applications and permanent resident sponsorships from late 2021. Could the minister provide an update on the rollout of those changes and the impact they are having on enrolment rates in the Adult Migrant English Program? 16:14 Mr BURNS 278522 Macnamara I rise to ask questions of the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs. Unfortunately the minister for immigration couldn't greet us with his presence today, but I will ask the questions anyway. These questions centre around the fact that this government is willing to spend huge amounts of money at the cost to Australian taxpayers for very little benefit. The most obvious and the most ridiculous saga that we as a country have just gone through is taking an innocent family off the mainland to Christmas Island unnecessarily at a huge expense to the taxpayer. We should know how much it cost Australian taxpayers to unnecessarily drag an innocent family in the middle of the night to Christmas Island. The bill that was run up to detain this family on Christmas Island was in the millions, done completely unnecessarily, and now they're being released back into the community in Perth. What a waste of money in between. This government and the coalition like to boast about how they are the economic managers. What a colossal waste of money taking an innocent family to Christmas Island in the middle of the night has been. We all remember the story as to why Christmas Island was reset up. We had the medevac legislation, which was orchestrated after the government lost that vote in the House of Representatives in the previous parliament. The medevac legislation was set up, and it was working well. As we saw with this family, there was a need for the medevac legislation, because, under this government's care, people weren't getting the medical attention that they needed. A four-year-old girl developed a blood infection because of untreated pneumonia. If that is not a stark reminder of why we needed the medevac bill in the first place then I don't know what is. The medevac legislation was set up, and this government were so intent on playing politics and wasting millions of dollars that they reset up the Christmas Island detention centre. They told us that if we weren't to repeal the medevac legislation—if the medevac bill were going to stay where it was—then our borders were going to be inundated. That was the nonsense that we heard from this government. It culminated in one of the most embarrassing press conferences from the Prime Minister, when he stood by himself, inspecting cages on Christmas Island at the cost of who knows what to the taxpayers. They had absolutely no use for it. At that stage there was not one person being detained on Christmas Island, and yet this government thought that the appropriate course of action was to pull an innocent family out of detention and make them sit on Christmas Island, most of the time by themselves—until other people were detained at Christmas Island. So our question is: how much did you spend wasting money to detain an innocent family all the while allowing a little girl to develop a blood infection for untreated pneumonia? What a colossal waste of money. We in this country have spent a fortune on our regime that was a response to the medevac legislation. I also ask the government in this last little bit: how much could we have saved on detaining people in that total amount had we said yes to the New Zealand offer—the deal that was struck between Julia Gillard and John Key in 2013 to take 150 people per year? How much would we have saved in not having to detain 150 people each year if we would have accepted New Zealand's offer? 16:19 Mr LITTLEPROUD 265585 Maranoa It gives me great pleasure to rise and talk about the appropriation bill and this year's budget because they're focused around our response to the royal commission into natural disasters. I'm proud to say that, as of today, 14 of the 18 recommendations that were directed primarily to the federal government have been completed and many more will be completed by the end of this month, as we have new agencies standing up ready for action in future disasters. We've brought together the Bushfire Recovery Agency and the National Drought and North Queensland Flood Response and Recovery Agency, as per the recommendation. We've brought in the new National Resilience and Recovery Agency, which will play a pivotal part in our response to natural disasters in the future. It's standing up. It will be led by Shane Stone. It will commence on 1 July, ready to tackle, coordinate and cooperate with state agencies should there be another emergency. I'm proud to say that, of the $2 billion of bushfire money that was committed—in addition to the immediate short-term support that we gave to bushfire victims—as of today $1.6 billion has been spent. We announced last month that, where there have been underspends, there will be a final spend to spend right up to that $2 billion. There is a $280 million fund to help communities reconstruct, invest in infrastructure and diversify their economic base. We've made that commitment to spend $2 billion, and that will continue. We're looking also to the future. There was significant investment in standing up not just the Resilience and Recovery Agency but the Australian Climate Service. This is a new agency that brings together the skills of 10 agencies—from BOM to CSIRO and Geoscience Australia—so that we have real-time information. We are able to centralise, collate and provide that data to first responders who are making real-time decisions. This is the first time this has been done in our nation's history. We're also ramping up the capacity of Emergency Management Australia to support that agency in delivering a real-time response to our state agencies in natural disasters. But we want to go further than that. This was part of the recommendations of the royal commission. We make a real commitment towards betterment and more resilient communities. We have a number of programs. We have worked with the Queensland government on household improvement programs. We're investing in a partnership with them to allow homeowners do renovations to their houses to make them more resilient to cyclones. We've had a very successful program. In fact, that has had some results. Some insurance policies have come down by nearly $300 as a result of that investment. As a result of the experience of those types of programs we have announced $600 million in the Preparing Australia Program. It's a very important program. There's $400 million for public mitigation infrastructure and $200 million for household infrastructure, similar to what I just articulated. It's important to build infrastructure in the community, such as levee banks that will keep water away from towns that have previously been inundated. We're partnering with state governments also. The states have worked with us on mitigation works. Some are better than others. I have to say that the Queensland government has a betterment fund of over $100 million. We're trying to partner with that. That's on top of the $260 million—we have partnered $130 million each—in the national risk reduction framework fund to reduce the risks to our communities. These projects are important. That's on top of the Emergency Response Fund. I'm proud to say that the $50 million that is available from the fund will be paid out and expended before 30 June—the full $50 million. We have projects right across the country. This year's mitigation was around flooding because the advice we received in the lead-up to this disaster season was around cyclones and flooding. Again there was meticulous preparation by emergency service personnel. They planned and they were right. We saw a number of cyclones and floods in New South Wales and, as we speak now, Victoria. The mitigation works will again go into a lot of flooding infrastructure. It will support those communities and those households. I'm proud to say that $50 million will be expended. We will be opening up next year's round in July to make sure that we can continue to roll that money out. We're making continued investment in not only the immediacy of supporting those who've been impacted by natural disasters but also building resilience to protect families, businesses and communities. 16:24 Mr HILL 86256 Bruce This is the budget discussion. This is the one time of the year when ministers are meant to turn up here and answer questions about their portfolio and what's in the budget. I'd just record how disrespectful it is, not just to the parliament but to the people who actually care about what's in the immigration portfolio, that the Minister for Immigration, Citizen, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs isn't here. I've never seen this. It's my fifth year in this place and I've never seen a minister actually not have the guts to turn up and answer questions about their portfolio. Under this government we have seen— Government members interjecting— Mr HILL 86256 She's not the immigration minister. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265979 Order! Mr HILL 86256 She doesn't have the delegation that the immigration minister has. That's a fact. Ms Bell interjecting — The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265979 Order! The member is entitled to be heard in silence. Mr HILL 86256 Under this government, over 100,000 Australians have been waiting for years for visas for their partners. The government is using COVID as an excuse. This crisis has been years in the making. It used to take under a year, under Labor, to get a visa for your loved one, your husband or your wife. Now it's two years and climbing, or four years or more if you live in certain parts of the world. Thanks to activists, the government panicked last year and said in the budget that they would put through 72,000 partner visas. They've trumpeted this to try and shut people up. So I ask the minister: will you get to 72,000 visas, and, if not, how many visas are you going to issue in the next two weeks to meet your own target? And what do you say to the thousands of Australians who are still desperately waiting? How long are they going to have to wait? How many visas are you going to issue this coming year? People are distraught. I'll again, one year on, repeat the case of Faniz in my electorate, who still has no visa. Her baby is turning one in July. I've written to three successive ministers about Faniz's case, but still there's no visa. Her husband, the father of the child, has never met the child except on WhatsApp. She works at a law firm. She pays taxes. She has suffered from depression. She has now written to me this week to say, 'We need a time line.' She says: We need to plan for our life, even though Iran is not a safe country but I miss my husband and we need to plan something else … if it is taking couple of more years for me him to get here we might need to go somewhere and stay there and build our life in another country. We cannot keep on waiting for this visa. It is heart breaking how my husband missed all my pregnancy plus the whole year that our daughter was born. …   …   … I know someone who is from UK and applied in April 2021 and visa 309 was granted within 5 weeks. They not processing it in order— as the government claims— I believe they are processing it by the race and this is very disrespectful and discriminating. So I ask the minister: will you end this discrimination against people like Faniz and the tens of thousands of people around the country who happen to fall in love with someone who's not from a nice, white, English-speaking country? The facts are these. This is a map. This shows you the average waiting time, if you fall in love with someone— Government members interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265979 Order! Order! Mr HILL 86256 All of the government members are saying this is not true. This is the government's own data. If you fall in love with someone from the UK, the USA or Germany, you get your visa in an average of seven to nine months. If you commit the great sin of falling in love with someone from China or from India, it's at least 18 months and often more. Why do you discriminate against people who fall in love with people from China and India? Then there's Afghanistan. Those opposite yell and they scream, but these are their own facts, their own data. If you fall in love with someone from Afghanistan, it takes, on average, 43 months. A government member: It's not for the reason you're implying. Mr HILL 86256 It is a country that is so unsafe that the government's pulled out every diplomat from that country— Government members interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265979 Order! I say to members that the member is entitled to be heard in silence. This is not a backwards-and-forwards debating chamber. Understood? Thanks. Mr HILL 86256 Every diplomat has been pulled out of Afghanistan because of security, and yet the government has nothing to say to Australians whose husbands, wives and children are there fearing for their lives. It's absolutely disgraceful. So I ask the minister: when will this discrimination end, and what possible explanation is there that that is the average processing time? I'm not talking about the outlier cases with complex identification; I get that. This is the average processing time under this government. And it's not a COVID thing. You can't hide behind COVID. This is eight years of data. The final thing I'll say is: for subclass 300 visa holders, fiances are family too. These are genuine relationships, often of years and years, and yet there are thousands of people who are separated from their partners because they're not married. They've applied, they might have the visa, but they're not getting in. There are genuine religious and cultural reasons why many people won't physically live together for 12 months before marriage. So I say to the minister: when will subclass 300 visa holders be able to come and get married? Can you guarantee also that decisions in your department about travel authorisations—this is the minister in the Chamber's responsibility—are being made consistently? We keep hearing instances of inconsistency where a few random people get the authorisation and everyone else doesn't. 16:30 Mr SIMMONDS 282983 Ryan There are many reasons why it's an honour to be in parliament representing my electorate, but one of the driving forces for me, being a young dad, is to do all that I can in this place to help keep our kids safe. That's why I'm so proud to be part of the Morrison government, which is steadfast in its commitment to keeping our children safe from harm. As parents we know the importance of supervision. When we go to the local park, we of course keep an eye on our kids, don't we? We make sure they're safe from harm, away from strangers. If a stranger approaches them then we're able to step in and do something about it. But what happens online? We can't be with our kids at every key stroke, on every app, on every game, on every website. Of course there are safeguards we can put in place—parental controls and the like—but it seems that, every time we do, some of the most heinous criminals find a workaround in order to get to our kids. Child exploitation is unfortunately on the rise, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a scourge that is of the most heinous nature, and we must do everything in our power to stop it and to find these predators and lock them up. Recently, a local dad posted on our community Facebook group in the Ryan electorate that he'd reviewed the online chats of his young son, who he thought was playing games with friends online. To his shock, the chat wasn't about the game. In fact an online stranger was asking his son escalating grooming questions, starting with whether he liked boys or girls or both. These predators are using any means necessary, starting off with what would be considered normal questions and then escalating into examples like this. We all have a role to play in online safety as parents, carers and online users ourselves, but government has a role to play as well. I'm proud that in 2018 the Morrison government established the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, known as the ACCCE. In response to the increasing number and severity of reports of child exploitation, a $68.6 million commitment was made, and the ACCCE was started in my home town, Brisbane. The ACCCE, led by the AFP, brings together skills from across the public and private sectors, with people working together in one hub to protect our kids. The ACCCE provides a capability not held by any single federal or state agency in Australia. It provides a conduit for foreign law enforcement to tackle the borderless crime of creating and sharing heinous child abuse material. The ACCCE has been joined by some world renowned personnel, who are now working here in Australia. It has also been joined by community members, organisations and not-for-profits who are dedicated to this sector. Last year I got to visit the ACCCE, which is, as I said, located in Brisbane, and speak with many of its dedicated officers and employees. The work done by each and every team member is absolutely incredible, and we owe them an enormous debt. They do some horrible and disturbing work, working through thousands of reported images of the most disturbing nature and intercepting messages across dark and clear nets in order to infiltrate networks of offenders producing and sharing content. These are AFP officers under cover in some of the darkest and nastiest places on the internet, pretending to be something they clearly are not, who then have to go home and talk with their own families, having seen some of this content. They're parents themselves. I cannot even come close to imagining the challenge that work would present, but they do it day in, day out. They do it without any expectation of recognition, and I always take the opportunity when I'm speaking in this place about this issue to say thank you, on behalf of the Australian parliament, to the officers who are doing this work. ACCCE recently completed a study into understanding community awareness, perceptions, attitudes and preventative behaviours. Remarkably, the officers of the ACCCE found that four out of five children aged four are using the internet, and 30 per cent of those children have access to their own internet enabled device. One in two children under the age of 12 has their own device. Despite this, only 52 per cent of parents have spoken to their kids about online safety. By the age of 11 most children are using the internet unsupervised. We have such a large amount of work to do in this space, and I'm so glad that, in Minister Andrews, we have a minister who's absolutely dedicated to protecting our kids in the same way that I am and every member of the government and, I would hope, the parliament is. That is why, as part of this year's budget, a significant amount of money has been dedicated to continuing the incredible work of the ACE and to helping educate and support parents in online safety. Minister Andrews, my question is: how is the Morrison government helping to further protect our kids from exploitation as a result of this recent budget? 16:35 Dr MULINO 132880 Fraser I have some questions for the Minister of Home Affairs in relation to the government's failure to appropriately regulate anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing. Since 2013, the coalition has repeatedly missed deadlines in its own anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism-financing reform timetable. One example of many is its failure to implement tranche 2 regulation, which would regulate solicitors, lawyers, real estate agents and accountants. This was picked up in a Financial Action Task Force review of Australia's AML/CTF regime in 2015 and in the third enhanced follow-up report and technical compliance re-rating by that same organisation in 2018. This government promised action on that front years ago and it hasn't been delivered. This has created large and growing risks to Australia's national security. While other countries have strengthened their defences against the proceeds of criminal and corrupt business practices, this government has left the door open for illicit capital to flood into Australia. The government also has failed to enforce AML/CTF laws. Australians were scandalised by the New South Wales Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority inquiry, which showed that there had been massive, systemic breaches of AML/CTF legislation within casinos for an extended period of time. The risks to Australia and to the integrity of our AML/CTF laws are enormous. Where was the Morrison government? Its own regulator gave casino junket operations its tick of approval only three years ago. Instead, the Bergin inquiry found that the Morrison government had failed to properly regulate casino junkets or to prevent money laundering from becoming endemic in some casinos. Firstly, why did it take a state based inquiry to reveal that there had been massive, systemic breaches of AML/CTF legislation within casinos for a long period of time, concentrated particularly within junket operations. Secondly, if this government has been doing its job, why have so many state based inquiries and royal commissions been established to investigate money laundering and other criminality in casinos? Thirdly, much like Australia's biosecurity, isn't this just another example of state governments doing the Morrison government's job for it. The Morrison government failed to get to grips with money-laundering risks in casinos, undermining Australia's national security and the integrity of our financial system while giving a break to organised crime groups. There are also issues surrounding the resourcing of our regulator. Given that AUSTRAC has been so slow to get to grips with the problems endemic within the casino sector and that it took years to respond to issues within banks such as Westpac, why won't the government properly equip the regulator to do its job? With AUSTRAC struggling to regulate even the relatively few designated entities within its current orbit, such as banks and casinos, how can Australians be confident that this government would properly resource the regulator to meet its obligations under the tranche 2 regulation, which it has promised and failed to deliver for so long, but which we must expect will be delivered at some point. Australia's existing AML/CTF laws were supposed to be just the first step in a much longer sequence of reforms to ensure that dodgy cash couldn't flow into Australia. But since 2013 this government has repeatedly missed deadlines in its own AML/CTF reform timetable. As I indicated, the real estate sector, in particular, has been repeatedly identified as an acute vulnerability in Australia's AML regime, with billions in illicit capital flowing unchecked into Australian housing. As I've already indicated, the Financial Action Task Force has on multiple occasions pointed to this as an area of noncompliance with best practice in our regulatory regime. Not only the FATF but also the IMF, the OECD and other independent international reviewers and regulators have identified systemic weaknesses and gaps in Australia's AML/CTF regime. This is not some technocratic nicety; this is the pointy end of organised crime both within Australia and across international boundaries and of how organised crime makes use of the illicit proceeds of that crime. The primary source of Australia's continued noncompliance is the failure of this government to enact tranche 2 laws, although the government, as I've noted, is also failing to prevent money laundering in many other areas which it does regulate. Importantly, our key allies and trading partners—New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Canada and many others—have already implemented tranche 2 and strengthened their existing AML defences. Australia is risking becoming the weak link in the chain. This government is leaving Australia and Australian businesses vulnerable and is jeopardising our national security. So my final question is: why hasn't this government moved forward with tranche 2 legislation as it has promised it would do across multiple years on multiple occasions? 16:40 Mr WOOD E0F La Trobe The issue I want to talk about tonight under the Home Affairs portfolio is a very important issue, and that's modern slavery. The Liberal Morrison government has taken a global leadership role in combatting modern slavery. Modern slavery describes situations where offenders use coercion, threats or deception to exploit victims and undermine their freedom. It includes human trafficking, forced labour, debt bondage, forced marriage and child labour. It robs women, men and children of their freedom and their rights with devastating consequences for victims, which, most of the time, is for their entire life. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased many of the risks of modern slavery, by increasing isolation affecting the capacity of individuals to access support services, causing loss of work and reduced income increasing workers' vulnerability to exploitation, and pressurising supply chains who rely on exploitive practices. The Liberal Morrison government has taken a worldwide leadership role in addressing modern slavery risks in its international supply chains through the enactment of the landmark legislation the Modern Slavery Act 2018. The act is the strongest legislation of its kind in the world. It requires commercial and charitable entities with over $100 million annual consolidated revenue to submit annual Modern Slavery Statements. These statements detail the entities' supply chain arrangements and measures taken to eradicate risks of modern slavery at each step in the chain. The act includes landmark features such as clear mandatory criteria that businesses must address in their statements. It requires the Commonwealth government to report on modern slavery risks in its own procurement and investment activities through a Commonwealth Modern Slavery Statement. It established the world's first government-run online central registry to house statements and launched the registry in July 2020, with the first tranche of statements published in November 2020. To date, the Morrison government has published over 1,300 Modern Slavery Statements on the public-accessible, fully searchable online register representing more than 2,500 reporting entities. These statements demonstrate how Australian businesses are taking steps to tackle modern slavery in their supply chains and will be closely scrutinised by a range of stakeholders, including investor groups and civil society. November 2020 saw the Morrison government publish its own first statement to address modern slavery risks in Commonwealth procurement activities and investments. The register and copy of Modern Slavery Statements can be found at modernslaveryregister.gov.au. In December 2020 the Morrison government further demonstrated the commitment to eradicate modern slavery by launching the National Action Plan to Combat Modern Slavery 2020-25. The national action plan is guided by five national strategic priorities that will focus efforts over the coming years. They include: prevent modern slavery by empowering vulnerable groups; deter predators by disrupting, investigating and prosecuting modern slavery crimes; support and protect victims and survivors; build partnerships with civil society, business, unions, academia and international partners; and foster research to support evidence based responses. The NAP was developed through extensive community consultation led by Australian Border Force, including a public consultation paper and 27 workshops with 44 civil society groups, academia and service providers across states and territories. Can I thank all of those who have been involved in developing the national action plan and for all their tireless efforts. It was great news in the budget this year when $10.6 million of funding was committed over the next five years. There is $4.4 million for grant funding programs over five years to civil society organisations, business and academia to deliver projects to combat modern slavery in Australia. Successful recipients of the grant include Anti-Slavery Australia, Australian Red Cross, Global Compact Network Australia, Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney and $4 million to fund capacity Australian businesses to respond to modern slavery. Again, can I thank Australian Border Force for all the great work they to in this space. 16:45 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie I'm very disappointed that the minister for emergency management isn't able to be in this chamber right now to hear the questions about the responsibilities that he has, and the first is around the Emergency Response Fund. It's been more than two years since the $4 billion Emergency Response Fund was announced. That was in the 2019 budget speech, and in the latest rounds of estimates it was confirmed that the ERF has still not released a single cent—not a cent. The fund could be building cyclone shelters, flood levees, firebreaks right now. Instead, it's languishing in the Prime Minister's bank account. What it's done over that time, though, is raise more than $472 million in interest. How is it fair that my bushfire and flood ravaged electorate of Macquarie has not had a single investment from this fund, but the government is earning interest? The forward estimates show that the ERF will earn the government more than $1 billion in interest. How have we not seen a cent from this fund in two years? The government has tried to pretend that the reason the ERF hasn't been accessed is that there isn't a need. Well, just come to Macquarie and have a look. But you only have to look at the National Flood Infrastructure Mitigation Program, the only pocket of funding that's been announced, although not released, through the ERF, so let's turn to that program which the minister referred to much earlier. The $50 million mitigation program was announced to fund 22 projects across the country. Of those projects, not a single one was in Macquarie, an electorate devastated in the last 12 months not just by one flood but by two. It's not surprising that electorates desperately in need of flood mitigation are missing out. It's happening in towns and communities all across the country. More than 70 projects were submitted for consideration to the program totalling over $230 million. That means it was oversubscribed nearly five times, and the minister wants to act like there's adequate funding, when we have all that other money just sitting there and earning interest. It's an absolute disgrace. In Macquarie we are still waiting desperately for the government to step up and provide funding support, particularly for riverbed restoration. The riverbanks have been devastated and their restoration will need federal government support. The $150 million in recovery funding could be accessed right now to help the Hawkesbury—right now, no-one would need to wait and that would help residents of Greens Road, Upper Colo, people who have been left in limbo for three months. I'd also like to know: when will we finally begin to see funding released from the ERF and communities protected? When will communities across Australia know how next financial year's ERF funding will be allocated? Why are hundreds of millions of dollars in recovery funding sitting untouched in the ERF? Why is this government more interested in earning hundreds of millions of dollars in interest from the ERF than in protecting communities like mine? I want to turn to the National Recovery and Resilience Agency, which was meant to start. The National Bushfire Recovery Agency was meant to keep operating until the end of the year, but it's been swallowed up by this new agency. We welcome the new agency, but we're very concerned to see a repeat of the rorting and jobs for mates that we saw with the NBRA. I turn to the $177 million for local economic recovery funding across New South Wales, where not a cent went to the state Labor electorate of the Blue Mountains, which is in my electorate. This was despite two separate commissioned reports showing the Blue Mountains was profoundly damaged, both environmentally and economically, by the Black Summer fires. The new agency is now in charge of billions of dollars of recovery and resilience funding. They must guarantee areas that need help are given it. I hope it will be better, but I'm not holding out much hope because no guidelines were released. There were no guidelines, no processes and no consultation for the latest $280 million Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grants. In terms of jobs for mates, they've handed the reigns of the new National Recovery and Resilience Agency to Shane Stone, the former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, who admitted in estimates to being a life member of the Victorian Liberal Party and the Country Liberal Party. My question is: why hasn't he met with those of us who have bushfire ravaged areas? We have certainly requested meetings, and we look forward to meeting. Why has the government announced hundreds of millions in funding with no guidelines, no processes and no warnings? What will the minister do to ensure this funding will not be rorted, like the local economic recovery funding? (Time expired) 16:50 Mr HAWKE HWO Mitchell During the past 18 months we've introduced greater flexibility into visa requirements and conditions to ensure temporary and provisional visa holders affected by the pandemic can continue to stay and work and to ensure businesses in critical sectors like health, aged care, disability services, child care, agriculture and food processing can access the skills they need. The government acted quickly so that those temporary visa holders could fill labour shortages and could have certainty about their stay here. We've not required anybody who has been a guest in Australia during this period to leave, and people continue to stay and work successfully in so many sectors and areas. We've introduced concessions for international students and working holiday-makers so they can continue working in critical sectors, and we have expanded concessions to the tourism and hospitality sectors. We still have up to 30,000 backpackers in the working holiday-maker scheme here, and the government has ensured that they can continue to have their visas extended and their opportunities expanded so they are able to stay safely and continue to work and make choices about their stays. We have waived eligibility charges and we have introduced a 408 COVID event visa, which enables people to stay here for longer periods while we get through the COVID pandemic. The government has also introduced the Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List. We will continue to update that list to take account of those critical skills that are a priority for processing during the pandemic. I note members' comments about changes in priority processing times. Absolutely I want to thank all of the staff of the Department of Home Affairs who have been involved in processing visas—record numbers of visas and applications in many cases—as we see surges in demand because of COVID, and certainly for things like Australian citizenship. In fact, in the last year we had a record amount of citizenships processed, with over 200,000 Australian citizenships being granted. That's a record in Australian history and, of course, that's a significant achievement by the department and the government. In terms of partner processing, I certainly would say to the member for Bruce that he's brought the passion to this debate, and he should apply that passion to the scrutiny of the detail that he brings in as well, and perhaps his passion to the facts about that detail, because facts without context and facts without relevant judgement and consideration can lead to some misnomers. His assumption that the delays we have in certain partner visa cohorts have a racial cause, of course, is incorrect. Race has nothing to do with it. We have a non-discriminatory migration program. Everybody here believes in that. His allegations that there is a racial consideration are completely false. He also puts an equivalence on every country in the world, and he cites several countries and says, 'Why aren't all processing times equal?' The facts simply answer his questions in a straightforward fashion, because not every country in the world is equal in their ability to provide the relevant information on behalf of people to complete health and character checks to ensure that those visas can be processed. One of the countries he spoke about was Afghanistan. If he's comparing Afghanistan with the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada or other countries that is he cited, I think he will come to his own conclusion about why processing times are not the same in accessing information from government departments. His allegation that race is a factor in every one of those countries I think belies the fact that both the United Kingdom and the United States of America are multiracial countries. People come from all racial backgrounds in these countries. There is no discrimination on the basis of race. To suggest that everybody in the UK is white or that everybody in the US is white I think is highly offensive and inaccurate. I really don't understand the accusation. It's a low-brow accusation. It doesn't bear out the facts. A simple examination of what he is saying belies the complete untruth about the allegation he is making. The fact is the government has put forward a record amount of partner visa allocations for this year. His question will be answered in coming weeks, when I make an announcement about the final outcome for the migration program, where we will, of course, do everything possible to meet the 160,000 level that the government and cabinet have set for this year. That will include a pretty good amount of partner visa processing, given the circumstances of COVID. Of course, there are delays. COVID has further delayed partner visa processing in some countries, and that's to be regretted. We'll work consistently with agencies everywhere to make sure that we can get that information and that people can meet their health and character checks. But many do not in different partnering visa processing, and that has to be taken into account as well. I will say more in another contribution, but the government are working through this. We are processing visas well. We'll make an announcement about the final migration outcome in coming weeks. 16:55 Mr WATTS 193430 Gellibrand On Tuesday of this week the Assistant Minister for Defence released new figures indicating that ransomware reports to the Australian Cyber Security Centre had increased by 200 per cent. In response, he announced an awareness campaign and called on Australian organisations to lift their cyberdefences in the face of increasingly sophisticated and well-resourced Russian ransomware groups. Defending against ransomware certainly begins with individual organisational IT security, but that is far from the end of the conversation. Labor has been calling on the Morrison government to develop a national ransomware strategy since February to ensure that government is doing all that it can to combat these attacks across its policy, regulation, law enforcement, diplomacy and defence capabilities. The head of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre, Lindy Cameron, echoed this call on Monday of this week, saying that ransomware required 'a whole-of-government response'. Minister, in the wake of an onslaught of ransomware attacks targeting Australian organisations, including JBS Foods, the Nine Network and multiple hospitals, why won't the government develop a national ransomware strategy? Labor has also said that the foundation of such a national ransomware strategy should be mandatory notification of ransomware payments. This is really the bare minimum that the government should be doing if it is really serious about fighting back against the threat of ransomware. Such a scheme should require businesses to tell the Australian Cyber Security Centre before they make a ransom payment and to provide a standard set of data, including the ransomware crew demanding the payment, the cryptocurrency wallet ID that the ransom is being paid into and any indicators of compromise related to the attack. It would provide valuable actionable intelligence about ransomware crews menacing organisations that law enforcement and policymakers could use to target those crews for disruption through law enforcement and offensive cyberoperations. Mandatory notification has been recommended by the Institute of Security and Technology's international Ransomware Task Force report, by the former head of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, and by the former head of MI6, Alex Younger. Why won't the government take this basic step of establishing a mandatory reporting scheme for ransomware payments? Our major allies are treating this issue with the urgency that it deserves, with the US Department of Justice establishing a dedicated ransomware task force. This task force will target the criminal ecosystem around ransomware and coordinate law enforcement action, including sharing of intelligence, coordination with other agencies and international partners, and boosting of collaboration with the private sector. FBI director Christopher Wray compared the threat of ransomware to the threat posed by the 9/11 attacks and said the FBI would treat ransomware with the same priority level as it did terrorism. Despite the ACSC labelling ransomware as 'the highest threat facing Australian businesses', we learnt in Senate estimates that the AFP doesn't even track the number of ransomware incidents in Australia and that there was only one Australian prosecution for ransomware attacks in the last 12 months. Ransomware is effectively a crime with impunity in Australia today. Minister, why won't the Morrison government prioritise this serious threat with the same urgency as the US justice department and the FBI by establishing a dedicated ransomware task force? The Morrison government needs to use all its available capabilities in fighting ransomware. These criminal ransomware groups are motivated by money and we should be going after them. We can target the points in the financial system where ransomware crews seek to transfer and exchange cryptocurrency into fiat currency to utilise their ill-gotten gains. A report by the international Ransomware Task Force cited research by Chainalysis that found that just a handful of cryptocurrency addresses received the vast bulk of the ransomware payments paid in 2020. The Financial Action Task Force recently proposed a travel rule, which would extend know-your-customer obligations on the senders and receivers of digital currency to digital currency exchange providers. AUSTRAC told us at Senate estimates that these reforms would assist in the fight against ransomware. Minister, why won't the Morrison government give AUSTRAC the tools it needs to track cryptocurrency payments and exchanges made by ransomware groups? To date, ransomware crews have been able to target Australian organisations with impunity. No wonder we've seen attacks increasing in scale, frequency and ambition. The Assistant Minister for Defence has issued media releases with lots of tough talk on offensive cyberoperations against cybercrime groups, but the government can't give a single example of operations against a ransomware group. In fact, the Australian Signals Directorate confirmed at Senate estimates that it took no offensive cyberoperations against the groups responsible for the ransomware attacks on the Nine Network or for attacks on Australian hospitals. As the former head of the UK NCSC Ciaran Martin has said: 'Unless these statements on offensive operations are followed by specific'— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265979 Order. It being five o'clock, the debate has concluded. Proposed expenditure agreed to. Debate adjourned. CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS 151 CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS This is Holt: Our Community - Our Stories 151 17:00 Mr BYRNE 008K0 Holt Today I wanted to talk specifically about people and organisations that make a massive difference to my community, my constituency and my region by their good efforts and good deeds. Being a Victorian—and a number of other Victorians are here with me at the moment—it's been a tough year and a bit for us all, particularly for those that are in Victoria at the moment. From small and large businesses to sole traders, everybody in every constituency that we represent has done it tough and has done an amazing job in seeing off the worst of the COVID pandemic. Obviously, with the state government announcing the relaxation of the recent lockdown restrictions, some hope has been provided, but what I want to talk about separate to that—and we do it on an ongoing basis—is the people that continue to provide hope on an ongoing basis to our community. In a way I would characterise what we're doing at the moment in my project that I'm about to talk about as a light at the end of the tunnel. I want to talk about a project that was started before the lockdown. It's a project which showcases positive stories of amazing people and organisations that make a real difference in my constituency and electorate of Holt. Each week over the coming months I'll be releasing videos celebrating and highlighting the unsung heroes and organisations in Holt. The initiative under which I'll be doing this is entitled 'This is Holt: Our Community - Our Stories'. We've posted three or four short videos that encapsulate what individuals and organisations do. The initial filming started before the second lockdown. So, if you're watching the videos and seeing people without masks, they were done before the second lockdown. I think what they do—and we hope that you enjoy these stories—is again amplify that, in a world that is seized with anxieties and fears about COVID and about what might be happening internationally, we need to remember what makes Australia great, which is each of these constituent units, these people going about their tasks, working for the good of others, not seeking a claim, not seeking any fame and not seeking support or thanks but just going about their work. There are a lot of organisations and people that feature. I'm very proud of these people. I see them in my privileged position as a member of parliament. I want you all to see them and appreciate them for the great work they do in keeping our community working and thriving. Reid Print Technologies 152 17:03 Mr HOWARTH 247742 Petrie I visited Reid Print Technologies, a business in my electorate at Clontarf, and I was blown away by the products coming out of an unassuming building in one of our light industrial areas. People would drive past, see these buildings and go, 'What's in there?' What's in there is pretty amazing. We're talking about high-tech printed sensory technology printed onto flexible plastics. They're providing, amongst other things, electric car chargers to a company in Brisbane, Tritium. Ninety per cent of this work is happening in China. International companies, however, are waking up to the quality of these locally produced products through Reid Print Technologies, especially companies where precision is essential—and other members would agree. Companies like Boeing, for example, in aviation; Queensland Rail; and defence industries all need these high-quality tech products. Let me give you some other examples. Think about a regular car and the radio or UHF antenna that hangs out the side of it. Members might have seen one snapped off in their time and replaced with the old wire coathanger so they could get the radio. This company, Reid Print Technologies, is printing UHF antennas onto transparent, flexible membranes, like a sticker, that you now apply to your car window. They couldn't tell me how much, because of confidentiality, but they are in high-level collaborations with a major communications multinational to merge this technology with theirs. It's exciting stuff. This company is the only Australian manufacturer integrating their sensors into wearable technology. At the moment, they're working with a motorcycle company that has asked them to adapt their clothing by heat printing wafer-thin membranes laced with conductive grids with copper and aluminium ink printed onto it so it can be hooked up to a power source, like a motorcycle battery, to heat the clothing of the person on the motorcycle. We're down in Canberra at the moment and it's fairly cold, but even in Brisbane it has been cold. You can think, if you're on a motorbike, of wearing a jacket that's heated because of this technology coming out of Reid Print Technologies. The same non-invasive wearable tech has been developed for use in aged-care settings as well, where they can do it to pyjamas, with sensors to detect temperature and movement, which can provide valuable feedback to nurses, family members, carers or medical centres to look after our aged Australians. This is advanced innovation, and Australians are renowned for it, from developing refrigeration in the early 1800s to black box recorders. Under the Morrison government's modern manufacturing strategy, we've just announced a further $1.5 billion for companies like Reid Print Technologies. Fremantle Electorate: Aboriginal Cultural and Visitors Centre 152 17:07 Mr JOSH WILSON 265970 Fremantle I was very glad to get an update last week from the City of Cockburn about the creation of a new Aboriginal, and indeed cultural and business, centre to be sited at Bibra Lake, or Walubup, a site of great significance to the Beeliar Noongar people, and an area in which there is evidence of Indigenous cultural practice that reaches back 55,000 years. It's a project that has been driven by Cockburn's Indigenous reference group, comprised of Aboriginal elders, traditional owners and community members, with the current design being a collaborative work guided by the award-winning Officer Woods Architects. The structure will draw upon and express the form of the southwestern snake-necked turtle that lives in Walubup. The centre's purpose will be to promote and share the area's rich Noongar history and to strengthen the living culture through stories, language, music, dance and art. There's no doubt that Australia has a lot further to go and so much to gain from working with First Nations Australians on the path of reconciliation. That requires effort and energy on many fronts. It's not a task that can be usefully separated into practical and cultural measures, because they're logically intertwined. Fighting discrimination, securing constitutional reform, increasing cultural understanding and knowledge across the Australian community and delivering on the enormous goodwill, hard work and promise that is represented by the Uluru Statement from the Heart—all these things go hand in hand with the vital effort to close the gap when it comes to education, workforce participation, income, housing and health. In recent years, the city of Fremantle has established the Walyalup Aboriginal Cultural Centre and will soon open the new town hall and administrative complex in the renamed Walyalup Koort, or the heart of Walyalup. I want to recognise and applaud the efforts being made by traditional owners and other Indigenous members of the community in Cockburn and Fremantle to lead this delivery of Indigenous cultural infrastructure and to see the wider use of Noongar language in place naming and other aspects of civic life. They have spoken, and the councils in Fremantle and Cockburn have listened. But there's certainly scope for such work in the roller-coaster from one budget to the next to be better supported by the federal government. We need to better protect our Indigenous heritage. We also need to invest in new forms of cultural capital: investments that will connect the past to the present and revitalise First Nations stories, language and deep understanding of our environment. There's no doubt that Australia does not yet sufficiently benefit from and pay respect to our unique heritage, which is of unparalleled scale and richness. We should have a national centre of First Nations culture, and there should be an institutional presence of that kind in every part of Australia. Perhaps in the future there'll be an opportunity to link outward from that high-level national culture framework to a network of local centres like the one that has been established in Walyalup and that will soon be established in Walubup. Epis, Mr James Gregory (Jim) 153 17:10 Mr RICK WILSON 198084 O'Connor I rise today to give a shout-out to one of the Northern Goldfields great characters, Jim Epis, whose lifetime commitment to the Shire of Leonora was recognised in the recent dedication of the JG Epis Centre in Leonora. Jim truly deserves this honour, having given 40 years of service to the shire, with 25 years as its chief executive officer. Jim started with the shire as a grader operator in 1982. He made his progression through the ranks to CEO by 1996. Jim is passionate about Leonora and its important contribution to the WA mining industry throughout its history, right through to today. Jim's interest in mining history has roots in his grandparents' arrival from Italy in the 1930s. Like Jim, Leonora and its sister town of Gwalia stand proud of their Italian heritage. In the early part of the 20th century, Italians constituted one-third of the Sons of Gwalia workforce, and by 1951 over half of all mine workers had Italian descent or were Italian by ethnicity. Sadly, Jim's grandfather died in Kalgoorlie of miner's lung when his father was just eight years old. When Jim's father grew up and married, he moved to Leonora to raise a family. At the dedication ceremony, Jim's mother told me some stories of Jim's tearaway youth. Jim publicly acknowledged the support and dedication of his wife, Margot, to building a family and a life in Leonora, way beyond the two years she had promised to stay when they first married. Jim's extended and loving family joined local residents, friends and colleagues from the shire. Shire of Leonora President Peter Craig gave a heartfelt address, acknowledging all the infrastructure, both modern and historical, for which Jim could proudly take credit, including tourism assets like the historical Gwalia precinct and Hoover House, once home to mining engineer and later President of the United States Herbert Hoover; the Sons of Gwalia headframe, the oldest remaining timber headframe in Australia, lovingly restored with the help of a $1 million federal grant; and sporting infrastructure like the Leonora swimming pool, sports oval building and the Leonora bowling club, which was hosting a major bowls championship on that very day. Jim spearheaded the main street upgrade, which hosts the annual Leonora Golden Gift, Australia's second richest foot race, and the finish line of the Leonora Golden Wheels road cycle race, both being run that weekend. Jim, the humble man that he is, expressed his gratitude for being honoured by the JG Epis Centre rather than having the newly opened sewage ponds being his legacy! I credit Jim's wife, Margot, with the funniest story of the day. Attending the Kalgoorlie races one year, she was thanked by grateful punters who had just had a win on Jim's horse. Margot smiled sweetly whilst inwardly thinking, 'What bloody horse?' Jim, you are a true character, a mate and a fantastic advocate for your community. It's been a pleasure working with you towards making Leonora a better place to live, work and play. I know you will probably only leave Leonora in a box, but your legacy will be one of pure gold. Medicare 153 17:13 Mr DREYFUS HWG Isaacs For 50 years Labor has fought for the right of all Australians to access decent, affordable health care, and for every one of those 50 years the Liberals have fought to tear that down. Here we are, with Medicare again under attack. Once again, it's the people right across Australia, including in my electorate of Isaacs, who will pay. Under the cover of the Victorian COVID-19 outbreak, Scott Morrison snuck out almost a thousand changes to the Medicare Benefits Schedule, changes such as scrapping a quarter of the existing items for shoulder surgery, which means no Medicare or health fund rebate for those items and patients left either to pay the full cost or to do without the surgery; and changes such as scrapping some tendon procedures for elbow surgeries, again leaving patients to pay as much as $10,000 or to do without surgery. This is the biggest attack on Medicare in decades, but sadly it is not isolated. This attack on Medicare comes on top of years of cuts that have already forced patients in my electorate of Isaacs to pay bigger and bigger out-of-pocket costs. In 2019-20, the most recent year for which we have data, the average out-of-pocket cost for specialist attendances in Isaacs was $83.85. That's a rise of almost $30, or 53 per cent, since the Liberals came to power eight long years ago promising no cuts to health. With these latest cuts that gap will only get bigger, and more and more people in Isaacs will find themselves with bigger medical bills or, if they can't afford to pay, delaying vital surgery. That means more and more people in Isaacs will be in pain, will be losing some quality of life because yet another Liberal government hates Medicare and doesn't believe everyone should have the right to decent, affordable, quality health care. Cutting Medicare is in the Liberals' DNA. You can never trust the Liberals on Medicare. Scott Morrison, like Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull and John Howard and Malcolm Fraser, has proved that, no matter who the leader is, the Liberals hate Medicare and only ever see health programs as a way to cut the budget and make health less affordable for those who need it most, the sick and the poor. It's proved yet again that the Liberals can never be trusted when it comes to health and it's proved yet again that only Labor can be trusted to defend Medicare. Labor built Medicare. Only Labor believes in Medicare and only an Albanese Labor government will protect Medicare so all Australians can continue to access decent, affordable health care. Red Apple Day 154 17:16 Dr ALLEN 282986 Higgins Today is a very important day for Bowel Cancer Australia as Red Apple Day is celebrated in communities right across Australia. I'm proud to once again be shining a spotlight on bowel cancer awareness and as part of Red Apple Day I've been pleased to host a red apple themed afternoon tea in Parliament House today to raise awareness of our second-biggest cancer killer. I was delighted to be joined by two bowel cancer ambassadors, Stephanie Bansemer-Brown and Donna Hope, both here as bowel cancer survivors, along with Associate Professor Graham Newstead, a colorectal surgeon with Bowel Cancer Australia, to share their stories with us as part of Red Apple Day, to raise awareness and to save lives. Thank you to those many MPs and senators who joined us for the annual giving day, when Australians support the vital work of this charity. As I look around the chamber I'm proud to see members of parliament and our senators wearing the green lapel ribbon in support of Bowel Cancer Australia, including Mr Deputy Speaker Andrews, the member for Menzies, and the member for Longman. I'm very proud of the fact that people care about this issue. The great news is bowel cancer is both treatable and beatable, and I bet you there's no-one in this parliament that doesn't know someone who's been touched by bowel cancer. If detected early, it can be successfully treated, which means families and patients can continue to enjoy a healthy life. Sadly, however, bowel cancer claims the lives of 5,336 Australians on average every year—that's, 103 deaths a week, far too many. While talking about bowels is not the most appealing of topics, we need to have the conversation and that's why getting behind Red Apple Day is so important. There is a common misconception that bowel cancer is an older person's disease, but that is simply not the case. We heard yesterday the very moving public story of Duncan Pegg, the member for Stretton in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, who was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2019 and died at the age of 40 less than a week ago, seven weeks after he announced he was retiring from politics to focus on his health. I would like to say that Jim Chalmers, the member for Rankin, made an incredibly moving speech, which I think brought many in the chamber to tears, as he knew himself, being a similar age, how Duncan Pegg's death is going to devastate that family and that community. It is so important that we get together behind this bipartisan raising of awareness of bowel cancer, and I want to thank all of the members who attended the bowel cancer Red Apple Day here in parliament. I encourage my colleagues to grab a red apple, to get a pin from their whip's office and to take a photo to show our support as a parliament for Bowel Cancer Australia in our quest to raise awareness and make a vow to talk bowel and make bowel cancer history. Macnamara Electorate: Creatives 154 17:19 Mr BURNS 278522 Macnamara Macnamara is home to many outstanding creative and artistic organisations and businesses. It is a part of our local community to come to St Kilda, to come especially to Southbank and to come to South Melbourne and other parts of the electorate because you are coming to visit some of the iconic parts of Melbourne and some of the iconic artistic parts of our city, our state and our country. It's not just the big organisations but also the smaller local and independent artistic organisations that we are so proud of in our local area. As everyone in this place knows, these organisations have been devastated by the pandemic. The Prime Minister announcing in that very first press conference that gatherings would be restricted meant that immediately six months worth of work for our artistic organisations went. In Victoria it was even longer. Throughout the pandemic these organisations have felt uncertainty and difficulty like they never have before. That is why it was incredibly frustrating that the City of Port Phillip, which traditionally has done an outstanding job of supporting local artists and artistic organisations, decided to end the funding for six iconic organisations in my electorate. I've spoken about it once in this place already, and I am rising again to say that before the budget is set in the City of Port Phillip we must make sure that we have this funding reinstated. We must make sure that the Australian Tapestry Workshop, Phillip Adams BalletLab at Temperance Hall, Rawcus theatre company, Red Stitch Actors' Theatre, Theatre Works and the Torch are all recipients of funding from the City of Port Phillip. This pandemic has been devastating, but it is now up to all levels of government to ensure that all businesses and organisations are there on the other side. There are very few that have had it as difficult as our creative industries. In Macnamara they are a part of who we are and of our local area, and we are so proud of them. That is exactly why the City of Port Phillip and the councillors need to make sure that the funding in the upcoming budget—in the next couple of weeks—includes funding for our local artistic and creative organisations. Now is not the time to be cutting funding. Now is the time to be supporting our creative organisations, our artists and these small and independent organisations that make our community as wonderful a place as it is. Small Business 155 17:22 Mr YOUNG 201906 Longman We bang on a lot about small business in this place. People ask why we keep banging on about it. Today I want to speak as a small-business owner rather than as a parliamentarian. I've got a couple of small businesses and I mix with the business community. During the COVID pandemic there were some that did it really tough, there were others that went okay and there were some that boomed. We put in some really great initiatives during the pandemic to help support small businesses around the country: JobKeeper, the JobMaker Hiring Credit scheme, boosting cash flow, the apprenticeship scheme, business investment and the SME Recovery Loan Scheme. There are a lot of them, but I've got to say that I think the greatest measure has been the instant asset write-off. When I first came into this place I had a chat with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, and he said, 'As a small-business owner, what do you think we can do to help small businesses?' I said, 'Mate, the first thing we've got to do is get rid of this stupid depreciation.' The problem is that when you buy something you don't get the tax advantage for four to 10 years. It stymies cash flow, and small business needs cash flow to reinvest in more staff and to buy more equipment, which will create more jobs further down the track. A lot of people I talk to in the pub, if they haven't had business experience, don't understand why this is so important. I'll explain it in layman's terms. If a business makes $200,000 on paper, as a business owner you pay tax on that $200,000 that year even though you might not physically take that money. You don't take the money; you leave it and reinvest it in your business. You'll go out and buy a piece of equipment that's $100,000, but you still pay tax on $200,000. That's the issue. What happens is that you depreciate that over four years, so you can claim $25,000 a year over four years instead of the whole $100,000. This is a detriment. It stops the small-business community from reinvesting. If there's anything good that came out of the pandemic, it's the fact this thing has been brought forward. I didn't bring on the pandemic on purpose—I want to put that on the record!—but if there's anything good that's come out of it, this is it, and I really hope the instant asset write-off will continue. It will encourage businesses, and we will see a tremendous investment in staff and equipment. I think that's a good thing for the economy. Opposition members interjecting— Mr YOUNG 201906 It was done by the Liberals, of course, because we're the party of small business. Opposition members interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER HK5 Order! Mr YOUNG 201906 Mr Deputy Speaker, I would ask the member to withdraw her comment. Ms Burney 8GH I withdraw. The DEPUTY SPEAKER HK5 I thank the honourable member, and I now call the honourable member for Barton. Clemton Park Public School 155 17:25 Ms BURNEY 8GH Barton Today I would like to acknowledge the teachers and students at Clemton Park primary school. I had the privilege of visiting the school last Monday 7 June. I want to thank in particular year 3 teacher Anna Sexton; Paul Robinson, the principal; and of course the wonderful students of years 3 and 4. I first started visiting the school many years ago when I was the state member for Canterbury. On my recent visit I spent time with year 3 students and learnt of some of the work they are studying. This work includes the topic Community and Remembrance. This topic provides a study of identity and diversity in both a local and a broader context. Moving from the heritage of their local areas, students explore the historical features and diversity of their community. They examine local, state and national symbols and emblems of significance, celebration and commemoration, both locally and in other places. The key inquiry question students are currently studying is: who lived here first? It is so important that we are teaching our children about truth, about our history and, even more importantly, about First Nations people. Other work the students undertake is to identify the Aboriginal languages spoken in the local or regional area; to identify the special relationship that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have to country; and, in their own words, to respond to Aboriginal stories told about country presented in text by guest lecturers. I had a wonderful hour with the students. I took the kangaroo cloak that I wore for my first speech in this parliament and I spoke to them about the significant symbols on that and how the totem system operates. Many of the students decided what they would like to have as their totem, and one of the students said 'elephant'. I said, 'I don't think that's possible; they need to be Australian animals.' It was a really fabulous hour. The students got an enormous amount out of it. I particularly recognise the young student who did the acknowledgement of country. I think his name was Sam but I would have to double-check that. He is a young Aboriginal student from the Yuin people of the South Coast of New South Wales. I will finish my statement by saying an incredible congratulations to Principal Paul Robinson and the teachers of years 3 and 4 on undertaking within their curriculum studies that really explore the local area. Wooldridge, Mrs Norma Margaret, Australian Surf Life Saving Championships, New South Wales Hockey State Championships 156 17:28 Mr HOGAN 218019 Page I would like to acknowledge the wonderful life of Norma Wooldridge, from Lismore, who, sadly, passed away recently. Norma was a well-known Lismore caterer and volunteer for many community organisations. Indeed, my mother-in-law, Patricia Webber, along with many others, worked for Norma for a time. Notably, Norma was acknowledged as a North Coast National show society life member after catering there for over 40 years. The main dining hall at the showground is called Norma's Kitchen, after Norma. I extend my thoughts and prayers to her husband of 68 years, Max, and to her children and their families, Desley and Darryl, Sheryl and Graeme, Neale and Leanne, Peter and Trish, and Glenn and Donna. Norma also had 16 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren. May she rest in peace. I would like to recognise the recent success of people in my community who competed at the recent Australian Surf Life Saving Championships on the Sunshine Coast. Members from Australia's 315 surf clubs came together to compete in over 480 events over nine days. It included 6,000-plus competitors between 13 and 86. Congratulations to Shari Genoli, Meggen Matthews-Fredrick, Jessica Barber, Kathryn White and sweep, Tim White, from Woolgoolga Surf Life Saving who came first in the 120-years female surf boat—that means the total age group had to be over 120 years. Belinda Schofield from Woolgoolga competed in the 50 to 54s beach flags, where she placed first in her heat and ninth in grand final, and the Woolgoolga Long Strokers placed sixth in 220-years male surf boat. The team was made up of Wayne Bailey, John Portsmouth, Ian Thorncroft, Denis Crossley and Tim White. And young Damon-Leigh Striegher from Woolgoolga competed in the under-17s male beach sprint and placed fourth in his heat. Peter Rheinberger from Yamba competed in the 55- to 59-years male surf race and placed first in his heat and ninth in the grand final. And Kalani Ives from Yamba competed in a range of events and made it to the grand final of the under-17s female iron person event, where she placed 12th. Congratulations to you all. You did us all proud. I'd like to acknowledge the young woman in our community who recently competed in the under-18s Hockey State Championships. The final ended up being a rival between local neighbouring hockey associations, with Far North Coast playing Grafton. It was a close game, but Grafton came out victorious after scoring a goal in the fourth quarter. Grafton's winning team included Maia Adamson, Lydia Breadsell, Ella Cahill, Mikayla Chambers-Ward, Tanika Crispin, Ashleigh Ensbey, Mackenna Ensbey, Breah Fischer, Hayley Fischer, Amelia Kroehnert, Krystal McMahon, Jessica Sear, Martina Williams, Chloe Winters and Ella-Ruth and Banyon Whitelaw. Congratulations to the Far North Coast team as well: the captain, Alana Albertini; Eliza Grosser; Shailyn Gooley; Emily Hosking; Hollie Matthews; Nella Bradford; Georgia Brown; Lauren McFadden; Poppy Robinson; Hayley Marshall; Lilly Sauer; Sabrina Payne; Maya McGrath; Eliza Wallace; and coach, Adrian McGrath. There are numbers of them that made the state team, and I congratulate them. Climate Change 156 17:31 Mr ZAPPIA HWB Makin The latest data shows that atmospheric carbon dioxide reached a monthly average level of 419 parts per million in May 2021, having increased from 417 parts per million in May 2020. The increase, although minimal, is deeply concerning, firstly, because it occurred over a year when global economic activity was constrained by the COVID pandemic, and, secondly, the atmospheric CO2 levels are now comparable to a period over four million years ago when global temperatures were seven degrees Fahrenheit higher than pre-industrial times. The data shows that every year 40 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide are being added to the atmosphere. It's an unsustainable trajectory that is very likely to cause an average temperature increase of 1.5 degrees centigrade much sooner than previously forecast. Average temperatures are already 1.1 degrees centigrade higher than a century ago. Simultaneously, human activity is causing irreversible destruction of global biodiversity. The earth's biosphere is being damaged at a faster rate than it can repair itself. The extraction of resources, the clearing of land and the dumping of waste back into the natural environment is causing irreparable harm. The environmental changes are very visible on land and in the air, but of great concern are the unseen changes taking place deep within the oceans and the vast ecosystems within them. Ocean acidification, warming and de-oxygenation will profoundly change marine ecosystems and ocean currents. Those ocean changes will be more difficult and take centuries to reverse. Encouragingly the US, Europe, the UK, China and other nations are making constructive climate change commitments. Yet Australia, despite having some of the world's most renewable energy resources, is lagging behind. The Morrison government has still to commit to a net zero emissions target by 2050. The COVID pandemic has understandably been a priority with the international focus now on vaccination and post-pandemic economic recovery. However, economic stability and climate change have become inseparable. Further delays in tackling climate change will not only cause a rapid escalation of the risks but place a much greater burden on future generations. Australia has a choice: we can invest in renewables and clean-energy jobs, or we can get left behind. According to Deloitte, unchecked climate change will cost the economy $3.4 trillion and 880,000 jobs will be lost in the decades to come. Alternatively, there will be a $680 billion dividend and 250,000 more jobs will be created. The choice is clear. It's time the Morrison government stops sidestepping climate change, accepts the science, shows some leadership and tackles the issue that particularly matters so much to young Australians, for they will wear the costs of inaction. Animal Products 157 17:34 Mr RAMSEY HWS Grey Increasingly we are seeing synthetic things—made mainly from oil—being passed off as vegan leather and fleece and we are seeing laboratory grown or plant based products being labelled as meat, beef, vegan sausages, hamburgers and even vegan bacon, for goodness sake. These claims are not true. They are misleading. It's time that we stand up and put a stop to it. There's nothing at all wrong with plant based alternatives to animal products and people should be free to eat whatever they want, but marketers should develop their own names for laboratory grown, cell based or synthetic products and not give the impression that they are a variation on the theme. There is increasing pressure around the world to eliminate animal based products from our diet. Some organisations, such as the World Economic Forum, have claimed that animal products are making us sick and their production is causing major environmental degradation. Such organisations are intent on the elimination of livestock production. I make the point that, if we get rid of the consumption of cattle, there won't be any reason to have cattle in all the paddocks for people to drive past and look at. In fact, they will probably face extinction. It would be the same if we got rid of sheep and we didn't use the naturally grown wool products. There will be no reason to sustain these populations. An environmentalist once pointed out to me that, if you want to guarantee the survival of a species, you should start eating it and farming it. That guarantees that it is going to survive. If we eliminate animals from our diet and eliminate their fibres from what we wear, we will be left in a very interesting space. I convene the rural and regional Liberal caucus here in Canberra. We have become increasingly concerned about the misleading marketing threatening the livelihoods of Australian farmers, fishermen and those who work in the supply and marketing chains. Others have already begun to act. In 2007 the EU banned the use of dairy related items for non-dairy products, such as oat milk and soy yoghurt. More recently they have expanded the terms and images banned for use for non-dairy products like 'dairy' and 'creamy', prohibited packaging that imitates dairy products, and made statements about the climate impact of dairy by non-dairy products illegal. In the US some states have legislated to protect animal products. The US Congress is considering legislation. Here in Australia perhaps the best pathway to eliminating this action is through the Trade Practices Act. I certainly prevail upon the parliament to start thinking about this issue seriously. Medicare 158 17:37 Ms BUTLER 248006 Griffith Once again Medicare is under threat by the Liberals and the Nationals. They've been caught trying to sneak through almost 1,000 changes to the Medicare Benefits Schedule under the cover of COVID. That means patients in my electorate face the prospect of life-changing surgeries being cancelled at the last minute or being landed with huge bills they didn't expect. This is not the first attack on Medicare from this government. Defending Medicare was one of the first things I did as the member for Griffith—in fact, even before I became the member. When I became the candidate the commission of audit that then Prime Minister Abbott had initiated was just reporting. That was the commission that recommended a GP tax, a co-payment for people. I defended Medicare back then, in 2014, when Mr Abbott tried to introduce a co-payment for patients. I defended it for the same reason I do now—because when you attack Medicare you attack people. Australians know that Medicare, universal health care, has never been so important. You only have to turn on the news and see what's happening in other countries in the pandemic to feel that Medicare is one of Australia's greatest achievements. Locals in my electorate have told me they're proud of Medicare. They have told me that they don't want to see us go down the American path. They know that parents shouldn't have to save for years just to be able to afford surgery for their child and that people shouldn't have to risk their own health just to avoid the cost of medical attention. They fundamentally believe that everyone should be able to get the health care they need. Health care should be based on need, not postcode or credit card. Under the Liberals the costs have been going up, and that undermines universal health care. In the eight long years they've been in charge the cost of seeing a doctor has gone up and wait times have gotten longer. Under the Liberals it costs you 26 per cent more to see a doctor in Griffith than it did in 2014. As I said, the first thing this government did when it came to office was try to bring in a GP tax. When that overt attempt failed, they froze the Medicare rebate for years. That's how they brought in a GP tax by stealth, and now, from 1 July, Australians are going to be hit with increased bills for essential surgery, such as hip replacements, and other services. This has been happening without proper consultation. It has been snuck through, but Labor and the community have found out about the government's attempts to further undermine Medicare. In fact, the AMA warned the Morrison government about the rushed nature of these changes and the significant disruption to the provision of health care. The Grattan Institute has said that it's almost inevitable that patients will see their fees rise after the first month. It's clear when you look at the history of Medicare from its earliest days, when the Fraser government undermined what the Whitlam government had done. It took Bob Hawke getting elected to create Medicare for this country. There has been attack after attack on Medicare from the Liberals. Labor defends Medicare; the Liberals try to undermine it—that happens every time. Labor will stand up for Medicare. Elders FarmFest 158 17:40 Mr HAMILTON 291387 Groom For three huge days last week tens of thousands of people from all around South-East Queensland poured into Kingsthorpe for the 2021 Elders FarmFest. There was a record-breaking attendance. With traffic lined up all the way along the Warrego and back past Gowrie Mountain, it was a great sign of the recovery of our regions after the event had been cancelled at the height of COVID last year. FarmFest is a chance for industry and producers to meet and talk about the best new technology that's on offer and to catch up after a tough but very rewarding year. There's everything from big farm machinery to irrigation equipment—it was good to see the people from N-Drip out and about with their drip irrigation technology—and there's great produce on display. FarmFest brings out the best of our agricultural sector and brings it together. It's really a one-stop shop for Queensland ag, and it happens right in the heart of Queensland agriculture, in the true heart of Queensland beef on the magnificent Darling Downs. It was brilliant to be there, soaking up the atmosphere. People were in a positive mood, feeling very buoyed by the positive turn in their fortunes, with a successful season under their belts and a very good winter crop on the way. It's been a good number of years since we've had a good season and it has certainly been a long time since we've had a good season followed up by a good winter crop. We're very grateful for that. Some years we're counting the number of cracks in that beautiful black soil out past Pittsworth. This year we're counting our blessings, and we're very grateful. When our farmers are doing well, the rest of our region benefits. Hope finds its way back into little towns and communities and the wheels of our local communities start turning again, and that was certainly the case at FarmFest this year, with some big sales happening. I spoke to one vendor of very large farm equipment who has been faithfully displaying his wares for nigh on 10 years out at FarmFest, but this was the first time he'd ever seen a cheque. FarmFest is a wonderful place to generate business and to get customers excited. But this was the first year he'd made a sale on the spot right there. Confidence was in the air and opportunity was knocking; the agricultural sector is on the up. This vendor told me he believed people were in the mood to spend, in part because of the successful initiatives of government, like the tax relief and, in particular, the instant asset write-off, which allows businesses to claim back 100 per cent of an eligible purchase. This has been used, in this case, for tractors or farm machinery farmers need to keep themselves operating. That's what these initiatives are all about—encouraging businesses to invest in new technology that will enable them to become more productive and grow their farms. There was a great array of new tech on display at FarmFest this year. Elders showcased the latest in drone technology. That's a technology that is being taken up more and more on farms around Australia. Vanderfield brought out a huge display of precision ag equipment. There was even a robot-guided weed management system from Dalby Rural Supplies that uses infrared lasers to detect chlorophyll in weeds and target its spray. Once again, we're seeing an industry that's being led by technology. If we look in the Groom area, we've got the wonderful USQ driving that so hard. At FarmFest it's great to see producers reaching out and taking hold of the opportunities that are on offer. Lilley Electorate: Aged Care 159 17:43 Ms WELLS 264121 Lilley A few weeks ago, before Victoria went into lockdown, I had the pleasure of visiting TriCare at Stafford Lakes with the shadow minister for senior Australians and aged-care services, the member for Hotham. The purpose of our visit was to speak with the residents to find out what they were looking for from the government's response to the royal commission into aged care and also what they were looking for from the federal government by way of support to fix our aged-care system. I ended up speaking to two women who, I might say—and then I'll put the challenge out there to my constituents—are the most remarkable Lilley locals that I have come across in my time so far. Their names are Marcia and Velda. Velda, upon approach, was very quiet and little bit shy when I first met her. But, after chatting to her for a good 10 minutes, she warmed up and softly dropped to me that she was the first female commander in the Royal Australian Navy. I asked her what it felt like to be the first female commander in the Navy. I expected to hear stories of hardship or endemic discrimination that she had to overcome, but Velda responded instantly: 'I felt great.' Velda's friend Marcia was also a wildcard. She has the kind of spunk and charisma that I can only hope to have when I am in my 90s. Marcia herself was recently awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in recognition of her 70 years of volunteering at Mission to Seafarers. Marcia has an unwavering commitment to the Anglican Church and has been president and secretary of the Mothers Union in Stafford, which were kind enough to host me, Oshy and Dash at their morning tea a few months ago. Marcia herself said that volunteering was all about joy, fun and fellowship. Nowadays Marcia leads the Stafford Lakes TriCare gardening club. She is a militant recruiter, and, from the third degree that I saw her give some of the other residents who had missed the club that morning, I can tell that she rules that show with an iron fist. But this heartwarming story doesn't stop there. Marcia and Velda actually went to school together at Ithaca Creek Primary School back in the day and ran into each other in the halls of Stafford Lakes TriCare 82 years later. Marcia said to me: 'We had not seen each other in decades and decades, and then we were in the corridor one day, wheeling our walkers past one another. I saw her and I thought, "I know that woman,"' and it was her school friend from primary school 82 years earlier. Thank you, Marcia and Velda, for sharing your stories and for hosting the member for Hotham and I that morning in your beautiful home. I hope to be invited back to your gardening club very soon. Thank you also to the aged-care workers who work at Stafford Lakes nursing home for doing such a good job in looking after national treasures like Marcia and Velda. Gas Industry 159 17:46 Mr CONNELLY 282984 Stirling On budget night the Treasurer laid the foundations for Australia's road to recovery, and that road to recovery is absolutely going to be gas fired. Gas supports our manufacturing sector. It also employs via the manufacturing sector some 900,000 Australians. It's an essential input in the production of plastics for PPE, for fertilisers, for food production and for many other items. Australia is one of the world's largest exporters of LNG, with our exports predicted to reach 81 million tonnes in 2021-22. Gas will also help Australia to continue meet and beat our emissions reduction targets. Australia's domestic energy market is experiencing record supply from renewable sources like wind and solar. One-in-four Australian households now have rooftop solar, which makes sense given our sunny climate. But we need to balance this uptake of renewable energy with a reliable and flexible source of energy, and that's the role of gas. Far from competing with renewables, gas complements them. To simplify it, when the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing, gas keeps the lights on. Recognising the importance of gas to our energy mix and our economy, the Morrison government is committed to taking actions that will increase supply whilst simultaneously driving down prices for Australian households and businesses. Indeed, in this budget, we've allocated $58.6 million to measures which will unlock supply, will deliver an efficient pipeline and transportation market and will empower gas customers. Energy companies themselves are contributing to our national transition to a low-carbon future. For example, Woodside, my former employee before coming to this place, has set new and interim long-term targets for their Pluto LNG plant. This includes an interim target to abate 30 per cent of emissions by 2030 and a long-term target to abate 100 per cent of emissions by 2050. Woodside are also proposing to develop the very important Scarborough gas resource through new offshore facilities connected by a pipeline some 430 kilometres long to a proposed expansion of the existing Pluto LNG onshore facility. The final investment for Scarborough and Pluto Train 2 is due in the second half of 2021. The Morrison government is also backing six new carbon capture and storage projects, and one of these is from oil and gas company Santos. They will have a share in that $50 million carbon capture use and storage development fund, which will see them allocated $15 million to capture and store carbon dioxide emitted from their Moomba LNG operations. Our sustained economic recovery, which in turn underwrites our prosperity and security, will continue to rely upon natural gas. Immigration Detention 160 17:50 Mr WATTS 193430 Gellibrand Yesterday saw an overdue but welcome decision from the Morrison government in the case of the Murugappan family—the Biloela family, as they've become known around the country—Priya, Nades, Tharunicaa and Kopika, a Tamil family from Sri Lanka who have been in detention on Christmas Island since 2019. Many of my constituents have contacted me about this family's case for several years now. They've been asking me why the Morrison government continues to keep this family, including Kopika and Tharunicaa, who were born in Australia, in detention on Christmas Island for so long. It's a difficult question to answer because the reality is that this family from Biloela should never have been sent to Christmas Island. So it was a relief when the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs announced yesterday that the family would be reunited in Perth. But this announcement comes only after Tharunicaa was hospitalised with pneumonia and sepsis contracted in detention on Christmas Island, and after an extended period of pressure on the government. It shouldn't have come to this. It shouldn't have taken this crisis for the government to act. My thoughts are with Tharunicaa and her family, and I wish her a very speedy recovery. While it's a welcome decision that they've been reunited, the Morrison government still needs to make a decision on the family's long-term future. This is an area of policy that has no easy answers. I don't pretend that it's an area with simple solutions, but everyone can agree that governments have an obligation to minimise the time spent in detention by individuals. Leaving people in indefinite detention or otherwise in an indefinite limbo state, like the Biloela family are now in, without a feasible pathway for permanent migration in a resettlement country destroys people. It breeds desperation and despair and leaves people without hope. The Morrison government should let them go home to Biloela, to the community that loves them. Labor have been campaigning for this for some time. The Leader of the Opposition visited Biloela in 2019 and saw just how much community support there is for them there. Senator Keneally, Labor's shadow home affairs minister, in the other place, has been calling for them to be allowed to go home, and recently visited Christmas Island to see Nades, Priya, Kopika and Tharunicaa. Kopika and Tharunicaa have spent a significant portion of their life living in detention despite being born in Australia. It's time they were allowed to go home to Biloela with their parents. The Australian people want the Morrison government to do this. The immigration minister has broad powers under the Migration Act. It's time that he used them. There are no obstacles to resolving the permanent situation of this family. It can be done quickly and it needs to be done soon. I call on the Morrison government to show specific compassion and humanity to this individual family. I call on the immigration minister to act. Bowel Cancer 160 17:52 Mr JOYCE E5D New England I remember that back on 22 October 1975 I was dropped off at the Lonergan's place and my mom went in to have my younger brother, Timothy. He was born and it was a joyous event. A couple of years ago on this day we stood around Timothy's bed as he succumbed to bowel cancer. It just so happens that today is the day that we bring attention to bowel cancer. He left behind his beautiful wife, Cassie; and children, Max, Gracie and Molly. What a terrible indictment. For a long while he used to say that he had irritable bowel syndrome and he didn't quite know what was going on. He'd seen the ads on the television about irritable bowel syndrome. It was only after he got a second prognosis from a senior doctor, who said: 'It's such a terrible shame. If you'd had the proper check-up earlier, you would have a lot better chance, but right now you have stage 4 bowel cancer and its dire.' Tim fought on for a couple of years. He kept going to work, I think, until nearly a week or so before he passed away. It was an incredibly heroic effort. My youngest boy is Thomas Michael Timothy—Timothy in recognition of my brother. So often in politics we get to wear on our lapel something that denotes an issue. They're all worthy causes, but this is a cause that's very close to my heart. I say to the Australian people that there are more people, unfortunately—although there should be no primacy of one being better than another—who die of colorectal cancer than die of breast cancer. I think a reason for that is that the much higher incidence of breast cancer has made it somehow less uncomfortable or has made people feel less awkward about getting checked. Get yourself checked. My mother had breast cancer, but she died from the effects of bowel cancer. My father had bowel cancer. My younger brother died of bowel cancer. There's a quote from Horace, which I won't give in Latin, that basically says you remember the things that make you laugh, so I say to you it's better to go to the surgery, have a little sleep and let the steel eel do the searching that might save your life than to feel awkward about something and then have your crying family around you at your bedside. Get yourself checked for bowel cancer. Patsikatheodorou, Mrs Helen 161 17:55 Ms VAMVAKINOU 00AMT Calwell Today I want to pay tribute to Helen Patsikatheodorou, who is a proud recipient of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday 2021 Honours List. I have known Helen for almost 40 years. I first met her through my very good friend the late John Patsikatheodorou and my most vivid memory of Helen on the day when I met her was that she was wearing an Indian sari at a Greek dinner-dance. I was to learn very quickly that Helen was a unique person who could really be at home with any group of people at any one time. Helen, in the ensuing years, has raised three wonderful boys, Dimtri, Stratos and Nikolas. She is the proud grandmother to baby Ioannis and baby Clio. She's mother-in-law to Dimitra and Erica and is eagerly awaiting the wedding of her youngest son, Nikolas, to his partner Raveena. Her husband, John, the love of her life, died unexpectedly three years ago. John and Helen were a great double-act. They supported each other in everything they did. His loss was a blow, but she's showed amazing courage and continues to do her community work knowing and believing, as she says to me and to all of us, that John is always still around. Most of Helen's life has been dedicated to the service of our community. Her far-reaching impact is reflected in the various organisations and activities she has helped to shape for the many that benefit from her contribution. She was director of the multicultural childcare centre established by Ford Broadmeadows to accommodate the childcare needs of its very diverse migrant workforce. She remains a leading member of various organisations across our very vibrant multicultural community. Helen went on to work in my office before she ran for the Hume City Council, where she served for eight years and twice she was mayor. Helen was well known at that time as our 'pink mayor', a mantra she took on by vowing to wear something pink every day of her mayoral term to promote breast cancer screening and awareness, a cause very close to her heart, having fought her own battle with breast cancer. Her close knowledge of the large non-English speaking constituency meant that she made sure that all women had access to vital information and she helped to shatter the stigma and reluctance associated with breast cancer. Upon retiring from council, she returned to my office where she continues to deliver for the community. She has a gift for getting results for our constituents, with the most complex and seemingly impossible cases always referred to Helen for resolution. Helen was also awarded the Banksia Gardens Community Services Robert Kumar Community Award in 2018 for her outstanding contribution. The strength of Helen's contributions can't be captured in this speech today, nor can her impact on the many people whose lives and circumstances she has touched and continues to touch and help and continues to help. This is a very well deserved recognition award. Congratulations, Helen. COVID-19 161 17:58 Ms LANDRY 249764 Capricornia Despite the immense challenges of the past 16 months, Australia is roaring back to life. I'm so proud of our achievements. We have stuck together, we have looked out for each other and we have followed the health advice, which has kept our country safe. Our national economy is booming, with unemployment falling to just 5.5 per cent. This is lower than before COVID hit, which is just incredible. However, the job is not done. There is more to do. We are still faced with a global pandemic that continues to rage across the world. We must secure our nation's recovery going forward, and the Morrison government's 2021-22 federal budget puts Australian families at the centre of this plan. That's why I'm absolutely thrilled that our budget will deliver record commitments in the essential services that millions of families rely on. Aged care is something I care deeply about. To help our seniors we will provide an extra $17.7 billion— The DEPUTY SPEAKER HK5 Order! It being 6 pm, members' constituency statements are interrupted in accordance with the resolution agreed to on 3 June 2021. GRIEVANCE DEBATE 162 GRIEVANCE DEBATE Macarthur Electorate: Education 162 18:00 Dr FREELANDER 265979 Macarthur I rise today as a firm believer in our public education system. As a paediatrician and a lover of science, I understand and appreciate the critical role that education and intervention in the early years plays in shaping the lives of young Australians. Throughout my years working in the community, whether it be as a local paediatrician or now as a federal representative, I have had the distinct honour and privilege of working closely with a number of local schools—in fact, all our local schools. Upon being elected as the member for Macarthur in 2016, one of the best experiences I frequently encountered—and still encounter—was visiting local schools for meetings and ceremonies which I'd frequently come to attend for case conferences regarding various patients of mine. Throughout my years, one thing has remained constant, and that's my admiration for the wonderful men and women who teach in our local schools. Of course, there are too many wonderful individuals working across Macarthur to name them all, but I would like to mention a few and express, through them, my appreciation and gratitude for what they do for the young people of Macarthur and, indeed, for the young people of Australia. Firstly, I would like to mention Tammy Anderson, who appeared on the ABC's 7.30 with her fantastic Indigenous education initiatives. She is an Indigenous woman herself. She's the remarkable principal of Briar Road Public School in Airds in Campbelltown. Tammy is one of my region's real shining stars. She is actually a former pupil of Briar Road Public School, and now she runs the school. She ought to be credited for her fantastic work in starting a preschool and making sure all the children in the school, Indigenous or not, are aware of our Indigenous heritage, our Indigenous languages and our Indigenous population. She is really fostering a positive school culture, and that shows in the wonderful results the students are showing. Secondly, I mention Paul Hughes, the longstanding principal of Rosemeadow Public School. When I moved to Campbelltown almost 40 years ago, Rosemeadow Public School was a pretty tough place, and many of the kids that went to that school faced a lot of difficulties. Throughout Paul's tenure at the school, however, it has become a remarkable beacon of education in our area. He has turned the school around, and he ought to be commended for ensuring that some kids who started school with a number of problems are now flourishing and doing very well educationally and socially. He provides the highest quality education for our kids. Thirdly, I would like to mention Karen Endicott. She's a former principal of Sarah Redfern High School in Minto in Campbelltown, and she is now a director with the Department of Education. Karen has remarkably transformed Sarah Redfern High into a wonderful educational institution. It's now thriving, with people wanting to go to the school, which is getting great Higher School Certificate results. Karen is doing her best in the Department of Education to make sure all kids get access to the best education that Australia can provide. Lastly, I would like to mention Linda Green, the longstanding principal of over 15 years of Robert Townson Public School. Mrs Green presides over a truly incredible school with a wonderful cohort of students. Her selfless dedication, and the dedication of the previous principal, Brian Chudleigh, to our future generations is just inspirational. I recently visited the school to let them know what I do as a federal member, following their visit to Canberra. Unfortunately it was in a sitting week, so I couldn't meet them here. The knowledge of the kids about our political system and how it works was amazing, and the questions that they asked me were really intelligent and really testing. I had a wonderful time at the school. Again, it's a real credit to our public education system. Our community owes each of these individuals, all the other teachers and so many other people—the school support staff, the special education teachers, the gardeners, the lollipop men and women—a debt of gratitude for making sure that our future is secure because of the education of our children. As a parent and a grandparent, I know what it feels like to want the best for one's children and grandchildren. Our local teachers and support staff have made it their life's work to deliver the very best for our future generations. Our public education system has some truly remarkable people working within it, and I pay tribute to each and every one of them today for their service to the community. I know more than most the value that education adds to a person's life. I've seen that over many years with thousands of my patients. If we can deliver our kids a good education, we set them up for the future and set them up to provide for our future. If I can be forgiven for changing the tone of my speech, I now want to talk about the resourcing in some of our local schools. Education, as I've said, is everything. The wonderful men and women who work in our schools and help guide our children's development can't do it all without the appropriate support. It should not be an uphill battle for our community every time one of our local schools is falling behind or is in need of better resourcing. They shouldn't have to fight for it publicly. However, from my experience, that's what's happening. I've seen the very best schools in Australia, and they are indeed remarkable, but I've also seen some of the schools with the worst resources, probably like some Third World countries. I've often spoken in this place about Passfield Park School, a school for children with the most severe disabilities, severe intellectual handicaps, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, visual impairment, deafness, hydrocephalus—multiple disabilities. The teachers in that school do a wonderful job maximising the potential of kids with these severe difficulties. However, the school itself was falling down around their ears. The roof was leaking, it was full of mould and the classrooms weren't wheelchair accessible, even though they had close to one-third of the school in wheelchairs. They couldn't get into many of the classrooms. The toilets were absolutely overflowing because of blocked drains from tree roots. The school was, by any standard, dilapidated. It took a fight by the school community to get any change at all. In the end, they had to go to the media to get television coverage of what the terrible surroundings were like before anything was done. I pay tribute to the, at that stage, newly minted minister for education in New South Wales, Sarah Mitchell. She took one look at the school and realised what terrible condition it was in and demanded that the school be torn down and rebuilt, and that is what is happening at this present time. But we had written to New South Wales education ministers trying to get some change before that happened. We had to go to the media to get that changed for these most disadvantaged kids. It was really terrible. I thank Channel 7 and Robert Ovadia, the reporter, for really instituting that change through public pressure on the New South Wales government. It was a win, but it was a fight that I really shouldn't have had to have. These fights of course continue across my electorate of Macarthur. We're let down by the Liberal government on a state and federal level. There has been massive development and multiple new suburbs, but some of the schools in these new suburbs, even though the number of houses being built and the population are well known in advance, have over 30 demountable classrooms. At Gledswood Hills there's a school being built of relatively small size. It's completely overcrowded. The parents have to stagger their pick-up times at the school because the road's not big enough to take the traffic. We have the nearby suburb of Gregory Hills, which was built fully populated without a school being put in it. The New South Wales government and the New South Wales Premier have come out today, after urging from the parents and, again, media coverage over the years, and said they're going to build a school. But it's going to take years to build, and the footprint of the school that they're suggesting is far too small for the population. So this is again a school that will have demountable classrooms and won't have enough playing fields, and the kids' education will suffer. Education, of course, is a silver bullet for the future of the children I look after as a paediatrician. The New South Wales government, through its inaction, and the federal government, through its failure to understand the need to provide funding for education, as well as infrastructure, in rapidly growing outer metropolitan areas, are neglecting the needs of children in some of the most disadvantaged electorates in Australia. It's a tragedy, and it's time that state and federal Liberal governments were held to account for their failures in education as well as in many other things. National Security, Economy 163 18:10 Mr CONNELLY 282984 Stirling Australians have faced our fair share of challenges throughout the years: fires, floods, cyclones, world wars, and now a global pandemic and the associated global economic crisis. On top of that we are in the midst of great power competition, rapid military modernisation, cyberthreats and foreign interference. My message today is that the future of Australia as the most fortunate country in the world, with our immaculate standard of living and our security and sovereignty intact, is not assured. As the Prime Minister said in his address to the Perth USAsia Centre—and I acknowledge its eminent CEO, Gordon Flake—before he left for the G7 summit: Our challenge is nothing less than to reinforce, renovate and buttress a world order that favours freedom. Well, it's going to be incredibly difficult to buttress a world order that favours freedom if we simply cannot agree the priorities that we need to tackle. I do not underestimate this challenge, because we all have our own frames of reference in our lives. We all assess problems and solutions very differently. I've been reflecting lately on how my own world view must differ even from that of my eldest daughter, Tiggy. Tiggy was born on Christmas Day in Townsville while I was at the other end of a satellite phone in East Timor, where I was on military operations. She was a toddler in her mother's arms when they waved me goodbye as I went to Solomon Islands to be part of a peacekeeping force to restore stability and order. Whilst I've lived these experiences, I can't really expect that Tiggy would have the same depth of connection to our Indo-Pacific region, the same understanding of how inextricably linked are our prosperity and security. Now I can't really comprehend the influences that Tiggy, as a first-year university student, must experience daily on campus—for example, the fear of climate change that is being stoked within our youngsters, or the prevalence of cultural self-loathing and identity politics, almost to the exclusion of other extremely important matters we should be focused upon. In our workplaces, our community groups and our homes we still do need to continually improve the way we treat each other, but that should not stop us acknowledging how tolerant and inclusive we are as a nation, for the most part. Just last week I was at the Australian Islamic College, and the principal there was so proud of our local community. As he took me through the college and introduced me to some of the teachers and kids, he articulated how pleased he is and how pleased the community are that those kids will face exactly the same opportunities as the rest of our kids right across the nation. I'll put this very simply: I accept that we are not a perfect society and that we should continue to further reduce social, cultural and economic barriers, but, when I look at school and university curriculums and at media commentary, I assess we are focusing most of our bandwidth on negative introspection. This leaves almost no room for us to consider the problems and solutions that will enable us to maintain our liberal democratic existence. What are some of these discussions that we really must have? Firstly, we can only ensure for our kids our high standard of living into the future if we are economically competitive globally. Ironically, we are endowed with immense natural resources, particularly, Mr Deputy Speaker Irons, in our home state, Western Australia. They include natural gas. We have an absolute abundance of the stuff. We are indeed on a pathway towards net zero emissions, and we are investing significantly in renewables and in hydrogen, but we do need to transition there. It's been perplexing that some state and territory governments have chosen to put bans on the exploration of natural gas and any other hydrocarbons, and therefore not also be able to tap into a healthy export market, whilst at the same time being happy to import coal fired power from neighbouring states. Coronavirus has taught us that we do need to have sovereign production capability in key areas. There is also a strong appetite for local manufacturing. But, without cheap and reliable energy, we should forget about that. Our nation is working on sovereign capability and resilience. The 2021 budget paves the pathway to do just that, and a key element of that budget is the $270 billion we will be spending on defence in a world that is already less stable and more contested. Last week I was joined by my good friend and our Western Australian colleague the assistant defence minister, Andrew Hastie, for a community forum. We had some hard-hitting questions from our attendees on defence readiness, manufacturing, geopolitical shifts and the importance of cybersecurity. It was heartening to see that our community is encouraged and confident that this Morrison government remains absolutely focused on defence as a priority. It's also under the Morrison government that manufacturing is being prioritised, building sovereign capability whilst also putting cash in the hands of hardworking Australians and their businesses. Programs like our Modern Manufacturing Initiative are helping local manufacturers to integrate into global value chains. Even amidst this once-in-a-century pandemic and global recession the world is continuing to address climate change. Like the Prime Minister said, we need to focus on how we can prosper into this new net zero emissions economy without compromising resources, our manufacturing and our heavy industries, and without imposing higher costs on Australian families. Australia is playing our part on climate change, having met our 2030 commitments and being on track to meet and beat our 2030 target. Emissions are 19 per cent lower now than 16 years ago. We've done more than countries like Canada, the US, Japan and New Zealand by taking practical, technology focused approaches to the way we work towards net zero with our goal being to get there by 2050 through technology and not taxes. Through this budget, we are investing another $1.6 billion for priority technologies, including clean hydrogen and energy storage. We're also investing in six new carbon capture projects in Australia, which are reducing emissions while creating jobs. I'm sure, Deputy Speaker, you were as pleased as I was to hear from Chevron in our home state as to their carbon capture and storage project for the Gorgon LNG project off the north-west coast. During the onset of COVID-19, the prompt introduction of JobKeeper, JobSeeker and JobTrainer all helped to save livelihoods and keep Australians in work and to keep Australian businesses up and running. In my own electorate of Stirling, for example, there were 5,800 businesses who tapped into JobKeeper, and that supported 23,000 workers. I still get feedback now, as I am sure you do, Deputy Speaker, about the positive impact of JobKeeper keeping Australians in jobs and businesses in business. By March this year, there were 13.1 million Aussies in work—74,000 more than pre-COVID, making us the first major advanced nation to have more people employed now compared to pre-COVID. The JobTrainer Fund will also fund 450,000 new places to upskill jobseekers and our young people. This government is investing heavily in the future of Australian workers and local businesses. Like all of us in this House, we are looking to the future. We are looking to what are the needs of a changed nation in a changed world, and this government, through our strong plan, as outlined in the budget, is making significant headway already on that path. This investment is also being paired with the Australian fighting spirit, that same spirit that has helped us overcome fires and floods, cyclones, world wars and now, of course, this pandemic and the associated recession. But there is a critical third element. As individuals across this nation, we must think nationally, regionally and globally. We must think more broadly than within just our current frame of reference. We must reduce our negative introspection and we must enhance our focus on securing our collective future. Parliamentary Privilege 165 18:20 Mr WILKIE C2T Clark I rise today to speak further about what I view as a serious and unacceptable threat to the vital democratic principle of parliamentary privilege. Yesterday I raised this matter in the House in accordance with standing order 51, and I look forward to the Speaker's careful consideration of the matter. The issue at hand is a judgement made on Tuesday 1 June 2021 by Justice Yates of the Federal Court of Australia, which granted leave to ClubsNSW to obtain all items of correspondence between whistleblower Mr Troy Stolz and my office. ClubsNSW is suing Mr Stolz for breaching confidentiality obligations, including in relation to his communication with me. This included the provision of documents. The judgement allows ClubsNSW to use this material as evidence against Mr Stolz. It is my sincere belief that the judgement is a direct and potentially devastating challenge to democracy. Indeed, there is a real risk that this judgement threatens both the sanctity of parliamentary privilege and the ability of Australian whistleblowers to safely communicate with their elected representatives. There is also a real risk that if the centuries-old concept of parliamentary privilege is diminished by this parliament's inaction then the repercussions will be felt in parliaments right around Australia and, indeed, right around the world. The background to all of this is that in 2019 Mr Stolz came to me with information about widespread illegal activity that was being ignored by relevant authorities. Specifically, Mr Stolz revealed widespread noncompliance with anti-money-laundering laws among the 770 member clubs of ClubsNSW. Mr Stolz was looking to me and the absolute privilege that I enjoy to tell the Australian people that billions of dollars were passing through New South Wales clubs and that ClubsNSW was privately admitting that it didn't know how much of that money was being laundered by criminals. Having tried unsuccessfully as an employee to get ClubsNSW to address this issue, Mr Stolz felt he had no choice but to find another way to bravely share this information with the Australian people. On Thursday 13 February 2020 I delivered a speech in the House citing a 2019 ClubsNSW board paper that explicitly detailed how 90 to 95 per cent of New South Wales clubs were not complying with money-laundering legislation, which is unlawful and could facilitate all sorts of illegal behaviour. I also spoke to the issue as yet another example of the failure of our federal and state regulatory agencies to do their jobs in relation to money laundering. In other words, Mr Stolz acted in the public interest and did the right thing. It's my understanding that section 16 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987 prevents ClubsNSW from using the correspondence between me and Mr Stolz in its suit against Mr Stolz. Yet we have a decision of the Federal Court actually allowing ClubsNSW to use the correspondence between Mr Stolz and my office in its litigation against Mr Stolz, and that is truly remarkable. Interestingly, at a directions hearing Justice Yates indicated that it was improper for someone other than parliament to assert its privilege, despite the very clear wording of the privilege act that it's unlawful for privileged material to be used. Surely this can't be right. Surely it was not the view of the lawmakers back in the day that parliament must attend every court case relevant to privilege. The practical implication of that is ludicrous. I have been told by lawyers that the documents provided to ClubsNSW can be used only in these particular legal proceedings, but there are many things in these documents that may be of interest to ClubsNSW, including the names of other whistleblowers. Who can read something and then deliberately forget what they just read? Let that sink in—other whistleblowers will be put at risk if parliamentary privilege is not protected. In other words, allowing ClubsNSW to possess these documents and read them will guarantee that they are used, consciously or subconsciously, in the future. That would be a significant betrayal of the trust Mr Stolz and other whistleblowers have put in me, put in us and put in the parliament of Australia. It's obviously our job to know what's going on and to vote and advocate accordingly. It's my understanding that elected members are able to conduct private communication with members of the Australian public about matters of public interest without that member of the public being punished for this communication. I believe it's the view of many or all of my parliamentary colleagues that elected members should be able to do so. Since being elected by the people of Denison, now Clark, in 2010, I've worked hard, informed by brave whistleblowers, to shine a light on the significant role the gambling industry plays in numerous criminal matters. Just about every time, I've hit brick walls put up by any number of regulatory and law enforcement authorities, such as the AFP, state and territory police forces, the VCGLR and other state and territory gambling regulators, AUSTRAC and others. As far back as 2017, parliamentary privilege allowed me to reveal evidence from three former Crown staff that poker machines had been tampered with to reduce payouts, that money was being laundered and that drug running and domestic violence were regular occurrences at Crown Melbourne. There was also the ex-Crown driver who allowed me to reveal that international high rollers were flying in and out of the private terminal at Tullamarine without border security checks, accompanied by highly suspicious volumes of luggage presumably containing cash, guns, drugs and it's anyone's guess what else. More recently, I revealed in this place the existence of the video evidence of an Aldi bag full of millions of dollars that was being laundered inside the Suncity junket room at Melbourne's Crown casino. This subsequently formed part of the compelling case considered by the New South Wales casino inquiry which found Crown unfit to hold a casino licence at Barangaroo. Without these brave whistleblowers coming forward, we would not be seeing the startling extent of the illegal behaviour now being laid bare before the Hon. Ray Finkelstein QC as part of the long-awaited royal commission into Crown in Victoria, nor would we be seeing the royal commission in Western Australia. That is the power and importance of whistleblowers. With just a handful, you can ultimately deliver three desperately needed royal commissions in three different states, seeking to crack down on criminality on a grand scale. Is there anyone in this country who would rather not know about the crimes in the gambling industry? Is there anyone who would claim that the insights of whistleblowers are not in the public interest? I don't think so. But, in the absence of competent and clean regulatory and law enforcement agencies, the only way for our whistleblowers to safely reveal their insights is in our parliaments. If we don't have parliamentary privilege to protect whistleblowers, we don't really have a whole lot. Clearly, any erosion of parliamentary privilege in this country would be devastating. Moreover, given the recent appalling attacks on the freedom of the media in this country, parliament may well represent the very last safe place for whistleblowers to inform the Australian people about matters of public interest. I'm a staunch defender of media freedom and lament the current dreadful circumstances being experienced by journalists. But, given the current absence of proper protections for journalists in this country, we surely can't also now accept any degradation whatsoever of the protection offered to whistleblowers by the parliamentary privilege that members of parliament enjoy. Yes, Australia desperately needs a media freedom act to balance the nation's security and other legislative frameworks. We also need to urgently implement the long awaited reforms to the Public Interest Disclosure Act. But even more important right now is that we deal immediately with the matter in front of us, and that is to do everything in our power to safeguard the centuries-old democratic principle which serves and protects free speech in the parliament. I obviously have grave concerns about the consequences of the interlocutory judgement in the Stolz matter. In particular, I am deeply worried about the chilling effect that this decision potentially will have on those brave Australian whistleblowers who are compelled to raise concerns with their elected representatives. Surely, it cannot be allowed to stand. I urge the parliament to intervene in the matter immediately, because if everyday Australians cannot speak with parliamentarians, safe in the knowledge that their communication and correspondence are protected by parliamentary privilege, many will choose not to speak at all. And if we allow whistleblowers to be silenced, democracy as we know it will be greatly diminished for ever. Agricultural Exports, Trade with the United Kingdom 166 18:29 Mr DRUM 56430 Nicholls I rise to speak on how the Liberal-National government is pushing further ahead in its ambitious task o agricultural production in Australia to $100 billion by 2030. Australian agricultural producers rely on exporting produce right across the world. Not only are we growing trade with our current trading partners; we are also developing new markets and opportunities for our producers. International trade agreements are a linchpin of this growth. This government has secured bilateral trade arrangements with Malaysia, Korea, Japan and China. There is the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It has built on trade agreements with New Zealand, the United States, Singapore and Thailand. The coalition government will continue to develop new markets for our producers, not only to grow the market but, more importantly, to mitigate the risk to us as a nation of being overreliant on specific markets. I commend the Prime Minister and the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment for the agreement that has been reached in the United Kingdom over the last few days. The United Kingdom is one of Australia's most important partners. Australia has a significant and quite unique relationship with the UK, underpinned by our shared heritage, common values, historic people-to-people links, and advanced, open and democratic economies. Our Australia-UK free trade agreement is going to be built on our existing strengths in two-way trade and investment, support our post-COVID economic recovery and signal our shared commitment to global trade liberalisation. The UK free trade agreement will give greater access to a range of high-quality products made in both countries as well as greater access for businesses and workers, all of which will drive economic growth and job creation in both countries. The UK is already an important trading partner for Australia. In 2019-20 the two-way goods and services trade was valued at over $36 billion, making the UK Australia's fifth-largest trading partner. The UK is Australia's third-largest source of foreign direct investment, with foreign direct investment valued at over $123 billion in 2020. Through improved market access for goods and services, this free trade agreement will give Australian exporters a competitive edge when entering the UK market. Australian agricultural exports to the UK have been relatively low since the UK joined the European Union, and the high tariffs and other trade barriers that Britain imposed as a member of the European Union were certainly a bugbear to Australia actually doing that trade. This trade agreement, however, will see beef tariffs eliminated after 10 years. During the transition period, Australia will have immediate access to a duty-free quota of 35,000 tonnes, rising in equal instalments to 110,000 tonnes in year 10. Sheep meat tariffs will be eliminated after 10 years. During the transition period, Australia will have immediate access to a duty-free quota of 25,000 tonnes, rising in equal instalments to 75,000 tonnes in year 10. Sugar tariffs will be eliminated over eight years. During the transition period, Australia will have immediate access to a duty-free quota of 80,000 tonnes, rising by 20,000 tonnes each year. Dairy tariffs will also be eliminated over five years. During the transition period, Australia will have immediate access to a duty-free quota of 24,000 tonnes of cheese, rising in equal instalments to 48,000 tonnes in year five. Australia is going to phase out, by 2027, the requirement for British backpackers to work on farms to extend their working holiday visas, with the labour shortfall in the agricultural sector to be made up through the introduction of an agricultural visa by the end of 2021. British backpackers have provided the agricultural sector with up to 10,000 workers each season over the last 10 to 15 years. This does open the door to developing an ag-specific visa, which is going to be incredibly crucial to my electorate of Nicholls and will also be very crucial to large parts of Australia. The pandemic has put a magnifying glass over what was already evident in relation to our seasonal worker deficit. In Nicholls, it's glaringly obvious that, particularly in the horticultural industry, we really have a got a crisis on our hands with the labour force. This last season just gone, the very kind weather conditions provided an extended fruit picking harvest season. That certainly averted an absolutely horrible situation that was looming. Had we had extreme hot weather at picking time, it would have shortened the time frame that the farmers had available to get their fruit off the trees. In January the Victorian state Labor agriculture minister promised 1,500 seasonal workers would be on Victorian farms in the first half of 2021, but we're now in mid-June and there are fewer than 850, plus they were unable to get them for the fruit-picking season. This government has streamlined the process to access workers through the Pacific Labour Scheme and the Seasonal Worker Programme, and we now have more labour options in place for our growers before next season. The seasonal agricultural worker visa will support Australian farmers both now and into the future, and certainly there are going to be many Asian countries that will be very keen to play a role in this new agricultural visa scheme. It will provide a wider pool of workers that are available to Australian agriculture and will certainly help to meet the ongoing seasonal workforce gaps that continued right through the pandemic. An agricultural visa could take in workers from up to 10 Asian countries—Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam—and work in conjunction with the Seasonal Worker Programme and the Pacific Labour Scheme. An agriculture-specific visa has been called for by the National Farmers' Federation and the Victorian Farmers Federation for many years now. The deficit of workers in rural and regional areas goes beyond seasonal agricultural workers. There are skilled and semi-skilled worker shortages right across many industries including health, allied health, aged care, hospitality workers and food technicians as well as in agriculture and in many trades: mechanics, boilermakers. In my electorate of Nicholls, around the greatest city of Shepparton, the shire of Moira and the shire of Campaspe have been working together to introduce an initiative in relation to having their own DAMA, designated area migration agreement. This initiative has been put forward because of the incredible shortages that exist in some of those other food-processing areas as well as in horticulture, dairy and many other industries. They have been working for over 18 months now to get the DAMA through, and it's nearly at the stage of being approved. The DAMA will have a whole raft of economic benefits that are going to be available, and I want to applaud the Greater Shepparton City Council for being the driving council pushing for a DAMA, which is expected to see economic output increase by up to $144 million and value-added to increase to over $60 million. We're expecting to see over 430 positions created, many being high-skilled positions. We're also expecting this population to increase by over 750 people. The things that need to be done by our local government in conjunction with the federal government to provide this labour force certainly will put agriculture into a really, really strong position. One of the other things that we haven't spoken about of course is the water debate. We need to be very, very mindful of just how critical and how crucial water is throughout the Murray-Darling Basin. We can't experience dry times and only then go running around trying to changes things to give our farmers more water. We need to make changes now, so that we give our farmers more water, more security, more flexibility, so that they can actually plan for their lives into the future. The Goulburn Valley is so rich in what it does, what it produces for Australia. The valley's food production from the productivity of its dairy, fruit, beef and sheep is just incredible. It is a food bowl of Australia. It has both food production and food processing, but there are two big risks: not being able to get the labour and not being able to get the water. It's great to see that we now have a government that's prepared to make big changes to try to give our farmers the two main things that they need. Young Australians 168 18:39 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston 'My age group isn't taken seriously when we report on a serious issue, and it pains me that we won't be taken seriously under a Scott Morrison government.' This is a quote from 19-year-old Jackson from New South Wales, a young Australian who has completed Labor's youth survey, asking young people about the barriers to communicating with the federal government and the issues that are important to them. Young Australians are faced with a grim future, with predictions that this generation, generation Z, is at risk of being the first in our history that will be worse off than the generations that came before them. Nearly 2,000 young Australians have completed Labor's survey, telling us what matters to them. Like Jackson, many young Australians are feeling unheard and frustrated with the lack of pathways to communicate their ideas, their issues and their lived experience with this federal government. Twenty-one-year-old Haseeb from Western Australia summed it up by saying: 'Even when young people are given a platform, sometimes it's very artificial, and the concerns raised aren't elevated to a level where they can be addressed. It would be nice to see young people's concerns turn into actionable change and government discussion items.' After sacrificing so much during COVID, this generation Z of young Australians will be paying for Scott Morrison's trillion dollars of debt. And what exactly are they getting in return? A future of high underemployment and underutilisation, depleted retirement savings, significant barriers to education and training, and a rent and housing affordability crisis. This government has sat on its hands for eight long years. They have failed young Australians at every juncture. They have failed to listen to young Australians. They have failed to even attempt to create a pathway of engagement for those bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 crisis and the future impacts of the decisions that are made now. As a result, the many programs that attempted assist young Australians have failed miserably because of this government's lack of ability to listen to young people. For example, the government's record on youth unemployment programs is abysmal. The Youth Jobs PaTH program was introduced as a centrepiece policy to tackle youth unemployment just a few years ago, promising 120,000 internships over four years, but it's only managed to produce just over 14,000. Then came the $4 billion policy, a masterpiece to tackle unemployment in the form of the JobMaker hiring credit. The government promised to deliver 450,000 jobs with this program but managed to deliver just a thousand before the program was scrapped. These are just some examples of this government's failures with programs in youth unemployment. You would think at some point that this government would see the need to say: 'Okay, we're getting it wrong. Maybe we should directly engage with young Australians about why these programs are failing so spectacularly.' The government now likes to boast that youth unemployment is down to pre-COVID levels, but prior to the pandemic youth unemployment rates were double the national average. This should not be the standard that government boasts about and wants to return to. Of course, when it comes to poor engagement with young Australians, it all started with Tony Abbott cutting the minister for youth and the office for youth when the coalition took office in 2013. And we're still playing catch-up. A youth task force was introduced, and a report was due in December 2020, but the department has now told us that this task force no longer exists, and there's no report in sight. They're still consulting. I don't know what that means. This was just another marketing ploy by this government and not a genuine attempt for true engagement with young Australians. Well, Labor's not going to wait for this government to get off their hands after eight long years and do something about it. Labor is committed to engaging with young Australians. That is why Labor has continued to listen to young Australians. We want to hear from you. Unlike the government, we do want to know what matters to you and, more importantly, what governments should be doing about these issues. I have continued to engage with young Australians, whether that be through our survey or our virtual youth forums with Labor's policymakers, where hundreds of young Australians joined Anthony Albanese and me to chat about everything from the environment to the economy, about stagnating wages, about properly funding TAFE, about the impost of increasing university fees and about how important it is to take action on climate change. Of course, it's young people that will bear the brunt and cost that comes with not acting on climate change. Young Australians are engaging more than ever in politics, which is quite the opposite to the myth out there that young Australians are not engaging in politics; they are engaging in politics, and they want to have a say in what affects them. Young Australians are not just willing to be involved; they also have some solutions. This is from Mitch: 'As young people, we have a voice and we have an opinion. We are passionate and we care about issues that concern us. We have ideas and we want to change things but are constantly shown our voice is not important to people in power.' Isn't it disappointing that a young Australian feels that their government is not interested in what they've got to say? Jasmine said: 'Young people are let down by a system which fails to provide fundamental education on democracy and voting. We as young people represent 30 per cent of the votes. We are the future politicians and the future prime ministers of this nation, and it's crucial that our nation recognises gaps in a system that was not created with young people in mind.' And Bianca said: 'The youth voice is growing, and now it's as important as ever to be given space and opportunity to represent the nation as well as begin tackling the problems we will inherit.' Whether it's Jackson, Hasib, Jaslyn, Bianca, Mitch or the thousands of other young Aussies we've heard from, we are listening to you, and we are not just going to wait for this government to act. As I said, we as the opposition have continued to engage with young people. But, importantly, if we are elected to government, an Albanese government are committed to introducing a new youth engagement model to provide a voice and a structure for young Australians to directly engage with government and contribute to policy development. We will establish a framework to directly and formally engage with young Australians on an ongoing basis. We will provide a platform for young Australians to share their ideas, opinions and concerns and to alert the government to issues facing young people at a grassroots level and to also be involved in the solutions to address them. We will make sure that the systems are in place to support this framework by also committing, importantly, to an office for youth and a dedicated minister for youth. Gone will be the days where this is an add-on extra; this will be core to a Labor government. Rather than youth engagement and young people being an afterthought or duplicating functions across departments, we will have a dedicated unit within government to ensure that young people are properly engaged. Labor is committed to genuine ongoing two-way engagement with young Australians, ensuring that they have a voice in government. Importantly they will also be part of the solution-making in this country. To all the young Australians who took time to fill out our survey—and I would encourage people to continue to do this—thank you for sharing your ideas. We will continue to engage with you; that is our commitment. I would like to finish with the words of a young Australian, Quintessa, who said: 'Young people seem to be constantly overlooked in policymaking and in budgets. We aren't even being addressed in speeches to the public. Despite being the group that will have to live with many of the policies and legislative changes being made today, we are slowly becoming more educated about our right to have a say in democracy, and you need to listen to us because your decisions impact us.' To Quintessa and every young Australian, I would like to say that I am listening to you and Labor is listening to you. I hear you. We hear you. We are committed to taking the necessary steps to make sure that you are no longer overlooked. Government members interjecting— Ms RISHWORTH HWA I will say that there are interjections in the chamber, ridiculing young Australians. Ridicule for young Australians is exactly what we expect from this government. Labor will not stand for that. We will not ridicule young Australians; we will listen to young Australians, and we will ensure that they have a voice. That is the commitment that I make, that is the commitment that Labor makes, and it is clearly not the commitment that the Liberal Party makes. Cairns University Hospital, Insurance, Health Care 169 18:49 Mr ENTSCH 7K6 Leichhardt I can assure our previous speaker in this debate that I'm listening. I'm listening. Ms Rishworth HWA I'm sure you are. Mr ENTSCH 7K6 It gives me great pleasure to advise that the land required to build the Cairns university hospital has now been purchased. It's a major step in ensuring the long-overdue and much-needed project becomes a reality. In 2019, the Morrison government, in partnership with James Cook University, announced a $60 million investment to get the ball rolling on the project. Sadly, however, these funds sat in the can while everybody waited and waited for Queensland's state Labor government to come to the party. But, like most things when it comes to Queensland Labor, they were more interested in playing politics rather than in delivering for the community. They were furious at the fact that we announced that we had delivered the required federal funding that was necessary for stage 1; after all, it was their proposal in the first instance. The Queensland Labor government then threw their toys out of the cot and tried everything in their power to railroad the project. But on the eve of last state election—surprise, surprise!—they actually started to show an interest in their own proposal, after a very successful campaign by the local media, the Cairns Post. They were literally dragged kicking and scheming to support their own project. But once the election was run and won, guess what? Nothing. James Cook University decided enough was enough and took the initiative to secure the required parcels of land so that the Queensland Labor government couldn't stall the project any longer. They've also entered into an agreement with the Cairns Hospital and Queensland Health to ensure stage 2 of the project can be built on that purchased land. I find it mind-boggling that the state government's MP for Cairns, Michael Healy, claimed in local media that this was all a surprise to him. This was especially curious given that he'd planned a media event to announce the land purchase and agreement but had had to cancel that after he was forced into isolation due to a recent Brisbane COVID outbreak—not to mention the fact that he'd also organised for the state health minister to attend the rescheduled announcement. That, for some reason, didn't go ahead. The Queensland government can't stall the project any longer. Construction on stage 1, which is the demolition of properties that are standing on this land, will commence later this year. This is going to mean local jobs and opportunities for local businesses. I certainly hope that the Queensland government doesn't take a decade to do the business case for stage 2 and that it finally stumps up with the cash for the state-required contribution for stage 2. The last thing we need is half a hospital because the Queensland Labor government has again thrown its toys out of the cot. I was a little bit disappointed with the Queensland state government budget recently. They hadn't added any extra money into it, but nevertheless, in spite of all of that, I have no doubt that this project will go ahead. It's going to make a huge difference for our city. Another issue I'd like to raise is in relation to insurance. Again, the Morrison government has listened to Far North Queensland—and to northern Australia, for that matter. It has acted and will deliver lower insurance prices. This has been a major problem. There has been insurance failure. It has taken over a decade to be able to get recognition. We have a member here who certainly has been very much aware of this and has been very, very supportive in the work that we've done in getting to this point. But we're there now. You can only imagine my surprise when recently the four state Labor members in my neck of the woods decided to express their two cents worth on an issue that they've never spoken to in the entire time that they've been in the job. It's clear that our D-grade state Labor members don't actually know what they're talking about, because they were arguing that the $2.4 million allocated in the budget was all the money that was set aside for this reinsurance pool. The reality is that that money has been set aside just to establish consultation round tables in Cairns, Townsville, the Whitsundays, Mackay and, I suspect, across northern Australia as well to ensure that this policy is right. Remember, we're starting right here from scratch and, given the size and scale of the scheme, you simply can't click your fingers and, hey presto, there it is. Furthermore, the scheme doesn't start until 1 July 2022, so anybody with half a brain or any knowledge of accounting would understand that the $10 billion guarantee for the reinsurance pool would need to be available only in the 2022-23 financial year, to coincide with the scheme's commencement. I have to say to you that the Cairns based Labor senator made some very interesting observations recently— An honourable member interjecting— Mr ENTSCH 7K6 What's her name? We forget that. At recent Senate hearings it was clear that she had absolutely no clue what she was talking about. I hear her performance—or lack of it—on the issue in estimates was bordering on laughable. She's very quick to throw spears, but she has never offered any solution. It shows that she's nothing more than the puppet for southern masters. I challenge the senator to publicly say whether she supports this reinsurance pool. Why not? It's a simple question—yes or no. Until such time as she either supports the policy or has a viable alternative—and at this stage that space is void—she has absolutely no credibility. It will be interesting to see whether she takes up that challenge. Finally, I come to the concerns I have with the ongoing Queensland Health induced health crisis that is plaguing our city and wider region. The Queensland government talks a lot about health, but it's abundantly clear it never delivers. Only recently it was revealed that the Queensland government actually plans to cut more than $27 million from the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service and more than $4 million from the Torres and Cape Hospital and Health Service. These are two services that are already chronically underfunded and have serious problems. We've seen major ramping at our emergency department, and here they are cutting another $27 million and $4 million respectively. This will mean fewer essential health services for Far North Queenslanders. Again I notice that our Labor senator and local Labor members are as quiet as church mouses on this issue. There's not a peep from any of them. There is not the slightest bit of fake outrage. You have to wonder why. My office regularly receives horror stories about the diabolical state of our local health system. I must stress that none of these complaints are ever about the hardworking doctors, nurses and allied health staff working in this broken system. They are just fed up to their back teeth. Sadly, Queenslanders are forced to come to me for assistance because they are consistently being ignored by the four local state MPs. I'd like to share two stories in particular that highlight the broken health system under the Palaszczuk government. I will call one of those people Jan. For five years she has had a chronic issue that requires both knees to be replaced as soon as possible. She was subsequently booked in for surgery only to be informed on the day before that it had been deferred for a few weeks. It was then again deferred for another few weeks. This went on for a period of time until eventually she had surgery on one of the knees. She was told that the next knee would be done in the next three months. We're talking about a five-year period here. When she went back and said that she needed this to be done in that period of time, unfortunately they said, 'We don't know anything about that.' Here we are five years later and she still hasn't been done. She even got to a point where she had gone into the hospital, been prepped, had a cannula inserted, been given pre-op medication and been placed in a bed next to the operating theatre. She thought it was going to happen then, but suddenly she was approached by nurses, had her cannula removed and was told to get dressed as the operation was cancelled because of another trauma case. I'll mention a second one too. My brother, who lives in Cardwell, was referred in early February to the Townsville base hospital because he had a high PSA level in relation to his prostate. The Townsville hospital said that they were not taking any more patients. He went back later in February and again in May. Only this week he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and he still hasn't had an opportunity to be treated. It is appalling and it needs to be addressed. (Time expired) The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265991 There being no further grievances, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. ADJOURNMENT 171 ADJOURNMENT Oxley Electorate: Community Groups 171 19:00 Mr DICK 53517 Oxley Over the past weekend we had the opportunity to celebrate all things Queensland in my electorate of Oxley. Queensland Day is a celebration of our state's birthday and it's official separation from New South Wales—thank goodness!—as an independent colony from 6 June 1859. It's an opportunity to commemorate our culture, heritage, people, places and industry. I want to recognise and congratulate our local champions who are recognised for their contribution to the local Oxley community and were awarded their recognition by the Premier of Queensland and our local state member, the Honourable Annastacia Palaszczuk, and our local councillor, Councillor Charles Strunk. I want to recognise Pastor Tim, the winner of the Outstanding Community Service Award; Reverend Russell Reynoldson, winner of the Local Employee Community Champion Award; Angela Nowman, winner of the Jim Hornsville Community Champion Award and Pauline Moran, winner of the Evie, the Evelyn Wolf Community Legend Award. We're incredibly fortunate in Oxley to have local leaders who serve our community selflessly and tirelessly. One such person is Sue Peacock, a dedicated volunteer to the Westminster Warriors Soccer Club. When the club decided to rename one of its soccer fields, no-one could think of a better person to honour than Sue. Sue is an integral part of the club, having dedicated her free time to supporting the Warriors as a volunteer since the 1990s. She first got involved in the soccer club through her sons who are players, but she's graced the field as a goalkeeper in the senior women's team. She's volunteered over the years as treasurer, as vice-president and, this year, as president. In the lead-up to the announcement, the new name for this field was Redbank Plains' worst kept secret. However, Sue had no idea until we unveiled the new name on Saturday morning. When she found out about the honour, Sue said: 'It's unbelievable. I don't feel like I deserve it.' As the kids, parents and families who have seen Sue's dedication to the club know, this is simply not true. There is absolutely no-one more deserving than Sue. Congratulations to Sue, and well done to the Westminster Warriors for pulling off such a heart-warming surprise for a true community champion. I want to thank the mayor of Ipswich, Teresa Harding, and local councillors, Councillors Sheila Ireland and Jacob Madsen for being part of this and making sure it happens. I have also recently had the opportunity to honour the next generation of community leaders through the Oxley electorate's Spirit of Anzac awards. Participants were encouraged to submit a short essay, poem or piece of artwork that encapsulates what the spirit of Anzac means to them. The entries were judged by local RSL sub-branch representatives: Judith Van de Pol from the Goodna RSL, Steve Scott from the Redbank Plains RSL and Sharon Ford from the mighty Forest Lake RSL. I want to congratulate and announce to the parliament the winners: Claire from Centenary State High School, and Tasmea from Darra State School, and Lily and Hayley from Woodcrest State College. These young locals submitted outstanding entries alongside all of the local Oxley students who entered. Finally, today I met with the local Oxley contingent from the Micah Women's Leadership Network, which brings together influential women leaders from across the Australian church network advocating for the poorest and most vulnerable in our world. I want to recognise and publicly thank Pastor Deb Van Bennekom from the Springfield Christian Family, Bek Prosser from the Hope Centre church and Savaen Cameron from the Gateway Baptist Church for taking the time to meet with me, and this is a delegation that was meeting with members right across the political spectrum. We discussed the important issues that their network is fighting for, including the fight to end COVID for all. As the vaccine rolls out across the world, a two-track pandemic is developing: wealthier nations like Australia can buy doses and roll out the vaccination program to protect their citizens while poorer nations simply do not have the resources without the assistance of the global community. Deb, Bek, Savaen and I discussed the importance of responding to the changing needs of our neighbours with further targeted support and recovery packages. Meeting this crisis with generosity is not only the right thing to do but it's the smart thing to do as well. A vaccinated and healthy global community means open international borders and a faster economic recovery. I thank the women leaders for visiting parliament today. I honour the work that they're doing in advocating for the poorest people in the world, and I offer my support to make sure we end COVID for all. New Acland Coal Mine 172 19:04 Mr HAMILTON 291387 Groom It was great to hear the member for Oxley praising the efforts of Councillor Sheila Ireland, a great local representative and someone who does a very good job in her local community. But tonight I want to talk about the future of the New Acland Coal Mine. It's a thing I've spoken about many times. I will continue to keep speaking about it. I'm sure the people of my community have heard me speak about it for a long time now. Unfortunately, they've been haunted with uncertainty around the future of this mine for 14 years. The situation that faces New Acland shouldn't just worry those involved in this mine but also worry the industry more broadly. It's a story about what the lack of state government leadership and disparate approval processes can do to a good project which brings good jobs to a regional area. To take you back: the New Acland Coal Mine, which is located just outside of Oakey in my electorate of Groom, started operating in 2002. At its peak, it was contributing $110 million annually to the Darling Downs economy and $406 million annually more broadly. It operates on a local workforce, not a fly-in fly-out situation. That's 320 staff who were living and working in the region at the height of production; 320 locals, 320 families, who were provided good, honest employment by this mine. In 2007, the mine applied for approvals for stage 3 of its project. Today it's still waiting for mining leases, 14 years later; still waiting for a water licence 14 years later. These are approvals which the state government have repeatedly said they won't grant until legal action against the mine is finalised. It's unclear how long these proceedings will take. With the matter returning to the Land Court this February, there are estimates a recommendation might not be given until February next year. Unfortunately, that's simply too late for the workers at that mine. The mine will run out of coal in October of this year. New Hope have tried to hold on to workers for as long as they can—and I thank them for their work with that—but they've already had to make 185 workers redundant, with another 24 due to be made redundant this July. These are workers who live in the community, support small businesses in Oakey, send their kids to the local schools and contribute to the community through sporting clubs and volunteer organisations. At this stage, even if the mine were approved today, we are already in a scenario where these workers would face a time of unemployment before operations could once again ramp-up and their jobs could return. The wind-up of the mine won't only have severe impact on people but also businesses—from the corner shop to Queensland Rail, whose south-west line the mine's business guarantees—as more jobs and revenue are lost. Throughout all of this, the state government has refused to provide certainty to the mine or to my community, constantly shifting the line of when they'll decide on the final approvals. What the mining industry needs—what any industry needs—is certainty. When it comes to mine approvals, I'm not asking for more yeses; I'm asking for fewer maybes. I'm asking for the Premier to treat all projects equally. Apply the same rules to New Acland as the state government did to Pembroke's Olive Downs coking coal project near Mackay. While Olive Downs is a metallurgical coalmine and New Acland is thermal, what's not different is that both mines are involved in legal proceedings. A judicial review is currently underway for Olive Downs, but they have been granted their leases and they are operating. In a Queensland parliamentary committee in April, the Queensland Department of Resources director-general revealed, under questioning from the excellent Toowoomba North MP, Trevor Watts, that the difference in treatment was a policy decision. The director-general went on to explain, 'If a mine has a valid recommendation from the Land Court and meets all other prerequisites it can be provided to the minister for a decision,' which is what happened in Olive Downs, as it should have. In 2018, the New Acland Coal Mine did have a Land Court decision and did meet all other prerequisites, but, in the words of a report in the Australian at the time, the state government held off, pre-empting future legal challenges. To be very, very clear, Acland's approvals are not being considered on the merits of their application. This inconsistency of approach is poison to investment, making it impossible for industry to chart a course forward. Once again, why do we have one rule for one project and another for a different project? The state government needs to apply its processes equally. If a decision can be made, it must not be able to be held up by endless litigation. Again, I'm not asking for more yeses; I'm just asking for fewer maybes. It's time to give Acland a fair go. It's time to give the workers at Acland mine a go. If the Labor Premier won't support mining jobs, then I call on the Leader of the Opposition to support the Acland mine. On behalf of the workers who've lost their job at the hands of Labor's indecision on mining policy, I would genuinely appreciate his support. Fossil Fuel Industry 173 19:09 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne Last year the climate fuelled bushfires burned across Australia. Last month the International Energy Agency said that, to get to net zero, the very first thing that every country has to do is commit to not approving any new oil and gas fields, new coalmines or mine extensions, new coal plants, or any fossil fuel boilers. Just days ago the G7 committed to more than halving their pollution in this critical decade, ending fossil fuel subsidies and the financing of coal. And what was the Morrison government's first policy response to these historic global shifts? To release 80,000 square kilometres of our ocean to exploit new oil and gas fields. Nothing is safe from this government, which is working as one with the coal and gas corporations. Even the Twelve Apostles in Victoria are now under threat from the four horsemen of the apocalypse: Chevron, Santos, Origin and ExxonMobil. We've had a year and a half of megafires, cities covered in smoke, dust storms, hailstorms and floods, and the Australian government is still trying to give more money, more land and more of our ocean to the corporate horsemen who are causing all this devastation. The government is trying to see how far it can drag the country for the profiteering of this evil industry, whether it's a quarter of a billion dollars of our money for gas corporations to frack the Beetaloo Basin, $600 million of our money to build a gas plant or several million dollars for a new coal-fired power station. We need to call time on this giant scam that's going to make our lives and those of the generations to follow unimaginably bad, because time is running out. The banks are abandoning this industry. The world can see the writing on the wall. The firefighters get it, the army gets it, the private equity corporations get it and the schoolkids get it, which is why we need to stop the grift, stop the scam, end the handouts, and dry up our addiction to these terrible fuels and limit the damage they're causing. We have to fight to release a government and a so-called opposition that are captured by coal, oil and gas corporations. How do we know that they're captured? Because they keep voting to humiliate themselves, to abandon their responsibilities and to wreck both the country they claim to represent and their kids' futures. And for what? For the profits of some of the greediest, most shameless and most dangerous corporations in the world—corporations which by and large don't pay much tax, are labelled by the tax office as systemic nonpayers of tax, will poison your river, will give workers black lung and will undermine a union agreement to bring in labour hire workers. They care about only one thing: their profits. If they didn't, they would pay their fair share of tax, they would clean up after themselves, they wouldn't spend in political donations and lobbying strategies, and they might even have invested in their own carbon capture and storage by now. But they don't. They're not just digging wherever they like in some of our most iconic places or wrecking the cultural sites of First Nations people; they're making us pay for it. Every time you go to work, buy a house or buy something at the shops you pay tax. And where does that tax go? It goes to fund gas fields, to fund fossil fuel exploration, to fund their fuel costs and to fund their profits. Santos and Peabody Energy didn't pay any tax, yet we the public are paying them and giving them handouts. We're also the ones who have to clean up their mess, to rebuild our homes and our lives, and to mentally prepare ourselves for the next fire season, flood or heatwave. Those running the fossil fuel corporations, who refuse to pay tax, who have their hands in our pockets, who have corrupted our politics to destroy our environment, our jobs and our future—what they are doing is criminal. The law might be on their side but morality is not. Things are changing; the government will change, and one day soon we will get tough on the climate criminals causing the climate crisis. We will fight for our future. COIVD-19: Emergency Powers 174 19:14 Ms HAMMOND 80072 Curtin Most people in the community accept that during times of crisis governments need to centralise some key decision-making and quickly implement laws to ensure the health, safety and security of their citizens. They also accept that governments need to have greater flexibility so that they can act quickly. As we saw at the height of the pandemic last year, governments across Australia moved quickly to do things and make laws in response to the unprecedented threat. Bills were often put before parliament with little time for the usual scrutiny we would expect from the parliamentary process, and significant decision-making powers were given to executive arms of government. Over a year on from the outbreak of COVID-19 our world is still responding to the challenges of the pandemic, and there are valid reasons why governments still need to have the capacity to make and take quick and responsive decisions and actions. But it is also time for us to give closer scrutiny to laws passed at the height of the pandemic, particularly those that centralised decision-making powers and removed appropriate layers of scrutiny. We need to do this to ensure that those laws have not outlived their need, or worse—that they become the new normal without second thought. It is important to do this because, while governments are often quick to centralise power during a crisis and to remove checks and balances, they can be sluggish to remove the power and restore the appropriate levels of scrutiny. An example of a pandemic related law which deserves extra scrutiny is the amendment made to the WA Planning and Development Act in the middle of 2020. The amendments to the act were passed by the state government to assist with the COVID-19 recovery and speed up approval times for shovel-ready projects. The amendments introduced a process which allows property developers to bypass local councils and have developments which are deemed to be of state significance to be referred to the newly created State Development Assessment Unit and ultimately considered by the Western Australian Planning Commission. The referral process is by the Premier on the recommendation of the Minister for Planning. I'm sure that there are some in my community who would welcome the opportunity to completely bypass the local government planning approval processes, because it is true these can at times be drawn out, expensive and frustrating. However, there are some key points about this legislation which are concerning in the context of power centralisation and insufficient checks and balances. The first is that there is no precise definition of what amounts to a 'development of state significance'. The only clarity is that the proposed developments must have an estimated value of more than $20 million in Perth's metro area or more than $5 million in regional areas. These are not particularly high monetary thresholds, and data from the WAPC shows that the applications in the metro area range actually started at the $20 million price range. The range of projects which have been deemed to be of state significance include apartment buildings, restaurants and aged-care facilities. The second major concern is that, in designing this faster process for approval, it is the local context, the local people and environment, which is most impacted. It is true that the WAPC has to have due regard for the local planning framework, and local councils and local people can make submissions and attend the SDAU. But the main mandate of the SDAU is to undertake a more strategic assessment to consider non-planning matters and benefits that can be delivered for the state. In essence, local voices are silent. Arguably the greatest flaw in the legislation is that, under these new powers, local councils and community members cannot appeal WAPC decisions to the state administrative tribunal, effectively removing an accessible check-and-balance option. What makes this of even greater concern is that property developers do have the rights of appeal if they're not happy with the decision that's been made. Many people in Curtin have expressed their concerns about this process, and they are right to be concerned. As at 13 June 2021, of the 20 applications which have been or are at the SDAU, four have been located in Curtin. This amounts to 20 per cent of the total applications, a fact which is extraordinary given that Curtin is only 98 square kilometres and the entire state is 2.5 million square kilometres. While the early worries of COVID-19 may have provided justification for changes to be made to the development approval, I would argue that the level of power this change gives to an unelected and unaccountable body and the complete diminution of the legitimate interests of local bodies and people means that what was arguably tolerable no longer is. Franklin Electorate: Community Organisations 175 19:19 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin One of the great privileges as a local member, as I'm sure everybody in this place agrees, is going out to local community organisations and meeting some extraordinary people doing remarkable things. That these individuals think they are not that remarkable at all is, I think, the most extraordinary thing about them. It's terrific to see and talk to these community organisations, whether they be sporting organisations, local RSLs, local clubs, local support groups or charities. They are all doing a remarkable job in our local communities and providing that cohesion in our society. It's an incredibly valuable role. As we know, most of them are volunteers. Most of them are putting their own time into these roles and doing wonderful things. I want to talk about a few of the organisations in my community that have been in receipt of Stronger Communities grants in recent weeks. I want to start with the Olympia Football Club. This is a female change rooms grant of $19,000 for Warrior Park in my electorate, as it's called. I think it's a great name for a women's soccer team or football team. Olympia Football Club is a well-established soccer club in Hobart and it's seen significant growth in recent years. It's established on the eastern shore of Hobart, in my electorate. Indeed, it reflects the trend in my electorate that saw 21 per cent of households directly involved in soccer or football last year. That means that one in five people in my electorate are somehow involved in this sport, which I think is pretty extraordinary. Olympia now has over 320 players across 27 teams, and the grant will assist the club in reaching its goal of completing a million dollar project in its electorate to provide these change rooms. They had already received some money from the state government. This is a terrific project, and I want to congratulate on the record all of those dedicated volunteers, the players, the members, the parents and the family members that are involved. It's a terrific sporting club, and they're doing some great work. The next organisation I want to talk about is the Cygnet Association. They recently received a grant for $8,225 for the installation of a water station at Loongana Park at Cygnet. The water station supplies filtered water through a water bubbler as well as stations to fill water bottles. It has hands-free activation, which is particularly important in COVID, as we know, to promote good hygiene practices. The Cygnet Association aims to encourage good hydration in the Cygnet community and help improve overall health whilst also helping to reduce waste and plastic pollution by cutting down on the purchasing of plastic water bottles. I was pleased to be able to support this grant. I want to congratulate Patrick Synge and the members of the Cygnet Association for putting this grant application forward and for the extraordinary work that they do supporting our local community in the township of Cygnet. The other one I want to talk about is the Lindisfarne Junior Football Club. A grant of $3½ thousand was provided to them to replace and update the club's jumpers, driven again by an increase in female participation in the sport. It's wonderful that these new jumper designs will ensure consistency amongst all the teams of the Lindisfarne Junior Football Club. There are now 22 teams playing in the same jumpers at Anzac Park clubrooms, which are also being redeveloped in 2023. I've been a proud supporters of the Lindisfarne Junior Football Club for many years. It has over 300 players playing at Anzac Park, close to where I live. Of a night-time and certainly of a weekend, I can see the lights on Anzac Park and I can hear the noise coming from the families and the community accessing that sporting facility. It's a wonderful thing to see. Of course, I have in the past sponsored some of the players at the football club. So it's wonderful to be supporting the grant of $3½ thousand to support the club's own fundraising efforts. They have fundraised a very significant amount of money, which has been very difficult for community organisations during COVID, when they haven't been able to hold a lot of events. I want to congratulate Alana, James and the entire team at the Lindisfarne Junior Football Club for all the work they do in ensuring players and families have a great time playing the sport that they love so much. I want to make a quick mention also of the Rotary Club of Lindisfarne, which received $3,900 to purchase gardening equipment and a new lawnmower at the Risdon Vale Neighbourhood Centre, which is where it will be based, to provide maintenance of the garden and surrounds. It was a real pleasure to go out there and have a look at the new gardening equipment and talk to them about why they wanted to be able to provide this equipment for the local community garden run by the neighbourhood centre. It's providing fresh produce to local community members and also to the neighbourhood centre to cook fresh meals, which they do on a regular basis, for local community members. So small amounts of funds are being matched by local community organisations and by volunteers, and it shows what a great place the electorate of Franklin is to live in. New England Electorate: Queen's Birthday Honours 176 19:24 Mr JOYCE E5D New England I rise tonight in regard to those people in Australia who take the extra step. I believe our nation is made up of roughly three groups. We've got the group who throw papers out the window of a car. They're always going to be with us, there's not much we can do about it; they're the paper thrower-outers. Then we have the people who talk all the time about the paper thrower-outers. They say how annoyed they are about the paper thrower-outers but they never seem to do much about it. It's great for conversation but it doesn't really leave the world in a better place. Then we've got this marvellous group of people who are the paper picker-uppers—the people who decide they're going to go out and make a difference. They quietly pick up the papers and make our nation a better place. One great example of some sort of notation and acknowledgement of these people is the Queen's Birthday Honours List. There are so many awards, but I want to go through just a few. Rather than doing it seriatim I'll start with the last one first—that is, Ms Carolyn Noon. Why will I do that? Because she's from my home town, Woolbrook. If you took the Noons and the Henrys away from Woolbrook, there'd be no Woolbrook. Carolyn got the Australian Fire Service Medal. We all know how important people who fight bushfires are, so to Carolyn Noon: it's an incredible recognition of service to your nation. Peter Dunn up at Walcha also got the Australian Fire Service Medal, and I likewise acknowledge him. There's a lady called Ruth Blanch. Ruth Blanch does CWA up in Armidale. She's involved with Meals on Wheels, the Ascent Group, the north-west and Northern Tablelands Special Olympics, St Peter's Cathedral, New England Regional Art Museum and New England Wool Expo. She used to be in the Probus Club, she looked after the Aboriginal keeping place, she was part of Friends of the Teachers College, and I think in the other five minutes of the day she used to go to sleep. The whole thing is a resume of people's service to their nation. If you want to get something done, find a busy person. It is likewise for Sandra Lambkin, who now has an OAM for service to veterans and their families. There's the New South Wales branch of the RSL, New England District Council of RSL subbranches, Tamworth RSL subbranch, where I'm a member and I should get to a meeting, the Tamworth and district ex-servicemen's association, Tamworth Community College, Tamworth's rural referral hospital—and on and on it goes. Once more, the reason our nation is the place it is is that these people take the next step. They don't just say, 'I'll only do what I need to do'; they say, 'I'll do what I need to do and I'll do more, because that's what makes my nation a better place.' We have Dr Patrice Newell. Dr Patrice and I are possibly on different sides of the political fence, but in recognition of her great work she has been given an AM, an award in the general division of the Order of Australia, for her services to the environment. I know we've had a great win there lately. Something I did support was making sure that Shenhua did not start a coalmine in the middle of the Breeza plain. I think that's one area where Dr Patrice and I are on the same page. We have Judith Ann Loffel for service to country music, which is incredibly important to Tamworth. We have people who've received awards but unfortunately have passed on. There's the late Ray Mepham, from Inverell, for service to conservation and the environment. There is the late Ms Therese Margaret Post, from Uralla—I believe she was a member of the National Party up there—for service to the community. There's Kim Rhodes, at Tenterfield, for service to the community. She's done a lot of work. The Rhodes family have been there for a long while and done great work there. Emeritus Professor James Baber Rowe was awarded an OAM for service as a researcher and educator, and that's incredibly important to the University of New England. And there's Joplin Higgins, who actually lives in Scone and whose address is Singleton. All these people not only have done what was required of them, what was expected of them but have gone the next step. If all of us in our nation took a page out of their book and gave just a little bit more than we have to, we'd make this nation a greater place. We would take Australia to a higher spot. Question agreed to. Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:30